Debates of Sept. 27th, 1994

Points Of Order

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC]

Mr. Speaker, always in the interest of our proceedings, like the Bloc Quebecois House leader said, what we tried to see and what we are still trying to figure out, is the leeway we have when we address the Chair to raise-

[The Speaker]

Hon. members, the first question was in order but the second one was not.

The House resumed from September 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-44, an act to amend the Immigration Act and the Citizenship Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Customs Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Immigration Act

[The Speaker]

It being after 3 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, September 22, 1994, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the second reading stage of Bill C-44, an act to amend the Immigration Act and the Citizenship Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Customs Act.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the amendment of the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lièvre to the motion of the hon. member for Richelieu relating to Private Members' Business.

The House resumed from September 22 consideration of the motion and the amendment.

Party Fund Raising

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When you proceed with the vote may I request that the vote be taken by row as opposed to the traditional party vote, since this is a private member's item and there is no whip discipline.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I thank the government whip for his intervention. That will be the case with this division.

As is the practice, the division will be taken row by row starting with the mover and then proceeding with those in favour of the amendment sitting on the same side of the House as the mover. Then those in favour of the amendment sitting on the other side of the House will be called. Those opposed to the amendment will be called in the same order.

The question is on the amendment.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare the amendment lost.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with the unanimous consent of the House, I would move that the same vote be applied in reverse to the main motion.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

As we say in English, nice try.

The next vote is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those in favour will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

In my opinion, the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

As is the custom, the recorded division will be taken row by row, beginning with the mover. Then I will ask the other members who are in favour of the motion and who are on the same side of the House as the mover to please rise. Then the votes of those who support the motion and are on the other side of the House will be recorded. The votes of those who are opposed to the motion will be recorded in the same order.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived.)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare the motion lost.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Department Of Natural Resources Act

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in Bill C-48 before the House today, the federal government assumes rights and powers that directly encroach on the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces over natural resources. This is unacceptable. Apparently, the federal government is unable to read what is said in the Canadian Constitution and refuses to listen to Quebec's demands.

What we see in Bill C-48 is a federal government that continues to get involved in a jurisdiction that is Quebec's exclusively. It assumes the power to go over the heads of the provinces and Quebec, directly funding organizations and individuals.

The federal government prefers to ignore Quebec's demands, but I am willing to bet that many of my colleagues in the other provinces share my position. I would like to say the following for their benefit. These unwanted intrusions by the federal government lead to overlap between provincial and federal strategies for developing this sector, especially since many provinces have already set up their own strategies for promoting, regulating and developing their natural resources.

Quebec's forest management strategy tabled last May by the Quebec government is a good example. The strategy is entirely independent from the National Forest Strategy developed by the federal government and the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers.

The Government of Quebec has to provide funding for both strategies. However, successive federal governments have ignored what is said in the Canadian Constitution as well as the legitimate demands of the Government of Quebec.

Take, for instance, the report of the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Forestry and Fisheries, in November 1990, about the struggle of provinces to defend their jurisdiction over natural resources. The committee says that in the course of the twentieth century, the government had on several occasions tried to affect national policy in the forestry sector but had sometimes met with resistance by the provinces to any potential encroachment on their jurisdictions.

The committee felt it was clear that the federal government had to play a more credible role to guarantee the success of all these national forestry strategies.

Although the committee suggests it is necessary to obtain the co-operation of the provinces, it is clear that the federal government has felt free to intervene in this area without the specific consent of the Government of Quebec.

Quebec protested, to no avail, against the creation of a Department of Forestry, quite properly seeing this as an intrusion in one of its jurisdictions. Quebec did not sign the National Forest Strategy. Since 1991, after the demise of Meech Lake, no Quebec ministers have been involved in the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. Quebec has just released its own strategy for forest management, as is its right in matters over which it has exclusive jurisdiction.

How can the federal government legitimately intervene in an area that falls under provincial jurisdiction? How can it claim to act in the best interests of Quebecers, when for years it has ignored both its own Constitution and the demands of successive governments of Quebec?

Obviously, the Liberal government's stated desire to put an end to overlap and duplication would be a perfect excuse for getting rid of the Department of Natural Resources or letting provinces opt out of federal programs that involve natural resources.

Perhaps I may compare the mandate of the Department of Natural Resources of Quebec with that of the Department of Natural Resources of Canada.

Based on the analysis of federal-provincial overlapping carried out by the Treasury Board of Canada in 1991, the activities of the federal Department of Natural Resources and its Quebec counterpart overlap to a large extent.

That is why I would like to propose an amendment to Bill C-48, an amendment respectful of the Constitution of Canada and respectful of Quebec's traditional demands. Here is my amendment. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Frontenac:

That every word following "that" be struck out and replaced by the following:

this House refuse to give second reading to Bill C-48, an Act to establish the Department of Natural Resources and to amend related acts, because the principle of the bill does not provide for granting the minister the power to compensate Quebec if the province decided to exercise by itself the exclusive jurisdiction over natural resources it was conferred under the Constitution Act of 1867 and 1982.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The Chair was consulted, and the amendment is in order.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating the government for adopting Reform policy with respect to departmental consolidation. Since we are dealing with the legalization of a fait accompli I should probably be thanking the previous government for this recycled bill, a toast to absent antagonists.

