John Duncan

[Royal Commission On Aboriginal Peoples, October 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples set up four years ago is already substantially over budget and over deadline. Again it is extending its deadline. This $58 million exercise has obviously lost focus.

Will the minister of Indian affairs instruct this commission to quit delaying and table its report immediately?

[Yukon Surface Rights Board Act, October 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to begin second reading debate on Bill C-55 on behalf of the Reform Party. It is important to recognize the importance of the mining industry to Yukon. It is a major,

non-government industry in a jurisdiction that is more than 70 per cent dependent on federal government spending.

In some ways one could look on debate of Bill C-55 as the end, the resolution, and the confirmation of the principles contained in Bill C-33 and Bill C-34.

The mining industry has a current campaigned called "Keep Mining in Canada". Governments have tended to take the industry for granted in many jurisdictions where it has made operations very difficult, expensive, time consuming and uncertain. Also we have a Canadian tax regime that can be considered unfriendly in international terms.

Within my riding there are several operating mines. The BHP Utah mine, the Westmin mine, Texada mines and Quinsum Coal. Quinsum Coal has 25 employees who previously worked at the Westray mine in Nova Scotia. We all know Westray is where they had the disaster. These people feel very abused by actions of government.

I understand, accept and realize that there is pent up investment in the Yukon waiting for the uncertainty of Bills C-33, C-34 and C-55 to be over and done with so that investment can take place. This is a situation where the bureaucracy knows best.

In Whitehorse, to my surprise, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development vehicles say Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. There is a tendency within the bureaucracy toward the native affairs side rather than the northern development side. The focus is changing from one of servicing mining industry needs to other priorities. I see this symbolized. The rationale is that it translates better into the French. I do not view that as reason enough. I have viewed this in a previous life in Parks Canada where I always had an understanding that Canadian parks were set up for Canadian taxpayers to enjoy a park like setting.

Within the parks service, the group primarily oriented to servicing the public was the park warden service. What we viewed within the bureaucracy was competition between the park wardens and the naturalists. The naturalists have won those competing agendas. If we want to progress within that bureaucracy our opportunities are much higher if we come from the naturalists side. That has now impacted on the mission statements of Parks Canada in many ways.

This has been foisted on the Canadian public without their full knowledge. One could ask the question: Why does the Minister of Natural Resources have the mandate for the Metis in Canada and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development have the mandate for mining north of 60 degrees, in other words, the territories. The north is already suffering because it is the playground of the federal government and the federal bureaucracy. I recommend that we do not reinforce this by making it one minister's playground.

Yukon has only 28,000 people. I am sure they will make bad rules work. I understand last year the Yukon economy dropped by 19 per cent due to the closure of one major operating mine, the Faro mine. I also understand that the economy of the Northwest Territories shrank.

Bill C-55 is meant to fulfil commitments to implement the constitutionally protected final land claim settlement agreement known as Bill C-33. Bill C-55 may confirm the principles contained in Bills C-33 and C-34 but it in no way ends disputes or in itself resolves conflicts that may arise.

Mechanisms or boards put in place are only as good or as confident or as well intentioned as the people we place on these boards. We have only just begun.

Since Parliament began in January 1994 we have concluded massive land claim settlements for the Sahtu, Dene and Metis to the tune of $197 million. We have concluded the Yukon settlement for which we are here today to the tune of $163 million.

This is not the total dollar amount. The implementation costs will run another $263 million for these claims for a total of $596 million, according to the public accounts released this week. According to these same public accounts, there are contingent liabilities of $8.3 billion in claims in pending and threatened litigation.

Despite the finance minister's declaration that we are in hawk up to our eyeballs, the government continues to ignore the perilous fiscal situation we have created and continue to sustain in land claim settlements.

In addition to the $8.3 billion I just mentioned, there are another 460 specific native claims and lawsuits that currently have no dollar figure and currently do not form part of the known liabilities.

Frankly no one knows what the total amount may be. That is the frightening part. If the Minister of Finance is that concerned with the fiscal situation he might want to start a review of the policy and settlement mandate the minister of-

[Department Of Industry Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I would like to make a couple of other references to the way these priorities have been placed in jeopardy.

