Keith Martin

[Department Of Natural Resources Act, November 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak on Bill C-48, an act to establish the Department of Natural Resources and related acts.

We do not have any significant problems with the bill at present, so I will use this time to expand on some ideas on natural resource management that our party would like to put forward to help improve this very important aspect of our country.

Canada has a number of resources, both human and natural. Being so large and so rich in so many of these resources, it is critically important that we manage them properly. Our natural resources, including fish, lumber, mining and water, are extensive. Few countries in the world can claim to be as rich as we are in natural resources. In fact the standard of living of all Canadians is intimately associated with these resources.

Natural resources are under siege, as they are in every other country in the world. What we do now is critically important in how these resources survive in the future. I would first like to deal with the latter, our natural resources, and go through some of the specific principles that we need to apply to them to ensure they will survive in the future for coming generations. I would also like to deal with some specific problems, in particular some of the problems affecting where I live in British Columbia.

First and foremost, the most important principle in natural resources is sustainable development. Much damage has already been done by the generations that preceded us and the current generation in dealing with our natural resources.

Everybody hears much about the ozone depletion, about the decrease in biodiversity that has occurred all over the world, from the flora and the fauna, the well known animals and plants now being affected such as the tigers and black rhino to the lesser known plants that are being decimated and wiped off the face of the planet every day.

As an aside, this lack of biodiversity is a huge loss to us as a species. For within that wealth of biodiversity exists a potential for those species that have become extinct that will never be explored, a potential we can use in industry, in medicine to save lives, to help our species and other species on the planet.

Desertification has occurred as a result of the mismanagement of our natural resources. A wide swath is gone all over our world that has rendered arable land into deserts. Land that was once productive now is not and never will be again, at least not in our lifetimes. It will never be able to produce the food stuffs, the agriculture, the homes that the people of the world need and that our burgeoning population will require.

As a country we have been very guilty of deforestation in the past. We have criticized Brazil for its deforestation practices, but we have been as guilty as them. Much has been done over the last few years to undo this, in part because of the loud outcry and the interest of the Canadian people, but also because of special interest and environmental groups that have comes on side to help be watchdogs for what has gone on in our natural resources.

Pollution plays a very important part because various aspects of pollution are decimating areas that we will forever have to live with on land, in lakes, water bodies and in the Arctic. All we need do is talk to the aboriginal people that live in the north to know what horrible things have happened to the pristine areas that once existed in our north.

This is not something that is only specific to our country, but to all of the countries that share the Arctic borders. Pollution is rampant. Foodstuffs are going down and they too are being polluted. It is happening all over. Toxic wastes are being dumped. All these things are occurring now and need to be addressed now for, as I said before, what we do at this moment will forever impart on future generations. Things are not getting better.

Look at the acidification that has been occurring in the Great Lakes. Where I used to live in Ontario, thousands and thousands of beautiful lakes that used to have such an enormous resource of fish are dying. There is a wasteland of lakes in Ontario and in Quebec that has been rendered useless because of the acidification and the dumping of acid rain into these lakes, a profound tragedy, lakes that now it is too late to do anything about.

Perhaps if we address this problem now, in the future we can get a handle on it and prevent this from happening and do things to bring them back to the state that they were once in.

We should also like to address another aspect that is not often discussed in natural resources, that is the burgeoning world population, a population that now stands at 5.7 billion and in a mere 37 years will double to over 10 billion people. It is interesting to note that it has taken the entire history of man to get to our current stage of 5.7 billion but it will only take 37 years to double that.

I ask everybody to consider what will happen to the future of our population and our world when that population doubles. When that happens we will have an increase in the demand on our resources, an increase in the demand on our natural resources, on our environment and on our security. A broadened definition of security, we are now finding, will include our military security, our environmental security and our social security.

These increasing demands on our limited resources will result in conflicts among people, which will result in migration of people from areas that have not to areas that have, which will impact on every country in the world. Do not think because we might live a half a world away that it will not because it certainly will. There are recent historical precedents to support that.

I would like to put forth some constructive solutions that we can all work together to fulfil. First, I support and urge the government to engage in fulfilling transboundary agreements throughout countries over areas such as pollution, in particular with the United States, and with the transboundary agreements that we will need to fulfil with countries bounding the Arctic.

