Debates of Nov. 14th, 1994

Standing Committee On Industry

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Vegreville, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member in answering a question by my colleague commented that what he is suggesting, that government not subsidize business, is simplistic. If indeed government or civil servants are trying to pick winners, trying to determine how they are going to direct subsidies when there are many people competing in the same business, how are they going to wisely choose the businesses to give money to, if that is not being simplistic?

[Anna Terrana, Liberal, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this has been the system until now. Of course, as I said, we are looking into it and we are trying to get rid of it.

We have to remember the disparities in this country. We have to create some kind of an atmosphere all over Canada that brings in the money and the jobs that are necessary to survive. This has been there all along and it is something that we have to cure.

[Gordon Kirkby, Liberal, Prince Albert—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address this motion to take note of the second report of the Standing Committee on Industry entitled "Taking Care of Small Business".

The committee report contains a thoughtful analysis of the financing problems small businesses face and provides a series of extensive and helpful recommendations on the financing issue. The committee is to be congratulated for its hard work and its excellent report.

In a similar vein, I would like to formally acknowledge the work of the federal Ontario Liberal caucus task force which has also made valuable recommendations on financing for small businesses.

All members of this House are aware of the great importance of small business to the Canadian economy. In fact the government is carrying out a wide ranging small business policy review of which the report will form a very important and integral part.

However, I am particularly interested in the recommendations as they relate to the growth of knowledge based, high tech firms. Both these reports have suggested ways in which the banks could better respond to the financing needs of small and medium size businesses. It is encouraging, as both reports have pointed out. Canada's banks themselves are also aware of the need to do more to assist in the development, growth and stability of Canada's small businesses.

In today's business climate, banking needs are evolving rapidly as are the demands on business itself. The pace of technological change is accelerating while the product cycles are shortening. Flexibility and capacity to adapt and respond quickly to changing market conditions are more important than ever before. These are some of the things that small businesses tend to do best.

It is encouraging to see the beginnings of change in the banking culture. As important as it is to match banking practices with the demands of today's marketplace, that is only one piece of the puzzle. If any one single area is critical to the success of Canadian business in general and small and medium size businesses in particular, it is technology.

In one sense, technology is an investment issue for many small firms since access to financing is often required to be able to utilize technology. Over and above financing considerations however, technology itself is key to the ability of small businesses to compete and thrive in the global marketplace. The whole area of technology presents a critical challenge to Canadian small businesses. For the Canadian economy to prosper this is a challenge we must meet.

Small businesses created 87 per cent of all new jobs in the decade from 1979 to 1989. In the first six months of this year small businesses have created over 80 per cent of the net new jobs created in Canada. Since last year's election this government has presided over an economy that has created in excess of 320,000 new jobs. This is good news for all Canadians.

Yet, there are specific areas where the performance of Canadian small business could improve and innovation, research and development and the use of technology are among them. Canadian companies, especially smaller firms, fall behind their foreign counterparts in a wide range of industries when it comes to protecting advancements in a number of technologies important to Canada. Among the OECD countries, Canada's share of international patents is lower than the population would warrant. Many small businesses are slow to innovate or to apply technology to improve competitiveness. Small businesses may lack the time or resources to become well informed about technological change or its implications for what they do.

They might not even recognize that solving a particular problem or taking the advantage of a market opportunity might depend on technology. Too few small businesses have the expertise or the capacity to absorb the ideas in technology that can mean success if adopted or failure if neglected.

Businesses increasingly compete on their abilities to innovate in product development, marketing production, distribution, after sales service and internal administration. A rapidly changing innovative business environment helps create jobs by attracting and retaining international investment.

The government is well aware of the special problems that small businesses face when it comes to technology and is committed to helping business resolve them. One of the most interesting and revealing approaches we have taken was a study designed to find out what makes growing small businesses successful. The strategies for success report is a joint product of Industry Canada and Statistics Canada. It provides an analysis of growing small and medium size enterprises in Canada. It examines the reason for the success of groups of firms that grew rapidly in the 1980s and provides entrepreneurs with the clues they need to see how they can do the same.

The report focuses on the tactics used by small firms to make themselves successful and how to implement these strategies. For example, the more successful firms place greater emphasis on their ability to adopt technology and research and develop capabilities.

