1992-03-10

Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Privy Council and Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to introduce this resolution which I propose to read before my remarks. The resolution agreed to by members of this House and of the other place is the following:
That this House take note that the Metis people of Rupert's Land and the North Western Territory through democratic structures and procedures took effective steps to maintain order and protect the lives, rights and property of the people of the Red River;
That this House take note that, in 1870, under the leadership of Louis Riel, the Metis of the Red River adopted a List of Rights;
That this House take note that, based on the List of Rights, Louis Riel negotiated the terms for the admission of Rupert's Land and the North Western Territory into the Dominion of Canada;
That this House take note that these terms for admission form part of the Manitoba Act\
That this House take note that, after negotiating take Manitoba's entry into Confederation, Louis Riel was elected thrice to the House of Commons;

That this House take note that, in 1885, Louis Riel paid with his life for his leadership in a movement which fought for the maintenance of the rights and freedoms of the Metis people;
That this House take note that the Constitution Act, 1982, recognizes and affirms the existing aboriginal and treaty right of the Metis;
That this House take note that since the death of Louis Riel, the Metis people have honoured his memory and continued his purposes in their honourable striving for the implementation of those rights;
That this House recognize the unique and historic role of Louis Riel as a founder of Manitoba and his contribution in the development of Confederation; and

2. That this House support by its actions the true attainment, both in principle and practice, of the constitutional rights of the Metis people.

Sir, it is a particular honour for me to move this motion in the presence in the galleries today of Mr. Yvon Dumont, who is the Speaker of the Metis National Council, the presidents of the Metis associations of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Northwest Territories, and other leaders of the Metis people of Canada.
I should say that I note, as I hope the House will, the presence in the Chamber of the member for Provencher, a minister of this government, representing now the seat that was occupied and to which Louis Riel was elected three times when he was a member of this House.

March 10, 1992
Louis Riel
I rise today to introduce a motion to recognize the role of a Canadian who made a major contribution to the development of Canada as we know it. In this process the Parliament of Canada can take an important step toward recognizing the major role played by the Canadian Metis people historically and today and help them generate pride in their history, in their heroes, and in their country.
I will not attempt to review Louis Riel's entire life and career. That would take much longer than the time available here. It is unnecessary in view of the fact that more has been written about Riel than possibly any other Canadian figure. I do wish, however, to take this opportunity to express my admiration for his devotion to the interests of the Metis people of Canada.

The courage, determination and ingenuity he showed as a young man in leading the Red River community through a troubled time in its history and in resolving a very difficult situation are indeed remarkable. I think it is safe to say that for Riel, returning to the Red River Settlement after several years' absence during which he pursued his studies in Montreal, the thought of becoming involved in a heated political debate was indeed far from his mind.
What he found upon returning, however, was a community which was deeply worried about its future as part of the new Dominion of Canada. The Metis people, who formed the majority in the Red River community, looked to him for leadership, as someone who was articulate, educated, bilingual and knowledgeable in the ways of the country which was preparing to annex their territory.
Louis Riel, this young man barely into his twenties, answered the call for help. He worked closely with the members of the community and with them succeeded in defining and articulating their concerns and objectives. Showing a remarkable respect for democratic procedures, he actively sought to achieve broad consensus for these objectives by organizing public meetings to discuss the demands they would submit to the Canadian government. Riel's success in uniting most of the Red River Settlement behind these initiatives was a major achievement. His failure to win unanimous support was simply a reflection of the deep divisions that existed in the community at that time.

In the end, Riel's accomplishments in what historians call the Red River resistance were numerous and they were significant. He had an important role in ensuring that Manitoba entered Confederation with provincial status instead of as part of the Northwest Territories, and that religious and language guarantees were incorporated in the Manitoba Act.
The issuing of land grants for Metis to respond to Metis concerns about the need for land for themselves and for future generations was also a part of the legacy of Louis Riel.
Fifteen years later, Riel was again involved in a movement to defend the interests of the Metis people along the banks of the Saskatchewan River. Sadly these events ended in tragedy and controversy. But who could fail to be struck by Riel's deep devotion to his people and his willingness to pay the ultimate price of his life to help his people.
It is now time to recognize the very important and constructive role Louis Riel played in defending the interests of the Metis people and of contributing to the political development of the west and of Canada.
For years Louis Riel's life and death reminded Canadians of the divisions which exist in our society. Recollections of the events with which Louis Riel was involved brought to the surface tensions between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians, between francophones and anglophones, and between western Canadians and central Canadians.
However we must now build on the positive, not the negative dimensions of this experience. The long overdue recognition by this House of Louis Riel's important role in shaping Canada as we know it today is an indication that we have matured as a nation. It is a demonstration that we see in our common history a source of strength, not of weakness.
As one Canadian, one western Canadian, I am proud to have a role in providing an opportunity for that recognition to take place in this House of Commons.
March 10, 1992


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise in the House today to speak before an audience that in addition to a large number of members of our three main political parties also includes leaders of the Metis people and a number of their representatives.
I appreciate this resolution by the government. I feel the government has taken a major step forward, but although it is a very important step, I would like to see the government take one more step, be it more modest. Let me explain.

The government has identified a number of important points related to Louis Riel's contribution to Canada, and I am pleased with that. I simply want to add a bit, perhaps build upon the statement that has already been provided.
We have the opportunity as a Parliament to recognize the historic role of Louis Riel as a founder of Manitoba. I am delighted that we are in the process of doing that.

It is an honour for me particularly, as the member for the federal electoral district of St. Boniface. As you know, Louis Riel's family home is in my riding. The parish of St. Vital where he had some very close ties is in the same riding. He was buried in St. Boniface, near the cathedral, and the Red River, which is part of my riding, was a major meeting place for the Metis people.
Although Canadians know their country well, I am afraid that they do not know it well enough. They do not know enough about the story of Louis Riel and the Metis people.
The minister mentioned earlier that Metis leaders in the Red River colony in the Northwest Territories and Rupert's Land had taken appropriate democratic action
Louis Riel
to protect their traditional rights and their property. People tend to forget this is what motivated Riel to act.
In 1869, Louis Riel drew up a list of rights protecting all settlers living in the Northwest Territories. We should remember that at the time the population was about 12,000. There were about 6,000 French speaking Metis,
4,000	English speaking Metis, and 2,000 other Canadians, although they had yet to become a part of Canada. These people were a major presence in that province.
We must not forget that the transfer of land, this huge land grant, was conditional on the list of rights being accepted by the Parliament of Canada. And it was accepted. In fact, as a direct result of the approval of the list of rights in 1870, the Parliament of Canada passed the Manitoba Act.

As a result, all lands draining into the Hudson Bay were transferred to Canada on July 15,1870. As well, the lands contained in the northwestern territories, which now form the major part of Canada, were added. That is a massive addition to our country.
I want to recognize as well that Manitoba was the first western province to join Confederation.
We must remember as well a very unique contribution is the fact that this list of rights that was provided by Louis Riel not only for his people but for all peoples in that area at that time came well over 100 years before our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There are many, many similarities between both documents.

The name Manitoba was submitted by Riel and selected by the Parliament of Canada as the name of the new province. The name Manitoba is a native expression which means "the spirit who speaks". Many informed sources have affirmed that Louis Riel is a founder of Manitoba.

I want to recognize as well that in 1871, during the American Fenian threat, Louis Riel organized the Metis people to protect the border of Canada against this invasion that could have changed the whole course of Canadian history. This is often forgotten.

March 10, 1992
Louis Riel
People have forgotten that Riel and his people were publicly commended for their patriotic actions by Adams G. Archibald, Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.

After negotiating Manitoba's entry into Confederation, Riel was elected three times to the House of Commons. This was pointed out earlier by the minister, but I think it is worth repeating that Riel was elected three times as member of this House.
In 1884, as you will know, the Metis people asked Riel to form a provisional government that would claim and renegotiate the rights they thought they had obtained from the Parliament of Canada in preceding years. Unfortunately those rights existed only on paper. The Canadian government at the time, and I say this without rancour, ignored the crisis involving Metis and aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories. And, as you know, the Canadian government sent troops to crush the rebellion.
Interestingly Riel gave himself up to the authorities. Later, when they decided what to do with him, he was accused of treason.
According to many experts, Riel was falsely charged, convicted and executed for high treason on November 16, 1885 by the Canadian government. Riel paid with his life for the fact that he headed a political movement that struggled to maintain the rights and freedoms of the Metis people.

This House should also know that the Constitution Act of 1982 recognizes and affirms the existing aboriginal treaty rights of the Metis people. Clearly I think we would agree that this would not have been done unless there had been some historic reality for the recognition.
Since the death of Louis Riel, the Metis people have honoured his memory on a regular basis. They have attempted in every possible way to bring about the implementation of those previously agreed rights.

I am pleased to support the conclusion of this resolution:
(1)	That this House recognize the unique and historic role of Louis Riel as a founder of Manitoba and his contribution in the development of Confederation; and
(2)	That this House support by its actions the true attainment, both in principle and practice, of the constitutional rights of the Metis people.

Having served as a member of the Special Joint Committee on a Renewed Canada, there is some concern right now by the Metis people as to how we can respond to their legitimate concerns and rights. This is a great opportunity to do exactly that.
Acceptance of this resolution would be an invaluable contribution made by us to realize and concretize that the Metis people and Louis Riel had made immense contribution to this country.
Let me terminate very quickly by adding the following. This House of Commons in this period, most of us would agree, of constitutional and political instability is a great opportunity to correct the historical record, to acknowledge the contribution of Louis Riel and his people to Canada, to recognize Louis Riel not only as the founder of Manitoba but clearly, if he was a founder of Manitoba and Manitoba is part of Canada, as a Father of Confederation.
There have been precedents where people have been falsely accused and where we have been able to go back and correct those wrongs. In a sense, we are doing that today.
If Louis Riel's trial were taking place today, if he and his people were to be judged by his peers and by our leading historians, Louis Riel would in all probability not be judged guilty as he was over 100 years ago.

In the spirit of justice, and at a time of great instability in this country, I urge the House to take one more step: Let us recognize Louis Riel, not only as the founder of the province of Manitoba but also as one of the Fathers of Confederation.

It is time to redress the injury to Louis Riel's name and to his people. I would say that all this House needs to do is to take one more step forward.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, as a member from western Canada and a representative of a large

March 10, 1992

number of Metis people, I am very happy to stand in this House today and support the motion that is before us.
It is not the first time that I have had the opportunity to get up on this very important issue. In 1982, on the 97th anniversary of the hanging of Louis Riel, I, seconded by the then hon. member for Saskatoon East, Father Bob Ogle, asked for a posthumous pardon for Louis Riel. That was the wish of the Metis people at that time. Things have evolved over the years and that is no longer the direct demand of those people. It was a wish and a concern that I had and I expressed on behalf of my constituents. Unfortunately that request was denied under the rules of the House of Commons at that time.
Later on, in 1986,1 also had an opportunity to speak on Louis Riel and his contribution to Canada. If I may, I would like to quote one paragraph from that speech because it really relates to what we are doing today in the House of Commons. In the speech I said the following:
The history of Louis Riel does not have to be debated in this House.
I think all of us recognize his contribution. There may be some who would argue about the details of it. However, there can be no legitimate debate with respect to the fact that Louis Riel was the founder of Manitoba and through the process he established, the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta were able to develop in a way which may not have happened had the negotiations not taken place between the people of the Red River settlement and the Government of Canada in the years 1869-1870. That was a recognition which took place between the people who lived in Red River and the people who were running the Government of Canada. It set out the Manitoba Act which is the basic Constitution of the province. It obviously influenced the development of our province. By anyone's definition, that would be good enough to ensure that Louis Riel be recognized as the founder of Manitoba and a legitimate Father of Confederation in his own right. I hope that this would not be questioned by anyone in this House.
The motion that goes before us today moves in that direction. I am happy that the Government of Canada is recognizing Louis Riel as a founder, but I do believe we must go that further step and recognize him as a true Father of Confederation.
As other speakers have indicated, he did negotiate with the Government of Canada. He did set up the rights, the very constitution of the province of Manitoba. He recognized the English and the French, the native and the non-native. It was a true negotiation, in many ways, in almost a Canadian scene where we have the situation where Louis Riel and his supporters were in Fort Garry negotiating through the Catholic Church with the Government of Canada. They were negotiating for their rights. They were negotiating for their people.
Louis Riel
They were negotiating for the people of the west. They did represent a legitimate authority and a legitimate voice of the people of western Canada.
That recognition is in part being met today, but I think we should go further. I would hope that at some time in the future that would happen. I too would like to bend the rules of the House and recognize the people in the gallery. I know that the minister, when he spoke, recognized that he maybe should not have done that according to the rules, but I think their contribution and their presence today in this House is very appropriate.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Rodney Edward Murphy: In the few minutes that I have left, I would like to say that we cannot stop here. We are in the process of another constitutional round. The Metis people must be recognized. They must have their rights enshrined in the Constitution in a more definite manner than is presently being suggested. That must happen. We have had over 120 years since Louis Riel was in Fort Garry and things should be happening on the constitutional scene at this time.
In addition, it should be recognized that the economic plight of many Metis people is still something that is a disgrace to this country. In terms of education, social services and housing, we have a situation which is completely unacceptable. They have been left out as the white men have made the rules of this country and have developed the social programs of this country. They have lost the land base that the minister spoke of. They have lost the economic base and that must be restored. The responsibility of the federal government to the Metis people of Canada must be recognized and must be restored at full value.


Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I want to draw to your attention this rule that only allows parties and spokes-people from parties and a minister to comment.
I was in the House yesterday but unfortunately went up to my office and just saw the tail end of the parliamentary secretary saying that there had been consultations with party leaders on this motion. Without getting into the debate of the motion, I do not think Standing Order 33(2) precludes other members who are not members of parties from participating in a brief way in this debate.

March 10,1992
Routine Proceedings
I appreciate that the rule is very circumspect, but the rule is so tight that it does not even give the opportunity for members to vote on this type of motion. The motion moved yesterday makes the motion automatic.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, I am begging your indulgence to say a few words. I would like to make a few comments on the speeches previously made. I have been in this House, as the hon. member for Churchill mentioned, when there have been other suggestions of rewriting Louis Riel history-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. Is there unanimous consent to allow the member to say a few words?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I will be very short.
I come from an area where there was an injustice done many years ago, when in 1755 the Acadians were expelled. For all the laudable reasons mentioned here about Mr. Louis Riel, member of the House of Commons, perhaps there should be a motion brought by me to redress that wrong. Where do we stop? Benedict Arnold, if he had been on the side that won the war, would not have been hung.
All I want to say is that there have been positive remarks made, especially those by the hon. member for St. Boniface. The motion just hit me yesterday and I most likely might have agreed with it. I appreciate the indulgence of members and I am not going to abuse it. The motion hit me.
We came back after a break. There was not a question to the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs about what is ripping the country apart and out of the blue we start to rewrite a page of history for something that was done in the past.
I must say in conclusion, if there was ever a commentary on the sad state of this Parliament, regardless of some of the nice things said about it today in some of the speeches, this is the best example.
Goodness gracious, who knows? In another Parliament 100 years down the road when we revise history and are politically correct, we will find that Mackenzie King was a security risk because he did things during the war according to a medium's ball that in effect were very risque.
I could go on. The record shows that Churchill had something to do perhaps with that horrible bombing in Dresden which may or may not have been necessary. He kept quiet about Coventry. The record goes on and where does it stop?
Surely members of this House who have spoken well about the past will have the intestinal fortitude to speak on present problems and have the minister respond to questions about the present constitutional problems. That is part of the reason I wanted to speak.
I want to make it very clear that I agree with the member for St. Boniface that if the trial was today many other factors would apply. The fact of the matter is that if this motion had been in the House then, it would not have passed.
I just think it is a waste of our time to in effect revise history because of something which circumstances changed later.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to order made Monday, March 9, 1992, the motion regarding the recognition of Louis Riel which appears on today's Notice Paper is deemed to have been moved, the question thereon is deemed to have been put, and the motion is deemed to have been adopted.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague from Richmond- Wolfe and pursuant to Standing Order 34, I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the activities of the Canadian section of the International Association of French Speaking Parliamentarians at the meeting of the board and commission for co-operation and development held in Berne, Switzerland from January 19 to 25, 1992.
March 10, 1992


ENVIRONMENT
Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1), I have the honour of presenting, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on the Environment entitled Environment and the Constitution.
The report received the unanimous support of all members of the committee. The committee commenced its study in June 1991 in the context of a broad constitutional debate with particular emphasis on the future role of the federal government in environmental matters.
Members will know the environment knows no borders. Water pollution, ozone depletion, global warming and other similar issues are extremely complex both in terms of causes and solutions.
The committee strongly advocates partnership and co-operation among all levels of government. Mechanisms must be established to encourage and strengthen partnership and co-operation and to avoid unnecessary and expensive overlap.
Our committee also believes there is need for a strong federal power to negotiate international commitments and agreements. It is very important in the present context of the lead-up to the earth's summit.
Further, the residual power, peace, order and good government must be recognized as a basic foundation enabling the federal government to deal with environmental needs.

I thank members of all three parties for their patience and dedication.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109 the government's response is requested.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings. ]
Routine Proceedings


CANADA EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION ADVISORY COUNCIL
Hon. Monique Vezina (for the Minister of Finance) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-63, an act to dissolve or terminate certain corporations and other bodies.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 68(2), the motion is deemed adopted.
Mrs. Vezina (for the Minister of Finance), moves that the bill be now read the first time and printed.
Pursuant to Standing Order 69(1), the motion is deemed adopted.
Bill read the first time and printed.


PETITIONS
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by a number of residents of the Victoria area calling on this Parliament to adopt Bill C-310. Unfortunately in private members' hour yesterday the bill did not receive the approval of the House and falls from the Order Paper.
The sentiment of those petitioners should be filed with the House. The bill called for the establishment of a criminal injuries compensation plan, and I can assure the House and the petitioners that it is my intention to reintroduce the bill in the hope the House will have an opportunity to again do the right thing.


Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, my petition this morning has been sent to me by citizens of Mississauga and deals with the nasty murder of Nina de Villiers on the night of August 9, 1991.
A crime was committed by a person who, while on bail, was allowed out on a simple signature without any great posting of money. The situation calls for reform of the Bail Reform Act of 1972 and the Parole Act or other statutes, and the better enforcement of the current rules by our police forces and others involved in law enforcement.

March 10, 1992
Routine Proceedings


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition with 38 signatures with regard to the murder of Nina de Villiers on August 9, 1991 which has exposed serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system.
There are many vulnerable persons who have little protection under the current system. Women, children and disabled persons are particularly at risk. Therefore, the statutes governing the criminal system in Canada should be revised to reflect societal attitudes.
These petitioners request that Parliament recognize that crimes of violence against the person are serious and a harm to society and ask that the Criminal Code be so amended.


Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, I too have petitions in support of the parents of Nina de Villiers signed by a number of my constituents from Caledonia, Hagarsville, Dunville and surrounding area.
These petitioners are requesting Parliament to recognize that crimes of violence against persons are serious and abhorrent to society and to amend the Criminal Code to help deal with these situations.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of introducing a petition to this House, signed by many of my constituents as well as constituents of Nepean, Osgoode, Gloucester, Lanark and area.
These constituents are disappointed with the gasoline prices in the Ottawa-Carleton region and are calling on the government to take action in order to correct this injustice.


Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to present a petition which was triggered by the death of Nina de Villiers in August 1991.
A large number of the people of Sudbury have signed this petition. They want to underline their concern about the criminal justice system and the fact that the sentencing of many violent criminals does not reflect the seriousness of the crimes they commit.
The petitioners ask that amendments to the Criminal Code, Bail Reform Act and the Parole Act be made to recognize the seriousness of these crimes.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition here from a number of residents of Sudbuiy. They are residents of a co-op housing project. They underline their concern with the lack of affordable housing for many others.
Their petition is especially important at this time when this particular government has announced that it will completely go out of the co-op housing market. These people are asking very seriously that this government remain in the subsidized housing area because there is a lack.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today signed primarily by residents of the central interior of British Columbia, Williams Lake, 100 Mile House, 150 Mile House regarding tax fairness.
The petitioners call upon the government to ensure that it brings in an effective and fair tax system in Canada.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 110 could be made an Order for Return, this return would be tabled immediately.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 110 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Boudria: Since 1984, how many contracts has Secor Inc. entered into with
(a) the government (b) crown corporations (c) government agencies
and, in each instance, for how much and for what purpose?
Return tabled.
March 10, 1992

[English)


Albert Glen Cooper: I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I will be brief.
Members will know that yesterday I appealed to Your Honour, given the very important and unfair decision on Friday by the U.S. commerce department on the softwood lumber tariff on exports from Canada to the United States and the importance of that issue to all of Canada and the over 300 forest communities whose jobs will be potentially threatened by this decision.
At that time, the ruling was to give consideration to how this issue would develop. Since yesterday, when I raised this matter in the House for an emergency debate, the issue has escalated dramatically. We know cabinet is meeting to consider retaliation against the United States. This is quickly escalating into a dramatic trade war between our country and the United States.
Given that the government is considering what actions should be taken, if any, against the United States in an attempt to defend our sovereignty and our right to make our own decisions in the way we manage our forests in Canada, I think it is opportune and timely that this House have an opportunity to present its opinions and comments so that the Prime Minister can hear what Canadians have to say about this issue.
I would again urge you to consider this matter seriously to give the House and all members an opportunity to have their say on this very important issue.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I know the hon. member presented his case yesterday and also again today. The Chair is looking at it as the day progresses. I know the table officers and the Speaker particularly will be looking at it. At this time we would like to reserve and to have another look at the application.
The Budget



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, February 27, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government; and the amendment of Mr. Gray (Windsor West) (p.7631).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I recognize the hon. Minister of Veterans Affairs, because of Statements by Ministers the sitting of the House will be extended 27 minutes during the lunch hour.


Hon. Gerald S. Merrithew (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to take part in the budget debate again today and to speak to Canadians about the importance of this government's fiscal plan as outlined by the Minister of Finance on February 25 in this very Chamber.
At best, the debates in this House combine partisan differences with healthy exchange of views and ideas and allow the public to gain some perspective on what the issues are and how we as members of Parliament approach those issues.
We as a government have just produced a document in the form of the budget that in many ways sets out our philosophy. The vast majority of those who follow government and political issues think that this budget document is a very positive approach to managing the Canadian economy in these difficult times.
Our country faces a very serious threat to its economic future in the form of a large accumulated debt. Let us all be honest and admit that. We are spending 36 cents out of every tax dollar just to pay the interest on our accumulated debt.
To pay 36 per cent of all of your family income to service your own personal debts would cause a family crisis. It is a crisis for our Canadian family as well. If we do not exercise control of our spending, we will destroy our ability to build a solid future for Canada.
I know there are some members who feel that our present difficulties are so great that they must be tended to on a crisis basis. I know that people have immediate needs and they are hurting. But we have to realize that the problems of a debt plagued economy can never be

March 10, 1992
The Budget
solved by more spending any more than the problems of an alcoholic can be solved by more alcohol.
I have heard members of the New Democratic Party calling for the expenditure of several billions of dollars for job creation. I know a proposal of that sort always has a certain appeal.
One of the features of an opposition party is that it desires to paint the government as one that does not care about the unemployed and the problem of unemployment could be solved if only the government cared enough to spend a few billion extra dollars.
In this case our government would have to borrow those billions of dollars and ultimately pass the responsibility for repaying it to our children and to our grandchildren.
There had been a time when Canadians thought we could go on a spending spree and isolate ourselves from a world-wide recession. Today, however, the unpaid bills of the past have effectively eliminated our room to manoeuvre. Had our predecessors been wiser today we would have had tens of billions of extra dollars each year to spend on those kinds of experiments, but they were not and we do not.
Some opposition members seem to feel that we should be further mortgaging our future for the sake of shortterm gain. To those members we can only recommend the example of the premiers of Ontario and British Columbia. The former tripled his deficit and achieved nothing. The latter has now adopted the common sense approach to expenditures that some members of the socialist party have been known to call heartless.
It is not heartless to put long-term stability of Canada ahead of the futile public relations exercise in more government spending. We all must realize that the role of government is to get the fundamentals of the economy right so that people find long-term, meaningful, productive jobs in the private sector.
We cannot throw away the long-term interests of all Canadians to solve what we think will be short-term problems. Bringing spending under control is a very long and agonizing process. We are forced to balance the
present needs of Canadians against the long-term needs of our country.
This budget represents that balance. Some members would seem to prefer that with one breath to protest the decreases in expenditures we have made and then condemn us for not doing enough to lower the deficit.
If I understand the position, we should increase spending, decrease the deficit and lower taxes simultaneously. I am sure that plays well with the dream merchants but it does not provide much substantive input nor does it help Canadians to face up to economic realities.
I should like to make a few comments about my own department, Veterans Affairs Canada. In this budget we have tried to balance the needs of our clients, the veterans of Canada, with the necessity to control spending. Some areas have been increased and others decreased.
There has been a $22.5 million decrease in war veterans allowance as a result of declines in the client population and shifts to other sources of support in the social safety net of our country.
At the same time as our veteran population ages, however, its health care needs increases. We have made an additional $100 million available for those needs through purchases of new services, construction of new long-term veterans beds and increased funding for the Veterans Independence Program. At the same time we have increased disability pension benefits by nearly $65 million.
These measures are an indication of the very sensitive way in which we have tried to control expenditures.

Veterans risked their lives to preserve our country's freedom and independence and in return we provide them with the best programs and benefits in the world.
As Minister of Veterans Affairs I am proud of these achievements and Canadians should be proud of them too.

We in Canada have the best veterans affairs programs in the world.
March 10, 1992

Over the last year we have spoken with many Canadians about what the 1992-93 federal budget should do for Canada. These Canadians from every walk of life told us that they want realistic lasting solutions to Canada's economic problems and not quick fixes that were tried in the past and failed.
They want us to cut the deficit. They want us to cut government waste and duplication and to streamline government operations. They want us to better prepare our youth and our labour force to meet the challenge of a brand new global economy in which we find ourselves competing. They want us to be compassionate and caring with our social programs, especially protecting the more poor and needy Canadians.
This government listened and responded with action in these very difficult times.
In this budget we will substantially reduce the deficit. We will cut spending. We will cut taxes. All 14 million Canadian taxpayers, 1.5 million in my own area of Canada, Atlantic Canada, will have their income taxes reduced this year.
We will restructure and streamline the operations of government. We will increase support for research and development in our industries, in our economic sector. We will reduce the tax burden from manufacturing and the processing sector. We will enhance our assistance to small business.
We will streamline and enrich support for families and for children and we will introduce a home buyers program whereby Canadians can access funds from their RRSPs to buy or build a home. We will increase our support for Canadians with disabilities and we will provide additional tax assistance to our students.
This is what Canadians asked for in our consultations. Canadians asked, we listened, and we delivered.
This is an appropriate budget for Canada in these trying times. I support it and I call for all members of this House to do so as well.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would like to clarify that the two speakers with 10-minute speeches will be the hon. Minister of Veterans Affairs and the hon. member for Manicouagan. There will be five minutes for questions and comments.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister could answer a question. His
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government is either getting rid of or reducing a number of agencies.
Let us take the Economic Council of Canada. Does the government really think that getting rid of the Economic Council is sound public policy at a time when our economy is in enormous difficulty largely because of the policies of this government?
I will try to make this simple. A friend of mine who has six children told me the other day that the government has ruined our natural resource exports by its high dollar and formerly high interest rates.
The government is now spending about 300,000 ounces a month of the Bank of Canada's gold in an attempt to try to keep the dollar above 84 cents currently and in an attempt to try to fool Canadians into thinking that it has reduced the deficit, which of course it has not.
The government's spending has been about $30 billion a year during six or seven good years.
There is an old saying that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. I would put it that this minister and his government are treating Canadians as if they were all completely and utterly illiterate in terms of the economy.
I wonder if the minister can give some intelligible answers to those questions.
Mr. Merrithew. For seven years now this government has tried over a period of time to reduce the duplication in government, to avoid some of the expenditures where we can save dollars, the taxpayers' dollars. That is what the people of Canada have asked for and we have been doing it over a period of time. Most Canadians support that.
In this particular budget we have indicated that we can reduce or amalgamate 46 different agencies, boards and commissions of the government, all of which costs the Canadian taxpayers a great deal of money. Now some people may wish to debate whether some of those are wise decisions or not.
In my case, in my own department we have abolished the Veterans Land Act simply because we have not given any additional loans or mortgages to the veterans of Canada since 1977. We have essentially reduced that whole operation by 80 per cent even in the last three or four years.

March 10,1992
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Sometimes it is found that there are agencies in government like the Farm Credit Corporation. Because many of these properties bought through VLA by our veterans after the war are farm properties, perhaps CMHC can manage those.
We can find a way to reduce 64 positions and save the government and the taxpayers of Canada a lot of money. We have chosen to do that and in fact, in this particular budget, we have reduced 46 of those operations.
The hon. member knows full well that from time to time every government in the history of Canada has had to support the Canadian dollar and bolster the dollar for obvious economic reasons. He knows that full well. To try to say that has never happened before under the party which he represents is of course absolute nonsense. He knows this happens from time to time.
The dollar of course has gone down. Those who would like to export must have the Canadian dollar at a lower rate or would like to have it, but there is a limit to what the dollar level should be and the government has to intervene on occasion.


