The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):

When the debate on Bill C-62 was suspended we were considering Motions Nos. 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11, and the hon. member for Mount Royal had up to eight minutes left to speak. The hon. member for Mount Royal has the floor.

Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):

Mr. Speaker, I was in the process of looking at the amendments to clause 7 of this telecommunications bill. This clause is basically the heart of this government's concepts and design for the telecommunications industry across this land.

I think that the members of the Liberal Party who were sitting at that committee, as well as the other opposition party, were very effective in bringing about changes to the government's legislation. I outlined at the outset that the procedure was most unique.

Although I would like to pursue the changes that are being recommended to clause 7,1 find totally unacceptable the minister's lack of candour, his laying the blame elsewhere rather than on himself, on his ministry, and on

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the front bench of this government. The cabinet obviously did not see the same importance in the telecommunications legislation as the minister seemed to and as the industry certainly indicated.

Rather than pushing on his own House leader and rather than being candid and forthright with this industry the minister decided to make some public statements indicating that this bill was being blocked by the opposition parties in filibustering his wonderful bill that he had not even created in the first place and in which he wimped out on some very significant matters within this bill.

He walked into this House after having given a press conference and I quote what he said according to the media:

The federal government will have to strong-arm the opposition to get the bill through the House. It's clear what we're dealing with here is a filibuster. The only way for this to go through is to call time allocation which limits debate on the bill.

That is what the Minister of Communications said to the media as quoted by Jill Vardy in The Financial Post.

The reality of the situation is that this government did not pay very much attention to this bill. It certainly was never on the front burner, although in the glorious rhetoric of the Prime Minister it was one of the things that he mentioned in the 1984 Speech from the Throne.

It was the first issue that came to attention in the document and budget of the now Minister for International Trade and the then Minister of Finance. It sat on the back burner until there was a memorandum of understanding in which the then minister, Flora MacDonald, issued defining type one and type two telecommunications structure. That was in July 1987 just prior to the free trade agreement.

On February 7, 1992 after having waited nine years for this government to act on telecommunications-

A lot of years.

Mrs. Finestone:

That is right. Nine whole years for this government to act on telecommunications.

The government finally brought in this bill at the beginning of February 1992. Then this bill sat on the back burner for another year, never even getting to the House for second reading until April 19, 1993.

It finally got reported to this House on May 28 after it had been sent to committee. It had exactly two weeks in committee, one week of which was the Easter break. The government says we are responsible for this government's poor agenda in getting it in here at that time.

Clause by clause started on May 11 and we had two sessions on that day. As I say the House then closed on May 17. We came back, we had two and one-half sitting days to address this bill and it was reported after a late Thursday night session on Friday morning to this House. We started June 1 to debate it here.

This minister has not been able to get his House leader to put it on the debating agenda. He would have had to mix the pot, get in touch with the constituents and tell them to raise a big fuss. Well thank goodness they raised a fuss because otherwise this minister would not have the bill moved past square one.

I want to say to this minister:

You are to blame. I must say to him that he is to blame as well as his government if the industry does not welcome the bill as he would like. He must go to the Senate when the debate in the House is over.

They have called closure time and time again on everything else. I think this now comes to 23 times this government has called closure. Certainly I know I have counted up to 19 or 20 times.

How do we have a normal debate? How do we have constructive changes made? With co-operation on both sides of the House, which I had presumed there was. I was prepared to say to this minister: "You really allowed a better process in committee. You did not use the legislative committee format. You used a subcommittee of the standing committee and we were able to improve this bill most significantly".

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But no, he had to become a mean person, mean and lily-livered in many ways. I feel very sorry for him for the way he has conducted himself in this particular instance.

A shameful display.

Mrs. Finestone:

The delay has been on the government side, certainly not on this side of the debating chamber, this side of the two foils which I think would have been very apt at this time.

With respect to the changes that were brought about here, I just want to touch on an amendment brought in by my colleague from the NDP which relates to the changes under privacy.

