Ian McClelland

[Criminal Code, June 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, given the gravity and the importance of the bill just introduced by my hon. colleague opposite, I wonder if hon. members present would give consideration to unanimous consent to allow the bill to go to second reading immediately.

[Supply, June 1st, 1995]

Madam Speaker, in response to some of the questions put forward by my hon. colleague I want to make it clear that I do not agree with everything the Bloc is doing. As a matter of fact, I do not agree with a lot of what the Bloc is doing. But I do agree wholeheartedly with one of the things the Bloc stands for, and that is the notion of a radically decentralized Canada.

It drives me crazy that while I would be looking at it from the perspective that it would be better for Canada, when the Bloc members speak they say it would be better for Quebec. They are here representing the federal Parliament. I know it is a contradiction, since they represent the Bloc. However, their role as the official opposition is to make Canada work better. As long as they are here, quite willing to collect their pensions from Canada, they should start thinking in terms of what is right for Canada. If they want to leave, leave. But they should be leaving a stronger Canada, not a weaker one because of their actions in the House.

As far as transferring responsibility to the provinces, the Bloc has made a good point; it is quite right. The federal government has cut the amount of money being transferred via block transfers while at the same time not allowing the provinces to raise additional money to pay for standards the federal government is maintaining. The federal government cannot on one hand say that it is going to transfer responsibility to the provinces and then say the provinces have to run things exactly as the federal government tells them. There must be more latitude. We concur with the Bloc in that constructive sentiment.

The other major point my colleague from the Bloc mentioned was that Canada is set up on a trading basis of east and west, while the natural trade routes are north and south. He is absolutely right. It has cost people in western Canada an absolute fortune over the years.

Why is it that in Montana you could buy a piece of farm equipment manufactured in Toronto for less than you could buy the same piece of equipment in Alberta? Because of these tariff barriers. Why is it that for years all Canadians were paying twice as much for textiles as we should have in order to protect the textile industry in Quebec, thus allowing it to become non-competitive on a world basis?

The member is right. We have had these trade barriers, which have created an artificial economy east-west when the natural one is north-south. Imagine how much stronger they would be in the maritimes if they were dealing north-south with Boston and the New England states.

The member talked about looking at new markets. What on earth prevents the people of Quebec from getting new markets to the south today? Is there anybody saying to people in Quebec that they cannot trade with the United States? Of course not. We are trying as hard as we can as a nation-and the people in Quebec-to export.

Quebec has been extremely efficient in managing exports to the United States. I am not quite sure, but I think that over recent years Quebec has had something like a 3 per cent increase in its exports to the United States, more than the Canadian average. There is nothing to prevent Quebec from exporting as much as it wants south right now. It does not have to throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Supply, June 1st, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words in this debate as once again the citizens of Canada are treated to this family squabble.

It is difficult from time to time as a member of the Reform Party to be in agreement with the members of the Liberal Party but there are some things which do tend to draw us together.

Something about today's debate and today's motion by the Bloc is embarrassing to me as a member of the House and as a Canadian. If I were a resident of Quebec, whether I were a separatist or not I would be embarrassed about it. If I were a separatist I would be doubly embarrassed by this motion and by the attitude of the Bloc in the House and what it has been doing in recent months.

It is my opinion that Bloc members over the last few months are becoming less and less a force in Parliament. They seem to have marginalized themselves. When the House started they came and by and large the media were their lapdogs. The media loved the Bloc. It created clash and conflict all the time and it had a free ride from the media outside of Quebec. I do not know about the Quebec media but the English media looked at Bloc members and thought they were people who really had it together.

Quite a number of Bloc members are competent and capable. Unfortunately when they get together some group dynamic takes over. It must be something they drink which causes them all of a sudden to become introspective, afraid, frightened, isolationist; everything they would not want to be, they become.

Here we are debating a motion, the essence of which is to put a wall up around Quebec with a one way check valve in the wall: send money in but do not let anything else out and then they can take care of themselves. How can a group of people presume they will take their province into separation and they can stand on their own as a separate nation, when every time they open their mouths they are afraid to stand alone as a separate province? It does not make any sense. There is a huge contradiction.

