Debates of Feb. 9th, 1995

Air Transportation

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member is trying, but I want to point out that with respect to international routes we need to be very careful on exactly what was done and when. This government certainly did not contribute any $50 million guarantee to Canadian Airlines International.

In spite of what the hon. member is trying to produce in front of the House today, again I want to quote: "Under the existing international air route policy, Air Canada has just announced that it is increasing its international capacity by 18 per cent".

If the hon. member would look back to where we were this time last year with Air Canada and Canadian Airlines International, he would understand how far we have come.

Canadian Armed Forces

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

The minister has promised to begin an inquiry into the incident surrounding the airborne regiment in Somalia after the appeals are completed. It seems as though much of the airborne regiment's trouble has to do with the breakdown of the command structure.

Would the minister at least commence the inquiry procedure by naming the members of the inquiry so that there will be no delays after the appeals?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has obviously not been following what I announced

before in this House. The inquiry will begin not after the appeals but after the initial proceedings, the courts martial. That will be sometime in mid-March.

Once the judicial proceedings are finished, the hon. member will know the people involved in the inquiry and the terms of reference. I am sure that once he sees them, which will be soon after the judicial proceedings are completed, he will be quite satisfied.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was merely suggesting in order to make sure there were no further delays after the inquiries take place that we move quickly to at least name the people on the inquiry board.

The morale of the Canadian Armed Forces is in serious jeopardy and I am sure the minister realizes that. There are such events as those of the airborne regiment, sailors on welfare, subsidized housing, golf trips for generals, and now cuts to the medical support for Canadian peacekeepers in Croatia which was reported today.

How can the troops be expected to have confidence in their commanders while these devastating morale problems remain unresolved?

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, if I ever saw a loaded question that was one. Everything the hon. member has ever learned about the armed forces, anything negative in the last little while has been rolled up into one question. I really cannot give a detailed answer to everything because I would be here until 3.30.

With respect to the inquiry, it will begin once the courts martial are over. With respect to the other questions he raised, I have responded to those questions in public and I can give detailed answers to the hon. member.

I will say one thing. We all have a responsibility as politicians to ensure that there is adequate, informed and reasoned debate about any institution so that we do not undermine the morale of institutions like the armed forces.

Pesticides

[Gary Pillitteri, Liberal, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for years Canadian growers have been wanting a level playing field with American growers.

The red book promised to improve the pesticide regulatory system. What is the government plan on regulating pesticides to mean to Canadian farmers especially to horticultural growers?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Niagara Falls for his continued interest.

We are certainly pleased that later today the government will be announcing a new and revised pesticide regulatory system in Canada which will be under the direction of the Minister of Health.

The system we already have is one of the most rigorous in the world today. However we are going to improve that even further so that the availability of products to our horticultural producers, our foresters and all Canadians will be provided in a more efficient, more cost effective, environmentally safe and competitive manner so that we will all be better off.

Trans-Canada Highway

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.

I have been informed that the new plan for the Trans-Canada Highway through New Brunswick is on the desk of the premier of the province of New Brunswick and he is negotiating with the federal government for funding for same.

The proposal cuts off the largest industrial base in the province of New Brunswick, the city of Saint John. I am informed that it costs over $1 billion to go through the base.

There is another route and that is the existing route-

[The Speaker]

The hon. member's question, please.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Will the Minister of Transport confirm to this House that his government will not be part of a cost sharing agreement for the TCH in New Brunswick that will cost the taxpayers $1 billion when the present route can be built for $200 million which ensures that all the three major cities, Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton, are treated equally and are connected to the U.S. border with a four-lane highway from St. Stephen?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her question because I know it may be one of the last questions she raises in the House. I understand she is looking forward to replacing Dennis Cochrane in New Brunswick as leader of the Conservative Party and thereby reducing the Conservative caucus in this House by 50 per cent in one crack.

With respect to highway construction in New Brunswick, as is the case everywhere else in the country, the hon. member would be aware that it is a provincial jurisdiction. If the Government of Canada is able to participate, we certainly will try.

As far as the routing of the highway is concerned, because of the nature of the provincial jurisdiction she would have to negotiate that in her new incarnation in the legislature of New Brunswick with Premier McKenna.

Points Of Order

[Mike Scott, Reform, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during question period the minister of aboriginal affairs made some statements about my conduct as a member of Parliament in that he suggested I was carrying on with public consultations without consulting with aboriginal or native people in my riding.