Even to getting the privacy matter right, this minister did not get his act together to put a bill together that reflects convergence and how telephony will be linked to the whole cable network, to the whole cable system, to what was happening out there to the world yesterday, never mind today and tomorrow.

We are going to need a bill that is going to bridge the broadcast bill and this telecommunications bill. On the privacy side there is very little that has been done in this bill. The government had to bring another bill in first to tinker with and make this public relations undertaking that we care about privacy.

Therefore we brought in a bill on cellular telephones which are really not telephones but radios. They should have been incorporated as part of this bill, but because there seemed to be some ministerial thought that this would have better PR focus he put it somewhere else.

I think it is important for the bill to go through. I indicated that to the industry from square one. It is unconscionable and a sad moment that the minister and his staff, along with the government and its cabinet, do not know how to take full responsibility. They love to lay the blame somewhere else: "You made us do it". How sad. I think I will get them big boxes of Kleenex.

Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting the hon. member for Mount Royal says that it is important the bill go through. We share that view, but we believe very strongly that the bill should only go through if it is markedly strengthened. That is

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the thrust behind the amendments put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Okanagan-Shuswap.

The hon. member for Mount Royal also talked about the press report that the minister would have to bring the big hammer into the House to ensure that the bill goes through because members of Parliament on this side were filibustering. It has been a long time since the House saw a filibuster. From the time this Parliament began in 1988 it has not been possible to have a filibuster in the House.

If it looks like the debate is getting a bit feisty, a bit meaningful and a bit interesting, the government moves closure yet again so it can ram through its legislation and ensure that meaningful discussion does not take place.

To have the minister reporting to the press that he will have to use the big hammer on the opposition because we are delaying this bill or any other bill in the House is insulting at its very best. The minister could at least have respect for the House by looking a bit embarrassed by those kinds of statements.

With regard to the amendments in Motions Nos. 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 it is important to look at the five amendments to the clause as objectives for the telecommunications industry. The first amendment would ensure that the telecommunications infrastructure is used to improve and express Canada's cultural identity.

The government failed to define the imminent convergence between telecommunications carriers and broadcasters. It has produced a visionless entrenchment of the status quo.

Cultural groups across the country are outraged that culture has been expunged from the objectives of the bill. Keith Kelly, national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, said: "We need to bring telecommunications into the cultural realm and to recognize its increasing importance in the production and delivery of cultural products".

There is no reference in the bill to any responsibility of the telecommunications industry to further the federal government's cultural objectives. The hon. minister is gazing at the ceiling. I might be boring him. These are important points. If the government were to take the opposition as seriously as it takes its friends in the telecommunications industry, we might end up with a good bill.

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Multinational businesses are already exploiting telecommunications to circumvent Canadian rules intended to protect and promote culture. Sports Illustrated is publishing a Canadian edition that has little Canadian content, but because it is being beamed across the border and printed in Canada there is nothing the federal government can do or will do. Sports Illustrated is only one example in the print media.

We in Vancouver enjoy The Globe and Mail because it is beamed across the country. There is nothing to stop a whole flood of American publications being printed in Canada and claiming to be Canadian products with Canadian content.

With the bill we have rigid rules for broadcasters to promote and protect Canadian content but no rules for telecommunication industries. I wonder whether the next step will be a change in broadcast policy so they can compete with telecommunications. Pretty soon we will have no rules. We will have deregulation for the entire broadcast-telecommunications sector. Is that the slippery slope this minister is taking us on?

It is important that just around the comer is the convergence of the broadcasting and telecommunications industries. The bill is silent on the issue. If this bill were passed into law, telecommunications companies would be exempt from the rules which apply to broadcasters to promote culture, but they could well be offering the same products as broadcasters.

The small omission in the bill may have huge ramifications. Ottawa will have relinquished any ability to promote Canadian culture in the future. One might ask why there has been such an omission. Was it to satisfy the needs of Quebec nationalists who argue that the federal government should relinquish all control over culture? It is important to take a look at what that means.

