Debates of Sept. 18th, 1996

Supply

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the speech by the hon. member for Bruce-Grey, but I think he did not spend enough time on a number of important aspects of votes, which are basically unnecessary expenditures.

Last week we read in the newspapers about the pay system at the Department of National Defence, which is after all pretty fundamental and basic and which should work properly. It seems that some $40 million were wasted because of a lack of modernization in a department that has certainly not lacked for funding during the past 20 years. It has always received enough money, in generous and significant amounts. During the last few years there were cutbacks and bases were closed in the regions, but as far as the bureaucracy is concerned, are we not seeing a situation where, when we look at the votes, there is a tendency to slowly but surely starve the regional branches of a department, while those at the decision-making level, in the bureaucracy, at the deputy minister level whom we see around here in Ottawa, have been able to survive quite easily?

I have another question for the hon. member regarding the Senate votes. Does it seem reasonable and normal to you that a non-elected House, after the Standing Committee on Government Operations, whose meetings you attend regularly, adopted a resolution, should say: "Sorry, we will not come and defend our budget, we do not have to, we are above that sort of thing"? Does this position on the part of the senators seem normal to you? Excuse me, I ask this question through you, Mr. Speaker.

[Ovid Jackson, Liberal, Bruce—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I can comment on the other place, but at the outset let me make this point clear. The government intends to make its operations very efficient and effective. It intends to be a leaner organization. When we get interventions from members of the opposition or the auditor general we will try to do the best we can to make the system better.

Earlier an hon. member of the Bloc Quebecois asked a similar question of my minister. He responded to the first part with regard to the department when he said that information will be forthcoming.

Treasury Board was established to review spending of departments and agencies in accordance with the Financial Administration Act. In the case of the institutions of Parliament such as the House of Commons and the Senate, Treasury Board does not perform a review of spending plans but agrees to table before the House for consideration their main estimates and supplementary estimates. It is a customary courtesy that we perform.

Questions regarding the detailed spending plans of the Senate which are approved annually by Parliament should be referred to the chair of the Senate committee on the internal economy.

[George Baker, Liberal, Gander—Grand Falls, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for his excellent speech and the excellent job he is doing as parliamentary secretary to the minister.

I would like to ask him, in his position as parliamentary secretary, whether he is happy with the performance of the Government of Canada as now being the leader in the world in economic development and its prospects for the future. Is the hon. member happy to be a parliamentary secretary in a government that now leads Japan, the United States, England, Germany, France and all the other countries?

[Ovid Jackson, Liberal, Bruce—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from Gander for his excellent intervention. He is one of those gentleman who I have admired since being here.

One is never satisfied with what is happening. We are always trying to do better. If we are a team and want to be number one most of the time, we always have to watch our backs because number two is coming up.

This House and all its members, not only on the government side but on the opposition side, by working together for Canadians who have such great resources both in human and in natural resources, once we focus on what we do as a country and a government, once we look after our young people, our young pages here, our people who will come up with the ideas, once we stop the infighting and once we have opportunity for everybody within our communities, we will continue to be the best country in the world. I thank my friend from Gander for asking that question.

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for the riding of Saint-Hubert and on behalf of my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois, I would like to say that we are opposed to the motion by the President of Treasury Board on Vote 1, in the amount of $40,713,000 under the heading Parliament-Senate being concurred in.

The Bloc has always maintained its opposition to the very existence of the upper House. We believe that it is not only an anachronism but useless. It is particularly outrageous in this day and age to ask taxpayers to sink millions in such an institution, when the economy is on the verge of collapse, unemployment is dangerously high, and services to the public are being drastically reduced.

In a time of budgetary restraint, when Canada's total debt is over $500 billion, and when the government is constantly asking people to tighten their belt, it is unacceptable to give 104 senators a $40 million budget.

Over and above a $64,000 annual salary, a $30,000 research allowance, a further $20,000 for their office expenses, and a tax free expense allowance of more than $10,000, senators enjoy other benefits very difficult to justify.

The main duty of the Senate is to study bills coming from the House of Commons and pass them. The role of the Senate duplicates that of House, nothing more, nothing less. Sir John A. Macdonald, when defining the role of the second House, called it a "House of reflection". I must admit that in times of budget cuts, I find that reflection to be very expensive.

Former senator Chaput-Rolland once said that this other House was simply a large dormitory. Please do not misunderstand me; I have nothing against the senators. It is the institution itself we must question. As far as we are concerned, this institution is nothing but a club of venerable old partisans whose only purpose is to reward friends of the party in power.

When we read the Confederation debates, we see that the Fathers of Confederation thought the other House was very important. Both Macdonald and Cartier wanted it to be a forum for reflection that would curtail what they called "the excesses of democracy". It is logical, a Senate which is not elected but appointed does not have to abide by the principles of democracy. On one of the walls in the upper House, we can see Cicero's maxim which states: "The role of nobility is to counter the instability of the people."

Therefore, members of the other House are supposed to control the elected members of Parliament. In fact, the very existence of the Senate is a remnant of elitism which, in a way, runs counter to legitimate democracy.

Since members of that House are appointed by the Prime Minister, it would be absurd to think they would add a reasonable and moderating influence to any legislation proposed by the House of Commons, without any kind of partisanship.

Seats in the Upper House have always been filled by friends of the party in power. It is a well-known fact, senators are chosen for their political allegiance and their long record of service.

When former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was in office, 81 senators were appointed, 71 of whom were of Liberal persuasion. When former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was in office, he appointed 42 senators, 41 of whom were Conservatives. Since September 15, 1994, the current Prime Minister has appointed 17 senators, of course all good Liberal supporters.

Consequently, the institution is in no way representative of Quebec and Canadian people. Members of that House are at the most representatives of the prime minister who appoints them. Even though the Upper House has impressive powers and the institution is protected in some way by the Constitution of Canada, it does not play a very significant role in the federal regime as we know it today.

As everyone knows, the Upper House of Parliament was created by the 1867 Constitution Act to defend regional interests in the country and to contribute to political stability by acting as a counterbalance to the House of Commons. However, it was realized very quickly that this mandate was incompatible with the objectives of a centralizing government. In fact, very early in our history, it became obvious that the provinces themselves were promoting their own interests.

Even Senator Peter Bosa said in an article that was published in the Canadian Parliamentary Review in 1982 that the Upper House did not really represent the regions. He said, and I quote: ``The belief that the Senate does not really represent the regions is, I think, justified''.

While the bicameral system still prevails at the federal level, all the provinces where this type of institution existed have considered it wise to simply abolish it. That was the case of the province of Quebec, which abolished the legislative council in 1968. Quebec is no worse off since abolishing this institution.

Countries such as New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Spain, to name but a few, have a political system based on a single representative assembly, not two as in the case of Canada.

I realize that a constitutional amendment is required to abolish the Upper House. More specifically, under section 41 of the 1982 Constitution Act, such a change requires not only the unanimous approval of the House of Commons and of the provincial legislatures, but also the approval of the Upper House itself. Moreover, the current constitutional status quo plays in favour of maintaining this institution, even though polls show that the public supports its abolition.

According to a Gallup poll conducted in 1993, 54 per cent of Canadians are in favour of abolishing the Senate. In Quebec, the results are more conclusive since 68 per cent of Quebecers support such a measure. Quebecers and Canadians are very clear on this issue.

For the Bloc, which not only promotes the interests of Quebec but also the democratic values of Canadians, the contradiction between the arm's length relationship expected of a House of sober second thought and the partisanship actually displayed by that House is reason enough to oppose any funds that may be allocated to that institution.

Moreover, since the Upper House does not have to be accountable for its financial management, what are Canadians to do to get a clear idea of how the public funds allocated to the other place have been used? Quebec and Canadian taxpayers are entitled to know how public funds are used. After all, taxpayers are those providing the money allocated to that House.

Yet, we had to wait up till 1991 before a historical first audit of the administration of the other House was ever made. The Auditor General of Canada thus tabled a report in which we found that the Financial Administration Act and the accountability mechanisms do not apply to the other House. So, how can Quebec and Canadian taxpayers be satisfied that the expenditures of that Parliamentary institution are managed efficiently?

