Mr. Blenkarn:

You're so high-handed, you wouldn't even talk to them. God, you think a lot of yourself.

Mr. MacLellan:

It just goes to show the inferiority and insecurity of this Government, with 208 Members-

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):

Order, please. This is only Thursday. I would hope that the Hon. Member would allow the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys to finish his speech.

Mr. MacLellan:

This is another example of government Members not wanting to hear the truth. The truth stings their little eardrums. I will simply continue as if I had not been rudely interrupted by the Hon. Member.

In its presentation, the Air Canada Employee Ownership Committee said:

In the early summer of 1984 our committee started a campaign in Air Canada! to develop awareness and interest from our fellow employees. We focused this campaign on the benefits and opportunities that privatization would present. Two years later we had received donations from over 7,500 employees.

However, the committee does not have a membership list. There could be 7,500, 750, 75 or 7 members of this committee. It is obvious that the committee was set up primarily and exclusively to try to push through the privatization of Air Canada. It is incredible that it was allotted standing by the Government before a committee when so many people in Canada were denied access to the committee.

I think the whole situation is a travesty. We are privatizing a public corporation that is already owned by the people of Canada. We are telling them how great it is that they will be able to buy shares in a company they already own. However, 25 per cent of the shares they already own will be held by nonresidents. We are trying to tell Canadians that they will have lower fares when actually the experience in other countries has shown that fares have increased.

We are telling Canadians that they are going into a brave new world, probably the same brave new world that George Orwell described. The new world of deregulation and privatization is a world in which aircraft will be late, flights will be cancelled, seats will be jammed in closer to allow for more

Air Canada

passengers, food services will be worse, there will be overbooking and maintenance will be pushed way down on the priority list of the airline. Perhaps there will even be contracting out of maintenance, as the unions warned would happen.

Canada is a large country that needs a public airline. Air Canada has set the standard for airline services in Canada. If Air Canada is allowed to reduce its services, then of course the others will follow suit and all of them will make more money. That is what the Government thinks is great. It does not matter that the services to the public will be reduced and that the consumers will be inconvenienced. It is important, though, that some people make more money.

We have heard that most of the airlines in the world are now privatized. Why is this Government following like a bunch of lemmings, taking the Canadian public over the cliff with it, by privatizing this asset just because it has been done in other countries? This will be a day that Canadians will remember, along with the day this Bill gets Royal Assent, because this is the day the Government of Canada has disregarded the interests and jeopardized the safety of the Canadian public by throwing away the standard of airline services we have had in Canada for 51 years.

Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):

Mr. Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party have opposed this Bill from the day it was introduced. Everything we have seen and heard since then has convinced us more than ever that we were right.

We saw the spectacle of the Government imposing closure at second reading stage. We saw the spectacle of the Conservative majority members of the committee ramming through a motion that provided that all witnesses would be heard on one day. That meant the committee could not travel. That meant the number of witnesses that could be heard was very limited. That meant those witnesses who were heard were given a very short period of time.

I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary is not here because yesterday I heard him make one of the most unfair, dishonest and partisan speeches I have ever heard. He accused members of the Opposition, who wanted a longer debate on another Bill, of filibustering. He was a member of the Conservative gang who stormed the Speaker's chair, disrupted this House, kept the bells ringing for 16 days, and he has the gall to accuse Members on this side of perverting the parliamentary process and being undemocratic. He was a member of the parliamentary task force in 1980 which travelled this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, visited almost every major city and many towns, looking into the problems of employment in the 1980s, and he has the gall to accuse Members who want the free trade committee to travel of wanting to travel so they can go fishing and have fancy meals. It takes an awful lot of gall and a big set of blinders so that he can see only what he wants to see.

July 14, 1988

Air Canada

The facts are that we are dealing with a situation of tremendous importance to this country. I remind Hon. Members that it was the first Prime Minister of Canada who realized that the economic lines of this continent run north and south. He realized that without a railway there would be no Canada. He got the people and Government of Canada to give hundreds of millions in loans, grants and land so a railway would be built. Today that would amount to tens of billions of dollars.