These companies focus on developing new technology, refining the technology of others and improving their own technology. Successful firms were generally more innovative. A large proportion of them, 30 per cent, attributed success to an R and D based innovation strategy. An even larger proportion, 55 per cent, reported having successfully introduced innovation.

The lessons of the strategies for success report are clear but those lessons will remain theoretical unless they can actually be put into practice on the shop floor or during a service call or in the laboratory. That is why the government is implementing a number of important practical programs to help small business take advantage of the technology it needs to succeed.

In August, for example, the government announced the Canadian technology network to deliver solutions to technological problems through an integrated package of business services. The Canadian technology network will help small and medium size businesses acquire, adapt, commercialize and manage new

and complex technologies in partnership with the Canadian research community.

The CTN is in effect a major consulting service which will be available to businesses of every size. It will provide firms with rapid and effective access to data, intelligence and services from across Canada and from foreign sources. It will build upon the current network of the National Research Council's industrial research assistance program, IRAP. The program's 260 industrial technology advisers draw upon the work of a host of organizations across Canada, including provincial research organizations, universities and colleges, industrial associations and other professional bodies.

The CTN will give the small business community easy access to the broad array of technology, services, skills and expertise offered by IRAP, together with other business related services through an integrated electronic network.

The work of the CTN is nicely complemented by the activities of another partnership in which the federal government is playing a leading role. This is the Canadian network for the advancement of research industry and education, CANARIE.

CANARIE is a joint project by the government and over 140 private and public participants. CANARIE is a cost sharing research and development program to develop the next generation of networking technologies, products and applications. It will also help create a network to test and showcase advanced technology.

CANARIE will facilitate access to and use of the information highway by Canadian business. It is working to upgrade CA*net, the Canadian branch of Internet. Essentially the information highway is going to be a private sector project. Business is doing most of the building and most of the investing but government has a part to play as well.

It must help to write the highway traffic code. In other words, make sure the highway develops to meet the needs of all Canadians in all regions and in all sectors. This is why the government has set up the information highway advisory council comprised of 30 Canadians. The members of this council have been given a year to set up a fairly broad set of questions to answer, all aimed at recommending how the government can speed up the development of information highway services.

As Canadian businesses strive to innovate and make the best use of technology that can help to compete, a very important resource it can use is the Canadian intellectual property office. Within CIPO one can find a gold mine of innovation. For example, in the patents office there are 1.3 million Canadian patents. In addition, the patents office contains millions of foreign patent documents including 5.5 million U.S. patents.

Small businesses can use the information available through the patent office to keep abreast of technological innovations and to avoid investing R and D dollars in projects that have already been explored. Patents can provide state of the art information on particular technologies. They can indicate which technologies are ready for development or which ones are viable but unprotected. They can help business anticipate, identify and respond to foreign competition or to launch a new product.

The practical value of this information is directly related to the ease with which it can be accessed. The patent information exploration program can provide research for the information and patent documents about technologies, about competitors, about patents which have expired and can now be exploited.

Eventually in the not too distant future information from the trademark office as well will soon be available from electronic databases using vehicles such as the information highway.

Small businesses and individual innovators will be able to do so from their own stations. The automation of CIPO databases will contribute to developing and marketing new products and technologies.

In my remarks today I have covered a wide range of topics relevant to small business from financing to technology, from the information highway to the use of patents. In all of these areas the federal government is doing things that are important, that will help small and medium size firms to take advantage of new and emerging technologies that are so essential to business growth.

The work of the standing committee and of the Ontario caucus will undoubtedly help to shape and improve the course of these future policies. So too will the report of the small business working committee which will report soon.

Technology and financing are ultimately linked, intimately linked and are key to the growth of an innovative small business sector in Canada. The small business community is central to our jobs and growth strategy. Helping it optimize the flexibility that its size gives it is a key element to our agenda for small business.

With the support of this House and the other governments across this country small and innovative firms will continue to create the highly skilled jobs Canadians all across this country need.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the previous member's speech. Unfortunately I find it is full of the same general platitudes of how well small business can do and how competitive it is. I asked the same question of the previous speaker as I did once before. How do we

expect small business to be competitive in this international environment when it is loaded down with $38,000, each and every one of them, of federal debt that has to be paid through higher taxes and so on?

