John Harvard

[Constitutional Amendments Act, November 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from Cowichan and the Islands misunderstands the intent of Bill C-110. He claims that the people would like to have the final say in constitutional matters. Bill C-110 does exactly that. Let me explain to the hon. member.

If his great province of British Columbia, a province in which I resided at one time, would like to cast a veto and would like to borrow the federal veto but before doing that it wants to go to the people of British Columbia in a referendum to sanction that action, that is allowed for in Bill C-110.

Bill C-110 in no way stops the people of British Columbia from taking a decision on a constitutional matter. That includes the veto. If the member wants the veto of the province of British Columbia

sanctioned by the people, for heaven's sake go right ahead and do it.

I can assure the member that under this legislation, if the province of British Columbia comes to us along with another province in the western region and says, we want a veto cast because we have held a referendum and the people in our province have asked for the veto, it will be respected under this law. There can be no other interpretation. You can respond to that if you like.

[Canada Post Corporation, November 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the motion now before the House proposing the privatization of the post office can be based on myth only, and we on this side of the House prefer to deal with the facts.

The mover of the motion presumes that Canada Post is an inefficient, money losing organization and a drain on the Canadian taxpayer. In fact, Canada Post has achieved a considerable turnaround in its operations and finances. It is self-sufficient and since 1988 no longer receives appropriations from government.

The mover of the motion presumes that Canada Post is an inefficient organization that did not adapt to the realities of the marketplace. Wrong again. In fact, Canada Post has been improving continuously since becoming a crown corporation, with efficiency gains in all aspects of its operations.

It is most important to note the current mandate review, which the minister responsible for Canada Post announced on November 6 of this year. It has been ten years since the last major review of Canada Post. This review will give Canadians a chance to express their concerns about the corporation.

The review committee will also be analysing the current competitive environment of the corporation. The communications market has changed dramatically since the Marchment report, and it is time to review the effects on the corporation.

The mandate review will also review the functions that Canada Post currently carries out and those that should be provided in the future. In this regard, I want to deal with the allegations of cross-subsidization, which we have heard from couriers and others and most recently from the hon. member for Quebec East.

Let me emphasize that Canada Post Corporation competes fairly. It does not subsidize its services. These allegations have been reviewed by both the Bureau of Competition Policy and the National Transportation Agency. The Bureau of Competition Policy examined concerns with regard to cross-subsidization of Canada Post ad mail services with profits from letter mail and alleged predatory pricing. The bureau cleared Canada Post of the allegations in 1994.

The year before that, in 1993, along with the National Transportation Agency the bureau also reviewed the corporation's acquisition of 75 per cent of Purolator courier and the issues of unfair competition and cross-subsidization as they would relate to that purchase. The bureau found: "No grounds to believe that cross-subsidization would occur post-merger".

The hon. member putting forward the motion is not aware of the many other changes taking place at Canada Post. Canada Post knows technological innovation. In a world economy driven by ever changing business partnerships and alliances, technological innovation and convergence, there remains the crucial need for a reliable, efficient, dedicated postal administration.

Canadians want a faster, more reliable, and lower cost postal administration. Throughout its history Canada has always been quick to embrace these demands. Canada Post has worked hard to meet its mandate to provide service to every Canadian.

Between 1992 and 1994, pieces of mail processed per hour increased by 64 per cent. Delivery points per hour increased by 30 per cent. All this was accomplished with a workforce that was reduced by 24 per cent. These are the facts, something the Reform Party does not seem to be acquainted with.

Since incorporation there have been many innovations Canada Post can be very proud of, such as the national control centre, which allows end to end monitoring of performance. The first system for tracking and tracing also has been developed. This system accurately pinpoints the progress of your mail. The corporation has also developed a new technology for hybrid services, which can electronically send your document, print it, and have it mailed. This is available to all Canadians.

Would a private corporation offer this accessible service to all-I underline all-Canadians? This is something the opposition has not considered.

Good service means accessibility to retail services. In the mid-1980s Canada Post decided to experiment with franchising of postal outlets. This partnership with the private sector has resulted in an increased network of outlets where Canada Post products and services are available.

