Moreover, to show people we, parliamentarians, are really serious about the issue of the gap between rich and poor, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to make this motion votable.

The Deputy Speaker: The amendment is in order.

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Is there unanimous consent to make the motion and the amendment votable?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

[English]

An hon. member: Is it the amendment and the motion?

The Deputy Speaker: Yes. Is it agreed that the amendment and the motion be votable?

Some hon. members: Yes.

An hon. member: No.

The Deputy Speaker: There is no consent. The question is on the amendment. Questions and comments. The hon. whip of the Bloc Quebecois.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Unless I am mistaken, you asked once for consent and it was given. You asked a second time, and it was then refused. In my view, consent was given.

The Deputy Speaker: No. When I first put the question, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport asked “For the amendment?” I replied “For the motion and the amendment. Is there consent to make them votable. It is for both”.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: You are here to serve the House, not the Liberals.

The Deputy Speaker: I believe that the House has decided that the motion is not votable at this time. The question can be put again, and I can certainly do that. As members know, such a request is frequently made in the House.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, it is very clear, and perhaps the blues will show it equally clearly, that when you first asked for the unanimous consent of the House, it was agreed.

Following this consent, we heard the parliamentary secretary ask you a question, but that was after you received the unanimous consent of the House.

The Deputy Speaker: I will put the question again. Is there unanimous consent to make the matter votable?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

[English]

An hon. member: You are here to serve the House, not the Liberals.

[Translation]

The Deputy Speaker: Yes, I am here to serve the House. I am a servant of the House.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

[English]

The Deputy Speaker: The hon. member is disagreeing but I think it was clear. I asked the question. The parliamentary secretary asked a question in response. I then answered the question for the parliamentary secretary and asked the question so that the House got the question clearly. He was asking for clarification of my question about whether or not it was votable and I answered the question.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Speaker, I repeat that, when you asked for consent, you obtained it. The parliamentary secretary, who was near the curtains, moved forward after consent was given. He asked whether consent was on the amendment or the motion itself.

You obtained this consent, Mr. Speaker. If you decide to change the House's decision, to change the rules in mid-stream, it is a very sad comment on the kind of debate that is possible among parliamentarians on the issue of globalization.

[English]

Mr. Stan Keyes: Mr. Speaker, I think what is clear is that at the first instance when you first put the question, my colleague the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board said no. Then when you rose and asked the second question, I asked for clarification because I did not hear the translation in time. I asked if this was a request for unanimous consent to have the non-votable motion become votable and at that point I thanked you for that clarification. You asked the question and I said no. This is a non-votable item and it will remain so.

[Translation]

Mr. Gilles Duceppe: Mr. Speaker, here is another version of the facts. You are saying:“We said yes”. No one heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board. Earlier it was yes. Now we are getting a new version to the effect that someone said “no”. Maybe somebody thought “no”. We are here to think, I hope, but also to speak. So now there is a second version.

I hope the decision to give unanimous consent will be honoured. If that does not happen, it will be, as my colleague put it, a very sad comment on debates in this place.

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If you uphold the decision, I hope they will explain their opposition and their subservience at the time of the vote later today on hepatitis C. It is the attitude of the irresponsible.

The Deputy Speaker: When there is unanimous consent in this House for a proposal, the House must understand the question. The hon. parliamentary secretary indicated exactly what I said. He did not understand the question I put to the House. He indicated the lack of clarification on this point.

Unanimous consent is not indicated until the Speaker of the House has, after the question has been put, indicated that it has been given and the matter decided.

I did not make such a pronouncement or decision, because I have entertained the question. The issue is very clear and the matter is now closed.

We now continue with questions and comments.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The Deputy Speaker: If it is on the same matter, I will not hear other arguments. I have heard enough arguments on this point.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Mr. Speaker, I will speak no more than ten seconds. When we sought unanimous consent, the parliamentary secretary was not present. He cannot therefore say that he was opposed. Therefore there was unanimous consent.

I would point out that I will not give unanimous consent for you to seek another vote again.

[English]

Mr. Ovid L. Jackson: Mr. Speaker, I was in the House at the time and I said no. Maybe it was not loud enough, but I said no and shook my head. I was in the House at the time.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Speaker, I sincerely and respectfully suggest you review the tapes and the blues to confirm that you had unanimous consent, although that was later denied, but you had it. And it is not normal for you to keep asking for consent until you no longer have it.

Mr. Gilles Duceppe: Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the President of Treasury Board, who was not in his own seat, has just admitted it. He did not speak but shook his head no.

He has just admitted that he did not speak but shook his head, and I agree that one ought to use one's head before speaking, but when the time comes for a person to indicate consent or non-consent, that must be done by speaking, not nodding. He has just said that is what he did.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. That is the end of the argument.

It is obvious that what we have here is a case where there was no unanimous consent.

An hon. member: There was consent.

The Deputy Speaker: No, there is no consent until the Chair indicates that the matter is settled. I did not so rule. I did not give such an indication because I did not receive clear unanimous consent.

When the parliamentary secretary asked his question and I responded, he indicated that he did not give his consent, and that is the end of the matter. The debate is closed.

The hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean. He had the guts to stomp out of the House with his chair to stir up a discussion over the issue of poverty in Canada. There are children who go to school on an empty stomach.

I want to congratulate him. I hope the media will change their coverage on this issue, stop dealing with the chair incident and start talking about the poor in this country.

Here is my question for my colleague. Now that we have had free trade and NAFTA in Canada for such a long time, and now that we are leaning toward signing the MAI, does he not think we have more food banks than ever in Canada?

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This is not the Royal Bank I am talking about, but food banks families have to go to because they do not have any money left to feed themselves. The EI fund has billions of dollars in surplus, but some Canadians are starving.

Could my colleague for Lac-Saint-Jean respond to this?

Mr. Stéphan Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am very pleased to see that I have support coming not only from the Bloc Quebecois but also from other parties. I hope that my colleagues opposite and from all parties will seize on this issue. Furthermore, if they choose not to do so right now, I think time will prove me right and we will eventually be forced to take a very serious look at this issue.

In response to the question my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst asked me earlier, essentially, I left with my seat to elicit a broad societal debate. I never said I had all the answers. I plan to focus my efforts on getting the point across to the public and to parliamentarians alike that a debate must be held on this matter, that is, the consequences of globalization on political power.

If we find that globalization does limit the power of parliamentarians at home and abroad, there will be an urgent need for the public to look into the matter and understand what is at stake.

I have said repeatedly this week that any loss of political power means a so-called loss of democracy. This therefore concerns us all, the political parties represented in this House as well as the public at large.

I do not claim to have all the answers, far from it. However, it seems to me that there should be a debate in which parliamentarians and the public would share their views and there is none. This is of greater concern to me.

Of course, we can look at the immediate consequences of globalization, and there are many. But what will be required, and sooner than later, is a comprehensive debate. Then, we will be able to deal with specifics, the consequences, the stakes and, more importantly, possible solutions we can explore to ensure a framework is in place for globalization to benefit the citizens of this and other countries.

That is the challenge facing us. As I said, this is a complex message and the debate is just beginning. It will probably be a 10-year process. That is why it must start as soon as possible.

I hope that, as the public gets further involved in these issues, parliamentarians in this House will pay close attention and make sure that more concrete solutions are found.

[English]

Mr. Julian Reed (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment about my young friend from Lac-Saint-Jean. I am very glad that he brought his chair back and will continue to sit in this House.

I was in the House when he expressed frustration and left with his chair. I saw the frustration of someone in his twenties whose idealism has not yet been tempered with the reality of age as it goes on.

I would just say to him that he should never give up his idealism. He should always keep it. As the years go on he will find that it is always tempered with reality.

It is frustrating to watch poverty in the world, seemingly on the increase. I do not think that child poverty can be isolated from poverty in general. It seems to me that if there is family poverty, then there is child poverty. The two go hand in hand. There is no magic formula for simply eliminating child poverty with the stroke of a pen or a chequebook.

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I would also comment that some of the contents of this debate tend to argue against some of the very elements that are helping child poverty and helping the economies around the world. In order to get a perspective on that one has to look at history and the human condition that existed before countries began to interact with one another.

It was in the fifties that Canada began to interact in an official way with other countries with which it had been trading in the past, mostly under the colonial system that we were under at that time. Investment agreements began to be made in the 1950s. Up to now, as I understand it, there are 54 bilateral investment agreements that exist between Canada and other countries. Around the world there are 1,600 bilateral investment agreements.

The intent of the multilateral agreement on investment is very simple. It is to allow more countries to sing out of the same hymn book. Ultimately our hope is that once that framework is established the World Trade Organization, which represents 132 countries, will see the wisdom of operating under a common framework.

Canada does all right because our biggest trading partner is the United States. We understand each other's society and so on and we try to treat each other, even though there are glitches from time to time, with some fairness. That trade can go on without an MAI and without more agreements, but as other countries in the world, which are impoverished, want to raise their standard of living and want to put an end to their poverty, certainly we find that having some common rules among those countries will help them and will help us.

I also should point out that I think we all recognize that closed governments do not do well in the global village. Closed governments are failing very badly. I give the example of North Korea, a totalitarian communist government that has put walls around itself and almost chooses not to communicate at all with the rest of the world. Starvation and impoverishment there are incredible, to the extent that South Korea, its arch enemy, is now sending aid to North Korea to try in its own way to help North Korea through these crisis times.

I would suggest, on the other hand, that open governments overall are gaining. They are gaining in wealth and in economic base. Therefore they have a better opportunity to look after the impoverishment which exists to some extent in every country in the world. It exists in Canada, in France, in Europe, in Asia and so on. We recognize that.

The answer is not simply to throw cash at the problem. The answer is to provide a common denominator and an economic foundation so that countries can prosper and do well. That is why we seek these agreements, so that the rules can be established and so that a Canadian company is not afraid to invest in another country.

I bring in the example of what happened with the Nova Scotia firm that went into partnership with Aeroflot and the Russian government in the building of a hotel last year. Conflict arose because there is no MAI with Russia. There is no bilateral agreement with Russia.

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As a result those people were left in the jungle on their own and they ran into serious trouble. That is a terrible detriment to a company or a potential investor who wants to go into another country and establish themselves there and in so doing help the economy, help jobs and help the growth of that country.

This interaction is a positive thing for all of us. Globalization represents empowerment for all countries if they will simply take it on. I know there are fears. There are fears expressed about cultural intrusion and so on. Every country that has been negotiating in the MAI has its own set of reservations and its own set of concerns. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with wanting to keep the cultural debate right out of the agreement. We have said that. We have made it very clear. We have said that if some other countries insist on having it in their agreement we will have a country specific reservation. That is a bottom line. There is no big deal.

Over the 40 or so years that these agreements have been made no company has come in and taken over the policies of this country. No multilateral organization has overwhelmed Canada. If anyone wants to see an example of industry and large organizations having an influence on the policy of a country, we only have to go to Washington and see how that government works. The dollar a year men in with companies actually construct policy that favours those companies. That does not happen in Canada. It has not happened and it will not happen in Canada as long as the people of this country see that it does not.

Our exports have increased tremendously since we started having agreements. As a result jobs have increased as well. We want that to continue but we want it to continue for us which is selfish but generous. We want it to continue for every country in the world, all the people in the world and we are most anxious to use all the tools we have to get rid of poverty, child poverty particularly.

[Translation]

The Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville, for questions and comments.

Mr. Paul Mercier: Mr. Speaker, since my colleague for Lac-Saint-Jean would like to speak, I will give him my spot.

Mr. Stéphan Tremblay (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on a few things mentioned by the member opposite during his speech.

He spoke about my illusions and said that, as I will get older I should lose my illusions. Is that his answer? Does this mean I should give up now since I will have lost my illusions 20 years from now? I do not think so. I feel concerned about the future.

I feel that some valuable debates must take place now. There are new ways to hold such public debates. I should not give up because of what was done in the past and say “we have no choice”.

This is what I reacted to. I reacted primarily to this attitude that makes some say “let us face it, we have no choice. Market globalization is unavoidable. Fellow citizens, your governments no longer have any power”. I refuse to believe that.

I think that if the public decides to mobilize, if it believes that we can turn globalization into a tool for us all, particularly those of my generation, then we will be able to change things.

Some may accuse me of being idealistic, of believing in a utopia, but I will at least fight. This is what I want to do. I want to fight for the public's interest.

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When eight people out of ten support me for the action I took, an action that questioned fundamental values of our society, namely democracy, I think we should ask ourselves some questions.

I do not want to talk specifically about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, but rather about the way this was done, secretly. Ultimately, they were rewriting the world economic constitution, but no one, or almost no one, knew about it, certainly not the people or me, a parliamentarian, a representative of the people. We were informed later about the content of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

I think that, when such a vast society debate has to happen, the people must be informed. And even though the debate is complex and long, as I agree it is, this does not mean we cannot dwell on it now.

Consequently, I do not intend to give up. I think the only thing that is unavoidable—No, in fact nothing is unavoidable. Come to think of it, nothing is unavoidable. Giving up is the only thing that makes things unavoidable.

[English]

Mr. Julian Reed: Mr. Speaker, I hope my hon. friend did not misinterpret what I said. I told him not to give up his idealism in any way but over time recognize that politics is the art of the possible and what we try to do is head down a track or a road, and it is necessary to fight very often to get down that road.

I am glad my hon. friend accepts the principle of globalization. Representatives from the World Bank were in committee today. One of the things they said had to do with rural development and poverty which is a very serious concern of the World Bank. They recommended further worldwide liberalization of agricultural trade, a necessary condition for ensuring that countries can rely on international markets, rather than self-sufficiency policies, for their food security.

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, one of the great concerns of Canadians in this whole thing has been the secrecy of this agreement and the kind of things that have been going on behind closed doors.

We did not hear about this until last year during the election campaign. It has been going on for several years. What is in this agreement that is so secret that it has not been publicly disclosed to the Canadian people?

Mr. Julian Reed: Mr. Speaker, the process for negotiating the MAI had its roots in the processes for negotiating all the bilateral trade agreements that have gone on for years. The information was available through OECD from the very beginning but no reporters picked up on it, nobody ever looked at it until one draft appeared on the Internet last May. A draft is not a text, but it was interpreted as a text and what was not included at that time was a recognition that there was a list of reservations that not only Canada but every country in the OECD has included. Those are the bases for negotiation.

The Deputy Speaker: I regret to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary but his time has expired.

Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in this Bloc supply day motion although I admit I have a little trouble understanding exactly what the Bloc is asking for.

I see it has tied the issue of child poverty into the whole aspect of globalization and the multilateral agreement on investment and I want to deal with those issues in their own right. But it seems there is a problem right from the very beginning with this motion because I do not believe that they are related.

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I believe it is clear the Liberals are mishandling the economy. Poverty still exists in Canada where it should not exist. I also believe that child poverty cannot be disassociated from poverty in families. If we correct that with family members having the opportunity to work and have well paying jobs it will go a long way to correct that problem.

I also believe the Liberal government is mishandling the MAI. Today the minister is over at the OECD in Paris putting the deep six on the MAI at the same time as the Prime Minister is in Cuba talking about signing an investment agreement with Cuba of all places.

Cuba expropriated all Canadian and foreign investment in Cuba and the Prime Minister is now talking about signing an investment agreement with that country and putting a deep freeze on the multilateral agreement on investment which would help a lot of Canadian companies and therefore a lot of Canadian workers and their children because there are a lot of high paying jobs. It seems to me there is a problem.

My colleague from Calgary Centre will be speaking more on the aspect of child poverty and what can be done but I want to raise a couple of things.

The Reform Party believes it is important for all families in Canada to have the opportunity to work in meaningful and well paying jobs. We think that through proper government this can happen. It is absolutely deplorable to still have Canadians paying income tax in Canada when they are making $15,000 a year. That is simply not acceptable. There are 2.6 million Canadians in that category we believe should be taken off the tax rolls altogether and be given an opportunity to keep some of their hard earned money.

I want to raise the question of the role of government. The NDP and the Bloc would have us believe the role of government is interventionist. We have seen that from the Liberal Party in the past. For about the last 30 years we have had a very interventionist government in Canada, social engineering. Some would have us withdraw and form an isolationism in the world. Some would have us put up big tariff barriers again that existed from Sir John A. Macdonald's time. However, I do not believe that would serve Canada very well. I think we can look at the example of Atlantic Canada to point out that it has not worked very well.

Prior to Confederation Canada had several areas of the country that were doing pretty well. Atlantic Canada had a very healthy trade relationship with the New England states. It was in close proximity with an existing natural trade corridor.

Confederation came along and Sir John A. Macdonald instituted his national policy of high tariffs meant to direct the flow of goods and services east and west. What did that do to Atlantic Canada? It became dependent over a period of time on things like unemployment insurance, regional development grants and welfare because the central part of the country was draining it. The barriers meant that it could not trade effectively with New England states any more.

I think it has been demonstrated worldwide that barriers do not work. Any country that has even unilaterally dismantled barriers to trade has benefited. Therefore we need to foster a better environment for our Canadian companies to do well. By doing that, workers in those Canadian companies are going to do well and have high paying jobs.

Our committee did a study on small and medium size enterprises in international trade. We heard testimony that the environment for business in Canada to do well is not good at all. Witnesses said we are not internationally competitive because we are paying very high taxes. Canadians still have the highest tax rates in the G-8. We have a lot of regulation that is hard to overcome. We heard from one company that said it was easier to do business by moving out of its home base in Ontario to Illinois and then ship its product back into Canada. This was easier than shipping across Canadian provincial borders. That simply is not good enough.

I believe because we have had interventionist governments we have $600 billion worth of debt, debt that has made the Canadian taxpayer have to pay one-third of every tax dollar to Ottawa just to pay the interest on the debt. It is just like digging a hole in the ground. These types of governments that have intervened in the economy and in our personal lives have caused this to happen.

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We just have to think of all the companies that have been privatized in the last few years that were on the government gravy train needing big subsidies every year to exist. CN Rail is now making a profit. Air Canada is now making a profit. Petro-Canada is now making a profit. All these companies were draining Canadian taxpayers.

Canadian airports are functioning on their own and doing well. A small airport in Peace River, which was turned over to the community in the last two years, is doing very well and is actually making money. Prior to that it took $400,000 of taxpayers' money every year to keep that airport in business.

The interventionist government, which brought us the national energy program and FIRA, the Foreign Investment Review Agency that discouraged investment in Canada, intervened not only in the economy, in our personal lives, but in provincial areas of jurisdiction such as education, housing, tourism and job training, causing duplication in governments.

Why is it that with such a great country we have areas in Canada where there are unemployment rates of 60%? It simply is not acceptable. It is the debt load given to us by interventionist governments which have caused these rates. As I said, 2.65 million people earn less than $15,000 a year and still have to pay taxes to the federal government. It is not acceptable. We have to get our house in order first.

The social engineering of the past has given us employment insurance. Some 25 different regions of the country qualify for employment insurance because of different criteria. For the last 30 years employment insurance has had 5% higher rates than those of the United States year in and year out. We can chart it. We can plot it. They have gone up and down but are 5% higher than those of the United States. Why is that? It is because of interventionist governments doing social engineering.

This brings me to the aspect of the motion today which deals with globalization in the MAI. My party and I believe that Canada needs a liberalized trade and investment regime if it is to prosper.

For the first time in 1998 the amount of Canadian investment outside Canada has exceeded the amount of foreign investment in Canada. It is a trend that has been happening for the last four or five years. This says something about a new found confidence of Canadians seeking the big market out there.

There are 30 million people who think the Canadian market is too small and want to take advantage of the world. We have many things to offer, so if we are to trade with these countries, as we are, in many cases it will require Canadians to make investments.

Which multinational Canadian companies are out there investing? They are companies that are home grown. They have Canadians working for them here at home. There are investments from the pension funds of Canadians in those companies. They are publicly traded. We have mutual funds. We have RRSPs invested in these Canadian companies. It is in our interests that they do well. They need the protection of some base rules of investment and we can do it more than one way.

The MAI should be allowed to die. The trade minister seems to be allowing it to be put into a deep coma at the OECD. We can sign bilateral investment agreements to achieve the same end. We have done quite a bit of that in the past. We also have an investment agreement with the United States and Mexico in NAFTA that governs 70% of investment in Canada already. That will not change whether or not we have the MAI.

We can continue down that road, but there are something like 1,600 investment agreements worldwide. It would be a simpler process to have one that we could all look at and say here are the simple rules for investment in the same way as we have had rules for trade in goods for 50 years. If we do not want to do that we do not have to.

The member for Lac-Saint-Jean in a symbolic act the other day took his seat from the House of Commons and got a little publicity from it. It says a little more than that. It says something about a party that wants to withdraw from Canada and to put borders around Canada, to have an isolation policy. That simply does not work.

A lot of change is happening in Canada. All of us have difficulty with change, but we cannot freeze a certain section of our lives and say we want to stay at 30 years old. Change is something that happens to us all the time. Trade and investment are like riding a bike. If we stop peddling we will fall off and I do not think we will be served very well.

I cannot support the motion although there are certain aspects concerning child poverty that are important to deal with through well paying jobs.

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Some hon. members: Hear, hear.

Hon. Andy Mitchell (Secretary of State (Parks), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member. It is good to see that he has his own private cheering section.

The member's speech demonstrated a very important difference between his party and this side of the House that Canadians should recognize. He talked about the Canadian taxpayer and the need to reduce the burden of taxation, something the Minister of Finance has been doing in his last few budgets and continues to do. We see the Reform Party's inability to make the distinction between taxpayers and Canadians.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Hon. Andy Mitchell: I hear members opposite. They do not realize that literally millions of Canadians are not taxpayers and are in need of assistance just as much as somebody who is a taxpayer. What about someone who is unable to get a job or to find work? I know they believe every Canadian can get a job if they want one, but that ignores Canadians with disabilities and those who are unable to enter the workforce.

The bottom line is that members of the Reform Party do not encompass the broad range of Canadians. They select who they want to help. They focus on whom they want to help, but they will not reach out to the full Canadian family.

That is the basic premise of what the hon. member said in his speech. He ignores large segments of Canadian society and only wants to deal with individuals who fit their mould of being appropriate for help.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Mr. Speaker, that was a very interesting intervention. The member correctly observed that there were big differences between the Reform Party and the governing Liberals. I am glad he finally got that point. It is pretty clear that there are.

The point I was making is that we do not believe intervening in the economy is the right role for government. We believe, however, that there is a proper role for government. We think it is fostering an environment for Canadian businesses, their workers and their shareholders to do well here and to do well internationally. We also believe there is a role for government to be the shepherd of environmental programs and competition laws by ensuring they are looked after for Canadians.

When it comes to taxation the member raised an interesting point. He said that we did not recognize the difference between taxpayers and Canadians. I suggest Canadians at tax time do not see much difference either. They are taxpayers and they are paying very heavily. They want some tax relief.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am disappointed in the direction the debate is going and in the way Reform members are diverting the debate. Liberals are jumping on the bandwagon and saying: “We are the best in the world; we are beautiful, good and nice”.

My colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean tried to start a non partisan debate on a world issue that is very real and is simply redefined in our motion.

The Reform member started his speech by saying: “We do not know exactly what Bloc members want”. We can therefore deduce that he does not agree with what we want, but he does not know what we want. If we listen to his speech, we realize it is rather inconsistent.

Secondly, I will explain to him what we want and I will ask him if he agrees. The motion is relatively simple: That this House reiterate the 1989 commitment to eliminating child poverty by the year 2000 and urge the government to act by quickly striking an all-party Special Parliamentary Committee that will consider the matter.

The Liberals had made this commitment in their first red book and have said they were in favour of it. What we want is to eliminate poverty. We want to strike a parliamentary committee to study this matter. I ask my Reform colleague if he agrees with this.

[English]

Mr. Charlie Penson: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any disagreement. We want to get rid of poverty in Canada but we have different methods of doing it.

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The Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP seem to feel that the levers of power by government intervening in the economy is the proper way. We have seen 30 years of such intervention and I believe it has failed.

Unemployment is still running almost in double digits and has been for a long time. The Canada pension plan needs a massive infusion of taxpayers' money or a 72% increase to keep it viable. Health care is in trouble. The federal government has cut back payments in health care by $6 billion to the provinces.

Maybe the government should not intervene so much in the economy and the business sector and let business do what it does best, that is create well paying jobs. We have to be competitive internationally. On the issue of globalization, certainly that is happening, but I do not think it is something we can stop or would want to stop. It is a smaller world and we have to take advantage of it.

*  *  *

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties and I think you would find consent for the following order:  

That the deferred recorded division on the amendment of Mr. White (Langley—Abbotsford) to the opposition motion of Mr. Hill (Macleod) scheduled for today at the conclusion of Government Orders be deemed defeated on division.

And that the remaining recorded divisions scheduled today at the conclusion of Government Orders take place in the following order: the main motion of Mr. Hill's opposition motion, the motion for second reading of Bill C-39, the motion for second reading of Bill C-216, Motion M-85, and the motion for second reading of Bill C-32.

The Deputy Speaker: Does the hon. deputy whip for the government have unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Deputy Speaker: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

*  *  *

SUPPLY

ALLOTTED DAY—ELIMINATION OF POVERTY

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the NDP supports the motion that has been brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois. We welcome the attention that is being paid to the issue of globalization and give credit to the member for Lac-Saint-Jean for provoking this debate. However, contrary to what the member said when he was on his feet, the debate is not just starting but has been going on for some time. I would suggest that it has been going on since about 1987 in the lead-up to the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.

I am quite happy to hear what the member has to say. I agree with him that there is a new consciousness among young people, among those of his own generation, about the extent to which forces are being gathered together within this globalization model. They are very much leading to a future that not many young people want to contemplate.

It is a future that has within it a low wage economy for a great many young Canadians. I have seen it in my own work on the MAI over the past several months going across the country and speaking on campuses and in other places. I have spoken to students about the multilateral agreement on investment and how it is the latest stage in a globalization model that the NDP rejects and that I want young people to reject. There is a new awareness on the part of young people at the university level and elsewhere about how wary they should be of this globalization model.

The member for Lac-Saint-Jean said that he hoped time would see him right on this motion even if everybody did not agree with him at the moment. Without malice I say that I have felt this way for a while. I remember making a similar speech in 1987 when I said that time would see us right on the downside of free trade.

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I think we are reaching one of those times—and I am not speaking of the member now—when people who otherwise were very supportive of this model as it emerged in the context of the FTA, the NAFTA and the WTO are now beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of this particular model.

These second thoughts are not just coming from the left, where people had not second thoughts but first thoughts about the downsides of globalization, they are coming from people on the right and in the centre who are asking themselves whether the effects of an unfettered global marketplace are not more than they bargained for when they first began to promote this model of globalization.

I am very happy to see the motion here today. I noticed that it begins by referring to a motion passed in this House in 1989. That motion was moved by my former leader, the member from Oshawa, Ed Broadbent, at the time of his departure from this House.

I think the fact that this motion is referred to at the beginning of the Bloc motion points out something that many people are aware of, that is, that there has been a certain affinity between the NDP, and before that the CCF, and the social democratic tradition in Quebec which is represented by the Bloc Quebecois, which in the past was represented not just exclusively by the Bloc Quebecois from Quebec but by Quebeckers in general.

It is fair to say that Quebec has had a tremendous impact on the kind of country Canada has become over the years. A large part of our social democratic nature has come from Quebec. In English-speaking Canada it has come largely from the tradition that the NDP represents.

Those two things acting together, often synthesized by a Liberal government at the federal level, have led to the kind of country which is now being dismantled by the very globalization model the member for Lac-Saint-Jean refers to, which we in the NDP have been criticizing for some time.

This debate gives me an opportunity, as the NDP House leader and also as the trade critic, to reflect on the relationship between the NDP and Quebec nationalists, not only nationalists in the Bloc Quebecois but also nationalists outside the Bloc Quebecois who are not necessarily sovereignists or separatists. There was always thought to be a great deal of affinity in so far as we held these social democratic values in common.