This is patently false and I would ask that you ask the minister to withdraw these remarks.

[Ron Irwin, Liberal, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Mr. Speaker, mine was the same point of order.

I would like to correct the geographic error I made. I have three, sometimes two, critics in the Reform Party sitting in the same area, the hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley and the hon. member for Skeena. Both ridings abut. The member for Prince George-Bulkley has 11 First Nations and the hon. member for Skeena has 23, 30 per cent of his population.

There was a meeting called `let the people speak'. There was a panel set up and notices were sent out. The notices did not go to any aboriginal people in the riding and no aboriginal people were asked to sit on the panel.

It was the riding of Prince George-Bulkley Valley and not the riding of Skeena. I apologize on a geographic error but certainly not for the sentiment expressed.

[The Speaker]

I hope the matter has been cleared up. There was an error in geography. This is what the hon. member was referring to.

[Mike Scott, Reform, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister talks about my having a meeting in my riding. If he examined the facts I had several meetings in my riding and I personally invite-

[The Speaker]

We will have the usual question for Thursday.

Business Of The House

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, to announce the business of the House for the coming week.

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, it is our intention this afternoon to continue with the motion regarding the 51st report of the procedure committee on redistribution legislation.

We will then resume consideration of second reading of Bill C-65, the government organization bill with respect to organization and reduction of certain government agencies, followed by second reading of Bill C-67 to reform the veterans appeal board process, and second reading of Bill C-61, the agriculture bill.

On Friday we will commence the report stage of Bill C-37, the young offenders legislation. On Monday we will deal with the report stage and, if possible, third reading of Bill C-59, the income tax bill. If this is completed we would revert, if necessary, to Bill C-37 or, as the case may be, to the list given for today at whatever point we leave off at the time of adjournment this evening.

Tuesday and Wednesday of next week shall be allotted days.

Finally, I shall consult with my colleagues opposite early next week with regard to the business for next Thursday and Friday.

Privilege

[The Speaker]

I am now prepared to rule on the matter raised by the hon. member for Delta, on December 13 and December 15, 1994 regarding the response and supplementary response of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to Order Paper Question No. 82. I would also like to thank the hon. member for his very detailed written submission dated February 1, 1995 which served to clarify his remarks in the House.

I wish to state at the outset that having reviewed all that was said in the House as well as the answers to the question printed in the debate, I remain of the view and must reiterate that this is not a prima facie case of privilege.

Before explaining my decision, I would like to draw members' attention to citations 31(1) and 31(2) in Beauchesne's Sixth Edition, which state:

(1) A dispute arising between two members, as to allegations of facts, does not fulfil the conditions of parliamentary privilege; and

(2) The failure of a minister to answer a question may not be raised as a question of privilege.

Although I have not found a prima facie case of privilege, I want to comment on this matter for the benefit of the hon. member and of the House. Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 403 states in part:

The House recognizes two broad categories of questions-the oral question, which the Standing Orders recognize as dealing with matters of urgency, and the written question, which is designed to seek detailed information from the Ministry.

I emphasize the last phrase because the purpose of the written question should be to seek and receive precise, detailed answers to carefully worded questions.

In his representation the hon. member for Delta stated that members expect the responses to Order Paper questions to be accurate and well reasoned. He noted that the question he submitted was one requiring detailed study by the government and was one for which he wanted a detailed answer. He also argued that it is incumbent upon the government to provide not only the questioner but the House with accurate information. In this the hon. member is absolutely correct.

The wording of Standing Order 39 itself gives us further information about the nature of this type of question. It reads, in part, that members may put questions to the ministry "-but in putting any such question or in replying to the same no argument or opinion is to be offered, nor any facts stated, except so far as may be necessary to explain the same; and in answering any such question the matter to which the same refers shall not be debated." Because questions on the Order Paper are not meant as a vehicle for debate, the rule expressly prohibits the inclusion of opinion or argument, the very things which lead to debate.

The Clerk of the House, acting on behalf of the Speaker, has the full authority to ensure that questions placed on the Notice Paper are coherent and concise, in accordance with practices of the House.

As Speaker Fraser noted in a ruling on October 2, 1991 at page 3147 of the Debates , questions are scrutinized as to the correctness of their form and content before they are placed on the Notice Paper. To aid members as well as the Clerk and his staff in ensuring that questions for the Order Paper are properly formulated, citation 428 of Beauchesne's sixth edition lays down an extensive list of restrictions applicable to written questions. It is, however, incumbent upon the members submitting a question for the Notice Paper to ensure that it is formulated carefully enough to elicit the precise information sought. There are, however, no similar provisions in the Standing Orders for the Speaker to review government responses to questions posed.