There is a difference between constructive opposition and obstructionism. It is single minded. I cannot find a word for it right now but I am sure one will spring to mind to describe the incessant day in, day out attitude of the Bloc. Tribalism would be the word. The attitude in committee and the attitude in the House is not what can they do to make their province better, thereby making the country as a whole better; the attitude is consistently what is in it for them and how can they benefit to make sure they do not get screwed by the rest of Canadians who get up every morning and have one overriding thought which is how can they stick it to Quebec.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Canadians from coast to coast have treated Quebec with kid gloves for at least all of my adult life. My adult life has been spent asking: How do we make Quebec feel at home in Canada? What can we do to make Quebec and the people who live in Quebec happy as Canadians? For the last 30 years or so we have tried to buy their affection and has that worked? I think not.

Let me give an illustration. For those who may have just tuned in today is an opposition day, a supply motion. This means the opposition gets to determine what we are to debate in the House today.

Keep in mind that 52 Canadians are being held hostage, including Quebecers, in Bosnia. Bear in mind our country is into the hole $120 million a day. What do we do? We debate this motion:

That this House condemn the government's legislative agenda, which makes clear its intention to usurp provincial jurisdictions and construct an entirely centralized state, as can be seen from Bills C-76, C-88, C-46 and C-91.

The opposition presumes all these bills are designed to take substantial powers away from Quebec and transfer them to the federal government. What about the rest of the country, the rest of the provinces? There is nothing in any of these that say these bills are specific to Quebec. This is legislation the government brings down for the country. We may not like it but it has a majority and we have to deal with that.

As the loyal opposition and the third party we have to do what we can to make it better legislation and where possible derail legislation which is in our opinion not worthy of support. It is not my role as a member representing an Alberta constituency to get up every morning, come to the House and ask how I can look after Alberta.

I am a federal member of Parliament representing a federal constituency in Alberta. My primary responsibility is our country, not just Edmonton Southwest. I have to be concerned about every Canadian, not just Albertans, not just people who live in Edmonton. If I am not prepared to do that, why am I sitting here?

The Reform Party's bias is to radically decentralize Canada and we share with our colleagues from the Bloc the notion that it is imperative to reduce the overlap we acknowledge exists in many areas in the country. Why do we need a federal environment department, a provincial environment department and a municipal environment department?

Every time we turn around there is overlap. We have more public servants per capita, per square inch than most countries. We share that with our friends from the Bloc. We need to decentralize. We share with our colleagues from the Bloc ideas about decentralizing authority and responsibility to make authority and responsibility to devolve that closest to the people who are being served.

We would like to see a radically changed federal government, much smaller, much less intrusive in the lives of Canadians, with provinces having far more responsibility as would be necessary to make our country work better. That does not mean

the federal government does not have a role in national affairs. If we are to be a country we need certain uniform things from coast to coast.

All of these bills whether we like it or not speak to those ideas. Bill C-76 is the budget implementation act. What the Bloc was complaining, whining, moaning and dripping about in the budget implementation act is that it has a clause whereby transfers to the provinces will be block transfers.

This means that instead of transferring specific moneys to education, health and other areas along with the Canada assistance plan, these moneys will be transferred in block, allowing the provinces to do with that money as they will. That makes sense to me. That sounds like decentralization to me. How is it that the Bloc can possibly construe that to be some sort of centralizing plan? What the Bloc did not say is there is a possibility the people of Quebec will have to be a little more careful in how they spend their money because they will get less money.

Our country is into the hole $120 million a day. Every single Canadian will be in debt. Our deficit per individual Canadian is $1,375 just for this year. Our total per person debt in Canada is $19,000. For a family of four it is $76,000. That is our federal debt. Forget the provincial debt, of which Quebec has a ton, that is just our federal debt. There is going to be less money to transfer to the provinces and I think the Bloc is a little upset over that.

Let me give an illustration of some of the inequities that exist in our country. Under the Canada assistance plan, if someone happens to be on welfare, collecting benefits from the province, and lives in Ontario, Alberta or British Columbia, the federal government kicks in 29 cents of every dollar that is paid out. However, if that person lives in Quebec or one of the other provinces considered to be a have not province, the federal government kicks in 50 cents of every dollar.

