1966-05-13

PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF NATIONAL HOCKEY TEAM

Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps hon. members will allow the Speaker to infringe the rules of the house in order to bring to the attention of hon. members the presence in the Speaker's gallery of Canada's national hockey team.



BROADCASTING, FILMS AND ASSISTANCE TO THE ARTS

[Stage Direction]
SEVENTH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE Mr. Gerard Pelletier (Hochelaga) presented the seventh report of the standing committee on broadcasting, films and assistance to the arts.
[Note: Text of the foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Mr. J. B. Stewart (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Bell) asked that the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Gordon) table a document to which the hon. member had made reference in rising on a point of privilege. I should like to table that document for the hon. member who unavoidably is absent.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: I should like to ask the Minister of National Defence a question which I am sure he is expecting. Will the minister give the
house accurate information with regard to withdrawals and recruitments for the armed services? We were given a written answer on May 9 showing that withdrawals from the armed services for the first three months of this year exceeded recruitments by 1,525. Yesterday the minister gave us figures indicating that recruitments were greater than releases from the armed forces. Could we now have an accurate statement from him with regard to this problem?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of National Defence):: Since this question is of a statistical nature I suggest it be put on the order paper.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Oh, Mr. Speaker, the question was on the order paper and was answered on May 9, as is recorded in Hansard. The question was:
What have been the total enlistments at the commissioned and non-commissioned levels during the months of January, February and March, 1966, by each branch of our armed services?
The second question was:
By month, what have been the number of discharges and/or resignations at each level since January 1, 1966, by each branch of the armed services?
Those were the questions and we have the answers. I suggest that yesterday the Minister of National Defence, through ignorance, misled the House of Commons and the matter should be straightened out right away.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, I think there is a problem of semantics, in respect to the question of withdrawals, between voluntary releases and total releases. The question answered the other day in Hansard referred to releases. To the best of my knowledge the figures I gave yesterday-and I will take the question as notice and give my hon. friend a more definitive answer on Monday-referred to voluntary releases.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. This is an attempt by the minister to evade a very important issue in this country. He used the word "releases" yesterday and did not preface it with the word "voluntary" or anything of that nature. I suggest, sir, that this is showing complete disregard for the rights and privileges of this house.
50S8
May 13, 1986

Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: Order. There is no question of privilege here. This is a dispute over the interpretation of facts and figures between the Minister of National Defence and the hon. gentleman who placed the question. Certainly I do not think this is the time to resolve the difficulty.


Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister took a question of mine as notice yesterday. Is he prepared to answer today?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Not yet, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Eric A. Winkler (Grey-Bruce):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of National Defence. I wonder whether the minister is aware of the effect that his attitude, displayed yesterday and today, is having on the morale of the members of the Canadian armed forces.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. That question is not acceptable.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that it will be two weeks on Sunday since the Prime Minister asked Mr. Stuart Keate to consult with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation management and producers, does the Prime Minister yet have a report from Mr. Keate on the results of his efforts? If not, will he make an inquiry and give us a statement on Monday?


Righi Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I asked Mr. Keate how he was getting along the other day, and he said he was getting along very well and hoped to be able to finish his work very shortly.


Mr. R. W. Pritiie (Burnaby-Richmond):: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the hon. member for York South asked the Prime Minister about the attendance of the executive assistant to the Secretary of State at these talks. Can the Prime Minister reply to that question today?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, Mr. Speaker. When Mr. Keate was good enough to take on this assignment he indicated to me that he might

need assistance of a general and administrative character from somebody with knowledge of broadcasting and its relationship to government, who could do some research work and help him in his communications. For that purpose the Secretary of State agreed to make available to Mr. Keate her executive assistant, and he has been helping Mr. Keate in that capacity.



HIDES AND SKINS-COPPER-OPERATION OF EXPORT CONTROLS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Michael Starr (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce in view of the importance attached to controls on calf hides and skins. Has he anything further to add to the explanation he gave to the house in an answer on April 27?
Hon. Robert Winters (Minister of Trade
and Commerce): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was kind enough to give me notice of his question. I might say that since I replied to a similar question in the house on April 27 there has been no material change in the situation affecting hides and skins. No permits have been issued for re-export to any destination of United States origin hides and skins since the requirement for permits was imposed on March 24. Owing to the very heavy and unprecedented volume of movements to area list countries, further processing of permits has been suspended temporarily. To assist in keeping the situation under review it is intended to invite representatives from industry and the trades concerned to form an industry advisory committee.


Mr. G. L. Chatierton (Esquimalt-Saanich):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister advise the house whether any applications for permits for the export of copper products have been received? If so, what has been the disposition of those by the government?


Mr. Winters:: At the moment, I do not have knowledge of the number since the regulation went into effect. One application has been received within the last few days. That application was a request for permission to ship a small amount of concentrate from a mine in New Brunswick. That concentrate, containing some copper, is high in zinc content, also in lead. It is a concentrate that is difficult to
May 13, 1966



process. It is regarded as a dirty concentrate, not acceptable to smelters in Canada on a normal basis. We have granted a permit to export that small amount of concentrate.



LABOUR RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. D. Clancy (Yorklon):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Labour whether he has done anything about the longshoremen's strike on the St. Lawrence? Is he aware that a lot of shipping, loading grain for export, is tied up? Has any action at all been taken by the government about this matter?


Hon. J. R. Nicholson (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I thought I had answered that question very fully yesterday.


Gordon Drummond Clancy: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I should like to ask the Minister of Transport whether he is going to have the seaway cleared before the shipping season really starts.


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Minister of Transport):: So far as I know, the seaway is clear. In some respects perhaps it is too clear at the moment.


Mr. Jack McIntosh (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: My question, which is addressed to the Minister of Transport, is supplementary to the question asked by the hon. member for Yorkton. Can the minister inform the house whether this strike, and the tying up of grain ships which has followed, will interfere with the movement of grain across Canada and result in the loss of grain sales?


John Whitney Pickersgill: It certainly will not-at least I hope it will not-affect any shipments out of the west coast, or eventual shipments from Hudson Bay where we are now trying to fill the elevators, or shipments out of the eastern ports. And I pray that by Monday it will not be affecting St. Lawrence ports, either.


Mr. Lawrence E. Kindi (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the regrettable tie up of shipping on the St. Lawrence affecting the movement of grain, will the Prime Minister and the government give further consideration to the construction of
Inquiries of the Ministry more terminal facilities on the west coast, at Prince Rupert and Vancouver?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The question is of a general nature and I suggest it cannot be asked at this time.


Lawrence Elliott Kindt: It is right to the point, Mr. Speaker.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: My question, Mr. Speaker, is directed to the right hon. Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister yet in a position to advise the house whether it is the intention of the government to re-establish the roads to resources program?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker. I cannot add anything to what has already been stated about this matter by my colleague the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys.


Robert Simpson: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the Prime Minister, then, whether the subject at the present time is being studied by the cabinet.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Very much so, Mr. Speaker.



BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Allard (Sherbrooke):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Secretary of State.
Since the committee on broadcasting, films and assistance to the arts is sitting regularly and will hear very important witnesses again next week, could the hon. lady tell the house whether she will be in a position to table her white paper on broadcasting in the near future?


Hon. Judy V. LaMarsh (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, as I told the committee on broadcasting when it began its deliberations, I anticipate that this matter will be before the house before the end of June.

May 13, 1966
Inquiries of the Ministry
HEALTH AND WELFARE	ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE



REQUEST FOR STATEMENT ON CONTROL OF DRUG LSD

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: I do not know whether I should direct this question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare or to the Minister of Justice. Whichever minister feels he has jurisdiction over what I am about to raise could perhaps deal with it.
My question is based upon an article which appeared in this morning's Globe and Mail relating to what is believed to be the first arrest resulting in a charge of a person selling the hallucinating drug lysergic acid diethylamide, known as LSD, which it is illegal to possess in Canada. This arrest was made in Vancouver.
I wonder if the minister would indicate what steps are being taken to detect the possession of this drug, to prevent its further dissemination and to prevent trafficking in it.


Hon. A. J. MacEachen (Minisler of National Health and Welfare):: This is a rather involved question, Mr. Speaker. With the permission of the house I should like to make a statement on this question, now or early next week.


An hon. Member:: Now.


Frank Howard: The minister, I take it, is asking for permission to revert to motions. We might do that, I submit, because of the importance of this matter.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the minister seeking permission to revert to motions?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: In reply to the question asked by the hon. member, I should like to make the statement on Monday.



OLD AGE SECURITY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Eric Alfred Winkler: My
question is directed to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In view of recent information regarding pension plans, both private and public, I wonder whether the minister would not use his good offices to influence the government to increase old age security payments by $25 a month.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
[Miss LaMarsh.l



REVIEW OF REPORT ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. J. Enns (Porlage-Neepawa):: Mr. Speaker, last week I addressed a question to the Minister of Justice. The question dealt with juvenile delinquency, and the minister reminded me that that subject comes within the portfolio of the Solicitor General.
The question appears at page 4725 of Hansard. I bring it to the attention of the Solicitor General. It simply asks what progress is being made by his department in studying the report on juvenile delinquency tabled in this house two months ago, and inquires what consideration is being given to forwarding the very helpful recommendations contained in that report to the departments of justice and legal affairs.


Hon. L. T. Pennell (Soliciior General):: Within the office of the Solicitor General a study is being conducted at this time; but it is apparent from paragraphs 65-67 of the report that certain constitutional questions present themselves, and for this reason an interdepartmental committee composed of members from the Departments of Health and Welfare, Justice, Finance and the Solicitor General has now been brought into being.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Reid  Scoll@Danforih: May I direct a question to the Minister of Labour in his capacity as the minister who answers for the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation? In view of the worsening crisis in the housing industry in Canada caused by the lack of mortgage money-for example, in the Toronto area-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member knows he cannot accompany his question by statements and I believe this is what he is trying to do, now. He should address his question directly to the minister.


Mr. Scott (Danforth):: I was just about to do so. In view of what I have indicated in my preface, is the minister prepared to reconsider his position and take responsibility for making sure that sufficient mortgage funds are available to keep the building industry operating?
May 13, 1966	COMMONS


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: No change is contemplated, Mr. Speaker.


Reid Scott: In view of the indifferent attitude exhibited by the minister-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Reid Scott: -can I ask the Prime Minister whether he will take up this serious matter and do something about it?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



INQUIRY OF THE MINISTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Auguste Choquette (Lolbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the right hon. Leader of the Opposition, but in his absence I shall address it to the house leader of the Conservative party-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Auguste Choquette: I would like to put my question to the hon. Minister of Justice. The question is very serious, Mr. Speaker.
Does the minister intend, in view of the unseemly remarks made by a member of this house concerning the Supreme Court, to insist that the Leader of the Opposition make apologies?



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Maurice Allard: Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce concerning the guide lines he sent Canadian subsidiaries of foreign or American firms?
Would the minister tell the house what type of replies and reactions he has obtained so far?


Mr. Speaker:: I believe this question is out of order.
[English1



EXPO '67 DISCUSSIONS RESPECTING PARTICIPATION BY COMMUNIST CHINA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
['Then I urge that there be such a discussion.']
Mr. George Muir (Lisgar):: I have a question for the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Bearing in mind the statement made by the
DEBATES	5101
Inquiries of the Ministry Prime Minister in New York the other day with regard to the eventual recognition of red China, can the hon. gentleman inform the house whether there has been any discussion between officers of Expo and officials of red China about having that country put up a trade pavilion at the fair?


Robert Henry Winters: No, Mr. Speaker, I have not.



[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the serious news which has been coming out of Viet Nam during the last couple of days, would the Prime Minister consider making another serious effort to persuade the President of the United States to take steps to bring the war in Viet Nam to a close before it escalates into a major conflict?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I can only say that important discussions are taking place continually on this matter and the Canadian government is making every effort, through its membership on the international control commission and in other ways, to bring about an improvement of what is a very serious and dangerous situation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As a supplementary question may I ask the Prime Minister whether there have been any discussions in recent weeks between himself and the head of the United States government with respect to this matter?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Not recently, Mr. Speaker.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Then I urge that there be such a discussion.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Its urgency may not be apparent at the moment, but in view of the lengthy preparation required perhaps you will consider it
May 13, 1968

Northwest Territories Act urgent. In any case the minister may take it as notice.
Is the minister, in co-operation with the Department of National Defence, making any preparations for a ceremony next year, being centennial year, to observe the 50th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge, that ceremony to take place at the monument at Vimy Ridge in France?


Mr. Speaker:: I am in agreement with the hon. member who posed the question that the urgency is not readily apparent, and the minister might want to take it as notice.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It will take a year for this government to make preparations.


Hon. Roger Teillei (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I can certainly inform the house that preparations are being made. There was a question, because of the timing of veterans week in Canada, as to the actual date of the ceremony, but certainly it is intended to proceed next year in Europe with a commemoration of that battle.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. In view of the difficulties in existence at the present time among members of the I.L.A. and the C.B. of R.T. unions and the C.N.R. with reference to the combining of the C.N.R. pension plan and the Canada Pension Plan, would the minister consider having someone from his department meet with the parties concerned to help solve the problem? I regret I have not been able to give the minister notice of this question. Maybe he will wish to take it as notice.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think that would be advisable, Mr. Speaker.



NORTHWEST TERRITORIES ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Thursday, May 12, consideration in committee of Bill No. C-146, to amend the Northwest Territories Act-Mr. Laing-Mr. Rinfret in the chair.

On clause 1-Council.
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Chairman, I thought under our new rules clause 2 should be considered first?


The Deputy Chairman:: Not in this case.


Erik Nielsen: Then I shall speak to clause 1. This clause deals with the composition of the council and provides that the existing council of nine be increased to 12 members, seven of whom will be elected and five appointed by the government, as opposed to the existing situation where only four members of the council are elected and five are appointed by the government.
Yesterday I elaborated on the undemocratic principle involved in the appointment of members to what is purported to be a body representative of the people of the Northwest Territories. The only reason advanced by the minister for the appointment of members to a legislative body was to introduce some sort of expertise to it, the implication being that that was not available from the population in the Northwest Territories.
I suggest that principle cannot be accepted. As the hon. member for the Northwest Territories knows full well, whenever a territorial legislative council desires to have that kind of expert advice it can be called by having witnesses appear before the council. He himself on occasion has appeared as an expert witness before the legislative council of the Yukon, and indeed gave that council some very sound advice with respect to matters pertaining to hospital insurance. There is no reason why the same kind of procedure cannot be adopted in the Northwest Territories.
The excuse that these experts must be appointed to the council in order for it to function properly is an extremely shallow one and I would urge the minister, before taking that action, to reconsider the principle embodied in this clause. I suggest to him that the clause should read the same as section 9 in the Yukon Act, which sets forth:
There shall be a council of the Yukon Territory, which shall be composed of five members elected to represent the electoral districts to be named and described by the commissioner in council.
That would have the effect of eliminating appointed members and making the council of the Northwest Territories a wholly elected council with truly elected representatives of the people of the Northwest Territories, without any injection of the government's views through appointed members. There is no justification whatsoever for the appointment of
May 13, 1966	COMMONS
members to what we are pleased to give lip service in calling this a democratically founded institution, namely, the legislative council of the Northwest Territories. I urge the minister to move such an amendment himself on behalf of the government, and if he is not prepared to do so then I shall.
[DOT] (11:40 a.m.)


Frank Howard: Mr. Chairman, those are also the views which we in this party have expressed from time to time about the appointment of people to legislative and governing bodies. It would seem to me that the reason the council at its recent meeting endorsed the proposal now before us was that at that meeting the elected members were in the minority. In speaking with one of the hon. gentleman of the council afterward I got the impression that the elected members of the council felt that at that time they could not get through a motion to entirely eliminate the appointed members from the council. They thought in this situation half a loaf was better than none at all, and that this would put the elected members in the majority on the council so that at some subsequent meeting of council they could take under advisement more fully the question of having the council wholly and entirely elected. It seems to me that this is reasonable thinking.
Incidentally, I noticed that last night when I asked why the government felt it necessary to have appointed members, the minister in reply said he was giving his own personal view in respect of why appointed members were necessary, and he did not explain what was the view of the government with regard to this matter. I submit the only reason the government desires to appoint people to the council is that this government is putting up a fair amount of money for the operation of the territories and they want to have at least some say in the manner in which that money will be spent.
I submit that the way to do this is not by appointing agents who sit on an elected body, but rather to have that body wholly elected unto itself and, although I do not know the machinery, as the hon. member for the Yukon said if it is desirous to have the advice of technicians and experts in respect of matters such as the expenditure of money and the question of whether some particular projects are more valuable than some other particular projects, the way to do this is by listening to advice given to the council from outside and not by listening to advice given to the council
DEBATES	5103
Northwest Territories Act by people who are there and who have an opportunity to vote on the advice they are giving.
I do not know whether at this time we should go through the process of trying to amend the clause which is before us, but as I am an outsider-as I classified myself last night-in respect of this matter it would be very presumptuous for me to suggest it, even though in conscience and in essence I think it is the correct thing to do. This is something which should be left to those who have an intimate involvement in this area, if it is something they desire. I do not wish to put the hon. member for the Northwest Territories on the spot, but I think he is the only person who can move this amendment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He has a pretty big spot.


Frank Howard: Yes, he has a pretty large territory to represent. I should like to suggest that the minister or one of his colleagues might take the initiative in this regard and indicate that the government feel as we do about this; that is, that when we are talking about democratic government elected by, of, and for the people, we should spell that out in clear terms so that all the members on the council are elected by the people who are going to be governed by the members on that council.
Eventually, whether it be following the expected Carrothers report, or some time in between now and then, or some years from now-since we know the tendency of the government to delay and procrastinate on these things-some time there is going to be an elected council or elected government, if we want to mention another name, in the territories. It seems to me we should take the bit in our mouth now and recognize the essence of democracy by saying that so far as the territorial council is concerned it should be wholly elected. We should not wait for some time in the future when the pressures catch up to us and we might do things out of an increased demand by people rather than do them now in a spirit of common sense and leadership.
This is the type of leadership which I think the government should be giving in this matter; that is, to recognize that the system of hand picking agents to sit in with deliberative legislative bodies belongs to the period before the turn of the century, and certainly does not belong in this day and age. I urge the minister to stand up and say he agrees with this, and that one of his colleagues is
May 13, 19B6

Northwest Territories Act going to move just such an amendment. If he does, there will not be any lack of unanimity in respect of the idea once it comes to a vote.


Mr. Baldwin:: Mr. Chairman, I have no doubt in my mind that the proposal made by the hon. member for the Yukon and supported by the hon. member for Skeena should be adopted. I have had a close and intimate relationship with the Northwest Territories for almost a third of a century. My constituency borders the area. I live in a community which serves as a gateway to the north, and I know many hundreds of people who live there. I think I am in a position to say unequivocally that these people now are ready for complete self-government.
I have some suggestions to make to the minister which he might take into consideration in assessing the virtues of this recommendation. I would call to his attention the situation that existed prior to the establishment of the two provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. At that time there was a Northwest Territories Act and a Northwest Territories council, before these two provinces were carved out of the territories which were governed under the Northwest Territories Act.
I did some research in this connection some time ago, when the other bill was before the house and before it had been submitted to the committee. I came across what I thought was a very interesting arrangement. At that time I think there was an elective council of some 22 or 24 members representing various constituencies in the Northwest Territories. The total legislative power resided in the hands of the elective council, but sitting with the council, without any right to vote and only in an advisory capacity, were officials who formed the basis of what would be, in a totally elective system such as we have in the House of Commons and in the provincial governments, a cabinet. I think there was an attorney general. There was a commissioner for public works; there was a commissioner in charge of administration in connection with financial matters. I think there was a territorial secretary and possibly one or two others. I am not able to indicate to the minister whether these officials were appointed by the territorial council. I believe they were appointed by the territorial council, but possibly the minister might be able to check me on this.

So far as voting rights were concerned, however, these resided exclusively, as I understand it, within the elected members of the territorial council. Sitting in council with them from time to time would be the members whom you might say constituted an appointed cabinet. In this respect I think probably it would parallel the circumstances which prevail in the United States. I cannot say I agree with it, but it was an arrangement which probably will indicate the feeling.
In this area in the Northwest Territories I can see no reason that the people who live there could not be appointed. I suggest that if they were appointed it should be by the territorial council in conjunction with a commissioner. The officials who would serve in these capacities would from time to time sit in with the council to guide and advise them, but the final decision as far as voting is concerned would rest with the territorial council itself.
[DOT] (11:50 a.m.)
Some concern was expressed with regard to the passage of ordinances dealing with the expenditure of money. I suppose the same arrangement exists there as in the House of Commons and probably in the provincial legislatures. In our House of Commons, only if there has been a recommendation from His Excellency conveyed to the house by a member of the Privy Council is the house able to deal with the expenditure of money for a specific purpose.
I assume this is a safeguard which will always be available in the territories, so there can be no anxiety that the territorial council would spend money far beyond amounts it could raise in the territory and would thereby commit the federal government to expenditures beyond which the federal government did not wish to go at any particular moment. I think there is a necessity for some safeguard there, but that safeguard exists; it could be carried on as it is embedded in our own constitution.
I think at this time, in view of the forthcoming observance of our centennial, we should give to the Northwest Territories the right of complete self-government, and I suggest that with qualifications of this kind the minister would be under no handicap. In addition, I think the council would have the benefit of the advice of those people who might be appointed in this way, with the certain provision that they would not be

May 13, 1966	COMMONS
voting members. I would ask the minister to consider this suggestion.