It was a Liberal Government, more than 50 years ago, on the instigation of the best businessman in that Government, C. D. Howe, who realized that we needed a national airline and that the private sector was not ready to participate because they could not see a profit, and who set up a national, publicly-owned airline. That company, first called Trans-Canada Air Lines, now Air Canada, has been a major success in every way. It has provided service to the people of Canada. It has made a profit in almost every one of the 51 years it has been in operation. It already belongs to all the people of Canada, so to suggest that we privatize it in order to give the people of Canada the right to participate in ownership is, to say the least, misrepresenting the facts.

I remind Hon. Members that the current Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) said on January 15, 1985, that Air Canada was not for sale at that time. He said: "There may be some persuasive arguments in the case of Air Canada some people can make in regard to the disposition of equity. I will take a look at it. But Canada needs a national airline". Yet what we have is a proposal to sell 45 per cent of Air Canada. Not only that, when the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) gave notice of this he said: "The legislation will permit the transfer of all Air Canada shares to the public". In other words, this is just the first bite.

How do the people of Canada feel about this? On March 31 of this year The Toronto Star published the results of a poll taken by Angus Reid. The question was: Should the Government sell any of the following Crown corporations to the private sector? Air Canada: Not sell, 53 per cent of the people. Sell, 35 per cent of the people. On March 5, 1988, The Globe and Mail published the results of a similar poll taken by Environics. The question was: Do you think the Government should or should not sell Air Canada? Should, 31 per cent. Should not, 51 per cent.

Why is the Government doing it? There is no reason. It does not have to do it because Air Canada is not operating efficiently. It does not have to do it because the people of Canada want Air Canada sold. It is doing it because of its commitment to the idea that the private sector can do anything better than the private sector. Therefore, sell off everything that can be sold off.

This ignores the history and experience of Canada. Our experience is that Governments, federal and provincial, Conservative, Liberal, Social Credit, PQ, CCF or NDP have at various times realized that there was a need for a certain

service which the private sector was not prepared to provide. Therefore, the Government of the day, federal or provincial, set up a Crown corporation to do what was necessary.

The Liberal Member who led off this debate talked about how the committee was restricted in its hearings. Yet we heard some very potent points made by some of those who appeared. The unions pointed out that the share price which will be set for the 45 per cent of the company that will be sold would be low because it is only a minority of the shares and therefore the private sector would be loathe to buy it. Besides that, since last October the value of shares has plummeted. That view was expressed not just by the unions, it was expressed by representatives in the industry who market shares. It was shared and expressed by the head of British Airways, which is privately owned.

We are seeing a Government so determined to do what its ideology tells it to do that it is going to sell a controlling interest in the company for $300 million. Yet the company has assets worth close to $3 billion.

Let me just take a moment to talk about this so-called Air Canada employees group which came forward to argue for the privatization. This group has ostensibly been in operation for four years or more, yet when I asked them who they were, they admitted they had no officers, they had no membership lists, they had no executive, they had no constitution, and in fact had no real organization. So much for that organization.

We are told that the Government is proposing in this Bill to sell only 45 per cent of the company and 55 per cent of the shares will still belong to the people of Canada. The Government says they will be handled in a passive way. That means that the government shares will not be voted when any questions are discussed. That means that the owners of the 45 per cent of the shares will decide on issues important to Air Canada. The Government says that no one person can own more than 10 per cent of the shares. The Government is not saying that one person will own one-tenth of the shares but that one person or one group of people can own 10 per cent of the 45 per cent which will be voting on decisions the company has to make. That means that if two groups have 10 per cent each they will in fact control the company, they will make the decisions about company operations, company purchases of planes, and everything else.