Because it is in a block transfer, if Quebec is going to continue to pay benefits the way it has been, then it is going to have to take that money from somewhere else. Why on earth should Alberta residents pay taxes via equalization payments that go to Quebec so that seniors in Quebec do not have to pay for prescription drugs? Those who live in Alberta have to pay for prescription drugs. Quebec is considered a have not province and we subsidize it. Over the last 30 years or so Quebec has benefited to the tune of $100 billion from equalization payments. Why is it that the rest of the country should put up with that?

I want to make it clear that as a person, I kind of like the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe who led this debate. But I sure get fed up with him every time he starts to pontificate in the House about how hard done by the people in Quebec are. I thought his comments this morning were pathetic. I wondered how, representing isolationism thoughts like that, Quebecers could possibly have any confidence in that group to run their affairs in an independent Quebec. They would spend the first 20 years of independence building a wall around Quebec.

We know that Quebec benefits tremendously from interprovincial trade which is what Bill C-88 is all about, which they do not like. Bill C-88 was a bill to reduce the interprovincial trade barriers within Canada. The Reform Party objected to the bill because it did not go far enough. We felt the government should have used its powers to force the provinces to bring down the trade barriers. It is in our common best interests to develop a critical mass that will allow us to be competitive on a worldwide basis.

People will recall that when we entered into free trade with the United States we got whipped in those first few years. Why did we get whipped? Because we had a high dollar, high interest rates and we had these interprovincial trade barriers all across the country so that our industries that were protected were not capable of competing in the world markets.

We would have to be brain dead, and I think we were, to enter into an agreement to have free trade with the strongest trading nation in the world without having free trade within Canada to start with. How could we be so stupid-I hate to say not to put bullets in our gun because with Bill C-68 we are not going to have any-as to go hunting and have our guns loaded with blanks?

We have a high dollar, high interest rates and we have these interprovincial trade barriers. The federal government is carrying out its rightful duty and responsibility by saying to the provinces that we are going to get rid of these interprovincial trade barriers so we can compete.

I have notes somewhere on just how important trade is to the Canadians of Quebec, to the people of Quebec whether they are independent or not. Let me make it clear. The last thing in the world I want is the people of Quebec to be independent. If by some quirk of fate they are dumb enough to follow the Bloc and go down that road, this is what they had better keep in mind.

Quebec exported more to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1989 than to any country in Europe, including France. It sold as much to Ontario as it did to the United States. The rest of Canada exported more to Quebec than to the European Union and Japan combined.

In Quebec 470,000 jobs were directly and indirectly attributable to interprovincial exports in 1989. Quebec was the only province other than Ontario that registered a surplus in interprovincial trade. Let me repeat that Quebec was the only province other than Ontario to register a surplus in interprovincial trade.

Quebec had a deficit of interprovincial trade with Ontario of about $3 billion but it had an overall surplus of, I think, about $1.3 billion because it traded with other provinces. And members of the Bloc representing the people of Quebec say: "We want to put up barriers; we do not want free trade within our own country". Well, I can say that an independent Quebec will be on its knees at the door of Canada asking please could it have free trade because it must have it. How is it that the Bloc members can stand here today and say they do not want it?

Bill C-91 concerns the Federal Business Development Bank. We have some serious reservations about continuing the Federal Business Development Bank. Our perspective is we do not think the federal government has any business setting up a crown corporation to compete with private business. That is the essence of what will happen. We are going to have a renewed Federal Business Development Bank which will be competing with the existing banks in Canada. I do not think we should do it. We should force private enterprise to do what it must.

Bloc members have a perspective that is different from ours and I think they are far more dependent upon government for everything in life. I think it is fair to characterize members of the Bloc as living in a kind of socialist dream world. They would love to see societal responsibility for everything and personal responsibility for very little, but that is fair. It is a difference of opinion.

We have a difference of opinion over this. We are saying we should not have a renewed bank because we do not want to compete with the private sector. The Bloc perspective is that somehow a renewed bank is going to compete with existing agencies in Quebec.

Why does the Bloc not ask how to go about melding existing agencies in Quebec? It is not as though the people who work for the Federal Business Development Bank came from Mars. Those people came from Quebec. The president of the FBDB, Francois Beaudoin, is in Montreal. So combine FEDNOR and reduce the overlap and the costs of providing these services to Canadians. Do not just stand in the road saying that this or that cannot be done. Be constructive.

