Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
The Speaker: Order, please. As a rule, we do not refer to any member's presence or absence in the House.
Mr. Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, late this morning, the Prime Minister painted a rosy picture of life in Canada. Clearly, the Prime Minister has tested the electoral waters. His remarks are very optimistic.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Gauthier: Optimistic, but so out of touch with reality.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Loubier: What are we going to do with this, Mr. Speaker? It makes no sense.
The Speaker: Question, please.
Mr. Gauthier: Yes, I am getting to my question. We will see how far this optimism goes. The Prime Minister was silent about the Somalia inquiry. Not a word passed his lips about the Airbus scandal. He had nothing to say about the Pearson deal, nor did he mention the broken GST promise, or the Canadian armed forces.
My question, for any one of my colleagues across the way who can reply on behalf of the government, is as follows; Why is the Prime Minister so silent when it comes to matters concerning his government's morality?
[English]
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is really touching that the leader of the separatist party is concerned about the future of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Be that as it may, his litany of unjustified complaints shows something very important: he has nothing to complain about when it comes to the achievements of this government in restoring the Canadian economy, bringing down interest rates and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
[Translation]
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Leader of the Opposition, BQ): Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister wants to test the waters, he would do better to answer his own questions during the election campaign.
In 1993, the red book lamented the 1.6 million unemployed in Canada, the millions on welfare, the one million children living in poverty and the high level of bankruptcy. Three and a half years after being elected to office, this government has captured the all time record of 1.5 million unemployed, three million welfare recipients, 1.5 million children living in poverty, and 86,000 bankruptcies in Canada.
My question, for any government member brave enough to answer, is this: When it comes to real problems, what does this government have to be proud of?
[English]
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I think the best answer to my hon. friend's question is to quote from the Prime Minister's speech to the board of trade this morning. He said that forecasters in the private sector are predicting that 1997 and 1998 will be years of strong growth. They say we will lead most of the industrialized world in economic growth. They say the economy will create an additional 300,000 jobs a year for the next two years, on top of the more than 700,000 created since we formed the government.
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Finally, one more sentence. ``I know'', said the Prime Minister, ``that for someone without a job these statistics may not be much comfort, but I want them and all Canadians to understand what we are doing to combat unemployment and how I believe our actions will create a stronger economy and more jobs for all Canadians''.
[Translation]
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Leader of the Opposition, BQ): Mr. Speaker, Canadians have been listening to this line for three and a half years. The government members sound like broken records.
The Prime Minister of Canada-
An hon. member: We will miss you.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition has the floor.
Mr. Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, some members across the way think they will miss me. Let them come to Roberval and defeat me, if they can. They can run any candidate-
Some hon. members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Gauthier: Even the minister of defence.
On a more serious and much sadder note, the Prime Minister, in his interminable speech, gave as examples of how well the Canadian federal system works the manpower training agreement, the infrastructure, the youth programs, the right of veto and distinct society-
Some hon. members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Gauthier: Yes, Mr. Speaker. They are so blind they applaud. Let us look at the results. But let us look at the facts. With regard to manpower, nothing has been settled with Quebec. As for the infrastructure-
Some hon. members: Question.
The Speaker: I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to kindly put his question.
Mr. Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I am coming to my question, because whether it is youth programs, the right of veto or distinct society, it all boils down to a big zero for Quebec.
How can the Prime Minister, how can the government, hold up these examples of how well Canadian federalism works and still keep a straight face?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we can reply with great confidence to the questions from the Leader of the Opposition because I think that people across Canada have noticed the renewed effort by cabinet in our integrated approach with the provinces for the benefit of children; we have made an integrated national child benefit a priority.
Manpower has been mentioned. I would like to explain to our colleagues across the way that the Government of Canada has offered publicly-my predecessor made this offer last May 30-to transfer responsibility to the provinces. We have already signed agreements, which is a clear indication of our good faith, with two provinces, Alberta and New Brunswick, and we are continuing to negotiate very actively with the Government of Quebec.
I can assure the Leader of the Official Opposition that many of these issues are well on the way to being settled.
Mr. Yvan Loubier (Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, BQ): Mr. Speaker, at noon the Prime Minister, who is ashamed to show his face, bragged that he put the federal government's financial house in order by reducing the deficit. He was also full of compassion for the unemployed and children living in poverty.
My question is directed to the Prime Minister or to the person who will answer on his behalf. Does the Prime Minister agree that this deficit reduction is mainly due to tax increases totalling $18 billion since 1994, a five billion dollar surplus snatched from the unemployment insurance fund, and a shocking $4.5 billion cut in our social programs?