We need common rules on trade and the environment that will enable us to fulfil a rules based free trade agreement that will provide us, a relatively small country, with the powers to fulfil and protect our own environmental areas.

I would also like to see a larger emphasis from our dwindling foreign aid dollar to be put on providing for education and safe, effective birth control measures for all people no matter where they live.

We need to have education for the public for, as members of the House know, 80 per cent of the world's resources are consumed by a mere 20 per cent of the people. Not only must we address what goes on half a world away, but we must look into our own areas, our own spheres of influence to address these problems in our own home. Without doing this we cannot credibly ask other countries to do the same.

We must aggressively market our natural resources in a sustainable fashion. I would suggest that we put an increased emphasis on our value added product.

One of the great accomplishments in recent times of our country has been the ability of our country to negotiate the World Trade Organization, an enormous accomplishment for a country as small as ours. I hope this will improve the links between trade and sustainable development that will occur among a number of countries and we as a country can actually act.

On the World Trade Organization, I hope we can enter into this rules based system. This brings to mind one of the enormous strengths that our country has that we as Canadians tend to downplay.

I have said this before in the House. We are one of the few countries in the world that has the ability in terms of diplomacy, in terms of international respect, to bring countries together, bring them to the table, bring them to negotiate problems before they happen and to engage in discussions and agreements that will help to provide for sustainable development aspects and controls over pollution for a number of countries.

I do not have very much time but I would like to address a couple of aspects that affect in particular the west coast of British Columbia. One is the fisheries department.

We have on the west coast a horrible situation with the widespread decimation of fish which is definitely a sustainable resource, one that has been recently decimated, one that is on the verge of going the way the east coast fishery has tragically gone. I hope our minister of fisheries will accept some of the suggestions we have made and look at some of the solutions that we have put forth.

The problems occurring on the west coast are not merely environmental. There is terrible poaching occurring by all facets of the fishing industry, by commercial fishermen, non-commercial fishermen, sports fishermen, Canadians, Americans, aboriginals and non-aboriginals. All people within these sectors are responsible in part for this terrible decimation.

I would encourage strongly the minister of fisheries to engage in a judicial inquiry to determine once and for all what the root cause is and to root out the terrible things that have occurred in our west coast fishery. We cannot hide our head in the sand any longer to what is occurring.

Within the context of fisheries I know that we are constrained very much by fiscal restraints. I would suggest that the minister streamline the administration of the department of fisheries, there is a study that was done some years ago to this extent, but on the other hand to buttress up the department of fisheries officers who do an incredible job to try to save and help the west coast and east coast fisheries.

Another aspect is the forestry industry. Half of all the money that we actually earn on Vancouver Island comes from forestry. Recently we have come to an agreement that will enable us to have a sustainable west coast industry. I hope we will be able to use the expertise from that to teach other countries what we have learned from our mistakes.

Certainly there are terrible miscalculations and forestry practices that have occurred in the past in British Columbia. I think we are on the way to mending those. I hope in the future we will not lose sight of the recent accomplishments that we have made in this area and that we will be able to go ahead and expand these to not only involve forestry but also to involve the mining industry and other industries.

I would make a few suggestions about the division of natural resources. In these days of fiscal restraint does it not make sense for us to further divide the areas of responsibility? Clearly most of the responsibility lies with the provinces. I would encourage this government to give some of the federal responsibilities to provincial jurisdictions where they truly belong. In this way we could streamline the administration, streamline the responsibilities, decrease the administration and save the taxpayer a great deal of money.

In conclusion, we are faced with a balancing act between the needs and demands of an economy and a people who have to earn a living and must provide for themselves and on the other hand a need to balance the needs of our environment. Without a sustainable resource, without a safe, effective environment for ourselves, for our children and for our grandchildren we will not be in a world that we will want to live in.

I hope we will take these principles and apply sustainable development to our beautiful natural resources so that we and future generations will be able to enjoy them.

[Supply, November 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, no I have not seen the bill that the hon. member has mentioned. I would be very interested in seeing it and my party also, particularly in view of the comments my hon. friend made which basically echoed what we have been saying in this party before we were even elected.

Is it not curious that we find the New Democratic Party and the Reform Party and all of the other groups such close allies on this particular point, whereas the government for so long has basically put us off? I hope that the Prime Minister will listen to the comments just made by my hon. friend and to other comments that have been made here by my friends in this party. I hope that the Prime Minister will take them into consideration and rapidly bring forward a bill based on the constructive suggestions that have been made here today.

