Debates of Feb. 6th, 1997

Excise Tax Act

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

Mr. Speaker, my first reaction when I read the bill on the GST was to say: "What a fine gift the government has made to the Quebec sovereignists".

Here we have a demonstration, in a new instance, of how the federal system unfairly treats one or another part of Canada, especially Quebec, which is of concern to me, at a given point in time.

Let us think about it: the federal government signed an agreement with the maritime provinces giving them $2 billion in compensation, that is, it will pay the maritime provinces $2 billion in compensation. So, we can say that some $500 million comes from Quebec taxes-that is, about one quarter of the taxes from one quarter of Canada's population.

This is $500 million that Quebecers will give to the governments in the maritimes through the federal government. In the end, this will mean that New Brunswick, for example, will receive compensation of $400 million, and the provincial government will be able to boast: "Taxes have been lowered here. Move here. We are the best spot in Canada".

Obviously, they are not going to boast that part of the reduction in taxes comes from compensation for the harmonization of the GST. Some of the money even comes from Quebecers. This is why I say it is a great argument for the sovereignists. As former Quebec premier Mr. Duplessis said: "Donnez-nous notre butin". There was also "Maîtres chez nous", because you can be sure that, if we had control over all of Quebec's taxes, no other province would get a gift of this sort. In today's world and with today's competition, this sort of situation is completely unacceptable.

To add insult to injury, Quebec's sales tax has been harmonized with the federal tax for several years now. Quebec was the first province in Canada to harmonize in good faith. It even repatriated federal officials. It got no financial compensation for doing so. It simply considered it a worthwhile administrative move that would produce interesting results and reduce paperwork and bureaucracy.

So there was no compensation. Why does the federal government now think it would be worth paying up to $2 billion in compensation? That is the political price it must pay for its promise on the GST. It is trying to hide as best it can the fact that it has failed to keep its promise.

In fact, this seems to be the norm with this government. Whenever they make a blunder, they fork out compensation. The fact that the money comes out of taxpayers' pockets does not seem to matter too much. It was the same thing in the Mulroney affair. They forked out millions of dollars to cover the mistake made by officials at the justice department. Same thing with the GST. A promise is a promise. Election promises must be kept at all cost. They just spend as much as they need to disguise the facts and avoid embarrassment.

But the voters will not be fooled. What is more, it is becoming obvious that there may be justice after all. The confusion created by the new legislation may well backfire on the government, and it will have to shoulder the responsibility for it.

At a time when disparities are to be eliminated and national standards imposed across the country, there will now be a place in Canada where the tax will be incorporated in the sales price, while that will not be the case in the rest of Canada.

Companies that do business nationwide will find themselves in a very complicated situation, having to live with two different systems for registering the tax. This is absurd.

This is not a bill we as parliamentarians should be proud of. We still have the chance to make it right. I do hope the federal government will find a way to deal with the inequities and other problems caused by their legislation. This bill is quite thick. The government is trying to ram it though. The goal is to make sure that, during the election campaign, the government can claim to have reached its stated objective regarding the sales tax. The GST did not disappear, but another solution was found: it was harmonized. But at what cost? Who cares?

Two billion dollars in compensation: Was this the price to keep Liberals from Atlantic Canada from speaking out on the employment insurance reform? I do not know. It maybe that the enormous amount of money involved has something to do with this. Maybe it was thought that this amount would make up for the shortfalls suffered by the seasonal economies of these provinces, following the implementation of the employment insurance reform.

There is nothing wrong with helping regional economies make adjustments. The problem is that the government chose specific regions but ignored other ones, such as Quebec, and particularly its eastern part, which I represent and which is in direct competition with the maritimes.

There are businesspeople in my region who wonder whether there is a balance, a fairness in how businesses are treated by the

two provincial governments. These people wonder if they are treated properly, if their business benefits from a favourable bias. When they assess the situation, they might think that the tax reductions in New Brunswick, as well as certain dynamic factors and the lack of environmental constraints make that province very appealing from a business standpoint.