The member for Fraser Valley East talked about the fact that this government is picking individual people and handing them all kinds of tax dollars, tax free at the same time. Everybody else has to pick up the cost for these things. How does he justify these two items when he is saying that small business is so competitive and should get on with the business of creating jobs?

Would it not be far better to stop this nonsense of being selective and giving money to individual firms and individual people? Would it not be better also that we get rid of this deficit and this burgeoning national debt that is dragging small business down under the water?

[Gordon Kirkby, Liberal, Prince Albert—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one thing this government has done very successfully is adopt its election platform, carry it through and do what it said it was going to do.

I recall in the red book it indicated that we would be reducing our annual deficit as a percentage of the GDP to 3 per cent. Mark my words, this government through program review and through a number of initiatives has gone a long way in doing what it said it would do.

I think in the budget over the next few years when we are dealing with our expenditure problems we will be moving in that direction. We are going to meet that target. We will be dealing with the deficit. I hope when people react to the types of budgets we will be bringing forward the Reform Party will be proud to say it did it twice as fast as we did.

With respect to the success of western diversification and ACOA, I know these have been picked on mercilessly today by members of the Reform Party. We were also elected to enhance and encourage regional development right across this country. We have to utilize the wealth of this nation to make sure people all across this country have access to economic opportunity.

We will do likewise with the deficit. We will do what we said we would do by utilizing these agencies to properly and intelligently promote regional and economic development. I know the Reform Party would like to leave the impression that somehow money is handed out willy-nilly. Such is not the case. The people who manage these, whether it is western diversification or ACOA in the Atlantic provinces, are extremely capable, qualified individuals who select business propositions on grounds of merit. Over the years we have seen a tremendous number of successes come out of these types of operations.

As I have indicated, this government will do what it said it would do. We are going to reduce the deficit and we are going to enhance our regional economies by the sensible spending of the taxpayers' dollars.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Vegreville, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite talked about how the people who manage the regional diversification programs such as western economic diversification are very good at choosing businesses based on merit.

I would just like to ask the hon. member specifically what merit. If they are choosing businesses based on merit, why do these businesses need special treatment compared with their competitors?

I would like the hon. member opposite to give me some examples of businesses that have received money under these programs and demonstrate clearly to me first that it was fair to give them money when not giving competitors money. Second, how is merit determined?

[Gordon Kirkby, Liberal, Prince Albert—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed the members of the party opposite are not keen on questions about merit. I can see why.

With respect to the issue of merit, obviously these projects are chosen on the basis of those which are likely to succeed as in the case of western diversification. They are not picked when there are competitors in the marketplace. They are picked when there is innovation or something new which is not done in the region in which it is proposed. This is the type of thing that I know western diversification picks. Probably ACOA has the same rules, to pick subjects and projects which are meritorious, which have an excellent chance of success, which will aid the diversification of an economy that too often has been based on a single or a narrow group of industries.

This is the type of progress our country needs. We are doing it and we are making things happen. I know that the hon. member will be grateful when he looks at the job statistics and sees how many new jobs are created all across the country by a government that is doing what it said it was going to do.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the debate today on taking care of small business.

A few years ago the previous government loaded on small business one of the biggest paper burdens we have seen in many a long year, which was the introduction of the goods and services tax. It turned every small business person into a tax collector.

The government said it was going to get rid of the GST and now a year later we are still waiting. Last February the Minister of Finance introduced his budget and took away the capital gains exemption. I wonder what that is doing for small business. He

reduced the small business tax exemption, which caused good and prosperous small businesses to pay more taxes. I wonder if that is what they mean by taking care of business.

The first responsibility of government to small business and the millions it employs is to create an economic climate that is conducive to economic growth and expansion. This growth and expansion will lead to prosperity for the risk takers, jobs for the employees, create new opportunities for the unemployed, provide economic stability for Canadians and their families, and create new and novel businesses and economic opportunities.

We have to get the government off the people's backs. We have to give incentive and opportunity for small businesses to see opportunities, take advantage of these opportunities where they can go forward, put their money where their mouths are, take the risk, take the gamble, go forward and win without the federal government either taxing them to death or providing tax free money to the competition and shooting them down at every opportunity.

