Peter Milliken

[Business Of The House, February 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can assist in the circumstances. I have heard the representations of the hon. member for Kamloops. I recognize that he may not wish to proceed with all stages today. He will want to see what happens.

I appreciate the comments of the hon. member for Roberval very much. I wonder if it would be possible to proceed with second reading now by unanimous consent with the motion to read that the bill be referred to a committee of the whole so that on conclusion of second reading the bill would be referred to a committee of the whole. If we are able to complete that on a timely basis we will seek unanimous consent to proceed to third reading. At least we can do second reading and committee stage today, the aim being that we would complete all stages by six o'clock if possible and see how the House progresses in the afternoon.

The unanimous consent that I would ask for now is that the bill be called for second reading debate and reference to a committee of the whole at the conclusion of that debate.

[Business Of The House, February 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the House will agree now to start debating Bill C-10 at second reading and then refer it to committee of the whole, before third and final reading, thus completing all the necessary stages before adjournment tonight. I believe you will find unanimous consent to proceed through all three stages.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements And Federal Post-Secondary Education And Health Contributions Act, February 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate Bill C-3 at second reading. It amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act.

Bill C-3 is centred on the renewal of the equalization program, which is in fact the cornerstone of fiscal federalism in Canada. The objective of equalization, whose principle is enshrined in the Canadian Constitution, is to enable provincial governments to offer to the Canadian people fairly comparable public service levels at fairly comparable tax levels.

Equalization has a long tradition. It was established as a program in 1957. Even here the wartime and post-war tax rental agreements implicitly equalized provincial revenues. Indeed in 1867 higher statutory subsidies were paid to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick than Ontario and Quebec in recognition of their disproportionate loss of customs duties and excise taxes upon entry into Confederation.

Because equalization is paid only to the less wealthy provinces, it is the most progressive of the major federal transfers to the provinces. In 1994-95 it is anticipated that the government will provide about $8.5 billion in equalization to receiving provinces. This means that a provincial government along with its local governments that levies average rates of tax will have per capita revenues of $5,000 from taxes and equalization to fund public services.

However as we all know the context for this year's renewal of equalization is unprecedented. The federal government's fiscal situation is worse today than in 1992 and much worse than in 1987 and 1982, previous times of equalization renewal.

In our deliberations on renewing equalization we have balanced the need to be fiscally responsible with the singular role of equalization in underpinning the unique sense of Canadian sharing.

I think the bill is moving in that direction. It calls for an increase in equalization payments of 5.5 per cent a year for the next five years. It also provides for several changes to the tax base in order to update and improve the measurement of provincial tax capacity, which is essential to maintain the equity of the program. For the provinces these tax base updates will translate into gains of about $165 million next year and some $900 million in the next five years.

In addition, the government has promised the provinces not to amend this formula in the next five years. The provinces will then be able to plan their budgets in a stable climate.

Clearly the renewal package has to be affordable. This is why we have retained a ceiling on equalization, one that will be effective in providing protection to the federal government's ability to finance the program. The ceiling limits the cumulative growth in equalization to no more than the growth of the economy from a base year. This means for example if the economy grows 5 per cent from the base in the first year, equalization can grow no more than 5 per cent. If in the second year the economy grows a further 5 per cent, the cumulative or total two-year growth of equalization is 10 per cent.

The year 1992-93 has been retained as the base. It is a year of relatively modest equalization payout. Unlike previous equalization renewals where the first year of the term was not subject to a ceiling constraint and in fact set the base year, we have put a limit on the payout for the first year. In current fiscal circumstances it is simply not appropriate to have an open-ended first year. Having 1992-93 as the base year uses a year where the data

are close to final, that is to say subject to little revision. This will provide more certainty on payments for both the federal government and the provinces.

Now let me go into some details of the bill.

First, equalization will be renewed for the next five years. Given the commitment to maintain the structure of the formula, this will give more stability to the provinces receiving equalization payments.

Second, the level of the five provinces, namely Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, whose provincial fiscal capacity is being raised will be maintained.