Why is that? One explanation is the $2 billion that will be given to the maritimes to compensate them for harmonizing their tax. New Brunswick will receive $400 million. Therefore, for a region like Madawaska, on the border of the area I represent, the economic fallout from this compensation will give a competitive edge that is unacceptable, even a bit upsetting for Quebecers. This is money from the federal government, so one quarter of it is coming out of our own pockets to help our neighbours compete against us. This raises some serious questions.

In a region like Témiscouata, people wondered whether to vote yes or no in the fall of 1995. It is not hard to understand that they are now leaning toward yes. In a situation like the present one, we realize that, once again, we are being penalized by federal management and that this will have a direct and serious economic impact.

How could the present government correct this situation? It should go ahead and agree to sit down with Quebec and negotiate the compensation that Quebec should receive for the trouble-free harmonization in that province. Harmonization was implemented a few years ago. It is working very well. The civil servants have all been absorbed into one government, the Quebec government. The results are interesting. The experience was probably even used by the federal government to persuade the maritimes of the feasibility of harmonization.

There is a price to pay, and if this government has a sense of fairness, if it hopes to show Quebecers that they are part of the Canadian federation, this is an example of something concrete they can do.

It is rather frustrating to have to keep defending ourselves, as if we were being forced to beg. Similarly, we had to keep on asking questions in the House for a month or two, to ensure that the federal government would pay its share of the bill for the Charlottetown referendum. In the end, we won our point. The Bloc Quebecois is a very tenacious party. We are able to sustain our points of view for a long time, and to support them with solid arguments, but in so doing it becomes obvious that the federal system will never offer Quebec a way to succeed in achieving equality. The solution lies in being fully responsible for our own decisions so we do not find ourselves in a situation where a majority, to which we do not belong, decides to take our money and to give it to another part of Canada, by creating undue competition.

This is a very clear example, a very obvious example, of something that is totally unacceptable.

Why has this bill been rushed through, without all of the proper consultations? Undoubtedly because the bill contains many problems, but mainly because it is inequitable. I hope that the government will listen to our arguments, because I am certain that all Quebecers will be attuned to them.

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

Mr. Speaker, a point of order. I have consulted with the other parties and I think if you seek it you will find that there is unanimous consent to have private members' motion M-259 in the name of the member for Calgary Southwest withdrawn from the order of precedence.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member has indicated there is unanimous consent to have the private members' bill in the name of the member for Calgary Southwest withdrawn. Is there unanimous consent to do that?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

No. In light of the denial of unanimous consent I will go to the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest.

[Ian McClelland, Reform, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is almost a necessity for a member of Parliament to wade into this GST harmonization debate. This is an issue that brought many people in the House to the political process in the first place.

It seems particularly ironic that the government that ran on a pledge to abolish the GST finds itself in a position of trying to squirm out from between a rock and a hard place, finding itself inexorably smashed by the fact it had made a commitment all over the country, in every single constituency saying: "Elect us and we will get rid of the GST". The Liberal lexicon of getting rid of the GST is to try to disguise it by harmonizing it.

Because the package would not sell across the country, it was necessary for the government to then try and involve as many provinces as possible in a nefarious scheme to slide out from under its responsibility for a campaign promise clearly made across the country.

The only provinces that the federal government was able to induce to going along with its nefarious scheme were the maritime provinces, all of whom in one degree or another have consistently been recipients of largesse from the federal treasury for many years.

In fairness, I would expect that many of the premiers thought this would not be a bad deal. It is not a bad deal for the four Atlantic premiers who signed on to this nefarious scheme because the rest of the country was going to have to finance it, top it up a little bit to the tune of almost a billion dollars. That billion dollars comes from the other provinces.

Because the government is in a majority position it has the power and the authority, although it does not have the moral authority, to do pretty much as it sees fit, provided it can get the provinces to go along.

As members know, I represent a riding in Alberta. In Alberta we do not have a provincial sales tax, so harmonization to Alberta would be a particularly bitter pill to swallow. It is interesting that as of March 1996 provincial retail sales taxes varied across the country. The federal government wanted to somehow harmonize everything across the country so that everybody would have the same sales tax, thereby removing the competitive advantage of a lower tax or no tax at all from any part of the country that was able to do so.