What are the ingredients for this economic climate? Surely it is a federal government that both preaches and practises fiscal responsibility. We expect small business to practise and preach fiscal responsibility, look after its credit and be able to repay its loans, otherwise we are not going to give them money.

The federal government talks about fiscal responsibility but has yet to deliver on anything regarding fiscal responsibility. It had a very weak and timid objective to reduce the deficit to $25 billion per annum. By the Minister of Finance's own admission he is going to miss that target, yet he has done nothing to bring the government back into line with its own estimates and targets. Government spending must be significantly reduced to restore order to our fiscal house and to provide some confidence to small business.

Once government spending is brought under control and the budget is balanced, the benefits for Canadians, including small business people, will be a stable fiscal environment in which they can plan for the future, grow, develop, create employment and reduce the unemployment costs to the country. We could also then look forward to a reduction in the exorbitant levels of taxation that funds the voracious and excessive appetite of government spending.

When the Auditor General tabled his report earlier this year, he said that hard choices lie ahead.

The federal portion of the national debt today is $538,000,181,919.99 according to the number I have. The debt, as I mentioned before, per taxpayer which includes every small business person who is also a taxpayer, is $38,287. The federal debt per capita is $18,920. As small business people go around the world trying to compete, to sell their product, they have to build into the price of that product the cost of the high taxes that pay for the interest on the debt.

The Auditor General stated in his 1993 report that hard choices have to be made to deal with the problem of the debt. The hard choice is between the continued growth of the debt or stop digging a bigger debt hole, as we said during the last election. The hard choice is between continued excessive overspending or practising fiscal responsibility and prudence. The hard choice is between continued high levels of taxation, with the possibility of even higher taxes and new taxes to fund the debt or hopefully the prospect of tax relief by restoring order to the federal government's fiscal house.

If we do not make these hard choices and go with what we have been doing before, we can guarantee that taxes will continue to go up. We can guarantee that our interest rates will remain high as we try and bring in more and more money every month to just pay the groceries, so to speak, of the federal government. The dollar will have to be maintained up so that foreign lenders to us will continue to lend money to Canada.

Therefore, we expect small business and business in general to compete around the world as it worries about high taxes because of the national debt, high interest rates because of the current fiscal situation, a high dollar on the international money markets because of our situation. We still expect them to compete.

Is that what we call taking care of business? I hope not. I hope that the federal government would see its way to changing the policies and dramatically reducing the spending. In that way we can expect small businesses to play their part, create the jobs, create the environment where there are more people paying taxes and collecting taxes and bring our whole fiscal situation under control.

Unfortunately we have had nothing but paper from the government. A year ago it introduced a red book which stated that the GST would go. The finance committee sat for months and months and produced a report that is now on the shelf. The government cannot move from the report to action. We are still waiting for any kind of action on a report that was tabled months ago and promised a year ago. There has been no action.

The Minister of Human Resources Development tabled a paper several weeks ago. He now says we have a problem but that he does not have any plan whatsoever to try and fix it.

The Minister of Finance tabled a couple of papers recently in which he stated: "We have a problem in this country but I don't have any idea how we were going to fix it. Let's go out there and see if somebody else has an idea". Now we have a report titled "Taking Care of Small Business" from the Standing Committee on Industry. I sincerely hope that this is not another one that is just going to go on the shelf and that is the end of it.

The time has come to act. Let us take a look at some of the statistics. In 1990, 97.2 per cent of all registered businesses in Canada had fewer than 50 employees; 52 per cent of Canadians employed in the private sector are employed by businesses with fewer than 100 employees; and 45 per cent of Canadians are employed in businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Therefore, there is no question whatsoever that small business is the engine that drives the Canadian economy. It has to be protected, encouraged, enhanced. It has to be competitive. They are the ones we depend upon to generate the taxes that we spend on our social programs.

I urge the government to stop the endless production of paper and let us see some action. Let us see it create a climate that fosters economic growth and prosperity rather than just picking a few winners and handing them all kinds of cash. Let us see a climate of reduced government spending, a balanced budget and tax relief. These are concrete suggestions. Good government solutions must be found and implemented to address the long term concerns and issues facing the small business community rather than giving them short term, quick fix and politically expedient measures.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member. I found it quite extraordinary that in his speech he listed a series of things the government had done which he claimed hurt small business. Some of them may have; some of them may not have. Some of them may in fact help small business. He listed all these as arising out of the last budget.

