Libby Davies

[Programs For Young People, October 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak in support of this motion. I would like to congratulate the member for Madawaska—Restigouche for bringing forward what I think is a very thoughtful and reflective motion which needs to be seriously addressed by this House and certainly by the Government of Canada.

It was surprising to hear the government member across the way say earlier that this motion is not necessary. I was very surprised to hear that.

Is it possible that they believe the motion is not necessary because it would actually be an embarrassment for the Liberal government to go forward and, as this motion states, overhaul all of its programs for young people in order to evaluate their impact and performance and in order to ensure that all funds for such programs maximize young people's chances of joining the labour force? Who could disagree with that?

It was very surprising to hear the Reform member and the Liberal member actually speak against this motion, which I think is something that could well be done and from which we would get a lot of benefit.

In looking at this motion I think it is incumbent upon us to actually look at what is the situation for young people in Canada today. Unfortunately, the facts present a very gloomy picture for young people.

When the government announced its youth employment strategy in February 1996 there were 2,065,000 youth who were employed. But the StatsCan figures for November 1997 show that there were 2,039,700 young people who were employed. That is a drop of over 26,000.

In fact youth unemployment is at 16.8%, up from 15.7% in February 1996. As we all know, those are only the official numbers. The real numbers are much higher.

Since February 1996 when the government first announced its major youth employment strategy, and we heard today a very rosy picture about that, the reality is that 48,300 more young Canadians are out of work. It is not a rosy picture at all.

Even according to the CIBC, one of the major banks in Canada, about one in four youth, aged 15 to 24, has never held a job. That is more than double the rate in 1989.

How can government members stand here today and tell us that we do not have a crisis? This motion should be supported today because there is a crisis in this country for young people.

In December 1997 the proportion of the youth labour force with no job experience was 24%. That is up from 9.8% in December of 1989. There are so many statistics that it is just mind-boggling. What the trend really shows is that throughout this decade there has been a continuing drop in the participation of young people in the labour market. There is persistent high youth unemployment. There is just no getting away from it.

As well, there has been growth in involuntary part time employment. At the same time there has been a decline in real wages.

What has often been characterized as the recovery from the 1990s has basically bypassed young people. They are still, to a great extent, very marginalized and do not have the kinds of opportunities that we hear in the rhetoric and the propaganda coming from government members.

We have to ask the question of how we address youth unemployment. We in the NDP believe that two key issues need to be addressed. One is through education and the second one is through a comprehensive youth employment strategy.

If we agree—I think all members would agree—that education is the key for our young people then we also have to ask why the government is attacking post-secondary education. As my colleague from the PC who presented this motion pointed out, the attack and the assault on post-secondary education is simply unprecedented.

The Liberal youth strategy must be seen in the context of the massive cuts to post-secondary education in Canada. It becomes just an empty promise for the government to say that it wants young people to get jobs. It knows they have to go on to post-secondary education to obtain jobs, but it does not really care that tuition fees have skyrocketed, that student debt has gone up and that university and colleges are less and less accessible. That is the reality facing young people when it comes to education today.

Even Human Resources Development Canada tells us that 45% of new jobs by the year 2000 will require post-secondary education. The reality is that the ability of young people to get into post-secondary education is more and more limited, particularly for low income Canadians.

Since 1995 the federal Liberals have cut $1.5 billion from federal funding for post-secondary education. Since 1980 the Liberal and Conservative governments—we have to put this on record and look at the historical context—have cut federal funding from $6.44 for each dollar of student fees to less than $3. We see the real decline in support for post-secondary education.

Tuition fees over the last 10 years climbed by 240%. What an absolutely shocking statistic. Tuition fees in Canada have reached a national average of $3,100. That is higher than the average tuition fees of publicly funded universities in the United States. The story goes on and on. Student debt is up from $13,000 in 1993 when the Liberals took power to $25,000 now. Student bankruptcies have increased 700% since 1989. The picture is very grim. Given this situation, one would hope that the government would be assessing and reviewing its commitment to support post-secondary education.