In other words, this government's outstanding performance comes at the expense of the provinces, the unemployed and the poor.
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Hon. Marcel Massé (President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, our achievements are there for all to see. In international forums, whether we are talking about the International Monetary Fund or the OECD, all reports have indicated that Canada's economic performance was the best of any industrialized country.
Newspapers in France refer to the Canadian miracle, and Japanese investors are now prepared to invest at rates which are 5 per cent lower than before. We cleaned up our tax system; we have again become fiscally responsible; we created 700,000 jobs; we brought the inflation rate down to 1.5 per cent and in 1996, our current trade balance will show a surplus.
These are our achievements, and the opposition cannot deny this.
Mr. Yvan Loubier (Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, BQ): Mr. Speaker, this so-called Canadian miracle means 500,000 more children are living in poverty since they came to power.
Will the one who speaks for the government agree that by cutting 4.5 billion in our social programs, the government has had a devastating impact on the poverty rate? In other words, the wonderful compassion shown by the Prime Minister at noon is an admission of a guilt. He is the guilty party.
Mr. Young: It came from the heart.
Hon. Marcel Massé (President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the opposition is so overcome by the truth that it no longer considers asking questions.
But even if the hon. member did not ask a question, I think it is clear that our program spending, will have gone down from $120 billion to $103 billion next year, which means that our departments have had to absorb the majority of our spending cuts. We cut administrative spending more than we cut transfer payments. In fact, the government cut its own spending by 22 per cent, so as to restore its fiscal responsibility.
And I must say that if there had been no separatists on the other side, the results would have been even better.
Commissioners Létourneau and Desbarats made it quite clear that the government knew full well that by shutting down the inquiry Canadians would never know the truth about a cover-up at the highest levels.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister the one question the government refused to answer yesterday. Why do the Liberals not want the Somalia inquiry to get to the bottom of this high level murder cover-up?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is totally irresponsible. There is no one in Canada who believes that there was or there is today a cover-up of the murder.
The government has said and I as the minister has acknowledged that there were many mistakes made in how the military institution responded to the absolutely intolerable events that occurred in Somalia which resulted in the killing of Somali citizens. There is no question about that.
As I said and as the hon. member knows, every Canadian who really wants to get a clear understanding of what took place in Somalia knows who pulled the trigger. Everybody in Canada knows exactly what happened on the ground in Somalia to the extent that it can be determined after two years of work by the commission, the military investigations, the courts martial and everything else that took place.
The hon. member is trying to continue to pursue an opportunity that he thinks his party has, that his own leader totally disagreed with when in September 1996 he stood in his place in the House and asked the Prime Minister of Canada for a guarantee that the Somalia inquiry would end before the election. He did not have a word to say about the truth or about the facts. He simply wanted it ended.
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Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, in the House this minister said that the inquiry would go on maybe into the 21st century, maybe eight years or so. The commissioners said that it would be over, that they would have the finished report on the minister's desk by the end of December 1997. In the House this minister implied that it could last forever.
The minister can bluster and scatter red herrings in every direction but that will not help. For the first time in history the Liberal government shut down an independent inquiry at a crucial time when they were just starting to expose some of the government's friends.
What is the government trying to hide by this high level cover-up?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, because of my respect for the House and awareness that question period answers should be brief, I will not address all of the irresponsible and absolutely wrong-headed information the hon. member tried to put into his question.
Let me deal with one specific issue very briefly. The hon. member said that the commissioners have apparently said to him or to someone that they would be totally finished by the end of December of this year. That is what I heard the hon. member say.
Let me quote from a letter sent by the commission of inquiry into the deployment of Canadian forces to Somalia to the Privy Council. This is a quote from a document provided to the government through the Privy Council directly by the commission: ``Scenario one, the most desirable or optimum scenario''. It goes on in too much detail for me to take the time of the House but let me go to the conclusion: ``The most desirable or optimum scenario would result in the completion of hearings by May of 1998, followed by a four to six month period thereafter for the production of the final report''.
The hon. member sooner or later has to make an effort at getting his facts straight.
Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, obviously we would like that document tabled so we can all take a look at it. I am going on what the commissioners have said to the public in their news conference yesterday.
The real issue here is that the government has obviously been happy as long as the guys at the bottom are being charged. The minute we started to move up that ladder we brought an end to this inquiry. For the first time in Canadian history we did that. This government and this Prime Minister are responsible for that.
