1993-06-07

Mr. Raymond Skelly (North Island-Powell River) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should urgently consider amending the Criminal Code to permit physician assisted suicide when:
(a)	it is requested by the patient;
(b)	the patient is terminally ill and will experience a painful death;
(c)	two independent physicians certify that the patient's condition is terminal; and
(d)	the office of the Attorney General for the province has reviewed the case.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the motion before us today is a variation on a number of motions that have been put forward in this House. The member for Fraser Valley West managed to put forward a motion, convince the House to support it on second reading and carry it through to a very useful committee study which dealt with the issue in great depth.
Today is the last opportunity for the House to consider this matter. The matter is also before the Supreme Court of Canada. It has been brought there by a very courageous woman, Sue Rodriguez, who suffers from the disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
This disease is fatal. As she describes it in The Globe and Mail of May 21, 1993 the reason she has brought this forward is, in her words, because: "I simply do not want to die a gruesome death". It is with a great deal of personal courage and a commitment to others who will
find themselves in the same circumstances that this matter has been brought to the Supreme Court of Canada.
I would also like to thank Nicki Segal, an intern who has done a great deal of work on the research and presentation of the material that we are going to be considering in the House today.
The issue that Sue Rodriguez raises in the Supreme Court of Canada, and which she has taken through every level in the court system, is essentially physician assisted suicide. She is asking that she be given the right to have her physician assist her in committing suicide rather than face the gruesome death this disease will inflict upon her.
Suicide is not illegal. There are those who have sought suicide in order to avoid a degrading and painful death. They have sought to have their physicians assist them with this action.
The other day I came across the case of a woman who had a friend who spent virtually every day in the hospital with her as the woman suffered from the same disease. The patient's physical condition had deteriorated to such a degree that only this friend could communicate with her. Every single day she asked to die. It is an important issue for this House.
Right now the Criminal Code prevents someone from assisting another in a suicide. Apparently the law goes back 101 years. It does not contemplate the realities of our society today where about 75 per cent of deaths are attributable to chronic degenerative diseases such as cancer, AIDS and a variety of other diseases. As we have been more and more successful in preventing certain kinds of diseases, these diseases are forming a major part of the health spectrum. They are characterized by a complete loss of control and quite often by a very serious and painful death.
In some cases, where an individual specifically requests it, people find themselves in a situation in which determining the time at which life ends can improve the quality of life. It can prevent death in great pain and degradation because of the complete loss of control

June 7, 1993
Private Members' Business
when the individual does not have the ability to control even the simplest of life's functions.
The proposal before us is that one more time we ask the government to bring forward an amendment to the Criminal Code. It would probably take section 241(b), which says that no one may assist another to commit suicide, and simply add a number of clauses to it. Those clauses would say that no one could assist someone to commit suicide unless it was a physician assisting a patient.
The physician could assist the patient in committing suicide if the patient were terminally ill, if the patient were mentally competent, if the patient repeatedly asked to be assisted in committing suicide by his or her physician, if the facts were certified by an independent physician, and if the case were reviewed by the office of the Attorney General, and that could be the local coroner, the Crown counsel or whomever.
If we ask this House, ask the government, to pass that motion, it could be put forward quickly. It could resolve the matter raised by Sue Rodriguez and others who ask to be assisted by a physician in committing suicide in order to avoid a degrading and painful death.
This is not an issue for the courts. At every stage the courts have asked Parliament to relieve them from a responsibility which is not truly theirs. In the initial instance through the Supreme Court of B.C. and even before the Supreme Court of Canada, the indication has been that this issue is not the responsibility of the courts.
They ask that Parliament fulfil a responsibility to these people to allow them to undertake an act which should not be illegal. We should not be bound by an antiquated law that does not recognize the changes in our society.
This is probably the last opportunity this Parliament will have to discuss this matter. It is not an issue for the courts. It is an issue for Parliament. It is unfortunate that the government has not put a bill before the House. It would have been extremely useful, on the heels of the motion put by the hon. member for Fraser Valley West, for the government to lay before the House a proposal for the consideration of Parliament and for the consideration of the people of Canada. It is now time that the government respond to this appeal. It appears that about 80 per cent of Canadians want something done.
I undertook a survey of the community of Powell River in my riding and the returns from that survey were many. About 75 per cent wanted something to resolve this matter. They are cautious about it. They want stringent controls but they do want to see us aid people who are suffering from a chronic terminal illness that is painful and degrading.
Many of them have seen their loved ones go through this process and they are asking that this Parliament do something. The courts are asking that we do something. Some of the people who are suffering from these illnesses are asking that they be given an opportunity to relieve this suffering.
It is my hope that the court will resolve the problem of Sue Rodriguez. In fact it is my hope that the Supreme Court of Canada will resolve the problem for all Canadians in this very narrow sphere and say that where it has been certified that the person is clearly terminally ill and where the person repeatedly asks, then after an appropriate review the court would permit those physician assisted suicides to occur.
There is an argument for the court to consider. That argument is that Parliament has a responsibility to grant somebody, through a change in legislation, a chance to exercise their rights. I am hoping that it will consider this approach.
The question becomes: Does an individual have this right? Does Sue Rodriguez have the right to ask her physician to assist her in a suicide? Let us look at some of the arguments. There certainly will be arguments put for and against it. We have to consider the fact that a very large number of Canadians would like to see something done by the government in this area.
There is the argument that this is a guarantee of liberty. The charter in section 7 guarantees that the individual has the right of self-determination. If a person does not have the right of self-determination to control their body, to refuse medication and medical treatment then it makes a mockery of the right to self-determination.
There was a recent article in the May 31 issue of Time magazine about Dr. Kevorkian in the United States. Dr. Kevorkian is operating virtually as a free agent, without control. The state of Michigan attempted to put a law in place to curtail his activity. The court has now overturned that and said that it is a denial of a person's right

to self-determination to commit suicide. That was the end of it.
That law has now been overturned and it looks as if Kevorkian can continue his practice, without any control whatsoever, over the kinds of activities in which he has been involved. This is unacceptable and really not a solution at all.
The argument is that this is a guarantee of liberty, that this legislation, if the government would accept it, would give Sue Rodriguez and a host of other Canadians who wish to pursue a physician assisted suicide the opportunity to be relieved from future pain and degradation and to have the right to control one's body. It is the right to avoid pain and suffering, and it is of course the right to avoid the indignity of a complete loss of ability to control any function of life.
When my colleague asks what right do they have, they do have rights. There is a right to liberty. There is a right to self-determination. There is a right to control one's body. There is a right to avoid pain and suffering. There is a right to avoid loss of dignity and there is even a right to commit suicide. The latter is not illegal. If a person wants another to assist them to commit suicide, we must consider this.
I would like to put forward another argument. The court originally dismissed this but it is certainly worthy of consideration. It is discriminatory, if there is an individual who is handicapped and one who is not, if the one individual who is handicapped by a chronic debilitating disease wishes to commit suicide, they may be impaired and unable to carry out that function without the assistance of a physician or someone else, preferably a physician.
There is a solid argument that one class of citizen because they are not disabled can in fact carry this out and another class of citizen who because of their disability may be competent mentally but unfortunately physically are unable to carry out the task competently. We wind up with a situation where we have created two classes of people by a law which essentially discriminates.
I would like the House to consider this legislation as empowerment, the ability of individuals to exert their
Private Members' Business
own self-determination over their lives. These people are going to die, there is no question about it. They are going to die a painful and degrading death and they have made a decision that they wish to determine the time their life will end. Unfortunately, we remove that empowerment from them. We say that we know best. In this day and age I really think we must reconsider the current law.
We need to examine this issue, especially this narrow issue put in front of us by Sue Rodriguez. We must empower an individual who is in a very terrible set of circumstances. We must give them the power to exert some control over their lives, even if it is to relieve themselves of suffering and degradation. We must give that empowerment to them.
The ironic thing with Sue Rodriguez is that the progress of her disease will render her completely incapacitated. She will not be able to commit suicide and she will not be able to communicate. She will still be conscious but unfortunately unable to do anything.
If we were to pass a law that permitted physician assisted suicide and Sue Rodriguez and her physician agreed on the circumstances when the suicide would be carried out, Sue Rodriguez's life would be longer. She would be able to live longer. It is an irony. If she is going to commit suicide she will have to do it sooner, when she is capable of controlling the circumstances and doing it effectively, which means her life will be shorter unless she can use the assistance of a physician. It is not just Sue Rodriguez, it is all other Canadians who find themselves in this circumstance and who wish to end their lives in order to prevent that pain and suffering.
We could be in a position to extend their lives by amending that legislation.
I would also like to cite the case of Dr. Kevorkian in the United States.
Sue Rodriguez has a commitment from a physician regardless of the outcome. Whether Parliament or the government puts forward legislation in this House, whether the Supreme Court gives her the right, a physician has said that he will assist her to commit suicide. Ultimately this is a humanitarian act.

Private Members' Business
We have created a situation because the law is no longer relevant. This law is not relevant. The needs of society and the needs of people will begin to find ways to circumvent it to meet a very basic need.
We will lose control because we do not have any guidelines, for instance, in the arrangement between Sue Rodriguez and her physician or with the next case or the next one. There are no controls over Kevorkian types.
However we could set some very stringent controls; that you need to be terminally ill, that you need to be mentally competent, and you need to ask repeatedly to be assisted in committing suicide so that you can extend your life. Ultimately you would need to have it reviewed by an independent physician and by the Attorney General. Then some controls are placed over this type of situation.
I do not think we can create a situation where we provide disrespect for the law, where we are unable to enforce it. Physicians are not charged and convicted in Canada for carrying out this kind of activity. Therefore the law is already held in disrepute. It does not meet the needs of the people.
Sue Rodriguez has gone a step further and says: "I have made the arrangements if the court and Parliament are not able to meet our needs". We must do something about this. I am sure it would pass this House in short order if the government could bring forward a piece of legislation that would meet the needs of people.
The arguments against it are interesting. They fall into five categories. Murder is still murder. The issue of murder is still murder if you look at the definition. I guess the five basic points that the critics of it bring out is that murder is still murder. In this case that is not it and I will deal with that at length at a later date.
Another point is that Nazi Germany ran an euthanasia program and that we are heading in that direction. Nothing could be more false and misleading. This is a democracy. It is one of the most sensitive and successful democracies in the world.
The kind of activity we are looking at is not destroying people's lives because they do not meet the social agenda. We are responding to the requests to be able to be assisted with a suicide. We want to empower those people to control their lives.
We cannot argue against a religious conviction that says that no matter what, God created life and God has the ultimate choice as to when it will end. If a person holds those convictions you cannot deal with the issue if you totally ignore the situation that when a person's life is going to end anyway, and it is going to end with pain and degradation, we do have an opportunity to control it.
They say this is the slippery slope. This is the fourth argument. Opponents say that if we do this then we will end up lining up the elderly and finishing them off because it will be cheaper for our health care system. The argument is that we will move from there to other forms of incapacity. We cannot argue that. These are individuals asking for a right and asking to be able to time their lives.
The fifth argument is one of the most interesting ones and it comes from Dr. John Scott at the Elizabeth Bruyere Hospital. I guess one of the key points in his debate against it is this. He says: "If we put in a euthanasia system, even doctor assisted suicide, we will get into a situation where the Netherlands provide no money to hospice care and Great Britain which does not permit physician assisted suicide or euthanasia does provide money for hospice care".
This argument is completely false. Ultimately this caring society is concerned about health care. It is concerned about properly funding hospices for the same reason it would give Sue Rodriguez empowerment and the right to self-determination.
If an individual wishes to end his or her life in a hospice situation we have an obligation and a responsibility to make sure that health care spending provides the opportunity to do that.
This is the last chance. Eighty per cent of Canadians want to see something done about this. Sue Rodriguez and her physician will do something about it, whether we permit it or not. I think respect for the law is critical and respect for the rights of other human beings is critical in this issue.


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, this motion of the member for North Island-Powell River on legislation to allow physician assisted suicide raises the issue of euthanasia on request where the



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patient is no longer able to act, or should there be a distinction.
I am not aware that the medical profession in Canada has asked the government to decriminalize either physician assisted suicide or euthanasia. The reason may very well be that it does not recognize these practices as constituting the practice of medicine. The proper concern of medicine is with treatment, including palliative treatment to relieve pain.
There is a great deal of confusion on whether there is a need for decriminalization and on whether it commands general support. This is complicated by the fact that the media has not always distinguished between euthanasia on request and plain murder.
Moreover palliative treatment to relieve pain which has the effect of hastening death has often also been included in the euthanasia debate, even though courts have indicated that this is not a crime. That is because in such circumstances the disease, rather than the treatment, is considered to be the legal cause of death.
In the face of all this confusion it is not surprising that opinion polls report a majority in favour of something or another. However when one asks what the respondent understands when opinion polls present the question, it is obvious that not only the respondent but also the pollster has failed to appreciate the wide range of very different situations that could be included in the general type of questions favoured by those conducting the polls on this very hotly contested issue.
Once this is understood we may find there is no need and little demand for decriminalization of physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. Once a person is assured of effective palliative treatment to relieve pain he or she is much less likely to demand that these practices be made available.
As a practical matter, court decisions have made it clear that not only is palliative treatment which hastens death not a crime, but neither is removing a respirator at the request of a patient. Similarly, withdrawing food and drugs from patients in a persistent vegetative state at the request of the patient's family has been recognized as an extension of the patient's own right to refuse treatment.
Doctors are aware that in all these situations treatment has not been successful and since they cannot offer
Private Members' Business
any further useful treatment, they are willing to accept the decision of the patient or his family to cease treatment.
The medical profession remains by and large opposed to physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. They are aware of the implications of decriminalization. Just as there are specialties in medicine, so we have seen there are doctors who are prepared to bring their death machines to assist people to commit suicide. No doubt a specialty in assisted suicide and euthanasia would develop if the practices cease to be prohibited by the criminal law.
What is absent from the arguments of those promoting these practices is consideration of how decriminalization would affect the plight of children or other persons who are incapable of requesting assisted suicide or euthanasia. Once these facts are available to those who can consent to them they may well be extended to those who are not in a position to request them.
These acts would go beyond withdrawal of treatment that has proven unsuccessful. They would reverse the ancient medical injunction to do no harm and would involve the doctor in deliberately doing harm. They would foist on the medical profession a philosophical position that says killing is better than allowing suffering. In those processes the alternate to accept the challenge to develop the art of palliative treatment to a point where no one need suffer and no one need be killed to avoid suffering may all be ignored.
What is even worse and equally incompatible with our principles of criminal law and our principles of human rights is the fact that euthanasia could eventually be administered to those who are incapable of either consenting or refusing. The only basis for administering euthanasia to these people would be their chronic or terminal illnesses.
There have been prosecutions of doctors in England for acts which in the Netherlands would be prosecuted as euthanasia. Some have failed for lack of evidence.
A doctor was recently convicted of attempted murder and was subsequently found guilty of unprofessional conduct by the general medical council. They found that the criminal conviction was sufficient punishment and declined to remove his licence to practice. However, the

Private Members' Business
regional medical council put very strict conditions on his future work.
Some doctors resented the verdict of the court because euthanasia had been requested by the patient and her family. However it was clear that the doctor did not administer a drug aimed at relieving pain but rather a drug aimed only at killing the patient.
This case emphasizes the fact that the criminal law prohibition against euthanasia as murder plays a very necessary role in helping the medical profession regulate itself. It educates the profession in what the law, which reflects social values, regards as permissible and what goes beyond the boundaries of societal acceptance.
Had the doctor administered a drug aimed at relieving pain and the patient died as a secondary effect, provided he did not act in a negligent manner, he would not have been prosecuted.
It was made clear in a jury direction many years ago and was recently confirmed in this decision in the English Court of Appeal that such a case of the law regards the death to be from the disease and not from the attempt to alleviate the pain.
The consequence of this educational and regulatory effect of the criminal law is that members of the medical profession are encouraged to improve their ability to provide effective palliative care, to secure the knowledge they are not going to be in conflict with the law. In contrast, medical practitioners in the Netherlands are really not encouraged to improve their ability to provide effective palliative care because in appropriate circumstances, they may act directly to kill the patient.
I personally think the way to go is to improve our palliative care methods. There is a great deal more we can do in society within the medical profession to alleviate the pain of those suffering. I cannot and do not support the member's motion.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, as I begin my remarks I notice some of the members presently in the House. I see at least two members who are medical graduates. I see a former teacher of nursing. I see former clergymen and a number of others. All I am sure are interested in this topic.
I want to take a moment to talk about this issue of euthanasia. It is an issue about which I have very profound feelings. Euthanasia is so-called mercy killing. Presumably under certain conditions it would be seen as being merciful. It also means a good death.
By definition, that kind of a death must then be potentially good. Those who are in favour of it are in favour of merciful killing and good death. Obviously those of us who are against it presumably do not want all these good and merciful things. One can see how quickly one can fall into that trap, particularly when all of this only rests on the abuse of a few words in the dictionary.
Until recently euthanasia was not even legal in a country such as Holland. We all know that Holland practises more euthanasia than any other country on the face of the earth. It has one-quarter of Canada's population and up to 12,000 people per year are sent to premature death in that country.
On February 9, 1993 the Dutch parliament formally adopted so-called voluntary euthanasia. A week later a Dutch justice department spokesperson, Liesbeth Rens-man, told the Associated Press that legislators would be studying the effect of this voluntary euthanasia law for three months. This would be done to "see what happens and how careful physicians are, then perhaps there could be regulation for killing without request". If you do not think we are on a slippery slope when we discuss this issue, think again.
I want to speak about the medical profession in all of this. First it is important to remind everyone that we are not talking about patients who refuse medical treatment. In fact that is already protected by section 265 of the Criminal Code and a colleague who invoked that as a reason for euthanasia was obviously wrong. That is already covered in the Criminal Code. We are talking about giving physicians the right to kill, pure and simple, albeit under certain conditions.
In the sixth century BC, the Greek philosopher Hippocrates wrote a note to which physicians are still bound today. It states in part: "I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest such counsel". In modem times, that particular Hippocratic oath has been rewritten as the declaration of Geneva. The declaration of Geneva repeats the same idea in different words.

Physicians have operated under these oaths for 2,500 years. These oaths are there because patients need the assurance that a doctor's only raison d'etre is to make them better, never to make them worse. Doctors operate under the motto: First do no harm. What would euthanasia do to all that? What would it do to the trust that exists between a patient and a doctor?
I never question my doctor's intention, none of us do. If we did for just the slightest moment, obviously we would change physicians. Most of us never change physicians. We have the same physician for years and years. Why do we do that? Because we trust physicians. We sometimes agree or disagree with a particular treatment they might have given us. We have never ever asked ourselves: Is my physician there to do me good or harm? We take it as a given that the physician's role will always be to make it better. I do not want to see that eroded.
I want to talk a bit about the slippery slope. Dr. Robert Conot, the author of Justice at Nuremberg, has reminded us of what can happen when a society allows itself to be guided by strictly utilitarian rather than humanitarian principles.
In Weimar, Germany, not Nazi Germany, the mentally and physically ill were entitled to the so-called favour of painless death. This principle was subsequently extended to other useless eaters, including residents of homes for the aged. The Nazis then extended the concept afterward to include Jews, Slavs and others who they felt were not useful to the party in power. That is how it began in that particular country.
How did that society slide that way? To quote Dr. Conot: "Theirs"-the Nazis-"was no plunge to damnation from conscious decision but a step-by-step descent into darkness, each step marking a small erosion of ethics and morality". That is how they slid into that.
Some members in this House might disagree with me about the slippery slope, but then what? I believe that euthanasia would still be wrong because it cheapens human life.
Only a few days ago we learned through the media that a Dutch psychiatrist was acquitted after injecting a depressed patient with a lethal substance. How could we tell our fellow citizens that murder is wrong if we were to
Private Members' Business
permit doctors to do it? How could we tell our young and emotionally fragile citizens that suicide is wrong and that life is precious if we allow life to be destroyed in this kind of a cavalier manner?
The Criminal Code of Canada forbids aiding, counselling or assisting a suicide. I believe it does so because the absence of such rules would erode the patient-doctor trust, as I said previously, but it does so as well because killing is wrong.
There is even a third reason. I want to quote from a reference made in report No. 58 of the Law Reform Commission which states: "The law does not exist for the sole or primary purpose of punishing illicit acts. It exists as an expression in a broad sense of the kind of people that we are. It does not merely regulate our behaviour; it articulates and symbolizes our values and our beliefs". That is why there is that prohibition in the Criminal Code.
Even if members disagree with me as to the other reasons, even if they do not think there is a slippery slope in spite of the evidence to the contrary, even if they do not believe that Holland exists as a nation with its experience in spite of evidence to the contrary, then I hope that all of us could surely agree that the reason the law is there is to state those things we think are valuable.
Some will say: "It is easy for you, Boudria. Maybe you have not lived with this very much". Actually about a year and a week ago my wife lost her mother to terminal cancer. A year almost to the day before, I lost my father as a result of a malignant brain tumour. That certainly was not easy, but that does not mean I now favour euthanasia. It means quite the opposite. It means that I understand even better how precious and fragile life is.
Collectively and individually we must make statements in this House about the value and dignity of human life. We must not say things to cheapen it any more than it has been already.


Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, this is one of the more important issues that has come before the House of Commons. That the discussion has begun in this session of Parliament for the first time is important. If not in this Parliament certainly by the next Parliament it will lead to changes before the law. It is inevitable because the majority of people, the nature of medical technology and many other factors are driving us in a direction that calls for discussion, reason and

Private Members' Business
resolution. Therefore I have no doubt the law will be changed.
All points of view are important in the ideas we put forward today. To me this is about freedom, self-determination and very much about fear. I appreciated the comments of the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. I appreciated that he personalized them. This is an issue that needs to be personalized because it affects every one of us. As an issue which affects every one of us, we need to consider it in our own context.
I can appreciate the choices that the hon. member for Calgary and the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott- Russell may have made for themselves and their families. Those choices may have been that when they face terminal illness, they want to prolong life as long as medical science can do so, even if it is prolonging life through and into intense suffering.
That is their choice for them and their families. I do not agree with that choice for me or my family. I believe that God gave us medical science and technology to improve the quality of our life, to nurture, protect and prolong to the point where we say: "That is enough, let me go, let me withdraw from treatment and leave it between my God and myself to make that decision".
We seem to have moved somewhat since we started this debate on my Bill C-203. Everyone seems to recognize fully that there should be the right to withdraw from treatment in the law to the point that we are claiming that it exists. The court cases demonstrate that it does not necessarily exist and needs clarification. The courts have called upon Parliament to clarify the law. The first result of the Rodriguez hearing told us that this is a decision for the Parliament of Canada, not a decision for the medical profession or the courts.
Let us look at what we agree to under the law. We agree, I think almost unanimously, that anyone who becomes terminally ill, that means you and I, has the right to withdraw from treatment. But we do not have the right to withdraw from suffering. In other words, technically one can withdraw from treatment if one wants to suffer to the point of death.


Mrs. Stewart:: That is ridiculous.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: I am not finished yet. You are right. That is not the whole side. The practice of most caring medical professional people is that they will err on the side of relieving suffering and in so doing, on occasion or even often, will allow that life to go at the point when suffering becomes excessive.
I would like to see the practice made legal so that the choice is for everyone to make. If I were to become terminally ill I would want my life preserved as long as possible. I would use all the medical technology I could to extend my life. But I believe there is a point in suffering where I would want to be able to say as a mature, responsible adult: "That is enough, let me go. Help me go". I would want to use the technology available to us through medical science to let me choose to say that is enough and let me go.
It is unfortunate that this is a decision question. Who will make the decision? Will it be your doctor, will it be your family, will it be yourself or will it be God? What is the combination?
One of the problems right now is that everybody sits around the deathbed arguing about who should make the decision, or saying nothing because that is easier than arguing. It goes on and on and on. People feel great pity and empathy. They feel sad but they cannot make a decision. That is why there should be the right of the individual to make a rational, logical choice through access to medical technology which will allow us to terminate our own life when there is no further hope.
This is not just what I think, it is what the court has declared. The court has declared that it needs direction. From where? From Parliament, from here, from us. We have to overcome our fear of this subject and deal with it, and we all have that fear in varying degrees.
Some people compare it to the abortion issue. Tie it in. It has nothing to do with the abortion issue. In the case of abortion we are talking about two people's lives, the life of the child and the life of the mother. In that case it is easy for me. It is a matter of nurturing, preserving and protecting that life.
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However, when we are talking about the end of our lives as mature responsible adults in the face of medical technology, I want to be protected by and for and against that technology, technology that wants to overly prolong my suffering and which will not allow me to make the decision in an appropriate manner through law.
Why do we not then put that decision back into the hands of the doctors? Do we put it in the hands of the individual? Why not decriminalize it and let each doctor, each individual make his or her own choice? Am I not responsible or intelligent enough to make that choice? I think I am. And I resent that any government or other parliamentarians would deny me that right of choice.
Death for many is not death; it is a release to eternal life. Why would any Christian try to prevent that release to eternal life?
I have made a great many arguments but am out of time to make those again in Bill C-203. But they will be made, if not by this Parliament then by the next Parliament, because the people of Canada demand that we make the change.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, I see by the clock that I only have a minute left in the debate. I would like to use that minute in putting on record a letter I received from two constituents, Helen and Mary Bumie. They say:
Dear Mr. Flis:
Thank you for helping to defeat Waddell's death bill. We have become so obsessed with death that we no longer see the beauty of life.
I am a terminally ill person and I want to live my full life allotted to me by God. May God bless you.
The hon. member says that the courts are seeking direction from Parliament. My constituents are giving the courts direction through this Parliament and through me as their representative.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the item is dropped from the Order Paper.
Government Orders



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of Labour) moved: that Bill C-101, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Public Service Staff Relations Act, be read the third time and passed.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Commons committee on its excellent work in examining Bill C-101, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
I would also thank all members of the House as well as representatives of labour, business and government organizations who have made a substantial number of presentations to the committee.
A great deal of discussion has taken place during the preparation of the bill presented to the House today which I believe is a balanced package of amendments to the Canada Labour Code. These amendments when implemented should help Canadian business compete in world markets by reducing red tape while offering workers improved protection in the area of labour standards and greater uniformity of treatment and benefits across the country.

These amendments are a balanced package from which employers, employees and the government will benefit and which will protect the public interest. I am convinced that passing this bill will give workers the security and confidence they need to work more productively, while striking a balance between their responsibilities at work and at home.
This bill will help employers by streamlining and simplifying the administrative procedures under the Canada Labour Code and will thus make them more competitive. It will enhance compatibility of federal and provincial legislation, so that employees across the land will receive similar treatment and benefits. Finally, this bill will protect the public interest by offering another mechanism to facilitate the settlement of collective bargaining conflicts in federal jurisdiction.

