Stephen Harper

[Petitions, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition concerns a national referendum on the issue of the two official languages in Canada. It is signed by 36 citizens, mostly from the city of Calgary. I think such a referendum could succeed better with a policy based on the territorial principle proposed by the Reform Party of Canada.

(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

[Petitions, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions pursuant to Standing Order 36. The first is signed by 31 residents mainly from the city of Calgary that ask the government to amend the laws of Canada to prohibit the importation, distribution, sale and manufacture of killer cards.

I note with some satisfaction that the government has tabled draft legislation relevant to this subject.

[Bill C-18, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the Liberal member for Vancouver East who stated in an interview in the Hill Times on April 28 that she realizes the provision in Bill C-18 for imposing a two-year suspension on the redistribution of ridings does not do her province any favours. In fact it would make it almost impossible for the process to conclude before the next election. The hon. member goes on: ``One year would probably be the right approach''.

If this is the case I wonder why so many Liberals, including the hon. member for Vancouver East, chose to defeat the one-year amendment when it was brought forward by the Reform Party in the House.

This is a perfect example of why Canadians are so cynical of the representation they receive in the Chamber and why democratic reform such as free votes are essential to restore the confidence of Canadians in their elected officials.

[Overseas Tax Credit, April 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians who work abroad in natural resource industries benefit from the federal overseas tax credit. In return for spending six months of the year away from their families and working often under very difficult conditions, these Canadian workers have had their annual tax liabilities reduced by the credit.

Now as reported by Alberta Report magazine, Revenue Canada has decided to retroactively disallow the overseas tax credit to those Canadian workers employed by U.S. parented companies. In some cases this disallowance may extend back three years. This move will be an annoyance to the companies in question but it will do great harm to hundreds of ordinary Canadian workers, most of them Albertans.

I am told that the unforeseen tax bill of up to $50,000 will cause some of them to lose their homes. This is a shameful way for the Minister of National Revenue to accomplish his goal of closing a so-called tax loophole.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment, April 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am obviously disappointed with this answer.

There has been considerable speculation about the motivation for this bill. The Globe and Mail reported on March 25 that the government House leader promised in a closed meeting of Liberal MPs in early March that he would block electoral redistribution in response to the partisan and political needs of Ontario Liberal MPs.

Will the minister confirm for the House that the meeting reported in the Globe and Mail took place?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment, April 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, today as South Africans are voting in their first genuinely democratic election Canadian democracy has been taking a backward step.

Bill C-18 which is designed to block electoral redistribution until the next century has been roundly condemned in Canada, especially in British Columbia where it has been condemned by all parties, including B.C. Liberals.

My question is for the government House leader. Will the government withdraw its support for Bill C-18 now that public hearings are under way and thereby avoid possible constitutional challenges and an unnecessary confrontation with the Senate?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on third and final reading of Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. First of all, I want to state my party's position. We in the Reform Party are against this bill and continue to oppose it. It is obviously a waste of the time of independent commissions established under legislation passed by this House. Also, it is rather strange to stop the process as public hearings are starting or about to start.

I will be discussing the policy of this government as well as its motives. I must also comment on the remarks made by my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois and his party's position. I understand that the Bloc supports this bill, but I cannot figure out why.

Basically, I do not see why the Official Opposition would support the government in establishing boundaries in Quebec for elections which, they say, will never be held because Quebec will have achieved political independence. I understand the Bloc Quebecois's position on Quebec's independence, but not their position on representation in this House. I do not understand their position on this bill, not at all. I am puzzled by a number of things.

The hon. member for Bellechasse mentioned that we Reformers had moved amendments to this bill yesterday. We made the points we wanted to make. Five or six of our members have spoken on the bill. Now the Bloc, which supports the bill, continues to debate the amendments we moved and that they oppose, thereby delaying passage of a bill they support. I do not understand that and, as I said earlier, I do not see the point, for the Bloc Quebecois, of supporting suspension of the readjustment of electoral boundaries and of the number of seats in a future election if, as they claim, they are not interested in those seats because they would have no use for them in view of the events to come in Quebec.

It is a position I do not understand. I understand somewhat better the position that the government has put forward. I listened very carefully today to the words of the parliamentary secretary who gave for the first time somewhat of an explanation of how the government arrived at its position and how it has conducted itself. I will not comment on that at length. I have said a great deal about it already in the House and in committee.

If one examines very carefully the position of the parliamentary secretary, what he really is saying is that politicians should decide whether these boundaries are appropriate or not. Many of us, Liberals and apparently Bloquiste aussi, think they are not and therefore that really justifies the bill. I know there was more

sophistication to the argument than that. But I heard that as the core of the argument and that troubles me a great deal. It is a fundamentally different concept than the one we have about the redrawing of political boundaries. It is the reason we are concerned about delaying the process for two years and diverting it to a parliamentary committee, dominated by the government majority and then, of course, having on that committee an official opposition that does not think these seats are going to be important to it four years from now.

