Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):

Mr. Speaker, Bell Northern Research announced today that it reached an agreement with the National Capital Commission to lease 300 acres of land adjacent to BNR's world headquarters laboratory complex in Nepean.

BNR plans to use the leased land to consolidate its various laboratory facilities in the Ottawa-Carleton region. This development will be the world headquarters for Bell Northern Research and one of the largest research and development facilities of its kind in the world.

This project will have an enormous positive impact on the economy of the national capital region. It will result in the creation of 4,000 new jobs in the high technology area.

The NCC will acquire other environmentally sensitive land in the National Capital Region to offset the impact of the use of Greenbelt land with proceeds from the lease.

This project is good for Nepean and good for Canada. It is consistent with both research and development and environmental protection.

Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):

Mr. Speaker,

yesterday the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) apologized to Japanese Canadians whom the Government of Canada mistreated during and after the Second World War. He also promised to pay $21,000 by way of redress to every living Japanese Canadian whom the Government relocated, interned and/or deported, expropriated, or otherwise deprived of the full enjoyment of his or her fundamental rights and freedoms simply because of his or her ancestry.

The Government will also clear the names of eligible Japanese Canadians who were convicted under the War Measures Act. It will also give $12 million to the Japanese Canadian community for educational, social, and cultural activities, and contribute $24 million toward the creation of a Canada Race Relations Foundation.

This morning I was pleased to note that the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and Citizenship (Mr. Weiner) said that he will also be happy to discuss the concerns of other multicultural groups.

The Japanese Canadians whom I met with yesterday in Nepean-Carleton were shedding invisible tears of joy and pride. I, too, was proud, not only because of the outcome, but also because it was this Government that had the care and understanding to resolve a long-standing blemish on our history. Yesterday was a great day for Canada.

Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):

Mr. Speaker, Telesat Canada will launch a mobile communications satellite in 1992. This mobile satellite, MSAT, the first of its kind in the world, will provide mobile telephone communications over North America and 320 kilometres out from our coasts. Costs will be similar to current cellular telephone costs.

In June, 1987, the Standing Committee on Research, Science and Technology, which I had the honour to chair, recommended that the Government make MSAT a priority. The federal Government has now done so with its lease arrangement with Telesat. The federal moneys will be an important source of seed money for the $250 million project.

The Department of Communications did all the basic research on this satellite. It is an all-Canadian project. Telesat will create more than 3,000 jobs directly or indirectly in the high-technology sector. It will also generate more than $2.4 billion in sales. Fishermen, truckers, resource industries, law enforcement officers, and others will benefit from the mobile communications system.

Finally, those of us in the national capital are indeed proud of that because the antennae and satellite navigation system will be built here in the nation's capital.

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Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):

Mr. Speaker, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture recently endorsed the Government's tax reform package as it relates to farmers.

Under tax reform farmers will still be able to use cash accounting rather than accrual accounting. Moreover, when it sorts people out for tax purposes the Government will not use either the profit test, to distinguish between farmers and nonfarmers, or the gross revenue test, to distinguish between fulltime and part-time farmers. Part-time farmers will now be able to claim farm losses of up to $8,750 against their other income. Full-time farmers will be able to claim all of their farm losses against other income.

The Government will also extend the flexible livestock inventory provision to all commodities, which will enable farmers to average their income over a number of years.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture's endorsement of tax reform indicates how this Government achieves just and equitable results through consultation with those who will be affected by laws it contemplates making.

Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):

Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a few moments of the House's time to add my congratulations to our valuable and senior colleague from Bow River (Mr. Taylor) on his initiative which will ensure that our railroad heritage is in part maintained.

I do this for two or three reasons. First, I and my family have a long-standing interest in heritage matters. We live in a designated heritage home. I have had the privilege of being on the Rideau Heritage Board. I was a founding member of the Rideau Historical Society. My wife and I have, over a long period of time, appreciated and lent our skills and interests to learning about and preserving the heritage we have grown up in and been part of.

There is, however, another dimension which is awfully important to me. I am probably one of the very few Members of Parliament ever to have lived for an extended period of time in a railway station. In 1942, my mother became the station manager in Glengarry, Nova Scotia. I lived in that railway station from 1942, until I started university several years later. There are a number of unique things about that. First is the fact that my mother was appointed station master in the early days of World War II. It was very unique for the Canadian National Railway to have done that.

The building was beautiful. It was in large part a two-storey building, gabled windows in the upper storey, a freight shed with a flat roof, a waiting room about twice the size of the entrance to the West Block, with a fully functional telegraph office. It was simply a beautifully designed building, very, very functional, serving two main functions. One was to serve a prosperous rural community in the highlands of Nova Scotia, and the other was as a landmark on the railway line between New Glasgow and Truro where there was a break in the long grade over Gordon Summit crossing the height of land across Nova Scotia.

I would remind those who are not familiar with that area that the heaviest grades on railway lines in Canada exist on that branchline. That plateau on the railway line, the break in grade, served as a point for hooking on extra engines to get over the grade. It was important to the service of the local community and it was important in the functioning of the railway line.

The tragedy of all that, as I look back now at that magnificent structure, is that it is no longer there. In fact, if you drive by where that magnificent old building stood, a building which meant so much to me in my boyhood but, more important, so much to that great agricultural community in northern Nova Scotia, it has simply been destroyed. With that has gone an awful lot of railway history in Nova Scotia and a big part of that community.

August 25, 1988

Income Tax Act and Related Acts

As a professional geologist it has been my pleasure to travel widely in Canada over the years. The adoption of this Bill will ensure that three railways stations, which I consider to be great, will be preserved. The first I want to make mention of is the railway station in Cobalt, Ontario, owned by the Ontario Northland Railway. I do not know how many of my colleagues in the House have seen that station. It is a simply magnificent building and I hope it will fall under the purview of this Act. Another is the railway station in Whitehorse owned and operated by the Yukon and White Pass Railway. It is again a magnificent historical building which is linked very closely to the heritage of Canada. The third one of which I want to make note is the CPR station in Smiths Falls. It as well is a beautiful building architecturally and is very important to the evolution of the railway community in eastern Ontario.

In offering these comments I want to express my thanks to the Member for Bow River, to those colleagues of ours who served on the legislative committee, and to all Members of the House for their co-operation in adding a dimension to Canada's heritage in order that those who follow us will benefit from a great era in the evolution of Canada. So much of our historic economic evolution is related to railways and it should be a great priority for us to enhance that remembrance.