What did we have yesterday? The Minister for International Trade attended the second annual Canadian education industry summit and actually talked about further industrialization and privatization of post-secondary education.

What is quoted in the Toronto Star today is the minister saying that education is an industry and that Canada needs to improve its marketing. This is how the government sees education now. It does not see it as a social investment, not as something that we provide as a societal responsibility to our young people, but simply as a marketing strategy, as something that the private sector wants to get its hands on.

The minister said that we need to identify our markets, develop and promote our products, differentiate them from those of our competition, and create business plans to bring all those elements together. Does this sound like we are talking about post-secondary education? It sounds like we are talking about the private sector to me, but that is what one of our cabinet ministers is saying.

The second part of a comprehensive strategy is a youth employment strategy. We have to point out that $129 million of the $345 million allocated to youth job creation programs go to short term summer jobs. There is no emphasis on the long term investment that needs to be made for young people. Virtually none of these programs are targeted at economically and socially disadvantaged youth.

Research has shown that to help such young people the programs must be targeted specifically and be designed to meet their very unique needs. Unfortunately these programs do not exist. Most of the Liberal youth programs benefit the most highly educated young people, which cynics say is more about cheap labour than real opportunity.

What should be done? We can learn by example from my province of British Columbia where our premier, Premier Clark, has made a personal commitment to make youth a priority. We have an extensive summer job program. We have environmental youth teams and environmental youth groups. We provide first jobs to graduates in science and technology.

There is entrepreneurial training for young people. There are thousands of jobs that have been created in B.C. crown corporations. In fact the B.C. government's record when it comes to supporting post-secondary education has been superlative in comparison to what the Liberal government has done. In fact our B.C. minister has called for a national tuition freeze on national grants program.

In conclusion I say that this is a very good motion. It deserves our support. We need to make that commitment to the young people of Canada, to evaluate the Liberal programs and to expose the fact that they are not helping the young people of Canada.

[Bankruptcy And Insolvency Act, October 7th, 1998]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-439, an act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (student loan).

I am very pleased to rise in the House today to introduce my private member's bill to change the bankruptcy act affecting students.

The purpose of my bill is to repeal the discriminatory changes that were made to the bankruptcy act that forced students suffering from high student debtload to wait from the previous two years to now ten years before they can access bankruptcy proceedings.

Despite high tuition fees and increasing student debt 93% of students do find a way to pay back their loans. It is only those students who are most desperate and most in debt who seek bankruptcy protection.

This bill would repeal the extended waiting period of ten years back to two years to make it fairer for students. I hope all members of the House will support this bill in recognition of the severe difficulties that students face today.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Implementation Act, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to support Bill C-52, an act to implement the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.

The debate on this bill and the fact that Canada is supporting the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty is a very positive step we are taking as a nation. I have to say as someone who has been involved in the peace movement for a long time like many other citizens in Canada, any small step we take toward disarmament and nuclear disarmament is a sign of hope and optimism for the future of our world.

Unfortunately the reality is that we still face a very desperate situation. We now have eight nations in the world and maybe more which contain nuclear weapons and nuclear capability. We know these nations: Russia, the United States, France, China, the United Kingdom, Israel, India and Pakistan. Even today after the cold war and unfortunately when many people think that the threat of nuclear weapons has been abolished, we still have in existence on our planet 34,000 nuclear weapons. The threat is something which is still very present and very grave.

These unquestionably are weapons of mass destruction. They are weapons of mass destruction not only in terms of our environment. We know the destruction caused by a nuclear accident on a Trident submarine or any other accident would be catastrophic to our environment. More than that, we also know that these weapons pose the greatest danger to civilian populations and to our planet as a whole. We have to be aware of and realize that this danger is still very present.

We also know that the cost of maintaining this vast military industrial complex that has produced these weapons of mass destruction is something that is literally eating away the earth's resources.