If my memory serves me well, my colleague for Terrebonne told us recently in the House of Commons about a senator who allowed himself the luxury of having his office renovated in order to get a better view, and this for a mere $100,000. In any case, the auditor general put forward in his report 27 recommendations to deal with the flaws in the administrative management of the other place. However, since the release of that report in March 1991, strangely enough, the Upper House has not been subjected to further audits.

In my opinion, it is high time this government understood that sound management of public administration must begin with a careful and above all efficient use of taxpayers' money.

Since the Upper House does not contribute at all to the working of our modern democracy, I find it useless to allocate $40 million every year to that institution.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the outrageous symbol the Senate has become, given our current political and economic situation.

There is obviously something repugnant in the fact that senators refuse to appear to justify their budgetary votes. These people are not elected, they are not accountable to anybody except their friends who have appointed them, and they refuse to appear before the elected representatives to justify their operating expenditures and the total budget allocated to them.

When we talk about the Senate as a whole, the expenditures we are talking about today are only the vote of $43 million allocated to the Senate, but there is more. We know other costs are paid in part by the House or result from the presence of senators here. So, the actual costs are much higher. We are talking here of an average of at least $500,000 for each senator.

Do you think that, in the current context, we can really afford to waste tens of millions of dollars year in and year out? Just imagine what that adds up to over a period of 20 years. It is more than a billion for these people.

We can conclude that, after 25 years of constant deficits, the amount that has been spent on senators and their operating expenditures tops a billion dollars. We figure that a few billion dollars of the debt are due to this political institution, which has totally outlived its purpose and which has no tie to any serious political process that could yield some concrete results.

What do they do? That is the question the people in my region keep asking me. What do they do? Not much. They come here for a few days of rest, they get their pay cheque and then go back where they came from. I recently read in a newspaper: "We contacted the senator at his home"-in Fort Lauderdale, I think it was. Fort Lauderdale. Indeed, they had contacted him at his home. It is really something else to live outside the country when you sit in the Senate of Canada.

I would like these people to account for their actions and to explain why we should set aside some budgetary votes to pay for their operating expenditures. I hope their travel expenses do not include their trips between Canada and the United States.

Do they have any legitimacy? I said earlier that these people are appointed by the Prime Minister or his office and that sometimes, depending on the circumstances, the appointment can be seen as some kind of reward. Anyone can be appointed, a minister we want to get rid of, someone we want to keep out of the way, or a friend who did us a few favours. These people are being rewarded for services rendered.

When you do a Prime Minister or someone who could some day become Prime Minister a favour, it is like buying a 6-49 ticket: if you are lucky, some day, you could win a seat in the Senate. If you are young, you can hit the jackpot, because you get appointed until you reach 75 years of age. And at 75, you are not left in the lurch, there is a pension plan for senators. Do not worry, you are entitled to a gold-plated pension, a nice little cushion.

We can laugh about it, but at some point it no longer makes any sense and somebody has to put a stop to it. I know that a votable motion concerning the abolition of the Senate will be put before the House in the near future. I cannot wait to see it. I look at my colleagues in this House, especially the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi, who will vote on this issue and will surely support our position. He will not have any choice. I know his constituents. Some of my relatives live in his riding. These people want to sign the petition which is being circulated in my riding to have the Senate abolished. I am asking him to circulate the same petition in

his riding. While he is getting people to sign it, he will get to know his constituents better and try to convince them. I wish him good luck.

In short, my colleague talked about a poll where 68 per cent of the respondents said, in 1993, that they were in favour of the abolition of the Senate. Just think about what that percentage is today when cuts are made in social programs, in unemployment insurance, when the economic situation is very bad. Listen, the number of people in favour of the Senate's abolition cannot double because it would exceed 100 per cent, but I am convinced it is higher now.

In my riding, I started a petition with my colleague of Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup no more than a week ago. We sent it to a number of organizations, and answers have started to come in. I am even thinking of hiring another staff member in my office to handle the petitions because there are so many of them. We got close to one thousand signatures in a few days. Think about it. To get so many signatures in just a few days is significant. Most members who tried it in their riding found out readily that the people are spontaneously in favour of the Senate's abolition.

And there is something else I would like to add. Not only the senators do not do much here, but they do not do much either in their region. Normally, most senators are appointed for an area or represent a region.

In the three years I have been a member of Parliament and have followed various matters very closely, I do not recall having worked with a senator who represents us. In fact, there is one who comes from our region, but he does not represent a specific area, just the province of Quebec. When there was heated debate in the Senate on such things as the GST and free trade, Prime Minister Mulroney, a Conservative, who did not have the support of the majority in the Senate, used his power to appoint additional senators. The senator from our region is one of those new senators. There is probably another senator on the list who is supposed to represent us; our region must be grouped together with other regions, but nobody knows who the senators are. We do not see them. They are not working on any issues. They are not there, they are not active, they are nothing but ghosts. They are not even there.

I am sure there are people from Abitibi-Témiscamingue watching us. If somebody somewhere remembers a matter about which a senator actually did something, call and tell us. We would really like to know. However, I am sure the phone is not about to start ringing because we have not seen any senators regularly.

By the way, if you want to sign the petition and you do not know where to find it, you can call our office at 1-800-567-6433 and we will be happy to send it to you. You can then circulate it in your area.

Some of my colleagues talked about the process. Not only is it outrageous to waste money, but look at how inflexible our political system is. Despite the obvious will of the people, particularly in Quebec, to see the Senate abolished, and even if the House of Commons were to vote in favour of abolishing the Senate, which I hope it will soon, the senators themselves would also have to say yes for the Senate to be abolished.

We are therefore giving them a veto, as it were, over their future, and do you think that in the end they will agree to disappear of their own accord? The only way that will happen is if there is so much pressure that they are forced to resign, because it is embarrassing to be a senator and they can no longer show their face. They will have the option of joining our other colleague in Fort Lauderdale. That is one possibility, but, that aside, for those of them who want to live in Quebec and in Canada, it will be difficult explaining to people that they are taking money from the federal government to sit in the Senate.

This shows clearly how far they have gone to protect themselves. It proves one thing, which is that these people were probably worried about being criticized one day and having their future hang in the balance.

This being the case, what we can hope for is more support. I urge people, particularly those in my riding, in my region, to add their voices and their signatures to the petition that is circulating and that will be tabled here in the House, particularly around the third hour of debate that remains on a motion by the Bloc Quebecois to have the Senate abolished. That is one thing we can do, something concrete. The more signatures we get, the more it will show that we have the support of the public.

Now, there are people who would like to reform the Senate, make a few adjustments, fix it up. That, too, has serious limitations, because I am not sure that the public wants to see another political level added. Take the case of Quebec, where people are already voting in municipal, provincial and federal elections. And school boards are elected as well, I almost forgot about that. More and more, people are talking about decentralization, but we do not know exactly what is going to happen. Probably, when decentralization comes, there will be some accountability. We can therefore assume people will exercise their franchise at a more local level, but in any case above the municipal level.

Are we going to add, on top of all that, a level of elected representatives in Ottawa who will monitor other elected representatives? Our best monitors are the public. When these people get sick and tired of having us around, after four years they can wield their pencils and turf us out.

In fact, if we look at the last election, they exercised that right brilliantly and quickly changed the colour and perspective of Parliament. So I think they are capable of looking after their own

interests. Citizens are informed and follow the debates and the major issues. The media are there to pass the information on.

The concept of having a committee of elders, even if they were to be elected, is something I am not sure the public would accept. In fact, we are working very hard to get rid of a whole political level. And we certainly would not want to add another one with the Senate.

That being said, I am personally not very keen on this debate. It is also a fact that some provinces would like to take advantage of this debate to make all provinces equal in Canada. However, Quebec will never tolerate having only one-tenth of the representation in a Canadian parliamentary forum, when it has one quarter of the population. In Quebec, that would not get much support.

When there were discussions on proposals by western Canada for Senate reform, Quebec Liberals did not support those proposals.

As I said earlier, it would be interesting to see in the weeks to come-because this fall, this will be a much discussed issue-what the attitude will be of members opposite. Liberal members who tell us about the need for efficient and effective management, for cutting waste and unnecessary spending, and I see some members here in the House who have said so many times, who do so in committee and who attack all fiscal expenditures and the rest, they will have to prove they mean what they say.