The final one was Bill C-46, the reorganization of the Department of Industry. What can I say? That is basically a housekeeping bill. We objected to it because our role is to oppose, but it is going to be done.

I think this illustrates the fact that the House will work if we work together constructively. I would ask members of the Bloc to please bear that in mind in future debate.

[Agreement On Internal Trade Implementation Act, May 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if I left the impression that the rest of the country would not trade with Quebec, I certainly did not mean to do that. The point I wanted to make was how important trade is among all the provinces of Canada, including Quebec, and how vitally important trade is to the province of Quebec, probably more so than other provinces in the country, because Quebec has a resource very much built on trade and export.

What I did say was that the people of Quebec should not be misled into thinking that it would be automatic that things would go on as before. If the people of Quebec think for one minute that they would be able to exist behind trade barriers that would not be the case.

I would certainly hope, and I agree with my hon. colleague, that we would not do anything to shoot each other in the foot. That would not do any good. It would be a hard nosed commercial relationship. It would mean that instead of having our market, our critical mass would be 25 per cent lower. We would not have the same economies of scale. It would be far more difficult for Quebec in an international world market to be a world scale producer, because Quebec could not depend upon having the Canadian domestic market to enable it to be an international producer. It would hurt everybody, and it would hurt Quebec perhaps more than the rest of the country.

I would not suggest for a moment that we would do anything to shoot ourselves or Quebec in the foot.

[Agreement On Internal Trade Implementation Act, May 29th, 1995]

Yes, it is correct. I hear members opposite saying: "Yes, I can remember we were against the free trade agreement. We were violently against the free trade agreement". One of the reasons members opposite were against the free trade agreement at that time was that they were afraid we were going to get beat up by the Americans because we had fairly inefficient industries across the country.

For the longest time particularly the west suffered and were righteously aggrieved by the fact that the resource producing areas of the country, the west, the north and the east were subsidizing central Canada. We were exporting raw materials to central Canada and buying manufactured goods from central Canada at a sometimes severe tariff.

It cost us a lot of money to be Canadians. A lot of people, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, saw the free trade agreement as a vehicle whereby these barriers were reduced and came down. Canada found itself in a situation where it had to compete.

The free trade agreement was not so terrifying for other regions of the country. I can recall during the great free trade debate-I am sure members in the House can recall-we had high interest rates. Remember that? We had a high dollar. Remember that? We were going to go into a free trade agreement with one of the toughest trading nations in the world and we wonder why we got the stuffing kicked out of us. We had to be brain dead to have these interprovincial trade barriers all across the country, a high dollar, high interest rates and getting into a free trade agreement with the United States.

It was kind of like the Monty Python movie where the knight gets his arm cut off, his other arm cut off, puts his sword in his mouth, gets his legs cut off and says: "Come on, fight like a man". That was Canada after the free trade agreement. We were sitting there with a sword in our mouth saying: "Fight fair. Fight fair". We have a free trade agreement with the United States, but do we have a free trade agreement within Canada? No, we do not.

When the federal government sat down at a table to negotiate a free trade agreement, as we did with Mexico and the United States, we had three players around the table and all of the minions that made the deal work. Can members imagine what it must have been like when we had the federal government and 10 provinces sitting around the table trying to negotiate a free trade agreement?

The provinces varied. British Columbia had demands about an inch thick saying: "This is what we want. This is what we want to protect". The province of Alberta's demands were on one sheet of paper which said: "There should not be any barriers to trade. There should not be any barriers to the movement and the transportation of capital, of ideas and of people.

Ontario which had the most to lose in a free trade agreement in Canada because it controls the bulk of the trade was one of the most accommodating provinces at the debate. It was prepared in the national interest to have its internal trade barriers come down for the common good.

The reason that I am speaking against this legislation is not that it is not a step in the right direction.

The federal government in its role as the leader has the fiduciary responsibility when it comes to dealing with the economic affairs of the nation to take charge and say we need competitive industries in Canada. How can we possibly compete internationally if we are not first competitive at home?

How can we as a nation deal competitively with other nations if we do not first take down all of the barriers in Canada so we have free movement of trade, people, capital and ideas to become as efficient as we can before we start trading elsewhere? That is why it is so important to have all of these internal trade barriers done away with.