Why is the Prime Minister shutting down this inquiry before it can investigate at the highest of levels? It is happening right under his nose. What is the government trying to cover up by cancelling this inquiry?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member often refers to the bottom of the ladder. He is obviously far more familiar with the bottom of the barrel.
In his previous question the hon. member talked about when the commissioners had assured him they would be able to report. I have indicated clearly that there is another view from the commissioners with respect to when they could properly report.
With regard to another allegation made by the hon. member, I will help him out this time rather than embarrass him. Maybe I could suggest to the hon. member that he check his facts to find out for sure whether any government in Canada has ever put an end to an inquiry, before he repeats that allegation again.
The Prime Minister boasted about the passage of the employment insurance legislation. That is odd. Less than five weeks after the main provisions of the new employment insurance act came into force, the Minister of Human Resources Development is already acknowledging the need to correct what he describes, with his legendary lack of understanding of the issues, as flaws. But time and time again the official opposition has criticized the absurdity of certain provisions of the system.
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In connection with the flaws he has to correct, will the minister deal with the case of Rita, a woman who is receiving a meagre $35 per week in benefits, after working twelve 35-hour weeks at minimum wage, because, under the new legislation, only the previous 26 weeks are taken into account?
Does the minister realize that-
The Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. The Minister of Human Resources Development has the floor.
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. opposition member said we had acknowledged that are flaws in the system. What our government acknowledges, and the Prime Minister referred to it this morning, is having had the courage to carry out a comprehensive reform, reviewing the entire unemployment insurance system, which was so dear to the hearts of our friends opposite but which no longer met the needs of the people on the modern job market at all.
What this government has always maintained, as did two of my predecessors at Human Resources Development Canada and as I myself have done since my appointment as the Minister of Human Resources Development, is that we will closely monitor the transition to the new employment insurance system and, if adjustments are required here and there, we are prepared to make them in order to improve service to Canadians.
Mrs. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Mr. Speaker, there are people living on $35 a week instead of $121. I have another question on the same subject for the Prime Minister.
What does the minister have to say to Benoît, who, after accumulating 450 hours of work over 10 weeks in 1996, is eligible for employment insurance benefits because the transitional measures the minister introduced along the way penalize workers who fulfilled the conditions of the law in 1996?
Is the minister prepared to soften the transitional measures to ensure that anyone who worked more than 35 hours per week in 1996 will not be penalized as is currently the case?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, with the transitional measures, the government decided in favour of the person who worked the last 26 weeks in 1996. At the time, employers had no system to determine if the hours of work had actually been completed and we operated on the assumption that every week claimed, whether or not 35 hours of work were actually performed, was a 35-hour week. We are doing claimants a favour, giving them the benefit of the doubt. This way, 22 hours become 35 hours.
As for those who may have worked 50 hours, what the opposition is requesting for them did not exist under the former system,
because these hours were not insured under the system. There were only 35 insurable hours per week.
What this means is the minister is letting the lower ranks take the fall, while senior brass, bureaucrats and maybe even politicians get off scot free.
Why is the minister refusing to hold high level officials accountable for trying to cover up the events surrounding the torture death of a Somali teenager?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member, as I have said often in the House, has had a distinguished career over many years in the Canadian forces.
I simply want to say through you, Mr. Speaker, to the member who has put the question that surely, as was the case yesterday in committee, hon. members are not going to stand in the House or use opportunities elsewhere to tarnish the reputation of all the men and women who serve in the senior echelons of the Canadian forces.
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Everyone recognizes that mistakes were made and some very heavy prices were paid by people at the very senior levels of the Canadian forces. There have been significant changes in the upper echelons of the Canadian forces and the Department of National Defence.
Surely the hon. member and some of his colleagues who have served in the Canadian forces understand that to continue to pursue this denigration of men and women who have made a commitment to Canada and the Canadian forces and who have served in the most distinguished and honourable ways not only in Canada but around the world cannot continue.
Surely the hon. member after his distinguished service has a few shreds of decency left in him and-
The Speaker: I hope that all hon. members will use some restraint. I know we are all under some pressure in here. I appeal to hon. members. Questions should deal with administrative responsibility and members should refrain from attacking each other personally. That would be the better way to proceed and I would urge you to do that.
Mr. Jack Frazer (Saanich-Gulf Islands, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I have some understanding of how military people react when they see blatant unfairness in the system that is dealing with them.