I just came back from a mission to Southeast Asia with the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. I witnessed firsthand the devastation of the impact of the economic crisis in Indonesia and Thailand. I could not help but think that on this planet Earth we have the resources, we have the capability, we have the strength if we have the political will to ensure that there is not unemployment, that there is not hunger and that there are not children on the streets.

In Indonesia 100 million people are living below the poverty line. If we had our priorities straight and if they were aimed and directed toward funding and meeting human needs instead of the stockpiling, storage and activation of nuclear weapons, then children would not be dying, children would not be desperate and going without education and health care. Families would have adequate housing and people would have jobs.

The reality is that although this is a very good step and the nuclear test ban treaty is a very positive sign, unfortunately progress has been very slow. In 1968 the non-proliferation treaty was signed but the reality is that we have just gone through the last year where we have seen India and Pakistan conduct nuclear tests. There was outrage and condemnation around the world.

Article VI of the 1968 non-proliferation treaty states:

Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

The nuclear weapon states have not lived up to their end of the bargain. This aspect of the treaty which passed in 1968 has not come to fruition. The United States and other countries have not shown the leadership which is necessary to ensure that article VI is actually implemented.

One of the things we want today in this House is that we want the Canadian government to show leadership instead of just adopting its me too status, as we have seen so often. We want the Canadian government to speak out at the United Nations and other international forums and call on nuclear weapon states to abide by and to fulfil article VI of the non-proliferation treaty.

If that happens, the dynamic in the international situation would change. Nations such as India and Pakistan would have some faith and respect that the nuclear weapon states are actually committed to taking real steps toward nuclear disarmament.

One of the issues that needs to be debated today is not just the passage of this bill and the fact that all members of the House are supporting this bill but we must also look at what else Canada could do to ensure that there is a general and complete nuclear disarmament.

Unfortunately Canada still provides airspace and low level flight ranges for nuclear bomber training. Unfortunately we still host nuclear powered and potentially nuclear armed submarines in Canadian waters.

Of course, as it is the subject of many debates in this House, we know politically and diplomatically that Canada has consistently supported U.S. and NATO nuclear policies, including, if we can believe it in 1998, a policy that is still on the books which is the option of the first use of nuclear weapons.

That is really something which is quite horrific, and the Canadian people have stated that over and over again. In fact, a recent Angus Reid poll showed the commitment and the strength of the Canadian people. They want to see the abolition of nuclear weapons.

When it comes to Canada's complicity in the arms trade in not fulfilling article VI of the non-proliferation treaty, we can see that although this is a good step today, we still have a long, long way to go. That is what we are calling on the Canadian government to do here today.

Canada should stop its Candu reactor sales, for example, to countries with poor human rights records such as China and Turkey. Canada could become a nuclear weapons free zone.

During the 1980s at the height of the peace movement in Canada, many citizens groups across the country worked very hard to convince municipal authorities and local jurisdictions to adopt nuclear weapons free zones in Canada. This is something that could be done on a national basis.

Another leadership position Canada could take is it could give notice to terminate the agreement between Canada and the U.S. in establishing the torpedo testing range at Nanoose Bay in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia. This is something that is very close to me and my involvement in the peace movement in B.C. The citizens of that area have worked long and hard to put pressure on the Canadian government to terminate that agreement so that we are not using our waters and our facilities for the testing of those submarines.

Something else that is important is that at the UN, Canada must vote in favour of multilateral negotiations that would lead to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention. It is simply not good enough to say that we have a comprehensive test ban treaty and the non-proliferation treaty. We need to see on the international stage that Canada is taking the lead at the United Nations and is not blindly following the position of the United States.

It would be a wonderful thing if Canada would join the new agenda coalition of middle power states that are calling on the nuclear weapon states to make an unequivocal commitment to enter and to conclude negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons. This new agenda coalition is a very significant development that has taken place in the last few months. It is something Canada should be part of. We should not be opposing it. We should be an active participant in the new agenda coalition.