What has happened over the last several years, particularly since the creation of the Bloc, but going back to the beginning of the debate on the free trade agreement, is that we have disagreed with the Bloc Quebecois, and not just about separation, obviously. We are federalists and they are sovereignists. They understand that. We understand it. It is fair ball.

However, where we have had problems and why I welcome this motion as an opportunity for all of us to reflect, is the way in which we have seen the free trade agreement, the NAFTA, the WTO and now the MAI as models for globalization that work against social democracy, that work against the ability of governments to create, to preserve and to maintain social democratic values.

We have always found it odd, frustrating and even irritating on occasion to see Quebeckers of various political persuasions embracing free trade and the NAFTA. I say this in all earnestness. I am not trying to provoke a partisan debate, I am trying to extend an opportunity for all of us to reflect on this. Recently, they did not even bother to file a minority report on the MAI.

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In the last little while there seems to have been a bit of a shift, within the ranks of the Bloc in particular, and I welcome this shift.

I think from our point of view this particular model of globalization, which the FTA, the NAFTA, the WTO and the MAI represent, is not just something that we should be sceptical about as social democrats from the point of view of whether it creates justice, because we certainly should be sceptical of it on those grounds. It has led to increasing poverty and increasing disparity between the rich and the poor, not just within countries, but between countries in many respects in terms of north, south and so on.

We also should be sceptical of it in so far as it is a threat to the sovereignty of governments; to the power of governments to intervene, to shape, to contain, to regulate, to do all of the things that we have been able to do in the economy over the years to create a more social democratic Canada, which Bloc members would want to have at their disposal if there was an independent Quebec and they wanted to shape the Quebec economy.

I hope this debate might be an opportunity to hear back from Bloc members on this. It has always been a bit of a puzzle to us why they embrace that particular view of the global economy and why at one point the former leader of the Bloc, now the premier of Quebec, talked about the end of ideology, that ideology had been replaced by trade. That was on March 15, 1994 in this House.

Trade in itself is an ideology, in particular liberalized trade without government regulation, without core labour standards. This is in itself an ideology and there is ideology to be debated within different models of how global trade will unfold.

To pretend somehow that there is no ideological debate here is to play the game that the government wants us to play, but not so much the Reform. I think they acknowledge that there is an ideological debate here and they are very clear about what side they are on.

I welcome this motion from the Bloc. I look forward to hearing more of what they have to say and reading more about how they square what they are saying today with some of the things that have been said in the past. I look forward to working together with them and with others who see the real threat that this model of globalization presents, not only to social justice, but to the sovereignty of all governments whether they be federalist or of any other nature.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé (Lévis, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the remarks of the House leader of the New Democratic Party are interesting and raise a number of questions. For instance, he sees a contradiction between our being Quebec sovereignists and our position with respect to globalization and our adherence to the free trade agreement with the United States, and then with Mexico.

I cannot speak for the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean, who is perfectly able to speak for himself, but there is not necessarily a contradiction. Globalization is an inescapable reality in our society. Whether we like it or not, we are headed in that direction.

As social democrats, we must however ask ourselves the following question: In the face of globalization, can we, as social democrats within our various parties, be it the Bloc or the NDP, contribute to the debate to make sure that this movement toward market globalization is more civilized and that a national perspective is taken to domestic interests? It is our duty as parliamentarians and members of Parliament.

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I think we can also make a contribution with respect to working conditions, especially in countries like Mexico, and compliance with environmental rules that apply to every country in the world. Much remains to be done in this respect.

I think that is what the call from the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean is all about, by demanding that those who decide economic issues and political issues too—because he called on parliamentarians as well—finally comply with the terms and conditions that the people want to see enforced.

I clearly recall that, when they took position in favour of free trade, the members of the Bloc Quebecois knew at the time there would be a price to pay for this change and that transition measures would be required to help industries adjust.

The Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona may want to respond to these comments.

[English]

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. It is true that globalization is a fact. But what is up for grabs is what kind of globalization we are going to have. Are we going to have globalization that is really just a global marketplace with this race to the bottom where governments and societies give up their social and economic values by trading away their labour standards and their environmental regulations in order to attract investment? Or is our form of globalization going to be a global community?

I think it raises the matter of global governance. In spite of what the member for Peace River keeps accusing the NDP of, we have never suggested that we should be isolationists, that we should put up tariff walls or that we should go back to the days of Sir John A. Macdonald. What we have suggested is that if we are going to have a global market we need to have forms of global governance that do for global markets what national governments used to do for national markets. That is the way ahead. We are not looking for a way back, we are looking for a way ahead that creates some form of global social and economic justice, and the MAI is not the way to do it.

The MAI is a replication of the NAFTA at a much larger level. I think that is something that people who were for the NAFTA have to take into account—

The Deputy Speaker: On a brief question, the hon. member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley.

Mr. Dick Harris (Prince George—Bulkley Valley, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I am surprised at the irresponsibility and the naivete of the member for Winnipeg—Transcona. I would like to remind him that this is a country of 30 million people who produce far more in a year than we could ever consume. Therefore it is an absolute necessity that Canada trade with other nations and take part in the global marketplace. That is what fuels the economy of this country.

In case the member does not know it, if it was not for the NAFTA and the free trade agreement right now the economy of this country would be in disastrous shape because we do not have a buoyant domestic market.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I guess it is just one of those things where it does not matter what one says because Reform members only hear what they want to hear. I never said Canada did not need trade. I never said we did not want to be part of the global marketplace. I never said any of those things. Reform members either have wax in their ears or they are just committed to a particular point of view no matter what people say.

I said we had to have a global marketplace that was regulated in a certain way so that there was social and economic justice. That does not mean we do not trade. It means we trade in a particular way.

Mr. Scott Brison (Kings—Hants, PC): Mr. Speaker, first I would like to commend the member for Lac-Saint-Jean for the intent of this motion. While we may differ on the means, we agree on the end. We would like to eradicate child poverty in Canada. Progressive Conservatives recognize that one of the best levers to eradicate child poverty, not only within Canada but globally, is liberalized trade.

It was a Progressive Conservative government that led Canada into the free trade agreement in 1988 and the NAFTA in 1993. In fact if members want to talk about transparency and about openness and engagement, there was a federal election fought in 1988 on the free trade agreement. Compare that to the secrecy of the current MAI discussions and negotiations, Canada's participation and lack of consultation within Canada.

An hon. member: Where do the Liberals stand on that debate?

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Mr. Scott Brison: The Liberal Party has been consistently inconsistent in its trade policy. Recently the Minister for International Trade said the Liberal Party was on the vanguard of the rising anxieties of the free trade agreement of 1988. In fact the Liberals were the leaders of the anti free trade movement in 1988. Now the Liberals cannot get enough free trade. In fact they like it so much they do not feel it is important to negotiate or to engage Canadians in these discussions. That is how much they like free trade.

We actually have some commitment to commitment. They are born again free traders. Now with the public opposition mounting they are posturing against the MAI agreement. Or at least they are indicating in a very public sense that they have some difficulties with it when in fact privately they do not have a great enough understanding of it to have any opposition to it.

The PC Party believes that a good multilateral investment agreement could benefit all Canadians. However we do not believe that any agreement at any cost without any negotiation or consultation with Canadians is the right agreement. The lack of public consultation within Canada on the MAI is appalling. The motion today has helped us bring to light some of this lack of consultation.

It is important that we have public debate on this kind of issue. Public debate is the best way to dispel some of the arguments put forth by some of the most vociferous opponents and indeed proponents of the MAI. There is common ground between these two extremes. That is why the PC Party asked the subcommittee on the MAI to table the agreement before parliament 15 days before it was ratified by cabinet. The idea was taken from a bill introduced by Alexander Downer, the Australian minister of foreign affairs, in the Australian parliament in 1996. This became the Australian model for treaty negotiations.

The Bloc motion claims an agreement like the MAI would weaken legislative rights. That is why the PC Party introduced a recommendation to the MAI subcommittee to conduct a full impact analysis of the effect the MAI would have on our federal, provincial and municipal programs.

The Bloc's motion blames globalization for the growing gap between rich and poor around the world. Globalization is not the largest contributing factor to this dangerous spread between the rich and the poor. Globalization is not all bad nor is it all good. It is like most things. It brings risk and it brings opportunities.

The Americas and Europe have come to see the benefits of trade union rights and child labour legislation but they have become wealthy enough to absorb those costs. Without the expansion of liberalized trade, the engine of job growth, workers in underdeveloped countries may never have that same opportunity.

Liberalized trade is the most effective lever that developing countries have to bootstrap themselves into a decent standard of living, the decent standard of living we take for granted in this country. Free trade critics argue that globalization pushes labour offshore to cheaper markets when in fact the majority of foreign investment flows between rich countries, or flows between rich countries in search of markets, not poor economies offering cheap labour.

The effect of globalization forces free trading economies to increase labour flexibility. For those countries that increase their labour flexibility, it allows them to react quickly and adapt to shift people and resources away from declining industries and toward growing ones.

This motion should not be about the fear of liberalized trade and its perceived effect on the gap between rich and poor. Free trade has not been the cause of the increase in this gap, and there is very little substantive or credible data to support that argument.

If one looks at the export levels of Quebec in 1988 before the FTA and in 1996, exports have increased from $16 billion to $40 billion. Those exports are extremely important to Quebec. Those figures have helped to stabilize the employment levels in Quebec, not destabilize them.

If we are serious about child poverty in Canada, perhaps we should be working together to create an economy that works in a country that works. We know full well the cost of separatism, the debate on separatism and the cost to children and all people in Quebec in terms of poverty. We should be very careful that we are not blaming the wrong demon when we talk about child poverty.

Bloc members should be reminded that their PQ cousins in Quebec have vowed to remain part of NAFTA if separation occurs. They understand full well that NAFTA has benefited Quebec as it has benefited Canada.

The most important contributing factor to the gap between rich and poor has been a global transitional economy from the resource and manufacturing based economies to the information technology and knowledge based economies. This gap between rich and poor has been exacerbated at this critical and pivotal time in this paradigm shift by the cuts in the health and education transfers made by the Liberal government in Ottawa.

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A new study which came out recently states that after the changes were made to the unemployment insurance fund, only 36% of unemployed Canadians now actually collect EI. The 35% decrease in health care, welfare and education funding to the provinces invoked by the Liberal government has disproportionately affected the poorest of Canadians. It has denied the poorest Canadians equality of opportunity which is fundamental.

We believe in the free enterprise system. We believe it is the best system for all Canadians. For the free enterprise system to be sustainable, all Canadians need access to the levers of the free enterprise system. They need a strong health care system. They need a strong education system.

Unfettered capitalism is not sustainable, nor is unfettered socialism. A balanced free enterprise system with a sound education and health care system is the best system for everybody. It could be argued that Marx was wrong about unfettered communism, but he may have been right about unfettered capitalism.

We need to ensure that a balanced approach which combines lower taxes, globalized opportunities in trade and strong health care and education systems is a recipe that will not only benefit Canadians but will benefit children around the world.

The cuts the Liberal government has inflicted on ordinary Canadians and the poorest of Canadians have affected the access of young Canadians to the opportunities provided in a global knowledge based economy as we enter the 21st century.

If we are really serious about addressing child poverty in Canada, I have some suggestions. I reiterate that we should support and continue to seek solutions to this problem. The government should work toward this.

We must utilize a progressive trade policy and a progressive free enterprise domestic economic policy. The combination of those two policies will first of all ensure that Canadians have opportunities to participate in the global economy and second, that they are not burdened by intrusive government in Canada which denies them the opportunity to participate effectively in that global economy.

I would suggest as well that we work together across Canada toward a national unity agreement that works and stop this endless debate on the national unity issue. We must work to stop the tremendous cost that has been borne by ordinary Canadians and ordinary Quebeckers for the separatist movement over the past 20 years.

We must start working together to build economic bridges across Canada and economic bridges around the world which will benefit young people in Canada and around the world.

If we work seriously toward those ends we will all be better served. In fact all Canadians will be better served by constructive policies coming from all sides of this House.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Mercier (Terrebonne—Blainville, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague refer to Marx, and I am glad he did, because I myself have based my speech on something Marx said that is one of the reasons I am obviously supporting the Bloc Quebecois motion. I will explain.

Marx—or Engels, but I think it was Marx—said that the gap between rich and poor would only widen under capitalism. With the introduction of communism, the system he founded, it became clear that, despite what he hoped, this gap between rich and poor continued to widen, with the disproportionate wealth of the nomenklatura.

Bearing in mind what the leader of our party said earlier about the gap between rich and poor also widening in our capitalist society, I wonder whether it has something to do with human selfishness, with the powerful doing what they can to become increasingly wealthy, even if it means trampling the poor. One might think it was inevitable.

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I support the motion just introduced by the Bloc Quebecois, because I think that, if capitalism is not to prove Marx right, this debate on growth must go hand-in-hand with a debate on everyone's right to share in the fruits of that growth.

I therefore support the motion because, although I am not a Marxist, I do not want his prediction to come true.

[English]

Mr. Scott Brison: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention from the hon. member.

I have tremendous concern about the gap between the rich and poor. In the U.S. there is the gated community concept. Families and individuals live in gated communities. They pay for their children's private education, private hospitals and their own security service. They live in gated communities which are effectively insulated from the public at large. They do not really care about what goes on outside their communities.

Capitalism without the effective interventions of the state in areas of health care and education is not sustainable. I mentioned Karl Marx and said that he may have been right about unfettered capitalism but he was wrong about communism. The communist system arguably would not have a tremendous gap between the rich and the poor because everybody would be poor. However, I do not think that is the most effective system either.

I again commend the member for Lac-Saint-Jean for having initiated this debate. The benefit is that we have the opportunity to debate in a very philosophical and concrete way important policy initiatives. We are able to look at the problem very seriously.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Speaker, I think there would be unanimous consent to declare the motion votable.

The Deputy Speaker: Is there unanimous consent to make the motion before us votable?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: No.

The Deputy Speaker: There is no unanimous consent.

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I have listened to my hon. colleague's remarks with interest, and I would like to give him a few figures concerning the matter of smaller countries and globalization.

In 1997, the unemployment rate in Canada stood at 10.3%. It was 3.6% in Austria, 8% in Denmark, 5.4% in Norway, 6.8% in the Netherlands, and 3.6% in Switzerland. So a country's size has nothing to do with the impact of globalization.

We have never suggested that globalization per se is bad. What we would like is some parliamentary control over globalization so that ordinary citizens can benefit from it, and not only those who can make big profits. Profit is important for companies, but the governments should also be able to redistribute wealth.

My colleague said he finds it strange that Quebec sovereignists should support free trade. He should not forget that it is Quebec that brought free trade to Canada, because it was in its own interest to do so, and Quebec's development depends on north-south trade.

Will the hon. member not admit that it is the way countries are governed and the development tools they give themselves, and not size, that determine how well they do internationally?

[English]

Mr. Scott Brison: Mr. Speaker, I would say that although Quebec has been strongly supportive of free trade, I come from a province that was in free trade prior to Confederation. We have some contributions and agree with the member on that.

Smaller countries have more to gain from liberalized trade in many ways than some of the larger countries. That has been demonstrated in almost every equation, such as in the access to larger markets, especially for a country like Canada where it is absolutely essential.

In terms of the support within Quebec for free trade, I would expect that the support would be there and will continue to be there. The benefit has effectively led to the tripling of exports since 1988.

I appreciate the member's intervention. I look forward to continuing this dialogue elsewhere.

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[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I believe that at this point in the debate it is very important and opportune to read the motion again because we have heard all kinds of things even if there was not much in way of a debate, except from one or two speakers from each party.

The answer given by my colleague from the Reform Party confirms why we should support the motion moved by the Bloc Quebecois leader. I support the motion and I am going to read it again to prevent the debate from going further off course. After only a few speeches, it is already off course.

The motion reads as follows:

That this House reiterate the 1989 commitment to eliminating child poverty by the year 2000, urge the government to act, and strike an all-party Special Parliamentary Committee with the main objective of considering Canadian parliamentarians' ability to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the new context created by the globalization of markets—

This motion does not indicate we are against liberalizing trade or that we are against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, quite the opposite. The motion does not indicate anything of the sort.

This motion suggests that parliamentarians from all parties look into a problem which is very real. In their first red book the Liberals said they would eliminate child poverty before the year 2000. What we are asking is to strike a committee to see whether this deadline is realistic, to see if we can reach this commendable goal which is desirable for all.

I would like speakers from the Liberal Party to tell us why they are now opposed to something they had espoused before. It is rather odd. When the Liberals, the New Democrats and members from other parties say: “Therefore the Bloc Quebecois is against liberalizing trade, against the MAI”, it becomes necessary to remind them of the spirit and the wording of the Bloc Quebecois' motion.

The third point in the motion says: “globalization and the international agreements that frame it, particularly the Multilateral Agreement on Investment as now written—”. I believe this is underscored by what the international trade minister just said in Paris. We are not against the MAI, but the Bloc Quebecois would never give its support to a government's signing such an agreement as it is currently written, because there is a risk of limiting certain powers of states and hence of the representatives elected to this House—we are not saying it does so, but there is that risk.

What we want is a committee of parliamentarians. I would be very surprised if MPs wanted to shirk their responsibilities. That is why I am surprised the Liberals are unwilling to agree to discussing the MAI among other things in a committee setting.

I would point out that I am going to split my 20 minutes with my colleague for Rimouski—Mitis.

I wish to focus on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. As my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean has demonstrated with his speeches and with his exit from the House, many in Quebec, in Canada, and everywhere else in the world, are intrigued and greatly concerned by the gap between rich and poor due to globalization. What exactly is this agreement? Where does it come from? What is its intent? What are this agreement's objectives?

We have heard many legitimate fears expressed. Many concerns have been raised about the signing of an agreement such as the MAI. Negotiations or discussions on it date back to 1995 under the auspices of the OECD. It is worth repeating here that we call the OECD the rich countries club. The NGOs often use that same term. It is a group of 29 countries that make up the OECD.

There were some consultations, it is true, but for the most part negotiations were held in secret.

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When 29 rich countries negotiate behind closed doors agreements that are designed to promote investments, it is only normal for the populations of these 29 wealthy countries—and of those other countries interested in joining them—to wonder about these agreements and to even question them.

It is also important for Canadians to remember that the Multilateral Agreement on Investment includes about 90% of Chapter 11 of NAFTA, dealing with investments. Therefore, it is not completely new stuff, since 90% of the MAI is found in Chapter 11 of NAFTA.

Why were discussions held on such an agreement? There are two main reasons. First, the purpose of the agreement is to set rules and to regulate—I know this is somewhat redundant—the investment sector, since there are currently over 1,300 bilateral investment accords, of which 50 were signed by Canada, including NAFTA.

The idea was to promote, regulate and facilitate exports and investments from Canada to other countries, and conversely.

The purpose of the agreement is also to benefit from globalization. There are disadvantages, but there are also some advantages, such as increased investments. Also, if the agreement is amended as we wish, it should promote economic development.

These are the two reasons why we supported the principle of the agreement. But again, in its current form, we cannot support the ratification of the MAI.

As our party leader mentioned earlier, the Bloc Quebecois has been supportive of the free trade agreement with the United States, since the beginning, and we also supported its extension into NAFTA.

We even supported in principle the continuation of the negotiations, but we object to the signing of the agreement in its present form. We are not like the Liberals who, in 1988, were opposed to multilateral agreements and saying that they were the worst possible things for Canadians, but turned around after the election and started signing all kinds of such accords. We are consistent in our position and we will continue to be.

Those who have been following us are aware of the very serious reservations that the Bloc had regarding this issue. Among other things, and the member for Rimouski—Mitis will elaborate on that later on, we want a general exception clause for cultural industries, which we did not have as of this morning, and that is why we would oppose the signing of the agreement in its present form.

The Bloc Quebecois wants countries to retain the right to take or maintain measures to protect the environment and labour standards. We would not sign or support the signing of any multilateral agreement that would not include a clause to protect the environment and labour standards.

We also want such an agreement to specify that countries cannot lower their national standards with regard to health, environmental safety and occupational safety in order to attract foreign investors.

We also want legislation such as the Helms-Burton Bill to be deemed ineffective and non enforceable under such an agreement because it goes against the principle of trade. We also want immigration laws, regulations and national procedures to be given precedence. And, of course, we want provincial jurisdictions to be fully recognized in an agreement such as the multilateral agreement on investment and other agreements. Without that, we will never sign or support the signing of such an agreement.

Regarding the lowering of health and occupational safety standards, particular attention must be paid to the text of the agreement in these two areas. There are two versions of that part of the agreement. One says that a party “should not” lower its health, safety and environmental standards. The other version says that a party “shall not” lower these standards. There is a world of difference between “should not” and “shall not”. If we ended up with a version that said “should not” or “it would be desirable”, again we would not support such an agreement.

The exception for cultural industries is also a precondition that must be met before we sign or support such an agreement, as well as a clearer definition of “expropriation” and “expropriation requiring compensation”.

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We also have to ensure that the role of the provinces will be respected before we give our support.

The Bloc Quebecois, the Liberals and the Reformers signed a report in which they asked that the agreement be submitted to parliamentarians before it was signed, as requested by the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean, so that parliamentarians can fulfil their duties as auditors and as the people's representatives.

We ask, we demand that the text of the agreement be submitted to the subcommittee before it is signed, which hopefully will not be until all the issues are resolved. Now that the OECD is no longer considered the forum for negotiating such an agreement, we also ask that the agreement be referred to the WTO, so that all the countries in the world can take part in its development.

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech made by my hon. colleague.

The motion urges the government to immediately strike an all-party special parliamentary committee. I would like my hon. colleague to comment on the fact that globalization emerged a few years back and that we had to wait until today for the heartfelt cry of the hon. member for Lac-St-Jean to reflect the awareness that all kinds of dealings and agreements are in the works.

We hear about the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas. We have NAFTA. We have the MIA. We also have organizations like the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, and the WTO. What about the people in all of this? What role do the citizens expect their parliamentarians to play? What do the people expect their parliamentarians to say or do to ensure that globalization serves the interests of all and not only of those who want to make money out of this phenomenon?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. It gives me an opportunity to clarify parts of the motion before the House today.

I would first point out, with respect to the role of parliamentarians, that, when the Liberals were in opposition, they demanded a special debate on the free trade agreement with the United States. They did not insist on an opposition day, as the Reformers did, they called for a special debate.

The 1988 election campaign focused primarily on the free trade agreement with the United States. What is happening today? The free trade agreement with Chile was negotiated under wraps by unelected negotiators and officials. What was the role of parliamentarians? They passed the bill implementing the agreement. Not one comma of the agreement was debated.

Members would surely agree that the free trade agreement with Israel and Palestine is likely to have some fairly special provisions. And what was the role of parliamentarians in this agreement? They passed the bill to implement it. The agreement and its conditions were negotiated by unelected officials. Canadians today are facing a fait accompli and are obliged to live with these agreements.

We are requesting initially, as my colleague mentioned, to be increasingly involved in these multilateral agreements. Parliamentarians must have a role to play. They must first look to see how their role as representatives of the public may be expanded in the proliferation of such agreements. That is what must be done.

I would like to ask the Liberals why they refuse to fulfill their parliamentary duties. Why are they not meeting the commitment they made in black and white in the red book? Why do they refuse to strike a committee or, at the very least, why do they not say something?

If they do not want the role of parliamentarians—and there are a number of them here who have been re-elected—why are they here? They are here to serve as parliamentarians, as representatives of the people, but they do not honour their commitments. They do not fulfill their parliamentary responsibilities. They hide and refuse to speak.

I would like them to answer certain questions in their speeches. It is indeed vital to keep a close eye on all the agreements, often negotiated on the sly by officials who have not been elected and often presented to parliamentarians as a fait accompli.

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Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski—Mitis, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I would also like to speak on the opposition motion moved by the Bloc Quebecois, which calls for the striking of a committee to consider parliamentarians' ability to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the context created by the globalization of markets.

As the Bloc Quebecois critic for Canadian heritage, I will deal with this issue from the perspective of the MAI, the famous Multilateral Agreement on Investment, but from its cultural dimension or the impact this agreement might have on the cultural sector, because this agreement, as presently designed, represents a real danger for cultural sectors in Canada and Quebec.

We cannot think of a massive liberalization that would lead to the outright abandonment of policies and measures designed to support the cultural sector without first knowing the economic importance of this sector.

Cultural activities in Canada provide about 900,000 direct jobs and an estimated 300,000 indirect jobs, for a grand total of 1.2 million. These jobs account for 9.2% of the labour market. The direct contribution of cultural activities to the economy amounts to $29 billion, or 4.7% of the gross domestic product, while its indirect contribution is $42 billion, or 6.8% of the gross domestic product. Consequently, we cannot consider the cultural sector as minor and make it a pawn to be sacrificed on the altar of major international trade agreements.

Over the years, Canada has put in place some measures aimed at supporting domestic art production. The main measures implemented were the imposition of limits on foreign property and of quotas on Canadian content, subsidies, support for distribution and exports, tax credits and the creation of crown corporations.

Despite their scope, these measures barely allowed Canada to have access to part of its domestic market. Indeed, Canadian cultural products have a marginal position in the market. For example, 92% of the movies shown on our screens are foreign, 60% of books sold in Canada and Quebec are American and 88% of sound recordings put on the market have a foreign content. As you can see, we are far from being protectionist in the cultural sector. We only want to keep some room so that our creators can express themselves.

Obviously, without those support measures, Canadian and Quebec artists would not even have that minimal share of the Canadian market.

Quebeckers distinguish themselves from their Canadian fellow citizens by the fact that in some areas they have a preference for their own writers and productions. However, in the event of complete deregulation, foreign conglomerates could flood our market with products so cheap that even that preference would not allow us to preserve a Quebec content.

The supporters of neo-liberalism often argue that Canada is an exporter of cultural products and, hence, it would be beneficial to liberalize trade in cultural products. They forget that to begin with you must have something to sell. In the cultural area, it is vital to have a safe domestic market to develop products we will then be able to export. Government policies were the means which stimulated and encouraged the creation and production of cultural works for Canadians and which indirectly created cultural goods and services that could be exported.

If we destroy the base for cultural creation in Canada and in Quebec, there will probably still be a cultural industry, but it will in no way be the mirror of Canadian and Quebec identities. We will become producers of americanized cultural products that will be sold in Canada as well as in foreign countries.

The MAI includes copyright in the definition of investment. Since the most recent commercial agreement always takes precedence over other agreements, the MAI would weaken copyright by invalidating the gains made under previous agreements such as the Rome Convention, the Berne Convention and the International Treaty on Intellectual Property. The MAI would bring to an end collectives which defend the rights of artists. This would be the triumph of the American business approach over the rights of creators.

This problem was well understood by the Culture, Youth, Education and Media Commission of the European Parliament, which stated in January 1998, and I quote:

Incorporating intellectual property issues in a general agreement to regulate investment would be the equivalent of applying an extremely minimalist approach to the whole idea of intellectual property. This is why the MAI should not be applied to that area but should abide by the international agreements already in force that are the result of long and complicated technical negotiations.

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We deeply regret that there is no single Canadian position regarding the cultural industries, but rather multiple positions that change according to the mood of the Minister for International Trade, the public whom he addresses or the pressures exerted on him, in particular the telephone calls from the U.S. Trade Secretary.

For instance, on February 12, the minister asserted that this agreement would not be signed unless it provided for a full cultural exemption. However, the next day, he was less definitive. On February 13, he said that, if he did not get a full exemption, he would settle for country specific reservation. The minister speaks out of both sides of his mouth in his response to the report of the Subcommittee on International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment regarding the MAI.

Is there a distinction between an exemption and a country specific reservation? Yes, and an important one. A country specific reservation is neither sufficient nor acceptable. Reservations have a lower legal status. Moreover, to settle for a country specific reservation instead of a full exemption would be a major compromise never seen in multilateral and bilateral agreements.