The Canada Post retail network currently consists of nearly 8,000 full service outlets, 4,150 corporate outlets, and more than 3,400 private sector outlets, supplemented by 11,000 stamp shops and agencies. Hours of access to postal products has increased substantially, while the cost of operations has been reduced. These outlets had a combined earned retail revenue in 1994-95 of $1.8 billion.

The franchising of retail postal services provides key solutions to four critical problems that were faced by Canada Post: how to obtain necessary capital; how to restructure and expand the retail customer service network; how to move quickly to a customer focused workforce; and how to reduce the high cost of a corporate retail network.

The franchising of postal service brought benefits to not only Canada Post but, more important, to Canadians, rural and urban. Franchising has nearly doubled the size of the postal network, offering consumers over 3,000 additional service centres across Canada. Canada Post's franchising and retail postal service has been a success. It is evident that Canada Post is constantly improving and adapting. Why should that be changed?

Canada has entered a new electronic era. Should Canada Post be involved in this electronic era? In the government's upcoming mandate review one of the terms of reference is whether CPC should be free to react to advances in technological alternatives to mail. If so, what would be the implications for the users, namely the government, the public and CPC competitors? This should make the opposition happy. We look forward to hearing the results.

The future contribution of postal administration in the new electronic environment will be contingent on the answers to some very basic questions. What is and will be the role for a postal administration as a public service? Is there a role for a postal administration as an electronics intermediary and as a provider of security services in electronic messaging? Can letter mail be delivered still faster and more cheaply? How much commercial freedom should a postal administration have?

The volume of physical mail in Canada is still marginally increasing from year to year. However, it will significantly decrease as electronic messaging takes hold. Over time, the labour intensive infrastructure required to process physical mail will be transformed to handle more electronic messaging. The transformation from hard copy to electronic will take time, however, more than most people predict, and for good reason. There is a multi-million dollar investment in the interlink physical mail infrastructures of Canada Post and its customers, and it will take an enormous investment to go completely electronic.

The immediate future is a bridge the corporation calls hybrid, which allows messages to be submitted to CPC electronically, travel electronically to the closest point of delivery, then be printed and delivered in hard copy. It is in this area that CPC's new electronic services are concentrated. It is the belief of many that a hybrid environment will be with us for a very long time.

Canada Post's concentration on hybrid services is allowing it to greatly increase its efficiency. Expansion of these services is vital to its customers, not only to contain or reduce costs but to allow the transaction of business effectively in a global marketplace using electronic data interchange, EDI, and hybrid data interchange, HDI. This obvious change in the face of technology has allowed Canada Post to remain competitive. Canada Post is doing much more than perhaps the hon. member is aware.

Business and governments need to share information with their clients in the form of documents or reports. Maintaining physical copies of documents and distributing them is costly, environmentally damaging and does not add value to the economy. Working further to reduce costs and speed up delivery, CPC has developed a service that stores documents and delivers them through a 1-800 telephone line. The documents can be delivered by fax, E-mail or regular mail. This service reduces business costs, speeds delivery of information and avoids environmental impacts of printing and storing an abundance of physical documents.

Canada Post presently has a physical directory of all addresses in Canada which it must maintain to deliver mail, including postal codes for efficient mail sortation. It is extending this directory to include electronic addresses and other information which Canadian businesses and governments can access for effective communication in the medium of the receiver's choice.

This will take the form of hard copy, telephone, fax, computer, E-mail, telex and even interactive television in the future. The directory will reduce the cost of doing business, improve the speed of messaging and enable a sender to reach the receiver regardless of technological-

[Veterans Week, November 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, 77 years ago this weekend the first world war came to an end and Canadian veterans were able to come home.

Fifty years ago this summer, the second world war ended. Forty-one years ago, Canadians began to return from the Korean war. For the past 38 years, Canadians have served in UN peacekeeping missions from which they have returned to a grateful nation.

The week of November 4 to 12 has been proclaimed Veterans Week. This is an occasion for all Canadians to pay tribute to the courage and sacrifice of those who served their country.