We moved an amendment on the issue of foreign ownership because this Bill says that the foreign ownership of Air Canada shares will be limited to 25 per cent. We moved an amendment which, of course, was defeated, that foreign ownership be limited to 5 per cent. We did that because a 5 per cent foreign ownership restriction would prevent Air Canada from falling into foreign hands.

As I have said, the Government has indicated that 45 per cent of Air Canada shares will be sold and that the remaining 55 per cent will be voted passively. In other words, the 45 per

July 14, 1988

cent tail will wag the 55 per cent dog. The foreign-held 25 per cent could well constitute a majority of the 45 per cent total of privately held shares. Clearly the people of Canada do not want Air Canada controlled by foreign interests because Air Canada is Canada's national airline.

We should also realize that the 25 per cent limitation exists because that is the limitation the United States places on foreign ownership of its airlines. If and when the United States changes that proportion, as it is widely expected to do in the next two years, as a result of free trade Canada will be under tremendous pressure to harmonize. When that occurs partnership arrangements will be extended when, for example, American Airlines buys out Canadian Airlines as a partner in the building of the third terminal building of Toronto.

These were warnings given to the committee by Professor Fred Lazar, a transport economist at York University which, of course, the Conservative majority on the committee ignored completely.

We moved an amendment which would limit the number of shares that the Minister could sell or otherwise dispose of to 45 per cent. Nowhere in this Bill is there a limit on the amount of Air Canada shares that can be sold. The Government says it will sell only 45 per cent of the shares but Clause 8 leaves the percentage figure entirely open. It could be 1 per cent, 100 per cent, or anywhere in between.

This amendment takes the Government at its word that it wants to keep a majority share and inserts 45 per cent which would still give the Government majority control. We believe, of course, that Air Canada should be 100 per cent publicly owned and the Government, if it meant what it said, should have supported our amendment which, of course, it did not do.

Clauses in this Bill supposedly guarantee that Air Canada will maintain its maintenance and overhaul bases in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Mississauga. Very significantly, this Bill says nothing about the finance office located in Winnipeg which employs about 500. It was very clearly stated at committee that the Air Canada workforce, particularly the machinists, have no confidence in the maintenance bases being kept in the cities of Winnipeg and Montreal.

The major base and most of the major offices of Air Canada were in Winnipeg from the day the company was formed. Without the approval of the then Government the officers of the then company, step by step, moved more and more of the company's operations, including the main overhaul base, from Winnipeg to Montreal. We say, as do the unions, that there is nothing in this Bill which guarantees that the workforce in the bases in Winnipeg or Toronto will remain at the numbers which they have at the present time.

The amendment we moved extended the guarantees to those cities by adding that the workforce at each would equal those attained in the 1987-88 financial year. In this way Air Canada management will guarantee jobs in these cities. That amendment was rejected out of hand by the government Members of

Air Canada

this House. Of course, nothing has been said about the finance office.

We moved an amendment which would guarantee that flight attendants would also be considered to have permanent bases in these cities where Air Canada now has bases; Montreal, Halifax, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Vancouver. Air Canada now has six bases. The flight attendants' union, CUPE, wants these bases maintained for the same reasons that the machinists want bases maintained. They believe that Air Canada is a national airline and should represent the entire country, not only the largest cities. They see Air Canada heading toward only two bases; Vancouver with its international focus, and Toronto. Smaller regional centres will be squeezed out.

What this will do to the staff is simply horrendous. They will have to move, which will create tremendous problems, work for one of the feeder lines at a fraction of the wages they now get, or lose their jobs. That amendment was rejected by the Government.

We moved amendments which would require Air Canada to maintain its existing standards in respect to safety, maintenance, and customer service. That amendment would require the Commissioner of Official Languages to monitor the bilingual nature of Air Canada because we understand that Air Canada management has been lobbying to have Clause 10, which supposedly guarantees that, removed. However, we failed in all these amendments.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, Mr. Speaker, there is no legitimate reason for this proposal by the Government. The company is efficient. It is providing service for the people of Canada. Where it has cut back on its service to smaller centres, this has been done because of deregulation and because it is cheaper for feeder lines, which do not have the same standards of wages and safety which Air Canada has, to service these areas. It has been a financial success.