[Supply, November 22nd, 1994]

Exactly. In these days of fiscal restraint, this is completely unconscionable. The pension plan scheme that we have now is called the defined benefit scheme where the benefits are paid according to a specific equation.

It is reasonable to do this kind of scheme in firms where there is long tenure, long contributions and high retirement ages. Does this look like what we have here in this Parliament? No. In fact, it is the exact opposite of what we find here in this House.

MPs retire relatively young after short tenures with minimal payments into the system. Thus one can see that this type of system bears a lot of risk for the employer. In this case who is the employer but the Canadian taxpayer. We are burdening the Canadian taxpayer with a risk that the private sector would not take for itself.

The taxpayers in this country are taxed too much and cannot afford to be taxed any more. They have no obligation nor should they have to pay these lucrative pension plans that we currently enjoy in this House today. Currently MPs contribute 11 per cent of their basic salaries to the plan. The taxpayer picks up the rest. How much is this?

If one looks at the entire plan, the MPs actually contribute from 20 per cent of the total amount that they are going to get paid out while the taxpayer pays 80 per cent. Furthermore these plans as members know are fully indexed to inflation.

We in the Reform Party as usual would like to make some constructive suggestions to help bring these MP pensions in line with the rest of the public, this in the name of fairness, in the name of togetherness and in the name of collegiality to eliminate the us versus them mentality that the public perceives of us, to engage in fiscal responsibility and to do our part in a small but constructive way to bring the deficit down to zero and to start attacking the debt.

To make the sacrifices that we are demanding of the Canadian public I have some constructive suggestions. First, let us convert these MP pension plans into a money purchase system that many private companies are doing. This is a shared contribution system where the MPs and the government put money into the system and into individual RRSPs. It is a joint contribution plan.

Second, we must stop indexing the pension plans. Private plans do not do this so why should we? These measures will help eliminate the excessive topping up that the Canadian taxpayer must make in order to fulfil the obligations under the current payment scheme.

Also, by putting it into private individual RRSPs, we are adding an element of personal responsibility into the system for the MPs themselves. Third, by doing this one is ultimately going to decrease the amount of retirement payments through OAS and CPP that we would have to incur in the future thereby adding further savings.

I am going to take a little bit of licence here and bring in the social service payments to the retired for a moment because it is an interesting thing to do when we look into the future of a need that is going to require these social programs for the retired individual, in particular to enable those retired individuals who are not well off to have a social program that is going to provide for their needs in the future. When we look into the future our current social program schemes will not be able to provide payments to all retired individuals. Why? Let us look at some things. OAS pays out around $14 billion per year. CP pays out $10 billion a year and the guaranteed income supplement is around $4.5 billion a year.

Furthermore the CPP current liability, the unpaid liability, is $500 billion, a fact that the Canadian taxpayer does not realize. This amount of money has to be paid and an amount of money that is not factored into any current debt projections we are currently hearing. By the year 2030 there will be two working people for every retired individual. This is an unsustainable situation and cannot last.

In the near future it will be a necessity for individuals to take it upon themselves to provide for their own retirement needs because the government is not going to be able to do it for them. They will, I hope, be able to provide for the needs of those who are retired and those people who need it most. This is an example of prioritizing the spending that we are trying to convince the government to do.

If MPs were to receive their pensions according to the ways I have mentioned in a sustainable fashion in the individual RRSPs, government social handouts would decrease, particularly government handouts would decrease to those individuals of which we would be a part. Therefore we could anticipate considerable savings from these programs.

There is no way to balance this budget without making cuts to the social program situation as our party has discussed before. The government should take us as an example of a group of individuals where we can revamp our retirement program in order to become self-sufficient and in order for the individuals here not to become a millstone around the taxpayers' neck.

Last, I would put up the retirement age for MPs. As I explained initially retirement age for most members of Parliament in other first world countries is much higher than what we have here. I would ask the Prime Minister to raise that to age 55 or 60.

I have heard before that government members make various arguments that the lifetime of an MP is short and their certainty of employment is not high. Many members of the public also engage in jobs where the future is very uncertain. It is no

different for them than for us. They do not receive any lucrative pension packages and neither should we.

