1993-03-09

Mr. Speaker:: Yesterday the hon. House leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition rose on a question of privilege claiming that the Deputy Speaker, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot was guilty of a contempt of the House for accepting to co-chair the Progressive Conservative leadership convention in June 1993.
Normally the Chair would not allow comment on the conduct of a Chair occupant to come before the House in such a manner. There is a formal and well-established procedure whereby Chair occupants can be censored. I allowed the discussion because the hon. member insisted on proceeding forthwith and pointed out, as subsequently also did the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam, that the Deputy Speaker's performance in the House was above any reproach and was not in question.
I have had an opportunity to review the comments hon. members have made and I wish to thank all those who sought to assist the Chair in this most delicate issue.
I have reviewed the procedural authorities and have found much comment on the role and impartiality of the Speaker but regretfully very little on the Deputy Speaker. Practice and conventions vary greatly throughout the Commonwealth. In Canada, Deputy Speakers invariably, during majority governments, are chosen from the ruling party on motion made by the Prime Minister. They remain members of their political party, may attend caucus if they choose and may even participate in debate.
They can, and often have, voted on controversial government proposals. Some Deputy Speakers have chosen not to attend caucus and/or have refrained from voting in the House. The current incumbent has done just that, voting only twice since assuming the role of Deputy Speaker, on the abortion legislation, which I point out was a free vote, and on the question for the 1992 referendum. It is no doubt such exemplary conduct that led to the generous comments made about her by all members who participated in yesterday's discussion.
In the context of the Canadian practice, and in the absence of specific direction of the House, Deputy Speakers have exercised their discretion to varying degrees. I have some difficulty in agreeing with the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond that the Deputy Speaker is cloaked with the same exigencies that are expected of the Speaker himself or herself, and I am deliberately careful in not extending such a responsibility by way of ex cathedra comments in this decision. I have no hesitation in ruling, however, that the matter as raised by the hon. member does not constitute a prima facie case of privilege.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]


[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting Supplementary Estimates (C) for the financial year ending March 31, 1993, was presented by Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board) and read by the Speaker to the House.

Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I move:

March 9, 1993
Routine Proceedings
That the Supplementary Estimates (C) for the fiscal year ending March 31,1993, laid on the table on March 9,1993, be referred to the several Standing Committees of the House, as follows:
Since the list of votes in the Supplementary Estimates to be referred to the various committees is quite long, if it is agreeable to the House, I would ask that the list be printed in Hansard as if it had been read.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is it agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: List referred to above is as follows:]
To the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs
Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Votes lc, 10c and 15c
To the Standing Committee on Agriculture
Agriculture, Votes 10c and 25c
To the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture
Communications, Votes lc, 10c and 35c
Secretary of State, Votes lc and 5c
lb the Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Government Operations
Privy Council, Votes lc and 10c
Public Works, Votes lc, 6c and 25c
Secretary of State, Vote 15c
Supply and Services, Vote 2c
Treasury Board, Vote 15c
lb the Standing Committee on Energy, Mines and Resources Energy, Mines and Resources, Votes L25c and L32c To the Standing Committee on Environment Environment, Votes lc and 15c
To the Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Hade
External Affairs, Votes lc, 10c, 16c, 35c, 37c and 60c To the Standing Committee on Finance Finance, Vote 35c
National Revenue, Votes 5c and 10c To the Standing Committee on Forestry and Fisheries Fisheries and Oceans, Vote 10c Forestry, Vote 10c
lb the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons
Justice, Vote lc
To the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General
Justice, Votes 5c and 35c
Solicitor General, Votes lc, 10c, 16c, 20c, 25c and 35c
To the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration
Employment and Immigration, Votes 10c, 15c and 16c
Labour, Vote 15c
To the Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Social Affairs, Seniors and the Status of Women
National Health and Welfare, Votes lc, 5c and 25c
lb the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, Regional and Northern Development
Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Votes 35c and 45c
Industry, Science and Technology, Votes lc, 5c, 55c, 60c and 70c
National Health and Welfare, Votes 30c, 40c and 45c lb the Standing Committee on Transport
Privy Council, Vote 15c
Transport, Votes lc, 15c, 25c, 35c, 41c, 47c, 49c, 50c and 51c


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Dingwall:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
For the benefit in particular of the chief government Whip, I want to indicate to him and to the President of the Treasury Board that the Official Opposition was not given notice verbally or otherwise of the tabling of the supplementary estimates, which is a tradition around this institution.
I am sure the minister is aware that a vote could have been ordered concerning this particular motion of reference to the committees.
I would like the House to know that once again members of the opposition, notwithstanding the breaking of the traditions which seems to happen from time to time by members opposite, are attempting to co-operate with the government at every opportunity so that we can have a full and extensive debate on various subject matters which will come before this House.
March 9, 1993

Routine Proceedings


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his understanding. This was done inadvertently and I do apologize. It is probably due to my lack of experience.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, I was not going to respond to this but we were informed just before the House began this morning that the government had inadvertently missed us in notifying the opposition House leaders about the government's intention.
I simply want to clarify that we were notified, though late, but it was identified as an oversight as well and presumably this will not happen again.


NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION ACT REVIEW COMMISSION
Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(1), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the two-volume report of the National Transportation Act Review Commission.

Pursuant to Standing Order 32(5) I ask that this report be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport for review.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport has just tabled a document. I wonder whether he will be making a statement which is customary with tabling of such significant documents. Will he be doing that under tabling of documents or when we move to statements by ministers? Can we anticipate a statement by the minister?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, we think it is proper for the members and chairman of the commission to make the official presentation publicly and I shall make a statement afterward.


HOUSE MANAGEMENT
[Stage Direction]
69TH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Jim Edwards (Edmonton Southwest):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 69th report of the Standing Committee on House Management, regarding the list of members of standing committees. With leave of the House, I intend to move for concurrence in this report later today.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.] [English]


CONCURRENCE IN 69TH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, if the House gives its consent, I move that the 69th report of the Standing Committee on House Management, presented to the House earlier this day, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a petition from residents of Saint-Laurent de Gallichan, in the riding of Abitibi, who say that films depicting violence on television are dangerous and therefore unacceptable because they act as a stimulus for violent behaviour; that all toys that incite children to play violent games are unacceptable and their manufacture should be banned; and that when acts of violence are reported, freedom of the press should be restricted since the repeated broadcasting of news about acts of violence on television, on all channels, and on radio may act as a stimulus for further identical violent behaviour.
Therefore your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to pass appropriate legislation in order to eliminate violence in our society and thus protect our children and give all citizens a better quality of life.

March 9, 1993
Routime Proceedings


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the honour to submit a petition on behalf of constituents of my riding; Glace Bay, Sydney River, Lingan Road, Gardiner Mines, East Broadway and other parts of Cape Breton county, calling on the Government of Canada to stop the importation of killer cards, which ought to be seized at the Canada-United States border to stop their distribution in Canada.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon the Parliament of Canada to amend the laws of Canada to prohibit the importation, distribution, sale and manufacture of killer cards in law and to advise producers of killer cards that their product, if destined for Canada, will be seized and thereafter destroyed.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a petition from Saskatchewan with 7,000 signatures. Your petitioners express certain sentiments which I will share with you and which I believe are common to all groups in this country.

These petitioners ask the government to review its education policies, its cuts to established programs funding, its cuts to training and retraining, its cuts to research and development, its archaic student aid program and the 3 per cent tax it imposes on student loans for those students who need to borrow money in order to go to college or university. As well, they deplore the six-month additional interest on student loans that the government has just added.

I therefore table this petition on their behalf and on behalf of everyone in this country who shares their point of view.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to present a petition on behalf of
a number of very thoughtful and concerned constituents from Kamloops who point out that the Minister of Employment and Immigration has announced the government's intention to close Canadian immigration centres in western Canada and to sharply curtail employment and immigration services offered to new immigrants in other centres.
The petitioners point out that this centralized case processing centre in Vegreville is in area far removed from where the new citizens will be living, working and making their applications. It will most surely create undue delay, deferment and confusion for applicants and those who will be called upon to attempt to administer this new policy. They point out that the present system is working very effectively from their point of view.
In conclusion, the petitioners indicate that the new policy will simply serve to undermine the established objectives of the community that works so closely with the Kamloops CIC office now. It will simply result in poorer service to potential investors and immigrants who will be thinking of investing outside the already overcrowded urban areas such as Vancouver.
They point out that the smaller communities cannot offer on the spot assistance and encouragement when investment outside the large urban centres would be less attractive to the potential immigrant investor, plus a long set of other concerns. The petitioners simply ask the Minister of Employment and Immigration not to close immigrant centres that serve smaller urban areas such as in Kamloops, British Columbia.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on another matter, petitioners throughout British Columbia point out their opposition to a firm's plan to divert the North Thompson River near Valemount in an effort to sell the fresh water in the San Diego, California area.
The petitioners are simply asking the Government of Canada to ensure that this does not happen.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on another issue, the petitioners from a variety of Indian bands from British Columbia are calling upon the Parliament of Canada to enact the content of Bill C-268, an act respecting a national solidarity day for the aboriginal peoples of Canada.
March 9, 1993

Government Orders


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for External Relations and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Shall all questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Monique Vezina (for the Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) moved: that Bill C-73, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be read the third time and passed.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with Bill C-73 here in Parliament, a bill which is heading Canada Post in a totally new direction, a bill that many people have commented upon. Many people are very sceptical about the reason that this bill has been put in place and sceptical about what will happen in the future with regard to Bill C-73, a bill to sell 10 per cent of the value of the Canada Post Corporation to people working in Canada Post.
If I look back at the record of the report coming from corporate and consumer affairs and operations in April 1990, recommendations were made there which were at that time a bit alarming. The recommendation coming out of that committee was that the Government of Canada privatize Canada Post once adequate financial performance and comparable levels of practice to making profits in the private sector could be accomplished and once the relationship between employees and Canada Post settled down.
What we are hearing is if Canada Post has a good value and we can solve some of the employee relations problems, we should sell Canada Post, we should privatize Canada Post.
The Liberal Party at that time was very opposed to any moves to sell Canada Post and we submitted a minority report. The report suggested that would be a critically bad move.
However, the committee decided to go ahead with that report and submitted it to Parliament in April 1990. Today we are seeing the result of the beginning part of that recommendation, the part that suggested shares be sold to employees.
Recommendations 36 and 37 dealt with public sales and sales to employees. Step one has been implemented by the government.
I thought this morning at the initial part of this discussion it might be wise to point out what some other people across the country have said about this bill. If we look at articles in The Toronto Star I think we find some good insight as to how Canadians may view this legislation.
I quote from The Toronto Star:
Lately, Canada Post Corp. has begun to look like a steer being fattened for market.
The pressure is on to boost profits and squeeze costs so that in two or three years the Progressive Conservatives can sell the politically troublesome beast, or parts of it, to the highest bidder.
If all goes according to plan, Canada Post hopes to make a 14 per cent return on equity in 1993, and start paying Ottawa an annual dividend of 40 per cent of its operating profits.
That really means Canadians are looking at a new tax as a result of taking the profits of Canada Post Corporation and paying the government a 40 per cent operating premium.
There is even talk of Canada Post being required to pay corporate income tax for the first time. On the surface the campaign to fatten the bottom line is a good process. Unfortunately, if you look beneath that surface you see some real problems.
Much of the Crown corporation's recent business success has been earned on the backs of mail users. We have higher postal rates. Every one of us has gone to the post office and has seen the price of a stamp go up 1 cent, 2 cents, 3 cents, 4 cents on a regular basis.
Since being in Parliament, I have seen it regularly go up on January 1 like clockwork and so has every other Canadian in this country. We have seen this government move toward supermailboxes in new suburban areas,

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degrading the type of delivery service that Canadians should have.
Believe me, when you go to that post office in Ottawa weather like today and try to get your mail that post box is frozen. After a rainstorm, snowstorm or any difficult weather, you might be two or three days trying to get your mail out of that supermailbox. That says an awful lot about service to Canadians and concern for that person who is getting his or her letter delivered.
When you go to those supermailboxes and there is a snow-drift in front of it, you cannot get into it. This is another problem that is created readily. Already we see Canada Post thinking about paying dividends to Ottawa as a tax on postage. That can only negatively impact the services across this country. Vital postal subsidies in support of a fragile Canadian magazine and newspaper industry have been taken away.
We debated that issue that was gazetted in the last two years where small-town newspapers have had the big hand of this government and the big hand of Canada Post pull those subsidies away, where the profit lines were very close and the newspaper had to be very careful of its operation.
Subsidies to help them continue to get local information out to small communities have been removed. Subsidies to help ethnic newspapers continue to operate across this land have been removed. The result is that every Canadian from coast to coast pays more money for that newspaper or magazine to be delivered to them. Every Canadian pays it in a different way. Previously there was some protection given to these newspapers and magazines to keep the Canadian press going. That has been removed. It is really a passing down of the costs to other people.
A committee of MPs says labour relations in Canada Post have changed very little since 1985.1 have heard the minister suggest that this legislation is going to improve the relationship with employees in Canada Post, but those employees have come back suggesting they want no part of this legislation. It seems odd to me that on the one hand the government says this will solve our employee employer relationships but in reality the work force says absolutely no way.
That is a viewpoint from The Toronto Star. Much of that information is what The Toronto Star has said about this legislation.
As well, I want to point out that in The Ottawa Citizen there have been articles about this Canada Post legislation. Mr. Andre was quoted as insisting that privatization was not in the cards. The article goes on to say:
"If I had to bet, I would bet that in the next couple of decades, you will see post offices being privatized all over the world and I would not mind seeing Canada first."
Yes, Mr. Andre would like to see Canada first. I have a sense that this is the beginning, no matter how much it is denied, of the privatization process.
There is another article in The Ottawa Citizen in which states:
While saying the federal government will not move to privatize Canada Post before the next election, Mr. Andre refused to rule out taking that step in later years if the Tories remain in power. Such a decision might make sense, he said, if mail service to unprofitable areas can be guaranteed.
The design is there. The plan is there. The comments are there. This is the beginning of the privatization process. Further to that, another article indicates that there may be many problems with this legislation. We are not hearing the full stoiy.
If the government allows Canada Post employees to buy stock in that enterprise, how long will it take Ottawa to conclude that everybody should have shares in Canada Post? I contend here today that it is not going to take the Conservative government very long to decide that everybody should share in this corporation.
Mr. Andre insists that the employee stock scheme is not the first step toward privatization of what is fundamentally a public service, but the Prime Minister once assured Canadians that the Crown corporation Air Canada was not for sale. It was not that long ago that the Prime Minister insisted Air Canada was not for sale, but look at us today. Harvie Andre-
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois) According to tradition in this House, the rule is not to name hon. members by their names. I appreciate the co-operation of the hon. member.
March 9, 1993


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected. I was quoting an article and I carried on. I am speaking of the minister responsible for Canada Post.


An hon. member:: Irresponsible in this case.


Jerry Pickard: My colleague suggests the minister is irresponsible. That may be a little bit biased and critical but Canadians are very critical of this legislation and Canadians are very concerned, so I guess I am hearing that from many Canadians.
The point is that the process has begun. We can see from the consumer and corporate affairs committee on April 19, 1990, that the process was suggested and put in place.
We can see from comments that have been made by the minister responsible for Canada Post that he believes that privatization is what should happen. Now we can see steps toward what I would consider a disastrous process.
As politicians, members of this House and legislators, we must examine legislation and decide what the acid test should be for legislation that comes forward. What is the acid test that we use as legislators to determine what type of legislation should pass? What are the things that a bill should address?
Legislation should address changing needs in Canadian society. I think we all agree on that. Bills should answer questions, resolve conflict and establish a framework for the future. Legislation can lead, but not only good legislation. Sound legislation should be accepted by the society it is put in place to serve.
That brings us to Bill C-73. Does Bill C-73, which amends the Canada Post Corporation Act, pass the acid test? Does selling shares of a Crown corporation address the needs of Canadian society? Does that really address the needs of our society today or in the future? Does this legislation answer the concerns and questions that have been raised about the postal system? Does this bill lead one of Canada's oldest and most omnipresent institutions in a direction acceptable to Canadians?
In brief, is Bill C-73 really good for Canada? In creating the Crown corporation in the early 1980s the Liberal government established five principles for the postal system. Those five principles are very clear and are spelled out in the Canada Post Corporation Act.
Government Orders
The first principle was to improve products and services in the changes in our communication. Improve products and services. Help communications in this country. That is a goal of Canada Post.
Two, operate in a self-sustaining financial base while meeting the needs of the people and offering similar services to all communities large and small throughout Canada.
Three, provide for a secure mail service. Four, utilize human resources to attain corporate objectives and to secure employment commitment and dedication. Those are two common goals. Five, maintain a corporate identity that reflects the corporation as an institution of the government.
Does Bill C-73 help to achieve these five mandates? Remember, these mandates are in the present postal act. The present Canada Post Corporation Act includes these statements. The answer to those statements, as far as Bill C-73 is concerned, is that everyone in this House can say no resoundingly. Bill C-73 does not help achieve these mandates. In fact, it fails miserably.
Bill C-73, an amendment to the Canada Post Corporation Act, does nothing to enhance the goals established by legislation for the system we have in place today. What exactly is Bill C-73?
Bill C-73 would establish an employee share savings plan. This employee share savings plan would permit employees to buy shares of the corporation. Participation in the employee share savings plan would be voluntary. It sounds simple. Right? Wrong.
How many shares? We did not get answers to that. What is the worth of the corporation? What is the share value? What is an employee? Can some shares be given away? Are others sold? How will shares be cashed in when an employee is ready to get his money out?
These are just some of the questions raised but unanswered in this bill. In fact, the bill would permit shares to be given away. The bill gives no vote and no voice to the employees who participate and put their money in. The bill is inconsistent and incomplete for everyone.
It is like buying a car and not looking at the price-tag, just handing the salesman a blank cheque and saying that is the car. It is a little ridiculous in my mind and very

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difficult to justify in the minds of Canadians who have bought and paid for this corporation over history by supporting Canada Post Corporation, through government funding of Canada Post Corporation and by buying postage stamps and postage services. Yes, this corporation has been purchased by Canadians with Canadian dollars.
Now a small group of people are selling it off, the management of Canada Post and the Conservative government. Bill C-73 is vague and provides no detailed proposal on those questions that I raised.
What does Bill C-73 mean for service to Canadians? Does Bill C-73 offer equal service to communities of equal size? Does Bill C-73 advance communication mechanisms to take into account new technology and technological changes? Will the passage of Bill C-73 reopen the over 1,400 post offices closed or converted in the last six years? Will this bill stop the further closures scheduled for this month, next month, this year and so on?
This bill does absolutely nothing to address the single biggest issue in Canada as far as the postal corporation goes, and that is good delivery service to Canadians.
Some six years ago there were over 5,200 post offices in Canada. Today there are less than 3,800. In over 1,400 Canadian communities the institution has been removed. The flag has been taken down. The symbol of Canada has been destroyed. This has not been an act of terrorism, not terrorism as we know it, but rather it has been a systematic dismantling of a great Canadian institution executed by a corporate plan authorized by our government, a Conservative government.
Does this bill say: Stop, enough is enough? No, it does not. Despite the efforts of thousands and thousands of Canadians who, even through countless petitions, have requested that the government stop this closure policy the government continues its course. This bill does nothing to reverse that trend. This bill does not help return the postal institution to communities where it has been so vital historically in this country.
What can Bill C-73 do for employer-employee relations? The minister responsible for Canada Post said that the employee plan can play a significant role in laying the
foundation for increased co-operation between employer and employees by augmenting employee interest in the well-being of the employer and its financial success.
What do the employees say about this Bill C-73? Postal workers will not be bribed by the government's employee shares scheme. Read the lead line of the response of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. The Public Service Alliance of Canada labels share-selling by Canada Post a sham. There is not much support from the rank and file workers of Canada Post. In fact there is no support, there is not one bit of support from the rank and file workers.
The only group that we have not heard from is top management. Are the top managers, the high-priced help, perhaps eager for the passage of this bill? They could be, and for a really good reason. Top managers may see this as an opportunity for some freebies, some additional perks. The reason for their excitement is that they could get shares for free. Remember how they criticized the vagueness of the bill. One thing that has been made very clear, one clause in the bill that is extremely clear, is that shares can be given away.
What are the possibilities of giving these shares to letter carriers out there? What are the possibilities of giving shares to the clerks at the counters who we see when we go into Canada Post? What are the possibilities of giving shares to the workers, to the average people in all of our communities? I would submit that the possibilities are very limited.
What are the chances of the corporate president, vice-president or the board of directors of getting some of these freebies, maybe in the form of remuneration, a stock option plan or some other scheme that may well be put in place by the cabinet? It may be in the form of some other perk. How can we rely on a postal service for equality of service when it will not even treat its employees equally? How can we trust this legislation, or indeed the cabinet or government or the board of Canada Post when we see their track record?
This bill does nothing for employee-employer relationships. It does not solve any of the estimated 100,000 grievances. If anything, this bill will create even greater division between the privileged and the non-privileged workers in the postal system.
March 9, 1993

Therefore, if Canadians will not benefit, if services will not improve, if closures continue and the majority of employees oppose such a plan, who is the winner? What does Bill C-73 do or potentially do for Canadians or for Canada Post? The answer is simple. It is extremely simple. The answer is money. How much money? Nobody knows. What to do with the money? Nobody is saying.
At the legislative committee hearings financial returns from the share sale were said to be in the multimillions. But there is certainly a question here. Nobody knows. What is certain is that the top brass would love to get their hands on a lot more money. Who would not? But the issue is more than that; the employees' stock plan provides no voting rights. Some employees will have to buy stocks at a price yet to be determined. Some employees will get them for free and cash them in the future. However, Canada Post wants money. The corporation is profit driven at this point, not service driven.
The attaining of profits at the expense of service, employee security and good labour relations seems to be okay with the current Canada Post administration. No one will argue that Canada Post should be self-sufficient, but there is a difference between self-sufficiency and profitability when it is done at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer.
Remember, Canadians support the postal system by their patronage and through their taxes. Thx dollars put the postal system in place, expanded it and still subsidize it. Every Canadian who ever paid taxes, every Canadian who ever bought a stamp has contributed to the establishment of the Canadian postal system. Now what right does the current management have to start selling off Canadians' assets?
When the postal Crown corporation was established it was not intended to be sold. It was intended to be improved upon. Contrary to the government's claim that this bill is not the first major step for privatization, the indication is clear that it is. It is a move toward privatization.
At a time when most Canadians anxiously try to have their postal services improved, we continue to dismantle ours and give the current administrators leeway to go in any direction they wish. The corporation would benefit from a share sale in the short term. More money would permit corporate lenders to meet its financial obligations
Government Orders
to the government. More money in the till may make Canada Post look a little sweeter to possible investors for privatization. Only a dreamer would think that turning our backs on the problems at Canada Post will make them go away.
Bill C-73 is not a bill for Canadians. It is not a bill to help the average person. It is not a bill to open corporate post offices. As far as I can see, it is a bill based on a money-driven economy which over the long run will reduce services across this land. These include the services of newspapers, the services of small communities and the new expanding areas where more supermailboxes will not be accessible in much of our winter climate. In fact, there are many, many cuts in service.
There are many irritants for all Canadians in this bill. Bill C-73 creates many more questions than it answers. It causes more concerns than it addresses and it does not even come close to tackling the important issues at Canada Post.
Labour relations are very important. Effective postal services to Canadians, equality of postal services, security of the mail, good corporate identity, these five principles of the Canada Post mandate are unaddressed in this amendment. This amendment is a contradiction of the policies and premises outlined in the Canada Post Corporation Act.
We in the Liberal Party, in the opposition, feel it is an ill-founded and very detrimental piece of legislation to the communication system across this country. We could liken it to the removal of telecommunications from many communities. There was the removal of CBC in my local area. Removing what joins this country together will not improve Canada; it will pull us down further.
This government should reconsider this bill. Stop this insane action of putting Canadians second.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to say a few words today regarding Bill C-73, an act amending the Canada Post Corporation Act.
If ever there was a case to be made that spending time in the House of Commons was not always a useful exercise, this probably has to be the best example. Bill C-73 is taking up time in the House of Commons and will do absolutely no good as far as the people of Canada

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are concerned. It will do absolutely no good in terms of Canada Post. It is a complete waste of time, effort, energy and money. This is probably a good reason that this place should shut down.
That is not our case to make as members of the opposition. For the government to suggest that Bill C-73 will do any good whatsoever shows the government is dreaming in Technicolor.
The purpose of this bill is to make 10 per cent of Canada Post's non-voting shares available for purchase by Canada Post employees on a voluntary basis. The minister responsible claims this initiative will help to eliminate the labour-management tension currently existing at Canada Post.
I wonder if the minister has spoken with anyone who works for Canada Post. If he had, he would know that this is not true at all. I have not encountered anyone who would even indicate there is one slight iota of hope that this is going to improve the working conditions and environment at Canada Post.
I met with some Canada Post employees. As a matter of fact I have had discussions with Canada Post employees and management across the country. Of course off the record, even they agree that this is a complete waste of time. It is an embarrassment because here we are offering the employees an opportunity to buy into the ownership of Canada Post and they tell me that they already own it. Canada Post is already owned by the people of Canada and they are people of Canada. Therefore they are already members and owners of this particular corporation.
They wonder if this is not some kind of a scam the government is trying to pull on employees by suggesting that somebody else owns this corporation. It is a Crown corporation. The people of Canada own that and the postal employees are already owners in a sense.
To suggest employees will now be permitted to buy into Canada Post is laughable. However, we have seen this story before. It ought not to be news to Canadians that the government is trying to give the impression of taking action particularly when it says it is going to
eliminate labour-management tension because of this. Nothing could be further from the truth.
One thing we have seen from the government is the dismantling of post offices across Canada over the last number of years. As a matter of fact the evidence shows that over 1,200 post offices across Canada have been closed by this government. It says this is all part of a money saving initiative.
It is something more than that. It is the removal of what has become a symbol throughout much of Canada, particularly in the small communities and rural areas. The one symbol of Canada always seen is the flag flying over the post office. It is much more than simply a government office. It is often the virtual centre of the community, the focus of community activity.
Some of the small rural post offices in my constituency act as a security check for individuals, particularly for senior citizens. In a small community just outside Kamloops last winter the postmaster noticed that a certain individual, an elderly gentleman, had not been in to pick up his mail for a number of days. He would come in regularly at 10 o'clock every morning to pick up his mail. It was part of his regular lifestyle. He had not been in for a few days so the postmaster telephoned the local detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and made this observation and it went out to check. Sure enough, the elderly gentleman was extremely ill as a result of a bad fall. Had he been left for perhaps even another few hours, certainly a few days, he would have died. However, they were able to rescue him as a result of the thoughtful initiative taken by the postmaster of this small post office.
That is one of many examples I am familiar with. I suspect I am familiar only with a handful of situations in my own constituency where the post office has played a valuable security role for individuals in the small community or rural area surrounding it.
This is part of the systematic dismantling of Canadian institutions that this government has launched into for over eight and a half years. The post office glue which holds this country together and reminds people daily of the unifying efforts of the Canadian government and how this institution has played such a critical role far beyond simply providing postal services is being dis-
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mantled. This is one of the reasons Canadians oppose this general process so much.
I must add that when this bill was in committee, which is the stage where people knowledgeable about the contents of legislation make their views known, there were many criticisms about this legislation. Question after question put during committee hearings went completely unanswered by post office representatives. When the legislation was put to the test in committee more problems and questions came up than answers. For that reason alone the government should be rethinking this initiative as opposed to using its parliamentary majority muscle to push the legislation through. Much more could be done in terms of improving employee-management morale and improving the efficiency of the postal corporation if the board of the post office would simply listen to the people who actually do the work.
One thing has impressed me time and time again. When we discuss with individual postal employees, with representatives of their unions, or simply with groups of postal employees in various situations, there is an abundance of ideas and suggestions on how to make the post office more effective and more efficient. There is no shortage of suggestions, some very creative in terms of using post offices particularly in the smaller communities to provide a range of services otherwise not offered. There is much more in terms of offering a wider range of services throughout the entire postal corporation.
We notice that seldom are those suggestions heard by those who make the decisions. As a matter of fact, with the existing morale situation people presumably are now hesitant about making suggestions in view of the fact that whenever they have been made in the past essentially they have been ignored.
I oppose Bill C-73 on four main points. I believe this is the first step toward full privatization of Canada Post. I believe this will do very little, if anything, to improve the problematic labour-management relations associated with Canada Post. I believe Canada Post has proven in the past that it really cannot be trusted to stop harassing union members who provide the work and cannot be counted on to stick to its word. I will explain that in a moment or two. I suggest that this bill does very little, if
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anything, to maintain or improve service to many urban and rural Canadians. There is absolutely nothing to enhance postal service at all.
Let us turn to the whole matter of this being the first major step toward privatization. I do not have to remind anybody that privatization has been a policy tool used by this government many times in the past. There is no doubt the government is eyeing the opportunity to sell off Canada Post at some point. The only question is when, not if. The minister responsible has publicly indicated that he does not believe this is the first step toward privatization, but he still clings personally to the hope that one day we will privatize Canada Post.
As I was saying, my thinking is totally different in this matter. The minister responsible has said he sees nothing in terms of problems associated with privatizing the post office and that he would like to see Canada lead the way in this area. As a matter of fact on May 1,1992, in an article in The Ottawa Citizen, he had the following to say:
If I had to bet, I would bet that in the next couple of decades, you will see post offices being privatized all over the world and I would not mind seeing Canada first.
That is the minister responsible for the post office indicating his priority in life would be to see the privatization of post offices, with Canada leading the way.
When we look carefully at the contents of Bill C-73, we notice it is really an effort to make Canada Post appear more attractive to outside buyers or to potential purchasers in future. With this bill in place the government can say to prospective buyers that Canada Post employees have a stake in making a profit for the company yet have no say in how the company is run because the shares are non-voting. Therein surely has to be the proof of the pudding. When we actually start to look carefully at it, we notice the shares being offered to the employees are non-voting shares. It does not take much imagination to recognize it means the people most knowledgeable about the postal operations will not have any say in the operation of the company whatsoever. If the post office wanted to be serious about encouraging employee participation, participation in a meaningful way as members of the board of directors would be much more effective. We have seen that model in the past work reasonably well from time to time. However, the

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offering of non-voting shares is a very empty gesture indeed.
When we talk about privatization let us all recall very carefully a statement by the right hon. Prime Minister when he indicated to the past president of the Quebec Federation of Labour, Mr. Louis Laberge, that Air Canada was not for sale. This was quoted widely in the press because at that time many of us in opposition were saying that we thought the government was going to begin to privatize Air Canada. The Prime Minister went on record and said: "Here is my word. I am saying to the president of the Quebec Federation of Labour once and for all, for all Canadians to hear, that Air Canada is not for sale". That was the quote. It was headlined from coast to coast to coast. We could trust the Prime Minister; he had stated it very clearly.