It is interesting to note that as we go from east to west in 1996 Newfoundland had the highest retail sales tax at 12 per cent, Prince Edward Island at 10 per cent, Nova Scotia at 11 per cent and New Brunswick at 11 per cent. So a harmonized tax at 15 per cent is really a significant reduction on their tax rates but it represents a significant tax increase based on the fact that it will be applied over a much broader range of products.

As we continue from east to west we find that the tax rates come down significantly. In March 1996 Quebec was at 6.5 per cent, Ontario was at 8 per cent, Manitoba was a 7 per cent, Saskatchewan was at 9 per cent, Alberta was at zero per cent and British Columbia was at 7 per cent. That means some of the provinces raised more money, perhaps through gasoline taxes or other excise taxes or had a higher rate of surcharge on personal income taxes.

However, the province and the people of Alberta have made the conscious decision that we do not want higher retail taxes. When the idea of applying a harmonized tax to Alberta was floated recently, the University of Alberta in the Western Centre for Economic Research led by senior research analyst Karen S. Davis put together a study on what would happen in Alberta if a harmonized sales tax were applied in Alberta. The study has revealed some interesting statistics and conclusions, some of which I will read into the record. In fairness to Karen Davis and her research I am reading very selectively into the record from this report.

She makes the case, as was made early on, that if given the choice between having two very different taxes at different rates that cover different bases, that is they apply to different products differently or some not at all, obviously for the ease of everyone concerned it would make sense not to have these differences. Then the decision would be on what products should the tax be applied to, should the tax be applied broadly or narrowly, and should the tax be high or low. It makes sense that the broader the application, the lower the rate; the more narrow and focused the application, the higher the rate would be. It is plain common sense.

But even in a situation like Alberta's where we have a zero rate of provincial tax and with the commitment from the federal government that any taxes raised by this harmonized tax in Alberta would come into the federal treasury and then be refunded to Alberta, even with that undertaking, if it could be believed, try to find 10 people who would say with any degree of confidence they will give the government the opportunity to get its hands on x amount of money and expect to get it all back. I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

I would like to give credit to the research done by the University of Alberta. I would like to read into the record the financial impact a harmonized tax of 12 per cent would have in Alberta. It reads: "We conclude that harmonization at a 12 per cent rate across Canada will cause real gross domestic product in Alberta to fall by up to one-half of a per cent in the short term, and as many as 10,000 jobs would be lost. The impact on GDP is lessened if wages also fall to mitigate the effects on employment. Real wages can be expected to decline by 1 per cent to 2 per cent depending upon their flexibility".

The authors of the report have clearly stated that there are two effects, the short term effect and the long term effect. Their conclusion is also that in the long term it is possible, but not necessarily probable, that the negative effects could be mitigated over the long term. However, in the short term it is most likely there would be serious economic damage done to Alberta.

The authors also point out that there are two aspects to harmonization. This is something that is often overlooked. During the debate in the House today it was mentioned very rarely, if at all. There are two aspects to harmonization, that of the tax base and that of the tax rate. A key issue is the need to weigh the incremental benefits to Canada of a harmonized rate against the adverse short term adjustments imposed on Alberta by a sudden increase in sales taxation. Based on the premise that if we are in the boat together, the better the boat is doing, we are going to do better incrementally. Unfortunately these are theories, they are not proven in fact. The one thing that we do know is that the short term damage would be significant.

From the Alberta perspective, the finance committee's 1994 recommendations are more attractive than the finance minister's plan to move to a uniform rate. Even with the abatement of the incremental revenues collected from Alberta in its June 1994 recommendations to government, the finance committee stressed the benefits of adoption of a consistent broad base and gave suggestions on how to do it, but it was not accepted.

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

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I have consulted again with the other parties and I believe that if you seek it you will find that there is unanimous consent to have the member for Calgary Southwest become sponsor for private member's Bill

C-341 in the place of the former member for Calgary West, and that Motion No. 259 be withdrawn from the order of precedence.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent for the motion?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Vegreville, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again to speak to this grouping of amendments. Before I talk about the amendments in detail, I would like to comment on some things which happened earlier in this debate.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the finance minister chastised both the Bloc members and the Reform members for not speaking directly to the amendments that were in the grouping. He went on to indicate that it was unfortunate the debate had not focused on those particular amendments.