The minister's response does not change the fact that Shidane Arone was beaten, tortured and murdered. Then there was an attempted cover-up at national defence headquarters. By shutting down the inquiry the government is trying to cover up the cover-up. Why is the minister so willing to let senior officers, bureaucrats and politicians go uninvestigated? What is the minister afraid of?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, to be absolutely honest, what I am afraid of is that the hon. gentleman and his colleagues will continue for the next two or three years with this absolutely unacceptable kind of approach.
They try to paint everybody in the armed forces as being involved in cover-ups, involved in mismanagement and involved in the kinds of activities to which the hon. member and his colleagues keep alluding without ever once taking into account the fact that the vast majority of men and women in the Canadian forces at every level do their jobs well and honourably.
If the hon. member really believes the Canadian forces deserve to be supported, he should be among the very first to stand up and to recognize that. I know he goes on to the bases. I hope he and his colleagues continue to avail themselves of the opportunity to go out and meet with the men and women of the Canadian forces at all ranks. I hope they try to get a grip on what is really going on there instead of continuing to try to exploit a political situation, where I say to my hon. friend, you are going down the tubes.
Yesterday, we witnessed a first in Canadian history. The chairman of an inquiry accused the government of political interference and clearly indicated he cannot hear all the witnesses, as the government is misleadingly suggesting. The minister can no longer provide meaningless answers, which are just a smoke screen used because an election is in the not too distant future.
How can the minister still deny that the true reason why his government wants to end the inquiry's mandate is because the inquiry was about to question senior public servants and top military officials about their involvement is this coverup?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I cannot presume, as does the hon. member, that the inquiry was about to question anyone in particular. Indeed, the inquiry has always decided who it would call to testify and how it would proceed.
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I made reference to a document sent to Privy Council by the inquiry, in which it is said that the commissioners' preferred scenario would have been for the Somalia inquiry to continue until the end of May 1998, with the report being completed only by the end of that same year.
It would be pure speculation on my part to try to guess who was going to be called to testify, given that, in a two-year period, the inquiry heard over 100 witnesses and apparently did not see fit to call those whom the hon. member thinks it should have heard.
Mr. Pierre Brien (Témiscamingue, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the minister's answer is close to demagoguery. He is well aware that, if the inquiry was not able to hear all the witnesses, it is because of the delays, the problems created by his department and the army's top brass, who never co-operated with the inquiry, who did everything possible to interfere with it, and who never gave it the required support.
The minister is a man of experience and he knows full well that, the higher you go, the closer you get to the government. Are we to understand that, if the government interfered in such an unprecedented manner to put an end to the inquiry, it is because the Prime Minister and the minister felt the commissioners were getting dangerously close to their government?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as is often the case in the House, I will certainly give the benefit of the doubt to the hon. member. It is not the first time that we put an end to a inquiry's mandate, even though I know it takes time to conduct an inquiry and to find out what happened.
As I said, it is not the first time, but we will let the hon. member get away with his erroneous statement, because I know he did not make it in bad faith. He simply does not know any better.
But, to answer his question, nothing prevented the commissioners from setting up their own agenda. While there may have been delays in providing information, nothing prevented the inquiry from calling on any witness to answer questions.
Let us not forget that the mandate of the Somalia inquiry was extended three times. The last time, the inquiry even told the government it would table its report before the end of June. We agreed three times. Now that we say it is time to complete the job, the hon. member calls it political interference. It is fine when we say yes, but it becomes political interference when we say no.
[English]
Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the defence minister said the Somalia commissioners should not have accepted the job if they could not get the job done. Yet it was his government that allowed the shredding of documents, lying to the military police-
The Speaker: If I understood the hon. member correctly he used the word lying. I would like him to withdraw that word now.
Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that word.
The Speaker: I would ask the hon. member to please put his question.
Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, yes. It was under the watch of this government that these incidents took place: the shredding of documents, the misleading of military police. My question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. What are the Liberals trying to hide?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. friend that if I was trying to hide something from the hon. member and his friends, it would not be nearly as difficult as putting a needle in a haystack because I do not think they could find anything that was right in front of their very noses.
The hon. member raises this question and says that the alleged shredding took place under the watch of this government. The shredding that allegedly took place which was referred to by the former prime minister took place while that person was minister of national defence.
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The incidents in Somalia and much of what the hon. member alludes to happened while a previous administration was in charge of the affairs of the country. But we are not going to slough that off. Maybe the hon. member thinks that I am spending my time in the House and working as the Minister of National Defence to protect members of a previous administration or people who have gone on to other walks of life.