Now, those people may mean what they say about making an effort and tightening their belts, but they are not even called to account. Sure, they will make cuts in places where they have friends, friends they appointed, and it may hurt them a little. We call that cutting the fat. That will not hurt anyone.

Besides, these people are not penniless. They are paid for services rendered. I do not think this will dramatically affect the financial situation of the people who are there. It will not cause a major social tragedy. There will be no need to set up committees of therapists or psychologists to help people cope with the shock of losing a job with the Senate. So there will no serious damage.

Consider that between now and the year 2000, between 250 and 300 million dollars will be wasted. Will this be stopped? We say yes. We say it must stop. I hope members opposite will have the courage to act accordingly, including the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some degree of attentiveness to the member's arguments that he was putting forth in his speech. There are a few questions I would like him to answer based on what he was telling me, which of course does not conform with Reform Party policy.

He talked about wanting to abolishing the Senate. That is fine. However when we take a look at what the Bloc's sister party is saying in the province of Quebec and indeed what the Bloc Quebecois is saying, it is that they will not respect the rule of law regardless of what the court decides for example in the Bertrand case; that the rule of law can be ignored, thrown out the window by a political party such as the Bloc Quebecois and its sister party, the Parti Quebecois in Quebec.

The Senate has been as we know a chamber of sober second thought. The reason we have a chamber of sober second thought is that periodically, maybe once in a hundred years, there are times when we need a check and a balance on the headstrong attitudes of people who are elected to office. That time is perhaps now when we see what is happening here in this House by a party of separatists who want to break up the country and by a party in Quebec which is in government yet has stated quite clearly and quite succinctly that it will ignore the courts and the rule of law in this country.

The Minister of Justice has stood in this House repeatedly and told us how important it is in a democracy. Surely the need for a Senate to guarantee that sober second thought is important in a democracy rather than abolishing it and allowing a party headstrong, without real commitment to democracy to go ahead and do what it thinks is right. I would like the hon. member's opinion on the sober second thought versus the abolishment.

Another point I was concerned about is the waste of money and of course we as Reformers are concerned about wasting money. He was quite critical of the cost. He mentioned the pensions and everything else that we pay for members in the other place.

I think back to about a year ago when the government introduced a gold plated pension plan, which Reformers objected to. Reformers felt that we could not participate in it because there are so many thousands of Canadians out there who have practically no money at all, who are virtually destitute. Yet this government felt it more important to give themselves a gold plated pension plan rather than looking after the seniors and the poor people, but that is another argument.

My point is that the Bloc Quebecois members voted for the gold plated pension plan to be paid for by Canadians while they want to leave the country. I found that a bit confusing. They want to leave but they want us to pay for them after they have left. To me that would seem to be a tremendous waste of money. Canadians would have to pay a pension to separatists after they had left the country.

I would like the member to comment on the waste of money on pensions to MPs, especially separatist MPs, versus money paid to pensions in the other place. Also, I am serious when I ask about

sober second thought. It may only be once in a hundred years that we need that sober second thought, but perhaps this is the time.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as caucus chairman, I might have told the hon. member that he was out of order, but I can understand that great tolerance is shown.

I find that somewhat regrettable. Reform members always talk about members' pensions. This issue seems to bother them quite a lot; it seems to be their main concern. I do not know if it is because they have financial worries, but there are many other problems which have to be examined. It is somewhat regrettable that their analysis is so simplistic.

I would like to come back to a comment made by the hon. member, in particular with regard to respect for the law. Of course, he toed the same line as the Minister of Justice, saying that sovereignists have no respect for the law, that they would not abide by the law or the Constitution.

What I want to point out is that, as one involved in politics, my primary concern is respecting the will of the people, respecting the democratic will. That is what democracy is all about. As well, when that opinion is voiced in a consultation like a referendum, I think that respecting democratic will ought to be the primary concern. And so it was. In the last referendum, 49.5 per cent of people said they wanted sovereignty. Yet no one said: "Let us go ahead anyway, because 49.5 per cent is enough". Everyone said: "No, we did not succeed and will have to work harder to try to win next time". Not only will we try, but we will win next time.

That is what respecting the democratic will of the people is all about. I am pleased to see that we even seem to be gaining supporters from the other side.

As politicians, our first concern must be to respect the will of the people. As for abolition of the Senate, that we will not do, because it is impossible, the law does not allow it. Since the law does not allow it, let us not change the situation. If the law does not allow it, and the will of the people is something different, let us change the laws to reflect the will of the people, particularly if that will is expressed in democratic consultations held within the rules. That is what we sovereignists are doing.

I would like to tell the hon. Reform member that he should be consistent. He is so concerned by public finances that, instead of wanting to bolster the Senate, improve its powers, he should instead rally around a position that is far closer to current reality and to what people want, which is to demand, and what is more to ensure, that the government will be forced to vote for the disappearance of an institution that is useless, out of date, and very costly.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to talk about the main estimates.

I would like to begin my comments by clearly and unequivocally stating that I support the government in its spending estimates. I also support the adoption of the full estimates. I reject all of the amendments that have been placed on the Order Paper by the opposition.

I support the Prime Minister, the finance minister and indeed all of the cabinet. I believe and the Canadian people have demonstrated in poll after poll they understand that we have demonstrated sound fiscal management of this nation over the past three years. That is reflected in poll after poll where we hear Canadians saying very clearly that they have confidence in the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party but have very little confidence in those parties which sit opposite in this House.

There is a very clear reason for that. It is because the Liberal government clearly understands that it has a dual responsibility in government. It understands that it has a fiscal responsibility. It understands that it is necessary to make sure that there is full value for every tax dollar that is spent and that Canadians have an efficient government and one that is operating like a business although understanding that it is not a business.

Besides the fiscal responsibility, this government understands that it has a social responsibility. We collectively have a social obligation to each other in society. We have operated in this nation for well over 50 years with a collective understanding that we will not allow individual Canadians to fall below a certain level.

When people go to a hospital in this country the first question they are asked is not how much money they have or what is their insurance plan. They are asked: "How are you ill and how can we help"?

We have people in this country who need social support from the government. This government is determined that it will adhere to that social responsibility in addition to its fiscal responsibility.

The sound management of our country has worked well. It has led to good economic fundamentals which have led to economic growth, which has increased job creation, all while maintaining those critical support programs for Canadians.

I would like to spend a few minutes looking at the responsibilities the government has undertaken, both fiscally as well as on the social side. The Minister of Finance in his last three budgets has clearly demonstrated sound fiscal management.

We have taken the nation from a deficit of approximately 6.4 per cent of GDP and as we promised in this fiscal year we will have reduced that amount to 3 per cent of GDP. The minister in his last budget went beyond that and indicated it will be 2 per cent of GDP in the following fiscal year.

Percentages can sometimes be difficult to grasp. To put it in dollar terms, the finance minister will be reducing the deficit by some $25 billion. Even more important than the actual amount of the deficit reduction has been what has been done in terms of borrowing needs, the actual amount the government must borrow from the markets, the amount on which is incurred additional interest costs. When the government came to power it was borrowing almost $30 billion annually. By the next fiscal year it will be reduced to $6 billion. It will be the lowest level of borrowing by a federal government in almost 30 years. That is the key. If borrowing is reduced, interest costs will be reduced. If interest costs are reduced then financial resources are available to use in other critical areas. The government has done that well.

The government has done a good job of reducing expenditures. The program review undertaken by the President of the Treasury Board shows a $14 billion expenditure reduction. The government has gone from a program expenditure of 16 per cent of GDP down to 12 per cent. That 12 per cent figure is the best a federal government has done since World War II. Since World War II it has done as good or better than any other government in taking control of its program expenditures.

When we look a the cumulative effect of the finance minister's three budgets and the cumulative effect on the 1998-99 budget period, it will be collective savings of $28.9 billion. That is a government that is committed to sound fiscal management and committed to keeping its expenditures under control.

The size of government has been reduced. The size of the civil service has been reduced. We are making sure that government does things right, prudently and efficiently.

