Mr. Deputy Speaker:

The Hon. Member for Saint-Jacques (Mr. Guilbault) on a point of order.

Mr. Guilbault:

Mr. Speaker, if Your Honour would take the result of the vote that was just held on the motion of the Hon. Member for York West (Mr. Marchi) and then apply it in reverse on the main motion, I believe there would be unanimous consent to proceed that way. However, there would have to be added the vote of the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) who just joined us.

Mr. Hamelin:

And mine also!

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

And also the vote of the Hon. Member for Charlevoix (Mr. Hamelin), who votes on the Government side, I presume!

Agreed.

Is there unanimous consent, therefore to apply the vote we have just taken on Mr. Marchi's amendment?

Agreed.

The House divided on the amendment (Mr. Marchi), which was negatived on the following division:

(Division No. 394)

++YEAS

Members

Althouse Gauthier MitchellAngus Guilbault OrlikowAxworthy (Saint-Jacques) ParryBenjamin Harris PennerBlaikie Hopkins Prud'hommeBoudria Isabelle RiisCaccia Jewett Rodriguez-30de Jong Kaplan Dewar Keeper Foster MacLellan Fulton Manly Gagliano McCurdy NAYS Members Andre Cooper FraleighBelsher Cossitt GottseligBernier Crofton GrayBertrand Crouse (Bonaventure-IBlenkarn Daubney la-Madeleine)Bourgault de Cotret GreenawayCaldwell Desjardins GriseChampagne Desrosiers Guilbault(Champlain) Domm (Drummond)Chartrand Duplessis GustafsonClark Fennell Halliday(Brandon-Souris) Fontaine Hamelin

Immigration Act, 1976

Hamilton Mazankowski ScottHardey McCrossan (Hamilton-Wentworth)Hawkes McCuish ShieldsHudon McDermid SparrowJardine McKinnon StackhouseJoncas Minaker StewartKelleher Moore TaylorKilgour Nicholson TowersKing (Niagara Falls) TremblayLadouceur Nickerson (Quebec-Est)Lanthier Nowlan TurnerLawrence Oostrom (Ottawa-Carleton)Leblanc Ricard ValcourtLesick Schellenberg VezinaLewis (Nanaimo-Alberni) VincentMailly Schellenberger WinegardMarin (Wetaskiwin) Wise-76

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

I declare the amendment lost.

Is there unanimous consent to declare the main motion carried by the same vote?

Agreed.

The House divided on the motion (Mrs. McDougall), which was agreed to on the following division: (Division No. 395)

YEAS Members

Andre Grise NicholsonBelsher Guilbault (Niagara Falls)Bernier (Drummond) NickersonBertrand Gustafson NowlanBlenkarn Halliday OostromBourgault Hamelin RicardCaldwell Hamilton SchellenbergChampagne Hardey (Nanaimo-Alberni)(Champlain) Hawkes SchellenbergerChartrand Hudon (Wetaskiwin)Clark Jardine Scott(Brandon-Souris) Joncas (Hamilton-Wentworth)Cooper Kelleher ShieldsCossitt Kilgour SparrowCrofton King StackhouseCrouse Ladouceur StewartDaubney Lanthier Taylorde Cotret Lawrence TowersDesjardins Leblanc TremblayDesrosiers Lesick (Quebec-Est)Domm Lewis TurnerDuplessis Mailly (Ottawa-Carleton)Fennell Marin ValcourtFontaine Mazankowski VezinaFraleigh McCrossan VincentGottselig McCuish WinegardGray (Bonaventure-iles-de-la-Madeleine) Greenaway McDermid McKinnon Minaker Moore

NAYS Members Wise-76Althouse Caccia GauthierAngus de Jong GuilbaultAxworthy Dewar (Saint-Jacques)Benjamin Foster HarrisBlaikie Fulton HopkinsBoudria Gagliano Isabelle

Extension of Sittings

Jewett Mitchell Rodriguez-30

Kaplan Orlikow

Keeper Parry

MacLellan Penner

Manly Prud'homme

McCurdy Riis

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

The main motion is carried.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

The floor will be given to the Hon. Member for Regina East (Mr. de Jong). Perhaps he will wait for 30 seconds to allow Members leave who wish to do so.

Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):

Mr. Speaker, before the vote and before the Private Members' Hour I was centering my remarks on the Government's motion to extend hours of sitting and to extend sitting days into July. The point I was in the process of making is that a large part of our tradition in this House, even though there are three different Parties with different philosophies, is a certain level of consensus and agreement, and it is the level of consensus and agreement that allows our parliamentary system to function. I was also in the process of making the point that at certain critical times, when the Opposition feels that a measure being introduced by the Government goes beyond the bounds of what a Government should normally be doing, it is the duty of the Opposition to try to prevent the Government, within the rules of Parliament, from proceeding with that legislation.

We have seen this on several occasions in the past. One of the historic debates, of course, was the great pipeline debate during which the Liberal Government of the day tried to ram down the throats of Parliament a plan to build a pipeline. In the process, it tore up Parliament's Standing Orders. We saw the same thing again when the Liberal Government of the day, under former Prime Minister Trudeau, brought in its first constitutional proposal. The Opposition, especially the Official Opposition at that time, the Conservative Party, felt that what the Government was doing in that legislation was beyond the normal bounds.

Again we saw the Opposition playing that role when the Liberal Government brought in its National Energy Program. The Opposition at that time claimed that the omnibus Bill the Government introduced was too wide in scope and used the tools available to it to stop the Government and force the Government to back down and introduce several Bills rather than one omnibus trade Bill.

We believe that Parliament has reached another one of those historic points where it is the duty of the Opposition to use every available rule in the book to stop the Government from proceeding with its legislation, namely, the passage of the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States. As members of the Opposition we feel that the Government has no mandate to undertake such an historic change, not only in the economic and trading patterns of the country, but also in the power structure of the country.

The legislation that the Government has introduced changes the relationship between the federal Government, provincial Governments, and municipal Governments. The legislation gives power to the Cabinet to disallow legislation, whether it is municipal, provincial, or federal, if that legislation is not in agreement with the free trade agreement. This we find intolerable. Therefore, we must use every means at our disposal to thwart the Government in its attempt to change the power structure of the country so radically.

The Government has no mandate. As opposition Members have pointed out in the debate, there was never a mention of such a free trade agreement with the United States in the last election. I seriously wonder if, had this proposal been in front of the electorate in 1984, the results of the election would have been the same. Certainly, everybody would be in agreement that the Government has no mandate to alter so radically the power structure in the country.

Government Members say it is necessary to have this legislation because the Government should be able to govern, and that a handful of Members in the Opposition should not be able to thwart the Government in its attempt to govern. That is not the case. If it was ordinary legislation necessary for governing the country, we in the Opposition might rise and offer some objections or criticisms, but then, through our system of consensus, that legislation would invariably pass. It is not only a case of legislation enabling the Government to govern. We are faced with legislation that dramatically changes how the country is governed. We believe that the Government has no mandate for that. That is why we call upon the Government to have an election before it passes this legislation.

Earlier this afternoon I heard the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) mentioning how unfair this would be because calling an election immediately would mean an election being called on the old boundaries. We do not want to see an election called on the old boundaries. That is not the issue here. However, if the Government did not insist on passing the free trade legislation and held it back until after an election, it could call an election in mid-September or the end of September. We could then proceed and hold an election during the campaign of which this issue would be widely debated and all the ramifications would be explained to the Canadian public and they would have an opportunity of voting and deciding upon such a major reorganization of the power

structure of the country. If the electorate decided to elect a majority of members of the Conservative Party, the Government could then reintroduce this legislation and it would be passed.

The Government does not want to face the electorate on this issue. It wants to ram this legislation through Parliament. I wants to see it enacted before it has the courage to face the Canadian public. As opposition Members, we cannot accept that. Therefore, we will oppose this with every means at our disposal.