Canadians have a sense of what it is that we can do when we have the political will to do it. We only have to look at the leadership Canada showed on land mines to know that as a middle power we can generate the momentum, we can generate the solidarity of the NGO community as well as various nations to work together to produce a land mines convention. The same can be done to abolish nuclear weapons. This is what the NDP believes Canada's role should be. We believe that very firmly.

I want to speak about the role of citizens in the peace movement and in their work for disarmament. Governments take actions but often they are as a result of the work at the grassroots level, the pressure that has come from local communities at a provincial level and at a national level. A saying often used in the peace movement is that if the people lead, eventually their leaders will follow.

One of the things I want to do today is pay tribute to the peace groups in Canada that have tirelessly committed themselves and their very limited resources to a campaign and a movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Canada is very involved in the campaign Abolition 2000 through the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. That organization has been instrumental in galvanizing community support and keeping this issue alive, keeping it before the Canadian government and elected representatives.

Recently it had a postcard campaign and distributed 10,000 postcards. It called on the Prime Minister to immediately call an emergency meeting of all states and negotiate a treaty to abolish all nuclear weapons. The organization points out in its postcard campaign that in 1996 the World Court ruled that the use of nuclear weapons is illegal. It also points out the recent Angus Reid poll that indicated that more than 90% of Canadians support nuclear disarmament.

That is the work of the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. It has worked very hard in an international campaign to bring about the sustained pressure not just on our government but on other governments to fulfil the obligations of article VI of the non-proliferation treaty.

The July 1996 ruling from the World Court gave momentum to the movement. The World Court ruled that the use of nuclear weapons violates international and humanitarian law. It was a very significant ruling.

There is another thing I would like to draw attention to in terms of citizen involvement. In the past year in my province of British Columbia our local peace coalition, an organization of more than 200 from labour, churches, peace groups, communities and women's organizations, called End the Arms Race, organized a citizens weapons inspection team.

In February of this year I was very proud to be part of a delegation that went down to Bangor, Washington, just south of Vancouver and south of Seattle in the state of Washington where a very large U.S. naval base is located and where the Trident submarines are located.

While there we conducted a citizens weapons inspection during the midst of yet another escalating crisis in the Persian Gulf where our Canadian government was prepared to follow the American military intervention. I remember the debate in the House in February when my colleagues in the NDP spoke out strongly. We called on the Canadian government to take an independent course and to seek a diplomatic resolution instead of military intervention and military threat in a region that has suffered so badly already.

By organizing the citizens weapons inspection team we wanted to draw attention to the fact that the most significant weapons of mass destruction on the globe are actually located to the south in the United States. We visited Bangor, Washington, and attempted to gain access to the site to do a citizens inspection and to point out to the commander of the base that stockpiling and storage of these weapons on the base was in violation of international law.

I flew over the huge site in a small airplane and did a visual inspection of the vast bunkers and silos that contain weapons of mass destruction. It was a very eerie feeling to fly over the base and to see the immense power and resources contained at Bangor, Washington. These resources were ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice because the U.S. still has a policy of first option in the use of nuclear weapons.

In August 1998 I travelled with a group of citizens to Groton, Connecticut, which is the home of the Electric Boat Company, a U.S. corporation that produces the delivery system for weapons of mass destruction. It produces the Trident submarine. We wanted to draw attention to the fact that these weapons of mass destruction were located very close to us and were in convention of international law.

When we went to Groton, Connecticut, we were also very fortunate to visit the United Nations and to meet with the under secretary general of disarmament. We had a very positive meeting with him and discussed the necessity for ordinary people to be involved in the process.

It is the united voice of people from across Canada and around the globe that has pressured the United Nations and their own domestic governments into adopting the various conventions we now see as a small sign of the progress being made. I was very proud to be part of those delegations that included Peter Coombe, president of End the Arms Race; Murray Dobbin of the Council of Canadians; Edward Schmitt and Phyllis Creighton of the Anglican Church of Canada; and David Morgan, a very well know peace activist who is president of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms.