Mr. Orange:: Mr. Chairman, in the arguments advanced regarding the principle of a fully elected council-I think all of us in this house are in complete agreement. There are two points, however, that I think should be brought out at this time with regard to changing the section as it now stands. The first is that the council of the Northwest Territories has a legislative life which expires on March 31 next year. Second, the Car-rothers commission is studying the form of government in the Northwest Territories and will be presenting their recommendations to the government of Canada some time this fall. I suggest that for these two reasons any change now would be premature.
With reference to earlier statements that the council has been intimidated by its appointed members in making recommendations and agreeing to the concept contained within this bill, I am afraid I must take objection to these statements. In my experience with the Northwest Territories council, which goes back to 1955, I have yet to see a situation where the elected members of council were voting in opposition to the appointed members. Whenever there has been division, the division has been between a group of elected and appointed members in opposition to a group of elected and appointed members.
These are the two points I wish to make, Mr. Chairman. First, that the council still has 10 months of its life remaining; and second, that the Carrothers commission will be presenting their views and the views of the people of the Northwest Territories on the form of government for the area. Therefore, as was said last night, the amendments before us are housekeeping only to extend the franchise to those people in the eastern Arctic who do not now have it. I believe we will possibly be looking at major revisions of the Northwest Territories Act next year or this fall, which I am hopeful will incorporate the principles enumerated by various hon. members who spoke earlier.


Mr. Dinsdale:: Mr. Chairman, last evening at the second reading stage I expressed my support for the amendment that has been proposed by the hon. member for Yukon. General disappointment was expressed last night by all who spoke at the second reading stage, and the hon. member for Northwest Territories has used the expression again, because the legislation before us is merely a
DEBATES	5105
Northwest Territories Act housekeeping bill and does not change in any respect the form of government for the Northwest Territories. I think in the proposal made by the hon. member for Yukon we have an opportunity of adding at least a morsel of substance to a bill that is otherwise housekeeping, or we might even call it window dressing.
The hon. member for Northwest Territories has indicated that an amendment of this kind to the bill before us might be premature. I should like to suggest, as I said last night, that the time is long past due when the Northwest Territories council should be an entirely elected body. I remember that when I first assumed responsibility for the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources I was amazed to find that all the appointed representatives were senior civil servants. In other words the method of appointing members to the council smacked entirely of the old colonial concept that the administration in the Northwest Territories should be kept in the hands of the civil servants. As I recall, the representatives at that time were the deputy minister of national defence, the commissioner of the R.C.M.P., the head of the Indian affairs branch, and similar appointments of that kind, so that it was an entirely non-representative group from that standpoint.
There has been a gradual movement since that time, which is a fairly recent period of Canadian history, in the direction of completely representative government and emancipation from the close control and dominance of Ottawa. These appointments were made for the purpose the minister has indicated, to supply some expertise to the deliberations of the Northwest Territories council through the appointed members. I am sure we all agree, in the light of what has already been said during this debate, that we no longer need to depend on expertise supplied by appointees from without the territory. There has been such a marked leap forward in the economic development of the north-and this applies to the western Arctic as well as the eastern Arctic-that we can get all the skills with reference to public affairs, all the knowledge in governmental affairs, from our own people in the area north of the 60th parallel.
I would say, too, that this applies to the indigenous people in the north. We have seen the appointment of Mr. Ogpik, who represents the Eskimo people, and from my contact with the representatives of the Indian people
5106	COMMONS
Northwest Territories Act in the Northwest Territories I know there are many from that group who could serve well in representing their people on the Northwest Territories council.
[DOT] (12:00 noon)
We are now going to include in the council for the first time the eastern Arctic which up until the present time has been unrepresented in the governmental affairs of the Northwest Territories. I am reminded, Mr. Chairman, that we might even have the opportunity, were all members on the council elected, to have the first woman representative on the council of the Northwest Territories. Recently one of the most illustrious members of our Canadian Eskimos has returned to her native community on Baffin Island. I refer, of course, to Mary Panegooshoo who with her husband has now settled at Grise Fiord. I am sure that if she were named as a candidate in the elections to follow the acceptance of this recommendation she might well become the first woman member of the Northwest Territories Council.
I do not believe that we need to say anything further. We all recognize the need for self-government and autonomy in the north and I trust that the minister will accept the recommendation of the hon. member for Yukon that we now seize the opportunity to move one step farther toward this goal in the Northwest Territories.


Frank Howard: Mr. Chairman, it always
amazes me how members sitting on the gov-erment side somehow manage to let the word "however" creep into their speeches.


Erik Nielsen: And "but" too.


Frank Howard: With due respect, that is what we have heard from the member for the Northwest Territories. I do not want to get involved in arguments with him about the correctness or otherwise of approaching matters such as this. I accept fully his declaration that he agrees with the principles we have been advancing in parliament for some years. It seemed to me that he almost committed the minister to introduce another bill to amend the Northwest Territories Act this fall and I would be interested to know whether the minister intends to come back this fall with another amendment dealing with this question of self-government. If the minister will make that declaration it will place the matter before us in an entirely different light. Presumably all that will be involved in this respect is a by-election for the election of

DEBATES	May 13. 1966
additional members to the council for a certain period of office. Perhaps such members may not even have an opportunity to sit on the council because it may not meet in the period of time during which they may be members.
If it is the intention of the government to proceed this fall to introduce a self-government measure in parliament, then this puts us in an entirely different position. I would appreciate it if the minister would clear this up for us. I will pose a direct question to the minister. Is it the intention of the government to deal with this matter this fall?


Mr. Depuiy Chairman:: Shall the clause carry?


Erik Nielsen: No. The minister has a question to answer. Surely he can do that.


Mr. Laing:: Mr. Chairman, we have had a considerable amount of discussion on this section. I do not know that all of it has been to the point and probably what I am about to say will not be wholly relevant either. This section is an indication of the purpose of the bill. We were told last year and the year before by the then member of parliament for the Northwest Territories that the most grievous injustice of all was the fact that here was a section of the Northwest Territories where the residents in the area had no opportunity to elect members to the council.
Overhanging this entire bill is the fact that within a matter of two or three months at the most we expect the report from the Car-rothers Commission with reference to what in their view we should do about the government of the Northwest Territories. I would very much hesitate to introduce an amendment at this time which might anticipate that report. Where I to have introduced such an amendment, I am quite certain that members on the other side of the house would have immediately got up and attacked me because I had introduced such an amendment.
We are now taking care of what has been a manifestation of injustice in the areas of the high Arctic, the east Arctic and Keewa-tin. We made a commitment to the council last year, and they have passed enabling legislation within their own council to fill these three positions at the earliest date possible. There was no criticism from the former member for the Northwest Territories in regard to appointing members to the council from southern Canada. Indeed, I have
May 13, 1966

heard him compliment those who were appointed by the government because of the benefit they brought to northern Canada by reason of their previous knowledge and the fact that they knew southern Canadians who had influence in southern Canada.
These members of the council are able to tell the story of the north which so few Canadians who reside in sourthern Canada have an opportunity to tell accurately and, indeed, to induce the investment of money from the southern part of Canada in our north. I would think that for some years to come, though I will be guided by the Car-rothers report, it would be extremely beneficial to those residing in northern Canada to have the benefit of that link; I am quite certain there is such a benefit.
My predecessor in office has joined with the hon. member from the Yukon in supporting the suggestion that all of the members should be elected. Let me ask my predecessor in this post whether this ever occurred to him while he was in office.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Yes, it was part of the grand strategy for autonomy of the Northwest Territories.


Arthur Laing: Well, I have heard a great deal about grand strategy and vision.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: By 1967.


Arthur Laing: And in this position I am trying to do something.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: It could have been done in 1963.


Arthur Laing: Because not only of the protestations with regard to electing members to the council from within the territory but because the denial of the franchise was sticking out like a sore thumb I thought, notwithstanding the impending Carrothers report, that we should take care of this matter now and that is why this amendment is before us. For the first time it will give an opportunity to the elected members of the Northwest Territories council to have a majority of the members on that council.
You may call me out of order now, Mr. Chairman, but I believe I cannot introduce the subject better than on this particular section. I had intended last evening, had I summed up before the committee stage, to tell hon. members that we are concerned and saddened too by the fact that it has been intimated to us by the commissioner of the Northwest Territories that he intends to leave

Northwest Territories Act the service some time in 1966. I am referring to Mr. Ben Sivertz who is commissioner of the Northwest Territories at this time. I want to say that I have not met any person whose sense of humanitarianism as applied to people is greater than that of Mr. Ben Sivertz. This quality of understanding and compassion, if you like, has been tremendously beneficial because of the nature of his task in the territories and the people with whom he has to deal.
[DOT] (12:10 p.m.)
I have asked him if I may have the continuing benefit of his advice after we receive the Carrothers report. I am glad to tell the house he has consented to make himself available to advise us when that report is received. I am going to suggest that in the light of the impending Carrothers report it would be insulting, I think, were we to go beyond the necessitous points taken care of in this bill. I am going to suggest that I feel we have done very well indeed in seeing to it that all of those residents in the Northwest Territories have the franchise. We are taking a very important step in making the majority of the council elected members from the Northwest Territories.
Again I say I wish more members of parliament knew exactly the problems we are up against in these areas. When members are elected from these areas of the high Arctic, the eastern Arctic and Keewatin, it is going to be extremely difficult at times to bring them together for a council meeting. The sheer physical disabilities of getting a plane in to pick them up are sometimes insurmountable. We have a population in these three new constituencies of about one person per 160 square miles. There are small settlements to which access is difficult at many times of the year.
In so far as these areas are concerned, I am reminded of what Lloyd George once said about Russia. "It is quite easy to get into that country but very difficult to get out of it." This applies to the Northwest Territories at certain times of the year. You can get in there but you may be held up by the weather for some days after you get there. We are doing the best we can under difficult circumstances. I think if you were to ask the elected members of the Northwest Territories Council today what they think of the appointed members from southern Canada they would tell you, do not drop them but continue that policy. We are going to be guided in
May 13. 1986

Northwest Territories Act these matters by the report of the Carrothers commission.


Erik Nielsen: The minister has made a valid point, Mr. Chairman, when he refers to asking the elected members of the council what they think about continuing the procedure whereby members are appointed to the Northwest Territories Council. This suggestion was made by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris. He suggested that the matter could be referred to a committee of the house and members of the council could be called. This suggestion was not accepted by the government, but we did not make an issue of that. We thought it would be a useful thing to do. The fact of the matter is that unless the minister can stand up and tell us that all four members of the elected council, representing as they do the views of Mackenzie but not Keewatin or Franklin, have informed him they want to continue this system, then I do not believe we can consider the hypothetical supposition the minister puts before us this afternoon.
The minister and the member for the Northwest Territories make two points with regard to the purported reasons for not amending this section of the bill. The member representing this constituency knows that there are well over a million and a quarter square miles for which there are seven elected members. These men are going to be asked to represent this vast territory. I do not believe the council should be composed of 12 members; I believe the number should be between 15 and 21 in order to have adequate representation. The situation that we and the people of the Northwest Territories are being asked to accept is to have seven elected members represent over a million and a quarter square miles. The five appointed members represent no one. They are appointed to the council but represent no electoral district. Under the legislation as it stands now or as it may be amended now, they still represent no electoral district. It would be compounding an undemocratic procedure if this were so.
We are left with a situation, therefore, in which seven elected members represent over a million and a quarter square miles. I am going to use a phrase that many in this house will understand. If I cannot appeal to their knowledge of the north, let me appeal to their own emotions in regard to their own jurisdictions. I refer to the phrase, "maitre chez nous". This is the direction in which we in the north wish to bend our efforts. How can we have more say in our own affairs if

we are going to have the government of Canada as some sort of "big daddy" legislature tell us who are going to sit as our representatives. The people who live there want to elect their own representatives and run their own affairs.
The fiscal controls are intact. The commissioner is an appointee of the government and has the power of veto over every measure that comes before council. If the council were wholly elected and did act irresponsibly, which I strongly suggest neither the minister nor the member for Northwest Territories believes would happen, the commissioner always has the power of veto. What earthly excuse, therefore, can remain?
The hon. member for Northwest Territories says that the life of the council expires in March of next year. This is true. However, does this prevent us from amending this section now to make provision for a wholly elected council? I do not believe so. You may either hold by-elections between now and the expiration of the life of the council or this provision for extra seats will be available in March of 1967. The argument is no more valid with respect to a wholly elected representative body than it would be for accepting the amendment in its present form. This amendment provides for three additional elected representatives who either have to take office as the result of by-elections before March, 1967, or when the election is called next year. This argument, therefore, has no substance.
The other argument that both the hon. member and the minister advanced was that we should await the report of the Carrothers commission. Before I deal with that, let me point out that I am sure the hon. member for Northwest Territories did not intend to leave the impression on members of this house that anyone on this side was suggesting the appointed members in the past have intimidated the elected members. No one has made that statement. No one has left that implication, least of all myself. They have served a useful purpose and made useful contributions not only in their capacity as appointed members of council but in the respective areas in which they have served in the public service, commercial or industrial life of the country.
However, this does not justify continuing the procedure of appointing members to what is supposed to be a representative democratic institution, a legislative body representing the people. How can it be representative of the people if the people have no say in who is
May 13, 1966	COMMONS
going to represent them in the making of the laws? What right has anyone from outside of the Northwest Territories to vote on the imposition of taxes of a territorial nature on the people who live there? What logical reason, quite apart from democratic principles, is there for saying that appointed members from elsewhere in Canada should have the right to impose taxes on people in a jurisdiction in which those members do not even live? It would be like appointing members to the Quebec or British Columbia legislatures from some other area of Canada and giving them the right to impose taxes upon the residents of those provinces. It is not only undemocratic but an invidious, colonial, archaic hangover. I am sure that the minister agrees with these principles.
[DOT] (12:20 p.m.)
A word now about the Carrothers commission. Again I emphasize that the men serving on that commission, able men doing a job to which I am sure they are sincerely and wholly dedicated, will undoubtedly provide a report which will prove extremely useful not only to members of the House of Commons but also to those in the Northwest Territories who have the responsibility for planning for their own future. But the argument that we must wait for the commission to report before considering any amendment to the Northwest Territories Act does not hold water, because if the reasons advanced by the minister are valid why are we increasing the council to 12 members? The Carrothers commission may come back and recommend that there be only 10. What then? The Carrothers commission may come back and say that there will not be five members appointed but three. What then?
So if the minister wishes to use the Carrothers commission as an argument, then 1 suggest it follows logically that he must not touch the section at all or increase the council at all or disturb the proportion of representation on the council. Therefore, Mr. Chairman,
I suggest to hon. members that his argument does not hold water.
The minister did not answer the hon. member for Skeena who asked whether it was the intention of the government to introduce, as the hon. member for Northwest Territories intimated was the case, major revisions to the Northwest Territories Act this fall or next year. As the hon. member for Skeena said, this would put a different light on the matter if that were the intention of the government,
DEBATES	5109
Northwest Territories Act but I very much doubt that it is. However, the minister should clarify that point.
I too wish to add words of praise for the contribution that Commissioner Sivertz made with respect not only to the Northwest Territories but during his long service in the department of northern affairs. I enthusiastically endorse the genuine compliments which have been paid Commissioner Sivertz who is retiring from the civil service in the near future. I am very gratified, as I am sure all members are, that his services will remain available to the government.
Because of the fact, Mr. Chairman, that the arguments advanced by the other side do not, in my submission, follow logically, and because they are not in keeping with the fundamental rights and freedoms which must exist in any free society purporting to embrace democratic principles, we in this party cannot accept the amendment proposed by the bill. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Peace River, that:
Clause 1 of Bill C-146 be amended by deleting all of the words following the word "Territories" in the first line of section "8 (1)" thereof and by adding in substitution therefor immediately following the word "Territories" aforesaid the following:
"which shall be composed of 12 members elected to represent such electoral districts in the Territories as are named and described by the Commissioner in Council".
That wording, for the information of members of the committee, is exactly the same word for word as section 9 of the Yukon Act which makes provision for a wholly elected council such as we have had in the Yukon for many years. I submit it is time that the Northwest Territories should have the same privilege so that the people can elect their own representatives, make their own laws, impose their own taxes, indeed, look after their own affairs as they are entitled to do, with the fiscal restrictions which are inherent in local and federal legislation.


Frank Howard: Mr. Chairman, apart from the reference the minister made to Mr. Sivertz, which I submit was really not germane to the question I asked him, the minister proceeded to subject us to nothing more than an unctuous lecture on how members of parliament should act and on whether we were in order or not in order. He refused to answer my question, basing his reasoning upon the arguments advanced by the former member for Northwest Territories, Mr. Rheaume.
It becomes a little silly when the minister, groping for reasons to support his case, has to revert to what some previous government did
May 13, 1966

Northwest Territories Act or did not do. Each time the government has to resort to the process of pointing an accusatory finger, as the minister did to the hon. member for Brandon-Souris, and ask, "What did you do, why didn't you do this?" it indicates to me the poverty of reason and intelligence that exists in government. Surely the minister can come up with more sensible answers than the ones he has advanced which were based upon the old political difference between the Liberals and the Tories, something which, I suppose, is occasionally a nice exercise but which really has relatively little place when we come to deal seriously with the development of statute law relating to the fundamental rights and freedoms of human beings in the Northwest Territories.
I think the amendment presented by the hon. member for Yukon-I am merely commenting on it in passing-is really subject to the same sort of attack that the hon. member for Yukon made against the provision of clause 1. Part of his argument by way of question was: What would the government do if the Carrothers commission recommended a number of members on the council other than the number proposed? What would the government do if the commission recommended that there be a certain number of appointed members other than the number proposed? I submit that the same sort of argument, if one wants to advance it, can be directed toward the amendment.
I do not think that we in this parliament should approach matters of this sort on the basis of what one thinks about the other's politics, or on the basis of what some previous government did or did not do. We are not legislating here for the past. We are not considering laws which have impinged upon the fundamental rights and freedoms of people in the past. We are concerning ourselves with what is going to happen in the future, and I submit this is the only basis upon which we should reason in considering the bill and the amendment now before us. On that basis and on that basis alone, Mr. Chairman, having a desire to establish selfgovernment, something which everyone has agreed is absolutely necessary and to which no one in this parliament has objected, with this as our basic guidepost there is no alternative but to support the amendment now before us.
[DOT] (12:30 p.m.)
Let me say again what I said last night but in other words. If Professor Carrothers makes

a report containing a principle envisaging a governing body which runs contrary to our desires, our knowledge and our understanding of democracy, which runs against the grain of self-government, then that principle or proposal should be rejected. However, I do not think Professor Carrothers will do that. We are not concerned about the technical aspects or mechanics of the report, whether Professor Carrothers will recommend 10, 12, 21, 13 or any other number of elected members. We should only concern ourselves with the principle issue of self-government. It is upon that basis that we approach the whole process of legislating for a group of people who have lived for years in a communal state almost approaching that which exists in Siberia.
The idea is to get the job done. At least there is a proposal before us enabling us to take some steps to deal with the matter of self-government for the people in the area. I for one would much rather take large, bold, imaginative steps than the innocent, timid ones proposed in the bill.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Mr. Chairman, I rise to endorse what the minister has said with respect to Commissioner Sivertz. I was sorry to hear that the commissioner is ending his active service with the government of Canada. I agree that he has made an outstanding contribution to the north during his term of office.
I believe the reason for his success stems from his background. Mr. Sivertz is an Icelander. For generations the Icelandic people have been identified with development in northern areas generally. I believe his warmhearted acceptance by the residents of the Northwest Territories arises from the fact that he has been able to communicate with them. He has been regarded as one of their own kind. It seems to me that this fact alone should have persuaded the minister to accept the recommendation of the hon. member for Yukon and seize the opportunity to put forward in the government's name the amendment that has now been submitted by the hon. member for Yukon.
I am sorry that the minister did not accept the suggestion made to him. As a result it is very difficult to get the sense of the house on this important matter. I feel that the sense of the house is that the Northwest Territories are ripe for this move forward in the direction of representative self-government.
May 13. 1966	COMMONS
May I say one more thing, Mr. Chairman. Reference has been made to the activities of the Carrothers commission. I have been interested in reading press reports concerning the work of the commission. They have indicated that the members of the commission in their travels throughout the Northwest Territories have not been receiving representations so much with respect to the structure of government in the north but rather complaints from individual citizens who feel that they have not been adequately represented in the legislative council of the territorial government. Indeed, it seemed to me that the commission members had assumed the role of travelling ombudsmen. This fact alone I think should persuade the government that the time has come to recognize this strong demand, a demand that has increased very much in recent years, for genuine, democratic, representative government.
We shall vote on the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Yukon. I trust that all members of the house who are concerned with advancing the principle of democratic government will be persuaded to vote in favour of the amendment.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Chairman, may I make some brief comments before the committee expresses its view on this issue. I listened with interest to the hon. member for Skeena posing a question to the minister. If the minister had felt able to rise and say definitely and unequivocally that within a specified period of time legislation providing completely and without any equivocation for absolute self-government would be introduced and that the council would be composed entirely of elected members, I would have been inclined to accept that.
I think the minister has conceived a genuine affection for the north. Anybody who has had anything to do with this extraordinary and unique country has felt its pull and tug. I know that the hon. member for Brandon-Souris, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and the hon. member for Calgary North, all of whom at some time have held the portfolio respecting the territories, have felt this pull and tug. I think that this fact brings a degree of non-partisanship and objectivity to this debate. This is what the hon. member for Yukon said and I am sure it is in the mind of the hon. member for Northwest Territories just as it is in my own mind.
Because the minister could not say what I hoped he would say, I am apprehensive about
DEBATES	5111
Northwest Territories Act the delay which may take place. In our experience some of the minister's colleagues, who possibly do not have the same objectivity in this and in other matters, have caused delays to take place. Our experience has been that the period between the creative gestation, when a rather weak and watery gleam appears in the eye of one of his colleagues, and the faltering legislation that appears on the floor of the house is very long indeed. The period of gestation might be three, four or even five years.


Erik Nielsen: It is the old story.


Gerald William Baldwin: For this reason I cannot accept as valid the explanation that this matter should await the report of the Carrothers commission.
I should say also, as I think has been said by the hon. members for Yukon and Skeena, that the principle of representative self-government is so firmly and permanently embedded in our philosophical beliefs about government that we cannot question it. As I see it, a vote at this time against the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Yukon will constitute in effect an expression of opinion by the person casting that vote that he does not feel there should be the right of self-government. In effect it would be a vote against the kind of government we have in this country and which I hope we will continue to have for many years.
I do not know the terms of reference of the Carrothers commission. I admit to being in default there. However, I cannot conceive of their being any set of circumstances which would persuade me, and I hope most members of this house, to accept a report containing a provision, recommendation or suggestion that there should not be completely representative self-government. Any such recommendation ought to be divorced from the terms of reference and from the view which the government will adopt.
[DOT] (12:40 p.m.)
I cannot accept not having the report as a valid reason for not proceeding at this time and I am therefore impelled to support the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Yukon. I ask all hon. members to bear in mind in their consideration of this question the principle of completely democratic selfgovernment. A vote against this amendment is a vote against this principle.