Let me just comment a little further on that. We had a committee hearing on this bill. We passed the bill on the Thursday before the House rose. Within hours we were in committee and within a couple of hours of that the bill was passed.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster and I were there. Officials from Elections Canada including the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, appeared before the committee. I want to put on the record part of the exchange from that committee if I could because it is very instructive on what the motivations for bringing this legislation were. Let us be clear. They have very little to do with the process that is now under way. I will summarize a few points from that hearing.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster asked Mr. Kingsley:

-were you yourself or Elections Canada in general consulted about the suspension of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act prior to its introduction into the House of Commons?

Mr. Kingsley: -there was not what I would call consultation with me or my office about this bill.

Mr. Hermanson: Is this unusual?

Mr. Kingsley: Well, I've been in the position for four years, and previous amendments to legislation relating to the office have involved consultation with my office-

Mr. Hermanson: -I want to know if the commissions have completed their work under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act to this point? Would that be fair to say overall?

Mr. Kingsley: The answer is yes, they have. They've done their work in accordance with the schedule and in accordance with the requirements of the statute. They are on time.

Mr. Hermanson: Do you know whether they're on budget?

Mr. Kingsley: In terms of the budget that had been fixed, the answer is yes, they are on budget.

Mr. Hermanson: Were the commissions themselves properly constituted as required under the act?

Mr. Kingsley: To the best of my knowledge, yes.

Mr. Hermanson: Was there any indication of incompetence on the commission? Were there any obvious errors or mistakes reported to you or that you observed in supervising their work?

Mr. Kingsley: The answer is no.

Mr. Hermanson: Are you aware of any meetings having been held improperly, say, without a quorum or something like that?

Mr. Kingsley: I am advised the answer to that question is no.

Mr. Hermanson: Do you feel Elections Canada was able to meet the needs of the commissions by providing the maps, the census information and other information you were required to provide to them?

Mr. Kingsley: That is certainly my view because I have heard absolutely nothing to the contrary from anyone.

Mr. Hermanson: There has been no suggestion there were inaccuracies in any of the information received? The census information was correct?

Mr. Kingsley: No information to that effect at all.

Mr. Hermanson went on to ask whether the commissions have the latitude if they hear representation from the public in the public hearing process to make more largely definable changes in the boundaries. Mr. Kingsley replied that in accordance with the statute the commissions have all the latitude they wish on that matter. That is the point of the exercise. I will go on.

I had asked Mr. Kingsley to confirm that the first notification was really with this particular bill. Did it occur after the tabling of the new proposals or the new maps? In other words I was asking if the government showed any particular interest in this to Elections Canada before there were specific boundary proposals that affected Liberal members. Mr. Kingsley confirmed essentially that yes it was after the tabling of the maps that the question was drawn to his attention.

Mr. Hermanson: Are there already a number of people who have applied to meet before these commissions? Are you aware of that?

Mr. Kingsley: Apparently requests have come in throughout the land.

I know that because I was one who along with several other members of our caucus had prepared submissions and made contact with the commissions. I should add that considerable money had already been spent setting up the public hearing process which is now under way.

Mr. Hermanson asked if a review were going on in committee, in other words the review proposed under the government's motion to look at the process, would it hamper in any way the current work of the commissions. Mr. Kingsley replied that from a purely technical point of view he would have to answer no. Of course we do have the bizarre situation that the hearings are now proceeding because the commissions have to do that in law. Of course there is still the intention to shut down the process.

I asked Mr. Carol Lesage, assistant director of operations, electoral boundaries, whether some of the people on the commissions were qualified. Mr. Lesage made the following observation: "In the majority of cases the commissioners are university professors in political science and in most cases specialize in questions dealing with representation".

In fact when I asked my research assistant to find some detailed articles on these questions so we could call some witnesses it turned out that many of the names she came up with were in fact commissioners.

I asked Mr. Lesage whether to his knowledge the commissioners had any particular partisan background. Of course the answer to that was no.

Mr. Hermanson: Has Elections Canada received extensive complaints that the process is too slow, or too fast?

Mr. Kingsley: I am advised that we have not received any complaint in that respect.

Mr. Hermanson: Have you had a large number of calls requesting more information or registering complaints regarding the maps that were distributed?

Mr. Kingsley: I remember looking at some statistics. The number of calls has increased recently as a result of this exercise at the 1-800 number.

It would appear furthermore he went on to say, that a number of those calls were directly related to the fact there were advertisements that the public hearing process was about to begin. It is now under way.

It is fairly clear there is no malfunction in this process. It simply does not suit the political self-interests of members of Parliament, particularly members of the government. It apparently does not suit the political interests of members of the Bloc Quebecois. However I do not understand precisely what those interests are. I am sure they have nothing to do with the referendum in Newfoundland 50 years ago.

There has been a certain amount of public reaction to this event and this bill in the media. Let me just review that because this is what people are reading across the country concerning this piece of legislation.

I will not go on and on about this but the Vancouver Sun said: ``So much for fair play''. That was its editorial on March 25.

The Calgary Herald of March 25 urged the government to play by the rules. The Calgary Herald said: ``The Reform Party is right. On this issue, Reform at least appears willing to play by the rules rather than work them to its own self-interests''. I have to mention that because I certainly do not have an endorsement from the Calgary Herald for the election and I do not suspect I will have one in the future. However, I think it is worthwhile to note that endorsement.

Winnipeg Free Press , March 26: ``A Liberal fiddle''. It goes on to point out the inequities that this legislation will perpetuate.