The general exception clause has the advantage of not identifying a particular country. All countries are entitled to the same exception, while a mere reservation identifies a country trying to protect itself. A reservation clause shows that this protection is an irritant that will eventually disappear.

Reservation clauses are limited by two principles: the status quo and dismantling. The status quo principle implies that the only authorized changes to measures to which the reservation clause applies would be those which would make those measures more compatible with the agreement. It would therefore be impossible to establish new cultural protection measures, either in the traditional sectors or in the new media resulting from technological progress. Under the dismantling principle, all the measures listed by the various countries are gradually eliminated. Once a country has abandoned a measure it is for good, it cannot be reactivated.

If we agree to sign a MAI which does not have a general exemption clause for cultural matters, we must realise that we are forsaking whatever small Canadian or Quebec content we still have. Without a way of expressing our culture we cannot preserve our Canadian or Quebec identity.

There is also a democratic component, because without a truly Canadian or Quebec cultural space it is impossible to maintain a diverse public space allowing our citizens to participate in our cultural life, which is necessary to public life. We have to leave some room for a democratic expression which goes beyond the simple producer-consumer relation.

The minister must be inflexible concerning the MAI. Without a general cultural exemption, no MAI. A reservation is not acceptable. The heritage minister must play an active role in the international negotiations to have culture excluded the same way defence is excluded. If they really care about the future of their own country, Liberals should worry more about the MAI than about separatists because the MAI is a bigger threat.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Rimouski—Mitis for her excellent speech and the point she made concerning the cultural exception clause in the Multilateral Agreement on Investment as well as in the other agreements. As she reminded her Liberal and “Canadian” colleagues in her conclusion, it is very important that we think not only of us but also of their future.

I want to put a question to my colleague from Rimouski—Mitis about something that is a surprise to me this morning, the inconsistency in the speeches and positions of my colleagues from the Liberal Party.

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I would like to have her opinion on what we heard in the House, because she also listened very carefully to the speeches, as we do. How can the Liberals—who wrote in their red book that they wanted to eliminate child and family poverty in general by the year 2000—oppose today a motion reiterating the 1989 commitment to eliminate poverty by the year 2000?

I would also like to know what she thinks of the position held by Liberal members about our demand to strike a committee made up of Reform, Liberal and Bloc members. A majority of committee members would be Liberals since, as everybody knows, they hold the majority in the House and form the government. But Liberals are opposed to the creation of such a committee.

What, in her opinion, are the Liberals thinking, if such a thing is possible, in opposing a motion for the elimination of child poverty by the year 2000 and the striking of a parliamentary committee to take position on this matter? I would like to hear her opinion on this.

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, this is clearly a worrisome situation.

Indeed, we are asking that a special committee be struck to look into this extremely important issue. My hon. colleague from Repentigny mentioned that many things have happened since 1993. All kinds of agreements were signed without parliamentarians being involved. Individuals who are not accountable to anyone have negotiated agreements on our behalf and did not even ask our opinion. That is unacceptable.

I will take what I witnessed this morning as an example. A sub-committee of the heritage committee was set up to examine the issue of sports in Canada. When we heard witnesses from amateur sport, no one was there. The room was almost empty. There were no reporters, hence no media coverage, and just a few Liberals. In attendance were, besides the chair of the committee of course, perhaps one or two Liberal members and myself, the only opposition member.

This morning however, there were not enough seats for all the members who came to hear NHL officials lament about the horrible situation their industry is in because they are not generating enough profits. Mr. Corey told us Molson made only $5 million in profits last year. My comment to him was that it was too bad that members of his team earned more than he did.

That is the tragedy, no effort is made to sit down and discuss. I have nothing against businesses turning a profit, that is what they are about, but they should also pay their share of taxes. Only those who make money have to pay taxes.

I have met with people in my riding throughout the Easter break and all day yesterday. They told me “We do not want to pay for Montreal again, Mrs. Tremblay. We hope you will object to that. We are still paying for the Olympic stadium and now we are expected to pay for the core revival. We are unemployed. On the lumber issue, we went three or four times before NAFTA panels. We won every time, but nothing came of it. Our foresters are going through tough times”.

NAFTA also applies to hockey teams. Let them go and argue before a NAFTA panel their case against the unfair subsidies American hockey teams receive from the municipalities, states and federal government in the United States. Do not come and ask us to give them money.

[English]

Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it was rather interesting to hear one of the speakers from the Bloc asking a question of Liberal members. I believe the question was why are you here. I believe that is what I heard him say. I find that an extraordinary question coming from someone from the Bloc. The reality is its own members have questioned the validity of their being in this place because of the results of the last referendum. There has been a suggestion by members from that party that they should just resign, take their ball and go home, which would be just fine with me.

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In fairness I must admit I thought the speaker who just finished made some very interesting points. She talked about the success of the Canadian cultural industry.

We have indeed been successful as a government, as a country and as a nation in supporting our cultural exports. Let us take a look at the greatest box office hit I believe in history, Titanic, which featured a Canadian director and the music of the wonderful and talented Céline Dion. One of the biggest stars in Europe is a Canadian, Bryan Adams. We have many things we can be proud of from the point of view of the arts and Canadian culture.

I thought the member actually made some very valid points which sounded a bit to me like she was speaking in support of some of the government programs.

We then get the other extreme. The Bloc members are a bit like chameleons. They change their colours as the mood moves them. They are difficult at times to understand from a logical point of view. I heard a Bloc member this morning say they are democratic socialists. I assume that means they are the NDP en français. It had not occurred to me before but apparently that seems to be their philosophy.

I think what the members of the Bloc need to do and what they should be doing is debating an issue in this place that basically says what kind of a society we want if we are to have an impact on eliminating child poverty.

Child poverty does not happen in a vacuum. Child poverty generally results from family poverty. It seems to be politically more attractive to talk about the children. What about the parents? What about the mothers and fathers working at part time jobs, the working poor in society?

The Reform Party seems to have a solution, broad base tax cuts right across the board so that everybody, particularly its friends, would receive huge tax breaks while the poor it purports to defend would receive minimal or nothing in the form of tax breaks. Reform's solution to child poverty is myopic at best and is simply misguided.

Let me go back to the Bloc and what kind of society we want. Do we want a divided society based on our differences? Do we want a society where we continue to concentrate on the issue of national unity in this great country based on our differences? Of course we have differences. I think the message should be vive la différence et vive le Canada.

If the Bloc would take some of its ideas and put them into practice in terms of constructive debate in this place it might be surprised at some of the support that could arise. I thought some of the debate we have sat through was reasonably well thought out and gave some valid points and concerns.

I think the principle of the motion the young member has put forward, now that he has decided to bring his seat back and join the rest of us, is not a bad principle. The concept is there is a disparity between the rich and the poor and we should strive to eliminate that. There is a problem as it relates to family and child poverty and we should strive to eliminate that.

In my view our government has done a number of things in the last budget with family tax credits, commitments to education and the youth employment strategy. We have done a number of things to help in the area of eradicating poverty. However, it is not enough. I admit that. I think the finance minister and the Prime Minister would admit it is not enough.

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When we take it in the context of the overall job of running corporation Canada, this great country, and we are the board of directors, we have to priorize. We have to make commitments to keep the interest rates down, to keep inflation down, with record numbers. Of course the hon. member does not agree. He is giving me the thumbs down. I would not expect the thumbs up from someone whose sole purpose in life is to destroy this wonderful country. If I ever got it I would be nervous.

We cannot even talk about something like globalization or the MAI without hysteria coming out of members opposite, coming out of people like Maude Barlow champing at the bit, demonstrating everywhere, whipping people into a frenzy, putting out false information all over the country and the members opposite using the negotiations around the MAI for their own political purposes. It is unfortunate.

Free trade and globalization are all part of reality. We cannot be isolationists. Members can clap if they want. I have never said anything different. We cannot be isolationists.

The Bloc would like to put borders around its own province and be in isolation. That is what would happen. The number one trading partner for the province of Ontario is the province of Quebec.

I think interprovincial trade is a very important issue. There are barriers that should be eliminated in interprovincial trade. We should be working toward that together as the board of directors of corporation Canada. I think we can move in that direction.

At the same time we cannot ignore that there is a requirement, an obligation in fact, for us to have negotiations with foreign countries. If we see where the Prime Minister is today and has been for the past day or two, there is an interesting problem there. The Americans do not want to sign the MAI because they do not like the fact that we are upset with the Helms-Burton act. They want to be isolationists. They do not mind trading with China. They do not mind trading with a country whose human rights record is undoubtedly and arguably the worst in the world, but they do not want to trade with the little island of Cuba.

Yet we see what our Prime Minister has been able to accomplish in softening the relationship with Cuba, in getting a settlement from the Cuban government for Confederation Life. We have to have these kinds of discussions and negotiations if we are to play on the world economic stage.

We should just settle down. Let us get the MAI document out. We should not be abrogating our labour standards, we should not be abrogating our environmental standards, we should not be abrogating our health and safety requirements in this country. This government would not allow that to happen. But because these things are put on the table we get knee-jerk reactions from people who put blinders on and refuse to even discuss it.

We must have negotiations on globalization, on international trade if we are ever to increase the marketplace for the 30 million people in this great country. We cannot do it all internally. Interprovincial trade is a problem but globalization is here to stay. Canadians should embrace it and have confidence to be able to compete on a world stage in the business community and in the arts and culture.

I have that confidence and I know our government does as well.

[Translation]

Mr. Ghislain Lebel (Chambly, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to what the member who just spoke was saying, but I have to say I find it utter nonsense.

The member is in favor of free trade, in favor of international trade. But does he know that, for example, Quebec's Unibroue, the micro-brewery Quebeckers are so proud of because it produces a quality beer that is sold all over the world, is unable to sell a single bottle of beer in Ontario because of the tariffs and structures the Ontario government has put in place to keep out producers from Quebec and, I suppose, from other provinces also?

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I would like to say to the member that, without customers from Quebec who bought cars made by Ford, Chrysler and GM in Ontario, at almost double the price these same products are sold for in the United States, without protectionist measures, the Ontario economy would have taken a nosedive and its automobile industry would be dying.

I am in favor of trade, but we have to start from identical bases and production costs must be identical because of the commitment of governments to respect certain rights.

How can we sell a welding product, for example, when a welder in this country must wear special protective clothing, his workshop must be heated, and he must receive a minimum salary, whereas in Venezuela, I saw a welder working in shorts, barefoot, on the street corner, using the bottom of a bottle for a mask? How can we be competitive in these situations?

I would like my colleague to explain this to me because he seems to be the one who has the absolute truth, today, in the House.

[English]

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, I actually agree with the concern raised in the case of the micro brewery in Quebec. It is ludicrous.

The problem is the beer distribution system in the province of Ontario is fundamentally controlled by the big brewers. That is where we need to resolve the problem. They control the distribution system. The hon. member's micro brewery in the province of Quebec cannot get listed on Brewers Retail. We do not sell it in corner stores and in grocery stores like in other parts of this country. There is a fundamental problem there. The hon. member raises a valid point. Quebec and Ontario should sit down and discuss how we can alleviate that injustice.

The province of Quebec buys over $9 billion more from Ontario businesses than the reverse. We have a very healthy balance of trade. We have a very healthy interest in working with the province of Quebec. We have some room because of that balance of trade. I invite those issues to be put on the table.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Mississauga West did say there was a $9 billion surplus. I have not checked the figures, but surely they will want to keep those billions once Quebec becomes sovereign—

An hon. member: Surely.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: A $9 billion surplus is very attractive to them.

His speech made us aware of the importance, the relevance and the rightness of the motion and the debate put forward by the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean. How can anyone remain insensitive to so much nonsense, inconsistency and madness in a 10-minute speech? Perhaps this would deserve a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records. I don't know, but I never heard such thing.

First, about eliminating child poverty, Canada signed an agreement in New York on the elimination of poverty. They were there in New York.

Second, in their red book, they talked about eliminating child poverty. He is a member of the Liberal Party.

Third, I would like to ask him if the number of poor children has risen or fallen since he has been sitting here. Why is he shying away from his role as a parliamentarian and refusing to let a parliamentary committee be set up to deal specifically with these matters?

[English]

Mr. Steve Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, it is quite clear what this government has done in relation to the economy. Our recent budget set out how we have the country on track. We have eliminated the deficit of $42 billion. All that is vitally important to the success of programs that will help eliminate poverty. It will create jobs. That is how we are going to eliminate poverty.

Unlike the members opposite, who appear to be social democrats or socialists en français, we believe in working in partnership with the provinces, with the territories, with the private sector, with trainers and with educational institutions to ensure there are job opportunities for all Canadians. That will eliminate poverty.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today on this motion. It calls for “considering Canadian parliamentarians' ability to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the new context created by the globalization of markets”. Why have we come to this?

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One of the main movers behind this debate is the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean, who spoke from the heart when he said “I am an elected representative. I want to act, I want to be able to have an impact so that my fellow citizens can have a voice in this transformation we see going on throughout the world, where we hear continually of dollars, of effects on investment, of effects on cost-effectiveness”.

But his question was this. “Are these changes good for the people of my country? Are they aimed at improving the collective well-being? Am I, as an elected representative, capable of exercising enough influence to harness globalization?”

Everyone favours increased trade. We know that the number of wars in the world is decreasing, which makes it possible to have broader economic markets and allows small countries to also benefit. Wide political room is no longer needed, just wide economic room.

How, though, can we ensure that certain people do not get hurt by this globalization? I will ask two questions to illustrate this. First, is it or is it not true that the total annual income of the more than 250 million poorest people on earth equals the net worth of the six richest people? The answer is that this is true. This is not surprising, considering that close to one-third of humanity lives in abject poverty and earns less than 1US$ per day.

Second, is it or is it not true that, as the world gets richer, the gap between rich and poor is widening? This is false. It is not narrowing. The gap has more than doubled in a little less than one generation. Why? Because out of each $100 in economic growth, $86 goes to the richest 20%, and only $1.10 goes to the poorest 20%.

These are questions and answers that are food for thought. This situation is not the result of chance. It is the result of people looking after their own interests, people seeking to have their economic interests taken into account and promoting the increase of trade. We have had agreements such as NAFTA, the creation of agencies such as the WTO, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund. All these organizations look after their interests.

As parliamentarians, what is our duty? Our duty is to be the democratic hope of people. When someone in Saint-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, where there is a hog slaughterhouse, tells me: “It seems to me that suddenly there are fewer jobs. What is going on?” Well, this is linked to globalization. Somewhere in Asia there is an economic crisis going on. It has an impact on the marketplace, on the sale and consumption of pork for example, and in turn it results in fewer jobs in a village in my riding.

These are issues I must, as an elected representative, find ways to rectify, change, modify. It may not appear like much but, for instance, Bill C-36 contains a clause providing for an increase in the amount of money the federal government can give the International Monetary Fund to deal with international crises. It looks perfect at first glance, but is it not a way to invite speculators to provoke crises because to cash in and, in the end, force the states and the Monetary Fund to make up the difference and find their way out of these crises?

These are important questions and the motion sets them out. Now that the private sector is responsible for creating wealth, we assume the equally important responsibility of distributing it.

In that regard, the performance of the last few years leaves much to be desired. In the motion, there is a historical reference. In 1989, the House adopted a motion calling for the elimination of child poverty by the year 2000. We have our work cut out for us if we really want to do it before the year 2000. This morning, the National Council on Welfare submitted a report to the Standing Committee on Finance in which it says that “There are about one and a half million poor children in Canada. About two thirds of them, roughly one million, live in families on welfare”.

If the Canadian Parliament had to be evaluated today on its performance in its fight against child poverty, it would be judged to have failed miserably. It would not get a passing mark, because it is not living up to its commitment.

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Given the apathy of the Liberal majority in particular, and given that it does not want to support this motion, what will it take for parliamentarians to act on this issue?

The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean rose to the challenge. He is asking parliamentarians from all political parties to commit to finding solutions. We have not yet reached that stage. We are merely asking parliamentarians to commit to finding solutions, and we cannot get this commitment from the Liberal majority. We will have to come up with an even more compelling way to get results.

We set an objective. We mentioned 50,000 signatures on the petition being circulated to ask that these positions be considered. The Liberals are silent on the issue. They are not even prepared to have a debate and to allow a parliamentary committee look at it. We will counter their silence with thousands of signatures opposing it. We already have 50,000 of them and, if more are needed, we will get them.

Child poverty is present everywhere. Last weekend, I took part in various activities and I asked people about the appropriateness of the chair episode. No one questioned the fact that fighting poverty is the way to ensure globalization does not turn to our disadvantage. Everyone feels it is an important issue for which solutions must be found. I do not have these solutions. I do not know yet whether bank mergers are a good thing and I do not know yet how this ought to be done.

But I do want the debate started by the member for Lac-Saint-Jean to take place. We must ask ourselves these questions, otherwise the year 2005 or 2010 will roll around and we will still not have any solutions. We ourselves will no longer be in this Parliament, because we will have found another option, but the situation will not have changed.

In 1989, almost 10 years ago, the House pledge to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Today, there are still 1.5 million Canadian children living in poverty. We must not find ourselves in the same situation 10 years from now, or in an even worse situation.

I will conclude on this note. How can we achieve such a result? Some people say we are naïve. Being naïve can trigger change. One who is naïve and politically organized and who has the determination to do achieve results will put the issues on the table, will discuss them and will find effective solutions.

But we must never do what the Prime Minister did. After having almost strangled a protester, he is now heaping ridicule on the youngest member in this House because he asked this basic question “What can we do to narrow the gap between rich and poor? How can we make sure that globalization will not have negative impacts, but positive ones?”

The Prime Minister will have to live with the consequences of his actions. I think he knew very well what was happening. He knows very well that he is unable and unwilling to deal with this issue. The Prime Minister, the Liberal members and all members of Parliament should react by saying this “It is indeed an important issue that has been raised by the member for Lac-Saint-Jean”.

It is an issue of paramount importance and members of Parliament have a key role to play. It is on that, in particular, that the people in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada will judge them. Have they managed our country well or have they only been spectators who zap from place to place with their remote control while letting others decide in their place and waiting to see how things will develop?

[English]

Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member from the Bloc and I am wondering if the member could tell the House what aspect of globalization is hurting Canada. Is it the free trade agreement with the United States? Is it the NAFTA with United States and Mexico? Is it the World Trade Organization where we have negotiated with 132 other member countries or is it the MAI?

Could the member explicitly tell us what aspect of globalization is being hurt by treaties Canada signed?

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[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Speaker, there is a concrete example that can be readily given, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. If we ever negotiate such an agreement without a basic exemption for cultural matters, it would be unacceptable and very dangerous for Quebec as well as for Canada.

If we were to close our eyes on how different countries treat their employees or environmental issues, we would allow the development of submarkets or situations where there would be undue competition. People will be treated unequally to attract capital and to meet requirements. These are elements of globalization that we must control.

There is no contradiction. And if there is anyone who can understand that in Canada, it is Quebeckers. We were the architects of the signing of the free trade agreement with the United States. We were in favour of signing the agreement, but we wanted to ensure that its conditions were acceptable.

When you go in with a considerable capital—as in the case of the MIA, for example—the people living in the countries to our south who profit from these investment projects must have an equal opportunity and these projects must be made undere acceptable conditions.

We must also ensure that productivity gains due to globalization are distributed among the country's citizens. If it is always the same people who are profiting from the revenues, there is a major problem.

We had the same problem at the end of 19th century, before the Industrial Revolution. Ten- to twelve-year old children worked in mines and textile mills. Some people said this did not make sense; it was the start of labour unions. They tried to humanize these attitudes.

Today, on the eve of the 21st century, we are faced with the same challenge because, in effect, if the annual revenue of more than 250 million of the poorest people on earth equals the net assets of the six richest persons, then something is not working in the system. As an elected representative, I am responsible, as are all other members in the House.

[English]

Mr. Charlie Penson: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member talk about the need for cultural exemptions. I was trying to find out what area was the biggest concern.

The member stated that unless Canada achieves a cultural exemption under the MAI there are serious problems for Canada. We have an investment agreement and a treaty with the United States and Mexico called the NAFTA. We have a cultural exemption under the NAFTA but I wonder if the member recognizes that the cultural exemption also provides for the United States to retaliate in equivalent measure for any protectionist measure we take.

Given that most cultural people in the industry seem to think the threat is coming from the United States, I am wondering about the logic of this because the NAFTA is going to stay in place no matter what we do in terms of the MAI. I am wondering if the member is not giving a little too much credence to the MAI. The NAFTA is going to stay in place and it takes precedence in terms of the culture agreement with the United States in any case.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Speaker, we should not forget that one of our goals in NAFTA was to have a judicial body that could make binding rulings in certain circumstances.

We had the softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the United States, for example. There did not seem to be a way out of this problem through discussions between our two countries. The free trade agreement provides for a set of rules to make this kind of decision and includes consultation mechanisms so that we can use an arbitration process if appropriate.

That is but one way of reining in international agreements so that, in the future, decisions will be made in an appropriate and compassionate way.

Other conditions are equally important. It is crucial for Quebec to get a clause protecting provincial jurisdictions. For as long as we are a part of Canada, if an agreement such as the MAI is signed without such a clause, it will be an encouragement for members opposite to resort to the same practice the Conservative government used to encroach upon our jurisdictions. They could also justify these intrusions under international agreements and say that, because of these, they have to take action in education and other sectors.

This is essential for us. To conclude, we believe the assessment we will make of the impact of globalization will depend not only on the wealth that it creates, but also on the distribution of this wealth between the people who live in the various countries that are involved in different trade relations.

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[English]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): We are a bit out of rotation, so will go to the hon. member for Quebec and then to the member for Laval West and then back to our normal rotation.

[Translation]

Mrs. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): Mr. Speaker, work is a right, employment is a necessity, and poverty is an affront to human dignity, an injustice to our learned institutions and an infringement of fundamental freedoms.

It is in this context that the Bloc Quebecois supports the proposal by the youngest member in the House, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, that a parliamentary committee be struck to look at the issue of the role and authority of governments with respect to the redistribution of wealth.

A debate on this scale cannot be partisan. It is therefore with confidence that I urge my fellow members in the House to take an active role in the Bloc Quebecois' proposal.

I would like to take a moment to read out the motion. It goes as follows:

That this House reiterate the 1989 commitment to eliminating child poverty by the year 2000, urge the government to act, and strike an all-party Special Parliamentary Committee with the main objective of considering Canadian parliamentarians' ability to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the new context created by the globalization of markets, because of the following facts:

(1) despite the economic growth of recent years, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen;

(2) the globalization of markets greatly affects governments' ability to develop their countries' economies in accordance with their priorities; and

(3) globalization and the international agreements that frame it, particularly the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) as now written, may limit some of governments' powers and consequently those of the representatives elected to this House.

I will begin by recalling the observation of one of this century's great thinkers, Fernand Dumont, who said, in Raisons communes, that “Problems do not go away because we have talked about them too much; they persist because we have not resolved them”. He was right, of course.

Indeed, in our ridings, we are constantly reminded of the increase in poverty by the very people who suffer because of that problem. Every day, the fact that poverty is on the rise is reported by the media and by members in the House of Commons. Since we came to the House in 1993, this issue has been a priority of the Bloc Quebecois. It is an ongoing concern among our members.

As for statistics, they leave no room for argument. They show that, despite economic growth, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow rapidly. A study from the national forum on family security concluded that, between 1981 and 1991, in the bottom 20% of the income scale, $25,000 or less, incomes dropped by $400 million. In the middle income group, between $39,000 and $54,200, incomes dropped by $2.7 billion. However, in the top 20% of the income scale, $74,000 or more, incomes increased by $6.6 billion.

What is the situation elsewhere? In 1992, the wealthiest 20% of the population in the United States had an income that was 11 times higher than that of the poorest 20%, compared to seven and a half times in 1969. Internationally, the wealthiest 20% of the population have seen their share of the world income increase from 70% to 85% between 1960 and 1991, whereas the poorest 20% have seen their share drop from 2.3% to 1.4%.

But beyond these statistics, there is pain. There are children who are hungry and parents who are desperate because they cannot give them what they need. There are young people who are reluctant to bring children into this world because they are in dire financial straits. Do we have the right to remain silent and to continue to include in our legislation what really amounts to the social and economic exclusion of an important part of our collective wealth?

People looking for a job must not be reduced to developing productive resources. They are human beings who want to take an active part in economic growth. It is in this perspective that we must reflect on the globalization of trade and, particularly, on the multilateral agreement on investment.

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Globalization is more than a theory or an ideology. It is a reality we see every day. Whether we like it or not, rising to a changing and knowledge based international environment has become the main concern of industrial strategies and national economic policies.

The Bloc Quebecois is aware of this reality. That is why we agree with the MAI principle, which is aimed essentially at defining a legal framework for alleviating the uncertainty associated with investing in a foreign country by making it an obligation to implement the same measures for national and foreign businesses, to promote investment and, at the same time, economic growth.

But before we support this agreement, we must get right to the bottom of an aspect of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. I would like to raise one of the aspects that concerns me the most, that is the increasing impoverishment of people and the gap between rich and poor.

The social clause is the most important aspect for me today and I would like to stress it. I know there are others claimed by the Bloc and by the Canadian people, but the social clause is the one that would allow us to have a better control so that the gap between rich and poor would not deepen.

Since 1994, OECD union organizations have been calling for the inclusion, in all trade agreements, of a social clause committing countries to respecting the seven fundamental conventions of the International Labour Organization. What is at stake here is the freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the ban on forced labour and job discrimination, among other things.

With respect to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, I know that the preamble to the report does mention the attachment of signatory states to the 1992 Rio Declaration. But how can such an undertaking be taken seriously when it is known for a fact that the United States ratified only one convention out of seven and that Canada has signed only four of them?

Some may fear that this agreement on investment could be signed without a social clause. Instead, we would like the investment treaty to be negotiated under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, because it is more representative. At the moment, the OECD has only 29 member states, while the WTO has 130.

The Bloc Quebecois wants more transparency and I think it has the support of the people. We want more transparency because we know that the people are very concerned and did not have a say in this agreement which will probably be signed next fall.

More transparency is needed. This agreement must generate more local benefits and some guaranteed net benefits for the countries involved in increasing capital flow. The people must be the first to benefit from any increase in capital flow. We are well aware of the problems associated with some agreements that may not be complied with. Capital outflows could be catastrophic for some of the countries involved in this agreement. National economies would become more vulnerable.

Safeguards must be in place to avoid abuses and to ensure that this agreement benefits people. I strongly support the motion tabled this morning.

Since I was elected, child poverty and the impoverishment of the people have been at the heart of all my comments and speeches in this House.

Mr. René Canuel (Matapédia—Matane, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I will not repeat the figures just cited. They are correct and everyone can consult them. However, I am going to give a few examples from my riding.

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Yesterday, I learned that two young people in Bonaventure killed a senior citizen. Many will say that is the way young people are, but that is not true. As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility that we very often fail to assume.

Do we have to do what Martin Luther King did? Everyone is still talking about it years later. What did he do? He got directly involved. Do we have to do what Monsignor Romero or Terry Fox did?

What do we have to do? As parliamentarians we can see that although we are needed it is sometimes hard to get an idea across and to open hearts and minds.

My colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, who I also congratulate, and of whom I am very proud, has raised a question. I would say it is a non-partisan question: Can something be done for young people? Can something be done for older people? Can something be done for the people in our ridings? That is what we are after. That is why we were elected.

I did not want to be passionate. I wanted to remain very calm today, for the subject to remain above partisan politics. It must appeal to our hearts and minds. We have to loosen the purse strings. Perhaps we should be the first to do so.

However, without a debate, if there is not an actual committee responsible for weighing the pros and cons, and especially possible approaches, what means do we have at our disposal in the next two years to ease the situation a bit?

The Prime Minister has often said that Canada is a rich country. It is. The wealth is there, but who holds it? Twenty per cent of the people who are starving come from our ridings, and it hurts.