We have an infrastructure program that has been gerrymandered. We have an urban focus. We are building boccie courts in Toronto and swimming pools. At the same time some of our essential rural services are being defunded. This is unacceptable.

[Department Of Industry Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yes, indeed I am opposed to regional economic programs, as is our party. I live in and represent a rural riding. The government does not have the resources to keep DFO offices functioning for an important west coast resource in very remote areas where we need that presence.

The government is taking essential services like light stations and threatening them. For you to be talking about us not supporting rural areas is blatant misrepresentation.

[Department Of Industry Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as I explained in regard to an industrial strategy, the lead cannot be taken by government at this point because government has proven itself to be incompetent in terms of dealing with spending priorities and with fiscal responsibility.

In terms of relating that point to the C. D. Howe era, we had a balanced budget then. Essentially we had a balanced budget up to 1972. I know there was a period after World War II when we were in a state of tremendous growth and we paid down a lot of debt, but those circumstances are completely alien to where we are now.

The government is carrying on unsustainable programs, institutions and projects at this time, and this is one of them. It is probably more discretionary to make radical change to this one than to many others which affect transfers to the individuals and so on.

[Department Of Industry Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my view of the bill is obviously very different from that of the member who just spoke. This is a cosmetic, housekeeping bill, and there is nothing substantial in it.

I explained the minor savings associated with the bill. The only thing I can say about the excitement level in these departments is that it is obvious I am talking to different personnel than the member opposite.

[Department Of Industry Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to contribute to second reading debate on Bill C-46, an act to establish the Department of Industry.

The bill will establish in law the new Department of Industry that was created in June 1993 by the former administration. While always a powerful ministry historically run by a powerful minister, this new Department of Industry is an amalgamation of the former Department of Industry, Science and Technology Canada, the former Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the telecommunication side of the Department of Communications and Investment Canada.

The Reform Party has two major objections, beginning with clause 13(1), part I, of the bill. This clause gives the minister full rein over shaping industries to suit special needs of certain industrial or commercial establishments, organizations or persons who are members of a particular category of persons defined by order of the governor in council. I will develop our concerns regarding this issue a little later.

Our second area of concern surrounds part II of the legislation, regional economic development in Ontario and Quebec. The bill places responsibility for Quebec and Ontario under the Minister of Industry. This should be interesting. Would I like to be at the cabinet table listening to deliberations?

In any event before I focus more directly on these two major concerns with the legislation I would like to put this exercise of departmental chair shuffling into an historical framework. I think this is a worthwhile exercise in view of this latest attempt via Bill C-46 to bring some continuity and focus to the disparate nature of this department, in particular its responsibilities, focus and scope of activity.

The industry responsibilities within the Canadian government really date back, for the sake of our examination, to the late C.D. Howe and the department of trade and commerce and its main operating division of the department of defence production. Those were the days of the dollar a year people, the C.D. Howe recruitments who kept Canada's materiel infrastructure running during World War II. C.D. was a powerful minister who ran a clearly powerful department with tentacles of influence, not only during World War II but up until the 1960s in many other departments.

The department of trade and commerce not only held sway in Ottawa but also controlled the regional development side. By the 1960s the industrial and commercial dynamics were changing in Canada and the beginning of constant change in the industry portfolio was taking hold.

In the early 1960s the government created the Department of Industry. The then deputy minister, Simon Reisman, began recruiting advocates for industry from the business community. Some of these business people were competent, some were not as we hear. Terrible infighting ensued between these new young business types in the existing career civil service within the department. The department meandered around looking for stability, purpose and reason for approximately eight years.

In 1968 because of this constant bickering over what the focus should be, either an advocate for business or a policy maker, the then administration created the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. The operative word and function in this new arrangement was obviously the inclusion of trade in this new dynamic. Now we have the career commerce people, the business advocates from industry and the traders. This is quite an arrangement of personalities, agendas and egos.

In most of the disagreements that ensued over what the department was supposed to do, the industry advocates usually won. However, another merger was on the horizon. That was the advent of DREE. In the early seventies the department of regional economic expansion became a hotbed of politics, largesse, monument building and subsequent turf wars.