Government members also argue, as has been discussed today in the House, that many members take large pay cuts, have given up lucrative careers and that we will not get good people coming to government unless we have these lucrative pension schemes.

I believe that good people will always come to the top and that money should not be the motivating factor to get into this job. If people are prepared to give up their professions in the name of public service then one is more assured that they will be honest in their intentions to serve the House and to serve the country.

Much has been said on pensions. The Prime Minister has promised that he will allow us to opt out and revamp the pension scheme. I challenge him to rise to the occasion and do this in the name of fiscal responsibility and also in the name of respect of the Canadian public.

[Supply, November 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will be speaking for 10 minutes if the Chair allows.

It gives me great pleasure to speak here today on the MP pension plan. Before I begin I would like to make a remark.

For reasons that elude us on this side, I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine that when we are speaking here how when the simple information and constructive solutions we are putting forth cross the line in this House it gets so distorted so that the responses from the other side come back being unintelligible.

In any event, we in this party are not saying that we do not want pensions. All we are saying is that we would like to bring them into line with the rest of the public. Of all the things the public finds distasteful and unfair about this government, this House and these members, it has to be the gold-plated MP pension plan we have.

In fact, the recent commission that was sent to study MP pension plans, when comparing them to other countries said that our plans were the least stringent in terms of commencement and one of the highest in terms of allowance.

Let us take a look at some other first world countries and make some comparisons between our pension plans and theirs. In France and the United Kingdom the minimum age of service is 55 years, not six years like we have. Australia, 12 years of service or age 60. The United States of America age 62. The maximum allowance in our country is 75 per cent of our terminal salary which is just near the top of all the countries I have discussed. We have about the best that one can possibly imagine.

How lucrative is this plan in real terms? Let us look at the last election. An MP serving eight years who left office at the age of 37 will receive $28,350 a year initially and $87,000 a year at age 60 for a total buyout of $2.7 million.

An MP serving 13 years who retired at age 50 will receive $39,700 a year initially for a total buyout of $1.9 million. His initial payments will increase with the indexing. Therefore the last payment will be $64,692 a year. Not bad. Nowhere will members find that in the private sector. Nowhere in the private sector does such a lucrative plan exist. In fact in the last election 73 eligible defeated MPs will collectively receive over $100 million in buyouts at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer.

[Foreign Affairs, November 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, that was not much of an answer but that is not uncommon.

Canada was very actively involved in sanctions against Serbia, South Africa and Haiti. I would like to know what the government is prepared to do to ensure that China will reverse its dismal human rights record. What action is the government going to take?

[Foreign Affairs, November 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

Extrajudicial executions, incarceration without trial and torture are widespread in China. Given the Prime Minister is going to raise China's human rights record with its government, will the Deputy Prime Minister give us her assurances that soon after his return the Prime Minister will report to the House on the outcome of these private information meetings?

[Social Security Programs, November 3rd, 1994]

This is Reform compassion. This is the way the Reform Party wants to deal with health care. The Reform Party wants to save publicly funded health care to ensure that all people in the country will receive the timely essential health care services they require. There is no other option. To further the health forum is going to take four years to make any substantive difference. It is only going to

offset the decisions that we in this party know have to be made now.

I beg this government to heed what is being said here today and to accept our hand in working toward a coherent, forward thinking health care policy and social policy for all Canadians to ensure that all Canadians, particularly those in the lowest socioeconomic circles, will have their needs met.

[Social Security Programs, November 3rd, 1994]

That is right. However there is a backlash. If they increase taxes people spend less. Fewer people are employed. Jobless rates go up. There is more of a demand on our social programs. Our debts go up. Our interest payments go up. The cycle repeats itself. It is a spiral that ultimately results in the collapse of the financial, economic and social backbone of our country.

To put this into a more stark perspective, by the year 2010 interest payments and social spending will combine to swallow every single dollar this government or any government will take in. That is 100 per cent of revenues. That will mean there will be no money for government services including the armed forces, foreign affairs, RCMP, or the precious multiculturalism and bilingualism the government holds so dear.

At best, with government services amounting to $42 billion, the most we can reasonably cut is between $8 billion and $10 billion. The rest must come from social spending. There is no way around this fact of life.