My colleague spoke of the next ten years, I want to ask about the period up to 2000. How could we get people some help? There are petitions, of course, but is there anything else?

Mrs. Christiane Gagnon: Mr. Speaker, earlier, I said that globalization is more than just a theory or an ideology, it is an everyday reality. My hon. colleague talked about the sadness and despair he often sees among his fellow citizens, at least among those who do not have a decent salary, because there are no jobs.

Indeed, the fact that this issue can be addressed in the House of Commons, that we are having a debate and that the people can take part is indeed a good thing. I think we are about to sign an agreement the people have never heard of before and even us, as members of Parliament, have not had the opportunity to discuss it.

The people will have to be heard on this issue. I invite all my constituents to express their concerns about this agreement. We will have to further inform the people of all the issues the agreement will likely raise.

I talked earlier about the flow of capital. There could be flights of capital. It happens when, for some reason, agreements that have been signed are not honoured. In such cases it is the population that suffers the very serious consequences of a loss of investment.

Therefore this issue has to be taken seriously. I am glad to see that we can discuss the MIA. We could bring it up with our constituents. We will see, with the passing months, what the people think about the agreement and what are the reservations that the various countries could put forward.

We also have to respect the particularities of the various countries. Here, in Canada, we know that some of the provinces have particularities that are not mentioned in the agreement.

We have to live with the globalization of the markets, but we also have to take into consideration the capacity of the countries to evolve in tune with this huge globalization phenomenon.

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Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in response to the Bloc Quebecois motion.

For the next few minutes, I will be emphasizing that, in its latest budget, our government has taken effective, targeted action to maintain and improve the situation of low and middle income Canadians.

The 1998 budget marks the beginning of a broad based tax relief effort comprised of two major initiatives and designed to maintain targeted relief for those who need it most and in areas where the greatest benefits will be achieved.

Over the next three years, the measures contained in the budget will translate into $7 billion in tax relief benefiting mostly low and middle income taxpayers.

Relief will be small at first, as the fiscal dividend it comes from will itself be small. We will not make tax cuts that risk compromising neither the fiscal health we have just restored nor the priorities identified by Canadians, including health care, education and public pensions.

That is why, in accordance with this country's priorities, the government will start by reducing the taxes paid by those who can least afford them: low and middle income Canadians.

The first of the two broad based tax relief initiatives consists in increasing the non taxable income of Canadians who earn a small income. Currently the basic personal exemption is $6,456, while the married exemption and the equivalent to married exemption cannot be more than $5,380.

The budget provides for a $500 increase of these amounts for low income Canadians, as a result the amount of income taxpayers can receive on a tax-free basis will be increased by $500 for a single person earning less than $20,000, and by $1,000 for families earning less than $40,000.

This measure, which is to come into force July 1, 1998, will take 400,000 low-income Canadians off the tax rolls and reduce taxes for an additional 4.6 million Canadians. The income tax relief will amount to $85 for single taxpayers, and to a maximum of $170 for families.

Moreover, the budget provides for the elimination of the 3% general surtax for Canadians with incomes up to about $50,000. This surtax, a tax on tax created in 1986 to help reduce the deficit, will be lowered for Canadians with incomes between $50,000 and around $65,000.

As a result of this measure, which will come into force on July 1, 1998,, close to 13 million taxpayers will pay no federal surtax in 1999, and another one million Canadians will see a significant reduction in their surtax liability.

These two measures provide for a very progressive distribution of tax relief since the biggest tax relief, as compared to current taxes, will go to taxpayers with the lowest income. For example, singles earning $30,000 a year will see their tax burden reduced by 3%, while singles earning $50,000 a year will receive a 2.4% tax reduction.

A family with an annual income of $30,000 will get a 31% reduction, while for a family earning $50,000 taxes will fall by 3.3%. As a result, a family earning $30,000 will see its total federal income taxes falling to about $300 or about 1% of its income.

True to previous budgets, the 1998 budget provides for targeted tax relief for those who need it most.

Under the Canadian Opportunities Strategy, for the first time ever, interest payments on student loans will be deductible.

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This measure will be extended to all students and will benefit more than one million people. For example, for a student with a typical debt, this measure will mean a federal and provincial tax reduction of almost $530 the first year and of up to $3,200 over a ten year paydown.

The budget also proposes several measures that will allow Canadians to improve their qualifications, for instance the extension of the education credit to part time students. A part time student taking two eligible courses will be able to save $120 in taxes. This measure will reduce the costs associated with education and will facilitate continuing education for over 250,000 part time students.

In recognition of the expenses associated with education and to promote continuing education, the government will now allow part time students to claim the child care expense deduction. This measure, which will affect about 50,000 part time students, will allow a parent with two children who is taking two courses to save about $550 in taxes.

Together, these two measures will more than triple, from $300 to almost $1,000 a year, the tax savings for a typical part time student with two children.

To support continuing education, the budget also proposes to allow Canadians to make tax free withdrawals from their RRSPs to finance full time education and training.

Taxpayers will be able to withdraw, tax free, up to $10,000 a year, without exceeding $20,000 over a four year period. To preserve their retirement incomes, taxpayers will have to reimburse these withdrawals over a ten year period.

Support measures for families are also included in the budget. For example, there is an increase of the child care expense deduction from $5,000 to $7,000 for children under age 7, and from $3,000 to $4,000 for children aged 7 to 16. A parent with two preschool children will have his or her taxes reduced by $1,600. This measure takes into account the child care expenses paid by full time working parents and will benefit 65,000 families with children.

The 1998 budget contains another family support measure. It adds $850 million to the $850 million increase in the child tax credit announced in the 1997 budget, to come into effect in July 1998. This will be introduced in two stages. The first calls for $425 million more per year, starting July 1999, and the second the identical amount in July 2000.

The government also plans a credit for natural caregivers, which will decrease the combined federal and provincial tax by $600 for those taking care of an aged parent or a disabled relative. Some 450,000 natural caregivers, who would not normally be eligible for the disabled dependent credit, will benefit from this assistance. In addition, a GST and HST exemption will apply to expenses incurred in providing temporary assistance to a person whose self-sufficiency is limited through disability.

In order to encourage the hiring of young people aged 18 to 24, employers will pay no EI contributions for new jobs created for young people in 1999 and 2000.

I would like to add, before closing, that I will share my remaining time with the minister.

Along with the reduction in employers' contributions to employment insurance, which have been dropped to $2.70 per $100 of insurable earnings since January 1, 1998, this measure marks an important step in facilitating job creation for young Canadians.

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In order to treat self-employed workers and limited companies more fairly, the budget proposes that Canadian self-employed individuals may, starting this year, deduct their contributions to health and dental insurance plans from business income.

In closing, I would like to add that globalization definitely poses considerable challenges to our society. The technological progress of the past two decades outstrips that of the entire last century. The 1998 Liberal budget reflects this phenomenon by proposing targeted tax relief and by building a solid economy—

The Deputy Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but her time is up.

Mrs. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am a bit surprised at what the member had to say. I thought we were talking about the MAI and its impact on the gap between the rich and poor. What I heard sounded like a budget being brought in. It was as though the Minister of Finance were making his budget speech.

This is the sort of self-congratulation we often hear from the members opposite when it comes time to hold a debate. They are always telling us how wonderful they are, as though we were living in the most wonderful country in the world and had no problems here in Canada.

Why has child poverty increased? It is certainly not because of everything the government has done. I will take my cue from the member opposite. If she wants to refer to the budget, I too can play at that.

What is her opinion of the non-indexation of the child tax benefit, of the personal tax tables, of the tightened EI eligibility criteria, of the cuts in the Canada social transfer that have taken a serious toll on the public? The end result is that the public is worse off. Not once did I hear the member expressing any concern over the agreement being signed. Is she not concerned about the various provisions. The member did not point to one provision that concerned her.

I have two criticisms of what she said. First, I do not think the government has anything to crow about. Second, I would have liked her to tell me which provisions in the MAI caused her the most concern.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Mr. Speaker, I will answer the member's question. What surprises me in her criticism is that she does not seem to understand the role played by the Government of Canada.

The role of the government is to help people. How does it do that? It does it mainly through its budget. The budget is the most important element because, as we all know, it controls the allocation of moneys to the various departments.

What I have tried to demonstrate in the speech I just made in this House is how our government is responsible, how it pays special attention to the poorest, to young Canadians who need money to pursue their education. As a government, it is our responsibility to meet the needs of young people and low income families, those with very low salaries, and that is exactly what I have tried to demonstrate.

[English]

Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting debate today.

The Liberal member who just spoke used a lot of facts and in some respects was talking about the budget. We should examine that a bit.

The issue that has been brought up here is child poverty and globalization. In terms of poverty, would the member agree that something should have been done in the last budget for the over 2.5 million Canadians who are still paying taxes to the federal government and earning less than $15,000 a year? In fact the 1997-98 fiscal year which ended on March 31 would have had a surplus of over $4.5 billion if the government had not decided to spend it.

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I see the member is getting some coaching from her colleague but that is all right. Maybe together the two of them can figure out something.

It seems to me it would have been an opportune time to have some tax relief for low income Canadians, to take them off the tax rolls altogether. What is required are good paying jobs. People who are not in the category of having high paying jobs should not have the extra difficulty of having to pay federal taxes on an income that is very low, $15,000 or less.

Would the hon. member agree with me on that?

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Mr. Speaker, I will respond to that comment by saying that poverty is a very serious issue and a basic concern of our government.

I will repeat what I have already said. Let us not forget that, thanks to our budget, 400,000 people will not be paying any taxes next year. Those are the very people referred to by the member, that is people with extremely low salaries.

I would also remind the member that our fundamental task and our first priority this year has been to reduce the deficit. Not only have we reduced it, but we have eliminated it completely. It was a monumental task, and I am very proud of our achievement. We would like to do more—

The Deputy Speaker: I am sorry but the time provided for questions and comments has expired.

[English]

Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew (Secretary of State (Children and Youth), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate the hon. member's motion.

The hon. leader of the Bloc Quebecois has presented the House with a rather broad sweeping motion. I will direct my comments at the portion of the motion dealing with the elimination of child poverty which falls within my specific mandate.

While families have the primary responsibility to nurture their children, they are not alone in this critical undertaking. The healthy development of our children requires the attention and collaboration of parents with territorial and provincial governments and the private and voluntary sectors. The Government of Canada is most certainly prepared to do its part.

I assume the hon. member was in the House during last September's Speech from the Throne. If he was he would know that the Government of Canada is working with its provincial and territorial partners to build a comprehensive and effective national child benefit system. During the Speech from the Throne the hon. leader of the Bloc Quebecois would have heard the government reiterate its commitment to “ensure that all Canadian children have the best possible opportunity to develop their full potential”.

It should be noted that there is a real need to demonstrate this by one stark statistic. Eighty-five per cent of single parents are women and 65% of them live in poverty. Other groups are equally affected, such as aboriginal youth and disabled youth and children.

The throne speech went on to say that the government has already demonstrated its commitment to the well-being of our children in part by increasing our contribution to the Canada child tax benefit by $850 million during the course of this mandate. This was not hollow rhetoric.

It is unfortunate if some members find the budget to be something reprehensible. Most of the initiatives for human development are directed at children and families in need.

The government demonstrated its intent quite clearly in the budget by repeating its commitment to increase the child tax benefit by an additional $850 million. That is $850 million on top of the $850 million we committed to the Canada child tax benefit in the 1997 budget. This is already an increase in advance of what we had planned to do.

The government will live up to this commitment in a fiscally responsible manner. The $850 million committed in the 1997 budget will come into effect July 1 this year. Of the new funding, $425 million will be allocated in July 1999. The remaining $425 million will come into play in July 2000. That is a total Government of Canada commitment of $1.7 billion to try to help in part fight child poverty in Canada.

I say to the hon. member that this investment demonstrates quite clearly the government's commitment to do as much as it possibly can to move toward the elimination of child poverty in Canada. This in real terms is action. In the meantime, while we are working with our partners in planning these new strategies the government already has a number of programs in place to assist children and their families. I would like to bring a few of those programs to the attention of members.

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The child care visions program was created in 1995. This national program for research on child care and development is administered by Human Resources Development Canada. The program supports research and evaluation projects to study current child care practices and delivery of services.

The 1997 budget increased resources by $100 million over the next three years for two existing community based programs that benefit children at risk. These are the community action program for children and the Canada prenatal nutrition program.

I am at the midpoint of a national tour on youth and children which will go to every province and both territories visiting and consulting with all stakeholders for children and youth. I have seen many, many wonderful programs, successful programs at the community level undertaken with the priorities as demonstrated by the people. Just yesterday I was in Quebec and Verdun visiting some stakeholders.

The community action program for children responds to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child and helps community groups address health and social needs of at risk children up to six years of age. This program will allow communities all across Canada to design projects most relevant to the needs of children in their communities. It provides a variety of services such as toy lending libraries, infant stimulation, parenting education and support, and integrated services through family resource and child development centres.

Through the development of the national children's agenda and such programs as Health Canada's prenatal nutrition program, we can also begin to address issues such as fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects.

It would be most advisable to undertake the appropriate steps to ensure that we have some kind of capacity in the name of a national advisory committee for that, as well as to undertake a number of strategically appointed pilot projects that would deal with not only identifying but relating these to issues that affect things such as young offenders.

In my capacity as Secretary of State for Children and Youth, I have begun discussions with street youth, street youth workers and health care professionals on possible approaches to the issues of street youth.

One issue which affects street youth is that because they lack an address, street youth cannot enter any kind of training program. They cannot enlist in any kind of government service or program. This is very important. A mechanism should be instituted by which street youth will be able to give information that is satisfactory to various learning institutions which will allow them to participate.

We also need to be concerned about the security of these youth. These young people are someone's children and they are our country's children. While not being able to resolve this overnight, we should be able to provide some security for them, some kind of clearing house mechanism where they can have the time to make decisions. Some of these young people actually have children as well. Security is a big issue.

The First Nations and Inuit child care initiative helps to bring the quality and quantity of child care services for aboriginal communities in line with child care services available to the general population. The Government of Canada is providing $72 million over three years to help create 4,300 new child care spaces and improve some 1,700 existing spaces. We also have committed $36 million annually to maintain the program.

To ensure that these programs and any others that may be developed are effective, it is necessary to gather up to date information on the social condition of Canadian children. To that end Statistics Canada and Human Resources Development Canada are currently engaged in the national longitudinal survey of children and youth. This is a long term study which revisits individuals every two years from birth to adulthood. It presents an integrated picture of their lives. The data we are gathering is assisting us in planning future programs.

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Besides the initiatives I have mentioned, we are collaborating with our provincial and territorial partners in working toward establishing a national children's agenda. The agenda will be a broad comprehensive strategy to improve the well-being of Canada's children. The agenda's impetus will ensure that all Canadian children have the best possible opportunity to develop to their full potential as healthy, successful and contributing members of society.

As part of this national agenda we will expand our aboriginal head start program to on reserve children. We will measure the readiness of Canadian children to learn. We will establish centres of excellence for children's well-being. Federal, provincial and territorial governments will work together to fully develop the national children's agenda, one of the most significant social policy initiatives in 30 years.

There are many other programs I could speak to. Yesterday in Verdun I had the opportunity to visit the children and youth centre Toujours ensemble. It is a wonderful centre. I encourage members opposite to visit it. It demonstrates the excellent initiatives people undertake when they are adequately resourced by various levels of government.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speeches by the member for Laval West and by the minister. I think anyone who defends themself for 20 minutes when no criticism has been leveled at them must have something to hide. We have not accused them of anything, but they defended themselves for 20 minutes. Something is not quite clear.

The minister said the Bloc Quebecois motion was all over the place and all muddled. I will help her out with a reminder. We want to create a special committee to examine the disparity between the rich and the poor. That is not so very complicated.

I have two very simple questions for the minister. First, has the number of poor children increased or decreased since the Liberals have been in government? Second, why is she opposed to creating an all party special committee to consider the problem of the gap between the rich and the poor?

[English]

Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, I am not a person who is usually against very much. What I am in favour of is what the government has consistently been doing. That is, throughout all the successive budgets since 1993 when we became government, there are two areas where we have not reduced funding, where we have built programs consistently. We have enforced and expanded programs dealing with children and youth.

I must say that I did not state that that was confusing. I said that it was broad sweeping, that it pulled in such issues as the multilateral agreement on investment and the globalization of markets affecting the government's ability to develop the country's economies in accordance with its priorities. These are all broad assumptions and are broad sweeping issues that do not directly relate to my mandate. My mandate deals with les enfants et la jeunesse. In that mode I wanted to talk about something that is relevant to my mandate, the elimination of child poverty.

We look at the throne speech and the budget, the programs instituted, the prenatal nutrition program, the community action plan for children. I do not know whether the member opposite has bothered but I have gone to the grassroots level, to the various communities not just in Liberal held ridings but to various places. I have seen the programs. They are excellent programs. I advise the member to visit them as well.

Ms. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I have some questions for the hon. member.

I would like to know how the member would respond to the government's failure to set goals for decreasing unemployment. How would she respond to health and education transfers that directly affect poverty? No one would argue that increased education is one of the greatest weapons against poverty.

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How would the minister respond to the cuts to EI that greatly affected aboriginal seasonal workers who no longer meet the requirement and are forced to go on welfare at a time when they are fighting to increase their self-worth?

We cannot look at child poverty in isolation as her other colleagues have been mentioning today. I think everyone realizes this. How does the minister respond to only isolating child poverty from the poverty of all?

Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her questions.

We are not in the practice of setting quotas or targets that we cannot meet. We put all our efforts into eliminating and trying to reduce unemployment. We have done that. We have gone from double digit to a single digit unemployment figure. That says something.

We have also created an opportunity for people by way of reducing and eliminating the deficit on top of trying to do what we can for poor people. We are not continually putting pressure back on the taxpayers of Canada. I think that speaks for itself.

We can talk about numbers but we cannot achieve anything if we do not put a concerted effort into something, which we have done consistently.

I encourage the hon. member to read the budget. It was an education budget. I do not know if she recalls but the media were calling the Minister of Finance the minister of education because of the budget he put before parliament. I encourage the member to look at all the granting systems and the millennium scholarship fund. Much debated they were, but they were necessary.

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion today. I was somewhat amused when I looked at the television broadcast of this debate and saw the line underneath the picture indicating “elimination of poverty”. I thought some might say we have reached a point of arrogance to assume we in the House will eliminate all poverty.

I have some comments regarding the motion which I would like to share. The particular motion proposes to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor and to eliminate child poverty through government intervention.

For some individuals these are noble sounding goals, but Reform would take issue with how the Bloc and others in the House propose to achieve these goals. Often the method and the determination of the outcome are more critical than just lofty sounding goals.

Some feel the answer to these problems is more megagovernment programs, more government make work projects, more protectionism, more bureaucracy, more taxes, more debt and a more unfocused federal government, more of the old vision of how a government should work.

It is because this has not worked that Reform takes a different view of how these issues should be addressed. Reform would point out that we have been through the age of megagovernment programs and it has not worked. It certainly has not eliminated the problems. The Bloc obstensibly says that this is an attempt to address the issue. Instead of eliminating poverty or the gap between the rich and the poor, what has been the result of megagovernment that the Bloc seems to wish to promote today?

A short list would include a $600 billion debt, the highest taxes in the industrialized world, one-third of every tax dollar going to interest on the national debt, job insecurity for many Canadians, almost one in five of our trained young people not finding work, and a brain drain of our brightest to better opportunities in other countries.

We could do better but more of the same and bigger government are not the answer. This megagovernment vision which the Bloc and others in the House seem to support has resulted in low and single income individuals and families paying higher levels of taxation with the hope of getting some back through some government program.

Even after the latest budget an individual starts paying taxes at approximately $7,000. Surely such individuals cannot be classified as rich, but the government still forces them to hand over their income to their megagovernment so that perhaps their megagovernment can think of some sort of bureaucracy growing program for them.

An individual earning $29,000 will pay about 20% of his income to the federal government in personal income tax, employment insurance and CPP premiums. This total does not include the Liberals' beloved GST or any provincial taxes.

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A megagovernment comes up with megaproposals and megaprograms which are not easily tailorable to the needs of individuals. Given the diversity of the needs of the regions in Canada, the big brother approach does not meet people where they are at.

An example might be the child tax benefit. One can agree there is value in recognizing the increased costs of raising a child, but we can take issue with how it is recognized by the government. It is important to recognize the responsibility of raising children. In the words of supreme court Justice La Forest:

Marriage has from time immemorial been firmly grounded in our legal tradition, one that is itself a reflection of longstanding philosophical and religious traditions. But ultimately its raison d'etre transcends all these and is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that couples have the unique ability to procreate, that children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship.

The family is an important relationship. The child tax benefit essentially takes money from families with children through taxes today. Then one year later they are sent a cheque. This is a year after they filed and paid their taxes. Would it not be easier to simplify the process and simply reduce their tax bill at source in the first place and eliminate much of the bureaucracy involved in processing the program? Let the family have the money in the month it is earned and not a year later.

There is a family in my riding, the Lucas family, that shared with me a story of how there was an error in the child tax benefit the family received. Revenue Canada sent a cheque for $1,000 and said “We underpaid you on the child tax benefit”. This is a poor family that is just starting out with one young child and another one on the way. This was a windfall, $1,000 out of the blue. The family enjoyed the $1,000 by spending it on some immediate needs.

Three months later the family got a letter from Revenue Canada saying it was an overpayment on the child tax benefit and now the $1,000 had to be paid back. The stress it put on that family I cannot begin to fully articulate today. However after many calls and many appeals to the taxman the family was allowed to pay so much off a month. It put tremendous stress on the family. In researching the whole situation it was not the only family that had been ground up in this bureaucratic nightmare. In fact there were many families across Canada. It is the height of administrative bureaucracy when it loses touch with the impacts it is having on everyday people.

This kind of complexity adds to the burden of taxation and administration that families have to carry. Not only have taxes become the greatest expense in the family budget, but it has become a family expense just to file an income tax return because it is so complex. There are 600 pages in the act and 700 pages of special interpretations. The Income Tax Act and the special interpretations that go with it are thicker than most phone books and it started out as a 36 page document to fund the war effort. Bureaucracy has gone crazy and it is impacting on families. The bottom line is that more government intervention in recent years has worked against the family and their children.

What is Reform's vision? Reform has pointed out that the old vision of megagovernment just is not working. This is the vision which has us working half the year just to pay the tax bill. The old vision of the current government promised job creation and social justice. That is what it promised but it delivers chronic unemployment, chronic poverty and youth crime. It is a vision which promises national unity through national programs and national standards but delivers friction, disunity, non-accountability, duplication and waste.

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Current government vision trivializes the individual, family and community contributions by implying that only through government programs, government spending and government propaganda can the country be held together.

Reform's vision is that of a country defined and built by its citizens rather than by its government. It is a vision of smaller government and lower taxes. It is a vision that reaches out to the initiative, drive and diversity of Canadians and calls upon individuals, families and communities to lead the way to growth, progress and unity. It allows families and communities to enjoy the fruits of their labours.

The best way to address child poverty is to address the needs of the family. This may be attained through jobs for parents or youth. This can be achieved through lower taxes and less bureaucracy. Children are members of families in the care of their parents. They are not disconnected free agents.

Reform believes that we can best help families by simplifying and reducing the burden of government on them and by showing that they make an important contribution to the health of our country. More than that, Reform would point out that we need to better respect the autonomy of families and not undermine these relationships by driving a wedge between parents and their children or between husbands and wives with greater government intervention in family relationships. That is not the answer.

These are not just my comments. These positions are written into the policies, statements and documents of the Reform Party. We affirm in our statements the duty of parents to raise their children responsibly, according to their own conscience and beliefs. We further affirm that no person, government or agency has any right to interfere in the exercise of that duty as long as the actions of parents do not constitute abuse or neglect.

Rather than saying we need bigger government and the higher taxes that go along with it, Reform is saying that we need smaller government. The money earned by families is best left in their pockets, the pockets of those who know how best to spend it to address their needs and those of their children. Children can be best served by those closest to them, that is parents and not governments. Parents know best how to address the needs of their families.

I refer to the publicity stunt we saw performed by the Bloc Quebecois member who carried his chair out of the House in protest. It is interesting that he did this to demonstrate the government's ineffectiveness in addressing child poverty and the gap between the rich and the poor—

The Speaker: The member still has well over nine minutes in his time, but seeing that it is almost two o'clock and I want to lay a report upon the table, I wonder if he would cede the floor and of course be immediately recognized when we take up the debate again.

*  *  *

[Translation]

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL OF CANADA

The Speaker: I have the honour to lay upon the table the supplementary report of the Auditor General of Canada to the House of Commons, volume I, for April 1998.

[English]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(e) this document is deemed to have been permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

---

STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

[English]

WORKPLACE SAFETY

Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, today, April 28, is the national day of mourning for workers who are killed or injured as a result of their jobs. In honour of this solemn occasion the Canadian flag flies at half mast on Parliament Hill and in cities and towns across the country.

According to the Canadian Labour Congress, nearly 1,000 workers die each year because of their workplaces. A million more are injured or contract some form of occupational sickness. Federal and provincial labour laws have gone a long way to protect Canadian workers, but as the numbers indicate workplace injuries and fatalities continue to occur with tragic frequency.

On this solemn occasion I wish to offer my sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones in workplace accidents and my best wishes to those who have been injured on the job. The number of Canadians killed and injured at work must be reduced. I call on hon. members to keep this in mind today and throughout the year.

*  *  *

1400

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, what is tonight's vote all about? It is about people who contacted hepatitis C through no fault of their own, people who are hurting like Mark Bulbrook of Hamilton, Ontario; James Lodge of Victoria, B.C.; Karen Neilson of Oyen, Alberta; Leona Martens of Alamed, Saskatchewan; Pat Lyons of Port Coquitlam, B.C.; Dale Strohmaier of Edmonton, Alberta; David Smith of Victoria, B.C.; Ronald Thiel of Saanich, B.C.; Louise Schmidt of Maple Ridge; Geraldine Clements of Naramata, B.C.; Rita Wegscheidler of Penticton, B.C.; Brad Baldwin of Dalmany, Saskatchewan.

These are all people left out of the hepatitis C compensation package. They deserve equal compensation with all other victims of tainted blood because they are people who are suffering just as much as those who are to be included.

The Speaker: The hon. member for Laval-Ouest.

*  *  *

[Translation]

WORK RELATED ACCIDENTS

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, each year, the lives of thousands of Canadian families are shattered overnight because of a work related accident. Too many families have to live through these tragedies that involve huge social and economic costs for our society.

We will never overstate the need for governments to make sure that occupational health and safety legislation and regulations are strictly enforced. In a society such as ours, this great number of work related accidents is downright unacceptable.

Our challenge is to ensure healthy and safe work conditions for all Canadian workers.

Why do we not establish as a goal in our society a rule of zero tolerance for work related accidents in order to show greater respect for the dignity of millions of Canadian workers?

*  *  *

[English]

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Benoît Serré (Timiskaming—Cochrane, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, tonight the House will be asked to vote on a Reform motion condemning the government's $1.1 billion compensation package to the victims of hepatitis C.

This agreement was signed by all 10 provinces and 2 territories and by governments of all political parties.

Today I challenge all four opposition parties to come clean with Canadians. If they wish to condemn the federal government they must also publicly condemn their provincial counterparts.

I challenge the leader of the Reform Party and the leader of the Conservative Party to publicly today condemn their friends Mike Harris and Ralph Klein. I challenge the leader of the New Democratic Party today to publicly condemn Roy Romanow and Glen Clark.

[Translation]

I challenge the leader of the Bloc Quebecois to publicly condemn right now his leader, Lucien Bouchard.

The Speaker: The hon. member for Winnipeg South.

*  *  *

[English]

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in support of the decision taken by the Minister of Health and his provincial and territorial partners concerning compensation for hepatitis C victims.

In particular I want to acknowledge the strong principled leadership of the Minister of Health in the face of clearly partisan and opportunistic criticism levelled against him by the opposition members of this House.