It is a testament to the work of these organization that we can stand in the House today and feel a sense of optimism and hope in the implementation of Bill C-52 respecting the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that Canada will have taken at least another small step toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. We need to do much more and Canada's record has not been great in this area.

As my colleague from Burnaby and other members of the NDP have done, I call on the Canadian government to show the leadership that it did on the land mines, to show the commitment to abide by article 6 of the non-proliferation treaty, and to live up to the court ruling of the World Court for all to say once and for all that we can rid the world of nuclear weapons. We can divert the billions of dollars expended on infrastructure for nuclear weapons and refocus those funds that are desperately needed to meet our human needs, not just here in Canada but around the world.

[Education, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in solidarity with thousands of Canadian students who are about to launch a week of protest in cities and towns from Vancouver to Halifax.

The Canadian Federation of Students is leading this charge to show slash and burn governments that students will not stand still for full scale demolition of post-secondary education.

Students also are not standing still for a completely unfounded and discriminatory law that the Liberals forced through in the last budget. That law extended the bankruptcy waiting period for students from two years to a decade.

The government should be ashamed of the hypocrisy of its actions, hypocrisy ground in the fact that 93% of students pay back their loans. Compare this to the corporations that received loans from Industry Canada between 1982 and 1997. Only 15% of those corporate deadbeats made good on their loans.

I ask the government: Who is the better investment? I am introducing a bill tomorrow that will repeal this discriminatory law. What will the government do?

[Supply, October 5th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it was a very long question and I know the debate is going to finish in two minutes, so I will try to give a very short answer.

I thank the member for his thoughtful question. He says that national standards sound good, but somehow they have not worked in the past. I would not agree with that opinion.

I think it is because we have had national standards in the past that we have been able to produce very good national programs such as medicare, social programs that have helped bring Canada together.

I agree that there is huge diversity in this country. But it is precisely because of that that we need to have some sense of a base of what it is Canadians can expect as an entitlement to services and programs, whether they live in the west, the maritimes or Quebec. That is precisely why we need to bring back those national standards.

[Supply, October 5th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the opposition day motion.

I have been sitting in the House all day listening to the debate. I have found it very interesting. The subject matter we are covering is called the social union in Canada, the discussions between the provincial premiers and the federal government. This is something of critical concern not just to the House but certainly to the people in every region of Canada. It would be very interesting to hear the kind of discussion that has taken place.

I would like to make a couple of observations to begin. First, it is very clear from the motion before us and from the debate that has taken place that the premiers of Canada and the territories are involved in a debate on what they would like to see as a new social union or their relationship with the federal government as a direct result of the massive cutbacks in the Canada health and social transfer that have been experienced in Canada. There is no getting away from that reality.

I listened very carefully to the debate by hon. government members who tried to persuade us or convince us that the social safety net in Canada is alive, well and healthy. They tried to convince not just the House but the people of Canada that we are the envy of the world. I have heard cabinet ministers say that today.

The reality is something different. Being involved in the debate today I would like to draw the attention of members to the fact that Canada was a signatory to the UN international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.

What is very interesting about that covenant is that the UN committee assessing the record of member countries in carrying out the covenant has recently sent the Government of Canada a very tough list of 81 questions outlining its concern about where Canada is not meeting its obligations.

I would like to quote from some of the questions the UN committee has put to the Canadian government that have to be responded to by Canada. For example it says:

The committee has received information that food bank use has continued to increase in Canada and has approximately doubled over the last 10 years—Does the government consider the need for food banks in so affluent a country as Canada consistent with article 11 of the covenant?

We are all waiting to hear that answer. It goes on to ask another question:

—Child poverty is at a 17-year high of 20.9%, meaning that nearly 1.5 million children live in poverty in Canada. Although the last recession ended in 1991, poverty rates have risen since then. Please—explain how this unacceptable situation has been allowed to occur.