Having said that, the government is pretty unclear on the concept. As a matter of fact the government is pretty unclear on almost every concept, but I will leave that for another day.

The object of consolidation is to increase managerial efficiency and save money. What has been accomplished? Instead of 10 assistant deputy ministers there are now seven, which is commendable. Minor economies have been made in human resources, accounting and so on, but the total decrease in corporate overhead has been only $16 million, 1.6 per cent of the department's annual budget. The elephant laboured and brought forth a mouse.

The department has expressed pride in the fact that the amalgamation was done with only minor staff reductions. The act states in section 8 that all employees in the old department will occupy their same positions in the new department. Perhaps this makes some sense in the short term with respect to clerks, typists, technicians and other lower rank staff who would merely swell the massive ranks of Canada's already existing unemployed. Is there really no scope for reducing the number of middle managers and technocrats to conform with today's economic reality?

This department, which deals almost exclusively with matters of provincial responsibility, has a $1 billion budget and about 5,000 employees, of whom 3,000 are right here in Ottawa. How can that be rationalized?

I know that the uncontrolled growth of bureaucracy is not a disease that attacks only governments. I have worked for or been associated with a few multinational resource companies and they have the same problems. They also have built-in safety valves which prevent such growth from destroying them, as it surely would if it went unchecked.

Every few years the boards of companies like Exxon, Shell or Noranda become aware that the ratio of payroll to gross revenue is grossly out of whack. Department heads are summoned to the CEO's office and the word goes out: too many engineers, too many planners, too many people engaged in redundant programs, too many assistant managers, too many professionals who never leave their offices, and so on.

The axe is swung and corporate survival is assured. It is not pretty and it is not nice but it preserves not only the company but also the jobs of the people who actually harvest the resources and produce corporate and national wealth.

Up to now Canadian governments have not responded to these same economic imperatives. With no apparent limits to their capacity to increase income and no real motivation for cutting expenses, they simply raise taxes, or more recently borrowed unimaginably large sums of money.

I know perfectly well that streamlining government operations will not in itself get us out of the awful mess we are in. It has been said many times in this House that the entire cost of government operations is less than half of the annual deficit. If we do not start there, where will we start and when?

Let me cite a couple of specific examples of where I believe that small but significant cuts could be made in departmental spending. The mining sector has 168 full time equivalent employees and a budget of just under $26 million. More than half of that budget represents contributions to mineral development agreements with the provinces, primarily with Quebec. These are sunset programs, most of which will expire next year.

Planning, observing and studying these MDA programs requires a substantial investment in time and resources. If the federal government must participate in these programs as a form of equalization, and I question the wisdom of that, it would be much more efficient to just send cheques. We do not need two levels of bureaucracy administering the same programs.

The mining sector's most essential functions are gathering statistics and helping to formulate government policy with respect to taxation, investment and trade. These duties could readily be handled by Stats Canada and by a few specialists in the various ministries responsible for the administration and execution of the policy.

At the end of the day the usefulness of this small sector of the Department of Natural Resources is open to question. Certainly the possible cost benefits of dismantling it should be considered.

Not all questionable department expenditures are related to overlap and duplication. The Atomic Energy Control Board is the sole agency in Canada which regulates the storage and use of radioactive material. This is fitting and proper. The agency suffers from a severe case of bureaucratic bloat. Between 1985 and 1993 the number of licences to sell, store or use nuclear materials decreased by 17 per cent, from 4,543 to 3,743, while the number of AECB employees rose from 252 to 373, a 48 per cent increase.

This organization is supervising only 10 licensees per employee. Senior department officials attribute this ridiculous ratio to increased public concern for health and safety. Really, now.

The AECB is now working on a partial cost recovery basis. All private licensees pay a fee for service. The AECB provides no service. It is a regulatory agency and its fees are therefore just another form of taxation targeted at small specialized industries that cannot duck. The system reminds me of the practice in China of requiring a condemned man's family to pay for the cartridges used for his execution.

If the agency got rid of one third of its employees it would not have to proceed with its well known plans to increase fees by an additional one third annually until 1997.

Before I conclude my remarks I want to tell the House my favourite civil service story. It concerns Charles Camsell, an early director of the Geological Survey of Canada. He and some young assistants were on a long canoe traverse of several weeks' duration. They came to a Hudson Bay post. They had been living on the usual diet of the day which was beans, bannock and fish for these many weeks. One of the young fellows got up the nerve to approach Mr. Camsell and ask him if they could get a little variety in their diet since there was a store near at hand. The old man reached down into his pocket, pulled out a quarter and sent one of the boys over to the Hudson Bay post for a can of tomatoes.

If we had one or two guys like Charlie in the Department of Natural Resources today we might see some action in the direction which the people on my side of the House would like to see.

In closing, the mandate in article 6 of this act is a motherhood mission statement which hardly anyone would disagree with. It looks great, but should there not be something in there about cost effectiveness?