The easy path would be for the minister to simply pay those who are making a claim upon the government. But as the minister has noted, he and his provincial and territorial colleagues are the custodians of Canada's health care system. Because of this they have a larger responsibility, a responsibility to deal with the tough questions that confront them and make the right decisions.

The opposition members seem to think the moral high ground belongs to those who advocate the easiest and most expedient course of action, to offer blanket compensation today without thinking about the consequences for tomorrow.

It is clear, however, that the true moral high ground—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Portage—Lisgar.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Jake E. Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, what is tonight's vote all about? It is about real people with hepatitis C, people who are sick, people who need help from this government, people like Mrs. Laurie Stoll of Maple Ridge, B.C.; Mrs. Joyce Smith of Mission, B.C.; Ed Wheeler of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; Theresa Robertson of Peterborough, Ontario; Allan Ordze of Edmonton, Alberta; Lisa Holtz of Edmonton, Alberta; Ed Neufeld of Winkler, Manitoba; Mr. Wish of Winnipeg, Manitoba; Verla Sherhols of Kanata, Ontario; Cheralynn Adie of Ottawa, Ontario, Etienne Saumure of Gatineau, Quebec; Don Jamieson of Toronto, Ontario; Joan Laing of Calgary, Alberta.

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These are people who live in our neighbourhoods all over Canada. Every member of parliament must remember these suffering people in tonight's vote.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Ms. Elinor Caplan (Thornhill, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, there has been much discussion about the rationale used by Canada's government in deciding on a collaborative approach to hepatitis C compensation.

Since the Krever commission delivered its report, the federal government has been working very hard to find a solution to this difficult problem. When Justice Krever presented governments with the facts it became clear that many of the hepatitis C infections between 1986 and 1990 might not have happened if things had been done differently.

The beginning of 1986 was when surrogate testing was first used on a national scale in the United States. To ignore that benchmark date would lead us to an unsustainable rationale for offering assistance. Even after 1986 the science of hepatitis C was still unsettled and indeed it is still evolving.

Those who claim governments should ignore such benchmark dates altogether are perhaps arguing for some sort of retroactive scheme which would eventually apply to all health care harms suffered by Canadians.

Allowing that to happen without due discussion and consideration of the consequences—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the agreement reached by territorial, provincial and federal governments to compensate victims of hepatitis C is not perfect. No amount of money can ease the pain of those who have been infected.

By supporting the current agreement we are acting responsibly by providing assistance to those infected between 1986 and 1990. For those not covered in the current agreement we have a collective responsibility to find ways to ensure their needs are met.

The health care system in Canada is one of the finest in the world and provides a safety net for those who otherwise could not afford the services they need. That is why it is imperative to work with the provinces to improve services and ensure a better quality of life for every victim. As long as there is one victim suffering we still have work to do.

I applaud the Minister of Health for his courage and commitment to doing what is right.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Howard Hilstrom (Selkirk—Interlake, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, what is tonight's vote all about? Tonight's vote is all about people, people who could be our next door neighbour, child, spouse or even ourselves.

Hepatitis C victims are ordinary people, people like Jean Drapeau of Laval, Quebec; Steve Kemp of Toronto, Ontario; Mike McCarthy of Sebringville, Ontario; Kim Kingsley of Goderich, Ontario; Neil Van Dusen of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; Jeremy Beaty of Mississauga, Ontario; Abraham Weizfeldt of Montreal, Quebec; Charles Duguay of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; Derek Marchand of Tottenham, Ontario; Sherry Fitger of Calgary, Alberta and her husband Don Fitger of Calgary, Alberta; William Harrison of Edmonton, Alberta.

Tonight all members of parliament have a chance to do the right thing, to stand up for the rights of victims.

We call on all members of this House, regardless of their political affiliations, to join together in affirming our support for those the government has wronged.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, when Canada's health ministers announced the compensation package for hepatitis C victims they acknowledged that testing was available but not used in Canada between January 1, 1986 and July 1, 1990. This is the key principle underlining the compensation package.

The Reform Party motion ignores this key principle when it states that the government should “compensate all victims who contracted hepatitis C”. What it is advocating is a no fault insurance scheme for Canada's health care system.

This is a wholly separate issue from the blood system inquiry. It is an issue that should be addressed on its own merits and, quite frankly, this debate has yet to happen.

Health care insurance is a provincial responsibility. I am unaware of any initiatives to establish a no fault insurance scheme for the blood system or health care in general. No fault insurance is not a feature of our health system and should not materialize by default—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Laval East.

*  *  *

[Translation]

MONSIGNOR JUAN GIRARDI

Mrs. Maud Debien (Laval East, BQ): Mr. Speaker, we were saddened to learn yesterday of the death of Monsignor Juan Girardi, the Guatemalan assistant archbishop and human rights activist.

Monsignor Girardi, who was brutally assassinated, had just presented a scathing report on the holocaust suffered by the Guatemalan people during the civil war that lasted over 36 years. His death could jeopardize the fragile peace accords signed by the factions a year and a half ago.

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The Bloc Quebecois wants to pay tribute to this brave man, who was able to warn the international community about the horrors of the armed conflict in Guatemala.

Once again, the long road to respect for human rights has been sullied by the blood of innocent victims who have sacrificed their lives to defend a fundamental right.

We extend our sympathies to the people of Guatemala.

*  *  *

[English]

WORKPLACE SAFETY

Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, today the flags in the House of Commons are flying at half mast out of respect for workers who are injured, killed or made ill in their workplace.

April 28 is the international day of mourning for injured and fallen workers and it is recognized by more than 70 countries around the world. Last year the United Nations conducted ceremonies to commemorate the international day of mourning at its headquarters in New York City.

Canada is a civilized and developed nation and yet today three more Canadian workers will die on the job and the same will be true tomorrow and the day after. In fact, 1,000 Canadian workers a year will die at work and almost a million more will suffer some form of lost time due to injury, sickness or occupational disease.

Canadian workers get up in the morning to earn a living, not to be injured, butchered or maimed on behalf of some arbitrary production schedule. Why can we not end the carnage in our workplaces? When will industry and government commit to decent enforcement of our health and safety legislation?

Our caucus is committed to working—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

*  *  *

[Translation]

HEPATITIS C

Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have personally been affected by hepatitis C. A childhood friend of mine died, about two months ago, of hepatitis C.

Like many Canadians who have been closely following this debate, I am deeply worried about the expectations our blood supply system has raised and the impact these great expectations can have on our overall health care system.

Medicine is not infallible. Science is not infallible. Some types of treatment, medication and material are more risky than others. Blood is the gift of life, but blood is also a high-risk natural biological product.

The health care system, including the blood supply system, is doing its best to reduce the risks for those who use it.

Governments and other stakeholders have the responsibility to react when harm can—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Brandon—Souris.

*  *  *

[English]

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC): Mr. Speaker, the hepatitis C issue is not about faceless, nameless Canadians who are affected not only by this tragic illness but by this government's tragic policy.

Hepatitis C is about our neighbours, our sons, our daughters and people who work and live beside us every day.

One of those people wrote the Minister of Health recently:

You need to hear this from my heart. I live with hepatitis C every day, and don't think it's easy to live with somebody who has only days to live. Hepatitis C has destroyed his liver. Every day I watch him fading away—preparing myself for his death not being able to get physically close. How extraordinary considering that my husband has worked his whole life to support the health care system. The system gave him this disease and now at 47 his only recourse is $700 a month on disability. You've taken away his health, you've have taken away his will and now you take away his dignity.

I only ask that members opposite carefully listen to these words and vote for compassion this evening.

*  *  *

[Translation]

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING FOR INJURED AND FALLEN WORKERS

Ms. Hélène Alarie (Louis-Hébert, BQ): Mr. Speaker, today is the International Day of Mourning for Injured and Fallen Workers.

Designated by Parliament and observed in more that 70 countries, as well as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, this day underlines the seriousness of occupational diseases, accidents and deaths.

In federally regulated sectors alone, there is a work related injury every two minutes: 57,000 workers are injured every year, over 50 of them fatally.

In the agricultural sector, between 1991 and 1995, there were 503 deaths, making farming the most dangerous occupation in North America.

There is a huge gap between the legislation governing safety and security in the workplace and its enforcement. It is shameful that even today there are so many workers killed while trying to make a living.

*  *  *

1415

[English]

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Philip Mayfield (Cariboo—Chilcotin, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, tonight's vote is about real people like Ronald Thiel of Saanichton, B.C. who was infected with hepatitis C through tainted blood when he had a heart valve replaced in 1983.

His liver is badly damaged. He had to stop working at age 53. He has suffered many medical complications which have made his life a misery. He writes “I know that I am dying before my time but I have no intention of going to my grave without fighting this injustice as long as I can”.

Mr. Thiel speaks for all excluded hepatitis C victims when he paraphrases Shakespeare. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? If you wrong us, do we not revenge?”

The government cannot escape its responsibility. The victims of the tainted blood scandal and the people of Canada will one day require justice. But how much more honourable, how much more noble it would be for this parliament to offer compassion to the suffering today, rather than be forced to do so by the heavy hand of the law tomorrow.

---

ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[English]

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Preston Manning (Leader of the Opposition, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, tonight MPs have a chance to vote in favour of compensating all those victims who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood.

The health minister says that the government should not accept responsibility for victims prior to 1986 because there was no way to detect hepatitis C in the blood supply before that time. However, Justice Krever says that there was a test available to the government as far back as 1981 and the government never acted.

I ask the government again, in the name of justice, why will it not simply let MPs vote for these victims tonight?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about is an agreement between the federal government and all the provincial governments and territories.

If the opposition parties are silent and do not criticize the provincial governments for being part of this agreement, then logically and credibly they should not be attacking the federal government for being part of the same agreement.

I invite the Reform Party and the opposition parties to rethink their positions. If they do, I think they will see why we are opposing the motion.

Mr. Preston Manning (Leader of the Opposition, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, that is an irrelevant answer to a question that was never asked.

The real arguments come from the health minister. He keeps on repeating that compensating hepatitis C victims would open up the legal floodgates to everyone, but that argument is also false.

Contracting hepatitis C from tainted blood was not some unavoidable accident. What we are talking about is compensating people who became ill because of proven government negligence.

I ask again, in the name of compassion and fairness, why will the government not allow the MPs to vote for these victims?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, why is it that since the last election the Reform Party did vote as a group on every measure except three times?

Certainly there is an argument for coherence on the part of the Reform Party. Certainly there is the same argument when it comes to measures like this one.

Mr. Preston Manning (Leader of the Opposition, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, this government has not only lost its head, it has lost its heart as well.

It is forcing Liberals who got involved in politics to build a just society to be unjust. It is forcing Liberals who profess compassion to vote against compassion. It is forcing Liberals who know what is right in this case to vote against it.

My question is, why is the government forcing its members to vote against justice, compassion and against what they know in their hearts is right?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, why is the leader of the Reform Party shedding crocodile tears for Liberal members today when the real fact is he is not interested in their best interests, he is interested in his best interests and those of his party?

Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, that is not true and this government knows it.

The tears are being shed by all victims of hepatitis C who contracted this disease through government negligence and government negligence alone.

Many of these Liberal backbenchers got involved in politics because they really cared. They really thought that they would go to Ottawa and do the right thing.

They may laugh, but I have one question for this government. When people know what is right in their hearts, why is it they might wear just a little ribbon and say “I love you, but only on my lapel”?

1420

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we are here to do our best and to do what is right. That is the position of all of us in this House.

Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the government talks about doing what is right. It knows exactly what it has to do to do what is right, that is, to compensate all victims of tainted blood. It did it with HIV. It did it over the years with thalidomide. It could do it today because it knows in its heart what is right.

I want to ask this government one more time: Why does it hide behind legalities and technicalities? Why does it not do what is right and allow its members to vote for hepatitis C victims?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, why is the hon. member completely silent when it comes to the matter of talking about the position of the provincial governments on this matter? Their position is exactly the same as the federal government's position.

I repeat, if they cannot criticize the provincial governments, then logically, credibly, on every basis, they should not be criticizing the federal government.

If the provincial governments are right, then the federal government, on this issue, cannot be wrong.

[Translation]

Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, usually, it is the opposition parties that insist on having certain issues become the object of a confidence vote.

However, as regards the motion on which we will vote this evening, it is the Prime Minister himself who raised the issue of confidence, contrary to the conventions which, generally speaking, provide that only budget issues can be the object of a confidence vote.

How can the government insist on making the vote on the hepatitis C motion a vote of confidence, if not to muzzle some of its members who want—

The Speaker: The Deputy Prime Minister.

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is wrong. In our system, it is up to the Prime Minister, not the opposition, to decide whether a motion is a motion of confidence.

Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, let us take an example. When the House voted on the amendment concerning school boards, the Prime Minister decided it would be a free vote, on the grounds that members should vote according to their conscience.

Why was the vote on an amendment affecting school boards a matter of conscience, but not the vote on a motion to compensate hepatitis C victims? Can the Deputy Prime Minister explain that?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the situation is not the same. It is a different situation and this is why today's vote is a confidence vote.

Mrs. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested to recalcitrant Liberal members that there is a possibility of a new compensation program for excluded victims. The Minister of Human Resources Development ruled out this possibility, however, as did the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister have the courage to admit that he alluded to the possibility of a new program for the sole reason of reassuring members such as the member for Gatineau and making sure that they vote against their convictions?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I did not announce a new program, nor was it my intention to announce a new program.

We are here to reject the attack on the agreement between the federal government and all provinces, including Quebec, relating to this difficult matter.

Mrs. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the government continues to treat hepatitis C victims differently from HIV victims, claiming that the cost would be too high.

Why is the federal government, which is certainly not short of money, refusing fair and equitable treatment for hepatitis C victims?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we applied the same principle in the case of hepatitis C victims that we did with HIV victims. We accepted the notion of responsibility, or fault. In the case of HIV victims, it is clear that, during the period in question, the government could have taken action to prevent these infections. We applied exactly the same principle.

[English]

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health who, like his colleague, hides behind the provincial governments.

1425

Is the Minister of Health not aware that under questioning in the Manitoba legislature the minister of health for Manitoba, the hon. Darren Praznik, has as much as said that the provinces were prisoners, somewhat like Liberal backbenchers, of the Minister of Health's willingness to only put money on the table for the 1986-1990 window? That was all that was on the table and the provinces—

The Speaker: The hon. Minister of Health.

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, that is absolute nonsense.

Coming to the point, there are those beyond the political forum who are able to see that the governments of Canada are right in the approach they have taken to this issue. I refer, for example, to the 16 deans of Canada's medical schools who met last weekend and whose executive issued a resolution saying that indeed the governments are right in offering compensation to those who were infected in the 1986 to 1990 time period.

It is good public policy. We are all—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona.

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the minister did not address the matter of the provinces being willing to go beyond the 1986-1990 period if the federal government had been willing to put more money on the table.

Instead of hiding behind the provinces and blaming them for a situation they did not create, would the minister be willing to put more money on the table and start up the negotiations to get some compensation for the other victims?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know, for his information, that as of last summer there was no provincial government prepared to talk about compensating any hepatitis C victims.

The only reason we have $1.1 billion being offered to 22,000 victims of hepatitis C is that the federal government took the leadership and made that happen.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is finally showing some concern about human rights in Cuba, but what about human rights and the rights of the innocent victims of tainted blood here in Canada? What about the rights of elected MPs who are being made prisoners of bad Liberal policy?

The vote tonight on hepatitis C is not about which political party wins or loses, it is about doing what is right.

Why will the Prime Minister not stop tearing the heart and soul out of some of his MPs by forcing them to vote against their conscience and do what is right to correct this injustice?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, when members vote tonight, of whatever party, I am sure each and every one will be doing what he or she thinks is right.

Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): Mr. Speaker, tonight's vote is not about confidence, it is about conscience and compassion. If they are going to do what is right, and if they are going to do it with compassion, we know that we will win for sure.

This is about some Liberal members of the House being forced by the Prime Minister to support an unjust compensation package.

Not one member of the PC caucus would criticize the Prime Minister or a member of the government if this injustice were to be corrected tonight and a motion brought forward to treat all victims equally.

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, if my memory serves me right, and perhaps I am wrong, if Hansard is checked it will show that last week in the debate a Conservative member said that this was a vote of confidence.

I suggest the hon. member check Hansard. I suggest the hon. leader ought to talk to her own members.

I think if Liberal members have a choice, and they have a choice, they would much rather stand with the Prime Minister than with the hon. member and her colleagues.

Mr. Grant Hill (Macleod, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, we have had quite a bit of correspondence on the hepatitis C issue. I have just such a letter here, a letter that calls for compensation for all victims of hepatitis C.

It is fascinating where this letter came from. It came from the Liberal official opposition of British Columbia. Why should the Liberals in B.C. know what is right and correct when the Liberals in Ottawa are obviously on the wrong track?

1430

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it has now been some days that the hon. member has been asking these questions. I urge the hon. member to remember that we are talking in the last analysis about our public health system in Canada.

Members of the government realize that we have no greater moral duty, we have no higher responsibility to all Canadians including the victims of hepatitis C, than to ensure that our publicly funded system of medicare will be there when they need it into the future.

There is no greater way of imperilling that system than to take the course urged—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Macleod.

Mr. Grant Hill (Macleod, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister stood today and said nobody was criticizing the provinces. Here are his cousins in B.C.—

The Speaker: I ask the hon. member to address the Chair and not to use any props.

Mr. Grant Hill: Pardon me, Mr. Speaker. The question we have to ask the government is a simple question. Why is it not compensating all victims of hepatitis C just like its Liberal cousins want to see happen in British Columbia? Why not?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the question at the heart of this matter is not the question put by the hon. member for his own reasons. It is the question he refused to respond to in the debate last week, namely, should the public make cash payments to those injured through the health system where they were injured through no one's fault. The answer to that has to be no.

Indeed in the last analysis, as disclosed in Hansard of last Thursday, the hon. member came to that conclusion. That is the reason this government and all governments of Canada are taking the right course.

*  *  *

[Translation]

NATIONAL DEFENCE

Mr. Odina Desrochers (Lotbinière, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

The auditor general has criticized the fact that 66% of military equipment expenditures are unnecessary.

How does the minister explain that, of three billion dollars in annual purchases, two billion dollars' worth of equipment are not required by the army?

[English]

Hon. Arthur C. Eggleton (Minister of National Defence, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, that is simply not the case. We have less resources. We have to learn how to operate within less resources, and our people are doing that.

Yes, a lot of improvements need to be made in the system and have been in fact made over the last number of years. We are in accordance with the recommendations that the auditor general presents. We are working with them to bring about improvements in our system in terms of procurement.

[Translation]

Mr. Odina Desrochers (Lotbinière, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the problem in this department is not the lack of money. It is the way it is being spent.

Before requesting more money to keep his capricious generals happy, will the minister prove to us his ability to manage his department by putting an end to the horror stories the auditor general continues to report?

[English]

Hon. Arthur C. Eggleton (Minister of National Defence, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the hon. member read the same report I did. I read the auditor general's report. I talked to the auditor general.

As I said a few moments ago we are implementing improvements and changes. We go through very extensive analysis as to what is required for the Canadian military. We do not have all the money to do all the things we would like to do, but we are buying the best equipment. We are trying to provide our troops with the best equipment possible to make sure they can do their job.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Wanuskewin, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, Christine Campbell had a blood transfusion for a gall bladder operation in 1985 when she was 29 years old. She writes:

For the past 13 years I have suffered extreme fatigue, bowel problems, nervous conditions and a lot of burnout—. I live in fear of deteriorating even more—. I did not ask for this but I am paying for it and therefore I feel I am being treated unfairly by—being excluded from compensation for hepatitis C victims.

Why is the Prime Minister forcing Liberal MPs to vote against Christine and her family?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I reject the premise of the hon. member's question. We do not think we are voting against anyone. We think we are voting for an agreement which is reasonable in the circumstances, an agreement representing the views of all the provinces as well as the federal government.

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, a constituent wrote to me telling me about her life since contracting hepatitis C from tainted blood. Dorothy writes:

I'm an innocent victim along with thousands of others. My life is not what I intended it to be and the things I wanted to do will never be accomplished.

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Why will the Prime Minister not put principles before politics and power and let his MPs vote to help victims like Dorothy in this tragedy?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, our first obligation to Dorothy is to make sure there is a good health care system in place when she needs it.

Our first obligation to Christine Campbell is to make sure medicare remains alive in the country.

Our first obligation to all these victims is to make sure that our social safety net is there to provide disability benefits, medical attention and treatment, and to research until we find a cure.

We are not going to do that if this hon. member's course is taken because it will be the end of publicly financed health care.

*  *  *

[Translation]

BURMA

Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the exiled Prime Minister of Burma, Sein Win, appeared this morning before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and described the systematic human rights violations occurring in Burma. He even told the committee of the government's intended genocide of Burmese minorities.

Does the Minister of Foreign Affairs not consider it vital to adopt stricter sanctions against Burma and order Canadian businesses to stop doing business with this country?

[English]

Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, last summer we announced a series of economic sanctions against Burma. We have also initiated a number of diplomatic initiatives, particularly the ASEAN front where we put the matter on the agenda and asked them to address it.

When I met with Dr. Win Sein yesterday I indicated that furthermore at the foreign ministers meeting of the G-8 that takes place in about two weeks we will put it on the agenda to have foreign ministers of the eight most developed countries in the world take up the issue of Burma to see what we can do to bring an end to this very dictatorial regime.

[Translation]

Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): Mr. Speaker, in order to increase pressure on Burma's illegal and illegitimate government, is the minister prepared to organize a mission of Canadian parliamentarians, as recommended to him by the group Les Amis de la Birmanie?

[English]

Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we would certainly be prepared to send a group of parliamentarians. The question is whether the Burmese will accept them.

We put that initiative before them last summer. They rejected it, but I will certainly raise it on behalf of the member.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, Doris Corrigan is an 83 year old Surrey resident who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood during an operation in 1987. Although she qualifies for compensation under the Liberal's plan she will refuse to accept any compensation unless the government extends its offer to include all hepatitis C victims of tainted blood.

Why is the government reneging on its promise to allow more free votes in the House of Commons, forcing its members to support a compensation package that is not fair and not just?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, all governments in the country, including the provincial governments that actually deliver services and are the proprietors of the health delivery services on the ground, agreed that the appropriate response when it comes to paying cash compensation is to pay those for whom infections resulted from fault or negligence, and that is exactly what we have done.

It is the right principle. It is recognized to be good public policy and all governments agree on that course.

Mr. Jim Pankiw (Saskatoon—Humboldt, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has ignored Justice Krever and created two tiers of hepatitis C victims, those who will be compensated and those who will be ignored.

Theresa Robertson of Peterborough, Ontario, was infected in 1984 and she cannot work. She has liver damage and she suffers from the side effects of medication.

Why is the Prime Minister using strong arm tactics to coerce his MPs into voting against innocent victims like Ms. Robertson?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, Theresa Robertson is going to need Canada's health care system. She is going to need medicare, a publicly financed system of the highest possible quality of care in the world.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

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The Speaker: My colleagues, we are listening to the questions and we should give the ministers or whomever the chance to make their responses. I go back to the Minister of Health.

Hon. Allan Rock: It would not be difficult to identify a wide category of people who suffer harm or illness because of risk inherent in the health care system.

However, as we have been saying in the House now for four weeks, if it is our policy to pay cash compensation to those who become ill, if it is our policy to pay cash to those who are victims of risk inherent in the health care system, we will no longer be able to have the system of public health care of which we are so proud.

*  *  *

[Translation]

CRAB FISHING

Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

On April 9 the ice committee, made up of fishermen and officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, gave the green light to crab fishing in zone 12 of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. More than three weeks later, the minister has yet to give the go ahead to this industry.

Why is the minister taking so long to make a decision, penalizing thousands of workers, especially when he knows this means the loss of significant amounts of money, especially—

The Speaker: The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

[English]

Hon. David Anderson (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is clearly aware of the situation in the crab fishery in that area. He will understand that putting in place an agreement, which takes into account the interests of all the various interest groups and people affected, is not at all an easy task, particularly in light of some of the declines in crab stocks.

We are trying to make a system that is fair to all. That unfortunately takes time. It is easy when there are plenty of resources, but it is difficult when the resources are limited.

*  *  *

SUDBURY NEUTRINO OBSERVATORY

Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

The eyes of the world scientific community are focused on the inauguration of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in the town of Walden in northern Ontario.

Could the minister tell the House how this partnership of governments, universities, agencies and the private sector will benefit Canadians?

Hon. John Manley (Minister of Industry, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that today and tomorrow we will be opening the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. It is an example of world class scientific research. Unfortunately the Reform Party does not seem to understand it.

Those who are interested will know that it has the key to opening some of the secrets of the universe. It will be attended with the support of several Canadian universities, the Government of Ontario and the federal government. We will be able to uncover research in that facility, true fundamental research.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, Edith Jameson, a resident of Calgary East, phoned me last Saturday. She contracted hepatitis C prior to 1986. Her liver has been damaged and her gall bladder has been removed. She told me her health has been going downhill and her financial resources are stretched to the limit.

My question is for the Minister of Health. Will he stop acting like a lawyer and for the love of God offer something to Edith and thousands like her? He should make the right moral and compassionate decision and not a legal decision.

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I hope I am acting like the custodian of Canada's health care system.

As the custodian of Canada's health care system I can imagine hundreds of cases that pack emotional power of people who are in difficult circumstances, who suffer illnesses, injuries and harm as a result of risk inherent in surgery, in taking vaccines or in taking new prescription drugs, each of them with a compelling emotional pitch about how much they need our help. That is what medicare is for.

If we compensate in cash—

The Speaker: The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River.

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Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, tonight's vote is about real people like Keray Regan from Vernon, B.C. who was infected with hepatitis C through receiving tainted blood in 1986. Keray Regan said that he will continue to fight for all hepatitis C victims.

Will this government tell Keray Regan that it will do the right thing and compensate all victims of hepatitis C?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I will tell Keray Regan as I said to Dorothy, Christine Campbell and all the other victims to whom reference has been made, I say to all those victims that we will ensure there is a publicly financed system of medicare there to look after them in their illness. We will ensure that Canada's social safety net constructed by Liberal governments in the past will be there to respond to their needs. We will make sure that responsible public policy guarantees the future of those services because that in the last analysis is our most important moral responsibility.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, today at the hepatitis C rally a 15-year old boy named Joey Haché had this to say about the Prime Minister: “Why is he making political prisoners of the Liberal backbenchers? Why is he forcing them to vote against their conscience?” Joey got hepatitis C through no fault of his own, through numerous blood transfusions. He does not know why he was infected.

Why is this government forcing Liberal MPs to vote against Joey and all blood injured Canadians?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. member why the NDP government in Saskatchewan does not allow a free vote on this subject. Its position is exactly the same as ours. Why does she not turn around and direct her criticism at her own NDP government which is taking the same position in its legislature as we are taking in this House of Commons?

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, we also learned today at the hepatitis C rally that the office of a Liberal member called the family in B.C. that makes hepatitis C ribbons and asked for 160 of them for Liberal MPs to show their sympathy for victims. However that office refused to pay for the ribbons or the courier. They want to wear the ribbons but they do not want to pay for them. Is this meant to be an example of this government's—

The Speaker: The hon. Minister of Health.

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know but I will tell her that I was wearing that ribbon long before she ever saw one. I got it from Jeremy Beaty of the Canadian Hepatitis C Society when I met with him to talk about victims compensation. The difference is that this government has produced $1.1 billion in compensation for 22,000 victims. That is the way we feel about the issue.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, PC): Mr. Speaker, before and during his trip to Cuba, the Prime Minister criticized Fidel Castro's lack of respect for democracy. This is rather surprising from a leader who does not allow his caucus to vote freely on the motion dealing with hepatitis C, particularly since some of his members asked for a free vote, because they are not pleased with the current compensation program.