I will use as an example some of the daily problems that come up when we have trade barriers or distorting subsidies within the country. We know Quebec has been working very hard at developing export and increasing the export potential of industries based in Quebec. It has been fairly successful. I do not know the exact the numbers but Quebec has had a substantial increase in recent years of exports by Quebec based industries.

Let us say the Quebec government gives company A a subsidy in order to export outside the country but company A is manufacturing a product which is also manufactured in Ontario or British Columbia or Nova Scotia and they do not have subsidy. What happens when they both start to compete for same domestic customer? The company that has the $200,000 government tax funded subsidy wins and the company that does not have a subsidy loses because its costs are higher. That does absolutely nothing to enhance the competitiveness of our industries. All it does is reward industries that are perhaps failing, that are perhaps not as competitive as others at the expense of those businesses that can stand on their own.

That is one of the reasons governments should not be picking winners and losers in the marketplace, creating subsidies so one company in one province has a competitive advantage over another company in another province. All it does is move a job from A to B.

A while ago in the automobile industry a company in Brampton received a huge grant from the federal government to build a plant in Quebec. The people in Quebec would want it. The company would end up manufacturing the same number of cars. It would close the plant in Ontario, open a plant in Quebec, lay off 200 people in Ontario, hire 50 people in Quebec. It would cost the country 150 jobs in one province plus the infrastructure investment to build the plant in the second province.

If we as legislators, as a Parliament, are prepared to throw this money around, can we blame industry for saying it wants a piece of it? If we ourselves in business and we are competing against another business with the advantage of a government grant or subsidy, in order to stay in business we have to get our hands in the trough as well.

That is why we need to break down the barriers to capital. We need to break down the mobility barriers and we absolutely have to stop taking tax money into the government and picking winners and losers in the marketplace.

When we talk about interprovincial trade, historically if we look at what has gone on in Canada, where did the Bank of Nova Scotia start? Rhetorically I ask, did it have its head office in Toronto or Montreal? It was in Halifax. What happened in the trading arrangements or what happened in Canada that all of a sudden somehow the Bank of Nova Scotia's head office moves to Toronto? We have distorted interprovincial trade so that it has protected industries across the country.

The traditional trade at the time the Bank of Nova Scotia was incorporated was not east-west but north-south, just as the trading blocks all across the country traditionally have been. We artificially make them east and west. However, is it focuses all the financial resource and the competitive resource where most of the people are.

The same thing may happen in Canada today. We will continue to have this migration of wealth into the resource. When I say the resource rich I am talking about the vote rich parts of Canada, in downtown Toronto and Montreal, at the expense of the rest of the country unless we have this free mobility and free trade within all provinces.

I will put a few facts on record concerning trade between Quebec and the rest of the country. This is of particular importance because our friends from the Bloc, representing a good number of people in Quebec, are trying to put forth the premise that Quebec would be better off not attached to the rest of the country and the rest of the country would be better off not attached to Quebec.

We would survive. Those of us who live in the west would survive better than others but it would hurt all of us. Most of all, it would hurt the people who live in Quebec. We should not be so naive as to suggest for a moment that a separate Quebec would enjoy all or any of the privileges it enjoys today. It is certainly a long stretch to imagine the rest of the country would tell Quebec to go its way and we will continue to pretend nothing has happened and it is business as usual.

The premier of Quebec and other leaders in Quebec can say whatever they want to but it is important for the people in Quebec to know those leaders do not set the stage or make the

rules for the rest of the country. The rest of the country will bring an entirely and completely different perspective to that table.

I will quote from a pamphlet prepared by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, la Chambre de commerce du Québec, "Interprovincial Trade: Engine of Economic Growth", prepared in May: "This report also points to the fact that these strong, commercial and personal relationships bind us together and reinforce our strength as a trading nation. Strategic and dynamic partnerships are often formed among Canadian companies and entrepreneurs to win in international markets in the new global environment.

"Our message is clear and simple. Together we prosper. Together we are the vehicle for job creation for the next generation in this country, and our interprovincial trading relationships are the engine of that growth. Together we must continue to build on these existing relationships which only enhance our competitive position, internationally improve our ability to create jobs and confirm our status as the best country in the world".