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Government Orders

The majority of the amendments relate to part III, the labour standards section of the Canada Labour Code. These proposals were developed over two years of consultation with federally regulated employer and employee representatives, the very parties affected by the changes.
Some 700,000 working Canadians will benefit from these changes to federal labour standards. The bill will streamline procedures for modifications to labour standards such as provide for the substitution of a general holiday, clarify the relationship between the minimum labour standards and collective agreements, provide for more effective collection of unpaid wages, provide wage and employment protection for workers injured on the job, allow greater flexibility in the timing of parental leave, and support a pregnant worker's right to remain at work by requiring employers to make every reasonable effort to modify the job or reassign the employee when her temporary health needs so require.
I would like to give further information on the last two points. Provisions that provide for protective reassignment for pregnant and nursing workers and those that allow greater flexibility in the scheduling of parental leave are especially important.
The amendments concerning the scheduling of parental leave address the difficulties that working families face in balancing their responsibilities at home with those in the work place. Under the provisions of Bill C-101 either parent within the federal jurisdiction will be able to take the parental leave to which he or she is entitled at any time within a year after the child's birth or after the child comes into the employee's care.
The amendment acknowledges that the circumstances and needs of parents differ. It is only equitable to offer some flexibility in the way that parental leave may be taken.

The amendments concerning maternity-related reassignment will protect women's right to continue working. An employer will no longer be able to force a woman employee to take maternity leave simply because she is
pregnant. Under the new provisions, employers must, as much as possible, change the duties of the pregnant woman or reassign her if her doctor considers that essential.
Forty per cent of federally regulated employees are women and, every year, about 6,700 of them take maternity leave. The amendments proposed in Bill C-101 will have a positive impact on many of these women by enabling them to continue to earn a living. By keeping qualified and experienced employees at work, the whole Canadian economy will benefit.

The amendments to the industrial relations provisions of the Canada Labour Code and the Public Service Staff Relations Act will serve the public interest by providing an additional mechanism which could assist in the settlement of collective bargaining disputes. The provisions would be invoked only when the action is likely to result in the resolution of a collective bargaining dispute where the public interest is affected.
Each component of Bill C-101 received a full discussion in the committee hearings. We had excellent representation from many members of both the government and opposition sides of the House, the Canadian Labour Congress, la Confederation des syndicats nationaux, a number of public sector unions, the chairman of the Public Service Staff Relations Board, and business organizations such as the Canadian Bankers' Association and FETCO which represents the federally regulated employers in the transportation and communications industries.
These were lively and fruitful discussions conducted in a spirit of co-operation that I found very encouraging. Some thoughtful suggestions were put forward by a number of representatives who appeared before us. We listened carefully and considered all of them.
I urge the House to support the bill. As a whole these amendments will be contributing to the efficiency of Canadian work places while promoting great co-operation between employers and employees. The changes will help Canada achieve a more progressive labour-management climate and will promote a more equitable and harmonious work place. This should have a benefi-
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cial impact on the competitiveness of Canadian industry and the prosperity of Canadian workers.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank members of the committee who worked in a very harmonious way. With the support of members of the House and the other place I hope we can get this legislation into place very soon.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, this is an important bill. As the minister has said, in large measure it is the result of good consultation among the government, the employers and the unions representing employees in the federal sector.
As far as it goes in that direction it is an example of the importance of good management-labour relations, both in the interest of Canada remaining competitive, having a stable work environment and being able to deliver on its commitments internationally, and in the interest of what the government likes to call a partnership relationship between employers and employees that leads to more productive and more efficient work places. The government seems to understand this intellectually but continues to have a problem with fully committing to implementing the development of better management-labour relationships in Canada.
As they get down to the wire on actually doing something positive in this area, the devil inside that says all labour unions are bad seems to get in the way. It causes them to do that bit extra that again creates an atmosphere of confrontation and undermines the progress that has been made toward more productive partnerships.
Let me make it clear what I am speaking about. The bill contains two essential elements. As the minister has said, one is provisions that were negotiated and were the subject of lengthy discussions and very productive consultations between employee representatives and employer representatives in the federally regulated sector.
These are the provisions that relate to conditions of work, occupational health and safety issues relating to pregnant or nursing women, to employees who have become injured or disabled, parental leave and so on. Where the partnership model was followed and the
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consultation was carried through there was consensus, agreement and a large measure of support for the bill.
Regrettably the government found it necessary to abandon that consultative process entirely and introduce an entirely new element into the bill before bringing it into the House, that is the provision of a forced vote among the membership of the union on a last offer. I do not know why the government chose to undermine the consultative process, the very positive atmosphere that had developed among government, labour, management and employers on this issue, by dropping this element into the bill at the last minute. Nonetheless it did.
It is on the basis of the negative effect we think the provision will have on the continued development of a positive climate of management-labour-govemment relationships that we will be voting against the bill.
Let me go back to the first package of amendments that we certainly support. The fact they have wide support is a tribute to the consultative process and to all those who participated in it. It provides for work place redeployment of women who are pregnant or nursing in the interest of their health and the health of either their bom or unborn child. It also provides similar measures for workers injured or disabled as a result of their employment.
The positive result is the likelihood of keeping workers employed, adapting the work place so that they can continue to be employed and self-sufficient, rather than take advantage of various disability programs that are seldom satisfactory to either party.
We entirely support these provisions. We entirely support the greater flexibility of parental leave. If we want to keep a productive skilled work force, we know that increasingly the work place, public sector or private sector has to make accommodation for a better balance among personal, family and work responsibilities.
However we fail to understand why the government does not recognize that those are equally valuable provisions for approximately one-third of the 700,000 federally regulated employees it talked about, the third who are employees of the government, the Public Service of Canada.
We fail to understand why the government would not have accepted an amendment put forward by Liberal

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members of the legislative committee to apply those same positions to employees in the Public Service.
We think nursing and pregnant women in the Public Service deserve the same entitlement and rights as nursing and pregnant women in the private sector. We think that parents or those who are about to be parents deserve the same conditions of work in the Public Service as those about to be parents or parents in the private sector.
These are provisions which private sector employees have accepted. These are provisions which they are now legally obliged to adhere to. Yet these are provisions the federal government is not prepared to apply to itself as an employer.
It is this kind of double standard that has increasingly raised the ire of business and employer organizations. They see the government imposing requirements on the private sector as employer that it has failed to take unto itself.
We were surprised by the government refusing this amendment because the government at least in words has said it is interested in getting rid of regulations. These kinds of conditions for the Public Service are covered in volumes of policies and programs at least 10 feet high. This would have been a great opportunity to get rid of that kind of policy regulation regime and put people's entitlements very clearly into legislation.
We are really surprised in the deregulating atmosphere that the government seems to be promoting that it still wants to maintain these volumes and volumes of policy manuals and regulation that have to be cross-referenced time and time again with respect to its own employees.
I want to speak now about the second major provision of the bill which is the right of the Minister of Labour to refer a last offer to a vote of the employees. I want to make quite clear that this provision was dropped into the legislation at the last moment with no consultation whatsoever. I think the minister concedes that.
The minister was asked during the course of the legislative committee why this came up after the consultations were over on this piece of legislation and why he felt he needed this kind of tool. The best answer that he could come up with was he had seen how useful it was to Premier Rae in ending the TTC strike in Toronto. He
thought it might be a useful tool to have in the government's arsenal.
What it is in fact is an undue undermining of the whole rules of the game of collective bargaining. Collective bargaining works when there is a reasonable balance of interest and of clout between the employer and the union representing the employees.
When the rules of the game are clear you sit down and you bargain. That is the way you reach a collective agreement. Instead the government now wants to be able to intervene at any time and say the process is not working, which gives either side an out. It takes off the pressure to sit down, negotiate and come to a mutually acceptable conclusion.
We were particularly concerned about the application of this rule to the Public Service because the government already has such substantial clout over its own employees that it enjoys an undue power to undermine the collective bargaining process and to resolve issues and disputes by mutual consent. It enjoys the power to exclude any of its employees from the bargaining unit in the public interest, in the interest of public health and safety.
It does so most generously to ensure that at times of labour or management disruption there are continuing public services. It enjoys the right at any time by legislation to send employees back to work, to dictate the terms of their employment, as this government has done a minimum of three times in this session of Parliament.
We fail to see why it needs this additional power to send an offer to a vote of the employees directly and bypass a negotiating process with the unions when it already enjoys such tremendous power. The only reason can possibly be to avoid public debate in this House on the usefulness and the propriety of its actions when it does want to order people back to work. It now has another mechanism that it can use without ever coming to this House and allowing this House to debate what is in the public interest.
The second element that makes this a different issue in the Public Service is that the government is the employer. Therefore, it should not have the right under any proper concept of collective bargaining as one party to the negotiations to determine how those negotiations will proceed.
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A minister of the Crown is in the position that I am sure the president of General Motors or any other major corporate head would love to be in of being able to decide to bypass the union completely and go directly to the members. But that is not the way collective bargaining works. It is undermining the role of unions in the collective bargaining process and that fits with the ideology of the government.
What it does not do is serve the public interest well in the long run. Nor does it serve the employees who belong to a democratic organization and who are responsible themselves for determining whether their union is or is not representing them well. That is not up to the employer, the other side of the table, to determine.
We did hear some excellent representations before the legislative committee. I regret first that the government felt obliged to introduce an unpopular, unwelcome, undiscussed measure into this bill at the last moment and then refused to remove those provisions.
Second, I regret very much that despite the excellent representations before the committee, it has chosen not to apply the same working conditions to its own employees as it forces private sector employers to provide.
Third, I regret that it has saddled the future government with a system that is unworkable and simply will not be helpful to the collective bargaining process.


An hon. member:: That is because it is leaving office.


Marlene Catterall: It is a system that undermines the commitment that both employer and workers must have to the bargaining table as the place to resolve issues, to that process as the way of maintaining stability in both public and private sector employment and to that process as the foundation of developing a more co-operative partnership among employers, workers and government, if this country is going to remain competitive, increase productivity and be ready to be able to face the challenges of the future.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here today to once again discuss Bill C-101. As you know, this bill was introduced in December of last year. Today we are discussing third reading of the bill.
The amendments to the Canada Labour Code, parts II and III, were the result of over two years of consultation, as you heard the minister say, with employer groups and
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unions. Neither side in this discussion got everything they wanted but a consensus was reached.
For the most part, we have here needed improvements to the Canada Labour Code. We have improvements in the protection for pregnant and nursing women in the work place. We have improvements in parental leave provisions. We have improvements in protection for injured workers. We have improvements in the administration of the code to speed up the determination of workers' rights and we have improvements in wage protection for workers.
As stated here and in the committee hearings, we also have the regressive step of a ministerial ordered vote on the employer's last offer. This measure which applies to both private and public sector workers came about without consultation, without consensus and most obviously without any stated need from either the private sector employers or the unions.
Its inclusion in this bill will not improve labour relations in federal jurisdiction. The reason it is there has nothing to do with labour relations in federal jurisdiction. It is there to simply advance an ideological position that holds that the employer must have more rights than the workers in the collective bargaining process.
In the legislative committee we heard from the Minister of Labour and the minister responsible for Canada Post. We heard from 10 witnesses, 7 from labour, 2 from the employers, as well as the chair of the Public Service Staff Relations Board. With the exception of the two ministers, we did not hear from one person who supported the directed vote amendments to the Canada Labour Code and the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
A recent ruling by the Canada Labour Relations Board points to one of the difficulties in holding these types of votes. The Canada Labour Code does not prohibit the use of scabs. The directed vote provision of this bill does not define who is in the bargaining unit and who is not.
In hearing a certification application by a company union, the CLRB considered scabs to be part of the existing bargaining unit. This opens the way for the company to lock out its workers, hire scabs, await the call of the vote by the minister and be assured of effectively decertifying the bargaining agent by stacking the vote

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with scabs or, as the government prefers to call them, replacement workers.
This is not some sort of a curiosity when the CLRB has said that there exists a community of interest between the scabs and those who are on strike. The CLRB has said that scabs are members of a bargaining unit. In effect the CLRB has said that it is okay for the employer to attempt to break the certified union by hiring scabs. Taking this decision at face value and applying it to the directed vote provisions of this bill, we can see a reactionary shift in the direction of labour relations in Canada.
The CLRB is saying that the employer can hire scabs with impunity and that they become part of the bargaining unit. The government is saying that it can direct a vote on the employer's last offer to be taken by the bargaining unit. What is apparent therefore is that the collective bargaining relationship is being stacked in favour of the employer. The CLRB is redefining the bargaining unit; the government is defining what the offer is going to be.
Implicit in the government initiated amendments to part I of the code and the Public Service Staff Relations Act is the belief on the part of the government that the union or bargaining team does not represent the interests or the will of the membership. This directed vote is saying that the government or the minister knows better than the elected and accountable union executive or bargaining team what is in the best interest of the union membership at the bargaining table.
Such an anti-democratic inference should have no place in legislation enacted by the House of Commons. To suppose an arbitrary decision by the Minister of Labour is a superior process to those democratic structures of trade unions is offensive and calls into question the sincerity of this government's commitment to the collective bargaining process. It calls into question the commitment of the government to upholding the rights of the worker-controlled, democratic work place institutions and trade unions.
The existence of this provision in the code also poses a severe threat to the fundamental right of workers to withdraw their labour. By giving the minister the right to intervene at any time-it is important to note that is at
any time-after notice to collective bargaining has been given, it effectively allows the minister to circumvent the free collective bargaining process as well as the right to strike.
From a strictly pragmatic perspective the problem of carrying out a vote within a large bargaining unit such as the Canadian Union of Postal Workers is absolutely immense. There will be the problem of determining who is an eligible worker, finding the correct addresses, dealing with appeals by both the employer and the union as to who should be included and who should not and most important, how such a process is to be carried out if it is Canada Post that is behind a picket line.
Is the government going to order the workers back to work so that ballots can be delivered, so that workers can vote to reject the employer's last offer and so that they can go back to the picket line? As an example, in the CUPW certification vote a number of years ago it took over five months just to prepare the list of eligible voters. Is a five-month delay going to enhance the collective bargaining process or help find a resolution? I think not.
Yet another problem arises when one has to determine just what is the employer's last offer. Is it the last complete offer? Is it an amalgamation of offers? Will it include what is still outstanding as well as what has been agreed upon? Who is to determine what the last offer is? In collective bargaining there is always much posturing on one side or the other in terms of what was the last offer.
In the last round of CUPW/Canada Post bargaining there were at least three offers put on the table that the employer claimed was its final offer. The bill calls for a vote to include all matters remaining in dispute, but often in collective bargaining the less contentious issues are dealt with first and the more difficult ones are set aside. In most cases this means that wage offers are the last to be determined.
What this bill does is to allow the employer to agree to non-monetary issues and then throw out a wage offer that is non-negotiable claiming it to be the last offer. Intimidation will become part of the process. Will employers have the right to put out advertisements which purport to be the last offer? Will spouses of workers be contacted directly as in the past in the hope that they will influence their partner into accepting the
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employer's last offer? The employer's message will be simply: "Ratify or else".
This is not collective bargaining. It is intimidation and coercion. The government claims there is nothing sinister here. It claims that this is simply another tool to assist the collective bargaining process. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In committee we had the pleasure of hearing not only the Minister of Labour but also the minister responsible for Canada Post who was very gleeful about the fact that these two clauses, 2 and 42, were his idea and his babies. It was clear from any reading of the transcripts that the real target of the government with this bill was the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and with the amendment to the Public Service Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.
It is indeed disheartening to see public policy developed in this country that serves no purpose other than to satisfy the vindictiveness of a particular member of cabinet. In this instance it was the minister responsible for Canada Post who, as I said, was quite clear about why he introduced the amendments.
It is difficult to forget given the number of times it has been used but it has to be remembered that the government still retains the right to legislate workers and employers back to work.
In the case of public sector workers the government already has extensive powers to ensure essential services. Unlike provincial jurisdictions the bargaining units covered by part I of the Canada Labour Code are quite large. There is CUPW at Canada Post. There are the bargaining units in the railways and airlines. There are the units in telecommunications.
In the case of a serious threat to the public welfare the government can and has ordered the resumption of the enterprise and the involvement of a mediator and/or arbitrator. This is done quickly. Necessary services are restored and the collective bargaining process is either ended with an imposed settlement or the parties are placed into an arbitration process that will result in a collective agreement.
With this directed vote provision there is no speed to the resolution process and there is no involvement of a mediator. The collective bargaining process is simply stalled to the detriment of all.
One must ask just what the point is when all the evidence we have heard demonstrates that from a collective bargaining perspective the directed vote is an unwarranted intrusion. From a strictly practical perspective its use is simply unworkable and extraordinarily expensive.
What is clear is that this provision is politically motivated and is not another mechanism to assist in the collective bargaining process.
If the government was sincere in wanting to enhance the collective bargaining process it would have put all of part I of the Canada Labour Code on the table during the consultative process. It would have followed the lead of B.C. and Ontario and banned the use of scabs. As we saw during the lengthy Nationair dispute and as we continue to witness in the ongoing dispute in Yellowknife, the use of scabs has not only lengthened the dispute but it has also strengthened the resolve of employers bent on breaking a union.
With regard to the directed vote amendment in the Public Service Staff Relations Act one has to question where the employer, in this instance the government, goes with public sector bargaining if it is required to vote on the last offer and the workers say no. Where does the government go? The chairman of the Public Service Staff Relations Board told the legislative committee that this clause is totally unworkable and that if implemented it would cost $2 million to $3 million to undertake the vote. The government has chosen to ignore that expert information and we are still faced with those clauses in this legislation.
I want to address some of the amendments that were made in committee. It should be noted that improvements to this bill were made in committee in large part due to the witnesses from organized labour whom we heard. They suggested amendments. At this point I would like to thank the Minister of Labour for agreeing to those amendments.

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Clause 30 of Bill C-101 as originally drafted was intended to remedy the situation where pregnant women, being denied illness benefits while on maternity leave, were protected. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the case of Brooks v. Canada Safeway that an employee benefit plan which denied illness benefits was discriminatory and therefore in contradiction of Canadian human rights law.
We found that while the Department of Labour recognized that such insurance plans were discriminatory, the wording of the bill did not make it as clear as it might have that those plans which continue this discriminatory action were illegal.
I then proposed new wording which was adopted by the legislative committee which clarifies the intent of this change to the Canada Labour Code. Again the minister agreed to the wording. It is now very clear that employee-employer insurance plans cannot discriminate against pregnant women.
One other clause of this bill was changed by the committee and that was clause 40.1 proposed an amendment to make it clear that regulations can be made to regulate those deductions an employer is permitted to make from a worker's pay cheque.
My concern here was about the case of overpayments made to an employee or losses that an employee is solely responsible for. Take, for example, shortage of cash in a bank teller's cash drawer if he or she had sole control over that cash drawer. Regulations could be drafted to ensure that any recovery of these moneys not be done all at once.
These regulations that are now permissible under the legislation will protect workers and ensure that they continue to receive an appropriate wage during the period of repayment. Hopefully the guidelines will be something like 10 per cent per pay period.
We are however disappointed that the government did not agree with the second reading amendment of the member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie. That amendment essentially outlined that if there is better protection, particularly for pregnant women, in provincial jurisdiction then the provincial jurisdiction would apply. This is the case in Quebec.
Despite the many gains we find in this bill achieved through consultation and through working together, the New Democrats cannot support it. We cannot support it
because we believe that it was underhanded, unwarranted and unnecessary to create and have the addition of the directed vote provisions to the Canada Labour Code and the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
They were introduced without consultation or provocation. They were introduced in fact without the support of any of the parties who were involved in the consultation process.
Because we believe legislation enacted in this House should uphold and reflect the general public interest, we cannot support this legislation. The laws we enact should be used to expand and protect the rights of Canadians. They should not, as we see in clauses 2 and 42 in this bill, expand the arbitrary powers of the cabinet.
The consultative process that resulted in most of what we see in BUI C-101 is testimony to an effective, if not somewhat lengthy, legislative process. Client groups working with departmental officials can produce consensual law that fits the needs of those workers covered by the Canada Labour Code. Those who wUl benefit most from the Canada Labour Code are those workers not covered by collective agreements and those who depend on the code to protect their rights as workers.
It remains however very disheartening that these benefits are tainted by the government's last minute decision to take one more shot at those unions in the public and private sector who have stood up to the government in defence of the rights of their members.
It is disappointing that the consultative portion of this bUl must be voted against in order for us to give a clear message to this government that the imposition of amendments that constitute clauses 2 and 42 are repugnant to New Democrats, to my caucus and also to working Canadians.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I share the concerns expressed by my colleague from Mission-Coquitlam about the inadequacies of the legislation. I would like to ask her if she could respond to this particular problem which is a general difficulty with the Canada Labour Code.
There is a long-term employee at the Port Hardy airport who has been there since 1975, a gentleman by the name of Joe Davey. As time goes on, he is at an age where we all begin to slow down. He was ordered to take on fire-fighting duties apart from his normal job as machine operator. It was not in his job description. They
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then decided he was not fit to do that and arbitrarily placed him on medical leave.
Joe Davey wound up on welfare, could not get back into the job and was off for about a year. Then they got rid of that fire-fighting requirement. He came back to work. He has a degenerative disc problem in his back. Physicians have said that he can go back to work but he cannot spend eight hours a day digging in a ditch-he is a machine operator-as his back will not handle it. He is off again. The manager has said he is on leave.
The personnel services are looking at this and they refuse to deal with it. He is a long-term employee who can go back to work, yet they have placed him in this tenuous situation. The occupational health and safety people have taken a much broader look at it and have said that there is lots of room for him in there. In fact they are putting people into lighter duties who have lower seniority and are less qualified than he is.
However, the two arms of Transport Canada do not deal with each other. It looks as if this individual is going to spend a minimum of two years out of work, probably on social assistance before he gets his job back, if ever.
Maybe the Minister of Labour might consider responding to this as well. What can be done when an organization such as the Government of Canada treats its employees with such contempt? It has farmed the whole problem back to the airport manager who says: "I am just going to get rid of the guy. He is on medical leave of absence until he quits". Each time he has come back.
What kind of relief can be obtained for an individual like Joe Davey who has been absolutely shafted by an employer who seems to hold him in complete contempt? He is the victim of nepotism at the local airport level. The top level of the system would just as soon be rid of him because aging employees are not desired in the organization. They have no intent to show this as an example of what good employee-employer relations are. They would rather treat them with contempt.
Are there any suggestions as to what might be done regarding the possibilities or what the Minister of Labour might do to help Joe Davey and others in that spot?


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, I think Joe Davey is the kind of example that this caucus, the New Democrats, tried to address last year when we were addressing the amendments to the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
We were hearing from the government side and the bureaucrats from Treasury Board that the federal government is a very fair, very kind and very caring employer. However there are examples like the one that has just been outlined with regard to Joe Davey, a worker in the last years of his work in the work place who now appears to be finding himself in a situation of being forced off the job and not protected in the long term.
I would suggest to the hon. member who has raised the issue that the first line of defence for Joe Davey is the Public Service Alliance of Canada, his union, and going through the grievance and arbitration process. Failing that I think it would make good sense for the hon. member and myself to document the case and introduce a private member's bill to address this kind of issue. At the same time we can certainly work very hard to make sure that Joe Davey is able to receive a disability pension.
The Minister of Labour is in the House and I am sure he is interested in this kind of case. He is nodding his head so I would assume that he too will take this under advisement to ensure that these kinds of situations do not occur for people who work for the Public Service of Canada.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask one more question. Another enormous difficulty that Joe Davey faces is that once he is put off on medical leave he winds up having to wait a year for it to go through the process. It is so slow. It is almost deliberately held up.
Of course the Public Service Alliance has dealt with this. It has looked at the human rights commission and a variety of other things. It feels he would actually be successful there, but it will take forever to do. In the meantime he has been seriously harmed. He has children and he has a family to take care of. Enormous damage is inflicted on them.

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This is not a matter of disability insurance. This man has been told by his doctors and by specialists in the areas that he can go back to work. The positions that he is entitled to have by seniority and whatnot have been assigned to other people with less skill and less seniority than he has. It almost looks like this is a deliberate attempt to harm his health even further by having him digging in a ditch with a bad back and other problems.
He is entitled to work as a machine operator. Yet the employer has exerted tremendous discrimination. The terrible problem is the extended period of time that they are hung up.
I know the hon. member has worked very hard to try to make the system fair. Hopefully when we send the material over to the Minister of Labour he will take some time to have a look at this very important case as an example of what is happening in the Public Service and in the federal jurisdiction to employees who are under the purview of the minister.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for North Island-Powell River makes a very important point, and that is the length of delay in achieving justice for workers in the public sector. Under the Canada Labour Code the system is enormous, ponderous and slow. It is true that people like Joe Davey end up spending inordinate amounts of time without any income and certainly without any resolution to the case.
I would undertake with the hon. member for North Island-Powell River to pursue this particular case and address the issues so that we can try to ensure that there are not other Joe Daveys throughout the country who have to get justice in the collective bargaining process and legislative process for federal government workers and workers under the Canada Labour Code.
I will pursue this with the hon. member, the Minister of Labour and the President of the Treasury Board.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-122, an act to amend the Customs Tariff (textile tariff reduction), as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee.
Marcel Danis: that the bill be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Marcel Danis: that the bill be read the third time and passed.


