Debates of April 30th, 1996

Deputy Prime Minister

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister tried to use the cost of a byelection as an excuse for not fulfilling her solemn, precise and calculated promise to electors in Hamilton East in the last election to resign if the GST is not scrapped.

Every elector there knows every month and every year the Deputy Prime Minister spends here adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to taxpayers' liability for her MP and minister's pension.

Instead of using this bogus excuse, will she simply do the right thing, resign and allow a byelection?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we said very clearly that the Minister of Finance and I are implementing page 22 of the red book. There is nothing to add.

We campaigned on page 22 of the red book where we said we were to replace this tax with a harmonized tax. The member should read the red book and realize that we campaigned on the promise that we are fulfilling at this time.

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.

As the Prime Minister knows, the Deputy Prime Minister was booed at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton because of her own performance and of the government's performance on the GST.

Here are some of the headlines that appeared in the Quebec newspapers: "Everybody Misunderstood", "GST: the End of a

Charade", "Smoke and Mirrors", in La Presse ; ``Copps the Joker'', in Le Devoir . There is national unity on this issue.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister act honourably and resign, as she promised during the last election campaign?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, two kinds of questions occur in the House.

Very rarely, a member of the opposition will stand up and ask for a point of information, genuinely seeking an answer. There are other types of questions in which members of the opposition engage in political rhetoric, normally with a long preamble. They are not seeking information but seeking to make a point.

We are used to the second kind of question. Normally when the member asks that kind of question, explicit or implicit in the preamble is the fact that the opposition wants to attack the government on a point of substance.

Does the Reform Party support what the government is doing in terms of harmonization or not? Does the Reform Party still believe as it said it did in the finance committee report: "We commend the government in its attempt to harmonize the tax with the provinces".

Does the Reform Party still believe that it is simply unacceptable that Canada remain the only country in the world with 10 different sales tax regimes? Where does it stand? Is Reform for harmonization or against it?

Francophones Outside Quebec

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

Mr. Speaker, according to Statistics Canada, of the 1,000,000 francophones outside Quebec who declared French as their mother tongue, only 640,000 still speak French at home. Despite this very alarming situation, the commissioner of official languages has just released an annual report claiming, on the contrary, that considerable progress has been made in the use of French outside Quebec.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. How can the commissioner of official languages table such a rosy report, when for 18 months he has been releasing reports that totally contradict what he said today? What extraordinary event has happened since then to cause such an about-face on the part of the commissioner?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the facts are there. In Canadian schools today, 2,135,000 children are studying French as

a second language, while some 644,000 are taking English as a second language.

In addition, one in four Canadian students between the ages of 15 and 19 is bilingual. This is the highest rate in Canada's history.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what her word is worth these days-

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

-but I will still ask her a supplementary question.

How can the government accept a report by the commissioner of official languages that denies the francophone reality, going so far as to avoid the word "assimilation", when Statistics Canada's figures show that, between 1971 and 1991, the assimilation rate for francophones-

[The Speaker]

I would ask the hon. member to put his question.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

My question is this: Why do Statistics Canada's figures show that, over the last 20 years, the assimilation rate for francophones outside Quebec has risen from 27 to 34 per cent?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the worst is having to live with attacks- we politicians can survive them. Mr. Goldbloom, who was not appointed by this government but by the previous government, released a report and the hon. member across the way is now accusing him of distorting the facts. The facts are there.

The fact that one in four Canadians can speak both languages may hurt the Bloc Quebecois' separatist policy, but the facts are there. The hon. member's accusations against Mr. Goldbloom make no more sense than his own actions in the past.

Deputy Prime Minister

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister said she would not resign because it would cost the taxpayers $100,000.

This morning local radio station CFRA listeners have started pledging money to pay for the byelection, so it will not cost the taxpayers or the Deputy Prime Minister one red cent.

If enough money is raised and the Deputy Prime Minister's last excuse is eliminated, will she do the honourable thing, the respectable thing and resign?

[The Speaker]

That is a hypothetical question and it is out of order. I would ask the hon. member to proceed to the supplementary.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for the finance minister, this party is against harmonization with compensation of $1 billion.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister realize it is not just her own honesty, integrity and respect that suffers when she breaks her word? It reflects on all her party and this whole place.

The Ottawa Sun sure sized things up when it said not to light a match near the Deputy Prime Minister lest the compressed nauseous gases of political hypocrisy prove combustible.

Official Languages

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

In August 1994, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, which was taking a look at 25 years under the Official Languages Act, said, and I quote: "Time is running short, as statistics on assimilation indicate. At this rate, our communities will be nothing more than a shadow of their former selves". In short, it sounded a cry of alarm with the government. The government, however, prefers to remain deaf to this sort of appeal and is happy with the twaddle from the commissioner.

Has the government asked the Commissioner of Official Languages to draft a complacent report that does not reflect the truth and contains only what the government wants to hear?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, that is not true.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, is the minister prepared to reprimand the Commissioner of Official Languages? Could she ask him to stop hiding the figures of Statistics Canada and do his job rather than politicking?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Goldbloom is an official of the Parliament of Canada, not an official of the federal government. We do not follow the example of the Quebec culture minister who is obstructing the collective bargaining process. We do not interfere with an organization at arm's length.

Somalia Inquiry

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

Mr. Speaker, Canadians were shocked to hear a federal government lawyer contradict the Minister of National Defence regarding the mandate of the Somalia inquiry. Canadians want to know who is behind this.

Will the Minister of National Defence confirm that the judge advocate general instructed the federal government lawyer to challenge the mandate of the Somalia inquiry? Can the minister tell Canadians the reason behind this attempt?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question is that no one instructed the lawyer for the government to challenge the mandate of the inquiry.

Yesterday at the commission an evidentiary issue arose. The observation was made by counsel that the issue was collateral to the events in Somalia, and submissions were made about how far the commission should go in examining video tapes.

However, as I said earlier, apart from this detail the important point of principle is that the government is committed to assisting the commission in its work. We acknowledge expressly that the commission properly can look into allegations of cover-up, part of its job. It is within its mandate. We agree with the interpretation of the mandate by the commission itself.

Now we are getting on with the work of the commission. The lawyer in question has tendered the documents and the records. They have been made available to the commission. The commission is going about its work.

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

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of National Defence tell Canadians why there is a contradiction between the messages the justice department is sending and the Department of National Defence is sending to the Canadian public?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence and I have exactly the same position. It is the position of commission counsel, the position of the counsel who appears for the government before the commission. The commission can quite properly and should look into any allegations of cover-up.

The most important thing of all is to have the Canadian people learn the facts and to have the commission's findings on those facts so that we can make an evaluation of what happened and what should happen, which is exactly the position we take before the commission and here today.

Communications Securityestablishment

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

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

About a year ago the House unanimously adopted a motion calling for the creation of an independent review mechanism for the Communications Security Establishment. We know that both the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence support this initiative.

Can the minister inform the House of the government's progress in responding to the proposal of the House to put in place an oversight mechanism for the CSE?

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

Mr. Speaker, the government welcomes the initiative taken by the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River and the members on the subcommittee on security intelligence of the justice committee.

We have been holding discussions with him and other members as to the appropriate oversight mechanism. We should be in a position within the next few weeks to make the government's views known. I hope that will satisfy the legitimate concerns of the members of that committee and the Canadian public in general.