In the present case we are dealing with a matter of the interpretation of the wording of a question placed on the Order Paper. The hon. member for Delta anticipated a particular reply which was not the reply tabled in the name of the hon. minister. The member contends that the written response provides erroneous information. He argues that he has found discrepancies between the minister's response and information contained in documents he has obtained through the Access to Information Act. For his part the hon. minister maintains that every effort has been made to answer the question posed by the hon. member for Delta.

I remind all hon. members that we have a tradition that what is said in the House or placed on record in the House is accepted as true. My predecessor, Speaker Jeanne Sauvé, phrased it aptly when on February 28, 1983 at page 23278 of the Debates she stated that it is not the role of the Chair ``to determine whether or not the contents of documents tabled in the House are accurate''.

Joseph Maingot in his book Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , at page 199, summarizes well the situation faced by the Speaker in such circumstances. He writes that before the Speaker can find a prima facie case of privilege in a situation where there is a dispute about facts, there must be ``-an admission by someone in authority, such as a minister of the crown or an officer of a department, an instrument of government policy, or a government agency, either that a member of the House of Commons was intentionally misled or an admission of facts that lead naturally to the conclusion that a member was intentionally misled, and a direct relationship between the misleading information and a proceeding in Parliament.''

This is not the first time there have been disputes over replies to Order Paper questions or over the content of documents tabled by the ministry. For example, I refer hon. members to three rulings, the first on February 28, 1983 at pages 23278-9 of the Debates ; the second on February 21, 1990 at page 8618; the third on May 15, 1991 at page 100. I must point out, however, that in none of these cases was the matter found to be prima facie. As Speaker Fraser noted in the May 15, 1991 ruling:

The hon. member has raised an issue which is not an unusual kind of issue to raise. The hon. member is not satisfied with the response given. The difficulty that is always with the Chair in these cases is that there are often very great differences of interpretation on answers given. It is not a question of privilege, it is a question of disagreement over certain facts and answers that were given.

This precedent holds true in the case now before us.

Questions on the Order Paper are a very important tool in the hands of members. As I stated earlier, their purpose should be to seek through a precise, detailed formulation precise, detailed information that will enable members to carry on their work. It is incumbent upon all those involved on both sides of the process-the members formulating the questions, House officials reviewing those formulations, the individuals drafting the replies and the ministers of the crown tabling those replies in the

House-to ensure that every care is taken so that these exchanges remain as fruitful and as useful as possible.

I want to thank the hon. members who intervened in this matter.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Committees Of The House

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in my place today to discuss the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding redistribution.

I would like to congratulate the committee for its very thoughtful report. The conclusion of this report as far as I understand it is basically the result that we are going to create six new electoral ridings in Canada.

I had the honour to appear before this committee on June 24, 1994. The substance of my submission to the committee at that time was very similar to my thought process today. The bottom line is that the people of my riding and indeed the people of Canada do not want to see any further increase in representatives in Canada's federal House.

As we look out at industry today the buzzword is downsizing. Everyone is becoming more efficient, more effective. We are analysing the civil service, finding ways it could be more effective with the labour force it has. We have a freeze going on in the civil service to make it smaller and more effective. Today bigger is not necessarily better.

I refer to an old bad joke that Canadians often quip on the hustings: It is fortunate that Canadians do not get all the government they pay for. It is a bad joke, but it is a bad joke on the people of Canada, the taxpayers of Canada.

Today we have telecommunications and all kinds of communication media to access our ridings and the people of Canada. I have become a great user of the information highway, the Internet. I can go to my office this afternoon and broadcast a message across Canada. These are the kinds of efficiencies we have to bring to government and to the House of Commons.

I spend roughly 80 per cent of my staff's time in the riding dealing with roughly 10 per cent of the population base. Obviously members can increase their constituency size, the number of members and constituents they deal with, without an effective increase in the cost of operations.

I look at my own particular riding of Durham which takes in a number of other political jurisdictions. Along with myself, there is one senator. We have five MPPs in Queen's Park. We have a regional government of 32 members. We have 66 mayors and councillors. The question of course is: Is this type of governance giving us better representative democracy in Canada? What do other jurisdictions do?

As I mentioned in my submissions to the committee in June, a fair comparison would be that of our southern neighbour, the United States. In 1911, 84 years ago, almost 100 years ago, the United States capped its system of representative democracy with 435 representatives in Congress and 100 senators.