It is time for us to listen to the stories of our veterans which they have to tell and to learn from their experiences. It is time for us to rededicate ourselves to the values of freedom and democracy our veterans fought to preserve.

Above all, it is an occasion to honour some very remarkable Canadians.

[Cultural Property Export And Import Act, October 24th, 1995]

Yes, as my good friend from Broadview-Greenwood pointed out, people of integrity are also important.

Speaking of people and integrity, the current review board consists of 10 members, the maximum number allowable under current legislation. These members represent the myriad of players who are actively involved in the process of preserving cultural property in institutions or public authorities who are designated to do so.

Let us go through this. Two of the members are contemporary art dealers. Four members are or were employees of designated institutions who have expertise in archival material, Canadiana, contemporary and Inuit art. One member is an accountant, another is a lawyer and the remaining two members are members of the public at large. Several of the members who sit on the board are also collectors who are fully aware of the dynamics that come into play between institutions that collect and collectors who become donors.

This not something that has been slapped together. This has been thought through very well. When we take into account the composition of the 10-member board we can appreciate the kind of thought that has gone into making up the board.

In my opening remarks I referred to comments made by the hon. member for Medicine Hat. That same member at second reading of the bill expressed concern that a board appointed by the government and consisting of members who represent the community it serves could be-to use his words-too cosy, leading to a scratch my back and I will scratch your back situation. That kind of assumption places subjectivity over expertise and suggests that human beings are by nature incapable of assessing their peers objectively. I think he has underestimated the capabilities of people and perhaps even their integrity.

We are not talking about amateurs, we are talking about professionals, professionals that value and wish to maintain their professional integrity. Further, as is the case with all professional organizations, the Cultural Property Export Review Board has a strict code of ethics to avoid any conflict of interest.

I might add that the transfer of determining fair market value to the board in 1991 was not an arbitrary move, but rather the result of the realization that such determinations can best be made only by individuals who are actively involved in the environment in which cultural property circulates.

The appeal process which the bill proposes will ensure the full use of the expertise available on the board. It is intended that given the thoroughness with which the first stage of the appeal process would be handled through a request for redetermination by a subcommittee, most issues with determinations of fair market value would be resolved and that requests for a further appeal to the Tax Court of Canada would be minimal. In other words, we do not see the two-stage review process being used on every occasion. We believe in most cases that all questions will be settled after the first go-around. Very few of these cases go to the Tax Court of Canada. It is important to keep that in mind. We are not interested in a prolonged process where both stages are used up on almost every occasion. We do not think that will happen.

The second stage of the appeal process necessitates that the donor make an irrevocable gift to the institution. Only the donor would be able to request an appeal to the tax court up to 90 days after the redetermination process is completed. Again we are not talking about people who are in the game for frivolous reasons. They are serious donors.

As with anything new, the first and second stages of the appeal process will be subject to trial and error before an efficient and workable system is developed. In other words, we can see this system, to some extent, maturing. One would hope that after the system has been used for a number of years, it will be more efficient and more mature. I believe that is a safe assumption. As with most processes, over a period of time after they have been used again and again, do get better.

The museum community, as have donors and potential donors, has been anxiously awaiting the appeal process since the original announcement was made by the Minister of Canadian Heritage in November 1994. It was looking for the announcement up until then. It was cheered by that announcement. It has been looking forward to the legislation. It has been looking forward to the passage of the legislation and it has been looking forward to this kind of debate. With a little luck it will be given royal assent in the very near future.

Over the past year and a half the review board has established positive working relationships with Revenue Canada and Justice Canada to ensure that donations of cultural property are made in the spirit of the act, that is, with a philanthropic end in mind. The board is to be highly commended for the effective action it has taken to discourage the use of the tax incentives under this act as a tax avoidance measure.

Let me point out the kind of regime that has been set up to prevent misuse of donations. Not any Tom, Dick and Harry can come along with any kind of alleged piece of art and give it to an institution and get a tax break. It is not as simple as that.