Third, as I said earlier, the ceiling based on the 1992-93 fiscal year will stay in place.

Fourth, the program floors will remain unchanged. The floors provide protection to provinces against large year to year declines in equalization.

Fifth, certain tax base changes to update the measurement of the provinces' fiscal capacity will be introduced. This is essential to maintain the integrity of the program.

Sixth, the legislation will contain a means to alleviate excessive reductions in equalization for provinces with specific and exceptionally large proportions of the tax base for certain natural resources. This will remove a longstanding irritant to the provinces on this so-called tax back issue.

Finally it is important to note the base for the ceiling will be adjusted so that the provinces can benefit from the tax base updates and tax back even if the ceiling applies.

In closing, passage of this bill will have beneficial effects for Canadians and the provincial governments, providing essential services to them. It will provide for the next five years a stable funding regime for equalization. It will provide substantial support for the less wealthy provinces, underscoring the priority the government puts on equalization. It maintains the fairness and equity of the program and it is fiscally responsible. It is fully consistent with the government's deficit target.

I commend the bill for the consideration of the House. I hope with co-operation from all sides we can obtain second reading of the bill promptly this day so that it can be studied in detail in the standing committee.

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 8th, 1994]

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

[West Coast Ports Operations Act, 1994, February 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is my expectation that the debate on Bill C-3, which is scheduled to start this morning, will occupy all of the time until Question Period and so the debate on this bill will not start until later.

Of course there will be discussions with the other parties to accommodate everyone to ensure that we have a suitable time for the commencement of the debate. I am sure this will not happen until after Question Period.

[House Of Commons Standing Orders, February 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a suggestion I would be interested in discussing with hon. members that would encourage young people to participate in Parliament.

When I was in university I had the privilege of working here as a summer job for one of the ministers of the then government. It was quite a long time ago and I enjoyed it very much. I found it a tremendously worthwhile experience.

We have two avenues open to us. One is to employ summer students. Many members may be able to afford this in their budgets and I think it is a great idea. I have done so since my election in 1988 and I found it extremely helpful.

The intern program that is currently operating in the House is a relatively small program. It involves a number of individuals who are assigned for periods of months to a member's office to work there. Something the House might look at is the expansion of that program with a view to providing additional assistance to members in their office work, at the same time giving students an opportunity to learn more about the way Parliament works.

I would recommend this to the House. It could possibly be accomplished by some change in the member's budget so that the service was provided by the House. Everyone would have an intern.

That is a possibility. It is something we might look at as a House. It is certainly not government policy. It is something suggested to me by others who have been involved in the intern program, or indirectly through the intern program, and it would be a good opportunity for more people to participate.

[House Of Commons Standing Orders, February 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 104 there is already a Standing Committee on Public Accounts created by the House which is chaired by a member of the opposition. It has been a tradition in this place that a member of the Official Opposition is elected chair of that committee. I do not believe the committee has yet met, but when it does I have no doubt it will elect a member of the Official Opposition to be its chair.

The public accounts committee includes, and I quote from Standing Order 108(3)(e):

Public Accounts shall include, among other matters, review of and report on the Public Accounts of Canada and all reports of the Auditor General of Canada which shall be severally deemed permanently referred to the Committee immediately they are laid upon the table;

Therefore the Auditor General's report, which was tabled the other day, is deemed referred to the public accounts committee. It is free to study as many government departments in a year as it wishes to do. It is free to study, because those are all reported in the public accounts of Canada, which are referred to the committee and the Auditor General's report thereon is also referred to the committee.

The committee is free to undertake the study of any government department it wishes at any time. It is under the chairmanship of a member of the opposition so there is pretty free rein granted to that committee.

The hon. member may have missed it as its reports are not widely covered by the media and so we do not hear about it, but it worked extremely well during the last Parliament.

[House Of Commons Standing Orders, February 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the remarks that have been made in the debate today have been of considerable interest to the government. I will deal with the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe in due course, but I wanted to start by speaking briefly about the remarks made particularly by the hon. member Mission-Coquitlam in her speech this morning. I thank all the members who participated in the debate for their contributions and suggestions which are of considerable importance to the government.