We in this party are not looking to slash social spending. We are looking to cutting a modest $12 billion to $16 billion which, in combination with the other $8 billion and the expected rise in GNP, will result in a balanced budget in the next three years.

The threat to government programs is already very evident. I will use the concrete example of health care that is close to the hearts of Canadians including my own. Our health care system is in crisis. The federal government is giving less and less money to the provinces and the provinces are funding less all the time because they simply do not have the money available. They are in exactly the same fiscal crunch the federal government is in.

This results in the deplorable situation of rationing, particularly the rationing of essential health care services. Less money, increased demands, an aging population and more expensive medical technologies all combine to comprise people's health. The most essential of health care services right now are being withheld from people, which will result in people suffering and people dying.

There is a five-month waiting list in Ottawa for heart surgery at the Ottawa Heart Institute. In the province of Quebec there are tens of thousands of individuals on hospital waiting lists, 800 of whom require urgent surgery now. That is absolutely deplorable. Seventy per cent of individuals in severe pain who need new hips, which generally applies to the aged, will wait at least five months and 40 per cent of them will wait 13 months to get hip transplants. Imagine ourselves, imagine our parents, imagine our grandparents suffering in severe pain waiting for a hip replacement that may never come.

The federal government is taking away money on one hand and forcing provincial governments to adhere to the archaic Canada Health Act. It in itself philosophically compromises the health care of every Canadian.

What do we propose to do in this party? We do not propose to destroy the Canada Health Act. We propose to amend the Canada Health Act to ensure that provinces have the ability to take care of their finances and to enable them to experiment with various funding models to be able to pay for the essential health care services people require.

Right now people are not getting essential services. How do we prevent a two-tier system wherein the poor will suffer? The way to do it is to define essential health care services, which is the job of the government. We are more than happy in this party to help the government toward this realization of defining the health care system and ensuring that those services will be covered for every Canadian in the country regardless of socioeconomic situation.

[Social Security Programs, November 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today on Bill C-54, something we as Reformers would like to address in an enormous way and revamp.

The bill is to streamline OAS, CPP and UIC systems. It is essentially a housekeeping bill. I hope these changes will result in increased efficiency and increased targeting for those who most need it, decreased expenditures and less abuse in the system, something we in the Reform Party stand for very strongly. However, given the usual situation with this and previous governments, I am very doubtful that will happen.

Let me give some examples. The Liberal proposals in the bill are simply not financially sustainable. In 15 years or less, spending on social programs plus interest will consume 100 per cent of all federal revenues. I will get back to that a bit later.

The proposals in the bill do not address the long term fiscal reality of declining dollars to spend on social programs and the dramatic increase in the numbers of seniors expected in the next 15 years. This mindset occurs on just about every committee the Liberal Party has chaired. Never are the ideas of how we are going to pay for all the programs we ask for ever addressed in the majority of committees that we sit on.

The Liberal proposals are not targeted to the truly needy. The Liberal proposals do not eliminate the duplication between various levels of government, a logical choice where we could officially cut costs to provide more money for other programs and to decreasing the deficit and the debt.

We in this party support the following options proposed in the minister's paper, I must admit: moving the UI system closer to a true insurance program; starting to target assistance to those most in need; a voucher system for students to replace post-secondary education; an income contingent repayment plan for student loans which would put it on the legs of financial and

fiscal sustainability; and placing more responsibility on the province for welfare programs. The problem and the single most important and fundamental threat to social programs is continued deficit spending by this and previous governments.

We have been accused in this party of being the slash and burn party that does not care about the poor, the dispossessed, the wronged, and those in the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds. That is wrong. That is a fallacy that continues to exist in the public's mind. I will try to show the House, the government and the public what we really stand for and to put forth the only solution that will rectify these problems and save social programs for those who truly need them.

Currently the debt and the interest payments are providing less money for social programs. I will explain how this happens. It will ultimately result in the collapse of all the programs because there simply will be no money for them. Who will that hurt? That will hurt those who are most needy.

The problem, as I said before, is that as the debt increases the amount of interest on it increases. Currently a quarter of all government revenues is paid purely on interest. This serves no function whatsoever. A quarter goes to spending on government services and a half to social spending.

Social spending is almost $80 billion. As interest payments go up one or two things happen: they can either take away from social spending or other programs or they can tax more, which is absolutely ludicrous. The people in the country are taxed to the hilt.