I would say that no amount of amendment to this legislation would make it suitable. This legislation is being referred to as the harmonization of the GST, but harmonization is really not a good description of the legislation.

In the latest issue of "Let's Talk Taxes", put out by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the author of the article described harmonization in this way: "Harmonize is such a nice word. Aside from its soothing musical connotations, it implies a sense of unity, togetherness and co-operation. When applied to the GST, however, it means coercion, confusion, cost and cover-up". The author of this report went on to explain what he meant with regard to those issues.

Clearly this bill does not harmonize. What we have are three provinces in Atlantic Canada that have signed on to this legislation. We have other province that have said that they will not sign on. They will not do it. They think it is wrong.

Of course the price that taxpayers pay for this, and this issue is an issue that should be talked about by taxpayers and taxpayer advocates, is about $1 billion. Taxpayers from the other provinces, other than those three that are taking part, will pay $1 billion to put this so-called harmonized tax in place in Atlantic Canada.

It is a lot of money. It is a lot of money to cover for a broken election promise. We know of course that many Liberal members were elected on that promise to get rid of the GST, to abolish the GST. How many? Who knows, 10, 20, 30 members elected because of that promise? It is hard to know but it was a lot.

The Prime Minister before the election campaign, during the campaign and since the election has said "We are going to get rid of the GST. We are going to abolish. We are going to kill the GST". It has not happened and this legislation is an attempt to cover up. It is an attempt that is costing taxpayers from the other provinces $1 billion. That is an awful expensive cover-up.

I really take exception to the parliamentary secretary to the finance minister's chastising Reformers and Bloc members for talking about the broader issue, the fact that this harmonization is not harmonization at all and that it is going to cost taxpayers almost $1 billion.

The member for Mississauga South has taken on in an admirable way many causes, especially on family issues. I commend him for that. However, I was absolutely saddened from what I heard from him today. This member stood up in the House and said to Canadians, through their televisions, that the Liberals never promised to get rid of the GST when the television tapes that have been shown across the country, especially since the town hall meeting, have show the Prime Minister promising on at least three occasions to get rid of the GST. I do not understand how the member can say that.

Then he went on to say, as unbelievable as this sounds, that what they did say is they would replace the GST. Then he said: "When we looked at replacing the GST, what we found is", and this is the member for Mississauga South speaking earlier in debate today, "the best replacement for the GST is the GST". By his own admission the member for Mississauga South admits they have not even replaced the GST with this new so-called harmonized GST.

Canadians are not going to be fooled by what is going on here. It is a cover-up and it is an unacceptable cover-up. I find it so sad that the member for Mississauga South would get involved in this kind of activity.

Just as I speak about this it leads me to reflect on the great need we have in this country for a recall of members of Parliament. It makes it so clear that we have to have tools to put in the hands of the voters and the taxpayers to keep their members of Parliament accountable. Those tools have to be given to the people so that politicians who run for office and who do not deliver on their promises can be held accountable.

If the people in Mississauga South could see and could hear what their member said regarding this harmonization legislation, absolutely outright denying that they ever said they would get rid of the GST, saying they promised to replace it but when they really looked at things they found the best replacement for the GST was in fact the GST, I suggest there could well have been a recall petition started against that member.

To explain for those who may not understand when I talk about recall, I am talking about putting in the hands of the people the ability to fire their member of Parliament, not only at election time when some of the main issues are being deflected from, but also between elections. Recall comes into play between elections.

When a basic promise which played such a great role in getting many of those members across the floor elected is broken, that is the time recall should be implemented. That is why the Reform member for Beaver River sponsored a recall bill. Had it passed, it would have put into the hands of the people a tool which would allow them to fire their member of Parliament between elections when they felt that their MP was not honouring a commitment made at election time.

The member for Beaver River sponsored legislation which came before the House. Had it passed, it would have been law. Why do we not have the right of recall, the right given to the people to fire their members of Parliament between elections? Why do we not have that legislation in place? The answer is that it was shot down. It was voted against by members of the Liberal Party and by members of the Bloc Quebecois. They refused to put this important tool which would hold members of Parliament accountable into the hands of the people.

