John Duncan

[Aboriginal Affairs, June 22nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the minister was further asked about allegations of misappropriation of $255,000 in legal fees to a co-president of the aboriginal committee of the Liberal Party, to which the minister responded that it was a criminal matter and up to the sûreté. According to the band, the RCMP has jurisdiction, not the sûreté, and the sûreté has done nothing. The RCMP has done little, if anything, other than a single brief visit with no follow up.

Is this a shell game or does the minister want to get to the bottom of the allegation?

[Aboriginal Affairs, June 22nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in response to a question on May 8 from the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan about allegations of sexual abuse at the Lac Barrière reserve, the minister of Indian affairs responded that it was a criminal matter and police were investigating. The band states that it is not aware of any police investigation and a recent federal-provincial-band memorandum of understanding is viewed as pre-empting a police investigation.

Does the minister continue to state that there is a police investigation into sexual abuse when the band says there is not?

[Petitions, June 22nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the last petition asks that Parliament enact Bill C-206 at the earliest opportunity so as to provide statutory foundation for a national witness relocation and protection program.

[Petitions, June 22nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the third petition asks that Parliament not amend the human rights code, the Canadian Human Rights Act, or the charter of rights and freedoms in any way that would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships.

[Petitions, June 22nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the second petition asks that Parliament act immediately to extend protection to the unborn child by amending the Criminal Code to give this protection.

[Petitions, June 22nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, my first petition asks that this Parliament ensure that the present provision of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide be vigorously enforced and that Parliament make no changes in the current law.

[Columbia River Treaty Permanent Engineering Board, June 22nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to table, in both official languages, the joint report of the ad hoc parliamentary committee on light stations.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 20th, 1995]

Phone the electoral boundaries commissions that were in place at the time. Phone the chief electoral officer and ask him if there was a public outcry. There certainly was not. There is self-interest in this issue and that is what it is all about.

What do I do to tell my constituents where we sit on this electoral boundary redistribution process? Confusion reigns supreme because of government actions. There is confusion over timing and confusion over the role of the Senate. There is uncertainty as always over when the election date is going to be and when these things are going to kick in.

Is the original motivation of government, of this administration, still the same today as it was last February? It is a good question; we do not know. When does government embarrassment kick in? I do not know if the government ever gets embarrassed. When does the government want to end the uncertainty? I thought that day would come sooner than it appears it will.

Listening to the debates tonight one thing is very clear. What was a non-partisan exercise to realign constituency boundaries has already deteriorated into a partisan political exercise in Parliament. That is really not what we should intend.

I hope we can separate the whole process at some point into boundary adjustments and the question of how many members there should be in the House. Those two issues became a part of this last exercise when in my view they should be quite separate. If we had left the original redistribution process the way it was and taken an all party committee to look at the number of members for the next exercise we would have been in very good shape.

It may be two years from the next election. When will Bill C-69 ratification lead to a final resolution? I cannot answer that question and I do not think anyone else can at this point.

This whole exercise has been political football and now the is government trying to save face by continuing this charade. It would have been better to drop it at this point. The government has wasted time, money and the goodwill of members to keep a few disgruntled government members happy.

We have debated in numerous readings, we have gone to committee, we have had dissenting reports and now we have six Senate amendments before us and our constituents have lost the thread to this rapidly unravelling bad novel.

I felt strongly in March 1994, as I did on February 9, 1994 when once again I protested politicians' drawing lines on maps. I will talk about Amendment No. 1 the deviation quota. This amendment reduces the allowable size of deviation from a provincial electoral quota from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. Reform can support this amendment. From the outset we called for an allowable maximum variance of 15 per cent to ensure the

primacy of the equality of voting power over sociological considerations.

Elections Canada had reported 51 of the 295 existing ridings exceeded the current permissible population variances. Legitimate concerns were expressed by the Reform Party that this situation could be compounded in light of population shifts between redistributions. The bill still allows for deviations greater than 15 per cent in special circumstances.