Arthur Laing: Before we proceed to the vote I should like to correct certain statements which have been made. I want to tell the
May 13, 1986

Northwest Territories Act committee that the council of the Northwest Territories, including the four elected members, passed a resolution asking specifically for what is provided in the clause we are considering.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Arthur Laing: It was unanimous. All members, whether elected or appointed, specifically voted in this way. This weighed with us, as did the representations which have been made for a number of years. Statements have been made in the florid language of the hon. member for Yukon who has a tremendous capacity for adjectival alliteration. He talked about terrible colonialistic conditions, as he described them. We found out last night that there is no such word as "colonialistic". It is "colonial".
The hon. member for Skeena, who admits he has never been in the territories-


Frank Howard: I did not "admit" it. I stated it.


Arthur Laing: -and who was at some pains to tell us he had reservations about speaking on a subject with which he was not familiar, has spoken a great deal since.


Frank Howard: If the minister wishes to quote me, let him be truthful and do it properly instead of misquoting me to suit his own purpose.


Arthur Laing: I think I am doing so 100 per cent-


Frank Howard: You are not. You are distorting it.


Arthur Laing: -in accord with what the hon. member said last night.


Frank Howard: You are not.


Arthur Laing: I want to tell him and other members of the committee that there is a tremendous amount of self-government in the area today. And there is freedom, if you describe freedom in terms of the old relationship of "the King and your uncle". There is probably more freedom in that part of Canada than in any other. I was astonished to see some of the regulations which exist as a result of representations made by the Eskimo people. When I first went to Frobisher I was astonished to find that if anyone required a bottle of Scotch whiskey he had to put in his order on a certain date and did not acquire the whiskey until a month later. They have improved things since. They first got delivery

down to four days, I believe, and I understand that now the delay is no more than 48 hours. But people still have to wait 48 hours for delivery after putting in an order. You know, Mr. Chairman, they may have something there. They are probably wiser than we are.
At any rate, there is this kind of domestic, civic regulation reflecting civic administration all over the Northwest Territories. Far from this general claim that we are making rigid rules and regulations in Ottawa and imposing them on the people of the territories, I believe that in many instances the opposite is true.


Mr. Barnett:: Mr. Chairman, I admit that my own attitude so far as this bill is concerned has been largely one of willingness to sit, listen and learn, and I am sure it is one which is shared by many members of the committee. The minister has spoken about the endorsation by the territorial council of the proposal in the bill. I wonder whether the council, while it was considering the proposition set out in clause 5 in connection with the proposed new section 19 which the minister himself described as housekeeping, considered the other major change in principle affecting the nature of the government of the territories. Comment was made earlier about the desirability of having expert advice from certain people appointed by the federal government and it occurs to me that given some modification of the proposed new section 19A the present appointed members of the council could in effect be associated with the commissioner as advisors.
The hon. member for Peace River, dealing with the constitutional implications, referred to the relationship of the United States cabinet to the president of that country. These thoughts have been passing through my mind during the course of this discussion and I would ask the minister whether or not the territorial council considered the modification of the new section 19A embodied in clause 5 of the bill when they took their present position with respect to the proposal contained in clause 1.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Erik Nielsen: No. I am not letting the minister's remarks pass without comment. When I opened this debate yesterday and again today I said that the matters involved here, being matters of far reaching principle, should be discussed in the complete absence of any partisanship.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.
May 13, 1966	COMMONS


Erik Nielsen: I have been doing that.
Members opposite laugh. Let them find one place in Hansard where I have injected anything other than a plea for the creation of representative and democratic institutions in the north without any reference to politics at all. I am not speaking as a member of the Conservative party now. I am speaking as a northerner.


An hon. Member:: Partisan.
[DOT] (12:50 p.m.)


Erik Nielsen: Partisan in the sense that I am a northerner, yes. How can we in the north feel we are Canadians if we are not given the same kind of rights as Canadians everywhere else are given? That is the plea that I am making for the people of the north today, and it will not do any good to call "question" impetuously and impassionedly because by doing so you are placing the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by democratic institutional government at the lowest possible level. Surely it is important enough for all members of the committee to approach this matter without humour, in all seriousness and without partisanship because politics are not involved here.
There is not one of us on either side of this chamber who will deny the validity of the principle that it is desirable to have representative institutions representing the rights of the people and that only that kind of institution should impose taxes on people. But that is not what we have in this bill. That is what the northern people want, notwithstanding what the minister may feel. His own party member, the hon. member for the Northwest Territories, will tell him that the people of the Northwest Territories want to be represented by a wholly elected representative body.
It does the minister no good to meet this kind of plea with pugnaciousness. The fundamental principle here is one which does not involve partisan politics. A vote against the principle of a wholly elected council is a vote against representative government. Members may shake their heads in exasperation, but that is a fact.
I ask the hon. member for Lotbiniere, who seems to disagree with that statement, how he would feel if the province of Quebec had in its legislature appointed members from Alberta and Ontario having the power to tax him and other residents in that province? Is that the kind of principle that we recognize?
I suggest it is not and I suggest there can be no answer to the argument.
DEBATES	5113
Northwest Territories Act
The minister has stood in his place and accused members on this side of making non-factual statements. The statement I have made just now is a factual statement. Surely it must touch the hearts of all members who sit in this chamber. There can be no justification for someone outside a jurisdiction being appointed to a council and having the power to tax people within that jurisdiction.


Arthur Laing: I am quite certain, in the context of the argument which the hon. member is placing before us now, that he would want the committee to know accurately the extent to which moneys are voted by parliament for that particular area of Canada. We all have a responsibility to the taxpayers of Canada in reference to the amount of money spent there, which is about 85 per cent of the total expenditures in the territory.


Erik Nielsen: I agree with that. I did not
know the exact statistic. As the minister knows, I have written him a letter with respect to this kind of statistic in respect of the Yukon. It is helpful to have the figure but that does not alter the principle. Hon. members are just as responsible for seeing to it that federal grants, subsidies and contributions to all provinces and territories are properly spent.
I choose my words carefully because I do not want to inflame political passion, but we may find that on a per capita basis contributions to certain other areas of Canada are higher. However, that does not alter the fact that it is wrong in principle to have other than elected representatives of the people taxing the people. The fact of the matter is that the council has the power to impose taxes on the residents of the territory. If that be so, surely it should only be the elected representatives of the people, sitting on that council, who should exercise that power. It is wrong in principle to have outsiders appointed to the council given that power. That is the strongest argument I can think of against this situation, quite apart from all the other arguments in support of principles that have made this institution what it is and provincial institutions what they are.
Amendment (Mr. Nielsen) negatived: Yeas, 23; nays, 31.


Erik Nielsen: There is one more point 1 would like to make on this clause. The existing Northwest Territories Act requires that the seat of the government of the territories shall be that prescribed by the governor in council from time to time. In other words, the
May 13. 1966

Northwest Territories Act council is empowered to sit only when the federal government wants it to sit and where the federal government wants it to sit. It has been the habit to hold one of the meetings of the council in Ottawa each year and one of the meetings in the Northwest Territories. This situation is unacceptable.
It may interest members of the committee to know that the Northwest Territories Council is the only legislative body in the world that sits outside its own jurisdiction to make laws affecting people inside its jurisdiction, It is like the legislature of any of the provinces going to the Northwest Territories to hold a sitting and make laws to affect its own citizens.
I am not going to introduce an amendment with respect to this situation but I would suggest to the minister that it can easily be cured by the addition of a subclause reading, "the seat of government of the territories shall be that prescribed by the Commissioner in Council and may, from time to time, be changed by it."
[DOT] (1:00 p.m.)
By such an amendment we would be placing the power in the hands of the representatives of the people, inasmuch as there are to be seven elected members, to determine where their government shall meet. There again is a principle with which I am sure the hon. member for the Northwest Territories agrees and which I hope he will support.


Maurice Rinfret: Shall clause 1 carry?


Erik Nielsen: Will the minister, Mr. Chairman, give the committee the benefit of his observations with regard to the representations I have made on behalf of the people of the north regarding the site of government?


Maurice Rinfret: Shall clause 1 carry?


Erik Nielsen: I am waiting, Mr. Chairman, for a reply from the minister.


Arthur Laing: Mr. Chairman, I am quite certain the hon. member has introduced a matter which is not covered in any of the amendments which we have proposed in the bill. As I said yesterday, I believe there is at present a lovely little village, Fort Smith, which is called the capital of the Northwest Territories. I am told that representations have been made to the Carrothers commission in respect of a permanent capital. I am not certain this is so, but I have been told

such representations have been made and that there may be some observations made by the commission in respect of those views. If not, it will be the responsibility of the council, I assume, to be confirmed by us, to decide on a permanent capital.
It is well known that the commissioner of the Northwest Territories Council has a very small staff here. I have made the statement in the Northwest Territories and make it here that the next commissioner of the Northwest Territories Council is going to become a resident of the Northwest Territories at the earliest possible moment and that an increasing proportion of staff, now under the direction of the Department of Northern Affairs, northern administration branch, will be transferred to the oversight of the commissioner and the council in the Northwest Territories. In other words, I have said I want more government on the ground as rapidly as possible. This will be our policy but we must use some discretion in this regard.
There are many tasks involved in the affairs of the north which now and for the foreseeable future can be conducted far more economically in Ottawa than in some of the extreme areas of the northern Arctic Islands. I am sure my hon. friend is aware that to put up a house which probably costs $15,000 here in Ottawa would cost $38,000 or $40,000 on Ellesmere Island or at Resolute.
I am giving some indication of the problems with which we are confronted. We are engaged in a tremendous number of enterprises. As the hon. member probably knows, we deliver oil to the residents of the Northwest Territories and are pricing it at from 18 cents a gallon to 58 cents a gallon. We must bear in mind the cost of operation and do these things as effectively as we can from here, at the same time giving conviction to the people there that they have their government adjacent and available to them when they want to make representations to it.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
On clause 3-Sessional indemnity for members.
Erik Nielsen: This clause, Mr. Chairman, is the one which deals with the indemnity and expenses of the members of the Northwest Territories Council, both elected and appointed. My submission simply is that either the members of the Northwest Territories
May 13, 1966	COMMONS
Council are responsible persons or they are not. If the minister agrees with me that they are responsible persons, then surely they should be sufficiently responsible to have the authority to set the amount of their own indemnity and expenses. As I mentioned in my remarks yesterday, they have their electors to answer to if they abuse that responsibility. So far as the appointed members are concerned, they have the minister to answer to. There is always the inherent fiscal control.
It would be out of order for me to move an amendment but the one I would move if I could and keep within the rules would have the effect of deleting this section entirely. This would have no effect other than to place in the hands of the commissioner and council the power to set their own indemnity and expenses, because by clause 4 of the bill the commissioner and council are given the power to make expenditures of money for territorial purposes.
By the deletion of clause 3 of the bill the effect would be that the commissioner and council would have the power that this parliament is now providing with regard to the setting of indemnities. I take that position. We will get to the wording of clause 4 of the bill in a moment but it has a bearing on clause 3. As the minister well knows, the relevant provision in the Yukon Act is somewhat as follows: The expenditure of territorial funds and such portion of any moneys appropriated for the territory as the commissioner is authorized to spend by and with the advice of council. If that were the wording used in clause 4 and if clause 3 were deleted, the effect would be to place in the hands of the elected representatives of the people and the commissioner the power to set their own indemnity, a situation which I suggest to the members of the committee is the only acceptable one in keeping with the powers and responsibilities of any representative institution.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 4-Money.
Erik Nielsen: With regard to clause 4, sir,
I draw the attention of members of the committee to the companion clause in the legislation governing the power of the commissioner and council to make expenditures of money for territorial purposes in the Yukon Act. I find there that the wording I have put on the record is the desirable legislative 23033-324
DEBATES	5115
Northwest Territories Act power which should be given to the commissioner and council of the Northwest Territories.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 5-Northwest Territories consolidated revenue fund.
Erik Nielsen: I asked the hon. member for the Northwest Territories a question after he finished his remarks the other day, Mr. Chairman. I asked him whether he would agree with me that the legislation as it stands now gives to the commissioner and council the power to introduce a money bill and that by adopting the amendments proposed by clause 5 of this bill that right would be taken away. The hon. member for the Northwest Territories did not agree with that proposition. For his benefit and for the benefit of members of the committee let me point out the existing provisions of the Northwest Territories Act in section 19. Section 19 (3), which hon. members will find in the explanatory notes of the bill reads as follows:
The Commissioner in Council may make ordinances providing for the expenditure of money for territorial purposes-
[DOT] (1:10 p.m.)
It goes on to cover other matters which are not relevant to this argument. It is clear, therefore, that under existing legislation the Commissioner in Council has the power to introduce money bills. What are we doing by the amendment? I would ask hon. members to read the new section 19A in clause 5 which is to be found on page 3 of the bill. It states:
It shall not be lawful for the Council to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address or bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue of the Territories, or of any tax or impost, to any purpose that has not been first recommended to the Council by message of the Commissioner in the session in which such vote, resolution, address or bill is proposed.
I think the hon. member for the Northwest Territories must now agree with the proposition I put to him yesterday. The hon. member shakes his head, indicating that he does not. Nothing could be clearer. The existing legislation allows the Commissioner in Council to introduce money bills. The hon. member must agree with that. The new section 19A in clause 5 of the bill before us would take away that right. Nothing could be clearer. In other words, we move from a situation where the legislative body in the Northwest Territories now has the power to introduce money bills affecting their own affairs, to a
May 13, 1966

Northwest Territories Act situation where we are taking that power away and giving it to the Commissioner, who is an appointee of the government and who must accept from time to time the instructions of the minister or the governor in council. So in the long run, if the minister or the governor in council does not want any particular money bill placed before the Northwest Territories Council it does not go before that council, and there is no right in the seven elected representatives of the people of the territories to alter that situation.


Arthur Laing: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member permit a question? Could he tell us how this differs in any respect whatsoever from the severance of the executive power and the legislative power in the legislative assembly of any province?


Erik Nielsen: This is precisely the principle involved here and the one involved in the Yukon Act which we will be considering in a moment. You have, if I may be permitted to use a colourful adjective, the invidious situation existing in both territories where the executive and the legislative functions are separated. There is no control exercised by the elected representatives of the people over the executive. Therein lies the difference between every provincial legislature and this one. The minister, as a member of the executive of this government, is responsible to the elected representatives of the people in this house. In the Northwest Territories and Yukon there is no responsibility by the executive to the representatives of the people. There is the difference; it is as simple as that.


Arthur Laing: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the hon. member would permit me to make this observation. This provision is included because they are not a province but we are hopefully moving toward that relationship. This is one of those interim situations along the road, if you like to call it such, toward coming to a position where I would hope some day they would have the same kind of government that we have in the provinces of Canada. But the difficulty is the small population in widely scattered areas and the necessity of having in the central government here an immense fund of money to make possible the laying of the groundwork out of which we hope to realize, for them and for us too, their participation as a province some day.


Erik Nielsen: I agree with the minister's laudable objective but I cannot agree with his arguments in support of denying these rather


fundamental principles of democracy to the people who live there. As I said yesterday, there can be no price-tag on democracy. There was just as small a population in 1869-indeed, it was smaller by several thousand-in the province of Manitoba when that province was carved out of the then Northwest Territories. That province, at the time it was created a province, was subsidized by federal funds probably as heavily as are the Northwest Territories today.
I implore the minister to accept that this is not an argument for saying to the people in the north: You are not responsible enough to spend not only your own money raised by taxing yourselves but our money which we contribute to the development, rightfully so, of the north.


Arthur Laing: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the hon. member would permit me to ask one more question and then I have to leave the chamber for a short while. Would he suggest that in the last three years we have made such great progress that these great, democratic, revolutionary changes can now be made whereas they were out of the question three and a half years ago? We have not developed that fast, though I keep claiming we are doing very well there. We are getting a considerable amount of new investment. I ask the hon. member, why was this not done three and a half years ago? I think we are increasing the tempo of development in the right direction, but I believe the hon. member would be the first to agree that all these changes and transitions cannot be made overnight.


Erik Nielsen: I would be the first to agree with that, by all means. I feel a compulsion to answer the minister in the same vein as he has posed his question, but I have resolved that I am not going to become partisan over this business of the future political development of these two territories. Therefore I will not answer his question, but only for that reason. I could do so. Progress has been made and I am sure it will continue to be made. I am not advocating self-government overnight but I am advocating that we must embark now upon a blueprint, commencing with our centennial year, which will achieve that selfgovernment within the foreseeable future.
It is a retrograde step to adopt this kind of amendment. If the minister sincerely believed in the principle of developing political institutions in the Northwest Territories he would not move from the position which now exists, whereby power is given to the legislative body in the Yukon to introduce money bills,
May 13, 1966
to a lower level and take that power away, because that is what the bill does. If there is any sincere belief at all that there is to be a gradual, step by step transference of legislative and executive powers to the legislatures in the north, you cannot start by taking away those powers. It is simply inconsistent to do so.
If I could, sir, I would move an amendment which would have the effect of deleting the new section 19A in clause 5 of the bill. I do not believe I would be within the rules in doing so. I will, however, bow to your ruling in the matter, sir.
[DOT] (1:20 p.m.)
If it were deleted we would be left with the situation as it now stands in the Northwest Territories Act with the power remaining in the commissioner and council to introduce money bills.
There is one last point I want to make in support of my argument. The commissioner and council in the Northwest Territories have the power now to impose taxes on residents within the boundaries of the Northwest Territories and they have the concomitant power to introduce legislation which would have the effect of an expenditure of moneys by the government in respect of the taxes so raised. By adopting this amendment you are leaving the power in the hands of the commissioner and council to impose taxes, but you are taking away from the commissioner and council the power to spend the revenue that they raise by taxes.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I might be bold enough to interpose myself for a moment or two as a non-partisan mediator between the arguments advanced on the one hand by the hon. member for Yukon and by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources on the other. As the house knows, I supported the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Yukon which, had it been carried, would have made the council a completely elected body so far as its members other than the commissioner were concerned. I suggested that if it carried it might be possible to have the present appointed members act as advisors to the commissioner. I may say, Mr. Chairman, that I did so in part at least with the proposals contained in clause 5 in mind.
One of the things which strikes me is that the result of the proposals contained in clause 1 and clause 5 is in effect to create a separation between the executive and the 23033-3241
Northwest Territories Act legislative parts of the council or at least to move in the direction of such a separation as we understand it in this assembly. I have had some experience as a member of a municipal council. It is my understanding that such councils combine both the executive and the legislative functions in one body and have the authority both to initiate and legislate in respect of money matters.
I am sure that all of us in this house will agree that it is desirable that the executive of the territorial council should as soon as feasible be responsible to the legislative body in the same way as the executive is in this parliament. However, if one accepts the figures given by the minister as to the proportion of federal funds, in the consolidated fund of the territory, I believe that for the time being at least there is some validity to the proposition that through the responsibility of the commissioner to the executive some responsibility should fall upon the members of this house generally who are responsible for levying the taxes upon citizens in other parts of Canada which provide that proportion of the funds. In other words, it does seem to me that in this practical situation and for the time being at least it is in accordance with the principles of democracy that the 85 per cent of the funds provided by the rest of the people of Canada should in some measure be controlled by us who are responsible to the rest of the people of Canada.
I believe it was clear from the remarks of the member for Yukon-I would be disappointed in him if he had not done so-that he was pleading a strong and vigorous case for the early inauguration of complete autonomy. I think this was certainly part of his responsibility as the spokesman in this house for that area of the country. I am not suggesting that the arguments he has advanced are improper. On the other hand, in spite of our lack of knowledge and our ignorance of the area represented by him and the member for Northwest Territories, I think members from other parts of the country have some responsibility to attempt to weigh the various pros and cons of the particular proposals before us at this time.
As I read the provisions of clause 5, while it is perfectly true, as the member for Yukon suggests, that the power to initiate proposals involving the raising of funds or the spending of funds lies in the hands of the appointed commissioner, even though it does not go as far as the member for Yukon and I would

May 13. 1966

Northwest Territories Act have liked, there is the same power of veto on the part of the elected members of the council provided for in clause 1-


Erik Nielsen: No.


Mr.   Barnell@: -over proposals for the raising or spending of funds. In other words, we have no power to initiate proposals in respect of spending estimates but we do have the power if we so wish to disapprove of the proposals which the executive places before us. To this extent at least it seems to me it is a desirable step forward toward separating the executive and the legislative functions of the council of the Northwest Territories, having regard to the constitutional position in the legislatures of the provinces and the parliament of Canada.