My question to the Deputy Prime Minister is this: Why is the government so intent on promoting democracy all over the world, when it does not even respect it at home?

Hon. Herb Gray (Deputy Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have democracy in this country and in this House. This evening's vote will be proof of that, because I am confident that the House will reject the Reform Party's motion.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, PC): Mr. Speaker, last week, we saw on the lawn of Parliament Hill rows after rows of crosses bearing the names of innocent hepatitis C victims. These crosses were put there by fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, spouses and children, in memory of the loved ones they lost as a result of this terrible tragedy.

Will the Minister of Health finally assume his responsibility and compensate all victims?

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Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we assumed our responsibility together with the other governments in Canada, including the Conservative ones. We accepted responsibility for the period during which officials could have done something to prevent infection.

It is the policy of the Canadian government, and it is the right policy.

*  *  *

[English]

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for Science and Technology. As we speak, a rocket is being sent off from Canadian soil at Churchill, Manitoba, the first in almost a decade. This is a precursor to launching a polar orbiting satellite.

How will these activities enhance Canada's technological preparedness in the changing world of telecommunications?

Hon. Ronald J. Duhamel (Secretary of State (Science, Research and Development)(Western Economic Diversification), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this is the first rocket that has been launched from Churchill since 1989, launched successfully I might say today at 7:10 a.m. It has a payload of scientific experiments for the Canadian Space Agency. One instrument is called Active and it will analyse the thermal plasma in the atmosphere.

This is good for Canadians. They see the benefits of space exploration. This enhances Canada's image in science and technology throughout the world.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary—Nose Hill, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, it is interesting what this government finds important when Canadian lives are on the line.

My constituents Sherry and Don Fitger met and fell in love in a Calgary hospital following separate car accidents in 1980, but their beautiful love story turned into a horror story. Both Sherry and Don recently discovered they have hepatitis C from poisoned blood they were given at that time. Health care does not cover the cost of the herbal remedies Don and Sherry find effective.

Why is this Liberal government turning its back on innocent victims of tainted blood like Sherry and Don Fitger?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, when Sherry and Don were injected with contaminated blood, there was no possible way, no way at all, that science could have discovered what contaminants were in that blood.

The hon. member has suggested and her colleagues are insisting that governments across the country make cash payments to those who suffer harm or become ill regardless of fault because of risks inherent in the medical system. That is not the responsible or appropriate way to proceed.

The Prichard committee in 1990 said do not do it. Krever said no fault. The Prichard committee said no fault, you cannot compensate unavoidable harm. The deans of the medical faculties agree.

*  *  *

[Translation]

B.C. MINES IN BLACK LAKE

Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien (Frontenac—Mégantic, BQ): Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Human Resources Development admitted that, of the 250 former employees of the B.C. mine, only 40 to 50 could benefit from his active measures.

Can the minister go one step further and contribute financially to the efforts made by Lab Chrysotile and by the Quebec government to put in place a pre-retirement program for the 200 workers who cannot benefit from his active measures?

Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.):Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear. I never said that only 40 to 50 workers could benefit from active measures.

What I said is that, so far, 40 of the 300 miners have already been hired in two other mines. Ten have retired. I said that 40 to 50 are interested in training for other jobs. That training will be given in August and September. Five or six were placed by the workers assistance committee thanks to targeted wage subsidies, and four or five are interested in starting their own businesses—

The Speaker: The member for Acadie—Bathurst.

*  *  *

[English]

THE ATLANTIC GROUNDFISH STRATEGY

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Mr. Speaker, in the Atlantic and along the Gaspé coast there is a crisis in the fishery. The TAGS program is coming to an end. Thousands and thousands of people, including children, will suffer from the cuts in this program.

My question is for the minister of fisheries. Will the government change its mind and extend the TAGS program as Tobin is asking right now, one of your good Liberals?

1455

The Speaker: I will ask you to address the question always through the Chair.

Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, TAGS was originally designed to provide temporary help to individuals in communities in Atlantic Canada that were facing a very difficult situation.

We now realize that there is a problem and the fish are not coming back to the levels we had hoped for and had expected. Our government is working very hard and consulting with the communities and individuals and the province of Newfoundland to identify the right kind of approach to take in this post-TAGS environment.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Scott Brison (Kings—Hants, PC): Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are on their way back to town. My question is for the President of the Treasury Board. How much is this vote on a mere motion going to cost Canadian taxpayers? What are the travel costs to fly ministers, members, other sheep and staff back from their junkets around the globe and return after this vote? Why could those dollars not have been put where they should have gone, to hepatitis C victims?

Instead of earning frequent flyer points perhaps the Liberals could earn points with ordinary Canadians—

The Speaker: I do not know how this comes under the administrative responsibility of the minister. The hon. member for Nepean—Carleton.

*  *  *

CANADIAN ARMED FORCES

Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

In 1993 the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry serving with the UN in the former Yugoslavia distinguished themselves for their courage under fire during a peacekeeping operation at the Medak pocket.

Will the minister take steps to officially recognize the tremendous work done by the 2nd Battalion under extremely dangerous circumstances and to say thank you for a job well done on behalf of all Canadians?

Hon. Arthur C. Eggleton (Minister of National Defence, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Canadian troops who appeared before the defence committee yesterday made a very moving presentation. I would commend all members of this House to familiarize themselves with it.

It is a story where they distinguished themselves under fire. They showed discipline, professionalism and a great deal of courage. We can all be proud of them.

Some of them have already received recognition and received a commendation from the United Nations with respect to this matter. I think the issue now is perhaps more recognition of something about which very little is known. I would certainly agree with that and I am proceeding in that manner.

*  *  *

HEPATITIS C

Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, 80% of those people who are infected with hepatitis C get liver cancer, become unhealthy and die prematurely. Robert is one of those members in my constituency. Since he has been infected he has lost his house, he has lost his health and he has lost his life.

When the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health talk of fairness and compassion, why is the Prime Minister forcing his members to vote against their conscience, to vote against Robert and to vote against victims like him?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is essential that when tragedies such as Robert's happen we as a country provide the finest possible medical care and a health care system that can respond to his needs. That is why cash compensation paid by governments for those harmed without fault should be avoided.

The hon. member for Macleod agreed with that when he said last Thursday “I accept that governments should not pay cash compensation to people who are injured when there is no fault”. I urge the member to consider the position of his colleague.

Mr. John Nunziata (York South—Weston, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, I appeal to Liberal backbenchers to reach deep into their hearts to take a stand—

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

The Speaker: The hon. member for York—South Weston.

Mr. John Nunziata: —to help sick and dying fellow Canadians.

Earlier the Minister of Health referred to the ribbon. I want to say to the Minister of Health that the ribbon which people are wearing represents justice and fairness for all innocent victims of hepatitis C.

1500

I want to ask the minister, will he have the courage to wear this ribbon later today?

[Editor's Note: Mr. Nunziata crossed the floor and placed a ribbon on the Minister of Health's desk]

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

The Speaker: I urge all hon. members in the name of decorum in the House to abstain from such antics in the future. I would appeal that this type of thing not occur again.

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Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I want to answer the question because for four weeks of House sittings I have stood in my place and I have responded to questions from every corner of this House on a matter of great difficulty.

I have answered those questions to the best of my ability and I avoided being partisan. I avoided being cheap. I avoided emotion.

What we just saw after four weeks of questions and debate debased the House of Commons, debased this process and brought the member into disgrace. He should be ashamed of himself.

---

GOVERNMENT ORDERS

1510

[English]

SUPPLY

ALLOTTED DAY—ELIMINATION OF POVERTY

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendent.

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your efforts and the challenges you have in the House. I gain appreciation for your position more and more all the time.

To carry on with my speech regarding the Bloc motion, I make reference to a publicity stunt we saw in the House some days back by a Bloc MP who carried his chair out of the House to protest government ineffectiveness in addressing child poverty and the gap between rich and poor. It is interesting that the Bloc comes back with this motion which proposes greater government intervention to address these problems.

However, let us continue to use this illustration or analogy with the chair. We do not need more politicians establishing programs which tell families what kind of, for example, chair they should have, which is what the Bloc seems to be proposing. Rather, this decision should be left to parents. Give them back some of the resources they had so that they may decide what kind and what size of chair they need.

The chair that a child needs is best provided for and decided on by parents. Parents and not government know what kind and size of chair their children need as they grow up. Going from that first chair with the hole in the middle, through the high chair, the stool up to a student's desk, parents are in the best position to make these decisions because they are closest to the children.

Parents know when to make the changes, big governments do not. Big government programs which promote a one size fits all approach serve to diminish the value of the individual and cost more than the benefit they deliver. The responsiveness of government is so slow and delivers a one size fits all solution that it never brings out the best of the individual.

One of the many Reform proposals to assist the family refers to changes to the negative tax treatment of families. We would extend the child care deduction to all parents, including those who care for their children at home, and put this decision in the hands of those closest to their children. Let the parents decide how to raise their children. It seems to make sense. We would increase the spousal amount to level the playing field for parents who choose to stay at home to look after their children and help their families meet the needs of this demanding time we all live in.

Why is this a good idea? Research indicates this is good for children. Polls indicate this is something parents intrinsically know and want. I refer to some polls.

In 1997 a research project done by the National Foundation of Family Research and Education, NFFRE, performed a comprehensive meta-analysis of current research on child development. According to NFFRE the core findings from this meta-analysis are that regular non-parental care for more than 20 hours per week has an unmistakably negative effect on social and emotional development, behaviour adjustment and the emotional bonding of young children to their parents. In addition, the report stated parental care consistently and significantly outperformed regular non-parental care for children prior to five years of age.

This high integrity research makes it clear that the best interests of infants and preschool children are served when they are in full time parent care. For many of us this is a “no brainer”, yet current government policies give tax incentives to institutionalized care but none to parental care. It seems upside down to me. It sends a message to parents that the work they are doing has no value. That is very destructive.

1515

Clearly, parent and family time is important and governments need to respect this if we are to preserve the health and happiness of our homes.

To continue with more poll information and studies that have been done, parents want to make families a priority. I am referring to a national poll conducted by a research firm known as Compass Inc. Fully 94% in this national poll of Canadians identified that lack of time spent with offspring has, at least, a somewhat serious stress on family life.

In 1991 a cross-Canada poll conducted by Decima Research was the most comprehensive poll ever taken of Canadian women. Women were asked: “If you had the choice, would you stay at home to raise your children or work outside your home and use day care?” Not surprisingly, 70% said they would rather stay at home.

In 1997, NFFRE submitted to the Government of Ontario a study it was contracted to do regarding child care. By more than a 10 to 1 margin, 92% of Ontarians said it is preferable for a young child to be at home with a parent than to be in institutionalized day care. They do not see taxpayer funded government programs as being the answer for child care or the child poverty question.

Of parents who had put their children in non-parental care, 77% in this same study indicated they would have preferred to have provided parental care in retrospect.

Let me be clear. No one is proposing that parents have to stay at home to raise their children. That is not what I am saying. But surely the government should not penalize them when they do and that is the reality we are living with today. This is doubly tragic when the polls underline the fact that parents want to stay at home and the research indicates that it is a good idea for the health of the child. Why does our government policy so stringently work against something the people want, which makes so much sense?

Reform wants parents to be allowed to make the choice which best meets the needs of their family without tax unfairness. Unfortunately the government does not seem to get it. In the last budget, for example, it increased the inequity stay-home parents suffer by raising the child care expense deduction by 35%, refusing to recognize any value for stay-home parents. It is tragic. It is actually destructive. It works against families and some children.

I would like to point out that the Bloc motion deals with child poverty in terms of material wealth. As I have indicated, what many Reformers are concerned about is another form of poverty which many children are suffering, the poverty of lack of time with their parents, the lack of a consistent caregiver. I could quote studies of the damage that does and the psychosis that develops in children when caregivers are constantly changed.

Government has done much to add to this kind of poverty by the mega-government, tax and spend, government will fix everything philosophy that this motion subscribes to. We need to focus on the well-being of the family and the whole child within the family; not just the material child, but the child who needs to spend time with their parents; not just the child alone, but the child and the family.

Strong families pass on our culture, language, heritage and values. Strong families train future citizens. In this context let us get it right and always remember that governments make poor parents, but strong Canadian families create good governments.

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the 1996 national longitudinal survey on the health of children reported that some 25% of all children in Canada have some sort of health, educational or social problem. The member is quite right when he identifies the need for us to invest in children.

He talked about the possibility of extending the child care expense deduction to families who provide care in the home to preschool children and the possibility of a caregiver tax credit which would provide a similar benefit.

1520

There is a bill coming forward on Thursday which deals with splitting income between spouses. There are many ways to deliver these kinds of things.

The member did not touch on probably one of the single largest reasons there is child poverty in Canada and that has to do with the breakdown of the Canadian family. The Vanier Institute reported that lone parent families account for about 12% of all families, but they also account for about 46% of all children living in poverty. I think the numbers are quite prevalent.

It is interesting to note that we talk a lot about child poverty when in fact the real issue is family poverty. Child poverty is a political term. Family poverty is the reality. The family is in crisis in Canada with a 30% divorce rate and over a million common-law relationships which break down 50% more than married relationships. This is leading to broken families and creating a most dangerous environment for our children.

I ask the member whether he has any comments about this other important dimension concerning the manufacture of poverty in Canada by the breakdown of the family.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member across the way. I agree that the focus on child poverty is misplaced. We are better to focus on the situation of the Canadian family overall if we really want to improve the lot of children. They are not disembodied entities. They are part of families.

Certainly the Reform Party shares the concern about the stresses of the economy on families. It is part of the reason that we see one of our critical mandates as being one of job creation. The head of the family, whoever it may be, must be able to find a job. We do not see increased government spending as the road to job creation, but lowering taxes and decreasing the bureaucracy on many of those small business people and others who provide jobs for people. That is the road to a healthier economy which in turn will benefit the children within these families.

I want to make one other point that we sometimes gloss over on this debate about the tax credit and recognition that is given to institutionalized care, but not to those who choose to care for their families at home. More critical than the financial impact on these families is the subtle message that this sends to them if they choose to stay at home and care for their children. There are some sacrifices involved in that. I realize not everybody wants to do it. However, if they choose to do it the message they are getting from the policies we have today is that there is absolutely no value in it. The government will not recognize it.

When we send these subtle messages they serve to undermine the strength of the families and they serve, in part, to cause some of the family breakdown we have had. That is why I think it is so critical that we not only worry about the financial impacts, but the message we are sending as far as the value of the parent-child bond.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Speaker, there were discussions during question period and I would now ask for unanimous consent to have this motion made votable.

[English]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): The hon. member for Repentigny has asked that this motion be made votable. Is there unanimous consent?

Some hon. members: No.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Reform member who spoke to the motion and refused to make it votable.

In view of the lack of compassion shown by Liberal members who have turned us down four or five times today and their lack of compassion with regard to compensation for victims of hepatitis C, I would like to ask a question of my Reform colleague who is telling us how to raise our children after his colleague told us there were too many divorces.

Are these sterile, senseless, pointless discussions not proof enough it is necessary and urgent to set up a parliamentary committee to discuss the gap between rich and poor in the context of globalization, in a less partisan and more thoughtful manner?

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[English]

Mr. Eric Lowther: Mr. Speaker, I have one correction to make. I did not vote no. It was the member across the way. I am always supportive of free votes in this House. I recognized the question, so I wanted to clarify that.

As far as the parliamentary committee is concerned, these things cost a lot of money. I know, as do many hon. members, that there are some straightforward things we can do to correct current policy, things that do not cost anything, that can save taxpayers and that can impact immediately the family and the children in a positive way without incurring more taxpayers' money on more committees and that type of thing.

[Translation]

Hon. Gilbert Normand (Secretary of State (Agriculture and Agri-Food)(Fisheries and Oceans), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, if you would allow me, first, as a good Liberal, I would ask for permission to share my time with my colleague, the member for Abitibi.

Our opposition colleagues do not seem to recognize the government's commitment or its previous record of improving the economy and giving our young people more job opportunities.

As we said in our initial action plan for renewing the federation, entitled “Creating Opportunity” and repeated in the document “Securing our Future Together”, the future belongs to societies that have a dynamic economy, that look after public health, that promote child development and that invest in knowledge, education and innovation.

The Government of Canada has clearly indicated that these are our values and priorities. Moreover, we are making progress in each of these sectors. My colleagues have already outlined some of our outstanding achievements in this regard, our exceptional results in putting our fiscal house in order and our increased investments in health care and in programs designed to reduce child poverty.

My remarks will then focus first and foremost on the efforts made to help Canadians acquire the skills and knowledge that they will need to support competition in an ever changing world. We should not delude ourselves; the world is changing very rapidly.

The technological revolution, the information society and the world economy are modern realities that go beyond our borders and over which we have no control as a country.

Canada's economic opportunities increasingly depend on the skills and strengths of our labour force. As well, our quality of life depends on our ability to think, innovate and create in a world transformed by information and technology.

Those who question this fundamental fact in the new economy only have to look at the present job situation. Since 1981, the number of jobs for Canadians with only a high school diploma has fallen by 2 million, while the number of jobs requiring more advanced skills has risen by more than 5 million.

Obviously, Canadians with higher education levels have better job opportunities, better job security and higher-paid jobs. The unemployment level for people without a high school diploma stands at 15%, while it is only 5% for university graduates. Training will help to reduce the gap between these two groups.

This is why the cornerstone of the new Canada opportunities strategy is the Canada millennium scholarship program. I want to point out that more than 100,000 scholarships, funded through an initial endowment of $2.5 billion, will be granted each year to full—and part-time students during the first 10 years of the next millennium.

The Canada millennium scholarship program will invest in the knowledge and creativity of young Canadian and improve their access to post-secondary education. The scholarships will average $3,000 a year per student.

Whether they choose to attend a cegep, a community college, a professional or technical institution or a university, students will be eligible to receive up to $15,000 over a four-year period to complete their education and get a diploma or a certificate.

The Canada opportunities strategy will help Canadians still in school or already in the workforce to increase their knowledge and their skills in order to improve their career opportunities.

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The number of adults who choose to go back to school full time is three times higher than it was 20 years ago. Most of them have made that decision because of work related reasons. The strategy will make this easier for a greater number of people. Starting on January 1, 1999, Canadians will be allowed to withdraw funds from their RRSPs tax free in order to go back to school.

For those who have completed their education but are facing financial difficulties and find it hard to pay back their student loans, the Canadian opportunities strategy provides for more flexibility as well as interest relief. Interest relief on Canada student loans means that the Canadian government will make interest payments for up to 30 months after the completion of the student's education. The income threshold to qualify for relief is $20,460.

Families are encouraged to save a little bit of money each month for their children's education. The Canada education savings grant will help them. Families that contribute to a registered education savings plan will receive a 20% grant from the Canadian government for the first $2,000 in contributions. Small savings today could pave the way to a brilliant future in post-secondary education.

All these measures will bring about sustainable and meaningful improvements and will be a very effective and tangible way to fight poverty. The Canadian opportunities strategy will be a great contribution to the fight against poverty.

The strategy will make post-secondary education more accessible by helping needy students overcome the problem of higher education costs. We will be giving more help to students who have to support dependents, to part-time students and to those who conduct advanced research or go pursue graduate studies

We will help students pay back their student loans. We will help families save money for their children's education. We will encourage employers to hire young people, and we will help a greater number of students take advantage of information technologies.

Our Canadian opportunities strategy introduced in the last budget and our employment insurance system are two good examples of how the federal government devotes its energy to helping Canadians adjust to changes on the job market in the 1990s and take advantage of opportunities in the new economy.

Our goal is to create more opportunities for Canadians, and young Canadians in particular, to succeed in the new knowledge based economy. I therefore urge the hon. members to recognize the action taken by this government to help reduce the income spread between Canadians and fight poverty.

It was Theodore Roosevelt who said that those who build the future are the ones who do something, not those who complain about how it should have been done.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to direct my question and comments to the hon. member who recycles speeches on the budget.

I will first remind him of a few statistics, then I will have a very simple question to ask him.

According to the National Council of Welfare, there were 900,000 children living in poverty in 1989. When the Liberals took office in 1993, there were 1.4 million of them. In 1996, after three years of Liberal government, the number had risen to 1.5 million.

I need not read today's motion over, but I listened carefully to what the hon. member said and I do not think he got the point. So, my simple question is the following. What should we be discussing in this House today?

Hon. Gilbert Normand: Mr. Speaker, I think we are talking about the sharing of wealth. I must tell the member opposite that, personally, before entering the political arena, I worked in the area of social development. I was then one of the organizers of the summit that is taking place right now in Quebec City and I certainly know what I am talking about.

The sharing of wealth is essential to the fight against poverty and it is the federal government's responsibility. However, the federal government is not solely responsible for everything that goes on in the community. There are other levels of government, and we want to work with them, especially the Quebec government.

I can even tell the member that I personally asked the organizer of the summit that is taking place at this very moment in Quebec City if the federal government could participate in this summit, but he refused.

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Mrs. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Mr. Speaker, if the provinces have so many problems, it is because of the cuts in transfer payments that they have been subjected to for several years. The government has imposed these cuts on all the provinces.

I would like to ask the member opposite—his riding must resemble any other riding—if, in his riding, there are soup kitchens and shelters for poor people. Have their numbers not increased over the last few years? Does he not feel that wealth is not distributed equally everywhere?

Maybe the member could comment on that, unless his riding is so wealthy that people there do not need these services.

Hon. Gilbert Normand: Mr. Speaker, I will not talk about wealth and poverty. I will simply say that in my riding of Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet, of which I am very proud, people have decided to take control of their own destiny.

The fact that people decide to take control of their own destiny in our communities often leads to success. The role of governments, including ours, is to help communities. I always tell my constituents to bring forward their projects and that we will be there to help them and to support their development.

That is why things are going well in the riding of Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet. Yes, there are soup kitchens, but I can tell you that people in that riding have taken control of their own destiny. They want to develop and they want to broaden their horizons because a growing number of our industries compete in international markets. It is precisely by helping them do that that we fight poverty.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Speaker, in his answer to a question put by the hon. member for Laurentides, we got a slight hint that the hon. member for Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet was beginning to understand what we are talking about.

I will gladly read to him the motion before the House, because he has not read it. He talked about a lot of things, but forgot the subject of our debate today. The motion is as follows:

That this House reiterate the 1989 commitment to eliminating child poverty by the year 2000, urge the government to act, and strike an all-party Special Parliamentary Committee—

We are not blaming anyone here. We just wanted to address this issue and we did not need the Liberal budget to do so. Is the member in favour of striking an all-party committee to discuss the gap between the rich and the poor in this era of globalization?

Hon. Gilbert Normand: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member, I would point out that I have read the motion. I do not think that the federal government can, all by itself, fight poverty. A people's summit would be far better than any parliamentary committee.

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time I have risen in this Parliament to speak on poverty.

The Bloc Quebecois' motion reads as follows:

That this House reiterate the 1989 commitment to eliminating child poverty by the year 2000—

(1) despite the economic growth of recent years, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen;

We all know that most Canadian and Quebec women spend at least part of their life at home full time. Nearly half of them are not in the labour market and fewer than half of those who have preschool children have a paid full time job.

Canadian and Quebec parents seem to have the best of intentions about sharing the job of raising children. However, for better or for worse, the job of raising them still falls to women. Genetically speaking, there is nothing that says women should look after the home. However, in practice they are the ones to look after most of the domestic duties. That is why I am talking about women at home, which means in fact women at home raising children.

In Canada and Quebec, women at home work full time and even do overtime. Studies have shown they work between 41 and 60 hours a week, according to the number and age of their children.

Women at home are on duty 24 hours a day seven days a week. See if you can come with a more demanding job. This is our focus in the discussion on poverty. We have to start with the family. We also know that women at home work essentially in the home. Their husbands, children and other members of the family benefit most directly from their work.

However, others benefit as well. This is why paying women at home would stimulate the economy. They would be spending the money for essentials such as more appropriate food and more long lasting clothing.

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Employers also take advantage of homemakers in other areas. Since women manage the home and take care of the other family members, it becomes easier for the husband to dedicate himself totally to a paid, full time job outside the home. I see the opposition before me today and the member for Repentigny smiling because I am talking about paying stay-at-home women. We are talking about families and children. I can say that, if women still stayed at home to look after their children, there would be less poverty.

Finally, if we take a more general perspective, homemakers are responsible for the future to the extent that they take care of the next generation. To carry on from one generation to the next, we need a dynamic and healthy population. What exact value must be placed on the work of these women who are on duty 24 hours a day to do everything in the home? According to some estimates, housework would amount to between 35% and 40% of Canada's GDP, which represents at least $136 billion in Canadian dollars. This is a significant amount, but stay-at-home women have no access to this money to help their children get out of poverty.

Unlike other workers in our society, homemakers do not receive a salary. And because they are not paid, they do not have annual leave, employment insurance and compensation for accidents, disabilities or illnesses. What is more serious in the long term is that they do not have a pension plan. Yet, like all other workers, homemakers eventually reach retirement age.

It is unacceptable that stay-at-home women have to face financial insecurity throughout their lives, even in their retirement years, after spending so many years working for the well-being of their families and of society as a whole.

Mothers often decide to go and work in mediocre conditions, and this is when we start talking about poverty. Women who have large families and who work for $3 or $4 an hour are not getting a decent salary. Some stay at home to raise children and do all the related chores. For those who work outside the home, it is extra work, since they must do household chores in addition to going to work, sometimes for $3, $4 or $5 per hour for washing floors.

Mothers belong to one of two groups: working mothers and mothers who stay at home. Even these expressions have a certain connotation. If some women are working mothers, what is a mother who stays home? If there are full time mothers, does it mean that those who have a career outside the home are only part time mothers?

Women at home, whether they are married or not, do not get any personal benefit from the Canada Pension Plan or the Quebec Pension Plan. Proposals to share pension credits between spouses are fine, but they do not take into account the value of the work performed by women at home, since the couple's total pension is not increased.

In 1970, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women concluded that women who stay at home produce as many goods and services as those who are gainfully employed, and that if they were paid, it could help children and eliminate poverty in certain regions of Quebec and Canada. We can re-examine our approach and create legislation that is, above all, fair to families, and gives parents the primary responsibility and the freedom to select the formula they judge is best for rearing their children.

The following are some reflections on the legal aspects. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that every individual has an equal right to protection and benefit under the law, without discrimination. The present day taxation legislation does not afford equal treatment to mothers. Some get special treatment while others do not, which is contrary to the democratic principles of equal opportunity.

If we look at the House Debates from 1983, the NDP member for Kamloops said he would continue to call upon the minister to reform the taxation system so as to treat all family situations equally. What we need is a system which takes into consideration all of the costs and efforts involved in raising children, regardless of marital status or income level, a system which gives women who choose to stay at home the same status and recognition as those who are in the work force.

In 1984, a national survey reported that 81% of Canadians were in favour of stay-at-home parents being included in the Canada and Quebec pension plans. But they still are not entitled to this pension.

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I say to people, I say to members from every party in this House: Let us work together, let us try to find a solution to pay a salary to mothers who stay at home, to help children and their families escape poverty.

Nowadays when we talk about poverty, we talk a lot about programs, all kinds of federal and provincial programs. The problem with the Bloc's motion as it stands is that it suggests a parliamentary committee. I would prefer a royal commission that would study poverty and the possibility of paying a salary to women at home, mothers who stay at home to raise one or more children.

I want to thank everybody in the House today and I wish all the best to women. I also say to men who want to help us to write their MPs. They do not need a stamp. All they have to do is write a letter to their MP suggesting that a royal commission look into how to help families escape poverty. All they have to do is get in touch with their MP, regardless of his or her party, to get their message across. Even if it takes months, we have to keep trying. We must win for the sake of the men and women who stay at home to raise their children, and help them break the cycle of poverty.

Mrs. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the member for Abitibi that there is no such thing as a part-time mother or father. When we become a mother or a father it is for life. We are and always will be there no matter what.

