Peter Milliken

[Government Response To Petitions, June 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to table, in both official languages and pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), the government's response to two petitions.

[Order In Council Appointments, June 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table in this House today, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made recently by the government.

Pursuant to Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.

[Food Distribution In Canada's North, June 16th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to participate in tonight's debate. First of all, I would like to say, however, that I am not an expert in this area. I have often travelled to northern regions of our country to do some canoeing which I enjoy. I have often noted the regular prices of goods in the North. I congratulate the hon. member for Saint-Jean for his interest in this question and for moving this motion in the House.

However I would like to stress that a reliable and affordable food distribution system is critical to the health and well-being of tens of thousands of Canadians living in northern isolated communities. This issue is one that must concern us as a national legislature in Canada.

Here in the south the issue of food distribution is not as significant for one or either of governments or residents. Nutritious food is broadly available at supermarkets or corner stores throughout the areas in southern Canada. Distribution of food

products is left in the hands of the private sector, with no demand for or need for government involvement.

In the north the situation, as the hon. member has indicated, is dramatically different. Many communities are isolated and do not have year round surface access so food supplies must be delivered in some cases by air and in other cases by sea. Perishable foods, which as a rule are the most nutritious, are very difficult to arrange for in some of these communities. The expense of transporting perishable foods to remote communities increases their cost to consumers. The hon. member provided the House with a list, the variety of which I have seen in my northern experiences.

These areas are not only isolated but they are often economically depressed. In some communities unemployment is as high as 85 per cent. Many families are living on social assistance, supplemented by whatever commodities they can harvest from the land.

The northern food mail program therefore is vitally important. It subsidizes the cost of shipping perishable, nutritious foods to isolated northern communities, and puts these basic necessities within the reach of northern families. On many of the flights I have taken to various places in the north I am aware that the plane is filled with bread, eggs, milk and other perishables that are shipped to these communities. However, even with the assistance of this program, it is extremely difficult for families to afford the proper and nutritious food that is demanded. Without the program it would be virtually impossible to do so.

I again stress that the prices the hon. member listed are not exaggerated. I am not exaggerating when I say the situation in the north would be desperate without this program. Government studies show that a family of four in isolated communities in the Northwest Territories would have to spend between $260 to $280 a week, or between 85 per cent and 110 per cent of their after shelter income for a basic diet. That is about twice the cost of a comparable basic diet in southern Canada.

I would remind hon. members that Canada is a signatory to the United Nations declaration on the rights of the child. One of those rights is the right to adequate nutrition. Children should not go hungry, especially in our country.

There can be no question in my submission as to the need for the program. The only question is what form the government subsidization for food distribution or food costs should be. We stress it is essential for the health of northern residents. It is also fair to say that the current program is achieving its intended purpose, notwithstanding the suggestions made by the hon. member.

The northern food mail program is strongly supported by the communities it serves, by the food distribution companies, by the merchants that form part of the distribution system and by the consumers. Canada Post, which ships food products and other essential goods by air, has been a willing and vital partner in the program.

In spite of all that, I commend the hon. member for Saint-Jean for urging the government to reconsider the current northern food distribution system. There is always room for improvement and governments should be continually looking at new approaches to program delivery.

Therefore I am extremely pleased to inform the House that the government has already taken steps to re-evaluate this program. In April the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Minister of Health committed their departments to a full review of this essential service for the next year.

This review will build on an evaluation of the program that was undertaken by consultants last year. It will include consultations with all the key stakeholders, including northern residents, merchants, air carriers, provincial and territorial governments, and aboriginal organizations.

This consultation process is fully in keeping with the red book commitment, and I know the hon. member has read the red book extensively, to ensure that aboriginal people are fully involved in decisions that affect their lives. Toward this end, regional consultation meetings will be held in the north this September and October. Written views and recommendations will also be accepted by the government.

My hon. colleague will be particularly pleased to hear that an interdepartmental committee is currently looking at terms of reference to guide this review. In addition to Health Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the committee has representations from the Departments of Finance, Agriculture, and Human Resources Development, the Treasury Board and the Privy Council Office.

This review will look at the issue of food distribution in the north from a very broad perspective. It will not just consider how much money is being spent or needs to be spent under the northern food mail program. It will address the fundamental question of whether or not this is the best way to ensure that northerners can meet their needs for food and other essential goods that are currently shipped under the program.

It will review alternatives for food distribution and food costs subsidization including income support to ensure that people have money to buy the essential foods. The role of local food production, processing, and intersettlement trade will also be considered.