Erik Nielsen: Surely this is a backward step.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I hear the member for Yukon saying that this is a backward step. As I said earlier, I am relating my remarks to my experience in serving on a municipal council where the legislative and the executive functions are combined. As I understand the current situation, this is the position which exists now in that the majority have been appointed members and in effect have been an executive rather than a legislative body.
[DOT] (1:30 p.m.)
I feel that we all agree on our understanding of parliamentary institutions, and we are moving in the right direction if we take this step of separation of executive and legislative functions so that there is at least some parallel between the initiating power of the executive and the legislative power to veto. I am quite sure that the minister, the government of Canada and certainly this parliament, to whom the executive is responsible, would be disposed to take a serious look at a situation where the elected legislative council of the Northwest Territories rejected out of hand either the taxing or spending proposals put forward by the commissioner. I am certain that most of us in this house would be inclined to take a look at such a situation. As elected representatives ourselves we might have something to say as to the course of action we thought the commissioner, under direction from the minister and the governor in council, should take in that event.
I suggest that indirectly the legislative council in which the elected representatives have a majority is in a position to take action if they are dissatisfied with the proposals put


forward by the commissioner, even though he is appointed, to a greater degree than they have been in the past.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I should like to speak for a moment, Mr. Chairman, on the question propounded by the minister. While he was actually putting it to the hon. member for Yukon, this member has, as he has stated, been put in a position where he is serving the general interests of the north during his participation in this discussion. This means he has taken a high level, non-partisan approach. I must say too, from my association with the hon. member for Yukon when I was minister, that he was just as forceful in his non-partisan presentations in those days as he has been in his non-partisan presentations during this important discussion.
The point made by the minister was, why did the former administration not proceed to greater autonomy in the Northwest Territories when it had the responsibility? I can only reply in that regard, as I did earlier today, that we did have a long term plan for the future of self-government in the north. Included in that long term plan, and it was not very long term at that, was a provision for increasing autonomy until the time would be reached when we would be able to proceed to grant provincial rights to both the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The particular target date that was in mind by the former administration was the year 1967. We have focused on the year 1967 for the past several years as the occasion when major breakthroughs could be made with respect to many important functions and activities in this country.
Since we would be celebrating our one hundredth birthday in 1967 it would be particularly important, as you may well realize, for a Conservative administration to mark that occasion with a continuation of the policies of the first Conservative administration under Sir John A. Macdonald which made this nation possible. I am not revealing any secrets with regard to cabinet policy because the then prime minister, the right hon. member for Prince Albert, on several occasions in public statements referred to 1967 as the occasion when it was hoped both the northern territories would have moved a considerable distance in the direction of provincial autonomy.
The minister has made the argument on several occasions that the north is a deficit area of Canada requiring subsidization by the central government. I remind him, and I am
May 13, 1966

now speaking as a Manitoban, that when Manitoba became a province in 1870 and Winnipeg was declared the capital of that province the total population of the city of Winnipeg was 215 souls. Today, less than 100 years later, Winnipeg has an urban population of some 500,000 people. The philosophy the minister has been expressing today that the Northwest Territories is a deficit area is almost on all fours with the philosophy that was enunciated by the Liberal party back in those early days when we emerged as a confederated nation.
For instance, when the construction of a transcontinental railway was mooted there was opposition because they said that a railway through this trackless wilderness would not even pay for its own axle grease. We have moved far beyond those negative concepts in this day and age in Canadian development. The minister was equivocating on this point. He almost apologized for making enthusiastic statements recently about the great economic potential of the Northwest Territories largely based on another Conservative program, the construction of the Pine Point Railway, which was opposed by the Liberal party in the same terms, that it was a railway that would not pay for itself. We know now what this one example has meant in terms of the economic upsurge in Pine Point. We are going to have a community there in the next three years with a population of 7,000 or 8,000 people.
As I said last night, I think this is an eloquent demonstration of the fact that the critical point of the movement of the Northwest Territories from a position of a deficit economy is not too far removed into the future. The minister has quoted statistics, and I am quoting them from memory, to the effect that the total income from minerals in the Northwest Territories last year was something like $15 million. This year it is $72 million, and projected into 1968 it will be about $115 million. We are moving ahead much more rapidly than we could ever have expected, even in the visionary days of the Conservative northern development program. We are moving ahead much more rapidly in concrete, tangible terms.
Unfortunately we are not setting the same pace in our movement toward greater provincial autonomy. There is agitation coming from the northerners themselves. You are getting a population upsurge in the north which is bringing with it, in addition to the
Northwest Territories Act pioneering spirit that has always been part of these people who move north of the 60th parallel, a group of people who are equipped with managerial and administrative skills that are second to none. The people who will be working on the development at Pine Point, for example, are men of considerable managerial and administrative background. They are not going to be happy remaining in a semi-colonial position wtih reference to their own government.
[DOT] (1:40 p.m.)
I do not want to prolong the discussion but I heartily endorse what was stated by the hon. member for Yukon. We are taking in this particular clause a retrograde step rather than a step forward. As we have indicated, we cannot move the amendment that the government through the minister might move and which would at least keep the financial situation of the Northwest Territories in the same position it was previous to the introduction of this amendment.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Chairman, had the fiscal argument not run off the tracks I would not be rising again, but I must answer a misconception which seems to be held by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni. With great respect to his argument, one cannot endorse its validity. Certainly the Northwest Territories is a deficit area. But so is every other province in the country with the exception of the province from which the hon. member for Comox-Alberni comes, British Columbia, and also Ontario.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Chairman, may I rise to correct what I consider to be a misapprehension in the mind of the hon member for Yukon. According to statistics tabled in this house during the last session of parliament there was only one non-deficit area, on the basis of federal calculations, and that was the province of Ontario.


Erik Nielsen: Then that makes my argument all the stronger, and I thank the hon. member for correcting me in this regard. Accepting that, is it any justification for saying that the federal government have the right, for instance, to appoint members to the legislatures of all other provinces except Ontario simply because they are deficit areas? Does that give any validity to the principle that because all these other provinces except Ontario are deficit areas we must not allow those provinces to legislate on money matters until such time as the federal government has approved, through the Lieutenant Governors, money
May 13. 1966

Northwest Territories Act legislation? That is what is suggested both in the argument of the minister and the argument of the member for Comox-Alberni.
There can be no price tag or restriction, fiscal or otherwise, on the right of the people who are supposed to be represented by a representative legislative body. Either the principle is a valid one or it is not.
What the legislation in effect does is to take away a power that is already there. It compounds an abortion of the principle of representative government. It compounds an error in the thinking of the government and, unfortunately, if the hon. member for Comox-Alberni sticks with his argument in this regard, it compounds the error in his thinking.
I say that because if you are going to accept, on the basis of the fiscal argument that the federal government spends more money in the Northwest Territories than it gets out of it, the principle that (a) the members of the legislative body must be appointed and (b), that they are not going to have the power to spend money which they derive from imposing taxes on themselves, as well as by other means such as federal grants, until such time as the appointee of the federal government introduces such legislation, then you have to impose the same kind of restriction on every provincial legislature in Canada with the exception of Ontario. That is what it would lead to logically.
Sir, argue as one might one cannot abrogate the fact that these amendments, including this which is one of the most important ones, are taking away from the elected representatives of the people the right to spend money derived by way of revenue from taxes which they impose upon themselves. That is what we would be doing if we accepted this amendment.


Mr. Schreyer:: Would the hon. member permit a question at this point? According to the hon. member's argument, which I find very persuasive, it would follow that the Yukon and Northwest Territories were as eligible for self-government 5, 10 or 15 years ago as they are today. I would ask the hon. member if he would argue that point as well.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Chairman, I have said from the outset of my participation in this debate, and I am going to continue in this course of conduct, that I am not going to be drawn into a partisan discussion, though I am not suggesting that this is the hon. member's intention. I speak as a northerner and I

believe-I am sure this belief is held by all members of the committee-deeply and sincerely in the principles of representative government in a democratic institution. I am one who believes that it is wrong to allow the people who comprise an elected body to tax themselves and yet deny them the power to spend the money they raise thereby. That is really the only principle involved here.
I think they are more ready now than they were 10 or 15 years ago to take the necessary steps toward eventual autonomy. And I do not advocate autonomy overnight because it does take time to acquire the skills and experience which go hand in hand with efficient government. In my submission, though this is a personal view, you cannot expect to create a brand new autonomous legislature and to deal with the far reaching implications involved if these people are clothed with the authority to deal, for instance, with the resource of the Yukon River which has the potential to produce twice the hydroelectric output of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Until such time, Mr. Chairman, as that experience and skill are acquired, then we have to move in staged steps toward autonomy.
The point I am making with respect to this amendment is that if we adopt it we are not moving ahead but are moving backward. There is already provision in the existing legislation giving the Commissioner in Council the power to legislate with respect to the expenditure of funds. But this amendment takes that power away and makes it unlawful-they do not use the word "power" in the amendment-for the representatives of the people to legislate with regard to money matters until such time as the appointee of the government brings in that kind of legislation. That is what is wrong with this amendment. It is undemocratic. It is not representative. It hearkens back to the days of George III when people were taxed without representation. That is what is happening here. There is a complete lack of appreciation and a misconception of every fundamental principle of the democratic institution and way of life.
[DOT] (1:50 p.m.)


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Chairman, I do not particularly desire to launch into a debate with the hon. member for Yukon which might well endure for the rest of the afternoon. I still feel that my argument has validity and that he cannot have it both ways. He cannot have it that the council of the territories, in its
May 13, 1966

basic conception, should be an executive body rather than a legislative one but still argue to have it become a legislative body.
I listened to the hon. member for Bran-don-Souris speaking, not only as a former minister of the department but as a Manitoban, about the early history of his province and its population when it became a province. He talked of the Conservative policy of expansion in the early days of our country's existence and referred to the railway.
Coming from British Columbia, my own approach is slightly different from his inasmuch as the province of British Columbia came into being in a manner different from that of the province of Manitoba. We were a Crown colony under the situation which he described as dating back to the days of George III. The colonial government, or in effect the executive, had the authority of taxation without being subject to the normal exercise of the veto power of a legislative assembly.
As I recall the population of British Columbia at the time of confederation with the rest of Canada in 1871 was something like
10,000	persons. I believe the figures were adjusted to permit more members than would normally have been allowed to come to parliament. What I should like the hon. member for Yukon to consider is that under that regime when British Columbia was a colony, although the Crown exercised a veto power the province nevertheless was required to depend entirely upon the taxes which could be raised from the few people then in the province.
Although I do not decry the vision of people like Sir John A. Macdonald in bringing confederation into being, I suggest and I hope that the Conservative concept of expansion was very different from that which will be followed in the expansion of the Canadian north today. The Conservatives were content to use the federal authority as an instrument for getting a railway started. They then proceeded to throw the baby out with the bath water. In other words, they gave to a private corporation the responsibility for carrying through the will of parliament, the result being that the returns from that development to a very great extent, went to the private developers rather than toward the real growth that could have taken place in Canada.
There has been some discussion in the house about deficit financing. Here is where
Northwest Territories Act my basic philosophy differs from that of the hon. member for Yukon. I hope that there will be a co-ordinated, planned and increasing expansion of the northern area with the resources of the nation thrown behind that concept. I would further say that so far as I am concerned the returns from that investment, to which the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources made reference, should accrue primarily to the benefit and future well-being of the Northwest Territories. In other words, I would say that the taxpayers of the rest of Canada will benefit indirectly if the north grows. Certainly nothing more than a return of the initial investment made by the taxpayers generally in this period of deficit financing should be returned directly to the rest of Canada. If by some chance the returns from the north move into a surplus position before the people of that area have the full rights and responsibilities of provincial government as we understand them in other parts of the country, I hope that any such surplus will be put into a trust fund for the people of the Northwest Territories and will be made available to them for their future use in their own development. I hope that will be done when they achieve, as I am sure we all hope they will, full provincial status within confederation.


Mr. Mongrain:: Mr. Chairman, I think this is another of those quiet debates, which is most edifying for the new members of this house.
I take part in the debate in a friendly spirit, as an eastern Canadian ready to cooperate with northern Canadians to promote a greater prosperity in the country.
It is not every day that I admire the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen)-I like him less when he acts the great uncompromising judge-but I believe his arguments yesterday and today concerning the Yukon and the Northwest Territories are enlightening and instructive.
I must say I share his views on almost all points as well as those of the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale), whose comments were most constructive.
Mr. Chairman, as I believe the minister told us some time ago, when we were discussing a similar bill while studying the results of survey carried out by the Carrothers Commission in September, it is time that the house decide what are its objectives.
I think that when we finish studying the results of the Carrothers survey, we should
5122	COMMONS
Northwest Territories Act consider giving the Northwest Territories and the Yukon the self-government they request and to which they are entitled according to the democratic principle of philosophy in the world. They want to have their own government instead of "taxation without representation".
We know that those territories are not inhabited only by illiterate Eskimos. We know that Canadians who are ready to assume their responsibilities live there also. For instance, I can well imagine the hon. member for Yukon as premier of the province of Yukon and the hon. member for the Northwest Territories as premier of a province which would not be called the Northwest Territories but something else.
Mr. Chairman, could we not set the house a goal? Could not the house agree to the holding next fall or winter of a referendum in those territories to find out what the inhabitants want and if they are willing to see the territories become provinces and assume the responsibilities that such a step entails?
Since there is no doubt that the answer would be positive and affirmative, we might set as our second goal to give Canada an anniversary present in 1967 by adding to it two new provinces: the Yukon and the Northwest.
I certainly do not feel qualified to set up the limits of those new provinces, but I think that, in general, we would be doing something constructive if we supported the objective mentioned a little earlier by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris, namely to give self-government to these territories in 1967.
Once again, Mr. Chairman, I am making those remarks as an eastern Canadian who wants to contribute to the development of Canada by extending a hand to the Canadians in the north.
I will add a personal remark. It is possible that I suddenly developed a sentimental attachment, since I am now a shareholder in the symbolic company which the hon. member for Yukon is busy promoting. I thank him very much for sending me a very impressive certificate a few days ago. I repeat what I said a little earlier. As a lawyer presenting a case such as the one he has been presenting since yesterday, I think we should take our hats off to him and extend to him the cooperation that a Canadian of good will can give another Canadian of good will.

DEBATES	May 13, 1966
[DOT] (2:00 p.m.)
[English1


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 6 to 13 inclusive agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Herman Maxwell Batten: Shall I report the bill?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Chairman, I just want to draw the attention of the committee to the facility with which the clauses of the bill have been passed during the minister's absence.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.



YUKON ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, March 29, consideration of the motion of Mr. Laing for the second reading of Bill No. C-147, to amend the Yukon Act.
Erik Nielsen: Surely the
minister has a statement he wishes to make on second reading?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I must advise the house that if the minister speaks now he will close the debate.


Erik Nielsen: I did not realize that. I went over the proceedings which have taken place so far in connection with the bill before us. The resolution stage is reported at page 2844 of Hansard. The second reading stage is reported at page 3338 of Hansard. There was a debate. Since then the minister has, I know, received representations from the Yukon legislative council either directly or through the commissioner asking in effect that the members of the council be heard on this bill.
I think it is essential that members of the house should appreciate the difference which exists between the system of government in the Northwest Territories and that which exists in the Yukon Territory. The Yukon has had a wholly elected council for many years. The council has seven members. It has no executive power, merely power to act in concert with the commissioner in the passage of legislation. It has no power to introduce money bills. In effect it is a rubberstamp. That is the term which its members use in referring to themselves.
The Yukon has a history of some 68 years of political development. Indeed, the Yukon
May 13. 1966

Territory was made a separate territory before the creation of the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and when searching for a name by which to call the government-appointed representative in the Yukon the term "commissioner" was evolved because there could not be two governors, one sitting in Regina and one in the Yukon Territory.
The Yukon has been represented in this house since the turn of the century and because of varying economic conditions the size of the legislative council has fluctuated from time to time. I do not think the minister would for a moment gainsay the proposition that the Yukon Territory is breaking through not only in the economic field, which at the moment does not concern me, but also in the field of the creation of fully democratic ways of life.
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)
The minister put his finger on the nub of the issue when he was speaking on the bill to amend the Northwest Territories Act, namely, that complete separation exists between the executive and the legislative arms of government. The executive arm of government in the Yukon is in effect an appointee of the federal government of the day. In effect the commissioner, who is the appointee of the minister through the governor in council, administers the Yukon Territory from time to time on instructions of the minister himself. Any legislation that is passed is created by the federal administration, is laid before the council and it is simply asked to rubberstamp it. Nothing can emanate from the council affecting expenditures of money. Notwithstanding the fact that we have been taxing ourselves for decades we have not yet the power by positive legislation to spend a single penny of that money. There is this vast difference in the historic development of the territories. Consequently there is bound to be that same kind of gap existing between the extent of the demand for reform in the Yukon and the extent of that demand in the Northwest Territories.
As the minister well knows, there is a growing and insistent demand in the Yukon for positive and immediate reforms. Unlike the Northwest Territories, the members of the Yukon Legislative Council have thought a good deal about the nature of the reforms that can be brought about in order to achieve a greater degree of executive control.
Yukon Act
I might embark at this moment to lay the groundwork for the proposals I will be making by pointing out a few of the more important distinctions between the administration in the Yukon and that in the Northwest Territories. When discussing the preceding bill the minister mentioned the example of liquor in the Northwest Territories. That in effect is the only field in which positive local control-the minister shakes his head in the negative-exists in the hands of the people there. They, for instance, have no control, as we do, over company's legislation. In effect, in the Yukon Territory the legislative power is exactly the same as that which exists in any provincial legislature, with three very important exceptions.
The first of these exceptions is that the council of the Yukon has no power to introduce money bills, and that is the most important. Second, it has no power to legislate with respect to natural resources and, third, it has no power to legislate with respect to the administration of justice. These three areas are omitted from section 16 of the Yukon Act which sets forth the division of powers between the federal and territorial authority legislatively, as does the B.N.A. Act in sections 91 and 92.
The question of the continued separation of the executive from the legislative function has to be faced. For many years, unlike the Northwest Territories, the administration in the Yukon as distinct from the council -because the council has no executive authority-has had the autonomous power to deal with all matters affecting education in the territory, has had the same kind of power with respect to the construction and maintenance of the territorial road system, has the same kind of power with respect to taxation for territorial purposes of the residents of the territory, and has assumed partial administrative authority in the fields of forestry, game and fishery. It also has partial authority in labour matters and in the control exercised over the professions of law, medicine and engineering.
But the members of the council and the people of the territory generally have reached the stage where they require that there be transferred from the federal jurisdiction partial, not whole, executive control. They feel that if they are going to be responsible for the administration of education they should have the legislative power to do so and not be told what to do by Ottawa through the commissioner.

May 13, 1968
Yukon Act
They feel that if they are going to have the administrative responsibility in territorial public works they should have the power to control that area of jurisdiction in a fiscal way through their legislative body. As the minister knows, the northwest highway system, under half of which lies in the Yukon, is to be transferred from the federal Department of Public Works to the territorial government in 1967. This involves the transfer of many hundreds of employees to a territorial civil service that has existed for many years, as contrasted with the situation in the Northwest Territories, and yet though being asked to assume the jurisdiction for the administration of this huge undertaking there is no concomitant power to legislate in respect thereof. So, sir, the administration of the Yukon rests with the commissioner appointed by an order in council of the executive here in Ottawa. The Commissioner in Council has the powers I have outlined.
This House of Commons has the power- and I simply make this point in passing, not anticipating any argument to the contrary-to create provinces out of the existing Northwest Territories. I have said before, sir, and I say again in this house what 1 have said outside it, that the political problem of the growth from colony to province is analagous to the same problem confronting the nation as a whole with which we have been struggling for 150 years.
There are many who believe we have solved the problem on a national scale but we certainly have not done so with respect to the remaining territories of Canada. What are we in the Yukon, through the elected representatives of our people, asking for? We can look at the emerging nations of the world. We have seen the Congo obtain self-government. We have seen the problem in Rhodesia, which we condemn because of the political basis on which it rests; yet we deny in our own country the very things that we condemn in others.
Here are the elected representatives of the people of the Yukon asking for more say in their own affairs. They are not asking for the complete say. They are not asking for complete autonomy. Yet the government's attitude is: You cannot do this. But the government condemns that kind of approach on an international basis.
[DOT] (2:20 p.m.)
The case I make with respect to the Yukon is a much stronger one than that which has been presented with respect to the Northwest

Territories. It is stronger because of the fact that the Yukon has existed for almost 70 years as a separate entity. During those years it has gained a tremendous fund of experience and skill in the legislative function. It has gained a good deal of skill and experience with regard to the administrative requirements concerning the assumption of legislative control. Its economy is on the upsurge and is increasing each year; great things are in store. In addition, the wholly elected members of that council have made the specific request of the minister that, as the elected representatives of the Yukon representing the people of that territory, they be heard by the standing committee on northern affairs and national resources before this bill passes. Is that request going to be denied? Are we going to say that the Yukon territorial council can exist at the pleasure of the government of the day but we are not going to listen to anything they have to say, we do not want to hear them. I feel sure that is what we in effect are doing if we turn down their request.
So that there may be no doubt concerning the feelings of the people themselves who live in the Yukon on this question, as expressed by the members of the council elected by those people to represent them, I am going to place on the record a resolution which was passed last Friday, May 6. I commend it to the attention of hon. members. The wording of that resolution is as follows:
Resolved that the commissioner he requested to forward to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources for his earliest consideration the accompanying resolution of this council: Resolved that the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources refer Bill C-146, an act to amend the Yukon Act, to the standing committee on northern affairs and national resources in the House of Commons to enable the council of the Yukon Territory to present the case for the amendments inherent in or consequential to or otherwise necessary to realize the philosophy implicit in the following changes now requested of the minister:
May I ask hon. members to remember that these are the wholly elected representatives of the people of the Yukon speaking.
(a)	The council of the Yukon Territory to be known as the Yukon legislative assembly;
(b)	The number of members of the Yukon legislative assembly to be increased to 15 and the term of the assembly to be increased to four years;
(c)	The advisory committee on finance to be replaced by an executive committee of not less than five members with full executive powers in the following classes of subjects:-
(i)	Education, health and welfare
(ii)	Territorial resources including land
May 13, 1966

Yukon Act
(iii)	Public works (Iv) Justice and corrections (v) Revenue and finance (vl) Forestry (vii) Fishery
(viii) All residual executive and administrative functions including industry and labour controlled or performed by the federal government, and the legislative assembly to have exclusive legislative jurisdiction to make ordinances for the government of the territory in relation to the above classes of subjects in addition to the legislative powers existing under section 16 of the Yukon Act.
This, as I have explained before, is parallel to sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act.
(d)	The number of members of the Yukon legislative assembly to be increased from 15 to 21 or such greater number as the Yukon legislative assembly may determine at the expiration of twelve years from the implementation of amendments to the Yukon Act implicit in this resolution when all necessary legislative and other changes are to be effected to constitute the province of Yukon with the same legislative and executive powers as those which exist in the provinces of Canada.
(e)	The members to be given all necessary authority analogous to that in provincial legislative assemblies to establish their indemnities and allowances and to have all the requisite powers to establish or participate in a pension plan or group health plan:
(f)	Section 24 of the Yukon Act to be repealed;
Section 24 is word for word the same as section 19A in clause 5 of the bill to amend the Northwest Territories Act which we first passed and which makes it unlawful for a member of council to introduce a money matter.
(g)	The status of the Yukon legislative assembly to be enlarged so that it shall have full capacity to attend all interprovincial and federal-provincial conferences and to participate in resulting discussions and agreements;
(h)	The Land Titles Act-
Which is now a federal statute.
-to be repealed in respect of the Yukon Territory and replaced by a land titles ordinance;
(i)	All Crown land to be held in the name of the Crown in right of the territory.
I ask members of the committee whether that sounds like a resolution prepared by people who have neither the capacity, the ability nor the responsibility to look after their own affairs. It is not implicit in that resolution that the council is asking for selfgovernment and autonomy immediately. What they as the representatives of the people of the Yukon are proposing is that we embark on a blueprint for the future, a blueprint which they have targeted 12 years hence and which will result in the Yukon 23033-3251
becoming the eleventh province of this country.
The council is asking for an increasing measure of executive control. It is implicit that the elected legislators of the people are asking for some measure of control over the executive, which in effect comprises the treasury benches of this house, the Department of Northern Affairs and the minister. They want more than the mere negative control which they exercise now over supply. They could do the same as did the legislative council in the territory of Assiniboia before it became the province of Manitoba. When that territory was fighting for provincial status under the leadership of Frederick Haultain they refused supply for six months which caused the whole of the civil service to go out and cut wood to make a living.
They do not want to be negative in that fashion. This session they have refused to pass the justice estimates because they disagree with certain policies of the administration with regard thereto. They want partial, positive control of the executive function. That is not too much to ask. Almost all of these classes of subject matter over which they are requesting executive control are now administered in the territory. Therefore it is a very short step to provide legislative control over executive action in these fields. The administrative force already is there.
[DOT] (2:30 p.m.)
These direct representations have been made to the minister and through him to the government and this House of Commons. This is the only way available to the people of the territory to make known their views. Therefore-and even if it was not required of me I would say this-I endorse 100 per cent the representations they are asking us to take cognizance of. I therefore move, in keeping with the wishes of the wholly elected legislative body in the Yukon representing the people there:
That Bill C-147 be not now read a second time but that the said bill be referred to the standing committee of this house on northern affairs and national resources.
I have taken the trouble to have the motion prepared in both official languages, which I am sure would be appreciated by the legislative council of the Yukon.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Order. May I ask the indulgence of the house for the Chair to take this matter under advisement?