This is not me asking the question. This question comes from the UN committee on economic, social and cultural rights and is to the Canadian government. It asks another of its 81 questions of the Canadian government:

—At what point would the government consider homelessness in Canada to constitute a national emergency?

I know the answer to that question. I only have to look at my riding of Vancouver East to see that there are more than 6,000 people living in slum housing. There are people living on the street. We only have to look at the city of Toronto or the city of Winnipeg or any major urban area. We only have to look at the status of aboriginal people in Canada to know about homelessness, the lack of shelter and the lack of food security. It is a very desperate situation.

There is no getting away from the fact, no matter what government members try to convince us of, that this is a direct result of the abandonment of the Canada assistance program in 1996 and the federal government running for cover under the Canada health and social transfer and slashing $6 billion from social programs in Canada.

I would like to speak about that a bit because it signalled the beginning of a new era. Clearly the federal government was abandoning its national responsibilities, which has resulted in the proposals we hear from the premiers of Canada who are saying that the federal government is not relevant any more. They feel the government has cut them back so much that they want to take what they can and set their own standards and programs. They want the federal government to butt out.

The Canadian people and members of the House, certainly those of the New Democratic Party, have a different view. We believe it is very important there be an increasing and strong role for the federal government in terms of a social union, a social charter, and the establishment of national standards in Canada.

It simply is not good enough to say that there will be a transfer of funds to the provinces and there will be no conditions attached to it. We only have to look at things like the child tax benefits or the state of post-secondary education to know that the Canada health and social transfer has been a dismal failure, not only in relation to the lack of funding and the retreat of public funding it has signalled in Canada but also because it has not been accompanied by the conditions, standards and guidelines we need to have.

For example, when we look at social welfare programs, the much touted child tax benefit by Liberal members is something that is quite appalling when we consider that the poorest of the poor, the people on welfare, will not be able to benefit from the child tax benefits.

There is absolutely no assurance that provincial governments which save money as a result of this benefit from welfare payments will put that money back into welfare programs to actually help people on welfare. There is no assurance that those moneys will not end up in workfare programs where people basically lose their entitlement to social assistance as a result of the demise of the Canada assistance program.

When we look at the reality of what has come about with the advent of the Canada health and social transfer, is it any wonder that the provincial premiers are now convening their own meetings and trying to draw up their own framework of what they think their relationship with the federal government should be?

We in the federal NDP believe that the federal government not only has to be at the table but has to reinstate the funding that has been lost from our health care programs, our educational programs and our social programs.

In the last budget we heard a lot of hype about the budget being an education budget that would help young people. Again the reality has been something very different. I only have to speak to young people in my own riding, students who are suffering from an enormous debt load, some of them $25,000, $30,000 and $40,000 as a result of skyrocketing tuition fees.

This begs the question: Why have those tuition fees gone up so much? It is because of the retreat in public funding by the federal government which has abandoned the area of education. Post-secondary institutions have been left with no recourse but to increase tuition fees so that now the tuition fees in Canada are higher on average than tuition fees at publicly funded universities in the United States, a situation that is very shocking.

We have the millennium fund that was unilaterally announced by the federal government with no consultation with the provinces, no consultation with the stakeholders and no consultation with the experts in post-secondary education. It is being touted as the future for students when in fact it is a foundation that is increasing the privatization and corporatization of the post-secondary education system. The money that has been put into that fund does not even begin to make up for the funds that have been taken out by the federal government in its support for post-secondary education.

There is no question there has been an abandonment of federal responsibility and a complete absence of national standards and national programs that historically have helped hold this country together. This is something we should be aware of as we begin this debate of a new social union.

We have to demand that the federal government take up its responsibility not just in terms of a fiscal framework but also its responsibility in setting, with the co-operation of the provinces, a sense of national purpose, a sense of national accessibility whether it is health care, social programs or post-secondary education.

