Debates of Nov. 27th, 1998

Agriculture

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member knows it is quite out of order to refer to the presence of persons in the gallery. The Speaker alone is permitted to do that. I would ask the hon. member to put his question forthwith.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, will Roger, John and thousands of other farmers get the emergency aid they need immediately?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member may have met with Mr. Germs a few minutes ago but I had the occasion to meet Mr. Germs earlier. It was not organized to be so but we did so because we were both having interviews on national television. I told him we were working as hard as we possibly can. I had every indication from Mr. Germs and his colleague that they appreciated the efforts we are taking at this time.

Social Union

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

Mr. Speaker, the federal government boasts about introducing the concept of a partnership with the provinces on social union. But at a time when all the provinces are unanimously in favour of asking that it wrap up this issue before Christmas, the federal government is the one putting on the brakes.

How can the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs justify the fact that his government is the one rejecting the idea of holding a first ministers conference to resolve the social union issue before Christmas?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the premiers launched this initiative in December 1997. The provinces submitted their proposals in June 1998. The federal government responded with a counter-proposal in July 1998. Since then, work has been progressing well.

The PQ government stayed away from these negotiations until the very end. Yesterday, Mr. Parizeau explained why the PQ is in now: they hope to make the negotiations fail so as to create winning conditions. Winning conditions for Lucien Bouchard are losing conditions for Quebeckers.

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

Mr. Speaker, in September, commenting on the Saskatoon agreement, the Prime Minister stated that the provinces wanted to take the place of the federal government. More recently, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs accused everyone of acting in bad faith.

Is the reason the government refuses to resolve the social union issue surrounding federal spending powers that, in its next budget, it plans to interfere in health, as it did last year in education with the millennium scholarships?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, we have the deepest respect for the Constitution. The Government of Canada has always provided assistance to students, but does so without any direct involvement in education. We help ensure Canadians have access to education.

I might remind the hon. member that, in the United States, 75% of public funding for students is provided by the federal government. In Germany, it is 65%. That is how federalism should work, except in the minds of some separatist leaders, who never understood what the Canadian federation was all about.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on the eve of an election, it is understandable that the minister wants people to think that Lucien Bouchard is guilty of bad faith on the social union issue. The trouble is that the minister has no credibility, because the 10 premiers are all of one mind. They all signed the same agreement in Saskatoon.

Does the minister think that the 10 premiers are all acting in bad faith, or are we to understand that, if anyone is guilty of bad faith, it is the foot-dragging federal government?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the member should listen to the answers before he asks his questions. I have said who was holding things up in the past: the Parti Quebecois government. Its reasons for doing so are fairly obvious. Its reasons for getting involved now are also fairly obvious because the number one item on its agenda, unlike the agenda of the other premiers, is the destruction of the country.

It is very difficult to work credibly at improving a country one wishes to tear apart. There is a fundamental contradiction because the member does not even appear to know what social union means. It means Canadians helping Canadians, coming to each other's assistance more often, something this country is very good at.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is known in university circles as an ideologist with a Liberal, centralizing vision of Canada in which the federal government gives orders and the provinces take them.

Is this why the minister is going to do everything he can to avoid allowing the provinces to withdraw with full compensation before the next budget, even though all 10 provinces are unanimous that this is what they want and are telling him it is urgent?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the member got his information.

I will say, though, that I find his questions increasingly personal and uninteresting.

Agriculture

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, while farm families are in desperate straits this government sits idly by.

It reviews endlessly. It hints at emergency plans, but you cannot feed pigs on promises. You cannot grow grain on uncertain ground.

When will the government end the delays and bring forward specific measures to provide the relief Canadian farmers so desperately need?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I have told the House over and over again, although some hon. members have not heard yet, that we are working diligently with the provinces and with the industry to put together as quickly as possible resources in order to do that. I have explained the necessity and the urgency of that to my cabinet colleagues.

We want to be able to put a program in place to assist with the provinces, one that is coherent, clear and a national strategy to provide producers with security. If those words sound familiar to the leader of the New Democratic Party they are words from the NDP framework for Canada's future. That is what we are trying to do.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, farmers cannot wait. They cannot wait until Christmas and they certainly cannot wait until the new year.