The Alliance of Canada Cinemas says: "Accepting a recommendation to delete references to sovereignty, politics and culture would ignore the long-term implications of convergence. It would be bowing to a deregulation fever that may be premature. Many issues relating to the transport of information through telecommunications pipelines remain unanswered, such as access by programming services and compensation for rights contained in material distributed. Moreover, we submit that those advocating the deletion of social and cultural

clauses in this bill have a narrow view of the potential volume of information and business opportunities available. In short, they are not looking past their bottom line at the expense of the greater public interest".

We are here to be concerned about the greater public interest. We see deregulation in the industry again. The government has not learned from the deregulation of the airline industry, deregulation of the railroad industry, deregulation across the country.

Deregulation brings problems and the destruction of the Canadian milieu. It changes us into something other than what Canadians really believe we want to be, that is a united Canada, a Canada with an identity and a Canada we can all be proud of, not a 51st state.

Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt):

Mr. Speaker, before I begin to speak on the amendments themselves I would like to draw the attention of the public to the fact that once again the government has used a form of closure or time allocation. It is something like the 47th time this has been used since 1988 when I was sent here by the constituents of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt. It has been used in a manner that is totally shameless on the part of the government.

Eveiy time there is cause for reasonable debate on a bill, every time there is something the people of Canada are interested in, every time there is something the people of Canada should be told about and there is a debate that should take place, this government has immediately marched in and cut off all meaningful debate.

The government has given little opportunity in most cases for any discussion, whether it be on the GST, the free trade agreement, the North American free trade agreement or major changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act. I could go on and on. It became so ridiculous, I recall, that two years ago the government brought in a time allocation motion on a bill that was uncontested by the opposition. It would not even talk to the opposition to know the bill it was putting before Parliament was uncontested.

Similarly we have the situation with the telecommunications bill, a bill that could substantially change the way we look into the future. With the major changes taking place in telecommunications technology it seems that

this is a time when we should be looking very carefully at a bill to take us into the 21st century.

Such a bill has been on the books for over four years and the government at the last minute brings in approximately 75 amendments at report stage. The minister will say there are only 53, but if we analyse it we see something like 75 amendments were brought in at the last minute that need careful scrutiny.

This bill was brought in and then gutted and regutted. What we are trying to do here is to include some semblance of reasonableness in the legislation before Parliament.

This particular grouping deals with the telecommunications area and the cultural industry. A semblance of reasonableness was put forward by the various groups that appeared before the legislative committee. They were concerned we were going into the 21st century looking at a changing industry and looking at technological changes that could forever harm the culture of the country. That culture has been slowly building over the past three centuries. It has been slowly building over the last 125 years of the Canadian entity. Now we see major changes occurring because of the telecommunications industry and technological changes.

The crux has to be that we must look at where we are going in the future. We have to look at the legislation before us to ensure there are safeguards for the cultural industry of Canada. We need to listen to the cultural industry within Canada to ensure we are using what it sees as the areas we should be going into and putting them into legislative changes.

After all, these groups have been fighting for their existence for a good number of years. They have been studying and living day to day with the reality that unless we move to ensure the technological industry and the telecommunications industry are looked after as they expand, they could be swept away under a barrage of new technology beaming in from other areas.

As my friend from Mission-Coquitlam has said, we are looking at a number of items. Quoting the Canadian Conference of the Arts, Keith Kelly says that we need to bring telecommunications into the cultural realm and to

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recognize its increasing importance in the production and delivery of cultural products.

That is a telling phrase. It is essential to the whole argument of where we are going in the future. We have to ensure that within the bill there is reference and provision made for a cultural entity within the telecommunications industry. We want to ensure the Canadian cultural identity is protected and promoted. Multinational businesses are already exploiting telecommunications to circumvent Canadian rules.

Let us look at Motion No. 7 which has been put forward by my friend from Okanagan-Shuswap. The motion ensures the primacy of affordable and reliable telecommunications. The objectives as currently set out in the legislation do not ensure that the provision of affordable telephone service is seen as a more important objective than the current objective to foster increased reliance on market forces. The amendment would ensure the provision of affordable and reliable service is first and foremost.