This new department focused on regional development first in the Atlantic provinces, soon after in Quebec and slowly through Ontario and as far west as Saskatchewan. That is where the DREE gravy train stopped. Alberta and B.C. were considered too rich to participate in these economic expansion schemes. The politicians representing those two provinces had no clout in the Commons or at the cabinet table.

Two interesting twists within DREE were two programs, ARDA and special ARDA. The former ARDA, agricultural and rural development agency, dealt with regional development opportunities and special ARDA was responsible for native economic development opportunities and employment initiatives.

To many, DREE was more than a series of questionable funding projects, from Michelin Corp. in Nova Scotia to Bricklin Inc. cars and Mitel switching equipment, all funded by DREE. Again turf wars ensued but the money flowed like water to the project of the month.

After the DREE period we had another merger. This new department known as DRIE, the department of regional industrial expansion, again had lots of money to throw around mostly through a program known as the industrial research development program. At the same time the trade component was moved to external affairs to complicate it more. It was a time of good old style patronage with a tinge of legitimate cutting edge technological development.

Some time in the mid to late 1980s, with the science envelope evoking worldwide opportunities, the department was renamed industry, science and technology. At this time the agriculture, fish and food component was transferred to Agriculture Canada.

The department was becoming fragmented, faced with constant change and constantly eroding capabilities. Forces were scattered and the usual turf wars continued. In the wisdom of the former administration, another change was made and the government created the department of industry. That is why we are here today continuing the revolving door instability and constant quest for change in the hope of getting it right.

We have come full circle and returned to the early paragraphs of my address.

I would like to focus now on our objections to Bill C-46. Let me look first at the always troublesome regional development side. Bill C-46 clearly indicates that the minister will look after Ontario and Quebec. Currently no one is sure who looks after Ontario, but make no mistake about it. The Minister of Finance, not industry, looks after Quebec at this time.

We have no problem with the Minister of Industry assuming responsibility for Quebec and Ontario, but what about the rest of Canada? This bill continues the balkanization of the rest of the country. The squeaking wheel continues to get the grease. I wonder which of the three ministers responsible for regional development really holds the grease: the Minister of Human Resources Development for the Western Diversification Office, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services for ACOA, the Allan MacEachen of the 1990s, or the Minister of Industry now responsible for Quebec and Ontario.

What a mess: a department for Ontario and Quebec, a department for the west in WDO, and a corporation acting like a department at ACOA. It may not be a department for the minister of public works at ACOA but I am told that the minister of public works will expunge the name Allan MacEachen from the lexicon of the east coast largesse dictionary. He is on a roll and this mishmash arrangement is sure to cause more regional strife.

The position of the Reform Party on regional development is that it should be eliminated so that all areas of Canada are treated equally. We want to get rid of a system where conflicts rise between ministers who are supposed to choose in the

interests of the country nationally but choose regionally due to their regional development responsibilities.

The legislation ensures that bias and regionalism continues. In part IV of the bill powers are granted under subclause 13(1) to the Minister of Industry, which could be construed to mean that the minister and the department can engage in central planning of the economy, far beyond the more sensible approach of letting industry choose the equilibrium and letting experts run their own affairs. State run involvement, as subclause 13(1) seems to indicate, is anathema to good business management and we oppose it.

The Reform Party values initiatives and enterprise. We do not see the government role as being responsible for fostering and protecting an environment in which initiative and enterprise can be exercised by individuals and groups.

In most reorganizations and rationalizations in the private sector, which is the real world, business makes these changes to downsize, to save money and to improve profit margins. In the case of government and Bill C-46 we have amalgamated four departments. One could realistically expect staff reductions. From a total of 6,000 employees we will see a reduction of 230 staff members, probably through attrition. What level of public servant are we talking about?

Another dynamic of rationalization, as I have said, is cost saving. Out of a $3 billion budget it is estimated that department spending will be reduced by $26 million or less than 1 per cent. The bill lacks any coherent vision of industrial strategy. It fosters regional economic development initiatives against a backdrop of vague national strategies.