We made another major change from previous governments with absolutely no increases in personal income tax. Compare than to what the finance minister mentioned during question period, the 39 tax increases in the previous government's regime.

We do not have sound fiscal management just for the sake of it. The interest is not just simply to keep individuals on Bay Street, Wall Street or Tokyo or London markets happy. That is not the motive for sound fiscal management. The motive is to create an environment in which jobs can be created. Sound fiscal management is allowing things to happen because we have been able to see strong economic fundamentals exist in this country. These strong economic fundamentals are allowing the private sector to do what it does best and that is create jobs. It is working.

The unemployment rate has dropped from 11.1 per cent to 9.3 per cent and 650,000 new jobs have been created. Is it enough? Is it something to which we just say great and rest? Obviously not. There is much more work to be done on the job creation side. Good and substantial progress has been made. It is coming about because of sound management by the government. Those economic fundamentals that I speak of are familiar to us all but I would like to enunciate some of them because it is important.

Interest rates are low. They have dropped almost four points in the last year. Indeed, for the first time in a long time, short term interest rates are actually below those of the Americans. That has a real and important impact on Canadians. If there is a three point decrease in interest rates and a person's $100,000 mortgage comes up for renewal, that means a saving of about $3,000 a year in after tax dollars. That is putting money back into the hands of Canadians. It is stimulating consumer demand and creating jobs.

Inflation is at its lowest sustained level in 30 years. It is a strong economic fundamental that is encouraging people to invest in Canada, to invest in jobs.

Canadian exports have increased by 40 per cent in the last three years. The government has worked hard in that area, on the whole Team Canada approach where the Prime Minister has gone abroad and helped sell Canadian business. Through the Team Canada approach, almost $20 billion in new trade contracts have been put together.

As I mentioned earlier in continuing with economic fundamentals, the reduction of the deficit and, most important, the reduction of borrowing needs means that the government is no longer crowding out the private sector for much needed investment capital. All these economic fundamentals are leading to job creation. Six hundred and fifty thousand-plus jobs is the net increase since the government took office.

The Liberal government also understands that there are times when it is necessary to directly intervene in critical areas of the economy to help with job creation and with employment. In the last budgetary cycle and since, there have been some good examples of the targeting of resources to areas where they are needed and where they will have the best impact.

In the last budget the finance minister announced a $315 million investment in youth employment, an area of critical importance, an area of critical need. The government has recognized it and has responded to it.

High technology is a growth area in Canada. It is an area that is capable of creating jobs in large numbers. The government has invested in the high technology area.

The Minister of Industry announced a $150 million fund which will grow to $250 million to help support growth in the high tech area. It is not simply government throwing the money at the high tech area. It is being done in partnership with the private sector, with a sharing of risk and a sharing of reward on those things that are successful. There has been a $50 million investment in the Business Development Bank of Canada to assist in the high tech field, again to support emerging growth industries that can help create jobs.

I mentioned one of the fundamentals. The export area is an area of growth and an area of job creation. The last budget had a $50 million increase in the money available to EDC to help firms that are exporting.

Over the three years of the government, important investments have been made. The infrastructure program was widely accepted across the land. It has helped not only create short term jobs, but also long term jobs by putting in place the infrastructure that is needed for the development of industry that is needed for the development of long term jobs. That has taken place as part of this infrastructure program.

There has been other assistance for job creation. The Minister of Human Resources Development has put together a $300 million transitional fund which is meant to help areas of high unemployment with economic development and job creation. It is a specific need, and a specific action has been taken to meet that need.

We have seen the five employment tools brought out as part of the employment insurance reform which will help individual Canadians in obtaining employment and helping them to be reintegrated into the workforce.

The government has always understood that one of the engines of the economy, one of the things that drives job creation, drives economic growth, puts the people back to work, particularly in an area like mine of Parry Sound-Muskoka, is the support of the small business sector. It is the engine that drives the economy. It is where new jobs are being created in the Canada of 1996 and well on into the 21st century.

Many things have been done to help in that area. A major thing has been working to increase the access to capital for these businesses, not simply by saying that government can be the lender to all businesses, but by working with the private sector to insist that it provides additional capital to the small business men and women, the entrepreneurs who are out there.

Over the last two years through the work of the industry department and in particular the industry committee, a number of tools have been developed with the chartered banks: a code of conduct that governs the relationship between a bank and the small business person; an alternative dispute resolution system; a mediation process when there are disputes; an ombudsman in each of the banks; an industry ombudsman that can deal with problems that cannot be dealt with within the organization.

Most important, the banks have agreed to provide Parliament quarterly with their small business lending statistics. Then we can evaluate. We will know it is not just words we hear that these codes of conduct mean something. We can actually see what their lending is to small businessmen and women in this country. We can react when we do not believe it is happening the way it should.

These are important tools. Progress is being made. Much yet needs to be done in terms of access to capital but progress is being made and we are working to help small businessmen and women.

There are some direct things we have been able to do in that respect as a government. The amount of money available to the Business Development Bank of Canada this past year has been increased from $3 billion to $15 billion. There is the small business loan program, a government guaranteed loan program, which the chartered banks and others administer. That has been increased from $4 billion to $12 billion, again to allow more access to the small business sector.

The Minister of Industry began the community investment plan. Communities will be allowed to bring together the small business people in their areas with individuals who have investment capital. The two will be brought together in partnership to help their individual communities grow.

Recently I had an opportunity to work with both the chartered banks and the community futures organizations. They have entered into a program that will see $2 million flow from the chartered banks to community futures in rural Canada, rural Ontario. This will provide more capital at the higher risk end. Small businessmen and women who are having difficulty accessing capital can go to the community futures and be able to borrow.

Obviously we have worked hard in the area of small business to provide it with the tools it needs to create jobs in our communities.

It is not just a matter of fiscal management, it is not just a matter of getting the economic fundamentals right. All of that is important in government, but we also have to remember our social responsibility, and this government lives up to that very much.

Look at some of the expenditure figures from the last budget: OAS, $21.9 billion; employment insurance, $13.8 billion; CHST,

$26.9 billion; veterans affairs, $1.8 billion. This is a government that cares about individual Canadians.

In conclusion, when evaluating whether or not these things have worked for Canada, when you evaluate whether this government has done a good job for Canada it is simply a matter of asking some questions. Is the unemployment rate down? Yes it is. Are more Canadians working today than three years ago? Yes there are. Has the deficit been reduced in the last three years? Yes it has. Are expenditures down? Yes they are. Are interest rates down? Indeed they are, by more than three points. Are exports up? Yes, 40%. Has our tourism deficit been reduced? Absolutely, by more than $3 million. The best question to ask, and it has been asked three years in a row by the United Nations, is Canada the best country in the world? Absolutely, it is the best country in the world. We have made good progress as a government. There is still much to be done and we are committed as a government to doing it.

Our government's actions and performance has been one of strong actions, hard work and most of all, as I just indicated, one of accomplishments.

[René Laurin, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in his speech, my colleague from Parry Sound-Muskoka tried to praise the government for its good management, comparing the running of the government to that of a major corporation or any business doing well in the private sector.

I would like him to tell us how he can make such a comparison in view of certain careless mistakes on the part of the government and certain measures it did not take when it could have. We realize that, in the private sector, decisions are made every day to ensure that each department of a particular company is financially viable, that the business turns a profit, and that every penny which can be saved is.

The most recent example is CP Rail, which has just been privatized. We noticed that, as soon as it was privatized, CP Rail took all the least profitable parts of its system to form one company, which is going to try to make the eastern system more profitable. This company is giving itself three years to succeed.

This is the kind of management you find in the private sector. Has the government done the same thing with the Senate since 1867? How can the government claim it has taken the necessary steps to reduce expenditures to the bare minimum, and that it has gotten rid of the non-profitable parts of its enterprise?

How can the member justify a propaganda campaign such as was undertaken concerning the Canadian flag? Is this ongoing $23 million expenditure justifiable under the broad principles of good management referred to by the member?

Could the hon. member tell me which large and well managed company, which large Canadian, Quebec or Ontario company would keep 104 directors who, most of the time, are asleep at their desk, and that we pay presumably to check decisions already made by other directors?