The Montreal Gazette : ``Redrawing the boundaries. Ridings should reflect reality, not Liberal politicking''.

In La Presse of March 29, Pierre Gravel wrote: Electoral map-millions wasted''. He points out, and I agree with him, thatSince they arrived in Ottawa, the Bloc has pleasantly surprised its opponents, even in English Canada, by behaving as a responsible opposition party.'' This is an editorial from Quebec. But he also adds that ``This is the first important issue on which one can criticize it for not playing its role.''

The Ottawa Citizen , March 26: ``So much for principles. Crass partisan interference by the Liberals in the redrawing of electoral boundaries ensures the next elections will be unfair''.

Edmonton Journal March 26, Norm Ovenden: ``Liberals protect personal kingdoms. Proposals from independent commissions for new riding boundaries would have cut some MPs out of the political picture''. Of course some of them may be cut out in any case.

The Globe and Mail wrote a number of articles on this. One in particular I want to quote at length: ``Ottawa moves to scuttle revisions to riding boundaries. Grits cut off debate, introduce law to help process of redistribution. Using arguments that affected MPs traditionally raised at boundary revision time, Liberal MPs said yesterday that the proposed changes would disrupt traditional communities and social links within ridings and would eliminate historical riding names. The realignment of rural ridings to give them similar numbers of residents to urban ridings would also make them larger and more difficult for MPs to travel''. That is what we heard.

"However, at a closed caucus meeting two weeks ago, Liberal MPs from central Ontario said that the boundary revisions would adversely affect local campaign organizations especially in weakly held ridings. The MPs burst into applause when Solicitor General Herbert Gray, the minister responsible for elections legislation, promised that the government would block the process. The government's move to close off debate yesterday prompted some dissension within the Liberal caucus. Some senior ministers objected to using time allocation so early in the party's term on an issue not crucial to Liberal policy or programs".

"Sources say some Liberal MPs facing another four years with hugely overpopulated constituencies were persuaded to support the move with warnings that realignment could boost the Reform Party's chances in Ontario. Other MPs were told the government will assign additional constituency staff to crowded ridings". I should add that all three parties have agreed to assign this additional staff through the Board of Internal Economy, which we did in any case.

We all know we cannot believe everything we read in the newspapers. However this is a disturbing report, not refuted to my knowledge by anybody in the government to this point. I think the motivations, perhaps not as openly painted by Liberal members as in the article, have been clearly expressed in the Commons that this does affect personal political needs.

I want to shed a little more sympathetic light on this situation. First of all I am glad to see in that article, and I did suspect and have reason to believe there are Liberal MPs and cabinet ministers who do not support what is going on. I wish they had been listened to here.

However I do think there is a problem we should be frank about. Why has this particular issue proceeded this way at this time? In the past there has been a ruckus and concern about riding redistribution. There always will be. Sometimes in the past Parliament has intervened to change the process but it has always given a public policy reason before. It has changed the amending formula in the Constitution that only it can alter, some of the particulars of that. It has through that suspended the process and it has restarted again. Never has it stopped the process without a clear public policy objective other than to study it.

Why did that happen this time? I think the reason is very clear. I saw the map in the Ottawa airport recently. The partisan map of Canada after the last election is very interesting. I know there are some differences here and there, but if you stand back a few feet you see a green bar on one side, the Reform Party and our strength in Alberta and British Columbia. You see a red bar through Ontario where the Liberal Party won most of the seats. You see a purple bar through Quebec where the Bloc Quebecois won almost all of the francophone majority ridings; most of the ridings won by the Liberal Party were ridings with larger anglophone or allophone populations. Then there is another red bar on the other side of Quebec in Atlantic Canada.

What does that mean? It means that you cannot go to an independent commission and make proposals that appear to be sticking up for your own riding without appearing to be against a caucus colleague. You cannot say your riding should be altered a certain way and therefore change the riding next to yours, unless of course you get together as caucus colleagues. That has made it more difficult. I sympathize with that situation because we have had to deal with that in our caucus in terms of preparing our own submissions.

As difficult as that situation is, that cannot block redistribution forever. It certainly is not right to have people represented in the year 2000 on a census that was conducted in the early 1980s. That is ridiculous.

With that all said this is an argument for many, many things. It is an argument for the independence of the process. As the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster pointed out to me today, it is probably also in many ways an argument for the Reform Party policy of fixed election dates every four years.

It is an argument for some of the things that have been raised to restore the Senate to its role of regional representation. It is also an argument for the need for a second chamber. When there is a dominant majority in this Chamber that operates on confidence and insists that the most wildly unjustifiable thing go through and it slams it through as quickly as possible, there is an argument for an elected independent or second legislative chamber. I repeat elected. It would reconsider that measure and force the government and force the House of Commons into some reasonable compromise.

The Senate itself is in a very awkward position in these kinds of situations. The Senate has a clear legal and constitutional mandate which allows it to revisit and to block any piece of legislation. Its unelected status puts it in an extremely difficult position. I am not going to mince words on this, but I hope the Senate studies this thing as carefully as it believes it should be studied. I hope it examines very carefully all the questions, including the constitutional question. To delay this past the year 2000 is in fact a potential violation of our Constitution.

