Debates of April 22nd, 1996

Agreement On Internal Trade Implementation Act

[Nic Leblanc, Bloc, Longueuil, QC]

Yes, absolutely.

So, Mr. Turner was surely a very intelligent man. He had understood. He had insight. Unfortunately, his party was against it and decided to wage a war to the finish. We had to work for hours.

I remember making a speech at about 11.40 p.m. in December, just before Christmas, because we had to adopt the free trade agreement before the end of the year, so that both countries could ratify it. So, we made long speeches until the very end because the Liberals, if they did not hinder us, tried to gain time. They used every trick of parliamentary procedure to try to gain time until the very end, until we succeeded in having the agreement adopted.

So it all happened thanks to Quebecers, to the Government of Quebec, to its members and to the members of the Quebec wing of the Conservative Party. There was about sixty of us at that time, and we managed to convince the rest of Canada that free trade was a good thing.

Today the Liberals are in favour of free trade. They won the election, so they do not need to oppose free trade any more. They used the free trade issue to win the election. Now they support free trade.

I am also pleased to see today that the Liberals have decided to encourage free trade between the provinces. I totally agree with that, and this is why I support this bill.

As I said earlier, this bill will simplify internal trade. I also mentioned earlier that this is in line with the sovereignist project that we still have and that we will not forget about because we still believe in it, unless the Canadian government decides to make changes to the Constitution.

What we are proposing is a close, controlled economic partnership. As I mentioned earlier, this is a good start. It will allow us to have free trade, which is necessary.

Now that we will have free trade with the provinces, we, in Quebec, are very aware that we will have to train our workers better. Therefore, I urge the federal government again to accept to transfer to Quebec the responsibility for manpower training. This is very important for us. It is not up to the federal government to make decisions about manpower training; it is a provincial responsibility. This is my twelfth year as a member of Parliament, and for twelve years we have been begging the federal government to give manpower training back to the provinces. This is a very important issue for us.

We can see that there is a lot of waste. There is a waste of time and energy, and still people are not being properly trained. The effectiveness of the federal government's manpower training is rated at about 25 per cent. Imagine, billions of dollars spent and it is only 25 per cent effective.

This is also true for Ontario and for British Columbia. Manpower training should be given by provincial institutions. It is the provinces who run educational institutions. Why does the federal government have to buy courses from Quebec institutions? Often, they have rules that do not correspond to those of our school boards or of the provinces' educational institutions.

It would be much easier to co-ordinate manpower training if it were controlled by the provinces, if the money went directly to the provinces so that they could provide satisfactory training. We have colleges that adapt to the needs of businesses and that design very specialized programs corresponding to sectors of economic activity. They take the businesses in a particular sector and create specialized classes in order to provide people with very specific training to meet very specific needs.

Courses are given specifically to meet the needs of these businesses, but in many cases the federal government horns in. I will give the House an example: someone who is unemployed wants to take a 10 month course, starting in May and ending 10 months later. Since he is unemployed, he is not entitled to any holiday time during his unemployment, so he cannot take the course, because the school boards close down for two months in Quebec. This is crazy, as well as unacceptable. I find such things both scandalous and disgusting.

A lot of people come to see us in our offices to tell us things like this: "It makes no sense, I am eligible to take a course but I cannot because it starts in the spring and ends in late fall". Since the teaching criteria are not the same for the school boards and for unemployment insurance, people end up unable to take a course. That is why I find it scandalous that money is wasted and people with ability are also wasted. They often give up and go back home and on to welfare, living off the government.

I am begging the government to act promptly. In looking at my government colleagues close to me, I am convinced that they understand my message very well. I am not being aggressive, merely pointing out what is nothing more than common sense.

I trust that the Liberal members making up the present government will heed this message and make it possible for there to be greater efficiency and for the people working in our businesses to be better trained and therefore more productive, turning out better products. With better products, we will be able to compete internationally. Such is the purpose of manpower training.