We are dealing with a Bill brought forward specifically to meet the very right-wing, pro-enterprise ideology of this Conservative Government. We say that this Bill is wrong. We said that at the beginning and will continue to say it. I hope that in the not-too-distant future we will have a government which is not Conservative, a government which will reinstate Air Canada as a publicly-owned corporation.

Mr. Johnson:

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few brief comments. When opposition Members talk about the need for the Government of Canada to have a national airline or a national railway, I believe they are forgetting that the first railway across this great country was built by private enterprise.

It was built by Canadian Pacific and is still operating and providing good service. I doubt anyone in the Opposition can deny that Canadian Airlines International is presently serving

July 14, 1988

Air Canada

more cities and towns than our national airline, Air Canada, is serving.

The Opposition talks about contracting out of services and the fear that aircraft would be serviced overseas. Certainly no one in their right mind would think that an aircraft that needs servicing would not be serviced in another country but flown back to Canada. If it requires servicing in another country overseas, I am sure no pilot would take his plane off the ground to fly it back to Canada. Pilots have the greatest respect for safety and we should be proud that all Canadian airlines operate with a good safety record. We know that there will be accidents. Some of them will be a result of mechanical problems and some will be from human error. I do not think we will ever erase that possibility.

The airline employees who appeared before the committee were received quite favourably by the Liberal Government in 1981 when it was looking at the possibility of privatizing Air Canada. That is how that group of 7,500 came about.

Members have said that they did not have a chance for questioning enough people. The Canadian Air Line Pilots Association appeared. All of the unions representing the employees appeared, and there were two from the private sector. I might add, they were on the list of witnesses which the Opposition wanted to appear.

As far as I know, the Conservative majority on the committee willingly gave approval for the appearances of witnesses that the Opposition put forward.

I do not know why they did not want to have a group of people representing some 7,500 who voluntarily contributed to that association to appear before the committee and add their views on what was being said.

Of course, Air Canada management appeared. I was somewhat taken back when the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys (Mr. MacLellan) refused to question the airline ownership committee witnesses. I was astonished because I thought he would have wanted to get another view from the employees.

I do not know why the opposition Members want to travel across Canada. This matter has been discussed for some time and contrary to their view that people who appeared before the committee did not have enough time to prepare briefs, I suggest that they had months to prepare their briefs. They knew what they were doing. I was somewhat surprised that they could not put up stronger arguments against privatization.

Mr. Orlikow:

Mr. Speaker, this supposed Air Canada group that believes in privatization has been in existence, they say, for more than four years. They have no formal organization, no membership list, no officers and no constitution. They certainly did not present us with a list of the 7,500 employees who have contributed. That is why we are skeptical about them.

The Hon. Member says that the railway was built by private interests. Of course it was, but surely the Member knows that the CPR promoters were encouraged to build the railway because they were given loans and grants, which were never repaid, in the form of hundreds of millions of acres of land which were worth hundreds of millions of dollars at that time and probably worth hundreds of billions of dollars now.

The Member suggests that our airlines are safe. I remind the Member that a royal commission led by Mr. Justice Dubin looked into airline safety and procedures in northern Ontario. His report was scathing.

I remind the Member from Newfoundland that the former Leader of the NDP in Alberta, Grant Notley, was killed in the crash of a small feeder airline plane which, according to reports, should never have travelled. The pilot travelled because the company was so determined to make a profit that it told him he either fly or be fired. This was not once, but many times.

We have very legitimate reasons for being very suspicious about the downgrading of safety standards in the airline industry in this country because of deregulation and because of privatization. The Member comes from Newfoundland, which has a very small and sparse population. He should be much more interested in safety than he seemed to be in his remarks today.