Mr. Boudria:: Did you say "trust the Prime Minister"?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Members are questioning whether I was quoting the Prime Minister. Yes, I was. Having said that, within a very short period of time the government began to sell off part of Air Canada. It began to privatize Air Canada.


Mr. Langlois:: No. The stock of the company was sold, not the company itself. The assets of the company were not sold. There is a difference.


Nelson Andrew Riis: My friend opposite says: "No". The stocks of the company were sold to the private sector. We can quibble over just what it was, but I think the Prime Minister was trying to say: "If I was going to tell the truth here, I would say that Air Canada would not be privatized". That process has begun. The government has said regardless of what its Prime Minister says that it is going to do something totally different. It is fair to say that the government record on privatization speaks for itself.
We have heard time and time again-and I am diverting my thinking to the free trade discussions-the Prime Minister saying that social programs would not be touched, that they were a sacred trust. I guess he was also referring to things like the family allowance. It was a sacred trust. The family allowance would never be touched, he virtually was saying. What did the government do? It totally abandoned family allowance. Family allowance does not exist today. We cannot have a sacred trust and the next day completely abandon the program.
It is that kind of hypocrisy we have encountered on a regular basis in this government. Regardless of what anyone says, people are reluctant to have faith in those comments.
I have to acknowledge that the member from Calgary, the present minister responsible for the post office, speaks out from time to time and speaks very truthfully. He had the courage to say it was his hope the government would privatize the post office of Canada. He said that, and I think we have to respect his words because he does tend to speak very forcefully. We can assume the government will certainly plan to follow through on what he says.
On another matter, I wanted to indicate why my party and I oppose the legislation. It is the suggestion that this will bring labour-management peace. The minister responsible for the post office indicates that Bill C-73 is designed only to make Canada Post employees feel proud to be part of Canada Post.
Let us look at the record. As we speak today there are over 100,000 grievances at Canada Post and there are not even 100,000 employees at Canada Post. This means there are more grievances than the number of people working at the postal corporation. Anyone who knows anything about labour-management relations would indicate that this is probably the best barometer of harmonious things within a particular corporation, the number of outstanding grievances. This record is almost unbelievable.
As a matter of fact if we do the calculation it works out to almost two grievances for every employee. It is ridiculous, to say the least. For the minister responsible for the post office to assume that offering a 10 per cent share of the company-and recognizing that they are non-voting shares-would somehow make the atmosphere of resentment disappear is absolute and total folly.
We need only look at the most recent postal strike as a good example. Although CUPW publicly made a commitment to ensure that government cheques would be gladly delivered by its members during the work stoppage, Canada Post refused to ensure that CUPW would not score popularity points. Instead, as we all remember, seniors and the disabled were forced to stand outside for hours at postal distribution outlets to get their cheques.
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On many occasions the people who had been forced to wait found out that their cheques were not in and that they would have to come back the next day to stand and wait in line.
We also remember the hiring of scab labour, the helicopter drop-offs and paying non-unionized Canada Post employees room, board and travel expenses to replace the unionized staff all over the country which marked the strike last time. It was one of the most hideous periods in Canadian labour-management history many of us can recall.
As a result, to suggest that Bill C-73 will somehow mysteriously improve this very bad atmosphere in employee-management relations again indicates the government has no idea how to manage the post office properly.
I want to make a couple of points about how much faith we can put in the postal corporation and what it says. I go back to October 1991 when Parliament was considering back-to-work legislation to end the postal strike. Canada Post and CUPW came before the House of Commons committee and met with the Minister of Labour to report on outstanding issues. Canada Post said there were only eight or nine outstanding issues and that if CUPW withdrew its other demands they would come to an agreement quickly.
CUPW did this and the House of Commons passed the back-to-work legislation quickly. We will recall that to help speed up the bargaining process CUPW called its workers off the picket line before the legislation was actually passed. CUPW had been promised, and this was the understanding of the Minister of Labour, that the wage settlement would stand and the remaining seven to nine issues would be dealt with by an arbitrator. Canada Post agreed to have an arbitrator pick up where the two sides had left off in negotiation.
After the legislation was passed Canada Post withdrew all offers and said that it was up to the arbitrator to figure out just where the two sides had left off. It was not until July 1992 that an agreement was finally reached. This agreement was found during private meetings
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between CPC and CUPW without the arbitrator. This suggests that if the Canada Post Corporation had been serious about reaching an agreement there would have been an agreement much earlier.
Operating in bad faith as the postal corporation did on that particular issue makes a lot of employees and Canadians generally rather doubtful about simply accepting its word when it says what this legislation is all about.
In terms of service to Canadians we do not have to elaborate on that at all. We can look at past practices that have been brought to the attention of the House of Commons: Canada Post using American fuel for its trucks and in some cases U.S. mail services in terms of fulfilling its operations, supermailboxes frozen up in the winter, postal closures, and rate increases. All these matters do not assist in any way to make employees at Canada Post proud of the company they happen to be working for.
In some parts of Canada this past winter the weather has been extremely harsh. We have seen how ineffective these supermailboxes have been and the problems encountered in terms of people not being able to collect their mail.
The most obvious indicator of where we are going in terms of Canada Post has been the tremendous amount of closures across Canada. I can speak with some experience on this matter. I think of one community in my constituency called Westwold in which there was a very dynamic post office. It was really the community centre. The government decided to close it down and did not replace it with anything. Now the people in that small community have to drive many kilometres to obtain regular mail service. There was a furore. The case was made that the government ought not to simply close down this post office. A facility was opened eventually in the Canadian Legion. The Canadian Legion is a wonderful institution. I happen to be a member of it myself. However I do not think it is really the proper place for a postal outlet but that is the reality of it. In this community it is the Canadian Legion that provides some kind of limited service postal outlet for people to pick up then-mail.
That is not what Canada is all about. That is not what the postal corporation of Canada is supposed to do. That is not the kind of important Canadian symbolism that is

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needed across the country. Again, with over 1,200 post offices closed and as we speak another 145 under review for closure, it is safe to say that there is not a single post office in Canada that is safe in the future, safe meaning being kept open for public use.
Finally, if the government and Canada Post really wish to create an atmosphere of good will with the postal workers, there is a very simple place to start and that is to bargain in good faith with CUPW, PSAC and CUPE members. July 1992 marked three years that postal workers were without a collective agreement. It is not for lack of trying on their part because we all know of the many efforts made by the unions involved in trying to come to a successful collective agreement. But alas, the hesitancy of the postal corporation simply made this virtually impossible.
Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s the government has been pushing Canada Post to make service to Canadians a secondary consideration. If Canada Post could make service its number one goal, certainly there would be much less friction in the setting of goals and working with the postal workers themselves.
In conclusion, I appreciate having an opportunity to say a few words regarding Bill C-73 but I think the government's intent is misdirected. The government is misleading both the employees of Canada Post and Canadians generally if it feels this is going to make any difference in creating more harmonious relations between the workers and management within the post office.
As I said at the outset, there are good reasons why Parliament ought not to consider legislation of this type. When you consider all of the other challenges facing Canada, when you consider all of the other work that must be done in improving the employment opportunities for Canadians from coast to coast to coast, surely wasting time on this type of very misdirected and rather deceiving initiative is inappropriate and a waste of the time of the House of Commons. I think our time would be much better spent in finding ways and means of getting those 1.6 million Canadians who are jobless today back to work in a meaningful way.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-73.
Members of this House will know that my colleagues in the Liberal Party and I have fought this bill relentlessly. Yesterday approximately two dozen Liberal MPs spoke against it at report stage in an effort to convince the government across the way that the bill should be withdrawn. It should be withdrawn for two reasons.
First of all, the bill itself does not accomplish what the government pretends it is going to accomplish. I will get into that in a minute.
Second, what is wrong is that there are a number of post office issues that the House should be addressing, if that is what the government thinks is the most important thing on the agenda, but this is not one of the issues that is important to the Canadian public.
I will give an example of an issue that is important. For instance, there is a bill on the Order Paper of the House of Commons at the present time. It just happens to be under my name. I want to indicate that this bill would be to establish a postal services review committee, a watchdog over Canada Post, the same kind of watch-dog that presently exists in the United States and in other jurisdictions. It would supervise that particular agency, review rate increases on behalf of the Canadian public, ensure that there is no cross-subsidization of rates between monopoly rates and rates that compete with the private sector. Why are we not dealing with an issue like that? It was the government in the Marchment committee recommendations of 1985 that decided to go ahead with the postal services review committee. Then it was abandoned.
But why, Mr. Speaker? We still do not know, but some of us think that the government set up such a committee several years ago and that the committee's first report gave the government news that the minister did not want to hear.
If the messenger brings bad news, you know what happens to the messenger, he is eliminated. That is what the government did to this postal services review com-
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mittee. My colleagues and I would like to take the time in this House to pass this kind of bill, but it is impossible to make the Conservatives opposite listen to reason.

We could be talking about other issues involving Canada Post. For example, there is ample evidence of cross-subsidization of rates. Let me explain briefly what it all means.
Approximately one year ago, someone leaked to me a letter Canada Post was sending to some of its corporate customers. It went roughly as follows: "Fill up your postal machine today". You know those machines that issue printed postage stamps. I guess it is usual to call them Pitney Bowes machines although I am sure other companies make them too. "Fill your postage machines and get a rebate on priority post courier".
I said that there is something wrong with that. The postage machine is first class mail regulated mail and the price is regulated. The government adopts regulations once a year. It is a monopoly. There is no competition. At the present time Canada Post is offering a discount for people who use priority courier, and priority courier is a competitive business. It competes with Purolator, UPS and everybody else. The post office operates it using subsidized money after filling the postage machines which is first class mail. Surely there is something wrong with taking money gained through a monopoly to subsidize that part of the business that works in a competitive environment.
How much of the money we pay for postage stamps as Canadian consumers goes to cross-subsidize those endeavours of Canada Post which have nothing to do with the monopoly that Canada Post enjoys? Am I paying one cent too much for stamps, two cents, five cents? I do not know. Canada Post will not even let us have a look at the books.
Once a year Canada Post publishes an annual report and that report at best is questionable. It does not refer to many things, such as the unfunded liabilities of the corporation. Canada Post produces the report and tells us what it is doing. It is tabled in the House of Commons. The opposition criticizes it for a day or two and the government says it will weather the storm and it will disappear.
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Maybe that works for the government but it does not make for good postal service for Canadians. We need the kind of agency that I am advocating to review applications by Canada Post just as the CRTC reviews increases applied for by the cable operators because they operate a monopoly, or Bell telephone or whoever else applies because they too operate a monopoly on some of the products and services that they sell but not in others. It is a constant battle for companies like Bell to sort out those things which are a monopoly and those things which are not.
That is one thing we could be doing with the time of this House in terms of improving postal services. There are several others. I will give just a flavour of some of these.
Some years ago, Canada Post applied for what has been commonly referred to as the revocation of regulations. It works something like this. Canada Post was previously subjected to regulatory approval from the government through gazetting each year of a new rate for a number of the services it provides. Once a year, apart from approving the first class mail rate, cabinet would approve a number of other things.
A few years ago Canada Post applied for and convinced the government, I do not know how, to exempt Canada Post from future approval of those regulations. What happens? Now such things as certified mail, electronic mail, Envoypost, Telepost, Intelpost, money orders, aerograms, mail to and from the Canadian Armed Forces outside Canada, domestic counter parcels and other items including Christmas greeting cards are no longer subject to those regulations. Why? Because Canada Post did not want the heat of once a year having them included in the Canada Gazette. Now it just increases the rate when nobody is looking and no one can criticize it. The only forum we have is to raise these matters in the House of Commons when we do find out that it is doing something which we do not like or that our constituents do not like.
That is not the right way of doing it. Canada Post should apply, get the process approved, get the rates approved and then live with whatever is approved or whatever is refused. After all, if Canada Post says it can operate in a quasi-private sector type of environment, surely it can be subjected to a regulatory system similar to that which is imposed on Bell, which is imposed on the

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cable television operators and several others. But no, Canada Post wants to have its cake and eat it too and the minister says that is fine.
The minister's solution to making Canada Post more popular is to sell 10 per cent of the shares to the employees. Here is how this is going to work.
First, it is my belief this is the thin edge of the wedge in privatization. Remember when the government originally started to sell shares of Air Canada? It was only going to sell a certain percentage, and then a greater percentage and so on. For those who say this is not the thin edge of the wedge, nonsense, it is.
Second, the way Canada Post is going about this leaves something to be desired, even if one was in favour of the selling of the shares. I indicated a while ago that Canada Post is not a company like others in the sense that the books are not visible, at least not in the way they should be to most of us. We cannot find out much about how Canada Post operates save and except the very general information given in the annual report. My colleague from Carleton-Gloucester says it lacks transparency. Very well put and I congratulate him for that.
Either Canada Post or the minister wants to have these non-voting shares that can only be sold to employees. They are automatically redeemed when an employee leaves the corporation, they cannot be sold to anyone else and because Canada Post does not pay income tax presumably the dividend tax credit will not apply. It will not pay dividends, it will pay a fixed rate of interest.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure you have guessed that already. The only thing the minister wants to do is find a way to get the employees to lend money to Canada Post.
The government provided Canada Post with a line of credit some years ago which appears in the government's estimates. Canada Post has only used a small portion of that line of credit and it is still there so it can borrow if it has a shortage of funds. It can also borrow elsewhere if that is the difficulty. If Canada Post has further difficulty you wonder why it is building a new Taj Mahal in Ottawa for its headquarters. Its present headquarters seems fancy enough as far as I am concerned.
Anyway, I guess it needs that money, or it says it needs that money, and it wants the employees to participate in the share offering.
The other problem is that the bill is wrong in that it does not provide any specifics on the nature of the share offering. There is no value for Canada Post Corporation at the present time. There is no value for the shares. No number of shares or anything like that is indicated in the bill. These things are left to the minister to designate by regulation some time later.
Show me, I am from Glengarry. I want to know. I want to know what the government is up to. Why can the government not tell us now what it intends to offer? If it has not made up its mind, then what is the rush for the bill? I have difficulty understanding that.
Apparently the Minister of Finance, the minister responsible for Canada Post and the Treasury Board have to get together to iron out these things. If they have not ironed them out, why are we doing this now?
The minister says that this proposal will assist in employer-employee relations. The union does not want it. How is it going to assist in relations with the union if the union does not want it? Canada Post is doing it anyway, and the stated purpose is to assist in those relations.
The minister says that this is not privatization. If the government is selling the shares to a private individual then it has by definition privatized at least those shares that it has just sold. Otherwise, it would not be selling them, would it?
I also have a little problem with management giveaways. Canada Post offers huge bonuses to some of its people in the upper echelon. In some cases, $50,000 or $75,000 a year is given in bonuses on top of the salaries that some of these people get. There is nothing in the bill that prevents the minister from issuing some of those shares as rewards to the upper management of Canada Post.
In other words, they can be disguised bonuses for the people at the top of Canada Post. There is nothing that precludes that. I asked that question of the minister at a briefing session that I had in his own office. He had a
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separate briefing session for the press which the minister specifically said I could not attend. That is the transparency of the minister responsible-or should I say irresponsible-across the way.
We know that presently Canada Post has boxes at the domed stadium in Toronto. The president, Mr. Landers, admitted to me that it buys memberships in fancy golf courses for some of the upper echelon people at Canada Post. He admitted that to me in committee.


An hon. member:: That is for motivation.


Don Boudria: Very motivating, but Canadians do not want that.
What Canadians want is for Canada Post, and this may sound original, to deliver the mail. I know that is a far-reaching concept. It is absolutely wild for Canada Post to want to deliver the mail. As far as I remember, that is what it is there for. That is what it is supposed to do.
Canada Post is already trying to look like a private corporation. Why is it ashamed of being a corporation of the Government of Canada? I do not know. I have often argued this point with it. Maybe the government across the way does not want Canada Post to look like a corporation of the Government of Canada.
The act is quite clear. Canada Post must remain a corporation of the Government of Canada and it must have a corporate logo that identifies it that way. What did this government do a couple of years ago? It gave a new logo to Canada Post. It removed the coat of arms. It removed the flag of Canada and replaced it with a very Canadian object to symbolize this great country, a pigeon wing. Yes, that makes all of us feel patriotic, a pigeon wing.
The Canada Post Corporation Act describes its mandate. Listen to this. Portion (e) refers to what the corporation is supposed to be structured like. It talks of Canada Post and identified:
the need to maintain a corporate identity program approved by
the Governor in Council -
That is the first criteria. Cabinet must approve its corporate identity. It continues:
- that reflects the role of the corporation as an institution of the
Government of Canada.
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It used to say Poste Canada Post. It was the pride of Canada, with a coat of arms and the flag of Canada on the post office. That is what it was like and that is what the act says it is supposed to look like.
What does it look like now? First of all, no Order in Council has ever been issued to change the corporate logo. It changed it anyway. It removed the word "Canada". It removed the Canadian flag and now it says "Mail/Poste" with a pigeon wing. It is closing down rural post offices across Canada.
That is not what it is supposed to look like. [Translation]
Canadians all over the country are angry. I give the example of the residents of Saint-Clement de Riviere-du-Loup. I went to Saint-Clement de Riviere-du-Loup.
I see the member for the neighbouring riding here, and there too post offices are being closed. She knows that the people of Saint-Clement just wanted to keep their post office. Canada Post owns the building. I went there and even had a very good meal. I must say that it was very good and I congratulate the people who prepared lunch the day I went there. I gave a press conference on location.
The people want to keep their post office. They just want Canada Post to hire someone else. What is wrong with that? It is not a dying community. It is not a ghost town with no more customers and another post office a mile away. There are no post offices nearby, but there was one in Saint-Clement de Riviere-du-Loup. Why not keep that post office open? No, Canada Post, under its corporate plan approved by the government opposite, closed the post office in Saint-Clement de Riviere-du-Loup, like others elsewhere in Canada, including my riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.

We are debating the wrong bill this morning. The bill we are debating is in itself wrong because it does not do what the government says it should be doing. That too is wrong.
I ask the government to withdraw this bill and let us get on with things that make more sense. If the government wants to talk about Canada Post this morning I have a good idea. Let us talk about Bill C-217. Let us create that structure to supervise the post office rather than letting it run around like a pigeon with its head cut off.

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Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, in dealing with the bill before us today, the proposed government changes to the Canada Post Corporation, I could not help but let my mind drift back to a session in this House a number of years ago when Canada Post Corporation was first created out of the mess that was the post office department before that time.
If we cast our minds back to 1977 and 1978 there was one industrial dispute after another that took place within the Canadian post office, one strike after another. The grievances had piled up-there were 50,000 or 100,000-and everybody, labour, management, public, and government, recognized that something had to be done.
While it pains me to say something exceedingly positive about a former government formed by a party of which I am not a member, one of the things that the late Bryce Mackasey and his colleagues in government did, after a lot of urging from the public, the New Democratic Party, organized labour and others concerned with creating an efficient and competent post office in Canada, was to enact the Canada Post Corporation Act. In doing so they made a number of important changes and also introduced some mechanisms, such as having representatives of employees-although appointed indirectly, which I think is the correct route to go in any case-from the labour movement and from employees within the post office.
At that time Robert McGarry, who was the president of the Letter Carrier's Union, and Ron Lang from the Canadian Labour Congress became two board members of the Canada Post Corporation. The first president of that corporation, Michael Warren, also introduced a new day, a new efficiency and a new spirit of co-operation into the postal system in Canada.
Mr. Warren was pretty smooth. Some people were a little suspicious of him because he was perhaps a little too smooth in their perception. He was competent. He took the public into his confidence. He took key people within the labour movement into his confidence and he dealt closely and on a regular basis with members of Parliament who were interested in the Canada Post Corporation from all parties. He, that board of directors, and that new Crown corporation did wonders in turning
what was portrayed as one of the worst messes in Canada into a relatively efficient and competent corporation.
In the early 1980s I was postal critic for my party and I can remember enjoying the fact that I had something good to say about something that was happening with government and with public administration in Canada. As I mentioned earlier, there were 50,000 or 100,000 grievances sitting around stewing and poisoning the whole labour-management situation within Canada Post and across the country. Within a period of about two years that pile of unresolved grievances had been reduced to virtually nil. We went for a number of years without a single major industrial dispute. Deliveries that used to take two weeks from coast to coast now were delivered in a two-day period, deliveries from Vancouver to Toronto or Ottawa to Vancouver. Sometimes a delivery from Ottawa to Vancouver up to the interior of British Columbia only takes two days.
It did not always happen but that became the standard, and it was by and large met. Despite the proclivity of many Canadians, because we love to knock the post office as do people all over the world, a grudging admiration began to develop among the public out there and among people of all parties. They began to say that government could do something right.
Then this government with its agenda of privatization and a real wrecking crew went to work, destabilized the corporation, got into a real slanging match via a new president of the corporation, and I suspect the government, with the labour representatives on the corporation's board of directors. It found an excuse to knock them off, first of all by depriving them of information necessary in order to perform their function as directors of that corporation. When one of them engaged in legal action in order to get information to which he was entitled as a member of that board of directors, the government used that excuse to remove them from the board of the corporation.
We have come full circle to having about 100,000 grievances, undue amounts of time for mail delivery, privatization and closures in almost every rural area of Canada, and a general poisonous atmosphere once again within that corporation, particularly since the labour bashing and employee bashing tactics of the present Crown corporation and the government in the last few years. They were hiring what the government likes to call replacement workers and which most people who work
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for a living call scabs on a mass basis, bargaining in bad faith with the unions representing Canada Post employees, and generally taking an axe to it.
Now the government has the unmitigated gall to come before the House and the country to say that it will offer shares to its employees and that will patch up everything. That is a crock. If the government were seriously interested in improving employer-employee relations, improving efficiency and restoring what once was the good name of postal delivery in Canada, it would do a number of things.
First, it ought to reinvite employees to have at least an advisory role in the setting of policy within the Canada Post Corporation. It ought to open up those two positions on the board. That is not going to dominate anything. Instead of keeping those members once appointed in the dark it ought to ensure they have the information as do other members of the board to do their jobs.
The government ought to insist the president of the corporation do what a former president of that corporation did: open himself up to the public, to members of Parliament from all parties and to representatives to discuss openly and frankly the problems that beset the corporation and the whole problem with postal delivery in Canada.
I wish I had a little more faith that the self-defined pit-bull terrier, the government House leader and minister responsible for Canada Post Corporation, was really interested in doing what he says he wants to do to improve relations within the corporation. I can still be convinced, but he has to show some good faith in opening up the process again for people who work within the corporation to have some say and some meaningful input in the processes that take place.
I have 15 municipalities and a multitude of post offices within the rural hinterland area of Kootenay West-Re-velstoke. In the last few years we have had closure after closure, privatization after privatization. We have had the ending of rural route delivery in a number of areas. It has been replaced by green boxes. There has been one local disaster after another.
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My colleague, the New Democratic Party House leader, the member for Kamloops, mentioned a little while ago in the House a number of the services local post offices perform in their communities. One important service is security for the citizens of a rural area. If postmasters or postmistresses know the people in their community as rural postmasters and postmistresses do and a senior citizen does not show up for a couple of days, they ask their neighbours where so-and-so is and whether anyone has checked on him or her lately. They may find out a single person living at home has had an accident.
That is one of the very human functions a small local post office performs in a community, especially in rural communities in a number of areas of Canada that suffer from a lack of policing and a lack of security. It is important to have hands on, to know everybody, to know what is happening in the area and to have the contact everybody comes into communication with on a regular basis. It is something very hard to replace. It is one of those human things I would ask the government to understand we risk losing. It is one of the strong links between government and people in rural Canada which is being destroyed by closing down rural services.
There are many other hardships on senior citizens as a result of the elimination of rural route delivery and its replacement with green boxes which they cannot get into in the wintertime. They have to bring their own snow shovels to gain access to them. They cannot open the locks of the boxes because they are frozen. They cannot even get the Canada Post Corporation to install small devices to protect the keyholes in the green boxes from snow and ice. They shovel their way to their boxes and cannot get at the mail anyway. The postal corporation says it is up to consumers to provide protection for the locks on their boxes. Is it any wonder there is disdain for the government in this country when it has that kind of attitude?
The government wants to show a financial return on Canada Post. The member for Kamloops, my House leader, referred briefly to some areas a little while ago but there are many areas in which we could provide more services and increased revenue to the Canada Post Corporation which in turn could provide again a re-