May 13, 1966
Yukon Act
A decision on the amendment will be given later after consideration.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for moving back and forth in the chamber but I was anticipating, as a result of a call from the minister, that the hon. member for Northwest Territories (Mr. Orange) would try to catch Your Honour's eye. I do not intend to speak at any great length on the bill before us. First of all, I should like to say that I entirely support the contentions of the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) in this regard, notwithstanding the fact the hon. member and I may have some differences of opinion regarding a certain Klondike festival. As a member from the city of Edmonton and the province of Alberta, I understand the particular problem which the hon. member for Yukon has been underlining with great eloquence in respect of the administration of the Yukon and the aspirations of the people there regarding their right to administer their own affairs.
Without repeating what the hon. member has said, I believe there are a number of points that we should certainly consider. I do not intend to be personally offensive to the minister or any of the people charged with the administration of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, but-perhaps the minister will correct me if I am wrong-I believe I was in the area of the Northwest Territories long before the minister and perhaps even before the hon. member for Northwest Territories was there. Even in those pre-war years there was the feeling that Ottawa was so far away, so paternal, that if there was a wrong way to do a thing Ottawa would find it.


An hon. Member:: Why was there that feeling?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I do not know. I am not being offensive to anyone, but that was the attitude at that time. I have since discovered that the same attitude exists among the people of the Northwest Territories who come down to Edmonton, as they do, and I have certainly found this attitude among the people of the Yukon when I have been up there. It has also been conveyed to me when people from the Yukon have visited Edmonton.
The people in these territories are not at all happy with long-range administration. We in Alberta are particularly conscious of this when it comes to the question of national parks. I will not say any more on that
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret).]
subject. The minister knows that I and the majority of the people of Alberta differ with him and his officials with regard to parks policy. This is because of the long-range paternalism of this government which, frankly, may seem to be nice and tidy for those in the inner core but for those on the fringe who are the subject matter of the decisions it is both irksome and reprehensible.
As the hon. member for Yukon indicated, this is not a cry for autonomy. This is a reasoned approach. Surely to goodness there is a great case in this day and age for as much freedom of action as it is possible to give. It is not like the old days when the only contact with the Yukon was through going by rail to Vancouver, then by boat up to Skag-way and in from there. There was no immediate contact in those days. Now one can reach these territories as quickly as a fast airplane can get there. Communication by electronic means is even quicker. There are a number of things as to the details of this bill that I personally wish to question, but I would reiterate the plea of the hon. member for Yukon that this matter should be referred to the committee.
If this were done, appropriate representations could be made and in particular the members of the council and people they represent could be heard in regard to this measure. Some people may say: We will put these amendments in and see how they work; then we may deign to amend the law. In reply to such a suggestion I would say that the minister has opened up the act at this time. He has introduced a number of amendments that have been standing by for a long time merely because it was not desirable to open up the act. I know enough about administration in this regard to realize that there is always reluctance to open up any act and there must be a most compelling reason before this is done. Therefore, let us not say we will open up the act again in the very near future to take care of anything which may have been missed or something that is not working in this connection. That would be merely living in a fool's paradise. Let us put this question before the committee, in order that they may hear representations. If this is the desire of the council and people of the Yukon, what on earth is the great hurry in pushing this bill through without it being considered by the committee? With those words, Mr. Speaker, I support the spirit of the amendment.
May 13, 1966


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Order. The Chair is now ready to give a decision on whether the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Yukon is receivable. As we are debating second reading of this bill may I refer hon. members to standing order 77 which reads as follows:
Every public bill shall be read twice in the house before committal or amendment.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)
Therefore, as we are on second reading and have a motion before us I believe that this amendment is not receivable.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, with the greatest respect, on the basis of your ruling it would then appear that no bill can be amended on second reading or prior to second reading. With the greatest respect, that certainly is not the tradition of this house.


Mr. Bell (Carleton):: May I add, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, that there are a great many bills, before standing committees of this house which have been improperly referred if your ruling is correct.


Erik Nielsen: May I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that there are precedents in the proceedings of this house for taking precisely the course which we are taking now and it is evidently within the rules to make a motion in the words which have been submitted to Your Honour.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: I also refer the hon. members to paragraph 6 of citation 202 of Beauchesne, fourth edition, which reads:
It is not an amendment to a motion to move that the question go to a committee.


Erik Nielsen: That is not the whole citation though, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: Yes, it is.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Order, please. The amendment reads:
That Bill C-147 be not now read a second time but that the said bill be referred to the standing committee of this house on northern affairs and national resources.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, I know that in a co-operative way many things can be accomplished in this house satisafactory to all members concerned. I wish that the government, particularly the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, would consider the suggestion
Yukon Act
which has been made in the amendment. I realize that possibly this could have been done if there had been prior consultation with the minister.
I had an experience recently where the Minister of Labour agreed with me that a bill in his name be referred to a standing committee because ample opportunity is given there to those who wish to make representations and probably a greater degree of flexibility in discussion is allowed. While this process is in effect I believe this house can engage itself in some other way and thereby proceed with the business of this house before us which has to be considered. I believe a great deal of the time of this house would be saved if such a concession were made by the government in this case.
I would appeal to the government. Even though Your Honour has ruled this amendment out of order and there is some dispute as to the ruling, nevertheless if the government felt at this point that they would be agreeable to sending this bill to the committee for representations I am sure this would be welcomed by those who have a direct interest. I am sure that the members of the Yukon council would be glad to have afforded to them an opportunity to present their case in respect of the bill. After all, this bill does represent something very vital to them because it will affect their very interests, their functions and their financial position.
Surely under those circumstances and in all fairness they should be given an opportunity to present their case and put forward their own ideas and recommendations on this bill. It would also give an opportunity to the government to state their position more clearly and effectively and there would be a greater opportunity to do so in a standing committee than in committee of the whole house. Therefore I would ask the government to consider its position. If the suggestion is agreed to we can go on with other business we have before us which has to be considered.


George James McIlraith: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry but I am not quite clear with regard to the precise stage we are at. I am not clear whether the amendment has been ruled out of order or not. If it has not, I would want to reserve my right to argue that it is out of order and give authorities in support of that position. Has the amendment been ruled out of order?

May 13, 1966
Yukon Act


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Order, please. May I inform the Minister of Public Works that the amendment has been ruled out of order.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: But for the reason you gave?


George James McIlraith: I was going to suggest, if it meets the wishes of hon. members, that I be allowed to move the adjournment of the debate at this stage. I am not prepared at the moment to agree that the bill, after second reading, go to committee. I am not prepared at the moment to say whether or not the government is agreeable to it being referred to a committee. If it were agreeable, I would move the adjournment of the debate and we can then immediately proceed with the forestry estimates.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: It is not debatable.


George James McIlraith: That is why I did not
formally put the motion for the adjournment of the debate before finding out if there is any consensus against it.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: It
is not often, Mr. Speaker, that I take part in these discussions on procedural matters. At this particular juncture of our discussion I think the issue is so important that I should like to make some suggestions and comments.
I recall that in so far as the proposed amendments to the Northwest Territories Act were concerned we were faced with a similar situation. We made suggestions to the then house leader, the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, that we thought it would be in the best interests of the business procedures of this house if the bill which sought to divide the Northwest Territories could be referred to the standing committee. In this way it would have been possible for hon. members to hear representations directly from the northerners affected. This procedure was adopted then and before the bill was read the second time it was referred to the standing committee. The results were rather significant inasmuch as we discovered that the contents of the bill were not necessarily in the best interests of the people of the Northwest Territories.
With reference to the present bill, No. C-147, I presume that the reason the amendment was ruled out of order was a certain weakness in the terminology. If that is the case, then perhaps we might get around that difficulty by submitting another amendment

that would deal with the terminological difficulties. The reason I am most concerned is the disappointment that was felt, I think on all sides of the house, with reference to our handling of Bill No. C-146. It was our feeling that this bill should be referred to a standing committee. A decision has been made, and that has not been possible.


George James McIlraith: I wonder if I could ask the hon. gentleman a question? When he says that has not been possible, may I remind him I just asserted that we wanted to consider whether or not that was possible. I was raising that point when I made way for the hon. member because I thought he was going to express an opinion upon whether or not that should be done. I said I would have the adjournment of the debate moved at that time so that we could consider whether or not to refer it to a committee. I just have not had an opportunity yet to consider whether it should or should not be referred to a committee.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: As I understand it, the leader of the house was going to put forward a motion that this debate be now adjourned.


George James McIlraith: Yes.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: We seem to be in a bit of difficulty here because, as I understand it, the Speaker has indicated that the proposed amendment is out of order. Perhaps we can get around this-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfrel):: Order. The Minister of Public Works, on behalf of the government, has expressed a wish that the house should adjourn-


George James McIlraith: The debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfrel):: -that the debate should be adjourned. Such a wish should be expressed in the form of a motion which could then be considered by the house. The hon. member wishes to move a new amendment, and I think we should clarify our position.


Mr. Robichaud:: I move that this debate be now adjourned.


Erik Nielsen: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member for Brandon-Souris has the floor and is speaking on the second reading of this bill. I submit that the Minister of Fisheries is not in order in attempting to keep the hon. member for Brandon-Souris from moving an amendment.
May 13, 1966

In order to get around the difficulty I suggest that the hon. member for Brandon-Souris move his motion and after he sits down the adjournment of the debate might then be moved if that is still the wish of the government. In this way the government will have both the question of referral to a committee and the motion itself to consider.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The house leader has taken a reasonable attitude in this regard. If I may be allowed, I should like to put the motion before the house. It will resolve the difficulty with which we are confronted. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Starr):
That Bill No. C-147 be not now read a second time but that the subject matter of the said bill be referred to the standing committee of this house on Northern Affairs and National Resources.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Mr. Speaker, I move the adjournment of this debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Is it the
pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Rinfret in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, $1,121,200.
Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, surely the
Minister of Forestry is prepared to give us an accounting of his stewardship of this department in glowing terms and give us an opportunity to hear from him personally what his plans are for the future, what policies he has introduced during his term of office and about the expenditures before us for 1966-67.


Mr. Sauve:: Mr. Chairman, we finished last night a most interesting discussion on some points of the Department of Forestry policy on rural development.
On opening the debate on the estimates of the Department of Forestry for the year 1966-67, I shall restrict my remarks to the department, its operation, its development program and some of its achievements.
[DOT] (3:00 p.m.)
The department, as we know, was created in 1960 by combining together some services of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Slowly, these two services were
Supply-Forestry
co-ordinated and finally joined together. So much so that, during 1964, we were in a position to present a plan for the complete reorganization of the department, both on a regional and a national basis, that is we have tried to regroup the services of the Department of Forestry on a regional basis and we have established a certain number of national institutes in Ottawa and Sault Ste. Marie.
The reorganization was successfully carried out and all regions are now operating normally and the various institutes of the Department of Forestry are proceeding with their operations.
We are on the point of announcing for each of the areas, an advisory committee which will include representatives of the provincial departments of forestry, representatives of industry, universities and forestry organizations in each of the seven regions established by the Department of Forestry.
Up to now, we can say that we have maintained existing services. But last year, we have suggested, subject to cabinet approval a six-year development plan for departmental services. We expect shortly the final approval of the authorities for these development projects which mainly involve a 100 per cent increase in forestry researchers, especially in applied research, and a sizeable increase in department facilities, both in the Ottawa and the Sault Ste. Marie areas. We hope, within six years, to double the personnel and the material facilities of the department.
This has become a necessity because forest industries in Canada have grown extensively in the last few years. Provincial governments are asking us increasingly to undertake forest research projects called applied research; industry is asking us to concentrate our efforts increasingly on the elimination of certain types of forest diseases. Because of all this, we must increase the services of the department.
As you are aware, the jurisdiction of the Department of Forestry is very limited under the B.N.A. Act. Forest management comes under provincial authority only. Throughout the years, however, provincial authorities have agreed that the federal government should undertake research work in the fled of forestry. Through the Department of Forestry, the federal government limits its research in the field of forestry to basic and applied research.
The department has an excellent reputation in Canada and throughout the world. Scientists in the western world as well as the

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eastern world follow its work in basic and applied research. We are constantly in contact with forestry departments and universities everywhere in the world. Scientists from various countries work on their own projects in our laboratories and some of our public servants do the same in foreign countries. We stand very high in international circles. This is due especially to the research work which was undertaken by the Department of Agriculture and which is still continuing. In June, the Sixth International Forestry Convention will be held in Madrid, where more than 20 of our researchers will present papers; this forestry convention is sponsored by the F.A.O.
[English1
There are in certain parts of Canada difficult problems to solve in the forest industry. One of the most urgent which affects both the forests in British Columbia and in Newfoundland is the balsam woolly aphid. So far, while research has been conducted in Canada and the United States into the problem, we have been unable to find a solution to it. There has been a special crash program started this year in British Columbia and we hope to be able to find some solution to eradicate this disease, which seems to attack trees in a way which makes it impossible for the forest industry to cut the wood and use it.
We also have in many parts of Canada specific diseases which the federal government is combating. We have special programs in New Brunswick and in the province of Quebec. Generally speaking, these diseases have not increased and we have been able to stop the spread of certain tree diseases. But they always remain a danger and much of our effort in the department is devoted to the prevention of disease or the sickness of trees.
In the department there is probably the largest concentration of Ph.D's and masters of science in any department of the government of Canada. These people are doing wonderful research and I would want to seize this occasion to praise their work. Many members of this house have come in contact with our researchers in their own provinces, and they know the quality of the work being done in our department.
I mentioned earlier that we have a large expansion program which will shortly be under way. We will announce the program soon so that the universities can prepare to train the scientific personnel who will be required by the department over the next six
[Mr. Sauve.l
to seven years. Generally speaking we have had no trouble with recruiting enough scientists to assume the responsibilities required in various laboratories across the country. The turnover in the department is not very large; it is quite normal and we are fortunate in having so many devoted servants across the country.
The reorganization of the department has gone well. There have been a few problems here and there over the location of the headquarters of the branches, but so far nothing too serious. We are proceeding with a special forest inventory and land capability survey in Labrador and Newfoundland. We are also proceeding under the other program with the Canada land inventory which covers all provinces in Canada. We have a shared-cost agreement with the provinces which has been in existence for the last five years. About $8 million of our budget is devoted to this item in the estimates. We do not know what will be the future in this field; much depends on the results of the federal-provincial conference on fiscal arrangements this coming fall.
These, Mr. Chairman, are the few remarks I wanted to make on the presentation of my estimates. When the estimates for last year were discussed in February and March I sought the occasion to make some remarks relating to the work of the department. It is a small department in relation to many others. As we have been discussing in the last three days the ARDA program I would like to emphasize this particular aspect as far as our work in the department is concerned.
The Department of Forestry is also responsible for the feed grain assistance program. A bill will shortly be introduced in the house-it is already on the order paper-which will propose the creation of a feed grain assistance act. A similar act was to be introduced by the previous government. It was on the order paper on February 6, 1963, which was the day after the Tuesday the government was defeated in the house. Therefore I hope hon. members on both sides will support this bill which the house will have before it for discussion in the near furture.
The department also administers the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act which deals with some local problems in the maritimes. We have proposed to the provinces an agreement, signed by the three maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, whereby by 1970 the maritime marshland rehabilitation
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will disappear and the provinces will assume the responsibilities covered by the program.
Generally speaking, Mr. Chairman, the department has had a good year. We expect to begin our expansion this year and by 1972 we should have doubled our personnel and facilities. I expect hon. members of the house will have some comment to make on the administration of the department, and I will be grateful for any suggestions for improving its work. These are my introductory remarks, Mr. Chairman.
[DOT] (3:10 p.m.)


Mr. Aiken:: Mr. Chairman, I am sure the minister hopes the discussion on his estimates will be as brief as his own introduction. There are, however, a few items I wish to discuss with him. I am sure that before the main estimates are completed we shall have answers to these questions.
With respect to item 1 of these estimates, I am sure the minister will agree with me that the setting up of this department by the former government was a reasonably expeditious act which has brought excellent results to the economy of Canada. The department actually was set up following extended hearings before the mines, forests and waters committee respecting the forestry branch, as it was then, of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. It became quite obvious during the course of those hearings, at which I attended, that forestry, which provided one of the main exports of this country, and which was merely one section of a department of government, actually deserved more serious attention than it was then getting.
It appeared quite obvious that the main shortcoming was in the question of research and co-ordination of provincial effort. As a result, the department was set up under the ministry of the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton, who now sits near me in the house.
As the minister has pointed out, research is the main aspect of that government department's work. I should like the minister to reply to questions concerning research centres. With regard to that subject I should like to ask him two questions. First, are there plans to expand research laboratories throughout Canada, under this department? Second, is use being made, to its fullest extent, of provincial facilities? We have heard the minister say that the provinces are beginning to rely on the federal department's research laboratories for much of their own
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technical research information. As I said, I should like to know whether this is being expanded as a strictly federal aspect of things in all parts of the country, and whether use is being made of existing provincial facilities.
The minister mentioned a couple of examples of disease. He did not mention one that is possibly much more serious to the public at large, and I refer to the Dutch elm disease. This disease has been taking a terrific toll of trees in most of the eastern provinces. While the disease has largely affected ornamental trees, it has moved into the forestry industry, and I know that great concern is being felt about its effects. I should like to ask the minister, if he would, to tell us what success has been achieved in combating this disease, and whether research is continuing to find some answer to this very serious problem.
On the question of exports, would the minister bring us up to date on plywood matters? We have had problems in Canada with respect to plywood, both as to its importation from other countries at very, very low prices, making it difficult for local producers to compete, and also as to its export into the United States market, where we have also had difficulty. I should like the minister to report to the committee on this particular subject. That is something which is very important to those of us who live in parts of the country where plywood is produced.
I turn for a moment to the question of feed grain assistance, which the minister mentioned. If the terms of the bill the minister is introducing are the same as the ones the former government introduced, I think he will find ready support for it. However, rumour has it that certain changes are being made in the approach to this problem. If so, I think he may find some opposition to certain sections of the bill. The minister mentioned it in passing; I do so, likewise.
We do not intend to delay the passage of the first item of the estimates. That item has served a very useful purpose in the economy of this country. We can see the results in the balance of payment figures. On a great many of our industries we lose money. However, the forest products industry maintains a favourable balance, and we are all looking forward to its being one of the continuing assets of the future, forestry being a renewable resource. If proper care is taken of our forests, we shall be able to continue with our exports.
I hope the minister can answer some of the questions asked. There will be other questions as we proceed to other items. However,

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those are all the general remarks I wish to make.