If the Senate believes that is the case, the appropriate thing for it to do, because of its unelected nature, would be not to block the bill, not to vote it down, but insist that the government get a constitutional reference to the Supreme Court on this so that we can be sure that we are not doing anything that is constitutionally or legally untoward. That is very important.

I have spoken a lot on this bill before. I have spoken at length today. Our point is clear. There will be other speakers from the Reform Party and I believe they will all be opposing the bill and we will be opposing it at third reading.

In closing I would like to move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following therefor:

Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, be not now read a third time, but that it be read a third time this day three months hence.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 12th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to report stage of Bill C-18, an act to suspend the electoral boundaries readjustment process. Specifically I will take a few minutes to speak on the amendments presented by my colleague from Kindersley-Lloydminster.

Those amendments fit into two categories. The first amendment would limit the suspension for 12 months. The second one would formally keep the commissions that are established and in existence pending the suspension so that they could restart their work in the event it was required.

Both these amendments are not really our preference. Our preference is that the bill not proceed. Let me make that absolutely clear. We have suggested these particular amendments to put the government to the test on a couple of its stated reasons for proceeding and some of its concerns.

The 12 month period is very clear. We have examined the bill and the issue. It seems that if we look at a 24 month suspension as proposed in the bill we are looking at a possible constitutional problem.

Obviously there are different legal opinions on that. The government's own lawyers do not see it that way, but the argument is really quite straightforward. We would suspend the process for 24 months. The process that would then have to go into effect under the law would be the existing process which would restart from scratch. All the previous money spent would have been wasted.

Then we would have a process that would clearly not be completed until after the next election which means the results could not be implemented until the subsequent election. That subsequent election would be after the next decennial census.

Our Constitution requires that we redistribute seats in the Chamber once every 10 years. In effect the purpose of the bill is to violate the Constitution. It clearly violates the demand that the seats be readjusted every 10 years. If the bill were to go through in its current state that would be the legal state. The Constitution would not be obeyed as a consequence of the particular piece of legislation.

The government may argue that in the meantime it will have another process, that it will actually start sooner and all the other considerations, but that is not the legal state created by this piece of legislation.

It is a fairly innocuous amendment. Those who really want to pass the bill could accept this amendment. It would make no difference to their overall agenda here. It is very clear what that is, but they could pass this one in good faith.

Also in good faith they could pass the amendment to allow the existing commissions and commissioners to remain in place. The opposition to this particular amendment is even more bizarre. Some of the arguments we have heard privately and publicly are that we might have to pay these people, as if we could not suspend their pay during the period in question. One member told me they might die in the next 12 months. They might die even if the process continues. I am not sure what particular difficulty that would cause.

Of course we get into the whole argument that all this would save money. With this particular debate we are suspending the process, getting rid of the first $5 million we spent so that we can save money. In the end we restart the process from scratch. We spend all the money we spent before; we spend it over again and then we spend some more.

This is an interesting way to save money, even if there were money to be saved. We could propose on the floor of the House that we suspend the next election altogether. After all elections cost money. Why do we not just sit here forever? I am a young

guy. I could use the job. Maybe I do not want the job that long, but I could use it for a few more years. Why do we not just forget about having elections, save money and suspend the electoral process? These are very peculiar reasons.

Let us look at the history of this matter. The intent is very clear in the way the debate has proceeded. The bill was introduced at first reading and had only been on the Order Paper for a couple of days when we proceeded to second reading. At second reading the government was not prepared to put up many speakers. The benches over there emptied. The wind whistled through and the tumbleweeds blew through. There was really nothing to say on this legislation. We put up some speakers to provide debate on the issue, as did the New Democratic Party. Immediately, after one day of debate, it was labelled as a filibuster. As a consequence closure was brought in for the first time in this Parliament.

What is happening now is that the government decries-and the Bloc Quebecois speaker this morning decried it-that in the meantime they are having public hearings, that the commission has not listened, that Elections Canada has not listened, that they are proceeding with public hearings and that they have to be stopped.

This illustrates precisely why we have this kind of process. Politicians are not supposed to be in charge of it. Elections Canada is an independent agency. The law is on the books. All of that is fairly transparent.

Let me quote no other expert than the hon. member for York South-Weston. In the Globe and Mail of March 25 the following statement on which I will elaborate at third reading appeared: ``It is hard to see what was done here as anything other than self-interested politics, said renegade Liberal MP John Nunziata of Toronto. It makes no sense other than for self-preservations and MPs' convenience''.

That is a frank statement. We all know there is no public outcry over this matter. There is a public hearing process for people who want to discuss it, but there is no demand out there that we stifle the process of redistribution and start it all over again.

The government is bringing in a related motion saying that we should study the process. That is perfectly valid. I said before that we were studying just about everything Parliament is supposed to be doing; we are studying rather than acting. We could study the process of electoral boundary readjustment. That would be valid. If we are to do that I would suggest we really should be doing it for the next time. Now that this process is under way and has already been suspended once before I do not think there is any way we could get ourselves involved in it without the fairly obvious charges of gerrymandering and the other things we are beginning to read about in the newspapers. That is how we should be handling the particular issue.