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newed, efficient and community oriented postal system throughout Canada.
One area is electronic banking facilities in many small rural communities throughout Canada. The British post office was consistently in the black for years and years because it operated a banking service throughout the United Kingdom. In the last 10 years literally hundreds of small rural communities across Canada have seen local banks close down. They have been left with no local financial institutions. Sometimes there is a credit union, but there are no agencies of the major chartered banks in hundreds and hundreds of small Canadian communities.
But we do have post offices, or we used to, and there is no reason in this electronic age we could not have good electronic exchanges and basic consumer banking services in many of those areas, turn a profit and provide important community services at the same time. The private sector has abandoned those communities. Why can we not use an agency like the Canada Post Corporation to provide again those basic essential services to rural Canada?
We had a pilot project a number of years ago in the Canada Post Corporation involving Peterborough and two other communities in Canada to introduce catalogue shopping. Now that Eaton's disappeared from the catalogue shopping business a number of years ago, and now that the Sears catalogue is going to be no more, what could be better than to take another look at the results of that study? We could perhaps conduct one or two other pilot projects to provide many areas in rural Canada with an opportunity through the Canada Post Corporation that is already supposedly in the delivery business anyway to have catalogues available. They could be produced by that corporation or perhaps by a private company in concert with the Canada Post Corporation so that rural Canadians could once again avail themselves of those services. They would not have to send out catalogues through the mail. They could be available at local post offices.
I urge this government or the next government to take another look at the results of the surveys. We spent two years on pilot projects. Perhaps it could embark on another whole area that could provide an important
commercial and public service to Canadians abandoned by the private sector through the Canada Post Corporation and reinstall some employment and some services in rural Canada.
I take the opportunity very briefly to congratulate and thank those hundreds and thousands of ordinary Canadians, many from rural Canada, who have been involved in the whole Rural Dignity movement. They have been active on a number of fronts but particularly in their campaign to save postal service and community service in rural Canada. They have done yeoman service.
Whether it is in small communities in the Kootenays, the lower mainland of British Columbia, the north coast, in Atlantic Canada or on the prairies, these people have been active in presenting briefs and sending delegations to Ottawa and across the country at great cost to themselves. They have been demonstrating to save local post offices and have been outlining dozens of alternatives for remunerative services the Canada Post Corporation could provide to Canadians. It could work in the black, earn a profit and put government service back into the good books of a lot of people across Canada.
In looking at the proposal of the government, the bill will make 10 per cent of Canada Post's non-voting shares available for purchase by Canada Post employees on a voluntary basis. The minister, the self-defined pit-bull terrier, claims that this bill will help to eliminate the labour-management tension that currently exists at Canada Post.
Finally, I want to reinforce what I began by saying. If this government or any government wants to restore some feeling of good will among Canadians about the whole idea of government, if it wants to provide an efficient postal service, if it wants to truly establish good employer-employee relations within the corporation or within that service, it ought to open up the board to people from other walks of life, particularly those who work within the post office.
Owning shares that do not even have a vote at shareholders' meetings does absolutely nothing. What they need is input. It needs to open the channels of communication, look at some fresh ideas, perhaps regurgitate some ideas that used to work, and put the whole idea of postal service and government service back into a positive framework that will appeal to Canadians. Then
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they can say that government is doing something right. Government used to do it. Let us do it again.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak on this Bill C-73.
I go back to an experience I had in 1985 and 1986. I worked with a gentleman who I think was one of the most exciting entrepreneurs in Canada, a gentleman by the name of Frank Stronach who runs a company called Magna International. Magna is the most diversified auto parts manufacturing company in Canada. Eighty-five per cent of its sales are exports. The company competes against the Germans and the Japanese. It does very well. The principle behind Magna is its unique corporate culture. Central to that culture is the fact that all employees are shareholders in the corporation.
When I first heard of this bill coming before the House of Commons, I was intrigued. In fact, I initially thought that it was an example of the post office heading in the right direction. However, the closer I got to the bill, the more I read and the more I investigated, the more I realized that this is nowhere near the Magna principle of equity participation and profit sharing for employees. That is why I am opposed to it.
I have said in previous readings on this bill that the concept of equity participation of employees is a principle that I endorse but there has to be a framework. It all has to hang together. There has to be a set of rules and regulations that the directors and management of the company have to follow in order for that arrangement to work properly.
I would like to go back to Magna and take a few minutes to read from its corporate constitution. I will show how its program for equity and profit for employees is different from this particular bill. I believe that difference is why this particular bill will not be of benefit to the employees and is not a good thing to proceed with.
First of all, when the Magna corporation put its constitution and culture together, it made sure that it all fit. One cannot just talk about 10 per cent equity or
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profit sharing for employees without talking about principles that the rest of management has to adhere to. One cannot just talk about it. One has to put it down in black and white. It has to be there in a form in which everyone in the corporation is totally accountable.
Let me just take two minutes to read the Magna corporate constitution. Under board of directors, Magna believes that outside directors provide independent counsel and discipline. A majority of Magna's board of directors will be outsiders.
Under employee equity and profit participation, 10 per cent of Magna's profit before tax will be allocated to employees. These funds will be used for the purchase of Magna shares in trust for employees and for cash distribution to employees in recognizing both performance and length of service. This is a situation where it is not the employees buying the shares. It is that 10 per cent of Magna's profit before tax is to be allocated to buy the shares for the employees.
Under shareholder profit participation, Magna will distribute on average 20 per cent of its annual net profit to its shareholders.
Under management profit position, in order to obtain a long-term contractual commitment for management, the company provides a compensation arrangement which, in addition to a base salary comparable to industry standards, allows for the distribution to corporate management of up to 6 per cent of Magna's profit before tax.
Another key component of this constitution is research and technology development. Magna will allocate 7 per cent of its profit before tax for research and technology development to the long-term viability of the company.
Under social responsibility, the company will contribute a maximum of 2 per cent of its profit before tax to charitable, cultural, educational and political institutions to support the basic fabric of society.
Under minimum profit performance, management has an obligation to produce a profit. If Magna does not generate a minimum after-tax profit of 4 per cent on share capital for two consecutive years, class A shareholders voting as a class will have the right to elect additional directors.

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Under major investments, in the event that more than 20 per cent of Magna's equity is to be committed to a new, unrelated business, class A and class B shareholders will have the right to approve such an investment with each class voting separately.
Finally, any change to Magna's corporate constitution will require the approval of class A and class B shareholders with each voting separately.
The reason that I took the time to go through every aspect of this corporate constitution is because this bill only deals with one facet of the Canada Post corporate culture. Unless the equity participation program is tied in to the whole philosophy of the post office, then there is absolutely no protection for those people who are buying those shares. There is absolutely no accountability.
This idea, which more and more companies are getting into, is a good idea. It will only work when one considers all aspects of the corporation. One of the members said here earlier that when one deals with a company like Canada Post that in the last few years has shown so little sensitivity in terms of its contribution to the fabric of this country as a whole, then if anything, it is like Canada Post has worked at diminishing the trust factor rather than improving it.
We all know that for many years the Canada postal service was not only a service in terms of the small, rural communities of our country but it was also a symbol of the federal presence. It was one of those instruments of public policy that we used to galvanize and pull this country together.
I can remember 1980 when we would make sure, especially during the referendum, that the presence of the postal service in the province of Quebec was refurbished and rebuilt. We made sure that the flags and the wordmark that became the symbol of the national government were brought up to speed to remind people in the community of the services that this government provides to its citizenry.
I have noticed only in the last few years that on the issue of federal presence-it does not matter what province or community-we have run away from it. First we stripped it of the coat of arms. Now we are stripping it of the Canada wordmark.
In my own riding the two operating post offices, stations A and G, provided services not only for small business people but also for senior citizens. There was staff morale at these centres. These stations were part of the fabric of the community. Now they are closed.
I believe that the postal management has forgotten that one of the key ingredients for having a successful corporation is high morale and a positive spirit. I think the actions that they have undertaken in the last few years are working against that spirit. I cannot quite figure out where management is coming from because the principle behind equity-having your employees own a piece of the company and of the action-is to create a better product and better service at a more competitive price and at a higher level of efficiency.
It seems to me that this is being done in a disjointed way. Assume that this particular bill was to indicate to the current employees of the post office that the shares were not to be bought from their own pockets but, as Magna did, 10 per cent of the shares were to be allocated and distributed to all employees of the post office out of profits. Then there might be a chance of turning the spirit of this postal organization around.
It is human nature that if people are treated fairly, then obviously the productivity levels improve. Here is an opportunity where the postal service has really missed the boat.
I support the position that this will in no way, shape or form enhance the postal service of this country. It will not enhance the spirit or the environment of the people who work in the post office. I take that from all levels, from management to people who work on the line.
I do not think this is a good formula and I would encourage the government to go back to the drawing board. It should take what is basically a good principle and put it in a form where there is accountability. This is not tied together in a comprehensive way.
It should go back to the drawing-board and look at some other successful corporations in this country like Magna, which has been doing very well in the middle of this depression. Its eamings-per-share ratio is topping the charts. Its profits are at record levels. The chief executive officer of that company credits that high level of productivity and morale to the fact that there are close to 17,000 shareholders in the Magna corporation. They
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know that at the end of the year 10 per cent of that pre-tax profit that will go toward buying shares for distribution among the employees.
This allows a company to make a better product at a better price. Magna is now as competitive as the Germans and the Japanese. This is the kind of comprehensive approach that we need for the basic idea of equity participation and profit sharing for employees. It is a totally above the board approach where everything is in the open. Management is as accountable as the employee. It is not something like this which is only a partial measure.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche -Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, to begin I would like to congratulate my friend and colleague from Broadview-Greenwood on his speech today.
I would like to mention today that Canada Post intends to close at least 5,000 rural post offices across Canada. The member for Broadview-Greenwood spoke well today about the federal presence in rural communities and I would like to commend him for that. I know that he lives in Toronto and people there tend to lose sight of a country from coast to coast with rural communities. But I know my colleague and he knows Canada. I can also assure my constituents that he knows the situation throughout the country.
I would like to ask the member to give us his opinion on Canada Post's decision to close rural post offices. I know that in my riding of Restigouche-Chaleur, the closure of a post office in Pointe-Verte has just been announced. Mayor Maxime Lejeune and his council oppose this closing; the citizens and I oppose it.
The member spoke about a federal presence in the communities. Could he perhaps comment for us on these policies of Canada Post?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
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One of our members in the House spoke earlier about some ideas that could be introduced into the postal service. He mentioned banking services and I think that is a good idea.
The problem we have is this government. By the way, it does not matter who the next leader of the party is, it can be the member from Vancouver or the member from Quebec. Essentially what we have on that side of the House is a philosophy that it retreats from national government. It has been the greatest retreat from national governance in the history of our country. If it looks at something and it is not showing an instant viability it cuts it, trashes it and just gets rid of it.
I cannot understand the problem that most business people have. I know there are a few people over there that have business experience, but they obviously do not have any influence on this cabinet. In business when your viability is in jeopardy, creativity comes into the boardroom, into the plant or into all facets of the business. The idea is to say that if we are losing sales and we are not viable, how are we going to diversify? How are we going to get more product into the pipe to make the enterprise more viable so we can keep it alive, so we can keep our people employed?
Government has an added responsibility. It is not just that we have to be concerned with fiscal responsibility and with taxpayers' money, we in governance have to make sure that those regions of our country that do not have the critical mass in terms of population have the same national standards as a person does in a richer centre.
That is part of what being Canadian is all about, having national standards or national services. It does not matter what part of the country you are from, whether you are from a disadvantaged region, rural Canada or downtown Toronto. This government has totally missed the boat on that particular feeling or attitude in the country as a whole.
I see the Minister of Supply and Services here. I know in his department of government there is a lot of good creative Public Service talent. Why could we not take some of these rural post offices and make them centres where we would not only supply some of these banking machines but make them centres where small businesses could come in and maybe bid on government contracts?

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They could be mini centres where you would have total government service. With the computer technology that we have today you could make these institutions more than just post offices. They could be agents to supply support for getting passports. They could be instruments that could quite frankly take a lot of pressure off MPs' offices and give a more comprehensive service and therefore be viable.
I think that is the type of approach the post office should be taking. Aside from its primary responsibility of delivering the mail, I have always believed philosophically that one of the most important contributions that the postal service of Canada contributed was its federal presence. This government and these members have been trashing the federal presence for the last 10 years and they are going to pay in the next election.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose an idea to the member for Broadview-Greenwood and invite some comment and perhaps an answer. Part of my comment is really a question.
In my view one of the problems we have had in the Canada Post Corporation in the last while is that the systems analysts and the engineers have taken over. Given the lack of meaningful input from employees or people who work closely with the corporation, particularly in rural Canada but in all ground floor operations in communities across the country, everything has been done to make the corporation fit some self-designed system rather than designing the corporation and procedures within the corporation to fit the needs of the community.
I want to give a couple of examples. The hon. member may not be familiar with my constituency of Kootenay West-Revelstoke, coming from Toronto. To mail a letter from Slocan to New Denver, which is 20 miles away, the letter gets shipped across three valleys, two mountain ranges, a couple of hundred miles to the west to get sorted. In order to come back it returns over the three valleys, two mountain ranges and across a couple of ferries or through an airport where often the planes do not land because of the weather. It takes a week to get 20 miles to another community.
That has been done in order to fit the system that some flaky systems analyst or engineer who is completely out of touch with reality has designed. That sort of thing just does not make sense. If those in responsible positions within the corporation had some continuing dialogue with people who actually experience real life in those kinds of communities, whether through a central agency or some other way-we can work out the mechanism later-maybe they would avoid this kind of bureaucratic nightmare.
Another example is having mail that comes from Nelson go to Vancouver to get sorted-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry, but time is running out and we just have time for a short answer.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to my Magna experience. Do you know, minister, it was quite an interesting two years. It would be a good place to consider after the next election. It is creative, it is positive.
The thing which amazed me about Stronach was that when he would inspect plants, he would inspect the garbage cans because that is where you could tell the morale of the troops. If there was waste of raw materials in the garbage cans you knew that the plant was not functioning. In other words, there are too many MBAs today. I have nothing against MBAs, but the unique thing about Magna was that the toolmakers were running the company. They had a couple of token MBAs trying to look after the books, a couple of accountants, but Stronach had this view, this vision, this feeling and it is working out very well.
I really think it is a model that we have to look at. I never agreed with all of Frank's ideas. Some of them were a little far out. The point is that if you have respect for the person who is working on the shop floor, and if you listen to that person, that is where the real creative energy flows. That is how you make better product and provide better service at a competitive price.
There are too many leaders and too many corporations in this country that are like the post office. I say this with respect to the post office, I think it is lacking in that area too. I think it is time to review it and go back to the shop floor and therein will be hope for all of us.
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Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, I admit I have mixed feelings about taking part in today's debate. Of course I support my colleagues who are against this bill for a number of reasons. First of all, the bill proposes to sell 10 per cent of the shares to employees without giving them voting rights as shareholders. The tax credit is an excellent proposal, but the bill does not provide for direct participation by employees in the management and operations of Canada Post.
The idea is admirable. We must admit that. However, I would like to share a somewhat personal example with my colleagues in this House, having been actively involved when the employees of Spruce Falls Power & Paper Co. Limited in Kapuskasing, in my riding, acquired a majority interest in their company. For them it was a very significant development, because from that moment on they were in control of their own future and participated directly in the company's management decisions. Their attitude changed dramatically. They took a great deal more pride in their work, absenteeism went down and finally they had a sense of belonging and at the end of the day, when they retired, they would have something very tangible and worthwhile to call their own.
That is not what Bill C-73 does. If the government had intended to at least give these new shareholders voting rights, I would have supported the bill from the word go. Unfortunately that is not the case. And add to that the unsavoury developments of the past 10 years during which we saw a Crown corporation, which in the final analysis belongs to Canadians, gradually edge toward privatization.
There is a price to pay and it was paid by closing down many small post offices. Small, because they are located in Canada's rural areas. It is a very high price because in most cases the post office was the only place in the community that had a federal presence. It was probably the only building flying the Canadian flag.
During the debate around the referendum and the Charlottetown accord, we saw that Canadians still have this very strong desire to feel part of this Canadian
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community. Canada Post was one way to promote Canadian unity.
Those of my constituents who went to the post offices have now been closed-six were closed in my riding-felt very strongly about this presence. To them it was a sign that the federal government took them seriously, that they were important. It is something we tend to forget in our large urban centres, in Canada's largest cities, where because of the population density the federal presence is everywhere and all departments are represented.
In small rural post offices there was also the human factor. I have another experience I would like to share with you. My parents, and especially my mother, ran a post office in the small community of Opasatika for 37 years. I remember that when my mother died there were so many people at the funeral that our small church was full. I felt I had to mention my mother's contribution to this community. Every day she met people from the village who came to pick up their mail at the post office. She always had a friendly word for these people and that is why they liked her.
The post office was also a place to meet people, to talk and get the latest news, because we always had a bulletin board where people could put up whatever they wanted. My point is that the kind of personal contact we had before is now gradually disappearing.
We also had the supermailboxes that caused so many problems, especially in rural areas where in the winter snow removal is sometimes less than perfect. I need hardly mention the problems caused by these mailboxes when they are frozen shut. I think this is ample proof that the purpose of the bill is certainly not to improve operations, especially in rural areas.
Last year, another post office in my riding, the one in Moonbeam, was about to close. People rallied to this cause. They wanted to make sure their post office did not close, since the building as such was relatively new, in good condition and the quality of service provided was also very much appreciated by the people in Moonbeam.
We do not know what happened and probably never will, but believe it or not, we managed to keep this post office open. More power to Canada Post, which realized

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that the post office was a very important part of the municipality. The question arises now why the same cannot be done for other small communities.
There are minor changes that can be made if Canada Post is losing money. It is not making a profit. And besides, we have to adjust, especially in these difficult times. No one will deny that adjustments and changes are necessary to save money but closing down a post office altogether, especially for the people who appreciate the service, is very difficult to accept. Since Canada Post is aware of this, one wonders why it is pursuing this policy of closing down rural post offices in Canada.
I have another example of service cutbacks. Last week, the post office in Kapuskasing announced that it would be open 16 hours less per week. The important thing is not the number of hours but the principle behind this decision. Let me explain.
First of all, there will be no more mail sorting on Saturday. As a result, on Monday morning letter carriers will have less mail to deliver since it will still be in the bags or on the tables. So one service is being cut. Instead of getting our mail on Monday, as we did for so many years, we will not get it until Thesday.
Second, people were told that in all cases of address changes the mail would be rerouted to Ottawa. It is very hard to make sense of all this because it used to take one hour a day to do address changes, which meant that the mail was delivered the same day. Sending it to Ottawa means it will now take four days for the mail to come back.
What kind of service is this? What is this about paying $110 for a change of address? What about the fact that first-class mail, which normally should be delivered the same day, will now be delivered four days later? I think the reactions of business people are understandable since they feel they are paying quite enough for a service that is very important to them. Consider the reactions of these business people who in future will be more inclined to use the services of private mail courier companies across Canada. If Canada Post thought it could save money this way it was wrong. It was very wrong indeed.
In concluding, I would say that selling these shares to employees might be very beneficial since the same employees would certainly be more inclined to protect the interests of Canada Post. But that is not the case. The current trend is for employees to be far more involved in their company, whether it employs 1, 3, 5, 10 or even 500 people. It is clear that in future the trend will be for employees to participate directly in the operations and decision making of their companies. Since that is not what this bill sets out to do, I see it as my duty to vote against this legislation.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, the member made an excellent speech and I appreciated the points he was making.
I wonder however if he would elaborate a bit on the issue of labour relations within Canada Post. It has been an issue of concern right across the country. The history is that labour relations have been handled very badly at Canada Post. There was a breach of faith by the administration. Does the member see this bill doing anything to help that situation?


Réginald Bélair: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Victoria for his question. No, this bill will not serve to improve employee-employer relations at all.
This is why I was saying in my speech that the actual tendency for employees to participate in their company is not being addressed in Bill C-73. It is not being addressed because the shares that will be sold to those employees are non-voting shares.
If there was a climate and an atmosphere of confrontation before then this bill will not serve to alleviate those confrontations at all. I strongly believe that the government has missed an excellent opportunity to submit to both employer and employees a plan whereby both would participate in the decision process of Canada Post. With time, relations between the two groups-because we have to say it is two groups-would have improved dramatically for the benefit of all Canadians and services would have improved. Also the delivery of mail would have improved and employees would have taken a stronger interest in the future of Canada Post.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in this debate. I might just ask my friend the member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception if he would

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like to speak in the debate before one o'clock, in which case I can try to accommodate him. Is the memeber ready to do that?


Mr. Mifflin:: Yes.


John F. Brewin: Fine. I will try to keep my remarks brief in order to do that. This bill has been thoroughly debated in the House. It was debated at second reading. I had a chance to participate there and put some of my views on the record. I should not take too long.
I do want to speak as forcefully as I can against this bill. This bill would really be a first step toward the privatization of Canada Post and perhaps there are cases where privatization may be valid although, coming from the tradition that I do, there are probably fewer occasions than many other members of this House would see. There may be occasions but this is not one of them.
Canada Post has been run as a corporation of the 19th century variety for a long time. That is the source of the problem. The leadership of Canada Post obviously went to the Ebenezer Scrooge school of labour relations. As a result, the labour relations within Canada Post are abysmal.
Instead of using the term labour relations one might almost use the term management relations because the responsibility for the problems of employee relations in Canada Post clearly rests with management. No other management in the country could pile up over 100,000 grievances so that the whole system is in gridlock. It now becomes impossible for an employee who has a legitimate grievance to expect any industrial justice within Canada Post. The system has failed and it is the responsibility of management. This bill does nothing to address that.
There are problems as well in the simple functioning of Canada Post and without consultation with employees. It is a breach of a fundamental rule of modem management. Canada Post persists time and time again to put into practice new methods that are designed to create anxiety within the work force and to slow down efficiency for the general public.
For example, in Victoria it has just recently instituted a system. Instead of sorting the mail in Victoria on a Friday and over the weekend, it takes the mail from Victoria-if one can imagine it-by ferry to Vancouver to run it through the sorting machine on the weekend. It then brings it back on Monday or Tuesday to deliver it a day late to the people of Victoria. It is typical. It is unfortunately typical. The consequences in service are dramatic.
Probably all of us have experienced phoning Canada Post with an inquiry. You cannot talk to any human being in Canada Post any more. You end up having to phone somewhere else. Victoria is a capital city and one of the growing regions of this country, but Canada Post has moved its inquiry service to Vancouver. You end up phoning somebody in Vancouver who usually does not know what part of Victoria you are talking about.
I had an experience just the other day phoning Canada Post. First, I was put on hold but eventually got somebody who said it was not their department. The call was referred to somebody else who also said it was not their department. Again the call was put on hold. Eventually the line died. There was no answer. Thousands of Canadians experience that in seeking to find out what has happened to their mail or their service.
All Canadians have suffered from the junk mail that gets thrown in. When I was looking into one of these problems in my riding, I came across the mentality that now pervades Canada Post. The officials started talking about service to the customer. It turned out they were talking about service to the companies that wanted to get their junk mail into people's homes.
The customer is no longer the general public, the people who wish to mail correspondence and have it delivered in a reasonable period of time. The customer is the corporate sector. It seemed to me that summarized the problems at Canada Post.
We need to change. Instead of the direction in which this bill takes us, we need to change our whole approach to Canada Post. We need to begin with a thorough consultation with the public. I would say that in each area of Canada, Canada Post and the administration should establish small committees of the public to begin looking at the problems at Canada Post from the public's point of view.
This should be joined by a genuine consultation with the employees through their unions to seek changes in Canada Post. If your work force does not have good and

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Government Orders
high morale you simply cannot deliver the service that you are asked to.
This bill is flawed. It opens the door to the privatization of Canada Post. It fails to deal with the labour relations problems at Canada Post. It makes no effort to change the management at Canada Post. Until the management is changed it is not going to be possible to change the attitudes that pervade Canada Post, the attitudes that are bringing this great service to a standstill.
I call on the House to defeat this bill at this stage. Send this whole mess back to the government with a requirement that it take a completely different approach than it has been taking on services to the public by Canada Post.