Always from the point of view of sound management, would a single profitable company behave in such a fashion? Yet, that is what the government is doing with the Senate. Today, we are being asked to approve a $50 to 60 million budget, for a single year, to support 104 senators who no longer have anything to do regarding the profitability of the large Canadian company called Parliament.

Could the hon. member tell me that sound management principles apply in the case of the Senate? How can the hon. member reconcile this ignorance of Parliament for an obsolete institution which should be done away with as soon as possible? I would like the hon. member to answer that question.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify a number of points the hon. member made.

In terms of comparing the government to a business, I said very clearly that the government had to operate in a businesslike manner but at the same time understand that it was not a business.

We undertake things in the House not to make a profit. We support medicare not to make a profit. We support Canadian over age 65 not to make a profit. We make sure there is an EI system not to make a profit but because government understands it has a social responsibility and acts collectively on behalf of all Canadians. It is important to understand that.

We talked a bit about fiscal management. What is the fiscal management of the government? I will remind the hon. member of a $25 billion reduction in the deficit and collective savings of $28.9 billion. That is fiscal management.

The hon. member talked about propaganda. I want to tell all members in the House and everyone watching television that having pride in Canada, being patriotic about the country, understanding its history or living day by day with a love of the country in one's heart is not propaganda. It is being a good Canadian. I am proud of the country and the Canadians who live in it.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's long speech on anything other than the other place, which is the motion we are supposed to be debating at the moment. We are debating the estimates and the motion pertaining to the other place at the moment. We will vote on the larger issue of the estimates later today.

Many Canadian feel the other place is largely superfluous and perhaps is a waste of money. If we have to listen to more speeches like we have from the member, Canadians will start thinking that this House is superfluous. There was nothing but unabashed promotion of what the government thinks it has accomplished for Canadians.

I remember jobs, jobs, jobs as being the cry during the last election. We all remember that. Unemployment is barely less than 10 per cent today and families need more and more part-time jobs, several jobs. It is more difficult for them to make ends meet. They feel more and more pressed as their standard of living is getting squeezed. These are the real facts being published in the tons of paper emanating from government offices. When we look at the fine print we find that Canadians are not enjoying greater prosperity and they do not have all these jobs the government promised.

When we take a look at the deficit we see that it is coming down, but the point is that the deficit has come down strictly because tax revenues have gone up. A $25 billion reduction is exactly the amount of additional revenue the government is getting from the Canadian taxpayer, and government members stand and say what a wonderful job of management of the deficit they are doing.

A month from now the Minister of Finance will have an announcement saying our new target is 1 per cent of GDP. He will not say that it will come down because we will squeeze even more taxes out of Canadians. He will talk about the fact that he has not raised taxes. That is wonderful but he does not say he is eliminating tax deductions for seniors. He proposed in his last budget that the first $1,000 of pension income which used to be tax free would no longer be tax free. That sounds like a tax increase to me.

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

It is a grab.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Seniors who have been entitled to an exemption of around $3,000 to $4,000, to reduce their tax bill because they are over 65, will have that tax deduction eliminated. That seems to me to be an increase. Why does the hon. member feel he can stand and tell Canadians that everything is coming up roses when they feel things are getting bad out there?

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I differ with the hon. member's interpretation of things. If we look at pollster after pollster who talks to Canadians, they come back each and every time and demonstrate confidence not only in the government but in the Prime Minister. The member is right that more work needs to be done, but 650,000 new jobs were created.

He went on to talk about nothing being done on the deficit. Indeed the deficit is coming down by $25 billion. Then he said that we cannot count new revenue coming in; that is not allowed. He ought to talk to the finance critic in his party who puts together its budgetary plan which calls for over $20 billion of new revenue to come into the government.

Maybe he would want to talk to his finance critic if he does not accept the fact that economic growth is one of the ways to bring down the deficit. Perhaps he wants to be like all the other Reformers who feel the only way to do it is to slash and burn and take away from the most needy Canadians. A balanced approach does things: economic growth along with sound fiscal management.

[George Baker, Liberal, Gander—Grand Falls, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Could you clear up the matter of what is under debate right now? Reformers have made the point that they believe we are confined to a debate on the Senate. Is that correct? Or, are they wrong again?

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The member has put the Chair in a strait-jacket. Suffice it to say I will not rule on right or wrong.

The debate is open in its fullness on the estimates. Correctly a notice of opposition was put forward by the Reform Party with regard to the other place. Other notices of motions have been put on the order paper with regard to other departments. However this debate, which could last until 10 p.m. this evening, is on the fullness of the estimates. I hope that answers the question.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that you are not caught in a strait-jacket. That would be unfortunate.

It will be difficult to top the bombastic statements we just endured from the other side. Maybe I am capable of it. We will see as the debate goes on.

I want to talk about the other place somewhat. The issue today is a good one. I saw it starting today in a press conference. Today was the day the Senate was asked to appear before the House some time before the end of this sitting day to explain itself, to account for the money it is spending.

On May 9 the member for Comox-Alberni, when on the Standing Committee on Government Operations, sent a letter asking the Senate for an accounting of how it was spending its money. It was not an absurd request. It is a public body and has a $40 million budget. It is spending taxpayers' dollars and we think we should be entitled to see how it is spent.

The Senate says it is not going to respond to the letter. Not only that, it is not going to respond to any demands by the House of Commons. It answers to no one, which is not entirely true. It does

answer to someone and it does dance to a tune, but it dances to the party tune of the Liberal Party of Canada.

I was in the House when the Prime Minister stood and said: "I will appoint people to the Senate and the people I appoint will be good Liberals who will do as they are told". The senators answer to no one publicly. They answer behind the scenes to the man who sits over at that desk, and that is a shame.

There are people in Canada, especially in the west-I will not speak for all of Canada; I do not claim to have omniscience. People in most parts of Canada have said for a long time that we need some Senate reform and if there is going to be a Senate, it should be accountable. It should be through election so that if the senators are not doing their jobs of representing their home provinces or regions, they can be yanked out of office. As Mr. Manning Senior, the former senator, said in times past: "It is a place of protocol, Geritol and alcohol". Is that true? I hope not, but if it were, the senators should be accountable. They should be accountable. They should be able to be pulled back through an election but that cannot happen.

Senators should have some job to do. Does anybody really know what the job of the Senate is? We in this place know that the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod traipses in here once in a while. He hammers on the door and we traipse there, they traipse here, but does anybody really know what they do?

I suppose senators do some effective work but we cannot know because we cannot look at the budget. They will not explain where they spend their money. They will not tell us. They just send us the bill and we just sign the cheque. That is unacceptable.

This is not just a Reform Party issue. In 1926 there was a study published entitled "The Unreformed Senate of Canada", by Robert MacKay. I do not think anybody here was involved in writing this. Here is what was said some 70 years ago:

The House of Lords still represents an important class in the community; the American Senate, even before it was elected directly by the people of the various states, represented the states-the Canadian Senate as a House of Parliament represents nothing. The Senate-is a bribery fund in the hands of the Government, and paddock for the `Old Wheel Horse' of the Party, nor on its present footing, can it ever be anything else-

Probably on no other public question in Canada has there been such unanimity of opinion as on that of the necessity for Senate reform.

People were saying that 70 years ago. Maybe some people define Canadianism as not being American.

The other common thread we seem to be hearing often on the Senate in answer to the question "do you respect the Senate" is that they do not. This answer comes from all Canadians whether they are from Quebec-the members sitting here-from the west or from Atlantic Canada. The reason is the Senate does not give them a chance to respect it.

As we are talking about the estimates tonight, the Senate will not account for the money it is spending. We are coming up to an election year. It is possible that an election will be held in the spring of 1997, the fall of 1997, who knows? As we gear up toward that election, what is the Senate spending its money on? I have some suspicions.

I see prominent members of the Senate appointed to prominent positions on the Liberal campaign team. They seem to be chief fundraisers, chief message boys, chief organizers, chief election readiness people. I saw a similar thing happen. I was an observer at the PC convention-I do not want to pick only on Liberals-but their chief organizers were from the Senate. Why? Because the taxpayer pays the bills.