I want to draw attention to a couple of paragraphs from a pamphlet entitled "Gifts and Income Tax". The Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board may rule that an object is of outstanding significance and national importance because of at least three criteria: close association with Canadian history or national life; aesthetic qualities and value in the study of the arts or sciences.

This is important. To be eligible to have cultural property certified, an institution or public authority has to be designated by the Minister of Canadian Heritage. The institution or public authority has to have this designation before formally accepting one's gift if one is to receive the maximum tax benefit.

The designation procedure ensures that the institutions and public authorities receiving cultural property are competent, classified, and maintain and preserve cultural property. Designated institutions are also required to make one's gift available to the general public for education, research or display purposes.

I point that out because when I was listening to the hon. member for Medicine Hat, he left the impression, at least with me, that this was a kind of loose set-up that could be exploited by people who really do not want to give pieces of Canadian heritage for philanthropic purposes but just to get a tax break.

I assure the hon. member for Medicine Hat and all Canadians that it is not as simple as that. There is a regime. There is a framework. It will have to be followed correctly and properly if pieces of art are to be accepted and where tax certificates are provided.

I am told that the board has implemented measures to target suspect donations and to make determinations so that supposed donations made with an anticipated profit are unable to receive substantial financial gains. The board has been working closely as well with the Professional Art Dealers Association of Canada to ensure that all appraisals coming before it are fully substantiated with demonstrable sales of comparable works.

As there are fewer tax incentives available to taxpayers today, the board is taking every measure possible to ensure that the tax incentive to donate under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act cannot be used as a loophole. The great importance of this act is the continuing development of our national heritage, and it merits extreme vigilance. The Canadian Cultural Property Review Board, I reiterate, is to be commended for its efforts thus far.

This brings me back to those people for whom the Cultural Property Export and Import Act is intended, the donors, the institutions and the public; three major groups in this equation and we should not forget that.

The purpose of the act is to encourage and ensure the preservation in Canada of important examples of our heritage in movable cultural property. Without acquisition funds to fulfil their mandates to collect cultural property, designated institutions must rely on donors.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, as much as we respect the marketplace, it is a dynamic place and we would not want to be without it for one minute, sometimes it comes up a little short. When it comes up short we as politicians have to recognize that. In this case we have recognized it because the museums, the institutions, cannot rely on the marketplace through some magical process providing the donations that are so required by these institutions.

It would be nice to believe that the marketplace could wave a magic wand but it cannot, any more than the Leader of the Opposition can. We cannot rely on a magic wand in this case. We have to rely on well thought out legislation which will do the job for the institutions, for the donors and for the public at large. We think this legislation does it.

I remind Canadians that without an appeal process that ensures recourse for determinations of fair market value of cultural property for income tax purposes, donations to the country's public institutions will become paralyzed and so will our heritage. Canadians do not want that, not for one minute. That is why we have this legislation. We as Canadians, the public, would suffer if this were to happen, this paralysis I was referring to.

At a time when museum attendance has been steadily increasing and contributing to the economy of Canada through cultural tourism, we cannot afford to abandon our duty to continue to inspire our people to partake in the cultural harvest of our nation.

Museums are more popular today than ever before. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that our country is getting older. It is 128 years old. We have a lot of heritage; heritage that has been captured by our artists, heritage that expresses Canada in all of its manifestations. We have a duty to encourage artists, to support donors, to support designated institutions so that this heritage in art form is preserved and protected because we will be a stronger country for it.

Imagine for a moment what future generations of Canadians would think of us if we were oblivious to these facts, if we ignored these facts, if we let these precious pieces of heritage slip through our fingers, allowing these precious pieces of heritage to be squandered. They would condemn us. They would assess us very harshly. However, we would not have to wait for the evaluation or the assessment of history. I think our contemporaries would treat us very harshly.

Canadians know what this country is all about. Canadians know what our heritage is all about. They also know what it takes to preserve that heritage because they know a country is not here for just today, tomorrow, next week, the week after, the month after or the year after. Like so many countries, Canada is here for a long, long time. In recognition of that we have legislation to support our artists, our donors, our institutions and the public at large.