The government's dogmatic preference for competition for competition's sake has already cost my home province of British Columbia 820 jobs. That is a direct result of competition and deregulation.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre states:

PI AC continues to be concerned-by the apparent confusion between ends and means. Subsection 7(f) in particular, appears out of place, since it advocates a particular means of achieving the stated policy goals. If there is indeed a commitment to increase reliance on market forces for the provision of telecommunications services, then it belongs in a different category from the goals that it is intended to achieve.

I will now move on to Motion No. 8 to amend clause 7. This amendment would include a specific provision for consultation between federal and provincial governments to ensure that the national telecommunications policy promotes regional industrial development within the industry. Without this amendment there is no provision in the objectives to ensure consultation between the federal and provincial governments.

A representative of the Government of New Brunswick while appearing before the legislative committee stated:

I suggest that section 7 be amended to include:

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1) Consultations between the federal and provincial governments to guarantee that the national telecommunications policy promotes industrial development that will build on the strengths and potential

of each province;

2) Requirements that the regulator be accessible and responsive to users and providers of telecommunications and services in the provinces.

The Government of New Brunswick wants and feels that there should be more consultation provincially and federally.

In wrapping up we have to look at the over-all protection, not just now but in the future, of our full cultural area within Canada and with each of the Canadian provinces and territories.

Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly happy that this bill has finally come to report stage. However there is a really very bizarre set of circumstances surrounding this.

This bill has been promised by every communications minister since 1984. In other words, we are looking at a nine-year delay from when this government came into office until now when this bill is actually on the verge of being passed.

Consequently I find it-the word amusing really pales in the circumstances-passing strange to read a quote from the Minister of Communications in today's The Financial Post. He states: "It is clear that what we are dealing with here is a filibuster", referring to the actions of the New Democratic Party. The article continues: "The only way for this to go through is by time allocation, said communications minister Perrin Beatty".

Really, for nine years the government has dawdled, hung around and done very little on this bill, even on the actual introduction of this bill. It was introduced in February 1992 and second reading did not take place until April 1993. This is hardly, if we are to follow the phrase of operatio sequitur esse, an example of a government with some kind of a plan that it set out to follow with any kind of alacrity, as I know my colleague from Kingston and the Islands would agree.

Now we are being told that the members of the New Democratic Party are filibustering. This is a situation in which if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck, and this duck is extremely tardy in arriving at the duck pond.

When we look at the various objectives of this bill we have to say that the government has again laboured and brought forth a mouse. While the hon. members to my left do not need me to defend them I think that in particular this group of amendments is one that the government could bear looking at and learning from, although it is difficult to know whether the government does indeed learn.

It is a tired government, full of tired policies and I think most of us are very pleased that we are at the very least winding down, as my hon. colleague from Bonavista would agree, to the proper denouement.

It is upsetting to see this action, to say the least, with regard to legislation that should be duly considered by the members of this House, the vast majority of whom have an interest in making their comments and speaking on behalf of their constituents, but in particular with regard to a bill that has allegedly been on the government's agenda for nine years.

Mr. Milliken:

They are slow thinkers over there.

Ms. Clancy:

Clearly they are extremely slow thinkers. This is a bill that has taken a year and four months to go from first reading to report stage. Now the government is hurling implications across the floor of the House of Commons and in the public press saying that the representatives of the people, whose right it is to want to debate these amendments fully and make some comment about the amendments this bill so desperately needs, are attempting to cause trouble and cause delay. There is really only one word to describe this kind of argument and obfuscation against the public. That word is silly.

No, it is not.

Ms. Clancy:

Yes, my hon. friend from the other side, the word is silly. Every communications minister since 1984 has promised this bill. Finally we were given this bill, a year and four months ago, and now we have this incredible haste, this incredible rush. Maybe I am suspicious, although I am sure my colleagues on this side of the House would disagree with that. Maybe I am seeing things that I should not see, although it would be a first.