Members on the opposite side will agree that the government has attempted to consult with them in formulating the proposals that were put forward. The general thrusts of the proposals were ones set out in the red book and we have proceeded with those. However we have added to the motion changes as suggested by members in the opposition and in the Reform Party which we think have ameliorated the motion and made it a better one for all members and for the House in general.

The hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam referred to several of the items being referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs which really are in the last paragraph of the government's motion today. The number of items being referred to the committee for consideration is a very substantial one. I know it will take the committee some time to get through it and the date for return has been omitted from the resolution. The committee is free to report from time to time its findings to the House. I am sure it will do so on some of the issues as the study is undertaken and completed.

The interest in reporting on a large number of subjects at once saves time in terms of debate in this Chamber if there is going to be a debate on the adoption of the committee's report. On some of the issues no doubt there will be a desire on the part of members to have a lengthy debate. I can see that on an issue such as recall there may be considerable pressure to do that.

On the other hand, the committee affords an excellent opportunity for discussion. The committee can hear witnesses and members are free to make speeches in committee. They can arrange to have those printed and reported if that is the interest. I look forward to a lively discussion in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs concerning the items referred to there.

I remind hon. members on all sides that this particular committee has the standing orders, procedures and practices of the House referred to it on a permanent basis. It is free to launch a study on any aspect of the rules and practices of the House that it sees fit to do and may then report those findings and recom-

mendations to the House in the form of a report. We are not in any way restricted to the items listed in the paragraph at the end of this motion if the practice or rule that we are undertaking is already part of the practice of the House.

In the speech by the member for Mission-Coquitlam she indicated that her party was interested in restructuring the committee system. I am not sure how she intended to restructure it. We have restructured it a bit. The changes were made last week. The changes contained in the motion before the House today are significant ones and in my submission give substantial additional powers to the committees of the House, particularly in dealing with government bills.

The problem as described to us by members of the Bloc Quebecois is totally different. I believe that the person who talked to all Bloc members misrepresented the implications of this resolution, of this motion. They misunderstood our proposed change to second reading and referral to committee of a bill after the first reading. This change is very significant because in the past, because second reading always took place in the House, when a bill was referred to a committee, that committee had to consider the bill as already agreed to by the House.

The committee could not change the principles of the bill. As there were several principles at stake, it was very difficult to propose admissible amendments to a bill in committee. Now we practically have a free hand. When a bill is referred to a committee after the first reading, the committee can review the bill without restrictions. That is a major change to the Standing Orders of the House. It gives all members, on both sides of the House, the opportunity to propose such amendments. So it is quite important.

I say to the member for Richmond-Wolfe that he should read this again and not listen to whoever is giving instructions over there. If they read the changes they would see that this is significant.

In fairness, the members who have spoken were not in the last House. The member for Laurier-Saint-Marie who was here was never on a committee because he was not a member of a party. The Bloc Quebecois was not recognized as a party before the last election. Like the NDP and the Conservatives now in the House, they were not allowed to be on committees. They were struck off. Therefore he did not have experience on a committee and I can understand his making this mistake.

Had the member been there and tried moving these amendments he would have been frustrated to his wit's end. Quite sensible, ordinary regular amendments could not be moved because they changed the principle of the bill or were beyond the scope of the bill as approved by the House at second reading. That is gone and those restrictions are off.

When a bill is there to amend the Canada Elections Act, for example, and it is before a committee after first reading, other amendments to the Canada Elections Act could be added to that bill before it comes back to the House.

It gives tremendous scope to members of Parliament from every side to make changes in legislation that has been proposed. It is a very significant departure and one quite contrary to anything we have had before. It is a case of the government's giving up significant control of the legislative agenda in respect of a bill when it adopts this course and refers the bill to committee.

It will be interesting to see how it works and I invite members to wait and see how it works. However, to criticize at this point as depriving the opposition an opportunity to debate the bill at second reading is unfair.

It has that effect but the opportunities thereby created are so much greater that it is a bonanza for members, particularly members who are not of the cabinet, on every side of the House to participate in the legislative process.

