1967-02-07

COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
Tenth and eleventh reports of standing committee on public accounts-Mr. Hales.
[Note: Text of the foregoing reports appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]

Mr. Jack Roxburgh (for Mr. Klein) moved:: That the second report of the special joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons on immigration, presented to the house on Tuesday, January 31, 1967, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Leader of fhe Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. It has to do with the statement he made in the house yesterday as recorded at page 12682 cf Hansard, and which reads in part as follows:
-I had indicated to one or two people since Mr. Coyne made his statement that the terms of the order speak for themselves, that I was not going to give approval to transactions of the kind outlined here, and that it would require very exceptional circumstances for me to exercise my discretion. I said that in one case to Mr. Sinclair Stevens and in another to another member of the associated group.
I asked if the minister would tell us who that other person was, and the minister replied that he would have to refresh his memory. Arising out of that statement I ask the minister when, where and under what circumstances the minister made this positive and categorical statement to Mr. Sinclair Stevens. Who was the other person in addition to Mr. Stevens to whom the minister referred, and under what circumstances and where did that discussion take place?
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, similar questions were directed to me yesterday in the committee on finance, trade and economic affairs, but I am quite happy to clarify my answer of yesterday in the House of Commons.
I made these statements to Mr. Sinclair Stevens yesterday, after Mr. Coyne had made his statement, in a telephone conversation I had with Mr. Stevens when he phoned me to state his position in relation to the statements made by Mr. Coyne. I have refreshed my memory, Mr. Speaker, and it is to the effect that I am not certain whether in the conversation I had with the other person yesterday morning immediately following my discussion with Mr. Sinclair Stevens I did in fact repeat what I had said to Mr. Stevens.


John George Diefenbaker: Who was the other person?


Mitchell William Sharp: The other conversation was not in relation to any matters which are before the house. It was a conversation on another subject altogether, and I should not like to say now that I did mention this matter because that might not be accurate and might lead to unnecessary embarrassment on the part of that person.


John George Diefenbaker: Did the minister have occasion to read Mr. Stevens' statements reported in the Globe and Mail for today, to the effect that:
I advised the directors that at some future date I, in my capacity as president of B.I.F., would seek clarification from the Minister of Finance as to under what circumstances such consent-
That is, borrowing consent.
-would be granted.
I have not approached the Minister of Finance on this matter nor do I intend to.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I bring that to the minister's attention, and I would ask him how this conversation arose yesterday between him and Mr. Stevens.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that this matter be clarified, and I hope I may have your indulgence to say a few other
February 7, 1967

Inquiries of the Ministry words. I volunteered this statement to Mr. Sinclair Stevens in case there should be any doubt whatever about my attitude in relation to the certificate that has been granted to the Bank of Western Canada to open business. Mr. Stevens did not ask me about this; I volunteered the statement.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Burnaby-Coquillam):: supplementary question to the Minister of Finance with reference to the Treasury Board minute which extended the 10 per cent ownership provision prescribed in the legislation, thereby giving the B.I.F. group the right to own over 50 per cent of the shares for a period up until 1977.
May I ask the minister why this 10 per cent limitation was extended by the minister in the case of the B.I.F. group through the Treasury Board minute.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the reason is that this is a new bank and we do consider it most important that we should encourage new Canadian owned banks to establish in business. This is done under the provisions of the Bank Act and, indeed, under the provisions of the special act that was approved by this house establishing the Bank of Western Canada.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A further supplementary
question, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the minister why in this Treasury Board minute respecting the commitments which the B.I.F. group have given to a parliamentary committee with respect to not associating their business with that of the bank the minister is given authority to exempt them from the commitment they have made to the House of Commons, a commitment which the applicants themselves had voluntarily given to a committee of the house.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, in case very exceptional circumstances should arise I think it is a wise thing not to so restrict these matters that the Minister of Finance could not grant exemption under those very exceptional circumstances. As I said yesterday in the house, I made it quite clear that I consider that the general nature of the relationship between the bank and its preferred shareholders is covered by the order itself, and that the discretion is only to be used in very exceptional circumstances.


John George Diefenbaker: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The representation or undertaking having been made to parliament, what took place that caused the alteration in

the Treasury Board order to relieve this bank from the responsibilities which it led parliament to believe would in fact be carried out? The bank needed no encouragement with respect to any relief.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, there was no alteration in any order of Treasury Board. That is the original order.


John George Diefenbaker: No, no. I talked of the undertaking to the House of Commons.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A further supplementary
question, Mr. Speaker. Since the commitment had been made by the B.I.F. corporation to a parliamentary committee, and since under this Treasury Board minute the minister had the power and discretion to allow the company to circumvent that commitment, could not this have been done without parliament being acquainted with the decision the minister had made?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the Treasury
Board minute underlined the conditions under which the Bank of Western Canada could operate. Nothing in any legislation is more restrictive. Those conditions carried out the wishes and intent of parliament, in accordance with the undertakings given by the corporation.


John George Diefenbaker: Parliament was deceived, completely deceived.



INQUIRY AS TO TAXATION COMMISSION REPORT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: Yesterday I asked the Minister of Finance when he expected the royal commission on taxation to table its report. Today I ask the minister whether or not W. M. Anderson, chairman of the board of North American Life Assurance Company, had an advance copy of the commission's report, because in his address at the annual meeting yesterday he gave many of the details of the report. It is rather strange that somebody outside should have access to the report before it is tabled in the house.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the statement made by Mr. Anderson. The government does not have the report, and I am quite sure the royal commission would not give it to unauthorized persons.
February 7, 1967



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Raymond Langlois (Meganlic):: My
question is directed to the Solicitor General. Can he tell the house whether Calvin Macdonald ever worked for the R.C.M.P. in any way?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member has asked previous questions about the gentleman to whom he has just referred. I cannot determine any urgency about the matter. Because these questions have been repeated over a long period of time, I am led to believe that the subject matter could easily be placed on the order paper.


Raymond Langlois: Mr. Speaker, I have not asked the question before in this form. Since this man has uttered slanderous remarks about so many people, I think the government should answer my question yes or no.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Raymond Langlois: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. You recommended that I place the last question I asked on the order paper. I would gladly do so, but it takes time for it to appear. I submitted some motions and questions a week and a half ago, and they are not yet on the order paper. On Friday I submitted a question and it is on today's order paper. Somebody along the line is stalling, and I should like to know why that is. If I am asked to put questions on the order paper I shall do so, but I expect to see them appearing there. I would ask that questions submitted be placed on the order paper more quickly than they have been placed. I shall submit this question and hope the minister can answer it.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (Queens-Lunenburg):: wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Has the minister any comment to make about the unconfirmed reports that a United States nuclear submarine visited St. John's, Newfoundland, on February 6 without prior permission from Canadian authorities?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not think the question is in order. The hon. member asks the minister to comment about something that may have happened. Unless there is urgency, which I fail to see, I do not think the question should be asked at this time.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister to comment. Is the report that a nuclear submarine landed at St. John's, Newfoundland true or false?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question in that form is not acceptable.