Fred J. Mifflin: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I want to thank my hon. friend from Victoria for this opportunty. He and I will be attending the same meeting this afternoon. I do appreciate his consideration in giving me the opportunity to speak on this bill at third reading as this afternoon's activities would have precluded this.
I want to make reference to the comments by my hon. colleagues who have spoken on this subject. My colleague from Essex-Kent spoke eloquently and with great substance on the issue this morning. My hon. colleague from Cochrane-Superior was the most recent speaker on the Liberal side. Of course, there was the hon. member for Victoria who is not to be forgotten. They put a human face on what is happening to Canada Post.
I am vehemently opposed to the bill. If anything needs to be done with Canada Post, it is not to privatize it. It is not to put together a piece of legislation that causes the initial steps to be taken for privatization. These are measures that mitigate and almost put the employees in a different category of persons. The idea is that they would have shares but non-voting shares. I do not want to get into the details of this bill because it has gone through committee and has been discussed.
I think the principle of the bill really calls into question the whole business of how the postal service is run in
Canada. I am going to read something for clarification and for the benefit of putting a certain aspect to my relatively short presentation here this morning.
When the Crown corporation of Canada Post was created under the Canada Post Corporation Act a few years ago, the mandate had five or possibly six principles. I am concerned with the first principle that is described as: "The desirability of improving and extending its products and services''-I underline services-"in the light of the developments of the field of communications".
If some of the examples we have heard in the last 10 minutes in this House are improving the field of communications, one human being communicating with another, then I think we are far off the mark.
The mandate given in 1986 for Canada Post to close 5,221 rural post offices-not urban but rural post offices-at a loss of 10,000 jobs has been well under way. I am told that 1,200 of these post offices have been closed in rural Canada and roughly 3,200 people have lost their jobs. The principle of people losing their jobs when we have 1.6 million Canadians unemployed today is despicable and shameful. The aspect of this in a generic sense is very disturbing.
I will give the most recent example, but for that example there could have been many others and there are many others. I do not fault the officials involved. Officials working for a Crown corporation or for the government have a mandate. They have a job to do and have terms of reference. If they do not do it, they are fired. Who wants to be fired today when the unemployment situation is as it is? If you lose your job you may not qualify for unemployment insurance, thanks to another recent initiative by this government.
I am quoting the example of Spaniard's Bay, a community of about 3,000 people in my riding. Having set a meeting on short notice for December we managed to get it cancelled and delayed until after Christmas. On January 10 representatives of Canada Post met with the elected representatives of Spaniard's Bay. I was unable to attend.
I was told by the political representative, the member of the House of Assembly for that meeting and the follow-up meeting, that every possible objection in the world was raised as to why Spaniard's Bay, which had
March 9, 1993

already had its postal services degraded by the number of hours two years before did not want to have any change made.
Both the officials sat there nodding their heads. All they could do was repeat their mandate that when a natural opportunity arises the postmaster will have to retire and we will have to resort to another kind of postal service. That is what is being done all over Canada. That is what is being done in these 5,221 cases. That is what is going to be done with this community. Why? Because it is done for everybody. No compassion can be shown because it is their mandate.
Imagine the wrath, the ire, the disappointment and the surprise of the people in Spaniard's Bay when they discovered those five recent cases which happen to have been in the Prime Minister's riding. There are others as well. I am not going to quote the details because I do not have time, but five post offices in towns with populations of 363, 3,733, 4,000, 1,000, 225 and in the most blatant case 121. Canada Post advertised that the post office would have an immediate vacancy. Nobody applied for the job. In accordance with its rule it should have closed it down anyway because of the natural opportunity but it did not and went out again to hire somebody else. This is not applying the rules and the mandate in a fair and balanced manner.
One example of why I believe that if we need anything to improve Canada Post and if we have any bills and legislation to be passed in this House it should be to go back and restore to Canadians the proper service that the Prime Minister promised in an election promise in 1984 when he said that improving the service of Canada Post is going to be a top priority for the government.
If closing down 5,221 post offices in rural Canada is another blow of the demolition derby of this government of destroying rural Canada then I do not see that as an improvement in service. I would certainly say that if this is used in substantiation of trust in the government to approve Bill C-73 on third reading then I think it has gone about it in the wrong way and it is far from receiving the support from this side of the House and many of my colleagues.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon, pursuant to Standing Order 24(2).
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, the governments concerned should thoroughly investigate the effects of tobacco smuggling. This is urgent. Merchants find that cigarette smuggling is making life difficult for them. The tax system must be re-evaluated and some Indian reserves and other networks that benefit from this smuggling, which deprives the governments of hundreds of millions of dollars, must be brought into line.
We should recover these amounts by lowering the taxes of the various levels of government. Will we tolerate this flagrant lawlessness for long? I call on the ministers of finance, revenue and justice of the governments concerned to take the bull by the horns and lay down the law for those who traffic illegally in cigarettes and alcohol and evade taxes.
Does the will exist to eliminate this scourge from Quebec and Canada?


OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, ludicrous, stupid and destructive are just a few of the adjectives that have been used to describe this government's latest round of cuts to Official Development Assistance.
Those of us who have committed our lives to ensuring that the people most in need are the beneficiaries of Canadian aid are flabbergasted at the changed policy directions being implemented by this government, changes

March 9, 1993
which represent the abandonment of our stated official policy to help the poorest countries and people in the world.
The changed policy direction implemented because of a 10 per cent cut to our aid budget has been implemented without benefit of public consultation and in an election year when the government's mandate has run out.
Mr. Mahbub ul Haq, the author of the UNDP report, suggested that a move in this direction "would be an unmitigated disaster". Not only were these cuts implemented without Canadian public consultation but they were also implemented without consultation with the affected countries.
Just as this government has shown through its policies that it has little regard for the people of this country, it is with these measures demonstrating its lack of regard for the poorest people in the world. This government obviously does not comprehend the nature of development assistance and the need for a people first, grass roots development policy which will lift civil societies to self-determination and self-sufficiency.


TAQRAMIUT NIPINGAT
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, Taqra-miut Nipingat is concerned about the budget cuts announced on December 2 for native communities' communications programs.
This organization produces radio and television programs by Inuit people in Inuktitut and distributes them in northern Quebec. As well as preserving Inuit culture and protecting their language, Taqramiut Nipingat provides essential communication services for thousands of people.
I sincerely believe that this communication program must not be cut back, given the economic importance of northern Quebec and this remote region.
I ask the Minister of Finance to revise Bill C-113, because Taqramiut Nipingat is one of the few opportunities for training and employment in the North.


ABORIGINAL YOUTH
Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians have been shocked by recent news stories about the epidemic of suicide among aboriginal young people. Studies show that aboriginal youth are killing themselves at rates five to seven times that of the national average.
In Big Cove, Davis Inlet, the Nishnawbe-Aski communities in northwestern Ontario, and Stanley Mission in my riding the story is the same. Unemployment rates of 80 to 90 per cent and centuries of cultural genocide are the reasons these young people are giving up hope.
Yet this year the federal government has cut economic development programs for aboriginal people by over $40 million while it has increased welfare budgets by $52 million. Excellent proposals for coming to terms with this issue are coming in from First Nations across the country, but they are caught on the bureaucratic treadmill while the crisis in their community accelerates.
Our First Nations people want to end the cycle of dependency and despair. Canadians overwhelmingly share their vision of a future with hope for aboriginal youth.
It is only this government, which has the primary responsibility for aboriginal people, that is not getting the message. Until it does young people are going to pay the price.


VIOLENCE
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, concerned citizens around the world were shocked by the recent murder of a two-year old in Britain by two 10-year old boys. Unfortunately the same attitude that fostered that crime also exists in Canada today.
People from coast to coast are demanding action to stop the increasing violence in our society. It is necessary

March 9, 1993

for all levels of government to work together in an effort to determine the causes of such attitudes and behaviours and to institute remedies for these problems.
It is indeed difficult to legislate morality and good behaviour, but for the sake of our country and future generations every effort must be made now in many areas to restore safety to our streets.
Some areas of concern include the increasing violence on television and in films, pornography, the breakdown of the family, over-emphasis on rights while ignoring responsibilities, poverty, and the lack of adequate facilities to assist disturbed youth. I ask all governments and society to work together to combat this alarming trend.


TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, the lack of a coherent transportation policy in Canada is nowhere more evident than in northern Ontario. By cancelling VIA Rail in the north and by its failure to act on western grain transportation this government has clearly demonstrated that it lacks the will and the courage to make the necessary changes to treat east and west fairly in Canada.
This government is driving regions toward north-south orientation. They must do this for their economic future. Look at Sault Ste. Marie, linked to the best interstate system in the world, and Windsor and southwestern Ontario and its proximity to Michigan. Sarnia is only the width of a river from the interstate system. In my own area of northwestern Ontario we will be forced into a north-south transportation network. We are 40 miles away from this interstate system.
I wonder how long it will take the people in Canada in those regions to go to Amtrak to look after their passenger rail service? This government's transportation policy is forcing regions to protect their economic future in a way that is not in Canada's best national interest. They are going north and south rather than east and west.


ATLANTIC CANADA ECONOMY
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, on February 2 in the House I made a statement and
asked the Minister of Agriculture about the proposed changes to the Feed Freight Assistance Program. If the changes are approved as proposed they will penalize Atlantic Canadian farmers unduly and unfairly.
Another proposed change that will harm Atlantic Canada will be the reduction in the maritime freight rate program which assists Atlantic Canadian industry in being competitive. This program has been in place since 1927.
If these long-standing programs are reduced as proposed Atlantic Canada will lose its ability to compete. Both the agricultural and industrial communities have proposals before their respective departments. These plans address the financial needs of the government but do not place an undue burden on Atlantic Canada.
In the interest of government and business working together in Atlantic Canada I ask the ministers involved to implement the proposals submitted instead of the plans presently on the table.


PEARSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, I repeatedly called for an environmental assessment review panel for the proposed additions to runways at Pearson International Airport.
I am dismayed by Transport Canada's decision to disregard the panel's recommendations. The panel's report states that no decision should be taken at this time with regard to the construction of one or more additional runways at Pearson.
Further, the report rightly observes that any decision to proceed will be perceived as a signal that the concerns expressed before the panel, like previous efforts to mitigate the adverse social impacts at Pearson, have fallen on deaf ears.
There are major implications for public policy in Transport Canada's decision to ignore its own environmental assessment panel. Whatever the actual conclusions of the panel, the government's decision simply to overrule its recommendations raises fundamental questions about the efficacy of all such reviews, not to mention the futile expenditure of taxpayers' money.

March 9, 1993
The residents of Etobicoke and other communities urge the government to reverse its decision and develop a total transportation strategy which alleviates rather than exacerbates the already formidable environmental burdens placed on the communities surrounding Pearson International Airport.


POVERTY
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, it was with shock and horror that I heard the hon. member from Mississauga refer to the subcommittee on poverty as a kangaroo committee.
In doing so she maligned not only the chair but every member of that committee and members sitting on all sides of this House. Her remarks are outrageous.
Has she not heard of the Brighter Futures initiative? Does $2.6 billion mean nothing to her? What about the child tax benefit designed to help low income families? Was the member not paying attention?
It is tragic that any Canadian citizen must live in poverty. The plight of Canadian children is one of great concern to us all. The Liberals and the NDP do not hold a monopoly on compassion. This government has worked hard, not only to provide financial support to disadvantaged Canadians but, more important, to provide them with the tools to become self-reliant.
Perhaps it is time my colleague was apprised of this government's achievements in the area of social-


Mr. Speaker:: The members' time has expired.


NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY
John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, last week the government signed an agreement to sell uranium to Taiwan in breach of the spirit of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Until now, Canada has always insisted that Canadian nuclear materials would be sold only to signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
This treaty is up for renewal in 1995 and faces a very difficult round of negotiations. Canada and the world have a tremendous stake in the success of these negotiations yet the government is undermining the treaty on the eve of the renewal negotiations, contrary to the security of Canadians and the peoples of the world.
To make it worse, the government is routing the sale through the United States to avoid the terms of the treaty and it entered into the agreement after the Minister of Agriculture visited Taiwan, in another breach of official Canadian policy.


ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: Mr. Speaker, aboriginal communities throughout the country are in desperate need. Aboriginal people know what must be done but this government continues to deny them the tools they need to work with.
A vicious cycle links poverty and inadequate and overcrowded housing to family violence, substance abuse and suicide. Yet this government has done nothing to improve aboriginal and northern housing and economic conditions. In fact, this government has made matters worse.
Despite an aboriginal and northern housing crisis, aboriginal and northern housing funds have been cut. Despite high aboriginal unemployment rates, aboriginal economic development and aboriginal communications funds have been cut.
In northern Canada aboriginal language television provides jobs and information on social issues that people cannot get otherwise due to their remoteness.
A new approach is needed which realizes that all things are connected and solutions will come from the people themselves if they are given the opportunities. This government has failed to provide these opportunities. It is time for a new government.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, in Saskatchewan we have recently experienced the Saskatchewan NDP supporting enhanced trade with Mexico. There has been a weak attempt by the Saskatchewan NDP to say: "Yes, but".
A recent article in The Regina Leader Post states: NAFTA bashing by NDP becoming a little tiring.
March 9, 1993

It highlighted this back-and-forth posturing.
I would entreat eveiyone who truly cares to know more about this trading relationship to read this article. It concludes by saying, and I quote again:
In sum, the NDP/trade union position on free trade is a collection of worn-out cliches that presents the facade of solidarity, while attempting to conceal political hypocrisy and union self-interest.
It is time for all parties to recognize that Canada's economic growth and the maintenance of our standard of living are interconnected. Both should be above partisanship.


ERNST ZUNDEL
Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, the decision of the Ontario Provincial Police not to charge Ernst Zundel for promoting hatred and lies about the holocaust is extremely disappointing.

The decision to lay criminal charges under the hate crime provision of the Criminal Code rests with the NDP Attorney General, Marion Boyd. Instead of recognizing the fact that holocaust denial is one of the most powerful weapons of the neo-Nazi movement the provincial NDP in Ontario is burying its head in the sand.
The German government has complained that materials published by Zundel in Canada are being used to fuel the rise of Nazi and extreme right-wing racist organizations. It is time to put an end to this kind of criminal activity.
I hope that the provincial NDP government uses the power it does have to put an end to this type of hate propaganda.


STANDARDIZED TESTING
Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton -Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, in Canada we have a lot to learn. International tests have been done in math and science. Canadian students in grade four perform at the international average, but by grade eight they are out-performed by students in many other countries.
Canadian high school graduates have even poorer results. Testing of basic skills over the past 25 years shows deteriorating achievements. Somewhere along the line we are letting our students down.
In late 1991 provinces recognized the need for national standardized testing, but the proposed school achievement indicators program ran into problems along the way.
As a nation we want our graduates to be competitive in the new global economy. We want our students to stay in school, to learn, to achieve and to move into challenging jobs. I hope we will work as a nation toward achieving these goals.
Governments at all levels can put together a system of standardized testing that will help parents and educators to identify and meet the needs of our students throughout their education.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, this government is in an utter state of confusion over its position on the NAFTA legislation and the proposed parallel accords on the environment and labour standards.
The Prime Minister says that perhaps the legislation should be delayed, and in reference to the accords he says: "They have little if anything to do with Canada".
On the other hand the trade minister says they will ram the NAFTA through before July 1 and then again contradicts the Prime Minister by saying that the accords are important to Canada and that we must be at the table.
Meanwhile the finance minister demonstrates similar confusion on the domestic front. He promises a budget some time soon to present a plan to deal with the deficit. This plan, he says: "will probably be based on the previous plan we had which has slipped".
What we have is a new plan based on a failed old plan. It is obvious this government is in a total state of confusion. It has no leader, no direction domestically and obviously no direction internationally.

March 9, 1993
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of defence.
An internationally recognized aviation magazine has reported that Agusta, the Italian company from which the government is buying the EH-101 helicopters, is now $1.4 billion in the red and is now under the bankruptcy protection rules in Italy.
The Italian government appears both unwilling and unable to provide a bailout under the European Community rules.
Why is the minister insisting on risking billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to support a company that is about to collapse? Will she not at least suspend the contract so that we can ascertain that Canadians will not end up subsidizing a bankrupt foreign company?


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the government has no reason to believe that the contract will not be performed as stipulated.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, let me ask a supplementary question about how this performance will be completed.
In late January the EH-101 prototype helicopter crashed for unknown reasons, killing four people including the test pilot. The Italian ministry of transport has grounded the eight remaining prototypes and has opened an inquiry which has yet to report.
Why has the government made the commitment to buy an expensive piece of equipment which has not yet proven to be either safe or reliable? How much will this government pay for somebody else's mistakes?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, the prototype to which the hon. member refers that did crash is not the same model that is the subject of our contracts.
The government has chosen this model to replace the two fleets of helicopters and the fleet of fixed-wing aircraft for the same reason that the member of that
hon. member's party who sat on the standing committee supported unanimously with his colleagues the purchase of these helicopters in November 1990.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows full well that when that committee reported the cost of the helicopters was less than 40 per cent of what it is now, before the collapse and crash of the prototype.
In sum, the minister is telling us that the government has committed billions of dollars to buy helicopters it has yet to prove it can fly in a safe and reliable fashion from a company that is going bankrupt, without any protection for the Canadian taxpayer.
Can the minister tell us what guarantees the government has received on non-performance of this arrangement? In the name of honesty, fairness and good government, will the minister table the helicopter contract so there can be an appraisal of just what commitments are made and how the Canadian government can extract itself from the mess this minister has got us into?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has no basis on which to make the claims he is making.
With respect to the crash of the prototype helicopter, which is in fact not the model that is the subject of our contracts, I am more concerned about the more recent crash of one of our aging Sea Kings off Florida.
I think Canadians want a standard of safety in modem technology and do not wish to play politics with the safety of the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe -Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the minister of defence.
The minister of defence and the government continue to ratchet up almost monthly the cost of these helicopters. Originally a number of years ago they were announced at $2 billion. That figure subsequently became $4.4 billion. They acknowledged a few weeks ago that it was $5.8 billion.
March 9, 1993

In the original news communique put out by the minister's predecessor the cost then announced at $4.4 billion included the helicopters, spare parts, technical manuals, training and administrative costs. Not included of course was the cost of arms for those helicopters and the cost of strengthening frigates.
I want the minister of defence, because surely she has those numbers at her fingertips, to tell this House, and through this House Canadians, what are the additional costs above known costs to bring these helicopters on stream, to prop up a bankrupt Italian firm and to waste taxpayers' money.


Hon. Paul Dick (Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, the numbers that have been used in this House by opposition members, are being used footloose and fancy-free. They are dreaming up numbers almost on a daily basis.
From the time of the announcement the price of these helicopters was $4.4 billion. It is $4.4 billion in today's dollars. It has been from the beginning and will be to the end.
The figure they have then used is what is used in every large contract which goes over 13 years, a figure which is in possible inflated dollars for contingencies in case there is inflation. They try to use that as 2 it is a different figure.
It is $4.4 billion in today's dollars and always has remained the same figure.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, that answer is as bankrupt as one of the partners in the joint venture building the helicopters.
I want to ask the minister of defence a question. It is not a supply and services question; it is a defence question. In the fact sheet put out by the minister's department on these helicopters, describing the equipment the helicopters use it describes two torpedoes per helicopter, 24 sonar buoys, smoke markers and so on. That equipment is not included in the press release put out by the department of defence outlining the cost of the helicopters. That is a fact.
What is the additional cost of strengthening 16 frigates? What is the additional cost of purchasing and supplying arms for the 35 helicopters that are deemed to be appropriate to be armed?
Oral Questions
Mr. Minister you haven't told Canadians the full truth. Tell them now.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Hon. members on both sides of the House know that it has been our custom and tradition not to use the personal you, no matter how strong one feels about an exchange, and to put the questions through the Speaker.
I would just have to let all hon. members on both sides of the House know I am going to insist on it.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, the very first time this issue was brought up I told the hon. member that the cost of the aeroplanes and the systems that were going into them was $1.4 billion plus $1.4 billion for $2.8 billions.
The other costs include the logistics, the spare parts and the other peripheral equipment that goes onto it rather than just the body of the aircraft itself and the systems going into it.
At that time I offered the hon. member, if he wanted, a briefing on this. As a matter of fact he did not go to the briefing until after it closed down. He was not there for the briefing. He was only there for questions that he posed afterward. Only one other member of his party was there for the briefing. He ignored it. He did not want to know the facts.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Paul Wyatt Dick: We would be very happy for this to come up-


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, on your feet. That's a lie.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will retract that statement. The hon. member is not going to get away with that and he knows it.


Some hon. members:: Withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure all hon. members would understand that the position of the Speaker is not easy in a situation like this one.
It probably is best, as the hon. member is a very experienced member in this House and has been here for a long time, if perhaps the matter could be settled

March 9, 1993
Oral Questions
between myself and the hon. member. It does not need a lot of comment from everybody else.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Out of respect for the Chair, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the comment directed at the Chair.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. I also thank other hon. members for accepting my suggestion that in a case like this it is best if it is settled by the Speaker and the member who is involved.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your intervention. This is in fact a very serious issue for all sides of the House. I did attend the briefing. Last fall I asked the associate minister for national defence and she acknowledged that these helicopters did not fit on the frigates and required millions of dollars worth of modification.
It has now been brought to my attention that there are even more serious design problems affecting the working relationship between the helicopters and the frigates, problems which go to the very fundamentals of this project and may require its cancellation.
My question for the minister is a very serious one. Has she been informed of any other design problems affecting the capability of the frigates if they have these helicopters attached to them and, if so, will she inform the House?


A. Kim Campbell: No, Mr. Speaker.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to inform the minister that tomorrow details of this will be made public.
Let me simply say that yesterday the minister said to the House that the whole project including the frigates and the helicopters should be reviewed. Those were her precise words. The minister inherited this project from previous ministers.
Will the minister who has gainfully defended this project now show some political courage and set up an independent review of this project and save the Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars in wasted money?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I did not say I was going to take a review. I simply reminded hon. members that the shipboard helicopters are a completion of the frigate project and if one is going to talk about
cutting them back then that has implications for the frigate project.
When I mentioned the possibility of reviewing that there were heads shaking on the other side of the House clearly not in support of that.
I might say that on taking over as Minister of National Defence of course I reviewed the policies to which we are committed. In reviewing the helicopter project I was much comforted by the support of the hon. member for Victoria who as a member of the standing committee was part of the consensus that supported replacing our Sea King helicopters with the EH-101, and I thank him for that advice.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, I quote the minister from Hansard yesterday:
I think this is something that we should review.
I may also make two points to the minister. First, the recommendation was not to purchase the EH-lOls but was instead to replace the Sea Kings. The report did comment favourably on the EH-lOls but times have changed since this report was filed. We on this side are prepared to cancel this agreement in light of the facts that are now in front of us.
Will the minister not face up to the new facts that are coming in daily on this helicopter and will she not agree that it is important to review this purchase and in fact to put it on hold?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the hon. member that times have changed since November 1990 after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war. That hon. member gave his support to this particular project.
I would suggest that what has changed is less the question of the cold war than a more imminent contest which will probably be hotter and which I think is more the motivation of that hon. member's question.


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of National Defence.
It is true that the situation has changed and that the Italian company in question is nearly bankrupt. It is also true that the prototype helicopter which she recommends had an accident that killed four people. Since this
March 9, 1993

project was announced last year, the cost has risen not just by $2 billion but possibly by $4 billion now.
So I would like to ask the minister this: Since thousands of children in Canada have no food, would she be prepared to cancel this contract for the sake of Canadians?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, what concerns me is the recent accident of one of our old Sea Kings. I am aware that the men and women serving in our Canadian forces need to be safe and not made to fly in old, unsafe helicopters.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, if the minister is interested in the women and men in the Armed Forces, why does she want to buy a helicopter of which a prototype had an accident that killed four people?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, it is not the same prototype as our helicopter. I think it must be pointed out that many prototypes of helicopters and other aircraft in the world have accidents when they are being tested out. This is not a reason to cancel this contract.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of National Defence.
The minister now knows she was wrong yesterday when she told the House that she had not been made aware of outrageous sexist comments made by one of her senior officers. Given that the commandant of the National Defence Medical Centre obviously opposes the government's policy on equality for women in the Armed Forces as stated by the minister in the House yesterday, why has the minister not relieved Colonel G. D. McLean of his duties?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the hon. member has raised this question again. On inquiring about the very serious issue she raised, I was advised that the reason why I was not personally aware of it was that it had been resolved. The booth relating to pay equity in the Armed Forces was in
Oral Questions
fact put in place. The member of the Armed Forces who appeared not to understand the policy was dealt with through the appropriate channels.
That issue was resolved before the hon. member raised the question. I am sure she did not know it when she raised the question but I am sure she will be pleased to know there was a satisfactory resolution of it.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
While the minister is out campaigning she may believe that the issue has been satisfactorily resolved but if she would take off her blue coloured glasses for a moment she would know that jobs performed primarily by women in the Armed Forces are paid at a discriminatory rate compared to jobs performed primarily by men.
If the minister is taking no action concerning Colonel McLean's comments, what specific concrete action will she take today to end pay discrimination against women in her department?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that action has already been taken by the Government of Canada. It is the policy of the Government of Canada. It is the policy of the forces of Canada and it is the policy that is being applied in the Canadian Armed Forces.


TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
As the minister knows, the rail industry in Canada is in a crisis. CN is getting rid of its main line from Truro to Sydney. CP is getting out of Atlantic Canada altogether. The two rail companies have merged in the Ottawa valley and are now talking about a full merger east of Winnipeg. Last week CN announced 10,000 more jobs will be cut.
All of this is happening in the absence of any national plan by the federal government to determine what the rail infrastructure should look like.

Oral Questions
My question for the Minister of Transport is this. Will he immediately assign a task force the responsibility of determining what the basic rail infrastructure should be? As part of that, will he impose a moratorium on any main line rail abandonments and any further job cuts until that plan is in place?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member certainly knows, because he was at the press conference this morning, that the NTA review commission has tabled its report. I officially tabled it in the House this morning.
As a result of the tabling of this report I indicated that it would be submitted to the standing committee of the House of Commons for examination and report. At the same time, the Ministry of Transport will be striking a work force to examine both the Royal Commission on passenger transportation and the report of this review commission.


Iain Francis Angus: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.
Perhaps the minister should have listened to the question instead of reading the script he was given. I did not ask about the NTA review. I asked about the future of rail in this country. The best thing that the NTA review can come up with is more deregulation, giving the railroads more power to rip up tracks from one end of this country to another.
I want to put my question to the minister again. Will he impose a moratorium on any further main line rail abandonments? Will he impose a moratorium on the job cuts that CN and CP are conducting until we know what kind of rail system we need in this country?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is really interested in the future of the railway he should applaud that CN is being fiscally responsible and has as its objective to properly serve its customers. It has decided to rationalize itself.
The member should know, and I am telling him if he does not know, that the largest railway in the U.S. has a volume of about $5 billion a year and has 31,000 employees. CN has a volume of less than $3 billion and
also has 31,000 employees. It is natural that CN wants to cut, rationalize and become more productive.


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister. The report of the National Transportation Act review commission also says that the railroads are in worse shape and risk facing a drastic situation by the end of the decade. The commission also adds in its report that the government should privatize Canadian National. The minister has had this report since January 30. CN employees have a right to know what is going on. Why did the government adopt the policy of privatizing CN Rail?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what this member's policy is and what the policy of his party is on this question. This morning, at his own press conference after the tabling of the NTA report, he said he and his party do not fundamentally and forever oppose privatization.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the minister would try answering questions directly and honestly for a change and we might actually have a debate in this House.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think anybody would be too perplexed around here whether anyone on either side of the House wanted either a direct question or a direct response, but I think we can refrain from using the word "honestly" with the imputation that perhaps it is not being given honestly. The hon. member.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, I will not use the reference to honest in connection with the minister.
The issue of airlines is also raised in the report. The minister has been saying for some time now that he intends to recalibrate, to use his jargon, the regulatory framework within which the airlines in Canada operate.
His commission's report has not given him any help on that. It is time for the minister to stop waiting for royal commissions, review committees, task forces, transport committees and start answering questions about how he is going to preserve competition on Canadian domestic air service routes in this country.
March 9, 1993

Oral Questions
How is he going to do it? When is he going to do it? When is he going to take responsibility?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, my honest answer is that the management of both airlines have recently testified in court that they know what their problem is. It is over-capacity.
If they know what the problem is, then they should attack it themselves. If they do not, then we will intervene.


Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
The minister will note that in the report on the National Transportation Act the commission recommended the removal of regional development as one of the priorities of our national transportation system. He will also know that under great pressure his government was forced to include it in the original 1987 act.
Regional development is absolutely a key component in the transportation systems for all parts of the country. Yet not only when this recommendation came down, but when the royal commission recommendation came down, the minister remained absolutely silent.
Will the minister reassure the House and all Canadians that regional development will remain an effective component of our transportation policy?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, the two commissions of inquiry, the Royal commission on passenger transportation and the National Transportation Act review commission, made similar recommendations. Both commissions have transportation experts who devoted a lot of effort to this question.
I think the member should be glad that we will give members an opportunity on the Standing Committee on Transport to examine these recommendations from experts and to provide the Minister of Transport with their own recommendations. At the same time, the Department of Transport will also do its homework to see what recommendations apply, which ones we should accept and which we should not.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, my supplemental is for the same minister.
Some of the issues raised in this report are immediately and obviously incorrect. The one dealing with regional development affects not only cities like Winnipeg and Halifax, but Montreal, Quebec City and Baie Comeau. Regional development is key to these cities. By referring it to study and putting it on the back burner, the minister again puts the stability of these local economies at risk.
I ask again: Will the minister reassure the House that this government appreciates the importance of transportation in the regional economies of this country?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I repeat again that these two commissions were composed of specialists in transportation industries. They have made recommendations for the short term, the medium term and the long term.
The hon. member should be very pleased that we are now going to ask members of Parliament to examine this in the Standing Committee on Transport and report to this House on a proper way to handle these recommendations.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works.
As the minister knows, since August 1989 Mr. Alan Scales has been chairman of the federal Crown corporation, Marine Atlantic, which operates the ferry service from Prince Edward Island to the mainland, a service that will be eliminated to pay for the fixed link.
Is the minister aware that Mr. Alan Scales' law firm has been associated with the proponent of the fixed link Strait Crossing Inc. since May of 1988 and that Mr. Scales has now joined in the Federal Court trial to support the Liberal Government of P.E.I. on the side of the fixed link?
What will the minister do about this textbook case of conflict of interest where during part of the day Mr. Scales wears a paediatrician's gown and the rest of the day wears an undertaker's hat?

March 9, 1993
Oral Questions


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, first I want to make sure that he is not the type of transvestite my hon. friend is suggesting. Second, I am going to check very carefully to see that the information he has given me is true and then I will make up my mind.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Transport and it is not about transvestites.
Will the minister explain to Canadians why as the Minister of Transport he employs Mr. Alan Scales as chairman of the federal Crown corporation Marine Atlantic when the same Mr. Alan Scales is before the Federal Court supporting the Liberal government of Prince Edward Island in its push to kill that same ferry service?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of these circumstances. I take notice and I will prepare an answer for the member.
He *	*


EMPLOYMENT
William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
The good news is that the Self-Employment Incentive Program is working very well in northern Nova Scotia, but the bad news is there is one area that is excluded. That is Colchester county.
Will the minister move to extend the application of SEI to Colchester county and give the people there the same opportunities that everybody else around Colchester has?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the fact is that under that option of the Canadian Jobs Strategy, I believe $6.9 million is allocated to Nova Scotia.
As the hon. member knows, because of his good work in his riding of Colchester that area is doing very well. There are other places in much greater need. Unfortunately the criteria is such that we have to take care of those parts of Nova Scotia having a greater need. We are piloting some projects in the Halifax region. I will check as to whether or not we could not pilot this good initiative in the member's riding.


Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade. I believe that he is out for a few minutes, so I will direct it to the Minister of Finance.
The minister has said clearly on several occasions that he would begin negotiations about how to obtain additional guarantees for strengthening the North American Free Trade Agreement in the areas of the environment and labour standards. However, so far, he has refused to promise clearly that the main treaty will not be signed until these supplementary negotiations are concluded. This is extremely important and I believe that the people are entitled to know where the government stands on this question.
Can the minister finally tell us if he will make signing one agreement conditional on signing the other?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, first let me say to my hon. friend that the government is quite satisfied that the NAFTA agreement itself is in the interests of Canada and should proceed.
In regard to a side agreement on the environment or labour, we were prepared to discuss these matters with the Americans as long ago as February of last year. I put forward proposals, for side agreements on labour and the environment with both the Americans and the Mexicans. These were turned down.
The Americans have now raised the point again. We are delighted to have an opportunity to put our case forward at this time.


Lucien Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, this is a good example of an indirect answer to a very direct question.
No one will understand the refusal of the minister to commit himself on such an important question for all Canadians, especially when President Clinton has just said in a recent speech delivered to an American university and I quote: "That agreement holds the potential to create many jobs in America over the next decade if"-and that is a big if-"it is joined with others
March 9, 1993

to ensure that the environment, living standards, and working conditions are honoured".
Will we see the Americans withholding their signature while this government rushes to the table to sign the main treaty before the conclusion of the parallel agreements? Will this government undermine the American efforts to protect our own environment and our own jobs?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me say to my hon. friend that the treaty has been signed. The NAFTA agreement was signed last December. It is now up to Parliament and the congresses in Mexico and the United States to pass it.
The Americans have made a statement that they will not pass this unless their Congress approves the side agreements. It has nothing to do with Canada and Mexico. We will participate in that negotiation as well in order to get the best possible terms on the environment and on labour standards.
I should also point out to my hon. friend that there is nothing in the NAFTA itself that allows any other country to impose lower environmental standards on Canada or another country. Indeed, the result of the agreement will be an improvement in the environmental standards in all three countries.


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, General Motors has announced it is going to lay off an additional 8,675 workers by 1994. These are workers in Oshawa, Scarborough, St. Catharines and Windsor.
In light of these lay-offs I ask the industry minister exactly what conversations he has had with George Peapples, the president of General Motors Canada and exactly what he is going to do about it?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I met with Mr. Peapples two and a half weeks ago.
We discussed this in the context of the over-all problems that General Motors is having on a world-wide
Oral Questions
basis. I expressed my deep concern about what is happening to General Motors Canada. He promised that he would take into account these concerns as these decisions are being made.
Let me just point out to my hon. friend that he is referring only to the lay-offs. He has not made any reference at all to the increase in truck production at the plant in Oshawa.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, if the minister wants to look at his record in terms of the auto industry, over the past four years Canada has lost 15 per cent of its auto jobs. The United States during the same period has lost only 8 per cent.
If the minister is so proud of his record, can he explain why under his stewardship Canada is losing auto jobs at twice the rate of the United States?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend would go back to 10 years ago and see the proportion of automotive production in Canada relative to our sales in Canada and compare that to the United States, he will see that the result has been a significant increase in jobs in the auto sector.
There has been a considerable increase in production so that today Canada has I believe 17.5 per cent or 18 per cent of the total production in the United States and Canada, compared to the size of the sales market which is about 9 per cent. That is a very good record.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, despite our recognition yesterday in this House of International Women's Day, I have a question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
There are three women in London, Ontario who are still waiting for this government to recognize gender persecution as a legitimate refugee claim. In fact, Mrs. Simret, Mrs. Sighed and Mrs. Bahlebi-Tcdia are all single mothers fighting deportation to Ethiopia. In three days Mrs. Bahlebi and her son will be deported to a country where she was beaten publicly and persecuted. She has not lived there for over 17 years.

March 9, 1993
Oral Questions
What will the minister and this government do to end the gender discrimination of refugees and introduce a consistent policy which will allow these women and others to stay in Canada?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will be pleased to know that today the chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board, Madam Mawani, has issued guidelines on gender-based persecution.
Members of the board will now assess the particular circumstances which have given rise to the claimant's fear of persecution. They will also assess the conditions in the country of origin before entering their decision.
These guidelines are intended to ensure a thorough and sensitive method in this difficult and complex matter. They will promote consistency across Canada and coherence in those decisions rendered on refugee claimants.
The hon. member will also want to know that in January I asked the department to start discussions and consultations with interested persons and groups across Canada so that as a country we can deal with this crucial and important question. That process will take place.
A former member of this House, Mr. Broadbent, has qualified this development as positive and I intend to pursue it.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, in some circumstances the minister of immigration does not need any guidelines. He can glean advice from another government ministry.
A Russian woman in my riding, Irina Aoucheva, and her Canadian-born daughter face imminent deportation if the minister fails to intervene. While immigration officials say that Irina's claim of persecution is unfounded, experts at external affairs tell me that: "The situation is so confused in Russia that there are no guarantees for their safety one way or the other". In fact, while immigration officials go by the book, external affairs advises: "Russian law is not at the state where local authorities could prevent anything from happening to this woman".
Why is the minister refusing to accept this advice? Is he prepared to submit this woman and her Canadian bom baby to persecution?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wants Canadians to believe we are interested in sending people to be persecuted he has it completely wrong.
This government was the first to introduce in the Immigration Act the authority to require for every failed refugee claimant a case-by-case review where the person will not be deported if there is harsh or inhumane treatment awaiting that person in the country of origin.
These provisions have been introduced in the act which that hon. member voted against.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, last year the consumer and corporate affairs committee tabled a report on credit cards in Canada. The committee recommended that the government introduce legislation which would require standardized information disclosure by credit card companies.
Will the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs review the committee's recommendation and work with his provincial counterparts to introduce this badly needed consumer legislation? Consumers then would be able to compare apples with apples.


Hon. Pierre H. Vincent (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for his question and for his continued interest in this matter.
We are considering the committee's recommendations and I can assure the hon. member we have already started discussing potential improvements with the provinces.


INTEREST RATES
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
March 9, 1993

Oral Questions
The minister will know that today the treasury bill rate has reduced by 23 bases points to 5.66 per cent. This is the lowest rate for a long time.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Has the minister had any negotiations or conversations with the banks, bearing in mind that the prime rate is the rate on which business loans are judged, to see if he can get the bank rate or the prime rate down to 6 per cent and fuel our economy even faster than it presently is going?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that question.
The rate today at 5.66 per cent is the same as it was on July 9, 1992. In so far as the prime rate is concerned, the hon. member will know that it is 6.25 per cent. It is 6 per cent in the United States. That is very narrow.
I think the hon. member knows that the banks have been leading and bringing down interest rates. The hon. member will be very encouraged to know that the spreads on short-term money are narrowing very dramatically. It is just over 2 per cent and that is a good sign as well.


MUNICIPALITIES
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance as well.
The government, without any consultation, has decided to slice $15 million from grants in lieu of taxes that the municipalities were to receive from the federal government.
Yesterday in committee finance officials admitted that they intend to do this in a completely high-handed fashion without any legislation coming before the House of Commons.
Why does the minister think that he can get away with attacking Canadian towns and cities that are going to be very badly hit by this move without even seeking parliamentary okay through legislation?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, we are not attacking towns, villages and municipalities.
The fact is that where grants and contributions across the board have been cut by 10 per cent, in the case of the grants in lieu of taxes, we have frozen the grant at the $424 million level, the same as it was in 1992-93.
For the information of the hon. member, in 1988 that figure was $250 million. Since 1988 grants in lieu of taxes have doubled. In the last three years they have gone up by 30 per cent. All of us must tighten our belts, including the municipalities, the provinces and the federal government. As the hon. member knows, there is only one taxpayer.


Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works and is along the same lines but not with respect to legislation.
I would like to ask about municipalities where the federal tax base is very significant, such as Oromocto in my riding, where CFB Gagetown is such a large part of the property tax base. What avenues for consultation and negotiation with his department are going to be made available to municipalities such as Oromocto to address these critical factors in their 1993-94 municipal budgets?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my hon. colleague. He has been very concerned about his municipality, as have other members in the Chamber.
The Minister of Finance has indicated the necessity for re-evaluating the process for municipal grants in lieu of taxes because of the rapid escalation.
I have already had the opportunity to meet with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on one occasion. I hope to meet with them again this week. We will be exploring ways to try to implement the freeze to which the Minister of Finance has referred in a fair way.
I would suggest to my colleague the best way that his municipality can try to meld itself into this approach is to work with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities as we try to come to some agreement.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of Vyacheslav Chomovil, member of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine and chairman of the Rukh Party.

March 9, 1993
Privilege


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


PRIVILEGE
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I wish to raise a matter of personal privilege regarding comments made by the Minister of Supply and Services during Question Period.
It is my contention that the Minister of Supply and Services has sought to deliberately mislead members of the House and through the House, mislead members of the public with comments he has made suggesting, as he did during the Question Period to much agitation on this side of the House, notably from the member speaking, that I had passed up an opportunity to be briefed by DND on the subject of the EH-101 helicopter.
The minister began his comments by suggesting that I had missed entirely a briefing that was offered to me and to other members. Subsequently, and Hansard will show this, he altered those comments, as the agitation on this side of the House became extremely apparent, to suggest that I came late to the meeting. On the day in question, February 9, at 3.30 p.m., one-half hour after the end of Question Period, three members of Parliament from this side of the House took part in the briefing, the member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, the member for Labrador, and myself, and three or four, I do not know the exact number, Liberal assistants.
It is true that I came into the briefing session, as the minister describes it, near the end of a slide show by DND officials. However I was there for all the questions, comments and discussion that took place between officials, parliamentarians and assistants. As well, I might point out that questions and answers were still ongoing. Notably, I was still putting questions and getting answers when the special assistant to the Minister of National Defence stood up and cut off the meeting.
With that knowledge, if the minister's comments that have been made in this House are deliberately misleading and deliberately assign motives to a member of this place, cast aspersions on a member of this place. If the
minister is not aware of all the facts then I would seek that the minister would withdraw those comments.
It is my belief, generally speaking, that members should seek and should expect the protection of the Chair when such comments are made.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I assure you I will not take any longer than the hon. member. On the week leading up to Friday, February 5 both the Liberal and New Democratic Parties were offered briefings on the EH-101. On Friday, February 5 the Liberal Party did not show for the briefing between one and two o'clock or between three and four o'clock, but the New Democratic Party, represented by the hon. member for Victoria, showed up for its briefing between two o'clock and three o'clock.
A second scheduled meeting was put forward. It was attended by the briefing team of Colonel Ross; Colonel Daly; Ray Sturgeon, ADM materiel from national defence; Harvey Nielson, PMO-DND; Gary Sager, PMO-DSS; and Commodore Garnett. This was set up for 3.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. on Tbesday, February 9.
At 3.30 p.m. the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception and the hon. member for Labrador entered the room and were there for the briefing until 4.25 p.m., for 55 minutes. At 4.25 p.m. the hon. member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, who has presented this point of privilege, entered the room, 55 minutes later, at the conclusion of the slide show and the briefing. As I indicated in Question Period he was there for the questions and he did ask some questions but he missed the briefing.


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. We are in the midst of a question of privilege. Does the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond have a point of order that might assist me?


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the Chair heard point of order. I wish to add some facts with regard to the point of privilege raised by my colleague, in view of the fact that I am intricately involved in some of the facts which the minister has alluded to.
I am wondering if the Chair under the guise of fairness would give me an opportunity to present my intervention.
March 9, 1993


Mr. Speaker:: Somebody said point of order and that is what I did hear. If the hon. member is speaking on this particular point of privilege I will most certainly hear him.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Supply and Services is correct in certain facts on this issue.
I know the Minister of Supply and Services to be an honourable minister and he will recall that on February 2 his colleague, the Minister of National Defence, was the lead minister who offered a briefing to members of Parliament on both sides of the House. On February 3 I instructed a member of my staff to make contact with the minister's office in the person of Mr. Kevin Phillips, who is the associate director of the Directorate of Parliamentary Affairs, to set up the briefing.
On February 5, as the House leader for the Official Opposition I sent a letter to the gentleman in question. I sent not only a letter but a fax as well.
On February 9, which the minister has referred to, at 3.30 in the afternoon, not only was my colleague who has raised the point of privilege present but my colleagues, the member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception and the member for Labrador, were also present along with other Liberal assistants.
The hon. minister opposite shakes his head and says no. Was the minister there? No, the minister was not there. I want to make it perfectly clear so that the Minister of Supply and Services, who during Question Period made reference to my colleague and who I know is an honourable person, will stand in his place and admit that he referred to the hon. member in question as lying. That is the word he used, in fact he used it on two specific occasions.
In conclusion, with regard to the point my colleague has raised, the meeting which the minister has referred to has cast aspersions upon my colleague from Newfoundland. His activities as an active member of this House of Commons were cut short, not by members of the opposition but by the legislative assistant to the Minister of National Defence. I would hope, on the basis of fairness and of the title "honourable", that the minister opposite would stand in his place and apologize to this member and to members of this House.
Privilege


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, it is most appropriate that the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond would come to the defence of the hon. member for Humber- St. Barbe-Baie Verte. I can understand.
There is an error in one of his facts. He said that the hon. member was there at 3.30 p.m. Be that as it may, I have offered before in Question Period and I offer again, if they want to bring this up in the standing committee and go into all the details I would be more than delighted to do that and we can have all the officials there. If by some chance I overstated a case and made a reference which is unparliamentary because of the errors which all so often happen in stating of fact in this case by the members in question then I would certainly want to apologize to the House. I would not want to be unparliamentary. But they should get their facts right.


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder if the hon. minister could assist me a little bit and explain exactly whether the minister is withdrawing anything that he has said. I understand there is an apology for any error he may have made. I think I divined an apology if he did say what he has been accused of saying, but I want it absolutely clear on the record.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. I agree. If I said anything that was unparliamentary I withdraw it.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, as a spokesperson for the Official Opposition I wish to thank the hon. member opposite, who has made an unequivocal apology to my colleague in this House for his unparliamentary language.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps on behalf of all hon. members I can thank the minister and the hon. members for Cape Breton-East Richmond and Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte.


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In Oral Question Period, the member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte asked the Minister of National Defence a question and he said this:

"Mr. Minister, you haven't told Canadians the full truth".

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I understand that accusing someone of not telling the truth is considered unparliamentary. I therefore ask the member for Humber-St. Barbe- Baie Verte to withdraw what he said, if I heard it correctly, and apologize appropriately to the minister.


Mr. Speaker:: In response to the hon. member's intervention, without presuming too far on the general customs here, the hon. member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte is not in the House at the moment. Perhaps we could come back to this matter at another appropriate moment.


POINT OF ORDER
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise with you for your guidance comments that were made yesterday in committee with respect to testimony dealing with Bill C-113.
During testimony by officials from the Department of Finance with respect to that bill, which has the effect of freezing a number of different expenditures, I raised a question regarding the freeze to grants in lieu of taxation to municipalities and how that will be brought before the House of Commons for debate or discussion.
I was answered at that stage with the following comment: "There is no legislation either in the House or contemplated".
I raise with you the question of order, Mr. Speaker, and whether it is possible to arbitrarily change the legislation or a practice that has taken place under the Municipalities Act since the 1940s. Is it not necessary that some piece of legislation be brought-


Mr. Speaker:: I listened very carefully to the hon. member for Essex-Windsor. I was not quite sure exactly what the point of order or the intervention might be leading to and I did not want to be under any misapprehension and I did not want to intervene too quickly.
However, the hon. member is really asking the Chair to make an interpretation on a situation relevant to past legislation and relevant to whether or not it is necessary to bring in any new legislation or amendments to legislation.
That is not a matter that the Chair can comment on. Even if it is a question or a point of order which is somewhat doubtful I do not think I can assist the hon. member any further.
It would be appropriate for the hon. member to pursue the matter at another time.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Andre that Bill C-73, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few words concerning this piece of legislation at its final third reading and passage through the House.
The bill itself really will do nothing for Canada Post or mail service in Canada. It will do absolutely nothing. Who invented the legislation or who came up with the idea is unknown to members of the House. The substance of the legislation is to offer something to employees, who are not defined under the legislation, amounting to 10 per cent of the shares of the Canada Post Corporation.
The Government of Canada would of course retain 90 per cent of the shares of the corporation.
The reason we do not agree with this legislation is that we believe it is a waste of time for the Government of Canada and the House of Commons of Canada to be discussing this non-issue in this Chamber and be taking up the time and money of the people of Canada to perform a duty such as this when not even the unions representing the employees are in agreement with it. It does nothing for postal service in Canada. It does not improve the record of Canada Post, which is a very bad record as far as mail delivery is concerned, as far as lost
March 9, 1993

mail is concerned and as far as the destruction of Canada Post and the post office in Canada is concerned.
We have gone from a corporation that had as its main objective the delivery of mail in Canada to a corporation that is now closing down post offices and that has reduced mail service in Canada. We have seen the introduction of so-called supermailboxes in a lot of the rural areas in Canada. We have seen the closing of our post offices that meant so much to people in our rural and urban areas of this country.
Perhaps the most important reason why we are opposed to this legislation is that it will really not do what it appears to be doing. I say that because the shares being offered to the employees-it is not defined and perhaps is meant to be management-will not be voting shares. The say in the corporation will not mean anything at all as far as the administration is concerned, as far as the day-to-day operations of the corporation are concerned or as far as anything is concerned. It will do nothing to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the corporation.
What is the salary of the chief executive officer of Canada Post, for example? Nobody knows except the chief executive officer of Canada Post. Nobody else knows. Who else might know? The cabinet might know. A committee of the cabinet might know what his salary is. I would say it is somewhere in the order of about $380,000 per year. It is probably about that. The salaries of the chief executive officer, the chief operating officer and the people at the top in Canada Post, paid for from the taxpayers' pockets, have been substantially increased over the years. There has been a substantial increase from about 1987.
The salary jumped. As I recall, the CEO's salary was somewhere in the order of $180,000 per year in 1987-1 could be wrong-give or take $50,000. As I mentioned, nobody knows what his salary is. It jumped by about $100,000 a year in about a year and a half and then it jumped again because the margins increased by that amount.
The people talked about in this legislation are the employees who are being given a share in the corporation. The employees of Canada Post are now being told
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they are going to have to lose their jobs in this and that post office. There are also the people of Canada who depend on the mail service. Neither one of these groups will have a say in the administration of the post office or in the salaries that are paid to the top people in Canada Post. They will not even know what they are. It is a secret. Only the cabinet knows.
How does the cabinet know? The cabinet knows because every year or so it sits down and examines the salary of the head of this corporation.


David Charles Dingwall: How much does he make?


George Baker: The House leader for the Official Opposition asked the question: How much does he make? I suppose we could figure it out if we knew what his Christmas bonus was.


David Charles Dingwall: Is it a whole lot of money?


George Baker: Is it a whole lot of money? Do we know what his Christmas bonus was?


David Charles Dingwall: He did not get a Christmas bonus.


George Baker: Ho, ho, ho. Yes. He gets a Christmas bonus and it is approved by a committee of cabinet.
How much is that bonus? The cabinet sits down and gets a recommendation from the board of Canada Post that is appointed by cabinet that gauges how the head of this corporation behaved. These are the exact words: "If he met important corporate objectives he would be guaranteed 50 per cent of 25 per cent of his salary".
For example, say his salary is $400,000 a year. It is about that for the head of Canada Post. He makes more than maybe three cabinet ministers. He makes three times as much as the Prime Minister makes.


Réginald Bélair: Is it true, Gerry?


George Baker: Oh yes. Oh yes. He makes three times as much as the Prime Minister of Canada makes by decision of the Government of Canada.
None of the people affected by this bill are going to have a say in how much he makes or how much the increase is going to be. They are not even going to have a say in what his bonus is.

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Let me get back to the bonus because this is rather interesting. At the end of March, this month, a recommendation will go to the cabinet as to what the bonus will be for this financial year. Somewhere around December the cabinet meets and the Privy Council gives a list to the cabinet on certain specific bonuses to be given. One of them is the bonus for the head of the Canada Post Corporation and that decision will be made.
Remember I said that it is 50 per cent if he meets corporate objectives. What are the corporate objectives? The corporate objective as defined by the government is to cut costs.


An hon. member:: Slash.


George Baker: It is to make sure a post office is closed to save money. Make sure the post office is closed in Green Bay or Twillingate Island or in central Newfoundland somewhere or in northern Ontario or in New Brunswick to make sure that corporate objectives are met.
I am willing to guarantee that he gets more than that 50 per cent. How does he get that? The second objective that the head of Canada Post has is for all objectives to be met "with important objectives exceeded". That gives him 75 per cent of 25 per cent of his salary as a Christmas bonus. It is 75 per cent.
I am willing to bet that it is even higher than 75 per cent of 25 per cent of his salary. What does he do for that? I will say what he has done. It says that "all objectives met, some substantially exceeded" equals 100 per cent of the hoard.


An hon. member:: Shame.


An hon. member:: Unbelievable.


George Baker: How much is 25 per cent of $400,000 a year?


An hon. member:: It is $100,000.


George Baker: It is $100,000 to the executive officer of Canada Post, for what?


Guy H. Arseneault: For closing post offices.


Réginald Bélair: For firing people.


George Baker: Right. These bonuses are of course nothing short of pay-offs for lay-offs.
That is what has happened with the closure of post offices. You will note there is no category at all for below
50 per cent of the 25 per cent of a salary as a Christmas bonus. There is no 40 per cent. There is no 30 per cent. There is no 20 per cent. There is no 1 per cent. It starts at 50 per cent.
He gets 50 per cent of 25 per cent of his salary as a Christmas bonus. He makes three times as much as the Prime Minister of Canada. Nobody covered by this bill passing the House now is going to have a say in what his bonus is.
Nobody covered by this bill has a say on how well the corporation does. The reason for that is the corporate objectives defined to establish how much his Christmas bonus will be are established by the Government of Canada. It is the Government of Canada that decides what the guidelines will be.
Why is this bill passing the House? This bill passing the House will not increase the efficiency of the post office. It will not cause post offices to be reopened. It will not have anything to do at all with the administration of the post office. What it has to do with is an idea that the Government of Canada has that it is just going to deflect the entire issue, while its members sit down at the end of this month and say no to the employees and yes to another bonus for the chief executive officers of Canada Post Corporation. They get more in the form of a bonus than some of our highest paid Canadians do as a wage for an entire year.


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, it is a tough act to follow my colleague. He has certainly put the case before us in good form with some good statistics.
When we look at the purpose of the bill, we find that the bill, as many speakers have already alluded to, will permit the sale of up to 10 per cent of Canada Post Corporation to employees. This would be accomplished by establishing an employee share savings plan.
In my mind this is yet another step toward the continued privatization of Canada Post. I must add that I am opposed to that move. I was always opposed to it and I am still opposed to it. This process has to stop.

This process is pretty obvious when we look at the policies of Canada Post. The main objective in this attempt to privatize Canada Post is to close down more than 5,000 rural post offices. Most Canadians object to this policy, and so do I. As far as my riding is concerned,
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it has just been announced that the post office in Pointe-Verte will be closed. I strenuously object. The mayor, council and people of Pointe-Verte also object. Regional mayors and councils object as well.
I want to take this opportunity to quote from some of the letters I received about these closings. I have here a letter addressed to Martha M. Peters, Manager, Atlantic Division, Canada Post Corporation, and I quote-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. The Chair is willing to be lenient with respect to relevance, but I may remind him that the bill is not necessarily about this particular matter. In any case, I suggest the hon. member be brief if he wishes to touch on these aspects.