It seems to me that what the government wants to do is push this through, along with other pieces of legislation. If by some chance in the limited time available to us before this House rises and before this government, led by whomever, is forced to call an election and allow the

June 8, 1993

democratic process to take its well-deserved course, then it will stand in the public and say that it promised us this sort of legislation and that sort of legislation.

The government will say that it tried its very best to see that sort of legislation would come through but those terrible members of the opposition did not care what was in the best interest of Canadians. The government will say that because the opposition members wanted to stand up and debate these questions, as their constituents elected them to do, it consequently lost the opportunity to get this through.

We on this side of the House want to make it extremely clear to the people of Canada that is not what is going on here. This is a government that had nine full years to do something about this issue. Yet here we are, in the dying days of this Parliament, being forced to rush this along with a number of other bills of great import to the Canadian people. We are being forced to do it in a slapdash and haphazard manner.

The people of Canada deserve better. Very soon the people of Canada will have better.

Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the procedural faux pas that I believe the government has committed in relation to this bill in applying time allocation at this stage on these proceedings. The minister will know that this was an entirely inappropriate move on the part of the government given the excellent co-operation that has occurred in this House for the last couple of weeks.

If he looks at the record, he will notice that yesterday four bills were passed in this House and Senate amendments to another were concurred in. The House finished its work on all those bills before the normal hour of adjournment. The minister and his cabinet colleagues received tremendous co-operation and they know it. We did so in spite of the fact that we could have spent at least a day debating every one of those bills and delaying and holding them up.

The minister has decided that more than two days of debats on this bill is too much and so the government has to silence the opposition. I know why the minister wants to silence the opposition. He does not like the arguments that are being made because we are pointing out too

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many problems with this legislation. He and his colleagues decided the best thing to do in the circumstances, notwithstanding the co-operation on other bills, was to force this one through so they could shut the opposition up.

Really it is quite unnecessary, and the minister and his cabinet colleagues know it, unless the minister has some hidden agenda to try to shut the House down early and avoid embarrassment to the new leader of the Conservative Party who could easily be humiliated by having to answer questions in the House.

We have all seen their weaknesses as leaders and we are aware they may have that difficulty. It may take them months to get up to steam to answer questions as a Prime Minister might be expected to answer in this House. We realize that. Perhaps that is really the reason for this, but if so let us have an honest statement that the leaders are incompetent and would be incapable of dealing properly with the House and get on with it. Let us not cover it up by using time allocation at this stage of the proceedings to try to jam things through.

We know that if the minister were running for the leadership and was expected to win we would not have this problem because he is capable of answering questions in the House, unlike some of his colleagues who are in the race. I do not want to discuss that for too long. He might change his mind even at this late date.

The debate on this bill has been exceedingly short. There was considerable time left after the debate on committee stage the other day when we could have gone on to discuss various chunks of the amendments. They are grouped for debate. We could have dealt with them in a more orderly fashion. However, with time allocation it makes it difficult because if the debate on one goes on too long then the others will not get debated at all. At the end of today we may find we have to vote on a series of amendments that have never been discussed because of time allocation. That is regrettable.

Today is also an important anniversary and I thought hon. members might want to observe it. Today is the 30th time in this Parliament that time allocation has been applied to government legislation. I am not counting closure. I am only counting the times that time allocation has been applied under Standing Order 78. This is the 30th such occasion in this Parliament. That is a record.

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No other Parliament has suffered from the abuse of the time allocation rule the way this Parliament has.

The government is fond of saying it likes to make Parliament more efficient. It forgets that Parliament is a place for public debate and discussion. It absents itself from the House in large measure, and I congratulate the minister on being here today as it is unusual. By absenting itself and refusing to participate in public debate the government generally ignores the expressed intention and wishes of members of Parliament and carries on with its own legislation.

The result of that has been a disastrously low standing for the government in public opinion polls in this country. It is so much so that it is terrified to call an election, which it is its constitutional duty to do, because it knows that certain defeat awaits it at the polls.