That is why we are working very hard in Quebec, to have more efficient businesses. It would be a serious mistake not to do so. There will be no point in moaning about it when we are flooded with products from other countries, creating unemployment and welfare dependency. Do we want to become a banana republic, an impoverished state, or do we want to move on into this new economic era? In this new economic era, high technology will take the place of natural resources.

This is why training and intellectual skills are essential for this new economy we will be experiencing in the years to come.

Once again, I am begging the government, and the government members in particular, since they form that government. Often MPs do not dare speak out, but it is not always necessary to vote against one's government in order to have one's ideas noticed. I believe we should work very hard inside our respective caususes. I know there are excellent Liberal members who understand what I have just said, and I am convinced that with time they will come to understand, as they finally did and accepted the free trade agreement with the United States. It is normal. People evolve slowly.

There are still people in Quebec who are not sovereignists. I say to them that some people take more time than others to understand. It is the same thing. There were some people who had not understood that free trade was a good thing. Today, people know

that free trade is a good thing, at least in Quebec because we export much more to the United States than we import.

We realize that free trade is a good thing. Yet, at first, some Liberals believed that it was not. You cannot blame people. They take time to change. As I have just said, some take longer than others to understand. It depends where you come from, on your education and on where you live. This is all perfectly acceptable, and I do not want to point the finger at anyone.

There is one thing, however. We live in an age of high technology and major communications, and we are going to have to meet international competition. It is an extraordinary challenge. One that will be very exciting. I am sure the years to come will be exciting, but we must make sure that our people receive the intellectual training to meet the challenge.

I and the other members of the Bloc support this bill, except, and I repeat, the part on the resolution of disputes. On the whole, we agree with the formula, except at the end, where it provides that the federal government may unilaterally decide who is right and who is wrong by order.

Once again, this could harm certain provinces with very pronounced sectors of economic activity. I will give Alberta as an example.

Alberta has a number of fairly major economic sectors, including oil, beef and wheat. These are the major ones; I might even say the only ones. If a dispute were to arise with Quebec or Ontario in one of these areas, and the federal government unilaterally resolved the dispute by order, Alberta's economy could suffer significantly. It is a possibility.

Quebec has one really major sector: hydroelectric power. Should there be a dispute over power with no solution found and should the government unilaterally decide by order in the end to promote uranium or atomic energy over Quebec's energy, Quebec could suffer hugely. It is for these reasons that to give sole power to the federal government to resolve a dispute by order-in-council could adversely affect an important economic sector in Quebec as it could adversely affect an important economic sector in Alberta, in New Brunswick or elsewhere. In this sense, we think it is dangerous and we are opposed to it.

We would have preferred a two-day debate, a public debate in the House of Commons, so that members concerned, who feel their rights or those of their province, their region or a sector of their province are being abused, can publicly inform the people of these risks by their comments.

We all know that the ability to speak out publicly often confers an extraordinary power. Otherwise, things are done on the sly, often in secret. That is why we live in a democratic system, to be able to speak out publicly. It is a shame we cannot speak out freely and publicly instead of ruling by order-in-council. It should be possible to debate the matter, people should be able to express their views. Maybe then, the way we see things could change radically.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about the internal trade agreement. I will talk about why I believe free trade agreements are good both internationally and internally within Canada. I will follow that with a brief analysis of what the bill does and does not do as it reflects on internal trade in Canada. I will detail some specifics about why the Reform Party has difficulty supporting the bill. I will wrap up my speech by specifically talking about the energy chapter, or the missing energy chapter, the one we have been promised repeatedly over the last couple of years which we are still waiting to see come to fruition.

I would like to detail why the internal trade agreement is so valuable to the people of Quebec as well as to all Canadians. I would like the separatists in Quebec to consider the idea that the bringing down of interprovincial trade barriers presupposes that we have provinces around which there are barriers. There is no guarantee that if a province separates from Canada the move for free trade within our borders will continue.

Some of the benefits which Quebec now receives within the Canadian Confederation are not a sure thing if it goes its way. NAFTA, GATT and the internal trade agreements all suddenly become up in the air for the province, then the country of the Quebec. I urge them as they consider their options in the years to come that they keep that in mind.