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, in my speech I said that the purpose of Bill C-73 is to privatize Canada Post. I want to say at this point that the process has already started as post offices are being closed down. I will quote some examples to show that most Canadians across this country are opposed to these closings. With your leave, Mr. Speaker, I will quote passages from various letters.
The first letter reads as follows: "The Pointe-Verte post office plays an important role in the socio-economic development of our rural community, and considering the increasing use of postal services by the people of Pointe-Verte, we believe that Canada Post should immediately take the necessary steps to maintain the quality of the service provided". The letter is signed by His Worship Mayor Maxime Lejeune.
I have some more letters from residents of the Restigouche-Chaleur area who are also opposed to this policy and who support the mayor of Pointe-Verte. I have here a letter from Her Worship Mayor Jacqueline LeBlanc of Petit-Rocher, which reads as follows: "The municipal council of Petit-Rocher herewith supports the representations made by the municipality of Pointe-Verte to your corporation, requesting that the community's post office remain open". People object to these closings and they object to the privatization of Canada Post. I think there is a clear connection here with Bill C-73.
Mrs. LeBlanc goes on to say: "You must realize that the federal government is using your corporation to
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destroy the social fabric of a Canada that, lest we forget, consists mainly of rural areas which are the breadbasket of this country".
I have some more letters, including one from the Save the Pointe-Verte Post Office Committee signed by Yvon Arseneau, which appeared in several newspapers across the province, and I quote: "It would seem that in its assessment of the situation in Pointe-Verte, Canada Post failed to consider all the implications. I think this policy of closing down post offices should be reviewed".

To continue what I was saying, I believe this bill has the intent of continuing the process of privatizing Canada Post. I believe the process has already started in the attempt to close over 5,000 post offices across Canada.
These 5,000 post offices, if we put it in terms of personnel, would mean 10,000 lay-offs. It would mean lay-offs to 10,000 people, of which 83 per cent would be women in rural areas. You know how hard and how difficult it is to find employment in rural areas.
I would also like to point out that when we look at this bill and we talk about privatization, the intent of Bill C-73 is to allow the employees to buy shares. This buying of shares is supposed to improve the service. We have many complaints in our area about Canada Post and about improved service. It is about time that we air those complaints here in this public forum in the so-called highest court of the land. It is important that we put it in proper perspective. I have been listening today to many members talk about their own communities. It is important that everyone across the country realize that problems exist throughout Canada with regard to Canada Post.
In my home town of Dalhousie I have been working on a file for some time now concerning problems associated with twin street mailboxes. It is not a matter of dealing with people who are not understanding, it is a matter of dealing with a corporation that has no feeling and that does not exhibit any common sense.
We have asked the corporation to move those twin mailboxes inside. The answer has been no. We have a little bit of inclement weather in northern New Brunswick so we have asked for protective coverings. The

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answer has been no. We have asked for outside lighting for the people who come at night to pick up or post their mail. The answer has been no. We have asked for larger print for senior citizens and people who have impaired vision so that they could see the postal codes because mail has to be placed in one box or the other. In light of misdirected mail and the costs associated with that I think it would be a logical idea.
We now hear that Canada Post wants to reduce hours at the Dalhousie post office and ultimately probably try to close on Saturday. We know that it has attempted to reduce hours at Nash Creek. This is going on in my riding.
I heard the member for Cochrane-Superior earlier today refer to his riding. His riding is very similar to mine, a rural setting. We have a couple of urban centres. The city of Campbellton was a sorting centre for Canada Post. It still is a sorting centre but has been reduced somewhat in that capacity. I do not think that is fair. I do not think it makes common sense that mail has to go to another region to be sorted and then come back into the region. It does not make sense.
There have been numerous requests by myself and citizens throughout the riding to have more mailboxes added at post offices and in various communities. The answer has been, wait a little longer. We have no money. The boxes are under production. There is no room at the post office. However, Canada Post still wants to close the post office. It does not make sense to have five families sharing one postal box.
I can go on with different cases. In fact I have one I have to share which is sort of unbelievable. An 80-year old woman received her mail on a rural route and had her post office box at the end of her lane. A car clipped the box off two falls ago just before winter set in, so she could not have the box replaced. She picked up her mail at her neighbour's rural box. When springtime came, she had a carpenter or someone come in and reinstall the box. Canada Post refused to put her mail in her box. She was told to continue to get her mail at her neighbours. This was months and months of hardship for that elderly woman. We worked on the case. I must give Canada Post credit. It finally saw the light and came through at the end, but why put an 80 year old woman through that? It does not make sense.
This bill is not going to do anything to improve the situation. It is not making Canada Post any more efficient. It is still going to continue to close post offices. It is still going to have its labour problems. When we talk about labour problems, when you look at the number of grievances that the unions have with Canada Post, there is something wrong somewhere.
Canada Post likes to say it is all the union's fault. I would like to say that some of the blame should fall on the union but after looking at some of the evidence that I have seen the majority of the blame should fall on Canada Post and its objectives and the manner in which it wants to reach those objectives.
Canada Post has some very loyal, dedicated and efficient employees but their morale is decreasing because of the constant attacks by Canada Post.
In the eyes of Canada Post Canadians are number two and that is the problem. We should be number one. Canadians are number two and big business corporations, their tactics and their profits, are number one on its list. That is a shame. It does not go in stride with the Canadian mentality, with Canadian history or with Canadian tradition.
The minister has claimed this bill will improve employer-employee relations. I say that is hogwash. That is wrong. The unions have indicated it will not. They have indicated they are opposed to this bill. To put it bluntly I trust the union members more than I would trust the managers at the upper levels of Canada Post. I can honestly say that in dealing with the employees out in the trenches, in dealing with persons in areas of responsibility in the regions, they are responsible and reasonable. However their hands are tied by upper level management, wherever it is. That is a shame.
I would like to conclude by simply saying that I am opposed to this bill. It has no meaning. It means nothing. There is no rhyme nor reason to it. Buying shares and not being able to vote does not make sense in the long run.
I am also opposed to the general philosophy of Canada Post and the direction it is going in. I would hope that other members who have from time to time spoken on Canada Post issues and have opposed closures of their post offices will support their colleagues who are going to vote against this bill.
March 9, 1993


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, earlier today I was asked to speak for 10 minutes on this particular bill, but the events of the day have taken me to speak double that time. Actually I am quite happy to have my time extended. It prompted me to call around the community and find out just exactly what the status was. It is not that I did not know before, but some gruesome details were brought forward today and I welcome the opportunity to raise them.
All members want to highlight their own constituencies and talk about the problems they may have in a particular area. One that has certainly bedevilled me in the four years and four months I have served in this position is Canada Post, the post office workers and the customers. I can safely say after finding out today what is going on that we have reached the zenith of dissatisfaction with Canada Post.
Before you rule me out of order, Mr. Speaker, I want to address Bill C-73 specifically. It suggests the employees will be able to voluntarily buy up to 10 per cent of the shares of Canada Post. Most of the employees in Canada Post are eager to get a buy-out, not a buy-in. The morale is that bad. The harassment of workers is that bad.
It is difficult for us to appreciate the fact that many of us enjoy some freedom in our jobs. Some of us enjoy a great deal of freedom; others have very little freedom. I do not know if I could handle an occupation that measures the number of steps I take in a day. If I take 10 steps too many or 10 steps too few my route might be changed and that has an impact on all of the mail carriers. What kind of flexibility does an employee have working for Canada Post?
I suspect that veiy few will be buying into the company. You do not buy into a company that obviously is looking to sell out to other people. Bill C-73 no doubt is addressing the beginning of privatization of Canada Post. It has been quoted to me: "There is no doubt we want to sell it but we have to make it very profitable first". That is the bottom line. If it is profitable then it can be sold, but at this point in time it is creating a great deal of problems. In the name of efficiency, in the name of better service, it is going in the opposite direction. What I have uncovered today certainly proves to me and to the residents of my community that it is absolutely true.
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Once in a while we have the business community on one side, the residents on another and the unions on yet another side perhaps. In this one everyone agrees that the system has deteriorated. The saga of Canada Post is a sad one.
I remember four years ago. I was new on the job. I fell for it. Canada Post approached me and said it wanted to build a new post office for Sault Ste. Marie. I thought that was great. I talked it over and we found it was reasonably good. It was going to invest $5 million on the outskirts of the community. It would impact on some workers but over-all it looked like an investment in the community.
I foolishly went forward and made the announcement in front of the old post office, a landmark in our community. I said that Canada Post had chosen to invest $5 million in our community. It would improve efficiency. Everything would be better for all of us and it would still maintain the great heritage structure.
I made that announcement for Canada Post, like a fool, like a gullible dolt. I did it. Two months later, much to my embarrassment-it did not seem to bother Canada Post-it said it was sorry but it had changed its mind.
That is good corporate planning. It was going to invest $5 million but two months later the plan was changed. I then asked what the plan would be. A new facility would not be built; the old facility would be renovated. I thought that did not sound bad and asked what exactly would be done.
We went to the site. I was advised that $0.75 million or whatever would be invested to improve the docking bays. Once again I was hesitant but asked if the office downtown would be maintained. Great, it would still be there. It would still be the focal point of our community, as the post office is in so many communities across this country. I was told that things were not going to change. It would be business as usual but we would have a better facility.
This time at least I did not make the announcement. I did not fall for it. Canada Post made the announcement. There was a certain amount of apprehension on behalf of the workers but it looked good.

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The saga continues. The building is renovated and rehabilitated. However, what is happening is that Canada Post in its corporate decision making felt it had to centralize the mail. It had to be shipped off a couple of hundred miles to Sudbury. It had to centralize in the name of efficiency, but if efficiency were improved some Canada Post employees would have to be laid off.
Nobody likes that and certainly we did not accept the fact that Sudbury was going to sort our mail. What is wrong with Sault Ste. Marie? We have always sorted it. We have the capacity. Canada Post had invested in new machines in Sudbury and they would have to be used. Canada Post proceeded to do this.
Now we find out that Monday to Thursday all our mail is put in one particular mailbox if it is being mailed in Sault Ste. Marie and another one if it is going out of town. If a letter is mailed on Monday, Ihesday, Wednesday or Thursday in Sault Ste. Marie to a resident of Sault Ste. Marie it will not be sorted in that community. It has to go away. It goes 200 miles to Sudbury and comes back to Sault Ste. Marie.
It is not the same on the weekends. It cannot be sent to Sudbury. It is sent to Ottawa to be sorted. It is shipped off to Ottawa. The crux and climax of the story, the tragedy is that complaints are coming in daily that it is taking four or five days to deliver mail within the community and up to a week if you are mailing outside the community.
People always use letters. I have a letter from someone who mailed a birthday card to their grandson in Wawa which is 140 miles north. He got it after his birthday. He got it 10 days later.
The business community in my riding is upset. I will read what they say: "If a letter is mailed from Sault Ste. Marie on a weekend it goes to Ottawa to be cancelled. So if a letter is to be sent to an address in Sault Ste. Marie it goes from Sault Ste. Marie to Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie on a weekend. On other days it goes from Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie. The bottom line is if a letter has to go one mile away within the community it may have to go 900 miles to get there". Now is that efficient? It is not efficient, absolutely not.
The minister said on May 1, 1992: "It is a proven vehicle for improving morale if we allow people to buy shares in the company". I am a great proponent of employee shares, of employee ownership, employee buy-out. I introduced a bill and the government killed it. Government members should know it is not a good idea. The minister on the one hand says it is a good idea if Canada Post employees buy it, but on the other hand it is not a good idea if another industry buys it. That is because it is not at the government's behest, its request, its demand or its suggestion.
The saga continues and it gets worse, believe it or not. Canada Post officials came to Sault Ste. Marie and said they had a new deal for us: pilot projects. My community was one of the lucky ones in Canada. I had been tricked before but I listened. I am a good guy, I always listen.
They said Canada Post was now going to become a corporate citizen. It was going to sponsor events in our community. That would make everybody happy and everybody would love Canada Post. It sounded good and I asked what else was going to happen.
They said there was a new commercial outlet system, but our post office would have to be downgraded. If we wanted to buy stamps at the main post office we would have to buy $300 worth. That is a lot of stamps. Not a lot of people buy $300 worth of stamps. We asked where we were going to buy our stamps. We were told that outlets would be put all over the place and that this would be better for us and for business. Canada Post would have sales people go out. It was going to commercialize and privatize it. They would go out and sell stamps to all the businesses.
That did not sound all that great to me. Well, certainly it did not. Within one month that commercial enterprise is now dead. I did not find out until today that it is dead. The proponents told me just a month ago that this would be a raving success. We have not heard from the proponents, the workers told me. It was the workers who asked whether I knew that this was now gone.
I was not fooled this time. I was not fooled, but once again Canada Post has struck a death-knell in the community as far as postal services are concerned. I
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suppose we are one of the luckier ones as at least we have post offices. We are an urban centre of some size with 80,000 people. I pity those rural towns and villages across this country that have no post office at all. I guess this government will suggest that maybe pony express will be back. The mail will be delivered by horse.
It is criminal and this bill is disguising something else. It does nothing at all. We should not even be discussing it in the House because it is inconsequential. It is a masquerade.
Getting into efficiency, Canada Post has a good media relations group, great government liaison people. They were very upset with some of the people in Sault Ste. Marie who questioned some of their motives. Now they are lecturing to people in a letter to the editor. They said: "You people have to smarten up. Just because you are delivered a letter to your house at the wrong address, do not expect us to re-mail it for you. The onus should be on you. If it is delivered to your house incorrectly, put another stamp on it, even if it is not your letter".
The national media relations from Canada Post came down on the community and said that Canada Post must provide all customers with efficient and reliable delivery of their mail. To do so, Canada Post must have the correct address. The correct address is provided by the sender. It is also the responsibility of individuals to ensure their new address is communicated to all correspondents.
It is not only a question of saving money but of efficiency. Every time a piece of mail is returned into the system that piece of mail is delayed. Proper addressing is essential to the reliability and speed of mail delivery. These are wonderful words, but the system in place is obviously failing. They say every time it goes into the system yet again it is more costly. Whatever is mailed in Sault Ste. Marie goes to Ottawa and it takes seven days or ten days for it to get back to Sault Ste. Marie. That is not efficiency. It is not working.
We always create the wrong villains in society. I admit it. People say to me that mail carriers make too much money and that one does not need a Ph.D. to deliver mail. They are very hard on these people. I do not know who has made villains of those people. I do not want to point fingers. It is unfair, totally unfair.
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When the number of steps one takes in a job is measured it is an indication of the sense of responsibility or the sense of pride in working for any corporation, in this case Canada Post. Morale is nil. It is below zero. Many speakers have pointed out the number of grievances, that there are more grievances than the numbers of employees, and they are never settled. They go on for years and years.
During that very acrimonious strike a while back emotions were high and some of our folks got excited and had every reason to get excited. There were charges laid against some of the employees of Canada Post. To the people who were laying the charge the police said: "Look, we are prepared to drop this. Just let these people go. It was in the height of emotion during a labour dispute. Let's forget it. Let's go on to a positive employer-employee feeling". Canada Post said: "No. We do not care who says let's forget it. We want to process the charges. Continue with the charges against these people".
In the meantime it affects their vacation. It affects their retirement. It affects their lives. Obviously in this situation they were guilty before they had a chance of proving any kind of innocence.
Certainly the mail service in our community is up in the air. I suspect that Sault Ste. Marie is only a microcosm of what is going on right across this country. There is complete and absolute dissatisfaction with the system, with the idea that the faster we can be profitable the faster we will be able to sell it off and the sooner the government will have it out of its hands the better off we will all be.
I am mindful of transportation and mail delivery in the isolated areas. More and more the sense of isolation is setting in. When people are paying $700 for a return trip to Ottawa and $560 for a return trip to Toronto, we can imagine what kinds of demands that makes on people. They have to fly. Heaven forbid, they can fly to Europe. They can fly to Asia just about as cheaply as they can fly from Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto or to Ottawa. That sense of alienation of the regions is growing and Canada Post is a classic example of that alienation.
We will be opposing Bill C-73 with as much vigour as we possibly can.

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Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I pose a question to my colleague about the morale issue he mentioned.
The government has said that one of the reasons it wants to proceed with this bill is that it wants employees to have more of a stake in the post office corporation. It feels that if they owned some shares they would feel more proud of it and would be able to contribute more.
We have one of the last remaining large postal services sorting plant in Surrey North. Unfortunately we have been informed that it is to be closed and transferred to downtown Vancouver, to the riding of the minister of defence, as she evidently needs propping up. Two services are being closed and moved into the riding of the minister of defence against the recommendation of the GVRD, the city of Vancouver and surrounding municipalities. Evidently the polls are not too good for her.
That facility is a large postal sorting service. It is also one of the major depots for mail delivery. At least two or three times a month its employees get in touch with me complaining about personnel practices and harassment by arbitrarily reassigning work, harassment by arbitrarily upping the work loads or changing the routes on postal walks, and harassment of employees who are ill such as phoning their homes two or three times a day. Even after they have filed letters from psychiatrists saying that part of the problem is that they are under mental health stress and are having psychiatric problems but they are being phoned repeatedly and threatened that the documentation with respect to their illness is not proper and that their jobs are in jeopardy.
Attempts to resolve any of these issues are stonewalled. Grievances are filed are never dealt with. The union attempts to intervene to resolve some of these issues and they never happen. Employees are given assurances that this is going to take place and it does not take place.
In view of these facts there has been, at least in the postal services I am aware of, a deterioration in the morale of employees. Of course along with a deterioration in morale there is an increasing lack of communication between management and the employees. With the
breakdown in communication there is increasing animosity.
The member has obviously had considerable experience with the post office in his area. Does he feel that the share concept is actually going to assist in improving the morale of the postal workers, or does he think better management practices would be more to the point?


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, once in a while I am sure we are accused of exaggerating to make a point. However on this particular issue there is no exaggeration. What the member for Surrey North has said is absolutely true. I have shared those experiences. I think other members in the House right now would say the same has happened to them.
The morale is negligible. It is not a pretty picture. We have created villains of a group that is not guilty of anything. Many people regard them as malcontents and say they act inappropriately, do the wrong things and should be thankful for having wonderful jobs. The working environment at Canada Post is horrendous. There is no trust.
The hon. member talked about arbitrary reassessment. That is what it is, totally arbitrary. When people are ill they cannot have normal sick days; there is harassment. What is the goal in that? I am not sure. One has to wonder. What is the goal? Is it to make them sufficiently unhappy in the work environment that it is easier to reduce the number of staff?
I had a individual come into my office and say that he wanted out. I said: "You are only 45 years old", and he said: "I do not care. Whatever they offer me I am getting out because my mental health will not survive what they are putting me through".
These are true stories. Everything that is said is the absolute truth.


An hon. member:: They will not get UI.


Steve Butland: They very likely will not get any UI because of leaving their positions. I hope that is straightened out. It is a matter of trust. There is absolutely no trust between the employer and the employee. I have learned as well to completely mistrust Canada Post Corporation and its spokespeople.
March 9, 1993


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, listening to this debate today has been an education for me. The hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie and other members have spoken in the House today about Canada Post and the experiences they have had in their particular ridings. I have certainly had similar experiences.
For a government and for a corporation that are trying to endear themselves to the Canadian public they are certainly not doing a very good job. The stories recounted by the member for Sault Ste. Marie are reminiscent of stories taking place in my own riding.
It is true that there is no trust between the employer and the employee. There is no trust between Canada Post and the public. There is no trust between the government and the public. Much of this has to be blamed directly on the government and, through its directions, directly on Canada Post.
The bill before us now contains the idea of sharing the wealth with Canada Post employees. It is nothing more than a smoke-screen for the proposal to privatize Canada Post. It is part of the slippery slope of privatization. For those people who do not believe Canada Post is to be privatized I simply want to cite a couple of quotes.
On May 1, 1992 an article in The Ottawa Citizen contained the following quote of the minister responsible for Canada Post: "Harvie Andre insisted that immediate privatization is not in the cards". He went on to state: "If I had to bet I would bet that in the next couple of decades you will see post offices being privatized all over the world. I would not mind seeing Canada first".
That is quite a statement. When the government makes that kind of statement we can rest assured that privatization is just down the road. After all, let us remember the words of the Prime Minister in 1985 when he stated: "Some people want to buy the CBC. The CBC is not for sale. Air Canada is not for sale". Air Canada was for sale. It has been sold. It is now a private company.
The bill today is simply one more step along the way toward privatization. It is a thinly veiled sham that the government is trying to put before us to hide privatization. In fact the minister responsible is really not hiding it at all. I remember the minister commenting a year or so ago that until we could get rid of more rural post
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offices, until we could get rid of more corporate post offices and until we could raise the profits of Canada Post there would be no privatization. Those were amazing statements.
The bill in front of us is supposed to help with employee relations. What will it do? It will allow the employees of Canada Post to buy 10 per cent of the shares of the corporation. Employees are not defined. We do not know exactly who the employees are. We do not know whether it is simply management or whether it is everyone right down to the person just hired yesterday. As well there is no indication of what kind of shares the employees will have once they get them. We do know they will not be voting shares.
If a government is supposed to have confidence in its employees and is to sell them 10 per cent of the shares then we would think they would be given voting rights with those shares. It is only 10 per cent, but no, they will be non-voting shares. Will they get dividends from these shares? There is no indication as to whether they will or not.
The fact is that Canada Post has made a profit for three of the last four years. If one is a shareholder in the corporation, then one expects to get some dividends, but no, there is no indication of that. Chances are, if I was to make a guess, there will be no dividends from those shares.
Canada Post and the government did not even consult with the union as to the sale of these shares. There was no discussion or consultation. There was just an arbitrary decision to sell these shares.
If Canada Post and the government wanted to see relations improved with these employees then something should be done about the grievances that exist in Canada Post. I was amazed, as were members in my caucus, to discover the number of grievances that exist in Canada Post. People in Canada might think maybe there would be 1,000 or 2,000 grievances. No, there are more than that. There are more than 10,000 grievances. Are there
20,000	or 40,000? No. There are only 50,000 employees in the whole corporation, but there are more than that many grievances. Double it. There are 100,000 grievances outstanding against Canada Post. That is almost two grievances for every employee who works for Cana-

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da Post. It is unbelievable. Those grievances are backed up for years.
If Canada Post wants to improve relations with employees, then why does it not start to look at some of the grievances and start removing some of the reasons for those grievances in the first place? There cannot be
100.000	grievances that have no merit. I doubt it very much. I am sure there are some grievances that do not have as much merit as others, but there cannot be
100.000	grievances against Canada Post that have no merit.
This idea of improving employee relations is simply nonsense. It simply makes it that much easier for the government to privatize Canada Post when the time arrives.
In talking about relations with the public, I think it was last year when Canada Post had a strike. Canada Post employees offered that during the strike they would still deliver unemployment insurance cheques, Canada pension cheques and so on, but no, the government would not allow that. What it did was to spend millions of dollars to set up these depots. We had the case of seniors and disabled people being forced to stand for up to two hours in sweltering heat waiting to receive a cheque at a depot. In many instances when they got to the front of the line they were told: "Sorry, the cheque is not here so come back tomorrow". That does not endear Canada Post to the public.
My riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, like other ridings across the country, is largely rural. We have had a number of rural post office closings. In fact, in the last five years across this country, 25 per cent of all the post offices that existed prior to that time have now been closed. That is one in four.
Many times these post offices were closed not because there was a need to close the post office or because the post office was not being used, but simply because the post office had been provided with what they call a natural opportunity. This means that either the postmaster or postmistress had died or retired or something of that nature.
When these events occur, Canada Post will roll into town and have a public meeting. It will tell the people at the meeting that it is here to improve their service. I have been to a number of them in my own riding. It is going to improve the service. When the people in the
community say that they are happy with their service, then Canada Post simply says: "No, we have to close the post office, but we are going to improve your service".
What happens is that they tell them that they are going to consult with them. There is no real consultation. The only consultation is that they have the opportunity of setting up a retail postal outlet which means a post office being placed in a store somewhere or they are going to have mailboxes and that is their choice.
In my riding the communities have naively thought that they could deal with Canada Post and work with it. I know of one situation in my riding where the people in the community said: "Look, we will give you a free building. We will buy the building and give it to Canada Post. Canada Post can keep the building as long as it operates a corporate post office out of it". There was no deal.
We had another situation where people in another community said: "Look, we will give you one of the staff people from our town hall who can work with Canada Post when it is busy". There was no deal.
We have had situations where people in the communities have said: "Look, we will take less service. Cut the hours down and cut the number of days down". There was no deal.
Yet Canada Post will tell these communities that the reason it is closing its post offices is because it is not making money. It will not tell you how much that community brings in. It will not tell you how much the post office in that community costs, but it will say that it has to close it.
I know that Canada Post wants to make a profit. Let us say it said: "Look, we have to make a profit and we would like to keep this post office open and we would like to provide the best service we can so here is what the bottom line is in this community. It brings in x thousands of dollars and it costs x thousands of dollars". One would find a lot of communities willing to work with Canada Post.
We know we are in debt in this country. We know we have an annual deficit that has not dropped in the last nine years or perhaps it marginally dropped in the last nine years. The people in the community will say: "Let's
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work with Canada Post to help Canada Post provide a service". That is fair but Canada Post will not give any details.
This idea of saying that it wants to provide a better service is a myth. In fact it is a lie. It is not true. The fact is that Canada Post wants to privatize as many corporate post offices as it can in this country and in doing so make it easier to eventually sell that corporation.
I want to talk a bit about the city of Moose Jaw. In the city of Moose Jaw-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: On a point of order, the hon. government House leader.


Mr. Andre:: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for interrupting the hon. member. I just wanted to formally designate tomorrow as an allotted day or supply day.


Rodney Edward Laporte: I thought the minister was going to rise and tell me that things would not change in Moose Jaw and that the post office would remain. I am disappointed.
I wanted to comment about the city of Moose Jaw. In the city of Moose Jaw we have our corporate post office. It is viable and it is running. However we have been advised, not by the officials at Canada Post but by other people who have found out information and let us know, that the post office in Moose Jaw is going to close and the wicket service will be gone. We have not heard that announcement yet. If one calls the public relations people at Canada Post they will deny it. They will say that there has been no decision made yet. However, that is nonsense because the decision has been made.
The fact is that not only is Canada Post going to close the corporate post office but it is going to close all the sub-post offices that exist in Moose Jaw. One of them has existed in Moose Jaw since 1928 and it is going to be closed. Where is it going to go? It is going to set up four retail postal outlets in the city of Moose Jaw. This has not been announced publicly yet but that is what the plan is. Where are they going to go? They are going to go to places like Shoppers Drug Mart and Bi-Rite Drugs. I have nothing against Shoppers Drug Mart and Bi-Rite Drugs except that I find it strange that these retail postal outlets find their way into these national chains.