We have had this prolonged delay and procrastination while the government persists in introducing unpopular measures in this House and ramming them through even though its mandate to do so has effectively gone.

We have lots of statements by ministers of the Crown in previous incarnations which indicate that they share my view that a government in the fifth year of its mandate has lost its mandate to govern and introduce substantial legislation.

I said that time allocation had been used 30 times in the House but it is important to bear in mind that today time allocation is being applied to two stages of this bill's progress at one time. It is being applied to the report stage of the bill and also to third reading of the bill.

I went back in my records and counted the use of time allocation and the number of stages of bills that had been affected by time allocation. If we count the two that happened today we are up to 49 various stages of bills that have been subject to time allocation on the 30 occasions on which it has been used in this Parliament alone.

The 30 uses of time allocation is itself a record and the 49 stages of the bills that have been affected by the use of time allocation must also be something of a record. Frankly it is a disgraceful record.

I think the government has shown a great lack of judgment in deciding to use time allocation. It is a self-fulfilling thing. Once one embarks on a course of using time allocation as a means of limiting debate one increases the temptation for an opposition to continue to talk to bring the government to a position where it must use it. Instead of saying that it would not use time allocation and try to bring an orderly end to debate by acceding to some of the demands of an opposition by making amendments to the legislation and being reasonable, the government digs in its heels and says no, it will make no changes to the legislation and we can talk as long as it will allow us to talk because it will cut us off with time allocation when the time comes.

The unfortunate fact is that by the use of this rule we have changed the nature of parliamentary debate, have limited the role of opposition and of course of backbench government members whose views are not solicited and are seldom heard in this House as we witnessed in this debate today. Very few are participating and will participate. Ministers take no interest in what members of Parliament say in respect of their bill because they do not want to admit that there is a flaw or that there is anything wrong. The importance therefore of parliamentary debate diminishes.

The government then says that since parliamentary debate is so unimportant it might as well cut it off with time allocation and the whole vicious circle continues. Public respect for the institution is diminished and the effectiveness of the institution is diminished. The ability of the government to give some credence to its legislation so that it receives public respect and acceptability is diminished. The public does not believe that it has any real input in the legislative process because its representatives in Parliament are ignored.

The government has embarked on this course. It has pursued it with vigour all in the name of efficiency. Of course we know what Tory efficiency is: agree with us or shut up. That is the effective rule of Tory efficiency. I regret that the government has taken this pugnacious and very hard-nosed attitude not just today, but 30 times during this Parliament and throughout its mandate for the last nine years. This government has been a disaster

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for Canada and most Canadians know that. One only need look at the opinion polls to see that it is so.

The extraordinary thing that I could not help but notice as I read through a little article this morning in Maclean's magazine about the Conservative leadership convention that we all know is coming up this weekend is how many of the Conservative members of the party, the card-carrying Tories in this country, think the government's record is good. Every other opinion poll in the country indicates that Canadians think their record is a total disaster. The Conservatives must have chosen all their delegates out of that tiny percentage of Canadians who think the government is good because something like 70 per cent of them thought that this government had a good record. What distorted thinking must go on at these conventions.

I can only thank the heavens that I am not obliged to go to such a convention and listen to the trash that clearly will be spouted by the members at this meeting when they talk about the kind of nonsense that is portrayed in these polls wherein these people think the government record is good. I know you do not, Mr. Speaker, you are wiser than the majority of the people who are going to that convention and I can only offer to you, Sir, my deepest sympathy if in fact you are a delegate to that meeting.

Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this series of resolutions to make some comments in support of the resolutions by my colleague from Okanagan-Shuswap.

These amendments are aimed at making this bill a little more consumer friendly and a little more Canadian friendly. What needs to be done with this bill is to strengthen the relationship between the consumer, the provinces and the industry. A good portion of this industry has been developed by the provinces and is part of the provincial structure. It therefore becomes very important that the provinces and the consumers be involved and that we make this industry as Canadian friendly as possible. Instead, this movement toward competitiveness makes it probably more American friendly.