Understandably, many Canadians watching this debate will find it very frustrating. They expect Parliament to debate issues and to decide upon matters. In raising points of order and stalling the House in conducting its business the opposition Members take the political risk of doing this. An Opposition does not oppose with all the rules and all the means available to it on a whim. An Opposition recognizes that it takes a tremendous political gamble. An Opposition must play that role if it feels strongly that what the Government is attempting to do is wrong and outside of our tradition and of consensus politics in the British parliamentary system.

We feel very strongly that what the Government is attempting to do negates the essence of parliamentary democracy. Never before has such a major decision on the future of the country been made without direct opinion and representation from the Canadian people. As such, we are opposed to this. We will use all the means available to us to force the Government to backtrack, take back its legislation, and to break it down rather than having a huge omnibus Bill that changes many different Acts and Bills. We will attempt to force the Government to hold an election on this issue and consult the Canadian public about its future that is contained in the Bill that the Government wishes to propose.

The Government has also claimed that the Opposition has thwarted the Government in its ability to govern by holding up many pieces of legislation. The Government is somewhat contradictory on this issue. On the other hand, it claims how successful it has been in passing legislation, and how successful it has been in governing. The Government cannot have it both ways. It cannot say, out of one side of its mouth, that it has governed well by pointing out the many pieces of legislation passed, and at the same time, out of the other side state that the Opposition is preventing it from governing. That just does not wash.

One of the items that the Government has brought up is the immigration Bill that we have just voted on. I remember that last summer there was a great crisis facing Canadians. Canadian shores were going to be invaded by boatloads of refugees. In many ways we were sympathetic to the plight of the Government. Certainly, people coming in under false pretences claiming to be refugees and not being valid refugees were coming to Canada and jumping the line, so to speak, ahead of those people who had applied for immigration status and were waiting. Some action was needed. Whether it was an

Extension of Sittings

emergency, I really doubt. Certainly, the legislation has not been in place and we have not seen boatload after boatload of false refugees invading our shores, be that as it may.

We have heard government Members accusing the Senate of thwarting the will of Parliament and the elected representatives. Indeed, this has disturbed me. The initiatives of the Senate I find disturbing. I find it disturbing that a group of unelected people have the power to thwart the will of the elected representatives. I find this an absolutely terrible situation.

However, has the Government done anything about it? It has been in power now for almost four years. It is on record as being willing to ensure either that we have an elected Senate or that the appointed body of political hacks and flacks does not interfere with the democratic process. On several occasions my Leader offered the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) our support to rectify the situation. But of course the Conservative Party is not interested in rectifying the situation. It wants its own hacks and flacks in the Senate. The only thing it does not like is the group of Liberal hacks and flacks which now controls the Senate. The Government does not want to change that. It does not want to change the structure of the Senate. It just wants to hold on and hope that those hacks and flacks will die off so that it can appoint its own Tory hacks and flacks.

I do not think that anyone seriously believes that if the shoe were on the other foot, if there was a majority of Tory hacks and flacks in the Senate with a Liberal Government in the House of Commons, the Tories would not use the Senate to thwart the will of an elected Government. The Tory hacks and flacks in the Senate would be playing parliamentary games. They would be attempting at every turn to thwart the will of an elected government. For us to believe seriously that the Government wants to see genuine Senate reform is something I do not think the Canadian public believes, as I think it does not believe the Government on many other issues as well.

There is another issue that was raised in the House as to why we need this legislation. I refer to the abortion issue. When the Supreme Court made its decision we had government spokesmen, in particular the Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn), giving us all the assurances that the Government would act and that it would provide leadership. We heard that refrain for a number of weeks and months. But the Government could not quite decide whether to provide what type of leadership and in what direction. It thought maybe that it should be this way or that way or even a combination of two ways, three ways, or four ways. It thought that it could find a way to duck its responsibilities. It said, "Look, what we are going to do to parliament is to offer it all sorts of choices, have a free vote, and whatever choice gets the most number of votes will be our position". I am afraid that that is not leadership. I am afraid that what we have seen from the Government is a lack of real leadership in many, many areas.