The review may tell us in the end that the essential structure of the program is solid but that some fine tuning is needed. It may tell us that a completely new approach is needed, or that the program should be developed and looked after by another level of government, or indeed by an independent organization.

In the meantime, hon. members have the government's assurance that funding for the program in its current format will continue. In 1994-95 a total of $14.1 million will be available for the food mail program. The bulk of this, some $13.6 million, will come from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The remaining $500,000 will be contributed by Health Canada. This level of funding should be sufficient to maintain the postage rates at the current levels until March 31, 1995.

In closing, I want to say that I of course am not an expert on this subject. I have had some experience as I have indicated in the course of my remarks, but I am not an expert. The remarks I am alluding to and am in part reading have been prepared for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development who is tied up at a committee meeting tonight and is unable to be here to deliver this particular speech. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate on his behalf and on behalf of the government.

In conclusion, this House must acknowledge that the northern food mail program has proven to be an effective and efficient way of making food and other essential goods more affordable in isolated northern communities. As a member who travels there occasionally I am pleased to support it. I am confident that if any improvements can be made either in the short term or in the long term, they will be identified in the course of the review which the government has under way and which will be reporting in due course.

I thank the hon. member for raising this issue in the House.

[Questions On The Order Paper, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Government Response To Petitions, June 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to four petitions.

[Recall Act, June 14th, 1994]

But you are provoked.

[Recall Act, June 14th, 1994]

I think my hon. friend is being unkind to say several times a day.

The other thing we have to stress is the need for members of Parliament when elected to withstand the ups and downs of popularity. I know that the hon. member for Beaver River must be suffering a little now because if the Liberals are 52 per cent the Reform must be at something else in Alberta and it has to be something considerably less than 52. I do not know what it is. Maybe she knows the figures and would like to tell us about that in a subsequent speech.

The fact is our popularity will go up and down. I know that our popularity stayed very high for a long time. My suspicion is it will stay high for a while yet but there will be a day, I am sure, when our popularity will go down. However, I do not think that parties and members of Parliament should be put in a position where they can be recalled, particularly at the nadir, when things are in real trouble for the party because things have gone wrong.

In a cycle of four or five years there are ups and down. I believe that members should be free to serve their term to the end and express the views of their constituents and of the country and vote in accordance with that combination of wishes that are known to them by Canadians across this land.

I hope that would be the case and that we would not seek to regionalize our party structure, our representation, by instituting recall on members so that at times of difficulty they face recall.

I urge members on all sides of the House to consider that very carefully in their votes on this bill.

[Recall Act, June 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little reluctant to take part in the debate today because this matter of recall is being studied as we speak by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs which I have the honour to chair.

In spite of that, I have views on the subject which I will be making known in the committee I suspect on Thursday when the committee discusses this matter. I wanted to state those views for the record today since there was an opportunity to debate this bill which is very important. I acknowledge that it is an important one.

I know when the hon. member for Fraser Valley West was speaking he referred to the fact that there had been a conference in Lethbridge and there was considerable opinion at that conference that recall was a good thing. I had the honour to attend that conference. I must say that the workshop that I attended did have a straw vote and supported the notion of recall but it was not one that I supported at the time. I expressed my views on the matter at the conference.

I invite members of the House in reflecting on whether the bill should be adopted by the House or not to consider two or three points. The first one of great importance is the fact that this institution, the House of Commons of Canada, has one of the highest rates of turnover of any similar legislative body in the western world.

The average in electoral turnover for this House certainly since the war and for a longer period-I do not have the figures here for the longer period-has been at least a third of the House on average that has changed hands in every election. I am sure that number has increased as a result of the very significant turnover in the election in October last year when two-thirds of the members of the House were replaced. That kind of rate of turnover is one that is frankly intimidating to anyone seeking to enter a career in politics because it indicates that the nature of the position is so transient that members once elected can hardly be allowed to stay on for any reasonable period of time. Most members obviously serve less than two terms. They usually only serve one.

That rate of turnover in my view not only renders the House somewhat less effective than it might otherwise be because it lacks a stable number of members who have experience and are able to transmit that experience to others so that the House functions better as a legislature which is the case in some other legislatures in the world, but it also makes it more difficult for parties to operate as national organs of the state and major

players in the political process because they are unable to depend on having a reasonable number of members in the House of Commons.

One can only look today at the Progressive Conservative Party which, while some members opposite may wish that it were not a national party, still is in some sense a national party. However, it has no representation effectively in this House. Of course I would not want to detract from the abilities of the two members who are here but the fact is that it is lacking national representation in this House.