This series of amendments gives some vision to the industry. It puts in place some kind of vision of what the industry should be doing. What is more logical than the

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four or five amendments that have been placed here? For instance, what can be more logical than making one of the most important aims of the industry to be, as the motion states:

"(b) to enhance the expression and communication of Canada's cultural identity."

What would be more logical than making that the basic aim of the industry? What can be more logical than maintaining an affordable system?

One of the real concerns all across the country has been that the whole of the communications industry is gradually becoming the area of those people who can afford it. I have a daughter, for instance, who told me the other day: "I am just not going to be able to afford a telephone very much longer".

This is not an unrealistic approach for a lot of people. When you are having trouble putting food on the table then communications, if they become expensive, become extra. That again is one of the amendments which my colleague has put forward.

Third, what can be more logical than having consultation with the provinces? After all, the basic industry has been developed by the provinces. In fact, as far as telephones are concerned I was a member of a telephone company that was a co-operative in Saskatchewan 45 or 50 years ago. It became part of the Saskatchewan telephone system and is now being threatened to some extent in the direction it is going in being available to people in my community.

Again, what can be more logical than to be sure by putting it into legislation that the provinces, the industry and the government consult before they take directions that are harmful to Canada generally and to the consumer specifically?

What can be more logical than to support and to encourage innovation and to make that a central point as far as the development of the industry is concerned? All of these are very specific and very small directions which would strengthen the bill that, as my colleagues suggested, has been around for 90 years.

I am very surprised that the minister said we in this corner are filibustering it when for nine years it could have been passed. The filibustering must have gone on within his caucus. That is where it has been held up for the last nine years.

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Now when it is brought forward and we get a little debate on it, he shuts it down. The positions that Canadians right across the country have held for many years and have presented to us as their representatives should be put in. We would not have any trouble supporting this bill if the minister had taken the time to strengthen it in the directions which are indicated even in these first five motions.

There are five motions in this group aimed at making the bill more consumer friendly, more Canadian friendly. That is the direction we should be looking. It is the direction that we thought the government was looking but obviously it did not take the time to make the kinds of changes which would have made it Canadian and consumer friendly.

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to participate in the debate this afternoon, although I am a little disappointed in the government deciding that it ought to impose a form of closure on the debate at this stage. I think it is fair to say that there has been a tremendous amount of work go into this legislation.

I notice with interest that the government, in spite of the best interest of the drafters and the people who assembled the original legislation, felt that there was a whole set of areas that needed improvement. If my calculations are accurate I think that the government itself, or members of the government to be more specific, suggested 74 corrections to the legislation. That is a lot of corrections. It obviously reflected a set of concerns that the original drafters had not prepared for.

I have read with interest much of the work that was done in the Senate, I think for weeks on end in terms of pre-study, again identifying a number of areas of concern.

I have had discussions with representatives of the TWU, a very proud collection of individual men and women who appreciate the fact that they and the companies that they work for, with their brothers and sisters, really represent a cutting edge of Canadian technology. Here is where Canada has led the way globally in technological innovations, showing the way in terms of the telecommunications sector. One of the areas of which we have all been exceedingly proud over the years is the role that Canada and this sector has played in the development of international initiatives in telecommunications.

When the people who are actually doing the work, the individual men and women involved, showed concern about their future in terms of employability, that led my colleague from Okanagan-Shuswap to bring forward an amendment that would in a sense say that while we welcome changes-as a matter of fact Canada has always welcomed changes and has done very well with these changes-we have some obligation in terms of the future of these employed people as well. To simply abandon people, as we would in this case, as an old pair of tires or a used battery and say that as far as we are concerned with this industry we could not care less about you and your family seems to be kind of a crass and unnecessarily insensitive approach which one would expect from an unfeeling government.

We put forward amendments that would provide a certain element of security for those individuals. That was simply not accepted.