On the number of seats we repeat once again our offer to the government. When processes have been suspended or changed in the past it has been because there has been an alteration to the amending formula. If there really is concern about costs and the number of MPs we would be prepared to support an amendment to that effect. It would provide a reason to suspend the process the public would support. In the absence of that there is no reason given.

Let me just conclude by making one last statement. I noted very carefully the remarks of my friend from the Bloc Quebecois who talked about Quebec's need for one quarter of the seats in the House of Commons. I have wondered what was behind the Official Opposition being involved in a government desire to change the rules of the electoral game. I hope it is not another back door Meech Lake or Charlottetown. That particular provision is not helpful.

As the hon. member for Kamloops indicated the real loser is British Columbia. The real opposition to the particular direction of setting up a quarter of the seats was by British Columbia. It would require a constitutional amendment. I hope there is no way we will come up with a back door formula through this process that will produce that kind of effect. I look forward to saying more at third reading.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, March 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-17, the omnibus bill on the implementation of a number of measures in the recent budget. I am doing so on behalf of the hon. member for Lethbridge who is unable to be here. He has asked me to make a few comments on the general orientation of our caucus toward the bill and some of the measures in it. I will also take some time to comment further to that on some of our specific concerns with regard to the sections on transfer payments to the provinces, the area for which I am specifically responsible in the bill.

Before doing so I would like to take a moment to draw to the attention of the House that Ernest Manning High School in the south part of my constituency of Calgary West has been holding a model parliament this week where they are debating many of the same things. I had been scheduled to attend their model parliament today but due to this commitment and other commitments particularly with regard to Bill C-18 and the committee hearings we had last night, I was unable to depart Ottawa.

I have had the honour on many occasions in the past to attend model parliaments at Ernest Manning High School. If my experience is any example, I am sure the students would have much to recommend to the House in terms of not only the informed level of debate but also the democratic procedures that are in place in that particular parliament.

Having said that, let me move to Bill C-17. As I indicated in earlier remarks today when we were discussing a point of procedural order, our party would be opposed to this kind of measure, to an omnibus approach to government legislation. In my remarks today, specifically to start with, I will deal with the five general parts of the bill: part I which applies to public sector compensation considerations; part II, the cuts in the Canada Assistance Plan and PUITTA transfers; part III, the reductions in transportation subsidies of various kinds; part IV, the authorization of borrowing authority for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and finally part V, the significant changes to unemployment insurance.

Our party has mixed views on these various items. It is unfortunate that the nature of the legislation itself would not allow us to independently support some of the more desirable aspects of the bill, at least at the voting phases.

In part I, public sector compensation, the effect of the measure as in the budget is to extend wage freezes that have been in place now to the end of 1997, saving the government up to $1.5 billion over the next three years. In the zero in three deficit reduction program Reformers ran on during the election, we supported general reductions to the costs of the federal bureaucracy, the civil service, and to some degree civil service compensation, although certainly we would prefer to see most of the savings in the public sector concentrated on non-wage overheads.

However it has been our experience that in the private sector-and, as members know, my area in particular is dominated by private sector activity-a general lack of raises in private sector wages has been the norm for several years now and downsizing in many organizations has been commonplace. In comparison, the public sector has been relatively lightly affected by the ongoing recessionary problems that we believe ultimately originate in the public sector through not only the expenditure practices of governments but also their taxation policies and taxation responses to deficit situations.

Public sector compensation has continued to remain generous during this period and downsizing relatively light compared to that experienced in many other areas of our society. It is only justified that the public sector would experience these kinds of wage freezes during the period in question.

I hope the committee will examine some of the specific measures and some of the broadness of the wage freezes which are actually very rigid across categories and do occasionally lead to some inequities or incongruities in application. There may be some specific things the committee could do to examine, while not violating the principle of freezing the overall wage bill, whether any more flexibility could be given.

We also would like to support the one-time adjustments involved in government policy for relocation and incentive payments to workers who are being displaced from the public sector, particularly in the military area. There may be disagreement with the specific programs proposed, but I think no one questions the principle that there is a need to provide interim relief to those affected by government cutbacks. In particular we compliment the government for beginning to encourage the use of these funds toward retraining and relocation rather than just

payments that encourage recipients to welfare when adjustment payments run out.

We strongly support the freezes we are applying to ourselves in line with this, freezes to senior people in government and to members of Parliament. We would also take this opportunity to urge the government once more to make substantial cuts in benefit related areas to members of Parliament that are out of line with standards the public expects.

I refer specifically to the MP pension plan. Even the contribution levels of members of Parliament to that plan exceed normal contribution to a plan. On top of that, the government is now matching our contributions on a six to one basis to preserve the soundness of the plan over the long haul.

This simply cannot be justified at this time. I call on the government once again to bring in serious measures to cut back the benefit of this plan. It should ensure that the tremendous liabilities which have built up are not simply the responsibility of the taxpayer and that some of the current recipients who quite unjustifiably and quite irresponsibly voted themselves this kind of defined benefit also share in the reduction of the costs of the plan over the long run.

In addition I raise the concern we have in this party about non-accountable expense allowances being used as supplementary pay. These allowances are substantial. I receive a cheque of $3,000 a month for my work here but then I receive an extra $1,775 for an expense allowance for which I do not have to account. I have absolutely no problem in saying that my expenses as a member of Parliament are high and I will account for them. However I know the total value of that particular money plus the additional expense accounts in our operating budgets exceeds the expenses I incur. I am certain they exceed the expenses incurred by members who live much closer to Ottawa. That is something the House should re-examine while it is looking at the compensation of ordinary public sector workers.