Mr. Johnson:

Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member will take the time to read Hansard, he will recognize that I did not say that airlines in Canada never have accidents. I said that we should be proud of the fact that our airlines have such a high standard of safety as they do.

I am concerned about safety, whether it is in Newfoundland or any part of Canada. To try to put fear into the people of Canada, as some members of the Opposition are doing, to say that our standard of safety will decrease, is hypocritical, I suggest. They should not do that. They are putting fear into the minds of people that it is not safe to travel on any airline except the one owned by the people of Canada, Air Canada.

Other airlines in this country have a good safety margin. 1 am not afraid to travel on any of them. We all realize that even if you walk down the street there is a certain element of danger. When one takes into consideration the number of people driving automobiles and the number of people who travel by air, it is safer to travel on an aircraft than it is to drive a motor car. Why do they not admit that?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):

Does the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North wish to respond?

Mr. Orlikow:

No.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):

Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate.

July 14, 1988

Mr. Roland de Corneille (Eglinton-Lawrence):

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not stand up and express my opposition to Bill C-129 in its present unamended form.

There are problems with this Bill from the most basic point of view, which is the question of the Government's responsibilities. We are certainly aware that there are many Crown corporations which outlive their usefulness as Crown corporations. Sometimes the private sector can be more effective and efficient.

Some Crown corporations need to be reviewed and undoubtedly, where there seems to be evidence that they can be run as well or better by private enterprise, there is no need for the Government to be in that particular business. I do not think that such a review should be criticized offhand. When the Government looks at Crown corporations to see whether they deserve to be turned over to the private sector, I think it is to be commended not criticized. However, having said that, the question has more to do with the rights of the Canadian people as such. The Government is supposed to be representing the people of Canada. It is supposed to be looking after our best interests, all of us throughout the entire country. When the Government undertakes in a philosophical way to decide all Crown corporations should be privatized, that is carrying the question from one extreme to the other. It is a most regrettable philosophical approach.

Obviously, there are some things that are much in the public interest. No government has the right to turn over to the private sector, out of its hands, those instruments which are essential to public safety, public welfare. That is what this debate really turns on. The issues of the Post Office, Air Canada and Petro-Canada are issues about which we have fundamental differences of opinion with the Government. We can see that the public interest is endangered by privatizing some of these organizations which we see will be lost to the best interests of the total public. Why do I say that? I say it for the simple reason that it is obvious that the objective of any private organization is to render a profit. The more competitive the issues are, the more important it is to render that profit. The more competitive the forces against you, the more is the temptation to try to cut service and cut safety, those things which are in the best interests of the public and you will do that in order to be more competitive. That is very obvious in the area of the airlines. We have seen what has happened in the United States and in other countries.

It is quite obvious that such corridors as Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and, perhaps, Quebec City, are very lucrative. That is true for the Post Office, for Air Canada and for any corporation looking at the Canadian scene. Where we have a concentration of population, we can very well afford to utilize and exploit it for profit and operate on a relatively narrow margin. But when it comes to the wider areas of this vast nation, the Government has a responsibility to the people, to

Air Canada

the public interests, not just at the moment but in case something happens.

We do not privatize the Armed Forces in case there is an emergency. We feel it is important that the country itself govern its own safety, protection and well-being. The same thing should apply to security of supplies of fossil fuels. It is imperative that this country retain enough control of the resources of this country so that in times of crisis or in war, it is not going to be compromised in terms of its lines of supply. The same thing applies, I suggest, to the whole question of the well-being of our people in the more remote areas. When we talk about their well-being, we can give lots of lip-service, as political parties sometimes do, to the concern of making Canada more accessible in the other regions and about regional development. It is nice to give lip service to this but we should also take action.