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of National Defence whether the recent visit of a United States nuclear submarine to a Newfoundland port is part of the program of handing over the surveillance of Canadian waters to the United States navy.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This question is argumentative.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I do not see any argument at all, Mr. Speaker. Surely we are entitled to information. If this is what is happening, cannot the minister tell us? The abolition of the Canadian navy must be made up for, then, by the activities of the United States navy.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I still believe that the question is argumentative and I do not think the minister should be allowed to reply.


An hon. Member:: He wants to reply.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I will ask the Minister of National Defence this. Has the government of Canada entered into any agreement with the government of the United States for the protection of Canadian waters in the event that the Canadian navy cannot assume its responsibilities?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, might I be allowed to answer the previous question?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps the minister would rather answer the previous question than this one, but I would think that generally speaking the two questions fall into the same category and cannot be asked at this time.
February 7, 1967

Inquiries of the Ministry
POWER	EXTERNAL AFFAIRS



ESTABLISHMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTE BY HYDRO QUEBEC

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I have an inquiry for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Is the minister aware of or has his attention been directed to the announcement made yesterday by the premier of Quebec with regard to the establishment of a $28 million research institute by Hydro Quebec for the purpose of studying questions of transmission and other generally related matters in the field of electrical energy? If so, can the minister say whether it is the intention of the government of Canada to participate or assist in this project, as was indicated by the premier as his hope?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask for time to study this matter.



CANADIAN CENTENNIAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether the Prime Minister is yet in a position to give the house and the country a general concept of the awarding of the centennial medal. It is amazing the number of people who have shown an anticipatory interest in this matter. Have the rules been put together to set out who shall be the subject of this honour and the circumstances under which the award shall be made, so that many who are outside the pale of governmental expectation will know in advance?


Righi Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, arrangements are being made governing the awarding of this particular centennial medal. I, or the Secretary of State, will be able to make a statement before long. I will do my best to see that the right hon. gentleman's name is on the list.


John George Diefenbaker: I take it that the Prime Minister has already appropriated his. I would ask the Prime Minister, has approval as to form, style and content been given by Her Majesty?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, Mr. Speaker, all the necessary steps were taken before this was decided upon.
[Mr. Speaker.)



VIET NAM-REQUEST FOR AID TO WAR VICTIMS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. W. Priftie (Burnaby-Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister will not be surprised if I question him today concerning the request of the Quakers in connection with medical supplies being made available to Viet Nam.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to my hon. friend for his patience in this matter of a request from the Quakers that the government should provide free transportation for medical supplies to all parts of Yiet Nam, including of course North Viet Nam.
This matter was given the most careful and thoughtful attention by all those interested in and responsible for the conduct of Canadian aid programs, and I would emphasize that this is the context in which the Quakers' request had to be considered. As a result of this examination we came to the conclusion that we had no alternative but to decline the Quakers' request as inconsistent with the established practices of our official aid programs.
Specifically, the arrangements under which we work with recipient countries provide for the governments of these countries on their own account meeting the shipping charges on all goods or commodities supplied under Canada's official aid programs. Having insisted on this principle in our government to government aid programs, it would be difficult to adopt a different policy with respect to shipments from Canada of items provided by private groups interested in international aid programs. We have not done so in response to previous approaches from such groups, and such approaches have been made in the past.
Although that was the essence of the decision communicated to the Quakers yesterday, I might remind the house that there are no government obstacles in the way of normal shipments of medical supplies abroad. Similarly, if normal banking channels can be found for this purpose, we would place no obstacle in the way of transfer of funds for humanitarian purposes in Viet Nam.
February 7, 1967	COMMONS



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. Nasserden (Rosthern):: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Have any new armed services uniforms been distributed to national defence staff?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Not yet, Mr. Speaker. We have been preparing a uniform for trials during the coming summer season. The staff have now agreed as to what it should be, and a number of sample uniforms will be ordered which can be worn by headquarters and command personnel this summer in order to determine whether it is acceptable in all respects, including durability. A public announcement on this will be made in the not too distant future.


Edward Nasserden: As a supplementary question, is it the intention of the minister and the department to issue some of these uniforms to the federal centennial commission?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Only if they are in the armed forces, Mr. Speaker.


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Queens):: As a further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister if it has been decided that these experimental or trial uniforms will not be green, as has been reported, but will indeed be "Hellyertrope"?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. A. J. MacEachen (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the matter referred to by my hon. friend is still under consideration and when appropriate, further information will be given.


Mr. Grafftey:: Mr. Speaker, without any desire at all to be contentious, will the minister please assure us that he will reach the necessary conclusions quickly, before it is too late? If the regulations are to apply to 1968 model vehicles the study will have to be concluded soon.



SUDBURY, ONT.-SULPHUR DIOXIDE LEVEL AT INTERNATIONAL NICKEL PLANT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Has the minister's attention been drawn to an allegation that the sulphur dioxide content at the International Nickel plant at Sudbury is 40 times higher than the acceptable level in this connection? Will the minister take the initiative in referring to the Canadian council of resource ministers the question of national acceptable air pollution standards as has been suggested by a member of the Ontario legislature?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, this is not my day with the hon. member for Kamloops. I will investigate and report on this important matter.



AIR POLLUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Heward Grafftey: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. It is based on the announcement made in Washington on Saturday relating to the elimination of air pollution by clean air packages in motor vehicles, and on the reply given to me yesterday by the Minister of Industry that this question was under study by the Department of National Health and Welfare. Has the government practically completed its studies so the Canadian people may anticipate that they will receive protection by Canadian standards similar to that which will be enjoyed by United States citizens?



SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gilles Gregoire (Lapointe):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport.
Could he brief the house on the situation with regard to the opening of the St. Lawrence channel, at the present time? Could he also tell us whether he has received any information in this regard from his department rather than from the newspapers?


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I made a request for
February 7, 1967

Inquiries of the Ministry such information, the very latest information, but it has not reached me since I made the request. I understand that there was a very heavy frost last night, and I am not sure just what the temperature is at the moment.


Gilles Grégoire: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Could the minister tell the house whether or not federal icebreakers are now clearing up the ice jams on the St. Lawrence?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I understand there are at least four icebreakers working on this problem at the moment.


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Yesterday in addition to assuring the house that he had sought certain information, the minister in his reply gave the house assurances that he had made certain these shippers knew they could ship to the port of Halifax and the port of Saint John. Would he undertake to see that this is reconfirmed?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I understand that this information is being conveyed through the usual channels.