I am a mother. I am a single mother. Is the member telling me all mothers should stay at home and should be paid to stay at home? Is the member telling us his government is willing to pay women who stay home to raise their children?

I would like the member for Abitibi to answer with an unequivocal yes.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, I had some difficulty hearing the hon. member's question. In the context of this Bloc motion on poverty, let me go back to the Quebec Liberal minister who said in 1994 that we should reform the whole of society, bring in a new guaranteed income supplement, abolish welfare and certain other programs, and take the money and invest it.

Coming back to the hon. member's question dealing with poverty, I remember that in October 1997, the Quebec government got a booby prize for its performance against poverty. This prize was awarded last October at a gala in Alma. I have this all here in my notes. A coalition of community groups from the whole area met in Alma and awarded the booby prize for the fight against poverty to the Quebec government and Lucien Bouchard, and that happened on his own turf. We should start by finding solutions at home.

They talked about world-wide poverty. Let us talk about poverty at the provincial level and about family and child poverty. Why did the Quebec government get this booby prize in Alma, in the riding of the member who took his chair out of the House? Think about that, and start by cleaning up your own backyard.

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what the member opposite said just now. First of all, it is important that it be said, because there is a lot of confusion. I did not clearly understand where he was headed with the idea that women should go back to staying at home.

Like my colleague, the member for Laurentides, I find it offensive when people speak this way. I am expecting, I am going to have children, and I do not necessarily want to stay at home.

I will give the member a chance, however. Perhaps he meant the unseen work done by women. If he recognizes unseen work, I urge him officially to speak to the Minister of Finance about seniors benefits. But he is speaking about poverty. Does he agree with the idea of a committee, yes or no?

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to reply to the Bloc Quebecois motion calling for a parliamentary committee.

This is incorrect. What is needed is a royal commission on poverty in Canada, on paying a salary to women who stay at home, not just a small parliamentary committee that will visit towns and cities designated by members, or a parliamentary committee that will do its work behind closed doors in the House of Commons and conduct hearings all over the place. They cannot cover all the towns and villages in Quebec, all the major regions.

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I prefer a royal commission. I made it clear in my speech that there are two categories of mother: those who work and those who stay at home full time. These expressions are emotionally charged. If certain women are working mothers, what is a woman who does not work?

If there are full time mothers, that means that those who work outside the home are part time mothers only. There is nothing wrong with women working. It is an honour for a woman to work, but I can guarantee you that, rather than work for $7.40 an hour, 40 hours a week, many women would stay at home to raise their children. There would be less poverty. Right now, in Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, women are washing floors for $3, $4 or $5 an hour. What we want is a royal commission.

Mrs. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Rosemont.

I am very pleased to take the floor today in support on my party's motion. If members read the motion carefully, they will realize that it raises fundamental questions.

As elected representatives, parliamentarians and democrats, it is our duty to deal very seriously with fundamental issues such as poverty, precisely because of the global phenomenon of the gap between rich and poor that is growing wider and wider despite the prosperity Canada and many countries are experiencing right now.

On the eve of a new millenium and in the context of market globalization, all these issues have become fundamental stakes in philosophical debates in our society and political life.

The issues and challenges which my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean raised on April 20 deserve more serious consideration. That is why the Bloc Quebecois is pursuing this debate today by calling on members of all stripes to discuss and find different approaches to these problems and to the changes flowing from globalization, a process that sometimes goes much too fast and creates problems such as greater social disparity.

Since it is very difficult to foresee with any degree of accuracy the impact of globalization, the Bloc Quebecois agrees with the idea of the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean that we should strike a parliamentary committee.

It is important to have an in-depth discussion. The Bloc Quebecois thinks that this could help us better understand the impact of globalization.

The task my party and I are ready to undertake is not easy, but it is very exciting. Our whole society must rise to meet the challenge of globalization. As a responsible political party, the Bloc Quebecois has chosen to publicly launch this debate in the House of Commons.

Before going further, let us examine what globalization really means. How can it be defined? According to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, which brings together 182 members states, globalization is:

—the increasing economic interdependency of all the countries of the world, due to a rise in the volume and variety of cross-border goods and services transactions and in the international monetary flows as well as the accelerated and widespread use of technology.

Why have so many governments opened up, willingly or not, to the world economy? Because world trade can benefit all the countries that take part in it.

Hence, the countries are changing their economic practices and specializing in areas where, comparatively, they have an edge. They also trade with other countries, which increases their standard of living compared to the situation they would find themselves in if they had to produce all the products they need.

That being said, world trade often has a tremendous impact of the redistribution of income within a country, so that there could be winners and losers. In order to try to alleviate the problems associated with globalization, it is important to implement compensation and adjustment programs.

This is why it was agreed that a multilateral investment agreement should be negotiated under the auspices of the OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

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Even though the Bloc Quebecois supports the principle behind the MAI, which is designed to clarify the rules in the area of investment, thereby promoting freer investments and freer trade in general, the agreement, in its present form, contains significant flaws that will have to be addressed if the government wants to have not only the support of the Bloc Quebecois, but also the support of Quebec.

As international cooperation critic for the Bloc Quebecois, I deplore the fact that the majority of countries, particularly developing countries, were excluded from the negotiations, which will end today, because they took place within the context of the OECD. It is unacceptable that only 29 member countries, the wealthiest in the world, can have their say and not the others.

The Bloc Quebecois would rather see these negotiations being pursued within the context of the World Trade Organization.

As of October 22, 1997, 132 countries were members of the WTO, and 34 countries and seven organizations had observer status. That means that a larger number of countries affected by such an agreement would have the opportunity to express their views about the agreement at the development stage.

It is obvious that the federal government, through the Minister for International Cooperation, seems more and more to enjoy thumbing its nose at developing countries and non- governmental organizations.

I want to warn the government opposite. The globalization of markets and the MAI will not solve every problem on the planet.

As a matter of fact, since the present government has taken office, we have been witnessing an important change not only in its attitude toward development assistance, but also in its attitude toward the role of the state with regard to world misery. The United Nations world report on human development says that inequalities are growing everywhere. While the poorest 20% of the population on the planet shared 2.3% of the world income in 1960, their share barely reaches 1.1% today.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest 20% of the population have become even wealthier. Their share went from 70% in 1960 to 86% today.

In Africa, incomes have dropped by 30% in just a few years. Some countries are becoming even poorer while others are slowly getting back on the road to economic growth. This slow change is very disturbing and is happening everywhere.

In 1989, there were 3.5 million people living in poverty in Canada. In 1995, this number went up to 5.1 million, a 45 % increase. During that same period, the number of poor children rose by 54 %, from 934,000 to 1,441,000 between 1989 and 1995.

In my riding alone, the Laurentides, soup kitchens, community groceries and other organizations of this type are mushrooming. I recently attended the opening of the Club des petits déjeuners, an organization that provides breakfasts for young children in schools in my riding, children who do not eat breakfast in the morning because their parents cannot afford it.

These associations are still necessary in my riding, which undoubtedly indicates an increasing level of poverty in my riding.

Considering these dismal statistics, how can we explain that Canada went from fifth to eleventh place among OECD countries for development aid expenses?

According to the United Nations, developed countries such as Canada should allocate at least 0.7 % of their gross national product to development aid. Since the fiscal year 1993-94, the federal government has literally axed the budget envelope for international assistance by taking more than $617 million out of it, which means that it allocates only 0.29 % of the gross national product to this purpose in 1997-98.

By acting in this way, Canada is evading its international responsibilities towards the poorest in the world and is doing nothing to reduce the gap between rich and poor countries.

The government could act otherwise, but it will not. It would rather spend millions of dollars, among other things, on buying new submarines.

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In light of these facts, it is clear that, for the federal government, the problem is not one of means, but one of priorities.

The debate has now started and the federal government has the duty to seriously consider the Bloc Quebecois motion. This is for the well-being of the people of Quebec, of Canada and of the entire world.

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have one comment and one question for the member for Laurentides.

For months now, the member has been traveling across her riding and the province of Quebec telling people she represents the Parti Quebecois and Quebeckers in Ottawa. Lately we saw several of them playing Santa Claus in Quebec, distributing cheques on behalf of the Quebec government. They did not give them to poor families, but to rich ones.

Does the member know why in October 1997, the Groupe de solidarité populaire du Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean gave the golden raspberry award for poverty to the government of Lucien Bouchard for being the one institution which had contributed the most to increasing poverty among Quebeckers?

Earlier I was listening to the member speak about globalization and all the other countries in the world. Could the hon. member tell me right now whether a royal commission on poverty or on remuneration for homemakers would not be better than a parliamentary committee operating behind closed doors?

Mrs. Monique Guay: Mr. Speaker, those who have nothing to say say stupid things. If the federal government had not cut transfer payments to the provinces so drastically, the provinces might not have so many problems.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If the member for Abitibi is a conscientious and honest man, he should stand up and repeat the derogatory comments he made to my colleague from Laurentides.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): This is not a point of order. The member for Laurentides.

Mrs. Monique Guay: Mr. Speaker, if you could ask him to be quiet and listen, it would be interesting, because I do not think he even knows the difference between a royal commission and a parliamentary committee.

So, I am talking about international aid because it is important for a developed country like Canada to help on the international scene. But we still see poverty in our ridings. If the government took the money in the employment insurance fund—there will soon be $20 billion—and transferred it to the provinces, we would solve our problems at home.

I even heard the member for Abitibi—and I am amazed that we have such parliamentarians—say that social assistance had to be cut. Really. It is women with children who are suffering for the most part and who receive social assistance. Yes, programs must be set up for them and they must return to the labour market. He however is talking about women remaining at home and being paid to do so. Oh, boy. That makes no sense.

I think the members of the Liberal Party should look at the motion today, support it and vote with us in favour of a parliamentary committee.

[English]

Mr. Gordon Earle (Halifax West, NDP): Mr. Speaker, again I rise with pride to speak on this motion. It is a very important motion. The whole question of the gap between the rich and the poor which we see increasing daily is very important.

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I would like to comment on the remark made by the member which I agree with. Governments have to get their priorities straight if we are going to deal with this issue. Lots of times we see priorities being made and moneys being directed in the wrong direction.

I was also concerned about remarks made by the hon. member for Abitibi with respect to women being paid to stay at home. Unless I was misreading it, I got the impression that he felt it was exclusively women who would be working at home. I hasten to point out that today many men head single parent families. In two parent families many men choose to stay home to look after their children and to attend to the concerns of the home.

It is important that we speak about families and that we be careful that we do not discriminate against women with respect to roles and responsibilities in the family.

[Translation]

Mrs. Monique Guay: Mr. Speaker, I thank the NDP member for his support. I totally agree with him. We cannot discriminate. It is important for the women who choose to be at home. I think as many men as women are responsible for child care. I do not know why we would discriminate.

I again call for support. We are not asking for the moon. We simply want a parliamentary committee to look at this whole issue. It is good for all parties. It is non-partisan and it would serve the needs of this fine country they keep bragging about—Canada and its provinces.

Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I find it hard to rise in this House after hearing such a disgraceful and demagogic speech from the hon. member for Abitibi, but I will still exercise my right to speak.

First of all, I would to point out that, last week, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean made quite an impression when he took his seat out of the House. He did so to stress the social inequities that keep increasing despite major improvements to our economic performance. He walked out with his chair to trigger a larger debate on what it means to sit in the House of Commons.

What political power can we use to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor? As elected representatives, are we not the first ones to be asked this question? Yes, I think so, which is why I am glad today to speak on the impact of the globalization of markets and the proliferation of international agreements on the sovereignty of states and, therefore, the real powers we as elected representatives have in this House.

We have to have this debate here, because it deals with an issue that directly concerns all of us. We are here to represent the people who have elected us democratically. Therefore, every time we lose some of our power, some of our authority as legislators, it reduces the ability of our fellow citizens to shape their collective future, according to their own values. This is why I support the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean, who wants to see this debate go beyond the walls of the House of Commons.

After I was elected to this House, it did not take long for me to notice how globalization has an enormous impact on the work we do here, in Ottawa. My colleagues have already talked about its impact on many major issues. There is certainly an area in which the effects of globalization on national democracies cannot be denied, namely the environment.

Indeed, through the past generations, the ability of the human race to modify the world ecosystem has increased dramatically. This is due to our exploding population and our rapid technological progress. For instance, economic activity throughout the word is more than 20 times what it was in 1900. Consequently, many human activities are exhausting the planet's non-renewable resources.

Every day, our excessive production and consumption cause the extinction of at least 100 different species of plants and animals. Needless to say, this worrisome problem goes beyond national borders. We must find ways to solve it that are as international as the nature of this challenge.

Every year, we dump in the atmosphere billions of tons of CO2, the product of our energy consumption, and we use over 40% of the planet's organic matter.

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In one year we burn as much fossil fuel as the earth was able to produce in around one million years. Poverty and misery are still rampant around the world.

The city of Montreal, where I live, is more and more frequently smothered in smog. Many Montrealers are getting organized to find solutions to this problem which affects our quality of life, but they will not be able to do it alone because half of this pollution comes from our neighbours in Ontario and New England.

Still they refuse to be defeated by the scale of the problem. Together we must find solutions to meet the challenges we face due to the deterioration of our environment and the multiplication of substances dangerous to human health. To do so we cannot keep our eyes on the short term. What is needed is a fundamental change in the way we make decisions at every level of society.

We must start integrating environmental concerns in the everyday decisions we make as individuals, managers and lawmakers.

Let us not fool ourselves: the precarious condition of our environment is the result of nearly two centuries of abuse. There is no easy solution. We can expect more crises, more environmental accidents. What is needed is for the ecological balance, which has been gradually destroyed over the course of centuries, and particularly over the past century, to be restored.

This is a long term undertaking, which will require the commitment of each and every one of us, from the various governments down to the last individual and, above all, a serious response to the environmental challenge which will lay our present lifestyle open to question.

Indeed, the environmental issue is more than just pollution, the build-up of domestic and chemical waste or land use management. These are just symptoms of a larger problem, and that is mainly the way we approach our relationships, define our prosperity and select a lifestyle.

In this respect, we are witnessing a real revolution in attitudes. Recent polls, open-line programs, radio hot-lines and television reports all agree. My fellow citizens, and young people in particular, agree on the value they put on their quality of life as compared with the mere accumulation of consumer goods.

They choose health over the pursuit of economic expansion at all cost. These new values are priorities. They should be used as the basis for the political will to allocate sufficient resources to the preservation of our environment, which we all care about.

It is paradoxical that this government repeatedly drew upon this widely held public opinion to finally come up short in terms of a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases and protect the collective scientific tools used to assess our environmental situation.

This government cannot be satisfied with reacting to environmental crises. Never has the government developed a long term action plan which takes into account the collective diversity of the territory for which it is responsible.

Never has the government seriously considered where it wanted to be in five, ten or more years from now. In order to have a political will, governments must be able to set out the goals they wish to achieve through the action they take. Unfortunately, for the moment, we have to express our concern about this government's lack of vision with regard to environmental issues in today's context.

Canada's failure in the area of greenhouse gases reduction says a lot about that. Only Quebec is on the way to meeting its international commitments in this regard. How can the federal government limit itself to feeble symbolic and optional measures to reach these ambitious targets when it is obvious they will lead nowhere unless they are accompanied by active measures and research budgets. It so happens the Liberal government, that claims to be concerned about the environment, has a budget for the reduction of greenhouse gases that is 10 times less per capita than that of our neighbours to the south.

Yet the situation is so alarming that many predict that environmental protection will become the main public concern in the near future.

However, during the same year, the same 150 countries that met in Kyoto, Japan, to agree on international targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases negotiated the multilateral agreement on investment, which is designed to reduce investment barriers.

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These dual reduction targets are crucial to the preservation of our quality of life. But do the countries sitting at the table have the necessary powers to meet all these commitments? How can the globalization of markets affect our ability to respond to environmental threats? Which agreement will have precedence over the others in case of conflict? That question remains unanswered here, in Canada.

So far, the only general exception contained in the MAI relates to national security issues and law enforcement. There is no reference to important international agreements such as the Kyoto agreement or the Montreal protocol on CFCs. That is why, before giving our final approval for this agreement, we want the right of countries to take or maintain environmental protection measures to be explicitly preserved.

In conclusion, like all those around me in this House, I am concerned about the state of our society and our environment in the next 20 or 30 years. If we can agree on the principles of sustainable development that I just set out, we must promote these principles abroad both in trade and environmental negotiations. That is the role I have set for myself as elected representative of the people of Rosemont, and I will use all the means available to me to fulfil that role.

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment and ask a question. I listened carefully to the hon. member for Rosemont, who made a very good speech. He started by saying I was a demagogue, an accusation I find strange and cannot accept.

I learned how to read when I was very young, and I did read in a major newspaper in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, on October 31, 1997, a report that said: The fight against poverty: Quebec gets a booby prize. The Quebec government was awarded this booby prize in Alma, during a citizens solidarity gala in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean.

Other members chuckled at my remarks. I made the same speech in this House on June 3, 1993, and it was very well received by Conservative, NDP and Liberal members. I will give you the answer later on.

Here is my question: Does the hon. member for Rosemont think that the Quebec government will start fighting poverty in the Lac-Saint-Jean area because it got that booby prize? On June 3, 1993, when I made this same speech in the House, the Bloc Quebecois was not here.

Mr. Bernard Bigras: Mr. Speaker, if we have to raise fundamental questions such as these today, it is perhaps because of the empty rhetoric we hear from my colleague opposite.

As far as poverty is concerned, the hon. member should know that his own government has made cuts and reduced transfer payments to the provinces. I think he could have seen the first moves in that direction.

I remember the Axworthy reform and various things that have happened and are due mostly to what this government has done or failed to do.

[English]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): The hon. member for Vancouver East. I would ask her to keep it short.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I will keep it very short. I would like to thank the hon. member for Rosemont for his comments. I think he drew a very good parallel between the state of our environment and the multilateral agreement on investment and globalization.

I would ask the member if he concurs that one of the real dangers of the MAI is that it will have a huge impact on developing countries and will, by increasing foreign investment and the power of multinational corporations, not only have an impact on deepening poverty in those countries, but will also have a huge impact on the physical environment because it will allow greater power to those corporations to plunder the natural resources not only of our country but also of those countries in the developing world. That is one of the real intents of the agreement that is being negotiated by the wealthiest nations of the world.

I would ask the member if he would agree that is one of the dangers of the agreement.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Bigras: Mr. Speaker, indeed, I believe the Multilateral Agreement on Investment will fundamentally change the picture. This is why the Bloc Quebecois has expressed several concerns about this agreement as regards cultural, social, labour and environmental issues.

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I think we have to listen to the requests made by the different interest groups. There is indeed a risk in lowering environmental standards on the national level and also in Quebec. We must ensure that this opening of markets will not have the effect of reducing the quality of our environment.

I think that, to this end, we must ensure there is a good debate in this House, instead of listening to the member opposite, who has been uttering platitudes from the start.

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the member says that I have been saying all kinds of platitudes, but I will ask him a good question.

We know that, in February, the member for Rosemont received a salary raise under Standing Order 67 of the House of Commons. If he wants to help reduce poverty as he claims, did he refuse this raise?

I have the honour of telling the member for Rosemont that I refused that raise. This is in the records of the House of Commons. The money I refused will go toward paying the public debt. Did he do the same thing? Shame.

[English]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): I would ask hon. members to address each other through the Chair.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Bigras: Mr. Speaker, I think the member is confusing the debates.

The important thing to consider is what leeway his government and other countries are able to give their citizens to improve their situation. The issue is not to draw conclusions.

The important thing is to give citizens room to maneuver so they can improve their situation, instead of throwing stones at everyone in this House.

Mr. Bernard Patry (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I want to stress the importance for Canada to meet the challenges of globalization. Our country is well known for its active participation and for the leadership it has often displayed in the development of an international trade system.

Canada's vitality is quite impressive. Our country is among those that rely the most on foreign trade. Indeed, foreign trade accounts for more than 40% of our gross domestic product, the highest percentage among all G-7 members. Our favourable trade balance increased from $7 billion in 1991 to $41 billion in 1996. The total value for Canadian exports of goods and services was a record $280 billion in 1996, almost twice as much as in 1989.

Through its trade policy, Canada seeks to promote the constant improvement of the quality, accuracy and scope of international rules on trade and investment.

Over the past 50 years, our country has been a leader in the development of rules for international trade. We contributed to the establishment of GATT, in 1947, and to the gradual improvement of these rules during successive negotiations rounds that led to the Uruguay Round, in 1994. Canada can be proud of the rules that now exist under the World Trade Organization for goods and services.

It is only natural that we would support changes to include something as critical as international investment. In the current context of globalization, direct foreign investment goes hand in hand with trade. The two cannot be dissociated.

The government's role in developing trade is to support Canada's businesses in such a way as to maximize their chance of success in foreign markets and thus to help create and maintain jobs everywhere in Canada.

For Canadians, there has never been a better time for exports and for taking advantage of international investment opportunities. Markets are opening up, trade barriers are dropping, and goods and services are moving freely between countries.

Foreign investment in Canada triggers employment and growth. Too often, too much attention is paid to the heavy impact of direct foreign investment on Canadian employment and prosperity. Three out of ten jobs in Canada are directly or indirectly linked to direct foreign investment in Canada. More than 50% of exports and 75% of manufactured exports are directly linked to direct foreign investment in Canada.

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Every $1 billion in investments contributes to the creation of over 45,000 jobs over five years.

Direct foreign investments bring new technologies to Canada and bring new production processes on line more quickly. New technologies make it possible for Canadian businesses to maintain or even increase their competitive edge, both in world and domestic markets.

Finally, the liberalization of financial markets and the relaxation of restrictions on foreign investment no doubt explain the remarkable vigour of Canadian direct investment abroad in the 1980s.

This investment provides an increasingly vital contribution to our economic prosperity. Since 1996, the value of Canadian direct investment abroad has surpassed the value of foreign direct investment in Canada.

Canadian direct investment abroad has tripled since 1986, reaching a figure of $194 billion in 1997. The growth of this investment also reflects a new approach to emerging economies.

These investments are a source of substantial revenues and dividends for Canadians and allow our businesses to compete internationally. Canadian investment abroad produces benefits at home for research and development activities, growth and export opportunities, thus creating jobs in Canada.

By investing their own resources in target countries, Canadian companies are displaying confidence and thus positioning themselves favourably to take advantage of potential trade opportunities.

An increasing number of Canadian competitors are very actively promoting and expanding their businesses worldwide.

Canada would like a set of internationally accepted rules on foreign investment, just as there are rules on foreign trade.

Our objective is very clear. The Government of Canada wants to conclude a good deal at the right moment. We do not want to sign just anything at any old time. Therefore, if OECD countries reach an agreement that serves the interests and respects the values of Canadians, in keeping with our specificities and the exceptions we put forward, we believe such and agreement would be beneficial to Canada. But our commitment goes further than that. Our government has been consulting Canadians since the negotiations started and will continue to do so.

We have consulted the provinces, the NGOs, and of course Parliament. In this regard, I will remind members of the House of Commons that last November, at the request of the Minister of International Trade, the Sub-committee on International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade held public hearings on the MAI. In December, the committee tabled its report with as its main recommendation that we continue to participate in the MAI negotiations.

The Bloc Quebecois concurred in the report. Last week the government tabled its response to the report. In short, the government accepts all 17 recommendations. At the recent annual meeting of OECD ministers, the Minister of International Trade unequivocally restated Canada's basic position in these negotiations. The ministers agreed to keep on negotiating without setting any specific deadlines. This is in keeping with Canada's position to take the time to negotiate the best possible agreement.

The government will keep on consulting as many groups as possible to ensure that Canada's positions reflect the interests of all Canadians.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, it is particularly nice to hear a Liberal making sense, after what we heard earlier, and I would like to congratulate the member.

We cannot agree with everything that was said because, for one thing, it was a bit general. At least it made sense. There was a beginning, an end and a middle to this speech. I would like to congratulate the member. There are perhaps other Liberal colleagues who could take lessons on speech-making, or at least read this one to learn a few things. It might be instructive.

Now that we have listened to our colleague, the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, expressing his agreement with the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the rate of growth, our Canadian businesses, which are flourishing all over the place, and telling us how everything is just peachy and how everyone is so nice and so wonderful, I think we have to be honest and admit that there are a few problems somewhere.

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Since the Liberals have been in office, the figures show that child poverty, and the poverty of families by extension, has increased.

The question is not who are the bad guys and who are the good. The question is whether there is not some way to create a special parliamentary committee to discuss in as non-partisan a way as possible, even if it is difficult—my colleague said so—the problem of the gap between rich and poor.

I have a question for my colleague, the member for Pierrefonds-Dollard, if I can be heard over the inanities of the member for Abitibi, whom it is my misfortune to also have to call a colleague, and who may have learned to read when he was young, but picked up nothing in the manners department.

You would have had trouble learning to do two things at the same time, at the rate you are going. One day, maybe.

My question to the member for Pierrefonds-Dollard is this. Why are you opposed to the Bloc Quebecois motion? And I ask you to put it in your own words. What is it you do not agree with?

[English]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): Before the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard responds, I ask members to direct their questions to each other through the Chair and we will get through the day.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Patry: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Repentigny. I am sure he does not want to involve me in his argument with my colleague from Abitibi.

I just want to point out to the hon. member for Repentigny that the government has already started to fight poverty. If you had gone through the previous budgets brought down by the government, you would have noticed that the first step to take is to reduce the deficit, which is what the current government has done.

But even in its attempt to reduce the deficit, the government decided to start by helping the poorest of the poor, the unborn child. In our minds, poverty starts with pregnant women who do not have the means or the money to eat three meals a day. We started by creating a fund to help those mothers. That was a start. It is very interesting to note that, for young people living in poverty, the first years are the most crucial.

The first thing we did was to help pregnant women to ensure that their children, the future generation of Canadians, were born healthy.

Then, in the last budget brought down by the government, you must have noticed that we have taxable and non-taxable benefits that are handed out to the poorest members of our society. Unlike the Reform Party, which wants to reduce taxes for everyone, our government has decided to help out the most needy, the poorest of the families.

In a family earning $20,000 or less, the mother would get $1,600 for her first child and $1,400 for her second child, for a total of $3,000 or 15% of her family budget.

We have chosen to fight poverty by helping out the poorest members of our society, which we did in the last budget. We had set aside $850 million for 1998, and we will add $425 million for 1999 and another $425 million for the year 2000.

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague for his wise, logical and factual speech. It contained a lot of good points.

I simply want to remind the House that, if we really want to examine the issue of globalization and its benefits, we need only ask people in Malaysia, Indonesia and India what they think about it. They can tell us clearly that globalization helped not only the people of these countries in general, but also their economy.

I would ask my colleague if he could give us other examples where globalization has helped people all over the world.

Mr. Bernard Patry: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

What is important is not really the word “globalization”, but the fact that, for a country like Canada, it means an increase in our exports.

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One must not forget that here, in Canada, almost one job out of two is related to the export trade, especially in the province of Quebec.

Therefore, for us, globalization means access to various markets. When we finally have access to these markets, jobs will be created in Canada. Then the government will be in a better position to give more money to CIDA and to help other countries in the world. I think it is very important.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard for his reply to my question as to why he was opposed to our motion. When he said that the Liberals had solved all the problems, I was somewhat satisfied but nevertheless surprised.

If I am not mistaken, the Liberals have been in office for five years. This is not a question for the hon. member, because I have the answer. Statistics show that since 1993, when the Liberals took office, the number of children living in poverty rose by 100,000, from 1.4 million to 1.5 million.

Given the hon. member's reply, are we to understand that, during the first four years, the Liberals merely looked at the situation and only took action last year? Were they inactive during four years and active during one year?

Also, does this mean we no longer have to raise this issue because it is solved? What we are saying is if the issue is not solved, we simply want to discuss it with representatives from the various parties and with Canadians and Quebeckers.

Mr. Bernard Patry: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Repentigny for his question.