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on third reading of Bill C-122. I shall be brief.
Bill C-122 is important legislation that contains the long awaited textile tariff reductions. The bill will have the effect of amending the Customs Tariff so as to implement, as of January 1, 1993, the textile tariff reductions announced in the government's December 2 economic and fiscal statement.
This is not a new initiative. In 1988 the government announced that it would be reducing Canadian textile tariffs to levels comparable with those of Canada's industrialized trading partners, particularly the United States.
For years Canadian textile tariffs have been significantly higher than those of other industrialized countries. For example, United States textile tariffs are on average one-third lower than Canadian textile tariffs.
These high Canadian textile tariff rates have imposed additional costs on all downstream users of textiles, particularly the apparel and furniture industries. This has affected both the international and domestic competitiveness of our textile-using industries and increased costs to Canadian consumers.
In February 1989 the government asked the Canadian International Hade Tribunal to provide advice on how Canada's textile tariffs could best be brought into line with those of other industrialized nations in order to
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maintain the competitiveness of the Canadian apparel industry and other downstream users of textile products.
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal held extensive public hearings on this matter. In 1990 it recommended that Canada's textile tariffs be reduced by moving to a simpler tariff structure involving maximum rates of 5 per cent for fibres, 10 per cent for yarns and 16 per cent for fabrics.
This would reduce Canadian rates from an average of 8 per cent, 13 per cent and 18 per cent to 25 per cent respectively. The tribunal also recommended that tariff rates on certain specially constructed textiles be reduced by one-third.
The tribunal proposed that the textile tariff reduction be phased in over nine years once the results of the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations were known, but not later than 1991.
The recommendations of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal would reduce Canadian textile tariffs by just over one-quarter. This would leave most products with slightly more tariff protection than their United States counterparts and significantly more than those in the European Economic Community or Japan.
The tribunal concluded that its recommendations would generate over-all benefits for the Canadian economy by reducing costs to textile-using industries and consumers. In turn the tribunal concluded that its proposal would have a relatively minor impact on the textile industry and that the industry would successfully adjust to the reductions.
Over the past 20 years the primary textile industry has invested very heavily in its modernization and rationalization. As a result, the industry has recorded impressive productivity gains.
Following receipt of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal's report on textile tariffs the government carefully studied it in detail and concluded that the interests of all parties had been fully considered.
In July 1990 the government expressed its support for the general direction of these proposals. It announced that it would act on the tribunal's recommendations within the framework of decisions to be taken by the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations. Accordingly, with this in mind the textile and apparel industries began to make appropriate adjustments.
It is a little later than 1991 but Bill C-122 contains legislative amendments to implement the tribunal's recommendations effective January 1, 1993. Of course the Uruguay negotiations are still ongoing. It is hoped they will arrive at a conclusion this year, however we had hoped that for the last couple of years and it has not happened. That has nothing to do with the negotiations on textiles but everything to do with the negotiations on agricultural matters.
Bill C-122 is going to implement the tribunal's recommendations with the following modifications. First, to compensate for the delay in its implementation the tariff reductions are being phased out at a rate of 1.5 percentage points annually rather than the 1 percentage point per year that was recommended by the tribunal.
Second, to further simplify the tariff structure all textile fibres, yams and fabrics are being treated in the same manner. All, excluding speciality fabrics, are being reduced to maximum rates of 5 per cent, 10 per cent and 16 per cent respectively.
Finally, in keeping with our international obligations, margins of tariff preference are being maintained for Australia and New Zealand for six tariff items in which there is significant trade from these countries.
In concluding my remarks I would like to re-emphasize the importance of Bill C-122.


An hon. member:: Cheaper suits.


John Horton McDermid: I have my Canadian suit on. It was made in Hamilton by Cambridge. I will give it a little plug today. Wait until you see the tie of my colleague across the way from Eglinton-Lawrence, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. member:: Cheaper ties.


John Horton McDermid: It is pretty outstanding too. I am sure it is Canadian made as well.
Reducing textile tariffs is the best way to ensure that Canadian companies such as Cambridge which use substantial qualities of textiles can compete on an equal footing with other companies in the North American market and overseas. It will also ensure that companies are able to market their products at more attractive prices to their customers.

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It cannot be forgotten that the health of our textile industry depends to a certain extent upon the strength of its customers. The Canadian apparel industry, its major customer, uses about 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the Canadian textile industry's production.
Nor should we lose sight of the fact that the textile tariff reductions in Bill C-122 will directly benefit many textile producers by reducing their input costs. Bill C-122 represents a fair and reasonable approach to the issue of reducing Canada's textile tariffs.
Delays in introducing the long awaited reduction have created uncertainties for both the textile industry and its customers. It is time to remove any lingering doubts. I respectfully ask that hon. members support speedy passage of this bill through third reading.


Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the plug given to me by my colleague from Brampton. I hope that the lights and cameras can handle the brightness.


John Horton McDermid: It looks like a test pattern.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: It is. It is a new product by Canadian manufacturers in the apparel industry and it is a plug for them. They are obviously interested in any kind of legislation and any representation that gives them a competitive edge in a very aggressive business.
The bill is supposed to address the competitiveness of the Canadian apparel industry and its ability to source material so it can provide a product that is attractive from a style point of view and competitive in price.
The committee went through the legislation. It is pro forma legislation. We are talking about reducing tariffs on a list of items. For those of us who want to examine each and every item on an individual basis, there are some five pages of coded documents and coded numbers in three columns per page. For the average citizen to see what exactly is exempt is a bit difficult.
However, we ought to keep a couple of things very much in mind. Some of the suggestions made by the minister opposite we would accept and expect for all Canadians in a competitive environment, in a world environment. The textile industry or the apparel industry in Canada has suffered enormous buffeting over the course of the last several years, in large measure because
of increased competitiveness from manufacturers and suppliers overseas, offshore and down south.
The problem has not necessarily been with the tariffs. I recall they were initially put in place to protect nascent and thriving Canadian industries and to give them the added competitive edge required to produce a quality product that would be attractive in its own right. Such attraction would provide Canadians not only with an industry but with an opportunity for employment as well.
Over the course of the last several years the problem the Canadian industry and Canadian manufacturers have experienced has in some measure been due to tariffs. However it has been caused in larger measure by the exchange rate. Today we are addressing legislation that says we are to reduce tariffs at the rate of 1.5 per cent per annum over the course of the next six years, to the point where we will reduce them to zero.
When the minister points to increased productivity on the part of our industry and the increased competitiveness of some of our manufacturers, we are talking about a rather recent situation given that the Canadian dollar has achieved a much more competitive rate overseas.
As a point of criticism, this legislation will encourage Canadian apparel manufacturers to source more and more of their products overseas. In committee we deliberated on this matter to a very thorough extent. The problem we will be facing in Canada is not so much whether we will be talking about whether our tariffs will cause greater strain on some of our producers, whether this is better from a competitive point of view for the consumer, but whether we are addressing an enormous need, a crying need in this country for an industrial strategy that promotes the development of a manufacturing sector.
As I indicated a moment or two ago, this sector has been buffeted and virtually destroyed. The legislation will not do anything to help our textile manufacturers. Granted, it may assist those in the apparel industry inasmuch as the materials they will be using will be available at moderately more attractive rates.
I wanted to give an indication that the Official Opposition is in favour of the reduction of tariffs. Having made extensive efforts to consult with the textile and the apparel industries on this matter, we would have very little objection. Our objection to legislation such as this is that it does not address the large picture.
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We would agree that some of the objectives the government outlines in promoting the legislation are laudable and worthy of support. We are sorely lacking in those areas that address a longer term and broader strategic manufacturing strategy. We have not addressed it at all. We are missing another great opportunity to do something for Canadians everywhere. We are missing another opportunity to enhance the manufacturing sector. We are missing a golden opportunity to provide an environment whereby we can create a greater number of jobs.
M[r. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt): Mr. Speaker, I want to put a few remarks on the record. It will not take long.
The bill has to be looked at in the over-all context of what it is doing or what it will continue to do to the textile industry. When we look at the bill, we have to separate the two sections of it dealing with the clothing industry and the textile industry. I believe this particular case is a continuation of what started with the free trade agreement and the dissolution or the erosion of the foundation of the textile industry.
Clothing manufacturers have said that they feel by moving more rapidly than set out in the bill with the breakdown of the tariffs they would be more competitive in the over-all market. Yet on the other hand the textile industry is saying that while it does not necessarily disagree with the tariffs being dropped, it should be phased and loaded in on the other end as opposed to the front end loading of the tariff reduction.
It is interesting to note the employment figures since the free trade agreement was instituted in 1989. Total employment in the Canadian garment industry back in 1988 was 95,800. In 1992 employment had fallen to 62,300. Those are Statistics Canada figures. They are of some concern to our party with respect to the employment aspect.
The minister knows well what has occurred. Often we are hurrying a process. Instead of trying to find a cure for the ills, we are saying let us amputate and see whether we grow back the appendages we have amputated.
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Let us look at the over-all manufacturing sector and what has happened to that sector with the realignment through the free trade agreement. We have looked at that amputation as opposed to looking at how we move our industries into a point of international competition so there is the least amount of damage done to the employment base and to families throughout Canada.
I do not think we have looked at that. It is another example of where we have moved the textile industry out. Once again it is often at the expense of women with low end wages, people who have worked hard and do work hard in trying to keep their families together. They are looking at how they are going to get their next dollar. From those Statistics Canada figures we have seen a fairly major drop in employment within the textile industry. That in itself causes a problem within the legislation and causes a problem for the employment base of the textile industry.
We also have to look at the over-all bill itself and exactly what it does. It phases in tariff reductions at the rate of 1.5 per cent per year rather than the recommended 1 per cent in the Canadian International Hade Tribunal recommendations, speeding it up as opposed to back end loading it as requested by the textile industry.
Also, under this bill it would treat specialty textiles and certain lightweight wool fabrics in the same manner as other fibres, yams and fabrics. That is the tariffs would be reduced a maximum 5 per cent, 10 per cent and 16 per cent respectively. Currently these tariffs are on average 8 per cent, 13 per cent, 18 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. This legislation would maintain the margin of tariff preference for trade with Australia, New Zealand and six tariff items in which there is significant trade.
Clause 1 would implement proposed tariff cuts through an amendment to the Customs Thriff which strikes out a series of existing textile tariffs itemed in schedule I and replaces these with a new set of reduced textile tariffs for goods entitled the most favoured nation and British preferential tariff.
We have to look more broadly at the bill in analysing it and asking where it is leading us and what it is doing. It seems to me that this once again is simply tied in with the

June 7, 1993
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free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement in pushing to the end where there is the breakdown at the borders between ourselves and the United States.
It gives the advantage, I would suggest, to the United States manufacturers. It is going to cause a problem to some of our clothing manufacturers in bringing out yams and fabrics that are made offshore and are presently being used. That is because it is going to force them to purchase more North American made fabrics, often made in Mexico or the United States. It is going to put them at a disadvantage in that respect.
From my point of view and from the point of view of my party there are major problems with this in that it does not do what it should do. If there are to be tariffs brought in it seems that they should be back end loaded to ensure the smooth transition for the textile industry.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member rightfully pointed out that there has been a reduction in employment in the industry.
As I mentioned in my remarks and as the industry itself has acknowledged, rationalization has had to go on. Modem equipment and far more productive operations have come into play. We have seen some very positive results. We have gone through a recession, there is no question about that. We have lost employment to that and we have lost some employment to rationalization.
One of the things I think we should point out to the Canadian public just to make a balanced presentation to them is that exports of apparels are up some 60 per cent since the free trade agreement came in. The Canadian producers of apparel found markets in the United States during the free trade agreement and have done very well with sales. With these changes and reductions in tariffs, it will make them even more competitive. I just wanted to get that on record.
I understand the hon. member's concern about manufacturing jobs and so on and he is right. There has been a reduction, but there has also been an increased productivity, very impressive by the way, in the industry. At the same time, there have been greater exports to the
United States which during a recessionary period have been very significant.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, I wish I could be as kind as my colleague opposite with respect to the intervention made by the member of the third party.
I cannot because I am a little bit concerned that the member created the impression they had some major difficulties with a piece of legislation on which his party spoke but once at second reading, while we in the Official Opposition kept the debate going for as long as we could in order to get the maximum intervention by the textile industry. When we went into committee, on both occasions that we were there we did not have any representation by members of the third party. If there has been concern we would like to know exactly what it is.
Over the course of the last couple of years, as both the minister and the member from the third party have indicated, there has been an enormous loss of jobs because the industry has suffered an enormous downsizing. We have lost some of the major Canadian textile manufacturers.
That has been a problem for the Canadian industry as a whole. Because of that loss, in order for us to address issues that are now related more to the Canadian apparel industry, this kind of legislation, as incomplete as it would seem to be, at least addresses the component of that general industry that is still thriving, the apparel industry. If we can make its product more competitive, then we should support it.
I think it is important to understand that what we need to do is to ensure that-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry to interrupt. The hon. member for North Island-Powell River on a point of order.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, 39 Liberals were missing on the NAFTA vote in here and the Liberals voted with the Conservatives to support the NAFTA bill. This is what is actually destroying the tech-
June 7, 1993

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I merely want to point out that it is not appropriate to refer to the absence or presence of members in this House or in committee.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, you are perfectly right, as always. It is not my intention to refer to the absence or presence of members of any party in this House. It was important to mention in connection with today's debase, aside from any comments about where members happen to be, whether they are Conservatives, Liberals or New Democrats, that my party supports the general concept and underlying principles of this bill. However, there is a problem of which we keep reminding Canadians and that is the lack of an economic strategy addressing all the problems we face as Canadians today. I am referring to the lack of a strategy for creating jobs in industry and the lack of an industrial strategy that supports not just one but all sectors that provide Canadians with opportunities for decent, well-paying jobs, all in the national interest.


Mr. Whittaker:: Mr. Speaker, it always gives me a chuckle when I hear Liberals get up and expound on how they care about the economy and point out the failings of other people. We can certainly look to that party and see its failings every time it has been in government, from the massive inflation rates in the early 1980s to the major difficulties that Canadians had as a result of its policies. To listen to that member get up and expound on it and think that he has got the corner on concern for Canadians is really quite laughable.
We agree with this bill. There has to be some more efficiencies and effectiveness within those industries and it must be encouraged. However, one of the difficulties that we in this party have is the attitude of government that you have to amputate in order to move forward. We say that there is a much better way to deal with things, not the Liberal way and not the Conservative way, but the way of the people of Canada to ensure that the jobs are created. I was very pleased to find out from the minister that there are more exports being made and perhaps more jobs for the future.
The fact is that we have hurt the textile industry. We have created unemployment. That is of concern at this particular time to ensure that the people of Canada get out working so that we get off this treadmill of unemployment and welfare payments. This treadmill has led us into this deficit and debt position that is of concern to Canadians. If we have our people working then we have happy Canadians and a healthy economy.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-121, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act and to amend another act in consequence thereof, as reported (with amendments) by a legislative committee.
Hon. Shirley Martin (for the Minister of Transport) moved: that the bill be concurred in.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Shirley Martin: that the bill be read the third time and passed.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, as indicated at second reading we on this side of the House see some merit in this bill. At the same time we see that it has some very serious shortcomings.

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I am indebted to my colleague for Ottawa South for the opportunity to investigate this matter in greater depth with him and to express the following reservations on behalf of both of us in our party.
We see improvements in the form of the training of personnel, the reform of navigation practices, surveillance, pilotage practices and in particular in relation to the procedures to be adopted when it comes to the escort of tankers through dangerous passages.
What is missing from this bill is a very important measure that would have gone a long way toward improving the safety and the preventative aspect of tanker travel in future. I am referring in particular to the missing proposal by the Brander-Smith review panel of a $2 per tonne levy that would be used for the construction of double hulls.
This measure would have meant a minimal increase in the already very low price of gasoline at the retail level. It would have been in the range, I am told, of less than .03 cents but it would have allowed the formation of a fund of significance in the years ahead for the construction of tankers equipped with a double hull.
I am told from knowledgeable sources that the increase in the construction of a double hulled vessel would cost only 17 per cent more than the present practice of constructing single hulled vessels.
If we consider for a moment how strong the impact is of a spillage of oil on the environment and on the income of the fishermen and the industry affected, we can realize that a $2 per tonne levy is more than justified. It is a very desirable initiative that one would consider a main feature of this bill and unfortunately it is not contained therein.
Such a fund with a $2 per tonne levy would over 10 years permit reaching a fund of some $800 million. That fund I am told would be a good start toward the renewal of fleets in the future so that they would be equipped with the desired double hull.
In addition to that I am told it would be desirable to make allocations outside the scope of this bill of some $150 million so as to improve the equipment available at present to the Coast Guard. Another $150 million would be required for improving research and development in
related fields and another $100 million for the development of an electronic chart that would also enhance the degree of safety in the waters used by oil tankers.
Under the proposed $2 per tonne fund I am told that the shipowners would receive 20 per cent of the cost to build such a double hulled vessel. Recalling my earlier reference to a 17 per cent higher cost for the construction of double hulled tankers we can see that here we have actually a veiy reasonable arrangement and a very good incentive, if you like, for builders of double hulled vessels to include this additional safety feature.
In investigating this matter and also casting back memories to the hearings of the excellent commission headed by Mr. Brander-Smith, it is important to put on record certain findings. This is namely the desirability of maintaining the inspection of the fleets of non-Canadian owned tankers.
In addition to that it wanted to ensure that all tankers be inspected not just the first time when they enter Canadian waters, as it is the practice right now, but also to continue that practice and not to let it drop to 25 per cent of the fleet as is the practice right now.
In light of these observations we consider this bill only an initial step on the road toward a satisfactory policy of prevention and cure. In the next Parliament we would like to see measures introduced that would strengthen and address specifically every possible preventative initiative.
There is one that we cannot underline enough, although in the process it becomes repetitive, the significance, desirability and urgency of introducing this $2 per tonne levy which this bill does not have but future bills should.
Part of human nature is the tendency to rush to a problem when disaster happens and then gradually lose sight of it and then become somewhat disrespectful in this respect. This is the case of the safety of tankers. The prevention of oil spills is a classic example.
We should not forget the spills that have occurred as a result of the accident of the Exxon Valdez as well as those in the Atlantic and in European waters and the like over the last 30 to 40 years.



June 7, 1993

We have reached such excellent technological levels in aviation that there is no excuse for us not to aim at equally safe and high standards in the field of maritime travel. It is incumbent upon us to do that.
It is obvious that if we proclaim ourselves in support of sustainable development practices that a measure that would introduce double hulls for oil tankers would be an elementary step that really cries for attention. It has already for some time.
I urge the minister in her intervention today to give us an indication as to the intention of the government to pursue the matter of double hulls and the creation of this special fund that would be made possible by the $2 per tonne levy.
In other words, it would be most desirable if the minister could give an indication of how she and her department intend to practice the preaching of sustainable development when it comes to the very practical and daily challenge posed by the oil tankers that travel through Canadian and international waters.
We are very supportive of the excellent final report dated September 1990 by the Public Review Panel on Tanker Safety and Marine Spills Response Capability. It was an excellent effort. We congratulate the government for having launched it but we do not want to go overboard in doing so. It is not feasible from an opposition bench. However we certainly see merits in having done so.
It would have been better perhaps if this bill had seen the light of day sooner. Nevertheless, as I said on other occasions and again at second reading we see this as only half a loaf. It is a measure in the bill that is definitely necessary but it is incomplete, particularly for the reasons I gave in relation to the $2 per tonne levy.
In conclusion I would ask the minister to comment on the important missing aspects of this bill and I thank you for your attention.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the minister is not going to speak, which I find unusual, on a piece of legislation that he did not speak on at second reading either.
I think a brief review of the history of the reasons for this legislation is in order. I find it somewhat unusual in
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my experience here-and this is perhaps the last speech I will give in this place-to not have a government minister or anyone from the government side speak about a piece of legislation that is very important for all coasts of this country. It has implications for the Arctic particularly in terms of an advisory council, but also for the Pacific, Atlantic, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin areas.
The last time we had legislation similar to this was following the 1970 Arrow disaster. This House finally came forward with the Maritime pollution claims fund three years later. It set up and established a 15 cent per tonne levy on crude oil coming into Canada and on oil shipped within Canadian waters between various locations including to sites in the United States across the Great Lakes.
It was amended in 1989 to become the ship source oil pollution fund which grew to about $200 million, where it stands today. In the last few years that fund has been drilled by the existing Minister of Finance and the $200 million has been taken from the pollution claims fund. Regrettably since 1973 almost no one who has been affected by an oil spill has been able to get any compensation from the fund. It has really been a ridiculous misnomer that there was a claims fund available for dealing with oil pollution damage.
There is a positive aspect of this piece of legislation and those who are interested will find that on page 18 there is a new claims section called clause 710.1 will read it into the record because I think it is one of the most important new aspects confirmed by the Coast Guard as to how the public can deal with contamination problems that occur on beaches that are near them on water, fish, boats, nets or whatever.
It is a reverse onus clause which states that the public or those who clean up the spill will be able to submit their actual costs. They will then be paid without having to go to court, making a capital case or coming to Parliament. Then the administrator will collect from the polluter. The polluter will have to pay. It states:
710.(1) In addition to any right against the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund under section 709, a person, other than one described in subparagraphs 677(l)(b)(ii) and (iv), who has suffered loss or damage or incurred costs or expenses referred to in subsection 677(1) in respect of actual or anticipated oil pollution damage may file a claim with the administrator for the loss, damage, costs or expenses.

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It is a very important new principle. The point I am making and registering again today as I did at second reading and in committee is that it is regrettable that the Minister of Finance attacked that fund, took out every dollar of the $200 million and spent it on other things.
Now when the administrator needs funds he has to go to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and get money from general revenue. That is a much harder process because then the argument will come forward that it is going to mean an increase in the deficit and debt. It is not what Parliament intended and in many countries of the world that kind of pilfering of funds that have been set up and paid for by users simply could not occur.
Like other members I want to thank David Brander-Smith and other members of the panel who were appointed on June 9, 1989 following the Nestucca disaster on Vancouver Island and following hard on the heels of the Exxon Valdez. I think most people know now that more than $2 billion has been spent trying to clean up the devastation in Prince William Sound and only 8 per cent of the oil from that terrible spill has been cleaned up. Response time and response capacity are important but they have not proven to be terribly successful. Prevention is what all of us have to preach and try to bring about.
The Brander-Smith panel reported on October 24, 1990 and we have waited until today for a response to the 107 recommendations that were made. That is unfortunate. In Latin terminology this bill is de minimus. It is as little as the government could possibly do to respond to the really serious risks and dangers we face from oil. Canada is now the largest country in the world. With one of the longest and highest energy coastlines, it is facing a considerable amount of oil spill risk.
The Brander-Smith panel heard 700 groups and witnesses and made a number of very important recommendations. I would like to cover them quickly.
highest quality and level of preventive measures and clean-up response were available.
The other two recommendations that Brander-Smith made are also critical to this debate and for Canadians to understand what this legislation is about and why some deficiencies have carried on. One is in terms of double hulling.
I think it is worthy to look at the Canadian tanker fleet of which there are precisely 50. Brander-Smith recommended a seven year phase-in schedule to get rid of all single hulled tankers in the Canadian fleet. This is not an unreasonable period of time and would have provided long-term work for all the shipyards in this country to go the double hulling route.
If the ship source oil pollution fund had stayed in place and started at 15 cents a tonne in 1973, by today it would be just above 35 cents per tonne. The $2 per tonne sounds like an enormous levy but it would have provided $1.5 billion over 10 years for the double hulling costs for the whole of the Canadian fleet, if consumers want that kind of protection.
Brander-Smith discovered while he was undertaking hearings on our behalf that 85 per cent of double hulled tankers world-wide that have been involved in accidents or have grounded have not spilled one drop. The majority of single hulled tankers that are in accidents or groundings do have spills. It is an enormous benefit to double hull ships. As my colleague who spoke a moment ago pointed out, the actual incremental costs to produce double hulls is not that much greater than the production of single hulled tankers.
Let us look at what the schedule of Bill C-121 will mean to Canadians on all of our coasts and Canadians should listen with care. There are 28 tankers under 5,000 tonnes gross. The C.S. Service was built in 1923 and will be kept in service until 2015. That tanker will be just shy of 100 years old hauling oil anywhere it pleases in the internal waters of Canada.
It is not alone. The Genia was built in 1926.

The first one is that there be a $2 per tonne levy. That is one-tenth of one cent per pound or less than one cent per gallon which could have been flowed through to consumers of fossil fuel products in this country. I doubt if one could find a Canadian who would not be prepared to pay less than one cent a gallon more to make sure the


Barbara Jane (Bobbie) Sparrow: They are inspected every year.


James Ross Fulton: My friend from Alberta says they are inspected every year. The problem is that the statistics speak for themselves. When single hulled tankers run aground there is a spill in 60 per cent of those cases and

June 7, 1993

in some cases there are very large spills from single hulled tankers.
During committee I proposed a phase-out of those tankers under 5,000 tonnes which will be approaching a century in age by the time they are taken out, the 20 tankers between 5,000 and 15,000 tonnes and the two tankers in excess of 20,000 tonnes.
Regrettably the government voted those amendments down. I used the same schedule as Brander-Smith, a seven-year phase-out so the whole of the Canadian tanker fleet could go to double hulls. I regret to say that the Coast Guard admitted before committee that it never did a single cost profitability study or cost benefit study for any one of the 50 Canadian tankers to see the level of affordability at which they should have gone double hulled, double bottomed, diaphragmed or double walled. There are many techniques to improve safety. The ship owners, in terms of the tanker fleet, want everything from this government. They want no phaseout until 2015 for tankers built in the 1920s which I find absolutely incredible as did Mr. Brander-Smith.
What about response capacity? We always hear the endless call from the government side for the private sector to do everything. In many cases I have no problem with it if it can demonstrate a comparable level of safety and enforcement. But what was found with the Exxon Valdez incident in one of the most searching and probing analyses that there has ever been? The study found a level of incestuous activity never before imagined among the U.S. Coast Guard, the enforcement agencies and the private sector responsible for the transportation of oil.
There was no safety equipment. There was no response plan. There was no one in charge. One of the most critical recommendations made during our hearings was to have oversight committees with serious powers to report to the minister and committees of this House. Fortunately the government did bend and we at least now have some powers for the advisory committees.
With regard to response capacity the government regrettably again voted down amendments that would have gotten rid of what I describe as the shadow. It is now three years since Brander-Smith reported to this Parliament. The government has had plenty of time to
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develop a response scenario. The Coast Guard has $60 million worth of aging oil response capacity in terms of floatable booms, skimmers and so on. It has that equipment. There is a growing level of equipment available to the private sector from on-land response contractors. But as we heard from the Coast Guard, it will take about $100 million for it to step up to the minimal requirements of this legislation which is a 10,000 tonne regional capacity so we will have that on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin, the Pacific and the Atlantic. The Coast Guard will maintain responsibility in the Arctic.
Even the proposals in here for the cascading 25,000 tonne capacity so the regional depots must have a back-up transportation regime to get that extra 15,000 tonnes of capacity into place within a certain number of hours and days of a spill is not what Brander-Smith was driving at. Clearly his 107 recommendations were designed to get the best available bang for the buck at the most reasonable cost to the Canadian consumer and ship owners.
When we look at the tonnage of the vessels that have been exempted by this legislation, and I am sincere about this, the very intelligent approach is making the Coast Guard the lead agency. We have to pick somebody and have targets and timetables. David Brander-Smith said if we have a dream and a timetable then we have a plan.
What do we have with this legislation? We have a dream, there is no doubt about that. The Tories are widely known to be dreamers but what about a timetable or targets? For a least the next two years-and I stand to be challenged by anyone in this House because this is what we heard from the Coast Guard-we will have a shadow where there will be inadequate response capacity for spills within the near shore of Canada. This is three years after the report came to this House following the Exxon Valdez, the Braer accident off the Shetland Islands, the Kurdistan and the Arrow. What about the Irving Whale sitting on the ocean floor in Canada's own maritimes? How can the government just sort of fiddle and fudge its way along? People in this country are prepared to pay. One-tenth of a cent per pound levy? The Tories say: "Oh no, that is too much". Less than a penny a gallon to be passed on so that we can have double hulls and adequate response capability.