Mr. Herridge:: Mr. Chairman, I am very sorry to have been unavoidably absent from the chamber when the minister introduced his estimates. When I heard they were before the house I promptly left my constituents and came down. I want to compliment him, as he is a minister with ideas. While we do not always agree with his application of ideas, he does put forward something that we can at least consider. I think he puts forward some progressive measures. I also wish to express my appreciation of the work done by the staff of the forestry branch, both in the forest products laboratory and in the field. I have known many of them for a good number of years.
I am wondering if there is any difficulty in this department's obtaining the staff it requires to undertake the necessary research, both in the laboratory and in field operations. If there are any staff shortages at the present time, could the minister explain to the house the reason why those shortages prevail? I also want to know what co-operation exists between federal and provincial governments, the universities, and industry with respect to the planning of research, and what these persons who are particularly interested in development and research consider to be the most important aspects of research to be undertaken at any given time. I should like the minister to point out one or two examples of research being carried on in particular fields that will be easily recognized by the greater number of people engaged in and interested in the development of the forestry industry.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
I should like to know what is being done with respect to diseases and pests, and on what basis research into those subjects is planned. Also I want to know what is being done with respect to fire prevention, and with respect to land inventory and forest inventory that the minister mentioned. I should like him to give us some idea of the type of agreement reached between the federal government and the provinces for carrying out any one of these projects, particularly those connected with forest inventory and land inventory.
I would also be interested to know the extent of the co-operation which exists between the provincial governments and the

department, as well as between the Department of Forestry and the Department of Industry, especially with regard to research aspects of this work. Let the minister also tell us what arrangements he has for co-operation with organized labour particularly in the field of conservation and the promotion of a proper regard for our natural resources.
I wish now to direct the minister's attention to one aspect of policy which in the opinion of several of us has not received sufficient attention from his department. It may seem strange, coming from a pragmatic socialist, but I have in mind particularly the private ownership of forests by individuals or by small companies. I was recently at a meeting where this matter was the subject of considerable discussion. It was generally agreed that a clear definition of policy was needed from both federal and provincial governments on the management of private woodlands.
We think this type of development is coextensive with the development of the economic family farm and that it should be encouraged by both levels of government. While the discussion to which I referred was taking place a good many persons expressed the opinion that there had been a notable absence of any expression of interest in this phase of resource development on the part of the federal and provincial departments directly concerned. I should like to hear the minister's views on this question.
This brings me to the subject of the literature published by the department, expecially by the forest products laboratory. I wonder whether this literature is reaching as wide a segment of our population as it should. I have followed this work for 20 years. It is excellent work and I believe it is necessary that it should be undertaken. I have a great deal of respect for the staff which is undertaking this. I knew Colonel Jenkins personally. He settled in the Shuswap lake area about the same time as we did in the Kootenays. He has always been interested in this problem. I am not sure that this literature is reaching as many people as it should. I presume industry is getting it, particularly the smaller companies and corporations. But why not make it available to chambers of commerce, trade unions and similar bodies to give them some idea of what is being done?
I found the Department of Agriculture was putting out an excellent publication indicating the protection which is being afforded to the consumer by the work of the department.
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But distribution of this literature is extremely limited at the present time and I suggest that the publications distribution of the Department of Forestry should be reviewed to make sure we are making the best possible use of the staff's talent.
I have one other suggestion to make before I resume my seat. This subject has become something of a hobby of mine, Mr. Chairman. I made a most moving appeal to the Minister of Industry in this connection and although it moved him temporarily, he is not moving forward at all on my suggestion. This has been in my mind for three or four years. It arose by my meeting a group of students from overseas who had come to this country and were given a tour in order for them to gain an understanding of the development of industry, natural resources and other aspects of our social and economic life. I found they were returning without any final conclusion to this tour which was, naturally, very informative.
Then again I have met a large number of young people who are not particularly desirous of pursuing an academic career, though they are well able to make a contribution in the natural resource field. They do not wish to become doctors of philosophy or masters of science, but they are quite capable of attending a technical or vocational training school. I think it would be a good idea if we could set up a Canadian college of conservation to fill the need which exists here. I am not suggesting anything which would involve a large expenditure. If I had the building of it-and I would build one myself if I could afford it-I would choose a suitable location near a pleasant lake, surrounded by woodland. The staff would not number more than half a dozen. The faculty would be recruited from the universities and departments on loan; persons interested in soil and soil conservation would come to give a course of lectures for a week or two. Water resources, wildlife and similar subjects would be dealt with in the same way. Those foreign students and those Canadians who would like to undertake work of this kind with a view to employment in the civil service or with private companies would, after a year, say, at the end of this training, be given a diploma in conservation -something to indicate that they had absorbed the philosophy of conservation and had undertaken to apply that philosophy in the context of practical affairs in Canada and elsewhere.
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When the minister replies I hope he will tell us what he thinks of this idea. I find I have a good deal of support for it among very important Canadians. I repeat, I am not suggesting anything which would involve very large expenditure. The college would have accommodation for not more than 50 people, maybe living in log cabins and accommodation of that sort. I believe a foundation of this kind would provide an opportunity which would be welcomed by overseas students as well as by a large number of young Canadians who are willing to serve in the natural resource field.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)


Mr. Leboe:: Mr. Chairman, I shall detain the committee for only a few moments, but as one who one way or another has spent 28 years in the forest industry, naturally the activities of the Department of Forestry are of great interest to me. The forest industry, and forestry resources are of great interest to Canadians generally because they produce a great share of the actual wealth which we possess. In the province of British Columbia it is often stated that over 60 per cent of B.C. revenue dollars are wood dollars. Because of that we are interested in what is happening in the forest industry, and what affects our industry also affects other areas of the country which depend to a great degree on the lumber and timber industries.
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to one of the great men of our times for his work in connection with forestry matters. I speak of Hon. Ray Williston, Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources in the province of B.C. Ray Williston is a man of great ability, a man of boundless energy, a man who applies himself with a diligence that is seldom found in any individual human being. He has worked very diligently in B.C. to get a sustained yield program in operation.
Bringing a sustained yield program into being is a painful process and many people are hurt during the development of such a program, but Mr. Williston has handled the B.C. program in a way unparalleled in Canadian history. He has introduced the program throughout almost the total area of B.C. as painlessly as it is possible to do so.
One of the bright spots in his career was his introduction of what is known as the pulp harvesting area. The principle of the pulp harvesting area has allowed a great expansion to take place in the pulp and paper

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industry in B.C. without taking anything away from the production of lumber, and this was one of the great feats of the provincial minister.
I would like to know from the Minister of Forestry how closely he and his department are working with the B.C. Research Council. Some years ago at the B.C. Research Council headquarters in Vancouver I saw some samples of pressed cedar wood. All through the northern and central areas of B.C. there are very large stands of what is known as decadent cedar. I understand from the B.C. Research Council that this type of cedar has its own binding quality. No resins or glues are needed in order to make a pressed board out of the pulp which is manufactured from the cedar tree. It is also my understanding that the rot in the decadent cedar does not reduce its binding qualities, and that a certain amount of rot in the tree is beneficial in the process of producing a pressed board.
With the advent of large amounts of electric power produced by hydro development I can foresee a most outstanding and productive industry in the central interior of B.C. resulting from the use of what is now a drug on the market, namely decadent cedar. As I say, there are huge cubic volume quantities of this wood in the province, sufficient to launch a very large industry.
The samples I saw at the Research Council headquarters were some of the most beautiful pieces of pressed wood I have ever seen. The colour varied from a very dark to a very light, according to the intensity of heat applied in the process. I would like to know what the minister and his department are doing in co-operation with the efforts of the B.C. Research Council in this field.
The forests of Canada could provide a wonderful opportunity for the employment of thousands of people who may lose their jobs, due to automation and technological advance. With the production of more electric power from natural gas and other resources, much arduous hand labour will disappear. This will mean that we shall have to find places where more people can be gainfully occupied, and I do not know a better place than out in the great forests of our country, cleaning them up, getting rid of decadent and diseased trees, clearing windfalls, opening up access roads for the prevention of forest fires, and damming small rivulets so that pumping stations can be set up in case of fire, with great volumes of water readily available to quell the flames.

According to a press release the Department of Forestry has reported that it has acquired the services of one Mr. Benson from the province of B.C., to undertake a total land survey of Canada. I notice that Mr. Benson was connected with the B.C. provincial wildlife branch, and I would judge him to be highly qualified for the task that lies before him. I certainly wish him well. He has one of the most important tasks that could be undertaken, because I do not think anyone can overemphasize the importance of the timber, lumber pulp and paper industries in Canada.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I wish the minister well in his work. He will find us ready to co-operate with him at any time. I personally am greatly interested in his department because, as I said, of my 28 years close association with the lumber and timber industry.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)


Maurice Allard: Mr. Chairman, contrary to some interventions in this house in the past three months, mine will be short and concise but I want to go one better on the last words of the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) when he congratulated the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve) for his excellent work and particularly when he described him as a man with ideas.
Having witnessed the work and the behaviour of the various ministers in this house over the past three months, Mr. Chairman, I am perfectly in agreement with the member for Kootenay West when he recognized that the excellent work of the member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine and his gifts should mark him, as a government discovery, for a more important and more responsible portfolio than forestry.
French Canadians have often been charged with lacking the qualifications to handle important departments. The important and capital federal departments are notably finance and trade and commerce and, this year, we had three French Canadian members from Quebec who were in a position of fill these posts competently, namely the present Minister of Forestry, the forthcoming minister of manpower (Mr. Marchand) and the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys (Mr. Pepin). In spite of the high competence and qualifications of these three French Canadians, the present government has them restricted to truncated departments. Part of the Department of Agriculture and part of the Department of Northern Affairs and National
May 13, 1966

Resources were taken to form the Department of Forestry and the responsibility for it was given to a highly competent man who could be Minister of Finance and who could possibly settle the ideological conflict between the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) and his predecessor, the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Gordon).
We have the hon. member for Quebec West (Mr. Marchand) who is shortly to be minister of manpower, a department made up in part of the Department of Labour. Here is another highly qualified member and, as a French Canadian, I am proud to proclaim it in this house.
Another member, the one for Drum-mond-Arthabaska (Mr. Pepin) is also most qualified.
In spite of this contribution from the province of Quebec which Frnech Canadians have made to the federal administration, the present government is content to appoint these valuable men to mainly administrative duties instead of opening to them the important portfolios such as finance, trade and commerce and industry.
These are the opening remarks I am making very sincerely and dynamically, because if the present conflict between English and French Canada is to be settled, let us stop the pretty speeches and appoint French Canadians to important posts.
Now, about the Department of Forestry-


Maurice Rinfret: Order. I just want to point out to the hon. member for Sherbrooke that the house listened of course with great interest to the remarks he made about French representation within the various federal departments, but I think it is my duty to remind him that we are now considering the estimates of the Department of Forestry and nothing else but the estimates of the Department of Forestry.


Maurice Allard: Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your kind words and especially for allowing me to express my opinion as a prelude to the few questions I wanted to put to the minister. In short, _I would suggest that the representative for Iles-de-la-Madeleine be taken out of the forest and appointed to an important department, because he has all the necessary qualifications, just like the two other members I have mentioned.
I will only put two questions to the Minister of Forestry, because I have to catch a train in a few minutes. I listened carefully to his short speech and I know he can answer
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those questions. He said that his department conducted a lot of scientific research in the field of forestry. I should like to know whether there are provincial scientific research services in the Canadian provinces? Are there such services in the ten Canadian provinces? Does the Department of Forestry of the province of Quebec have a scientific research service? What I am trying to find out is whether there is any co-ordination in the field of scientific research in forestry, in order precisely to obtain better results?
My second question is this: are those provincial scientific research services keeping in touch and working with the Department of Forestry in this field?


Mr. Ricard:: Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Allard) has any reforestation problem in his constituency but, after his laudatory remarks about the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve), I am sure he does not have to worry about it.
Like the hon. member who spoke before me, I am very pleased with the success obtained in the house by the Minister of Forestry, and I think a large part of the minister's success is due to the fact that he is in an interesting position. He heads a department created by the former Conservative government. He is responsible for the administration of ARDA and will introduce the bill concerning feed grain. Finally, he has the responsibility of carrying on the work so ably started under the former Conservative government.
No doubt that influenced greatly the results obtained so far. I hope he will not change, because he has a very human and open way of dealing with problems and he undoubtedly enjoys the co-operation and good will of all those he works with.
The forest is one of our main industries. It is, so to speak, the basic industry which, for many years, complemented farming. That proves the importance of paying a lot of attention to the forests, to protect our forests which are a great source of income.
All necessary precautions should be taken to protect them as much as possible. In his speech, the minister mentioned that his department's jurisdiction was very limited and that it just had to deal with the various provincial departments.
I know that there is always room for discussion and an exchange of views there, but I know that with his well-known tact and

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patience he will succeed in getting good results from efforts made to co-operate with the provinces, so that this industry, this natural resource, will be protected as much as possible. I know that his work will meet with success.
I will probably not have the opportunity next week to discuss his bill on feed grain when it is introduced in the house. I would therefore like to say now that this legislation is necessary, that the farmers have been hoping for it for many years. Our farmers are less dependent on unscrupulous dealers now than they were in previous years.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
It is still very likely that the cost of feed in winter will work out against the farmers. That is why the farmers welcome the steps being taken and I am sure that the minister who made a complete study of that matter will give that legislation all the consideration it deserves.
The farmers often have to get rid of their cattle because of the high cost of feed and grain to fatten it.
It is a well-known fact that the former minister of agriculture, the present member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Hamilton), had included in his program that particular matter of bringing the price of feed grain down, so that the farmers could go in for cattle breeding. We have to import our meat from western Canada and it seems to me that there would be here a very interesting market for the eastern farmers, as far as cattle breeding is concerned, if they could get feed grain at a better price.
I am sure that our farmers will consider those openings with satisfaction and I ask the minister to give that matter his full attention.


Mr. Laprise:: Mr. Chairman, as the estimates for the Department of Forestry are before the house, I should like to take this opportunity to make a few remarks. Yet, before coming to the heart of the matter that interests me, I wish to point out to the house that I do not fully agree with what the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Allard) said about what the Minister of Forestry (Mr. Sauve) is worth.
I agree with him that he is a good minister, a competent man; but as far as giving him a more important department is concerned, I feel we need good ministers everywhere.
I do not approve of trying to increase the prestige of other ministers at the expense of the Minister of Forestry.
[Mr. Ricard.l
I feel, even though the minister himself, at the beginning of the debate, seemed to apologize for the relatively lesser importance of his department, that the department is most important and that we should give it all our attention.
What worries me most with regard to the Department of Forestry is forest fire protection. I know the minister and his officials watch very closely everything that is related to forest protection.
On the other hand, I wonder if enough is being done in this field. Our country is a great exporter of forest products. We must see to it that we do not become an importer in the near future.
Forest products are used for three main purposes, the most important of which are paper-making and construction.
Two curses threaten our forests with depletion: forest diseases and forest fires. A while ago, the minister told us that, in this connection, research was intensive and that the results were rewarding.
Still, I doubt that we are doing enough to prevent forest fires.
I urge the minister to increase the means to protect our forests against fires, for instance, by educating the people who go out into the bush, by giving foresters the tools and instruments required to prevent forest fires that are caused in many ways.
That is my chief concern and that is what I wanted to bring to the attention of the minister this afternoon.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Chairman, I think I am correct in saying that the present Minister of Forestry is the third minister to hold this portfolio.


Maurice Sauvé: The fourth.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I am told he is the fourth. I was going to say that perhaps the fact that the present minister is from the province of Quebec, and my impression was that his immediate predecessor was from the province of British Columbia, and I believe I am correct in saying that the original holder of the portfolio was from the province of New Brunswick-


Maurice Sauvé: The member for Charlevoix held the portfolio for just a few weeks before the election in 1963.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: In any event, my point in making reference to the geographic area from
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which ministers holding this portfolio have come in the short time the department has been in existence, since 1960, is that it could perhaps be considered symbolic of the fact that the forest industry and the forests of Canada are a very important natural resource that extends from one side of Canada to the other.
I suppose that in discussing the estimates of the minister one could launch into an exposition of the importance to our entire economy of the forest products industry, its value in regard to exports, and in this connection to our external trade balance, and that sort of thing. However, I believe these facts are fairly widely appreciated in the house and indeed by the Canadian people, and that little purpose would be served by venturing into this area in any major way in the discussion of these estimates today. Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I should like to suggest to the committee and the minister that the work of this department and what it is doing is perhaps much less well known and understood by the Canadian people, in part I think because it is a new department and in part because of the rather specific jurisdictional field of the forests and the forest industry.
[DOT] (4:00 p.ra.)
I am aware of the fact that when the department was established it was not created out of whole cloth, but it was in part at least a consolidation of some existing efforts of the federal administration in Ottawa. If I am correct, I believe the research elements of the present Department of Forestry were carried on through the Minister of Agriculture in the days before the department was established.
As one examines these estimates he becomes aware of the fact that they are limited, as I understand it, to two basic fields, one the conduct of research programs and the other a program of assistance under agreements with the provinces in the forestry work, which is constitutionally considered to be a provincial responsibility.
I must say, Mr. Chairman, that coming from the province of British Columbia where this industry is the major one in our economy, I find myself much tempted to launch into a field of discussion which perhaps more properly could take place on the floor of the provincial legislature and where the whole question of the management, the development, the harvesting, marketing and manufacturing of our forest products very properly is a subject for extensive debate.
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I had intended, Mr. Chairman, to avoid yielding to that temptation entirely in view of the constitutional jurisdictional division, until I listened to the remarks made a little earlier by the member for Cariboo. As I listened to him, it seemed to me that he could more properly have been making his remarks on the floor of the legislature of British Columbia, in view of his laudatory description of the work being done by the minister of forestry of British Columbia, Hon. Ray Williston. Since he has opened up this question, I would like to make some comment, Mr. Chairman, and I would make my comment in these terms, that while most of us from British Columbia recognize that Mr. Williston is a member of a provincial administration with considerable abilities and energy, nevertheless he does follow a policy in the management of our forest industry in respect of which there are some very grave differences of opinion. I would suggest from my point of view that Mr. Williston is simply perpetuating a basic error in his approach to the management of the forests of British Columbia which was originally committed by the coalition government formed by the Liberals and Conservatives of that day. I would suggest that the perpetuation of this basic error in policy is one which has worked both to the short run and the long run detriment of the interests of the people in British Columbia in their forest heritage.


Mr. Patterson:: We do not look at it in that way.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: As the hon. member says, some of them do not look at it in that way. I may say in reply to the interjection by the member for Fraser Valley that, unfortunately for him a large part of the forests which were once in his constituency were long ago logged off by the old cut-out and get-out method. So perhaps he has not had as much opportunity in observing at first hand what is going on in respect of the management of our forests as I do over in my own constituency of Comox-Albemi.
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to dwell for a moment or two on the approach we are taking to the consideration of these estimates. I believe the minister will recall that the other day the member for Timiskaming raised the point that the estimates of the Department of Agriculture have been referred to a standing committee of the house for consideration, and pointed out to the minister that very closely associated with

May 13. 1966
Supply-Forestry
agricultural matters were considerations revolving around ARDA, and the section of the estimates in his department that come under the heading of rural development.
As far as I am concerned, I am happy that today the discussion has confined itself so far to a discussion of the estimates of the Minister of Forestry, and has not gone into the whole area of the ARDA program. Perhaps we can expect this to a certain extent because of the discussion within the last few days on a bill. However, I felt at the time that there was some merit in the proposal put forward by the hon. member for Timiskam-ing. While I realize that it is difficult to draw hard and fast lines between the various departmental activities, I would like to supplement that proposition by a suggestion of mine. I know the standing committee which has been set up is known as the standing committee on agriculture, forestry and rural development, but as a member of the standing committee on fisheries, to which the current estimates of that department have been referred, I would like to suggest that in many ways there is a very close overlapping between the considerations involved in the estimates of the Department of Fisheries and those of the Department of Forestry. I say that, having in mind particularly the kind of operation which is being conducted by the federal Department of Forestry where the whole question of the research program into the control of forest pests is involved.
Also involved is the question of assisting the provinces in opening up forest access for the purpose of fire control and forest inventory, and the basic considerations of land use. Indeed I may say, Mr. Chairman, that only at the last sitting of the committee on fisheries, when we were dealing with the estimates of the fisheries research board, some of us in the committee were asking questions of our research scientists who were present before the committee about the correlation between the research programs of the Department of Forestry and those of the Department of Fisheries.
Therefore I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the minister give serious consideration to having his estimates relating specifically to forestry referred to a standing committee, where those estimates can be examined in a way similar to those of the Department of Fisheries. In making this suggestion I go back to the first point I raised, and that is that I believe there is too little understanding on the part of the members of the house and of [Mr. Bamett.J
the people generally of the value of the programs which the federal Department of Forestry are conducting.
I freely admit that I have only a very hazy knowledge of the programs myself. However, from my experience as a member of the fisheries committee I do feel that in this field, as indeed in other fields, where the activities of qualified scientists are involved, there is a special value in the members of the house who are interested having the opportunity of sitting across the table from those who are conducting the programs, and to hear from them some explanation of their activities and the replies they give to questions which may be in our minds.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
I hope, therefore, when the program for the consideration of estimates is being organized for the next fiscal year the minister find the government house leader will keep in mind the idea that this segment of the estimates should go to the standing committee on forestry. I would be almost inclined to say we should have a standing committee on fisheries and forests, because of the overlapping areas of activity which, in my view, is involved. I believe this suggestion would fit in very well with the suggestion made by the hon. member for Timiskaming, that members who are particularly interested in the agricultural field should have an opportunity of examining the rural development estimates in conjunction with the consideration of agriculture.
I recognize that there is an association between forestry and rural development. At the moment, I am not arguing that it is illogical that the Minister of Forestry should have the rural development administration under his jurisdiction. In spite of my temptation to pursue further the question of how the forests of British Columbia should be managed, which was raised by the hon. member for Cariboo, I will restrain myself and perhaps find an opportunity in some other form for discussing that question with him. I shall await the other items of the estimates, when perhaps we can ask questions about the operation of the research program and the nature of the program covered by the agreements with the provinces.


Auguste Choquette: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the Minister of Forestry a question
May 13. 1966

which is not related to his departmental estimates. I just want to ask the minister whether he has any plans for Lotbiniere county, particularly at St. Sylvestre, in the upper part of the county, close to the Beauce, whether such plans are likely to be implemented soon.
I shall add in conclusion, just like the hon. member for Chapleau (Mr. Laprise), that I do not quite agree with the views of the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Allard). On the contrary, I think the Minister of Forestry is doing a wonderful job in his department. Besides, as he is the one responsible for the main offensive against poverty, I believe we need a man of his great talent to assume such responsibilities.
Besides, I would add that I am rather sceptical-here, I probably disagree with the minister-but I am sceptical about those who build up arguments concerning the hierarchy of ministers within the cabinet.
I believe that, by the very fact you are a member of the federal cabinet, you are called upon to play a major role, whether you are in Finance, Forestry, or a Minister without Portfolio; I believe that any member of the cabinet is an influential man, capable of playing a major role in the administration of this country.
Therefore, the minister has my good wishes for a long career in the Department of Forestry and I hope that all his projects can be implemented on a short-term basis.
[English1


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I know the minister would like the first vote to be passed, but I wonder if he would answer the several questions that were raised?