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago today, the Minister of Finance tabled the budget of the Government of Canada for the 1992-93 fiscal year in the House of Commons. This budget sends positive signals to all Canadian taxpayers and to the business community.
Let us take the next few minutes together, Mr. Speaker, to look at the highlights of this budget for fiscal 1992-93. First, the budget brings big reductions in personal income tax. For many years, Canadian taxpayers were used to seeing their taxes go up year after year, budget after budget, under successive federal governments. On February 25, Canadian taxpayers for the first time heard their Minister of Finance announce income tax cuts.
The individual income surtax will be reduced from the present 5 per cent to 4 per cent as of July 1, 1992 and 3
per cent as of January 1, 1993. This measure will give Canadians $500 million more in after tax income in fiscal 1992-93 and $1.2 billion a year after that.
The most important point is that all 14.6 million Canadian taxpayers will benefit from this measure. Undoubtedly it will help the Canadian economy recover because it will give Canadian consumers more spending power so that they can acquire goods that they had been planning to buy for years but had postponed buying because of the difficult conditions in the Canadian economy. This tax measure in the budget will now help these people acquire goods that they have needed to buy for years. This is excellent news for Canadians.
The second important measure announced in the budget will allow withdrawing up to $20,000 tax-free from a registered retirement savings plan to buy or build a principal residence. This measure, together with the current low interest rates, should encourage many Canadians to buy or build a home. It should stimulate a major recovery in the construction industry and in real estate sales.
Home building creates jobs and provides significant economic benefits in businesses that sell construction materials, hardware and electrical equipment, and of course it stimulates job creation as well.
Home ownership is a right with a very long tradition in Canada. Use of a portion of a registered retirement savings plan to buy or build a principal residence will contribute to facilitating access to home ownership.
The Minister of Finance also announced tax breaks for the manufacturing and processing industries. It must be noted that the manufacturing industry provides one job in five in Canada and accounts for one-fifth of the total production of goods in the country. Canadian processors and manufacturers export over 40 per cent of their production. They must now meet the challenge of globalization. Tb help them meet this major challenge, the Minister of Finance proposed in the budget that the tax rate for profits derived from manufacturing and processing be lowered from 23 to 22 per cent as of January 1, 1993 and then to 21 per cent on January 1,
1994.
March 10, 1992

This is another positive measure that will allow for Canadian manufacturers and processors of new products, for technological change and for investment in new market research.
Small businesses will also benefit from positive measures announced in the budget.
The Small Business Financing Program will help small businesses in financial difficulty, including farmers, to obtain loans at lower interest rates.
At the present time the ceiling for loans to individual small businesses under the Small Businesses Loans Act is $100,000, but under the new budget it will be doubled to $200,000.
It is a fact that small businesses are the key to the healthy growth of Canada's economy, including job creation.
Although the federal tax treatment of small businesses is among the most favourable in the world, the changes announced in the budget will make it even more favourable.
This is a measure that will be favourable to small businesses and is expected to encourage investment in the many sectors of our economy in which small businesses are particularly active.
I would also like to say a few words about the program to improve family allowances. In recent months, a committee of members of our party, chaired by the hon. member for Calgary North, prepared a series of recommendations aimed at improving and increasing the effectiveness of federal assistance to Canadian families.
These suggestions were given due consideration, so much so that now there will be one monthly child benefit. The benefit will be as much as $144 per month for one child, for a total of $1,733 per year. Benefits will be targeted toward lower and middle income families and will not be taxable.
There have also been major improvements in the child care expense deduction. This measure should help low income families where both parents work.
These are the positive results of the work done by a group of members sitting on this side of the House, results that reflect the response their work received from the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Minister of Finance.
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Taxpayers may wonder how the government intends to finance the measures announced in the budget. The answer is simple: the government will pay for these tax measures by continuing to reduce spending, streamlining services, eliminating agencies and advisory committees, and privatizing Crown corporations.
This government will continue its efforts to reduce the deficit and the debt. It will reduce government bureaucracy, encourage private ventures and help business develop new products and reach new markets.
More important, the budget introduces measures that will help reduce personal income tax and the corporate tax burden, something unprecedented in Canadian history-
Canadians welcomed these measures with enthusiasm, which augurs well for economic recovery and job creation.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for giving me a chance to speak in this important debate on the budget brought down by the Minister of Finance.
You know, Mr. Speaker, this budget is trying to fool Canadians. It offers us fine words but does nothing to improve the country's economy or to help the millions of Canadians who are victims of this government's policies to pick themselves up and regain control of their lives.
For example, the government claims that this budget will reduce taxes for Canadians who are still suffering from the effects of the 33 tax increases, including the GST, that the government imposed on them. However, Canadians are not stupid and when they look at this budget closely, they will realize that the government is trying to trick them.
Indeed, what does this budget offer Canadians below the poverty line, those who have to make do with an annual income of $15,000 to support their family? Well, I will tell you: It reduces their income tax by $2 a year. For an average family earning about $40,000 a year, the budget offers a $27 reduction. That is not much.
The new child benefit program, for its part, is hardly better. An average family gets little from this proposal. For example, a family with an annual income of $40,000 will receive only $44 more in benefits. In three years, the value of this benefit will be 10 per cent less and in ten

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years, most families will no longer receive any assistance since this benefit is not indexed to inflation.
The government's proposal will increase aid to children by $2.1 billion over five years starting January 1, 1993. The Minister of Finance must hope Canadians have forgotten that between 1986 and 1991 the Conservative government reduced this aid by over $3.5 billion. The new child benefit program still does not give back to Canadian families all the money that the government took from them, and this program completely misses the boat as far as day care is concerned.
All this government's advertising about this new program hides the obvious fact that it has abandoned the commitment it made to a national child care program that would provide facilities for children while their parents had to work.
In addition, the government is proposing to increase the deduction for child care expenses by $1,000, but obviously this deduction is of no use to families whose income is too low to benefit from it. Furthermore, this program will not take effect for a year. If it provides additional benefits, these will not be made available to Canadian families at a time when they are suffering the consequences of this very serious recession brought on by this government.
On the positive side, the government saw fit to take up the Liberal Party's recommendation on using registered retirement savings plans for buying a first home. Unfortunately the Conservatives neglected to include all the details of this proposal. Besides, when we see how they treated housing, the positive feature of this budget pales by comparison. The Conservatives cancelled the co-operative housing program. They slowed the growth in funding which the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation provides for other low income housing programs.
Of course the possibility of using RRSPs and the lower down payment requirements will be useful, but these programs do nothing to help people who cannot afford to invest in RRSPs or even make a 5 per cent down payment to buy a first home. Instead of making it easier for tens of thousands of low income Canadians to own their own homes, this budget makes it much harder for them to have access to decent and affordable housing.
As far as education is concerned, this budget has very little to offer. The government slightly increased education tax credits from $60 to $80 per month of full-time study in a post-secondary institution. However, the budget contains no measures to restore the amounts cut in transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education.
These cutbacks mean that far fewer young people will be able to go to university next year. In fact, an increase in the tax credit for post-secondary education will not be much use, if young Canadians cannot be admitted to university because of cuts in transfer payments to the provinces for post-secondary education, since universities will have to reduce the number of students as a result of these cuts.
Mr. Speaker as you know, the Conservatives have been boring us with their empty slogans ever since they came to power, calling for the country to invest in education and research so it will be better able to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive world. However, what they are saying does not mean a thing, because when we look for concrete commitments in these areas, we soon realize they are involved in a scorched earth operation and are busy turning this country into an empty shell.
The budget is apparently changing the tax system to benefit the corporate sector. However, whatever this budget does to help business will never compensate for the tremendous harm the Conservatives have done to business, especially in the manufacturing sector, with their high dollar and high interest rate policies.
This budget has taken no steps to reduce interest rates. Nor does it address the need to reduce the value of the Canadian dollar. The government seems to want to keep our dollar high, despite protests from companies in the resource sector and from manufacturers who claim that a lower dollar would help make them more competitive on international markets.
The government's attitude has had a devastating impact in my riding. The government's economic policies have wreaked havoc in the forestry sector in my riding, leading to 300 lay-offs in Atholville, while 400 are scheduled at the plant in Dalhousie. Nevertheless, the government stubbornly maintains its disastrous policies.
March 10, 1992

When the government talks about basic principles, I find it very hard to take it seriously. How could I when this government refuses to admit in the budget that there is anything wrong with basic principles which are aimed at maintaining interest rates and the Canadian dollar at current levels and goes against the best interests of Canadian business? The same government also refuses to acknowledge that the GST and the free trade agreement were a terrible mistake.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, this government's economic policies have led to record levels of personal and business bankruptcies in Canada. There can be no economic growth until businesses are able to develop in an environment that is relatively stable and healthy.

I want to outline some of the effects of the budget as it pertains to my riding, the riding of Restigouche-Cha-leur in northern New Brunswick.
As I mentioned previously, the Atholville mill is on a permanent shutdown. We are hoping that it will be reopened, but we are looking at 300 lay-offs in that area. The Dalhousie mill is looking at 400 lay-offs. It may even be as high as 500 before time is out.
We have businesses that are going bankrupt. In fact, I spoke to a senior citizen yesterday who is trying to make ends meet with a restaurant in Tide Head in my riding. Mrs. Joyce Mabie, when we spoke for about half an hour, mentioned some of the problems that she is having with her business and some of the help that she needs. Adjacent to my riding, at Stone Consolidated of Bathurst where a lot of my constituents work, there is a possibility that mill may close as well. Therefore, the budget that we see before us does not give us any solutions to those types of problems. It does not give us any hope.
What I am trying to say today, and I hope government members and ministers will be listening, is that we need some assistance. We need the government to start stimulating the economy and it has not been doing that. It has been doing the opposite in some respects.
What we need in our riding at the Dalhousie mill is a new paper machine. I do not expect the government to
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say it is going to buy a new paper machine for the mill in Dalhousie, but I expect it to make it easier for that company to be able to purchase a new machine, to be able to invest in new machinery. I would hope that the government would sit down with company officials and look at that situation in a realistic fashion and say: "What can we really do to help with the Dalhousie situation?"
There is a similar situation in the Atholville mill. We need that mill reopened. We need a value added product there. It is now making chlorine-free pulp. There should be a market out there. The dollar has fallen slightly and there should be a reason to reopen that mill in the near future.
The province of New Brunswick has developed a plan to help the forestry industry in New Brunswick. It is a controversial plan in some respects, but the federal government has not really sat down and said: "This is what we want to do for the natural resource sector". What is its plan? That is what we are asking the Government of Canada to do. It has that responsibility.
There should be a diversification agreement specifically for the northern New Brunswick areas, not just to get those mills back on line but to assist the unemployment rate in my riding which is 18.2 per cent. There are other people out of work as well. There should be some type of strategy, some type of plan put in place to assist those people to get back to work.
There should be more federal presence in the riding. The existing federal presence should remain. There should not be any cutbacks. The Chaleur airport has been threatened with a cutback. There should be no diminution of services at the Chaleur airport.
Post offices should remain open. They should not be closing. What type of signal or message is being sent out to the business community? If the government is withdrawing services from an area, what confidence does this give to businesses to continue to expand, or even to stay in business?
The ports of Dalhousie and Belledune have no strategic plan. There is no development, no promotion of those ports by the federal government. That has to be done.

March 10,1992
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The wharfs at Pointe-Verte and Petit-Rocher need upgrading for fishermen.
Turning to municipal infrastructure, I was on the phone yesterday with the mayor of Jacquet River. He is looking for financing. They have some financing available from the province and from their own community to put water and sewage in their community. Why is the federal government not making plans to assist those types of communities?
When we are talking about some of these plans the rhetoric from the government is: "Those are short-term solutions. We are putting in place long-term solutions". Well, short-term should go with long-term. A very direct example of that, and I hate to use medical examples, may be someone suffering a heart attack that may have been caused by a poor diet arriving at a hospital. They do not put them in a little room and say: "Here is your diet. Follow it". They treat the patient right away. This is what we need right now. The economy is a patient and it is going to die if we do not treat it immediately.
We definitely need long-term solutions. But the patient is in intensive care right now. We need compassion and we need solutions immediately.
Another area that is of great concern to me is the area of severance pay for some of these employees who are going to be put out on the street. Their severance pay is regarded as earnings and therefore makes them ineligible for unemployment insurance. I would hope that the government would look on that as a short-term measure and maybe change the regulation to allow people to draw their UI and use the severance pay to either invest in business, to open their own business, or to at least make ends meet in the meantime while they are pursuing employment.
Speaking about employment and immigration, the Minister of Employment and Immigration recently made an announcement in the riding with regard to a major project. I congratulate him on that and ask him to continue in that vein. No doubt, we always want more. There are other projects. That was Recreaplex in Dal-housie, but we do have a major project in Campbellton, the civic centre in Campbellton. The Eel River Bar Reserve is looking for a major project, a community
centre-office building complex for the Jacquet River, St. Quentin and Beresford areas. I would hope that the minister would look upon those projects with compassion, flexibility and assist those areas.
I guess my time is almost at an end. I would like to say that one of the problems when we look at the budget is not necessarily what is in the budget. It is what is not in the budget. That is the key.
There is no new plan for recovery. There is no new deal for Canadians. There are approximately 1.5 million people out of work. There are approximately another 1.5 million people out of work and not looking for work. The real statistics when we talk about unemployment are that there are three million people out there who are unemployed.
There is no real plan to put those people back to work. In fact, there is a cutback in employment and immigration in job creation programs. That is a concern of mine. There is no hope for the unemployed. The government is saying: "Listen, we have accepted you. You are unemployed. There is nothing we can do".
I say to the government, through you Mr. Speaker, that the budget has to be redrafted with compassion and flexibility. The government has to understand that there are areas that are suffering. My area, for instance, has an
18.2	per cent unemployment rate. That does not make sense in this day and age.
Canadians need a new deal. Enough is enough with regard to the deficit. It is a problem but I guess the biggest deficit that we have is the deficit of new ideas.
I think about my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood. I saw him on TV on the weekend expressing his ideas with regard to taxes and his idea about the single tax. I am not saying we are totally in support of it, but why not look at this new idea?
I should say, in wrapping everything up, Canadians need a new deal. We need a new budget and definitely we need a new government.


Mrs. Marie Gibeau (Bourassa):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our hon. colleague in the opposition whose role it is indeed to discredit government action.
March 10, 1992

However, the comment most often heard today is that government is not giving enough, which would tend to indicate that it has nonetheless managed to give something and to take concrete steps.
I think it is important that I rise today to help the people in the galleries, as well as those who are watching this debate at home, make allowances for what they hear from the opposition whose role it is, after all, to raise problems and mention negative aspects that do not necessarily exist.
What must be said, in my opinion, is that the budget recently tabled by our Minister of Finance meets the expectations and comments made to us in our ridings. Our constituents have requested realistic, lasting solutions to both economic and social problems, not quick fixes.
I must remind this House that upon coming to office our government inherited a $206 billion debt. That is what makes it impossible at the present time for the government to balance its budget strictly from the point of view of its annual revenue and expenditures. Had we not inherited this debt in 1984, we would have a $25 billion operating surplus by now. That is a lot of money.
What this means for our constituents is that in this system of ours the money they pay in taxes would be enough to finance all existing social and economic programs.
Unfortunately we inherited a huge debt and the recession that is going on in Canada is not exclusively made in Canada.
Even if he sits in the opposition, my hon. colleague will recognize that our partners, starting with the United States, also experience serious economic difficulties that have consequences, not only in the United States but also in Canada. We know that in Europe there are social and economic adjustments that create difficulties and that have consequences on everything that is called world markets.
I would like to tell my colleague that even if he thinks manufacturers or small businesses in his riding are not pleased, the comments that we heard go totally against what he advocates. For instance, the president of the manufacturers' association-this is not a small business
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person; this is the person representing all manufacturers-Mr. Richard Le Hir mentions three measures that our government implemented in the last budget to promote economic recovery. Among other things, Mr. Le Hir said: "The accelerated capital cost allowance on machinery, the lowering of the manufacturing tax, as well as the $230 million budgeted for research and development are three concrete measures that must be applauded". Again those are the words of the president of the manufacturers association.
The minister of finance of Quebec, Mr. Gerard D. Levesque, who is not necessarily an unconditional supporter of our government, said that he was generally pleased with the federal budget, adding that the budget enabled Ottawa to reduce its deficit while helping the Canadian and Quebec economies to again experience a growth.
Those are a few examples. You are telling me that my time is up, but I would simply like to tell the voters that are listening that the opposition fulfills its role; it is there to say that this is a botched job. However, the population does not agree with the opposition.


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to tell my colleague in the government that the unemployment rate in my constituency stands at 18.2 per cent. If you look at the budget that was just tabled in the House, you will see that the budget for the Department of Employment and Immigration was reduced by $177 million, mainly in the job creation and vocational training sectors. That says a lot.


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur on the compassion in his speech. I know that he understands, and every member of this House should understand, that if there was ever a time when there should be some empathy and some sympathy and some feeling and some concrete measures to be taken for the people of Canada, it is today.
The hon. member mentioned Stone Consolidated at Bathurst. I want to tell him that just within the last few days, last Friday, Stone Consolidated announced the closure of the mill at Braeside, just about 43 miles up the Ottawa River from Ottawa, and it means the loss of 160 jobs in total.

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About 10 days ago Storwal International in the city of Pembroke announced bankruptcy with 250 employees being put out of work in the next few days.
It is a desperate situation and I am glad that the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur highlighted his speech this morning with that empathy and that feeling for people out there.
On Saturday morning at a meeting in Pembroke there were people sitting there, employees of Storwal International, tears in their eyes, at a total loss as to how they are going to pay their mortgages or make their car or truck payments. And this comes on top of the collapse of the lumber industry in the Ottawa valley generally.
As the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur knows, there is a lot of comparison between the economy of his area and the economy of the area that I represent.
I am sure that this is another figure that would relate to his case as well. In 1991 in the county of Renfrew and the immediate surrounding townships, $50 million was paid out in unemployment insurance. The welfare budget in a small village of 1,400 people has increased 2,000 per cent over- a year ago.
I want to join the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur in stating that I do not know how this can go on without this Parliament and this government doing something about it.
It is not a case of lambasting one another any longer in this House. It is a case of what are we going to do for those people out there who stand to lose their homes. They have lost their jobs. We have people 50 years of age who have worked in a mill or a factory for 20 to 25 years. Where are they going to go? We have the older workers program. I certainly hope it applies because I am going to be attempting to make use of it.
There is an attempt on the part of the employees of Storwal International to try to buy the plant and they have been putting forward a mammoth effort. I would like to call upon the government and the Department of Industry, Science and Technology to give these people some assistance to really try to work with them in setting up a new structure.
I see that the Minister of Supply and Services is in the House today. In keeping with the empathy and the
seriousness of this situation out there, I want to say that I stopped at the truck stop on Highway 17 at Antrim on the way down yesterday morning. There were two men there, truck drivers who had just finished delivering a load of furniture to the Government of Canada, purchased through the Department of Supply and Services. That was the last load of furniture that would be coming down from Storwal International to the federal government.
I want to say that at least the federal government was buying that product, a Canadian product. I think that is the emphasis we have to go on. I know that the Minister of Supply and Services, when I make this representation will know that it is a very serious one and that he takes these things very seriously.
If we are going to be lambasted by the Americans at this particular time for the sake of an American election, I think it is time to really get aggressive about buying Canadian. I hope that the cabinet comes in with that decision. I for one, and I am sure that people on this side of the House, will be totally in consort with that because we have to stand up and be counted as Canadians and fight for our Canadian people.
I thank the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur for his excellent input.


Guy H. Arseneault: I would like to say first of all, if we can go back a little bit, in 1984 the Conservatives campaigned on fiscal responsibility. They said they would put the fiscal house in order.
Now here we are so many years later and all we hear every time we talk about fiscal responsibility is: "Oh, well, we inherited a debt". If they cannot put the house in order, they should not be there. It is as simple as that. If they have given up, tell us that they have given up and get out of office. It is as simple that.
There is another point I would like to make when we talk about compassion. There is a quote I would like to leave the House with, which says simply:
We shall be judged both as individuals and as a society by the
manner in which we care for those unable to care for themselves.
That is a direct quote from our present Prime Minister in the book Where I Stand. I would hope that he will go back and read those words and think about the unemployed people of Canada.
March 10,1992


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take a few minutes today to participate in this debate on the budget.
First, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance for staying the course and continuing to cut government expenditures, for lowering the deficit and most important for cutting personal income tax. It was a prudent approach.
The minister resisted the demands to spend more, to use the fiscal and tax measures to stimulate the economy. The member for Vegreville travelled about the country, from coast to coast.
He visited and talked to experts, to agencies, to his provincial counterparts and to the people. He talked to the taxpayer because there is only one taxpayer. He talked to the consumer, Canadians from all walks of life. He listened and he listened, and he took the ideas, the advice and the concerns. After much in-depth thought and planning he responded.
This budget cuts spending to cut taxes and boost economic growth. It also ensures deficit reductions for 1992 and beyond. This government remains on course in the direction that we have set over the past seven years. The tough measures that we have taken in the past are starting to pay off.
In personal income tax cuts the surtax will be reduced by 1 per cent in July 1992 and another 1 per cent January 1993. This move will put over $500 million back into the economy this year and more than $1.2 billion next year.
The home buyers plan allows RRSP withdrawals up to $20,000 for a person to buy or build a home. The borrowed funds must be repaid within 15 years in annual instalments. The property may be a house, a condominium or a share in a co-operative unit located here in Canada. The plan will be available for one year.
This budget also encourages initiative, productive investment and growth by reducing the tax burden on manufacturers and processors. We will provide new support for research and development and more generous financing for small business.
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Now the manufacturing and processing tax rate will drop from 23 per cent to 22 per cent in 1993 and down to 21 per cent in 1994.
Another important area is the capital cost allowance on equipment for those specific areas, manufacturing and processing. It will increase from 25 per cent to a 30 per cent write-off. The new support for research and development will be $230 million over five years.
Government spending is going to be cut by $1 billion in 1992-93 and by $7 billion over the next five years. We will save $2.2 billion on defence spending over the next five years. Also, cuts to departmental operating budgets are going to save $150 million next year and each year after that.
Travel and departmental communications budgets, ministerial salaries and the salary of the Prime Minister will be cut.
To streamline the operations of government 46 agencies, boards, commissions and advisory bodies are going to be eliminated, consolidated, deferred or privatized.
Canadians want less government and they want better service. We have to make it easier for business and individuals to deal with the government and that is just what we are going to do.
The deficit for 1991-92 is forecast at $31.4 billion and that is up from our target which was $30.5 billion. It is true, the recession has played havoc with the accounts. The budgetary revenues for this year and next year are down approximately $4 billion and $7 billion respectively from our projections. This sends an even stronger message for tighter controls and more government cutbacks.
The Minister of Finance did not cave in to the demand to spend, spend, spend which we just heard from the previous speaker. That would be truly disastrous.
When we formed the government in 1984 we designed our first budget around a plan called an agenda for economic renewal. This was the framework for a gradual reduction of the deficit and cuts to expenditures. We should have acted more aggressively during the buoyant years and I accept that, but we have continued to follow the guidelines that were established in 1984 and they are producing results.

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One particular area is the importance of the inflation figure. Last year's budget contained targets which seemed really unrealistic to people sitting across the way, but they have been exceeded with the strong co-operation of the Bank of Canada. Inflation is presently under 2 per cent. Interest rates are down and hopefully they will drop even further in the coming weeks. Today we have legislated spending controls of 3 per cent on government programs. Today we have legislated debt servicing in a reduction fund where the GST revenues flow to service the debt and pay down the debt. It is by law and it is retroactive to April 1, 1991.
I would like to comment on the child benefit package that came out with the budget. I want to congratulate my colleague from Calgary North who worked for almost two years chairing the family caucus to implement fairer tax treatment for families with children.
The new enriched child tax benefit to be implemented next January is streamlined, responsible and better targeted. This new child tax benefit will be based on family income paid monthly mostly to mothers for children under 18 years of age. This particular benefit will not be taxed and will be aimed at single parent families and families with incomes below $70,000. It will be simpler, it will be more generous and it will be fairer. It will put about $2.2 billion more into the child assistance benefits over the next five years.
This one monthly child tax benefit can be as much as $144 per month per child or a total of $1,733 per year, non-taxable. Also the maximum child care expense deduction will be increased by $1,000 to $5,000 for each child under age seven and $3,000 for other eligible children.
Also beginning in 1993, common law couples will be treated the same as married couples. Again I congratulate my colleague from Calgary North.
What can we afford? That is what this budget is all about. The advice to the government from all people from coast to coast has been to reduce the deficit, reduce inflation and reduce interest rates. The minister in this, his first budget, has shown that he has listened not just to elected officials, not just to people in the bureaucracy, but to the taxpayers. He has taken important steps to bring more order to government finances.
The inflation target is well below what we anticipated last year. While it has been tough to get down, the deficit is working its way down. In 1995-96 the government will no longer have to borrow outside and we can start paying down the national debt. A lot more work has to be done and we realize that.
It is interesting. We were wrong when we announced last fall that the recession was over. That was a mistake and I admit it. Inflation is at a 20-year low. Interest rates are below 9 per cent which means mortgages and the cost of borrowing are lower and that was no mistake. We worked at it and we got it. We should have reduced the deficit far more quickly when we were first elected and that was a mistake, but we have improved the efficiency of the government operations from a $16 billion deficit to a surplus of $13 billion and that was no mistake.
Many Canadians felt left out of the Meech Lake constitutional process. That was a mistake and we learned our lesson. We have responded with the broadest consultations right across the country and that is no mistake.
Free trade and the GST were poorly communicated and that was a mistake, but the free trade agreement gives us protection to go to the dispute settlement mechanism. We will win on the softwood lumber.
I have been very pleased to participate in this debate. I know we have a lot more work to do. I want to work with the people on all sides of this House, but please do not ask us to spend, spend, spend. Members opposite tried that in the 1970s and in the 1980s, and it did not work.


Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech of the member for Calgary Southwest.
She hit on a number of very important points, but I feel obliged to comment on a few things. She suggested that the finance minister travelled this country and spoke with corporations, business, constituents and the little person out there, and that he was concerned with people.
One of the questions that I would have to ask her relates to her saying that he was instructed to cut, cut, cut, that there was only one taxpayer in this nation. There are a number of people in this nation who do not
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make enough money to be taxpayers and they are the ones who are being severely hurt by this budget.
Cut, cut, cut might not hurt some of the average citizens but it certainly will hurt those with lower incomes. If you stop to think about the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan, on health care costs, the transfers payments to the provinces by the federal government, all have been drastically cut which in turn ends up putting a further cost on the people.
Another area where people have been hurt is in the pay equity program. The government is literally cancelling the pay equity commitment that it made to the people of Canada, disabled people and women in particular. That has been cut back.
She acknowledged that the government really should have paid down the deficit in the glory years from 1984 to 1988. I love to bring up this point in the House of Commons. Between 1984 and 1988 this government realized-it does not tell us the exact figures-I understand in the area of $100 billion excess revenue over what was anticipated and we do not have one idea what it did with that money. The government will not tell us. I have been trying for three and a half years to find that out.
Who does the Court Challenges Program hurt?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: If the hon. member does not put her question, she will not get an answer.


Beryl Gaffney: I would like the member to respond to those little people who she says have not been hurt. I think they have been hurt drastically, and I would like the hon. member for Calgary Southwest to comment on that.


Barbara Jane (Bobbie) Sparrow: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the questions from my colleague. I know she works hard on behalf of her constituents.
There are a lot of people who are unemployed. They have lost their jobs over the last few years, and I certainly admit to that. We are going through a change right around the world where we have to become more productive and competitive.
It is very interesting chairing the committee on industry, science and technology with my colleagues from the
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other side. One thing we learned very clearly is that we simply have to educate better, train and retrain better. No longer can Canadians rely on the natural resources that we were blessed with to maintain our standard of living. Within the global trading community, we are all going to have to change our goals and our futures.
One thing that we have done is set aside $2.8 billion with regard to the Unemployment Insurance Act for training people out of work. I recognize that a lot more has to be done. By the way, there was a surplus in 1979 of $332 million and when we came in, in 1984, that $332 million had changed to a $38.5 billion deficit. Let us not be blaming each other. Let us work for common goals.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, earlier the House heard in this debate from the Minister for Veterans Affairs. I did not get an opportunity to ask him directly to comment so I will do it, if I can, by asking this member for a comment on the issue of merchant mariners.
Recently the veterans affairs committee tabled a report calling on the government to provide benefits equivalent of veterans to those who served in our merchant marine during the war and who served Canada and the allied cause honourably and with great courage. Years and years have passed. The time has surely come for the government to act on the committee's recommendation.
Last Friday we received a comment saying that the government was going to get around to it. I wonder if the member-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that the question is not relevant to the member who spoke. Therefore the questions and comments are completed.


Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to speak in the budget debate and to mention the benefits that have and will accrue to my constituents and to Canada as a whole.
First I want to compliment the minister. This is my fourth budget as a member of Parliament. I found today that it certainly has been a very open process, open in many contexts. For example, the first ministers from across Canada travelled to Ottawa to publicly, in front of television, tell the Canadian people what they wanted to

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The Budget
see from the Government of Canada in the budget process. I do not recall that being done before. It was certainly a very positive step. I note the budget deals with many of the suggestions that came from the first ministers when they travelled to Ottawa to share their thoughts.
The Minister of Finance was involved in many sectoral consultations. Many of the groups that submitted their views to the minister sent those views on to various parliamentary committees. As a member of the finance committee, we received many of the submissions that were also submitted to the Minister of Finance, again a very broad sectoral process.
The minister consulted with individuals who had no particular expertise in an area or simply, as happened in many cases, were citizens who had concerns. As an MPI had the opportunity for direct input into the process, through the caucus, through the minister in a direct fashion. I have to suggest that I was really quite pleased with the budget because I think it reflects what many of my constituents were asking me to relay to the Minister of Finance.
There was also input through the various committees, for example the proposal dealing with the RRSP funding or the use of the RRSPs in the purchase of a home. This had been referred to our committee to do some investigative work. We were able to bring in many representatives that would be affected by the decision which enabled myself and other members of Parliament and the Government of Canada to fully research the idea before it was put in the budget. I compliment the minister for that veiy open process which took place with this budget.
One of the things I feel very good about is that finally we have seen a significant reduction in the deficit. It is dropping some $4 billion and I think that that is long overdue. We had some difficult circumstances to deal with. The most difficult circumstance of all that we will have to deal with is the national debt of this country. If we do not very quickly stop it from growing at tremendous rates, it will be a problem that future governments will have to deal with and they will have to ignore everything else because there will be no money. I am pleased to see that reduction in the deficit.
At the same time, I have had some communications from some constituents who say that although the deficit has been cut and they are pleased to see that, why were taxes also cut? Why did we do that? Why did we not keep
them paying taxes so that we can reduce the deficit even further? I realize that this is somewhat a unique thought but I guess, from our perspective, we are trying to convince Canadians that we do have a good grasp on where we are going and we are able, because of our fiscal management, to in fact do both, cut the deficit and cut the tax rates individuals are paying. I am sure every person in this House, although I have not heard everyone say it, would be happy to tell their constituents, regardless of how much money they make, that they have a tax cut. I think that is important in the over-all scheme of things.
Part of the solution to the present economic problems is to convince the consumers of Canada that there is some light at the end of the tunnel and that they can start freeing up some, making some decisions for the long term that would be good for the over-all economy. I think a tax cut signifies that. To be blunt about it, I hope we have another one next year.
My constituents certainly say they are paying enough taxes and that we have to reduce the deficit. If we can do both, which I hope we can do in the next budget, that will be just fine with me. That is certainly the direction I will be encouraging the Minister of Finance to follow.
If we come along a little further, we say: "Okay, those are generalities, let's get to some specifics". What are the specifics in the budget? If I had to stand up and say that this was a made for Ontario budget, I know some of my colleagues in this House would be upset with me, but I am quite proud to say this is a made for Ontario budget. The economic conditions of this country are being felt extremely hard in Ontario because Ontario has the manufacturing sector in the economy. I understand that and I am glad to see that the Government of Canada dealt with the problem that Ontario faces. It faces manufacturing problems. We hear about manufacturing plants going down.
General Motors in a neighbouring riding has announced or is in the throes of discussing whether it is going to shut down one of its assembly lines. I know the MP who represents that area from the NDP would not want to compliment the government on its action, but in fact what we did for General Motors and all of the feeder plants that are located in my riding and in all the ridings around GM is cut the income tax rate for manufacturing. That is good for every one of the employers in my riding and the GM plant that has to
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make that decision. We have raised the capital cost allowance which is absolutely fantastically good for the manufacturing sector located in my riding and in those ridings throughout southern Ontario and in other parts of Canada where there is manufacturing. We have also cut the withholding tax on dividends.
These are three very positive steps for manufacturing. That is good for Ontario. I know that when the Ontario economy is functioning that that is good for Canada. I do not have any trouble in supporting that particular aspect of it.
It goes a little further than that. One of the things that the Canadian economy has is this issue of competitiveness. We are not competitive in all aspects. In this budget there is an increase in the tax incentives for research and development. Again, that is good for all the manufacturers in southern Ontario. To be fair, I know it is good for other parts of the economy as well. I comfortably say that those four areas address very clearly a problem that southern Ontario has and I am pleased to see that.
It goes a little further. In the budget we have reviewed the capital gains exemption and have confirmed that that exemption is designed for productive investments. One of the major problems my constituents had back in 1988 and 1989 was all the speculators who drove the price of housing through the roof. House prices literally doubled because people had this ability to speculate on land, on real estate and take their capital gains. No more. I realize some people get hurt by that. They are the speculators.
Do you know who wins by that? All the families in my riding and in the ridings across Canada where they are trying to save money to buy a home, to invest in their future living conditions. We have just taken away the speculative incentive by those who are not in that market. If you want to make money, more power to you, but you are not going to do it on the backs of citizens in my riding.
I could go on. I have 10 pages of really good ideas. I am sorry that the time allotment does not permit me to expand on them. I wanted to share with you, Mr. Speaker, that in Ontario this is an absolutely great budget.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, the crocodile tears from the member when he talked about cutting taxes were a bit hard to take. As you know,
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Mr. Speaker, there have been 33 or 34 tax increases by this government since it took office, including of all things the GST during a recession.
I want to ask the member whether he thinks that it is true, as some people believe, that in fact his government induced this recession by having a very high dollar and very high interest rates for a prolonged period and we all are suffering enormously because of that.
The member will be aware of a study by WEFA Canada Limited which came out last week and which blames his government and some provincial governments to a very considerable extent for prolonging and deepening the recession. WEFA says that his government has loosened fiscal policy in boom times from 1984 to 1987 and 1988 and tightened it in the recession which is, of course, what this budget is doing, the opposite of what stabilization policy should do.
The study goes on to say that under an intelligent stabilization policy with a lower dollar we would now have 100,000 of the 280,000 manufacturing jobs, which his government has killed, and these people would be working.
As somebody who comes from a manufacturing riding, I wonder if the member has anything to say on these statements.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comment. I recall campaigning in the last election on the idea of a new value added tax. I was elected on that basis. I know he was as well when he campaigned in favour of that tax during the election and he was also elected. I find it interesting that now he would say that that is something we brought on when he campaigned in favour of it.
He talks about the tax increases that took place between 1984 and 1987. He is absolutely right, there were an awful lot of them. I was not a member of Parliament then so I could not very well speak out, but I know he was. He was on the government side so I presume that when he was voting he was speaking out against all these taxes, or just what was he doing?
Let me come back to the idea when he talks about the loss of jobs in manufacturing and so on. Yes, the dollar has had an impact. There is no doubt about that, but I would suggest the greater impact on southern Ontario manufacturing job losses is in fact the spending record of the provincial governments. I should point out that it is a

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The Budget
spending record that he supports, being a member of the Liberal Party.
The Liberal Party of Ontario increased spending in southern Ontario at a rate of 14 per cent a year for all of those years when he is talking about the federal government keeping its spending under constraint. If we had not had those huge increases in spending, I would suggest that the NDP today would not be faced with $14 billion deficits. Some of it is NDP fault, but I would suggest that it was Liberal policies in Ontario that caused the major problems that the Ontario manufacturers have. It was Liberal policies in Ontario that made the Ontario economy the highest taxed economy in North America. It has taken it in a space of five years from being one of the lowest taxed in North America to the highest taxed in North America. Now the NDP are simply going to build on that. That is the problem of southern Ontario.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, in the budget you introduced a decrease in the manufacturers' tax or in taxation for manufacturing companies. I want to say that it is always good for corporations to have a decrease in taxation. But I am wondering whether it was such a good move seeing as we all are very well aware of what the NDP in Ontario stand for and that is: Get those big bad large corporations and tax them as much as you can.
I am wondering whether you are aware of whether your Minister of Finance had any negotiations with the province of Ontario as to whether it would now move into this area that you have vacated and whether we should perhaps be considering some other way of giving these people a break if all that is going to happen is the provinces will move in and take over that tax area, and whether you really think that the-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member has a minute to answer that question.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, that is certainly a major concern. We have through not just the income tax cut but through several other measures provided for Ontario based industries, in fairness for industry all across Canada but I represent an Ontario riding and we have major industries in southern Ontario.
We cannot guarantee that the provincial NDP will not sabotage our efforts. If it does, that is unfortunate. I guess the nice part of this is that there are manufacturing sectors all across Canada, not that I would like to see Ontario based manufacturers move, but we have to address the entire Canadian problem. Hopefully, within Ontario-for example, in the adjoining riding where GM is making some major decisions-they can apply appropriate pressure on their provincial MPPs to make sure that the tax planning of the provincial government does not negate all of the positive things that we have done federally.


Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, in my speech on the budget last year, I suggested that there was an alternative to the Conservative government's present policies. Today I could repeat much of the speech I gave last year, but I will rather stick to the essential.
Like many Canadians, our party recognizes that the federal deficit is a serious economic and political problem. We recognize as well that limiting inflation is also an important objective. We thus agree with the government on these two points.
However, we do not believe that it is necessary to knock the economy out, to create unemployment for millions of Canadians in order to fight inflation. For nearly 20 years, many European countries have been able to fight inflation without creating unemployment.
In my speech last year, I repeated the recommendations which the Economic Council of Canada made in its 1990 annual statement. It gave the government suggestions on pursuing such a policy in Canada. The Economic Council of Canada noted that those European countries have some things in common. First of all, they are committed to full employment; second, government, management and labour work together in those countries. The council believed that better co-ordination of federal and provincial economic polity was possible in Canada and that management and labour could be brought together in this country.
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I said last year and maintain today that the Economic Council of Canada recommendations provided an alternative to the Conservative government's present policies. Not only has the government rejected the recommendations of the Economic Council of Canada but it has decided to kill that agency. It is obvious that the government wants to eliminate any independent voice.

The government has ignored the alternatives suggested by the Economic Council of Canada, has killed the council and has deliberately pursued a policy of high unemployment in order to control inflation.


An hon. member:: Hear, hear.


David Berger: That is why we have a million and a half Canadians who are looking for work today.
We in our party do not believe that high unemployment is acceptable. We in our party do not believe that high unemployment is inevitable. We do not believe that there is no other way. We do not believe that government must resign itself to massive unemployment. Neither did the members of the Economic Council of Canada.


An hon. member:: That's why they are gone.


David Berger: Today they are gone, for having dared put forward a view that is contrary to this government.
Our party believes that things can be done in the short term to alleviate some of the suffering that Canadians are experiencing and to provide Canadians with the dignity that only comes from working. We believe that it would be appropriate to increase the deficit, just slightly, in order to put people back to work.
Last year in my budget speech I pointed out that the former Minister of Finance in his first budget in 1985,1 believe it was, predicted that he would reduce the government's fiscal deficit to $18 billion by the end of the decade. We know that in last year's budget he was forecasting a deficit of $30.5 billion, so he missed the mark by the small sum of $12.5 billion.
In this budget tabled several weeks ago the current Minister of Finance of course says that no, the $30.5 billion figure cannot be met and is now talking about $31.5 billion. There are many economists who even regard that estimate as overly optimistic.
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When the leader of our party suggests that in order to put Canadians back to work the government might consider increasing the deficit by, for argument's sake, $1 billion this year, in order to provide Canadians with the dignity of working, that only comes from working as I said earlier, is it such an unreasonable proposal? Is it such a ludicrous proposal that it would be rejected out of hand by this government and by the Minister of Finance?
When we say perhaps increasing the deficit slightly in order to put people back to work, the leader of our party has pointed out that it may not be money that would be a net drain on the government's finances because this expenditure would be paid back in the form of lower unemployment insurance payments, lower welfare payments and more taxes.
We in our party realize that Canadians are not looking for short-term fixes. Canadians realize that there is no quick fix to what it took the Tories eight years to destroy.
On the other hand, we believe that the government has a responsibility to help Canadians through difficult times. That is why our party has put forward some proposals to stimulate the economy in the midst of this recession.
In the long term Canadians need a government to implement a strategy to ensure the sustained growth of the Canadian economy, to create wealth in a knowledge-based world economy, to ensure prosperity on an ongoing basis. It is evident that the government has no such strategy.
I have spoken in this House many times about Canada's deficiencies in the area of science and technology. We have to invest more in R and D in this country in order to increase value added, in order to provide high wages to our workers, in order to produce quality products. I am talking about value added products for export and for consumption in our domestic market to compete with imports.
Is there anybody in this House who believes that we should compete with the low wage developing countries for low value added goods and services, low wages and low skills? Is that the game we should be in? Or do we want high wages and high skills? The only way to have high wages and high skills is to increase the value added of what we produce and of the services we offer here in Canada.

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Anyone and everyone who has analysed Canada's performance in science and technology recognizes that we have a problem and that this problem must be addressed if we wish to create wealth and maintain a high standard of living for Canadians. The government itself has launched what it calls its prosperity initiative in which it is asking Canadians what can or should be done to ensure Canada's competitiveness.
In my speech a year ago I termed this prosperity initiative an admission of failure, an admission that we have lost eight years-seven years then, eight years today-when this government should have taken steps to ensure that all Canadians receive a quality education and that Canadian businesses do enough R and D, all of the things it says we have to do today and, of course, which it has done nothing about for the past eight years.
On the contrary, we have seen that many of the government's actions have defeated those very purposes. For example, it has reduced funding for R and D in industry and in government. It has eliminated a number of training programs. It has cut back on funding for post-secondary education, to name only a few. As a result of these actions, total support for Canada's research and development efforts has actually declined since the Conservatives took office.
What I find particularly infuriating is despite this abysmal record the government pretends to be improving support for research and development and science and technology. This budget is no exception. The Minister of Finance said on page 13 of his budget speech:
The government recognizes the importance of research and
development.
What I want to emphasize is the enormous gap between what the government says and what is actually happening.
Schoolchildren understand there is a difference between saying something and doing something. But this government has it down to a fine art. It figures that if it repeats something often enough, people will think it is the truth. This is known as the theory of the big lie.
I do not know who the government thinks it is fooling. Report after report has emphasized that we have a
problem and yet the government in its actions does not recognize that a problem exists.
The Minister of Finance in his budget speech stated:
Canada's system of tax incentives to support R and D is already
one of the most generous in the world.
He is trying to convince Canadians that everything is fine and there is no need to increase tax incentives or non-tax incentives, which I will get to in a minute. Indeed the budget committed an additional $230 million over the next five years to improve these incentives.
I would like to point something out to the Minister of Finance, to the members of this House and to Canadians who may be watching this debate.
If tax incentives were the answer, we would not have an R and D problem in Canada. While I welcome this additional support for R and D through the tax system, I maintain that tax incentives alone will not improve Canada's dismal R and D record.
The minister himself observed, as I said, that Canada's tax incentives are already among the most generous in the world so it is a matter of simple logic.
We already have generous tax incentives for R and D. If tax incentives were all that were required to stimulate industrial R and D, then we would not have a problem. We would be right up there. But we are not up there. We only spend half as much as our competitors do on research and development, so the problem must lie elsewhere. This is the government's blind spot.
Indeed, the minister responsible for our prosperity initiative, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology and International Trade, refuses to admit that we have a problem. He may not even understand that we have a problem.
When he appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, Regional and Northern Development on December 4, he said:
We have looked at the federal level of support for research and
development and Canada compares reasonably with other countries.
The minister is either incredibly naive, he does not know the first thing of what he is talking about, or it is part of this big lie strategy that I referred to earlier in which the government is just trying to hoodwink Canadians into believing that everything is just fine and dandy.
March 10, 1992

The minister does not seem to understand that Canada lags far behind our competitors when it comes to non-tax support for R and D. This is an important distinction, the support that is offered through the tax system, tax support, and the support that is offered for R and D through other methods, through non-tax methods.
By non-tax R and D, what I am talking about is contract research or government procurement which are widely used in many countries to stimulate innovation and industrial development.
Canada is just not in the same league as many of our competitors in Japan, the United States, Germany, the Scandinavian countries and France when it comes to non-tax support for R and D which in those countries is offered through defence procurement, defence spending in the United States, projects like the fifth generation computer project in Japan and the aerospace industry in France.
I just came back from the west coast. I had the pleasure of attending a forum with business persons interested in science and technology in Vancouver last Friday morning.
One of the people I had the pleasure of speaking to and meeting with again is John MacDonald, president of MacDonald Dettwiler in Vancouver which employs some 800 persons. These are all people who are working in the field of systems integration and software development.
Mr. MacDonald referred to the old unsolicited proposals program, which this government cancelled, as the best lever the government had to promote industrial development. This was a program again which this shamed government cancelled.
Another kind of program which has been highly successful and which has been perhaps the government's best mechanism for getting small and medium sized businesses across Canada to do research and development is the national Industrial Research Assistance Program.
We all know that this program has been starved for funds by this government. The funding of IRAP has declined by some 28 per cent in the past seven years. IRAP has suffered from management instability. The current management of the NRC has attempted to
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change the program from a program which serves the interests of clients to a program which will serve as a marketing arm for the NRC labs.
The committee of which I am a member, the industry, science and technology committee of this House, undertook a study of this program in the fall. It concluded that IRAP suffers from the absence of a clear government perspective on its role and responsibilities not just now, but also in terms of what the program should be in the context of the prosperity agenda that the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology is promoting.
This budget provides a minimal increase in the budget of IRAP nowhere near the funds that were recommended by the industry, science and technology committee and the Sparrow report one and one-half years ago. That committee was chaired by the member who spoke just a few minutes ago. These funds are nowhere near the funds necessary to allow the program to fulfil its potential and meet the needs of Canadian industry.
The government is not only content to destroy support for industrial R and D, but also it has decided to destroy this country's knowledge base. In the budget, the government of course delivered the coup de grace to the Science Council of Canada.
The Minister of Finance said that there are other similar types of organizations that do the same thing as the Science Council of Canada. That is not so. That is simply wrong. There is no other organization in the country that does the same thing as the Science Council, that looks at science policy from a long-term perspective and in an independent manner.
I spoke last week to a member of the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology, the Prime Minister's own National Advisory Board on Science and Technology. A board member told me that to suggest that the Science Council is similar to the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology is just ludicrous. He said that NABST is different in concept and different in construct, to put it shortly.
The same member of the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology, who happens to work on Bay Street, told me that the business community generally supports the budget, which is something I might take issue with. But it thinks the government has gone off the deep end in killing the Science Council and the Economic Council, and he likened this to Archimedes who was

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The Budget
drawing geometric figures in the sand and was killed by a Roman soldier. He referred to barbarians slaughtering the brains trust. He said: "This looks like book bashing, book burning".
This does not come from me but from a member of the business community on Bay Street who was describing this government's killing of the Science Council and the Economic Council.


Mr. Holtmann:: Archimedes.


David Berger: This is something the member for Portage-Interlake is quite familiar with. He has had some practice at book burning. I say that with due respect. He will probably want to ask me a question about that.
Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I think that pretty well sums up the Tory approach to government. I think you would agree with me that Canadians deserve better than that.
In closing, I want to move a motion, under Standing Order 26, to continue sitting through the lunch hour for the purpose of allowing as many speakers as possible to participate in this debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I believe there is unanimous consent to carry on until two o'clock.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Felix Holtmann: Mr. Speaker, I very much enjoyed listening to the member for Saint-Henri-Westmount. I would like to say to the House that if Archimedes were living today, he would probably come out with a statement something like: Beware a Liberal government or a Liberal administrated government because the big dynamic hole of bankruptcy will grow and grow and grow. That is what Archimedes would say if he were around today and had that much history behind him.
I listened with interest this morning and this afternoon to what a colleague in the House had to say about how they would get out of this particular recession. He said the government should just spend slightly more. The government and the people of Canada are still paying for those "slightly mores" during the Liberal administration, those billions of "slightly mores".
I have sat through eight budgets since this government came to office in 1984-


David Kilgour: All Tory ones.


Felix Holtmann: We will get back to the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast about all Tory ones because he was a member of the Tory Party and supported it for six of the eight years quite happily. I heard comments from the member from Alberta who pointed out that it was the Liberal administration that drew us into this deep quagmire of debt.
In every budget the present opposition demanded the government spend more. Instead of the current debt we have, it would likely be another $100 billion more. I sat in this House on many occasions where members across asked the government to spend more. In fact we spent less, significantly less.
The members opposite should poll their constituents before making statements that this government should be spending slightly more and not mentioning how much. I am sure they would find, especially the member for Edmonton Southeast, that their constituents and the constituents in their provinces would very much want to reduce government expenditures. That is why this new party is springing up in leaps and bounds wanting the government to spend less, not more.
With all due respect to the two members who have made some comments, I would like to ask the member for Saint Henri-Westmount a question. There is a grass roots movement in this country to spend less. Does he not see in his party that going back to the old traits of throwing money at this problem to make it go away is certainly not the way the public that would support his party would want him to go? I want him to really examine the question I have put to him about his grass roots supporters today.


David Berger: I really think the member and all the members of the government ought to be a little bit bashful about standing up in this House and giving us lectures about bankruptcy and the deficit.
I am reminded of a comment made by a very wise person, Senator David Croll who passed away just this last year in his early nineties. He was active in our caucus until the day of his death. I remember him telling me: "The way Michael Wilson talks about the deficit, you would think he had licked it". I can just hear David
March 10, 1992

CrolPs words and manner of speaking as I repeat what he said.
The former Minister of Finance, said he would get the deficit down to $18 billion by the end of the decade. We are talking this year about a deficit of $31.5 billion. The member for Etobicoke Centre or this government missed the mark by $13.5 billion. He has the nerve to stand up here and tell us he has any conception whatsoever how to reduce the deficit.
It is high time this government took responsibility for its actions over the course of the past eight years. I would like to quote what the former Minister of Finance said in his budget speech a year ago. On the very first page, he said:
We must deal with the world as it is and not as we might wish it to
be.
This government is responsible for the world as it is. The economic situation in Canada today is what it is in large part because of the actions of this government. It is time, I believe, for this member and this government to assume responsibility for the difficult economic circumstances in which we find ourselves in this country today. As I tried to indicate in my speech, it is a big world that we are living in; a knowledge based world economy in which Canadians have to compete. We require a growth strategy to enable Canadians to create wealth. The challenge of the deficit is to create wealth in this country to put people to work and get people paying taxes. That is how this deficit must be fought, not by the cost cutting methods of this government.


Mr. Michel Champagne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Forestry):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part in the budget debate. It is a very important debate in that this year's budget continues what we started in 1984. It is a modest budget, but I think it is a very specific response to the many questions being asked by Canadians and a response to the many examples of past injustice which this budget attempts to remedy.
The present Minister of Finance has given us a sound budget that reflects the aspirations of Canadians and is firmly based on the strategy we developed in 1984, which
The Budget
was to reduce the deficit, put public spending on a sound footing, help the neediest in this country, eliminate duplication, where appropriate, as well as unnecessary assets, and bring certain agencies within the purview of the departments. We saw in the budget that there are a number of agencies that will be either wound up or merged with others. I think that in a recession like the one we are experiencing today we must make these decisions because they mean making the best possible use of taxpayers' money.
That being said, it is not always easy to make those decisions. The Minister of Finance could have done what other ministers did in the past, which was to try and keep Canadians happy by handing out subsidies and creating programs right and left so Canadians would remember the government's generosity but unfortunately mortgaging their future in the process.
This was quite obvious during the previous government's last few years in power, when government spending was substantially increased to enhance public support. For instance, if we look at the record for total spending when the Liberals were in power, the average annual increase was 14.6 per cent between 1980 and 1984. Since we came to power, the average annual increase has remained at 5 per cent.
When we look at total spending as a percentage of GDP under the previous government, this ratio rose from 16.9 per cent of GDP in 1967, centennial year, to
24.6	per cent in 1984.
When we look at the Conservative record, because the opposition is often critical of the way we managed the country's finances, between 1984 and 1982 the percentage of GDP dropped to 22.8 per cent and it is expected to go down to 18.3 per cent by 1996.
When we took over the administration of this country's finances in 1984, we inherited a very substantial deficit. When the Liberals or the New Democrats tell us things have not changed under the Conservatives since the deficit has increased considerably, I would ask them to do some simple figuring with compound interest. It should be obvious that if we had pursued the same approach to spending the Liberals had before 1984, the current deficit would be much higher than it is now.

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The Budget
I think it was a choice the government had to make and a choice voters made in the two last elections. It came as no surprise to anyone when we said we wanted to reduce the deficit. It came as no surprise when we said we would have to make certain adjustments in a number of departments and programs so that would be able to live within our means.
I suggest that if we continue to compare the records of both governments on the way they handled public spending since the other side is so critical, perhaps we should look at the operating balance which is extremely important. In 1984 under the Liberal government the cost of programs, before interest charges, was $16 billion more than our revenues. This means that on top of having a budget and reaching into the pockets of taxpayers, the government in its estimates was spending $16 billion more than what it was to take in, and that is not counting the debt service. In other words, we were quickly getting deeper and deeper into debt.
We had an operating surplus of $10 billion last year and that means a turnaround of $26 billion. We went from an operating deficit to an operating surplus, notwithstanding the debt. That is extremely important. It is a sign that the government is really controlling the expenditures of this country. If the trend persists, if we keep to our goal of restraining expenditures, of controlling the increase in expenditures, we will have more room to manoeuvre in the areas of social programs and economic development.
Today, in 1992, Canadians cannot believe that a government is a serious or responsible one if it says: "Forget the deficit; we don't have to take it into account. Regardless of the deficit, if I were in office I would create new health programs, new industrial growth programs; if I were in office I would offer this incentive or that one". I feel that a responsible government must give an exact picture to the people. In recent years our government has succeeded to a great extent in straightening up the public spending in a satisfactory, if not very popular, fashion.
I think the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance is an excellent budget for the people of Quebec, considering that the 4.7 million taxpayers in Quebec will benefit from the cut in the personal income surtax. Let us not
forget that we will also simplify, streamline and enrich our support for the 2.9 million families and 2.3 million children in Quebec. Nationally total child benefits will increase by $400 million per year.
One of the most important aspects of this budget was pointed out when the Minister of Finance recognized that common-law couples and married couples were not treated equally under the tax system. This measure is in response to strong pressure put on all members of this House and addresses at the same time an injustice which unfortunately continued over the years and had to be redressed.
There was also the home buyers' plan through which we are encouraging individuals to boost the economy by allowing them to use their RRSPs to purchase homes. This will be most beneficial for some.
Members opposite keep asking us what we are doing to boost the Canadian economy. We will reduce the tax burden of the 11,000 Quebec companies in the manufacturing and processing sectors. We will also take measures to help small business and farmers. We will increase the capital cost allowance rate for these businesses.
While this budget as a whole may be moderate, it is very important in order to boost the economy and -to ensure that the confidence of the Canadian people in their government is maintained. This budget is especially important because budgets such as this one allow us not to mortgage our future but rather to prepare for it with enough flexibility to set up adequate programs.
That is what is important, and that is why I strongly support this budget.


Mr. Jim Edwards (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the budget debate of 1992.
I, have found this budget to be a sensible, tough, consistent, creative and fairer than many previous budgets. I propose in the limited time available to me to address those characteristics, to suggest where a future budget might make some improvements, and to review what is contained in this budget for Albertans and what Albertans are saying about the budget itself.
March 10, 1992

One of the aspects which I find fairer in this budget than in previous budgets is the provision which my hon. friend has just referred to, and that is making the tax system even-handed in dealing with common law couples as it does with married couples.
But there is one aspect where I think there is some good work to be done in the future. I applaud the moves contained in the budget that better provide for families with children. I think that initiative, put forward by the hon. member for Calgary North and proposed by him to the Standing Committee on Finance on December 11, has been well responded to and will be welcomed by Canadians, not only those who have families at this moment but those who applaud the institution of the family as the foundation stone of our society.
I wish to address the question of child care choices. As my friend from Calgary North told the finance committee in December, our present system "fails to recognize the worth and cost of stay at home parents. The government interferes with the parents' ability to choose the kind of day care they believe is best for their children because financial support through the tax system is only provided to those parents who choose professional day care with the child care expense allowance. Parents who decide to stay at home with the child can make no such claim".
The analysis which the member for Calgary North and his committee conducted during last year found that current child care costs in the tax system consist of the child care expense allowance, which could be claimed as a deduction by the lower income parent. The maximum allowed until this budget was $4,000 for children under the age of seven and $2,000 for children between the ages of seven and twelve, to a maximum of two-thirds of the income of the parent with the lowest income. The member for Calgary North, with some assistance from others, ran a computer simulation and found that the effect of putting the current child care expense allowance funding into an enhanced refundable child tax credit would result in the average married couple with young children, earning less than $60,000, who use child care would be better off if the child care expense allowance were cancelled and if the money saved were rolled together with the other items within the IRCTC.
The Budget
Further, adding this result to the bias that the CCEA introduces against the parent who decides to stay at home to look after the child would make a very strong case for abolishing the CCEA. The only concern is whether the statistical averages in the simulations might hide some new hardship induced by this policy change.
There are low income families who find themselves in districts with insufficient low cost day care. This problem ought to be addressed through the combined efforts of the federal and provincial governments using the Canada Assistance Plan directly to lower day care costs locally rather than perhaps through the income tax system.
Those were some of the recommendations made by the member for Calgary North and his committee. I was very pleased that not only was there a strong element of social policy made in Alberta introduced into this budget, but also that we have had a budget speech delivered by a western Canadian for the first time in some 60 years, and a fine speech it was. I will in a few moments be coming to some of the aspects of how that speech was received in my home city and my home province.
There have been many who have asked me: "What does this budget contain for Albertans?" I am happy to say that my study of the budget documents indicates that it is even-handed treatment for all Canadians regardless of what part of the country they live in. I have done some calculating as to what the impact of the budget will be on the life of Albertans.
The budget cuts spending, cuts taxes and bolsters economic recovery. It also ensures substantial declines in the deficit for 1992 to 1993 and beyond. Spending will be cut by $1 billion next year and $7 billion over the next five years. All 1.6 million Alberta taxpayers will have their personal income taxes cut through a reduction in the surtax. There will be an elimination of the excise tax on ethanol and methanol portions of blended fuels that are mainly gasoline. Good news for our agricultural economy and good news for the environment.
Our support for 1.1 million families and one million children in Alberta will be simplified, streamlined and substantially increased by $400 million per year nationally. Thx disadvantages for the traditional family unit will be eliminated and will assist Alberta families to buy homes using their existing RRSPs.

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The Budget
We will be increasing support to approximately 16,000 Alberta residents with disabilities and will be providing additional tax assistance to approximately 4,000 Alberta post-secondary students.
The tax burden for the approximately 4,000 manufacturers and processors in Alberta will be reduced. We will be increasing the capital cost allowance rate for manufacturing and processing equipment.
Increased spending on research and development will encourage productive investment in the province of Alberta.
Those are the characteristics that impact on my home province and what has been the reaction in that part of our country.
Here is a headline from The Edmonton Sun of Wednesday, February 26: "Maz makes our day. His first budget hits the mark". In The Calgary Sun of the same date: "Maiden budget surprisingly painless. Good news in bad times".
In the analysis section, when the Minister of Finance spoke to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce recently, the chamber president, in thanking him said: "A projected 1992-93 federal deficit of $27.52 billion is a little higher than we would like. But the over-all message", he said, "is positive". "I would give it a silver medal", said John Knebel, "a 7.5 out of 10".
John Knebel is president of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce and a distinguished trade lawyer in the city of Edmonton. To the best of my knowledge, he is a political independent.
An editorial in the Edmonton Sun on Thursday, February 20, gave some advice in advance of the budget: "Stay the course, Maz". And reacting to the actual budget itself, the same newspaper the morning after wrote: "Small Maz-terpiece".
Those are headlines. Other significant headlines sum up the reaction: "Middle class aided", "RRSPs Build Homes".
I want to touch on the reaction of the provincial Government of Alberta to this particular budget. Reported in The Calgary Sun, the treasurer of Alberta, Mr. Dick Johnston, praised the federal budget as " a very good package for national recovery". He went on to say: "This is the right message to consumers in Canada. It
instils a sense that the future is strong". Remarkable words from the treasurer of Alberta.
To give some balance, I would also like to quote from the hon. member for Edmonton East in his reaction to this budget since I am giving a survey of Alberta reaction. He says: "The Minister of Finance has forgotten his Alberta roots and has become a loyal, enthusiastic sorcerer's apprentice to that old monetarist warlock, the former Minister of Finance".
This is a member of Parliament who listed his occupation, prior to his election, as wordsmith. He has shown his facility with words and indeed his shallowness of analysis in that reaction. If he could not say anything more analytical about the budget then I think he had better stick to wordsmithing.
Editorial comment from The Calgary Herald states: "A modest 1 per cent decrease in the personal income tax surcharge this year won't send consumers racing to the stores to run up their credit cards but it is all Mazan-kowski could afford. But he deserves credit for boldly scrapping the baby bonus in favour of targeting lower income Canadians with as much as $100 a month more for each child".
In the same newspaper the next day: "Let's hand it to Don Mazankowski. Yesterday's budget was the first we can recall in a long while that hasn't soaked average Canadians or bludgeoned business".
There are voices out there urging this government to spend more. In order to spend more, naturally we would have to borrow or we would have simply to print money and depreciate the value of our currency as so many countries have done. But I admire the courage of this finance minister and his predecessor in staying the course and ensuring that the Canadian economy remains sound.
If we were not to follow the course that has been followed over nearly the last eight years, we would not have the Governor General sitting in Rideau Hall, we would not have the Prime Minister at 24 Sussex, we would have the International Monetary Fund running the affairs of our country. On the other side of the equation, there are those who say slash to the bone and slash beyond the bone. There are those who say cut $50 billion from the budget, or the next day maybe it is 15 per cent.
March 10, 1992

Canadians are not paying much attention to that kind of thing because this is the same organization which is urging people to turn over their life insurance policies to a particular political party. Their next move may be the necromancy of advising that life insurance policies be turned over to the Government of Canada.


Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, this budget allows Canadians to take $20,000 out of their RRSP and buy a home. The hon. member mentioned that. That is great for Canadians who are fortunate enough to have an RRSP, and I believe there are approximately 10 per cent of Canadians in that category.
This same budget goes on and eliminates the co-op housing program. It puts a cap of 3 per cent on spending in social housing.
I want to ask the hon. member a question. Does he not feel that in the area of housing this budget helps the fortunate and hurts the less fortunate?