In other areas, naturally we are concerned about the long-term implications of the telecommunications sector and the recent legislation passed in this House, the enabling legislation for the Mexico-U.S.-Canada trade deal. I think it is very obvious what direction we are taking as a country when it comes to NAFTA. I think there is no industry where this is more obvious than in the telecommunications sector.

When my colleague from Okanagan-Shuswap intro- * (1205) duced a set of amendments to improve the legislation, 34

to be specific, it was our effort to improve legislation that One is very hesitant to predict the future but look at we felt in certain areas was seriously flawed. To general- the way things are going with the Canada-U.S. trade ize what these areas are, I think it is fair to say that all of deal. Plant after plant in Canada is closing down to take those men and women who are employed in the telecom- advantage of the lower labour rates in Tennessee, Louisi-munications industry at a time of increasing deregulation ana, Texas and so on and to take advantage in many cases are concerned about the future of their positions. They of right to work legislation. There are lower standards are concerned about whether they will be employed in and regulations in terms of the environment and health the telecommunications industry in the years ahead. and safety in the work place and so on. Investors and

June 8, 1993

entrepreneurs have taken advantage of this flexibility by moving their operations southward to take advantage of these conditions. Rather than proceed with an expansion of their existing operation they may have decided to expand their operations in that jurisdiction.

Now under the North American free trade agreement we are going to add Mexico to this equation so now people can actually take advantage not only of wage rates of $6, $7 or $8 an hour that we find in Mississippi, Louisiana or South Carolina, but one can move across the Rio Grande and take advantage of labour rates of 58 cents an hour.

I listened with interest the other night on CNN when ex-presidential candidate Ross Perot was being interviewed as probably one of the more successful business persons in the United States. The question was put to him of how he and his colleagues would react to NAFTA. He said that it was perfectly clear that most of the investors that he knows and most of the industry and business leaders of the United States will be inclined to move more and more of their operations into Mexico to take advantage of hourly wage rates of 58 cents and virtually a total abandonment of environmental and work place regulations.

That is not saying they do not exist on paper but they are simply not enforced to take advantage of a situation where if there is a union in a plant the union is controlled by the management and supported by the government in that respect.

Mr. Perot, if nothing else, is a very straightforward individual. He sees the world as a business person. His decision was that he could maximize his profits considerably or certainly more by moving his existing American operations into Mexico. He was very straightforward. He said that everybody he knows will probably be doing the same thing.

If it is attractive to move his operations from Tennessee to Mexico one can imagine how attractive it is to move operations from Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Halifax or wherever into Mexico in order to compete in the North American market where one can send one's finished products or services virtually across the continent free of tariffs or other non-tariff barriers.

Government Orders

I am going to make a prediction. I would say that within a short period of time when you, Mr. Speaker, or others dial an operator to get information for a particular number the voice you will hear at the other end of the telephone will sound more like Buenos noches, senor. In other words, the telephone operator will be operating out of Guadalajara, or out of Ensenada or out of a community along the Rio Grande River.

I say to those people who might scoff at this notion that if they were running a telecommunications company and were responsible for maximizing profits and could pay an operator $18 an hour in Canada, $12 an hour in the northern part of the United States, $7 an hour in the southern United States or 58 cents an hour in Mexico, where would they locate their operation?

Canada.

Mr. Riis:

Some weird entrepreneur over here said Canada. Obviously he does not make much money.

The point is that it is obvious where the trend line will take us. That is why we on this side of the House say: For goodness' sake let us not rush this important piece of legislation through. Let us acknowledge the fact that this government is slowly dismantling any possibility we might have to influence the future for our children and our children's children. It is in a sense selling out to the sacred cow of the marketplace. This means that people in this country will not have jobs.

I think this House is concerned about that. I know people on this side of the House are concerned and that is why we are begging the minister to for goodness' sake please reconsider this idea of having closure motions before the House that will limit the debate and ensure that this legislation is wrapped up, signed, sealed and delivered in the next 48 hours.

We think it is wrong and that is why we are speaking so forcefully against this legislation at this point.