Maurice Sauvé: Yes. In my introductory remarks I mentioned that over the next six years we expect to double the material facilities of the department and to double the staff. This is an indication that we are trying to cope with the problem of research which is required by the extension of the forest industry of this country. We are in close relationship with the provinces. There are two provinces in which forest research is conducted on a provincial basis, namely British Columbia and Ontario. The province of Quebec has indicated its intention of creating a research service, but so far it is only in the planning stage.
We have very close relationships with all the provincial departments of forestry, but
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especially with the departments of forestry in British Columbia and Ontario. In fact, in Ontario our research facilities in the Toronto metropolitan area were in a building owned by the provincial Department of Lands and Forests. One of the reasons, not the main reason, we had to locate at Sault Ste. Marie was that the Department of Lands and Forests of Ontario required the building we were occupying on their ground at Maple.
The hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka mentioned the Dutch elm disease. I did not review all the research we were doing in the department, but there are a number of our people who are working on this very serious disease. So far, no effective and cheap method of fighting the disease has been found. There has been a report in newspapers recently that there is a special technique of infusion in the soil by which one could get rid of the disease or cure the trees which were infected. This method has been known by the department, and in fact has been tried. It has not been as successful as reported in the newspapers, and it is a costly method of fighting the disease.
The hon. member also discussed the problem of importing plywood in relation to the United States market. This problem does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Department of Forestry, since imports and exports are the direct concern of the Department of Trade and Commerce. The hon. member might want to refer to the problem when the estimates of that department are before the committee.
The hon. member for Lotbiniere asked me if we have any plans for the radar station at St. Sylvestre in his riding. The Deputy Minister of the Department of Forestry went to St. Sylvestre with the hon. member for Lotbiniere.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)

Mr. Chairman, we hoped at that time to take over some buildings to open a research centre for the prevention of forest fires. Unfortunately, these projects did not materialize, because there were not enough of us to occupy all the buildings on the radar base. Other federal or provincial departments would have had to move into other buildings. We were ready to take over two or three, but we could not take the responsibility of administrating the whole base. I think the Crown Assets Disposal Corporation has sold the buildings, so that we will not be able to operate there, as we had thought at one time.
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May 13, 1966
LEnglish]
The hon. member for Comox-Alberni mentioned the possibility of referring the estimates of the department to a standing committee of this house at the next session. This is a very good suggestion. It might have been possible to make this arrangement this session if there had been time, but I understand that the committees already have a heavy agenda and because of certain procedures in this house it was felt we could not refer the estimates to a committee this year. This might be possible next year, and they could be referred either to the committee on fisheries or the committee on agriculture, forests and rural development. I would welcome the opportunity to explain in detail, with the assistance of members of the department, every item of the estimates.

The hon. member for Chapleau (Mr. Laprise) mentioned that one of our main problems in Canada is the prevention of forest fires.
From the administrative point of view, the problem is rather difficult. Indeed, only provincial governments have jurisdiction over forest administration. There have often been discussions between officials of the Department of Forestry and those of the departments of lands and forests of the various provinces. But we have to confine ourselves to research for the prevention of forest fires.
On November 29, 1965, we issued a press release which showed that, for the year ending October 31, 1965, losses due to forest fires were the lowest in 37 years. This considerable improvement of the situation should not be attributed to the Minister of Forestry. I say no such thing; nevertheless, the number of forest fires last year was considerably lower.
In fact, we have created in Ottawa an institute for research on the means of fighting forest fires. We do not have power of coercion over lumber companies. We know what must be done to eliminate risks in the bush, but we do not have the authority to demand anything of lumber companies, to force them to clean up the forests after timber operations or to take other steps to fight forest fires efficiently. All this comes strictly under provincial jurisdiction.
The member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Allard) asked me whether there are provincial research services in forestry. There are some in British Columbia and Ontario, and the province of Quebec intends to set one up. These

provincial services work in close co-operation with the federal research services in forestry.

The hon. member for Cariboo mentioned that he had been connected with the forest industry for 26 years. He also referred to the work being done in British Columbia by the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources of that province. I know the minister, Mr. Williston, and saw him recently. I have had meetings with all ministers of lands and forests across Canada. In fact, I make it a point to pay a visit to each of the ten ministers of lands and forest and ministers of agriculture who are responsible for the ARDA program. Once a year I visit each of them in their own capitals, meet their officials and discuss with them the relationship between the federal Department of Forestry and the provincial departments of lands and forests, which in each of the 10 provinces is excellent. We have been fortunate in that the work which we do is essential to the departments of lands and forests in each of the provinces; and we do have to work in coordination with them. We have relations, especially in the province of British Columbia, with the British Columbia Research Council and the B.C. forest industries council of the province.
Just recently, as a result of an agreement between the British Columbia forest industry, the provincial department of lands and forests and the federal Department of Forestry, we were able to sign a special agreement to conduct research on the woolly aphid problem which I mentioned earlier. This year we are committing $150,000 to research, and this is just the beginning. This was made possible owing to the close co-operation between the Department of Lands, Forests and Water Resources in British Columbia, the forest industry, the B.C. Research Council and the federal Department of Forestry. As soon as the minister and Mr. Hoffmeister, president of the B.C. forest industries council came to Ottawa to discuss the problem, we were able to agree at once on the importance of dealing with this disease and undertook to establish a research program which might well have a beneficial effect.
In fact, two weeks ago I was in Victoria in the laboratory at one of these beautiful new buildings to witness the research being done by our people. I found the subject completely fascinating. The woolly aphid is a very small insect. You can find 3,000 of them in an area of one square inch, so you can imagine the
May 13, 1366

damage which can be done to trees and how easily they can become infected. This problem is affecting parts of the forests on Vancouver Island and also, surprisingly, forests along the west coast of Newfoundland in the region of Corner Brook, where we have established a laboratory which devotes much of its research to the problem of combating the woolly aphid.
The hon. member for Kootenay West discussed the problem of personnel. I mentioned in my introductory remarks before the hon. member came into the house that we have been able to recruit most of the personnel needed. The problem is not so much one of recruitment of personnel as of research facilities. We need to expand our buildings. We now have a large program underway, part of which has been approved-the remainder will be approved in a few months-as a result of which we will be able to double our physical facilities in the Department of Forestry in the next six years, increasing by 100 per cent the technical staff and research staff presently employed by the department.
In each of the seven regions of Canada in which we have established headquarters we are about to announce the creation of a consultative advisory committee which will consist of representatives from the provincial departments of lands and forests, forest industries and associations, and universities. Their function will be to advise our forest laboratory in a particular region on the fundamental and applied research which should be conducted. In a few weeks I hope to announce the first of these advisory committees for British Columbia.
Recently I spent a week in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba discussing the problem with people from the provincial governments and universities who are familiar with the industry. We are now about to announce names.
The Canada land inventory is proceeding well. All the provinces have signed the agreement. This is a project which over the next five years will cost about $20 million. It is research with a very high scientific and technical content and is proceeding well. There are some problems to solve, such as the interpretation of aerial photography and transcription of all information for purposes of easy consultation.
In Manitoba we recently signed a research agreement to put on a computer or similar machine all the information we have, so that
Supply

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in a matter of seconds any province could receive answers to any question relating to land inventory.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
The problem of the private woodland operator is a problem that comes under the jurisdiction of provincial authorities. It is rather difficult for the Department of Forestry to intervene in this field, except through research. We are by definition committed to research. The hon. member knows that the department is very sympathetic to the problems of the private tree farmer, and that we are doing everything we can; but what we are doing is very limited. I cannot add anything to raise the hopes of the hon. member.
Much of our literature is distributed throughout Canada and throughout the world. One of the problems is to know which groups are interested in it. The hon. member mentioned trade unions. I think he is correct. We should send this literature, for instance, to the International Woodworkers of America and others in this field.
As for the Canadian College of Conservation, I am afraid that under the British North America Act this would come under education. There might be some possibility of doing something in the research field, and receiving a number of foreign students, outlining to them in two or three days the problems of conservation, and telling them about the situation in Canada. We have institutions in most parts of the country which could receive some of these foreign students.
I think, Mr. Chairman, that I have answered all the questions put to me by various hon. members this afternoon. I shall be ready to answer specific questions on each of the items on the estimates of the department.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Shall the item carry?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
3. Construction of extension to research laboratory in Pointe Claire, Quebec, for use by the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada, $750,000.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Would the minister mind informing the house of the relationship between his department and the research institute, with respect to the types of research done, and with respect to the sharing of costs?


Maurice Sauvé: Yes. The Canadian Pulp and Paper Association of Canada pays for the

May 13, 1966
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annual costs of research in this institute. The federal government has undertaken to pay for the cost of building the research facilities there. This is an old arrangement between McGill University, the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
We have now finalized this agreement. It was agreed long ago to build research facilities for the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association. That organization has the sole responsibility for the research carried on there for the pulp and paper industry. The Department of Forestry is not engaged in this field of activity.
There is consultation between the people who are doing the research for the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association

I think it is either in Pointe Claire, or around there, in Montreal-and our people in the Department of Forestry. There is no overlapping in the work carried on by the department and by the research institute.
The hon. member for Comox-Alberni knows that this research institute is preoccupied with pollution. He has received, through my intercession, information as to exactly what they are doing in the field of pollution. They hope to be able to find an economic way of dealing with acids and other polluting material, in order to stop the pollution of our rivers and lakes.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Is that air pollution as well, may I ask?


Maurice Sauvé: I could not tell you. I know that they deal with water pollution. Perhaps the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, who is interested in this, could answer. He has been in touch with the laboratory people.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Chairman, as the minister has pointed out, I did raise some question about this grant on the estimates of the last year which were dealt with not too long ago. I want to use this opportunity of thanking the minister for doing what he told me then he would do, which was to make more detailed information available than had been available in the committee with respect to the activities of this particular institute, and with particular reference to the field of research into pollution control.
I should also like to say that I appreciate the very detailed report which came to me, through the minister's action, from the president of this institute, outlining exactly the

work that was being done in the field of water pollution control and, to a certain extent, in air pollution control. That work is being undertaken because, in the production of pulp and paper, the industry is an important factor contributing to the pollution of our clean air and clean water.
I had wanted an opportunity of speaking on this subject even before the hon. member for Kootenay West rose to ask his question.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
10. Freight assistance on western feed grains including assistance in respect of grain storage costs in accordance with the terms and conditions prescribed by the governor in council, $19,200,000.
Mr. Rapp:: Mr. Chairman, under item 10 it is shown that freight assistance is going to be decreased by $1,800,000 for the coming year. Would the minister explain the reason for this reduction? Is it on account of less feed grain being moved? What is the reason?
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)


Maurice Sauvé: We have been negotiating with the Canadian National Railways a program whereby feed grain can be carried by rail the year round from the lakehead to various points in the maritimes at a cost equivalent to that of water transportation. This accounts for the difference between the amount provided last year and the new amount this year. It will mean a saving for the government, but not a reduction in the quantity of grain transported from the lakehead.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Forestry-
15. Administration, operation and maintenance including grants as detailed in the estimates, $12,620,000.
George Louis Chatterton: I notice on page 167 an increase in the amount provided for regional research and services. The minister has just been out in British Columbia. Can he tell us whether it is proposed to extend the facilities of the research laboratories in Victoria?


Maurice Sauvé: The reason for the increase is that following the opening of the laboratories last February the number of personnel has increased, with a corresponding increase in the amount needed for salaries for 1966-67 compared with 1965-66.
The other reason for the increase is that we are engaged in a special program to deal with the woolly aphid problem which we are conducting in conjunction with the provincial Department of Lands, Forests and Water
May 13, 1966

Resources, and the British Columbia Research Council.


George Louis Chatterton: Is there no proposal to enlarge the facilities at the research laboratory in Victoria?


Maurice Sauvé: Yes, there is such a proposal, but this year we shall not build, though we have a sum of money set aside for architects and engineers. There is no project for physical expansion in Victoria this year.


George Louis Chatterton: Is that because of the tight money situation?


Maurice Sauvé: No; this is what the program calls for.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Can the minister explain why the vote last year for publication of reports and other materials amounted to $8,900 while this year it is only $2,500?


Maurice Sauvé: Can the hon. member give the page number?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Page 166.


Maurice Sauvé: When we organized the department on a national basis a certain number of regional facilities were left on a regional basis, and it is these to which the item refers. This explains why this particular vote is less than it was last year.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I noted the remarks made by the minister about insect infestation on Vancouver Island, and that there had been a similar outbreak on the west coast of Newfoundland. Is this the infestation which has recently attacked the balsam fir? There was an item in the most recent bulletin published by the Council of Resource Ministers saying a ban had been placed on the shipment of balsam fir lumber from British Columbia as well as upon the export of live trees. Is the research program to which the minister referred related to this question?
After receiving that bulletin I wrote to the Minister of Lands, Forests and Waters of British Columbia to ask for some details. I was puzzled by a reference in the bulletin to 250 billion feet of balsam fir being threatened by this infestation. I did not think we had so much balsam fir in British Columbia. Was the research program designed to lift this ban on the use of our balsam fir?


Maurice Sauvé: I do not think the program was designed in order to lift any restriction. It was originated in an effort to find a way of eliminating the balsam woolly aphid.
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I knew that in certain regions of Vancouver island some restrictions had been imposed, but I was not aware the problem had reached the dimensions indicated by the hon. member. Are the figures correct? That figure of 250 billion seems to be extraordinarily large.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I myself was puzzled by that reference. I wondered if it was a misprint.


Maurice Sauvé: Did the figure come from my department?


Thomas Speakman Barnett: No; it was in a bulletin published by the secretariat of the Council of Resource Ministers in Montreal. It was a brief item and did not go into detail. I wrote to the appropriate minister in British Columbia asking him to send me more details particularly with reference to the volume of timber involved and the imposition of the embargo. Is the program to which the minster referred intended to deal with this particular infestation?


Maurice Sauvé: This is a program to deal with the balsam woolly aphid. I read the bulletin to which the hon. member referred but I do not recall the figure he mentioned. I am afraid I cannot give the hon. member a precise answer. I shall have to find out whether there is any relation between what is contained in that announcement and the balsam woolly aphid. I read the bulletin program we are carrying out-a program limited to some parts of Vancouver island where this woolly aphid is presenting a serious problem.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: On another subject, could the minister give us a few more details about the item which can be found at page 164-grants in aid of forestry research, in an amount of $90,000? Does this involve a program of grants toward the assistance of research at universities or similar institutes? Where is this research being done?


Maurice Sauvé: This money is being spent on what we call extramural research-research in universities, research by individuals, and so on. This is for work done outside the various laboratories of the department. There are four forestry schools in Canada. The faculty of forestry, British Columbia, which is under the direction of Mr. Joseph Gardner, a past director of the research laboratory of the Department of Forestry in Vancouver, is receiving a grant under this item.

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Thomas Speakman Barnett: May I suggest that when he is considering grants of this kind in the future the minister should use his good offices in connection with a situation which has concerned me for years-the apparent inadequacy of our arrangements to provide foresters and forest engineers with a broad basic education in related fields of science, so that they may have some appreciation of the results and side effects of forestry activities?
My interest in this situation dates back to the first forest spraying program on Vancouver island in the course of which serious damage was done to fish life. I found to my horror that the forestry engineer in charge of this program had less knowledge of the effect of his proposals upon surrounding aspects of nature than I, as a layman, had picked up in this field in the course of my duties as a member of the House of Commons.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
I hope that the minister, in discussions relating to the arrangements for future research grants, will use his good offices to ensure that our education of forestry people is such that they understand this basic relationship in multiple resource use.


Maurice Sauvé: I could give the hon. member a list of all research projects which are done outside the department. It is very technical and scientific, and to save the time of the committee I could send him a copy this coming week.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: That kind of list could be more usefully considered in the standing committee, as I suggested in my earlier remarks. There is another intriguing item of $5,400 as Canada's share of the cost of developing a multilingual forestry terminology. Is this Latin or Esperanto? I assume it is an international project.


Maurice Sauvé: Yes, and it has to do with the other official language of our country, French. It is a project to produce a lexicon which would give the equivalent French terms. The work is being done by a professor at the University of Grenoble in France.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Then it is really a bilingual program, not a multilingual one?


Maurice Sauvé: This is the part of the program in which Canada is interested. It is part of a larger program which has been launched under the auspices of UNESCO. Our contribution of $5,400 relates to the French part.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

23. Contributions to the provinces in the amounts and subject to the terms specified in the details of estimates, $8,660,000.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am rather interested in this vote because it covers agreements between the federal and provincial governments. I remember some years ago there was an agreement covering the forest inventory in the district in which I live, but the man in charge was more interested in the matron of the local hospital than in the inventory being undertaken. What check is made by the minister's department to make certain that these agreements are properly carried out, and can he say what is being done with respect to research into forest fire protection? Are water bombers being tried and what other methods are in use?


Maurice Sauvé: Each project which is approved by a province has to be approved by the federal department of forestry under one of five headings. All the details of a project are given to the federal administration and then there is a check on the expenditure of the money.
As for a water bomber, the Department of Industry has agreed to finance up to $5 million the project of Canadair to build a new water bomber, of which the province of Quebec has already agreed to buy about 20. The government of France is also interested in this water bomber, which could be used for other purposes. In some of the provinces it could replace the Canso, some of which are possibilities of such a water bomber, its still at the planning stage. The Department of Forestry was consulted about the technical possibilities of such a water bomber, its upkeep, cost and so on. I understand Canadair is in process of coming out with one experimental water bomber, and this type of aircraft will be sold in Canada to Quebec, and in Europe to France.


Robert Muir: Is the minister able to provide us with any information respecting continuation or renewal of the program carried on in Nova Scotia dealing with forest stand improvement?


Maurice Sauvé: So far this year we have not received any request from the provincial Department of Lands and Forests for this program to be carried out in the summer of 1966. Usually we wait until there is a request from the province, but to my knowledge up to the present there has been no request.
May 13, 1966


Robert Muir: Up to the present time?


Maurice Sauvé: To my knowledge up to the present time. There might have been some correspondence between the provincial department and officers of my department that has not reached my desk, and if there is anything contrary to what I have said I shall inform the hon. member.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Is there any bulletin or document which gives details of the various items covered by agreements with the provinces, and indicates the amounts being spent in each of the provinces?


Maurice Sauvé: This can be found in the annual report of the Department of Forestry, which gives in detail what has been done in each province.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: The annual report usually refers to the program that has ended, rather than the program that is ahead. Is there any substantial variation in the program for the current year? I notice the expenditure is the same, but I wonder has there been any change in emphasis?


Maurice Sauvé: I cannot say because we have to wait for requests from the provinces. There are five different subjects covered by these agreements and the provinces have a choice. They might spend all the money under one heading or under all five headings. We do not know in advance. I could not give the projects for 1966-67 until the year is ended and that is why I referred the hon. member to the annual report. I could only specify the requests received so far.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Could the minister provide the details when all the requests have been received, and table them in the house?


Maurice Sauvé: I think so.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Rural Development-[DOT]
30. Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act program and Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act program-construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment including authority to make recoverable advances in amounts not exceeding in the aggregate the amount of the share of the province of New Brunswick of the cost of the Petitcodiac river dam project, $848,900.
Stanley Howard Knowles: Does this mean that item 25 is being referred to the committee on agriculture?
DEBATES	5145
Railway Conciliation Board Appointed


Maurice Sauvé: No, we are not referring any items of the forestry estimates to the committee this year, as I told the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, but we might be doing so next year.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I admit that it was in the midst of some confusion, but last Tuesday the question was asked by the hon. member for Timiskaming and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, as to whether items relating to ARDA could be referred to the standing committee on agriculture, forestry and rural development. The minister did not agree that this would be done, but said that it would be considered.


Maurice Sauvé: We had a debate for three days on the ARDA program in respect of Bill No. C-151. I believe the opinion of the house would be that we had a serious investigation of the ARDA program in this house for three days and that it might not be necessary for these estimates to be referred to the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Herman Maxwell Batten: This completes the main estimates of the Department of Forestry.


Mr. Favreau:: Mr. Chairman, could we have unanimous agreement of the house to carry on with the estimates? Two of the ministers are here at present, the Postmaster General and the Minister of Labour. These ministers are ready to carry on with their estimates. I think this procedure would do much to expedite the business of the house.


Reynold Rapp: Mr. Chairman, a number of our members would like to speak on the estimates of the Department of Labour. They took it for granted that these estimates would not be taken up today.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.



LABOUR RELATIONS


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, may I revert to motions?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the house give unanimous consent to the minister to revert to motions?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
May 13, 1966
5146	COMMONS
Railway Conciliation Board Appointed


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I had hoped it would be possible to make this announcement in the course of presentation of the estimates of the Department of Labour. I was not able to make the announcement earlier, but since it refers to a matter which has been raised in this house several times within the last week and since it has been released to the press, I think it is proper that it be made to the house at this time.
I wish to announce that Hon. J. C. A. Cameron, Q.C., of Ottawa has been appointed chairman of the board of conciliation established to deal with a dispute involving 22,000 non-operating railway employees of the Canadian National Railways and certain jointly operated railways: Northern Alberta Railways Company, Toronto Terminals Railway Company, and the Shawinigan Falls Terminal Railway Company.
Hon. Mr Cameron, who was a judge of the Exchequer Court of Canada for many years, has had wide experience as an arbitration and conciliation board chairman. During the critical war years he served as chairman of the National War Labour Board. I believe we are very fortunate in obtaining a man of his experience and calibre for this important and complex task.
The other members of the conciliation board are Mr. A. G. Cooper, Q.C., of Halifax, nominee of the railway companies, and Mr. E.	P. O'Neal, of Vancouver, nominee of the union.
The dispute involves non-operating railway employees, represented by the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and General Workers. Conciliation boards also have been appointed to deal with 55,000 other non-operating railway employees and 28,000 non-operating railway shopcraft employees.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Richard Albert Bell: Mr. Speaker, members of the house will welcome the appointment of a jurist as distinguished as is Hon. Mr. Cameron to undertake this very important task. I am sure members on all sides of the house certainly wish him well in what is an imperative national duty.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, we welcome the announcement the minister has made. We wish these three boards well as they cope with their task.