FRUIT-REQUEST FOR TARIFF ON IMPORTS FROM U.S.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Michael Starr (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, on Monday, January 30 I asked the right hon. Prime Minister the following question:
In view of the statement made by the secretary manager of the Ontario Fruit Growers' Association, has it been brought to the attention of the Department of National Revenue that Ontario fruit growers are being adversely affected by large scale imports of processed fruit and is the government considering the imposition of a tariff on fruit imported from the United States?
I wonder whether the right hon. gentleman has an answer to this question.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I did take up this matter with the department of government concerned. I will try to have a reply by tomorrow.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George Hees (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce with reference to a speech he made in Toronto during the week end, which is referred to in a report appearing in this morning's Globe and Mail under the heading "Need new look at tax laws, Winters hints". The report is as follows:
Trade Minister Robert Winters told a student audience in Toronto during the week end that government legislation inhibits the accumulation of savings in Canada.
Could the minister advise the house what government legislation inhibits accumulation of savings in Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not think the question in the way it is phrased is acceptable. The hon. member knows that generally speaking, according to the practice of the house, reference can be made to speeches made outside of the house only to ask the Prime Minister whether this represents government policy. I do not think the question as asked by the hon. member is acceptable.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might ask a supplementary question. In view of the opinions the minister has expressed recently would he advise what legislation inhibits the accumulation of savings in Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: I do not wish to appear to be obstructive, but in asking the question in this way it seems that the hon. member is asking for an interpretation of statutes or for a legal interpretation. This is the interpretation I place on his question.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question. The Minister of Trade and Commerce is vitally interested in investment in this country. I should like to ask him, in view of the requirement for investment capital in Canada, would he advise the house which legislation he considers does inhibit savings in Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: It might be easier to allow the minister to reply to the question, but in my view it is against the rules to ask such a question. I must seek the co-operation of hon.
February 7, 1967

members to agree with me that the question as asked both by the hon. member for Northumberland and the hon. member for Edmonton West is not acceptable.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: We are seeking information.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether he would participate in the debate this afternoon and give the house an idea of his views, which seem to be contrary to those of the Minister of Finance and the Minister without Portfolio from Toronto.


Mr. Speaker:: That is a very valid question.



WATER RESOURCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In view of the fact that the United States congress yesterday authorized the formation of a national waters commission to make a comprehensive review of national water resources programs and problems, is a similar study being undertaken in Canada by any public body?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I know of many studies on water supply made in Canada in the past and others which are being made now, some of them by the provinces, some of them by the federal government and some of them jointly, but I am not aware of any national study. Most of our investigations are conducted on a regional basis. I have a speech to make in a few days on the inventory of Canadian waters, and I will be glad to send a copy of the speech to my hon. friend.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Does the minister have in mind the setting up of a national body to evolve a comprehensive plan in respect of the use of our water resources?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I know one thing; it is easier at this moment at least to do these things in the United States than it is to do them in Canada.

Inquiries of the Ministry GRAIN



NORTHERN ALBERTA-BOX CARS TO HANDLE MOIST AND DAMP GRAIN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. W. Baldwin ("Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Trade and Commerce, to give him an opportunity to reply without any real impediment. In view of the urgency of the situation of the farmers in northern Alberta who have large quantities of damp and moist grain which is likely to be spoiled, will the minister consult with the Canadian Wheat Board and the railway officials to see whether box cars can be supplied in the numbers necessary to meet the emergency?


Hon. Robert Winters (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I will be glad to do that. The box car situation was fairly intense toward the end of last year, but it has been alleviated considerably recently. I will be glad to look into the matter to see what the needs are and what can be done.



COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, could either the Secretary of State for External Affairs or the Minister of Trade and Commerce give the house a report on the Caribbean conference which was held at Saint Lucia in an endeavour to work out greater co-operation with those countries?


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of Slate for External Affairs: This was a conference of officials, and the officials will be reporting to the government. In due course the government will make its report to the house.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I am aware it was a meeting of officials, but have any decisions been arrived at and are there any indications that out of this conference there will come a sugar agreement? This is one of the questions in which there is a good deal of interest both in the Caribbean area and on the part of the sugar consumers in Canada.


Mr. Martin (Essex East):: This and other
questions were discussed. Different proposals have been made and these will be examined by the government. The matters concerned not only economic but also certain other political questions as well.
February 7, 1967

Inquiries of the Ministry


Robert Henry Winters: May I say something supplementary to the reply by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The undertakings we made last year respecting sugar will be carried out. At the recent conference officials explored further ways and means to do this, but the undertakings will be fulfilled.


Michael Starr: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Has the government any plans to increase our aid to the West Indies, either by way of additional money or by diverting certain aid that is now being received by other countries?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes, Mr. Speaker. As the Prime Minister indicated the other day and as we announced about four months ago when we met with the Caribbean countries, we have decided to approximately double our aid to the West Indies.


Michael Starr: Is the minister in a position to tell the house what form this aid will take?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I would be very happy to do that, but I am sure my hon. friend with his long experience will agree that this cannot properly be done on the orders of the day.



INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Yesterday when speaking to the national export advisory council it is reported that the minister said there were several areas of free trade similar to the U.S.-Canada car pact arrangement that they were investigating. Is the minister in a position to advise the house as to what areas of free trade he was speaking about?


Robert Henry Winters: No, Mr. Speaker; and I do not think we have reached that stage yet. I said there were other potential areas. I think hon. members know that we have been looking beyond the auto parts pact into areas where the same sort of formula may be applied, but it is premature to say precisely what they are.


Alfred Dryden Hales: I have a supplementary question. Would furniture be one of these areas of free trade?



CANADIAN CONSTITUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. B. Patterson (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. A special report to the Globe and Mail covering an address to the Women's Canadian Club in Montreal stated that the minister, when criticizing requests for a new written constitution, said that a constitutional conference to study revision of the British North America Act would be a terrible idea. I wonder whether the minister was expressing his views or the views of the government on this occasion.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. As I suggested to another hon. member today, a question of this nature should be directed to the Prime Minister.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and I believe he will be able to answer it on orders of the day. In the minister's "Nobsl" pursuit of peace in Viet Nam, will the fact finding world tour of the hon. member for Leeds include any activity on behalf of the minister in Saigon or Hanoi?


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of State for External Affairs: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say I agree with what the Prime Minister has said. I am sure we will find the purposes which are taking the hon. member for Leeds to certain countries useful. My hon. friend may belittle the efforts of certain people who are trying to promote peace in the world, but I am sure most members of this house and of this country believe the hon. gentleman speaks the language of a seventeenth century statesman.


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairwealher@Royal: Mr. Speaker, as a twentieth century backbencher I should like to ask a supplementary question. Will the minister tell the house whether the invitation to the hon. member for Leeds resulted from his own initiative, or was it extended as a result of the initiative of the government of Chiang Kai-shek?
February 7, 1967	COMMONS


Mr.   Marlin@Essex Easl: In the first instant I think the invitation was offered by the government of Formosa, which asked the hon. gentleman to come as its guest. The government felt there were reasons he should undertake this visit, but that under the circumstances it should assume the cost of the trip.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will the same circumstances prevail in respect of other members of this house who may have received similar invitations?