Part II of the bill concerns reductions in transfer payments to the provinces, specifically in the area of the Canada Assistance Plan and the public utilities income tax transfer arrangements. I will not comment on those at great length here because I want to do so when I am finished my more general remarks. Let me just say in summary that these measures in many ways are an extension of some existing policies of government.

Nevertheless we have concerns. We do support the fact-and we said during the campaign that the government was realizing it-that transfer payments to the provinces are substantial and will be affected by any kind of long term deficit reduction plan. We are seeing the government do that. Nevertheless it is doing it without a plan. We have some specific concerns with some of the proposals here and where exactly they are going. I will discuss that in a few minutes.

Part III of the bill concerns reduction in transportation subsidies extending and deepening some reductions in the area of subsidies both to Atlantic sectors and to western grain sectors of our economy. During the campaign our party had called for a general reduction in money spent in the area of subsidies to transportation.

We would prefer rolling together all grain transportation moneys for farmers along with other agricultural programs into a series of two or three programs. That would basically have the effect of giving individual farmers much more choice in how they utilize government assistance, particularly in the area of the type of transportation and the methods of transportation chosen to move their product. That is the direction in which we would like to go.

We emphasize, though, that we only support the continuation of these subsidies as long as there is not an equal playing field with regard to the farm situation internationally. We favour a multilateral approach through the GATT to reducing these international subsidies. In line with that we would see our subsidies drop as well.

I note that this question came up once before in the House of Commons. The government insisted that was everyone's position but of course it is not. There are people in this country and particularly in other countries who are opposed in principle to any kind of reduction in this area. We will not sacrifice our farm sector when other farm sectors are not experiencing similar reductions.

Part IV of the bill, as I indicated, is the part that perhaps gives us the greatest difficulty. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is being given its own borrowing authority for the first time in its history in the magnitude of $25 million. This is a thinly veiled attempt to give the CBC more money without increasing its direct grants. We have already seen the government restructure the downsizing, the subsidy reduction program to the CBC, and spread it over a number of years to allow it to be less costly to the broadcasting corporation and more costly to taxpayers.

What assurances do we have that in next year's request for moneys the CBC will not include the increased costs of paying back these loans as yet another financial need? In other words it could be a backdoor way for the CBC to get increased funding once again.

In our view there will have to be a thorough examination of whether we support a large or small reduction to the budget of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a significant re-evaluation of its role and its mandate. Particularly as technology

advances and we see these tremendous changes in the world, we recognize that the CBC will have to be re-examined.

Whether or not the government likes it, shortly we will have the choice of hundreds of television stations for ordinary viewers. The CBC will be in a very different position than what it was when this kind of policy was first brought on to the stage. In recent years the CBC with this borrowing authority has been increasingly forced, like it or not, to compete, to go out into the market to raise revenues.

With the implied backing directly or indirectly of the Government of Canada, it is crowding out the efforts of private advertisers and private investors to fund their own activities, their own borrowing and expansion requirements, at a time where money is very tight in the markets. The complaint I hear constantly from people in the radio and television business, not only in Calgary but in other cities where I visit, is that the CBC is not on a level playing field.

It is a very tight and very competitive business right now. We know that a large percentage of private radio stations, for example, have gone out of business in the past several years. This is not the kind of competition they look upon favourably.

We need to decide whether CBC should be strictly a medium to promote and produce Canadian television or whether it is a market player just like other stations. If so, does it compete on a level basis or does it have an unfair advantage? Before we extend this kind of borrowing authority we should be asking what mechanisms are in place to ensure the investments made by borrowing this money are profitable. Ultimately the CBC is fully supported by the Government of Canada and may lack the necessary incentives to invest prudently.

Part V of the bill concerns the government's changes to unemployment insurance. As I have said in previous speeches on the budget, these are the most significant changes in the bill and we certainly support the general direction the government is taking.

In the second year of implementation of these changes, we will be saving the taxpayers in the order of $2.4 billion. This is a significant amount of money. It is certainly the most significant expenditure reduction in the budget. It is also a very significant reduction not just for the money saved but for the direction the government now appears to be mapping in this area which is very much along the lines of what Reformers have been advocating for a number of years.

These changes are an important signal to the marketplace. The government is hinging a great deal of faith on holding its budget through the first year to try to keep things on track, convincing the marketplace that this is the direction it is looking at and that it is looking at only less costly social programs in the future but much more responsibly structured ones.

It hopes the marketplace will buy this signal even though it is really the sole big dollar application in the budget and will be able to hold off any kind of precipitous developments in the financial markets toward the dollar and toward the Government of Canada in the next year.

As I said in my speech on the budget, that is the gamble the government has taken. I would note that except for this measure, the will is not in this budget. It is very unclear at the moment with the problems we have with interest rates and the dollar that the market is accepting this signal as the real direction of the government.

Let me mention the good things in this development with unemployment insurance. There are several. First, it shows the government is moving in a good direction by not only reducing expenditure but also reducing payroll taxes.