Extension of Sittings

I now come to the sorry state in which the Government is tearing up the rule book that governs us, our Standing Orders. It is now the Government and not the Speaker which will decide whether Parliament sits in the summer recess. It has torn up the rule book. It has introduced closure. It has attempted to stifle the voices of members of the Opposition and of Members of Parliament. It will use its majority in a ruthless way to try to suppress the voice of opposition. It will use its vast majority as boots to stomp down the voices of dissent. But we will stand in our place and we will oppose the Government, because what it is attempting to do is against not only the traditions of parliamentary democracy but the Canadian tradition, a tradition of consensus.

This Government wants to force us into a political regime with the United States which is unacceptable, I believe, to the Canadian people. It should have the guts to go to the Canadian people and to get their permission before it acts.

Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):

Mr. Speaker, I wish to say a few words on this motion. The Government has talked a great deal about its agenda. I submit that that is precisely why Parliament will sit this summer. It is because the Government has never had an agenda of its own. It has never been able to put any program into place. It really does not know where it is going half the time. It flips from one subject to another. It cannot come to grips with its own priorities probably because there are a great many Members opposite on the back benches who have their pet subjects that they want to get through Parliament before it rises. As a result, and in order to get along with everyone, the Government puts everything on the Order Paper and everything becomes a priority. That is not leadership. That is not a good reason for having Parliament sit on and on for months.

You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that we came back here in the first part of August of last year in a great crisis situation concerning an immigration matter. We were going to deal with it forthwith and in forthright terms. It is rather ironic that just a few moments ago the House voted on Bill C-55. That is the immigration Bill that came up last August which we were here to deal with at that time in order to settle the crisis. It has now been returned to the Senate. It will be debated further and will, undoubtedly, finally be passed.

However, the Government lists as one of its first points to have Parliament continue to sit all summer debating items in its agenda which has been well thought out and which it believes is in the interests of the country. That is about the weakest excuse one could put forward when there is a Government in place that does not know what its own priorities are or what it wants.

To this Government everything is a crisis. Yet what does it do? It does away with the rule book. This is a Government made up of members of the Party which, when in opposition, did not want to play by the rules at that time either. When the constitutional debate was being settled and when the votes were being taken Members of the Opposition at the time,

members of the Conservative Party, stormed the Speaker's chair. They stood up around the Speaker shouting at the Speaker when the votes were being taken. That was totally out of order. There was chaos in the House as we watched the votes being taken on various amendments to the Constitution. Some of the very people who were standing up around the Chair shouting at the Speaker are today trying to say that the Opposition in this House is holding them up and that the Opposition is being too blatant and too much of a problem.

Let us remind those Members of the day that they walked out of the House and let the bells ring for 13 days. Many of those Members who were in opposition at that time are sitting opposite supporting the Government today.

The Government has decided that it will dispense with the rules of the House of Commons. People might say, "What do you mean, dispense with the rules of the House of Commons?" The Lefebvre Committee made up of representatives from all Parties in the House sat for 153 meetings in order to bring in new rules for the House of Commons that would put some order into our business here. It considered what days we would sit and what days Members could go to their constituencies. It considered other changes to the rules of the House that would give private Members in the House more authority and more rights to go ahead with Private Members' legislation. Then, on top of that we had the McGrath Commission more recently, another plethora of meetings of members on a committee representing all Parties in this House. What happens? Both Chairmen Lefebvre and McGrath must be wondering what in the world they and all the people on the two committees, which sat for 153 meetings-or whatever it was-that went on and on and on, were doing. Today those rules are totally ignored by the Government with 208 Members in this House of Commons at the present time. That was the first reason.

The second reason put forward was the amount of time and effort that all Members of the House in government and in opposition have invested in legislation presently on the Order Paper, either at committee stage, at second reading, at report stage or at third reading. We realize that Members put a lot of work into committees. They have been doing it since day one around here, Mr. Speaker.

If the Government feels that those committees were so important and if the legislation is important, all the Government had to do was seek agreement with the opposition Parties to have the items transferred to the next sitting of the House. Or is the Government planning to do everything this summer and then call a fall election? I guess we will soon know about that because the results of the by-electon in Lac-Saint-Jean will start coming in any minute and the Government will know whether or not it has any intention bf calling an election this fall.