I think all Canadians, all taxpayers, support this. They will not share some of the criticisms we have heard of the bill. Of course no legislation is perfect. As long as human beings are what we are, imperfect, we will often create imperfect legislation. However, I think we have done a good job on this. Certainly the institutions have told us that. The museums have told us that. They came before the committee and praised this legislation. They praised the minister. They praised all of us in the House and they want the job done. They do not want this frivolous talk, this carping from the other side of the House.

Criticism for criticism's sake does not make any sense. If you have something worthwhile to say, say it. To stand up on your hind legs, to carp and to criticize just to fill the air does not make sense. I think the opposition does us a disservice when it grandstands, when it indulges in that kind of talk. We want responsible debate. In some cases we have fallen short of the goal of responsible debate.

Canadians support the legislation and they want it done. That is all I have to say and I hope we can have this legislation passed as quickly as possible. Canadians want it.

[Cultural Property Export And Import Act, October 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, before I get into the main body of my speech, I would like to proffer a couple of comments relative to what was said by the hon. member for Medicine Hat.

I did not listen to all of his speech but I did hear a chunk of it. On two different occasions he described the legislation as being horrible and innocuous. I would think the hon. member would find some disparity between those two adjectives, innocuous and horrible.

After listening to him I suspect he probably thinks the legislation is more horrible than it is innocuous despite the fact that this is anything but sweeping legislation. It really is what we might call a technical bill to put back into legislation a review and appeal mechanism, something that was inadvertently left out in 1991.

Again, in commenting on observations made by the hon. member for Medicine Hat, it is quite clear he believes that the free market system can do the job. At one point in his speech he said that we just do not need this kind of legislation at all. He was not only referring to providing an appeal mechanism or a review mechanism; he was talking about the entire system of public support for donations of Canadian heritage to museums.

We would have to be dreaming. We would have to be in full flight of fantasy to believe the museums would do as well without this legislation. Without this incentive, without this kind of legislation, many of the donations to the museums across the country, and we are talking about more than 2,000 institutions, would dry up. This was forcefully put to the committee of which I have the honour to chair by witnesses a few days back.

Let us not fool anybody. This legislation is absolutely necessary. The comments by the hon. member for Medicine Hat truly reveal what the so-called Reform Party feels about supporting cultural institutions and specifically museums. Reform members simply do not support public support at all which is wrong headed. It is a mistake and is not something that is shared by the Canadian public.

I listened to the hon. member and he seemed to plead on behalf of taxpayers, as if he spoke for all taxpayers. While many

taxpayers believe they are overburdened, and in some cases they are, most taxpayers are quite enlightened and support this kind of legislation. They appreciate museums. They appreciate cultural institutions. They support artists of all kinds. They want to reach out and help Canadians in the cultural field. They accept that this is what this legislation is doing.

This is certainly recognized by the museums. If it was not helpful the museums would be saying that, but that is not what their witnesses were saying. They came to the committee and said this legislation is needed and is supported.

This wanders perhaps a little off the bill, but this bill has something to do with preserving Canadian heritage. Everyone knows as well as I do the crisis this country is going through right now. We all know the crisis this country faces and we have a heritage. We have a tremendous history. On Monday we want all Canadians, not just Quebecers, to appreciate this heritage, this history, this land, this great nation. That is what this country is all about.

This cultural property bill is just an infinitesimal part of the efforts of preserving Canadian heritage. I feel very, very strongly that come Monday Quebecers will show that they are going to preserve Canadian heritage in a much greater way through the ballot box rather than through the mechanism of the cultural property bill.

The hon. member for Medicine Hat said he has no idea as to the tax expenditure involved in this kind of legislation. The tax expenditure is in the neighbourhood of about $60 million. Again, it is fully supported by Canadians.

Getting to the main body of my presentation today, we have debated the merits of the Cultural Property Export and Import Act long and hard.

Some time ago the hon. member from the official opposition clearly understood that the lack of an appeal process in relation to determinations of fair market value by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board was the result of an unfortunate oversight. That is really what it is, an unfortunate oversight.

Bill C-93 is a technical bill. As such we must remember that its purpose is to restore a right that was lost when the determination of fair market value was transferred from Revenue Canada to the review board. We are correcting an error. We are removing a mistake that was made four years ago.