I also know that the leader of the Bloc Quebecois comes from the Conservative Party. He was a Conservative before he founded the Bloc Quebecois. He approaches all changes in this House with the eye of a Conservative. I do not share his viewpoint.

I am a Liberal. These are Liberal changes. These are changes that members are going to appreciate and enjoy. The fact that the Reform Party is accepting of them in such a generous way indicates that they do meet some of the objections.

We have had arguments in the House that the House is unresponsive and there is a need for changes that allow for greater participation of members in debates of particular importance at a given moment.

I recognize that a government's legislative agenda may not allow for such debates. I am delighted to see members referring to the 81st report of the standing committee on House management, as it was then called, that came in during the last Parliament which did make some proposals for changes in the opportunities for members to ask questions of ministers and for special debates on different occasions that were not emergency debates under Standing Order 52.

Those are extremely rare. We had something like five Standing Order 52 debates in the last Parliament. They were extremely rare and very hard to get. They were subject to some comment by me in that committee, but most of the proposals that were put

forward by that committee are ones that I personally support and am urging the government to consider.

I am sure that in the new Standing Committee on Procedure and House Management the members opposite who have mentioned these with favour will raise them as proposals the committee could put forward to the House. I hope they will find some support among members of the committee on all sides. If we can come up with a recommendation to make such changes it would be delightful. I note the proposal for doing so is contained in the motion the government has put forward which indicates a willingness on the part of the government to consider this.

I may say the government has shown restraint in not wishing to touch on things like question period which are principally the domain of the opposition. Members of the opposition can come forward with constructive suggestions that will improve question period and the other opportunities they have as members to participate in the affairs of the House by questioning the government ministers.

I look forward to the opportunity. I look forward to the debate. I want to say how much I appreciate the very constructive suggestions being put forward today by members on all sides as we grapple with this problem.

The lack of confidence in members of the House stemmed in large part because the last government was so inattentive to the wishes and desires expressed by Canadians. It ignored Canadians. It failed to live up to the promises it made.

In proposing this motion we are trying to fulfil the promises we made in the red book. We are interested in allowing Canadians to participate in the committee process in a very meaningful and very direct way. In my view these changes which may sound small to somebody listening to this debate outside represent a revolutionary change in the way legislation is dealt with in the House.

I look forward to having these in place and having the co-operation of hon. members on all sides as we move forward to try bills in this new process.

[Questions On Order Paper, February 7th, 1994]

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

[House Of Commons Standing Orders, February 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the hon. member's remarks very much.

I participated in a discussion last evening with his colleague from Calgary Southeast, I believe it was. I may have got the direction incorrect, but it was one of the members from Calgary and of course I cannot use her name. I enjoyed the discussion very much. I was pleased to hear the hon. member echoing the comments she made about the virtues of recall.

I have not noticed anybody's spine twitching on this side of the House, but I think there is something that the hon. member might want to bear in mind in his comments about recall. I know it is one of the things that will be studied in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs when it becomes seized of the matter once the motion has been passed. He may want to give evidence before the committee on his views on this important issue.

He might bear in mind the fact that in political life popularity of governments goes up and down. When the government goes down the opposition normally goes up but not always. Sometimes it gets fractured among various opposition parties. I need hardly remind the member there are two splinter groups sitting behind him that are no longer parties in the House. However they do have some interest and still some support among the electorate, weak as it may be. Governments, as I say, go up and down. When they go down, the opposition parties go up.

Surely the hon. member must be very suspicious and a little mischievous in proposing a recall of members when he knows that as an opposition member there will be very little call for recall in his case. When I was an opposition member the chances of anybody instituting a recall petition against me were virtually nil unless, as I say, there had been some major problem for which I might have been expelled from the House, like a criminal conviction on a very serious offence. Those are grounds for the House to expel a member. It has happened before. There are precedents for it.

On any other matter my electors are most unlikely as long as I am an opposition member to consider recalling me because I cannot do damage in a riding. It is quite impossible. The government on the other hand makes decisions that can affect ridings across the country. It has to take sometimes-