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. member for Leeds happens to be the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister. If the hon. member is looking for an invitation I can only suggest that in certain cases one might be very difficult to obtain.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I could not agree with you more.


Mr. David MacDonald (Prince):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question relates to the original question and the answer by the Prime Minister yesterday afternoon as reported in Hansard. Are the rules of this house such that committees, in this case the external affairs committee, are only called at the behest of a minister? That was the indication given yesterday. I thought this house determined its own committee procedures rather than the specific minister involved.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest the hon. member is advancing an argument rather than an appropriate question.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General or the Prime Minister. Has any word been received as yet in respect of the investigation regarding the bombing of the Yugoslav consulate last week?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker, we have received no report as yet. We are pressing for one and hope to receive it as quickly as possible.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Alberl):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the
Inquiries of the Ministry Minister of Transport and does not concern icebreakers. As one of the passengers on the C.N.R. train which went flying 15 miles past the Ottawa station on the C.P.R. tracks on Sunday, at great danger and inconvenience to the passengers, I should like to ask the minister to confirm the report that a full investigation is being made into this matter, and to assure us that in the meantime C.N.R. employees will be made aware of what the new Ottawa station looks like so they will recognize it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I should like to advise the hon. gentleman not to associate too much with Mr. Van Horne if he is going to have this effect on trains. The matter is, of course, being investigated. This is a matter of some concern, and I am sure the C.N.R. will do its best to see that it does not happen again.


Thomas Miller Bell: A supplementary question. Do I take it from the first part of the minister's remarks that he is repudiating the decision of the voters of New Brunswick yesterday?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Unfortunately I have not the capacity to do that.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development based on a press release issued from his department on February 1, 1967 by Mr. Joseph O'Keefe, the hon. member for St. John's East. Is Mr. O'Keefe officially connected with the minister's department and, if not, has a new policy been established whereby private members representing specific constituencies make such announcements on behalf of the department?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, let me assure the hon. gentleman that the hon. member for St. John's East took the lead in initiating with the department the project to which he has referred, as have other members in respect of other projects. Therefore I think it most appropriate that the hon. member's name should have been associated with the announcement. That will continue to be our policy.
February 7, 1967

Inquiries of the Ministry


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, I recognize that individual members are often connected with projects, but my question related to the policy which allows private members to make announcements on behalf of the government. Many members initiate projects, but I can think of no other occasion when a similar announcement was made by-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It seems to me the hon. member is now making a speech. Does the hon. member have a supplementary question?


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should ask the Prime Minister whether there has been a change in policy regarding announcements by private members on behalf of the government.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman will consult Senator David Walker I am sure he will find there has been no change.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We are running out of time, and I am wondering whether the hon. member wants to take up the rest of the time available.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I should like to debate this at ten o'clock.



OLD AGE SECURITY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of National Health and Welfare tell the house whether the government is now engaging in conversations or discussions with officials of the government of the province of Quebec in connection with the take over by that province of old age security administration? What discussions have taken place, what is the present position of those discussions, and what is the government's attitude in this regard?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, officials of my department have not held any discussions with officials from the province of Quebec in respect of such a take over.

[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, February 6, consideration of the motion of Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Monteith.
Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Royal: Mr. Speaker, at this time I should like to discuss the reform of the procedures of parliament. I want to take this opportunity of doing so because some excellent speeches have been made on this subject in various parts of the country, notably by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. MacEachen) and others. The resolution to set up a special committee to examine the continuation of the changed rules was passed by parliament without debate, and a good many of us had hoped to have an opportunity to discuss this matter at that time.
I have a fairly loud voice, Mr. Speaker, but I do find it very awkward and difficult to speak when about 87 other hon. members are speaking at the same time.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Will hon. members kindly continue their conversations behind the curtains? The hon. member for Royal has a most interesting speech to make which I am sure all of us would like to hear.


Mr. Fairweather:: I am particularly anxious that the government house leader, if he can spare a minute or two to listen to my speech, give me the benefit of his views at a later date because he and some other people share the responsibility for the fact that some ideas put forward by the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson), the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Diefenbaker) and others have not yet been translated into action.


Mr. Mcllraiih:: Will the hon. member permit a question? Why does he single out the government house leader in this kind of personal reference when the government house leader is one of those in the house who try to obey the rules and conduct themselves in a responsible way?