When I looked at the wording of the Bloc Quebecois' motion today, I asked myself a question. The Liberal Party of Canada held its convention last March, here in the national capital, and there were observers from the other political parties, including two from the Bloc Quebecois. The Bloc Quebecois must have looked at the priority resolutions passed by the Liberal Party of Canada. One priority resolution was from Quebec and I will be pleased to send it to the hon. member. That resolution dealt with the issue of poverty.

[English]

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Acadie—Bathurst.

It is with pleasure that I rise today to support the motion of the member of the Bloc Quebecois. The motion put forward today is a very good one. It shows very clearly the links between growing poverty in Canada and globally and the phenomenon of globalization now characterized through the multilateral agreement on investment. This is an important motion because these are two key issues that face the country, both of which emanate from policies that have been adopted by the Liberal government.

We have heard many times in the House that the Liberal government is tackling the issue of poverty. When we look at the evidence and what has happened not just in the House of Commons but in terms of government policies since the resolution was passed unanimously in 1989, we begin to see the real picture that emerges is of government policies that have systematically oppressed and increased the number of poor families, of unemployed people and of people living under the poverty line in Canada.

Since 1989 the number of children living in poverty has grown by 538,000. That is a shocking number. The number of food banks has tripled. The number of poor children has grown by 47%. The number of low income persons in 1996 was 40% higher than in 1989 when the resolution was passed.

The reasons for the growing inequality are very clear. The blame lies at the feet of the government that has adopted a corporate agenda of massive cutbacks to our social programs and $700 billion in cuts to transfer payments that have harmed the people of Canada, particularly low income Canadians who depend on transfers and social programs in terms of health care, education and social welfare.

We have seen the Liberal government refuse in the House to fully index the child tax benefit.

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This is yet another reason for growing inequality in Canada. We have seen the gutting of our UI program. Whereas 80% of the unemployed workers who have paid into the program used to collect benefits, it is now down to a measly 30% or a little more.

We have also seen the gutting of our federal housing program. Is it any wonder we have growing poverty and growing inequality since the federal government abandoned social housing in 1993?

In my own province of British Columbia the loss of federal dollars for social housing alone has meant a decline of 8,000 units that would have been built had the program continued. To families where housing is a key determinant of health and well-being that means many more singles, couples and children are living in very substandard housing as a result of government policy.

If we want to look at the living standards in Canada, it is shocking to note that Canada is the only major industrialized country where living standards actually fell in the 1990s. Between 1989 and 1996 the average family income for Canadians, adjusted for inflation, fell by $2,300 or 3.9%. That can be compared to the average real income per person in the United States which grew by 6.2% or the real income per person which grew in western Europe by between 6% and 13% over the same period. That shows how drastic things are in the country.

This has meant that in 1996 the income of the poorest 20% of families in Canada fell by 3% because of lower earnings, cuts to UI and social assistance, but we have to point out that in 1996 the income of the most affluent 20% of families rose by 1.8%. Those statistics speak to the growing disparity and the growing inequality that face us.

Even the government admits things are failing. A huge government report conducted by an interdepartmental committee was comprised of 27 top civil servants in 1996 whose mandate was to identify pressure points facing the Canadian government over the next 10 years. This is what they said in their report:

—the primary obstacle standing in the way of a new national dream is a perception among many Canadians that Canada is no longer a land of opportunity—a society where they can realize their aspirations and be treated with dignity and fairness. Unhappily, much of the research done by federal departments over the past few years tends to confirm the existence of a growing class of (excluded people). It would appear that these trends will continue—

Even when the Minister of Human Resources Development was minister for international co-operation in 1996 he had this to say about globalization:

—the sunny promise of globalization has a dark side. They counterpoise a more integrated world economy and boundless prosperity against the risk that most of the world's people will fall by the wayside, impoverished and disgruntled spectators to the global revolution.

The federal government is not listening to its own Canadian Human Rights Commission which has pointed out that poverty is a human rights issue. Instead of addressing these issues the Liberal government has for three years worked in secret to defend the interest of the most powerful people in our society, those who own and control multinational corporations.

There is no question the MAI is a threat to our democracy. It will have a tremendous impact on our social policy and the ability of democratically elected government to formulate social policy in the public interest.

The government has failed on the score of poverty not only by going ahead and negotiating agreements like the MAI. It has also failed to deal with issues like bank mergers where we have seen profits of $7 billion and the concentration of corporate capital that does not serve the interest of Canadians.

In the B.C. legislature a couple of days ago a resolution was passed calling on the federal government to ensure that Canadian medicare and social services were fully excluded from the provisions of the MAI and calling on the Government of Canada not to sign the draft multilateral agreement on investment.

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These issues are linked in terms of globalization and poverty because there is not a shred of evidence that the MAI will benefit Canadians. It will only benefit large corporations and will only increase growing inequality in Canada.

We call on the government to reverse its priorities, to stand up and acknowledge this is a wealthy country where wealth can be distributed so that the lowest income people of Canada can have better housing, health care, social programs and education. Those things can be realized if the priorities of this government are reversed and it stops defending the interests of those multinational corporations through the MAI.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I would first like to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to make this a votable motion.

[English]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): Is there unanimous consent?

Some hon. members: No.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the motion put forward by the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie concerning globalization and the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

First of all, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean on his dedication to bring this very serious problem to the fore. Sometimes non conventional approaches must be taken to make oneself heard; there is nothing wrong with wrecking a little havoc to put an important message across.

The message the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean wants to send is indeed important. We are told that all G-7 nations are jealous of Canada's economic indicators, but that is to forget the cost attached to globalization.

I represent a part of the country where unemployment is frighteningly high. It is more than 22% in the Acadian peninsula. This is not just a figure, it represents entire families experiencing hardship because the economic market is impervious to human suffering. This 22% figure means that one out of every five people is looking for work but not finding any. This 22% figure reflects a kind of suffering that Canada should never tolerate.

We are living in a world in which multinationals have turned substantial profits in recent years. It is important to understand that I have nothing against companies turning a profit. It means jobs. But we must take a good look at the price to pay for this profit.

It is unacceptable for these profits to be made on the backs of workers. It is unacceptable for these profits to be used to fill someone's pockets when most Canadians cannot make ends meet. It is unacceptable that these profits are giving rise to poverty in a whole section of the population. It is unacceptable that these profits are being made at a cost to children, who are the most directly affected by this poverty. It is unacceptable that these profits are damaging society and not improving it.

Throughout the world people recognize the serious problems attached to the phenomenon of globalization. We recognize that the world market left to its own devices increases social inequality and sets countries on the road to ruin.

[English]

We talk about the race to the bottom. I do not know if we truly understand what it means. The race to the bottom means lower wages for workers. It means poor working conditions. It means that an employee cannot go to the bathroom because his supervisor controls his every move.

[Translation]

We must ensure that globalization benefits all Canadians. Why should company CEOs earn a million dollars in salaries when their employees are facing salary cuts or layoffs?

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Over the past seven years, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Let us take a look at General Motors as an example. CEOs' salaries increased by 250%. Employees' salaries increased by 33%, and 25% of jobs were cut. Why are the benefits not more equitably shared?

A balance should be struck so that the profits of one do not signal the misfortune of the other. Canadians want their government to assume its responsibilities and ensure that globalization serves democracy, equality and human aspirations.

We are living in a world that wants to transfer the balance of power from the hands of elected parliamentarians like us into the hands of multinational corporations.

A reminder to my colleagues in this House. We must not hand over all our powers to the multinationals, which are interested only in their own profits. Canadians will suffer the most if we do. Our constituents will suffer in the race for profits. They will be the victims of the growing inequality.

As parliamentarians, we have a lot to contribute to putting a stop to the ever growing inequality. Government can commit to setting objectives for the reduction of unemployment.

This growing inequality is the result of government policies that refuse to help Canadians when they are at their most vulnerable.

Thousands of Canadians today are jobless. However, 64% of them are not eligible for the benefits intended for them. This situation is even more ridiculous considering the fact that there is more than $20 billion in the employment insurance fund at this moment. The gap between the rich and the poor is due in part to the fact that the government refuses to take its responsibilities and to give workers the EI benefits they have paid for.

This Parliament can honour its 1989 commitment to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. That commitment was made thanks to the efforts of former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Is it not sad to realize that, ten years later, we are not any closer to the desired objective?

We can do what is fair and equitable. Let us work together to make sure that this growing inequality ceases immediately. Let us work together so that all Canadians can benefit from living in a fair and equitable country.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): Questions and comments. The member for Bonaventure—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok.

Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I know that the name of my riding is quite a mouthful, but it is one of the loveliest regions in Quebec. The full name is Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok. These are the names of the four RCMs around the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands directly opposite.

I am pleased to take part in today's debate in the House on the distribution of wealth between the rich and the poor, mainly in the context of globalization of markets. I am also very pleased to be speaking after my colleague, the member for Acadie—Bathurst, because I know that the region he represents is experiencing some of the same things as we are in the Gaspé.

I heard my colleague mention an unemployment rate of 22% in his riding. My constituents are in pretty much the same boat, if not a little worse off. Even if I look beyond our region, the situation is the same in New Brunswick, showing the relevance and importance of the issue. Those of us from the regions must raise these issues.

People often say that the population in the regions is small, but we export. We are therefore hard hit by the globalization of markets. What tools has the Parliament of Canada put at our disposal? We do not see any. Our colleague, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, initiated this debate, and that is what should be borne in mind.

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When I speak of exporting regions, such as mine in the Gaspé, in the Magdalen Islands or in Acadie—Bathurst in New Brunswick, the crab fishery is very important. I mentioned it earlier. I think that the only person not aware of the problem is the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. We rely heavily on exports. The Japanese are our main buyers.

But what is there to help this industry if ever Asian prices were to drop? We are just as dependent on exports as the riding of my colleague, the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques. His riding would also be affected if anything were to happen to Asian pork markets. This is what we want to discuss. What are the available tools?

Second, we talk about the distribution of wealth, but what does the Parliament of Canada put at our disposal? What are the tools available to help the needy and those who are searching for work? How can we improve the situation?

In the context of globalization, what are the tools provided to fishers who rely on the TAGS program? These people need tools to cope. They export their fish, because there are not enough of us in Canada to eat it all. They would like to retrain, but to do what? These are all issues that need to be discussed.

I will conclude, for I want to give the last word to my colleague, the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst. But first I want to congratulate the Ralliement madelinot-gaspésien. This organization from the Gaspe Peninsula drafted a social contract to make people think about the distribution of wealth. The hon. member for Québec referred to it in this House, and I am prepared to give a copy of this social contract from the organization to all members of the House. This group of people representing the various regions of the Gaspe Peninsula also wants to launch a debate on the distribution of wealth.

I now give the last word to the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok.

This is precisely the problem in our country. It all started with free trade and then NAFTA. In fact, the purpose of these trade agreements was to protect what we had and to improve the situation in other countries. However, the opposite is happening. This is why, two weeks ago, we had to file complaints with Canada's labour board, because these agreements were not being complied with.

So, you can imagine what will happen with the globalization of markets. Again, we have a problem in this country, and until the government takes its responsibilities and addresses these issues, there will be hungry children in Canada. In the Atlantic region, the government is prepared to close down TAGS.

[English]

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I am splitting my time with my colleague from Mississauga South.

I do not know why my colleague has to lose his temper. A little earlier he was speaking in the House and was worried and concerned about the fact that if the MAI were to be implemented or if globalization is to take its course workers could not go to the bathroom. I am really surprised that the debate had to come to this level of argument.

Things are not as bad as my colleagues in the NDP would have us believe. We still are considered the best country in the world in which to live. For three years in a row the United Nations has identified Canada as the best place in the world in which to live. We rank number one, ahead of the United States, Japan, Netherlands, Norway and other countries.

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We still have a quality of life which is higher than any other country in the G-7 which makes it the highest quality of life in the world. It is ahead of Germany, France, the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy. Canada also has the highest level of enrolment when it comes to higher education than any other country in the G-7. Things are not as bad as my colleagues like to make them look.

I do not want to say all these things are because of the government's action. All these good things have been achieved collectively by Canadians at every level of government, municipal, provincial and federal. All those things are happening because the government was able to collect taxes from people and corporations in order to spend on our wonderful social programs which are the finest in the world.

I want my colleagues to know that money does not grow on banana trees. It is not planted in backyards. We have to work and produce in order to generate money. That money would not be in the amount we see here in Canada if it were not for corporations that are investing in research and development and in products that are selling here and more importantly are being sold abroad in markets in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the United States and elsewhere.

I hope my colleagues are not suggesting that we should close our borders, bury our heads in the sand and wish for a sunny day because it is not going to happen.

The motion before us today is trying to blame everything on globalization. There is no way out. Either governments around the world will have to move into the next century smiling and co-operating or governments will move into the next century kicking and screaming. Simply put, the world is changing. All we have to do is to look at the past few years to see the revolution and the evolution which have taken place when it comes to information technology.

Governments are scrambling to catch up. In the past few years we have been able to unleash the intelligence of our people in Canada and in the United States. That is why today we have the most sophisticated mode of communication in the world, which is the Internet. Tomorrow we will see other technologies coming on board which will eventually render governments pretty well obsolete.

My view is that the government which is the fastest to move toward not becoming obsolete in the new world order is the government that will be serving its people the best. The government that is capable of coping with what is taking place around the world and establishing standards that suit the people of the world is the government that will be meeting the needs of its people.

The multilateral agreement on investment is not the end. It is the beginning. It is the beginning of something wonderful. No member of the World Trade Organization is biting the butt or chopping the head of another member. Everything is going fairly well. We finally have a world order and rules which govern the whole world when it comes to trade between the economies of countries. We finally have a mechanism in place where if one country is in dispute with another country there is a forum where they can resolve their dispute.

When we talk about rules also governing investment there is nothing to worry about because nobody is robbing anything from anyone. All we are saying is that we want to have a level playing field all over the world when it comes to countries that presently are or eventually will be members of the World Trade Organization and the OECD.

We want to have a proper level playing field so that we know what we are talking about. Billions of Canadian taxpayers' dollars are invested abroad, in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere. We want to make sure these investments are protected.

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I am not fearful. We have one of the most open economies in the world. We are not afraid of a takeover because our country is wide open for investment. We welcome investment. Investment creates jobs.

There is no fear here because simply put, with the multilateral agreement once and if it is signed, there is no need to change anything when it comes to existing Canadian laws. Canadian laws will not be affected. It will not take anything away from the Government of Canada when it comes to its ability to introduce new laws or to change existing laws, providing it treats everyone on the same basis with equality. There are exemptions. A lot of our industries are exempted.

I do not know what this is all about, trying to blame the poverty of the world on the multilateral agreement on investment or blame world poverty on globalization. Ask the people in Malaysia. They will say that thanks to investment in their country the level of income and the gross domestic product have multiplied many times over. Speak to the people in Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Latin America and elsewhere in the world. They will say one by one that thanks to trade and thanks to our investment in their countries and their investment in our country, there is a much better world. We have to bring down barriers, not build them up. Protectionism could kill an elephant.

Madam Speaker, you bet your life if this motion were ever to become votable I would be the first one to vote against it and I would not be blushing because it is a ridiculous motion. It is not a thoughtful motion.

No one has done anything substantial in order to convince me that as an elected official I should be voting for something that is against the interests of the people. A multilateral agreement on investment and globalization will work eventually in the best interests of the people.

Somebody told me a story about a company that went to India and invested in toothpaste, Colgate or whatever. As a result of that investment the quality of life of the people who work in the surrounding area has dramatically improved. As a result of that particular investment, another nail has been put into the coffin of poverty.

That is one example. There are hundreds of other examples across the land where foreign investment has helped to improve the quality of life for people in countries where they live and eventually narrowed the gap between the poor and the rich.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Madam Speaker, I wonder why my colleague from Ottawa-Centre is getting so upset. He does not need to get angry. He looks mighty serious and angry. I want to throw the ball back into his court. When I look at where the hon. member for Ottawa Centre is coming from, I understand why he is so vigorously defending the interests of the government. I am sure that he does not have the same problem in Ottawa Centre that we have in Acadie—Bathurst, which is why my predecessor, Doug Young, was shown the door.

I invite my colleague opposite to visit Newfoundland, since his government wants to abolish the TAGS program. He does not need to go outside the country to see people living in poverty and children going hungry.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this and the fact that more and more people in Atlantic Canada and in downtown Montreal can be seen begging in the streets. Even here in Ottawa, there are people begging, which we never used to see before. The same thing goes for Vancouver. This is the real problem.

It started with the Free Trade Agreement, then NAFTA and now the MIA. This is where the problem lies. We cannot bury our heads in the sand, we have to look up and see what is going on in our own country.

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[English]

Mr. Mac Harb: Madam Speaker, my colleague is from New Brunswick. I am surprised he does not have enough faith in the people of New Brunswick who with their government have changed the course of things.

I commend the Government of New Brunswick, a Liberal government that came to power at a time when there was a big gap between the rich and the poor. There was not enough economic growth in that province. In a matter of a few years the sensibility, sensitivity and vision of that Liberal government enabled it to map out a strategy whereby the province of New Brunswick was able to attract businesses and investment. I repeat investment. I know my colleague in the NDP hates the word investment. He is allergic to the word investment.

There was economic growth in New Brunswick. New Brunswick is now more equipped than ever before to meet the challenges of the next century.

The member should not look at it as a negative thing. Investment has helped his province and it will continue to help his province. He should stand and say that he wants more investment, that he wants to encourage more businesses to be established in his province, that he wants it to do more trade not only with the rest of Canada but with the rest of the world. The world is his market.

Globalization means bringing down borders. It allows us to sell to five billion people versus selling to only two million or three million people. It gives us more opportunities. There is no need for fear. The world is better today than it was yesterday or the day before.

[Translation]

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault): We have 30 seconds left for a question. The hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok.

Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ): Madam Speaker, in the 30 seconds I have, I want to say that I agree with the comments made by the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst, about the astonishment shown by our colleague who lives in a more central riding.

I think it is a bit contemptuous for a member to say during today's debate that money does not grow on trees. What the people of our region are asking for is tools to work with.

I also want to remind the House that Canada was built from east, from Gaspé and New Brunswick, to west, and that we would not have a country if it were not for us.

Our industry is agonizing. We wants tools. Wake up.

Mr. Mac Harb: Madam Speaker, first of all, old battles must not be dragged back into this House. All there is to say is that now we are all part of a civilized society, and life in a civilized and democratic society requires everyone to work together to develop the economy of that society. The way to do so is through free trade.

[English]

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in this debate on the subject of elimination of poverty.

Child poverty is an issue which has seized Canada for many years. Most notably the House of Commons passed a motion to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Child poverty is a political term. That term was coined to elucidate some sympathy for a cause or an issue. Child poverty is really family poverty which is the aspect I will discuss.

A Bloc member raised the issue of the gap between the rich and the poor recently in the House.

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Most Canadians would agree that in Canada we should have an environment in which we can be as successful as we possibly can be, in which we can earn economic returns based on the amount we contribute, our abilities and the opportunities we create for ourselves, and in which we can be as successful as we want to be.

In terms of narrowing the gap between rich and poor I suspect we are not so much concerned about how much rich people might be getting through their efforts. Our interest is more in terms of how we deal with those who are in need in society. Many members of this place share a value system which says that we should help those most in need first.

Just as a point of reference I would like to share with the House what an LICO is, a low income cut off. In Canada we do not formally have a poverty line. However as a reference point we use the Statistics Canada low income cut off threshold.

To give members an idea of what these numbers would be, in a city such as Ottawa one person with an income below $16,874 would be deemed to be living in poverty according to Statistics Canada. Two persons would increase to $21,092. Three persons would increase to $26,232. Four persons, for instance a mother, father and two children, with incomes below $31,753 would be living in poverty. That is a point of reference. I will not make any judgment on whether those levels of income are significant in terms of our understanding of the concept of poverty in Canada.

There are many reasons for poverty in Canada. Most would agree that one of the key elements has to do with jobs and the strength of our Canadian economy to deliver jobs for Canadians who want to work and want to earn incomes to take care of their responsibilities and to enjoy the fruits of Canada.

Canada has come through a very traumatic fiscal period over the last 25 years in which deficits increased annually. Our national debt has a substantial annual financing cost. In 1993 we had a $42 billion deficit. Obviously it was very difficult for any government to produce the kinds of initiatives that would deal with that fiscal situation and with issues such as jobs in the absence of dealing with the fiscal health of Canada. All members know that for the first time in a long time Canada will have a balanced budget for the year ended March 31, 1998.

In the budget presented to this place the finance minister outlined a number of initiatives. It was not a lot but it was a clear start with things like education of our children, ensuring accessibility to schools so that they could get the skills and the training they needed to get the jobs they needed.

We also have a scenario where the interest rates in Canada came down and have been the lowest in 10 years. We are still two or three percentage points below those in the United States. This means we are able to invest capital and that jobs are flowing from that capital investment. It means we have a very stable fiscal situation which has increased exports, and exports create jobs. In that aspect things are starting to happen but not quickly enough.

Canadians need tax breaks. They need to pay less in taxes so they have more disposable income, can continue to be consumers in the economy, generate more growth within our system and provide more jobs so that the synergy and ripple effect will take place.

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Certainly poverty has to be discussed in the context of economic realities, but I want to talk about poverty in the context of social realities. The Vanier Institute of the Family stated that lone parent families represented about 12% of all families but accounted for 46% of all children living in poverty.

Lone parent situations do not very often statistically occur naturally in terms of an unmarried mother, for instance. It is about 3%. Actually the preponderance of the lone parent situation in Canada has to do with the breakdown of the family. It has to do with the fact that in Canada today 30% of all marriages end up in divorce. It has to do with the fact that we now have over a million family relationships in Canada which are common law relationships.

Common law relationships break down twice as frequently as married relationships within the first five years of such relationships. Some 60% of common law relationships break down within the first five years. Some 60% of all parental relationships, whether they be married or common law, involve children. This is one of the most significant reasons we have child poverty and so-called family poverty.

It is a very important area for us to deal with and there is no simple solution. It is very complex in terms of the social dynamics and the strength of the Canadian family. Economics have something to do with it. Stress in family life, stress in business life and stress in life generally have a great deal to do with how society is at peace with itself and how we grow and develop together. There is a complexity here that is very important.

I am working on a bit of research about children's outcomes. We know if children are healthy we have healthy families and obviously a healthy country. Healthy children are a very important part of the strategy dealing with the elimination of poverty and the narrowing of the gap between rich and poor. This means we have to understand how children develop.

One of the most significant pieces of research done in the last few years by the Carnegie Foundation was called “Starting Points”. It indicated that the quality of care in the first three years of life was the most significant determinant of the physical, mental and social health of children. Brain development occurs so rapidly during that period that the foundations for abstract reasoning, logical thinking and general logic are all established by age one.

There are many elements to this issue, but early childhood development represents an area in which we must make a major investment. We must invest in children and over the longer term we will have not only healthy children but also healthy families and clearly a healthier country.

[Translation]

Mr. Maurice Godin (Châteauguay, BQ): Madam Speaker, I have listened to my colleague take a rather roundabout way before getting to the motion we have introduced today, which merely dealt with the striking of a parliamentary committee to try and seek some solutions to the poverty we have today.

He spoke of the 1989 commitment to eliminate poverty by the year 2000. It must be admitted that they have totally missed the boat. We have recently been given a figure of 1.5 million poor children in Canada.

He referred to common-law couples. I fail to see what this has to do with poverty. For me, poverty equals joblessness. Instead of talking about the deficit, he should have talked of the debt. The reason for poverty is the $600 billion in accumulated debt that has been run up in past years, because of needless national spending. This $600 billion cost us $50 billion in interest annually.

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If we had $50 billion to invest in jobs every year, there would be far fewer poor people now.

I would just like to return to the opposition motion. I would like to hear whether the hon. member is really in agreement with this proposal to strike a parliamentary committee in order to find ways to eliminate poverty as quickly as possible.

[English]

Mr. Paul Szabo: Madam Speaker, I understand the member's concerns and I will answer his question directly.

The member wants a parliamentary committee to assess how we can deal with the issue. In my experience as a parliamentarian, parliamentary committees do not often have the opportunity or the resources to do the job that is necessary. In fact I do not believe we require a royal commission on the family or children. I do not believe we need a parliamentary committee. I think we need to act.

Everyone in this place should understand that economics has a significant role to play in terms of eliminating child poverty. Restoring the fiscal health of the country will play an important role in improving our economy, expanding the economy, creating jobs, providing greater disposable income for Canadians and being able to deliver tax breaks to families so they have less stress in terms of their financial affairs. Those things will help.

Perhaps the member did not hear the part of my speech in which I talked about the breakdown of the Canadian family. Divorce and breakdown of common law relationships with children are causing a very significant problem in that although only 12% of families are single parent families they account for 46% of all children living in poverty. This is not an insignificant portion of the problem which the member seeks to address.

I suggest to the member that if it was simply a matter of giving money to poor people eventually we would get to the point where there would be a disincentive or no incentive to work or to contribute. In fact we would approach a level at which they would effectively have, with all of the benefits provided directly or indirectly by various levels of government, a guaranteed annual income.

A guaranteed annual income is a simple solution but it will not deal with the problems. That is why, when we deal with things such as how to help those in most need, increasing the child tax benefit by $850 million this year and another $850 million the next is a start. Is it enough? No, not at all.

It is a start. It represents and reflects the commitment of the government to restoring fiscal health to relieve Canadians over the longer term of the tax burden they are feeling and to ensuring that, most important, we invest in children who are our future and represent our best opportunity of investment for long term sustainable returns.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault): It being 5:30 p.m. it is my duty to inform the House that proceedings on the motion have expired.

The House will now proceed to the taking of several deferred recorded divisions.

Call in the members.

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And the bells having rung:

ALLOTTED DAY—HEPATITIS C

The House resumed from April 23 consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

The Speaker: Pursuant to order made earlier today the first recorded division deals with the motion on the business of supply.  

Pursuant to the same order made earlier today the question on the amendment relating to the business of supply is deemed defeated on division.

The question then is on the main motion.

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(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Division No. 129

YEAS

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NAYS

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PAIRED

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NIL

The Speaker: I declare the motion defeated.

*  *  *

NUNAVUT ACT

The House resumed from April 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-39, an act to amend the Nunavut Act and the Constitution Act, 1867, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The Speaker: Pursuant to order made Wednesday, April 22, 1998, the next deferred recorded division is on the motion of the second reading stage of Bill C-39.

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Ms. Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I propose that you seek unanimous consent that members who voted on the previous motion, with the exception of the chief government whip, be recorded as having voted on the motion now before the House, with Liberal members voting yea.

The Speaker: Is there agreement to proceed in such a fashion?

Some hon. members: No.

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(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Division No. 130

YEAS

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NAYS

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NIL

The Speaker: I declare the motion carried. Accordingly the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

---

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

[English]

ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT

The House resumed from April 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C-216, an act to amend the Access to Information Act (Crown corporations), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The Speaker: Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, April 21, 1998, the next deferred recorded division is on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-216 under Private Members' Business. The question is on the motion.

As is the practice, the division will be taken row by row, starting with the mover and then proceeding with those in favour of the motion sitting on the same side of the House as the mover. Then those in favour of the motion sitting on the other side of the House will be called. Those opposed to the motion will be called in the same order.

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(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Division No. 131

YEAS

Members

NAYS

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PAIRED

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NIL

Mr. Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure that my name was called as voting with the government on this issue.

The Speaker: We did not call your name but you will be registered. I declare the motion lost.

Mr. Bill Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Ottawa Centre said that he wanted to vote with the government on this issue. I would remind the member that the government should not have a position on this issue. It is Private Members' Business.

*  *  *

LABELLING OF TOYS

The House resumed from April 22 consideration of the motion.

The Speaker: Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, April 21, the next deferred recorded division is on Motion No. 85 under Private Members' Business.

I have already explained the procedure for private members' bills.

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(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Division No. 132

YEAS

Members

NAYS

Members