[South Africa, November 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. Secretary of State for African and Central American Affairs for recognizing the need of South Africa and continuing the longstanding relationship that our countries have had.

Having spent time working and travelling in the country, I am always struck by the enormous amount of potential that the country has both in terms of human and material resources. It can be the powerhouse that drives the whole southern half of a continent, a continent tragically that is littered with the carcasses of countries in various states of economic and political ruin.

The end of apartheid done so admirably by the country and with such extraordinary restraint is a resolution to only one-half of their problem. The other half, perhaps the more difficult one, still faces them. This is where our country can have an extraordinary effect.

We must do this given the constraints of the economic woes that we have within our own country.

The trick of course will be for the South African government to guide its country through the mine field of economic and societal problems that face it toward a productive, vibrant economy that is safe and peaceful, a society where everybody has equal rights under the law, a society where everybody has the opportunity to achieve their greatest potential.

We must do this to ensure that South Africa does not wind up on the tragic heap of African countries that have fallen to such a state of disrepair and I am optimistic that South Africa will not be one of them.

I have some questions for the hon. member. I see no amount as to the total amount of the aid package which will be given. This must be known. I would like to know exactly what projects are going to be funded and on behalf of the taxpayer request that accountability be set into the system.

I would also like to know exactly where these dollars are going in order to ensure that they are going to go to the people intended. I would encourage the member to involve a review process of the project so that we can assess and determine whether the moneys that we are spending are going to help the people who truly need them.

However, if I can synthesize the major problem that affects South Africa in its near natal stage, in its new South Africa, it will be the income disparity that exists between whites and blacks. This disparity and the extraordinary high expectations that have come post-election and how the government deals with this will be an incredibly important determining factor in the success or failure of the new South Africa.

Under the yoke of apartheid and through the sanctions, there have been bred at least two generations of people without money, without jobs and without hope which in turn has bred an extraordinarily high level of violence and many areas of siege mentality.

These expectations are asking for immediate gratification, expectations that unfortunately cannot be met in the short term. The cure for this lies in real sustainable jobs for the future which will provide the people with the funds to produce the necessities for life, education, good health and food and provide the tax structure and tax base that the government can utilize to provide for the infrastructure required.

It will also provide for a vibrant middle class, especially among the poor black populace. This is exceptionally important and cannot be underestimated. It will help to make the transition from the era of apartheid to a new South Africa one that is coherent and one that will be moving in the future for safety and prosperity for all.

I would however encourage our government and the Government of South Africa to listen to the following. Income distribution does not involve soaking the rich. It will be ineffective and counterproductive and will only drive out the skilled business sector and be counterproductive to those people who are meant to help.

It is only by retaining these skills and the goodwill of the business sector that help will be provided for the larger, broader poor and essentially the black population and enable them to improve their living standard.

It is important also for South Africa to encourage foreign investment and foreign investment from lending institutions. We must avoid quick social fixes because they do not work.

Social reform is imperative with education and primary health care and widely accessible birth control and public housing being at the top of the list. This cannot come at the expense of a free market economy but must occur in tandem.

In 1993 the government developed a $12 billion deficit. It must learn from our mistakes and not continue to spend in a deficit fashion. What it does is this. We know from our own sorry experience that it only seeks to compromise the very social programs and services that we hope to provide as governments.

It must also avoid greater government intervention. It is as we know a country that has an extraordinary amount of government intervention in its private sector. We must help it as a country to move away from that. We must therefore encourage its people to move toward privatization. We must also encourage the drop in tariff barriers and decrease the tariffs according to GATT.

Canada can indeed help this and I applaud the government in extension of the general preferential tariff. I would encourage it to remove as soon as possible the double taxation system that exists for companies that wish to invest in South Africa. This will go a long way toward helping our companies as well as their country toward a more productive, economic discourse between our two countries.

South Africa in essence needs trade, not aid, and the liberalization of trade between our two countries is of greatest importance.

I will conclude by saying that what has happened in that country has been truly extraordinary, the move by themselves away from apartheid with extraordinary divisions among the people and doing it in a peaceful fashion to move toward an era of hope and prosperity for all. I hope our country will enable them to do this within the constraints of our country's economic woes. I hope the hon. member will provide the information I asked for on the aid package that has been given.