Then he made the most extraordinary statement, having gone through a fairly comprehensive list that the government had done nothing during its term of office to do anything about anything and that all it had done was study. If it has done nothing, why did he come up with a list at the beginning of things the government had done?

The inconsistency was quite extraordinary. I do not know whether the hon. member reviewed the remarks he was going to make in advance and picked up this illogical inconsistency or not. But it was quite obvious to those of us sitting here that he was talking through his hat for the second half of his speech at least. It cast serious doubt on the statements he made in the first half of his speech when he listed the government's many accomplishments and then decided the government had done nothing and that all we were doing were studies.

He knows perfectly well the government has done a lot more than study. He knows the government has produced these studies with a view to taking action. Part of the study process involves consultation with Canadians which he knows the government believes is in the best interests of the country so the views of Canadians can be solicited before the government takes decisions that sometimes are going to be painful or unpleasant.

Surely he agrees that is the right approach. Surely he agrees that the speech he just made is utter nonsense.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do take exception to the hon. member's remarks. The point is that this government has yet to prove it can move beyond taking reports and put them into action. That was the whole point of my speech.

We have had the GST study. My goodness, my colleagues on the finance committee were meeting for months, sometimes three times a day. They produced a big report months ago and we have not seen anything. That was the end of it. I mentioned that the Minister of Human Resources Development produced a report which said: "We have a problem in this country but do not ask me for solutions. What do you think?" The Minister of Finance tabled two reports in two consecutive days which basically said the same thing: "We have a problem in this country but I am not offering any solutions".

Surely the government's job is to offer solutions. The solution we are offering is less taxation and less government. Stop picking winners and giving them all kinds of cash and expecting small business and business in general to try and compete under the heavy load of high taxes, a high dollar and high interest rates. They are trying to compete in the international marketplace to create jobs and some employment here, to create some wealth in this country yet we continue to tax them as if they were sponges with endless amounts of cash.

That whole idea is past. The day has come when there is no more money for small business to pay. Therefore before small business goes bankrupt we now find that this government is bankrupt of ideas. For the past number of months we have done nothing except some house cleaning from the previous government: the restructuring of this department, the restructuring of that department and the amalgamation of some other departments. These things were produced by the previous Prime Minister. This government has been in power for more than a year now and we are still doing house cleaning from the previous government. When are we going to get some serious action and decisions?

[The Deputy Speaker]

The time for this debate has expired.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Yvan Bernier, Bloc, Gaspé, QC]

The issue I wish to bring to the attention of this House this evening, Mr. Speaker, is one I raised three weeks ago regarding the Gaspé Cure Inc. consortium and the problem it is faced with.

I would like to inform this House of what Gaspé Cure is and what problem it is faced with. Gaspé Cure is a grouping, as the name consortium indicates, of five processing operations dealing in salted dried codfish. This consortium employs approximately 250 people.

Last spring, in a contest sponsored by the Quebec agri-food export club and Soquia, Gaspé Cure won the highest award of excellence. With respect to what Gaspé Cure is, I wanted to add that this consortium used to include at least eight processing operations four or five years ago. but following some form of industrial rationalization, there are only five remaining today.

I want to emphasize that these people are trying to maintain their trademark, as well as working on improving their visibility world-wide and their efficiency in terms of production. The problem now, and it has grown in the last two years, is that other companies in other regions of Canada, in the Maritimes, have started to produce what we in the Gaspé call an imitation product.

There is a difference between the two products. Why? Because the process in the Gaspé takes into account our humidity, our climate, the number of days of sunshine, which give us a particular micro-climate for the type of production that we want to have.

The dried salted product may be less well known in Canada and to Canadian consumers. Nevertheless, you should know that it is highly prized in some countries and eaten in ceremonies or at big festivals, as in Portugal or Spain, for example.

For this reason, the market and image of the Gaspé Cure consortium are very important for them.

I am being signaled to speed up a little; indeed, I am not really used to speaking under Standing Order 38. What I am asking the government, because I know that it is supposed to have done studies to come to a conclusion, is that it recognize right away that after all the studies are done, the Gaspé Cure consortium will have its own restricted trade name for the region.