Mr. Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: That is what the hon. member said.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: I would soon use up my time if we are going to have a dichotomy of
February 7. 1967	COMMONS
views between us on this matter. I think that the minister has a responsibility and I respect the part he plays in the reform of the rules of parliament. However, among those of us who occupy the back benches there is a feeling that the recommendations for parliamentary reform that might have come from the minister have not as yet been indicated.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I hope the hon. member will want to return now to the consideration of the business at hand. If so, he will not be charged with the last two or three minutes.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Of course the first reform that is essential is one that was recommended to parliament by the special committee on parliamentary procedure, and that was the establishment of a standing committee on procedures. I think it was a great pity that when certain changes were made to the rules this recommendation of the special committee was not carried out. The advantages of such a committee are, first, that owing to the fact that it would be a standing committee it would be established immediately upon the opening of parliament. It would also be able to keep under constant review many of the good changes that are being made in parliamentary institutions in other parts of the world.
I suggest that the reform of the procedures of this house should take place from top to bottom and that it has to be considered by a standing committee over several sessions perhaps. This is not a stop and start matter. It is a matter of a fundamental review which should take place over several years if we really mean what we say and are not just paying lip service to reform.
Parliamentary procedure boiled down to its simplest aspects has only two reasons. First of all, it enables the government to get its program through parliament. Second, it provides an opportunity for those who sit in opposition to the government to prevent the government from running the whole show. As a matter of fact we have had an excellent example recently of the effectiveness of parliamentary procedure during our long consideration of the transport bill. The original bill proposed to parliament was in no way comparable with the one which was finally enacted. I myself may criticize the length of the debate but I think the end result and the work of the 23033-8061
The Budget-Mr. Fairweather standing committee were a tribute to parliament and to those hon. members who participated in the eventual enactment of this legislation.
Money is the basis of our system and the control of the spending of money is really one of our main functions. There may be an easy control in that some people who take refuge in easy solutions to problems just say "No". In a way that is control. However, there is another way to control, the way which I believe parliament should follow. I refer to the examination of programs and policies. It seems to me that those of us who are members here should never lose an opportunity to discuss the working of parliament in other places because there are many people who think that our main function is to legislate and there are many people who have really set up what I might call a false god of legislation and have allowed emphasis upon legislation to supplant the control of spending.
Members of the parliament in Australia have brought about an interesting reform in their procedure. Perhaps it would be a little too fundamental for us yet although it needs the attention of the committee on procedure. I am referring to the change by which all major financial debates in Australia now occur during the various stages of the legislation. In other words, there is no committee of ways and means. Perhaps this is a drastic reform but Australia too is an offshoot of the mother of parliaments and it has seen fit to adopt this procedure. From what I read it has not meant that the rights of members to comment, criticize and exercise control have been inhibited in any way.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
There was a tragic example not so long ago in connection with the pay of civil servants. I believe this is an occasion where parliament goes too far. I do not believe that the withholding of supply should be pushed to the limit so that a man who works for the government may be without his properly earned salary.
There is another reform which I should like to be considered and that is the allocation of time for debate. I believe that the special government proposal in this connection was the result of a compromise and is therefore much too complicated. I think a better way would be for the operations of the house to be a matter of day to day negotiation between the whips and house leaders to a greater
12738	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Fairweather extent than I am informed they have been up to now.
With great respect to the Speaker, I feel that the question period should undergo drastic reform. I am not saying that because something is done in Britain it is good. Obviously the geographic area of Britain and the fact that Britain has a national press make it easier to have a more disciplined question period than we have. However, I feel it would be a great reform to have to give 48 hours notice of questions. I believe that the Leader of the Opposition, as an officer of the house, should have the opportunity without notice to ask a question of the Prime Minister or a minister each day.
The fact that the order paper is cluttered with hundreds of questions makes it a poor thing. There is no such cluttering of the order paper in Britain. If there is not time to answer questions on orders of the day, written replies are sent promptly. In this way there is no back-up of questions. I feel sure this procedure would be welcomed not only by those who produce the documents but by those of us who have to wait weeks and sometimes even months to get answers to written questions.
In September, in another part of this building, one of the committees of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference considered the problem of parliamentary reform. It interested me to find that there was no parliamentary representative from anywhere in the Commonwealth who did not feel that some aspect of the parliamentary system could undergo fundamental revision. One of the British members set out his views quite succinctly and perhaps at this point of my speech I may share his comments with you on the real reason for parliament. I refer to the remarks of Mr. Daniel Awdry, a member of parliament in the United Kingdom. He said that parliament is the assembly which provides the government and, incidentally, the Prime Minister, to the nation.
The next function of parliament, he said, is to control the executive and, of course, control of the nation's money is at the heart of our parliamentary system. However, he said that the truth today is that control of spending by the House of Commons is largely nonexistent. No one in this chamber could say that comment does not apply to this place as well. The third function that Mr. Awdry suggests is one of information. He said:
It is the duty of parliament and parliamentarians to create new ideas, to produce original thought and to pass information on to the electors-

DEBATES	February 7, 1967
Finally, Mr. Awdry believes that it is the function of parliament to pass laws. It interested me to note that in his catalogue the passage of legislation was last. I know that the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Turner) would take a keen interest in the third function of parliament, that is, information and the creation of new ideas because he and a good many of us share the view that from the conception of an idea to its eventual enactment, or even first of all its discussion, there is a trail that even the most careful explorer would find difficult in tracking to its end. I think this is tragic and I believe it is part of the reason for the declining respect for members of parliament and their role as initiators.
It has been my experience, and I hope I can say this objectively and modestly, that when we are in a forum where we can share ideas with people they seem to be, first of all, amazed that members of parliament have ideas. Once they get over their amazement they are quite pleasantly surprised to find that some members of parliament are reasonable. The third source of wonder they express is, why can you not do something about these things? Most of the forums I have attended have not sufficient time in their programs to allow members to tell these people why it is so difficult to translate an idea into eventual action by the government.


Mr. Stewart:: May I ask the hon. member if he would not agree that it is very difficult to make headlines out of an idea?


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: I am accused sometimes of being a cynic but I am not really cynical about the reform of parliament. I know quite well that a speech on parliamentary reform, made at 3.30 on an afternoon when other events in this building will get headlines, is not likely to get much attention from the press. This does not disturb me one bit. I think ideas are worth sharing. I hope that government members, including the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough (Mr. Stewart), will join issue on some of the things I have been saying.


John B. Stewart: May I ask the hon. gentleman another question? I do not believe I want to join issue with him on many of his statements, but does he not insist that the problem to which he is now referring, the problem of better public discussion in our democracy, is really one which encompasses far more than improving debate in this house?
February 7, 1967


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Yes, and I could attempt to show why by having a discourse here or somewhere else about it but my time is rapidly moving along. Obviously one of the functions which would stand high in my list of the functions of parliament would be the sharing and gathering of information. It is for this reason I really have not too much respect for those who say the duty of a member is to sit in this chamber day in and day out for 200 or. 300 days a year. I think that is a sacred cow that is trotted out whenever it is convenient. A member who is able to get around the country comes here better prepared for debate.
The restructuring of our committee system as recommended to parliament by the committee on procedure would have worked better than the one that was finally set before us by the government. It was the feeling of those of us who served on that committee that there should really be no more than 15 committees of parliament with fewer rather than more members. This would make them more efficient. We now have 21 committees, if I am properly informed, each with 24 members. Today is probably a good example of how impossible the system is when ten committees are sitting. As a matter of fact, I am on two committees that have meetings called for 3.30 this afternoon and it is now 3.40,
I believe that the quorums of committees could be greatly reduced without any harm, particularly for those committees which in the early part of their agenda are receiving a large number of briefs. It is apparently assumed that a great many members do not take the trouble to read briefs. Perhaps if the quorums were reduced and more attention were paid to the preparation and reading of briefs, committee work would move along a bit faster.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
There are two reforms I should like to mention which have been adopted by the United Kingdom parliament and I think would be helpful to us. One concerns what is known as the early day motion, which is a system whereby members representing the various parties sometimes set down a motion in order to test public opinion on issues, thus giving a particular matter publicity, as the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough mentioned earlier. If the matter is serious enough an opportunity is given to the opposition or to those members who want to press the motion to have a day set aside for debate.
The Budget-Mr. Fairweather
I feel that this proposal is an important one. I notice that it was used recently when 70 or 80 members of the British House of Commons put their names on an early day motion which deplored the fact that the government was raising fees for foreign students from outside the United Kingdom who were studying there. These 70 or 80 members were not necessarily supporters of the government; they represented the various parties in the house. I think many more opportunities should be given for that type of challenge to policy.
Another reform which, though in the embryo stage, I think would be worth while considering is that known as the second reading committee. Those of you who read the Observer will know that Mr. Richard Crossman has recently been discussing the second reading committee concept. I should like to refer to an article by Mr. Rudolf Klein entitled "Mr. Crossman's New Time-saver" which appeared in the January 29 edition of the Observer:
Crossman's basic idea is simple. Ministers want "certainty and predictability" in getting their measures through the Commons. Backbenchers want more opportunity to influence government policy. Here, he believes, are all the makings of a possible deal, since "business-like predictability is worth paying for."
In other words, Mr. Speaker, if the government could be sure of a legislative pattern it should be prepare to make certain days available for debate on issues that the opposition members feel should take place
To return to the second reading committee proposal, I point out that this committee processes bill which both parties in the United Kingdom-in the case of Canada it would be all parties-agree are non-controversial. The article states:
It is a system which could gradually give greater influence to backbench M.P.'s while leaving the government's power of initiative intact. For instance, during all the long hours devoted to the steel bill, M.P.'s never once discussed how the steel industry is going to be organized under state ownership.
I do not want to apply the steel bill example to Canada, but I do not think it will take much imagination on the part of hon. members to realize that this type of thing happens all too often in this chamber. In other words, although legislation is debated the ultimate result of the legislation is rarely given any meaningful consideration.
The report which instituted the second reading committee in the United Kingdom was made to parliament on March 25, 1965, so
12740	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Fairweather that they have had a year or so to test this system. An examination of our order paper discloses that there are many non-controversial bills which would receive better attention if they were referred to a committee such as the second reading committee. In our experience it often happens that at the end of a day the house leaders are able to arrange for certain items to be brought forward, and usually the house takes an ambitious initiative and passes them very quickly without any consideration at all. A second reading committee would mean that these non-controversial items would have some attention.