I would suggest that those 10, 20, 30, 40 members of Parliament from the governing party who campaigned on getting rid of the GST will be held accountable at the next election. Many of them will not be re-elected. That is accountability. The voters will exercise their right in this case. It is unfortunate the voters do not have recall, the tool that would allow them to do it now rather than waiting for the next election.

[Val Meredith, Reform, Surrey—White Rock—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me somewhat of a pleasure to speak on this legislation.

All Canadians realize that a promise was made to them prior to the 1993 election. It was very clear from candidates going door to door, from candidates meetings and also from the Prime Minister's statements to the public via TV and radio that the promise to the electorate was that the Liberal government was going to scrap the GST.

I do not and I am sure most Canadians do not recall the word harmonization being used. It brings distress to most Canadians that we are now looking at a government which has decided it will harmonize the GST with the provincial sales tax. The government has started in the maritime provinces. It bribed those provinces. It did not follow the initiative of the provinces asking for it. It just bribed those provinces with $1 billion of borrowed dollars to the Canadian taxpayer.

It should also be noted that three provinces have said they will not even contemplate this issue. They will not contemplate entering any negotiations or proposals with the federal government. The three provinces that have said they will not contemplate it are the three have provinces, those that seem always to be paying up front for federal government programs.

The Ontario Minister of Finance has even stated that a blended sales tax using the GST base would cost Ontarians over $3 billion in extra taxes.

This government has managed to reduce its deficit not by substantially cutting government spending, but by raising fees and taxes to the Canadian people. This is one more example where the Liberal government thinks that if any Canadian has any money in his or her pocket, it is fair grab.

The finance minister also plans to force federally regulated industries, including airlines and banks, to bury the GST in their prices. Canadians need to know just how much money their federal government is taking out of their pockets above and beyond their income tax contributions. I do not think Canadians appreciate the underhanded methods this government has used to get more money out of their pockets.

One of the most frightening aspects of this harmonization plan is the cost in jobs. Three major retailers in Atlantic Canada have stated that the net annual retail deficit will total $27 million once harmonization is implemented. The Retail Council of Canada has said that by forcing stores to bury the new tax in prices, the harmonized tax regime will cost retailers at least $100 million a year.

The tax included pricing hits retailers in four areas. One is the duplication of the information systems and the rewriting of software. Another is in the re-pricing of pre-priced goods: books, greeting cards, magazines, et cetera. The third one is in the duplication of advertising costs in flyers and catalogues; one set for the Atlantic provinces and another set for those areas where there is no harmonization. The fourth is in the warehousing and distribution costs; sorting out which ones have the tax included for the maritimes and which ones do not.

The Halifax Chamber of Commerce predicts that the harmonized sales tax will push up new housing prices by 5.5 per cent, as well as force municipalities to raise their property taxes. The Canadian Real Estate Association says that the harmonization of the GST and PST will increase the cost of a new house by $4,000 in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and by $3,374 in New Brunswick.

What is happening here is that the taxpayer is having to pick up the extra tax burden.

GST harmonization is responsible for the closure of five Greenberg stores and the loss of 79 jobs. Woolworth Canada states that due to the tax inclusive pricing it is considering closing a quarter of the 126 stores in the Atlantic region meaning a loss of over 300 jobs. Carleton Cards predicts that it will close 19 of its 39 stores in the region, throwing 116 people out of work.

I find it an outrage that this government can talk about job creation and about using the infrastructure to create part time, temporary jobs yet it stands by and watches permanent, full time jobs disappearing, particularly in a region like Atlantic Canada which, Lord knows, has few enough jobs for its people. How can this government deliberately be putting together a proposal and putting legislation in place that is a detriment to jobs for the Atlantic people?

Consumers, the ones who will have jobs and might have some money in their pockets, will be paying more for funeral services, children's clothing and books. What happened to the promise of this government to remove the GST from books? Auto repairs, electricity, gasoline, home heating fuel and haircuts. Not only are we taking away their jobs, we are raising the cost of living. They are going to be hard pressed to provide their children with proper clothing and to heat their homes, and that is anticipating they can even afford to buy homes with the rising costs this implementation is going to create.