Amendment No. 2 deals with non-judicial commission members. When the bill was drafted this clause was probably left out in error. Adding the requirement for the two non-judicial commission members to be resident in the province for which the commission is established does make sense; who better to monitor and recommend boundary changes than those from the province concerned? The Reform Party can support this amendment but overall does it really improve the bill? Does it really change or improve the existing process enough to warrant discarding the redistribution process that is almost complete?

Amendment No. 3, the 20-member factor to challenge the Speaker's appointments to the boundary commissions, is an indefensible amendment in our view and we oppose it. These appointments are not under parliamentary rules a ruling by the Speaker. It may cause the Speaker a little embarrassment but little else. It hardly can be construed as a non-confidence motion in the Chair. It is turf protecting and is adding a political element to a supposed non-partisan apolitical function.

The Senate amendment does not take the House of Commons dynamic into account. The Reform Party views the ability to challenge appointments as an improvement over the current process when the Speaker's appointments cannot be challenged and therefore can be influenced by government.

If we could have maintained this challenge option, I dare say before appointments were made the Speaker would surely have consulted with all parties in the House.

Amendment No. 4 is a trigger based on population shifts. This Senate amendment eliminates the use of a trigger based on population shifts to determine whether a boundary commission must be established in a province. We oppose this amendment.

Already under Bill C-69 the Speaker and the chief electoral officer can order a redistribution where one has not been automatically triggered. To say the least, this elimination of a trigger is perplexing. The trigger is largely a cost saving measure and it is estimated the cost savings are substantial.

Some may argue there could be challenges to this section under section 15 of the charter surrounding the quality element. We view this as extremely remote because the Constitution requires only an interprovincial deccenial redistribution, thus the prevention of an intraprovincial redistribution would not contravene section 51 of the Constitution. To me this is good grounds not to eliminate the trigger.

Senate Amendment No. 5 deals with eliminating the provision that a commission will only recommend changes to existing electoral district boundaries where the factors set out are significant enough to warrant such a recommendation.

The original intent of this provision was designed to encourage the commission to give greater consideration to existing boundaries. We can support this amendment because for all intents and purposes existing or traditional boundaries of electoral districts are also included for the commission's consideration in the current definition of community of interest.

Amendment No. 6 deals with redefinition of community of interest. Reform is opposed to this amendment because it calls for a redefinition of community of interest using the Lortie commission's definition.

Community of interest according to clause 19 would include such factors as the economy, existing or traditional boundaries of electoral districts, urban or rural characteristics of a territory, boundaries of municipalities and Indian reserves, natural boundaries and access to means of communication and transport.

I ask why clause 19(4) currently contained in Bill C-69 is so offensive. It is clear and gives clear direction to the boundary commissions. While the Senate's proposed definition is consistent with the recent Supreme Court decision, the procedure and House affairs committee considered and rejected this definition because it turns redistribution into an affirmative action process.

This is not in keeping with the process that has been in place since Confederation. We oppose this amendment also and that concludes my remarks on this bill.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here listening to this debate for some time. I was interested in the comments offered up by the

hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. Back in British Columbia we call some of the comments which were made symptoms of the Ottawa disease: no substance but a lot of cheap political gamesmanship, and this from veterans in the House who could pursue much more productive avenues.

The bill we are discussing tonight was not produced by all parties, as those members well know. We co-operated, which is our norm and we filed a dissenting report. We heard in typical style that this bill will be adopted. One of the problems with this House is that the results are a foregone conclusion when we see the stubbornness with which these bills are approached.

This is the fourth time I have spoken in public on Bill C-18, the forerunner to this bill, on Bill C-69 today and indeed on another occasion to the electoral boundaries commission in British Columbia. This dates back to February 9, 1994, March 21, 1994, May 26, 1994 and again today.

I must say that when members of the public ask me what is transpiring in terms of the whole electoral boundaries situation, there is a natural tendency to try to not talk about it because everything has become so complex, unravelled and intertwined. There is a great deal of uncertainty among everyone as to where we are going on these boundaries and when the changes, if there are going to be changes, will actually take place.

It is important to dredge up the history behind all of this and why we stand here tonight in this circumstance. We have to explain a little bit of that history to understand what is going on here.