Gordon Minto Churchill: That is before or after second reading?


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Mr. Speaker, my colleague has asked a most interesting question. This is done before second reading. I understand that in all cases the actual second reading is left to parliament itself. In other words, parliament can either accept or reject the recommendation for second reading made by this committee, so that parliament's rights are properly protected.
My reading of literature on parliamentary reform tells me, Mr. Speaker, that two rather simple steps have been taken. The first one was in the early 1880's the other in 1902. Until the 1880's it had been felt that parliament should be untrammelled and everyone bowed to freedom of speech and other shibboleths. Parliament had to face an interesting group of members from Ireland who used every device and delaying action to hold up parliament. As is usual when challenged, parliament found a means of using freedom of speech to its proper end. In other words, Mr. Speaker, these proposals have had historical origins, and I am intrigued to think that the trouble encountered by the Irish M.P.'s really instituted the first great procedural reform in the British House of Commons.
However, we in Canada have not had that experience so our rules, with very little variation, are the rules that we adopted prior to the reforms which took place in Britain in the 1880's. There are, of course, certain exceptions, and we can all think of them. That is why I plead with the government to take the initiative in re-establishing as a standing committee the committee on procedure, because reform is not a matter that should be handled piecemeal.
As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, if reform is to be anything more than just a matter for discussion by members of parliament

DEBATES	February 7, 1967
throughout the country we should examine the fundamental reasons behind each and every one of our rules. Perhaps a case can be made, as it was made in Australia, for abandoning the committee of ways and means procedure. Perhaps a case can be made for, shall I say, having a slightly more disciplined question period. Perhaps a case can also be made-I think it can

for reducing the number of members on committees, reducing the quorums, and widening the scope of the responsibilities that those committees are called upon to undertake.
In last month's issue of "Encounter" there is an article by Mr. Henry Fairlie. In it we are reminded of a phrase used by Mr. R. A. Butler-"the patience of politics". Mr. Fairlie
says:
The phrase is R. A. Butler's. It expresses, more vividly than any other single phrase, the character of politics in a free country.
In the politician, it demands that he should accustom himself to the inevitable fluctuations of political fortunes; that he should And defeat and failure only an invitation to renewed efforts; that he should overcome the galling frustrations of enforced idleness and opposition, and be able to look forward to ten years in the wilderness with equanimity and self-assurance.
That is something from which a good many of us would profit if we took it to heart.
It demands that he should never try to seize imaginary initiatives or seek speedy results; that he should wait calmly for his opportunity; that he should never despair or panic.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
It demands that he should bear obloquy, misrepresentation, and injuries without complaint; that he should expect no gratitude; that he should remain silent when one word would justify him, if that word would injure his cause. Above all, It demands that he should never, whatever the provocation, cease to trust in the right instincts of a free people; that he should believe always In their ability, in the long run, to distinguish truth from falsehood, justice, from injustice, the sound from the meretricious; that he should, in this belief, patiently pursue the task of bringing different ideas and interests into contact with each other, never doubting that the arts of a free government are among the most rewarding of all the arts of a civilised people.
We have a responsibility to so enlarge the scope of this chamber and the character, if I may use that word, and attributes of its members that our people may indeed believe we are good practitioners of the art of politics.


Mr. D. R. Tolmie (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, it should be recalled that the whole tenor and philosophy of the March, 1966 budget, which met with general approval, was one consistent with a burgeoning economy showing danger
February 7, 1967

signs of unrestrained growth. That anti-inflationary budget contained provisions designed to prolong prosperity without dire inflationary price spirals, exacting hardship on low and fixed income segments of our society. Among other things the moderate income tax increases on medium and upper incomes and the judicious decrease on low incomes, the elimination and postponement of certain capital projets and the progressive removal of the 11 per cent sales tax on production equipment and machinery, contributed to maintaining our spectacular boom. 1 felt at that time that the finance minister deserved the highest commendation for coolly and efficiently introducing a reasonable budget, with some unpalatable provisions, designed to achieve for all our citizens full employment and sustained or increased purchasing power enabling them to live in comfort and security in this prosperous land.
It has been generally conceded and the Economic Council of Canada has endorsed the view that the economy at present is rather delicately balanced. There is a strong suspicion that it is heading for a slowdown. No economist can say with exactitude the precise inclination of our economy. I suggest that the minister, with commendable alertness, has kept a constant protective vigil. Now, based on statistics and the best economic opinions available, he has introduced a realistic budget which should maintain the intricate balance between inflation and recession so essential to the material well-being of all Canadian citizens.
This budget, designed to make no radical impact on our economy, makes provision for raising sufficient funds to pay for the guaranteed income supplement for our senior citizens. Parliament, representing the wishes of the people, has provided a new revolutionary concept in the guaranteed income plan for our senior citizens. This plan without a means or needs test, as opposed to a flat increase of $25 a month, will provide some half million of Canada's old age pensioners with $60 a year more than the Conservative and N.D.P. flat rate proposal would have provided. What is most important, the guaranteed income supplement, unlike the flat $25 a month increase, is weighted in favour of those on low and modest incomes. In effect the government has not raised the pension for people in high income brackets but has provided for increases for older people who definitely need * supplement to their incomes to live in security and dignity in a land to which they have contributed so much.
The Budget-Mr. Tolmie
These additional payments to pensioners are expected to cost the federal treasury between $260 million and $280 million. The government, after reviewing all the possibilities of raising the required funds to pay for this very necessary and worth-while plan, decided to raise the maximum amount payable by an individual by reason of the 4 per cent tax on personal income under the Old Age Security Act from $120 a year to $240 a year. This increased tax only affects those taxpayers with taxable income exceeding $3,000 after all exemptions and deductions. In effect the result is that a married taxpayer with two children will not have an increase unless he is earning more than $5,700 a year, which is well above the current national average of wage earnings. Significantly, the tax increase will not affect two thirds of our present income taxpayers. In addition, the general sales tax was increased from 11 per cent to 12 per cent, but it should be emphasized that this increase will not apply to building materials and will not affect the cost of food, fuel and services exempt from this tax.
It is self-evident that funds must be provided for this novel and enlightened guaranteed income concept, and I submit that these budget proposals achieve this as neatly and fairly as possible. Fiscal and monetary policies are for most of us lofty concepts; often they are dull and incomprehensible. These Policies are formulated by brilliant, intellectual experts with charts, computers and statistics. They are instruments to be played for our material welfare, and the tune to be produced depends on many complex and variable interlocking economic factors.
There is, however, one factor which we can all understand, the rising cost of living. Though inextricably bound with general economic conditions, living costs are amenable to diagnosis and prescriptions for at least a partial cure can be applied. Here the government can play a role. Happily it has taken a commendable step in setting up the Senate and House of Commons joint committee on consumer affairs. No one pretends that this is the complete answer to the rising cost of living as painfully revealed in high food prices, but if the consumer, which is every man, woman and child in this nation, is being unfairly exploited by dubious business practices and exorbitant profits such a committee can reveal this and suggest remedial legislation to prevent the continuance of such abuses. Frankly, I feel that the very fact our large food suppliers know their operations are subject to public scrutiny will make them loath