For instance, Quebec exported more to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1989 than to any country in Europe, including France. Quebec sold as much to Ontario as it did to the United States. That is important. Quebec has a huge trade within Canada and the separatists put that at risk when they start talking about separation. It is no wonder the economy of Montreal and all of Quebec is in turmoil right now as they consider their options.

The business people in Quebec know the truth. The truth is Canada is good for Quebec and they should know that. To start tossing around the idea that they could just go their own way, everything would be copacetic and not to worry about it, is not telling the truth to the people within their own borders. Quebec benefits from trade within Canada. I will read a couple of statistics about how much benefit it is for some of the provinces.

It is interesting that only 23 per cent of British Columbia's total exports go interprovincially. In B.C. 76 to 77 per cent of its exports

go internationally. We in British Columbia are not totally dependent on the internal trade agreement and the freedom it would allow although obviously it is a good thing for all Canadians. Most of our product in B.C. is exported to other countries.

Take some of the other provinces. In Quebec 51 per cent of its total exports go to other provinces. The majority of its exports go to provinces, not to other countries, not to Europe, not to the emerging Asian markets. Most of its trade is internal trade. If those in the Bloc Quebecois put their thinking caps on, they would realize they are not doing any favours to their constituents by proposing the breakup of Canada when more than half of Quebec's trade goes to other provinces.

Alberta exports 61 per cent of its trade to other provinces. Alberta understands the importance of the internal free trade agreement and of being part of Canada.

Whether we are talking about dairy products, manufactured goods or whatever, Quebec benefits from being part of Canada. The separatists should toss out this idea of leaving Canada which is harming not only Quebec's business prospects but is also creating that political uncertainty which is hurting the rest of the country. I hope we will hear more talk that they are looking forward to acceptable change from Canada. Many of us are looking for acceptable attitudes from the Bloc Quebecois too.

We would like to see an acceptance that this is a mutually beneficial thing. Quebec and Canada together is the way we should have it. Read the statistics. We are not going to be held hostage on this. We hold some pretty good cards in this game and we are not about to hand over the whole deck to those who say they want to take their ball and go home. I urge them to reconsider their political agenda which I think is harming not only Quebec but also the rest of Canada.

While Ontario is Quebec's most important trading partner within Canada, Quebec ran a deficit in its trade with Ontario and its surplus came from trade with more distant provinces. In other words when we think of trade it is not just Ontario trade; Quebec trades with all the provinces in big numbers. If we were to add up all the numbers that all the provinces trade, in fact as much trade goes on interprovincially as goes on with the rest of the world. Interprovincial trade is key.

The Reform Party campaigned in the election in favour of the free trade agreement. We made no bones about it. We said we anticipated that the world was going to go toward a rules based free trade economy and that we had best get on the bandwagon because that bandwagon was heading out of town. The best way to ensure prosperity for Canadians was to ensure that we were on the free trade bandwagon.

We said free trade should move ahead. Reform Party members said we would sign the NAFTA and the GATT if it came to that. We said that if 150 countries, give or take, in the rest of the world want to sign a free trade agreement based on a rules base trade agreement, we were to be one of the 150 because trade, export-import, is the future of the country.

We also said during the campaign that one thing which could make free trade work for Canada, although it has not always worked for Canada, is to resolve the internal trade barriers first. There are $6.5 billion of internal trade barriers within Canada. Everything from milk to beer costs Canadians more because of internal trade barriers. It is not right. If we are thinking of exporting to the world, at the very least we should be able to ensure there is also the right to export within the country.

Let me read where this agreement is taking us. What was the situation before this agreement came into force? Why was the Reform Party so adamant about one particular power which should be strengthened by the federal government? Everybody says the Reform Party wants to dismember the federal government. There are many areas where it should be out of business. One area it should strengthen is the right to strike down internal trade barriers. Section 121 of the BNA act states, and has always been the case: "All articles of growth, produce or manufacture of any one of the provinces shall be admitted free into each of the other provinces". Those are the rules around which somehow the federal government has allowed $6.5 billion in trade barriers to be erected between all provinces.