What is this trade to Quebec? The pamphlet further says that while all provinces are dependent on interprovincial trade, Quebec is much more economically dependent on trade with the other provinces than the other provinces are with Quebec. Quebec exported more to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1989 than to any country in Europe, including France. It sold as much to Ontario as it did to the United States. The rest of the provinces exported more to Quebec than to the European union and Japan combined.

Four hundred and seventy thousand jobs in Quebec were directly and indirectly attributable to interprovincial exports in 1989. It is not only the Montreal based enterprises that export goods and services to markets in other provinces. Manufacturers in other regions such as Estrie, Mauricie, Bois-Francs and Abitibi-Témiscamingue are also highly dependent on sales to other parts of Canada.

Quebec was the only province other than Ontario that registered a surplus in interprovincial trade, helping to offset partially its trade imbalance, trade deficit with the rest of the world.

Ontario is Quebec's most important trading partner within Canada. Quebec ran a deficit in its trade with Ontario. Quebec's surplus in trade with other provinces came from the more distant provinces, suggesting the importance for Quebec of access to those regions.

This is perhaps the most important part of Bill C-88 and what we are talking about today. It really speaks to the whole nature of our union, what it is all about. We do not all have to speak the same language. It is not even necessary for us to be able to understand each other's first language. It is important for all of us to understand that when we reach into our pocket and pull out a $5 bill or $1 bill or perhaps even a $2 coin and exchange it, we are speaking the same language. Trade has no language. The nature of our country is that if there is commercial discourse in commercial trade and if we keep the lines and avenues and rivers of trade open between all parts of Canada, particularly between Quebec and the rest of the country, everything else is bound to follow.

As a nation we are talking about maintaining trade links with other parts of the world. If we trade with other countries we learn about other countries. We must ensure trade between provinces so that we will learn from each other. It is difficult to have a bad relationship with someone with whom we have a good trading relationship. If we have a commercial relationship which benefits both parties, we will be far more reticent to do or say anything that would imperil that relationship.

I am happy to have had an opportunity to put a few thoughts on record in this debate. I am sorry the government did not use the opportunity to be far more forceful in ensuring the many barriers that still exist are torn down.

[Agreement On Internal Trade Implementation Act, May 29th, 1995]

Liberals opposite go into a state of shock when I mention the Fraser Institute. Also, by good fortune, the Canadian and Quebec Chambers of Commerce have just sent information to all members in the House. I will be quoting from both of those sources during the course of my comments.

A few of the Liberals opposite might recall that when the free trade agreement was implemented they were violently opposed to it. Am I remembering this correctly? Was that just a suspicion?

[Agreement On Internal Trade Implementation Act, May 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to debate Bill C-88, the implementing legislation for the supposed internal trade agreement within Canada.

Of all of the bills that have come through the House in the past months this one is perhaps of more importance than many others. As my hon. colleague who spoke mentioned, it seems to have slipped through with very little interest on the part of the House and Canadians at large.

In my comments today I would like to spend a few minutes talking about what the trade barriers cost us as individuals. Also I am going to spend a good deal of time talking about the relationship between Quebec and the rest of the country. This is really what it boils down to. When our friends from Quebec talk about a relationship with the rest of the country, post separation, they are really talking about how they would keep all the benefits that we have together in this northern part of North America without shooting each other in the foot.

This has to be of paramount importance to the people of Quebec. They would not be very happy if they found themselves in an independent country, bankrupt and no one to trade with. Nor would the rest of Canadians find themselves in a very happy situation. I want to spend a few moments if I may to record exactly how important this trade is between Canada interprovincially, Canada nationally.

I am indebted for much of what I am going to say to the Fraser Institute and in particular-

[Business Development Bank Of Canada Act, May 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to participate in the debate. Once again I am moved to ask myself the rhetorical question: What is it about getting elected that makes venture capitalists out of us all? What is it about getting elected that makes us feel we should be imposing our collective wisdom on the private sector? I would like to address my short remarks at this juncture to that basic premise.

When those of us in this body get together to deliberate, to create laws and entities, the overriding principle we should have, is this: Government should not be involved in any enterprise which is being carried out or could be carried out by private enterprise. We have no business, in my estimation, getting involved in any way, in setting up a crown corporation, which is what we are doing, in competition with existing businesses.