The act is even more important and necessary today than when it came into force in 1977. That is because it is fast becoming the only source, and I emphasize the only source, through which institutions can hope to continue acquiring cultural property for their collections. That has to be borne in mind throughout this entire debate.

With little or no acquisition funds, museums are now having to focus on donors to build their collections. Canada is therefore greatly in need of a means to encourage people to collect important examples of our national heritage with the ultimate aim of voluntarily donating to custodial institutions.

The Cultural Property Export and Import Act must be cherished and developed to ensure that the level of collecting of important examples of our heritage continues to increase, not to decrease. That is important.

In the 19th century the function of private collectors gained a new level of importance in the face of the spread of public galleries and museums throughout the world. While the impressionists and post-impressionists were to some extent barred from official public exhibitions, their work was nonetheless being bought by private collectors with or without the mediation of dealers. These works ultimately found their way into public collections only after their position had been established by the art market created by private collecting.

This collecting spirit was not relegated just to contemporary art, but also to the diversity of products created throughout the world. It is thanks to the collectors of the last century and continuing through to today that the public has ultimately been led to an appreciation and understanding of those objects that have come to embody the trends and symbols which define the psychology and history of our development as a civilization.

Collectors are the seers, the wise men of our times. They are the individuals who have foresight enough to recognize what is and what will continue to be of outstanding significance and national importance for generations to come. Custodial institutions for decades now have developed a strong rapport with collectors working alongside them as they collect, often with the ultimate intent to give to the public.

We are seeing in Canada today collectors who have built up strong collections who, rather than automatically giving to the public through public collecting institutions, are faced with the choice of selling those collections for a handsome capital gain or donating them to designated institutions in return for a cultural property tax certificate. However, knowing the limitations of the cultural property determination process and the fact that there is no recourse to appeal the Cultural Property Export Review Board determination, we have witnessed several cases already where collectors are opting to sell their collections rather than holding themselves hostage to the bureaucratic process. It is very important to keep that in mind. If we are to respect and encourage the intent of our collectors to give to the public domain, we must find ways to

ease that process. Establishing a system of appeal to the Tax Court of Canada would be a very important step toward encouraging the concept of making donations in our country, a step that the donors as much as the institutions are anxiously awaiting. That also has to be borne in mind. This is not only important to the institutions and the art community, it is important to the donors. In fact it is important to all Canadians.

Over the past few years, the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board has been the object of press articles focusing on the board's reduction of proposed fair market values in applications for certification of cultural property for income tax purposes. These stories, by the way, refer to a small proportion of all certification applications. The review board has responded by expressing the challenge of determining fair market value in these economic times where the markets in which cultural property circulates are extremely weak.

It is therefore crucial that the mandate for determining fair market value rests in the hands of experts who are knowledgeable about the twists and turns, the ups and downs of the marketplace and who know how to relate often conflicting trends in the marketplace to the cultural property applications it has before them. This is a very intricate business and it cannot be left to rank amateurs. If the job is going to be done properly it has to be left to knowledgeable people, people who are experts and people in whom we have confidence. This has been thought out and taken into account.

[Committees Of The House, October 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in relation to its consideration of Bill C-93, an act to amend the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, the Income Tax Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act.

[Employment Equity Act, October 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise during debate to discuss Motion No. 7.

The hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and his colleagues have made some eloquent points on behalf of this amendment, both here and previously in committee. That is the reason the government has already amended the original bill. That amendment made sense. To accept this amendment does not.

I want to take a few minutes to underline some of the essential elements in the government's approach to government equity to show why I will not be able to vote for this motion.

Two years ago at this very moment, almost every one of us was engaged in one of the most important federal election campaigns of our time. I was proud to campaign under the banner of a party and a leader with a clear plan. Our red book was a blueprint for action. It was no wish list. It was based on years of listening to Canadians and an active policy development process. It was a comprehensive approach grounded in a realistic perspective on what government can do.