What will the Government do with the parliamentary program for the fall? Normally we come back to this House

the second Monday in September. The Order says the Government wants to sit through to September 9. What will happen to the fall sitting if the Government does not call the famous election? This is what I mean when I say there is really no planning in the Government's programs.

The third reason is the importance of putting certain issues before the House and country which could not be foreseen when the Government laid out its agenda. Those are the words of the Government House Leader. Is the House Leader saying that some of the legislation brought in has turned out to be a surprise to the Government? Has the Government decided now it was actually worthwhile to bring in legislation, and suddenly finds it of value and wants it passed?

The fourth reason is the importance of the free trade initiative. Some parts of that free trade initiative we could do without. The U.S.-Canada agreement, that famous free trade agreement, is not free trade at all. What about access to markets? Canada has not received access to American markets in this trade agreement. It is not a free trade agreement. It would be better for Canada and many areas of our economy if we never saw it. There is the famous 15 per cent tax on softwood lumber. That was going to disappear when it came the final part of the agreement. That has not disappeared. Today we have American companies shipping lumber into parts of eastern Canada cheaper than those same Canadians can buy from Canadian industry here in Canada. Why? Because of the 15 per cent tax which the Minister of trade of the day brought in and laid on Canadian industry.

We heard talk about a level playing field. What you have to do is kick Canadians, tie one hand behind their backs while they are down and then tell them to go to work and compete with Americans who have a wide open arrangement to make use of our industries, to invest in our resources, to invest in our banks and to invest in anything in Canada. Americans can bid on contracts. We do not even have open access to bid on all the defence contracts in the United States. The small business set aside program is still in place. The Pentagon decides which contracts will be offered to Canadians to bid on and which are not. That is not free trade. It is putting handcuffs on Canadian business beforehand.

We have the Senate, which is the age old problem of the Government. The Government is paranoid about the Canadian Senate. Canadians recognize that our Senate is the only body sitting between this massive Government and real democracy. The Government has suddenly discovered that the Senate is not a democratic institution because it is not elected. We have never heard Tories worrying about that in days gone by, not at all. It is only when the Senate decided to exercise its constitutional right that we heard about it. The Senate has a constitutional right to oppose. It has a constitutional right to make amendments. It has a constitutional right to discuss these matters because it is the second level of the Parliament of Canada.

Mr. Boudria:

It is the Senators' duty.

Extension of Sittings

Mr. Hopkins:

It is their duty to do so, as the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) has just said. The Government is using the Senate pure and simply as an election ploy. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has it in his craw that the moment the Senate dares to bring out the weaknesses in the Canadian economy in his so-called free trade agreement he will start crying foul and say that this unelected body is holding up legislation and he will go to the country for an election. That will be just fine because then all Canadians will have a chance to express themselves.

The sixth comment of the Government House Leader is the inflammatory remarks about the delaying tactics of the Opposition. Isn't that something, Mr. Speaker? Does that mean the Opposition should be so nice as to lie down and keep quiet? Is the Opposition not supposed to criticize the Government? Is the Government so all-perfect that nothing should be said about it at all? Are we supposed to roll over and play dead? That is not the role of this Opposition, nor was it the role of any Opposition in this House of Commons. Many members of the Government sat in the Opposition not long ago. They should not talk about inflammatory comments and delaying tactics of the Opposition when it was the Tories themselves who were the very ones who walked out of this House of Commons for 13 days and left the bells ringing. They are the ones who stormed the Speaker's chair like a bunch of kids shouting and screaming at the Speaker as he called each vote on the Constitution in the early 1980s. Now the Tories are talking about the Opposition's stalling tactics. Does that mean we are being too tough on the poor people over there? Does it mean they do not have enough backbone to be the Government of this country? Does that mean they cannot stand on their own feet and stand behind their own legislation when they are being criticized?

