Debates of June 20th, 1996

Atomic Energy Of Canada Limited

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

Mr. Speaker, the minister is sweet in her confusion, but my supplementary is as follows.

Is the minister aware that Canatom, which she put at the top of the list of companies benefiting from AECL contracts in Quebec, did not get the contract to build the CANDU-6s that will be sold to China. It was in fact the American firm Bechtel that got this lucrative contract. Is she aware and is she asleep?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Let me explain to the hon. member that the CANDU reactor business in foreign markets is a highly competitive one.

AECL puts together a consortium on the basis of partners who provide the most competitive bids in the circumstances. Canatom, like any other company in this country, has the right to bid, to participate. Canatom has a long and lengthy history in the nuclear business in this country and I am sure it will receive much work in the future.

Pearson Airport

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if the Liberals had kept their mitts out of the Pearson airport deal from the beginning it would have cost Canadians absolutely zero. The Prime Minister has stuffed the Senate with-

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Beaver River.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister stuffed the Senate with 16 of the best Liberal yes men in the country and he still could not get Bill C-28 through the Senate. It is dead.

When will the government get the hint and realize this bill was flawed from the beginning? What part of dead does it not understand?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, a party that managed to come dead last in a byelection should understand the word dead, dead in the water, dead last.

As I have answered four times already, we are exploring our options because we believe the Canadian taxpayer should be protected from a major payout to the tune of $600 million of plain, unearned profit on the punitive Pearson deal.

To answer the other part of her question, we have arranged with another group for a not for profit management of the airport in local hands. I can assure her we are currently spending $250 million to bring Pearson up to where it should be, the number one gateway for North America, for the whole central heartland of the continent.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if that deal had gone ahead that whole process would have been finished by now and we would have had a class act airport, not simply talking about the possibility of it now.

The minister talks about due process of law. I might remind you, Mr. Speaker, he used the due process of law some time ago to sue his own government, for heaven's sake. What credibility is that?

Tory patronage may have been replaced by Liberal politics but Canadian taxpayers are still paying the price and that is what they are angry about.

Instead of worrying about covering their own political assets, when will the Liberals come up with a plan that will benefit taxpayers, not Liberals, not Tories, but Canadian taxpayers?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, this is extraordinary. We have explained how we are trying through various measures to protect Canadian taxpayers from $600 million of unearned profit. These are the people who are not protecting Canadian taxpayers, yet the member has the audacity to stand up and suggest we are not protecting Canadian taxpayers.

It is about time they discovered who the Canadian taxpayers are. They are not just a small group of developers and Conservative members of the other place and lobbyists. They are more than that.

Centre For Information Technologies Innovation

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

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

Last year, the industry department cut the budget of CITI, the Centre for Information Technologies Innovation, located in Laval, from $13 to $9 million. Now there are rumours that the government is getting ready to close down this research centre in the Montreal area by 1998, by reducing CITI's forecast budget for 1996-97 from $9 to $3 million.

Can the minister confirm our information to the effect that his department is getting ready to shut down CITI, thus eliminating over 70 high tech jobs, once again, in the Montreal area?

[John Manley, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, as announced in the February 1995 budget, the first program review concluded that CITI's activities were not essential to the government's mandate and should be gradually excluded from it by April 1, 1998.

After looking at the options that would best serve the interests of employees and of taxpayers, I asked my officials to try to privatize CITI. Following a transparent public process, MicroCell submitted a duly completed proposal to us last April 29.

We responded with a counteroffer, and are now awaiting MicroCell's reply. We have informed the staff at CITI of the government's position in this matter.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is the closure of Tokamak in Varennes, the possible move of Atomic Energy of Canada from Montreal to Toronto, the awarding of CANDU-6 construction contracts to Americans, and now the pull-out from CITI.

Does the Minister of Industry admit that his government has but one objective: to systematically reduce its investments in the greater Montreal area?

[John Manley, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Laval Centre should be embarrassed to ask such a question. Is she not ready to admit that we have a number of federal laboratories in Quebec, including the Food Research and Development Centre in Saint-Hyacinthe, the animal health and food safety laboratory in Saint-Hyacinthe, the research station in Lennoxville, the research station in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the space agency in Saint-Hubert, the earth resources branch, the systems provided in Hull, the environment service-

[An hon. member]

They often forget.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

Pearson International Airport

[Jim Gouk, Reform, Kootenay West—Revelstoke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport seems confused. He keeps referring to the Tories. There are more Liberals involved in this than Tories.