An hon. member:: National or international?
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Rodney Edward Laporte: In many cases they are international chains. The fact is that some of these sub-post offices have long been in business. One in particular has been there since 1928. It is in Carr's Confectionery in Moose Jaw. Mr. Carr opened a confectionery business in the early twenties and worked hard at that business. His son has taken it over and his son is now running that confectionery.
These are people who live in the community, who contribute to the community and whose children go to school in the community. These people put a lot of hours into their work and they put that money back into the community. It is a small business, a good small business, and it provides a good service.
It is denying those small businesses a chance for a post office. It is already a sub-post office but it is going to franchise them all. It is going to deny those small businesses a chance for the franchise and give it to a national or international chain.
This is a government that is supposed to be for small business. This certainly does not bode well for small business. If a government wants to assist small business then this is not the way it should go about doing it.
I find it ironic. I must say I find it insulting that when one phones up Regina and talks to the Canada Post folks they say there have been no decisions made yet. No decisions have been made yet, but the ripples are there. I have talked to people who own the sub-post offices. I have talked to some of the union people. I have even talked to people in Canada Post who will talk to me and who have told me privately that this is what is happening.
If Canada Post really wants to improve its relationship with the employees of the corporation and with the people of this country then it had better take a new attitude.
First of all, it should be honest with Canadians. If it is going to privatize the corporation then it should come out and say that the objective is to privatize this corporation and this is the plan for privatization. Let the people know what is going on. Do not give these stories that are totally unbelievable.

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In fact when Canada Post is confronted with the facts, it still denies it. Oh no, there is no decision made yet. Be honest with the people.
The other thing is to not be so arrogant. I have been told by people who in trying to save their post office talked to Canada Post and were told: "You can always complain to your MP but it will not do any good because we are going to do what we want anyway". Thanks a bunch.
That is an arrogant attitude that I find personally insulting and I know the people in those rural communities find it insulting. If Canada Post wants to improve relationships with the country, it is going about it in exactly the wrong way. Until it improves relationships with its employees and until it improves relationships with the people of this country, it is going to find itself being kicked in the shins like it has been today.
In closing I want to say that Canada Post was here to provide a service to the people of Canada. That was its original intent. It was to provide good mail service. That is not its objective today. Its objective is purely and simply to make a profit. It may step on people in the process. They may be Canadians who receive mail, whether they are in small businesses and have run sub-post offices for some time or for a short time, or they may be employees in its way. That is irrelevant. It may also be an MP who tries to deal with it. However Canada Post is going to "do what it wants", to quote its words.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a very simple, straightforward question. Why has Canada Post lost the trust of the consumers and the employees to such a great extent in Canada?
We do not find that any part of the community or any of its employees think of it as a service that contributes to Canada. I wonder if my colleague can tell me why he thinks it has lost its trust to such an extent all across Canada and not only here.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, the loss of trust that Canadians have in Canada Post did not happen overnight. It took a lot of effort and it took a lot of doing by Canada Post. It was done in a number of areas.
With respect to the employees, that lack of trust has come about as a result of the inability or the unwillingness of both the government and Canada Post to deal honestly and openly with the employees. If there are
100,000	grievances in a corporation that is an awful lot, particularly when there are only 50,000 employees. The employees have lost trust because of Canada Post's refusal to deal openly with the union.
There was no consultation with the union on this bill at all, no consultation on how services could be improved for the employees or how to better improve the lot of the employee. There was no discussion at all.
With respect to rural Canadians, it has done a very good job of losing trust. It could not have done a better job if it had tried to lose trust with rural Canadians, because it has closed 25 per cent of all rural post offices in this country in the last five years without consultation with rural Canadians.
In fact it is the opposite. It comes into a community and tries to tell it how its service will be improved. People actually laugh at these meetings because Canada Post comes in and says it is going to improve service by closing the post office. People simply scratch their heads. Sometimes in these communities there will be 150 to 200 people at a meeting wondering what is happening to their post office.
They came to the meeting having received a letter from Canada Post in the mail inviting them to a meeting on this particular night to discuss the future of Canada Post. But they are not being consulted, they are being told. They are being hoodwinked. They leave the meeting feeling bitter and confused. That has done an awful lot to hurt the reputation of Canada Post with rural Canadians.
The other way is through public relations. There are people at Canada Post in management with whom I have dealt who are very good. I do not want to label all of them. However, there are others who really should not be in PR. I do not know where it hires some of these people but it should not even interview them as far as public relations is concerned. They are arrogant and they are not helpful. They simply tell people who want to save their post office to go ahead and call their MP. It will not do any good because it is going to do what it wants anyway.
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That has also hurt its reputation. Canada Post now has such a poor reputation in Canada that it is going to take a long time to build it up. It is obvious that neither Canada Post nor this government really have any concern about Canada Post's public relations with Canadians. If they did they would not act the way they do. This bill would not have been brought in, and certainly not without consultation with the employees.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the previous speaker has any information as to whether Canada Post has any standards when it contracts with a private operator in a retail outlet.
It was mentioned that there have been difficulties. There was a situation in my riding of Surrey North in which one in a large chain of drugstores had a postal outlet which had been there for a number of years. Then a new owner came in. The drugstore changed hands. Nine women were working there, some of them had been working there for 10 years.
Immediately the new owner arbitrarily started to reduce their wages, reduce the number of hours and change the seniority pattern in terms of working of shifts and was then surprised when the women got hold of one of the more progressive unions and started a unionization drive. They were on strike for nearly 18 months.
That big drugstore chain made a decision that it would shut that whole drugstore down rather than ever agree to allow a first contract with those employees. These were basically postal workers.
Does the member know whether the postal corporation when it is putting in postal outlets in retail stores has any standards about working conditions, wages and the normal things that an employee would expect?


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe Canada Post has any real standards at all. Not only is that true with employees but there is a scenario being played out in Moose Jaw right now that really astounds me and makes me wonder whether Canada Post has any idea of what it is doing.
There is a business called Ottawa Real Estate which has been in Moose Jaw since 1909. This business is a well-established business and has been in the same family for years. The present proprietor, Glen McRitch-
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ie, is a very outstanding and well-respected businessman in the community. He has a sub-post office in his store but he has been advised that the sub-post office is going to close and he will not get the franchise.
That post office is the only post office on Main Street. East of Main Street there are a number of senior high-rises. He put out a petition and in just a few days had over 1,200 signatures of people who said they would like to use the post office. When he called up Canada Post it said that his post office was not wheelchair accessible. He said it was, that there was a four-foot door and a ramp which people ride up in their motorized chairs to get service.
Canada Post then said that he could only give 300 square feet. He said he would give them 1,000 square feet. It replied that his hours were not acceptable. He then said he would open his business for postal business any hours that Canada Post asked him to. It accused him of not putting up a sign. He said he never said that he would not put up a sign. He would put up a sign. Furthermore, he said that the post office in Moose Jaw is the only bilingual post office in the city and that people from CFB Moose Jaw-and there are a number of francophones who live in CFB Moose Jaw-come to use his post office. Canada Post said it is going to close it. That is unbelievable.
Since Glen McRitchie took over the post office the business has improved and profits have gone up for Canada Post in that area, and yet it is being closed. This is a situation in which the business has been in Moose Jaw since 1909, it is wheelchair accessible, it is bilingual, it could provide more space if Canada Post wanted it, it would put up a sign and stay open any hours Canada Post wants it to and yet Canada Post wants to close it. In addition, it is the only post office on Main Street.
If Canada Post has standards I do not know where they are. They must have been lost or have disappeared because nobody seems to be following them.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate. Before giving the floor to the hon. member, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam-Breast Implants; the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands-Northumberland Strait Bridge; the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre-Manitoba;

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the hon. member for York West-Toronto Economy; the hon. member for Northumberland-Somalia.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, as my colleague has just been saying, this debate on Bill C-73 is a debate about the service provided to Canadian citizens by Canada Post.
Over the years Canada Post has been one of the proud institutions of Canada and has provided the kind of service that everybody thought could not be duplicated anywhere around the world and was not duplicated anywhere around the world. The people who worked for Canada Post were a proud part of that organization. They know that the kind of service they used to provide is still possible. However they also know that there is not much chance that the present Canada Post is going to provide that kind of service.
They also know that the employees of Canada Post no longer have any trust, nor do the consumers have any trust, in the ability of Canada Post to provide the kind of service they have learned to expect. They now no longer expect it.
This bill is the first step toward complete privatization. Privatization has been going on for quite some time. The privatization has been of the outlets until now, and a certain number of the post office buildings and so on in many towns and cities.
The city of Prince Albert has a population of something over 30,000 people. It does not have an official corporate post office. It has a series of franchises that are supposed to provide the same kind of service but only marginally do so in many cases.
This bill is the first step toward complete privatization. We know it is privatization because we have models before us. The steps started early. They started a long time ago with the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau which transformed the corporation from an agency of the government to a Crown corporation.
Now we are going the next step. We are going to sell shares in this Crown corporation. Granted, at the beginning these shares are going to be available only to people who are employees of the Crown corporation.
If we cut down the population of the employees by two-thirds in the last five years there are not too many of them who trust they will have a job within the next while, so why should they consider buying shares?
Then there is the next step after selling or providing shares. If members read the bill they will find that there are two steps in this. There is the decision to make the shares available. This means that the government has to take the assets of that company and divide them into so many parts, with each one represented by a share.
Then it sends 10 per cent of those shares to the employees and the other 90 per cent is for the government to keep. How long does it keep them? There is the question. How long will it keep them? Next year the government might say: "Aha, now that we have made this corporation appealing to the private sector and since we have downgraded the service to the extent that Canada Post does not have to provide this kind of service any longer, we can provide service to parts of Canada that will be adequate and make some money on it".
Canada is a big country. There are thousands and thousands of miles between communities in some cases. There are many small communities between the large communities and many small communities before those.
What we believe we can have in Canada and what we understand that we can have is the same kind of service in every one of those communities. We believe that Canada Post should be able to take the mail to every community. We recognize that we will only get it once a week in some places. Those who have lived in northern Canada will realize that sometimes they get it only once a month. Canada Post was delivering to their community but that is no longer true. Canada Post is not the same as it was before.
As I said, this is a step toward privatization. The model that we can point directly to is Air Canada, and that has been well documented here this morning and this afternoon. With Air Canada, the first step was the division into shares that could be sold to the employees. We were told that Air Canada was not for sale. We know what happened there.
Canada Post has many problems besides the selling of its shares. This bill does nothing and in fact it is intended to do nothing about any of the problems which Canada Post has. The self-proclaimed pit bull terrier that a member was talking about a little earlier said that this
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will improve employee-employer relations. Since Canada Post is offering shares, it suggested that since the employees own part of the corporation maybe they will work a little harder and the service will be a little better.
Over the last 10 years Canada Post has undermined the trust of those employees to such an extent that offering them 10 per cent of the shares, which are valueless unless they can get a dividend-and it seems unlikely that they will get a dividend-does not sweeten the pot in the least bit. Consequently there is unlikely to be any improved labour relations. The very fact it did not ask the employees whether they wanted this to happen is a good indication it did not even intend to improve labour relations.
The employees ask why would they buy the shares if with the shares there is not some kind of job security. If this bill goes through and the shares are available to employees it does not mean that if they have a good chunk of shares they are guaranteed a job. The next day or the next week you may be laid off. No security goes with these shares.
I started my speech by saying that the debate was about service. It is obvious that this bill is not about service and that is why any self-respecting member in this House would oppose it. The post office is something that every one of us has in our community. It has been downgraded to the extent that none of us can be proud of the fact that we represent a government that has a corporation that gives this kind of service to a community.
It is ironic that this bill is suggesting that the company give its employees an opportunity to buy into this company. First of all it is losing money and is laying people off as quickly as it possibly can. Every privatization of an outlet reduces the number of employees that Canada Post has.
This process of privatization of outlets, if you talk to Canada Post, is done by consultation. Like my colleague from Moose Jaw, I have been there. This government has given the term consultation a bad name. It asks the community to come forward and then decides what should be done about this particular post office. The citizens of those communities have been duped before. They know they are going to be duped again, but they go to the meetings. They have a certain amount of trust in government. They go. They have municipal governments
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and they have provincial governments and they have a federal government that they can depend on to give them service. The government will tell them they have two or three alternatives.
I am talking now about a meeting that I went to not too many months ago in the small town of Tway. I attended other meetings in the small town of Hoey and one in Cudworth. They are small towns in my constituency. In each of those cases citizens were told they had three alternatives. The first was that, they could have a business outlet where they could have a franchise post office. It does not pay very much for that and in many of those cases not one of those stores or one of those businesses really wanted the post office. They would take the post office because it had some value, because people have to come there and it is a service to the community that they as good citizens feel they should give. The second was that those green boxes beside the road. The third was the post office is closed and the citizens would go to the next community to get their mail and their service.
Before these Canada Post officials came, they had already decided that what this community was going to get was a franchise post office. They come before the community and tell a few lies about how good it is going to be after they have privatized this post office, how much better the service is going to be and then they proceed to tell the community what they had intended to do all along. They tell the community it has a choice: number one, number two or number three. The community is going to choose the least offensive of those three alternatives, which was what was intended all along. In many cases it does not reduce the cost to Canada Post.
That in itself is another complaint that I think we should air here today and should be aired as often as possible. The value of service in a post office is not valued by the number of pieces of mail that is handled. We did a two-hour check in one of the post offices in my region. It sold 100 stamps and handled 2,000 pieces of mail. That does not sound like a very good paying proposition but we were told it was better than usual. That sounds like a losing proposition except that every one of those 2,000 pieces of mail had been paid for as well. That post office was told that it was not making any

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money because it was not selling very many stamps. It is very unfair.
At one of the meetings that I attended the Canada Post representatives said they had seen no reduction in service in any of the post office changes that they had made in my area. That is a direct lie. I am a farmer. I used to have rural delivery to my door. I no longer have rural delivery to my door. Is that not a reduction in service? When I had rural delivery to my door the service I received stamps, parcels delivered to the door and even some good companionship with the mail carrier as he came around a couple of times a week. Now I drive 20 miles to get my mail and any other postal service I need.
The little community of Brockington in my constituency had a small rural post office. Now it has outdoor green boxes. Is that not a reduction in service? People have to go to Melfort, about 18 miles away, to get service and stamps:
Down the road a little way is another small town where the service was reduced from eight hours a day to twenty hours a week. In other words, the service was cut in half. The Canada Post official stood before the community and said no community in this area had its service reduced. Is the reduction of service from 40 hours a week to 20 hours a week not a reduction in service? We are being told that there are no changes in the post offices and no reduced services.
Let us go back to the consultations I had places like Tway, Hoey and Cudworth. The communities were told they would have something to say about what they got. They did not. In the end they were told what they would get.
My colleagues from every party across the country can tell you exactly the same thing. I know that members of the Conservative Party faced exactly the same kind of treatment from the Canada Post officials in their communities as we did in ours.
This kind of manipulation by civil servants is straight arrogance. They are saying to the people in my communities that they are not smart enough to know what is good for them, they are not smart enough to know that the post office is making money. These civil servants are telling the people that the post office is not making money. They will lie to you and you will not even know
that you are being lied to. It is straight arrogance and it is treating the people of Canada in a way that they should not be treated.
It is a treatment of people in a way that we as members of Parliament abhor and should do something about. Passing this bill is not doing something about it, it is just keeping it going on and on.
A corporation's survival is dependent upon the trust that the consumers and the employees have in it. Most people now use the post offices as little as possible, partly because the price of a stamp has gone up but also partly because they no longer trust the post office. They use the telephone. They use the courier service. They no longer use post offices as much as they used to. That is part of the reason that Canada Post is not doing the kind of business which puts it in a category that would allow it to make money.
What we should be doing here is throwing out this bill and taking a look at the kind of service that Canada Post should be giving to Canadians. We should be putting before this House and the people of Canada the kind of corporation that we can be proud of, that they can be proud of and that the employees of Canada Post can be proud of.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, the government said that it is proceeding with this as one of the things to improve morale within the postal service. I would like my colleague's comments on the experience that I just had in Surrey North with the government's treatment of postal workers.
For the last 18 months there have been discussions about closing the postal sorting service and moving it to Vancouver. The employees and myself were assured that this was not going to take place as the Vancouver post office was structurally unsound.
About four weeks ago, at seven o'clock in the morning, a letter was delivered to my Ottawa office announcing the closing of the Surrey post office. Along with that was a brief notice which said the postal corporation was going to keep employees involved and knowledgeable about the closing. Three hours later, at 10 o'clock that morning, I telephoned the union to talk to them about the closing of the office. Much to my surprise the union and employees had not been informed. How did the 100 employees know their jobs were gone? Using a speaker phone I told them that three hours before the postal corporation had told me in writing that the post office-
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Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Pursuant to Standing Order 26(1), I move that the House continue to sit beyond the normal hour of adjournment for the purpose of continuing consideration of Bill C-73.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I was on my feet and speaking. I think that motion can only be properly put when the member has the floor of this House.


An hon. member:: A minister can take on that.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: He is not a minister. That motion is out of order. Five o'clock has now arrived and I request that the Speaker adjourn the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member is right but the Speaker does not know what point of order has been raised before understanding the hon. member.

To move this kind of motion the mover must have the floor, which is not the case now. Therefore this motion is inadmissible according to our Standing Orders.
Since it is after five o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 30(6) the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 3, 1992, consideration of the motion of Mr. Caccia:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should, for the benefit of Canadian fisheries, urgently take the necessary steps to ratify the International Law of the Sea, and urge other nations to do so in order to reach the 60 signatures required for the Law of the Sea to come into force.
Private Members' Business
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in favour of the motion introduced by the hon. member for Davenport, an international statesman for sustainable development if I could give him that title. By introducing this motion he demonstrates that knows what he is talking about.
Canada boasts the longest coastline in the world, 151,489 miles, and the second largest undersea shelf, 2.5 million square miles. Yet we still have not ratified the Law of the Sea.
It is ironic and quite hypocritical of Canada to withhold ratification considering we signed the document in 1982 along with 119 other countries. The hon. member for Davenport tells me that as of March 1993, 56 countries will have ratified. All we need is four more countries and it would become law.
Canada worked very hard to bring many of these countries to the bargaining table in order to secure, among other things, protection of the ocean environment and sovereignty of our coastal waters.
It is also worth noting that some of Canada's best and brightest diplomats dedicated their careers to the signing of this treaty. Now, more than 11 years after the fact, Canada's best interests still lie in the ratification of the Law of the Sea.
This is a highly complex treaty, yet it affirms three fundamental principles. Many Canadians can relate to the first principle, which is the affirmation of our sovereign rights to the waters along our coastline. In the past Canada has been forced to take a number of unilateral actions to protect our rights, often when other countries infringe on our territory or threaten our environment.
For example in 1969, the American supertanker Manhattan sailed through our northwest passage without Canadian consent or notification. What if this giant oil tanker spilled her cargo all over the Canadian Arctic waters? Who would pay for the initial clean up? Who would compensate native peoples for ruining their lifestyles for generations, if maybe not for life?
Canada did respond unilaterally when the Trudeau government brought in the 1970 Arctic Waters Pollution Protection Act. This action was not welcomed by the international community, particularly by the United

March 9, 1993
Private Members' Business
States. However, in the wake of the environmental catastrophe caused by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska I think the Liberal government showed considerable foresight over 20 years ago.
In addition to the rights we claimed in the 1970 Arctic waters act the Law of the Sea acknowledges the 200-mile limit Canada established to protect our fishing industry. Right now the 200-mile limit is customarily respected but the Law of the Sea would establish an exclusive economic zone, EEZ as it is known. It represents the highest long-term economic gain for Canada.
In addition to the economic gains, however, the economic zones would in effect make environmental protection a duty. It would place the responsibility on coastal states to clean up their act and treat our limited ocean resources with respect.
I would like to go on in greater detail but I must proceed to the second major principle of this treaty. That is to make some portion of the sea floor and the seabed part of the common heritage of mankind and to share these resources with all countries.
This part of the treaty recognizes the economic gap between the northern and southern hemisphere and the fact that developing countries must be given a shot at developing natural resources before more technologically advanced countries scoop up all the wealth first.
Over the last week we have had two important speakers. Today it was a doctor who has practised in developing countries and last week it was Mr. Hue, the author of the report Human Development 1992. Tliese experts are telling us to permit these countries to stand on their own feet by allowing them to share in these resources.
For example the discovery of the so-called manganese nodules in the deep seabed, which are usually found thousands of metres deep and far beyond the exclusive economic zones of any one country, will some day allow lesser developed countries to also benefit from this enormous potential for economic growth.
I am quite aware however that our own Canadian mining industry, most of it land based, feels threatened by this part of the agreement. That is because these manganese nodules consist of large deposits of nickel and copper.
I find it difficult to follow the logic of this argument. Experts agree that once the Law of the Sea is ratified Canada will rank in the top five countries to gain sovereign control over more surface area and undersea territory.
Considering the enormous pressure placed on countries in the southern hemisphere to play economic catch up with the north to avoid a massive debt crisis and so on, it only makes sense to adopt a share approach to resource management. The Law of the Sea Convention would therefore serve as an invaluable and efficient instrument to facilitate ocean development.
Remember that we are talking about sharing, not giving away, precious resources.
Consider the economic cost of delaying the development of these types of mineral resources. Why tangle with the World Court in an unending series of resource disputes when the alternative is a rational and fair approach to ocean resource management?
The third major principle of the Law of the Sea pertains to the preservation of the seas and the rights of other states. With certain rights come certain obligations. Consider drift-net fishing and what can be described as nothing less than the wholesale rape of the high seas.
In addition to outlining the rights of states to fish, mine and navigate the sea we must also accept certain obligations to preserve and protect the ocean for future generations. Indeed the International Law of the Sea represents a constitution for the oceans, a means of establishing an international order above and below the sea.
I think the Law of the Sea should be an integral component of the new world order that the international community is talking about. Right now all the G-7 members, the most highly developed economies in the world, are refusing to ratify this treaty. Sadly this government has placed Canada among those nations that are refusing to ratify.
Now I know the game. This Prime Minister and this government are afraid to show leadership. They follow. They are waiting to see what the other G-7 countries will do. In international politics Canada should show leadership. Canada should be the first of the G-7 countries to sign this treaty. If Canada does that I think the other six
March 9, 1993

Private Members' Business
countries will sign right after. If that happens then this on the high seas is increasingly recognized as an intema-Law the of the Sea does become the law of the oceans, tional environmental issue.
It is time to take a leadership role and show the rest of the world that Canada is no longer the chicken of the sea. For the sake of present and future generations I encourage all members to support this motion. To the people listening to this debate, phone the member for Davenport and get a copy of this motion because it is so vital. I cannot stress this enough. When we talk about the new world order, this is part of it. This should be an integral component.
I congratulate the hon. member for Davenport for always looking into the future, protecting our planet not for ourselves but for future generations. Congratulations.


Mr. Ross Belsher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, once again we are debating the motion brought forward by the hon. member for Davenport which states:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should, for the benefit of Canadian fisheries, urgently take the necessary steps to ratify the International Law of the Sea, and urge other nations to do so in order to reach the 60 signatures required for the Law of the Sea to come into force.
The issue of the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, commonly referred to as UNCLOS, has been reviewed exhaustively in the previous two hours of debate in this House, on June 23 and December 3 of last year. It has also featured prominently on two other occasions: an opposition day debate on foreign overfishing on March 12 of last year and a special debate on May 7, 1992 on the UNCED which referred extensively to our legal initiative on high-seas fisheries at UNCED in Rio.
During these debates it has been repeatedly demonstrated that this motion subscribes to a simple but wholly ineffective solution to the crisis facing the Canadian Atlantic fishery.
The government's approach to the problem of foreign overfishing has been to seek a solution through practical measures of international co-operation. Ratification of UNCLOS at this time would do nothing in terms of practical results to resolve the overfishing issue. However slowly, significant progress is being made. Overfishing
In terms of control of fisheries resources, Canada already benefits from one of the most significant provisions of UNCLOS. That is the creation of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone, since this now forms part of customary international law. Indeed the foreign overfishing problem is related to fishing beyond the 200-mile limit so Canada would not enhance its control over this problem whether or not it ratifies the UNCLOS.
Further, it is widely known that the long-standing difficulties within the international community with regard to UNCLOS ratification concern not the control of fisheries resources but the seabed mining provisions. All industrialized countries except Iceland have serious concerns in this regard. Ratification by Canada at this time could well commit the Canadian Treasury to disproportionate financial obligations to the UN authority responsible for the exploitation of deep seabed resources.
Canada is actively engaged in the informal consultations with the Secretary General of the United Nations. It is carrying this out in order to resolve the problems concerning the exploration and the exploitation of these resources.
I would like to talk in terms of the fisheries and what has been done on that situation. Since the House last discussed the issue in early December, we have made important strides in the direction of solving the fishing problems.


Jesse Philip Flis: Let us talk about the Law of the Sea. Protect our fisheries.


Ross Belsher: If the hon. member opposite will just pay attention we will get to these points. First, the fisheries agreement with the European Community was initialled on December 17 and provides for adherence to the conservation decisions of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, better known as NAFO.
Second, as a result of consultations with contracting parties to NAFO Morocco and Venezuela have agreed to withdraw their vessels from the NAFO regulatory area. Panama has fined several of its vessels fishing in that area and de-registered two. We have also recently held

Private Members' Business
consultations with Korea in which we urged that country to withdraw its vessels from the NAFO area.
Third, on December 22 the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolutions 47/192, formally convening the United Nations conference in straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks.
This conference will provide for the first time a forum to develop rules for the management of high seas fisheries in accordance with conservation and sustainable development principles within the framework for international co-operation established by UNCLOS. It will also continue to focus international attention on overfishing on the high seas, thereby increasing the pressure to stop this practice.
The conference will start its substantive work with a three-week session in July in New York after a five-day organizational session in April. It aims to complete its work before the 49th session of the General Assembly in the fall of 1994.
Canada is hoping that all countries with an interest in the sustainability of high-seas fisheries will participate in the conference and support a substantive outcome that gives concrete expression to the rights, obligations and responsibilities of states to conserve the living resources on the high seas.
Fourth, to begin to prepare the ground for a successful outcome at the UN conference Canada hosted a meeting of like-minded countries on high-seas fisheries in St. John's, Newfoundland from January 21 to 24. Over 50 countries attended this meeting, including Argentina, Australia, Chile, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia and the United States, just to name a few of them.
The meeting focused on four discussion papers. There were three developed by Canada and one by New Zealand. As well, there was a comprehensive report on straddling stocks and highly migratory species, problems being experienced in various parts of the world.
The discussion papers dealt with the following subjects: (a) management principles for the conservation of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks on the high seas; (b) problems related to fisheries by states that are not members of the relevant regional conservation organizations or are new members thereof; (c) surveillance, control and enforcement on the high seas; (d) remedies; and lastly, (e) special problems of developing countries.
There was a consensus on the need for action on all elements addressed in the discussion papers. There was also a shared view that the UN conference must result in an effective regime of conservation and management for straddling stocks and highly migratory species.
By effective it was clear that participants at the meeting meant a regime that works in practice. Workability must be the essential criterion. Nothing less will do. This will require a political commitment on behalf of all states, including the distant water fishing states, to achieve solutions through the UN conference.
Fifth, Canada participated actively in an ad hoc informal group of experts which met from February 1 to 5 in Rome under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, to draft an agreement on the reflagging of fishing vessels to avoid compliance with internationally agreed conservation and management measures.
The group managed to agree on a very wide-ranging document which deals not only with the reflagging of fishing vessels but also with their initial flagging and with fishing by vessels flying the flag of states that are not members of relevant regional fisheries conservation organizations. The draft agreement would commit states accepting it to ensure that vessels flying their flag do not undermine internationally agreed conservation and management measures.
Deterrents provided by the draft agreement include mandatory registration of fishing vessels, their licensing to fish on the high seas on condition that they do not undermine internationally agreed conservation and management measures, and inspection and control by flagging in and flagging out states to avoid double flagging and changes of flag to undermine such measures.
There are enforcements by both categories of states, including penalties commensurate with the gravity of the offences, and hopefully an electronic information system centred in FAO but radiating to all parties to the agreement covering registered and licensed fishing vessels, those sighted committing infractions and the penalties imposed.
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The member states of FAO will be seized of this draft agreement in the framework of its committee on fisheries which meets in Rome from March 15 to 19. If it commands a consensus the agreement will then be approved by the council in June and adopted by the FAO conference in November. Such a procedure would correspond to the fast-track approach that Canada has been pushing for.
While the results of the discussions in New York, St. John's and Rome which I have just described allow for a measure of optimism it is clear that over the long term much work remains to be done to make the most of the opportunities that have now arisen. These opportunities did not just happen by themselves. They were the result of hard work and singular dedication on the part of men and women in several coastal states, including Canada, who took on the responsibility of putting high seas overfishing on the international agenda.
I hope I have made it clear that, as is all too frequently the case, the opposition has seized on ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention as a simple solution to a very complex problem. Passage of this motion by the House would in effect endorse a facile gesture easily implemented but completely ineffective and potentially costly which would do nothing to alleviate the real problem of overfishing in the high seas.
I trust that the defeat of this motion will reinforce our common commitment to resolve serious crises facing the Canadian fishery by effective means and not through empty rhetoric.