What is interesting is that the government claims reducing the payroll tax is one of the centrepieces of its job creation program. It is nice for us to see that the Liberals are acknowledging that decreases in these types of taxes are a real solution to the job creation problem and to the unemployment dilemma we have in the country. Certainly it is a more effective approach than things like the infrastructure program, an approach we hope they will expand in the future. We need to stimulate through tax relief sustainable private sector job creation. That really should be the focus of our economic strategy.

The second desirable point about this is that the change proposed by the government to unemployment insurance is making the program more of a true insurance program rather than simply a haven for seasonal workers to top up their income, in other words, an income support program.

The long run drift of the unemployment insurance program from insurance principles has been extremely costly in the number of dollars spent but also many economists would agree it has had a lot to do with the increase in structural unemployment and the distortion of the regional economies.

Through the changes the government is proposing in the bill and in the budget, it is taking us down the path of linking through contributory programs like UI, contributions to the program much closer to the benefits that one is eligible to receive. Of course that is really the justification on which such contributory programs should operate.

The third point in the government's proposed changes to unemployment insurance is that it is good to see the Liberals slowly crumbling their mantra of universality. I have already noted that while the government has attacked us on our proposed changes in these areas, for example changes to seniors' programs, the government itself has taken absolutely no steps to restore the clawback to old age security which it fought when it

was in opposition. In fact it has gone additionally in that area. It has now imposed means testing on some of the tax benefits to senior citizens. This is another example of getting away from universality. We could disagree with the specific mechanism but the drift is definitely there. In the case of unemployment insurance there has been an increase in benefits for lower income Canadians under some circumstances and a decrease for others.

The government is moving in all of these directions, and I repeat them: the reduction of payroll taxes, the return to a link between contribution and benefit in unemployment insurance, in other words, insurance principles and finally a move toward some targeting in this program and away from universality.

These are all positive aspects in our view. I also acknowledge they were difficult decisions. The changes will be significant for the people affected and this particular decision I am sure will not be an easy one for the government although it will have our support. I regret it is one of a very few difficult decisions contained in the budget.

I want to express one reservation. There is also a change which gives employees the benefit of the doubt when dismissed for misconduct. In our view it has the potential of encouraging employees to dispute all dismissals in the hope of collecting premiums. This could clog up the system and result in increased claims. We hope the government in committee will examine the direction it is going although I would acknowledge that some of the things the previous government did in that area were questionable.

Finally, we also acknowledge the need for the pilot projects that are part of the bill and we urge the government to keep the House current on the spending of this money and to report to the House evaluations of the success of these kinds of projects. Too often in the past we announce initiatives for the sake of lessening the impact of unpopular measures. These continue permanently, they are never properly evaluated and they end up being simply a way that we mitigate the effect of having tried to save money in the first place.

Having said those things, I regret we are unable to support the bill over all. There are many things we do support but do not support the bill over all because of its omnibus nature.

I would also like to comment very briefly on the position taken by the Bloc Quebecois regarding Bill C-17, an act to amend certain statutes to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 22, 1994.

I may add that most of the measures in this bill concern specific cuts in the government's budget, especially the government's proposed cuts in unemployment insurance.

Apparently, the Bloc is opposed to this bill, as it is opposed to any major changes proposed by the Reform Party which concern major government programs, and I find this disturbing, because I see a party that is in favour of the greatest change of all, the break-up of this country.

When we talk about federal programs, programs created under the federal system, our party is proposing major changes, while the Liberals are proposing changes that are as significant as ours, but when the government starts to discuss issues that are vital to the future of our country, we see that the Bloc is always opposed to these changes.

I find it hard to explain to my constituents why a party that cannot abide the Canadian federal system still supports federal programs and in fact supports the status quo.

The Bloc Quebecois is always prepared to recognize the benefits of federal programs and it does so clearly and incisively, but when it talks about what is wrong with the federal system and especially about the programs we are discussing here, they tend to lack that incisiveness. I must say that I find it hard to understand why they are opposed to the system, to the program in general, while they are not to specific cases.

I hope that we will get a better understanding of these positions as we debate these things in the future.

If I could for a few moments turn specifically to Part II which is the area of my particular expertise, the fiscal arrangements section of this bill, I note that it affects two areas, the Canada assistance plan and the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act.

The Canada assistance plan changes are in clause 12 of the bill and the purpose is to limit future federal CAP contributions to each province to the amount they received in the year ending March 31, 1995 until superseded by social security program reform in fiscal 1996-97.

Our position generally has been to recognize the need for reduction in the area of federal transfers and specifically in the area of welfare. I guess what we ask is why we are imposing targets for reduction in the absence of any particular policy for change and even in the absence of any particular policy direction that would indicate what the changes would be.

In our view there have already been inequities created through this situation. The previous government brought in specific caps to the payments that went to the so-called have provinces:

Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, caps that reduced quite significantly the expected revenue of these provinces from federal transfers for welfare payments. This has been a big problem in the case of Ontario.

This seems to be happening without an overall plan and now we are asked to implement additional projected cuts. Once again we do not know where this is going. In fact, we have various committees studying these things at the moment.