Senators travel the country, they do not have to account to anybody, they do not have to show up, they do not have to sit on a committee. They do not have to do anything. All they have to do is answer to the person in the chair over there, the leader of the government. That is all they have to answer to.

There are limits on spending for political parties. There are limits on how much we can raise and spend on advertising, all that kind of stuff, but there are no limits on what is being spent indirectly through the Senate. That is unfortunate and there seems to be no thirst or willingness on the part of the government-and there is complicity in this, of course-to force the Senate to come forward.

We do not have to give these people the money. We could force them to come forward. Maybe they are spending it wisely. I have my doubts but at least we could come forward and debate that if we could see it but we cannot see it.

I have a quote from the auditor general in 1991. He said: "Frequently senators and senior management do not know whether operations are achieving their intended purposes or are being carried out in an economical and efficient manner". This is from our auditor general, a neutral person, who says that they do not even know in the Senate whether they are spending their money wisely or efficiently. All of this would be a moot point-maybe I am a snarky Reformer with a bad attitude-if that were true.

In 1990 the Prime Minister said: "The Liberal government in two years will make the Senate elected". That promise is gone. In 1991 the Prime Minister said it again. It is in Hansard. What has he done so far? He has appointed 14 people to the Senate. The headlines in the paper read: "Chrétien Senate plums make Mulroney look like a piker" and "The PM's sad slide on the Senate".

The Senate should be elected. More than that, it should be accountable. It should have to account for the money it spends. I should have to out of my member's budget; this House should have to; the Speaker in the Chair should have to; all of us should have to account for public funds. The fact that the Senate will not account for it and will not report back is an indictment in and of itself.

It is an unfortunate development. I wish the senators had listened to the committee and I wish we did not have to have this debate. Unfortunately somebody has to call the Senate on the carpet. If the Reform Party is the one to do it, I am happy to raise the issue.

[François Langlois, Bloc, Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the comments made by my colleague from Fraser Valley East, I have a question for him regarding his party's platform with regard to the Senate, since what we are hearing on this issue is less and less clear: Does the platform of the Reform Party of Canada still include an elected, equal and effective Senate where each province would have the same number of senators chosen by the people?

In this respect, I would like to know, in view of the great disparity of population between provinces, and I will raise this again when I deal with the substance of the motion, how would electing senators make them more effective? In my opinion, the more equal the Senate becomes, and if it is totally equal as the Reform Party has been suggesting so far-total equality among the ten provinces-the more likely it will be for its effectiveness to be zilch. The Senate will be able to block a piece of legislation for 20 or 30 days, that is all; as far as money bills, supply bills, and allotment of public moneys are concerned, we would still be in the same situation.

Is the triple E Senate a concept which is still defendable in view of the analysis conducted by our colleagues from the Reform Party?

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

Mr. Speaker, certainly the hon. member has identified the party's platform on the triple E Senate. The triple E Senate of course has always been the first of our principles in our published papers. We do believe in what we call a triple E Senate, which is equal numbers from each of the provinces, elected and effective. In other words, it needs a job to do, something that senators can put their teeth into.

Our argument on the Senate has always been that the Senate's job originally was to represent the regions. Here we have representation by population. Quebec is well represented in numbers here with the Bloc. I do not always agree with their politics, but in numbers it is represented according to population.

The Senate on the other hand represents each province with an equal number. What we have said is that by doing that, a message is sent. For example, in this place where Quebec has 75 seats, it has a significant influence on the House of Commons. It is a very dominating force. It has a lot of influence and people in key figures. It is able to influence matters in the House of Commons very well. However, to protect the outlying regions, say a weakly populated province like Prince Edward Island or Saskatchewan, which are not well represented numberwise, the Senate would represent those provinces in the other place, in the Senate itself.

By doing that, there is a balance. In the House of Commons, there is rep by pop. Rep by pop allows people to know that they have as much say as any other one person in the province through their representative here. To protect the regions and to protect the provinces that do not have huge populations, something else is needed. We say that that something else should be a Senate.

What could a Senate like that do? The arguments go back and forth. Our current Prime Minister said in 1991 that "the regions of Canada need to be more involved in decision making and policy making at the national level to meet the hopes and dreams of those who live in the west and the Atlantic", and that "a reformed Senate is essential. It must be a Senate that is elected, effective and equitable", as he called it. "Such a Senate should have the power to examine appointments to important federal institutions and agencies".

What that means is there is consensus that the Senate needs a job. One of the things it should do is approve of important appointments to federal institutions and agencies. If, instead of the wife of the current defence minister being in charge of patronage appointments-that is her job-would it not be something if we had a Senate including the province of Quebec that would be able to say: "On the appointment to the CRTC, we in Quebec have a real problem with this person, what they have done, what their academic record is, what they stand for and what they have been doing".

Someone could step in at that stage and say: "I am going to put the kibosh on this. I will stop this now". So could people from B.C. So could have Alberta during the national energy program. So could have people from Manitoba when the F-18 contract was hived off. There could be a check and a balance in there.

As the Prime Minister said, that would be a good job for the Senate. Its job now is not that. Its job right now is election readiness. That is its job right now. It is a place where all kinds of people who are on the organizational shelf of the Liberal Party have been plugged into the key positions. Taxpayers are paying the bills; we do not know how much. Senators travel the country at taxpayers' expense. They do whatever they want. Nobody knows because they are not accountable to anybody. The only one they are accountable to is the Prime Minister.

That is not right. As the Prime Minister himself has been saying for some years now, that is a lousy way to run an upper house. The upper house needs to be reformed. It needed to be reformed said Mr. MacKay in 1926. It needed to be accountable said the auditor general in 1991.

In 1991 the Prime Minister said that a reformed Senate is essential. Why? "To meet the hopes and dreams of those living in the west and in the Atlantic regions, a reformed Senate is essential". That is the Prime Minister. I wish he would go back and read some of his old speeches. I wonder if he realizes the impact that this status quo stuff is having on British Columbia.

When I hear promises being made and then not delivered on I wonder if that is part of what makes Quebecers so angry. They were promised distinct society in the Constitution and it was not delivered. That is a broken promise. Would that not make Quebecers angry?

From our perspective in the west we were promised Senate reform. The Prime Minister promised that within two years an elected Senate would be in place. He did not deliver. In 1991 he said it has to happen. If we are going to keep the hopes and aspirations of the west and Atlantic Canada we have to do something to provide an elected Senate. He did not deliver on that. In the west what are we supposed to take from that? Was he saying what he thought we wanted to hear during the election campaign? Did he really sincerely believe it and then find out there was too much pressure from within his party or other regions that he could not deliver?

I do not know what goes on behind closed doors. But I do know that in British Columbia the support for the Senate in its current form is approaching zero. It is seen as a waste of money. That is what we are trying to address here today.

If we could address some of those concerns and say to the people of British Columbia that the budget is like so, the travel budget is like this, and office budgets and so on, then we could say it looks like it is all in order and above board. But when we get the auditor general saying they are inefficient and have no accountability for the way they spend their money I cannot guarantee to the taxpayers of B.C. that their money is being well spent.

Certainly at a political level when somebody says, including the current Prime Minister, that it is not effective, I am not going to argue with him. I agree. The message it sends, both on accountability and the reform of the political institution itself, is it just does not matter and we do not care what you say, or what the people in B.C. think, or Quebec or any other region. If that message is consistently hammered home by the Prime Minister leading up to the next election I do not suppose he will be surprised when he comes out to British Columbia to find a less than hearty welcome from people who are expecting some changes.

The old poem says that a promise made is a debt unpaid. It is from Robert Service. I think that is true for most of us. For example, I promised to opt out of the MP pension plan. I did not do it because I want to live a life of poverty when I grow old. I did it because I promised to do it during the election campaign. I promised also to fly economy class, not that I like my legs shoved up around my chin. However I made a promise to try and save a few dollars. I promised to move into the office of my predecessor and make no changes to the furniture. As a matter of fact I used the same phones and everything he had so it would not cost any money. Those were promises made and I have kept them.

I also promised to treat tax dollars as funds held in trust on behalf of the taxpayers. I can go back in the next election and say that I have kept my promises and I am willing to do it again because I will be running again in the next election.