We may not like the banks. Canadians may not get up in the morning and say: "Thank God we have the Royal Bank" or "Thank God we have the Toronto-Dominion Bank" or any bank for that matter. We already have mature, functioning and very capable banking institutions.

In the context of what the establishment of a crown corporation in the financial sector will do to enhance the competitiveness of Canadian business, to promote entrepreneurship, to be an incubator of new business, or in any way enhance the standard of living in Canada, we will find that the legislation falls far short of the mark. All it does is create one more bureaucratic organization.

Having said that, I do not fault the rationale or the thinking behind the initial desire to do this. Not too long ago the people of Ontario and Quebec, in particular, found that the heavy hand of recession dealt a vital and terrible blow to the entrepreneur and to the people involved in the business sector, particularly the small business sector. In the west particularly in Alberta, we felt that about 10 or 12 years earlier.

The industry committee, in its report dealing with small business which we worked on for months and months and months, the whole idea was to make the banking institutions in Canada far more responsive to the needs of Canadian business, small business in particular. Then what is it about this new expanded Federal Business Development Bank that is going to change all that?

The role of opposition is to oppose legislation preferred by the government. The intent is to make the legislation better, to point out weaknesses in the government's legislation. Looking at it from that perspective and looking at this legislation and the rationale behind the change in the Federal Business Development Bank, we would first have to ask what the mandate is.

Looking at it from the devil's advocate point of view, what is the mandate of the new Federal Business Development Bank, renamed the Business Development Bank of Canada? According to a news release under the minister's hand the mandate of the new bank is to develop and deliver innovative responses to small business financing and managerial needs. If ever there was a motherhood statement, that has got to be it. How could we possibly argue with such a motherhood statement?

I am a small businessman. The Reform Party is 100 per cent behind the notion of incubating, helping and working with small business. However we are not in the business of competing with existing businesses, even if those competing and existing businesses are, God forbid, banks. Banks already exist.

There is no need for Canadian taxpayers, however tenuously, to be supporting or propping up yet another crown corporation which is what this new entity will be. We are at this very moment trying to get rid of crown corporations. There is the privatization of CN and the recent privatization of Air Canada. Why on earth would we want to set up a crown corporation in the banking sector?

I have already covered the point that there are many people in Canada represented by this side of the House, and I am sure many people in Canada represented by the people opposite, who feel that we should not be reinventing the wheel. We should not be putting our energies into creating something that already exists.

Then the question is: Will this new entity do something different? I tried to find out if it would or would not. I went into the historical record. A speech was delivered to the Board of Trade of metropolitan Montreal on October 25, 1994 by Mr. François Beaudoin. Mr. Beaudoin is now the president and chief executive officer of the new Business Development Bank. He quite accurately pointed out that there are three developing sectors of our economy that need attention: export markets, the

new economy, and working capital. He said that these are three areas in which business really needs some significant support.

He makes the case that 85 per cent of Canada's exports are generated by only 900 businesses. Only 900 businesses in Canada represent 85 per cent of our total exports. The majority of our total exports is in lumber and cars. That very clearly identifies the fact that we should have far more emphasis in our country on entrepreneurial zeal in exporting. What then is this new bank going to do that the Export Development Bank does not already do? We already have the Export Development Bank. Its mandate is to do exactly that.

That portion of the business development bank's new mandate that has as its central purpose the incubation and education of entrepreneurs is something we can support very handily. This new bank is to be nothing more than a bigger, broader representation of the bank which is already in place.

The legislation allows the federally funded crown corporation business development bank which is eventually backed by the Government of Canada to have as an asset base almost $20 billion. The total small business portfolio of all the banks in Canada combined is something in the region of $40 billion. According to the banks, there is more money available than there are people asking for it, based on quality loans.

The last thing in the world we want is the situation whereby the existing banks in Canada are able to tell people who ask them for a loan: "Hey, we think you have a great idea but it is a little risky for us. Why not go over to the new business development bank and ask it for the money?" Therefore, the government is going to absorb the responsibility and liability for all these loans which should rightfully go to the chartered banks. They are the ones that exist in Canada and have the utility, ability and the experience to do everything that is already being done. Our role is to make sure they do the job. Our role is not to put together a complementary lender.