As we well know by now, one of the commitments we made was to strengthen the Employment Equity Act. The old government had the information. It knew what needed to happen but it chose not to act. We said that it was time to move on this issue and we have with Bill C-64.

The red book was more than just a series of individual commitments. It was based on a sense of how Canada works best. Part of that was our understanding that business and government are not adversaries. We need each other. Canada needs a strong business community. We need an attractive business climate. A government that operates in an intelligent and strategic way fosters that kind of community in that kind of climate.

In essence we let business people do their work without reasonable interference from government and we look for ways to build productive partnerships. That has been our approach to employment equity. We know that voluntary efforts at equity simply have not worked, therefore legislation is needed but not heavy handed approaches.

Many of my colleagues have spoken of the willingness of the federally regulated business community to work with us on equity. I need not repeat the points they have made. One basic reason they are doing so is that we have adopted a human resource planning model for this legislation. We have designed this process to maximize co-operation. We also designed the process to maximize co-operation in the workplace.

Unions most certainly do have a place in this process. Unions do care. The labour organizations that made presentations to the committee stressed their commitment to social justice. We understand their contribution to workplace attitudes toward equity programs. We appreciate their concerns about making employment equity work well, given issues such as seniority rights.

For all those reasons, government members on the committee decided to amend the bill, to underline the requirement for consultation with bargaining agents. The government understood the need to ensure that consultation was real and the bill, as it has come to us from committee, requires collaborations.

This is an important step. To go further is to make a mistake. To require employers to share authority with unions in some kind of co-management regime is to blur accountability. At the end of the day employers in law and in fact are responsible to the government for their achievements in employment equity. Unions are not.

The plan we offered to Canadians in 1993 did not envision the federal government shaking up the framework of federal labour relations. We believe that businesses understand the approach we have laid out for employment equity. We also believe they understand that getting unions on side makes sense in a human resources planning model. We believe that they will pursue collaboration in the spirit that is set out in this bill as it is before us now.

However, the government sees no need to force a process on employers that may simply not work for any number of local reasons. We hope they will take on partnerships for employment equity but we will let them decided based on their own situations. I have a great deal of faith that the businesses and federal government employers covered by this legislation will see as we do. They will capitalize on this opportunity to break down the barriers that may deny them the best from their workers or those who could be. I think they will do the right thing and they will do it in the way that works best.

The bill has already moved to underline the need for collaboration. It retains the emphasis on employer accountability. That is the right balance. It is the approach I will continue to support.

[Canada, September 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk success. Let us talk about the success of Canadians, who are often shy about their accomplishments.

There is no reason why we Canadians cannot and should not be proud of our record. Other nations recognize our worth and value and so should we. Now is not the time to overlook, ignore, or forget just how great Canada really is.

We cannot forget that for two years running Canada has been ranked by the UN as the best place in the world to live. We cannot ignore in calculating a nation's wealth that the World Bank places Canada second in the world.

And let us not overlook the fact that at the Beijing conference on the status of women Canada received the global award for the most improvement in the status of women for progress made in the last decade. This award was given by the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. Canada has demonstrated to the world its commitment to ensuring legislative changes that enhance and guarantee the position of women.

These plateaus have been achieved by Canada for all Canadians. Let us stand up and recognize all that we as Canadians have achieved together.

[Petitions, June 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the privilege of presenting a petition on behalf of 31 Manitobans, most of whom are Winnipegers and some of whom are from my riding of Winnipeg St. James.

They bring to the attention of the House that the Income Tax Act discriminates against custodial parents by requiring them to declare child support payments as taxable income.

The petitioners call upon parliamentarians to introduce new legislation to end the requirement of the custodial parent to declare child support payments as taxable income.

[Committees Of The House, June 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the one paragraph I have left contains the major recommendation. Perhaps I could seek the indulgence of the House.

The committee recommends that the Royal Canadian Mint, the Department of Finance and the Bank of Canada work with

industry, small and medium sized businesses, in particular, to ensure a smooth and least cost integration of the new $2 coin into the marketplace. The government should further consider participation in a public awareness campaign with the affected stakeholders to minimize any possible disruption in trade and commerce.