Bear in mind that we have in Canada a Parliament with a massive rate of turnover. I turn to other foreign legislatures like the House of Commons and ask is there a power of recall in any of them? The answer is no, there is not.

I invite the hon. member for Beaver River to tell me of another national legislature, not a state one and not some municipality, that has recall. I do not know of any. I do not think there is a single one.

Why should Canada be a leader in this field and change its electoral process when nobody else thinks this is smart? Everyone else thinks it is not a good idea and I suspect that Canadians probably on reflection ought to think very long and hard before they make this kind of change.

The third factor I think is important is the length of the term to which members are elected to this House. It is a maximum term of five years. In the scheme of things that is not very long. Human civilization has been around for a few thousand years. Parliaments have been elected in the United Kingdom for something over 900 years. Five years in the scheme of things is not a long term and most terms are less than that. Five is the maximum and very few parliaments run to the maximum term.

We know that Mr. Mulroney ran to a full term because he was afraid of a trouncing that he deservedly got at the polls. But most governments can approach elections with a little more confidence than old Mr. Mulroney could do. Of course he was so nervous he got out and got a successor who was less competent than he was in terms of electoral success. The fact that she is not here and that he is not here bear testimony to the fact that their success rate was poor.

Again, we do not have lengthy terms in Canada. Most members of the House serve for a four year term and sometimes it is less than that. In minority parliaments it is frequently less than that.

Again, why should we have recall added as an extra burden to members of Parliament? Imagine the situation. I invite the hon. member for Beaver River to consider this. In fact the hon. member for Edmonton North in a brilliant Standing Order 31 yesterday pointed out that since the election in October last year the polls in the province of Alberta indicated that the Liberals have moved from 25 per cent in the actual vote to 52 per cent of the electorate in Alberta. She should be quaking in her boots with news like that because if her bill was law now everybody would be running around her riding signing up people to get her out. I do not think that is reasonable.

I like the hon. member for Beaver River. I would feel badly if she were not here. The fact is she has been elected for a term and I am delighted that she is here to serve her term. I look forward to the next election. Maybe one or both of us will not be here to serve in the House after that. Why should she be put in the position of having to run to Beaver River and work in her riding day and night to get petitions signed to stop people from getting her out on a recall? I do not think that is a reasonable expenditure of time on her part. I would rather see her here having her ideas exposed in the House so the voters of Beaver River and the voters of Canada can understand Reform policy. The longer she is here, frankly the better it is for us.

I think she knows that. She would not want to face recall. Maybe that is why it is being proposed. I do not know. But that is being mischievous.

The other argument that I think is important in this is that the notion of recall is founded on the idea that members of Parliament are delegates for their communities. In other words the member of Parliament is not to think an independent thought ever. The member of Parliament is to voice the concerns of the majority of his or her community only and never think an original thought.

I do not agree that that is the case. I think many members of the public vote for a member of Parliament not because they think the person is a great delegate or will do exactly as they say. They choose a member of Parliament because they expect the MP to exercise some judgment on issues that cannot be foretold at an election but are not expected to come up and expect the MP to exercise his or her best judgment and make a decision that is in the interests not just of their own community, which of course is important, but in the interests of Canada as a whole.

I realize that with two opposition parties that are very regionalized in their approach this is a tough argument to make in this House, but it is a very important argument because members of Parliament are elected to represent not just their own communities but to represent all of Canada.

Each one of us assumes some national responsibility. We exemplify it in our travels across this country when we speak to Canadians in every part of our land.

I am proud as an MP for Kingston and the Islands to go to British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island or Beaver River and speak to electors in those areas and learn about their concerns and appreciate them so that when I exercise my judgment in voting for government estimates and for bills in this House I can give some expression to what I think is in the national interest.

It may not always be fully in accord with everything my constituents tell me but it normally is something that is in the best interests of Canadians as a whole.

Hon. members laugh but I tell them we have had more members on this side of the House vote different ways on issues than we have had from that party. Every vote in this House has been unanimous as far as the Reform Party is concerned and it is the party of the free vote.

Is that really free? I do not want to get into free votes but I am telling hon. members that if they listen to the concerns of other Canadians, if they go around the country as I have done and as I know some of them do, they will hear about these concerns. They will realize that if they are going to express the national will sometimes they are going to have to change their views.

We see these views changing now. We see the views of the Reform Party change from day to day and week to week. Frankly some of us are delighted to see that.

[Canadian Film Development Corporation Act, June 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I think Your Honour will find unanimous consent of the House to deal with Bill S-5 on the Order Paper under Private Members' Business.

[Questions On The Order Paper, June 14th, 1994]

I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.