I do not know what we are supposed to read into the fact that the Prime Minister will not keep his promise. What Reform reads into it, of course, is that the Prime Minister is using this for expediency. He is not really interested in Senate reform. He is not really interested in accountability. He is not interested in saving a few dollars. And he is not really interested in doing better than the treading of water that we have seen for three years.

I heard the hon. member from the Liberal Party say that he was proud of the employment rate that is pushing 10 per cent. I am not happy with that. The government has taken $25 billion or more out of the economy and I am not happy with that.

I am not happy that whenever the heritage minister seems to be in a pickle the finance minister can come up with another $150 million to try to get her out of that bind.

I am not happy that the budget is going to be balanced at some indefinite date off in the future. I want to see a date where we can look forward to some tax relief. There are no promises of tax relief and there never will be unless the government makes a promise, lays out the plan and then follows through. Following through means when you give your word on something. That is a promise and it will happen.

We had the GST promise which set this in motion but can we take them at their word? So far we have not seen any action on the GST. The GST that the government will be placing on reading material in Atlantic Canada will double once this new agreement comes into place.

What did the Prime Minister promise? What did the finance minister promise when he was in opposition? There will be no tax

on reading material. Next month it will be 15 per cent on reading material. It is no wonder people are cynical.

The Senate in the example we are trying to deal with today is numero uno on many people's books of why they feel so cynical about Parliament and the way it is run. There is no accountability. I believe the government wants us to put up a fuss over this item. That is why this particular item on the main estimates has been challenged by Reform. We think that Canadians deserve an accounting for the money that is being spent on their behalf.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I will entertain one other question if there should be one to the hon. member. I would ask the co-operation of the House. If members from each party participating in this debate would indicate to the Chair by way of a message to the side later as to whether they are going to be speaking for 20 minutes or will be splitting their time allocation with a colleague it would be appreciated.

I interrupted the hon. member for Fraser Valley East. I believed that they were splitting their time. It was not the case in this instance so I allowed more time for questions or comments. There would be approximately four minutes remaining in that block of time.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Ontario, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to comment and to reply to the member for Fraser Valley East. I was so enthralled with his speech that I ran here from my office just to ask this question. It is good to see the hon. member has not lost his step or his form since June. I congratulate him on his elevation to whip for his party.

The GST seems to be an issue that comes back time and time again. The hon. member may not be aware of this but in the province of Ontario the premier, the day before he was elected, made a very solemn commitment to the people of the province of Ontario in the same way that we made the same commitment toward replacing the GST.

The hon. member talks about words and I tend to perhaps fall into the category of those cynical voters who want to make sure they see something in writing and what they saw was replace the GST.

What a lot of people forget, and perhaps this is one of the reasons the Reform Party has yet to make any inroads in Ontario, which may not happen for some time, is the recognition that the province of Ontario and its premier is committed and on record to harmonize which is exactly what the government has committed to do.

I spent some time over the summer dealing with a number of constituents. We had four public forums. I was amazed and overtaken by the amount of goodwill, by the number of plaudits and by the amount of concern and support for the last budget presented by the Minister of Finance. People from all across the political spectrum, people from all backgrounds and all incomes were very supportive of the budget in a way that I have not seen before.

How would the hon. member suggest we can at one time bring down the deficit, we can address the financial problems this country currently faces and yet at the same time somehow throw away or cast fate into the wind with respect to raising revenues, in particular the GST? Perhaps the hon. member can refresh my memory since he seems to have so much to offer as to whether we actually got into the question of the elimination of the GST or does he remember reading, as most of my constituents did, replace the GST.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member for Ontario wants to hear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am going to give it to him.

I know what the red book said. It said replace the GST. Canadians all know why the member from Hamilton had to resign. It was going to be scrapped, turfed, abolished, done away with, or whatever phrase was used. The Prime Minister said: "This thing will be gone, eliminated, trashed". I know it was in print but I also know it was on television and that is why the member had to resign.

For ourselves, from the Reform Party's perspective, our words during the last election were consistent with our printed material and our public pronouncements. What we said was that it was at that time not feasible to eliminate the GST but what we had at that time was our zero in three plan to eliminate the deficit and then reduce and eliminate the GST.

We realized during the election campaign that we could not promise to eliminate the GST at that time. We were upfront about that. I know in my own case in my riding the Liberal candidate said he would lie down on the railroad tracks and he was going to fall on his sword and commit hara-kiri and what all he would not have done because "you can count on me, that GST is gone". It was a little embarrassing for me to stand up and say: "The Reform Party can't make that promise because it is not the truth" and so we did not promise that.

I ran on it and probably lost votes because it is easy to say: "Let's get rid of it". On campaign issues I like to try to tell the truth. I am sure the member for Ontario did as well during the campaign. Not every politician does. However, on Senate reform and on accountability, I am only reading back to him the words of his leader. Those words said that Senate should be elected, it should be accountable, it should be effective, it should represent the west and the Atlantic region and to follow up with the auditor general's comments, it should be in whatever form it is efficient and accountable for the taxpayers' dollars.

I stand by those words and I will campaign on those words.

[Denis Paradis, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1997.

The session has just begun once again and I must tell you at the outset that, as the member of Parliament for Brome-Missisquoi, and like many other members in the House, I took advantage of the summer months to travel a little around my riding and its municipalities to meet people and discuss with them the problems that concern them.

I think it is somewhat the role of a member of Parliament to come to the House and to show the colours of the people he represents, that is, to relate their concerns and to ensure the government responds to these concerns, and that is what the government is doing.

I will say first of all that the main concern of people is employment. We hear about "job creation" everywhere. Employment is the main concern of people. I would say the second one is taxes. People have had it, they are sick and tired of taxes.

The third concern is paperwork, bureaucracy. The next one is duplication. I will come back, in relation to the main estimates, to what we are doing as a government to deal with these issues.

The public also wants public administration, at the federal as well as the provincial level, to be closer to the people. I am listing these concerns in the order in which they were submitted to me. Another concern is the need for Quebec's distinctiveness to be recognized.

Before dealing specifically with the main estimates, it may be useful to look back at what the finance minister said when he tabled his budget on March 6, 1996. He stated, on behalf of his government, the principles for securing the future.

First principle for securing the future: governments created the deficit problem; now, governments must resolve it. I will come back to this later and try to demonstrate that the deficit problem is in the process of being resolved.

Second principle for securing the future, according to the estimates tabled last March for the fiscal year ending next March: we must provide hope for jobs and for growth. This is important, and it is precisely what we have heard and what elected representatives travelling around to meet their constituents have heard.

Third principle: we must be frugal in everything we do. This means spending less money. Simply put, waste is simply not tolerable.

Fourth: no new spending. We must avoid additional spending and reallocate instead. Fifth: we must always be fair and compassionate.

Those are the principles on which the finance minister's last budget was based. In terms of the goals and objectives pursued through this budget, we were told that the government should to be more responsive and that certain government activities should be more focused and affordable.

Let us look at some examples, starting with a problem I mentioned earlier, namely duplication. Here are two areas where we should try to eliminate duplication through legislation. First, agriculture. Just for food inspection, you have the Ministry of Agriculture and marketing board involved at the provincial level, in Quebec, as well as Health Canada and Agriculture Canada at the federal level. For a restaurant operating in Montreal, the City of Montreal's department in charge of monitoring restaurants in terms of public health is also involved.

As we can see, a single place can easily be visited by four or five different inspectors for the same purpose or for similar purposes. The government has introduced a bill respecting the national food protection agency. We must look for ways to do better, to improve coordination by avoiding duplication. That is what the people want and how they expect us to run the country.

Here is another example. We can talk about revenues. As you know, taxes are collected at about every level. At the federal level, there are all kinds of taxes, including customs duties. At the federal level, taxes are collected in several areas.

It is the same thing at the provincial level. That is why the government proposed the Canada revenue commission. I think the vast majority of Quebec citizens, who are part of Canada, would prefer not having to fill out two income tax returns. So it would be nice if both levels of government could come to some sort of agreement and establish a common, efficient mechanism for collecting taxes without resorting to a war of flags.