We had an example today when the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Beatty) was asked a question about his nuclear submarines. He forgot to put a communication system that would work under the Arctic ice. I have his answer here. He went into a tirade that is one-and-a-half pages long. The Minister of National Defence and his Party think they are so all-perfect in matters of the defence of this country that no one should criticize them. Yet one of their own admirals talks about what has been left out. A very low-frequency radio system should be in the submarines if they are to operate under the Arctic ice. With the existing system, the radio will operate in the Atlantic and in the Pacific. The Government is bragging about bringing in a system that will cover three oceans while it has a communication system that will only work in two of them.

The Minister of National Defence has been caught on this issue and he is embarrassed about it. One of his admirals brought that fact out in a newspaper interview. So the Government that looks upon itself as being so perfect that it should not be criticized and that the Opposition should not be

Extension of Sittings

tough on it is the same Government that will spend $8 billion on a nuclear submarine fleet which does not even have a communications system that will work once the submarines go under the ice in the Arctic. Talk about perfection.

Let us talk about the Prime Minister What did the Prime Minister say during the election campaign of 1984 about what he was going to do? The Prime Minister promised in August of 1984 that he would increase the members of the Armed Forces personnel to 90,000 within three years of having been elected to office. He has not even come close to matching that figure, and his time is up. However, we do not hear anything about that. My goodness, we should not attack the Government about those things.

There was a lot of talk about upgrading Canada's reserves. We were going to have reserves such as we have never had before, and the reserves would be perfectly equipped. People took the Government seriously and joined the reserves. Then there was no money for training and training exercises have been cut back. The fact is that the Government is not financially prepared to handle this issue.

It will be said over and over again, every time the Government brags about its national defence record, that the Government should be ashamed of that record. During its first year in office, in 1985, the increase in the budget of the Department of National Defence never even met the rate of inflation. The purchasing power of the Department actually declined in the first year under this Government.

How is it that the Government has any money at all to spend on these programs? You are giving me the signal, but I must put this on the record before I leave. The Government has money to spend because between 1980 and 1984, the Liberal Government increased the defence budget in real terms by 7.1 per cent per year. Using the full 10 years prior to 1984, it would average out to 4.7 per cent per year. This Government did not even come close to that figure in one year in office.

The previous Liberal Government built a good base for this Government to build on. It is certainly not because of its own commitment to defence that it is buying anything today. It is because the budget was put in place for this Government by the previous Government.

The Prime Minister brags about the great thing he does. The other day, in answer to a question I put, the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Merrithew), who was answering for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Masse), said that they had topped up the budget of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. I mentioned the fact that the cut in that budget was supposed to be $25 million this year. In fact, the Government did not top up the budget at all. All it did was to stretch out the pound of flesh a little farther.

The Government will take $40 million out of that corporation over the next four years instead of taking $25 million this year and $15 million next year. That is what the Government

calls topping up a budget. It says one thing and does another. To the Government, topping up a budget means stretching out the pain over a longer period of time.

The biggest problem for this Government is its own credibility. That is what the Prime Minister is worrying about and why he wants to sit all summer to get the trade Bill and other Bills through. We saw how much backbone the Government had when it brought in the proposed legislation on abortion. It simply could not do it.

The only reason the Government has to extend the sittings of the House, thereby not letting us go home to talk to our constituents, is because it has failed to bring in a program for its own legislation and it has failed to set its priorities. As a result, we will continue to sit even though the House has been sitting constantly since August of last year. We just passed the Bill dealing with the crisis that we were called back to look after last August. It took 10 months to settle this great crisis. We have seen what backbone the Government with the largest majority in Canadian history has. What strength and dynamism we are seeing in the weakest Government that this nation has ever seen!

Mr. Reginald Stackhouse (Scarborough West):

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I have been listening to various Members, particularly those from opposition Parties, address themselves to government Order No. 26. I would like to respond to some of the points that I have heard Hon. Members make.

One point is that Members of Parliament need vacations, that we must defeat Order No. 26 because the Members must go home-

Mr. Boudria:

Who said that?

Mr. Riis:

Who said that?

Mr. Stackhouse:

Several Hon. Members said that. Read Hansard, the MPs need their vacations, they need to go home. The Hon. Member who just spoke said that they need to go home to speak to their constituents.