Stephen Harper

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order to make a procedural argument concerning the omnibus nature of this piece of legislation.

This is a new Parliament which I think has been working reasonably well in spite of our recent difficulties. I really would like to call the attention of the Chair to the nature of this particular bill and to urge the Chair to re-examine a practice we have fallen into.

The particular bill before us, Bill C-17, is of an omnibus nature. I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that you should rule it out of order and it should not be considered by the House in the form in which it has been presented. I would hope that in making your decision on the acceptability of Bill C-17 in its present form you

will refer to the famous ruling by Mr. Lamoureux of January 26, 1971 in which he said:

However, where do we stop? Where is the point of no return? The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, and I believe the hon. member for Edmonton West, said that we might reach a point where we would have only one bill, a bill at the start of the session for the improvement of the quality of the life in Canada which would include every single proposed piece of legislation for the session. That would be an omnibus bill with a capital O and a capital B . But would it be acceptable legislation? There must be a point where we can go beyond what is acceptable from a strictly parliamentary standpoint.

Even though the Speaker in that case went on to rule that this point had not been reached, I submit to you that it has become a standard practice with governments to bring in omnibus legislation following every budget under what we might call the kitchen sink approach.

Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 626 bears directly on this aspect of the matter. It states:

(1) Although there is no specific set of rules or guidelines governing the content of a bill, there should be a theme of relevancy amongst the contents of a bill. They must be relevant to and subject to the umbrella which is raised by the terminology of the long title of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would argue that the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.

In this present case, the drafters of Bill C-17 have incorporated in the same bill the following measures: public sector compensation freezes; a freeze in Canada assistance plan payments and Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act transfers; extension and deepening of transportation subsidies; authorization for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to borrow money; and changes to unemployment insurance with respect to benefits and the payroll taxes.

First, there is a lack of relevancy of these issues. The omnibus bills we have before us attempt to amend several different existing laws.

Second, in the interest of democracy I ask: How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote in a block on such legislation and on such concerns?

We can agree with some of the measures but oppose others. How do we express our views and the views of our constituents when the matters are so diverse? Dividing the bill into several components would allow members to represent views of their constituents on each of the different components in the bill.

The bill contains many distinct proposals and principles and asking members to provide simple answers to such complex questions is in contradiction to the conventions and practices of the House.

As well this will cause fairly serious difficulties in committee. This bill will ultimately go to only one committee of the House, a committee that will inevitably lack the breadth of expertise required for consideration of a bill of this scope. Furthermore, the workload of that committee will be onerous and it will be very difficult to give due consideration to all relevant opinion.

In concluding my point of order, I would like to quote the hon. member for Windsor West, the government House leader who said on May 30, 1988: "For all the reasons I have given, I respectfully submit that this bill is of improper omnibus nature. This is consistent with what I consider and I respectfully submit to be, the relevant precedents. This is consistent with the traditions of the House and, more important, the purpose of those traditions in terms of the relevance of this House to the life of the country now and in the future".

This is a new Parliament. I do ask that we take a new approach to this in spite of previous rulings on this matter. I would ask that you give consideration to this, Mr. Speaker. I would also ask the government members, particularly those who have spoken on precisely this question in the previous Parliament with precisely the same concerns, to give serious consideration to this issue of democracy and the functionality of this Parliament now.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 24th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest the other night to the speech of the hon. member for Beaver River who talked extensively about her riding. We all remember the time she was first elected in the House to represent the new riding of Beaver River. I had the honour of being her assistant at that time and of assisting her in planting the flag of Reform in the House of Commons. That was a momentous day. Obviously she feels very strongly about some of the proposed changes under the current scheme for her riding.

I was concerned during her speech on Monday. Some comments were hurled across the way which maybe do not appear in the Hansard transcript. They really raised questions about the partisanship or lack of partisanship and integrity of Elections Canada and its senior officials. There were a number of comments hurled across the way to the effect that Elections Canada was a partisan body. Its members have strong affiliations to another political party which is no longer recognized in the House.

The hon. member for Beaver River has been a member since 1989. She has run in two elections and a byelection. Could she comment at some length on her experiences with Elections Canada as a candidate and as a lone member of Parliament for a good deal of time? Did she find that Elections Canada was a partisan organization, that it had that kind of orientation, or was she happy with her dealings with that organization as an independent member and now as a Reform member?

[Points Of Order, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I would ask you to examine the blues from Question Period. You ruled my supplementary question out of order before I had a chance to put it. My question was: "Would the government simply consider looking into these matters with its constitutional lawyer-"

[Electoral Boundaries, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we have offered to meet with the government any time to negotiate a reduction in the number of members in the House, and the government has refused to do that.