We have gone over this already somewhat, but we find ourselves in a situation in which transportation companies say it is easier to transport goods north and south across the border than it is interprovincially. Stocking requirements for shelves state certain products can be more visible or displayed more attractively on a shelf than others. Interprovincial trade barriers have arisen to the tune of $6.5 billion, even though the BNA states all provinces shall be permitted free access into each of the other provinces. It cannot be more clear than that.

The federal government has a responsibility and a legal right to ensure that we have free access between provinces. We do not need a better right than that. It is true free trade when there is the right for growth, produce and manufacture from any of the provinces to be admitted freely between provinces. What is needed is a federal government with the guts to do something about it.

It should not be done after the NAFTA, after the GATT. We are still trying to get this internal trade agreement right. Meanwhile the band wagon is well out of town and the free trade agreement is

gone. It is no wonder some people say international free trade agreements have not been as good for Canada as they couldhave been.

I would still argue they had to go ahead. However, federal governments past and present should have moved quicker and with more vigour on the idea of striking down internal trade barriers within our own country. If free trade had begun at home, people would have accepted it, seen the benefits and been far more accepting of the NAFTA and GATT that followed.

I have to mention specifically what happened during the campaign when many dairy farmers in my riding were promised by the Liberal government that it would not sign the GATT without a strengthened and clarified article 11.2(c). I heard Liberal candidates swear they would lie down on the railroad tracks to stop the deal. They would resign from caucus, which given today's activities might have been a good first step. They said they would never sign the agreement unless article 11.2(c), dairy quotas and tariffication, were strengthened and clarified.

The government did not even have time to read that document before it signed it. It was signed knowing full well that during the campaign it would sign. It was signed with out any strengthening, without any clarification. It went immediately to tariffication.

It was one of those promises that caused a lot of Liberals to get red under the collar during the campaign. They did not follow through on that to the dairy farmers in my area. The truth in advertising council should look into that.

There were some wild promises, including the Deputy Prime Minister's promises on the GST, including free votes in the House of Commons, including-I do not want to pick on your position, Madam Speaker-the promise from the red book that they would have deputy speakers from the opposition parties in the Chair. What happened to all the promises?

The red book has gone from the non-fiction section of the library and is now firmly ensconced in the fiction section of the library. I saw someone walking out of here a while ago with a red book. The sucker is only half as thick as it used to be. They are tearing pages out of it as they walk, trying to make sure people do not get a good look at it. It will be interesting how the promises part of this develops.

I remind people watching, specifically those in my riding, that on that article in the GATT there was enough misleading information from the Liberals to gag a dairy cow in my riding.

What does this provincial trade agreement actually move toward? We used to have total free trade. We had free trade on everything that was produced, grown or manufactured, which basically covers it. What does article 101 of this provincial trade agreement state? I would think the government might want a strengthened article on that. The article states the objective of the agreement is to reduce and eliminate to the extent possible barriers to the free movement of goods and services.

Notice the transition here is not a positive one. We went from free trade in anything grown, produced or manufactured to free trade wherever possible according to the government. Is this an improvement? This is not an improvement. This is not an improved internal trade agreement.

What does "to the extent possible" mean? Does it mean that when a separatist government says a barrier cannot come down it must stay up? Does it mean that if someone gets a lobby group or a special interest group that might be funded by the government to aggressively lobby the government, the barrier has to stay up? What does it mean? No one knows for sure because it is "to the extent possible" that the government will remove internal barriers. That is not good enough. It is one of the powers which the Reform Party has consistently said should be strengthened by the federal government.

We have said much can be realigned in the federal-provincial scheme. If the provinces think they can do a better job, that they can handle it better, that they have the resources and they want to look after a lot of what is currently done by the federal government, we say more power to them, have a nice day, let us do it.