One area the Federal Business Development Bank wants to get involved in is providing working capital loans based on receivables and inventory. Well, where has it been? Does every bank not extend operating loans based on receivables and inventory?

In the vast majority of loans existing with the Federal Business Development Bank today, 53 per cent are in loans of $100,000 to $500,000. The loan portfolio for loans of less than $25,000 for the Federal Business Development Bank which is really the incubator of small business is 1.2 per cent of its total portfolio. Writing these small loans is very risky and very expensive. Of course, the banks do not want to do it. However, we in the House should be very careful that we do not increase the liability to individual Canadian taxpayers just so we can make it easier for the banks to slough off their responsibility to the government funded bank.

[Royal Canadian Mint Act, May 19th, 1995]

While it might upset the vending industry, it would certainly make the tailoring industry happy since people would be walking around with holes in their pockets or their purses. However, it would be something of a problem.

As the debate winds to a conclusion I hope some of these points will be considered. In my opinion we do not need another coin. If we are to get rid of the $2 bill, let us get rid of it and make do with our happy little loonies.

[Royal Canadian Mint Act, May 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Elk Island finished stating not very many backbenchers have the opportunity to speak for 40 minutes on any bill. That is a very pithy comment.

Many people would have a great deal of difficulty trying to figure how one could speak for 40 minutes on Bill C-82, which is a major struggle. How on earth does one go about speaking for 40 minutes on a debate on the introduction of a $2 coin?

A few minutes ago I was told we need to keep this debate going for another 10 minutes and do I have something to say about this. I thought sure. The automatic response was who needs a $2 coin? I have travelled extensively in the United States and I have never seen a $2 bill. Why replace the $2 bill? If we do

not want to have it, we should get rid of it. If we do not need it, we do not need it.

That is a question that will be answered in committee where wiser minds than mine will be debating this important consideration of the day. With a $2 coin if we start trying to figure out how much our country will be in debt on a daily basis, it would only be $60 million $2 coins rather than 120 million loonies. We could divide it that way and perhaps it does not seem that much.

There are some really important considerations in this bill. For those watching this debate, the country is into debt at $120 million a day. We have Bill C-68, the firearms bill. We have looming on the horizon the most important question facing our country outside of the debt, our relationship with Quebec and how we will deal with and get past this hurdle. We will get past it and it is my desire we will do it together. Here we are using up the potential of five hours of debating time to talk about the introduction of a $2 coin. We already have a $1 coin.

Some hon. members opposite said we are wasting our time. How can we argue with that? Some things do not require the same amount of consideration except if one happens to be in the vending machine business. Everything we do in the House affects someone somewhere. While it may not affect all of us to the same degree all the time, it affects someone substantially some of the time.

If I were in the vending machine business now and a member of Parliament asked what I thought of the debate on the $2 coin, I would say it could very well be the difference between my staying in business or going out of business. Think of the huge cost to the vending machine business with the introduction of the loonie a few years ago. It important we in the House have some consideration of the effects of what we do on others outside the House.

We all recall what happened with the introduction of the loonie. What happened to the cost of newspapers from vending machines? By and large there was an increase from $75 cents to a loonie. The vending industry raised prices from 25 cents to 50 cents to 75 cents to a loonie. It was not taking advantage of a situation. If it has to make mechanical changes it might as well make them to last.

What will happen if we introduce a doubloonie, a $2 coin? A vast number of ideas have come forward about what to call the new coin. Ideas came from the west saying we should put a picture of a deer on either side and call it the two buck coin. Another member said we could put a picture of the leader of the Reform Party on one side, the Leader of the Opposition on the other and say flip a coin.

There is a substantial cost, particularly to the vending machine business. As we make decisions and changes for the nation, things that seem pretty simple and straightforward very often have a result that extends far beyond what we are doing here.

I have two $2 bills in my pocket and a loonie. One thing brought to my attention the other day was if we get rid of the $2 bill, what will happen to the amount of change we carry in our pockets. I have a loonie and some quarters. I am trying to stretch this out. I suppose we are looking at effects this will have down the road, beyond the vending machine industry and beyond inflation. I suppose to some people the amount of coins they would have to carry in their pocket would be something of a consideration. Without a $2 bill and because we do not have a $1 bill, we would have to carry around a whole lot more loonies or doubloonies.