It is very important for them. In the past, they showed that there was a glaring difference between their product and the one made elsewhere, so we want this issue to be cleared up as soon as possible.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the designation of Gaspé cured has appeared in the federal fish inspection regulations for many years.

The current regulations permit the labelling of any saltfish as Gaspé cured provided that the fish meet the specific quality characteristics of Gaspé cured, light salted fish. It is recognized that there is a long tradition in the Gaspé region associated with the production of this unique type of salted fish.

In an effort to address the concerns of the Gaspé saltfish producers, the inspection branch of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has consulted with the saltfish industry and has made considerable effort over the past few months to develop both sensory and chemical criteria which will more precisely define Gaspé cured. It is expected that this work will be completed by December 1.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans will then meet again with the saltfish industry to review this issue and finalize the standard for Canadian saltfish products by early 1995.

Once the standard has been completed, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans will implement a comprehensive training program for all inspectors involved in the inspection of saltfish in Atlantic Canada. The combination of a finalized, written product standard, specific chemical and sensory criteria and uniform application of the standard by inspectors will create a regulatory environment which will be fair for all producers of saltfish cod in Canada.

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Canadian Heritage made an error. He regrets his intervention to the CRTC on behalf of one of his constituents. He admits that his decision to write this letter was imprudent.

My question to the Minister of Canadian Heritage on October 28 raised a number of issues I wanted to clarify as they related to the minister's mistake. I wanted to clarify how the mistake occurred, how to prevent such an event from reoccurring, how to address the damage done and how to restore the lost credibility of the CRTC.

In his response, the minister suggested that I did not understand. He stated that his letter was not an intervention. This is not true. The facts are clear and simple.

On March 15 the minister wrote a letter to the CRTC on behalf of a constituent. On March 29 the minister received a response from the CRTC. Its response made it unequivocally clear that the minister's letter was received by the CRTC, stamped as an intervention and included in the Daniilidis application as a letter of intervention. The secretary general of the CRTC has concurred with these facts as they have been presented thus far. They are indisputable.

Further, the Prime Minister stated that the Minister of Canadian Heritage had made an error in judgment, that the letter was an intervention and he too wished the minister had not written the letter.

The sad fact is it is not I who is confused but the minister himself. Mr. Daniilidis, the CRTC, the Prime Minister, the cabinet ministers also named, the opposition and the Canadian public all know the minister intervened. The question is not if he intervened but why and how does he plan to clean up the mess he created.

When the CRTC wrote back to the minister on March 29 it was clear that the letter was understood to be an intervention. The minister stated that he moved quickly to remove this understanding.

The minister took no action for 199 days. Is this what he calls quick action? This complacency and inaction is exactly why Canadians have lost faith in politicians. Only when this issue became news was the minister stirred to react. The facts are that his actions belie his rhetoric.

This scandal has served as a lightning rod for all Canadians tired of lying politicians, tired of coverups and tired of repressive rhetoric. Errors like this one should not be tolerated.

As my questions to the minister continued, I focused on the issue of influence peddling. I asked about the influence of the letter of intervention on the application process. The minister, contrary to fact, denied that his letter was an intervention. As well, he chose not to address the issue of the damage he had caused to the credibility of the CRTC.

My office has been in contact with Mr. Daniilidis and some of the interveners in the process and everyone is concerned with the negative influence brought about by the minister's meddling. The minister's letter of intervention was received by the subcommittee prior to its rejection of the CHOM application. The subcommittee membership for the CHOM and the Daniilidis applications had overlapping membership. Given that the minister's letter supported the Daniilidis application prior to the CHOM rejection and given that the committee membership was the same, it is clear that the minister's letter had some influence.

However, once this whole affair became public, once the question of potential influence was posed, the CRTC had no choice but to reject the Daniilidis application.

The minister has an obligation to rebuild the credibility of the application process. He has an obligation to rebuild the credibility of the CRTC. He has an obligation to remove the blemish on his ministry. It is a long, long climb especially for a ministry weakened by such gross incompetence.

[Susan Whelan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, I was informed that the question the member for Calgary Southeast wanted to refer to was the one she brought up on October 24th. My response is with regard to that question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The note for today, if it will be of assistance to both hon. members, reads October 28, 1994, which is the list that I was given. There may have been a miscommunication. Do the members wish to put this off to another day? This will not count on anybody's time.