In Canada, we have one federal representative for every 75,000 people. In the United States, it is one for every 465,000 people. The U.S. manages its system much the way we manage ours. Every 10 years it has a census and it redistributes within the existing system. Some states get more representatives and some less, depending on their population growth.

If we continue our current arithmetical formula, obviously this House is going to extend out on to the Ottawa River. We have over half as many representatives as the United States, yet it has 10 times our population.

I read in the report on page four comments regarding a cap or reduction as not feasible at this time. On page five I read that to change the electoral process significantly would be highly disruptive at this time.

I thought that as members of Parliament we came here to make decisions and that was what we were being paid for. Maybe we are saying we cannot make decisions and we need more members to make them for us. I do not know if that is what we are trying to put across here. I do not believe the people of Canada want any further increase in representatives.

There are basically two issues of concern here. One has been represented by some of my Reform colleagues which is to reduce the actual numbers of federal members of Parliament. The second one is a proposal by the committee that is basically to increase the representation by six members.

I have a better solution that is somewhere in between. This is Canada's constant striving for compromise. I also recognize there is a problem as was mentioned in the committee report itself. A grandfather clause signed back in 1986 with a number of the provinces stated that reductions in the seats by provinces would not change beyond the 1986 level. It is clear that agreement has to be revisited and renegotiated. I am suggesting

that has to be renegotiated and revisited now, not some time in the future.

Six more members of Parliament, people have suggested to me, might cost as much as $6 million. That does not mean that members of Parliament get $1 million a piece, but when we start adding up the duplication in services, duplication in staff, et cetera, we find there is a tremendous increase in cost. My constituents and I are very supportive of reducing the cost of governance.

The problem basically has to do with mathematics. Unfortunately in this House we seem to have a lot of problems dealing with mathematics. In my office this morning I took the existing level of seats and the popular vote and reduced both the seats and the population base taking into account the senatorial floors of the existing provinces that are already at their senatorial floors. From that figure I also subtracted the 75 seats that are now represented by the province of Quebec. After this mathematical formula takes place, the 75 seats roughly equal the 25 per cent of the population base of Quebec as related to the total population of Canada.

The bottom line is a result like this: It would add one seat to the province of Alberta, two to the province of British Columbia, but would reduce by three for the province of Manitoba, increase by six to Ontario, and reduce by four to Saskatchewan. New Brunswick would have no change. Newfoundland would lose one seat. The Northwest Territories would remain unchanged, as it is already at its senatorial floor. Nova Scotia would lose one seat. Prince Edward Island would be unchanged. Quebec would be unchanged. Yukon would be unchanged. The sum total is 295 seats, what we have here today.

Looking at population statistics there is no deviation. Looking at the 1991 census there is no deviation in those provinces greater than 1 per cent of the total population of our country. In other words, it is representation by population which is basically what we are trying to achieve.

I have not dealt with the aspect of distribution within provincial boundaries, the differences between rural and urban areas. Presumably we can follow the guidelines of the report, using an electoral boundaries commission in concert with the provinces.

In conclusion, it is clear to me that the people of Canada do not want an increase in the number of members of Parliament at this time. It seems to me that we should possibly rethink this and go back to see whether we cannot renegotiate that grandfather clause.

I have found there are too many decision makers and not enough decisions being made. Let us refocus our attention to making this a reality today and not pass the decisions off on some future Parliament.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member to clarify what he just said about renegotiating grandfather clauses in the Constitution of 1867. Perhaps he could explain what he had in mind.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.

I was not actually referring to the Constitution Act. I was referring to a separate agreement which I believe dates to 1987. It is a fairly recent agreement with some of the provinces and basically said that from 1987 onward there would be no reduction in their seats. It is not actually in the Constitution Act; it seems to be a separate agreement with some provinces that they simply would not be reduced from what they were in 1987. It is not a constitutional amendment.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, could the hon. member perhaps explain what he was referring to, if it was not the British North America Act of 1867? I would like to know under what legislation these provisions were made. I ask this with all due respect for the hon. member from the Liberal Party. I was unaware until now that such legislation existed.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am simply reading the committee report. On page 7 it reads: "Issues such as senatorial floor and the grandfather clause whereby no province can lose seats from the number it had in 1986". The report is available from the committee. That is basically what it says. Obviously it is referring to a specific grandfather clause which existed and dated from 1986 onward.