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Of the three largest recommendations that were made by the Brander-Smith panel this government ducked every single one. While that was going on, the Minister of Finance pilfered the $200 million that was in the emergency response fund. I think the government has a lot to answer for in that field.
The Coast Guard has done some good things during the intervening years. It should be commended, and not only for what it did for us as members of the committee. It did an excellent job in providing us materials we requested. It has also dramatically increased the checking of vessels coming in and out of Canadian waters. It is important to note that our largest crude movements are not in areas where a lot of Canadians might think. In fact Saint John, New Brunswick is the largest with 11 million tonnes, Halifax at 9 million tonnes, Quebec City at 8 million tonnes, and Come-By-Chance at 8 million tonnes.
In previous years we have had a very low level of analysis of those tankers coming into and going out of Canada. The Coast Guard has stepped that up and it is now checking 38 per cent of vessels coming into our waters. Regrettably the level of compliance with recommended steps to repair defects has not been great. I think it is particularly regrettable that almost a quarter of those vessels that are being boarded by the Canadian Coast Guard are found to be defective. That means we have all kinds of time bombs floating off our coast. This legislation will apply to about 10,000 vessels that are defined as ships in the definition section of this piece of legislation.
A fee will be applied to each of them. We heard from witnesses who came before the committee that the fee will be in the neighbourhood of $300 per vessel. Then of course there will be a tariff. Should a vessel be involved in an accident that involves substantial clean-up costs, there will be a tariff applied as well.
We heard a lot from the industry during this whole process. We regrettably did not hear the amount that I think we should have from those who are concerned, what I would describe more broadly in terms of the public interest, particularly environmental organizations. They simply could not afford to attend a lot of the working sessions as Bill C-121 was being developed.
That is something that this Parliament cannot continue to allow to occur. We are not like other countries where there is substantial public donation to environmental organizations to attend and participate in legislative functions. In the British parliamentary tradition I think we should be much more alert to providing funds to make sure that those who need to be heard are heard, whether they live on the Great Lakes or the St. Lawrence or in Atlantic Canada, in Pacific Canada or in the Arctic.
This legislation has dire future ramifications. As we know now, the existing tanker fleet will remain status quo. The tanker owners want it all. The Minister of Finance took $200 million and ran off with that. We receive no guaranteed provisions until past the turn of the century on double hulling; none. In terms of the response capacity, we have another two year shadow before we are going to have full response capacity up and ready to roll. I think that demonstrates a degree of incompetence and uncaring that is entirely unacceptable.
We heard witnesses last week. As you know, Mr. Speaker, we had a very compressed time schedule. I believe we had second reading debate on May 12. We managed to get all the way through witnesses and the committee process and reporting back to this House in a very short period of time. We did have a witness from the Save Georgia Strait Alliance, a very large alliance representing about 200,000 British Columbians. I suppose the combination of the Nestucca which was a tug-barge accident, and the Exxon Valdez which was a giant crude carrier has brought us on the Pacific coast to be very alert about how terrifying the impacts of a crude oil spill, particularly in the marine environment, can be.
We should take a look for a moment at the advisory council because it is critical. I think it is from the debate in this House that the Coast Guard should take a good chunk of interpretation of what the amendments to section 660 in fact mean. We made some changes in there that I think are very important. If properly utilized by the ministry of transport and by the commissioner of the Coast Guard it will bring long-term benefits not only to the administration of this piece of legislation but to the prevention of oil spills and the greater protection of our environment.
June 7, 1993

Those who are interested will find that the amendments in 660 include that the commissioner shall establish at least one advisory council in respect of each geographic area: the Pacific, the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence basin, the Atlantic and the Arctic. There will be seven members on each of these advisory councils.
I am pleased that several of the principles that I moved as amendments were in fact adopted, such as the capacity for the commissioner to pay those who sit on these so that those who give up their time, whether they are a deck hand on a tug or an environmentalist with particular knowledge of some kind of marine life on the back side of Flores Island or whether they have particular knowledge of the breeding capacity and habits of the beluga whales in the St. Lawrence. There are bits and pieces of information that are held by many disparate and separate groups all over this country that will feed best into an advisory council that has some independent spirits. Thankfully one of our amendments allows for those individuals who are appointed to be there on good behaviour.
They are not just there and can be kicked off at the pleasure of the commissioner or the minister. If they have the will to sit on the council they can be paid. They can stand up on their hind legs and tell the media and the public about the ineptitude or inadequacy or incompetence of someone in the government or someone in the private sector who has a responsibility that they are not carrying out to protect us from oil spills.
It is good that the advisory councils have some powers and some teeth, not the least of which was another amendment that I moved that thankfully has been included. That is that the advisory councils can report not only to the commissioner but they can report to the Standing Committee on Transport or the Standing Committee on Environment or to the Minister of Transport. There is a shall clause and that is that they shall get a response back.
One of the things I think a lot of the advisory councils have regretted when they came to particularly tough issues was they reported to the minister or to the House and then nothing ever happened. At least in this case within 30 days or within 14 sitting days of the House there shall be a report.
I see there are only a couple of minutes until Question Period time, so let me just give a bit of a summation and I will carry on after Question Period.
We have a tendency to respond following crises. Following the 1970 sinking of the Arrow we passed legislation in 1973. Since the Exxon Valdez and the Nestucca we have had almost four years waiting time while the government has prepared Bill C-121. It has obvious inadequacies. Just as I say to the Coast Guard: "You are going to have to be very firm and very vigilant with this private sector concept". I also say to the ship owners, all 10,000 of whom will come under the rubric of this legislation, that: "You had better make sure that the response capability and capacity that your onshore contractor has is in fact state of the art, is in fact the best available technology".
Mr. Brander-Smith discovered that the Coast Guard was totally inadequately prepared when he was appointed in 1990 and it has admitted that it is still totally inadequately prepared now.
As a nation we stand without private sector response that is adequate, without Coast Guard response that is adequate and a piece of legislation where, because the government would not buy into a statutory requirement that I moved to make sure that the 10,000 tonne capacity and the 25,000 tonne capacity were in place by next January, there is an unknown period of time within which we will not have adequate response capacity.
Therefore there are tankers that could be dangerous out there and we have an inadequate capability to deal with them and with others should an accident regrettably occur.
I look forward to continuing following Question Period.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It being 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 30(5), the House will now proceed to statements by members pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, contrary to the allegations made by Jean-Luc Mongrain during the Operation Enfants-Soleil telethon on TVA yesterday that the federal government has done nothing for AIDS victims, we have played a leading role in the fight against AIDS. Our goal is to prevent transmission of the HIV virus and provide the necessary support for

June 7, 1993
people who are HIV-positive, their families and care givers.
In 1986 we launched a five-year, $39 million initiative to fight AIDS. In 1988 we invested an additional $129 million, also spread over five years. In 1989 we paid out $120,000 in compensation to every person who contracted the AIDS virus through blood transfusions. In 1991 the Federal Centre for AIDS designed a quick and inexpensive way to detect HIV in babies of infected mothers. This test will improve the chances of survival of newborn infants.
May Jean-Luc Mongrain be forgiven for what he said.


EARTH SUMMIT
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, this week we celebrate the anniversary of the earth summit held in Rio de Janeiro. The earth summit produced a number of agreements on the environment and development so as to achieve development that can be sustained without harming the environment.
However, no hard commitments were made at the earth summit in Rio. In the words of Dr. Jim MacNeill: "Our leaders left almost nothing unsaid and almost everything undone". The Government of Canada signed the climate convention yet it still has no plans on how to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.
The government signed a bio-diversity convention. Yet not a word has been said about clear cutting Clayoquot Sound. The government promised in agenda 21 to increase foreign aid to developing countries but instead it has cut aid.
This government makes big promises abroad but lacks the political will to keep them at home. What a sham.


CANADIAN HIGHWAYS
Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Madam Speaker, it has been revealed that almost 40 per cent of Canada's national highway system is currently below minimum standards and almost 25 per cent of the bridges on that system are in major need of repair.
The total estimated cost to put all of Canada's national highway system in good shape is more than $14 billion. To its credit the government has made a small start through the strategic capital investment initiative, through which about $500 million will be spent over the next five years. However our highway system desperately needs more than that. It is rapidly becoming a national emergency.
I urge the federal-provincial ministers of finance and transportation to target the highway system as the first priority in their new approach to collaborative planning and budgeting. Major infrastructure investments must not be deferred indefinitely. Perhaps highway construction offers the best potential of all to stimulate economic growth and employment and to reduce government costs for unemployment and welfare.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane-Superior):: Madam Speaker, last week mayors, citizens and myself strongly argued against the CNR's intention to cancel the North-lander train from North Bay to Toronto.
We have emphatically pointed out that the CNR should not victimize the citizens of northern Ontario by cutting off a transportation service that was affordable to seniors, students, the handicapped and those who have to travel to Toronto for specialized medical attention.
The northern travel grant covers only one-half of their travel costs which are prohibitive to most. While bus transportation is available it is most uncomfortable during the 15 hours it takes to get to Toronto.
The CNR's mandate is to ensure isolated regions of this country are linked to urban centres where special-
June 7, 1993

ized services are offered. The need to subsidize the Northlander run will always exist and senior governments have the moral obligation to continue this vital rail transportation service for us.


FOSSIL CENTRE
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland -Colchester):: Madam Speaker, along the shoreline near Joggins, Nova Scotia, a small community in my riding located at the head of the Bay of Fundy, there are high cliffs which are continually washing away. As the cliffs wash away a treasure in fossils is being released. For decades one man has been there collecting this scarce evidence of our past. That man is Mr. Don Reid.
This weekend he opened the new fossil centre in Joggins where he will share one of the most unique collections of fossils in the world with people from all over the world. The centre was built through the co-operative efforts of the community, the province and the federal government and, of course, Mr. Don Reid. The committee in charge of the project was successfully led by John Reid from Joggins.
I congratulate Don, John and the community for their involvement in the Joggins fossil centre. If anyone wants to see Don he will still be down showing others where the fossils are and explaining exactly what they mean.


ORGAN DONATION
Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Madam Speaker, the issue of organ donation is obviously one of life and death. We should all do what we can to make people aware of the urgency of considering signing an organ donor card and of discussing this most sensitive issue with their family.
As Dr. Calvin Stiller from University Hospital in London, Ontario has said:
For an individual dying because a donor is not available, it is the cruelest of lotteries; the sicker you get, the closer to the front of the waiting list you get, but also the likelier you are to die before the door of a transplant opens for you.
There are over 4,000 transplants performed each year in Canada. The success rate is 80 per cent for kidney and
heart transplants, 70 per cent for liver transplants and 90 per cent for corneal transplants.
These operations are no longer experimental but there must be guidelines in place. I encourage the federal government to respond to the eight recommendations made by the Law Reform Commission of Canada, one of which proposes a criminal code for the sale of human organs.
I encourage all MPs to join the member for Crowfoot and the member for London East in support of this important initiative.


WESTERN GRAIN TRANSPORTATION ACT
Mr. Ken Atkinson (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, I welcome the announcement on Friday that the Western Grain Transportation Act is to be reformed.
From a transportation viewpoint the change will result in a more efficient and cost effective system. I am pleased that the government has recognized the directional bias that this act creates against the St. Lawrence seaway and that steps will be taken to deal with the problem.
However as the reforms are to be phased in over a period of time it will be necessary to provide interim relief to the seaway in order to ensure that there will be ships available at the end of this process.
I would urge the government to adopt the subcommittee's recommendations to freeze tolls and pilotage fees on the seaway until the reforms are completed in order that the viability of the seaway may be maintained.


POVERTY
Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, the chair of the poverty committee has received an invitation to do lunch with an advocate for the disabled and disadvantaged who live in my constituency of Ottawa West.
Ms. Karen Tracey suggests that the member for Don Valley North has a lot to learn about poverty and the need for food banks and that her ignorance might best be corrected by a period of community service at a food bank as a suitable penalty for sending her staff to rip off food intended for the poor.

As an unfunded, unpaid advocate living on disability benefits Ms. Tracey may not be able to entertain the member from Don Valley in the member's usual style. However if she is truly interested in enlightening her views on poverty she will accept the invitation to join Ms. Tracey for her lunch at her usual place, her neighbourhood soup kitchen.
I urge the member to accept this most gracious offer and open her eyes before she opens her mouth again.


HOUSING
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Madam Speaker, in February 1992 the government introduced two new housing programs, the 5 per cent down payment and the RRSP down payment. Both were aimed at allowing first-time home buyers to purchase a home while at the same time stimulating our sluggish economy.
Since then some 95,500 mortgages have been insured under the 5 per cent down payment plan allowing first-time home buyers to purchase homes costing over $9 billion.
Over the same period 148,000 Canadians withdrew almost $1.5 billion from their Registered Retirement Savings Plans to use for home down payments.
Our economic recovery still has a long ways to go. However imagine what the job picture would have been like during the past year and a half without the spending stimulus provided by these two housing programs.


Mr. Jim KarpofT (Surrey North):: Madam Speaker, in June 1992 the Subcommittee on Health Issues published a unanimous report outlining the growing concerns about foetal alcohol syndrome and foetal alcohol effect.
One of the recommendations made was that the federal government initiate a national program requiring warning labels on all alcoholic beverages setting out the danger of drinking during pregnancy.
At the time the minister of health stated that the government would at least initiate a pilot project. A year has passed and the government has done nothing except
cave into the pressure of the brewery and distillery industry.
Has the minister of health now changed his mind? Does he no longer support warning labels? I call on the minister of health to stand up for children and women and stand up to the alcohol lobbyists and initiate a health warning program on alcoholic beverages.


AIRLINE INDUSTRY
Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam Speaker, Air Canada is planning to appeal the decision of the National Transportation Agency to allow AMR Corp. to purchase a portion of Canadian Airlines.
Air Canada has said it believes Canada should have a single airline. Canadians want choice in air travel. They want the Canadian airline industry to be competitive. They want to receive the best possible service at the best possible price.
The federal government must maintain and encourage competition in our airline industry. The government should allow this foreign investment in a Canadian airline. This would provide Canadian airlines with greater access to capital.
This deal would keep thousands of Canadian jobs and would provide Canadian Airlines with the means to be more competitive in our airline industry.
This is in the best interest of Canadians.


PAUL EDWARDS
Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Madam Speaker, congratulations to Mr. Paul Edwards, the newly elected leader of the Liberal Party of Manitoba.
The son of a minister, raised in small prairie towns for most of his life, Mr. Edwards was elected by universal suffrage of party members by which five times more people were involved than would have been the case if we had used the traditional method.
Mr. Edwards and his team will now set about identifying the issues of most critical concern to Manitobans and offer creative solutions.
June 7, 1993

Paul Edwards shows much promise and he will get a chance to show Manitobans his leadership ability in the next provincial election expected within a year or a year and a half.
Bravo as well to Kevin Lamoureux for having fought such an excellent campaign. He did a superb piece of work.

All Manitobans are winners in this leadership race.


HEALTH CARE
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, health care should be a grave concern to us all yet the New Brunswick McKenna Liberal government has turned its back on Saint John in a crass political move by yanking 103 beds out of the Saint John Regional Hospital hard on the heels of the destruction of St. Joseph's Hospital. Two hundred and fifty jobs will be lost in the process.
The premier then stood shoulder to shoulder with the Liberal candidate in Fundy-Royal proclaiming their good deeds, urging people to vote for a Chretien-led Liberal government so that they can work together for the people of New Brunswick.
The people of Fundy-Royal and Saint John are experiencing firsthand what Liberal governments do, not for them but to them. St. Joseph's Hospital stands as a pitiful testimony to what Liberal governments are all about.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Madam Speaker, the United States is seeking side deals in the North American free trade negotiations to protect against import surges for fruit and vegetable products. This government, if it insists on forcing this agreement on Canadian producers, should do the same for Canadians.
Under a system proposed by grower associations in the United States a price threshold should be set and tariffs would be restored when prices fall below that set level. This would be recorded by a monitoring agent.
Presently, under the free trade agreement the snap-back provision is ineffective as it is based on volumes and comes into effect after the damage is done.
Canada must protect its food and industry from import surges which will arise as a result of the NAFTA. Canada should insist upon and endorse a price-triggered snapback to prevent harmful surges of imports.


DISABILITY PENSIONS
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Madam Speaker, the process of application for a disability pension with the Department of National Health and Welfare should be reviewed.
The process as it now exists is lengthy and cumbersome. Virtually all initial applications are rejected. As a result the applicants step through a process which can take a year or longer to complete.
It is imperative that the government find the funding required to expedite the backlog of appeals. Reviews of appeals must be done in a much shorter time period. Many disabled people have absolutely no income while waiting for these decisions and a year is simply much too long to make them wait.
Let us find a way to speed up the process and improve the application process as well.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Madam Speaker, Tory ministers from this dying government make last minute announcements to farm policy which they hope will be irreversible and then they quit.
Hamstringing the Canadian Wheat Board in marketing barley is one case. Finishing the job of killing the Crow rate is another. Granted the Liberals began the attack on prairie farm communities when Otto Lang first took feed grains away from the wheat board to give processors cheaper grain. Otto also began killing the Crow rate but was stopped by his electorate. Liberals

Oral Questions
Pepin and Axworthy were not able to finish the job. Now the Conservatives are doing it for them.
They say they are addressing new realities. The reality is that time and history have not made prairie farmers closer to tide water. Time and history have brought fewer not more international grain traders and a stronger wheat board and Crow rate are still necessary in today's international reality.
Neither Liberal nor Conservative ideologies see this reality and they have become irrelevant themselves.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Acting Prime Minister.
Today Transport Canada reported that 40 per cent of Canadian highways need work. If cabinet members were not always flying in aeroplanes looking down at the roads instead of travelling by bus throughout Canada as I have been doing for the last two and a half months, they would realize that Transport Canada is right.
At this moment the municipalities and the provincial governments are asking the federal government to participate in an infrastructure program because it is the best time for it. There is a lot of manpower available and contracts can be obtained quite cheaply in relation to other times.
Will this government consider the reality and decide to invest in the infrastructure of the nation at this time?


Shirley Martin: Indeed, Madam Speaker, there are others than the hon. member who travel the highways in our country. We have been working with our provincial counterparts-


Ms. Copps:: When was the last time you were at Hamilton airport, Shirley?


Shirley Martin: A week ago, Sheila.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Getting to the first question and the first answer, I would like to hear the answer.


Shirley Martin: Madam Speaker, we have been working with our provincial counterparts as of course this House knows that highways other than the Trans-Canada Highway are a provincial responsibility. Even though that is so we have been working with them. We have over the last three months announced a total of $200 million in the east and west and also another $40 million for the Alaskan Highway and another $50 million for the Trans-Canada Highway in Alberta.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, the trouble with the minister's remarks is that these expenditures were planned long ago and have no connection with the current economic situation. What we are suggesting is a three-level program, in other words, one-third funded by the municipalities, one-third by the provincial government and the remaining one-third by the federal government.
We were in the Montreal area not long ago, which is certainly one area where the infrastructure needs improving, and where there are serious problems. Other lands of government are asking the federal government to start a program now, while there is a labour surplus. I would like to hear from the minister how much the government is prepared to invest in the Montreal area, at a time when unemployment has reached incredible levels and Montreal is referred to as the poverty capital of Canada.


Shirley Martin: Madam Speaker, moneys have already been set aside for bridge repairs in the Montreal area. This is not old money but rather new money under the Strategic Capital Investment Initiative that was announced by my colleague the Minister of Finance.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, the member for Beausejour is from New Brunswick.

According to today's report by Transport Canada, New Brunswick is the worst place in the country where investment in the infrastructure is needed and in particular in the highways where during the summer many
June 7, 1993

people lose their lives on the terrible highways. There is virtually no Trans-Canada Highway at all.
Why did this government make commitments to New Brunswick some months ago and now it is negating its word with Premier McKenna?


Shirley Martin: Madam Speaker, we are not negating our word with Premier McKenna.


Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance or the Acting Prime Minister.
Each time the provinces, municipalities and this Liberal Party have promoted an infrastructure program the Minister of Finance has complained of fiscally irresponsible spending. The recent Transport Canada documents indicate that this government has been the culprit and has been fiscally irresponsible by ignoring Canada's crumbling roads and bridges, leaving an even larger bill for someone to pay in the years ahead.
I want to ask the Minister of Finance how he could have been so fiscally irresponsible. Will he now work co-operatively with the provinces and the municipalities to put people back to work and put our infrastructure on a sound, competitive foundation?


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance has been very, very responsible in his presentation of financial statements and budgets over the past couple of years and in fact brought forward an infrastructure program to deal with our national transit system.
It was a modest program. The Minister of Finance has said that many times as others in our caucus have said. It is a modest program, but it is one that the government felt it could afford in the times that we are in.
The hon. member stands up and says that we should be throwing $14 billion, or whatever it is, at a highway program. What he fails to say to the people of Canada is
Oral Questions
where the money is coming from. He knows it will come from two places: either we borrow it or we raise taxes.


Mr. Kilgour:: Helicopters.


John Horton McDermid: Well, here is the opposition. Their answer to every financial problem in the country is helicopters. That is rather interesting. That is their answer to every financial question. What they do not talk about are the 42,000 jobs that the helicopter program is producing in this country. They forget that and they do not tell that to the people of Canada.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Madam Speaker, modest is not the word. Insignificant is the word.
This government's lack of plans for infrastructure is irresponsible and the transport document indicates that. This government claims to have a strategy for Canada's economic growth and prosperity but its policies are all smoke and mirrors just like we have heard from the minister again.
Canada invests about $53,000 per kilometre on highway infrastructure compared to $352,000 for the United States, $504,000 for Italy and $237,000 for France.
If Canada's global competitiveness is a priority of this government, why has it deliberately ignored the diminishing quality of our transportation system compared to other countries? Why will this government not invest in Canada to ready this country for the 21st century?


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments I might make on the hon. member's statement.
Only a Liberal would say that half a billion dollars is insignificant. It is a tremendous amount of money and it comes from the taxpayers of this country.
Second, he compares the expenditures on highways to the United States and to Italy. First of all the United States does its highways in a different manner than we do. It is responsible for more of the interstates than we are in this country, as the hon. member knows. There are toll roads in the United States. Is he advocating that? We do not know if the Liberal Party would do that or not.

June 7, 1993
Oral Questions
Italy is responsible for the roads. It does not have provincial governments that are responsible for roads like we have in this country. He is comparing apples and oranges.
The Minister of Finance has brought forward a responsible program to help with infrastructure and certain parts of the Trans-Canada Highway which I think is very responsible, at the same time keeping in mind the fiscal responsibilities that any government in this country has.


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
Last Friday the Minister of State for Employment repeated the various tired responses that we have heard from this government in response to Canada's job crisis. I say to the minister that it is true that unemployment claims are down from 1992 but that is because one million Canadians exhausted their benefits under unemployment insurance, putting almost three million Canadians total on welfare in various provinces and territories.
I would say also to the minister that the government's unemployment rate is very high, up to 11.4 per cent officially, but much higher as we all know in various regions of this country. It is almost close to double that of the United States, our main trading partner.
I ask the minister, on behalf of his government, when this government is going to seriously address the jobs crisis in this country. While this government has been obsessed with one job, the leadership of its party, it has ignored the millions of unemployed Canadians.
I ask the minister when this government is going to have a real jobs plan for Canadians and not just one member of his government.


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking what is being done to create jobs. A low interest rate and low inflation are required by the private sector to invest and to create jobs. This is the recipe the government is pursuing.
The hon. member asked what we are doing. In the 1990s the New Democrats should realize that in this information age, with the skills required for the new jobs that this economy is creating, we have to invest in the skills of people.
Notwithstanding the objection and the steadfast refusal of her party, we have decided to activate the passive use of UI funds so that this year $3.8 billion will be invested in the skills of Canadian workers. This is the way we can create a climate that will encourage investment and get people working. It is working and there are good signs things will be improving.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, the minister said there were some good signs, but only a few, because the number of full-time jobs has been reduced by 78,000, the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector by 37,000, and among young people 23,000 jobs have been lost. This is a tragedy. When will the minister and this government do something about this human tragedy?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, once again one can get upset about statistics and prefer to remain oblivious to the facts. If we look at the indicators that give Canadians some idea of what is happening in our economy, we realize for instance that the Canadian economy has improved in March, which shows the highest monthly growth rate in two years.
At that time there was a recession not just in Canada but also in other countries, and especially in the United States where there was a tremendous economic slowdown, but we managed to increase our exports to that country at a rate unheard of in Canada's history. And exports, the Leader of the New Democratic Party will agree, create jobs in Canada. We are on the right track, we are on course and we will create jobs by encouraging investment in our economy not with make-work projects that are very expensive to run and do not help anyone.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the minister.
It sure is time for this government to go when all we hear from this government is "don't worry, be happy", ignoring the fact that this government leaves the highest
June 7, 1993

number of unemployed Canadians ever in the history of Canada. The minister refuses to look at this issue.
In this same area the Canadian Labour Congress released a study this week revealing the following effects of the recession for women in the labour force. The 25-year trend of increased participation of women in the labour force has been reversed. In fact more women have been pushed into part-time jobs not full-time jobs. One in five women is either underemployed or without employment.
One leadership candidate in the Tory party talks about the politics of inclusion but never about jobs. It would be real inclusion if that leadership candidate did that. I ask the minister again, does the government have a plan or is it content to see Canada remain as 11th in the world in quality of life for women?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, again the hon. member stands up and provides Canadians with a great example of the Canadian Labour Congress and NDP policies.
When the government introduced the prosperity initiative it asked the stakeholders in the private sector, in the educational world and at the provincial level to get together to map out a plan for the future recovery of our economy and the prosperity of the country.
What did they do? The NDP and the Canadian Labour Congress are interested too much in partisan politics to sit down at a table and work constructively to try to find solutions. We invited them to participate and they refused.
Notwithstanding, we have an action plan that is in place which the federal government has answered. We hope the private sector will do its share also.


Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister of employment.
Many economists have expressed serious disappointment with the unemployment statistics released last week. The rate of 11.4 per cent is the same as the rate last month. The loss of 78,000 full-time jobs has stopped the recovery dead in its tracks.
Oral Questions
Given the fact that every important forecasting body is predicting continued high unemployment in Canada and everyone agrees that high unemployment is hurting the recovery, when will the government stop ignoring the unemployment crisis and introduce effective programs to put Canadians back to work?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, the hon. member tells me that 11.4 per cent unemployment is too high a number. My government, my colleagues in caucus and in cabinet and I-everyone-totally agrees. The question is what we are going to do about it.
The Liberals are asking us to throw money at the problem. They want us to increase the deficit or to tax Canadian taxpayers more in order to throw more money at the problem.
We are arguing that the fundamentals have to be for jobs to be created, and they are. He points to statistics. What about the OECD report on all industrialized countries in the world? They predict that Canada will have the largest growth of any industrialized nation in the world this year and next year.
These are good signs that the economy is picking up and that jobs will be created. However for this to happen we need a skilled work force. That is why, notwithstanding the objection of the Liberal Party of Canada, we are investing this year $3.8 billion, the federal share, in skills development in Canada.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Madam Speaker, the minister cannot be serious. The fact is that Canada has the worst unemployment rate of all G-7 nations. While our most important trading partner, the United States of America, has just posted an unemployment rate of 6.9 per cent, a one and a half year low, our economy has stalled.
When will the government change its course and introduce specific programs so the 89,000 unemployed Canadians in Vancouver, the 216,000 unemployed Canadians in Toronto and the 221,000 unemployed Canadians in Montreal can get back to work?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, for jobs to be created in this global economy we have to get investment in the private sector and people to create jobs in the private

June 7, 1993
Oral Questions
sector. For this to happen we need lower interest rates, low inflation and access to markets. These are exactly the policies the government is pursuing.
The number of UI recipients in March was down 2.5 per cent from February and 5.7 per cent from a year earlier. To anyone who is not a Liberal, a partisan Grit who is only interested in tiny politics, this is a positive sign that things are picking up and jobs are being created. Maybe it is not at the rate we would like, but we have to stay the course in order to create those jobs so Canadians can get back to work.


SOCIAL PROGRAMS
Ms. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Today the Caledon Institute is warning Canadians that the continuing growth of low wage jobs will keep many workers far below the poverty line and guarantee an increasing number of impoverished seniors in this Tory stricken economy. Just last week we were told by the Carleton University that this government was on course to Americanize key elements of social policy.
Could the minister explain why his government seeks to rule a country with Mexican wages and American social programs?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, I believe Canadians will determine in all their wisdom if they believe that Canada has the same wages as Mexico. I just very quickly ask Canadians to understand the seriousness of this question. I would appreciate a good question and it would be a good question if she were not trying to distort the reality of this country.
We know very well and agree that Canadians have faced difficult periods in terms of the economy and in terms of the maintenance of social policies. We have kept the social policies, unlike this report is saying, in terms of the increase in spending for the annual growth of social policies in Canada.
Once again I am ready to answer any question which is not like the question raised by the member about the comparison between the wages of Mexico and Canada. However tomorrow they will have a question on why we
want to take Canadian wages to the level of those of Mexico.


Albina Guarnieri: Madam Speaker, the government will soon get a new chief fiddler but it will still be ragtime for Canadian workers.

My supplementary question is directed to the same minister. Today, the Caledon Institute on Social Policy released a study indicating that the number of people who will be able to count on social security benefits when they reach retirement age is decreasing steadily. Members of the baby boomer generation who expect to have an annual income of more than $23,000 upon retirement will notice this, as the government claws back their Old Age Security pension.
Could the minister explain why he plans to use the pension funds of Canadians to pay for the administrative incompetence of his own government?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, once again it would be easy to show how far off the mark the comparisons the hon. member made today, and regularly makes in the House, with reference to individual situations, really are.
I will try to answer the question about the problem of poverty and maintaining social programs. It is a serious question.
The pension plan is administered jointly by the federal and provincial governments. The hon. member's comment that baby boomers will not be in a position to benefit is incorrect. The plan is reviewed regularly by the provinces and the federal government, and the rates are adjusted on the basis of actuarial projections for the next 15, 20 or 25 years. This was done last year and it is being done on a regular basis.
I would therefore advise the hon. member to listen carefully and take a good look at what we have done so far before asking questions that do nothing to solve the problems Canadians would like to see solved.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of National Health and Welfare and relates to the same study.
Today one of Canada's leading social policy analysts and former chair of the government's own advisory body, the National Council of Welfare, released a report condemning the federal government for its slash and
June 7, 1993

bum approach to social programs and "for its economic policies which fuel mass unemployment".
Professor Battle pointed out that most social policy changes were effected through what he called social policy by stealth: the introduction of complex technical amendments to taxes and social programs that deliberately camouflage their intent, extent and impact.
Why is this government being so sleazy in cutting services to the poorest of our society in such an underhanded way?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I repeat what I said to the Liberal member. The hon. member is wrong because we have not cut. Actually we have increased by 3.6 per cent total federal program spending. Since 1984-85 the gross domestic product has increased from 2.6 per cent to 14.4 per cent.
Obviously we do not have the capacity the NDP has, but we do not have the same decisions it has to make in Ontario today.


Chris Axworthy: Madam Speaker, I am glad the minister related this to choices because this is an issue about choices.
The report also stated that the continuation of Liberal tax breaks for the rich and for profitable corporations by the Tories who have the same friends amounted to over $17.5 billion in 1989 or 65 per cent of the deficit that year. The provinces lost another $9 billion in revenues. At the same time Canada's poor and middle class were paying more taxes and seeing their social programs slashed.
Why is the government continuing with massive tax giveaways to its rich and big business friends, making lower income Canadians pay more taxes and at the same time developing policies which as Professor Battle says create mass unemployment?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I do not know if we still have friends in big business, but I know the NDP does not have any friends in unions any more from what I see in Ontario and in other provinces.
Oral Questions
Second, I should point out to my hon. friend what the report says. It says that the new child tax benefit gives a welcome $500 a year increase to working families. This same report says that the introduction of the GST credit was a positive move. It says that government spending on training has tripled investment since 1984.
We can read what we want in the report. I am repeating what I said before. The Government of Canada since 1984 has increased the amount of money put in social programs. At the same time it had to manage an economy which was left in a sad state by the Liberal Party in 1984.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg-St. James):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister speaking for agriculture today.
The Canadian farming community was left reeling by last week's announcements by the Minister of Agriculture. Farmers have made it clear they want no part of a continental barley market, yet the government has gone ahead with it.
In the case of removing the interest-free portion of the cash advance program there appears to have been no consultation. There is no question that this will add to the heavy burden carried by farmers.
Why did the government do away with the interest-free portion of the cash advance program?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Justice, Attorney General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Madam Speaker, this program which the government has maintained for many years is still in effect. To answer the hon. member's question, the program is being maintained, but we are going to share the cost of interest payments with producers. In their case the rate will never be more than 4 per cent.
If we look at current interest rates, farmers who must take out substantial loans are certainly one segment of the population that over the years benefited from low interest rates. The hon. member will agree there is no comparison with the 21 per cent and 22 per cent we had when the Liberals were in power.

June 7, 1993
Oral Questions


John Harvard: Madam Speaker, the minister should know that the interest-free cash advance program has been an important management and marketing tool. A number of respected farm groups has already indicated concern and displeasure over the removal of the interest-free portion of the program including the Ontario Corn Producers' Association, the Manitoba Com Growers Association and Keystone Agricultural Producers that say this is the government's way of off-loading costs on to the backs of farmers.
Why did the government move ahead on this matter without any support whatsoever from farmers? It did not have any.


Pierre Blais: Madam Speaker, regarding the first question, I have already said the government faces a rather problematic financial situation. The fact that we maintained this program, with a few changes, will still put several million dollars in the pockets of farmers to help support their operations at rates that are now the lowest-correct me if I am wrong-we have seen in 30 years.
I think this government's efforts to keep interest rates as low as possible have been outstanding. I think that at the end of the day farmers will understand and recognize this.


WESTRAY MINE DISASTER
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister of small business and concerns the lack of compensation for the families of the victims of the Westray mine disaster.
It is my understanding that the Government of Canada has now been awarded $13.6 million as its share of the insurance settlement negotiated earlier with Curragh Resources.
Can the minister inform the House whether it is the intention of the government to provide a compensation
package to the widows and family members of the deceased miners?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister for Science and Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows this money is part of the insurance proceeds which the federal government received as a result of this tragedy.
The money is in the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Members of this House can speak in Parliament and raise ideas about how the money should be spent.
The hon. member raises an interesting suggestion but he must know that responsibility for this should be shared broadly and not just by the federal government which did its bit by giving a loan to make the project which would create 200 or 300 jobs in Pictou county possible.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, I take it from the minister's intervention that the government is not contemplating a compensation package for the families and widows of the deceased miners.
I want to inform the minister that it was the Government of Canada that provided an $85 million loan to the Bank of Nova Scotia, the guarantor for Curragh Resources. Curragh Resources has now picked up another $2.4 million in insurance money.
I want to ask the minister this. In the spirit of fairness will he now put in motion a process whereby the government, in conjunction with the Government of Nova Scotia, will provide some form of compensation to the widows and families of the deceased miners, as well as providing additional money to assist in economic development in Pictou county?
Can the minister give us that guarantee? Will he give it to us today?


Thomas Hockin: Madam Speaker, I remember when the government, after a great deal of study and considerable energetic criticism from the hon. member opposite on behalf of Devco and Cape Breton, opposed the notion of having a mine at all in Pictou county.
The government took the position that it wanted to see a regional development program in Pictou county. This particular opportunity presented itself. The hon. member fought that suggestion every inch of the way. He wanted coal mining only in Devco, only in Cape Breton.
June 7, 1993

Unfortunately this regional development project came to a tragic end.
The hon. member makes some representations. Of course the government will accept those representations and look at them. He should remember that he fought regional development in Pictou county from beginning to end.


AGRICULTURE
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to whoever is speaking on behalf of grain marketing and transportation issues today.
I was sent to Ottawa years ago because prairie people did not like Otto Lang's Liberal policies on the wheat board and the Crow rate, a policy this government chose to continue last Thursday and Friday.
Why is the government removing the competitive position in world trade that Canada's farmers now enjoy with the Crow and the wheat board?


Pierre Blais: Madam Speaker, last Friday my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, tabled a document for consultation, prepared in close co-operation with our provincial colleagues in the course of federal-provincial conferences and meetings of our officials. I imagine that by the end of the year when this consultative process is over we will be able to make a final decision.
It is important that Canadian farmers support the government's aim to make the Crow rate better reflect the requirements of grain shipping today, as opposed to the situation as it was several decades ago. With that in mind, we decided to prepare a draft bill, consult Canadians, and with the help of the provinces and the people in the grain industry, find a solution that is acceptable to western producers, while ensuring that producers in other regions are not adversely affected by changes in the legislation.
Oral Questions


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Madam Speaker, the minister forgot to mention anything about the initiative on the wheat board.
If these policy initiatives are as popular as he seems to indicate they are, can he explain why the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster and the member for Vegre-ville, two former agriculture ministers who know well the needs of prairie people, decided to quit after this announcement was made?


Pierre Blais: Madam Speaker, I held back a little so I could answer the second question. I suppose the hon. member was referring to the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. As of August 1, 1993 western barley producers will be free to sell their feed and malting barley in Canada or the United States either through the Canadian Wheat Board or through private companies. Overseas grain marketing will continue under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board.
I believe that the flexibility we are giving the Canadian Wheat Board is something that many producer groups had been seeking for a long time. I repeat, this merely reflects the need to make federal government programs more flexible and to adapt them to the needs of regional producers.


FIGHT AGAINST AIDS
Guy St-Julien: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Yesterday during the Operation Enfants-Soleil Telethon on the TVA network, announcer Jean-Luc Mongrain said the federal government had done nothing to prevent the spread of AIDS or to support people living with by AIDS.
Could the minister explain what the federal government does to help people infected with HIV or living with AIDS and how AIDS can be prevented?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, if Mr. Mongrain had

June 7, 1993
Oral Questions
bothered to get in touch with the people in charge in Ottawa they could have told him that between 1990 and 1993 the federal government spent $97 million on various AIDS initiatives including information, research and assistance to community groups.
In addition to funding committed during the past three years, we recently announced an annual funding commitment of $42 million for five years, which means a total of $211 million and an increase of 13 per cent in order to complete current projects. Generally speaking, this initiative has been very well received by all parties.
My point is that if instead of making these kinds of statements Mr. Mongrain had bothered to make some inquiries, he would certainly have been given all the facts.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Madam Speaker, I would like to pose a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
This weekend the Prime Minister is quoted as saying that he is prepared to support the UN resolution setting up safe havens in Bosnia and is prepared to send more Canadian troops to that area. At the same time the Minister of National Defence is quoted as saying there are no more troops to send. Even at this late stage of the government's life, it is important on crucial matters such as this that there be some unity of view.
I want to ask the external affairs minister if Canada is prepared to send more troops on the UN resolution that was passed this weekend? Are we going to change the mandate of the troops that are there so they can defend civilians and will we be re-equipping those troops so that they can meet this risky and new assignment?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, in response to the first part of the question, there is no difference of view on this. I have been asked myself and I have said I would ask our militaiy what additional resources could be made available. The Prime Minister I think made the same implication. The Minister of National Defence said there
could be some potential air cover or perhaps additional ships that would be made available.
We are providing some 20 per cent of the forces that are on the ground in Bosnia. If there are additional forces we can put in, I think we all recognize that it would not be a large number. There might be some infill. There might be some logistics. There might be the potential of people to provide air cover or ships and so on. What we are doing is trying to come up with a way of co-operating with the resolution on safe havens to the extent we can.
On the other part of the hon. member's question, the implementation and the change in mandate is something that is being looked at by the Secretary-General and he will be reporting back to the Security Council. I think it was to be done within seven days but may take a little longer. In the meantime he will be consulting with troop contributing countries, not just there but some who may not yet be there.
I will be meeting in Luxembourg on Wednesday with my European and U.S. counterparts while we examine the implications of implementation. I will be in a better position to answer the hon. member's question after that meeting.


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, the minister knows the Security Council resolution specifically talks about ground troops and not more ships.
The troops that we have now must be re-equipped because they are not able at present to meet these new kinds of requirements.
Considering the serious implications of this decision plus the new dangerous position that our troops are in because of what happened in Somalia this weekend, does the government intend to live up to the commitment made last Thursday by the Prime Minister to have a full, open examination by Parliament of the new mandate, the new responsibilities and the new risk to Canadian peacekeepers so that Canadians will know exactly what situation they are being put into and whether in fact the Canadian people will consent to the decision the government is now looking at?
June 7, 1993


Barbara Jean McDougall: Madam Speaker, as yet there is no new mandate or any plan for implementation. That is why I am suggesting that after further discussions by the Secretary-General and my discussions with my colleagues, would be a more appropriate time to answer the hon. member's question and perhaps have a further parliamentary discussion.
We have always said that if there was a change we would be happy to have some form of parliamentary discussion, whether in committee, in the House or a full debate. I think we have to wait and see. At the moment there is not really anything to debate beyond the intention of the Security Council resolution. If the hon. member is patient I will have a better answer for him later in the week.


CHRISTINE LAMONT AND DAVID SPENCER
Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and concerns the Spencer and Lamont case.
The minister has said the 28-year sentences were excessive and harsh and she would intervene if the sentences were not reduced. The Spencer and Lamont families have now been advised by their lawyers that leave to appeal has been denied.
The Department of External Affairs' and the minister's strategy have been an abysmal failure in this case. Unless the minister acts now, two Canadians will spend 28 years in a Brazilian jail under sentences which the justice committee found to be a gross miscarriage of justice under both Canadian and Brazilian law. Will the minister do the right thing and immediately request the expulsion?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Madam Speaker, as I understand it there is a further appeal process and that the families have said they are going to take advantage of it.
I had not said I would intervene. What I did say was it was not appropriate to intervene as long as there was legal process under way.
Oral Questions
I should point out that there has been some considerable progress on one other aspect of this. The Brazilian lower house has ratified the exchange of offenders treaty. It is now in their upper house and we expect it to be ratified in the very near future, based on other precedents of debate in their upper house.
We have not seen the actual report on the judge's opinion. We are hoping to get a full report on that and we will look into all that. Since the families have said they will appeal, then we will assess the situation at that time.


FORESTRY
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Forestry.
Canada's forest industry is in transition as all levels of government, industry and the environmental community try to come to grips with the demands on our forests. Of particular concern is the future of forestry industry jobs.
While governments create, rightly so, parks to protect the future of our forests and the special places they represent, and given the lack of any specific federal-provincial program to assist workers in the transition from these forest jobs to new employment, will the minister commit to bring forward such a program to assist forest workers who lose their jobs because of a very legitimate policy initiative by government to create parks?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of Forestry):: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend knows my views on this subject. The potential for workers who are being displaced through the rationalization and modernization of mills, all things being equal, find an easy transition to the management of the resource itself as we shift to more intensive, more integrated management regimes in forestry, regimes that respect all of the other values, not just the timber values, that we have previously managed.
It is in that area that the federal government has established new arrangements with the provinces. We are working co-operatively with the provinces and with industry to make this transition possible.

Routine Proceedings



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and to Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table today, in both official languages, the government's response to nine petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


[Stage Direction]
19TH REPORT OF CANADIAN NATO PARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATION
Mr. Bob Hicks (Scarborough East):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34 I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 19th report of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association concerning the NAA meeting of the Task Force on America and Europe, which was held in Washington, D.C. April 22-24, 1993.



SCRUTINY OF REGULATIONS


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, pursuant to the motion I put on the Order Paper on Friday I would like to move that the ninth report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations presented to the House on June 3, 1993 be concurred in.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I would like at this time to move a motion
respecting adjournment for Friday. As you know this is the Progressive Conservative convention. We have a tradition around here for the House not to be sitting for these events.
I would like to move:
That when the House adjourns on Thursday, June 10, 1993 it
shall stand adjourned until Monday, June 14, 1993 at 11 a.m.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


An hon. member:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first petition is signed by quite a number of residents of Canada, each of whom are expressing concern that the goods and services tax is an unfair form of taxation.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to reject the goods and services tax and to cause this government to bring in a fair taxation system for all Canadians.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, the second petition I am presenting today is signed by residents of my constituency, all of whom live in North Battleford or rural North Battleford, Saskatchewan. The petition was brought to me by Mr. Oliver Humphreys, an elderly fellow within my constituency.
The petition notes that the Government of Canada has enacted legislation providing for two official languages. The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation providing for a referendum of the people binding on Parliament to accept or reject the two official languages.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition signed by people from all over my riding from Penticton, Cawston, Kere-
June 7, 1993

raeos, Okanagan Falls, Osoyoos and various other places within my riding.
All of these people are concerned with the proposed North American free trade agreement and the resulting trade concessions being demanded of Canada.
They petition the House to reject the proposed North American free trade agreement and recommend to the government that it use the termination clause to end the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.


Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from people who want child care deductions deducted from income earned, particularly for families with special needs children and especially for single parent families. Some of these children with disabilities require special facilities and services which can be extremely costly.
The petitioners believe that the current laws are unfair, insensitive, discriminatory and must be reviewed.

I support their request.


Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, I have a second petition.
I have pointed out a number of times in this House that Canada's major challenges are in the area of social issues: poverty, equity, unemployment, food banks, et cetera.
These petitioners want to delay the merger of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council with the Canada Council. They ask the government to stop its decision, to study it, to review it and then make a decision. This is what the petition asks and I support it completely.
Routine Proceedings OFFICIAL LANGUAGES


Lyle Vanclief: Madam Speaker, I table for 62 constituents in my riding a petition calling upon Parliament to enact legislation providing for a referendum of the people binding upon Parliament to accept or reject two official languages, English and French, for the government and the people of Canada.
The acceptance or rejection of the proposed amendments are to be determined by a majority of total votes cast in the whole of Canada, together with a majority vote in a majority of the provinces with the territories being given the status of one province.


Christine Susan Stewart: Madam Speaker, I am duty bound by Standing Order 36 to present the same petition on behalf of constituents in my riding who have concerns about the bilingual policy in Canada.


Christine Susan Stewart: Madam Speaker, my second petition is from Canadians across this country who have grave concern about Canada's involvement in support of the Three Gorges Dam project in China.
They humbly pray and call upon the Parliament to pass the necessary legislation to prevent any further involvement by the Government of Canada in the Three Gorges Dam project.


Alan Redway: Madam Speaker, today I present a petition that was inspired and spearheaded by Hugh McLafferty of Scarborough, Ontario and has been signed by over 150 residents of the greater Toronto area.
They express their great concern about the size of our national debt and the fact that we continue to have a very substantial deficit. The petitioners are calling on Parliament to reduce government spending by establishing a target deficit of zero for 1995-96, pass a private member's bill C-99 dealing with members' pensions,

June 7, 1993
Government Orders
enact the Senate reforms as proposed in the Charlottetown accord and eliminate the non-taxable allowances presently granted to public servants. All of this would allow Parliament to start repaying our national debt.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Charles A. Langlois: Madam Speaker, Questions Nos. 267 and 326 will be answered today.


Mr. Althouse: Since December 20, 1991, (a) how many times has the Prime Minister met personally with U.S. President George Bush and with EC President Jacques Delors to discuss the question of supply management and a clarified article XI.2(c)i in the GATT negotiations, what were the dates, places and results of these meetings and who was present (b) how many times has the Prime Minister met or talked on the telephone with the U.S. President and with EC President to promote the inclusion of a clarified article XI.2(c)i in the final GATT agreement and what were the dates and results of these conversations?


Mr. Andre Harvey (Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister):: During meetings with President Bush on May 19-20, 1992 and President Delors on April 23 and December 17, 1992 the Prime Minister discussed the Uruguay round of the multilateral trade negotiations, including Canada's concerns over supply management and article XI of the GATT. In addition, the Prime Minister has had numerous telephone conversations with President Bush and President Delors and with other heads of government in which the Canadian government's concerns have been expressed. The Prime Minister also raised these issues with Chancellor Kohl, Prime Minister Major, President Mitterrand and Prime Minister Bahadur during his May 6 to 14, 1993 official visit to Europe.
The Prime Minister has also instructed members of cabinet, in particular the Minister for International Trade and the Minister of Agriculture, to pursue our concerns over article XI bilaterally and multilaterally. This included their joint visit to Geneva and Brussels February 19-22, 1992, and various other meetings and telephone calls.


Mr. Young (Acadie): As of (a) April 1, 1985 (b) April 1, 1992, what was the total number of authorized person years in the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office and what was the total number of authorized senior level positions (EX, DM and SM)?


André Harvey: As of April 1, 1985 the total amount budgeted for personnel costs for the Privy Council Office was $20,326,000. The total amount budgeted for personnel costs for the Office of Prime Minister was $5,076,000. As of April 1,1992 the total amount budgeted for personnel costs for the Privy Council Office was $28,986,000. The total amount budgeted for personnel costs for the Office of the Prime Minister was $4,639,000.
Authorized senior level positions are those target executive counts (TEC) provided to departments by the Treasury Board to establish a target number of executives (EX/SM only). These were previously referred to as management category complement authorities. As of April 1, 1985, the management category complement authority for the Privy Council Office was 39. As of April 1, 1992, the target executive complement for the Privy Council Office was 53.


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


Charles A. Langlois: Madam Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the other questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Corbeil, that Bill C-121, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act and to amend another act in consequence thereof, be read the third time and passed.
John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand today to not only ask a question but to comment in the the House of Commons with regard to the introductory remarks of the member for Skeena when he talked about the possibility of this being his last speech within the House of Commons. I just want to put on record that we in this
June 7, 1993

party and others in other parties in the House recognize the commitment that this member has had particularly in the last four and a half years in his role as environment critic for the New Democratic Party. The hard work that he has done in forwarding that cause-


Mr. Manley:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sorry to interrupt but it sounded a bit like a eulogy. It seems to me that the hon. member for Skeena was the second speaker to take the floor at third reading on this bill and thus had a 40-minute time slot. I believe he exceeded the 20 minutes and I do not believe that there would be a question and comment period following that speech.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I would say to the hon. member that I almost made the same mistake myself, but the Standing Orders clearly state that the minister who moves the motion is considered to have spoken on it. Therefore the hon. member for Skeena is the third speaker and not the second, even though the minister's speech was very brief, I admit. I think that my explanation is clear, but I can repeat it: the minister who moved the motion is considered to have taken the floor, even if he spoke for only five seconds. The hon. member for Skeena is therefore the third speaker.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: As I was saying I was just recognizing the fact that this member has been committed to the environmental aspects of all legislation within this House. I wanted to recognize that just in case the opportunity did not arise to go on the record. I certainly have had admiration for the hard work that this member has done as environment critic. He has had a commitment to the environment and has followed through on all environmental causes for the betterment of future generations.
In leading directly to my question, I noticed that in his speech he set out the lack of interest that the government seems to have shown in the oil spills legislation. I was somewhat concerned with that. That also led me to wonder whether he could tell us about the Liberal participation in the development of this bill and of the additional changes that he sees required within the bill.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the overly kind remarks from my friend and colleague.
Government Orders
Let me extend the same gratitude to a number of people who have participated in the development of Bill C-121. In particular there is the member for Victoria who ably, capably and efficiently-I think all members who attended would agree-carried through the business of not only hearing witnesses but of getting a large number of amendments dealt with in one rather long, protracted session that we had late last week. I think it took almost eight hours to get through the last series of amendments.
I pass on those remarks that were graciously handed to me to the chair and also to other members of the committee who went well out of their way to give many hours on very short notice to get a very difficult piece of legislation through. However, as I said moments ago, it was not as thorough or as far reaching or as competent as I think Canada's environment deserves.
On the member's question, the Liberals did have one member who was present at the committee hearings. Although they were allowed two they never did turn out either for the witnesses, the deliberations or for the votes on amendments.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My colleague from Ottawa South raised with you the issue of whether there should be a question or comment period on this speech from the member for Skeena.
The Table confirms that in fact the member spoke for beyond 20 minutes and therefore was not treated as the third speaker but as the second speaker.
Therefore I wonder if you could give the House some indication of whether the member, having spoken five minutes beyond his allotted time, is in fact considered to have consumed a 40 minute speaking slot for which there is no question and comment period. As an alternative, maybe the question and comment period should be reduced by the extra five minutes that the member spoke.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Ottawa West is perfectly right; the Chair was too generous to the member for Skeena, and I admit it. That being said, there can still be a period for questions and comments and nothing prevented an opposition member from questioning the previous speaker. But it was the

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Chair who was mistaken, or distracted if you prefer, not the member for Skeena.
I apologize. I think the simplest thing to do is to overlook this and to conclude the period for questions and comments, if the hon. member agrees. I also apologize to her colleague from Ottawa and I thank you for your co-operation.
The hon. member for Skeena has the floor.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the Liberals are so paranoid about me speaking on the oil spills legislation.
Let me try to sum up the last of the concerns that I have about this piece of legislation. Although it has had some improvement by going to committee it still has a number of inadequacies particularly in the area of prevention and on the phasing out of single hulls.
It has an inadequate timetable for the 10,000 tonne and 25,000 tonne regional response capacity. It has an inadequate compensation thread running through it not only in terms of liability and in terms of the polluter but also in terms of compensation to those who might try to collect from the fund. As I have already pointed out, this fund has been thoroughly drained by the Conservative Minister of Finance.
I think we should also keep in mind that the panel recommended that Canada needed to acquire clean up capacity five times what presently exists. Regrettably this legislation does not do that.
In terms of the question from my hon. friend, I would like to conclude by pointing out that the following percentages give some idea of where spills come from: 27 per cent from collisions, 28 per cent from groundings, 15 per cent from fires and explosions and 18 per cent from failures.
Regrettably this legislation does not target in on prevention, response or compensation the way it should. If there are any further questions I would be glad to take them.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, the member for Skeena accuses the Liberal opposition of being somewhat paranoid.
I must confess to a little paranoia with respect to the operations of the committee that was chaired by a member of his party. It was evident from the moment the hearings of the committee began that there had been collusion among the government, the chair of the committee and the NDP member of the committee to make sure that this bill got through without delaying its passage.
I felt that we should have heard adequately from environment groups and public interest groups.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I think you have listened with care as I have.
I do not know what kind of aspersions the member is trying to suggest toward the Chair, but if she wants to make a charge she should do so. Perhaps she would want to explain why the Liberals never turned out the number of members they were allowed, to either participate in the hearings or vote. There is big talk from the Liberals but no action.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I would ask both hon. members, especially since this is one of the last speeches by the hon. member for Skeena, whose courtesy and great respect for Parliament I have always appreciated, to-


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, as I said, the opening comments of the committee from the Chair were that there had been consultation and there was some agreement to proceed in a certain way.
I want to make it clear that the consultation was obviously between the NDP and the government because no member of the Official Opposition was included in those consultations. As the member referred to in his speech, I personally felt we gave veiy short shrift to a very important bill. There were numerous issues we did not go into and there were numerous witnesses we should have heard from who we did not hear from. The member referred to the shortage of environmental and public interest groups. I am wondering perhaps after the fact if he could explain clearly to the House what the
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consultations were between his party and the government that rammed this bill through so quickly.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, the member will not be able to produce a single letter today or name a single group that she or the Liberal Party contacted that wanted to appear and was denied the opportunity. This is the traditional Liberal trying to smear everybody with a dirty brush after she walked out on a number of witnesses, did not attend all of the witnesses and did not attend all the procedures in relation to the committee. When the member tries to cast aspersions at others-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: On a point of order, the hon. member for Ottawa West.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order and a point of privilege.
I would have expected the member in his final week in the House to be more respectful of the House and the truth. The member knows perfectly well that I was there for every witness. When I was not at committee it was because I was required in the House.