I am concerned about the lack of restructuring of the program, the lack of overall financial direction, just these arbitrary reductions. What is interesting is they are done really on the basis on which the Liberal Party often criticizes us, saying we are slash and burn, we have no plan and we just cut the dollars. In fact, this is precisely what this bill does. It lays out some areas for reduction to a significant social program and provides absolutely no rationalization why that would be done or plan to implement it.

Just to give some idea of the money involved, Canada assistance plan payments have been a rapidly growing area of government expenditure. In the last 10 years they have grown from $3.4 billion in 1984 to approximately $7.7 billion in fiscal 1993-94. They are projected to grow by another 5.4 per cent this year. Obviously we can agree with the fact that there does need to be some reduction.

The social assistance case load in this period has grown from about 750,000 in March 1980 up to 1.6 million today. I would point out once again to hon. members that the period of massive deficits, structural deficits, ongoing deficits and accumulation of debt has not been a period in which we have produced jobs in economic growth but one in which we have restricted and stifled it. I once again would ask the government to re-examine its view of the link between financial mismanagement at the federal level and job creation.

The ministers often assert that there is a positive link between deficits and job creation. I think the evidence is increasingly otherwise. There are projected savings from the reforms here of $466 million up to 1995-96. These are significant amounts of money. However, once again I suggest that we do not know the direction and we are concerned about further penalization of particular provinces as we had in the past as opposed to something that may treat all provinces much more fairly.

Clause 13 of the bill is the changes regarding the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. What this really does is preserve the current 10 per cent reduction of transfers under that act for an additional period of time.

Just to inform the House, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act exists because in some parts of the country, particularly Alberta but not exclusively, utility companies are private sector whereas generally speaking they are public sector utilities. As a consequence the operations of these corporations are subject to taxation whereas crown corporations are not taxed in the same manner. This has given rise to an inequity that is compensated for by the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act which transfers back to the provinces some of the corporate income tax revenues that are taken out of certain provinces because they are private sector companies but not out of other provinces.

The purpose of this program has been to create a level playing field in other words. This is obviously undone when we begin to freeze or reduce these kinds of payments.

By the way this goes back to 1948. We recognized this inequity a long time ago. From 1966 on we refunded to the provinces virtually all, about 95 per cent, of the moneys that were collected from private utility companies back to the provincial governments. It was only in 1990 that we began to effectively freeze these payments. It had been done in the past but was reversed. However, in 1990 we started the pattern of freezing payments at fixed levels and of reducing the percentage that will be returned to provincial governments. In our view that is not fair.

It has a particularly unfair effect on the province of Alberta which is the major beneficiary. These tax revenues in other provinces are generally retained by the province, but in Alberta the province rebates these tax revenues to the utility companies with the stipulation that they must be passed on to their customers. In other words the purpose here is not to allow the operation of the Income Tax Act to lead to higher utility prices in the province of Alberta.

I suggest that the purpose of the act is fair. The government proposes to continue the present reductions in freezes that the Conservatives implemented. It is certainly no worse than we have at the current time but it is not an issue of equity.

I come back to that time and time again when I speak about transfer payments and how we change transfer payments to the provinces, whether it is through the equalization formula on which we have already had a bill or through cap changes here or through PUITTA changes.

In all cases what we see are programs that proceed without a plan. We either give money with minimal restriction in the case of equalization or cap it in the CAP or in the case of PUITTA. We have no particular rationalization for these things. The common theme seems to be that certain provinces, of which mine is one, seem to always come out at the short end of these non-systematic changes and revisions to policies that transfer money to provincial governments.

I remain unclear of what my view is of these measures. I can support the philosophy of the CAP transfers but I do not know where they are really headed or what the public policy purpose is. In the case of the PUITTA transfers I do not support the philosophy but I do recognize that the government has not introduced additional cuts. Of course we would fight that quite strongly. Those are measures we are going to have to examine in committee.

I see your signal, Mr. Speaker. I believe there will be other speakers on some of the other matters. I say once again there are things in this bill to recommend it. I just regret that we are proceeding with this omnibus approach to legislation which, because it lumps in things we support and things we do not support, unfortunately deprives us of the ability to support the government in votes where that would be appropriate.

I appreciate very much your patience, Mr. Speaker. I believe we will hear later in debate from the hon. member for Lethbridge, who was unable to be here today, as well as other members of our party.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, March 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, if I could just comment. Of course I am disappointed that the government cannot see the merit of its own previous arguments on matters such as these.

I would ask you to consider one point that has been raised by both of my colleagues on the government side. That is to acquaint the scope of the bill with the size and the length of it and the number of pages. I think that is an entirely inappropriate consideration. We all know that the scope of the bill is not necessarily related to the volume of paper it contains. A bill could be of the absolute maximum scope conceivable and be extremely short. Likewise we had a very thick bill in this Parliament on the income tax amendments which was actually quite narrow in scope. It is the scope of the bill rather than the size that is important.

I put it once again that this bill touches on a wide range of areas of public policy, what would normally fall in the purview of several House committees to look at.

I would also point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that if you examine carefully the arguments of the government members on the tests of the relatedness of these subject matters that the only relation the government has really pointed to is the fact that they are, broadly speaking, all part of the government's legislative agenda. I submit to you that that is not an adequate test of their relationship and their relevance to each other.