The bill continues the saga of reorganization for the sake of reorganization in a constant quest to get it right. It confirms that the Minister of Industry and the government share a Tory vision of industrial strategy. After all, it is a Tory initiative.

The bill continues the interventionist role of government, the flawed notion that government sets the course and business steers it. Free market principles and fairness for all should be the hallmark of our industrial strategy.

I hear the infighting has already started at the new department. It has even spilled over to the Department of National Resources, whose employees are looking for something to do and are sticking their noses into the new department's business. It is business as usual at the C. D. Howe building. Too bad C. D. Howe is not around.

[Department Of Industry Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, when I hear the member from the official opposition describe his riding, it sounds very similar to mine in British Columbia.

In lieu of the previous speaker's comments regarding regional programs being run by the provinces and his stated view that that was the way to go, can the hon. member please explain why the Bloc amendment is specific to Quebec as opposed to being applicable to all of the provinces in Canada?

[Petitions, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a series of petitions on five separate subjects which I have received from individuals of my constituency of North Island-Powell River.

I present two petitions that call for no amendment to the Criminal Code concerning physician assisted suicide, one petition calling for a ban of the serial killer board game, one petition calling for respect of the unborn, two petitions requesting Parliament to resist pressure to include sexual orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the final petition calling for greater protection of children from sexual assault in the memory of Dawn Shaw.

[Canadian Heritage, October 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to participate in the debate on Bill C-53.

The debate we just listened to reminds me very much of the failure of federal spending. It is no different on job creation from what it is on cultural matters. If federal spending created jobs, every Canadian would have two. If federal spending helped on some of these cultural matters, people would not be voting by turning off their television sets when it comes to a lot of the programming on CBC.

Bill C-53 is one multifaceted attempt to right every perceived wrong in the government's quest for political correctness. It is a continuation of hyphenated Canadians and funding of special interest groups which in the final analysis has hardly promoted unity and has only been a drain on the public purse.

Nowhere in Bill C-53 can I detect any change in this litany of throwing money at something we are desperately trying to understand. It seems that government thinks it can buy peace and unity by entrenching more rights and latitude for special interest groups. When are we going to become Canadians rather than a mishmash of individuals with a particular axe to grind?

While I am on that topic of special interest groups, it might not be as bad if more members of the special interest groups were beneficiaries. Too often a few greedy, self-serving individuals who head up the leadership of these groups are the main recipients.

I am told that one individual who is paid a $60,000 a year salary to head one of these groups, a person in their thirties is nearly a millionaire. Is this where the funding for some of these groups is going: membership at the Rideau Club, first class air travel, cottages in the Gatineau?

Bill C-53 will not correct this injustice but will only entrench it further. One has to simply take a cursory look at the 1994-95 estimates for Canadian heritage. Every conceivable special interest group is on the payroll. What is the effectiveness of these programs? Is there demonstrable success to parallel their mandates? Are they accountable or merely sinkholes of largesse? My Reform colleagues will chronicle the misplacement of funding in this debate.

I would now like to turn to an element of responsibility of the Department of Canadian Heritage as contained in Bill C-53, specifically Canada's Metis. The department mandate states that the programs for Metis are designed to help the Metis define and participate in the resolution of the social, cultural, political and economic issues affecting their lives in Canadian society. A common feature of the program is that projects are community based and are initiated and managed by aboriginal people.

I can count some $40 million directed at those programs. Is it being used on what is intended? Is it accountable? One does not have to do much research before one's antennae beam on specific examples where accountability is questionable. I refer to the Metis nation of Saskatchewan.

Last March and April headlines in regional Saskatchewan and national newspapers screamed out headlines of mismanagement of funds, accounting anomalies and refusal by Metis leaders to co-operate with audits. At one point over $1 million was unaccountable. No one questioned the legality of the Metis in this circumstance; they did question accountability and proper management of funds.