Mr. Ross Belsher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak this afternoon on Bill C-121. This is the third and final reading. When it leaves this House it will go on to the Senate.
In listening to the last exchange I might say that each party was briefed and each party's staff were briefed on the measures that were taking place at all stages as we went along. Having been a member of the legislative committee, there was a co-operative spirit from both sides of the committee room. In particular, the support and co-operation of the opposition members have been essential in getting this bill to the stage it is at today in this House.
The foregoing speaker said the minister did not speak on this important piece of legislation. I think if he looked at Hansard he would see that the minister did in fact speak very eloquently at second reading.


John Paul Manley: Don't push it.
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Ross Belsher: I would encourage the members if they doubt my words to read the speech of the minister who certainly laid out the framework of what is in this piece of legislation.
The legislative committee heard expert testimony from witnesses representing industry groups, investment groups, environmental groups as well as government experts in the field of pollution prevention and response. After consideration of this testimony the committee recommended important changes which will strengthen Bill C-121 in the areas of the public input through the clear delineation of roles and responsibility of the public advisory councils. They will also strengthen the Parliament oversight role to ensure that the important pollution response improvements are implemented on a timely basis.
The previous speaker referred to the advisory councils but we had to be very careful to make sure we were not asking the advisory councils to become the enforcement arm of this important piece of legislation. That is the role of the Coast Guard. But the commissioner who is a member of the Coast Guard certainly can have input from all these advisory councils.
We also accepted an amendment, and I forget which of the opposition members put it forward, which says there shall be an advisory council in each of the three geographic areas: the Pacific area; the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes basin; and the Atlantic and Arctic. It is very essential that there be advisory councils. If the commissioner feels there is something more specific, permission is given to put together advisory councils in those particular areas.
Bill C-121 represents an important piece of new legislation for protecting Canada's marine environment. This legislation forms a part of the government's marine environmental emergency strategy announced in June 1991. Mr. Brander-Smith from British Columbia was put in charge of a study. It took several months and cost in the order of $3 million. It heard from many organizations and travelled from coast to coast. The essential parts of this report have certainly been adhered to.
The hon. member for Skeena says it is not being done fast enough but speed and when it gets done are not the essential parts. It is important that we know what is

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progressing and that it will be in place within a certain period of time.
We know this bill will accomplish a number of very important tasks. For example it will oblige the private sector to fund further improvements to marine spills response capability. It will increase the maximum fine for polluters to $1 million and authorize the adoption by Canada of two important international conventions.
During second reading debate on Bill C-121 and subsequently, members have expressed their concern that Bill C-121 does not adequately address the issues of marine pollution prevention which were identified in the public review panel report.
The government's marine environmental emergencies response strategy has indeed addressed many important pollution prevention activities. For example, after July of this year Canada will require that new tankers operating in Canadian waters have double hulls or equivalent environmental protection features. Existing tankers will be required to either be retrofitted or phased out.
This was worked out in concert with the marine traffic in the world market as well as the Americans. A timetable has been established as well as specifications of what will be required. Canada has been part of that and for that reason we felt it was not necessary to specifically put that type of provision in this piece of legislation.
The government's strategy has increased the level of foreign vessel inspection. It has expanded the aerial pollution surveillance on both coasts and has implemented numerous regulatory changes which have strengthened the pollution prevention functions.
In the Canada Shipping Act we already have the provision that the pollution control officer can direct where and when ships can go. He also has the power to make sure they alter what they are doing when they are doing it if he deems it necessary to make sure pollution or environmental aspects are being taken care of.
While all of these pollution prevention initiatives are very important, we must not forget the importance of being prepared to respond to spills. This is where Bill C-121 will play a critical role.
I want to thank all members of this House and particularly the members who participated in the committee that examined Bill C-121. It took us until 10 o'clock p.m. last Wednesday to go through this and all of us wished we could have had more time.
We know the summer recess is coming upon us and the amount of work the Coast Guard has done in the consultation process over the past two years has been very significant. We were told this when the Coast Guard came before us and gave testimony. This has not been glossed over. This is something that is very essential to the tanker traffic that takes place within Canadian waters.
The all-party agreement which has facilitated rapid consideration of this important bill is very much appreciated and signals the importance that all parties place on environmental issues. I add my thanks for the all-party agreement of last Friday. We brought report stage in and waved the 48-hour rule so we could have this debate today. This bill will be off to the Senate for its perusal as well.
We believe that Bill C-121 should be passed by the House to permit the early implementation of its important provisions which will improve Canada's capability to respond to marine spills. This bill has been formulated and put together with this in mind.
Again I want to say thank you to the members opposite for their input and the amendments they put to this bill. I believe with their amendments this bill is better leaving the House now on third reading than it was when it left here after second reading.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned during his comments that we now have a date when the 10,000 tonne and 25,000 tonne emergency response capacity equipment will be available. As he knows, one of the amendments I put forward during the committee process gave the date of January 1, 1994 for that equipment to be in place. It also specified that double hulls be in place for all of Canada's fleet no later than January 1, 2000.
I wonder if the hon. member could tell Canadians the dates when the capacity will be up and running pursuant to the legislation. On what date will we have double hulls for the whole of the Canadian tanker fleet and where can we find those two things in the legislation?


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, as I have already said I did not feel it was necessary to put the dates for when there will be double-hulled vessels in our waters because this is something that has already been agreed to by the shipping community. That has been worked out within the international marketplace. I believe at the very outside the last date would be 2015. Dates have been ascertained and placed on each Canadian vessel that has
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been listed in Canada as to when they will cease to exist for the role they are now carrying out in our own waters.
With regard to when the clean-up mechanisms will be in place we added amendments in 660.11. They state that the minister shall no later than one year after the coming into force of this act and thereafter every two years review the operation of the section of this act. If the minister deems there is not sufficient progress being made in making sure that the pollution controls are up and ready and the advisory committees are advising the commissioners they feel they are not ready, then the minister can unilaterally take that kind of action. The bill does not put a specific date.
The member knows that in British Columbia there is an organization called "Burrard Clean" which is funded by the oil companies. It has added a great deal of capability on the west coast. It has been completely funded by the industry and we hope it will never be called upon to use its total resources but the facilities are already there. The Coast Guard has always had the responsibility for north of 60 and that will continue to be the case.
As we go into each of the other sections across our country other organizations will have to be brought to the fore as well to take the leadership in this.
.(1535 )


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I just want to confirm something with the hon. member. We have had some discussions about an error in the committee's report to Parliament which shows a difference in the French and English versions with respect to clause 6 on page 7.
I believe we have agreement concerning the time I speak. I am told by the Table that it is necessary to seek unanimous consent to have the English brought into conformity with the French. I am seeking the assurance of the member from the government side that consent will be given.


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member opposite for being alert and bringing that to the attention of this House. Certainly we would be glad to give our agreement such that the English version should
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read the same as the French because there is a misplacing of a clause in there. We would certainly agree to that.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, the House will thank my sharp-eyed friend from Ottawa West for having caught that problem. I trust the Table understands that the unanimous consent that is being given now by the House is to bring the English into direct compliance with the French. It is the French that is correct. It is the English that has the error.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is there unanunous consent of the House to correct the English version of the bill?


An hon. member:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Agreed and so ordered.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by referring to the parliamentary secretary's gratitude to us for hurrying this bill through.
I would not say his gratitude is misplaced because indeed we did try to be co-operative in seeing that Bill C-121 came into law before we found ourselves in a dissolution of Parliament and off into an election campaign for fear that it would possibly take a good number of months before this legislation could be enacted.
It is legislation that we support. We believe it is a measurable improvement to the existing situation and therefore we were keen to see it go through.
However I would like to point out, as I did at second reading of this bill, that we do not feel the government dealt with the issue of oil spills in a sufficiently prompt and open fashion. This bill has come forward very late in the parliamentary cycle for no good reason. This is in the face of the Brander-Smith report and in the face of requests as pointed out by the Auditor General of Canada and requests from cabinet that there be a departmental response for the Brander-Smith report.
As the Auditor General pointed out, no response was forthcoming until we finally found ourselves not that long ago presented with Bill C-121 and a request to deal with it on an urgent and expedited basis so that it could become enacted.

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It was with the co-operation of members of the legislative committee who were appointed to deal with this issue that the matter was able to be heard through the committee quickly but certainly without the advantage of widespread consultation and based on an understanding that any proposals or any kind of significant or substantive change to the bill as proposed would not be accepted. By substantive change I refer to any introduction of a charge such as that recommended by the Brander-Smith panel on ships that did not have double hulls or double bottoms.
The lack of ability to get into what is really the essence of this bill and to provide for substantial change I think has weakened the process. While as I say we are glad to have it through at least in the sense that it does provide an advance on the existing state of legislation with respect to oil spills, I think it is our view-and I wish to signal this-that it is not an adequate response. It is an interim response and more will need to be done soon.
The Brander-Smith report we will recall came as a result of a panel appointed in June 1989. The panel held extensive hearings across the country and examined the question not only of response to oil spills, which this bill primarily deals with, but also prevention.
I think it is very worthwhile for Canadians to understand what an important problem this is. We tend to have our attention attracted by dramatic spills such as the Exxon Valdez of course and the breakup of the ship the Braer off the coast of the Shetland Islands last Januaiy. That ship was destined on that voyage for Canada and would have been entering Canadian waters within days of its breakup on the Shetland Islands. Its sister ship at that time was in a Canadian port.
While we focus on these very dramatic breakups the reality is that the spillage of oil and other dangerous products for that matter is a continuing problem on a regular basis world-wide. According to the Brander-Smith report: "According to available research data more than one major spill from a tanker accident will occur in Canadian waters every year. These large spills cause visible and devastating damage to the environment. We
have been told by experts that they are inevitable. Presumably this is because human error in one form or another is the cause of most tanker accidents and human error can never be completely eradicated. Faced with the possibility of catastrophic environmental damage it is understandable that at the hearings Canadians questioned whether so much error really is normal. For the purpose of illustration the Alaska oil spill commission which studied the 44,000 tonne Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 compared the Exxon Valdez tanker operation to the U.S. airline industry and estimated that one and a half airline crashes would occur every day in the United States if airline safety was no better than tanker safety. A spill of the same magnitude as that from the Exxon Valdez could happen at any moment in Canadian waters. Indeed without better prevention efforts it will happen".
Brander-Smith goes on to say that unless the situation changes Canada will experience over 100 small spills, about 10 moderate spills and at least 1 major spill every year based on current levels of tanker traffic. A catastrophic spill in the order of 10,000 tonnes can be expected about once every 15 years.
What we are talking about here is not the remote and inconsequential occurrences that may happen from time to time by unavoidable accidents, but the continuing risk of major spillage of oil off our coasts if we are not in a position to act to prevent it.
Brander-Smith's commission comes in its opening chapter to some very startling-at least to me-conclusions. They say that they were appointed to consider two questions. First, are tankers safe? Second, are we capable of responding effectively to spills and mitigating their environmental consequences? I again quote: "The answer to both questions is an unequivocal no". Brander-Smith finds that our tankers are not safe and our ability to respond to a major spill is inadequate.
The thrust of this report was that the first priority needed to be prevention. When we talk about prevention in the case of oil spills we know because of the human error factor that prevention can never be absolutely ascertained. However, it is clear that improving the structures of ships and tankers is key to limiting the occurrence of oil spills off our coasts and other coasts.
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Therefore by virtue of international agreement new tankers are being built with double hulls. Over time single hulled vessels will gradually be eliminated. That in itself is not a total solution.
I think it is generally conceded that had the Braer been double-hulled it still would have broken up off the coast of the Shetland Islands. The sea was simply too high. Because of its location on the rocks in that situation even a double hull would not have prevented that one.
The key point is this. Because so many of these disasters are caused by the human factor the technology of the ships must be such that it compensates for the occurrence of human error.
Double hulling or double bottoming is a major contribution to that. What we do know is that many of the ships on the seas today carrying oil products are capable with a very small error of judgment by a ship's crew to contributing to a major environmental disaster such as that which we have seen in Alaska when the Exxon Valdez went down.
I think it is also important to put into perspective the size of some of these spills. We will recall from my previous quotation that the Exxon Valdez was a 44,000 tonne vessel. Consider the spills that have occurred recently.
In 1988 the Athenian Venture broke up in the North Atlantic en route to Come-by-Chance, Newfoundland. It was 27,000 tonnes. The Amoco Cadiz in 1978 off the French coast spilled 220,000 tonnes. Remember that the Exxon Valdez was 44,000 tonnes. The Torrey Canyon in 1967 off the English coast was 117,000 tonnes.
On it goes. The Nestucca spill caused significant damage off the west coast of Vancouver Island. I think the member for Skeena referred to this one in his speech. It was only 875 tonnes and relatively small compared to some of the others. There were mystery spills which killed an estimated 18,000 sea birds in Newfoundland in January 1990. These were likely a fraction of the size of the Nestucca spill. The Nestucca was 875 tonnes and the Exxon Valdez was 44,000 tonnes. We get into some of these large vessels and we are into the range of 200,000 tonnes or five times larger than the
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Exxon Valdez spill. The catastrophe which we court if we fail to deal with this is of giant proportions.
I had the occasion a year or so ago to visit with my colleagues, the member for Dartmouth and the member for Burin-St. George's, at a number of shipyards in Atlantic Canada. If I might be permitted a slight digression I can say that if there is anything that we need in Canada in our industrial sector it is a strategy to deal with the problems that our shipyards in various parts of the country have been facing. These shipyards are on the east coast and west coast and are even along the St. Lawrence.
This is an industry in which highly skilled, well trained and well paid individuals are finding that the work has just simply disappeared. What an opportunity it is to rebuild some of our shipyards on the basis of rebuilding some of our ships.
There is a need to encourage a rapid conversion to double-bottomed and double-hulled vessels. These can be retrofitted on existing vessels. This should be obvious. It could stimulate a very significant improvement in the prospects of many of our shipyards if that were to advance at a more rapid rate.
The Brander-Smith report had a number of things to say about prevention in addition to the levy which has been discussed at some length by previous speakers that would have encouraged the use of double hulled vessels and double bottomed vessels. It has also suggested that the Canadian Coast Guard should be given additional resources to significantly expand its capacity to inspect foreign tankers and ensure on-board compliance with statutory manning requirements and ship schedules.
The best rules in the world are inadequate if they are not enforced. The Coast Guard has given us assurances that it has increased the rate of inspection on vessels in Canadian waters so that it does inspect vessels on an annual basis. I think all of us look at the estimates of the Coast Guard and wonder where it is getting the resources to carry out this additional responsibility.
I do not know whether the assurances are reliable or not, but it seems to me clear that the resources the Coast Guard have are being increasingly stretched. Whether the ability is there to perform the tasks which the Braer, the Valdez and the other spills have demonstrated are so

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crucial, is a question of whether those resources are adequate.
Brander-Smith recommended that the Coast Guard develop more stringent operating and chartering guidelines for tankers. Some progress is being made on that. The Coast Guard needs to work closely with chemical and shipping industries to develop training and certification programs for tanker and terminal personnel that emphasizes safety and pollution prevention, design construction and inspection standards for chemical barges as well as tankers.
Brander-Smith says that to deter polluters the Coast Guard must deploy three dedicated aircraft-east coast, west coast and the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence-equipped with spill detection and evidence gathering technology. Clearly this is essential if we are going to have any confidence that the rules are being enforced.
Brander-Smith says that to improve its investigative and prosecution capability the Coast Guard must deploy additional personnel, appropriate technology and equipment and designate larger numbers of more rigorously trained pollution prevention officers. It must also issue stricter regulations governing loading, unloading and transfer operations at terminals to reduce the risk of operational spills.
I go through these one by one to emphasize the fact that the focus needs to be not just on the response to spills, which is really the key component of Bill C-121, and obviously an objective which we support, but on prevention. Clean-up is never adequate, it will never be adequate. We can hope to do better, we can hope to do the best that technology permits, but prevention is the key to the environmental imperative which this bill, at least in form, attempts to acknowledge.
The other important point to make is that also included in our concerns about this bill is adequate reference to the issue of compensation. We have seen the devastating consequences of a major spill on our coasts. It is of course questionable whether compensation can ever be adequate in the case of a major spill. What has often been the case where there are even minor spills is that the burden of clean-up has fallen on local communities, local residents of shorelines, often on volunteers who come from distances in order to contribute to assisting the clean-up, the saving of wildlife, and so on.
There needs to be a clear legal responsibility for compensating for the costs of those clean-up operations. That is something which requires additional work. There are jurisdictional questions that abound on that issue. It is an important area of further effort. Again, had there been more time for a bill such as this I think that a committee would have studied that issue as well as some of the other issues at much greater length.
In conclusion, I will reiterate once again the fact that we want to see this bill enacted. We would like to see it through the Senate as quickly as possible. The parliamentary secretary refers to it going to the Senate. That is not the only thing going to the Senate these days. For some of the other arrivals in the Senate one thinks of oil spills as well, but that is another matter.


An hon. member:: Natural disasters you mean.


John Paul Manley: In the spirit of co-operation that we have had around this bill I think that it is important that we see it enacted into law as soon as possible with improvements and changes to come in due course, I hope very soon.


TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT
Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, an agreement could .not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or (2) with respect to report stage and third reading of Bill C-62, an act respecting telecommunications.
Therefore, under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I wish to give notice of my intention to move a time allocation motion at the next sitting of the House for the purpose of allocating a specified number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stages.


Some hon. members:: Shame.
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CANADA SHIPPING ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. corbeil that Bill C-121, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act and to amend another act in consequence thereof be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the comments by my colleague from Ottawa and I would like to say that I concur.
Living on the east coast of Canada, and indeed having been born and raised in Cape Breton at the head of the shores of Sydney harbour, I have a keen interest and understanding about the problems which this bill seeks to remedy.
I remember as a young boy growing up in New Waterford where many times we would have storms. At one point, down by the Barachois Cove, New Waterford, during a particularly early vicious storm I saw a tanker and two barges come ashore just down the road from where I lived. Thank goodness the two barges were empty of oil and the tanker was empty as well. They were coming in trying to seek some respite from the storm.
Clearly, growing up close to a marine environment as I did in Atlantic Canada it becomes very, very clear that the effects of a tanker spill or of a disaster such as when a ship sinks or comes ashore and loses its oil cargo, its diesel fuel, the impact on the marine ecosystem are absolutely devastating.
I recall that when small ships went down close to the mouth of Sydney harbour we would lose our beaches. We could not swim there, not just for one or two months but for a couple of years. It would take the ice-clampers coming down to remove the oil for the winter and take it somewhere else. It was not that it dissipated, it went to somebody else's beach.
My colleague mentioned one thing that perhaps this bill should be dealing with that it does not is the whole issue of prevention. He talked about double hulling and double bottoming of these tankers that are plying waters. It is something that this government should have really grappled with. Indeed he made some reference to a visit that he made to somebody at the East Coast Shipyards
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which is reducing the number of people in its work force because business simply is not there.
However in the Irving yard in Saint John, New Brunswick when we were looking at the frigate program, it was clear that one of the things that they see as an imperative is legislation which would require quickly double hulling and double bottoming of vessels that are plying Canadian waters. Not only is that good for the environment, but it is also good for the Saint John shipyards and other shipyards in Canada which would see their levels of employment at least stabilize and perhaps-just perhaps because that particular yard is one of the best mid-sized shipbuilding yards in Canada-see the employment levels go up.
He also talked about the Canadian Coast Guard maybe not having the resources. The Canadian Coast Guard's east coast base is in my riding of Dartmouth. I know that it has been under the gun over the last number of years as this government seeks to cut wherever it can.
The third thing is who does pay? When we deal with prevention which may be a costly matter, we are also dealing with some cost effective measures, societal, environmentally and employment wise.
I want to ask my colleague who is the transport critic for the Liberal Party if he believes that the government has been short-sighted in not bringing in legislation that would see prevention as the number one priority legislatively as opposed to compensation once these spills do occur.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes the point that we have before us legislation that does not focus on prevention or compensation but simply on response and perhaps a minimum measure in that area.
I suppose to be entirely fair the answer is very simply this. This government has sought to find a legislative formula that would not provoke too much controversy in the shipping industry over the course of the next few months when it is going to the public, but which would enable it to bring forward legislation to say what it has done about marine spills as a result of the Exxon Valdez and the Brander-Smith report. What we have is this legislation. It has more or less insisted that the opposi-

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tion parties accede to rapid timetables to see that it is provision at least provides up to $200 million in accessi-enacted, albeit thinking that it is inadequate.	ble compensation should there be a major accident?
I suppose having just heard the minister of state for small businesses get up and bring the closure motion with respect to the telecommunications bill, we may well assume that closure would have been brought down on this bill as well if either of the opposition parties had insisted on a fuller process. The reality is very simply this. The government did find a formula that the shipping industry was willing to live with and that is what it has put in this bill. It did not concern itself overly with the view of environmental groups, especially when it got agreement from most of the environmental groups as well as from the opposition parties that this bill was a measurable improvement of the status quo and therefore merited support. So far, so good.
We face the prospect, and we can almost hear the rhetoric now, of the Tory Party going out on the hustings this summer claiming that this is one of the things that it has done for the environment. It did something for the shipping industry because that industry knew that measures were coming. It feared the imposition of the levy recommended by Brander-Smith and lobbied ferociously to prevent it, successfully as it turned out, and was willing to accede to this legislation in the hope that perhaps at least for a number of years that would be the end of it.
As far as I am concerned my colleagues and our party agree, this will not be the end of it if we have something to say about it, and we will have something to say about it.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I have just a short question to the member for Ottawa South.
I think the member is aware of the legislation passed in 1973. The ship-oil source pollution fund was converted in 1989 into the maritime pollution compensation fund which has a present value of $200 million. Just for the record I think it is important to get at least the word out that even the Coast Guard admits that that is an inadequate compensation fund for many of the sizes of accidents that our coastline faces.
Does the member agree that section 7(10), as is now included in Bill C-121, by providing a reverse onus


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, I agree.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: 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 Lambton- Middlesex-National Defence; the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond-National Defence; the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie-Peacekeeping; the hon. member for St. Boniface-Student Aid; the hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing-The Economy.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that this has been rather a whirlwind process of getting through this bill. We are supporting the bill as it is important and useful. However it is an insufficient step forward with respect to protecting Canada's waterways from the damage of oil spills.
Nonetheless I cannot stand here with any certainty and assure the House or the public that the provisions of this bill are as good as they could be or as tight as they could be. As my colleague from Ottawa South has said, the urgency to get this bill through the House before the House rises and to achieve something out of the very important Brander-Smith report that was completed two years ago unfortunately did not allow us time in committee to give the important consideration we normally would give to a bill of this nature.
I would like to review a bit of history. The country certainly owes a debt to David Brander-Smith and the co-members of his review panel on tanker safety. The report that came out of that review is called Protecting our Waters. That is what the report is all about and it is certainly what this bill is all about.
The committee, and the House, is at a bit of a disadvantage in assessing the value of this legislation against the much more comprehensive recommendations made by Mr. Brander-Smith in his report. We are at a bit of a disadvantage because there has been no comprehensive response yet from the government to the Brander-Smith report. Therefore we cannot know what

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this legislation does to meet the very strong recommendations of the report and what it leaves undone.
We have partial knowledge and therefore we are dealing with the bill in somewhat of a vacuum. May I recall that the departmental briefing on the bill was still going on as the bill was being debated on the floor of the House of Commons. There has been that kind of urgency and inadequate time for reflection and for ensuring that this is the best possible bill in the time available.
The government still has not tabled its comprehensive response to David Brander-Smith's report and that may mean that this Parliament will end without that report ever having been tabled or debated, without Canadians having the opportunity to judge the adequacy of the government's responses to the report against the urgency of the danger to our environment and public health and safety from continuing oil and chemical spills.
We know that some measures have been taken. One of the major findings of the panel inquiry was the total inadequacy of the resources-human resources, financial resources, equipment resources, and training resources-being provided to the Coast Guard to even begin to prevent the spills much less respond to spills when they did occur.
We know that some measures have been taken to improve the response capability and the inspection capability of the Coast Guard. It was only during the hearings on this bill that we had an opportunity to look at what resources have been provided and to focus on the implications of the fact that those resources have not been provided to the department as part of its ongoing funding to carry out the mandate this Parliament has given it through legislation but that this is temporary funding under the green plan.
Of the issues that need to be revisited certainly one is to ensure that the Coast Guard has the ongoing resources to do its job. We need to ensure that when it is necessary that green plan funds are cut back or shifted somewhere else or when the now six-year green plan program comes to an end we will not go back to inspecting only 8 per cent of vessels entering Canadian waters with oil on board.
In addition to that I certainly question the legitimacy of designating a basic fundamental legal responsibility of our Coast Guard and our ministry of transport as green plan funds. The green plan was to be new money and new programs, not merely repackaged ongoing standard government programs. If protection of our waterways is not considered an ongoing standard government program but a new initiative then most people who have read the legislation of this Parliament would find that quite a surprise.
The bill is clearly focused on response to oil spills after they have occurred and not to prevention of oil spills. That is the next major gap that truly needs to be addressed. We do not have a prevention strategy but a mop-up strategy in this legislation.
I am going to come back to some preventive measures that have been ignored, certainly as far as this bill goes. Some of them have been touched on by other speakers.
However, first I want to talk about what will ensure that the momentum to protect our waters, as the review panel said, carries on. It became evident during the committee hearings that the lessons of the earth summit in Rio just a year ago have not yet permeated federal government planning and federal government policy development.
The Minister of the Environment stood in this House time after time, and in press conferences and public meetings, and spoke about the importance of the Rio process in protecting our environment, the importance that the decision and policy-making process be transparent, accessible to a wide range of interests and inclusive, that people from a wide range of sectors, business, labour, environmental interests and education be able to sit down together and come to a concerted projet de societe, as the minister has called it, for the protection of our environment.
This bill before us today is very clearly the product of the industry, in consultation with the government no doubt. It is clearly the bill the industry wants. As a member who sat on that committee I cannot give this House or the public, nor can the government, any assurance that this is the best bill, that this industry sponsored, industry designed and industry implemented system is the best. I cannot say it is not but I cannot say it is because it has been a very narrow process.