February 7. 1967
The Budget-Mr. Tolmie to pursue practices inimical to the best interests of their customers. There has been some indication that since the formation of this committee certain prices in some categories have decreased. Quite conceivably some of this decrease could be attributed to the work of the committee.
Emerging from all economic theory, one stark fact remains. Our present and future wealth and well-being depend upon our productivity and the preservation and enhancement of our national resources. My thesis is simple. All policies and factors which increase the productivity of this nation and husband and strengthen our national resources eventually add to our total economic health. Preservation of our water resources through war on pollution, the improvement of the general health of the nation through the passage of the medicare bill, more liberalized and enlightened immigration policies, social reform-all these contribute to our wealth. These influences are less easy to gauge and assess as factors affecting our affluence, but though not as discernible they are real and quietly and unobstrusively play a significant role in the improvement of our economy.
What is the point of manipulating economic levers if we neglect to preserve and increase the source of our wealth? By and large, our policies in respect of water, land, minerals and forests have been enlightened and constructive. However, one of our irreplaceable and basic resources, our water, is in jeopardy. In dire straits are our great lakes with their treasures of fish, matchless beaches and residential shores attracting millions of tourist dollars and providing rest, relaxation and peace of mind for thousands of our citizens.
What is shocking is that for years there has been a continuous insidious deterioration of these assets because of water pollution, and until quite recently few, if any, steps had been taken to prevent this vicious onslaught. In December, 1965, the International Joint Commission issued a most disturbing report on pollution in the great lakes in which it practically stated that lake Erie was fast becoming a large septic tank and an open venomous sewer. It stated that algae growths curtail commercial fishing and recreational activities, impart obnoxious odours, impair filtering operations of industrial and munic,-ipal water treatment plants, lower waterfront property values and generally threaten destruction of the lakes as a valuable water resource. Certain recommendations

were made urging the Canadian and American governments, in association with state and provincial governments, to take action to ensure that industries refrain from dumping chemical wastes into our great lakes, that municipalities be forced to treat their sewage properly and that an accelerated program of research into the baffling causes of water pollution be instituted.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
It is always most difficult to get action in fields of jurisdiction divided among the United States government, the federal government, the provincial government and municipal governments and consequently there has been a welter of confusion and ambiguity as to the progress we are making in the war on pollution. In order to erase any lingering suspicion that nothing has been done by the federal government, it should be noted that among other things the following measures have been taken. At present there is a massive research program endeavouring to ascertain the baffling causes of pollution. Three important federal agencies, the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Department of National Health and Welfare and the Fisheries Research Board are combining forces, with each agency contributing money and scientists to conduct special studies for which they are best qualified. For part of the program the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources has chartered the 136-foot stern trawler, Braudel. The department has fitted out this modern vessel as a survey and research ship and it has been working out of Kingston, Ontario. Two 30-foot launches will be employed in the national health and welfare departmental program.
Under contract with the federal government, the great lakes institute will be making co-ordinated studies in lake Ontario and lake Erie. A research laboratory on pollution will be constructed at Burlington, Ontario. Over $1.5 million was invested in this study of the lower lakes in 1966 and 90 per cent of the cost has been borne by the federal government. This investment will grow from year to year, reaching an estimated level of over $5 million by 1970.
This intensive survey program is only one facet of the total federal effort, and it is not generally recognized how large the federal government contributions have been toward the installation of sewage treatment facilities. Over $200 million has been advanced as loans by the federal government for this purpose at
February 7, 1967

a low rate of interest and with a lengthy amortization period. Over $50 million of these loans will be forgiven as part of a special arrangement for the encouragement of such construction. The federal government has also contributed through its winter works program which supports, among other projects, the installation of sewage systems and treatment plants. It is estimated, for example, that at least $17 milhon of federal funds has been contributed to the construction of these installations and systems in Ontario alone.
The federal government has made special concessions to assist companies to instal improved treatment facilities. The income tax regulations have been amended to permit a fast write-off of the capital cost of these installations. It should also be noted that the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources has been reorganized so that one special branch will have jurisdiction over water pollution. In addition, the council of federal and provincial resource officials is constantly studying this problem and they will shortly make recommendations to their respective governments. I mention these steps to indicate that the government has not by any means been indifferent to the menace of water pollution. However, in my opinion the situation is now so serious that even greater efforts must be made. A veritable crash program is required immediately if we are going to preserve this most prized national resource.
One of our greatest resources, of course, is the number and quality of our people, and our immigration policies have a tremendous impact upon our future growth and prosperity. The government has indicated in its white paper on immigration that it proposes to implement a more liberal immigration policy consistent with the needs and demands of a young and growing country. Personally, I favour a broad, liberalized immigration policy based not only on the economic advantages but for social and humanitarian reasons. Skilled manpower is urgently needed at the present time. Expanding industry is pleading not only for skilled tradesmen but for unskilled workers who can be trained. If we are to sustain our economic expansion, if we are going to push ahead to new frontiers, if we are going to realize the potential explosive power of this lusty giant which is only barely flexing its biceps, if we are to realize our manifest destiny of becoming one of the richest nations on earth, if we ever hope to decrease our dependency on the United States and avoid a satellite status vis-a-vis that
The Budget-Mr. Tolmie country, then we must encourage the regulated flow of new Canadians to this country, who in turn are producers and consumers alike.
We have water in abundance, minerals, lumber, oil and farmlands. The only resource not in ample supply is people. To cite an example, does it not seem incongruous in a new and developing nation at this time in our history when one realizes that instead of considering additional rail transportation across this land one transcontinental train was cancelled because allegedly there were not enough people to use it? With more people we could not only have presented the cancellation of the "Dominion," with all the attendant inconvenience and hardship, but the annual C.N.R. debt, running into the millions, could be reduced. We must welcome these people as Canadians have always welcomed new immigrants. We need their skills, their know-how, their enthusiasm. We need their purchasing power and their consuming power. We need all the positive things they can contribute.
This does not mean we open our portals wide and encourage an uncontrolled influx beyond our national capacity to absorb. We must be sure that we do not allow our immigration policies to impose added burdens on our unemployment situation, our housing or our social welfare facilities. I believe that we must welcome these people for other reasons less selfish, less pragmatic and less definable. We have a gigantic country beckoning for people to fill it, tremendous expanses untouched, soil to be tilled, minerals to be mined. We must welcome people because we have a wonderful country and a splendid way of life which we should share with those less fortunate. We have a duty to mankind to embrace other peoples of the world and allow them to share with us the opportunities and promise this happy land provides. My riding is a good example of an area where people from all races have mingled and enriched each other with their respective customs and cultures. This all makes an interesting and refreshing mosaic of life and adds vibrancy and colour to any community. This same dynamic pattern of growth can be emulated throughout Canada, adding sparkle and zest to our national life.
The most crucial factor in productivity is, of course, the industry, talents and efficient output of our people. The added energy and drive of a well adjusted, happy people, unhampered by nagging social and domestic problems, can add immeasurably to our total
February 7, 1967