One thing was of concern to me last year and is still very much at the forefront of my thoughts. The whole initiative to kill the electoral boundary redistribution process started in Ontario. It had got up a head of steam so that Bill C-18 was being drafted before British Columbians had even received their original electoral boundaries report to know where their proposed boundaries were.

This is typical of how many regions of the country feel left out and manipulated by what goes on in Ontario or in central Canada. It is worth repeating that there is no necessity in this issue. It was not an issue in the campaign. It was not an issue after the campaign. It is not in the Liberal red book, the dead book.

This bill continues to do one thing and one thing only. It responds to the desires of politicians to draw lines on a map. The Ontario MPs are trying to kill the boundary redistribution process. As I said before, they were trying to do that before the B.C. report was even out. This process has been in effect every decade since 1867 during the time of Confederation. It has been tied to the census. There was no public outcry. The outcry does not exist.

[Cn Commercialization Act, June 20th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to talk on third reading of the CN privatization bill.

Railway politics in Canada take a prominent place in our history. I know from growing up in this country and working on the railways part time I have a great sense of history. The member for Kenora-Rainy River is another part time railroader. The ra ilways are very important historically to the country.

I am reminded of the railway on Vancouver Island, E&N Railway, very important in the development of the west coast. There is an ongoing contractual commitment in this country to keep that railway going despite some pressures the other way. Those contractual commitments date back to prior to the turn of the century.

In terms of our contemporary history, we are seeing great changes, the stability of our railways, or the instability in the beginning. It is a whole new ball game now. Why is it a whole new ball game now? Government operations and crown corporations can no longer function in the way they functioned for the last several decades.

This is unavoidable because of our fiscal situation and I am reminded of this every day. Two-thirds of government revenues are derived from personal federal income taxes. One-third of federal revenues are to service our national debt. It does not take much of a mathematician to figure out 50 per cent of people's personal federal income tax is going to service our debt.

This situation despite the last budget is getting worse because part of our revenue dedicated to servicing debt is increasing over the next couple of years. We are treading water and sinking slowly. This message is slowly being accumulated by the population at large. It is being expressed in a lot of different programs of government and it is being expressed in how we unavoidably must deal with our crown corporations.

The transport committee, the task force appointed by the minister in September of 1994 which put its finding forth in January of 1995, identified a number of things which I think were largely known to most.

CN and CP are both facing very strong competition from other industries and from the U.S., particularly on the north-south routes, north-south markets. The railways are losing market share to trucking. Deregulation of the U.S. railways is obviously impacting a great deal on the Canadian railways. The eastern routes are losing money and the western routes are declining in profitability.

This same task force also identified that all major North American railways were privately owned with the exception of CN. One wonders why Canada would have such a different contemporary situation. This bill is quite predictable. The privatization was to occur. All the market pressures were there and governments around the world are privatizing crown corporations.

The task force also identified that as a crown corporation CN had been subject to many politically motivated moves and that much of this results from the president and the board basically being patronage appointments. There is a message in all of this for other crown corporations of government.

The standard provisions of any privatization bill are essentially the same no matter what crown corporation is being privatized. What is different are the bells and whistles which deal with investor attractiveness, some of the social ramifications, how it deals with existing employees, how it deals with the public interest and those kinds of things. Essentially that is what most of the debate in the House and in committee has been about. The amendments proposed by the Bloc and by the Reform Party have largely been about the bells and whistles of the bill.

In terms of investor attractiveness, the bells and whistles are a very strong signal of what kind of regulatory environment the new owner is to face when they try to run the railroad. The signals we are sending out with this bill are all wrong. Most of the amendments deal with the signals we are sending to potential purchasers of the railway.

One amendment is the requirement that CN's headquarters remains in Montreal. We have heard several times in the debate that this requirement is absurd because the marketplace can make that decision better than anyone else.

That it exists in Montreal today may have some social and employment ramifications which is why a sunset clause is not a bad idea. We have seen in the history of Canada that different jurisdictions over time have different natural advantages. There are population shifts and differences in trading patterns and all kinds of rationale for which private investors would want to retain the option to move their office to a different location.

Before I get into further amendments I will talk about the way the bill was handled in the House. The bill went to committee after first reading, which was a new process. Normally a bill goes through first reading when the legislation is tabled and through second reading debate and then the bill goes to committee.