The other very disturbing aspect is the lack of accountability and public debate around the issue of a social union. The provincial premiers have been meeting and may feel they are having productive discussions and have their own process of dealing with their own jurisdictions. However on an issue as fundamental and critical as this one which really deals with the future vision of our country, it is critical that the federal government and this House ensure there is accountability for the way the process unfolds.

Just before the provincial premiers met in Saskatoon, the result of which is this motion before us today, some of the leading representatives from the social justice, civil society and labour movements wrote to the provincial premiers. These included the Canadian Health Coalition, the National Anti-Poverty Organization, the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadian Federation of Students.

What did these groups have to say? These organizations have been involved as watchdogs. They have monitored the shocking and appalling situation that has unfolded as a result of the retreat of public funding under the Canada health and social transfer. To quote from their statement to that conference in Saskatoon, they said:

Such fundamental change to the way in which Canada's national social programs are managed is of great importance to the Canadian public, the labour movement and the vast array of social justice organizations dedicated to a vision of progressive social policy for Canada.

The social union has already undergone significant change. The implementation of the Canada health and social transfer marked a massive restructuring of national programs for health, education and social assistance. The block funding approach and the elimination of national standards for social assistance put us on a path toward `no strings attached federalism' and further devolution of federal responsibility for national programs.

As a result of the elimination of national standards for social assistance, abysmally inadequate rates of assistance have been cut in many provinces and workfare is flourishing, putting Canada in shameful violation of the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requiring that work be freely chosen, a fundamental tenet of democracy.

They went on to say in their statement:

As members of the public and organizations committed to the preservation and enhancement of national social programs, we are concerned that the Canadian public has had no opportunity to discuss and debate the vast changes to the social union which have already taken place nor is there any process in place through which the public can participate in these and future negotiations on the social union.

In the interest of democracy, closed door, backroom federalism must end.

That is a very significant statement which has come from these groups. Not only have they been the watchdogs of the federal government in what has gone on, but they are now sounding the alarm in terms of this debate that is taking place. They are making it quite clear that this type of critical debate about the relationship of the provinces to the federal government and how it encompasses our social values and our national programs must be a debate that includes organizations such as those which I mentioned and others, key stakeholders that do have a significant contribution to make.

In closing, the motion before us today raises some very key points about what has gone fundamentally wrong and is clearly at the feet of the federal government as it brought in the Canada health and social transfer. We have to be very careful. We have to make sure that we do not embark on a new kind of proposal and a process that excludes the Canadian public and sets us on a course where we will no longer have a framework of national programs and national policies, whether it is education, social programs, welfare or health care.

We have a lot of concern over the fact that the premiers are suggesting that there would be a right to opt out of any program that was new or modified. What does that mean exactly? What does a modified program mean? Does it mean that if the federal government provides some modification to our medicare system the provinces can opt out in some way?

We have to insert into this debate the sense that there will be national standards that can provide a sense of universality, a sense of security and significantly provide a fiscal framework. When the committee at the UN on the covenant on social, economic and cultural rights writes to the Government of Canada and asks at what point will we be declaring homelessness a national emergency, we have to be able to demonstrate that we have national programs that will ensure we do not have those kinds of emergencies. They should not exist in a country as wealthy as Canada.

One of the most harmful things that has taken place in Canada in the last few years has been the destruction and abandonment of our social housing programs by the federal government. In my riding people are literally on the street. People are living in slum housing as a result of the lack of federal funding for social housing.

I just came back from a mission to Indonesia and Thailand with the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. We looked at the conditions in those countries as a result of the economic crisis there. There is no question the impact has been devastating.

I was shocked by the reality that some of the conditions there are not dissimilar from what I have witnessed in my riding. People are at incredibly high risk as a result of the demise of the role of the federal government and the abandonment of the sense of a national focus in these programs. We are at a very critical point. We have to hold this government accountable for the damage and havoc it has created for the people who could least afford it: people who are unemployed, people who are homeless, people who are living in poverty.

We now have the second highest poverty rate of any industrialized nation. I heard the Minister of Justice say that Canada was the envy of the world. We have five million people who live in poverty and 1.4 million children who live in poverty as a result of her government's policies. That is nothing to be proud of.

