Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court of Ontario has decided that prison inmates in Ontario are entitled to vote. The court ruled that a provision in the Ontario Elections Act that disenfranchises prisoners is contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The effect of this decision is that all inmates, including federal inmates, will be allowed to vote in provincial elections. The effect of this decision is that inmates such as Helmut Buxbaum, Colin Thatcher, and Clifford Olson will be allowed to vote and to participate in the democratic process. That would be unconscionable, Mr. Speaker.

A Canadian citizen who is incarcerated and deprived of his freedom for committing a crime should also forfeit his right to vote. The right to vote should belong only to those who are Canadian citizens and to those who have respect for the rule of law.

1 call on the Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn) to request that the Attorney General for Ontario immediately appeal the decision. As well, I call on the Government to seek an amendment to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to exclude inmates specifically from the franchise.

Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):

Mr. Speaker, in order to promote and encourage job creation, the Quebec Municipal Economic Development Board has been associated with many projects in the industrial zones and parks of Quebec City.

In 1986, this resulted in some $41 million of investment. In 1987, the value of projects in which OMDEQ was involved reached $62 million, an increase of over 50 per cent. In two years, more than 2,000 jobs were maintained or created.

This performance reflects the dynamism of Quebec enterprise, small and medium-sized companies working in the service and high-tech sectors.

For 1988, we expect nearly $100 million in industrial and commercial investment for Quebec City. That is encouraging, Mr. Speaker! The very healthy economic climate resulting from the policies of the Conservative Party in Quebec and throughout the country is certainly responsible.

Like Andre Joncas, the director of OMDEQ, I would like to thank all those investors for openly showing their confidence in the promising future of the province's second most important economic centre, Quebec City, the capital.

Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago the Government announced some ad hoc drought assistance for western cattlemen. Being ad hoc in nature, the program is being designed and implemented on the run. It is already experiencing administrative problems.

First, cattlemen will have to wait several weeks before they can even get application forms. This means that they will experience cash flow problems well before the Government will be ready to pay out the promised assistance.

July 20, 1988

There is concern because the assistance rates are based on geographic areas which are too large to reflect drought damage accurately. Farmers on one side of a road may get less assistance than their neighbours on the other side of the road, even though both are equally affected by the drought. Other similar problems are coming to light.

If the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) would implement a long-term disaster assistance program as he promised he would do three years ago, farmers would not be faced with these administrative headaches. New Democrats call upon the Government to act now to develop a long-term disaster assistance program for Canadian farmers.

Mr. Barry Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):

Mr. Speaker, the Bell Canada strike by some 19,000 members of the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada has to be resolved. I have here a letter from the Government Relations Department of Bell Canada which reads in part:

Despite the general walkout, the company is making every effort to maintain reasonable service to its customers.

The company should tell that to the people of Elmvale Acres and Chapel Hill in my constituency where serious sabotage has taken place in the last 24 hours which has knocked out the phone services there. In fact the people there cannot even get access to emergency services in the event that they are required.

Phones are an essential service in Canada now and should not be disrupted by sabotage. I am led to believe that neither party is talking. There is no expression that the parties want to get together. They are both unwilling to make concessions on key issues.

I call upon those concerned to stop burning cables and to start talking like intelligent, mature, responsible people. I also call on the Government to be prepared to appoint a mediator within 24 hours if no progress is made on this issue.

Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):

Mr. Speaker, last weekend, Highland Fisheries Ltd., a subsidiary of Clearwater Fine Foods of Halifax, closed its processing plant in Glace Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, throwing 310 people out of work in a town where there is already chronic unemployment.

The company closed this plant without proper reason and with a total disregard for the contributions the federal Government has made to the company and its predecessor in the last number of years. The manner in which this company has gone about this closure shows a total lack of corporate integrity and will not be forgotten by the workers.

In light of the closure, the responsibility now lies with the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Siddon). He can, using the many tools at his disposal, encourage senior management of that particular plant to reassess this closure and to have a business plan put in place in order to make the plant operational. The community and the workers want this to take place. They want co-operation. They want employment. They want the Government of Canada to come in on their side and fight for their economic interest by having this plant reopened.

Mr. John Oostrom (Willowdale):

Mr. Speaker, the housing crisis in the greater Metropolitan Toronto region becomes more acute as each day passes. Families are having a very difficult time buying a home due to high costs. In fact the perception beginning to set in is that, if you do not already own a home, you never will unless you have solid financial resources.

As a Government we must ensure that affordable housing is available to all. Presently the Town of Vaughan is in the process of negotiating with the federal Government the purchase of a 107-acre property owned by Environment Canada. The Government should sell the land with the condition that the majority of the site be used for affordable housing.

I believe that all surplus federal land which is to be sold must have affordable housing as its main usage.

Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):

Mr. Speaker, the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement which Canada signed specifically requires the signatories to discourage participation by their nationals in events involving South African athletes, and to withhold support for organizations promoting such contact.

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July 20, 1988

Tennis Canada, a federally funded organization, invited two white South Africans to participate in the Players Cup next month in Toronto. Meanwhile, Albert Ramovha, a black softball player from Soweto, sought a visa on his own to attend, as a mere spectator, a tournament in Saskatoon. What was the Government's response? It was to deny the black softball player a visa because he might be mistaken for an official of his virtually all-black softball association.

There was no mistake with the white South African tennis players, for they were treated differently, and the invitation by Tennis Canada was legitimized. Why? Because $815,000 in prizes available to the South African tennis players make them admissible as entrepreneurs.

That is a policy so inconsistent with the Gleneagles Agreement, a policy based upon the greater weight of private profit over professional principle, a policy so discriminatory as to proclaim the victory of hyprocrisy over commitment, a policy intolerable to all opponents of apartheid that it must be changed so that Canada lives up in full measure to its commitment under Gleneagles.

Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):

Mr. Speaker,

yesterday I was talking to my daughter who remarked "Dad, I got a raise". "Great", I said. "How much?" She replied, "About $55 a month". I asked her if she had checked her pay statement to discover the source.

Oh, oh!

Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):

Listen!

Mr. Tupper:

In doing so, she discovered there was no change in her gross pay but that the increase was a result of her income tax reduction. On checking with other members of my family I found similar results.

In a major parade that I was in last Friday evening, several constituents called out "Thank you, Mike Wilson". The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) promised that some 80 per cent to 85 per cent of all Canadians would pay less income tax under tax reform. Canadians are discovering that he was correct.