What the government is trying to do is to clean up a mess, one of many, that occurred while the previous administration was still in power. We have not been perfect in getting it done. I would agree to that. But it is a long way from the total lack of understanding and comprehension of the events and the facts that the hon. member and his colleagues so abominably display in here nearly every day.
Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, shutting down the inquiry at this stage is like shutting down a court case before all the evidence is in and asking the judge to render a verdict.
The Somalia commissioners stated publicly that they have completed some 90 per cent of their work with only 10 per cent left to go. Whatever that percentage is, it involves the high level cover-up and whitewash of the murder of the Somalia teenager. The Liberals have slammed the door on the inquiry just when it was getting to their friends, the bureaucrats and cabinet ministers.
With only 10 per cent of the work left to be done, who is the defence minister trying to protect?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, what we will have to do, I guess, is draw pictures to make sure that the hon. member and his colleagues will have some understanding of what is going on.
I have on two occasions during question period referred to a document provided by the commissioners last fall, in 1996-
Mr. Ramsay: Table it.
Mr. Young: I have not got the pictures drawn yet, so I will not table it until I can make sure they can understand it.
The document says that the most desirable or optimum scenario would result in the completion of hearings by May 1998, followed by a four to six month period thereafter for the production of the final report.
We are just coming up to two years. Even the hon. member can do this. There are 12 months in a year, there are 52 weeks in a year and so forth. He would probably understand that, even on the basis of the document provided by the commissioners, it is not 10 per cent of the work that remains to be done, they are barely half way through it. That is what the hon. member does not understand.
We are not interested in a historical document. We want to be able to deal with the real problems and challenges facing the Canadian forces today, not in the year 2000.
[Translation]
Mr. Jean H. Leroux (Shefford, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the government has always defended itself by saying that the events and the revelations brought to light by the Somalia inquiry took place under the Conservatives. As the inquiry moves along, however, it is focussing more and more on the more recent role of senior Armed Forces staff and senior officers in this matter. And that it what is bothering the Liberals.
Since we now know that the inquiry wanted to get to the bottom of the cover-ups that went on in 1995 and 1996, are we to assume that the Minister of Defence put an end to the Somalia inquiry because it was starting to get interested in what happened under the Liberal government?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): No, Mr. Speaker. The reason behind the government's decision is that, after three extensions to the mandate, the time had come to ask the commission of inquiry to produce its recommendations and conclusions.
We felt that an inquiryt created in March 1995, which had been given an initial mandate to finish up by the end of December 1995, and had been given one extension and then another, ought at some point to terminate its activities.
It was very important to the Canadian forces, and Canada as a whole, to ensure that lessons be learned from what we found out in Somalia, what happened before we went to Somalia, the incidents that occurred there, what was done after that-and everyone agrees that this was not acceptable-and to ensure that steps are taken promptly to change the behaviour of the Canadian forces as well as the way the bureaucracy reacts under such circumstances.
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If the hon. member is interested in having an inquiry that was going to run for another four, five or six years, that could be interesting from a historical point of view, but it would be of very, very little value from a practical one.
Mr. Jean H. Leroux (Shefford, BQ): Mr. Speaker, what we have always asked the government for was a reasonable time frame.
The Somalia inquiry will go down in history as an unfinished investigation. The intention was to get to the bottom of the matter in order to rebuild the Canadian forces. We will have failed to do so.
How can the Prime Minister speak of the integrity of his government, when that same government is putting an end to the Somalia inquiry when it started to get too interested in the actions of his government?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have always had great confidence in the judgment and fairmindedness of the Canadian people.
I believe that most people will agree with me that, when reference is made to integrity, especially in recent days, there is nothing the Bloc Quebecois can teach us.
Will the minister assure my constituents in London-Middlesex and all Canadians that the government will insist on the protection of all existing rights of people living in co-operative housing before it agrees to transfer administrative responsibility to the provinces?
Hon. Diane Marleau (Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, absolutely. The government will respect all of its commitments, financial and other, in social housing. We are not getting out of social housing. We continue to spend approximately $2 billion a year on social housing.
The purpose of the transfer of administration is to end overlap and duplication, therefore freeing up more dollars for social housing.
As a condition, before provinces get to sign an agreement, they will have to agree to respect national principles. More important, they will have to adhere to a strict accountability framework in order to ensure that those dollars continue to be spent to help those in need of housing.
When it comes to co-op housing-
The Speaker: The hon. member for Prince George-Peace River.
He said that he did not know what the political motivations might be for the government shutting down the inquiry and whitewashing the truth. There was a murder, a cover-up of the investigation, a whitewash and now, a cover-up of the cover-up: all conducted under the very nose of the government.