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the motion of the hon. member for Davenport this afternoon.
I would like to draw to the attention of the House how timely this debate is in light of The Fifth Estate on March 2 exposing the gross practice of drift-net fishing off the Pacific coast and the complete abdication of governmental responsibility in addressing this problem.
The ratification of the Law of the Sea is only one step because it takes more than just signatures on a document. It takes government priorities and resources to enforce what is intended in the Law of the Sea. I see neither from this government.
Private Members' Business
It is very curious. Last summer in my province, when close to 500,000 sockeye salmon went missing from the Fraser River during implementation of the aboriginal fishing plan, a fish war erupted. Commercial and native groups were at each other's throats. Ottawa ordered an investigation by Professor Peter Pearse and the House of Commons fisheries committee conducted its own hearings.
However, when an offshore foreign drift-net fleet- those curtains of death that do not just take B.C. salmon but take everything-routinely takes between 250,000 to
500,000	B.C. salmon per year Ottawa says it is not a major problem and represents only .5 per cent of the total stocks. This does little to inspire confidence that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is considering the $500 million salmon industry in British Columbia.
We must first ratify the convention on the Law of the Sea. We must do that but we must do much more. The member for Fraser Valley East says that as a result of ratification there would be costs to the Treasury but I just do not see the sense in that.
What we are talking about in my province and in his province is a $500 million industry that is at risk. It is his government's responsibility to protect it. Ratifying this Law of the Sea Convention is a minimum. It must be ratified. Then there are the enforcement and surveillance provisions to protect our salmon stocks, for which our tax dollars have funded enhancement programs. Our salmon stocks provide processing jobs, provide food fishery for native people and commercial fishery people, and a livelihood for both native and non-native people.
One becomes suspect at what the motivation of the government is in allotting so many resources to find
500,000	salmon in the Fraser River that had gone missing and yet alloting no resources when a drift-net fleet comes and takes our resource.
The Law of the Sea has been ratified by 56 nations. It only requires four more nations to ratify it before it becomes international law. I do not understand this government dragging its feet on this. Consider the cost to the Treasury in not ratifying this. It is just nonsensical. It is a $500 million B.C. salmon industry. There is no surveillance. The undercover unit from fisheries and

Private Members' Business
oceans has been disbanded and our resource is now being processed in Thailand.
A constituent of mine phoned me late last week in response to a stoiy on The Fifth Estate. He said that he had notified fisheries and oceans three years ago that Canadian salmon was being sold in Germany in product of Canada tins, but was obviously canned in Thailand. Fisheries and oceans did nothing. When there is concern for all the salmon in the Fraser River the fish in the high seas count too.
At a very minimum I ask the government members to reconsider. I ask them to vote in favour of the motion of the member for Davenport and ask that we go on from the ratification of the Law of the Sea to protect our resource on both the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, just a few words in support of this motion by the hon. member for Davenport.
It is amazing, is it not, when we realize that there is no Law of the Sea. Every time we listen to an official of fisheries and oceans or of external affairs or a cabinet minister talking about the fishery, reference is made to the Law of the Sea. Well, there is no Law of the Sea. The Law of the Sea right now at this very moment is made up by a group of nations that want to catch fish or want to exploit a resource. In support of the hon. member for Davenport and what he is trying to do, let me point this out to the House and to the Canadian people.
After the Canadian fishing industry on the east coast had closed down fish plants and told fishermen to go home and stay there, 1993 opened with 14 factory vessels from Japan, licensed by the Canadian government, fishing 75 miles from the shore of Nova Scotia.


Mr. Friesen:: For what?


George Baker: For tuna. Not only that, but they had a quota for bluefin of five times what the Nova Scotians have. They have a quota until March 31 of this year for five times what Newfoundlanders have. They have unlimited quotas.
Of all of the tuna that is bought in the grocery store, albacore, yellowfin, big eye, skipjack, every tuna I can mention is unlimited by the Japanese fleet in January and February of this year and Canadian fishermen are
March 9, 1993
sitting home and cannot get tuna licences. That is reality. That is the Law of the Sea today. There is nothing about conservation at all. The bluefin tuna is an endangered species today because of that. With all of the Canadian fish plants closed, workers are sitting at home and are getting a cheque from the government. They are not allowed to go out in a boat: "You sit at home and take a cheque, Mr. Man, you are not allowed to fish".
On November 27, 1992, while those fishermen were getting a cheque for sitting at home in the province of Newfoundland, there was a Russian boat 50 miles from St. John's, Newfoundland, catching redfish after we closed down a redfish plant. When I say "we" I mean that the Government of Canada closed it down. These were the veiy fish that those fishermen were not allowed to catch.
On December 10, 1992, after the first year of the moratorium in Newfoundland, there were two Danish ships fishing 80 miles from the Labrador coast for turbot with a 10 per cent by-catch of cod with no quotas shown on any sheet anywhere. Why? That is the law of the sea. That is the law according to the Department of External Affairs and the latest meeting it had in some fancy meeting hall in some capital across the ocean.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has evidence of massive dumping at sea this year, last year, the year before and the year before that because of the technology used by foreign vessels both inside our 200-mile zone and outside our 200-mile zone. Fisheries and oceans has evidence from the observers-because I have it-that shows 10 tonnes of fish dumped with practically every haul-back. When the gigantic nets are hauled over the side of the boat they are filled too much to get through the opening. They jam and then they have to let go of the cod in the end and dump everything overboard.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has the evidence of that year after year after year and even last year. It has the evidence of bribes being offered by foreign captains for somebody to look the other way. It has the evidence of fisheries officers being offered bribes by these foreign vessels. All those foreign vessels want to do is to take every last fish that is in the ocean and they have the technology to do it.
March 9, 1993

That is the incredible thing. They have the technology to do it. We do not have that technology. We do not have one factory freezer trawler in Canada, not one single factory freezer trawler and we do not want one.
There are 104 observers employed in St. John's, Newfoundland, there are 85 employed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and there are a dozen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. What are their jobs? Their jobs are to observe aboard a foreign vessel licensed by Ottawa, and the foreign vessel is a factory freezer trawler. There are 104 jobs in St. John's, 85 in Halifax and a dozen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They are observing aboard factory freezer trawlers with a technology that destroys every last thing in the ocean inside the 200-mile zone and outside the 200-mile zone. That is the law of the sea today.
The law of the sea today is that Canadian fishermen will sit at home because the Canadian government will not sign the Law of the Sea treaty that will put an end to dumping and put an end to this business of fishing on every spawning ground in the world. If one follows the Law of the Sea in every article it will talk about-in sections 63 and 64-the transborder stocks and the migratory stocks of fish. That is what the member for Davenport was pointing out to this Chamber the other day. Put an end to that.
We have it in the observer reports at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans today on 200 Kent Street on the tenth floor in a locked compartment. They are sealed away in a room so that no MP can see them and no provincial cabinet minister can see them. You, Mr. Speaker, are not allowed to see those observer reports. You, Mr. Speaker, are an impartial person in this Chamber but you are not allowed to see them. The member for Davenport cannot see them either. Neither can I nor the premier of Newfoundland can see them. He is not allowed to see those reports. [DOT]
I have seen those reports. I have copies of them. I am going to expose them. Oh, yes. That is the Law of the Sea today. The Law of the Sea is a document in which nations came together and said that they would try to preserve the fish. They would stop this destruction of fish in their spawning seasons and on their spawning runs. They would stop dumping by all of these massive vessels in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They would stop drift-net fishing. They would stop all kinds of things.
Private Members' Business
The United States of America to my knowledge has not signed that agreement. I would be willing to bet that all the nations that fish inside our 200-mile zone today in agreement with the Government of Canada and the Department of External Affairs have not signed it either. They are the law of the sea today. It is not on a piece of paper. It is in their quota sheets. That is the law of the sea. We want to get rid of it. We want to get rid of that law and replace it with the Law of the Sea that the Canadian government refuses to sign. The parliamentary secretary stood in this Chamber today and amid all of his gobbledegook that he went on with said it was going to cost us a lot of money.
There should be no limit to cost when we are talking about the conservation of our fishing resources. I hope that the government members will change their minds and vote in favour of this motion by the member for Davenport. It is worth the support of every member of the House and everybody in Canada. Only the government member are not in favour of what he has moved here today.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take part in the debate but I would like to point out that since the arrival of television in this House and after listening to my friend from Newfoundland, the debate has certainly deteriorated. Theatre has improved but debate has deteriorated. At any rate theatre is supposed to reflect reality and even this theatre that we have listened to and watched for the past 10 minutes has no reflection in reality at all.


George Baker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member was recognized to speak. He stands up and says that what I said was not true but he offers nothing, not one argument, to support what he said. I doubt whether he knows anything about the fishery at all and that is why he is not using his speaking time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Before giving the floor to the member for Davenport, I see that he wants to use the provision in the Standing Orders whereby the mover of the motion can have the right to reply last. I just want to remind him that in doing so, he will be the last speaker on this motion and will have at most 10 minutes. The hon. member for Davenport.

Private Members' Business


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, since no one else wishes to speak I am very happy to be able to take the floor.

It is very sad that we could not hear from the member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley on what he thinks about the Law of the Sea and whether he has any input to this debate because what we are discussing here today is of course the convention called the Law of the Sea. We are also discussing here today Canada's reputation in the world.
Canada was a pioneer in the time preceding the coming to life of this convention. Canada was among the nations that pushed very hard in the formulation of the contents of this document that finally saw the light of day in 1982. It was the brain-child of former Ambassador Beesley and it received substantial political support from the Canadian government at the time.
The step of signing it was taken by the Government of Canada very shortly after. Canada was one of the nations that signed this document immediately after it was introduced. We were among the first to launch it.
We come to the second step. A convention needs two steps. The first is the signature and the second is its ratification. Now that we are in the ratification stage we find Canada lagging, dragging its feet, and using arguments of the kind that we heard from the parliamentary secretary earlier.
We probably share the longest coastal area of all nations in the world. We are probably ahead of Australia. While we drag our feet as a nation other nations have gradually ratified it. It has now reached the point where 56 nations have ratified it. The world community is only four ratifications short of the convention coming into effect. We are that close. At this rate it looks very likely, unless the government changes its mind, that Canada will not be among the first 60 nations ratifying it or launching it. It is very sad.
Today we heard the parliamentary secretary talking in his speech about this measure as an ineffective solution. That is what he said in his speech half an hour ago. The parliamentary secretary was contradicting the Minister
of Fisheries and Oceans who said on May 5 in Cancun on Canada's behalf: "The Law of the Sea outlines principles and measures that will give proper effect to the provision of the Law of the Sea Convention". The minister was representing Canada when he said that, and today the parliamentary secretary said that the law would be ineffective.
One wonders who prepared the speech. What is going on in the ranks of the government if a parliamentary secretary contradicts a public statement made internationally on the same convention only six months ago? What has happened in the thought processes of the government since May of last year? One wonders. Has it turned around? Obviously not. At least one would hope it has not gone bananas.
Three very strong aspects of the convention must be stressed again. First, by ratifying the convention Canada would ensure that high sea fisheries would pursue ecologically sound practices. Second, the convention would ensure a much better degree of maintenance of the ecology of the marine system in the oceans.
The member for Gander-Grand Falls referred to sections 63 and 64. It is all there for us to read. It is as simple as that. It is black on white. It is unbelievable the government would have the gall to say that this convention would be an ineffective solution.
Third, the convention would complete the protection of fish stocks within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone and probably permit us to manage better the straddling stocks, as others have already said.
One wonders conceptually what is standing in the way of the thought processes of this government. One can only suspect that there are very strong mining interests and that pressures have been exerted on the Government of Canada, and I suspect on the United States, by large multinationals such as Inco, Noranda and others urging that the convention not be ratified.
There are substantial interests related to seabed resources. For the life of me I cannot understand why sectoral interests must stand in the way of an overwhelming and all-embracing interest in the fish wealth of oceans which touches so closely the livelihood of many communities. We are talking of hundreds of thousands
March 9, 1993

of families and communities whose livelihood depends on fish.
Therefore the convention as such is much more than just introducing strong international law that is badly needed. It is a social and economic instrument of the first order. It is perhaps for the first time the international community coming together and saying that we must jointly manage our fish resources, properly. I suspect the reason for requiring 60 signatory nations to ratify this convention was to develop sufficient momentum, sufficient political will, and it is being developed.
This is a tragedy for Canada. We are not seizing the opportunity. We do not see meaning or the opportunity for Canada in ratifying it. All we can say is that we are using portions of the Law of the Sea that are convenient to us but we will not sign it because the Treasury Board finds it too expensive. This is the logic that we heard today and in preceding debates.
In other words we want to pick and chose. We want to do it where it is convenient for us but we do not want to carry the burden. Probably until now this government has subordinated Canada's fisheries interest to the interests that are being lobbied in Washington and in other capitals by the mining sector.
Canada cannot pick and chose. Canada must join the world community and ratify the convention sooner or later. It was our hope in the opposition that we could draw the government to do it sooner rather than later for the sake of our own reputation, for the sake of our own credibility.
There will be a preparatory conference in New York next April on the question of fisheries. There will be a full-fledged conference in July flowing from UNCED, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development. How we can go there without having ratified the convention and having credibility I do not know.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.
Private Members' Business


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


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

Before the taking of the vote:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Further to the adoption of the 24th report of the Standing Committee on House Management on Wednesday, April 29, 1992, the recorded division will be taken row by row, beginning with the mover. Then I will ask the other members who are for the motion and on the same side of the House as the mover to please rise. After that, the votes of those who support the motion and are on the other side of the House will be recorded. The votes of those who oppose the motion will be taken in the same order.


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



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, it is rather tough to speak on an issue as important as breast implants with people leaving the House and all of the distractions.
The minister announced on January 13 of this year what most considered would be a ban on the further use of silicone breast implants. He announced that manufacturing would no longer take place and he notified the manufacturers that they would have to have valid notices of compliance for the sale of implants. Only with additional information will the department consider the reintroduction of implants. Is this really the case?
The minister also said that only in exceptional circumstances will women have access to silicone implants and only then on compassionate grounds. What guidelines will be used to determine compassionate? Will it be the persuasive words of the surgeon or the lobbying efforts of the manufacturers?
It should be noted that under the current regulations, physicians are allowed to request silicone implants on a case by case basis. It will be up to the department to determine the merits of the application of the doctor. Again one must ask: What guidelines is the minister using to determine the merits of the application? On what grounds will these applications be judged?
What we seem to have now is not a ban, but just one more bureaucratic hurdle for plastic surgeons to pass before they can use these silicone breast implants.
On January 13 the minister introduced his moratorium or ban on silicone implants. On January 15 in Montreal, within two days of the minister's announcement, the
Hopkins

March 9, 1993
head of the plastic surgeons in Quebec said that what we have is simply the requirement to do follow-up both by the doctor and the department. He said that any woman who wants an implant can still get one. Many plastic surgeons rely heavily on breast implants as it is a large part of their practice, and hence a large part of their income.
It would seem that we have more than enough evidence from women both here and in the United States linking silicone implants to a host of medical problems. While the minister's concern for those women who already have implants is no doubt sincere, why do we need trials based on new recipients of implants when an in-depth study of those currently with implants would provide the type of long-term data that the minister is seeking.
The more cynical among us could be led to believe that the minister is not willing to ban silicone implants outright because of the complaints of the plastic surgeons who rely on the implant business. Further study is no doubt needed into the health effects of silicone implants.
It would seem however that what we do not need is further study based on new implants. The problem is with those who have already had implants. It is those women on whom the minister and his department should focus their efforts. I would like to take this opportunity to further advise the minister that this issue is not dead because of the moratorium on implants.
There are over 200,000 Canadian women who are suffering from the effects or are potential sufferers of the effects of the implants they already have. We will continue to press the minister, first, for support for those women; and second, for some guidelines of what he means when he says that he will require notice of compliance prior to allowing implants on compassionate grounds.
Adjournment Debate
and Welfare has continued to demonstrate his concern for women, especially in the action that he took on January 13 when he announced his concerns regarding implants. At that time the manufacturers were informed that they would have to submit additional scientific information to health and welfare before silicone gel filled breast implants could be reintroduced into the market.
Today there is an epidemiological study being done to assess the long-term effects. It is under way right now. The minister provided results of a major survey done among women in Canada with breast implants. That was also announced on January 13.
Further, in exceptional circumstances on compassionate grounds, on a one-by-one basis, silicone gel filled breast implants may be authorized for individual sale. As for the safety of the saline filled breast implants, manufacturers have been requested to supply health and welfare with the same information that is being submitted to the U.S. food and drug administration.
Now about the media reports regarding the risks from these implants, the infection rates resulting from their use is similar to that for all the other implants that have been utilized. Health and welfare will continue to review all the reports concerning all types of breast implants. We will take the necessary action.
Those steps announced by the minister last January are going to help resolve these particular questions. We will go into further epidemiological studies.
We are concerned and every person in this House is concerned. Indeed there are many women in Canada who do suffer from the problems with regard to losing their breasts through disease or a medical condition. They are foremost in our minds.


NORTHUMBERLAND STRAIT BRIDGE
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We are advising the minister that we must have those Ms Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands): I am guidelines as to what compassionate grounds mean. pieaseci to rise again and bring to the attention of the There is nothing compassionate about implanting an House the problem with the passage of Bill C-110. This unsafe product into a woman's body.	concerns the fixed link between Prince Edward Island
and New Brunswick and the failure of the government to Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Parliamentary Secretary to follow its own environmental legislation and provide an Minister of National Health and Welfare): Mr. Speaker, I environmental assessment on the particular bridge prowant to emphasize that the Minister of National Health posal.
[Stage Direction]
March 9, 1993
Adjournment Debate
This matter has been raised a number of times in recent days and it flows out of my question to the minister asking that he provide an environmental assessment review process on this particular proposal.
This has generated a number of letters. I would like to quote from a letter dated February 9 which I received:
Dear Ms. Hunter:
Thank you for your comments in the House of Commons on the fixed link. I agree with what you said.
Many, if not most islanders do not want this link. We cannot convince our own MPs that it is not for us. I believe they see it as a vote-getter, especially among the unemployed and the businesses hurting in the recession.
Continue to support our no vote and encourage other MPs that it is not good for our area. A whacko scheme.
Yours truly, Florence Graham.
So it takes a member of Parliament from British Columbia to defend the interests of a Prince Edward Islander. It really speaks to the kind of ridiculous politics that exists in this House, when the Liberal members of Parliament for Prince Edward Island will not do as their constituents ask on this very important issue.
Today in the House my colleague from Skeena also raised another important aspect of this whole sad story. He asked a question of the Minister of Public Works. He revealed that Mr. Alan K. Scales, who is the chair of Marine Atlantic, the federal Crown corporation that operates the ferry link between Prince Edward Island and the mainland, is the same Mr. Alan K. Scales who in January of this year swore an affidavit in the Federal Court of Canada Trial Division in support of the application of the Attorney General of Prince Edward Island.
This action is to further the interest of Strait Crossing Inc. and the fixed link. That is the firm which stands to benefit from the fixed link. That is the firm which has solicited the contract for the fixed link.
This is a situation where the federal government is pushing a $1.5 billion project that was rejected by the Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office in August 1990 when it said that the generic concept of a bridge proposal should not proceed. The government has chosen not to agree with that and it did a typical government routine. It went and asked another panel of experts what their opinion was. Lo and behold, it came up with the right answer.
What we see with Mr. Scales' involvement in this is a clear case of conflict of interest. It is another wrinkle in this whole sad story.
I am pleased to conclude my speech in the House tonight. But this is a debate that is going to be continuing, not just in Prince Edward Island but across Canada, when one can see the kind of contract that goes out from a billion dollar project and the people who are supporting it are the same people who stand to benefit from it themselves.
Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to put one or two pieces of information on the record with respect to the question which has just been raised by my hon. friend.
First of all, as many Canadians know, the proposal for the fixed link was put to an environmental assessment. Public hearings were held and the panel, when it reported, established criteria under which such a proposal would indeed be acceptable.
The panel was very concerned about the adverse affects which lingering ice would have on the environment and it was with that criteria in mind that the Minister of Public Works undertook his responsibilities to publish first of all the government's response to the panel and then to examine the feasibility of the fixed link thereafter.
As my hon. friend has just said, in January 1991 the government appointed an independent committee of ice experts to examine the effects of the bridge on the departure of spring ice. That group concluded that it would be possible to build a bridge across the strait that would meet the panel's ice-out requirements, as they are called.
I want to stress that there has been public participation in this process. It is an ongoing process. The government and the Minister of Public Works are very committed to ensuring that our obligations under section 33(c) and (d) of the Environmental Assessment Review Process guidelines are met. In addition, the matter is also before the courts and so perhaps any further comment on my part should be left to a later time.
March 9, 1993


MANITOBA
David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I rise to continue an argument I have had with this government dating back to my first election about economic renewal and economic support for Manitoba.
My specific question arose from a conflict between the premier of Manitoba, the finance minister and the Prime Minister over the support provided by the federal government to the city of Winnipeg.
While it is not my job to defend the actions of the Government of Manitoba I thought that the incident indicated the degree to which Manitobans are frustrated by this federal government and the degree to which they would like to see a more co-operative attitude.
Starting over a decade ago Winnipeg was supported through a core area initiative. Subsequent to the signing of the second accord by this government there were many promises made that there would be a third accord. That has not taken place. Instead we have had a gradual decline in the quality of life and not only in the inner city. Poverty has spread into many older neighbourhoods throughout Winnipeg. Of course the plague of rural Manitoba is well known to anybody who follows the plight of rural Canada.
We keep asking the government these questions because there are things that can be done. There is a need for an economic plan, one of which touches upon the transportation needs of Winnipeg. It should address the international role that could be played by the airport and support for the rail system, the branch lines, making sure that if the two major companies withdraw from the branch lines across western Canada that we have an infrastructure left for someone else.
We have to deal with the port of Churchill which has a very proper role to be played in trade with northern Europe. We have to deal with the questions of research and development in Winnipeg, not only in the health industry but in other industries as well. We have to deal with the question of the cultural industries which on their own in a very lonely fashion produce some of the best works in North America, if not in the world. In fact the Winnipeg film group is world famous for some of its work.
Adjournment Debate
These need the support of the federal government. As cutbacks go from one department to the other for reasons which members from Manitoba simply cannot understand, this province continues to be singled out: transfer payments, support for post-secondary education, support for health care, support for job training, support for aboriginal economic development, support for inner city businesses, support for new immigrants who are looking for English as a second language training. The list is lengthy.
The response of the government when asked a question in Question Period or response in debate is not to respond in a positive way, to pick up the phone and say we know your frustrations, we are trying to figure out what to do, this is the blockage, can you help. When you talk about partnerships in government you do not isolate people who are genuinely concerned about these issues. You try to find a way to get them involved. It does not have to be for public consumption but it can be just to see something happen.
Many groups from the inner cities come to me and say: "We do not want a public confrontation with the minister. We want someone to go to the minister to ask under what grounds he will solve this problem so that we understand what is going on".
The constant failure of the government to reach out to Winnipegers has caused a political alienation that will take years to recover from and years to reform. I continue this debate with the government because it is very important that a new government be formed which responds to the economic needs of Winnipegers.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond to the question raised by my hon. friend because it is important to put some of this information on the record.
While my hon. friend spoke only about what the government was doing for Winnipeg I am sure he would not mind if I spoke about the province as a whole, because it is unduly restrictive to speak only in terms of the city of Winnipeg itself.
For example, Manitoba has 4 per cent of the population of Canada. However, the province of Manitoba receives 5.6 per cent of major transfer payments. If we look at total program expenditures, Manitobans actually received $5,039 in 1990 for every person in the province, which is in fact the highest total spending on a per capita basis anywhere in Canada.

March 9, 1993
Adjournment Debate
In the area of agrifood spending which is so vital to all Manitoba including Winnipeg, although I fear some Winnipegers probably do not appreciate it adequately, $458 million on average has been spent in that province since 1985-86. In Winnipeg, $32 million for improvements to the international airport; air traffic control centre, $27 million; Boeing, $13 million; Bristol, $4 million; forgive me if I mention Ayerst in Brandon, $25 million; the Yellowhead Highway, $10 million; $68 million in social housing in Winnipeg; and The Forks, $12 million.
I know, Mr. Speaker, you will not give me adequate time to do justice to this but let me conclude by referring to the new virology lab which is situated in my hon. friend's constituency and for which I am sure he will show at the appropriate time the right amount of gratitude. One hundred and forty million dollars was spent on a very important lab which quite frankly was transferred there at considerable difficulty from Ottawa,
with 242 full-time jobs located at that new site. My hon. friend would probably like additional time to express his appreciation for that very important addition to his own constituency.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In all fairness to the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for External Relations, who is here, I see that the two members in whose names the inquiries were made are not present. Therefore I must conclude this debate on the adjournment motion.

Pursuant to Standing Order 38(5), the motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.53 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, March 10,1993