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, on the contrary. I believe the general thrust of this budget is to generate confidence in the Canadian economy and to send a message to the less fortunate that this government does care for them.
I may have neglected to say this budget has a great deal for Canadians with disabilities contained in its provisions. I am sure my friend from Malpeque will welcome that.
She asked questions about the RRSP plan which I welcome. I hope it will have the desired effect and I believe it will. She tied that in with the abolition of the co-op housing program. That is a move I think ought to be re-examined. I did not welcome that move with enthusiasm because I had a hand in seeing the co-op program work very creatively to offer housing to people who prefer that style of life. Living in co-op housing would not be to my taste, but I recognize it is to the taste of quite a number of Canadians. There are provisions within the former co-op housing program for the disabled and for lower income Canadians that are truly
The Budget
advantageous. I can cite the example of the Summit Village Co-op Project at 149th Street and Stony Plain Road in my riding which the former minister of housing, my distinguished friend from Don Valley East, helped me develop some two years ago. That was a situation where co-op housing funds were channelled to provide not only accommodation for the disabled and elderly, but for a broad cross-section of Edmontonians who pronounced themselves very happy with their current habitat. I am pleased to add there is a waiting list of some 86 couples who would like to get into that project.
I will join with my friend from Malpeque in asking for a review of that particular move in this budget. I do not embrace every one of its provisions and that is one of them.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest is one of the particularly distinguished and respected members of this House. I have listened with interest to his comments particularly on the budget's effect on the family.
The issue he just addressed surely is one which undermines the family in this country. The co-op housing program was particularly successful in integrating those of lower income with those of somewhat higher incomes in a housing development rather than isolating low income people off in a comer. I think the member will agree that cutting off that program was particularly damaging to Canadian families.
The hon. member must be troubled at the very least by the breach of commitment by the government on the issue of a national child care program. He campaigned along with other Conservatives in the last election on the government's commitment for a national child care program. The very fact that the government has broken its solemn commitment made to the Canadian people must trouble the hon. member.
I would like to comment on the decision by legislation of the government not to honour pay equity beyond the latter part of 1990. It will simply cut off the legal rights that may be established to pay equity and will again damage lower income women in particular who are trying to support families, along with the end of the

March 10, 1992
The Budget
Court Challenges Program which was being used to establish rights of lower income Canadians.
I would ask him to comment on these because it seems to me that the budget is in fact a devastating blow to families in Canada.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: I appreciate the intervention of my friend from Victoria who is a fine, constructive member of this House and asks very good questions.
I find his question concerning pay equity somewhat troublesome. My understanding of what was announced in the budget was that there would not be retroactivity applied to whatever pay equity decisions were to be made in the future. I understood there was a point beyond which in the past one would not go in making those retroactive payments.
I believe that some of those rights have yet to be determined by the courts, and one cannot say that something is wiped out which is not yet established in its precise terms. The principle is established, but the terms and conditions have not yet been fully established by the court.
On the question of the child care program, yes I did campaign in the 1988 election. I knocked on door after door and was greeted by a great cross-section of people, in terms of income, in my riding. I was astonished to hear people rejecting the idea of universal day care.
It was a ground swell, and one that I felt could not be ignored. There were young mothers, many of them professionals or otherwise, who had chosen to take up to four or five years out of their careers in order to nurture and bond with their children. They said it was great if the two income families chose to both continue working and using day care, but what about mothers at home? They made a choice they felt was necessary for their children. They did not want to judge what other people did. They believed staying at home was very important to the nurturing and upbringing of their children and they were given no recognition for that through the tax system.


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to put on the record some comments on the budget and to make an analogy. I think it will paint a picture for people. The analogy is that the budget is a prescription. The patient is Canada, and we have two specialists in charge of a sick patient.
Canada is economically sick. We have two doctors: Dr. John Crow and Dr. Maz. Before you can actually write a prescription, one has to assume that you do a diagnosis of the ills of the patient. I have heard all of these Tories get up and trumpet how fine it is that this budget is cutting taxes.
What do they want us to give them, a medal? They have been putting taxes up from the day they took office in 1984. Thirty times they increased direct and indirect taxes, on the backs of Canadians. They dropped the surtax, that is the tax on the tax. They dropped it a little bit, and they want us all to fall on our knees and worship them for that.
Who put the taxes up in the first place? They did. They put the taxes up which in fact increased the dangers to the health of the patient in the first place. Those taxes contributed to inflation. The doctor who was in charge of purging decided that the way to purge all the bad humours from the patient's body was to increase taxes because we had to reduce the deficit.
What happens? It raises the temperature of the body, so now the haematologist comes into the operating room. He says he has to use the old tried and true method and bleed the patient. Let interest rates rise because we have to dampen the fires of inflation; the fever is high. We have to get the temperature down, so up goes interest rates. Up went the interest rates.
In fact I remember when Dr. Crow was brought before the finance committee that looks at the ethics of doctors. When we brought him before the finance committee, the whole question was why were we putting Canada into an inflationary period? It was a made-in-Canada inflation at that time. Mr. Crow told us wage demands were too high in this country compared to our competing partners and we had to get those wage demands down; we had to get the temperature down. By golly, he let those interest rates rise.
We had interest rates rising and we had taxes rising. This was the period when we got hit with the GST. At the same time this government deliberately removed itself from any responsibility for unemployment insurance. The Liberals of course had gone a long way toward transferring a lot of that cost on to the backs of employers and employees. With Bill C-21 this government went all the way. It absolved itself from any
March 10, 1992

The Budget
contribution to the unemployment insurance fund, so it contributed nothing. Did it have an interest in making sure the unemployment rate did not rise? Of course not. It could not give two figs whether people became unemployed in this country because the government was not putting money into the fund any more. It was strictly a payroll tax on employers and employees. In fact it brought out the most recent increase in January of this year.
Why should it feel any responsibility for keeping unemployment down? Of course it let unemployment rise. At this time part of the diagnosis which would lead to the formation of a prescription is the fact that we are now sitting with 1.5 million Canadians unemployed. That is official, 1.5 million, and that is only a statistic. You have to see the actual effects on individuals.
The doctors over there who are writing the prescription do not start out with that first principle, but that is one of the conditions we have to deal with. They will not deal with that at all. As a matter of fact, on this question of writing a prescription, the good doctors decided what they had to do was consult. So they brought in the premiers for a consultation. The premiers and responsible elected Canadians at the municipal level all around said they should be putting specifically targeted money into direct job creation. They should be rebuilding the infrastructures of our municipalities across the country instead of frivolously throwing money at increasing payments to deal with the victims' problems, serious as they are. They should deal with rebuilding the infrastructure of municipalities which down the road would give us a decided advantage when the economy rebounds. All of the premiers came and I read that most of them said the government should be doing that. What happened when the prescription, which is the budget, was written? Not one penny was put into direct job creation, not one penny.
We talked about the problems we have with respect to interest rates. We have an economy where in fact there is no growth taking place. He has brought the fever down; the patient is not running any temperature at all. The inflation rate is less than 2 per cent. There is no growth in the economy; it is just sitting there. As Michael McCracken said, "The cost of doing nothing is not zero".
The government just sits there, no stimulus to get it moving. As we look at the economy, the real interest rates of this country are about 3 per cent higher than the real interest rates in the United States. The real interest rate in the United States is less than 1 per cent. We are running real interest rates of about 3 per cent above that. So we are about 4.5 per cent.
Why? There is room to let that interest come down. As a matter of fact, on the contrary, in a period of no growth at all we see the interest rate rising again. We see loads of money, Canadian money, being used to prop and keep the dollar up. That is where the money is being spent. Surely the diagnosis has to be that something has to be done to kick-start the economy.
We have to bring our interest rates down back to the traditional 2 per cent difference between our rates and the American rates. In fact, the American real rates are so attractive that Canadian utilities are using Canadian banks to borrow in the United States, which only aggravates the balance of payments situation when we have to send the money out to pay the interest on the debt that is incurred.
There is room. We are not talking about spending money and increasing the deficit. We are not talking about cutting spending. We are talking about spending wisely. The interest rates have come down seven points, as Dr. Maz pointed out. They have come down and surely that has given us some room with respect to the interest on the debt. That is where we could get about $1 billion which could be put into that infrastructure rebuilding we talked about. Surely that has to be part of the prescription that was written, but it was not written there at all.


Mr. Nunziata:: Do not forget rates went up last week.


John R. Rodriguez: I said that. I said that rates have started to go up. Imagine, there is no growth in this economy, literally none, because we have 2 per cent inflation. There is good inflation and there is bad inflation. With this inflation of less than 2 per cent, there is nothing happening here. It is stagnant. The patient is there. Mr. Crow was successful. The only thing is that the patient is expiring.


John F. Brewin: They put on leeches.

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The Budget


John R. Rodriguez: He did. He put on leeches; he bled the patient.
I mentioned the fact that there is something else about the budget that really bothers me a great deal. It is maybe the second incursion into destroying the principle of universality of social programs. I have always taken the position that the universal principle means that it does not matter whether one is in the upper income levels or the bottom income levels. The universality of a social program covering all Canadians really binds us together in a commitment to the program so that no government can separate those who have little income from those who have a lot of income. The means test is the thin edge of the wedge that separates people; it does not bind them together.
I have always seen every attempt to destroy universality as not binding Canadians together but rather separating them. The principle on which this country was built was not this atavistic, selfish attitude that I have seen in other jurisdictions, where everybody is for himself or herself, and the devil takes the hindmost.
We built the country based on the principle of co-operation, that in fact I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. That is the principle on which we built the country: the co-op movements, co-op housing, the caisses populaires, the credit unions, the principle of people working together for the common good. This is not some wishy-washy Marxist idea that deprives people of personal initiative. It recognizes and it challenges us to work together to build a social program, to build a community, to build a society. That is what it is all about.
To run out there and use this very simplistic slogan of why should bank presidents get family allowance or get old age pension is not the issue. The principle is there. The issue is: If we think he should not be getting it then maybe we had better look at the way we tax them and maybe we ought to look at the kinds of things we have been saying in this party for years about fair taxation. Maybe we ought not to let them enjoy the perks of being the president of Inco or the president of a bank by writing off their box tickets at the Blue Jay games against their business expenses. Maybe we ought to take a good hard look at that.
These are the kinds of things we have been saying. I am concerned that in this prescription they have inserted
something that will make the condition even worse down the road. What will be next? Is the next one medicare? After all, we could make exactly the same arguments about family allowances and old age pensions. We could make exactly the same arguments on the medicare issue.


John V. Nunziata: Do you remember the sacred trust, John?


John R. Rodriguez: Oh, I remember it well. I remember the sacred trust. But that is why they are at 11 per cent now, brothers. This prescription I have said is an 8 per cent prescription. Some Tory asked me: "Does that mean we will go up 8 per cent?" I said: "No, brothers, you will go down to 8 per cent".
If we looked at the diagnosis, we need to let Canadians keep more of the money they earn. I hear them all the time saying: "We have to get the consumer out into the marketplace".


John V. Nunziata: With what?


John R. Rodriguez: With what, exactly. That is why he is going across the border. He thinks he is getting a better deal. He is getting more bang for the buck he is spending. That is why the rate of savings for Canadians is not as high as it has been in the past. Governments have been taking money out of their pockets at every turn. Remember, it is not just this government that is taking money from them. The provincial governments, the municipal governments and the school boards are all taking money. There is only one taxpayer.
Yes, a New Democrat is telling you that, brother. There is only one patient. He has only one artery. He has only one heart. When we start bleeding him and, as my friend said, putting the leeches on him we are only exacerbating the weakness of his body, sapping the strength from his body.
An hon. member. Rigor mortis is imminent.


John R. Rodriguez: We say: "Why not? What an opportunity to give a boost to the economy". The diagnosis recognizes that in fact the patient needs some resuscitation and needs to keep more of the money he earns. In this valley of tears when people are losing their jobs and industries are going, is it not an amazing fact that the only people making money are the bankruptcy trustees? One bankruptcy trustees said: "I've got so much business I don't know where I'm going to get the help to do it".
March 10,1992

Another amazing thing is that banks are now making fantastic profits on service charges. This budget did not touch the rich at all in this country.
I have long thought that it is all part and parcel, where the Liberals in the past have always very overtly put on an incomes policy called wage controls because they never controlled prices. My Liberal colleagues who are sitting to my right, appropriately, brought in wage controls right up front, even though they ran a campaign against it. That is another story, but they did it.


John V. Nunziata: A material change in circumstances.


John R. Rodriguez: A material change in circumstance, right on.


John V. Nunziata: Do you want to talk about Bob Rae now and what he is doing to Ontario?


John R. Rodriguez: The Tories looked at this experiment and saw that it did not work. We have to give them credit. They are very perceptive. They saw that this would antagonize the 11 per cent that support them and that it would erode them down to zero. What have they replaced it with? A new incomes policy. What is the incomes policy? We keep this inflation rate right down below 2 per cent. We let the economy just stay flat and we have this large pool of unemployed people. We keep a large pool of unemployed people. We squeeze them. We put them right on the edge of poverty and just squeeze them there.
It is obvious that when employers come to them and say "I'm sorry, it is either you take a wage cut or it is the door", they are much more pliable. If they come to them and say "you either cut back on your benefits or else you're out the door", they are much more pliable to do that.
There is a large pool of unemployed folk who are willing to work for whatever they are willing to pay. I have known some young people who are willing to work for nothing, just to get the experience. I have even known of a case where a person is paying the employer to give him the job.
I saw a sad case in the United States and I can see it coming here. I came off one of the highways in Fort Lauderdale and to a stop sign to go into the town. There
The Budget
was an older woman standing with a sign around her neck saying: "Hire me please. I need to work. I am hungry".
What a plea. I can see that if we continue with the kinds of prescriptions that are in this budget that Dr. Maz and Dr. Crow have put on us, it is going to very quickly require the only people who are making money-


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


Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, we have just had a very entertaining speech from the hon. member for Nickel Belt.
The test of this budget is not going to be the way in which the opposition members condemn it, nor the way in which the government members praise it, but rather whether or not this budget gets the Canadian economy moving again so that it produces jobs, jobs, jobs.
Frankly, in my own riding we have been devastated by this recession. A few days ago eleven of my constituents came to see me. Seven out of those eleven were without work. These were people who had worked all their lives. They wanted to work. They did not want to be receiving welfare. They did not want to be receiving unemployment insurance payments, but they were. They wanted to get back to work but could not because there were no jobs available.
Across the street from my constituency office in the O'Connor-Bermondsey, East York-North York industrial commercial area, literally one-third of all the plants are closed.
It was because of that situation that I wrote to the Prime Minister on January 8, 1992. In that letter I said: "Among the 17 larger advanced industrial countries in the world Canada has the highest unemployment rate. This is clearly unacceptable".
The Prime Minister wrote back to me on February 24 and he said among other things: "I agree with you that the current level of unemployment in Canada is clearly unacceptable. Reducing it must be at the very top of our policy agenda".

March 10, 1992
The Budget
In my letter to the Prime Minister I went on to point out some of the ways which I believe we could deal with this situation.
I said that if business were to expand production and create jobs we needed to increase consumer spending. We can do this immediately by allowing 5 per cent down payments for first-time home buyers, by using RRSP capital for down payments for first-time home buyers, by substantially narrowing the differential between Canadian and U.S. interest rates, by cutting personal income taxes, and by instituting a $14 billion municipal public works program.
This $14 billion expenditure will not increase our deficit. According to Professor Pierre Fortin of l'Univer-site du Quebec a Montreal he has calculated that if Canada's unemployment rate was only 7 per cent rather than 10 per cent as it is now, our federal deficit would be reduced by some $14 billion annually. This is because fewer people would be receiving unemployment benefits and welfare payments while at the same time tax revenues would increase.
As well, Professor Fortin calculated that if the differential between the Canadian and U.S. interest rates was reduced from its present 3 percentage points to one-half of a percentage point as it was during the 1970s, the resulting Canadian corporate and other tax revenue increase would cut our deficit by a further $12 billion annually.
On February 3, 1992, the government responded to the first of my points by introducing a plan for 5 per cent down payments or 95 per cent mortgaging. Then in the budget on February 25, the government announced a program for the use of Registered Retirement Savings Plans for down payments for the purchasing of principal residences.
Since January 8, 1992, when I wrote to the Prime Minister, the value of the Canadian dollar has fallen from 87 cents U.S. to below 84 cents U.S. now and it was 89 cents U.S. a short time ago.
In addition, again in the budget of February 25, the government announced a personal income tax reduction whereby the surtax will drop from 5 per cent to 4 per cent on July 1,1992 and to 3 per cent on January 1,1993. That will put an extra half billion dollars in the hands of
Canadians during the fiscal year 1992-93 and $1.2 billion each year after that.
Unfortunately, in my view at least, there was no announcement of a public works program. But fortunately the government did not close the door and the budget did not close the door to something in the way of a public works program on infrastructure in the future.
In his budget speech the Minister of Finance said: "We are, for example, working with the private sector to develop airport infrastructure. We are actively pursuing building a fixed link from the mainland to Prince Edward Island with private sector financing. We are prepared to work with the provinces to explore ways by which the national highway system might be upgraded in a fiscally responsible manner".
In addition to the points I raised in my letter to Prime Minister, I also have raised in this House two other concerns that I believe stand in the way of our economic recovery.
The first has to do with the level playing field of corporation taxes between the United States and Canada. You will recall that on February 10 of this year I said that one reason businesses move to the United States was taxes.
Prior to 1986 the average U.S. corporate tax rate was 51 per cent, while the comparable Canadian rate was 48 per cent. Today the U.S. rate is approximately 39 per cent, compared with a 42 per cent Canadian rate. Our corporate tax rates previously lower than the United States are now higher. When withholding taxes as they affect Canadian subsidiaries of U.S. corporations are taken into account, Canadian rates are substantially higher than U.S. rates. No wonder we are losing jobs.
Again, the budget responded to that issue. In his speech the Minister of Finance said:
To help the Canadian manufacturing and processing sector meet the challenges of globalization, the manufacturing and processing tax rate will be reduced from 23 per cent to 22 per cent, effective January 1, 1993, with a further reduction to 21 per cent on January 1, 1994.
The capital cost allowance rate will be increased for manufacturing and processing machinery from 25 to 30 per cent, effective for acquisitions made after today.
New activity in all sectors will be encouraged by reducing the withholding tax rate on direct dividends to 5 per cent. The government is prepared, in tax treaty negotiations, to begin reducing the rate on January 1, 1993. This will help Canada compete for international direct investment. It is particularly important now, as international businesses restructure their world-wide operations.
March 10, 1992

Again I raised another concern just prior to the budget, on February 25, and that had to do with the question of the financing of small businesses.
In my statement that day I said that since the beginning of 1991 the Bank of Canada and the chartered banks have been steadily lowering their interest rates, but the banks still have the credit squeeze on. No loans for inventory, no lines of credit. It is asset based, fully secured loans only.
Again in the budget speech the Minister of Finance responded to that and said that the government was announcing two measures to help small business.
The small business financing program will help small business in financial difficulty, including farmers, to obtain loans at lower rates. In addition, the ceiling for loans to individual small businesses under the Small Businesses Loans Act will be doubled from $100,000 to $200,000.
Clearly the Minister of Finance and the government have acted on the suggestions that I have made and on the suggestions that many others have made with respect to how to get the economy moving again.
Understandably the opposition wants more. It wants the government to do more. That, of course, is a job of the opposition. It is its job to oppose.
As I understand it, the Leader of the Official Opposition, when asked what his policy is, has said: "Well, if the government is for it, I am against it". That, of course, is the nature of our system, regrettable as I personally believe that to be and as I think more and more Canadians believe it to be.
I hope members of Parliament from all parties will start to work together in the days ahead for the good of Canada and for the good of Canadians.
The government has taken a number of initiatives. It has taken those on the assumption that recovery is either under way already or all it needs is a modest nudge.
Hopefully that advice has been the right advice. If it is not, I hope that the government will be prepared to take further action and take it rather quickly. But the proof is not in what we say here; the proof is whether this budget gets the economy moving again and whether or not we get jobs, jobs, jobs.
The Budget


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose a couple of questions to the hon. member.
He has talked about the banks and financing for small businesses, which are of extreme importance. I am sure he agrees that today our chartered banks are pretty tough on small businesses. Cash is very tight. Small businesses are finding it very difficult not only because taxes are high but also because they are trying to wade through the recession with all the difficulties it presents to them.
I wonder if the hon. member could tell us whether there should be more measures taken. What additional measures could be taken to loosen up some finances for small business?
Surely the government could have done more than it did without actually costing the taxpayers of Canada more money. Of course, in times of recession the secret is to loosen up the money and get it flowing into productive areas. We know that small business has been one of the most productive parts of our economy over the years.
I would also like to ask him if he felt that the government should have taken a serious look at the Federal Business Development Bank. It was initiated to be the bank of last resort for businesses and entrepreneurs. Is there not something that could be done there that the government did not do?
Finally, in the area of research and development, I must remind him and the government that in 1984 they travelled across this country campaigning in that election. They were going to do wondrous things for research and development.
They did not campaign on the basis that it was going to be private enterprise money. They campaigned on the basis that there was going to be 3 per cent real input into research and development from a Conservative government.
This has never been the case. Right now research and development is at one of the lowest ebbs of public funding in our history. We all know as we talk about competitiveness in the world that research and development are key. They are almost the motor that drives the whole organization. If you do not have that, you are not going to keep pace today.

March 10, 1992
The Budget
Would the member tell us why the government did not do more about promoting research and development and giving the industrial community of Canada and research institutions a little more spurring on? Surely this would bring dividends back. It is an investment rather than a spending of money.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his observations and his comments.
Unfortunately in my view the approach that he has taken is a typical opposition approach. I think the time has come for all of us to tiy to get together and, as the hon. member who spoke before me said, be more co-operative in this House. We should work together for the benefit of Canada and all Canadians.
It is not just a question of more, more, more or oppose everything that is said; it is a question of let us try to get the problems of the country dealt with and dealt with properly.
I know the hon. member was listening to me very carefully during Question Period on February 25, prior to the budget, when in fact I spoke on this issue of small businesses and the difficulty they have in receiving financing. I talked about the role the Federal Business Development Bank should be playing in that process.
I just go on to quote the balance of my comments that day. I said that unfortunately the policies of our lender of last resort, the Federal Business Development Bank, are no different from those of the chartered banks.
If we are ever going to get the economy going again or even save what we still have, the banks will not help. If the banks will not help, then the Federal Business Development Bank must lighten up its lending policies.


Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to rise in this House today to participate in the 1992 budget debate.
This budget demonstrates that a prudent, consistent, fiscally responsible course of action is the road to economic recovery and growth.
Since being elected as the member for Wild Rose in 19881 have spent a great deal of time consulting with my constituents about the affairs of government. They have
expressed a desire for government to be responsible and responsive.
All Canadians, especially in these tough economic times, are familiar with the difficulties in balancing a budget, whether it is personal or business. I believe this budget provides realistic and lasting solutions that will ensure our economic recovery.
Canadians are adamant in their desire for an effective and efficient government. They want a government that does not duplicate or overlap services. They want a government that is dedicated to the elimination of the public debt. The Minister of Finance, through this budget, has assured Canadians that this government is on the right track.
This budget addresses spending cuts, reorganization and restraint throughout the government. It starts with the elimination, consolidation or privatization of 46 agencies, boards, commissions, corporations and advisory bodies. It cuts non-wage operating budgets in government departments by 3 per cent, reduces international travel and the eliminates first-class travel for members of Parliament, senators and senior public servants. Last fall it put a freeze on ministerial, parliamentary and public service pay to help curtail spending.
These steps will curb government spending and enable this government to reduce the deficit by $4 billion in the 1992-93 fiscal year and a further $5 billion in the 1993-94 year.
This is a budget prepared for the people of Canada. It is a budget about people, programs and services. The Minister of Finance spoke in his budget speech about an expenditure control plan that was introduced in the 1990 budget. His remarks were to reassure Canadians that this government would not be cutting services to Canadians. Instead, government departments would be offering more efficient service.
The control plan would be left in place, but it would continue to look after the highest priority programs. These areas include major social transfers such as elderly benefits, family benefits, veterans allowances and pensions, unemployment insurance benefits and certain transfers to provinces, equalization and Canada Assistance Plan transfers to equalization receiving provinces.
March 10, 1992

The many changes that have taken place in the world during the last year have made it possible for this government to alter certain areas of expenditures and internal structure within our Armed Forces.
The budget addresses the recommendations made by the defence review last September which redefines our defence policy. The budget cuts defence spending by $2.2 billion over the next five years while still providing security at home and maintaining our commitment to NATO.
These strong measures have been necessary. In this budget the Minister of Finance has used sound judgment. There are no huge giveaways and no major new initiatives to increase our debt; just good, strong, solid common sense on how to get the most benefits for our tax dollars.
This budget also promises stability and shows signs of recovery for our economy. Because we have been prudent the budget offers incentives and benefits in areas where Canadian families interact with the government.
The Minister of Finance has found ways to encourage families concerning their financial situations. He has made changes to our tax system that will ensure that Canadian taxpayers will have their personal income taxes cut through a reduction in the surtax.
This budget has provided assistance where it is most needed. Lower income families and children will benefit. There will be one monthly child benefit that will not be subject to tax. Children under the age of 18 will be eligible. The new benefit will include a new earned income supplement of up $500 per year for low income working families with children. This benefit will provide as much as $144 per month or $1,733 per year per child.
The child care expense deduction takes on a new look as it increases to $5,000 for each child under seven and $3,000 for other eligible children.
The need for a fairer and more consistent tax treatment where common law and married couples are treated the same has long been evident. The minister in this budget has found the necessary formula.
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The introduction of a home buyers plan allows Canadians to use their existing RRSPs up to $40,000 per couple to buy or build a principal residence. Some people may say it is an unwise move to use retirement money to invest in a home. I say the Minister of Finance has very wisely added some restrictions that will ensure funds initially put aside for retirement will be paid back.
The limit for lifetime capital gains exemption has been changed. It is still $100,000 but some of the rules have changed. For instance, capital gains accrued on real estate after February 1992 will no longer qualify for this exemption. Gains accrued prior to March 1992 will qualify.
Canadians should note that this restriction does not apply to real estate used in an operational business. It does not affect the $500,000 exemption for small business or qualified farm property. Principal residences will continue to be fully exempt from taxes on capital gains.
The manufacturing and processing industry has experienced a very difficult time during this economic slowdown. The budget will provide the incentive and ability needed to put this industry back on a stable footing in a very competitive marketplace through reducing the manufacturing and processing tax rate from 23 per cent to 22 per cent as of January 1, 1993 and 21 per cent as of January 1, 1994.


Catherine S. Callbeck: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member. She indicated that the budget was prepared for the people of Canada.
In this country we have 1.5 million unemployed people. The unemployment rate in my province is over 16 per cent. That is a very serious situation but it is a situation that this government has not addressed. It is not dealt with in the budget because there is simply no plan to get people back to work.
I want to ask the hon. member who as I said has indicated that the budget is prepared for the people of Canada, what hope is offered in the budget for the 1.5 million unemployed people in this country?


Louise Feltham: Mr. Speaker, in 1984, when we looked at the problems this government would encounter over the next number of years, we had to make a decision on what this government would look at as far as fiscal responsibility was concerned.

March 10, 1992
Not only did we inherit a debt of $200 billion, plus the interest that was accumulating, but we also inherited a $16 billion program for which there was no money.
Over the number of years this government has been in power we have looked at ways of reducing or eliminating the $16 billion in programs for which there was no money.
After that was done, we then looked at ways and means that we could continue to support the people of Canada with additional programs that this government felt were necessary.
Over the last few years we have looked at unemployment insurance and a number of issues to help the people who are temporarily unemployed. We have looked for ways and means whereby we could put into place responsible agencies and groups.
We have looked at how we can help small business and large business to provide jobs for the people of Canada.
I feel this budget does give a good economic stable basis for the future and this will help all Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being two o'clock, the House will now proceed to Statements pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Louis-Hebert):: Mr. Speaker, this year Health and Welfare Canada celebrated International Women's Day by paying tribute to eight native women leaders who were proposed by native women's associations and department officials.
On March 6, 1992, Health and Welfare Canada awarded certificates of merit to Bibiane Courtois, Joanne Francis, Joan Glode, Martha Greig, Jenny Mar-getts, who unfortunately is now deceased, Jacquelyne McPherson, Gail Stacey-Moore and Mary Sillett, in recognition of their contribution to better health and social conditions for Canadian women, their families and communities.


THE LATE MENACHEM BEGIN
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to note the passing of His Excellency Menachem Begin.
A pioneer of the state of Israel who rose to be its prime minister, his leadership earned the Nobel Peace Prize for securing peace along one of Israel's borders. In the event he showed flexibility and willingness to compromise for peace, which in a better world would have brought peace with all Israel's neighbours. He was a great man.
I had the pleasure and honour of receiving Mr. Begin during several of his visits to Canada, once as head of government, and of being received by him in Israel. He admired this blessed country of Canada, not least our good fortune to live so far from theatres of war.
He and his beloved wife Aliza knew little peace in life. From prison and torture in Europe they fled to Palestine with a clear Zionist vision of Israel, and they struggled to build it.
Little Israel, which in total is about the size of Lake Ontario, has produced more than its share of leaders of world stature. Menachem Begin will always be remembered as one.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, I am upset with the way the environmentalists like the International Fund for Animal Welfare have begun again to misrepresent the facts about the sealing industry and the Newfoundland fishermen.
This is much like the situation back home. Wolves and foxes in Timiskaming have become troublesome to area farmers and tourist operators. Green Peace's unrealistic solution to this threat is to neuter the animals and release them. I tell Green Peace this does nothing for the wolves' appetites.
It is just like Green Peace's solution to Newfoundland's cod stocks and the abundance of seals off the east coast. It is shameful and I say that ignorant environmentalists have done enough damage. They know nothing about resource management. They do not accept that man can use its resources.
March 10, 1992

Until greenies realize that there is room for responsible management of our fish, fur and forestry, they have no right dictating solutions to Canadians. Canada was built on these resources and there are many who still depend on their development.
We Canadians from such regions of the country have a right and should be allowed to live from the land and develop it as we have for hundreds of years.
These ads are just plain shameful.


INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S WEEK
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, recognizing that this is International Women's Week, I would like to take this opportunity to focus on Third World issues.
Women world-wide represent half the world's population but contribute two-thirds of the world's working hours and raise half of the world's food. In Africa women produce 80 per cent of the food and in Asia, 60 per cent of the food.
Women are recognized world-wide as the principal child care providers, yet in the Third World they receive only the leftovers in resources, nutrition, health and education. Inadequately provided for themselves, they are unable to nurture their exploding numbers of children properly.
Women must be allowed to be equal partners in decision making. Without adequate recognition within the Third World and donor countries of how existing systems exclude women and perpetrate the cycle of poverty and environmental degradation, our global community will be at increasing risk.
The cycle must be broken. Third World women's issues must be addressed with priority emphasis-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine.