I suggest that our actions in terms of moving to the privatization of, for example, Air Canada, will inevitably lead to questions being raised by those concerned about efficiency and profit as to whether some of the flights should be reduced because they are not profitable and because they do not carry as many people as in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridors. These corridors are profitable because they have enough people and the airlines can have full scheduling. But we can see that the private sector might be tempted to cut some of these flights in areas which are not exactly lucrative.

I suggest the Government of Canada has a responsibility to look after the remote parts of Canada where there will be in fact a loss of service, and that is true of the Post Office, Air Canada and even of the railroads. This is a responsibility we have as a nation to those who are trying to live in the more remote parts of this country. They already pay a premium. People who live in the Northwest Territories, in Newfoundland which is remote to some of the heartland of our industry, or northern British Columbia and northern Ontario must be serviced. But it will not be profitable to give these people service. That is why the Government had to encourage the transportation industry in terms of the vast area of our country.

I was absolutely stunned by comments of the Hon. Member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception (Mr. Johnson) when he was talking about Canadian Pacific. It was, if I may be forgiven, Mr. Speaker, an ignorant statement, an ignorant comparison. We know perfectly well that in fact it was the stimulation of the Government of Canada that made CP Rail a possibility, the giving of lands and property and the Government's encouragement by way of loans. That was not an example of how private enterprise in fact brought about transportation links in this country. It was an example of how the co-operation between Government and private enterprise can work to advance such causes.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):

The Hon. Member for Bonavista-T rinity-Conception.

July 14, 1988

Air Canada

Mr. Johnson:

First, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I am not ignorant of the fact-

Mr. de Corneille:

Mr. Speaker, I protest. This is not a point of order.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):

I will make that decision, and 1 will listen to the Hon. Member for Bonavista- T rinity-Conception.

Mr. Johnson:

Mr. Speaker, I want to declare that I am not ignorant of the fact that the railway that was built by Canadian Pacific was financed in part through grants and loans to Canadian Pacific. Neither am I ignorant of the fact that it was a Progressive Conservative Government that made those loans.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):

The Hon. Member will have an opportunity to put that question to the Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence after his speech.

Mr. de Corneille:

Yes, Mr. Speaker, in listening, I noticed we were entering into a debate from the very beginning. I am sure you now notice that as well.

Continuing with my observations about the objectives of the Government in serving the people of Canada, I think we are all concerned, if we have any kind of sincerity at all, about service to people in remote areas of this country. If we are going to allow our public services to be governed by motives of profits, we are going to betray the development possibilities of the remote parts of Canada. They must be, as they were with the CPR, given some advance Government encouragement. That is what the people of Canada have always felt. That is how our country has been governed. That is why I suggest that this Bill in itself threatens the well-being of the people of Canada as a totality because when our remote areas are threatened, our future is threatened. We want to encourage people to go to the remote areas and feel they are Canadians with an equal chance. That is where the future of Canada may indeed exist.

First, I am opposed in principle to this Bill because it tends to move us from national concern in the field of air transport towards the realm of profit motives which may not necessarily be in the national interest.

The next point I wish to make is that we must examine the Bill itself. Where does the mandate come for the privatization of Air Canada? Was this the platform of the Conservative Government in the last election campaign? I do not recall hearing that and I guess I would have noticed it if it had been there. I do not remember that the people of Canada were told that if the Conservative Party was elected to become the Government of Canada that it would move to privatize Air Canada. In fact, I think there were some comments from the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to the effect that Air Canada was not for sale.

I object to this because I do not believe the Government has a mandate to proceed with this Bill. Yet, with its heavy majority, it is proceeding nonetheless to put this Bill through the House at third reading. I do not believe that the public wants this. When I say that I understand that not long ago polls were conducted which asked Canadians whether they wanted to see Air Canada made a privatized institution. My understanding is that that poll indicated a rather strong opinion against privatizing Air Canada.