What is the government trying to hide?
Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is aware that in mid-September the hon. leader of his party asked the Prime Minister to guarantee that the commission of inquiry report before the federal election.
He did not talk about hearing all the witnesses. He did not talk about getting all of the truth. He did not talk about making sure that every inch of it was looked at. He simply asked that the Prime Minister of Canada guarantee that the commission of inquiry report before the next federal election.
What was his motivation at that point?
Mr. Jay Hill (Prince George-Peace River, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, perhaps the defence minister's helmet is a bit tight. Let us be very clear on what we are talking about here. We are asking about evidence that suggests a cover-up of a murder at the highest possible levels.
What does the government have to hide? Why is it afraid of the truth coming out?
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Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member somehow has been kept in the dark about the incidents in Somalia that resulted in the death of Somali citizens then he obviously is very much out of touch.
Most Canadians understand and deplore what happened in Somalia that has led to all of this problem. What we are particularly concerned about and I believe what Canadians are concerned about is that as intolerable as these incidents may be there is always the possibility in the kind of environment that military organizations function that terrible situations will occur.
We are aware that the organization and institution did not respond adequately. That is why by March 15 and by the end of March in terms of making it public we will have gone to great lengths to review the military justice system and the capability of the Canadian forces to investigate itself. What is very important is to ensure that this kind of situation does not occur again.
An hon. member: Oh, oh.
Mr. Young: I know the hon. member is not interested in the facts but at some point-
The Speaker: The hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing.
He knows that this proposal will provide dollars to the provinces in the hope that they will pass those dollars on to poor children. He knows that child poverty has got worse under the government and that the Minister of Finance has called it a national disgrace.
The minister has no guarantees from the provinces that they will use these dollars to alleviate child poverty. Nor has he sought them.
Why does Minister of Human Resources Development not ensure that the child benefit is a true national program with national standards so that poor children in Canada, no matter what province they live in or whether or not the province cares about children, will actually receive the benefits in question?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his very interesting and extremely important question. I agree that the government is very much involved with alleviating the situation of children living in low income families.
I reassure the House we will make absolutely clear that this is a national project. We will be working with the provinces and the federal Government of Canada will have a platform. The provinces have committed that any money which would be freed up from the new federal platform would be reinvested in services for children living in low income families in all provinces of Canada. We will be renegotiating with them to put together a reallocation framework. I trust they will work very well with us.
[English]
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House of the business for the next week as well as to give it some sense of our priorities for the month of March.
Monday shall be an opposition day. On Tuesday at 4.30 p.m. the Minister of Finance will present the budget. Wednesday and Thursday shall be the first two days of the budget debate.
I plan tentatively to call second reading of the borrowing authority bill emanating from the budget on Friday, February 21.
I also want to inform the House that it is the intention of the President of the Treasury Board to present the main estimates on Thursday morning.
Our first legislative priority tomorrow and thereafter is the consideration of any amendments that may have been sent from the Senate with respect to Bill C-41, the child support legislation.
The other measures we may expect to consider before the budget include Bill C-17, the Criminal Code amendments; Bill C-46, the legislation regarding access to records concerning sexual offences; Bill C-72, the wheat board legislation; Bill C-79, the Indian Act amendments; Bill C-66, the labour code amendments; and Bill C-23, the nuclear safety bill. Any of the already mentioned legislation not completed this month will receive early attention in March.
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The other legislation that will receive priority attention in March includes Bill C-27, the child prostitution bill; Bill C-32, the copyright legislation; Bill C-44, the ports bill; Bill C-71, the tobacco legislation; Bill C-49, the administrative tribunals bill; Bill C-67, the competition legislation; Bill C-69, the income tax amendments; and Bill C-74, the environment bill.
We would also like to deal with the Canada-Chile free trade bill introduced yesterday and the financial institutions bill to be introduced tomorrow as well as Bill C-62, the fisheries legislation.
If Bill C-49 respecting reproductive technologies, Bill C-55 respecting high risk offenders and Bill C-65 concerning endangered species are reported from committee in time, they will also receive priority treatment.
I believe practice and precedent indicate that the document should be now tabled in the House for the surveillance of not only members but the general public.
The Speaker: The hon. member quite rightly points out that it is tradition where a document has been quoted from directly for the House to ask and expect the document to be produced.
I will take this as notice from the hon. member and when the minister of defence is in the House next we will ask him for the production of those documents.