COURT CHALLENGES PROGRAM
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Mr. Speaker, former Supreme Court Justice Madam Bertha Wilson
has written to the Minister of Justice expressing her dismay and distress over the recent cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. She goes on to say:
I have on numerous occasions publicly expressed the view that it is totally illusory to confer rights on people who do not have the means to enforce them. I saw for myself when I was a member of the Supreme Court how invaluable this program has been to minority groups and to the disadvantaged. It has clearly been well and efficiently administered and has resulted in an excellent input into many very significant 'test' cases. I am sure that my former colleagues on the Court, if asked, would confirm that view. If there is any possibility that the government's decision on the Court Challenges Program might be reversed, may I respectfully add my voice to what I am sure is a chorus of disapproval of the cancellation of this very imaginative and worthwhile program.


SENIORS
Louise Feltham: Mr. Speaker, our seniors are special people who deserve the very best we can give them.
Until 1986 the Government of Alberta provided lodges for all senior Albertans who wished to use them. There was no discrimination or means testing; everyone was treated equally.
That has now changed. Seniors must have means tests when applying for residency in a new or renovated seniors lodge. Is this short-sighted? Where will middle income seniors reside in rural areas? Will medical costs increase for those who are refused accommodation? Will nursing homes be substituted?
Lodges are essential for all seniors in rural areas. There should be no means tests or refusals. We must recognize those who contributed so much to Canada's growth.


EMISSION STANDARDS
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, on February 20, the Minister of Transport claimed Canada's new emission standards for cars would be the most rigorous in the world. This is a sham. Standards are only as good as their testing, and in this case the government is using gasoline for emission testing that is not available in Canada.

March 10, 1992
The Canadian government cross-border shops for its test fuel to get MMT-free gasoline. If it used gasoline containing MMT, Canadian automobiles would not pass the emission tests.
MMT, in addition to being a suspected health risk which has been banned in the United States since 1978 for its damaging effects on the pollution control devices of cars, boosted hydrocarbon emissions by up to 27 per cent according to the government's own testing in 1985.
Instead of waiting until 1996 to cut hydrocarbons in the lab by 29 per cent, I call on the minister now to ban MMT and cut those emissions by as much as 27 per cent.
It is time the government came clean on its emission testing standards and revealed just how bad MMT emissions really are. Faking emission testing will not help the environment; real cuts will.


SPONSORS
Mr. Marcel R. TVemblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to point out the important contribution, which unfortunately is too often overlooked, of those who support the Canadian sports community. Of course I mean the many sponsors. As much as the athletes, they deserve our sincerest thanks and congratulations.
For example, they make it possible for young soccer players to enjoy their sport on Canada's many playing fields in the summer. They help provide refreshments, equip them and transport them to sports meets outside their community. They also co-operate in many receptions to honour the most deserving players and they help leading athletes reach the top of their field. In short, they help our young people fufil their dreams and make it as far as the Olympic level.
Although they give considerable amounts, we are grateful to them much more for their deep commitment to the basic values of amateur sport. They thus help make Canada a better country in which to live.


SENIORS
Mr. Lawrence MacAuIay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, in the budget the government cut the seniors independence programs by over 22 per cent.
The Minister of State for Seniors should be well aware that the one thing seniors want the most is independence. Seniors deserve the right to live their lives as they choose and they want the government to support that objective. The Seniors Independence Program and Seniors Independence Research Program are important in meeting this objective. Seniors want to remain independent and live in their communities as long as possible.
The minister must commit the government to the independence of seniors and restore funding to these two important programs. Supporting the independence of seniors is a step in the right direction, but with these cuts the government has taken a giant step backward.
I urge the government to reverse this decision and to support seniors.


WORK PLACE SAFETY
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg IVanscona):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to the attention of the Minister of Labour a dispute that is ongoing between Labour Canada and CAW representing railway carmen. It has to do with the presence of PCBs in paint on rolling stock that carmen are being called to work on.
On numerous occasions carmen have expressed their concern about this matter. There is growing anxiety and even anger among them that Labour Canada does not appear to want to take an interest in this issue. Labour Canada does not exist to defend the interests of the CPR or the CNR. It exists to enforce existing rules and to make sure that there is such a thing as work place safety and health.
I call on the minister to take an interest in this issue by making sure that something is done about the information that has come to light about PCBs in paint on certain cars, and most recently with respect to truck sides that carmen have to work on. I hope the minister will soon do something about this and have Labour Canada live up to its mandate.
March 10, 1992


DAIRY FARMERS OF CANADA
Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, in 13 years as an MP I have never been exposed to the hypocrisy and cynicism as that practised by the leadership of the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
I refer to the TV clips and full-page newspaper ads purporting to show an existing and lovely dairy farm deteriorating into an old, abandoned dairy farm. They blame the government and its GAIT proposals.
In fact, the so-called abandoned farm in the ads is an existing but abandoned farmstead that got that way under the current supply managed system. Indeed, they hauled in the weeds to make it look worse.
The so-called existing and lovely dairy farm in the ads was the result of spending many thousands of dollars clearing out the weeds, repairing and painting the abandoned house, bam, fences, et cetera.
The deceit of the dairy leadership is an insult to Canadians in general but especially to the honest and well respected men and women who daily work long and hard hours to provide safe and healthy milk for us all. Shame on the so-called dairy leaders.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, an Ottawa business was recently denied an opportunity to air a commercial showing its concern for and support of a united Canada.
The CBC refused to air the ad, citing a policy that prohibits the advocacy of a point of view or course of action on a public issue. This is the message that Mr. Brian McGarry wanted to deliver:
Now is the time to examine, not those things which divide, but rather those things which unite us. Our common Canadian heritage makes us one of the greatest nations in the world. For nearly 125 years, Canadians have stood together through good times and bad. The task has never been easy, nor will it be in the days ahead. We must unite to ensure this family of ours stays together.
Have we really reached the point where we cannot say "I love Canada" on our national network? Is this what the government had in mind when it removed national unity from the mandate of the CBC?
I am appalled. One wonders what will become of the CBC itself if Mr. McGarry's heart-felt message is not heeded.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, the issue of the environment is one that is of increasing importance to all Canadians.
However, as our cities continue to grow and this increased urbanization creates a challenge of environmental protection, careful planning becomes essential.
From March 15 through to March 20 a conference will be held in Vancouver to discuss these vital issues. The Global Parliamentarians Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Development will attempt to analyse the inter-relationships among human settlements, environment and development with particular interest to my province of B.C.
One of the three areas of the world that the conference will be concentrating its work on will be the Vancouver to Seattle corridor. As my Delta constituents know, this is one of the fastest growing regions of the developed world. Environmental concerns are important as this region expands. Delegates from 60 to 65 nations around the globe will attend and the Canadian delegation will assume leadership.
I would like to encourage all my colleagues to attend this important conference as well as the Globe 92 conference.


REFORM PARTY
Felix Holtmann: Mr. Speaker, Reform Party members in Manitoba are like a bunch of retreaded tires. History shows what happens to retreads: They blow their side-walls, they slip their belts, and they lose their grip.
First Mr. Manning ditched four national executive retreads from Manitoba. The news in Manitoba today has blow-outs by a large number of retreads from the ridings of Winnipeg South, Winnipeg St. James and Selkirk-Red River; they have separated from the rim.

March 10,1992
Oral Questions
Now Preston Manning and his retreads are preaching to seniors to give their inheritance to the party instead of to their loved ones. This reformed tire company is on its way to the grinder. It will all end up as tar and asphalt from which it came.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring the deplorable situation faced by CNR pensioners who have suffered 30 years of non-in-dexed pensions to the attention of the House.
In 1986, a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Transport unanimously recommended, among other things, that the pension fund could and should take inflation into account. It also recommended that the surviving spouse should receive more than 50 per cent of the retiree's pension.
To date, none of the recommendations have been addressed in the spirit which the committee intended. The CN pension fund has a total value of over $7.25 billion, and yet the pensioners and their families who gave their lives to the railroad are forced to tiy to exist on pensions which are woefully inadequate.
The surviving spouses' benefits must be raised. In fact, if they were raised to the standard level, most of these widows would not have to receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement. It is time the CNR started treating its past employees and their families fairly and stopped forcing the Canadian taxpayer to subsidize CNR pensioners.


MEMBERS' EXPENSES
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, today, like thousands of other Canadians, I read Gilles Paquin's article in La Presse under the heading: "MPs and senators spend more".
For months I have been saying we could cut down on our expenses in Parliament, considering the present state of the economy, but this article confirms there has been no real attempt to cut expenses in a number of areas.
I have repeatedly suggested to the Board of Internal Economy how we could save taxpayers' money. In 19911 was the first Canadian member of Parliament to disclose my expenses, and I take pride in showing my books to the people in Abitibi. They know I have nothing to hide.
I would like the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons to send me, as soon as possible, a copy of the budget for MPs' expenses for 1992-93.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

['Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the question: "Is it okay to be a liar in this House", which the minister did not respond to.']
Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade. We have asked the government to resort to retaliatory action against unfair trade practices by the United States, following incidents involving softwood lumber, Honda cars and magnesium. Today we are told that cabinet will meet to reassess the kind of retaliatory action Canada might consider. Since cabinet is considering such action, does this mean the government admits that the agreement it negotiated is no good? Is the government admitting this agreement contains no effective remedy against unfair practices by the United States?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Tbade):: Mr. Speaker, I do not accept that at all. In fact Canada, as a result of the free trade agreement with the United States, is the only country in the world that has access to a binding dispute settlement mechanism which is better than what is available in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the GATT.
Under the GATT, countries that are found guilty of any illegal trade actions can put off taking action, can put off remedying the problem that they have been found guilty of. That is not possible under the free trade agreement. That is the benefit of the dispute settlement mechanism under the FTA. I repeat, Canada is the only country that has this.
March 10, 1992


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I can see the embarrassment of the minister. I remember very well the Prime Minister standing in this House on December 22, 1988, when talking about free trade, and saying: "We will have a genuine shield against new U.S. protectionism, whether from Congress or the administration".
If that so-called shield against U.S. protectionism is so great, why has the cabinet gone into hiding to decide if and how it will retaliate against the Americans?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the cabinet is not in hiding. The cabinet met this morning. The cabinet will meet on Thursday. The cabinet will meet a week from today to deal with the various issues of government.
As far as my hon. friend's question is concerned, do we have a shield? Yes, we do have a shield. The shield is called the binding dispute settlement mechanism which was in force. As my hon. friend recalls, last year there was a very strong push from the Americans to take action against our pork exports. We took it to the dispute settlement mechanism. We took it right to the top of that, and what happened? We won. If we did not have the free trade agreement, we could not have taken it to that dispute settlement mechanism. We would have lost and the pork farmers of Canada would have had a countervailing duty which we could not have got out of paying.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the minister tell that to Canadians who are losing their jobs, one after the other, every day. We want to know from this government when it will wake up to that reality. Will it wait until we have two million people unemployed in Canada to fight this sanction by the Americans? Never have we seen the Americans so aggressive against Canadians since you made that crazy deal with them. [DOT]


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I ask my hon. friend to go and make the statement he has just made to the pork producers of Canada. He will find that the pork producers of Canada are very pleased with the free trade agreement and the
Oral Questions
actions that this government took in defending their interests against the Americans under the free trade agreement with the binding dispute settlement mechanism.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: It's not working.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: My hon. friend says it is not working. Ask the pork producers whether it is working. They will tell you that it is working.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose a question to the same minister. The government seems to be at a total loss at finding any way of standing up for Canada on this crucial
issue.
I want to ask the minister this. Under the 1971 Employment Support Act passed by a Liberal government, federal authorities have a right to provide financial assistance directly to any industry "whose exports are subject to unfair duties and harassment by foreign countries". Considering the mess that the government made of this entire dispute by signing the softwood agreement, will the government now invoke that Employment Support Act to provide direct assistance to industries and workers so that they can maintain their employment and maintain their production? Will this government stand up for these industries and not allow another government to dictate to us what our natural resource policies should be?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, that is precisely why we terminated the memorandum of understanding on softwood lumber so that the resource policies would be established in provinces in Canada and not by Washington. That is precisely why we terminated that agreement.
My hon. friend asks are we sitting back or are we standing up for Canadian interests. We are standing up for Canadian interests. That is why we terminated the memorandum of understanding. That is why on the Honda issue we have issued two strong statements to the United States government and why we have had a series of meetings since then to try to resolve this issue. That is why in the case of the softwood lumber issue we have bound together a coalition of the provinces and the industry affected and are taking that same strong, united position.

March 10, 1992
Oral Questions
What I hear from the Liberals on the other side is that they do not want to see a united position. They want to see the whole matter collapse so that we will not win, but we are determined to beat this one.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, what this government seems to be trying to say is that the mess it has created it is now trying to mop up. The victims of that will be the workers in the softwood lumber industry who will have to pay the price with the loss of their jobs.
I want to ask the minister again: Will he listen carefully, rather than flying off on his own direction? There is an act under the federal statutes, the Employment Support Act, which gives this government the right to provide direct financial assistance to help industries pay bonds, to keep workers on the job, to provide financial assistance while we go through this dispute.
If the minister wants to stand up for Canada and its workers, is he prepared to invoke that act and use the authority he has to defend our rights as a sovereign country?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes, I am aware of that act and yes, that is an option we can use. But that is only a very small part of the battle that we are taking on this to the United States.
We are dealing with it, as far as the industry and the provinces are concerned, in the broadest possible way to ensure that a strong, united Canadian position is put forward to the United States administration and dealing with the efforts of the Prime Minister in speaking directly to the president.
I do not recall one time when the former Prime Minister who was sitting here, Mr. Trudeau, ever picked up the phone and dealt with the President of the United States in dealing with any trade issues.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. It is clearer every day that people see what a bad deal this Canada-U.S. trade deal has been for all sectors of the economy.
I want to quote the comment of a former deputy chief negotiator for the trade deal who said that the trade deal was based on two principles, that the trade barriers would come down and the trade barriers would not be
put up again in a capricious manner. The former deputy chief negotiator said that both of these principles have been broken by the United States and that "Canada is being treated significantly worse than other trading partners". Despite what the minister wants to say, Canada is getting the bad end of a bad deal. I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister if the government will finally admit that the deal is a failure, that we want fair trade with the United States, scrap the Canada-U.S. trade deal, pull out of the NAFTA talks and send a real message to the United States about where Canada stands.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not quite understand the Leader of the New Democratic Party. Exports are up since 1988, the year before the free trade agreement came in. Our trade surplus is up. The net investment flows into Canada are up all of them helping to increase economic activity in Canada over what it would have been if we did not have the free trade agreement.
Now I hear my hon. friend saying she does not want to have the free trade agreement. She is saying that, I presume, under the full understanding that if we do not have the free trade agreement, we do not have the dispute settlement mechanism. If we get a decision on the countervailing duty on the softwood lumber, that is it, there is no further appeal. With the free trade agreement we have that further appeal. We have the option to go to the dispute settlement mechanism as we did with the pork countervail action. We were successful there and we are going to be successful in the softwood lumber issue as well.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: The minister talks about dispute mechanisms around the softwood lumber issues. As he knows, we were involved in a dispute mechanism settlement with GATT from which this government withdrew in favour of the Canada-U.S. trade deal. Canadians want to know why this government has not shown one thing resulting from this Canada-U.S. trade deal other than high unemployment, a high dollar, a high interest rate for Canadians.
Will the government stand up for Canadians? Will the government stand up for fair trade, withdraw from the NAFTA talks and send a real message to the United States?
March 10, 1992


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I heard two things from the member for Yukon. One, she is saying in 1986 we withdrew from a settlement. In 1986 we did not have the dispute settlement mechanism. We have that now so we now have some protection, protection that no other country has. The GATT does not provide the same sort of protection. The GATT is not a binding settlement mechanism.
I think I heard her say that we withdrew from the GATT. We did not withdraw from the GATT, but the GATT dispute settlement system does not provide us with anything like the protection that the dispute settlement mechanism does for Canada in the free trade agreement with the United States.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: The protection seems to be protection of the unemployed, if we talk to a million and a half Canadians and all of those people in manufacturing industries.

Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Yesterday, in referring to Mexico, the Prime Minister said that a trade agreement was a healthy way to develop a country. Today, however, it is reported that in areas where a free trade agreement already exists, such as the Maquiladora zone, many babies are bom with serious defects as a result of environmental conditions.
How can the Deputy Prime Minister and his government believe this kind of horrific situation can contribute to the development of a country?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, together with the Prime Minister, I had a chance last week to meet the mayor of Mexico and also the minister responsible for the environment in Mexico. The Leader of the New Democratic Party should know that they have substantially increased spending in this area in recent years and that President Salinas' administration has been extraordinary in its efforts to catch up in terms of what they need in the way of environmental regulations and enforcement of these regulations.
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What we must not forget here is that a country also has to trade with other countries if it wants a prosperous economy. I think we should avoid being paternalistic and giving the impression that if they do business with other developing countries, they will not be as effective as we are on environmental issues.
In fact, the opposite is true. Actually Mexicans feel rather insulted when we try to convince them that where the environment is concerned, their standards and concerns are not as impressive as our own, because that is not the case.


Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade. By taking retaliatory action against the softwood lumber industry in Canada, the U.S. government is interfering in Canada's domestic affairs. This kind of provocation and attempt to undermine Canadian sovereignty cannot be allowed to go unanswered because next year the industry will lose about $430 million.
How does the minister intend to help plant owners who may have to close down and 1,000 employees who stand to lose their jobs?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, putting our trade in softwood lumber on a normal trade basis with the United States is the best thing we can do for the softwood lumber industry. That is precisely why we terminated the softwood lumber memorandum of understanding.
The United States has responded with this countervail action. We have demonstrated we are going to fight to the very best of our ability, using all the tools at our disposal, using the resources of the industry and the provinces as well as the federal government. As well we have friends in the United States who support the position of the Government of Canada.
That is the best thing we can do to maintain our rights as a sovereign nation, through the provinces with their forest management practices to maintain their sover-

March 10, 1992
Oral Questions
eignty to manage those resources in the way they think best without having to deal with Washington.


Réginald Bélair: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian lumber industry has and is being held hostage by American domestic politics of protectionism. Thousands of jobs have been lost and more will be lost later.
Given that it is going to take more than a year to settle the issue, does the minister have a financial plan since there is nothing in the new budget to provide help for the owners and the workers who have lost their jobs?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend and I are on the same wave length. We both disagree with the action the United States has-taken and we are going to defend the interests of Canada as much as we possibly can, and that is going to help softwood lumber workers.
We also point out to the United States that it is shooting itself in the foot. On the one hand it is trying to get its housing industry going by taking measures to encourage people to buy houses. On the other hand it is encouraging the price of lumber to go up with this action on softwood lumber that is increasing the cost of a house. We are taking that message to the United States as well, as we continue the actions against the countervailing duty. We are going to win this and that is the best thing we can do for softwood lumber workers in Canada.
* *



Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, since the Prime Minister is not here, I will direct my question to the Minister of Transport who is responsible for the Montreal region.
According to a document from the Quebec Department of Labour and Income Security, the Montreal region is in such decline that one adult in two does not work and the number of welfare recipients has almost doubled recently.
Will the minister ask the Prime Minister to personally look into this matter, before Montreal becomes another Schefferville?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of TVansport):: Mr. Speaker, one thing Montrealers know is that this government will never behave like the Liberal government of the time and intervene in the middle of the night, through the Senate, to pass legislation preventing Montreal industries from expanding.
Since it was elected, this government has paid a lot more attention to the interests of Montrealers than the previous Liberal government did, and it has invested in industries of the future such as pharmaceuticals, aerospace and aviation. Those industries create the jobs of the future, whereas all the time the Liberal Party was in power there was even more unemployment than now in Montreal.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, greater Montreal provides almost half of the jobs in Quebec. When will the minister take his responsibilities seriously to truly give hope to Montreal and create jobs in that city before it becomes a ghost town?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, all the studies that were done on Montreal indicate absolutely that one thing must be provided in Montreal, that is more training and retraining for workers. Montrealers remember very well that the members opposite prevented large sums of money from being made available for those purposes by opposing Bill C-21, not only in the House of Commons but also in the Senate. That legislation now enables us to provide the necessary funds to address this fundamental problem of training and retraining workers.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.
As the minister is aware, world-wide ozone depletion means increased cases of skin cancer, immune disorders and also cataracts. It also has terrifying effects on the marine food chain.
In light of European actions on this issue and President Bush's commitment to ban the production and consumption of CFCs by 1995, will the minister today announce that Canada will also implement a ban by 1995?
March 10,1992


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, we have already indicated several times that Canada has been ahead of the issue as far as ozone depletion is concerned.
In fact, we announced last August through the green plan that we were committing $25 million to the construction of new research facilities in northern Canada and accelerating our regulatory regime.
I will be meeting next week with the ministers of the provinces at the Canadian Council of the Ministers of the Environment. We will examine this issue and hope to make some announcements then.
I do want to point out that by 1995, 85 per cent of CFCs in this country will have been phased out. We are looking at doing whatever we can to be able to go faster.


Lynn Hunter: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
In light of those meetings next week, will the minister make some provision for recycling and recovery? In committee he has made some indication that his provincial counterparts were primarily responsible for that role.
Would he be prepared to indicate that in those discussions he will provide the funds to enable them to do that?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, there has been some work done for a national action plan for recovery, recycling and reclamation of chlorofluorocarbons.
This work has been prepared by a federal-provincial working group. We hope it will have completed its work on time so that it can report to the ministers next week. We can potentially make some announcements then.
I should also stress that it is not only in Canada where we have to concentrate our efforts in this area. I would like to remind the member that we contribute to 2 per cent of the problem, but we certainly seem to bear more than 2 per cent of the consequences. We also intend to be active on the international front on this issue.
Oral Questions


COURT CHALLENGES PROGRAM
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
In 1989 in a report on the Court Challenges Program, the Standing Committee on Human Rights said: "The virtually unanimous verdict of witnesses who appeared before the committee is that the reasons for continuation are not merely sufficient but compelling".
The report concluded: "The Court Challenges Program makes the critical difference between access to charter rights and no access".
I want to know why the government cancelled this vital program. Why will the minister not say today that he is prepared to reinstate this program immediately?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is fair to say that over the years the government did finance the Court Challenges Program and participated in several very important law decisions.
We think that now is the time for other levels of government, the Canadian bar and other non-governmental bodies, to which most of the current court challenges pertain, to take a hand and participate in the funding of these matters.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, nothing the government has done in cancelling this program is fair. This program costs $2 million. The government, this year alone, has increased the litigation budget of the Department of Justice by $16 million.
The government is saying: "It is fair for the government to defend its policies and defend itself, but disadvantaged Canadians have no right to access the charter to defend their rights".


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Why is the government not prepared to use some objectivity and common sense and allow disadvantaged Canadians access to our justice system and reinstate this program?

March 10, 1992
Oral Questions


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. friend's concern in this particular matter. I can do no more than reiterate the comments I made.
The program, we feel, has come to an end as far as this level of government is concerned. It has served the purpose and we think it is up to other groups to come forward at this time to participate in the program.


CHILD POVERTY
Ms. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the minister responsible for children, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister.
This government's thwarted scheme to deindex seniors' pensions is still fresh in the minds of Canadians. Today the same hour-glass approach to cutting child benefits will push the poorest of Canadian children deeper into poverty and despair with each passing year.
I ask the minister why this government has betrayed Canadian children by allowing their futures to decay by 3 per cent every year?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, must I repeat for this House that we believe that children represent the future of our country and that through the budget which was tabled and on which we will vote tomorrow, we are helping families who need social and economic assistance, particularly one-parent families who need additional help.
Too often we forget to mention that this budget contains increased benefits for families and children and that day care services will be maintained through other programs and existing measures. We are working in that direction by way of the budget and of the last social measures.


Albina Guarnieri: Mr. Speaker, Canadian children know the difference between trick and treat.
The net child benefits for an average income family are worth barely half of what they were seven years ago. These families are teaching their children to be aware of false promises and sacred trusts.
I ask the minister why her government has deprived Canada's children to hide the cost of Tory fiscal failure?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, when speaking about social measures we often tend to think in terms of winners and losers. I would simply like to say that low and middle income families will be winners, thanks to the social and fiscal programs we created for families. Single parents will also be winners.
I maintain it is by reducing the debt and the deficit we inherited in 1984 that we as a government and as a society will succeed in taking on that responsibility and in preparing the future within the context of a healthy economy.


CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING
Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works and it concerns the government policy of cross-border shopping.
The minister will know that Canadian customs uniforms are not purchased in Canada and that various government departments use postal services other than Canada Post. This practice has hit home in our own Parliament Buildings where a Canadian carpet supplier was actually excluded in favour of an American supplier.
Does the minister endorse this practice in the proposed $200 million renovation slated for the Parliament Buildings over the next 10 years? Will he ensure that whenever possible every nail, every litre of paint, every
March 10, 1992

stick of furniture and every piece of carpet will be made in Canada? If we cannot protect our Canadian interests in our Parliament Buildings where can we protect them?


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. Certainly I agree with the proposition he has put forward.
I understand from my colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, that the uniforms to which he referred was an experimental or a pilot project. Basically the uniforms are purchased here in Canada.
He talked about a carpet. That was really the option of the contractor. It had nothing to do with the specifications from Public Works. I certainly endorse the policy he has put forward and I would be glad to work with him on it.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also about cross-border shopping, and I guess it is appropriate to address this one to the minister of energy.
What is the government's reaction to the fact that Petro-Canada, the Canadian company, the company for Canadians, our company, the one with the big maple leaf normally on its trucks as its logo, has sneaked a truck across the border from Windsor to Detroit to buy cheap American gas to bring it back and sell it in Canada? What is the government's reaction to that kind of cross-border shopping?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member makes an interesting point. As I have told him before in the House, Petro-Canada markets in the marketplace as a company. I do not answer for it on every point. In fact even as a privatized company it has a board of directors that now makes that decision.
I say to the hon. member that I am sure he would not mind that gas coming across the border so he could use it in his car, which I understand was not made in this country either.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


DENISON MINES
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Tomorrow Denison Mines in Elliot Lake is shutting
Oral Questions
down its uranium mining operation there, which will result in the lay-off of almost 1,000 workers.
What new provisions is the minister prepared to make to provide employment for these workers? The budget seemed to provide very little in this regard. I want to know what he is prepared to do to provide jobs for this community that has lost almost 85 per cent of its mining jobs.


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am ready to work with the community in question and make available to it all the benefits of the different programs that exist under Employment and Immigration.
I know this is a serious blow to that community. I am ready to work with the hon. member and officials of my department are ready to sit down with those people to see how we can help them adjust to the situation in question.


ATOMIC ENERGY CONTROL BOARD
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. A week ago the Atomic Energy Control Board announced that it would be shutting down its office in Elliot Lake, Ontario.
I want to ask the minister how this can be justified. We have an operating uranium mine. We have a uranium refinery. We have three mines which are to be safely decommissioned. How can the minister justify having the control board pull its office and its monitoring facilities out of that community at a time when they are desperately needed? How can he justify that? How can he justify having this control board, the regulatory agency, act so irresponsibly at this time?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's concern for his community and for Elliot Lake and the changes that have taken place there. He and I have discussed many times the downturn in the uranium industry in Elliot Lake and the Ontario Hydro purchases that were based on long-term contracts.
In respect to the AECB moving out, there were four people at the AECB office in Elliot Lake. The major work is in Saskatchewan and that is where I believe three of the four people will now be placed.

March 10,1992
Oral Questions
The second point on decommissioning and nuclear waste, that has not been done by AECB at offices such as that. It has always been done from the Ottawa office. It will be done from that office which is not different from what it was for Denison and Elliot Lake or any other decommissioning including places like Port Hope.


CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY
Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
In the recent budget cuts, Canadians will lose an invaluable source of independent thought on foreign policy, the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security. The finance minister says that the institute's mandate can be carried out by the Department of External Affairs.
I would like to ask the minister: How can the Department of External Affairs possibly carry out the work of the institute and still be able to maintain its independence?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as we were going through some of the things in our department that we felt were to some extent duplications of things that were going on, the Canadian Institute was one of them even though we recognize the high calibre of some of the work it has done.
First of all it will take some time to phase out the agency. As we do that, we will be discussing with them the kinds of things we can do inside the department and indeed the services we can buy from others as well. We did feel we did not need an entire permanent agency to do the kind of work it was doing.


Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
Being as a new world order is emerging, the international community is in a state of flux and many areas of the world are embroiled in conflict. Canada's security is always a top priority. How can the government justify the
elimination of its only source of independent advice on foreign policy?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the institute is hardly our only source of independent advice. We do get advice from both inside the department and from a number of institutions in Canada and around the world.
We will continue to seek the broadest possible consultation in terms of developing our policies and the kinds of things that we should be doing within what is indeed, as the hon. member has said, quite a changed international environment.
I would hate to think that our capacity to develop foreign policy was based solely on one institute, because I do not think it is.


CHILD POVERTY
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Today an independent study of the government's proposed child benefit system points out that the benefits for all low income families will be reduced through inflation by 27 per cent over the next eight years. Over one million Canadian children are poor and will become even poorer with this government program.
Can the minister explain to the House how this honours the government's commitment to reduce child poverty by the year 2000, which it made in this House, and how it also honours Canada's international obligation to recognize the right of every child to an adequate standard of living?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, I think that it is important to repeat that the new benefit replaces a child benefit system that was already partly indexed. This means, I maintain, that with the new measure we brought in with the last budget, every parent who really needs help will come out ahead because we recognize, of course, the need to set up different models.


March 10, 1992

We had priorities to put in place. As a government we chose to help families in the greatest need, while maintaining our social programs for child care services.


NUCLEAR VESSELS
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
KRBD-FM radio station from Ketchikan has publicly broadcast a notice to mariners during the past hour that a Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine is about to enter Alaskan waters from Dixon Entrance, sovereign internal Canadian waters.
Would the minister explain why Canadian officials have known about the presence of the nuclear American submarine inside Canada since Sunday and have made no effort whatsoever to notify Canadian mariners?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows very well what is in place in order to protect Canadian fishing boats in what was an agreement that we signed with the Americans regarding their travel through Dixon Entrance. This is a genuine dispute. We regard the waters as ours. They regard them as theirs. He knows that.
We continue to maintain that as a result of our own sovereignty considerations we have a good deal with the Americans whereby we are provided with warning. The issue remains as it has in the past. We will continue to monitor what is happening with the American ships.