Conceptually there are some very nice things about sending legislation to committee after first reading when in a non-partisan way people can get all their points in before the legislation becomes set in any way and then a better bill can come before the House. The concern with respect to this bill was that if the environment was not there after first reading when it went to committee, to take all the best of everything people had to say about the bill to make it the best legislation possible we have really missed the opportunity of second reading debate. We want to have a very close look at the process before we commit

ourselves to a continuation of it whereby we essentially eliminate debate at second reading.

The next point I would like to speak to is about restricting the percentage of shares that any one individual, corporation or association may own. This has a very negative impact on bringing in the kind of investor that would like to purchase a major portion of the new company and bring in a management style that would revitalize the whole company.

The chair of the transport committee, the member for Kenora-Rainy River, said that this had been looked at. The 15 per cent restriction was quite plausible because CP had never had more than 11 per cent single ownership. Surely our view of the world extends beyond the gaze of Canadian Pacific. We have to look at this on a global scale. We have to look at it from a totally different perspective. Government once again is talking about privatization yet government still wants to retain control. There is an irony about this and it is inappropriate.

One investor said that the 15 per cent restriction circumscribes the deal. It certainly does. It dampens investor confidence. It freezes out many investors who would otherwise look at this. It sends out all the wrong signals.

With respect to CN's debt, this is repetitive but CN currently owes about $2.5 billion. It has been established by experts that CN will never sell this debt level. It must be reduced to a level which would allow access to a BBB credit rating. The general concurrence is that amount would be about $1.5 billion.

CN currently has $300 million to $400 million on hand through recent company sales such as CN Exploration, and excess capital reserves. The market value of CN's non-rail estate assets are $400 million to $600 million. In a perfect world this alone would be sufficient to attain a BBB credit rating.

Clause 12 of the proposed legislation gives the minister the power to reduce CN's debt to any amount he chooses. This is a major problem. This is something the other place should look at very closely if we cannot change anyone's mind in this place because there are two major risks in this.

The minister may choose to reduce the CN debt well below the amount at which the taxpayers can receive a return on the sale. This would raise the cost of shares making it appear more attractive but producing a lower yield for taxpayers. As well, excessive reduction in the debt of CN would put CP at a disadvantage which is all too familiar. This was done during the privatization of Air Canada. The intent of the Reform amendment was to limit the minister's power in reducing the debt of CN.

Clause 15 provides for a permanent requirement that CN retain the official languages policy and operates under both official languages. Once again, this is another signal of a regulatory atmosphere that is inappropriate when one is trying to attract investors.

The government does not have official languages control over the private sector. Privatization of CN removes the mandatory compliance of the Official Languages Act. The Reform amendment was to include a five year sunset clause on the mandatory retention of operating under both official languages. Unfortunately this was voted down.

Then we have the Canada clause. The bill does not provide any restrictions of foreign ownership, nor should it. However, the Reform amendment would have allowed a 90 day sale period open to Canadian individuals and corporations before opening it up to foreign markets. This provision would have allowed all Canadians first crack at investing in a Canadian institution. What could be more appropriate? This would have allowed a win-win situation but once again it was voted down.

The marine strategy report proposes that all national ports must become self-sustaining and that all loans must be obtained from the private sector without government backing. Reform agrees with that proposal.

The Sarnia tunnel is a viable access from Atlantic Canada to the American midwest. The Halifax Port Corporation believes that through upgrading the port facilities in Halifax it will secure the handling of the new high capacity deep draft freighters and thus the economic future of marine operations in Atlantic Canada. In order to secure the financing, it needs to ensure that CN connections will be there to connect the ports to the rest of Canada.

The Reform amendment would have included a clause ensuring rail service to the port of Halifax for a period of 10 years, thereby ensuring the development of the port facilities allowing them to compete with U.S. ports on the eastern seaboard and ensuring investor confidence once again. This amendment was not allowed. We call that the Atlantic clause.

The Reform Party supports the bill although the provisions laid out in it are too restrictive and involve too much government interference in what should be a much more complete move to the private sector.