If they could agree, for example, that the federal Deputy Minister of Revenue and his Quebec counterpart would sit on this or that commission, people could send their money to one place and part of this money would go to the federal government while another part would go to Quebec. What we want is something simple and effective. I think this is important.

We said earlier that we must also keep a sense of fairness and compassion in all this. In this regard, I would remind the House that, as far as social programs are concerned, the Minister of Finance has given the provinces guarantees that cash transfers would never fall below a certain level in the next few years. So, under the new Canada social transfer for health and social programs, the federal government has made a commitment until the year 2003. For example, in 1999-2000, it will give the

provinces $25.1 billion, which should rise to $27.4 billion by 2002-2003.

This is important, because there are poor people in our society, as we recently saw on the news, especially in Quebec, where the cuts hurt. It is hard to understand-and the federal government's generosity is not in question-but it is hard to understand how some people do not have access to basic health care.

I mentioned earlier the importance of these transfers, whether it is money or tax points, in the health, education and welfare sectors. The federal government will continue to fulfill its obligations, as it undertook to do in the last budget speech.

Another issue which I want to discuss and which people have raised is that of job creation. If I refer to the main estimates in relation to job creation, it is because of the student summer employment program. You will recall that such a program was announced and the monies earmarked for young Canadians were increased from $60 million to $120 million.

I should tell you that, for the young people whom I met this summer, not just in Brome-Missisquoi but in other ridings too, this initiative worked perfectly well. Let me give you an example. Thanks to this program, and every member in this House can do the same, I arranged for a group of some 30 young students from Brome-Missisquoi to work in other Canadian cities. Five were from Cowansville and went to work in Victoria, B.-C. Similarly, five students from Victoria came to work in Brome-Missisquoi. The same arrangement was made for students from other cities in my riding, who went to work in Edmonton, Prince Edward Island and three ridings in Ontario.

These young people found this to be an extraordinary experience. It was a learning experience, and I will get back to this later on, to learn or become more proficient in the other official language. It was an experience to live with a family and to develop a better understanding the other Canadian culture. This is important. Then there was the work experience.

It is a fact that students have difficulty making ends meet. They struggle with increasing tuition fees and maintenance expenses. The program's first goal is perhaps to make sure that they get a summer job. This is for our generation of tomorrow.

Employment, as this example shows, is very important. With regard to job creation, I would like to deal with another small issue, that of research and development. In Canada, the government is currently spending, one way or another, some $7 billion on research and development, $2 billion in tax credits for corporations doing research and development and $5 billion in federal programs or federal agencies, whether in agriculture, in research centres or the National Research Centre, and so on.

There again, in order to do better, the government announced early in the summer the creation of a committee that will report on how to better commercialize the findings of research and development. That too generates employment.

All along, however, we must keep in mind the need to restore fiscal order. That is being done. When the Liberal government came to power, the federal deficit stood at $42 billion for 1993-94. A year later, it had gone down to $37,5 billion, and down to $32,7 billion the year after. In 1996-97, according to the Minister of Finance's budget speech, the deficit will have been reduced to $24,3 billion, and will get down to $17 billion in 1997-98. Thus, the deficit will have gone down from $42 to $17 billion. Over the last few years, we will have seen the annual deficit decrease by at least $7 billion every year.

As you can see, at that rate, we should get very quickly to a zero deficit situation and see what we can do when we have a zero deficit.

Another tool that is very useful to the members of this House is the public accounts committee. This is an important House committee that reviews the operations of various departments and hears from senior civil servants and deputy ministers who have to explain how they manage public funds.

Let me give you two examples where the committee, made up of a majority of government members, but chaired by an opposition member and with representatives from every party of this House, reviewed last year's budget, based on the auditor general's report. At one point, we realized that in the maritimes, about a hundred million dollars were spent on transportation. We were told quite plainly that subsidies under the program amounted to about 50 per cent of all transportation costs. Some people told us that they found out the bills were "boosted" or "inflated", that is how they put it, but the civil servants who manage the program said: "Checking the bills is not part of our job description. It is not part of our duties. We only issue cheques for 50 per cent of the total amount".

I think elected members of Parliament have to ensure that such things do not happen again. Let me give you another example.

When we looked at the moving expenditures for civil servants, we realized that the total amount for all departments put together exceeded something like $100 million dollars a year. That is how much the federal government has to pay to move civil servants from one end of the country to the other, from one province to another, from one city to another, and so on.

When I talk about moving civil servants, I mean moving their furniture, their dining room sets, their bedroom sets, etc. It is a lot of money. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts has examined these matters so that these things do not happen again. All that under the guidance of the auditor general. This is the role members of this House have to play.

I could give other examples, but I just added the concept of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to the concept of sound management exercised by the present government. Sound management in terms of deficit reduction and in terms of expenditure review.

I realized something a few weeks ago. There was a meeting of public accounts committee representatives. The federal government is not the only one that has a public accounts committee. Every province is supposed to have a public accounts committee chaired by an opposition member to examine expenditures and management in a somewhat independent fashion.

Do you know there is one province in Canada that does not have such a committee with the same characteristics as the ones that exist at the federal level and in the other provinces? That province is Quebec. Quebec does not have a public accounts committee.

I take this opportunity to salute the courage and the open-mindedness of the two Quebec representatives at that national meeting, Mr. Baril, MNA for Arthabasca, and Mr. Chagnon, MNA for Westmount-Saint-Louis, who both said in front of their colleagues from the rest of the country that it would be important for Quebec to have a public accounts committee, particularly today.

There is an important example in all this. I will take the example of the heritage department. When we talk about the Main Estimates, yes there is a large budget for the heritage department, and part of that budget is set aside for official languages. This is important.

After visiting the students in Brome-Missisquoi, who travelled to various parts of the country this summer, I saw how important it was for students, families, everyone, that children, this future generation in the making, be able, if they wish, to learn our country's second language.

In this regard, the official languages program that provides assistance for French as a second language in the other provinces, and for English as a second language in Quebec, is a very good thing. It is important to ensure that our francophone communities outside Quebec, the one million francophones outside Quebec, can count on the federal government as they do.

And does Quebec get its fair share in all this? Yes, it does. The federal system is much more than a large book of account. In addition to a mathematical fair share, it must be remembered that Quebec benefits from a fair share that is difficult to quantify. NAFTA, the G-7, Canadian influence within the G-7, and the Commonwealth are also important and cannot be assigned a dollar value.

Mr. Landry claimed that the Quebec economy did not represent 20 per cent of the Canadian economy. In fact, Quebec's gross domestic product constitutes 22.4 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product.

I would like to add that Quebec receives much more than its fair share. Quebec was responsible for 21.4 per cent of federal government revenues, but was the beneficiary, in 1994, of 24.5 per cent of federal government spending.

In all this, there is a good place for Quebec. In all this, the government must go ahead and pass the main estimates, and I can tell you that I will be voting in favour.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to most of my colleague's speech. He talked about jobs. I would like him to give us his views about the surplus in the unemployment insurance fund. At the present time, in the financial statements, in the government's allocations, there is a surplus in the unemployment insurance fund that compensates for the deficit, but basically, this fund is 100 per cent financed by employers and employees and they have no control on its use.

I do not know if he is aware that a vast segment of the population is presently without a job and is often composed of people who do not have specialized training, who need jobs that require their skills but that are not necessarily jobs created by the new economy.

It is all fine and well to talk about the new economy. It is true that people who have adequate training get jobs more easily, but there are also all the people who are to some extent the victims of these technological changes. Does the hon. member feel that there is some willingness on the part of the government? Will anything be said somewhere and fast so we can put these people back to work?

I have another question for him. As a member of Parliament from Quebec, as someone who has to travel in his riding in Quebec, does he find that his constituents want the Senate to continue as before, to continue to spend about $40 million year after year, without its members being elected, with them being appointed almost for life, or at least until the age of 75, without being accountable, and being able, for example, to kill bills like the one on Pearson airport-a move that was a slap in the face to the government, because that bill had been passed by the government and was killed by a House that was not elected by the government?

Does he intend to do something so that, in controlling spending, we deal with this symbol, the Senate, and find a way to avoid funding such an outdated organization?