If we want to talk about social unionism, we should talk about social unionism in a way that respects social entitlements and human rights in this country so that no person goes hungry or homeless. We should make job creation a priority. We should not abandon the unemployed by cutting back on UI benefits. That is what real social unionism would be if we were to take the time to sit down and bring about the new kind of co-operative federalism many of us would like to see.

[Supply, October 5th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would like to make a couple of comments and to question the hon. member.

I listened very carefully to what he had to say about the social union. He made it sound like a very positive affair. However, I think one concern expressed by Canadians right across the country is that basically the deliberations taking place between the provincial premiers and the federal government on the social union have absolutely no context in terms of a public debate.

There is no involvement by the Canadian people as to what should constitute a social union in Canada, what the relationship should be between the provincial governments and the federal government when it comes to jurisdictions of the provinces or the federal government.

Why does the hon. member believe that such a closed door, backroom process that has basically cut out and censored the Canadian people from that debate is something to speak of so positively?

If the hon. member believes the social union that is being developed is something so positive, why is it that basically in Canada the social safety is in complete tatters? We have growing homelessness and growing poverty as result of his government's policies.

What do he and his government propose to say to Canadians who have now been placed at increasing risk and are very vulnerable because of the $6 billion cut to those programs?

[Supply, October 5th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, there is one comment the hon. member across the way made that I agree with. He said that the record of the federal government speaks for itself. In reality the record is very different from the record the hon. member has described.

While we hear on the one hand that the transfer of tax points to the provinces over the years has somehow been something that has mitigated the damage done by the federal government, let us be clear that the situation we are in today in terms of the provinces now proposing radical changes to the social union is a direct result of the $6 billion cut by the federal government from the Canada health and social transfer. It is a direct result of the abandonment of the Canada assistance program that laid out the entitlements and rights to Canadians in social programs. That is what the Liberal government has abandoned.

My question is for the hon. member who gave the same line as the hon. government member before him, that somehow Canada is the envy of the world. If that is true then why is it that the UN committee studying the economic, cultural and social covenant to which Canada is a signatory is asking Canada why we have the second worst incidence of child poverty in industrial nations? Why is it that we have increasing homelessness that now constitutes a national emergency?

Those questions are coming from the UN and are being directed to the Canadian government. I think they speak to the true record of the government in terms of abandonment of social programs.

What will the hon. member say to the 1.4 million children who live in poverty or the 5 million Canadians who live in poverty and do not get any of the benefits that he speaks about today?

[Supply, October 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I say to the hon. member that the Liberal government has nothing to crow about. When he talks about the Canadian social safety net, when he talks about putting the interest of Canadians first, the record is very clear. It is the Liberal government that has destroyed the social safety net in the country.

He talked about his concern for poor children. What about the 1.4 million kids who are living in poverty as a result of the abandonment of social programs as a direct result of government policies?

I would like the member to come to my riding of Vancouver East to see the people who are living in slum housing because of the abandonment of social housing. I would like him to see the people who are on the street. I would like him to see the kids whose parents are unemployed.

What does the member have to say about that?

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, October 1st, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his very thoughtful comments and questions. I agree that there are very serious concerns about the impact of this proposal on the individual.

We heard from the minister that this is about streamlining, about simplifying. Even if we take that at face value that may be good for governments in terms of huge bureaucracies but there are very real questions about how that does affect individual Canadians who then have to find their way through an increasing maze of a massive bureaucracy, to try to retrieve information, to find out what happened to their income tax return or any other matter that may be before the agency.

From the individual's point of view, from the taxpayer's point of view, there has not been a thorough examination to really answer whether this is in the public's interest, which is not necessarily the same as the government's interest in terms of the bureaucracy.

The question here is the public interest and I think for individual Canadians that question has not been answered. In fact, there are serious concerns that it is not in the public interest and, therefore, it should not go ahead.