GROSS REVENUE INSURANCE PROGRAM
Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: Mr. Speaker, my question for the Minister of Agriculture concerns the gross revenue insurance plan which has been effective, predictable and bankable: effective because it is based on individual and not regional considerations, predictable and bankable because support is calculated in the spring before seeding.
Given the fact that it is now March 10, given the fact that seeding is just around the comer, and given the fact that western producers need to know what their target revenue per hectare is, can the minister indicate when
Oral Questions
there will be an announcement as to what the price guarantees will be under the gross revenue insurance program?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asks an important question. As he said, farmers wanted predictability. They wanted individual coverage. They wanted to be bankable in the use of their GRIP.
A new government has been elected in the province of Saskatchewan. It is looking at changing the GRIP. It will not provide at the same level those aspects of predictability and bankability.
Although it is important to note that the national signatory committee recognized these changes as being significant, there would be need for an amendment to the national program. That can be done per formula. The Government of Canada would not stand in the way of the Government of Saskatchewan in attaining this.


HOUSING
René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago in the budget the Minister of Finance announced a program to use RRSPs in the purchase of homes. It has been brought to my attention that because of regulations in RRSPs it may not be possible for people to access their funds before they close the purchase of their homes.
Is the minister aware of this particular problem, and are there some steps that can be taken to alleviate this problem?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for bringing this matter to my attention. I can advise him that the rules will allow RRSP withdrawals to take place for up to 30 days after the closing of a purchase of a home.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister in charge of FEDNOR. In 1987 this government recognized regional development with a program called FEDNOR. At the end of March of this year it comes to an end.

March 10, 1992
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Can the minister tell this House and many constituents in northern Ontario whether or not this program will be brought back in as FEDNOR II?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend, the member for Timiskaming, who perhaps more than anybody in this House has worked for the amelioration of economic conditions in northern Ontario.
FEDNOR has created over 3,000 jobs. In the years since it has been established over 350 companies have been established. I think there is tremendous support for this program to be renewed. It is presently being examined by the government.
This House knows that I have received over 200 letters from reeves and mayors right across northern Ontario hoping this will be renewed. I am confident that it will be, but we are not ready to announce it yet.


ALTERNATIVE FUELS
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton -Peel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of energy. Last month's federal budget removed the federal excise tax on ethanol and methanol in blended gasolines and a meeting in Ottawa today of industry and agricultural leaders applauded that. But there is concern that alternative fuels imported from the United States sold here could get the same preferential tax treatment as Canadian made fuels.
What assurance can the minister give that this tax break will apply only to these alternative fuels which are produced in Canada to the benefit of Canadians?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, the member has been meeting with a number of people who are interested in the ethanol business. I had an opportunity to meet with people in Williams Lake recently on using wood fibres, so I am pleased with the interest.
The words in the budget are veiy clear, and that is we want to build an indigenous Canadian ethanol industry. That is our purpose.


IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. During the past week we learned that the Immigration and Refugee Board was rife with mismanagement and scandal: unwarranted pressure applied to board members, gross misbehaviour by other board members, judgments prepared in advance before a case is heard.
Canadians are fed up with this situation and are requesting an independent public inquiry. I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister if he will do the right thing and order such an inquiry today.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I will not comment on the objectives in the question of the hon. member. All I will say is that Canada's refugee determination system is well recognized as one of the fairest and most generous in the whole world.
As chairman of the Immigration and Refugee Board Mr. Fairweather is responsible for the board's operation. He has taken some actions of which I fully approve. I have talked to the gentleman. He has the situation well in hand. He is just as concerned about Canada's reputation of giving refuge to genuine claimants as the hon. member is.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, that is not enough. The public wants to know how deep and how extensive this mess is in the board. They want to know how many people have been unfairly treated by that board and how many cases must be reheard.
You are the minister responsible. I ask you once again-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member knows that his question became out of order before it was finished.


PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Gordon Bilney, Minister of Defence, Science and Personnel of Australia.
March 10, 1992


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I believe during Question Period one of our colleagues opposite, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, was given the opportunity to pose a question of a minister of the Crown. I believe this is in breach of the Standing Orders.
In bringing this to the attention of the Chair, I am wondering if the Chair will vigorously enforce the rules and not allow this to happen again, nor to allow this to be a precedent in the future.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond raises a matter which I hope would not occur again. It was an oversight. It has been well established in the House-


Some hon. members:: No, no.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. parliamentary secretary seeking the floor?


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I want to express a couple of thoughts on this. First of all, I think there is a longstanding tradition of the House that parliamentary secretaries do not ask questions of the minister or the ministry for which they have a responsibility.
However, if one looks at Beauchesne's there is clearly room for a parliamentary secretary from time to time to act as a member responsible for a particular constituency which he or she represents and therefore should have the opportunity from time to time to ask a question.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, clearly the hon. member opposite has it wrong. When one is appointed as a parliamentary secretary one takes an oath of secrecy for that department and also for all other agencies of the Government of Canada.
If the hon. member in question who is a diligent member of this House wishes to raise a particular concern affecting his constituency, he has the opportuni-
Point of Order
ty to do that in other avenues, whether that be in caucus or whether that be under the provisions of Standing Order 31.
However, I suggest the hon. member does not have the right as a parliamentary secretary to pose questions on the floor of the House of Commons to ministers of the Crown. That right is for members of the opposition and for members on the government side. We are seeing, all too frequently, too many members on the opposite sides given the opportunity to pose questions to the detriment of this side.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond has raised a point relating to a parliamentary secretary asking a question. The hon. parliamentary secretary, speaking for the government, says that there is authority in Beauchesne that would permit the parliamentary secretary to raise a question if it relates to his own particular riding. I will consider that and I will reply as soon as I can to the House.
The general rule though is set out in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, page 122, paragraph 413 under "Questions by Parliamentary Secretaries":
413. Those such as Parliamentary Secretaries who are clothed with
the responsibility of answering for the Government ought not to use
the time of the Question Period for the privilege of asking questions
of the Government.
With respect to the matter raised by the hon. parliamentary secretary, I will consider it and I will return to the House.
I am now in some difficulty. I know that there are some points of order. We also have some questions of privilege which take precedence over them.
I think we should turn to a question of privilege of which I was given notice by the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.


Mr. Boudria:: Mr. Speaker, I gave notice yesterday-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Winnipeg Transco-na is rising on a point of order. I thought I had suggested to the House that I should take the questions of privilege, which come before points of order. I wonder if the hon. member could wait until I can get to it.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: On a point of order.

March 10, 1992
Privilege


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member could give me some idea of what the point of order is. Is it something that should be dealt with before a question of privilege?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Is the Speaker intending to provide another opportunity for interventions to be made on the matter having to do-


Mr. Speaker:: I have said that I am going to consider the matter and I will return to the House. I am not hearing any further argument on it. I will return to the House. There will be opportunity to argue it further at that time, when it is appropriate and convenient.


An hon. member:: On a point of order-


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member is rising on the point of order raised by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, that matter is going to be dealt with and I will return to the House.
If the hon. member is rising on another point of order, I would ask that he wait until I have finished with the questions of privilege.


PRIVILEGE
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, as you have previously indicated, I gave notice some time ago to the Chair through the Clerk's office that I had the intention of rising on a question of privilege today.
Very briefly, the question of privilege that I want to bring to your attention is in regard to actions on the part of the government which prevent me from doing my job as a member of Parliament.
You will know from pages 70 and 71 of Erskine May's 20th edition, parliamentary privilege is defined as being those privileges and rights that are absolutely necessary for the House to execute its power. The same privileges are enjoyed by members individually.
That is the point I want to bring to your attention very briefly.
Standing Order 39(4) of the House says that members can place up to four Order Paper questions at one time.
The point I want to make to you is that the government is systematically not answering questions that I place on the Order Paper. By not answering the questions that are there, I am unable to ask new questions.
In other words, once the Order Paper is plugged up with four questions, new questions cannot be asked.
I will give you an example. Question No. 113 was placed on the Order Paper on September 18 and was answered last week, the last days of February. There is another question on the Order Paper, No. Ill, that dates back to September 16, 1991. There is an indication that all of these questions must be responded to within 45 days. It is now four months since that question was put on the Order Paper and the government refuses to answer it. If the government will not answer these questions, Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that I am unable to ask new questions and unable to ask more questions on behalf of my constituents who have sent me here.
If you deem that this is a prima facie point of privilege, I would move the appropriate motion to refer the matter to a parliamentary committee. I would hope, more than anything else, that the government would just obey the Standing Orders, respond to the questions within 45 days so that all of us as parliamentarians can do the job that the people of this country sent us here to do.


John V. Nunziata: Let's hear your weak response now.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I do want to take a couple of moments to intervene on this point of privilege.
I want to begin by saying that the hon. member does not have a point of privilege. He may have a complaint. He may have some concerns. But I believe-


Ms. Copps:: Are you the Speaker now? Make your submission; you are not the Speaker.


Albert Glen Cooper: No, I am not the Speaker but I believe I am entitled to express the opinion I have just expressed. I do not believe he has a point of privilege.
March 10,1992

I do want to suggest that one of the difficulties that comes up from time to time in this House relating to questions is that we do have the 45-day limit. We understand that and certainly I can say from this side of the House that we try as much as possible to meet those deadlines.
However, from time to time there are questions that are very difficult to answer in that time frame. I am referring specifically to those information requests that seek information from all departments or agencies. It takes a great deal of time, money, energy and effort in order to achieve an answer within the 45-day period.
I understand the hon. member's frustration. That is why we put in place Standing Order 39(5)(a) and (5)(b) on recent changes to the rule. Standing Order 39(5)(a) says:
A Member may request that the Ministry respond to a specified question within forty-five days by so indicating when filing his or her question.
That of course is what my hon. friend is referring to. However, subsection (b) says:
If such a question remains unanswered at the expiration of the said period of forty-five days, the Member who put the question may rise in the House under "Questions on Order Paper", and give notice that he or she intends to transfer the question and raise the subject-matter thereof on the adjournment of the House.
In other words, I understand the hon. member's frustration when he asked four questions which have plugged up his opportunity to put questions in place. He too has an option, a way that he can relieve that pressure by raising the issue, not shoving it under the carpet, at the latter part of the day and having that issue dealt with here in the House of Commons.
I understand his frustration. If my memory serves me right, I answered Question No. 110 this morning, which was another question that was put by the hon. member. It was a little late, I agree. We have tried as much as we could to meet the concerns of the hon. member and that is why that question was answered today.
In summary, I do not believe that the hon. member has a point of privilege. He has another option which is very clear under our Standing Orders. I would encourage him, when we are unable to meet the deadline, to feel free to transfer it for debate and we will be happy to co-operate.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, very quickly, I just want to indicate to you that it is true that a Standing Order is
Privilege
breached. That does not mean that it is a point of order. When a Standing Order is breached in such a way that it prevents me from doing my work as a member of Parliament, I submit that I do have a point of privilege.
Furthermore, the answer that the parliamentary secretary gave is that I had the option, when I did not get an answer after 45 days, of basically withdrawing the question, as the member for Hamilton East has said, with a seven-minute debate.
That is not the point. I am entitled to get an answer, and the rules do not provide a way for the government to weasel out or not to provide an answer. The rules are clear: the government must answer. Nothing in the rules say that the government has the option of not answering. It is not there. That is why it is important for us as parliamentarians to have this rule followed.
Here is the question I have been asking since September 16, just to give an example of how easy the question would be to answer within a period of time. I have asked for the hospitality budgets of each deputy minister. There are only 35 of them. How long could it possibly take to give that answer? It might take 15 minutes, it might take half an hour, but certainly not five months.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that when this rule was brought in, the rule of the 45-day limit, the understanding was that in return for allowing only four questions to be on the Order Paper at any given time there would be this guarantee of an answer in 45 days.
The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader knows that and it is not enough to get up and give excuses. These questions are not being asked by anybody. These questions are being asked by members of Parliament who are elected to ask these questions and the government is bound by the Standing Orders to answer those questions within the prescribed time set in the Standing Orders.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that you should find that it is your responsibility and the House's responsibility to make the government follow the Standing Orders in this case, and no excuses allowed.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, having been part of the discussions in prior incarnations as a Whip and as a House leader of this party, I just want to recall an incident that I think is useful.

March 10, 1992
Privilege
I think both parties are right. There is a request for the government to answer questions and there is a 45-day limit. By putting this in the late show or the adjournment debate we tried to find a solution to the problem because the problem is that we have no way of enforcing this request for the 45-day limit.
There is no sanction on the government if it does not answer the question. That is the problem. There is no way the opposition parties or any backbencher can force the government to answer the question, short of asking the government to be willingly co-operative in giving us an answer to the questions that are asked. If the government does not do that, of course we have no recourse; we have no way of forcing it to answer.
I say to hon. members that it is our responsibility, not the Speaker's responsibility, to put in those Standing Orders a sanction which would be applied to the government if it did not answer the questions. The 45-day limit plus the debate on the late show was some form of public acknowledgement that there was indeed an injustice being done here.


Mr. Speaker:: I have listened very carefully to the point made by the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott- Russell, also the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona, and frankly his intervention is helpful because it gives us some history of what led to the present situation.
I have listened carefully to the hon. parliamentary secretary as well as to the hon. member for Ottawa- Vanier, a member of some experience.
There is a problem clearly in the situation we face. It probably ought to be addressed, because as the parliamentary secretary for the government speaking on behalf of the government, has said, he can understand the frustration of an hon. member putting the question. The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona said that it was the duty of members of Parliament to put these questions, and I must say I do not find too much difficulty being persuaded that the government "ought" to make the answers available.
On the other hand, the hon. parliamentary secretary has indicated that sometimes that could be difficult to do. As has been pointed out again by the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, within the rules there is no sanction that either the Speaker is given to impose or that is available to the House.
I think it is a matter that clearly needs to be addressed. However, I think it is more a point of order than it is a question of privilege. I think it is a serious matter. I think the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell was certainly acting in a completely appropriate way in raising it for the consideration of the House.
I must move on to a question of privilege. The hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair has a question of privilege.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, during Question Period I addressed a question to the minister of energy. What might be described as the substantive answer to the question, I am sure, will be judged by those who read Hansard and I think will be judged severely. However, that was not enough.
In responding to that question, the hon. minister uttered an untruth with such sanctimonious confidence that some are likely to believe it. I have therefore passed along to the minister of energy a copy of the registration of my vehicle which is a Thunderbird Super Coupe that goes from zero to 100 kilometres in 7.2 seconds, lliat is a North American characteristic. I had that car last year. I had a Thunderbird the year before that and a Thunder-bird before that. I would only ask that the minister of energy inform himself better on the practices of Petro-Canada and his responsibilities and, if he has the curiosity to know it all, that he become better advised on the kinds of cars all members of this House might drive, including those on his side of the House.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is offended, I am willing to withdraw. I just know that one thing happens. I watch on the Hill and so often his colleagues get up in high dudgeon in this House and argue about cross-border shopping. When I take a look at what they drive, they are not helping their union brothers and sisters.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that those who are watching this on television are not going to be impressed with that kind of nonsense. I hope they are not. I posed a straightforward question to the minister which he could not answer. He was no more capable of answering that question than he was able to distinguish between fusion and fission. I wish that he would fuse
March 10, 1992

something to his present knowledge so he will not engage in these kinds of sordid activities in the House and would, in the future, respond to questions reasonably.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. minister rising to add something to this exchange?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I do not mind this exchange one little bit. I simply say to the hon. member he is willing always to dish it out and expects it to be accepted and so-


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Does that make it okay to be a liar?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: So when we dish it back-


Mr. Speaker:: I took what the minister said a few minutes ago to be a withdrawal of anything that may have offended the hon. member.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The House heard the exchange that the hon. member just made and I would ask him to withdraw it.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for York South- Weston on this same point. I am wondering if there is any need for the hon. member to intervene. The minister has made it very clear he has withdrawn.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I was inaccurate. I withdrew it. The comment he just finished making is unparliamentary. A number of members in the House heard it and I ask him to withdraw it.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister has just addressed the Chair and said that some remark which the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair made, not at the time when the hon. member was recognized but made it anyway, was unparliamentary and has asked that the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair withdraw the remark.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, what I said and what the minister heard was my question and only a question: "Is it okay to be a liar in Parliament?" Surely that is not-


Mr. Speaker:: If the suggestion the hon. member is making by way of rhetorical question is that the hon. minister is lying, that is improper and the hon. member should withdraw it.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, as you will recall, the hon. minister said that we could not take it and if he cannot take it-
Privilege


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. I am asking the hon. member to support the rules and conventions of the House. That kind of remark, whether it is in a preliminary, a preamble or in a question which leads to the only implication one could take is that it is being suggested that one member or another is lying, is improper. The hon. member knows that and I would ask him to support the conventions of the House and withdraw it.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I abundantly support the conventions in this House. If you will recall, I will repeat, the minister said that we could not take it and I said: "Is it okay to be a liar as well?"


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. The hon. member has an option. The hon. member can stay in defiance of the request of the Chair to withdraw a statement which, in my opinion, went too far. The hon. member knows what his duty and obligation are. They are to withdraw it. If the hon. member wants to have a row somewhere else with the minister, then go somewhere else and have it.
In the meantime, the hon. member's obligation is to withdraw.
The Chair has asked the hon. member for Windsor- St. Clair to withdraw the remark.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the question: "Is it okay to be a liar in this House", which the minister did not respond to.



['The position we are in is that for the second day and as a consequence of very close consideration of the matter, the hon. member has twice now applied. I have said that I was not disposed this afternoon to order an emergency debate. I made it very clear yesterday that it might not mean it would not be ordered at some other time.\nHowever, we have an indication now from the House that there is probably a very real possibility of a discussion between House leaders. That is what the parliamentary secretary speaking for the government has indicated. Others have indicated their receptivity to that discussion.\nI do not think it would be appropriate for the Speaker to intervene in that discussion at all. That discussion should take place and then we will see where we go from there.']
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I was trying to rise on this same point of privilege, but I understand it has now been concluded.
I also enter my own point of privilege. When I was trying to rise at an earlier time, you said you were going to come back to the House vis-a-vis the question of whether parliamentary secretaries can ask questions in this House.
The point of privilege I am rising on is that I tried to be recognized in conformity with the tradition in this House that before you set a matter aside, you hear from all three parties. I was rising to speak on behalf of my party as our deputy House leader to that point of order before you set it aside. I could not seem to get recognized and I

March 10,1992
would like to know if there has been a change in the policy of hearing from all three parties before you take matters under further consideration, because that is what I was trying to do.


Mr. Speaker:: First of all I want to say to the hon. member that under no circumstances would the Chair deliberately preclude the hon. member from rising on a matter. I asked several times. The transcript may assist us in this but I do not think there is any need to go into it. I was having some difficulty understanding exactly on what point the hon. member was rising and I got divided versions on it. At least that was my interpretation.
I then said: Look, I have heard this issue. I am going to consider it. I am going to come back to the House. I thought I made it clear that I will hear further argument if it is appropriate to do so and, of course, I will. I would be very pleased to hear the hon. member at that time.
I have also a notice from the hon. member for Winnipeg-Transcona on a question of privilege. That is what I am trying to get to now.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, we are just not communicating today. My point of privilege is that you did not recognize me earlier when you should have.


Mr. Speaker:: First of all, I am not at all sure that is a point of privilege. Second, that can sometimes happen to members in the House. We all know that. In any event, I am saying to the hon. member that he has not intentionally been precluded from addressing the Chair in any way, shape or form.
The hon. member does have, because I have it in writing, an application on a question of privilege which I received before this other matter came up, and I will now hear him.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I beg to correct you, Mr. Speaker. I sent this notice of a point of privilege after I could not get recognized on the point of order having to do with the parliamentary secretary. I have no other point of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: We may be able to move ahead quickly here. We have a point of order I gather arising out of
Question Period. Perhaps the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre could assist the Chair.



Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in response to a question yesterday, the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration, as recorded at page 7834 of Hansard, inadvertently left the impression that the deduction under day care had risen 400 per cent, from $1,000 to $5,000. In the budget speech on page 15 it is clearly indicated that it rose 25 per cent, from $4,000 to $5,000.


WAYS AND MEANS TABLING OF NOTICE OF MOTION
Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), I wish to table a notice of a ways and means motion to amend the Excise Ikx Act and other legislation respecting the implementation of the goods and services tax, and I ask that an Order of the Day be designated for consideration of the motion.


MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S. O. 52 SOFTWOOD INDUSTRY-SPEAKER'S RULING
Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Prince George- Bulkley Valley again put an application for an emergency debate, this time exclusively with respect to the countervailing action by the United States with respect to softwood lumber.
I again listened carefully in the House and I think I should advise the hon. member that while it is an important matter, I am not prepared today to proceed with an emergency debate.


Mr. Dave Worthy (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to suggest your ruling is incorrect in defining it as an emergency when requesting an emergency debate. I would like, through you, Mr. Speaker, to
March 10, 1992

possibly direct a request to the government, through the parliamentary secretary to the House leader, in that this obviously is an issue of great interest to most people across Canada, to many people from all sides of this House, especially to our home province of British Columbia, and it is a critical issue to my riding, the people who live in Cariboo-Chilcotin.
I, through you Mr. Speaker, would sincerely request of the House leader that he take it under consideration in his discussions with other House leaders. I hope that we can find a way to set time aside in the near future, as early as possible, so that we can go through what I consider to be a very important debate.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I think it is fairly obvious that this issue is of concern to a number of members in the House. I have to include myself in that list, coming from a riding where forestry is a major issue.
I have had some discussions with the Department of Forestry. There may well be an interest in having a debate and providing some time for members of the House to do so. What I would like to suggest to the hon. member and to others who are concerned about the issue is that a House leaders meeting should be going on at this moment. I will be there in a few minutes. Perhaps we can discuss it there and come to an agreement that would provide time for all of us to look at this issue.


Réginald Bélair: Mr. Speaker, as forestry critic for the Liberal Party I fully support the motion that has been set forth by both the PCs and the NDP. We are ready and willing to participate in such a debate.
The recent decision by the Americans will have a tremendous impact on the industry and on my riding in particular.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I would certainly join on behalf of our party. I know our deputy House leader will be attending that meeting and we are certainly prepared on this side to work with all other parties in the House to try to arrange a debate as quickly as possible.
As I mentioned this morning in my appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, given the seriousness of this issue, and the
government and the Prime Minister considering this, it is important that Canadians hear from the House on it.
I might say, just in conclusion, in previous debates and in particular on the issue around the whole problem with the fishery off Newfoundland and Labrador, that was an example of how a debate on an important resource issue went well. It gave an opportunity for all sides of the House to present their arguments. It is an important issue. I hope we can move quickly and expeditiously to have a debate on this matter.


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I know that you are very responsive to the wishes of this House. There seems to be unanimity developing on this issue. As a matter of fact, I cannot find one single member in disagreement. I submit respectfully, that we as members from Quebec would like to take part in this debate which has far-reaching implications for us.

Mr. Speaker, since there is unanimity, maybe you would like to take it under advisement and say that by tomorrow you will give a decision. I do not expect that to be said at this time, but you would be disappointing the unanimity that is very rarely seen in this Chamber. It is not a question of partisanship. It is a very important issue which is only the beginning of many more to come.
We know that the election in the United States is in November. How many more of those will take place? Maybe the time is appropriate for us to put our views that will most likely be unanimous that this kind of action should not take place.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, as critic for energy, mines and resources for the opposition, you may not have been in Vancouver or the lower mainland, but I can tell you, Sir, that it has had the effect of a tidal wave in your province and in other provinces as well.


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder if I could say to my colleague that the Speaker is also a member of Parliament. I am in my riding and in my province on a very regular basis.
I can assure the hon. member that what he says is correct. I was there. I have heard it all, and I do not want anybody to think for a moment that when I am wrestling with the proper application of procedural rules on an issue like this, it is not dealt with by me on a most serious basis, indeed.

March 10,1992
The Budget


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, given the sentiments of all sides of the House, you might wish after the House leaders meeting for them to come and meet with you in your chamber. Perhaps we could reconsider the matter of an emergency debate or have it now since there seems to be unanimity in the House.


Mr. Speaker:: The position we are in is that for the second day and as a consequence of very close consideration of the matter, the hon. member has twice now applied. I have said that I was not disposed this afternoon to order an emergency debate. I made it very clear yesterday that it might not mean it would not be ordered at some other time.
However, we have an indication now from the House that there is probably a very real possibility of a discussion between House leaders. That is what the parliamentary secretary speaking for the government has indicated. Others have indicated their receptivity to that discussion.
I do not think it would be appropriate for the Speaker to intervene in that discussion at all. That discussion should take place and then we will see where we go from there.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government; and the amendment of Mr. Gray (Windsor West) (p.7631).
Robert (Bob) Speller: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak in the House today on the government's spending priorities and specifically on the amendment by the hon. member for Windsor West, seconded by our leader, which says that this House condemns the government for its budget's failure to
provide realistic support for millions of Canadians who are jobless.
Canadians have a right to know what the government plans to do with the $160 billion of their hard earned dollars in this budget.
Obviously I feel the budget leaves a lot to be desired. At the very least I find it to be a major disappointment especially for the millions and millions, 2.5 million or whatever the figures are of Canadians who are out looking for work and who are tiying to get back to work.
The government's decision to stay the course, so to speak, offers nothing to Canadians who are looking to get back to work. There is little in this spending to inspire business confidence in the government or in the country either.
There is no emphasis put on training or retraining, the ability to train Canadians to make them able to compete for these jobs when and if they do return. There are no adjustment programs for the rapidly increasing numbers of unemployed Canadians. There is no forward looking vision to help Canadians compete in this so-called changing global economic climate.
Some of those who are presently unemployed are part of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have lost their jobs because of the free trade deal. Yet government members boast that they are helping our job creating industries, while they still maintain relatively high interest rates and a high dollar polity. That is anti-competitive. This government has created a hostile business environment.
What about the incredibly important area of research and development? That is a must for any country that is going to compete globally. The budget has for all intents and purposes totally ignored training, research and development. The $230 million over five years for R and D do not make up for the dramatic cuts this government has made in these areas over the past five years.
The elimination of the Science Council is a real disappointment for all Canadians who had hoped for support in science and technology. The Science Council also provided, especially in rural areas, information for the agricultural sector. Once again the agricultural sector suffers.
March 10, 1992

How can we possibly take this government's commitment to competitiveness seriously when it has systematically dismantled our research and development?
Something I hear talked about a lot in my riding recently is taxes. In fact different tax coalitions have formed over the last year or so that are really keeping a watch on local and provincial governments. I am sure by next election they will be challenging Canada, all parties, as to why or where the parties stand in terms of spending tax dollars.
This government claims in this budget that there were no tax increases. We know that just two weeks before the budget was tabled a huge tax was put on all exported tobacco products, measuring about $8 per carton of cigarettes. Why was this tax not in the budget? Clearly it is a budget area on which to put taxes. Why was it not? Either the government wanted to fool Canadians into believing that there were no tax increases, or maybe it was a little bit too embarrassed to admit in a major public forum that it was taxing exports.
Not only will that tax be devastating to many of the tobacco farmers in my area, but it will also hurt the many thousands of jobs that depend on the tobacco industry.
Just ask the 5,000 people who have lost their jobs in this industry due to the government's outrageous taxation policies in the past. Just ask the thousands of farmers who have lost their farms, or the other 9,000 people including 1,200 growers who would lose their jobs if this industry is displaced and moved to the United States.
I, for one, would like to know how the government believes that jobs can be created in such an environment and at such a cost to Canadians.
If this government cares about rural Canada and cares about its farmers, why is it cutting $4 million from Agriculture Canada's grants and contributions preceded by previous budgetary cuts of somewhere around $48 million and $25 million in operating capital funds in the 1991-92 fiscal year? Is that a government that really cares about agriculture?
As has been said many times here, farmers and agriculture are the cornerstones of our economy. I know that probably every politician from a rural area in this House has said that before. But that does not mean very
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much if in fact a government that says that does not back it up with financial help.
In the past farmers have resolutely accepted the increasing losses of income with external optimism unmatched anywhere else in Canada. But recently this real hope has been diminished.
Farmers are desperate. Farm families who have been dedicated to providing clean and safe foods for Canadians and people around the world are really feeling the pinch today. They have given their savings, they have given their homes, and they have given their future to a country that they love and to a country that they hoped would be there for them in their time of need.
Rural Canada is suffering. When agriculture suffers, everyone suffers and the country suffers. We in rural Canada do not believe that this budget goes anywhere near to addressing the concerns of not only farmers but also of the rest of rural Canada.
What is wrong with the budget? Despite promises made in the last budget, unemployment has increased and is expected to remain at somewhere around 10 per cent for the next two years. In other words, nothing has been done to help these millions of Canadians out of work. Certainly nothing is being done in this budget to help get Canada working again.
The budget is silent on a national child care program. In fact in this budget the government has abandoned this promise.
Important institutions like the Economic Council of Canada and the Science Council of Canada have been eliminated. Why? Because the government is tired of living in fear of an independent review of its policies.
The Co-Operative Housing Program has been eliminated, which will affect thousands of people in need of homes throughout Canada.
The increased cuts to Agriculture Canada by means of grants and contributions, as well as the excise tax placed on exported tobacco, are indications of the systematic dismantling of agriculture across this country by this government.
Finally, in my last two minutes I would like to point out that just because the federal government has not raised or introduced new taxes does not mean that Canadians will not pay more taxes.

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We all know that when spending cuts are introduced more pressure is put on the provincial treasuries. Consequently provincial taxes are raised. For the federal government to say that there are no new taxes or tax increases is misleading at the very least.
The government's fiscal and monetary policies as outlined in the last two budgets have done absolutely nothing to get the economy working again. Despite the introduction of regressive taxes and spending cuts that we have witnessed since the government took office, we still have a $31 billion yearly deficit.
In conclusion, I feel the government should just admit that its so-called fiscally responsible policies have failed and it is time for Canadians to call for an election.