June 7, 1993
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Others who were interested in participating in discussions were not able to do so. Unless they had the money to get themselves to meetings from one end of the country to the other and give up their normal paying work for many days at a time to participate in those meetings they could not do it. We cannot have what the Minister of the Environment keeps saying we need, a transparent, accessible and inclusive process, if money is a barrier to people participating.
Clearly our officials at all levels need to find the mechanisms and need to learn the ways to include a broad range of public interests when they are developing policy on issues as important as the protection of our waterways.
We have to remember that Canada has one of the longest coastlines in the world. In the Great Lakes there is 20 per cent of the freshwater of the entire planet.
This bill deals with all those waterways: the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence and all our coastlines, east, west and north. To have come this far without the public interest, whether through environmental groups or local organizations on the sea coasts or on the Great Lakes, being involved in developing that best system is simply not the kind of process we can accept for the future.
When the legislative committee held its first meeting after a week's absence from the House, the industry representatives were all lined up to appear as witnesses. At that point no environmental group had been contacted by the committee, its clerk or its chair. It was a mad scramble to try to hear at least some environmental perspective on this legislation.
We certainly should have been able to hear from at least the citizens' perspective on the east coast, the west coast, the Great Lakes and the Arctic. We simply were not able to do that because responsible organizations, volunteer organizations largely, do not have the budget to hire somebody to prepare a report for them overnight. Responsible organizations are not going to submit to a parliamentary committee something they consider inadequate.
Nonetheless we were able to make some changes that I think are positive in the legislation through a variety of amendments. We were able to strengthen the advisory councils' role so that on an ongoing basis, a system is being put in place by which Bill C-121 will be subject to
public scrutiny. Those advisory councils will have the ability, not necessarily the mandate or the direction, but at least the ability, if they choose, to get their views through to government and Parliament.
What we have not dealt with, and my colleague from Ottawa South touched on it, is the great importance of people who live by our waterways for protecting them. It may be many hours, it may be a day or more, before a formal commercial relationship to respond to an oil spill can be put in place.
Certainly the committee learned, if we did not know already, about the crucial importance of people who live by our oceans, live on our Great Lakes and live along the St. Lawrence in responding to spills, people who spontaneously respond when they see a risk to their environment.
There is nothing in this or in any other legislation that guarantees them compensation for expenses they might incur and any kind of indemnity for damage they might do in the course of carrying out this volunteer operation. In fact there is no mechanism for involving volunteers in the effort to protect our environment. That is certainly a further step in the development of this legislation that is absolutely necessary.
There were a number of other concerns brought to our attention, for instance by cruise ship lines and other environmental groups, that we simply were not able to address.
Finally, I want to briefly discuss the Brander-Smith report and indicate a few other areas. Others have spoken about double hulling and double bottoming being perhaps the most important prevention measure we can take. There is no binding provision in this bill to assure Canadians that this will happen at any time in the future. There is certainly not the assurance recommended by the Brander-Smith report that it be accomplished within seven years.
My colleague from Ottawa South has also referred to the job generation potential if Canada were to speed up a schedule for double hulling and double bottoming in some severely economically disadvantaged regions of our country.
Let me point out another economic benefit of doing this. Increasingly countries that are able to provide environmentally sound services around the world are going to have a competitive advantage in the international marketplace.
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If we speeded up the double hulling and double bottoming of Canada's fleet we could have a significant competitive advantage in international shipping, and not too long from now.
Let me just refer to a couple of other measures that have yet to be addressed which came out of the Brander-Smith report. The abandoning of the $2 a tonne levy or, as my colleague from Skeena is fond of saying, a penny a pound on oil and oil products transported in Canadian waters, significantly reduces the flexibility of government to do what needs to be done, not on a short-term green plan basis but in the long term.
What is totally ignored in this bill is the issue of chemical spills and the response capability on chemical spills. We know this is a complex bill. We know it is tied in with international negotiations that are ongoing. My colleague from Ottawa South and I would both like to assure the House and the Canadian public that we know that this is unfinished business and that we have a commitment to continue overseeing what is going on in those international discussions and completing the business of protecting our waters.


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, we would be remiss if we were to intimate to the Canadian people that there were not consultations conducted all during the process leading up to this legislation.
There were witnesses who appeared before us that said there were 13 full detailed days, which included representatives from the environment department who in turn would then communicate back to their constituency. This is a transportation bill so why would they not be consulting with the shipping industry and the Coast Guard, which was taking the lead role for that?
Be it as it may, we know that through the last number of years there have been many situations in which upgrading the prevention of spillage is already taking place, and that is continuing.
This legislation is needed so that we can have the clout to bring the force of law in order to prosecute people
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who do pollute our shores or any of our environmental areas. There is a balance with this. Everyone would like to do it all immediately. Both the opposition parties would make us think that the government has unlimited resources to put into this. We have to be prudent as to how we go about it.
Is this bill perfect? No, nobody has ever said it is perfect. Can it be improved? Yes, I am certain it can be improved but at least it is a step in the right direction. It is something that we need. It will go on to aid us and be of benefit to us in future years.
Did any of our witnesses say that we should not pass this bill? Not one. Everyone said yes, please pass it. Some said that they wished there could be more in it. However every witness without exception, including the group that spoke on behalf of the environmentalists from British Columbia which is a very large organization, said to pass it. Brander-Smith, the author of the report the hon. members referred to, said that this is going in the right direction and that we should pass this legislation.
I would not want us not to put on the record today that the witnesses told us to please get on and pass this legislation before we take our summer recess.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, that is precisely why the Liberal Party is supporting this legislation. It is equally important when we pass a piece of legislation that we know it takes only one small step and we can see that it is only a first step. There is still a great deal more to be done. We must not delude ourselves, and I do not think that the hon. parliamentary secretary intends to do that.
We must not delude ourselves that by passing this one piece of legislation we are giving Canadians either the sufficient or necessary assurance of the safety of their waters from oil spills or an adequate and full response when spills do occur.
I want to come back to the issue of consultation because, as the Minister of the Environment keeps pointing out in the House, the whole function of bringing different people together who have an interest in issues like this one is fundamental to solving those problems in the future.

June 7, 1993
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Tbrning to prevention, we cannot parcel that out and say the Ministry of Transport does not have to deal with environmentalists, that it can siphon that off to the environment department. The Minister of the Environment has repeatedly said the Ministry of the Environment is not a watch-dog of other departments.
Consideration of the environment must be integrated into all departments. It must become a consideration in all policy development. People were informed but when it came to who sat down at the table at the Transport Institute in Cornwall to actually thrash out what should be in the bill, it was the industry. It was not an independent group that represented a broader public interest.
This is an evolutionary process, but we cannot on the one hand have the Minister of the Environment saying that every department has to look after the environmental concerns within its area of responsibility and on the other hand have the Minister of Transport saying we are passing it over to the Ministry of the Environment to look after the environmental consultations.
The whole concept of the national round table, le projet de la societe, is based on bringing all the parties together and integrating the environment into all our policy making.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.

Hon. Monique Landry (for the Minister for International Trade) moved: the second reading of, and concurrence in, the amendment made by the Senate to Bill C-118, an act to amend the Export Development Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, amendment read the second time and concurred in.

[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-89, an act to amend the Investment Canada Act, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: There are three motions on the Notice Paper at report stage of Bill C-89, an act to amend the Investment Canada Act.

Motion No. 1, standing in the name of the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie, will be debated and voted on separately.

Motion No. 2, standing in the name of the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast, is out of order as it goes beyond the scope of the bill as agreed to in principle at the second reading stage. I would refer the hon. member to Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 698(1). Accordingly Motion No. 2 will not be selected.

Motion No. 3, standing in the name of the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie, will be debated and voted on separately.

I shall now propose Motion No. 1 to the House.


Steve Butland: Motion No. 1.
That Bill C-89 be amended in Clause 2 by striking out line 21 at page 1 and substituting the following therefor:
"of, or with any other entity or person after consulting with the government of the province, and".
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring forth this amendment to Bill C-89.1 thought the government side was going to have some empathy for it and perhaps support it. However I am told that this did not happen. I understand that Investment Canada also expressed some
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concern about the precedent being set with the amendment.
Although perhaps the perception of the amendment could have been innocuous, I did not look at it that way. I was hoping the government would see it in a fashion that would not be terribly consequential to the bill. However the principle of the amendment should be supported without question by all members of the House.
The clause of the bill would allow Investment Canada in my reading of the wording to circumvent, if one wants to use that word, or go around the arms of government such as provincial governments which Investment Canada in the past had probably dealt with on a regular basis. It indicated at committee stage that it was prepared to continue to do this. It was just a matter of courtesy, one would think. If Investment Canada is going to deal with an entrepreneur somewhere out there with a prospective investment in Canada or a takeover of an industry or business in Canada, the provincial government should know about it at the very least.
The amendment was suggesting to formalize it, to put into the legislation that Investment Canada must do that. I did not think it was too much to ask. Apparently Investment Canada says that it is too much to ask, that we should not bother informing the provincial government about this action. I guess that goes right to the principle of the bill which gives us concern.
The concern is that people or arms of the government other than the government itself are making these kinds of decisions. Perhaps in perspective, in the global overview of this bill and a whole host of other bills like free trade and NAFTA, this pales in comparison. Nevertheless the fact that Investment Canada would not accede to supporting the amendment is bothersome at the least. It is irksome that it would not go for it and it disturbs me.
We would encourage the government because government members are probably quite accepting of the amendment. I would encourage the government to supersede, to show who is in charge. Is it the government or is it Investment Canada?
Maybe the wording of the amendment would allow it not to be terribly powerful or potent. Maybe it would not do very much other than to say to the premier and the
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minister of industry and trade in the provinces that it is about to do something and ask what they think. This era of supposed harmonious provincial-federal relations almost begs that we do so.
We encourage the government and the Official Opposition to support the amendment.


Mr. Peter L. McCreath (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, I will briefly respond to my hon. colleague. He has put this motion forward in good faith and with the best of intentions with respect to the suggestion that Investment Canada should not proceed in areas that are going to impact negatively on provinces and so on.
I would like to say to him that the word consultation means different things to different people. Perhaps it is the use of the word consultation or the requirement with respect to consultation. What is involved here is that the purpose of the amendment, not my hon. friend's amendment but the amendment to the Investment Canada Act, is to give the minister the power to enter into agreements with entities in the private sector primarily designed to share the monetary cost of an investment promotion project. We are talking about agreements that generally speaking would involve less than $100,000 and would have minimal, if any, impact on provincial government policies or programs.
On the other hand if we legislate a requirement for consultation and there was some difference of opinion as to what consultation involved or what the implications of it were, the result could be quite a significant delay in implementing it. I would point out to my hon. friend it is routine practice on the part of Investment Canada to consult in any event with its provincial counterparts on promotional activities, particularly if there is some suggestion that it may impact directly on a province.
The concern my hon. friend brings forward is a very legitimate one. In fact it is already accommodated in the manner by which Investment Canada carries out its affairs. There is some concern relative to the impact of the precedent involved, in writing the concept of consultation as to what it may or may not mean. Therefore it is the view of the government that the amendment, while

June 7, 1993
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perhaps meritorious in its intent, is in fact not necessary and therefore will not be supported by the government.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: On division.
Motion No. 1 negatived


Steve Butland: Motion No. 3
That Bill C-89 be amended by deleting Clause 3.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this amendment is a much more consequential one and impacts upon the legislation. It deals with the oil and gas sector.
For the benefit of those who may be watching and trying to comprehend exactly what we are up to, clause 3 would extend to U.S. investors and U.S. investors only in Canadian oil and gas enterprises. It would be the same review thresholds as apply to other sectors of the economy under the free trade agreement.
Is this free trade driven or is it legislation in isolation? We suspect that all along the Americans would be pushing and pressing for it and would have their way with us once again.
Under the free trade agreement some sectors of the Canadian economy have been opened to American investors in the sense that FTA permits higher thresholds for review of U.S. investments than for investments from other countries.
Other sectors however have been explicitly excluded from the favourable treatment under the free trade agreement. These sectors included oil, gas, uranium, financial institutions, transportation and culture.
However the bill will bring forward and remove that onerous restriction upon American investment. Clause 3 would remove the oil and gas sector from the exempted or reserved sector, an action that is consistent with the general thrust of the 1985 act, setting more liberal standards for an investment and setting more liberal
standards certainly for American investment without any sense of review.
We believe it is already suggested in the free trade agreement that we must guarantee the Americans access in times of energy shortage in Canada to the supply they are already receiving. This is a further aggravation of the free trade agreement. That is why we have suggested that this clause be completely deleted to ensure that oil and gas is protected like whatever little else is protected under our trade laws with the United States.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I will just respond very briefly to my hon. friend by reminding the House that this amendment is of course the completion of the policy that was announced by the energy minister some months ago.
By increasing the threshold we in fact increase the access of opportunity for Canadian companies. It is interesting to note that the investments made by Canadian companies and the Canadian share of ownership of the oil and gas sector have in fact increased since that policy change was announced because of course it makes Canadian companies more attractive for investment purposes.
The issues raised by my hon. friend were discussed very thoroughly in committee and I think the points were adequately made there. It would seem that if the government were to agree to this amendment then it would have been pointless to bring forward the bill in the first place. This amendment would in effect nullify the bill.
We obviously feel that the bill would be beneficial to the industry. I think this has been demonstrated by the investment impact of the announcements.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on Motion No. 3. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.
Motion No. 3 negatived.
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Thomas Hockin: that the bill be concurred in.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: When shall the bill be read a third time?


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions and I think you will find there is consent to proceed directly to third reading.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is there unanimous consent to proceed to the third reading?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Thomas Hockin: that the bill be read the third time and passed.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I apologize that the title is so long. The three proposed amendments to the Investment Canada Act under Bill C-89 are intended to facilitate the attraction of more international business investment to Canada. The amendments will help Canadian companies attract the capital and technology they need to grow and compete in an evolving global marketplace.
Globally the role and importance of international investments have resulted in fierce international competition for capital and other benefits which come with investment, technology, management skills, market access and jobs.
The Investment Canada Act recognizes that Canadian prosperity was dependent not only on welcoming international investment but also in establishing a business and investment climate in Canada that would encourage increased levels of investment by Canadians and non-Canadians.
As the minister has stated, the creation of such a business and investment climate has made Canada a more attractive site for domestic and international in-
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vestment. A major reform of the tax system and substantial deregulation of the transportation, telecommunications, energy and financial services sectors has helped to open the Canadian economy to international competition and investment. Bill C-89 represents a further step on the track to attract, facilitate and increase international business investment in Canada.
The first amendment will extend to investors in the oil and gas sectors the same review thresholds that apply to other sectors of the economy under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. For U.S. investors this will raise the thresholds above which an acquisition becomes subject in the act to $152 million for direct acquisitions. There is no review for indirect acquisitions.
For all other international investors thresholds for review will remain at $5 million for direct acquisitions and $50 million for indirect acquisitions.
Canadian owners of oil and gas properties will be able to sell their properties to any investor for the best return and rationalize their holdings. Similarly international owners may now make acquisitions which have a strategic fit with their existing holdings. The over-all result will be an enhancement of the value of the resource base for all investors and a stronger Canadian exploration and producing industry.
The second proposed amendment will enable Investment Canada to enter into agreements with Canadian companies or business associations to share the costs of programs and initiatives designed to attract international capital and technology to Canadian companies. Such international investments and investment partners are critical to the ability of Canadian companies to compete, grow and provide jobs for Canadians.
Since 1989 the agency as part of the federal government's investment development program has worked with many Canadian companies to assist them in finding them international investment partners. During that time Investment Canada has facilitated deals between Canadian companies and international investors as part of the federal government's investment development program. An increasing number of Canadian companies and business associations are now prepared to share the cost of seeking international investment and finding investment partners.

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The third amendment relates to the cultural sector. The support of a strong cultural sector is a priority of the government. The amendment will give the minister new powers to determine whether or not a business entity in the cultural sector is Canadian controlled.
The retroactive provisions are designed to discourage an investor from quickly completing an investment which could not withstand the scrutiny of the minister using new powers as of June 19, 1992. Investment Canada is active in promoting Canada as an attractive investment destination. The main thrust of the amendments to the Investment Canada Act is to increase the attractiveness of Canada's investment environment and to facilitate cost sharing between the private sector and governments in seeking investment initiatives.
Clearly this legislation is in the interests of Canada and the economic development opportunities for all Canadians. I encourage all members of the House to give it their support.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment briefly on this bill, and I believe the hon. member from Montreal will also speak to it.

I think it was indicated earlier that an amendment of mine would have said that investors from the Asian Pacific region and from places other than the United States should have the same right to invest in the oil and gas sector in Canada as do the Americans under this bill.
It seemed to me and I think to members of the committee that it was not very sensible to say one group of investors, albeit important ones living to the south of us, can invest in the Canadian oil and gas industry but someone from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia or any other place among the two billion people who live on the Pacific Rim would not have the same right.
Therefore my amendment would have simply said that everybody would be treated the same. It seems to me that is a pretty reasonable thing today when everybody from Kiev to virtually any comer of the earth now is looking for foreign investment and investors to invest in their economies to make them more efficient and so on.
We would be treating non-Americans the same as we treat Americans under this bill. Perhaps it was you, Mr. Speaker, who made the ruling that the amendment was out of order and went beyond the terms of the bill. I must defer to that ruling. The Canadian economy is being opened up almost weekly. Although, as my colleague will say, the cultural industries are in fact being tightened up with respect to foreign ownership. I believe she will have comments on that issue. The rest of Canadian industry is being opened up to foreign investors and that is not always, but mostly, to our neighbours from the south.
A brewery in the United Stated is buying 20 per cent of Molson Breweries. AT&T is acquiring 20 per cent of Canada's new long distance phone company Unitel. American Airlines is seeking 33 per cent of Canadian Airlines International. The three American companies Mobil, Chevron and Murphy will end up owning approximately two-thirds of the Hibernia oil field as I am sure one is aware.
There have already been substantial foreign investments in Canada's energy sector. Consider Alberta's oil sands. I wonder if anyone knows that this constitutes a veritable Saudi Arabia in Canada's own backyard in terms of its oil reserves potential. Increasingly, Americans and more recently people from Japan and China have invested in our oil sands.
Mitsubishi Oil America now has 5 per cent of Syncrude which is one of the great Canadian success stories in terms of turning an enormous resource into jobs, income, profits, income taxes and so on.
JAPEX has invested $6.5 million in the Alberta oil sands technology of horizontal drilling.
Last year a Chinese oil company, the China National Petroleum Corporation became the first foreign investor in the oil sands research facility at Fort McMurray, Alberta. The Chinese will invest $6.5 million over the next two years in AOSTRA.
In April of this year the acquisition of control of Westcoast Petroleum by a group of Hong Kong based companies was approved. Those investors intend to support WPL's business plan which calls for an increase
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in capital spending in Canada from $53 million in 1992 to $96 million in 1997. That represents a lot of new jobs and a lot of opportunities for young people coming out of our universities and people with trades and people with a desire to work in the oil sector in western Canada. They will also seek to introduce WPL to oil and gas exploration and development opportunities in China and other countries in the Far East. This hopefully will not include Burma until the democratic government takes over there.
There is also the question of Numac Oil & Gas Ltd. which is based in Edmonton and the fact that that company will indirectly fall under ownership by people who live primarily in Hong Kong. Then of course there is the famous 1991 case of the Hong Kong financier, Li Ka-shing, who spent $250 million to complete his Husky Oil takeover.
In many countries around the world foreign investment laws have been liberalized to reduce or eliminate restrictions on foreign ownership and to place foreign investment under more equal footing with local investors. Governments have also introduced legislation aimed at reducing taxes on foreign remittances or on foreigners reinvesting profits in the local economy.
One might be interested in knowing that the Japanese share of foreign direct investment in the U.S. has climbed from 6.2 per cent in 1980 to 16.2 per cent in 1989.
Where does all of this leave us? I know that there are many people who do not want to see further takeovers of Canadian industry by non-Canadians. There is 11.4 per cent unemployment. Some 40,000 to 50,000 people in my own city are now officially unemployed. Employment is largely a function of investments and the more investment we can get in Canada-this is in my view and I am speaking only for myself-from any place in the world, then the more jobs that will be created in this country. Indeed, the next government, which I hope will be a Liberal government, will have to work very hard at setting a better business environment than this government in office now has done. I guess I would cite as example number one the last budget. It is probably one of the worst received budgets in Canadian history in the view of both Canadians and the foreign investor community alike.


Thomas Hockin: No increase in taxes.
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David Kilgour: All my Ph.D. friend can whisper across the floor is: "No increase in taxes". There is something that he does not want me to say but I think I should say it in the interest of fairness. This government, as everybody in this House knows, has either added or created approximately 38 taxes since it took office in 1984. The average family in Canada is now paying approximately $2,000 more in taxes since the Conservatives took over. That is one of the many reasons why, along with their profligacy, the helicopters being one of the first examples which comes to mind, they will be voted out of office no matter who they elect as the new leader.


John Paul Manley: Besides there were tax increases in the budget.


Thomas Hockin: Name one.


John Paul Manley: The GST reduction in rebate to the poor is an increase in the fiscal year.


David Kilgour: Since we are talking about the GST, I have the most recent figures showing that abominable tax took in $29.6 billion in gross revenues last year. After reimbursements, tax rebates and administration costs were taken out it netted approximately $14.5 billion or less than 50 per cent on every $1 it took in. That should be in The Guinness Book of Records for the tax that took the most and netted the least of any government perhaps on the face of the earth. It is one of the reasons why we are proud to say that we will repeal that tax and ask Canadians how we can best replace the missing revenue.
I guess I am getting a little off subject, although I am not surprised that the minister who I think is retiring wants to-


Thomas Hockin: No.


David Kilgour: Oh, excuse me. He is the only one today who is not retiring.


John Paul Manley: At least not voluntarily.


David Kilgour: At least not voluntarily. I think his voters will have something to say about that.
In conclusion, as an Albertan and the energy critic for my party I welcome the move in this direction. I just wonder why it has taken this government until its dying

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days literally and the dying days of this Parliament to recognize that the world has changed and people in virtually every country on the face of the earth will now do virtually anything to attract foreign investment except, as I think the member for Mount Royal is going to say, in the area of cultural industries.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I intend to only address those sections of the bill that deal with the direct and indirect take over of the book publishing companies.
This Investment Canada bill addresses a very sensitive and important area of Canada's cultural life. It is an area where our writers are able to express a point of view and indicate from their own Canadian perspective matters that can have intellectual interest and importance. It leads to such writers as Michael Ondaatje winning the Booker Prize and Antonine Maillet winning the Gon-court Prize. We have all kinds of Canadian prize winners. We need to be able to build up from the base and strengthen the cultural potential which is found not only in book publishing but in all the other aspects of cultural expression such as film, video, dance, theatre, et cetera.
This particular bill directs itself to changes which the government is implementing in its new book publishing policy as announced by the Minister of Communications in January 1992. This new policy from the perspective of the Official Opposition establishes foreign investment rules with the potential to undermine the structures of the Canadian book publishing industry.
In an attempt to sell the deal to the Canadian industry, the government announced with a great deal of fanfare a $20 million subsidy to Canadian controlled publishers in an attempt to literally sugar-coat the bitter ownership policy and camouflage the real issue of what was taking place.
In presenting these new initiatives, the communications minister claims he was in the midst of strengthening the foreign investment rules and the new funding represents a substantial increase in federal money. That is really stretching it to say it mildly. If the impact of the postal subsidies alone was taken into account we would not really be addressing the question of this new $20 million fund which the minister was so pleased to announce.
It took the Association of Canadian Publishers a short while before it recognized this was no present. It was wrapped in very pretty packaging but when it was looked at and analyzed it realized that it really was not a very good idea. It passed a resolution at its meeting expressing great concern about the government's retreat from policies aimed at achieving Canadian ownership and control of the book publishing industry in Canada. It also expressed time and again its very firm opposition to any policy that would permit foreign takeover of Canadian-owned firms in book publishing and distribution.
Tb understand the new investment regime it is really necessary to know what it is replacing. I will give a little historic background. In May 1985 the minister at that time, the hon. member for Frontenac, established with the government's approval what was known as the Baie Comeau policy and we all know what a beautiful part of the world Baie Comeau is. He was in a position to table a very enlightened approach to book publishing which would have addressed much of the buy around problems and the sale of Canadian book sellers. The rules that he established at that time were to apply equally to all new investments as well as existing book publishers of Canadian origin in this country.
In a nutshell, if any existing owner decided to sell controlling interest it had to be sold to a Canadian. It was not a case of writing it off and telling it to divest. When the moment came if it was interested in selling to either a Canadian company or a company owned by foreign multinationals it had to be put up for sale to an indigenous Canadian company. If the takeover of a publishing company in Canada was either direct or indirect the end result was for it to end up in Canadian hands.
That was a very enlightened policy. The minister is to be congratulated for developing a policy to enable this industry to grow and flourish as Canadian cultural products and industry are growing in this land. In 1985 the government believed these changes were necessary and the key to strengthening Canadian industrial strategies and structures for the future.
Currently three out of four books sold in Canada are foreign. For this industry that really amounts to over $750 million leaving Canada each year as the book sales are in excess of $1 billion. Our markets are dominated by major multinational foreign companies. The Baie Comeau policy was to address that problem just as the foreign ownership limits on broadcasting were instrumental in repatriating the broadcasting industry in Canada in the late 1960s and built up the cable industry. We have very
June 7, 1993

successful and important entrepreneurial undertakings in this country. This was like the next step not in the broadcasting field but now in the book publishing field.
What were the results of Baie Comeau? Initially it was very exciting. It was very positive. There was significant progress made toward the objectives that were stated. The major retail chain, W.H. Smith, became Canadian controlled. An important book wholesaler, John Coutts Ltd., returned to Canadian ownership. The Doubleday Book Clubs were brought under Canadian control with a resulting fivefold increase in sales of Canadian authored books.
For the first time Canadian controlled publishers handled an increasing share of the distribution of imported books which amounted to about 70 per cent of the book sales in Canada.
The government should have been so proud of the minister's memorandum of understanding initiatives. They were productive and effective and it looked like we were heading toward a very exciting new future for book publishing in this country.
Despite assurances to the contrary, the government proved unwilling to implement the Baie Comeau policy after signing the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Is that not amazing? The free trade agreement just happened to interfere with the end goal sought by the United States. Who remembers the famous scorched earth letters that came from Ambassador Gotlieb when Prentice-Hall and Time Warner threatened us here in Canada with all kinds of sanctions? It was really quite a disgraceful display. Not only was the film distribution bill buried which would have allowed for the growth and development of our films, distribution and marketing program and projects, but again it impacted on our own publishing industry.
Legislative amendments that were needed to give the Baie Comeau policy teeth and require approval before rather than after investments were completed and require that real control rests with Canadians were never made. Although the minister was creative, he was never able to convince his colleagues. He did not get it through
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cabinet which is just too bad and free trade won out once again.
It would have been marvellous if there was freer trade and a fair playing field. We could have had some sense that there was a part for all of us on the North American continent to have the kind of trade that would be good for everybody, for all the people who live in this wonderful land. That was too much to hope for from this government.
Canadians who actively tried to buy a company called Ginn Canada found out that real control was not for sale. I say real not in guillemets but in reality. Canadians could have equity control but not in decision-making or on the board. Any veto power remained in American or foreigners' hands.
What kind of business man would knowingly invest most of his money in an equity position in a company or business and then not have control over decisions about how to make the company work? Who would invest in such a decision-making process? Not very many enlightened people who have big money to invest would undertake such an activity when they would not be able to have real control over the company in the end. It would not be smart business at all. Needless to say Ginn Company remained in foreign hands.
The new and supposedly improved ownership policy now of this Minister of Communications will permit foreign takeovers of most companies. The exception is foreign acquisitions of businesses owned by Canadians. Now, that really makes sense does it not? These will not be allowed unless the business is in "clear financial distress". The irony here is that foreigners can sell healthy companies but Canadians can only sell sick ones. Tell me that makes sense. That is sick.
The government says its goal is still to strengthen Canadian ownership and control foreign investors. While generally allowed to buy control, foreign investors will be asked for commitments likely to benefit the Canadian controlled sector. They have not demonstrated much will to do that to date. I want to know what the incentive measure is that is going to make them do it now.