However, one of the powers the federal government needs to retain if it is to have a union from coast to coast is the right to strike down internal trade barriers. It cannot hand that over to the provinces. If it strikes down the economic activity between provinces, divisions will be created which create political divisiveness, interprovincial squabbles, business fights, uncompetitiveness, cost to consumers and cost to taxpayers. It is not acceptable to allow people, businesses or provinces to erect trade barriers within our country when we are looking for trade barriers to come down around the world.

This legislation is a step in the wrong direction. A promise was made in March 1994 just after the first federal budget. The industry minister stated the federal government is committed to working toward an agreement which is clear and concise, has a set of rules that will eliminate protective measures, and includes an effective and enforceable dispute settlement mechanism.

This agreement does not do that. If it did all of that I would say let us go for it, let us give it a whirl and see if it will work. There are entire areas untouched by this agreement. There are certain agricultural products untouched. Certain government procurement and regional development tools are untouched.

The energy chapter is not even there. The government is asking us to sign something that is not even there. There are about 14 chapters in this agreement. The energy chapter is a blank page. That would be bad enough except the government said the blank page would be filled in July 1995. July came and went and there was no page. It is a document that we need on the energy sector, one of the most important sectors of this agreement. September rolled around. September 1995 was when it would happen but in September 1995 the agreement was blank again.

There is no agreement on energy. We are being asked by the government to support an internal trade agreement in which at least in the area I am critiquing the chapter is non-existent. There is nothing there. It is a blank page.

We are being asked: "Trust me. I will sign it later and we will negotiate something. Just give me the power now". That is not good enough. Unfortunately, this deal of signing agreements and negotiating something later is typical of this government. It asked us to do that on the Yukon land claims settlement. It asked us to do it on the internal trade agreements. The government has asked us to entrust it to do something through order in council on many bills where it says: "We are not sure what it means. We do not know when it will come into force. We do not know how we will do it but let us pass it".

I say let us not pass it. Let us pass agreements and bills in this House which are complete. If the government needs more time to complete the bill, by all means take some time but do not ask us to approve bills in this House which are not full and complete. With this internal trade agreement that is a problem.

I will talk specifically on the energy chapter. This is the chapter which I find the fact that it is not filled out paints the picture for how effective this agreement is going to be. If we do not have a chapter on energy I would argue we do not have an internal trade agreement.

Agriculture is missing too. I guess it will be internal trade on widgets and foo-foos but that is not good enough. We need internal free trade within this country and we need it on the two most important products in the country, at least agriculture and energy. If the government cannot get an agreement on them, then it should withdraw the bill until the negotiations are complete. When negotiations are complete and the government has an agreement to present to the House of Commons, then we will vote on it. We have to vote no if there is no agreement in place because we will not give the government permission to write a blank cheque.

I mentioned that the chapter covering energy was supposed to be completed in July 1995. Then it was supposed to be completed in September 1995. That deadline also came and went. Now the officials are working on yet another draft of the energy sector chapter. The council of energy ministers promises again that August of this year is when the energy sector chapter is going to be completed. It is going to be completed almost for sure a year or so late.

What are we led to believe about this chapter and about this agreement? History tells us that politics will get in the way of common sense again, that the energy chapter may well go unwritten again. There has already been one written that they cannot agree with but it will probably go unwritten, unendorsed one more time.

I am afraid that sums up the progress to date of the energy ministers on this important matter. The blank page is rather symbolic of the entire agreement. It just shows again that the government cannot come through with its promise on internal trade and it is asking us to trust it to come up with something in the future.

I for one am not prepared to do that and I am surprised the Liberal members are prepared to do that. I would think they would say to their minister: "Let us wait until we get the complete document". It is unbelievable. For example when buying a car suppose I say: "I will sign the contract to buy the car. I see it has no wheels on it but I will buy it. Sometime when you think you want to fill out the contract about when I get the wheels, let us talk. I will be happy to do it". Nobody signs contracts like that.

In essence this bill is a contract between the provinces and between the federal government and the provinces and between the Canadian people by inference and all the provinces. The deal being signed is just not there and I am not prepared to do that. The Liberal backbenchers, at the very least, should not be prepared to do it either.