NATIONAL CAPITAL ACT


Richard Albert Bell: the second reading of Bill No. C-12, to amend the National Capital Act.
He said:	Mr. Speaker, this bill to
amend the National Capital Act to establish a green belt advisory committee is, I believe, non-controversial; certainly it is nonpartisan. Hon. members on all sides of the house share the imperative urge to advance the cause of national capital planning. Is it too much, then, to hope that this afternoon the government supporters would not feel it necessary or desirable to talk out this bill, but rather would permit it to come to a vote in the hope that the house might adopt it.
I see the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Martin) is in the chamber. I know of his interest in national capital planning and perhaps I might enlist his help in this matter. It is my sincere belief the adoption of this bill would accrue to the general advantage of the whole national capital region. Assuredly the bill is not a matter of mere local interest; it has a basic national significance.
Every Canadian has a prime stake in and a responsibility for the future of Ottawa and of the national capital region, as a symbol of a united nation. I believe members of all parties in this house agree that it is of paramount importance that Ottawa should be given the atmosphere, the individuality and the dignity of a national capital which is becoming of a dynamic nation. The standards of city planning and of city development should represent the most advanced thinking available. This parliament should be ready to provide the funds necessary for these proper national purposes.
Now, sir, only 230 days remain before Canada enters her centennial year. In 1967 Ottawa will be the Mecca for many more Canadian, commonwealth and foreign visitors than at any other period in her history. In my view a crash program of national capital planning is needed urgently in these next seven months, if Ottawa is to be readied for the centennial. There must be a much more active and vigorous partnership among the Department of Public Works, the National Capital Commission, the civic administrations of Ottawa and the surrounding townships and villages, and the government of Ontario. Only in this way can Ottawa achieve the status of a great and unique city developed by enlightened planning which reflects the vigorous and
May 13. 1966



dynamic culture of Canada in her centennial year.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
Foresight, determination and haste-and I emphasize haste-are now needed to enhance the quality and character of the city. Sir, Ottawa is not a fully planned capital in the sense of Washington, Canberra or Brasilia. But the influence of the National Capital Commission and its predecessors has been profound. This parliament should assure even greater support of municipal and other services as a matter of urgent, national priority.
This bill deals only with one aspect of the problem, but it is an important one. It would make mandatory the appointment of a green belt advisory committee responsible for the administration and development of the green belt as a unique and imaginative concept in national capital planning.
Hon. members from other parts of Canada may not be fully familiar with the green belt and the tremendous investment which the people of Canada now have in this area. The original concept of a green belt surrounding the national capital and defining and controlling its physical limits stems from the report of Mr. Jacques Greber. He defined his proposal in his famous report as follows:
In the centre, the urban region is delimited by a perimeter, intended to prohibit tentacular and linear extensions of constructions abutting upon highways. To that effect an area, zoned as a green belt, frames this perimeter and is subjected to regulations to protect the area comprised within Qie green belt against undesirable development. Outside of the extreme limit of this green belt, the territory will retain its rural character, with the exception of limited and controlled minor and appropriate developments.
No action of an effective nature was taken until June 18, 1958, when the right hon. gentleman from Prince Albert, as prime minister, announced the decision of the government to acquire ownership of the green belt by purchase or expropriation so as to, in his words, "ensure that the development of the capital area over the long term future will be in accordance with the national importance and significance of this city." The words of the right hon. gentleman from Prince Albert at page 1381 of Hansard of June 18, 1958, are worth repeating:
I should like to emphasize that this is a longterm project undertaken in the national interest. It is not a short-term one nor one that has been undertaken at the request of the local municipalities. Experience has shown that unless effectual control is exercised, cities tend to sprawl out into suburbs, resulting in what is called ribbon development, in a manner that is quite contrary to and
National Capital Act
inconsistent with the long-term planning that is necessary and essential if the capital of Canada is to be preserved and developed so that it will be a capital city of which this generation and succeeding generations can and will be proud.
By investing a reasonable sum now to acquire title to the lands on the boundaries of the city the people of Canada, through parliament, can be assured of that control which is necessary before further developments take place which may indeed result in action being taken too late. During the early years after the land is acquired the rents received for it may not be as much as the interest on the funds borrowed to purchase the lands in question, but the government is confident that over the long-term period the investment will be found to be worth while financially, as well as being necessary to achieve the important purpose which we and the people of Canada as a whole, I believe, have in mind and desire.
The result of this decision communicated to the house in those words on June 18, 1958, has meant that the people of Canada are now the owners of a green belt surrounding the national capital consisting of 41,390 acres, for which to date $34,241,578 of public money has been advanced or loaned and for which, according to estimate, an additional $5 million will be needed to complete the program. This is a total public investment by way of loans or advances of almost $40 million.
Many of the methods of the National Capital Commission in expropriating and acquiring the green belt were an anathema to some of my constituents; but these decisions have been taken and there is no use crying over spilled milk. This does not necessarily mean that we have reached the end, however, of green belt expropriations. According to that very distinguished journalist, Mr. Richard Jackson, the government is planning to extend the green belt to an area of 900 square miles. Whether this be true or not, I have learned never to discount the informed predictions of Mr. Jackson. But whether at its present or an expanded acreage, what concerns me and what this bill is all about is the management of this $40 million asset belonging to the Canadian people, an asset bound to increase in value as the years go on.
Any area of 41,000 acres requires knowledgeable, competent management by expert persons and, quite frankly, this is what the National Capital Commission has lacked. I have the highest respect for the commission itself, its chairman, its general manager and staff with one exception-a man who should be confined to outer darkness because he has done more to set back the cause of national capital planning and frustrate the good will essential thereto than is conceivable or could

agricultural advisory committee to the property division of the National Capital Commission. If this bill has hastened the establishment of this committee, it has already served a useful purpose. This committee consists of three public servants, Dr. Grant Carman, a dedicated, articulate and very able member of the council of the township of Nepean who is the director of information of the Department of Agriculture; Dr. Peter C. Stobbe, of the Soil Research Institute of the Department of Agriculture, and Mr. R. C. Hodges, of ARDA in the Department of Forestry. The objectives and functions of this committee are described in the appointing document as follows:
l-2-The purpose of the committee is to afford the property division of the National Capital Commission professional and technical aid and advice with respect to matters of terms of development of the agricultural and forestry portions of the lands owned by the commission.
Further purposes are:
1.5-The Agricultural Advisory Committee shall consider, investigate and report on matters relating to the use and development of land for Agricultural and Forestry purposes in which the Commission may be interested, as requested by the Property Division. Such matters will include:
(i)	The rental, maintenance and rehabilitation of Agricultural properties of the Commission.
(ii)	Use of Agricultural lands with specific reference to land capabilities and classification.
(iii)	The maintenance of lands, fences, buildings and drains.
(iv)	Matters of good farming practices, leasing methods and terms.
(v)	Economic feasibility of Agricultural projects and practices.
Now, sir, much as I welcome this advance and great as my respect is for this committee, and its chairman, Dr. Carman, the establishment of it is only a sop, an attempt to meet the purposes of this bill now under discussion in the house and to do it inadequately.
In my belief it is imperative that members of the public, experienced and knowledgeable citizens of the area, in addition to civil servants, should be involved in this work of planning and managing the green belt. This is what this bill would do. Already at this session, on a number of occasions, I have requested the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) and the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Mellraith) to agree to the appointment of a joint special committee of the Senate and the House of Commons to study the national capital problems. I am at a loss to understand the reluctance of the members of the government to accept the repeated suggestions
23033-326J
National Capital Act
which have been made to them. This afternoon I renew the request to both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Works to appoint such a joint special committee. I believe that great good could be achieved by a parliamentary review of all the problems of the National Capital Commission in this area. That review should take place at the earliest possible date and would include the problems which I have endeavoured to present to the house this afternoon.
I would commend this bill to the house as a contribution to the national capital planning; and would hope that it will neither be talked out nor opposed on political grounds.


Mr. Paul Tardif (Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I was very much impressed by the enthusiasm of my good friend, the member for Carleton. I am going to limit my remarks as much as possible to a few concentrated ones so that he will not be able to accuse me of talking this bill out. As a matter of fact, I thought he was in the process of doing that himself when he talked about everything except what the bill contains. I was impressed by his historical and statistical notes. The explanatory note to the bill states this:

Pursuant to subsection (3)-

-which is the subsection the hon. member seeks to amend-

-of section 9 of the National Capital Act, the Commission may appoint a National Capital Planning Committee and such other committees as it considers necessary or desirable for the administration of the Act.
The purpose of this bill is to direct that the Commission shall amongst those committees appoint a Green Belt Advisory Committee.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
IEnglish]
The commission has the right to appoint any type of committee which, in its judgment, is necessary or can make a contribution to the national capital. The hon. member for Carleton suggested he was deeply interested in making an attractive capital. I think everybody in Ottawa who has administrative responsibility in any sphere, civic, provincial or federal, has exactly the same interest and! has had that interest for a good many years. This is not entirely new. If the National Capital Commission has the right at this time to appoint the committees that are necessary'

May 13, 1966
National Capital Act
in order for it to function, then there is no need for this bill.
However, Mr. Speaker, although I am going to vote in favour of the bill-and I am going to tell the hon. member why I am going to vote in favour of it-I want to tell him that I feel this bill may make an unnecessary change in the act as it now stands. My hon. friend has said he has the highest respect for every member of the commission, with the exception of one black sheep who belongs to that large family which administers the national capital. I do not know to whom he is referring. However, if there is only one in this flock, then I think that is a rather good average. It would be better if we did not have any, but I do not know whether that is possible.
The hon. member wants an additional committee of from five to 12 members. He has said there is a great deal of confusion about the national capital and, because of this confusion, because of the lack of experienced people, because these people do not know the problems of the green belt, we should have a committee of from five to 12 people. He must realize, as we all do, that the more committees you have and the larger those committees are, the less work is done.
What surprises me is that when the hon. member was a minister he did not make the recommendation to set up this committee. He said he was not successful when he suggested the establishment of this committee to the present government. However, he does not speak of his lack of success when he was sitting on the treasury benches. I do not know why he did not mention it. Most of the members of the National Capital Commission were appointed by his government, and they were appointed on his recommendation. As a matter of fact, most of them are still members of the commission. I do not suggest this is the reason they are not capable of looking after the problems of the green belt, and I am sure that is not what the hon. member meant, either.
I shall vote for this bill in any event, but I am a little afraid that if it passes it might add to the confusion that already exists by reason of the number of committees we have today. Actually, if the purpose of the measure is to protect the people in the green belt who are going to be expropriated, then the hon. member is closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen.
[Mr. Tardif.l
In so far as the Ontario side is concerned, most of the expropriation has already taken place. There are no expropriations that have to be made on the Quebec side, through negotiation. If the purpose is to protect people who are going to be expropriated, there are very few of them left. When I was in opposition, many of these people came to me as well as to the former member for Carleton requesting representations to enable them to get a square deal. In many cases they did not get a fair deal. I am sure that the present staff of the National Capital Commission can gather the data to make sure that the lands for the green belt are the best plans for the city of Ottawa. In the first place, they have at their disposal a great number of experts who can provide information to the National Capital Commission. They do not have to be members of a committee. I am sure the members of the National Capital Commission staff will accept the additional burden, will probably be willing to sacrifice some of their time, to do the kind of job we expect them to do.
So far as I know there are only a few parcels of land that remain to be expropriated under the present plans of the National Capital Commission for the development of the green belt. This afternoon the hon. member has referred to the fact the commission has plans for recreational areas, small factories and many other things that are going to be located in the green belt eventually. If these plans already exist, and if we need advisers to change those plans somewhat, I am sure we can do that without having a committee.
However, I am going to vote for the bill if it comes to a vote. I am going to vote for it for this reason: Even if there are only a few people to be expropriated, or if there are people who have been expropriated who are dissatisfied with the treatment they received from the people who valued their property when it was expropriated by the National Capital Commission, then I would vote for this measure so that they could make representations to this committee. I know a great number of people who belong to the Home Owners Association in the green belt who have made representations on many occasions to me, to the former member for Carleton and everybody in the National Capital Commission but without great success. If the passage of this measure will give these people another opportunity to state their grievances, then I am in favour of it. I
May 13, 1966

pray they will be more successful than the people who appeared in front of the National Capital Commission when the large part of the expropriation was being done in 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961.


Mr.   J.-T. Richard@Ottawa East: I rise at this time to say only a few words about Bill No. C-12, an act to amend the National Capital Act. I might say that I would have preferred to have an opportunity to talk about our national capital plan in general. As the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Bell) said a few moments ago, we should discuss some crash program to do some of the work which should be done between now and July 1 next year.
However, this bill relates particularly to the green belt. As the hon. member for Carleton and the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Tardif) have indicated, there is a provision in the National Capital Act which enables the commission to appoint such committees as it considers necessary or desirable for the administration of the act. No doubt one can assume that if the commission felt it necessary, they would have such a commission established for the green belt. I am surprised,
I must say, that -the commission has waited this long to appoint what is termed an agricultural advisory committee and which, I assume, would do in part the work this green belt committee would do. I am sure this action must have been taken because of this bill which the hon. member put on the order paper.
My only objection at this time, and it is not an objection to the bill, is that these committees, like this green belt committee, do not have any power. I go back to my perennial statement on this subject of the national capital. We have never properly delimited our plans for our capital. We talk about a national capital, but nobody seems to know who has any power to do anything about it. I feel this is the first thing that should be done, once and for all, namely that the two authorities should settle this problem immediately. I refer to the federal government and the provincial government. They should act in co-operation with the municipalities concerned. There are always these plans being made which involve provincial agencies, but provincial representatives never take part in the planning. It is the province that has the power over the land as well as over the municipalities.
National Capital Act
We had a very good illustration of this only a few days ago in court here in Ottawa on an expropriation case. The appellant in this case before the Supreme Court of Canada was claiming his lands had been wrongly expropriated by the National Capital Commission which, he alleged, did not have the power of expropriation. The Solicitor General of Canada (Mr. Pennell) claimed that Canada could even expropriate provincial lands. The only objector to this theory was some interloper from Quebec, who was not really interested because these lands were in Ontario. There was no one from Toronto present, so we do not know the viewpoint of the province of Ontario on this subject. The matter is left somewhat hazy. We do not know at this time, as I say, what are the thoughts of the government at Toronto toward this national capital plan.
I am in favour, Mr. Speaker, of this type of committee, but I should like to have the National Capital Commission come forward with the kind of plan required and be given the power to do the things it is doing. The things it is doing are not wrong, but everyone is suspicious of them because they are not set out in black and white. Everyone is afraid to have them approved by proper negotiation or through a proper decision of the court.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
I do not think that this matter should go to the courts. I think that the province of Ontario, together with the government of Canada, should once and for all sit down and decide whether they want a national capital of a certain kind and a National Capital Commission with certain powers.
I am a native of the city of Ottawa, Mr. Speaker, and we natives are all very proud. Like all citizens of Canada, we are anxious to co-operate. But let no one think that it has been an easy thing for those who are taxpayers in this area to co-operate in a plan which is so hard to put through; when we are subjected to increased taxation because we are partners in a plan which entails considerable expense. Nevertheless we are willing to go ahead if we know where we are going; and if this kind of committee can help, I for one am all for it.


Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Gatineau):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague for Carleton (Mr. Bell) on

May 13, 1966
National Capital Act
his vigorous, spirited and colourful speech, as always. As I know him quite well, I hope that he will be just as spirited and colourful to uphold bilingualism within the N.C.C.
Mr. Speaker, I was surprised at the introduction of Bill C-12, for the simple reason that I thought this action was taken much too late. It is, as it were, an overdue delivery, and we know what kind of child this can produce. This bill should have been submitted to the house around 1958, when the present sponsor represented within the government an element which would surely have given a lot more value to the bill at that time. And I think that if the N.C.C. had today the power to appoint a Green Belt Advisory Committee, it should not have to force that committee to sit, because this should have been done several years ago. The N.C.C. should, of course, have appointed such an advisory committee and also consulted with the mayors of the various municipalities or, at least, with municipal councils, that is elected people, and, I repeat, before today, because the national capital area covers between 1,800 and
2,000	square miles. It is impossible to do today, through consultations carried on by an advisory committee, what was done yesterday.
As I say, at the very beginning, the National Capital Commission, then known as the Federal District Commission, may not have had extraordinary powers, but nevertheless it had advisory powers which it failed to use. Perhaps the mayors of the neighbouring municipalities, attracted by the free aspect of the development of certain parks or certain parts of their territories, were a bit taken in by this golden opportunity which was held out in bright prospects to them. And even today, if the objective of an advisory committee is to be achieved practically, if the National Capital Commission is to be forced under the provisions of the bill, to appoint a Green Belt Advisory Committee, I suggest there would be an overlapping of provincial and federal authority. I do not think that we can have the same view of the problems submitted with regard to the acquisition of lands and with regard to everything contained in subsection (3b) of section 9. Quebec and Ontario municipalities will not see eye to eye, and there may be confusion and misunderstanding around the conference table, which I think will result in bringing to a standstill the projects for the development of

the federal capital. When I refer to the federal capital, this includes the national capital area. And how could we determine the role that could be played today by such a committee, since some municipalities both on the Quebec and Ontario sides have difficulty agreeing with each other.
To this effect, I quote a newspaper report of May 13, 1964-
[English1
What prompts persons both inside and outside of the Commons to raise this question periodically are instances of dissension at Ottawa's city hall, the lack of co-ordination between this city and its neighbours on transportation and hospital services, and the lack of progress on road repair programs.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)

If dissension prevails within municipalities, is it possible, do you think, to appoint an advisory committee on which representatives of various regional governments could sit in order to discuss a common problem? If we want to survive, we shall have to draw up extensive plans for the future.
Planning is as essential in the social and urban fields as in any other. I have here an editorial by Mr. Gerard Bernier which appeared in Le Droit of December 16, 1964, in which he states:
For several years, the federal government, through the N.C.C., has performed a fine job of town planning in the area. Both on the Ontario and on the Quebec sides, what a lot of extensive and tremendous achievements.
However, we find an anomaly which should be corrected as soon as possible. The municipalities concerned, on both sides of the Ottawa river, are not represented within the N.C.C. by a representative of their government at the municipal level. It is normal that the mayors of Ottawa and Hull should be official members of the N.C.C. and have the privilege of being represented within this body by an appointed delegate if they are unable to attend a meeting.
When I had the pleasure and the honour of being mayor of the municipality of Lucerne-it may not be the most populous, but it certainly is the most beautiful municipality in the district-I said on January 5, 1965: we are on the road to progress and I hope the population will keep on co-operating. At that time, we were counting on the co-operation of the N.C.C.
We had informed the N.C.C. that if it wanted to give us a square deal, we would provide all the required opportunities, and I am pleased to say that even though a few hitches occurred, we have always tried to
May 13, 1966

carry out a program likely to please both parties.
At the very beginning, about 15 years ago, when there was no possibility of getting along with the N.C.C., our municipalities could have tried at least to take a more practical approach to the matter, as distinct from an abstract and intellectual approach, so as not to leave it to the N.C.C. to plan all our territories.
I will be told, I know, that at the time, we could not do such a thing, that the matter was perhaps too ticklish to be discussed, because then the prime concern of the municipalities was this: the matter of money, of grants given to municipalities, and there were also some extremely important matters, such as that of expropriations. These often concerned regions where so-called shacks were bought at prices which their owners could never have received otherwise.
I think these factors were the reason why the municipalities never tried to stop the growing encroachment of the N.C.C. in the field of planning. I do not think much can be accomplished in practice with this committee, which would be another worthless one among the many committees of the N.C.C.
I remember a brief already submitted suggesting that such a committee should be established-I shall speak of it in a moment -but it was never approved, for even if it could have been set up, there were too many committees and some overlapping. The idea was therefore discarded. When a federal district comprising part of the territory of the province of Quebec and part of Ontario is planned, an agreement should perhaps be reached and the decision should be made by the federal government together with the provinces. It should be unanimous, and in my opinion the various representatives of the regional governments should meet to discuss the project with the N.C.C. This should not be a consultation but an intermunicipal and interprovincial committee which will make suggestions to the federal government so that the latter can, in a reasonable and sensible atmosphere free from partisanship, create a federal district in Canada, always according to the criterions which I mentioned in a speech I made in the house last month.
I do not see very well the role which the advisory committee would have to play, because I am convinced that certain areas on the Ontario side will never accept that the
Business of the House
Quebec side should receive its share of federal buildings, they will never accept that the development of the immense territory on the side of the national capital should serve to other purpose than driveways, roads and parks.
They will never accept that, since the people in Ontario can come to the Quebec side during the week-end to get some rest after their work.
In this federal district, a vast system of schools would also have to be built on the Ontario side as well as the Quebec side for the benefit of those who want to prepare for a career in the civil service.
Do you believe that we can achieve that with an advisory committee? I submit that we will run around in circles and that this advisory committee will never work, because if I can judge from the advisory committees which I have seen at work, despite meeting after meeting, nothing is ever achieved.


An hon. Member:: Six o'clock.


Richard Albert Bell: The hon. gentleman has talked it out.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hour for the consideration of private members' business has expired.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Reynold Rapp: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister whether on Monday next the house will deal with a supply motion?


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: So far as I know, there is no change in plan. There will be a supply motion Monday.


Richard Albert Bell: What about Wednesday?


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: What is to happen on Wednesday we shall announce on Monday.


[Stage Direction]
At six o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[The following items were passed in committee of supply this day:]

[Stage Direction]
3. Construction of extension to research laboratory in Pointe Claire, Quebec, for use by the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada, $750,000.
[Stage Direction]
May 13, 1966
Supply-Items Passed
1.	Departmental administration, $1,121,200.
10. Freight assistance on western teed grains including assistance in respect to grain storage costs in accordance with the terms and conditions prescribed by the Governor in Council, $19,200,000.
Forestry-
15. Administration, operation and maintenance, including grants as detailed in estimates, $12,620,000.
20. Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment, $3,063,300.
23. Contributions to the provinces in the amounts and subject to the terms specified in the details of estimates, $8,660,000.
Rural development-
25. Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act program and Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act program-administration, operation and maintenance, $1,328,000.
30. Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act program and Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act program-construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment including authority to make recoverable advances in amounts not exceeding in the aggregate the amount of the share of the province of New Brunswick of the cost of the Petitcodiac River Dam Project, $848,900.
35. Payments in respect of projects and programs under the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act, and payments to provinces pursuant to agreements entered into under that act, $22,000,000.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, May 16, 1966