June 7, 1993
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The $20 million a year in additional direct funding which the government said it provided as an incentive for Canadian control is far from that. Investment Canada, in this new environment, is only going to approve foreign takeovers of Canadian businesses if they are of net benefit to Canada and the Canadian control sector of the industry. The first big test took place on November 27, 1992 when Investment Canada approved the foreign takeover of HarperCollins by Rupert Murdoch's News International. Canadian publishers have been vigilantly watching this takeover. It is not the Liberal Party, not this side of the House, but the industry itself which disputes whether or not there is net benefit to the Canadian sector.
For example, recently Canada book publisher Avie Bennett argued with Investment Canada's statement that HarperCollins publishing had produced 111 new Canadian titles from June 1991 to June 1992. This was their claim, that they had improved and increased the Canadian market for Canadian publishers and Canadian writers. Bennett claims that in his search of the National Library catalogues it showed far fewer titles even if he included pamphlets and reprints in the survey. Something was a little bit wrong with how we did the counting.
Stan Cover, president and chief executive officer of HarperCollins Canada, says that in fact HarperCollins had published 20 more titles than Investment Canada's stated 111 titles. There is the dilemma. Who was right and who was wrong? Does it really matter as long as we just do not control our own companies? I am not sure it does, but my understanding is that the centre of the dispute here lies in the question of what is a title.
For example, does it include pamphlets and reprints of books originally published by others or is the printing of a book first as a hard cover, then second as a trade paper quality, two different titles or is that one title? These are the kinds of questions that Investment Canada needs to address before further acquisitions are allowed.
I had hoped that when this went to legislative committee this would be looked at. It is unfortunate that it was not.
Presently Canadians await Investment Canada's decision as to whether the foreign takeovers of Canadian subsidiaries Collier-Macmillan and Grolier will be allowed. These have been before Investment Canada for over two years without a decision. There we had HarperCollins, Grolier, Collier-Macmillan, Ginn, a whole series of these things.
Hearken back to what I said at the beginning, that at the very outset it looked like a very positive move forward and the industry was growing. Now we see the sad result of no positive action, no forward vision by this government in respect to the cultural industries.
The interest of the Canadian book publishing industry would be well served and still could be well served if Investment Canada within its undertakings and perhaps through regulations will at least require Investment Canada's approval prior to the takeover as opposed to after, which is presently the case. I would point out that this would be similar to the procedure with the sale or takeover of television or radio companies with the CRTC and telephone companies for that matter like B.C. Tel. I really think that has to be looked at very carefully.
The Minister of Communications has acknowledged the importance of strengthening the domestic book publishing industry and I support that statement. I wish he would put it into action rather than just language. He has invited the publishers to hold his feet to the coals to make sure he follows through on that commitment. We know this Minister of Communications likes to please everybody. The problem is we have not had any legislation that seems to please the forward movement and the growth and development of these cultural industries.
Unfortunately it is not the Minister of Communications who will be making the decisions. Maybe I am being unfair to the Minister of Communications because I do not know that he has much strength in there. It is not he who will make decisions on new foreign investments. It is the Minister for International Trade whose feet the American publishing industry has already very successfully scorched in a much hotter fire. What Canada's cultural industries need is strong action by this Conservative government, not just the fluff and the language of prepackaging. It is very good at that kind of marketing and sales. The only thing is that when you open that package it is empty.
June 7, 1993

What Canadian culture needs is a government that is committed to its growth and development, a government committed to understand that a country that does not have an identity is not a country of any value. It must recognize that only those countries that have promoted the arts and cultural industries and architecture and things of that nature have remained and left a mark in the evolution of world society.
Look at what this government has done to the Canada Council, forcing it into a remarriage that it does not want, cutting it and starving it. Look at what it has done to the CBC, Radio Canada International, Telefilm, the National Film Board, to all those agencies and organizations which are key and vital to the public lending rights which also is related to books and publishing and Canadian presence and Canadian return.
There is no commitment by this government to this whole sector. How foolish it is because it could be an enormous growing sector of the economy and bring billions of dollars into the gross national product of Canada.
With that I would like to say that this sector of the bill certainly does not speak in the interests of the book publishing industry and it is a regrettable fact but perhaps the government might tinker with it and fix it up under regulations.


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to deal with the contents of the bill after having proposed a couple of amendments, one of which I thought would be acceptable. It was not.
The bill is kind of ironic because on one hand it is suggesting that we open the doors for investment, particularly American investment. On the other hand through the cultural components of the bill, it will be as good or as bad as the next minister will be. If he or she chooses to use the anti-avoidance clause of this bill, it could have some teeth.
On one hand we laud that aspect of it but again it will very much depend on the desire and whim of the next minister. If that minister chooses to be Canadian culturally oriented it may in fact be a positive.
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On one hand we are saying we must protect and if one were suspicious one would say on the other hand the bill says we should open the doors, Americans come on in. There will be no review of investment whatsoever.
This is dealing particularly and specifically with oil and gas but I think we would be loath not to bring in the whole mandate of Investment Canada. There have been
10,000	cases come forward for review by Investment Canada. The number that has been turned down is absolutely zero. Not one of those 10,000 was turned down.
Immediately one has to be suspicious. Canadians are probably not aware of this. I am sure when they hear the number zero for 10,000 they will immediately become concerned. They will say foreign investment is required. American investment is required but at the same time a complete open-door policy is not acceptable to us.
On the one hand we are saying let us open the doors for American investment. On the other hand we sign a free trade agreement which does just the opposite. In fact Canadian investment in the United States is outdoing American investment in Canada.
What is the reason for that? Free trade has encouraged Canadian investment in the United States and discouraged American and other investment in Canada.
I read an article just yesterday on North Carolina. They are doing a booming business there since free trade because it is called a right to work state, which means there is no minimum wage. There were tragedies beyond telling in North Carolina where these people work in factories, resembling the Maquiladora in Mexico, with absolutely no health and safety standards. In fact just two weeks ago we read about people trying to escape from a poultry factory and could not get out when there was a fire because the doors were chained.
There is no such thing as a workmen's compensation board. If in North Carolina your body breaks down because of the work load, so what? You are on your own. You are on the scrap heap. There are human tragedy stories that are in Canadian newspapers, Canadian publications, for all of us to see.
On the one hand we are saying: "Americans, come on in". But on the other hand it is really a discouragement. Why invest in Canada? This Investment Canada mandate says no reviews are necessary, absolutely none. There used to be a threshold of five. It had gone up to, I

June 7, 1993
Government Orders
do not know, around 152 million and now there is no threshold at all. That must give all of us concern.
The debate comes up from time to time as to how much foreign ownership is acceptable. We do not wish to discourage foreign ownership but without any review in place it is not acceptable. I think Canadians reject that.
As for unresolved investment issues, I used this at second reading but I think it is worthy of repeating. This comes from a supporter of the government, an economist who supports government policy: "Canadian negotiators were not as successful in other areas of negotiation with the United States. For one thing, Americans continue to refuse to abdicate their rights to apply extraterritorially to American subsidiaries operating in Canada". In other words the U.S. government reserves the right to apply American laws to subsidiaries of American companies operating in Canada. It does not need to have any due regard for Canadian law even though they are operating in Canada. This plays right hand in hand, arm in arm with trade policy.
All the trade harassment that is going on is based solely on American trade law and whether the Americans are applying trade law correctly or not. It is very easy to apply and it is very easy to get through their Department of Commerce, very easy. Their rules are there to protect industry. Our rules are here to uphold the law. We are great law-abiding citizens and we have put down Canadian law to be fair to everybody. We want to be fair to everybody, but in particular we want to be fair to the United States and to Americana investors.
We say that this legislation cannot be dealt with in isolation. It is part of a much larger package that has taken away from the Canadian government the ability not to restrict but the ability to have any say. It has taken away its jurisdiction over investment in Canada. All of these bills continually circumvent the Canadian identity, the Canadian sovereignty.
Not being against investment, we have grave concerns about the bill in isolation because it is a part of a much larger package. That is why we are opposed.
As I said earlier, it is ironic. There is the temptation to applaud the cultural components of the bill. We believe there is an anti-avoidance clause and we hope that that will be implemented, but once again that will be as good or as bad as the next minister would want it to be.
For that reason we will be opposing the bill.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
Mr. James:: Mr. Speaker, it would probably be agreeable to all parties if we moved to proceedings on the adjournment motion once the appropriate members are here.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Is there unanimous consent of the House?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


SITTING SUSPENDED
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Under the circumstances, I believe it would be advisable to suspend the proceedings to the call of the Chair, but not later than 6 p.m., when we will have the proceedings on the adjournment motion.
At 5.26 p.m., the sitting of the House was suspended.


SITTING RESUMED The House resumed at 5.31 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, in the House on May 13, 1993 I asked the Minister of National Defence if he could tell us why the maintenance work on the Challenger military and executive aircraft was being done in Hartford, Connecticut, and why the government was ignoring our own Canadian skilled workers and letting these jobs go to the United States.
I should point out that the first aircraft arrived in Hartford for maintenance about mid-April 1993, well ahead of when I asked my question.
The minister admitted that the maintenance would be done in Hartford until a new contract was in place, which would be a matter of weeks. Now, almost four weeks later, we are aware this servicing in Hartford may go on until 1994, in fact well into 1994. Consequently the information given in the minister's answer is not correct.
I have in my possession copies of Business Opportunities of November 1992, May 7, 1993 and May 17, 1993. The request for proposals indicated that work would begin April 1, 1993 and end March 31, 1996, with an option for a further two-year period ending on March 31, 1998.
The closing date was amended as of the May 7, 1993 publication and again on May 17, 1993. Business Opportunities revealed that the closing date was amended yet again. In the meantime this work involving several thousand man-hours will take place in Hartford, Connecticut.
Let me refer to the issues. Why are Canadian military aircraft being serviced in the United States when our own skilled persons are facing lay-offs and our facilities are being underutilized? Second, why are we creating American jobs? The U.S. does not permit its aircraft to be serviced in other countries. Third, what are we paying in terms of an hourly rate to have this work done in the
Adjournment Debate
United States? Has the government looked at what it could be done for in Canada?
In light of the fact the Challenger jet was developed and built in Canada, I simply cannot believe we cannot get the maintenance work done in Canada at a cheaper rate than is currently being paid in the United States which would result in savings to our taxpayers. In fact I know this is the case.
Is this a repeat of the Conservative government decision of the late 1950s that resulted in the scrapping of the Avro Arrow and the world's first commercial jet passenger plane? This decision destroyed Canada's role as a leader in aircraft technology. Even today the Avro Arrow would still be a world leader in technology and design.
I would appreciate answers to these questions.


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to respond to the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex on this subject and to be able to clarify the situation if I can for him. Maybe the hon. member is not aware of some of the facts in this regard.
The Minister of Supply and Services, as the hon. member knows, responded to him on May 13, 1993. He put forward some of the facts. Canadair-Bombardier Inc., as is known, has been performing the repair and overhaul on the DND Challenger aircraft for the past five years at the Montreal service centre.
Bombardier advised the Government of Canada that for business reasons it was no longer interested in performing these services at the service centre in Montreal. Bombardier further advised that the service centre would be shut down but that the maintenance work would be performed at its service centre in Hartford, Connecticut.
As a result the Government of Canada has gone out to the Canadian aerospace industry to complete the work and for a Canadian location for the next five years, someone to do it for the next five years. The bid closing date is August 25, 1993.
To allow time for the competitive process it was necessary to extend the contract with Bombardier for a six-month period ending September 30, 1993. During

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this interim period, because the Montreal service centre has been closed, Bombardier will maintain the service at the Hartford service centre.
The hon. member indicates that the cost of maintaining the Challenger aircraft at Hartford is higher than the cost of maintaining them in Montreal. This is not the fact. Bombardier has not increased the maintenance fees. They remain the same as they were when the work was being carried out in Montreal.
I am also pleased to report to the hon. member that there has been no loss of employment in Canada as a result of the Montreal service centre closure. All workers have been moved to other jobs within Bombardier.
The government believes in the competitive process. It is working to that end in having a new contract by the end of August.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, on May 111 put a question to the Minister of National Defence pertaining to the policy of the Department of National Defence as it relates to peacekeeping duties.
This policy, namely section 3, has been used in the past to deny Canadian Jews, Muslims and women the chance to represent their country in peacekeeping activities in the Middle East. The question that I posed to the minister at that time was: Why did the minister prevent Jews, Muslims and women from serving Canada in the Middle East but permit a known white supremacist to serve in Somalia?
The response received from the Minister of National of Defence was totally inadequate, totally barren of any sensitivity to the issue whatsoever.
In point of fact my colleague from Windsor West prevailed in the House two days later and asked questions of the Government of Canada again. I just want to quote my colleague who said:
The high reputation of our Canadian Armed Forces is based in large part on its proud record of battle in the Second World War when it fought against those who bore the swastika flag and the acts of inhumanity and injustice associated with it.
Yesterday the minister was quoted as suggesting that a currently serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces who erected a
swastika flag in a Canadian military barracks and then stood under it
giving the Hitler salute and wearing a Nazi T-shirt was just engaging
in a "boyish prank".
Any reasonable Canadian would conclude that kind of conduct is unbecoming of individuals associated with the Canadian Armed Forces, in particular with the peacekeeping movement of which Canada and Canadians have been proud for many years. In fact, Mr. Speaker, your predecessor who held office in this great Chamber was one of the ones who was very much instrumental in the whole concept of peacekeepers.
To add insult to injury, the government had the audacity to say that it did not approve of white supremacists in the Canadian Armed Forces. The individual in question to whom reference has been made was subsequently promoted and thereafter sent to a country which was primarily a country of black individuals.
I can understand mistakes being made, but this is incompetence at the highest level by the Minister of National Defence. I am not going to accept from the parliamentary secretary, who will be answering on the minister's behalf, that somehow we have misconstrued the facts or misinterpreted the facts.
The facts are very clear. This Minister of National Defence wishes to put the blame on other members of her department, namely senior individuals within the Department of National Defence, in trying to by-pass her responsibility as minister in charge.
It is very reminiscent of an earlier occasion when the minister of constitutional affairs, who was then the minister of external affairs, tried to abdicate his responsibility with regard to ministerial responsibility.
I want the parliamentary secretary to indicate to the House today the reasons this individual was allowed to remain in the Canadian Armed Forces, promoted, and thereafter sent to Somalia in order to serve. This has caused embarrassment for Canadians. It has brought attention to the Canadian peacekeepers that is not in keeping with their good reputation and well deserved honours. I want the parliamentary secretary on behalf of the Minister of National Defence to apologize to Parliament and Canadians for this gross act of negligence on the part of the Government of Canada.
June 7, 1993


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond. I would like to remind the hon. member that racist behaviour is not and will not be tolerated in the Canadian forces. The Canadian forces has a zero tolerance policy against all forms of personal harassment.
The Minister of National Defence has clearly stated that racism and racist attitudes are completely and absolutely unacceptable in the Canadian forces. If a person applying to the Canadian forces demonstrates such an attitude of extreme intolerance to others then the applicant will be rejected as he or she would be unable to fit into the team concept essential to an effective military force.
The Minister of National Defence is reviewing the Canadian forces recruitment policies to ensure that the explicit and stated policy of the Canadian forces that racist attitudes are absolutely unacceptable is in fact carried out in all activities of the Canadian forces.
The minister is further reviewing Canadian forces recruitment policies to ensure that applicants are deliberately asked about membership in racist organizations. Certain instances, as the hon. member has noted, have raised broad concerns over the suitability of the Canadian forces stationed in Somalia.
Mindful of her responsibility, the Minister of National Defence sought advice on how best to address the variety of concerns raised and directed the chief of defence staff to convene a board of inquiry.
The Minister of National Defence provided leadership, amending military regulations in order to ensure that civilians will sit on the board and undertaking an effective and timely investigation. The Minister of National Defence instituted this board to investigate the leadership, discipline, operations, actions and procedures of the Canadian Airborne Regiment Battle Group.
The terms of reference of the board of inquiry include the examination of the selection and screening process of the personnel on such missions. In addition the board will investigate the extent, if any, to which cultural differences, including racism, affected the conduct of the operations.
I would like to remind the hon. member that the Minister of National Defence has deep concerns over the subject he has raised. I thank him for raising it.
Adjournment Debate STUDENT AID


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, it was on March 15 that I raised a question with respect to student aid programs.
Basically what I was saying is that this government has promised year after year that it would bring forth a student aid program that would genuinely, legitimately and with common sense respond to the needs of Canadians who want to upgrade, who want to go to college or university and get an education so that they can contribute to increase productivity in this nation and ensure that their potential is realized.
Year after year, and by three or four ministers, the promise continues to be made. On that particular day I pointed out to the government that all it has done is tinker with the program. However, in tinkering with the program it has hurt students.
What has it done? It has added a 3 per cent tax on student loans, on students who need to borrow and are therefore the poorest of the poor. While at one time students had a reprieve of six months now they have to pay six months more interest.
What else has it done? Now it would appear that it has decided to go to banks so that banks will loan students money. That in itself may be reasonable but we do not have the details. What will be the criteria governing the banks' decisions to grant or not grant a loan? Will the students be involved in drafting those criteria, in determining what they might be? There was no response, nothing, absolutely nothing.
This government has promised to bring forward a student aid program year after year. It is now three or four ministers later, we are near the end of a session and going into an election and yet there is nothing but penalties to the students. There is 3 per cent tax on student loans, six months more interest and some arrangement with the banks that we will know nothing about.
In my riding one of the issues that consistently comes up is the difficulties the students are having. Students are often harassed because they have not been able to pay their loans and yet there are no jobs or very poorly remunerated short-term jobs.
I remember one incident in which a young woman could not complete her education for a very good reason and had to get social assistance, and the government cut her off from getting further loans. I was able to intervene and with some good common sense the minister came

Adjournment Debate
forward with the loan. That young woman has now graduated with a degree and she can now start repaying that loan and contribute significantly to society and to her family.
It is really unfortunate because the government has been doing things with the student aid program that go contrary to its basic concepts of increasing productivity and efficiency.

I think it is most unfortunate. I hope the government will finally come up with a plan that will meet the needs of students across Canada.


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the questions raised by the hon. member for St. Boniface which he first raised in this House on March 15.
The government is committed to reforming the Canada Student Loans Program with the aim of improving assistance for needy students while at the same time ensuring value for money for our taxpayers. The key to this reform will be the new financing arrangements for the program based on lender risk sharing. The central objective of the program, to provide financial assistance to needy students for the pursuit of post-secondary studies, will not only continue in the new arrangements but will be strengthened.
The hon. member has suggested that the new financing structure is a first step to privatization. This ignores the fact that the government has always used private sector capital to finance student loans. The new financing structure will provide for reasonable costs for borrowers in repayment and reduce the cost to taxpayers of the existing program.
I should remind the hon. member that under the current program the federal government guarantees 100 per cent of each loan. In the event of a default lenders have little incentive to apply the same level of diligence in servicing and collecting the student loans as they do with their own loans. This is inconsistent with other federal loan guarantee programs.
During a meeting of the National Advisory Group on Student Financial Assistance on June 2, 1993 the Secretary of State confirmed that under the new arrangements lenders will continue to make loans to all eligible students, except in the case of credit abuse. Lenders will be required by the terms of the contract to make loans available to needy students, the majority of whom have no credit history, security or co-signatory.
The introduction of lender risk-sharing in the new arrangements is expected to lower the over-all costs of the program and provide scope for the government to increase the assistance to individual students who may not be able to be served now. I thank the hon. member for raising this question.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, on March 18 I raised a question with the Prime Minister about the implications of federal offloading on to the province of Saskatchewan, that is the reduction in transfers to the province of Saskatchewan and the impact on that province's debt picture.
Off-loading is the deliberate effort by this federal government to reduce its own costs by passing on the costs of programming to provincial governments. It occurs in a number of different forms, reducing or eliminating federal transfers, such as the ceiling on equalization payments, limiting the growth rate of federal contributions to levels below the growth in the cost of providing those services. For example, there is the freeze on established programs funding transfers for health and post-secondary education, the young offenders agreement, manpower and labour force training. It is also imposing new conditions on federal programs which impact on provincial program costs, for example unemployment insurance changes, or the withdrawal from the provision of services for which a need exists and the public expectation of continuance is being created, for example programs for aboriginal people and agricultural support payments.
The implications ever since the mid-1970s, first under the Liberals and then under the Conservatives, have been dramatic for the province of Saskatchewan. The total off-loading in 1992-1993 of $538 million is a little more than the deficit of the province of Saskatchewan. The recent economic statements of the Minister of

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June 7, 1993

Finance and particularly the one in December 1992 will add millions of dollars more to this cost.
The province has a number of very difficult choices to make in consequence. It could reduce the programs and services for which Ottawa has reduced its contributions, or raise provincial taxes to make up for those reductions, or allow the provincial deficit to rise, or some combination of these options. However this puts pressure on local governments and others that depend on provincial financial support.
To illustrate the impact of this off-loading, its cost to the province is more than the entire receipts from provincial sales tax or about half of the estimated receipts from personal income tax.
Social service expenditures for those in need could more than double had it not been for federal off-loading. The impact of the off-loading has grown over the past decade and will continue to grow in the years ahead, in particular as provinces face extras burdens because of the increased health and education costs.
This has generated in Saskatchewan and other provincial governments an unfair burden, an unfair sharing of federal restraint. In particular it is unfair because 40 per cent of expected total federal savings from its expenditure control plan in 1991-and the numbers are not very much different for other years-40 per cent is comprised of reductions in federal transfers to the provinces. Transfers themselves only account for 20 per cent of the total federal program spending. This is a very hard blow to provincial budgets because of the concentration on the transfers to the provinces.
It is essential if we are going to maintain adequate social programs with national standards such as health care that there be adequate financial support from the federal government. The total cutbacks in Saskatchewan are in the order of $538 million, $247.9 million in losses to health care and post-secondary education, and $215 million in losses to agriculture programs.
The burden of agriculture support used to rest 100 per cent on the federal government. That has been shifted so that $215 million more a year has to be paid by the province of Saskatchewan. Seventy-five million dollars has been added to the burden on a whole range of other
Adjournment Debate
issues, bringing the total to $538 million in 1992-1993 alone. In total from 1977-1978 when the Liberals began this trend to 1992-1993 the total is $1.2 billion taken out of the revenues available to Saskatchewan.
What we need is some co-operation, some work together in the solution of these problems, not off-loading, not sending the burden off to the provinces.


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing, the federal government provides over $40 billion in financial support to provincial governments. Most of that support is delivered through the three major transfer programs.
Established Programs Financing, or EPF, provides provinces with financial support in respect of health and post-secondary education. EPF is provided to all provinces on an equal per capita basis, and currently increases with population. EPF transfers are expected to total over $21 billion in 1993-1994.
Equalization which will exceed $8 billion in 1993-1994 increases the fiscal capacity of the poorer provinces. It makes it possible for all provinces to provide reasonably comparable public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.
Under the Canada Assistance Plan, or CAP, the federal government helps all provinces finance social assistance benefits on a 50-50 basis. These transfers then are based on eligible provincial spending and are now approaching $8 billion.
Since 1984 the federal program spending has been restrained in order to reduce, as the member says, the federal deficit. Transfers to provinces have shared in that restraint but not to the same extent as the federal program spending.
As the member would know, between 1984-85 and 1993-94 major federal transfers are expected to grow about 56 per cent. This represents an average annual increase of 5.1 per cent. By comparison, total federal government spending will grow far less rapidly in the same period at an annual rate of only 3.6 per cent. Therefore these are certainly things that the member should take into consideration.

Adjournment Debate
Certainly fiscal responsibility is needed to ensure that in the long term the government can continue to afford supporting national programs and services vital to Canadians. If the deficit were allowed to grow then education, welfare and health expenditures would be crowded out by an ever increasing debt.
These are the reasons why we must look at transfer
payments and continue to be diligent in working with the provinces.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Foster):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at ten o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, June 8, 1993