Réginald Bélair: Mr. Speaker, I also enjoyed the opportunity to present my views on this year's budget. This is a budget without a human face. It is also a caretaker budget in the sense that it does not help nor hinder anybody.
We were not impressed by the finance minister's budget at all. There is no provision to help the 1.5 million Canadians who are out of work and the 2 million Canadians who are on welfare.
This is the eighth budget since the Conservatives took power in 1984. It strangely resembles the 1990-91 budget in that it does not provide any incentive to stimulate economic growth. The Minister of Finance is gambling that the economy will improve on its own. This is exactly what his predecessor did in 1991.1 fail to understand the Tory logic. They created a recession with their high interest rate and high dollar policy. There are 1.5 million Canadians out of work, yet there is nothing in this budget to help the unemployed and bring Canada out of the recession.
I find it incredible that the Minister of Finance is predicting that unemployment will remain at 10.1 per cent in 1992, and drop to 9.5 per cent in 1993. The actual figure for unemployment is at 10.6 per cent. The minister admits these figures are high and he does nothing to address the issue. How high do the figures have to go before the minister takes action?
The student assistance plan will undergo some changes. From now on the Government of Canada
would like the banks to assume some involvement as far as loans to students who wish to pursue post-secondary education are concerned.
The finance minister is currently dealing with the banks to try to negotiate a reasonable service fee for the student loans. I wish him success. Now that the banks will be taking the risks on those loans, the already financially burdened parents will have to co-sign for the loan. These are tough times for students and parents alike as prospects for jobs are very dim.
This government will be eliminating the present family allowance program in December 1992 and will replace it with the child benefit program which should benefit low income families. This is a good point of the budget. It sounds good, yet some 700,000 women will not receive their family allowance cheques any more and most middle income families will not qualify.
Since 1984 the government has increased income taxes on 33 different occasions. In this budget the government has now indicated that personal income tax will decrease by 1 per cent. What a fiscal break. Canadians should be made aware that this 1 per cent translates into $44 on their tax return if they earn between $30,000 and $40,000 and a measly $4 if they earn $15,000 or less. If the finance minister were sincere in his desire to assist Canadians, how could he for one minute think this 1 per cent decrease in personal income tax would help? If he had been sincere he would have lowered the infamous GST.
The budget has other hidden surprises for those who look a little closer at it. The loss of the $100,000 lifetime capital gains exemption could be a deterrent to anyone thinking of buying a second residence or a rental property in the future. Until this budget, all profits made on the sale of real estate, other than the principal residence which is exempt, had been tax-free up to $100,000. Now real estate will be liable to 70 per cent tax on profits from selling that property. So much for the little guy who tries to better himself.
The home buyers plan will only benefit those who have funds readily accessible in RRSPs. If the RRSP is locked in for two years or more, or if it automatically locks in at a specific date that does not coincide with your home purchase, the bank will not release the funds and the home buyer will not be able to take advantage of the plan.
March 10,1992

I would like to take a few moments to speak on the national debt.
Just prior to the Conservatives taking power in September 1984, the debt was at $200 billion. Today it is in excess of $420 billion. This government has more than doubled the debt. The high interest rate policy supported by this government has helped boost the deficit. This year's deficit of $31.5 billion is the highest since 1985-86 and the fourth largest in Canadian history.
One really has to wonder how this government is managing our country's economy. There have been all kinds of opportunities to improve the economy. Despite years of strong revenue generating economic growth; despite repeated tax increases, 33 of them; despite widespread spending cuts in every area of government services, it still managed to double the debt and it could not even reduce the deficit.
The finance minister said that this year's forecast and next year's forecast for the deficit will not be met. It keeps going up and yet we have two million Canadians on welfare, including 700,000 children who stood in line at food banks in 1991. Those hungry children are indeed a black mark on Tory records. Today there are more food banks in Canada than there are McDonald's restaurants.
The budget is not doing much to inspire business confidence either. The minor tax changes the government is making are more than offset by increasing interest rates and the high dollar. How can we take this government seriously when last Friday the U.S. Commerce Department's international trade commission handed down yet another ruling declaring that Canadian softwood lumber exports to the U.S. were unfairly subsidized?
This ruling, which has resulted in a punitive action of
14.48	per cent duty on Canadian lumber imports, is totally unacceptable. The industry should not be held hostage for American domestic politics of protectionism. It stands to lose some $430 million during the next year as well as thousands and thousands of jobs. What does this budget do for our lumber industry? It contains no provisions whatsoever to help the Canadian lumber industry during its time of need while it is being harassed by the Americans.
In conclusion, despite golden opportunities to reduce the deficit between the years of 1985 to 1990, the government mismanaged public funds. This government has vowed to wrestle inflation to the ground and as a
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result has wrestled the economy to the ground. This budget does not address the longest recession we have ever seen. The people of Canada are looking to the government for some hope of relief from the poor state of our economy. The government has failed miserably to resolve the current economic situation.


Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear all the hon. member's remarks, but there were a couple of elements in his remarks that I did hear and I would like some clarification.
I heard him refer to the government's home buyer's plan and the ability that taxpayers will have to withdraw up to $40,000 for a couple to purchase a home. I would like the member to clarify it for me. I thought I heard him say that if the funds could not be withdrawn from a financial institution because of the particular plan they may have invested in, the plan was useless because it would not allow funds to flow before the closing date.
My knowledge is that most financial institutions are very happy to open up fixed term investments such as GICs right now and let the money flow out of those fixed term investments because interest rates have been coming down. Most financial institutions have had these funds locked up at higher rates so they are more than happy to open them up and let the funds flow through. It is an ideal time now with a lower interest rate regime for this particular plan to work.
Second, I thought I heard the Minister of Finance say in Question Period today that there was a 30-day grace period.
If a home had to close there was this 30-day period where funds could still flow from an RRSP. I would like the member to address those two points.
The member talked as well about the government and its debt, and I think he used the phrase "this government has doubled the debt".
The Canadian debt as a whole has in fact doubled. I agree with that statement. I am wondering if the hon. member can address the fact that if the government had not been running an operating surplus last year and this year, the debt would be $25 billion higher today than it is now. The fact is that all of the additional debt is the result of the accrual of compound interest, and actually our debt would be a lot higher today without the government's actions.

March 10, 1992
The Budget
Could he please address those two points?


Réginald Bélair: On the first point, the member made it a point to answer his own question. I guess there is no point in me trying to repeat everything he has just said.


Garth Turner: Do you agree?


Réginald Bélair: Certainly. On the national debt, it seems that the Tories do not want to accept the fact that since 1984 this debt has doubled under their management. All the time they say it is compound interest on the debt that was left to them by the previous government. I totally disagree with that. As I said in my speech, the government has increased taxes on 33 occasions. Personal income tax has increased by 22 per cent, and yet the deficit keeps going up all the time. This is despite some very good years economically, when there was less unemployment and more people paying taxes. The deficit has always been around $29 or $30 billion.
This is why my party and I really wonder what the government was doing during those golden years. I do agree today that it is difficult to reduce the deficit because of the recession. But it is a recession they have created themselves because of high interest rates and the high Canadian dollar.


Mr. Hughes:: We created the recession in Europe too and all around the world.


Réginald Bélair: Maybe there are some clauses in the free trade agreement that we have not seen and that some members opposite have not seen either-the ones that say the Canadian dollar should remain high for a certain amount of time.


Marie Gibeau: Mr. Speaker, last week's break gave members of the House a chance to keep in touch with what was going on in our ridings. Personally I welcomed this opportunity to go and meet with some of my constituents in Montreal North and talk about their present concerns. The latest budget was mentioned a number of times and I was pleased to see that many aspects of our proposal had met with their
approval. No wonder, considering how carefully this government's budget was prepared.
Some of our constituents are under the impression that all decisions are made behind closed doors by a chosen few and finally disclosed to the population on the night the budget is tabled. Having bean involved in preparing two budgets, I can assure my fellow citizens that their comments to me and to their members did not fall on deaf ears. No wonder then that taxpayers can often recognize theirs suggestions in budgets tabled by governments.
Obviously not all of them can be included, because the realities government has to deal with and the balancing act it has to do to ensure that the available resources are commensurate with the needs expressed. All that makes it impossible to satisfy everybody. But when a government such as this one sets out to harmonize the prosperity of future generations with the quality of life for the present generation, choices have to be made.
Since the Conservatives have been in power, budgets reflect comments made to members by their constituents. The Quebec caucus, which set up a budget committee, submitted an impressive list of recommendations to the Minister of Finance. Of course members and constituents were delighted when they saw that the latest federal budget reflected those recommendations.
Ever since I was elected, my constituents have told me that economic problems require a realistic and durable response, not hasty, band-aid solutions. People want the assurance that our social programs will meet their needs. They want new reasons to have confidence in the future. But, above all, they want the federal government to reduce public spending as well as the deficit. Easier said than done. A government bureaucracy cannot turn on a dime. Tradition, history and precedent have helped develop a vast number of procedures and working methods, levels of management and regulations. In families, business and government, traditions accumulate over the years and often tend to smother creative thinking.
March 10,1992

A subcommittee of the Quebec caucus, where I am a member of the executive, made a study of federal spending programs and submitted proposals to the finance minister for improvements in public spending. Its purpose was to bring a new perspective to the administration of government services.
The work done by MPs and senators from Quebec was very useful, if the latest federal budget is any indication. Several recommendations made by the budget committee of the Quebec Conservative caucus were adopted, especially those concerning spending cutbacks, but also recommendations on promoting social justice and responsibility, encouraging economic recovery, and promoting investment, initiative and employment.
We are particularly proud of the cut in income tax. Our constituents had told us many times that taxes were too high. As of July 1, 1992, the federal personal income surtax will drop from 5 per cent to 4 per cent, which means that as many as 4.7 million Quebecers will enjoy a drop in income tax. As of January 1,1993, the surtax will drop by a further 1 per cent.
As for spending cuts, the recommendations of Quebec members will lead to a $1 billion reduction in expenditures in 1992-93 and more than $7 billion over five years. Among other things, as hon. members suggested, Department of National Defence spending will be cut by $2.2 billion over five years. Land and property belonging to National Defence and Public Works that are not required will be sold.
The Minister of Finance also accepted our proposal on revising travel practices. From now on, members of Parliament, senators and senior officials cannot travel first class.
One of our most important suggestions concerned reducing the number of senior managers in the government. This has resulted in the privatization, merger, deferral or outright abolition of 46 government agencies and advisory boards. Furthermore, departmental operating budgets, excluding salaries, will be cut 3 per cent.
The number of free publications distributed by the departments will be reduced. The facilities provided and renovations done by the Department of Public Works will also be greatly cut back.
Delegations sent abroad will be restricted.
In summary, those are the measures that were adopted among those proposed by Quebec members. But other
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equally important ones will be implemented to reduce taxes and stimulate the housing sector, to reduce the size of government and to improve services to Canadians.
The budget just tabled continues on the deficit cutting track. The deficit will be reduced to $27.5 billion next year and will continually decline after that.
Other important measures concerning the family will help restore the value of this institution which is at the heart of any healthy society.
For Canadian households, this marks the end of discrimination based on marital status. From now on married and common law couples will get the same tax treatment. We will eliminate the disadvantages that the traditional family unit had to put up with until now. Indeed, following our recommendations, the Minister of Finance decided to abolish the distinctions that made married couples pay more taxes than common law couples.
Family allowances for high income couples will be eliminated. Again Quebec members played an important role in promoting justice and social responsibility. A single monthly payment for children will replace all the benefits that are presently paid to families and will direct assistance to low and middle income families. This will translate into a $400 million increase in financial support for children, from $4.5 billion to $4.9 billion.
Those are only some of the measures taken, and of course there are others, to promote a strong recovery.
In conclusion, the budget cuts spending and thus enables us to lower taxes and promote recovery. It also ensures a substantial reduction of the deficit in 1992-93, as well as a constant reduction afterwards. We therefore have a budget that restores confidence in the Canadian economy while protecting our social programs.
The opposition may blame us for many things, but it certainly cannot accuse us of lacking consistency in the way we manage public funds.
The Conservative government is pursuing its plan. The 1992 budget seeks to stay the course toward a better future, renewed and lasting growth, job creation and deficit reduction. In the last seven years we have succeeded in stabilizing public finances as well as regaining control of our expenses.

March 10, 1992
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If it were not for this $200 billion debt that we inherited from the previous government, we would have an operating surplus. In other words, the taxes that we collect from Canadians would more than pay for the services that we provide to them. In fact, the $25 billion operating surplus that we have generated since 1984-85 would have enabled us to improve our government programs even more. But this is only a matter of time. We first had to put order in the management of public affairs, and this task is almost completed. As early as 1994, we will no longer borrow to pay the interest on the accumulated debt and we will at last be able to start paying off this infamous debt. We have reasons to be pleased.
We remain committed to supporting the private sector by limiting state intervention as much as possible, while protecting individuals who need help. In other words, we continue to believe that the government must intervene only when necessary.
Members from Quebec have shown that responsible, sustained action does more to promote and protect Quebecers' interests in Ottawa than loud bragging and boasting.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the member that I listened attentively to her speech and for the most part I agreed with what she was saying. However I want to ask her a couple of questions.
She mentioned that last week she was in the riding and that was where we come into contact with reality. I share that. She also mentioned that the budget met with favour.
I think that there were some aspects of the budget that were okay, but I have heard on numerous occasions from the retailers in my riding. I have heard on numerous occasions from the people in the tourism sector. The restaurants in my riding are in some ways similar to those in many parts of Quebec. I have over 300 of the nicest restaurants in all of Canada located along the Danforth and along Gerrard in Broadview-Greenwood, especially Greek restaurants.
These restaurants that count on the tourist trade are saying that consumer confidence is low, that the GST is a disincentive to tourism operators or to tourists even though they get a rebate, and that this ultimately affects the reason why we have so much unemployment.
In the province of Quebec tourism is counted on probably more than in any other province in Canada. I am not trying to make noise here, but does the member not think that this budget really did little to stimulate confidence in the tourism sector and the retail sector, which ultimately affects the jobs in this country?


Marie Gibeau: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his questions.
I would like to start by putting into perspective the whole issue of the GST, the goods and services tax. Perhaps I may recall that for most of last year, before the GST came into effect, opposition members were blowing up this whole issue to ridiculous proportions and referring to the GST as a tax that would have a disastrous impact on inflation and the economy and would have all kinds of horrendous consequences.
I will admit this was not necessarily a popular measure, but even the opposition agreed that the whole federal tax system had to be revised. Furthermore, I may remind the hon. member, that one year after coming into force the GST has not really had an impact on inflation. In fact, inflation is now below 2 per cent, a record among the world's major industrial countries.
This, together with the fact that interest rates have also dropped very substantially, has created a degree of confidence in the business community, so that people will start investing again. I would like to refer to what was said by the president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, Mr. Richard Le Hir, who is not exactly a fan of all our policies. In any case, Mr. Le Hir said in Le Journal de Montreal on February 28, 1992, that three measures in the budget were important for stimulating the economy. The increase in the capital cost allowance rate for machinery, the reduction in the manufacturing tax, and the $230 million earmarked for research and
March 10, 1992

development were three specific measures that were most welcome.
In terms of economic recovery, this budget-as I said earlier, it was impossible to please everyone-is one we can be proud of, in the circumstances.


Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Bourassa a very brief question. It concerns the fact that I, along with many other members of Parliament, understand the fiscal reality of this nation. Having said that, there are certain choices that are easier to make than others.
I am just wondering why the government, in this particular budget, chose to ignore the plight of 400,000 young people in this country who are unemployed and many more thousands who are on the welfare rolls of this country.
They have once again failed to come up with a national training strategy that may address the problems that we have. Once again we have blocked the major artery to Canada's future.
I was just wondering whether the hon. member could address or explain to me why her government has chosen once again to deny the rightful opportunity that young people require.


Marie Gibeau: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague that there are government programs and as for training-and when we talk about young people, we talk about education-education does not apply in the same way in all provinces. In some provinces, education is strictly a provincial matter and their jurisdiction must be respected.
Furthermore, we have a program called "School First", where we did everything to encourage young people to stay in school and gain skills so that they could fill jobs that are now available in Canada but for which some young people who chose to quit school will not qualify in the near future.
I encourage my colleague to support and encourage the young people in his riding, as I try to do in mine, and
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to tell them to stay in school so that they can acquire the skills and knowledge needed to fill the positions that are available and will soon be available.


Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State and to Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship):: Mr. Speaker, I thank my Whip who gave me the opportunity today to speak in this House. It was not planned, and I almost demanded it in a rather rough way.
It is very important because when you talk about finance and the Budget you talk about jobs. Jobs involve unions and unions do some things that are not quite right.
Since we are talking about jobs and finance today, in my region which is the north side of Laval we have an airport called Mirabel. This airport is the centre of much activity. Finance involves a lot of money and taxes. Today I must rise to speak, even though I asked my Whip for an emergency debate on this subject. I want to take this opportunity to talk about it.
I would like to put on the table some issues concerning Mirabel, Nationair, the lockout, unions, the public service unions, and the Montreal branch of the Quebec Federation of Labour. I will deal with them all together.
Like all Quebec members we were surprised to learn that many union members were locked out, unfortunately without work.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. While I appreciate the importance of the matters that the hon. member wishes to discuss, they can hardly be considered relevant to the debate at hand.
We are here to discuss the federal budget, not a concern peculiar to his riding with regard to Mirabel airport.


Mr. Edmonston:: I rise on the same point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order. The hon. member can debate anything he wants on the budget. That is the standard rule of the House.
Hon. members may not have been here long enough to realize that you can go ahead and speak on things other than just the fiscal arrangements of the budget.

March 10, 1992
The Budget


Mr, Edmonston:: Mr. Speaker, I seek clarification because I do not know whether or not it is a question of not being here long enough. I know my colleague has been here far longer than I have and we both came to our feet on the same point of order.
I do not think, with all the respect I have for the House, that we should get involved in union bashing in as budget debate. I think it is really unseemly of this House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will just listen to the hon. member. I am sure he is going to be relevant a far as the budget is concerned.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, I asked if I could say these things and my chief Whip assured me that I could talk about a case involving 2,200 jobs in my riding. If it upsets the Liberal and NDP members to hear me talk about my riding, let them leave the Chamber and go have a coffee, because where I come from 2,200 jobs are important, especially when certain NDP members frighten people by telling them not to take the plane because it is dangerous.
I am quite sure my colleague will go out for coffee. Mr. Speaker, 2,200 jobs. It is very important for us. It is appropriate to talk about it within the discussion on the budget.


Philip Edmonston: Mr. Speaker, I rose earlier on a point of order and I appreciate the fact that you ruled against it. I believe now there is a definite point of order in the sense that we are not to make reference in this House at any time to the presence or absence of one of the members of this House. Am I right or am I wrong?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I never heard the hon. member make any reference to anybody in the House or outside the House. If he has, that is right. We are not allowed to do that but I have not heard that.


Philip Edmonston: Yes, I am sony you did not hear that but as I was leaving to make a phone call there was such a reference.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Members do that quite regularly. I regret that the hon. member should not do it. Get on with the debate.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, perhaps my hon. colleague could stop interrupting me. I will certainly not talk about him. I have more important subjects to discuss concerning my riding than to talk about the member for Chambly. I have things to say in this House. In the speeches on the budget we demand jobs, jobs, jobs, and those who have jobs want to destroy them. My job is to try to make people understand that each time we speak outside this House we displease the unions. Instead of dealing with the issue, instead of making offers to the unemployed, to the workers who are locked out, they say: "If Della Noce, the member, speaks too much, we will sue him." Well let them do so. I will go to jail simply because I want to save 2,000 jobs in my riding. If I must go to jail, I will do so and gladly.
We also have a problem in Quebec every time a company is successful. Take Nationair for example. I mention this one because it is in my region and it is of great interest to me. We keep looking for means to tear it down. Every time a company decides to move to Toronto we cry for a year before it leaves. I for one do care. There are 450 young men between the ages of 22 and 24 who work there. I certainly would not want them to lose their jobs because those are darned good jobs. When young people come to us looking for a job we tell them: "Try that place; they hire a lot of people." Now a union leader is saying: "So what if it shuts down".
I am not blaming all union leaders, mind you, Mr. Speaker. Two members of the shop committee resigned. This means that six union members caught the drift of their leaders and resigned. They did so because they did not like the idea of a union destroying jobs instead of preserving them. That is happening here and now. There are still very down to earth, mature union people who have chosen to resign rather than stay on and chitchat with an airline accused

of what-of not being safe. Apparently the staff would not be adequately trained. If there is one airline today which is safe it is Nationair. With all its safety inspections, it is quite impressive. There is no Canadian airline safer than Nationair.
The ad also reads that they are paid welfare wages at $17,000 or $15,000 per year. I agree that $17,000 is not great, but what the union failed to mention in the ad was that it was for 53 hours of work, not per week but per
March 10, 1992

month. All of us in this House work at least that much in a single week. If $20,000 a year is not enough for 53 hours of work per month, work that many hours per week and you will make $88,000. Still, that is not an incredible amount by today's standards. I can assure you that many people in my riding would gladly take the job.
But why kill Nationair when the company pays $50 million in taxes to the federal government? Did you know this company pays all our salaries and those of the senators next door? Their taxes are the equivalent of what it takes to pay all our salaries, and people want to see this company go down. Fifty million dollars in taxes.
I heard the hon. member say: "Thx the rich and give a break to the poor". This guy started with a shoe-string. He was a poor immigrant who came into this country with $2,000 and created 2,000 jobs for pilots and mechanics. Today he has 11 planes including four 757s, five 747s and one DC-8, and he started with $2,000.

What do you call a man like that? He should be here. He should have a statue these days.

They are killing this company because the leader of the union is a guy from Toronto who works for Air Canada. He is high and dry in Toronto, so he could not care less what happens in Quebec. He will get re-elected and he will say: I told Quebec where to go.
I do not want him to tell Quebec where to go. Let him stay in Toronto and mind his own business. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will give me the floor again.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hope that you are monitoring the Irise comments by the hon. member carefully.
He is making some very unconstructive statements, especially in this most difficult period when we are talking about national unity and a new constitutional arrangement. For him to suggest there is some Toronto conspiracy to destroy a Quebec based company is pure and absolute nonsense.
The Budget


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not what I get out of the conversation or out of the debate. Carry on. You have one minute left in your debate.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say that a good budget is one that keeps people working. The government is doing everything it can to create jobs in Quebec. I think it is just too bad that some organizations are sabotaging this effort. They do not care what happens, because it is not in their own backyard. I say let our own people run things. Union members should wake up and get cracking. Do not let other people tell you what to do. You can stand on your own two feet. Run your own show. I will help you. I will not let you down. We cannot afford to lose 2,200 jobs. We certainly cannot.
This is part of the budget. This is part of Canadian unity. Whether, we are talking about Ontario, Quebec or Nova Scotia, no one can afford to lose 2,200 jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I believe I made my point.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, I listened quite attentively to the hon. member's speech.
I was just wondering if his speech was about the fact that perhaps his government has not been able to create, in the last seven and a half years, a healthy economic environment where labour, government and business can work together.


Vincent Della Noce: My government has done everything it can do in a responsible way. It has negotiated in this crisis. We have the best we have in Montreal. We have good relations with every union. We have a Minister of Labour who is doing his best to help me, particularly in this case that I know personally. The government is doing exactly what it has to do.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: It's not a healthy environment.


Vincent Della Noce: I can tell my hon. member that even all the jobs we create may not be enough. I want to say that before we create the others, and if somebody can blame me in this House it could be my hon. colleague from Chambly, Toronto or York.
You can blame me as much as you want and you can blame the government. It is part of the game. We are the bad guys. Whatever happens in this country is always the

March 10,1992
The Budget
Prime Minister's fault. We hear that, but there is one thing that is true.


John V. Nunziata: Eleven per cent can't be wrong.


Vincent Della Noce: Yes, 11 per cent and 17 per cent. That means we are doing something right. If you are popular, you are doing something wrong in politics.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reassure the member that no one on this side of the House or anyone in this House really has anything other than the highest of respect for the entrepreneurs of this country. They sometimes work seven days a week, 15 hours a day, fighting off bank managers, trying to meet payrolls and make a profit in a very difficult economic time. The hon. member should not cast aspersions over here that we are not sensitive to entrepreneurship because we are.
The question that I have to ask the member is a tough one in the sense that it might be sensitive for him. It seems to me that what this country needs right now is foreign investment. We need foreign capital coming into this country which will make sure that there are pools of capital there for entrepreneurs such as the one he describes, so he will not have undue pressures put on him. There will be some spending out there to put people back to work.
Does this member think that maybe one of the greatest reasons why our foreign investment has shrunk so dramatically in the last year and a half is because we are sending out a signal around the world that we may split as a country? Does this member not think that a more constructive approach for the government to adopt would be to communicate to the people of Quebec the federal presence that exists in that province? The federal presence exists through loans and grants and it exists in every province. Right now it seems that the people of Quebec and a lot of the entrepreneurs of Quebec think the national government is doing nothing for them.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my hon. colleague that when I was speaking he was listening. He was not cutting me off. I have a lot of respect for that. When I mentioned some people, I did not mean him on the other side of the House.
My hon. colleague asks what the message is. Canada is not shrinking. This country is growing. There are too many people who try to play politics and I can only speak
for Quebec because I am there every day. There was an article in the paper La Presse, lundi, 2 mars, page A7, where a girl said she only makes $15,000 or $16,000 a year, but she forgot to say it is for 52 hours a month and she got $69 a day to have lunch and four hours pay to visit. This does not help my enterprises and this is worse than the message you tried to tell me.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to be able to be in the House today to address this budget.
Before I get into the substance of the budget I want to share with my colleagues a dream I had last night. When I went to bed I knew I would have to address the budget today. I fell asleep shortly thereafter and dreamed I was a much younger man from some small town, I believe it was in Alberta, and I needed a car. I needed a car because I had to go to another community and it was one of the only ways to get there. Once I was there I might be able to go to school.
I came to the first car lot and lo and behold there was another young man about my age, about half of what I am today, with a warm smile and an engaging handshake, who quickly took me aside and said he had exactly what I needed, a beautiful first-class used car. I followed him and there was a lovely newly painted blue car that looked almost as good as the day it rolled out of the factory.
I started to ask about the motor, the tires, the transmission, and the rear end. He said not to worry and that the car would take me where I wanted to go. He told me to trust him and not to be concerned.
Since I needed a car and he was so convincing, I decided to buy the vehicle. In this dream I started to that next town. The first thing I knew there was a knock in the motor and I could not go any further. I got that repaired. When I looked a little further into the car and had it looked at by a mechanic, we noticed that the transmission was about to go.
I want to tell you that there were a lot of similarities in the dream I had last night and this budget we are in the process of examining right now. There is, indeed, when you explore this budget. When you get right into it you find the problems. Let me not be partisan when I say that. I want to quote some independent sources who have looked at this budget.

March 10, 1992

For example, last week in Maclean's, with respect to the budget: "TTie result was an artful balance of minor tax breaks and mostly symbolic spending cuts that the minister assembled after weeks of consultation with special interest groups. In round number the budget contemplates $159.6 billion in federal spending, $132.1 billion in revenues, and a deficit that at $27.5 billion will be $2.5 billion higher than the one that Mazankowski's predecessor, Michael Wilson, predicted for 1992-93".
This is an analysis by Maclean's of what lies behind the numbers, and I note again the minister's rhetoric.
Let me go on to an article of today in The Globe and Mail and I quote: "Welfare and working poor families will fall deeper and deeper below the poverty line says the analysis by Ken Battle, President of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy. Mr. Battle says the new federal program is a blatant election year gimmick because it will provide a temporary enrichment, in monthly cheques for low income families next year when an election is expected to be called".
The article goes on to say: "The federal proposals are designed to pretend to fight child poverty". Again, and I quote: "Potential benefits will be completely offset by the lack of indexing".
There is the similarity. The car that I dreamt about looked great, but as I looked into it I found the problems. When I look into this budget, I and others are finding the problems. It is an election budget. Some people have called it a pre-election budget. It skilfully pretends to do a lot and does very little.
Again I want to quote from some analysis that were done.

It reads: "Don Mazankowski's great tax break boils down to $2 for a couple with two dependent children and $15,000 total annual income and $15 for a couple with two dependent children and $30,000 annual income". Does the Minister of Finance really expect to be applauded for such ridiculous tax measures?
My colleague, the hon. member for Windsor West, says the minister is playing a game of smoke and mirrors.
Government says it will increase children benefits by $2.1 billion over the next five years. What it does not say is that it has cut these benefits by $3.5 million over the past five years.
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Here is a quote from my colleague, the member for LaSalle-Emard, associate critic for finance. He said that the new budget does not generate much business confidence. Minor changes to the tax system do not cany much weight vis-a-vis high interest rates and a high dollar. He added that the budget basically ignored the two areas the economic future of Canada depends on: training and R and D.

As I indicated, this is a skilfully crafted budget but when it is looked into deeply one finds it has a lot of blemishes, a lot of imperfections. The verdict is still out on the minister with respect to his capabilities as a Minister of Finance. But as a salesperson, as someone who has been given a job, who has been charged with selling this budget, he has got off to reasonable start. In other words, he has not lost his touch.
All hon. members will recognize that virtually all the ministers have made all kinds of eloquent statements with respect to any number of issues in the economic sphere. In speeches from the throne, for example, there have been references to economic, regional and other kinds of development.
In this House of Commons there have been a number of eloquent statements as well, in addresses throughout the country and in its various public relations initiatives such as the prosperity secretariat. The government talks a good story about productivity, about competitiveness, about globalization, but I wonder if it really knows what it is talking about.
Let us look at the record. We know that taxes have gone up 33 or 34 times. People are angry that they are earning less today than they were a few years ago. We know that in spite of those 30-plus tax increases, the deficit is roughly where it was. We know that the debt has more than doubled and yes, the government has almost doubled the revenues since it came into power a little more than seven years ago.
There are still five million people who are living at the level of poverty or below. Roughly 1.5 million people are unemployed. Roughly two million people are on social assistance. People have suffered personal bankruptcies and business bankruptcies are higher than they have ever been before. Roughly two million people are being fed by food banks. Many of the casualties here are women. Many of the casualties are children and young Canadians, and that saddens me.

March 10, 1992
The Budget
What is in this budget? The measure of a budget is to say what is in it for those who have veiy little, for those who are losing ground. What is there in this budget for the poor? Really, honestly, nothing. For the unemployed, nothing. For those on social assistance, nothing. For those that go to food banks, nothing. For those that have declared bankruptcy, nothing. For the farmers, nothing. For our Atlantic fishermen and women, nothing. For small businesses, nothing. For Manitoba, more heartache.
We know, as we look into this budget, and I use the analogy of a used car, once you start using it, once you start looking at it, you start finding out the problems. There are many problems which have not yet surfaced. I quoted a few. For example, there is the rearranging of responses to families. There is going to be a loss over time. There is going to be something now, but over time there is going to be a tremendous loss to families.
We also know that the government has cancelled the co-op housing program, that it has sliced the regular housing budget. On the other side, it has made house purchasing more easily obtained by certain people who have certain investments in their pension funds for the future. Let me quote an analysis that was done with respect to the slashes in housing.

And I quote: "By eliminating social housing and the co-operative housing program, this government also eliminated thousands of jobs in the construction and manufacturing sectors. The number of jobs that will be created in the construction sector following the implementation of the home buyers' plan will be more or less equal to the number of jobs that were lost following the cuts affecting housing starts".