I understand that another poll was conducted later, a poll which asked about some of the company being privatized in order to give Canadians an opportunity to share in terms of giving capitalization to Air Canada. There were various reasons given as to why Air Canada might be privatized partially. Canadians are not conservative but careful. They thought that this proposal might be all right. They thought that to bring more capital into the situation in order to make the airline even more successful for the future was a good idea. The poll indicated that Canadians might be willing to go along with a partial and not a full privatization.

If we were to follow the wishes of the public, then we would see that this Bill does not achieve that. The Bill does not stipulate that the Government will stop at a partial sale of Air Canada. The Bill allows a large percentage of the company to be sold. While the Government may make announcements at the present time that it intends to sell 45 per cent of the shares, it might decide tomorrow that it would rather sell 90 per cent of it.

It is unfair for the Government to bring in a Bill which is as inaccurate as this Bill. It lacks in detail in that it asks the Parliament of Canada to pass a law which allows total carte blanche to Orders in Council or to decisions of a Prime Minister with respect to what he will do with something as important to the people of Canada as Air Canada.

It is tragic that in this Bill which I have in my hand one sees so little detail that protects the public, the workers and the future of the company. There is no statement about how much will be turned over finally. It is simply a press release. It is an opinion at the moment which considers how much right now the Government thinks should be sold. We have not been given proof that the sale of the shares that it does intend to sell is really going to bring about fair value to the people of Canada for what it is sold for. If 45 per cent is sold for $300 million, is it really worth it? Are not the company's goodwill and potential and present assets worth a lot more than that? Is it a good deal for the Canadian people? There are no figures, no commitments in the Bill put forward by the Government as to how much it will restrict itself to the selling off of Air Canada. Nor in this Bill are there any details relating to what the Government also promises verbally but which it refuses to put down on paper. There is nothing in the Bill about salaries.

What does the Bill say about salaries of employees in the future? What does it say about the pensions of people in Air

July 14, 1988

Canada who have devoted their lives and careers to this company and to the people of Canada, those people who chose Air Canada instead of some other carrier? What does it say in this Bill about their pensions? What does it say in the Bill about the pension fund that exists? I see nothing in the Bill about salaries, pensions or pension funds.

In the Standing Committee on Human Rights we have been studying the issue of older workers and their pensions. We have been worrying about what may be unfair to people who are older. We then find the Government turning around and not putting one word into this Bill to protect the human rights of these people. If some private group takes over and it has some power to exert its issues and views, some 22 per cent of the shareholders of the company can decide to eliminate, reduce or divert funds that belong to the workers, as we have seen in other corporations. There is nothing here in the Bill to protect them.

What is there in the Bill to consider the benefits of the workers? Where in the Bill is there a single word about their benefits? Where is there anything in the Bill about the relationship between unionized workers and the airline? Where is there protection about the agreements and understandings that usually take place between Crown corporations and their workers, the unions and their rights? Where are the human rights looked after? I also ask about employment equity. Mr. Speaker, can you find one word in this Bill which protects their rights or looks after these concerns?

I have spoken about the rights of Canadians. I am now talking about the rights of those workers who work for Air Canada. Their rights are not being protected. I suggest that efforts should be made to look at the Bill again in order to make it a decent Bill, a Bill that is worthy of being brought forward before the House of Commons. This Bill is simply in the loosest terms giving carte blanche to whomever may be sitting in power to be able to rule over the future of Air Canada on the one hand in terms of the percentage of shares or, on the other hand turning over to some unseen group of private people what has been over the decades built up as an equity by the employees in terms of the years they have worked. Not a word of protection has been put in the Bill by the Government because it is not concerned about the fate of these people.

Is this not incredible? I find it tragic that the Conservative Members do not want to protect the people. On the one hand we talk about human rights and all these fine pious ways in the committee on human rights and then turn around to see that the Government itself is not carrying out a protection of those people.

From the point of view of the people of Canada in general, or from the point of view of the people who are working for this corporation, I find this Bill to be unacceptable.

Air Canada

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):

Are there questions or comments? The Hon. Member for Bonavista-Trinity- Conception.