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it was addressed to the issue of the question raised on October 28. However, if the hon. member would be prepared to give a response in general to the action of the minister, I would be satisfied with that.

[Susan Whelan, Liberal, Essex—Windsor, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to respond to the question of October 28. I am prepared to respond to the question of October 24. I apologize but that is the information I was given. If the hon. member would like, I can talk in general about October 24.

[The Deputy Speaker]

We can put the matter over to deal with on another occasion or have the parliamentary secretary speak to it. As the hon. parliamentary secretary has indicated, she can reply in very general terms to the specific remarks of the hon. member. I think it is up to the hon. member for Calgary Southeast as to which she prefers.

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would prefer a response this evening.

[Susan Whelan, Liberal, Essex—Windsor, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my response is with regard to the CRTC and with regard to the fact that the Government of Canada did not intervene in the activities regarding RDI. That is what I am prepared to respond to tonight, that the CBC's application to authorize a specialized Canadian-

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is clearly way off base. It has had nothing to do with RDI. In deference to this confusion and to the hon. member, we will put it off for this evening.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am reminded that there are no points of order to be raised during this period. In any event that is agreeable to both members.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, some 12 days ago I asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the date when Canada will ratify the law of the sea. It is most important that Canada take steps to ratify this comprehensive and overdue piece of international law.

The law of the sea is designed to protect the world's fisheries and to stop the pollution of the oceans. It contains the idea that ocean resources belong to humanity and that all of humanity is entitled to share in their benefits and use.

Canada signed this law some 12 years ago. It was one of the first nations to sign it. However, it has yet to ratify it, which is the second step required. The law of the sea will come into effect, into force so to say, in two days, on November 16, 1994. Sixty countries have now ratified it and that is the number required to get the convention working.

Of the 60 nations that have ratified it all but two, Iceland and Malta, are developing countries. It is therefore necessary to make the point that to be truly effective this legislation or this law should have universal support, including that of the major developed countries and marine powers. There is no doubt about that.

Being one of the first countries which signed the law of the sea, it puts Canada in an advantageous position because it could play a role in setting up the institutions which will enforce this particular convention. It is our hope therefore that Canada will have the possibility to appoint a Canadian judge to the law of the sea tribunal and also have a seat on the council of this decision making international body.

Apparently the reason Canada is so late is that there were concerns about some particular provisions including deep seabed mining which somehow echo the policies we also heard in Washington. It is my understanding these issues have now been resolved, including the main concerns to ensure that Canadian law is compatible with the convention.

In conclusion, as I said Canada was one of the most ardent promoters of the law of the sea convention. It is a great pity to see Canada somehow reluctantly joining the world community instead of being among the 60 signatories required to get the convention going. It seems to me that Canada would be very well served by ratifying this convention. This is a landmark piece of international negotiation in international law.

Tonight I am asking our distinguished parliamentary secretary to confirm that Canada will ratify the law of the sea convention before the end of the year.

[Jesse Flis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the hon. member for Davenport on being such a strong advocate of the need to achieve universal convention to govern all uses of the sea.

Canada participated actively in the negotiation of the law of the sea convention and signed it in December 1982. Our involvement in the convention stems from three basic principles: our general support for rule of law and multilateral processes; our extensive coastline and substantial continental shelf; and a desire for stable ocean law and additional rights for coastal states concerning fisheries, navigation, pollution prevention and the mineral resources of the continental shelf.

Along with other industrialized states Canada did not ratify the convention due to concerns, as the hon. member said, regarding its provisions on deep seabed mining. After four years of negotiations these concerns were resolved. An agreement was adopted by the United Nations on July 28 and signed by Canada the very next day.

Canada has already been applying most of the provisions of the convention in practice as along with other countries we believe they reflect the customary law of the sea. We are now reviewing our domestic legislation to make certain it is in conformity with the provisions of the convention. This must be done before ratification to avoid any inconsistency with the convention.

We hope the hon. member's support for ratification of the convention will aid in the rapid passage of any amending legislation that may be brought forward.

I want to assure the hon. member for Davenport who has taken such a leadership role in this issue that the government intends to ratify the law of the sea as soon as possible.