I mentioned the size of interprovincial trade and how important it is. It is critically important for the country that this is done correctly. I do not want to belabour the whole thing, but I can give members a list of how many agreements we have had. Somebody mentioned being here for 12 years. We had the Macdonald commission which recommended the elimination of trade barriers in 1984. In 1987 the committee of ministers on internal trade said that we had to get rid of internal trade barriers. In 1989 a memorandum of agreement stated we had to get rid of them. The maritimes then signed a memorandum of agreement. In 1991 six governments tried to get rid of an interprovincial agreement on beer marketing practices. That is how specific we are in this country. Six governments tried to get together to try to decide how to put a beer on the shelf. They come to sort of an agreement but one still cannot sell beer interprovincially unless one has a brewery in every province.

We come to the intergovernmental agreement on government procurement but that is also a difficult one to enforce. This goes on and on. In 1992, 1993 and 1994 the ministers backed away from completely eliminating internal trade barriers. There are about 11 sectors that they cannot solve yet they are now coming to us and asking approval for it.

I would like to wrap this up by saying that there is a long history in this country of promising one thing on the internal trade agreements and delivering nothing on the other.

We have a case in point which we have just gone through. I hope that sometime during discussions on this bill the new member for Labrador will get to his feet and talk about the energy chapter, the missing chapter, that should go into this agreement. I would like that member to say that the people of Labrador are sick and tired of the fact there is no energy chapter in this internal trade agreement. I hope that he will stand up and say: "I am not satisfied with the way Labrador has been treated over the years on the internal trade issue. I am not satisfied with the fact that Labrador does not have access to the hydro lines in Quebec if it wants to build the lower Churchill. We are not satisfied in Labrador with the fact that they take our tax dollars and we do not even have a gravel road that we can drive on".

I hope the member stands up and says: "The money that we could have made if we had a proper internal trade agreement in place would look after the entire transfer payments to my province". If the people in Labrador had a decent internal trade agreement they would not even need transfer payments from the federal government.

I hope that member from Labrador has the guts to stand up in the House of Commons and say that he is sick and tired of the fact that Labrador has been shafted and shafted again when it comes to an agreement.

Quebec has consistently refused to allow Labrador to build lines in Quebec. Furthermore, Quebec has consistently refused to allow Labrador to wheel power through its existing power grid. Instead it is forced to sell that power to Quebec at ridiculous 1969 prices to be resold to the Americans to the tune of $800 million to $1 billion a year.

The people of Labrador, with some justification, are sick and tired of that. I hope the new member for Labrador has the gumption to stand up and say that the government had better get it right on internal trade. He had better tell the minister that he is not going to be satisfied with the namby-pamby promises that some day in the future Labrador will be able to benefit from its own power sources.

I would hope that he would stand up and say: "This has gone on long enough. You have put Labrador in a catch-22 position". Labrador has to find a contract before it will be allowed to build power lines but it cannot build power lines until it gets the contract. They whipsaw Labrador back and forth.

By the way, Madam Speaker, the Reform Party went from 0 per cent to 30 per cent of the vote in the last byelection. I hope that the new member for Labrador is paying attention. There is within Labrador a separatist movement now. They have elected an independent MLA to sit in their own legislature. The reason for this is because they have been shafted. They are sick and tired of it. They do not want to leave Canada but they are tired of being fed pabulum and lies by the federal government. They are tired of being fed pabulum and lies even by their own provincial government. Both are Liberal governments by the way. They are tired of being beholden to another part of the country or to other Canadians when they should be and have the right to be independent.

I call on the government, when it writes this energy chapter, to then bring this internal trade agreement back to the House for ratification. When it writes the energy chapter it should include Labrador's concerns. You can bet your bottom dollar the reason the government cannot get an energy agreement right now is that Quebec will not sign and agree to binding arbitration because Quebec is afraid of what Labrador is going to get.

I would urge the member for Labrador to do his homework, study this and not to support this bill until that is fixed. Labrador deserves more.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais)]

It being6.50 p.m. the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m.

(The House adjourned at 6.50 p.m.)