In two secret government documents, senior bureaucrats warned the government at the start of the Pearson process in 1993 that the contract was a better deal than trying to do it themselves and that cancelling the contract could leave the government and subsequently the taxpayers of Canada on the hook for up to $2 billion.

My question is simple and it is directed to the Minister of Transport. Why did the government not listen to its own advisors?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I thought perhaps the hon. Reform Party critic would have the decency to simply sit quiet and let the others in his party speak.

The reason I say that is that last night a group of Mulroney appointed senators, unelected people, voted in favour of granting hundreds of millions of dollars of unearned, undeserved profits to unaccountable developers in an unacceptable deal.

The member in today's Vancouver Sun is quoted as saying: ``This defeat is a victory for all Canadians''. This is a possible $600 million liability to the Canadian taxpayers and the Reform Party critic has the unmitigated gall to get up and tell us that this is some sort of victory for the Canadian taxpayers.

It is time Reform members began to understand who taxpayers are. It is time for them to understand that they will never get themselves re-elected on the basis of Mulroney appointed-

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke.

[Jim Gouk, Reform, Kootenay West—Revelstoke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian taxpayers are not on the hook for $600 million because of Bill C-28. They are on the hook because of the bungling of the minister.

The minister talks about the Tories and the Senate. It was a Liberal who cast the final ballot which shut down this bill.

Those same government documents provided all the figures backed up by independent experts to show that the crown construction option would have cost the taxpayers more than letting the Pearson contract proceed, even without the cost of the lawsuit added in.

My question is again directed to the Minister of Transport. If he was interested in saving the taxpayers money, why did his government not try to renegotiate or restructure the contract instead of ignoring the advice of his own experts and subsequently setting the taxpayers and this government up for a $600 million suit?

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Remember, sparrows fly.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, if the member will cast his mind back to the period prior to the election of this government, he will recollect that in the dying days of the previous government, the Mulroney-Campbell regime, a deal was signed against all conventions of this House and the parliamentary system. It was a major contract which the opposition party at the time, now the government, claimed it would re-examine if it were elected and if it was found to be not in the public interest it would indeed get rid of it. That is precisely what has been done.

Not only do Reformers not understand who their friends should be, they do not understand the workings of a democratic system where the people elected by the public of Canada have the right to determine how taxpayers' money will be spent.

Research And Development

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

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

Up until now, the federal government had always recognized the predominant role of the Montreal region as a major site for research and development in Canada. The Picard report and subsequent studies have always highlighted the importance of research and development for Montreal's future. Furthermore, during the last election campaign, the Minister of Finance reiterated, in his action plan for Montreal, the federal government's commitment to continue supporting these activities.

After making this election promise, how can the Minister of Finance justify his inaction in the face of the federal government's systematic withdrawal from research and development activities in the Montreal region, in particular the Varennes Tokamak, the Atomic Energy offices, and now the Centre for Information Technologies Innovation?

[John Manley, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have enough time to list all the federal government's substantial investments, which are very important for the future of Quebec, and for the future of research and development throughout Canada.

Today, another Canadian astronaut working for the Canadian Space Agency in Saint-Hubert, Quebec, was launched into space.

Last month, a Canadian astronaut from Quebec, Marc Garneau, who also works for the Canadian Space Agency in Saint-Hubert, Quebec, was launched into space for the second time. We continue to invest in federal laboratories in Quebec, in the area of biotechnology in particular.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, these investments are not presents from the federal government, but what we are owed in return for the taxes we pay to the federal government.

In his June 1992 action plan, the finance minister promised that in the greater Montreal region, a Liberal government would maximize the benefits from its national research and development program.

Does the minister admit that these promises were nothing but a smoke screen, as the federal government is systematically withdrawing from R and D investments in the Montreal region, with the minister's tacit approval? Where are the members from the Montreal region in this government?

[Martin Cauchon, Liberal, Secretary of State (Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec)]

Mr. Speaker, I think the opposition is giving us today a great opportunity to show how the federal government, the Canadian government, is omnipresent in Montreal's development. In fact, our government is the most actively involved of all levels of government.

We are involved in cultural matters, in pharmaceuticals, in aeronautics, in biotechnology, in environmental matters. My colleague, the Minister of Industry, has announced a technological partnership that will produce outstanding benefits.

Since the beginning of the year, and again recently, we have made major announcements in the Montreal region. Consider, for example, the millions of dollars invested in Delisle Foods and Galderma and the $712,000 invested in the Tristan and Iseut textile company. Consider-