It seems in government quests to keep everyone happy, we make the cheques and never ask another question. When someone stumbles over some anomaly regarding procedures, we get the whitewash. The bureaucrats and some antsy national Metis council officials get on the damage control mode. This is not good enough. Bill C-53 does not improve on it. What the cloud of uncertainty over the Metis Society of Saskatchewan did was create a splinter group of concerned Metis citizens. It seems they too felt that those Metis leaders handling the funds at the local level did not have the capacity to do it and it reflected badly on the members. Bill C-53 does not address this; it entrenches further mismanagement.

In preparation for this debate, my office called a few departmental people, research officers appointed to and in these debates, and naturally talked to others interested in this subject matter. Is it not interesting that I still do not have a bottom line on funding through Heritage Canada to the Metis. I really do not think Bill C-53 will contribute to enlightening the House any further on this issue.

Other newspaper headlines suggest that Metis leaders are ignorant of public trust, that funding provided through Heritage Canada for programs and activities of Metis groups, often for worthy undertakings, may not be trickling down from the Metis leaders in charge of disbursing funds. It is simply not good enough to concentrate control of funds with the leadership. It would be better to have these funds administered by a council or committee made up of all strata within the Metis society.

The very thing I speak of is what prompted the RCMP investigation of the handling of funds by the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan. I ask how window dressing the plethora of multiculturalism undertakings into the department of heritage will solve this disbursal and accountability of funding for Metis societies.

Bill C-53 merely complies with political correctness and assures a supply of government funds to be doled out by sometimes incompetent individuals.

I would be remiss if I did not touch on one other aspect of funding that should trouble us greatly. What Bill C-53 manages to accomplish is to again ensure continued funding for the industry that has been created around the Metis societies. Make no mistake about it, this is an industry unto itself, secret, paranoid and accountable to no one.

There was an instance this last spring in the midst of investigation into the Metis nation of Saskatchewan that funding cheques were still being issued to the same individuals under investigation, so-called representing a specific Metis society. What kind of power and control do these individuals in this industry have on this government? Instead of codifying more programs, which in the Saskatchewan Metis experience have caused disunity, not harmony, we should be drafting accountability guidelines for these bureaucrats handing out the largesse and establishing disbursal guidelines for these Metis bodies.

I am not breaking any new trails here. I have asked a series of questions of the minister of heritage, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development regarding the Metis and aboriginal funding. I have attempted to enlighten this administration about who is really getting rich. With the current method, rank and file Metis are not the recipients. Bill C-53 will ensure it is business as usual.

Mr. Jim Sinclair, president of the Native Council of Canada, in testimony before the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs stated in April of this year that he would welcome his books being audited by the Auditor General, not the Secretary of State now Heritage Canada. There has to be an arm's length relationship when it comes to the auditing function. Again Bill C-53 ensures that Heritage Canada will continue to audit itself. I call it vertically integrated bureaucratic control. It should be eliminated by the government.

The federal interlocutor for Canada's Metis, the Minister of Natural Resources, is another participant in the process. She indicated that the federal government is prepared to assume 50 per cent of the cost of establishing and maintaining a registry of the people of the Metis nation.

We had a census in 1991. Why would the federal government want to encourage further racial divisiveness by committing to a racially based census? Surely such an undertaking is another instance of the potential for more misunderstanding of the government's uncontrollable urge to create special rights for various groups within our society. Does anyone know how to say no?

At the same time that the federal interlocutor is committing to this census, the Metis leadership is proposing a national legislative assembly, a capital in Batoche, a flag, an anthem, an emblem, Metis and Canadian citizenship and Metis law making authority. Does the minister want to encourage all this by providing funding for an as yet undefined census based on racial characteristics where the proponent has a vested interest in inflating the membership qualifications as much as possible? What is the federal interlocutor of the Metis doing by committing funding to create another group on which to confer special rights?

Either the Minister of Canadian Heritage through Bill C-53 is the minister responsible for Metis or he is not. Clearly responsibility for Metis is outside the purview of the minister of Indian affairs. It should also be outside the purview of the Minister of Natural Resources. Why do we need two ministers responsible for the same issue?

We have a litany of funding and accounting problems in not only the Metis society in Saskatchewan, but there are problems in other jurisdictions as well. This is what Bill C-53 should be addressing.