The government is taking on one side, giving on the other, but in the balance there are no real net winners. We note that the family allowance is gone and again, if this budget is analysed one finds that over time families are net losers.
Look at the health sector. After the government had said "we will not touch the transfer formula, we will not touch it", what did it do in 1986? It was reduced by 2 per cent. It was reduced again by another per cent. Then it was frozen in the period from 1986 to 1995. What have we got? We have a reduction cut in transfers of roughly $30 billion for health and education. It is about a 2:1
ratio. So $10 billion less for education, $20 billion less for health, that is what is happening in the health field.
Let us look at what this budget does for students. I have already indicated that there is a cut to transfers that continues and remember that the cut between 1986 and 1995 is roughly $9 billion a year. In this year alone, it is roughly $250 billion for education. There is less for training and retraining, even though there is massive unemployment and social assistance numbers that have never been seen before.
The government says there is more for research and development because the figure is $240 million over five years. It is easy to say that, $240 million more for research and development over five years because the transfer payments have been reduced to education again by $250 million for one year. I would be a wealthy business person if I could increase my revenues that way, and that is exactly what the government has done.
There is also the destruction of key organizations such as the Economic Council of Canada and the Science Council of Canada. Those organizations were vital to planning, to seeing into the future, to making sure that we were doing to the extent that we can the right things to build this country, to get the economy going again, to put people back to work.
If we look at the students today we find that not only do they have fewer dollars transferred to colleges and universities, but they still have that goods and services tax on books and materials. I proposed that the goods and services tax be eliminated at least on books. Perhaps we should be generous and extend it to all reading materials.
There is another interesting feature in this budget. They talk about the 3 per cent administrative fee on student loans. We said a lot about that-and I see one of my colleagues whom I shall not name smiling. I know why he is smiling, because he knows full well that the elimination of that 3 per cent actually will save students on the one hand roughly $20 million. I have done a rapid calculation and I am pretty close. But the removal of the six-month grace period, no interest, will probably give the government $30 million. So you give relief of $20 million on one side and you take $30 million on the other and you say to the students: "Aren't we great guys and gals?" Sony, folks, it does not work. I go back to my analogy of the used car. In my dream I drove that car and the motor went, the transmission went, the rear went, everything went finally. And when you get into the budget everything goes.
March 10, 1992

Here is another example of something that really looks good, looks great, a $20 million reprieve for students. But you sock it to them for $30 million on the other side. If that is not dishonest, the kindest I can be is that it is tremendously misleading and it is certainly not putting the goods on the table.
They talk about greater credits. Look at those credits. I think it is $20 a month. I do not want to insult the government, but nothing has changed for years and the cost of living has accelerated by quantum leaps. So you give a little bit, and that is appreciated, believe you me it is appreciated, but at the same time do not pretend that it is more than what it is. Because you are not fooling me and you are certainly not fooling the young people out there.
Look at the increases in tuition fees. By virtually any measure tuition fees have gone up just by leaps and bounds. They have gone way, way beyond the cost of accumulated inflation over time, and it has caused students serious difficulties. We talk often about tuition fees but we do not talk about incidental fees. Incidental fees are those other costs that students have. I have just begun an analysis of those fees and there are two observations that I want to share with my colleagues which may be helpful.
First of all, over all those fees are probably greater than tuition fees. In other words, they cost students more. Second, their increases I suspect-I have not completed the study-will probably be even higher over time than are tuition fees. So the students are getting it socked to them with tuition fee increases and with incidental fee increases, new fees and increased fees and what have you.
What has happened? Student debt is skyrocketing; it is going out of all proportion. I was talking to a student just within the last week who has a debt of close to $50,000. This is for not only undergraduate but graduate program. This is really very high. It is not unusual to find debts of $20,000 to $25,000. Can you imagine, when you and I were just graduating from university, having started out with that kind of carcan as we say en frangais on our backs, that load on our backs, with that kind of debt?
But let me make another point with respect to students. We are going to have a summer employment
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program. It has been advertised in the newspapers. The applications have gone out through the CEIC offices.
What I find really very interesting is that no budget has yet been announced. Why? Normally there is an announcement and it is said what we will have when the applications go out. Why no budget announcement with respect to that program?
Does it mean that there is a big battle in cabinet because there are some generous Conservatives who really want to increase it because they recognize the importance of student employment in terms of the financial support given to students and of broadening their horizons in terms of learning?
Is there another wing of the party that says: "You have to cut that down. We have to be concerned with the deficit in the budget". There is a big battle raging right now and here we are, I, my colleagues and the students out there, wondering just how much will be available. I ask the government to make that announcement veiy soon.
I would also ask the government to put the cards on the table, tell it the way it is. I have no objections to the government coming forward and saying: "This is what we are really doing. This is the real impact". What I object to is this smoothness, the packaging. It is a beautiful package in many ways with all kinds of neat little coloured ribbons and what have you. But it is deceiving. It is misleading. It does not tell the truth.
I cannot possibly imagine that the government would not want to tell the truth. It is really a PR budget. It is not a budget in the true sense of the word. My colleagues will say: "I am delighted that some of them will get up and I hope raise some questions". What would you do? I think we could start by calling it the way it is. That would really be appreciated. I know there is a temptation out there to exaggerate, to say that it has accomplished or done more than it really has. I suspect that there would be big dividends if the government really called it the way it was.
Many of you will know that even though interest rates have come down, and they still need to come down, there is still a significant gap between U.S. interest rates and our own. That needs to be looked at. The dollar is extremely high. The high dollar is causing real difficulty in selling our products overseas.

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The Budget
Most of you would recognize as well that we need to invest heavily in education, in training and retraining, research and development, science and technology. If we want to be leaders as opposed to followers, that is the path we need to follow.
We need to expand our markets. We need to go beyond the United States because even though the United States is a very important neighbour, a very important trading partner, it is like putting all our eggs in one basket. It is not good to have all of our eggs in one basket. It is not good at all.
Of course, we have to look to see whether or not it is an appropriate time now as we get it from the U.S. with respect to softwood lumber and other problems, to sit down with the United States and say: "This Canada-U.S. agreement has got to be renegotiated".

I was just warming up, but I realize my time is up.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague for his speech. I listened to him very carefully. I must say that I agree with most of what he said. But at some point, he talked about the United States and used his figures. He will understand why I cannot agree 100 per cent with him. However, he did address an issue, about which even his own colleague asked: Is this country shrinking? No, this country is growing. But how can we get this economy going when in my area, about 30 kilometres from my office, we have a union that refused a 4.5 per cent increase at this time of the year?
It refused a 4.5 per cent increase on a contract left on the table when these people have, at the present time, up to $22.14 per hour and a guaranteed salary of 65 hours per month. If they work 52 hours they are paid for 62. Instead of $19.08 an hour they can go up to $22.14, if my calculation is right, give or take 1 or 2 per cent. If they would work like us, 60 hours per week, they would make $90,000. My question is very simple. How can we grow and ask this country to grow when there are people with signs on a couple of ropes around their necks who say:
"The company is no good, but you are going to fly with us when the strike is over because we are not happy with 4.5 per cent increase when we make $22.14 per hour".


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question, because it is a very serious question. I will try to be serious in providing an answer.

First of all, I do not think that you wanted to imply that all unions are the same as the one that you have identified. I think that is very important.
I think that you and I and others will acknowledge that whatever group we deal with, when it tastes power and perhaps sometimes when it has a great deal of power it does not always use it as sensitively as it might.
I cannot make an accusation with respect to that union because I do not know the details as you have recounted them to me. But we have to recognize that it does not matter if it is a union, a government, a political party, or a large business, some people are not always as sensitive or as gentle as they might be. They do not always see the world perhaps as they should. Perhaps sometimes they think of themselves first and the people they represent after and that is not fair.
The other point with respect to the rate per hour, it sounds pretty good, but we have to remember this. You and I work many hours and we get paid a reasonable salary for it. Certainly I am quite pleased. But some of those people may not be able to work the hours that we work even if they wanted to. We have to remember that. It is very important.
Also, even if they could work those number of hours, I suspect that the work is not always very interesting. That is not a reason for not working. I assure you that I have had a lot of jobs that have not been nearly as interesting as this one and I have spent a lot of hours at those jobs. But we have to acknowledge that for certain jobs, working more than 40 hours per week, 50, 60, 70 hours would be particularly difficult and hurtful to the individual.
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I want to make a final point and it is an important one as well. Collectively we all have to be sensitive to the reality today. What happens, and again it is not a partisan shot, is that people see politicians living high off the hog. They do not see us tightening our belts nearly as much as they have to and they have less. We have to understand that if they do not see us setting that example then they will want more. I think un peu de douceur, un peu de gentillesse, we have to reach out and talk more. We have to understand that unless all of us put a little bit of water in our wine there are going to be extremely difficult times ahead, not only constitutionally but also economically and in a number of other ways as well.


Philip Edmonston: Mr. Speaker, while talking about the budget, my hon. colleague mentioned precisely the fact that we must spend some money in order to help students in different programs. I understand that; this is a normal thing to do. However, there is one thing that I have not heard, and that is we must set an example with specific cuts, because our government costs a lot of money.
When I say specific things-I hope the member for Laval-East will understand-I mean that we have to start making cuts that affect us. I want to ask a question of my hon. colleague. I would appreciate getting a specific answer, because I respect him a lot. We worked together on the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee and he did a tremendous job.
Today the House of Commons costs taxpayers approximately $236 million a year. In 1986-87 that cost was $187 million. This is an incredible increase. There are various programs whereby, for instance, members of the House can send newsletters to their constituents four times a year, and that costs some $4.7 million. Could we not come up with a better solution to cut expenses? Could we not simply put a few ads in the local newspapers? This would help those local newspapers, that need it, as you well know. Also, why not hold press conferences when there are announcements to be made? That is my first example.
I have a second example. The former Liberal Prime Minister now gets a pension of $81,000 a year, plus his salary as a member of the House. Since the former Prime Minister works as an hon. member, would it be not more appropriate to give him this pension once he
retires? How can a former Liberal Prime Minister get two salaries and particularly a pension?
If it is true that we must set an example in this House, why not start right here? Does the hon. member agree? I know that he will have to show fortitude to say that he does agree.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question and his nice words concerning my work with the constitutional committee.
There is a former Liberal Prime Minister who gets a pension, but there is also a former leader of that party who gets a pension while occupying an excellent position. I am referring to Mr. Broadbent whom I respect a lot. There are also former ministers of the government such as Mr. Nielsen who are getting generous pensions. I believe, he was a member for many years, as well as a minister.


Philip Edmonston: Yes, but those people are no longer members of the House.


Ron J. Duhamel: No, I know, but they hold a job. All this to say that there are members from each party-and I named a few-who have worked here and are getting a pension even though in some cases they have jobs elsewhere.


Philip Edmonston: Yes, but they are no longer members of the House.


Ron J. Duhamel: No, they are not, but let me go on. I would be willing to consider any measure to proceed with an in-depth review of the pension program.
A few months ago, myself and my colleague, member for Edmonton Southwest, followed up on a bill and talked about pensions. We were not harsh. We simply asked if there was a better way to proceed. I noted that at last the NPD leader recently started talking about this. All this is to say that I am willing to review this pension issue in an honest, in-depth and serious fashion. I even wrote an article on this topic, and I would be quite willing to show it to my colleague.
With regard to these newsletters, again I am willing to look at the issue of the cost of the four newsletters that are sent every year, but I believe it is also very important to keep our constituents informed about what goes on in the House of Commons and elsewhere in the country. That is very important.

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I would prefer that we look at the budget used by the government to announce its forecasts and other projects. Indeed, it costs hundreds of times more than my four annual newsletters.
To be serious, we must look at major expenses. I fully agree with the principle that you mentioned, namely that it is important to tighten our belt, to set an example. If we do not set an example, why would those who watch us and who sometimes support us want to do that? It would be totally contradictory.
We must set an example and I am willing to do that. I am even prepared to participate and to make suggestions in a number of fields. I have already started doing that and I will be happy to continue to do so.


Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, when this government was elected to office seven and a half years ago, the biggest challenges facing us was, first, to restore fiscal responsibility; second, to create a climate for a more dynamic, flexible, innovative and competitive economy; and, third, to create jobs.


An hon. member:: What happened?


John Henry Reimer: If the member wants to know what happened he should listen to the rest of what I have to say.
The challenge was a large one, to say the least. The federal deficit and national debt were out of control. Between 1981 and 1984 the annual deficit escalated from $14.7 billion to more than $38.5 billion. The national debt had doubled and was growing at an average rate of 26 per cent per year. Likewise, government spending was out of control.
Therefore, if we had continued to spend as the Liberals had, not only would our debt be more than double today, but this year's spending would be close to $289 billion. That is $129 billion more than the $160 billion we plan to spend this year.
In fact, in every single budget since the November 1984 economic statement, this government has cut government spending. In the 1984 economic statement we cut $4.2 billion in spending, followed by our first budget in May 1985 which reduced spending by another $2 billion. In this budget we will be cutting spending by another $1 billion this year and $7 billion over the next five years.
Knowing that Canadians did not want to leave their children and their grandchildren a legacy of crushing debt, it was crucial that this government act, and act we did. Since 1984 we have kept the average annual increase in program spending to 3.9 per cent, which was lower than the average inflation rate over that same seven-year period from 1984 to 1992 of 4.6 per cent. Contrast this 3.9 per cent average annual increase in program spending to the Liberal period from 1969 to 1984 with an average annual increase in spending of 13.8 per cent.
This budget also provides for a 5 per cent ministerial salary cut for the Prime Minister and all cabinet ministers. Added to that, the Prime Minister, the cabinet and all members of Parliament will not receive any salary increase this year. Further, and this is something very few Canadians know, the Prime Minister has since 1984 reimbursed the Government of Canada to a total of $55,155 for the purchase of food consumed by himself, his family and personal guests at 24 Sussex. No other Prime Minister has done that.
In the four years prior to our coming into office, government spending on programs had increased at an average annual rate of 14.6 per cent, far in excess of inflation and enough to double spending in about five years.
If this trend had been allowed to continue the result today would have been catastrophic. The cumulative effect on our national debt would be an extra $445 billion. That would mean that our debt today would be close to $900 billion, more than double what it is now, if all we had done was to continue the Liberal program before us.
In 1985 the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers took a 15 per cent and a 10 per cent reduction in salary respectively and all members of Parliament had their pay cut by $1,000.1 am sure if we canvassed the members of this House who were here then, we would learn not a single one of them ever received any positive comment for that.
Furthermore, it is important to remind everyone that a few months ago this government introduced a legislated ceiling on program spending of 3 per cent per year over each of the next five years. This further proves our commitment to control government spending.

March 10, 1992

No other public administration in Canada can boast of such a record. In fact, in Ontario, my own province, program spending under the provincial Liberal administration of David Peterson rose by an annual average of 10 per cent per year. Now the NDP socialist administration of Premier Bob Rae is spending over 13 per cent at an average annual increase per year.
Further, when comparing this government's record of our annual increase in program spending of 3.9 per cent over the last seven years to that of the Leader of the Opposition when he was Minister of Finance, it is interesting to note that he increased spending at 7.6 per cent or almost double our rate.
Perhaps more seriously, when the Leader of the Opposition was the President of the Treasury Board, the average annual increase in program spending then was
13.7	per cent. One need not take my word for this with respect to the Leader of the Opposition's tenure as President of the Treasury Board. Let me quote what the Auditor General of Canada had to say about his control of the government purse.
This is what the Auditor General of Canada said: "I am deeply concerned that Parliament, indeed the government, had lost or was close to losing effective control over the public purse". He went on to say: "Federal management and control in Government of Canada is grossly inadequate". That is what the Auditor General said when the Leader of the Opposition was in the position of President of the Treasury Board.
Let us also not forget that 10 years ago, inflation was running at over 10 per cent compared to 1.6 per cent as of January 1992. Ten years ago, interest rates were at 19.5 per cent compared to 8.25 per cent today.
That means for a one-year mortgage of $75,000 in February 1992 at a rate of 8.25 per cent, there is a monthly saving of $310 compared to the mortgage rate of 14.25 per cent as of May 1990. Imagine, however, the pain of having to renew one's mortgage 10 years ago when the Liberals were in power at 19.75 per cent compared to 8.25 per cent.
Contrary to prevalent misconceptions and myths propagated by the opposition, the number of Canadians living below the poverty line according to Statistics Canada has fallen by 570,000 since 1984, including 23,000 fewer children. After adjusting for inflation, after tax dispos-
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able income has increased by $1,263 per capita in constant 1986 dollars compared to 1984.
Rather than the doom and the gloom that we hear so much about, some of the things this government has been doing have been working very well indeed. The question then might be put: Why is the national debt continuing to grow? Why has it more than doubled, as the opposition takes such pleasure in reminding everyone during this present administration's stay in power?
Yes, the debt has doubled. In fact, the national debt has grown from $206 billion to $420 billion in the past seven years. Fully $239 billion of debt is due to compound interest on the original $206 billion of debt.
Since 1987 this administration has not contributed one single cent to the debt problem. In 1984 we ran a budgetary deficit of $16 billion. In year two it was a deficit of $9 billion, in year three a deficit of $4 billion. However, since then we have had a budgetary surplus every year.
This year that surplus is to be $12.7 billion and the surplus is projected to reach almost $36 billion by 1996, four years from now. Then the government will finally be able to begin paying down the national debt. Then the government will no longer need to borrow to pay interest on that debt but will in fact be able to pay both the interest charges on the debt and have money left over to actually pay that debt down.
Further, as a member of the Conservative caucus on family issues, one of the highlights of the budget was the new family and child benefit program. The child benefit announced in the budget is a great improvement in the way the federal government assists families. The child benefit targets those who need it most, the low and modest to middle income families.
It combines the family allowance and tax assistance into one benefit which will be paid monthly, usually to the mother for children under 18. It will be tax-free, instead of being taxable as is the present family allowance.
For instance, let us take a husband and wife with two children whose ages are one and four. The family income is $40,750. Under the old system, the mother would receive $69.76 per month and the husband would pay tax on those payments minus the child tax credit of $71 per

March 10, 1992
The Budget
child. The mother would receive a refundable child tax credit of $882 after filing her tax return. The total benefits would be $1,599. However, under the new system proposed in this budget the mother will receive a monthly cheque of $143.83 instead of $69.76. This cheque will not be taxed and the total benefit will be $1,762 for a net gain over the year of $163. Not only are the benefits greater, but the new system is much simpler.
Also, the child care expense deduction will be increased by $1,000 from $4,000 to $5,000 for children up to 7 years old and from $2,000 to $3,000 for children aged 7 to 14.
These changes will benefit low and middle income families and all families whose net income is less than approximately $68,000 per year.
Further, common law couples will no longer have a tax advantage over married couples. The government is supporting the traditional family by eliminating the existing tax disadvantages for married couples.
Some have argued that this budget does nothing to create hope or new jobs. However, I think that is completely wrong. I would like to explain why I think that allegation is wrong. I am going to use how this budget affects Ontario as the example and why I think that is wrong.
All seven million Ontario taxpayers will have their personal income taxes cut through a reduction in the surtax. It will go from 5 to 4 per cent this year and from 4 to 3 per cent the year after.
We will increase spending on research and development by $230 million to encourage productive investment in Ontario.
Our support for 4.2 million families and 3.4 million children in Ontario will be simplified, streamlined and substantially increased by $400 million per year nationally. Therefore, all these families will have more dollars to spend, thereby stimulating the economy and thereby creating jobs.
We will assist Ontario families to buy a home using their existing RRSPs up to a total of $20,000, thereby creating jobs in the construction industry and further spin-off jobs in other sectors dependent upon it.
The budget reduces the tax burden for approximately
18,000	manufacturers and processors in Ontario by 1 per
cent on January 1993 and a further 1 per cent in January
1994.
We will increase the capital cost allowance rate from 25 to 30 per cent for manufacturing and processing equipment, thus creating a greater opportunity for expansion and more jobs. This is in addition to the increased capital cost allowance from 30 to 40 per cent for the trucking industry which we announced this past December.
We will provide new measures to assist Ontario's small businesses by increasing the loan limit to a small business by $100,000.
We will provide additional tax assistance to approximately 322,000 post-secondary students in Ontario, thereby creating a more highly trained labour force.
In summary I would like to say the following. Although none of these measures are dramatic in themselves, when they are all taken together they create new hope and jobs. That is not just my opinion. That is the opinion of people such as John Bulloch, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business who said: "I think we can be pretty hopeful that jobs will be more secure because of this budget".
Further, the president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association said: "I think the budget will help improve the investment climate in the country". The president of the Retail Council of Canada said: "The most important thing is the stimulus to consumer spending in this budget.
Therefore, the opinions of others and everything I have just listed would indicate that all of these put together will create more investment, greater consumer spending and, therefore, more jobs.
Over the last year much has been made concerning the effect of the GST on our economy. In response, I would like to quote from The Globe & Mail editorial of December 31, 1991.
An inflationary tax? Wrong. Instead of double digital inflation predicted by the President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, inflation has subsided to less than 2 per cent on an annualized basis since last spring.
A tax grab? Wrong. This bears repeating. The GST is not a new tax. It replaced an old tax. The 74-year-old manufacturer's tax An inefficient tax? Wrong. The GST treats manufacturing and services the same. Within the manufacturing sector, it applies evenly to all goods. It taxes imports and domestic goods in equal measure and exempts exports from tax The GST's input credits ensure firms are not taxed for investing. As a consumption tax, it avoids taxing individuals for saving. It is thus more neutral in its effect on the economy than almost every other tax imaginable.
March 10, 1992

In January of this year I sent out a questionnaire to the manufacturers in my riding. I asked them about their experience with the GST after its first full year in operation. One unanimous comment from all of them is that they do not want to go back to the old manufacturers' sales tax of 13.5 per cent. These are other comments they made:
The GST spreads the tax over a broader spectrum of business. It is a more fair system.
Another one said:
I would recommend we stay with the GST as I feel it is a fairer tax to all.
Another one said:
We can never go back to the old way. I believe 100 per cent in the concept of the GST. It was the best move this government has made by moving towards a fairer, broader and unhidden tax system.
That same manufacturer concluded by saying:
All we ever hear is doom and gloom stuff. We are beginning to feel we missed something important somewhere. We never hear the good stuff that has come out of all of this.
It is clear from these comments that the GST is more fair than the old system. There is absolutely no evidence that it is inflationary and it clearly is not a tax grab.
Another myth is regarding the free trade agreement. The Leader of the NDP said yesterday that the free trade agreement has cost Canada 400,000 jobs and has devastated the manufacturing sector. Yes, we have lost many jobs in the manufacturing sector during the recession and while we had the free trade agreement. No one likes that. No one would take delight in that. However the Prime Minister, in response to her question, reminded her that in 1981-82, without the free trade agreement, we lost approximately twice that number of jobs. In fact with the free trade agreement the Prime Minister went on and said:
Hade has increased, even though we have been in a recession. Hade with the United States has increased by $35 billion, approximately since 1988 and it is going the right way. Further, we have secured something that most other nations would give their eye teeth for. That is a dispute settlement mechanism in the trade
The Budget
involved with our greatest trading partner. This is a major
acquisition.
We can see that we have problems in the free trade agreement today, with Honda and the softwood lumber, but just as we successfully were able to use the dispute settlement mechanism with regard to the pork issue and dispute, we will solve it now with that trade dispute mechanism.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have five questioners now. I will take them in this order: York North, Edmonton South East, York South-Weston, Etobicoke North and Chambly.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, I applaud the hon. member for his desperate attempt at trying to justify some irrational actions taken by his government both in economic and social terms. We must admit he did have the courage to stand to try to save his government from the embarrassment that 89 per cent of the Canadian people are certainly aware of.
I must say that I took note of the fact that the member speaks a lot about the past and very little about the future projections for this country. When we speak to the future, we on this side of the House understand the emerging global village and the global dynamics that are taking place, but we also understand that the emerging global marketplace requires and makes it necessary for a nation to prepare for it. This is exactly what this government has failed to do with this particular budget.
We have 400,000 young people in this country on the unemployment rolls and many more on the welfare rolls. At the same time we have jobs that cannot be filled. Obviously the government has failed at arriving at a national training strategy that will match people to jobs.
I am wondering why it is that this government on one hand speaks about global competitiveness and the prosperity agenda, and on the other does not understand that in order to compete globally we must educate and train young and old people.

March 10, 1992
The Budget
We have entered into the free trade deal and there have been casualties. Why has this government failed to retrain those individuals so that we can once again compete?
The question is quite simple: Why does the member accept this budget, a budget with no vision for the future, and why does he stand to try to defend the indefensible?


John Henry Reimer: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member was listening very well because I clearly said what three other people were saying, not what I was saying, in response to this budget and the future.
The Retail Council said: "This will stimulate consumer spending". Obviously the member was not listening. I also quoted from the Canadian Manufacturers' Association that said: "This will improve the investment climate in Canada". Obviously he was not listening. I also quoted from John Bulloch who said: "I think we can be pretty hopeful that jobs will be more secure". He went on to say: "I think there is more to be happy about than pessimistic".
That is what this budget is doing and what people think it will do into the future. If it truly does stimulate consumer spending, as I went on in other details that I offered, then that will in fact create more jobs, that will create more hope, and that will create more work for the younger people.
I also mentioned that it goes on to help people in post-secondary education and therefore that too would provide for a greater and more trained and educated labour force for the future. All of those speak to the future. Obviously the member was not listening.
We have to put all of these things together, and we will.
I will just quote one more. The International Monetary Fund predicts that Canada will have the strongest economic growth rate of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations in 1992:3.8 per cent after inflation. That is the best of all of the Group of Seven. Similar predictions have been made by the OECD and by the Conference Board of Canada.
With regard to the future, it is not just my opinion but it is also the opinion of these three boards and the three people I quoted who all said there would be greater hope and therefore more jobs into the future.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, I would like to focus on a bit of news that the member gave us. If my note was correct, he told us that the Prime Minister had donated-I think that was the term-$55,000 for food consumed at 24 Sussex for the past seven and a half years. My quick arithmetic indicates that is almost $7,000 a year or almost $600 a month that the Prime Minister is contributing toward his own food, drink or other things consumed at 24 Sussex.
Was the member trying to tell us that was the total amount the Prime Minister and his family were spending on groceries or that is what the Prime Minister thought would be a fair amount? Given his salary of I believe $165,000 a year, I think most Canadians would feel the Prime Minister might pay for all of his groceries. Would the member tell us just what exactly he was getting at with what he announced as a revelation for the House this afternoon?


John Henry Reimer: Mr. Speaker, let me respond to the question from the member for Edmonton Southeast. First it was not given back. It was a reimbursement, which was the word I used. It was for $55,115. If he wishes I could give him the exact amount for each year from April 15, 1985 of $4,000 through to June 19, 1991 of $4,566.1 do not think I should take the time now to list what was given back in each of the other years.
In each of these years this was for the food consumed by himself and his family or his personal guests, not official guests who would go there. That would be a cost to the Government of Canada and the people of Canada. These were for his own personal costs.
I think the hon. member would agree that what is significant about that is: When have we seen that before from any other Prime Minister of Canada?


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to commend the hon. member for Kitchener on having the courage to defend the indefensible. Not only did he defend the GST, not only did he defend the free trade agreement, but he also went so far as to defend the Conservative government. For that he deserves credit. He also deserves credit for being one of the 11 per cent of Canadians who believe that this government is doing a good job.
March 10,1992

My question for the hon. member is as follows. He knows that over 1.5 million Canadians are unemployed. No doubt he has the same experience that the rest of us have in our constituency offices day in day out, week in week out. Hundreds and thousands of people in our constituencies are unemployed. I would like to know what advice he gives to the unemployed in his particular constituency in the Kitchener area.
Does he comment as he commented today about what this government is doing, or does he give any other specific advice? Does he tell his constituents that they must have patience, that they need not worry about the rent or the mortgage payment or where the next food bill is coming from, that because these so-called fundamentals are in place perhaps his constituents might have a job in six months' or a year's time?
I would like to know specifically what advice he gives to the desperate unemployed in his riding who come to his office seeking help.


John Henry Reimer: Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest difficulties I think all of us as members face is when some of these people, particularly the older ones say in their mid-fifties to close to sixty, come to our offices. That is the group where I have the greatest difficulty in giving any advice. To that degree when the member asks his question, and I will take it as a serious question, there I have great difficulty answering that one. For many of those people retraining is very difficult, if not almost impossible, in various types of work. That is the group where I really have difficulty responding with specifics.
I try to do what I can. Sometimes I have been successful. We have an organization in Kitchener that is called 55 Plus which the government has assisted in the past through my interventions on its behalf. That has helped some of these people.
For many of the younger people, the answer has to be that they should get themselves better training.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate, the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
The Budget


Lynn Hunter: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add my voice to the debate on the budget. I hope to inject some efficiency in this as I only have about five minutes before the bells start to ring.
The last budget was supposed to be offering some hope to Canadians. We have 1.5 million unemployed people in Canada and they were looking for direction from this government to give them some hope. Unfortunately, once again, those people were overlooked.
In my riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands there is a huge housing crisis. My community has the third most expensive housing prices in all of Canada after Toronto and Vancouver, and when you consider the salaries earned in my riding compared to those other centres, my riding has the most expensive housing in all of Canada.
What does the government do to respond to this? It eliminates co-op housing; it eliminates social housing. This is done with no consultation with the provincial government at all. Having just had the five-month grand tour on the constitutional issues and recommended that there not be a devolution of federal powers to the provinces without some consultation, it is tantamount to an abdication of federal responsibility.
What is the provincial government in British Columbia to do for those people who are desperate for housing, the young families, the older people, the native people, the disabled people?
The municipal affairs minister in British Columbia has pointed out that we are going to be losing over 900 units in the next two years. That is a $70 million loss in construction and 500 jobs. Is this the Tory way of creating jobs? I can see why they are at 11 per cent in the polls.
There are two projects in my riding that have fallen through the gaps. These are people who have nowhere to live, and this government once again fails them.
Another issue that is very important and on which I have had phone calls from my constituents is the elimination of the Court Challenges Program. I have before me a letter from former Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson in which she points out that on numerous occasions she has expressed the view that it is totally

March 10, 1992
The Budget
illusory to confer rights on people, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, who do not have the means to enforce them.
That is what the Court Challenges Program did; it gave the wherewithal to those people who do not have the means to hire a high priced lawyer to do court challenges. She, of course, appreciates that governments are currently in a period of financial restraint, but she says that she has difficulty with a policy that places the burden of that restraint on those that can least afford it. That is what this government has done time and time again.
The final issue I want to point out is the environment. As an associate critic for the environment for my party, this is once again smoke and mirrors. What we have seen with the green plan, the big ticket item that was supposed to ensure the re-election of this government, is that the government added insult to injury once again by re-profiling another $150 million in this budget, $75 million in both 1992-93 and 1993-94.
I asked the Minister of the Environment today about a kind of business opportunities incentive regarding ozone depletion, CFCs, the extraction, the Vampire units. This is an opportunity not only to create jobs but to preserve the ozone layer of our country. There is no money for this.
When the minister meets with the environment ministers next week in Vancouver I do not know where he is going to find the money to be able to do that recycling program that he says is the responsibility of the provinces.
This is a shameful budget. It is a budget of despair. As New Democrats we do have alternatives. We have the vision. We have the commitment, not just to the rich but also to the unemployed and the low income families.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 5.45 p.m. it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 84(5), to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the amendment now before the House.
Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


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


PAIRED-MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
Assad
Fee
Lee
Pickard
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Clifford
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Milliken
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the amendment lost.
It being 6.14 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 6.14 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, March 11, 1992