My question is on the constitutionality of this act. During the last suspension of the process, Bill C-67 in the last Parliament, considered legal opinion, indicated to a parliamentary committee at the time that there was an implied time limit for carrying out readjustment under section 51 of the Constitution Act. Delaying it past the next census was a violation of the Constitution and had an impact upon other sections such as section 42(1)(a) of the Constitution Act.

[Electoral Boundaries, March 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the House has been considering the matter of suspending the process of redrawing electoral boundaries in Canada before the public can have public hearings on the matter and after we have spent $5 million. Apparently also, we hear rumours, the government is intending to impose closure after only one day of debate.

My question is for the Minister of Justice. Will the minister inform the House whether the government sought an opinion on the constitutionality of this law before it was tabled in the House? If it did, will it table that opinion? If it did not, will it explain why not?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I took great interest in the comments of the secretary of state.

I would like to make a couple of comments. I was interested in the fact that there was the motion to extend the sitting, once again another attempt to rush this bill through.

This bill was tabled in the House on Friday and is being debated for the first time today. There has been virtually no public discussion. The public discussions the process allows for are the independent commission hearings that the bill seeks to terminate.

I find this all very interesting in that we have had a number of speakers today and this is really the first debater from another political party other than the hon. member for Kamloops who gave a very reasoned and considered intervention. We had the first two speakers from the government and from the Official Opposition. It is not questions and comments, not true debate. They just state their position. Since then we have been talking here to ourselves.

I find it peculiar this great effort we are going through to make sure that the public does not have a right to go to the hearing process.

Perhaps the hon. member could explain to us precisely why that is such an important public policy objective, why it is so important that we not get some reaction from the public before we continue to debate this particular issue?

The member raised some of problems, some of which I am more sympathetic to than others. He raised two complaints, particularly in relation to the province of New Brunswick. This bears some examination. On the one hand he noted the radical changes that the commission has proposed in some parts of New Brunswick because of population shifts. On the other hand he raised concerns about increasing the number of seats in the House of Commons.

I suppose if we were ultimately to revise the formula, which would require a revision to the senatorial clause, so that we were able to resist the increase in seats then we would have fewer seats in provinces like New Brunswick and we would have even more radical changes to the boundaries. This is what I find particularly disconcerting. The various reasons that are being used, not in this House but sort of in the hallways, for stopping this process are a complete contradiction to each other in terms of the results that they would bring about.

Besides his commenting on the necessity of killing this, as a government minister would the hon. member favour having a public policy objective to this whole thing that the public would support limiting the number of seats so that we can proceed to at least give the public some reason why we would be interested in killing Bill C-18 after we have spent $5 million on the process?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I also would like to comment on the hon. member's speech and the whole issue of change.

Members on this side who have been speaking against this particular bill are not opposed to reviewing or changing the process. What is interesting about this bill is it makes no such proposal. There is no proposal to review or to change the process in any meaningful way. It is simply to kill it and substitute nothing other than parliamentary committee hearings controlled by politicians on a matter which is supposed to be the purview of an independent commission.

Let us look at the recommendations of the Lortie commission on redistribution. The previous Parliament set up a commission to look at all aspects of electoral reform and election law. I am not saying that we necessarily approve of those things, but they were studied at considerable expense to the taxpayer of Canada. Now they are just off the table, we are talking about another study.

The Lortie commission recommended to amend the representation formula found in section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867 so that Quebec would be assigned 75 seats and other provinces would be assigned seats on the basis of the ratio of their population to Quebec. The senatorial clause would be kept. No province would lose more than one seat from a previous distribution. No province would have fewer seats than a province with a smaller population.

Of course, that formula would lead to a more rapid growth in the number of seats in the House of Commons than the formula we are dealing with today. That was the last time we spent money to discover what was wrong with the process and how we could improve it.

Actually, the Lortie commission said: "Maintain the current composition and manner of appointment of the electoral boundaries commission". The last study was not proposing that we change the method or that we kill this particular process.

One other recommendation from that commission was that electoral boundaries commissions would justify their proposals with reference to communities of interest, et cetera and discontinuance of the procedure of parliamentary committee hearings on electoral boundaries. Instead, the commissions would hold a second set of public hearings if their second proposals departed significantly from their first proposals. In other words far from suggesting that Parliament should get itself involved again in the process or in examining the process, it suggested quite the opposite.

We spent millions of dollars to find out from that particular commission that the opposite should be done. Parliament has no power to change but it does in fact review the recommendations of the boundary commission. We would actually cancel that to go to a second set of public hearings instead of one set of public hearings.

With those observations I would appreciate the comments of the hon. member for Fraser Valley West on whether those recommendations are consistent with what he is hearing from people. Do they at all affect his view of whether we need to amend this act and whether we should be doing it in this way?