They need help and they need help now. Many more farmers will be forced into bankruptcy before the government announces a relief package.

To prevent still more bankruptcies, will the government move swiftly to secure from the banks a moratorium on farm foreclosures?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I assure the hon. member that along with all the other work we are doing right now, all we possibly can as quickly as we possibly can, I have been having discussions with the banks encouraging them to be as understanding, as supportive and as compassionate as they can possibly be with the producers in Canada.

Pork Producers

[David Price, Progressive Conservative, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the problems relating to pig slurry merit the government's attention.

The present government has, in fact, invested millions into the Lennoxville Research Station in my riding for research on pig slurry, particularly on ways to suppress the odour and waste generated. Yet the government is unwilling to do anything in spite of these studies. Not a day goes by without the government talking about this crisis, and not a day goes by without another farm bankruptcy.

How many pork producers need to go bankrupt before it decides to intervene?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, the pork industry and environmental concerns are certainly high priorities in our research program in Canada.

On the hog environmental management strategy, for example, the Canadian government has put $2 million in that program along with $1 million from the industry itself to assist the industry to find ways the nutrients from hog operations in Canada can be best managed in the rural areas.

[David Price, Progressive Conservative, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

The present government has invested millions in the Lennoxville Research Station in my riding for research on pig slurry.

I acknowledge that such studies are essential, but they are useless if pork producers continue to go bankrupt. There will simply be none of them left to make use of this technology.

How many pork producers need to go bankrupt before this government realizes that its policy on pig slurry is just pig manure?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting, if I hear the hon. member's question correctly, he is saying that we should not be continuing research even though there is a situation of low prices in the hog industry in Canada now. It is another reason we need to.

The research is being done by the federal and provincial governments and the industry. That is another reason why our producers are very efficient. It is also another reason why all of us want to do all we possibly can in order to help these producers get through this crisis and downturn in the cycle right now, so they can and will continue in the future to be producers of some of the finest pork in the world.

Public Works And Government Services

[John Reynolds, Reform, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is evidence of a breach of government security with regard to confidential secret government documents that were supposed to be shredded by a company in British Columbia.

Today we have confirmed that classified secret documents had been shipped unshredded to China, Korea and the United States. Last Wednesday in the House the minister of public works said that “no important documents were in the hands of anyone important”. His assistant deputy minister, Mr. Williams, is quoted as saying there were. Can the minister confirm that what he said on Wednesday was not accurate?

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I have been saying for a few days now that this is an important matter. We are taking it seriously.

At the beginning of July of this year as soon as we learned about it, we stopped the work and suspended the company. We suspended its security clearance and we called in the RCMP.

According to the synopsis of the RCMP report, I quote Sergeant John Ward of the RCMP national security intelligence service: “We are quite sure that no national security issues were compromised”.

[John Reynolds, Reform, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Mr. Speaker, other countries have spies to get their secret information. Today we learned that Canada gift-wraps its secret NATO documents and other information and sends it to foreign countries.

It has been confirmed by the RCMP and the minister's staff that secret NATO documents went to British Columbia from Ottawa. Secret PMO documents went from Ottawa to British Columbia to be shredded by a company that had been in bankruptcy at one time.

Can the minister assure the House today that none of those secret PMO documents that went to British Columbia to be destroyed have anything to do with the APEC situation?

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is stretching his imagination a little bit.

Again, we learned from the RCMP investigation that no national security issues were compromised. How much clearer can I be?

Immigration

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

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

We learned in the papers that a Northern Ireland parliamentarian, Alex Maskey, was refused a visa to enter Canada.

Does the minister not consider that this decision sends an extremely negative message to the supporters of democracy, a message that discredits the peace process in Ireland, which Canada officially supports?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve knows very well that I cannot comment publicly on any individual case.

That said, allow me to say that, first of all, the people of Ireland do not need visas to enter Canada.

Second, for anyone deemed ineligible for entry into Canada for whatever reason, the law contains provisions covering such a possibility. Of course, the individual in question must apply in the first place.