One of the more irresponsible results of this is that the Liberal government defeated a Reform motion to hold hearings in Atlantic Canada on GST harmonization which would have allowed the people of Atlantic Canada to participate in deciding on whether or not GST harmonization was something they wanted and they felt they could support. Refusing to allow the people in Atlantic Canada to exercise their right to participate in the discussion, in essence is the same as having taxation without consultation or without representation. That should not be allowed in this country.

If this government is under any misconception that the people of Canada support it in retaining the GST instead of scrapping it, removing it or abolishing it and if government members feel that Canadians support them in their efforts to hide the GST through harmonization, let me read a couple of comments made by constituents of mine on their householder returns.

One response says: "Get rid of all the governors general. It will save billions of dollars no doubt as we do not need the Queen". He goes on to say: "When will they abolish the GST? Prime Minister Chrétien promised. You can see it on the old tapes when he made this promise-

[The Deputy Speaker]

It being 5.41 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

[Barry Campbell, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

On a point of order and I thank you, Mr. Speaker, in view of the hour.

On several occasions today you, Mr. Speaker, and others who have occupied the Chair have pointed out to members that the use of certain words in this House is unacceptable. If I heard correctly, what I heard was an attempt to use the same word by spelling it out rather than saying it. It amounts to the same word with respect to the Prime Minister of this country.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Beaver River and I were talking. I did not hear the latter part of the hon. member's remarks. Perhaps she would indicate what was said and if something unparliamentary was said I know she will want to withdraw it.

[Val Meredith, Reform, Surrey—White Rock—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not name any word. What I was doing to avoid the circumstances was I said that it was a four letter word starting with l . I did not say any word at all.

[The Deputy Speaker]

We always accept a member's word in this place and accordingly it must have been a misunderstanding.

The House resumed from November 26, 1996 consideration of the motion that, in the opinion of this House, the government should return the word "Canadian" among questions of ethnic origin on the Canadian Census; and of the amendment.

Canadian Census

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion M-277 concerning a proposed change to the next Canadian census.

The member for Beaver River moved: "That, in the opinion of this House, the government should return the word "Canadian" among questions of ethnic origin on the Canadian Census". And my colleague, the member for Bellechasse, moved an amendment to this motion asking that it "include "Canadian", "Quebecker", "English-Canadian", "French-Canadian" and "Acadian" among questions of ethnic origin on the Canadian Census".

This goes back to the last Canadian census. It is truly astonishing that an agency as reliable as Statistics Canada, whose competence is recognized worldwide, produced such erroneous questions.

One of them, question 17, asks to which ethnic or cultural group the respondent's ancestors belong. The choices are: French, English, German, Canadian, Scottish, Jewish, Haitian, Jamaican, Vietnamese, and so on.

Question 19 reads as follows: "Is this person-and here comes the problematical point- white, Chinese, South Asian (for example, Indian, Pakistani, Punjabi, Sri Lankan)-here nations and

regions are being confused, since the Punjab is a region and not a country-black (for example, African, Haitian, Jamaican and Somali)-as if a person could not be white and be born in Africa-Arab, West Asian (for example, Armenian, Egyptian, Iranian, Lebanese, Moroccan), Filipino, Southeast Asian, Latin American, Japanese, Korean or other?".

It is, I imagine, in this list that the member for Beaver River would like to see the word "Canadian" added.

There is a very definite confusion between race, ethnic group, nationality, language, region and country. Yet these words do have definitions, and there is a capability at Statistics Canada, with all the scientific knowledge possessed by its employees and professionals, to define those concepts very well. There are ways to not confuse the concept of race, a concept that is becoming more and more obsolete anyway, we must admit.

As for ethnicity, this is an item of no scientific value, since the majority of people forget their ethnic group of origin. When I myself answered the questionnaire, I did not say I was French in origin, since my ancestors came to the country in 1657. I have more or less loss sight of that. I am Canadian in origin, born in Canada. For me, that presents no problem.

Except that if someone wants to ask me something more specific, to find out what group I really identify with in Canada, I cannot identify myself with a Canadian; there is no such thing as a Canadian. It is all very fine to spend a lot of money to try and make one exist, but a Canadian does not exist as such, in my opinion. At least not yet. I am of Canadian origin, of course, but I belong to the Quebec nation. My origin is the one I have in common with people who live in the same area and have the same common characteristics.

We are aware of a certain unity that exists among people who live in Quebec and increasingly, "Canadians" are defining themselves as Ontarians, Manitobans or Newfoundlanders. Many people from Newfoundland do not feel any more Canadian than Quebecers do. They are from Newfoundland first. Of course they will say they are from Canada, although they were the last to join Confederation.

So there are certain feelings, a certain commonality that unite us, through history, society, culture and above all through a desire to live together. I think that if they decide to keep this question in the next census questionnaire, it should be clarified to reflect the kind of answer that is desired.

It would be interesting to know with what kind of nationalism we can identify, because as we know each other better, we are more likely to accept each other as we are and understand each other, as long as we live in the same country or when we will live together as good neighbours. So we will know where we are from.

The important thing is that we can talk about our ethnic origin, without mixing up all these concepts as they were in question 19.

Now we can assume that all these people who work at Statistics Canada, with all their knowledge and skills, have a reason for asking the question the way they did. Strictly speaking, both Question No. 17 and question 19 are not a matter of census data or statistics but, in my opinion, purely political questions.

What is the point of these questions? The responses will be tallied, the number of people from France, Germany, Italy, China will be identified-as the questionnaire asks: Are you white, Chinese-you can be Chinese without ever setting foot in China. If you live in Hong Kong, Singapore or Taiwan, you are Chinese, but you can be Chinese without ever going to China.

A lot more precision is required. You can also be Canadian and not identify with English Canada at all. You can be a Canadian of francophone origin, but, because of your family history, be part of another segment of the population or the minority in Quebec. There are francophones, even Tremblays, whose name is given an English pronunciation and who do not speak a word of French anymore, because they belong to the anglophone minority in Quebec.

Perhaps these people do not see themselves as Quebecers anymore. They are more English Canadian, and we must respect their choice.

Why make the question unclear? No doubt in order to emphasize Canada's multiculturalism policy and convince us that Canada exists, that it is the most beautiful country in the world and that ours is a mosaic comprising every country. People are Ukrainian Canadians, Italian Canadians, Chinese Canadians-I could name all of the 200 countries in the world. We probably have people from all these places.

I have no objection to that, but it is the source of Canada's problem. And it is: a lack of Canadian identity. Maintaining multiculturalism within the country means that no one wants to become Canadian and so we end up not defining what it means to be Canadian. In my opinion, if Canada wants to progress and better understand itself-it will be doubtless very useful to us as neighbours some day-there is no reason to be afraid of identifying what one considers one's nationality.

The question must be clarified. There are Acadians in the country, there are French Canadians, there are Quebecers and there are Ontarians. It is vital to know what people consider to be their nationality.

We must open our eyes. We must look at the reality of our differences, learn to live together and respect one another, whether it be within a single country or as good neighbours.

[Morris Bodnar, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to Motion No. 277, which calls for the government to include the words "Canadian",

"Quebecois", "English Canadian", "French Canadian" and "Acadian" on the question concerning ethnic origin in the census.

First I would point out that, for a number of censuses, respondents have been able to respond "Canadian" as well as "Quebecer"-

[The Deputy Speaker]

The clerk has indicated to me that the hon. member has already spoken on the amendment and, accordingly, he knows that he is not eligible to speak again.

I see him shaking his head. Perhaps he would stand down for a moment and we will check to see whether an error has been made on the record.

[Morris Bodnar, Liberal, Saskatoon—Dundurn, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke for part of my time when the hour elapsed the last time and I had not completed my speech.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member may not realize it, but if the member does not show up the next time and another member speaks, then the member who did not appear for the debate is taken to have abandoned his right to speak. Accordingly, in light of what the member has said, he is not entitled to speak on the amendment.

[Morris Bodnar, Liberal, Saskatoon—Dundurn, SK]

Mr. Speaker, may I rise on a point of order on this?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I will listen to the hon. member, but I hope it is something he has not already said.

[Morris Bodnar, Liberal, Saskatoon—Dundurn, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult for me to stand to speak first when you recognized the member for Rimouski-Témiscouata before the clerk even read the order of the day.