The Budget-Mr. Tolmie wealth as this increased unleashed productive capacity is infused into our national economy. Apart from all humanitarian considerations, reforms in many spheres can improve the vitality of this young nation.
This government has provided a glittering array of social welfare programs, unsurpassed in our parliamentary history. I feel that as we enter our centennial year there should be a shifting of emphasis to social reforms which not only would relieve abuses, inequities and human misery and could be effected without plundering the treasury but would, in relevance to a budget debate, strengthen the economic sinews of this nation. We have made a good start. The introduction of medicare will eventually ensure, through the improved health of our nation, a continued and more rapid exploitation of our full productive capacities. We are in effect husbanding and fostering the growth of our greatest national resource, the health of our people.
Highway accidents exact a staggering financial toll. The curtailment of this wanton destruction of life and property is a most direct way to contribute significantly to our material well-being. I strongly advocate, as one way to fight this plague on the national level, the introduction of a national safety code making it mandatory for automobile companies to instal certain minimum safety features in all automobiles built or sold in Canada. I admit that there are inherent constitutional problems involved but I submit that they can be circumvented, and in the national interest this type of legislation should not be delayed.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
Our divorce laws are generally conceded to be savage, unrealistic, archaic, completely inconsistent with prevailing philosophies and crying out desperately for change. As a lawyer I have seen the human misery and degradation caused by cruel divorce laws. As a member of parliament I have received more poignant, pitiful and heartrending pleas for changes in this domestic field than in any other sphere of human relations. In a civilized country which prides itself on its enlightened views on the great social questions of the day, this cancer has been allowed to grow and thrive for a hundred years of our history, gnawing at the very vitals of our social fabric.
At least this government, for the first time in the history of the country, appointed a joint committee of the house and Senate to investigate divorce reform, and it is painfully

probing this pathetic picture of human misery. Frankly, I think it is time we got a recommendation from that committee, and then the government should take immediate action and bring about a realistic broadening of the grounds for divorce consistent with our existing domestic realities and attitudes. I would like to see divorce reform passed during our centennial session because 1967 could be a commemorative year signalling the end of 100 years of human bondage. I can think of no more worth-while centennial project for our centennial session. Relevant to a budget debate, the peace of mind, the renewed interest in life and the happier social adjustment afforded by divorce reform would release a well of human energy, long stultified and dormant, which would pour forth into our life stream, adding renewed vigour and strength to our entire nation.
A genuine attack on hate literature, which demoralizes and saps the will and strength of many segments of our society, would, by dissipating neuroses and anxieties, again release latent energies which could add strength and vitality to our national economic life. A joint Senate and House of Commons committee is studying the question of hate literature and I would hope that an early report will recommend effective action against this concealed, insidious but nonetheless devasting social disease.
In summary I say this. We have the economic weapons to promote material wellbeing-a consumer committee, fiscal and monetary policies as enunciated in our budget-but we must keep constantly in mind one salient fact, that our real wealth resides in the natural resources of this land and the energies of our people. In this our centennial year, by social reforms based on humanitarian concepts and social justice, we must also release the explosive energies and talents of our people to their fullest potential. In this way and in this way only will we ensure lasting prosperity.
In this our centennial year we should give prayerful thanks for the rich blessings of this gracious and bountiful land, but should be ever mindful of the needs of every segment of our society and must ensure that all of our people share fairly in the almost limitless largesse of this proud nation. On our one hundredth birthday a dazzling vista of golden opportunities unfolds before us. A much blessed nation, proud, and master of its own destiny, with eager hope peers ahead into a
February 7, 1967

warm, bright and glowing future. How fortunate we are today to share in this great dream.


Mr. F. J. Bigg (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I represent the great agricultural district of Athabasca and in the short time at my disposal I want to repeat a warning to this house and to the government in particular that agriculture will remain the backbone of Canada as long as we have a country. There are a great many experts in agriculture today, even in the farm unions, who are giving up hope of retaining the family farm. Sometimes through lack of vision and leadership the government finds it is necessary to impose quotas and hold prices down, rather than up, because a support price at a low level across the board can tend to force farmers to enlarge their farms and increase their production in the vain hope of closing the cost-price gap. I take an entirely different view.
I think that if we concentrate on markets, principally markets abroad, and instead of asking farmers to increase their acreage and buy out their neighbours, ask them to become efficient on their own small acreage, these are the only answers to the problem of maintaining a large and happy rural life in Canada.
The small farms in Quebec, the maritimes and Ontario are being harder hit now than ever before. They are no longer able to compete in the labour market for skilled operators of machinery, especially since farm labourers are not covered by unemployment insurance. On two occasions we have introduced private bills dealing with this problem but have had no success in having it rectified by the government.
The small family farm cannot operate without help. The young people who are expected to stay at home seek, if not direct wages, that the family farm be put on a paying basis. I am not one to get up and criticize government policies without making specific suggestions. I have made some previously and I do not hesitate to do so again.
I believe we are ignoring a tremendous market for meat products, particularly in Asia. When it was difficult to sell Asians our grain because they said they did not have the money, we decided to sell them grain on a time basis and by doing so we opened up a whole new vista for agriculture in western Canada which had the grain to sell. So far we have not even explored the possibility of selling meat products to Asia. The purchasing power of Asian countries is low. They do not have American dollars and are forced to buy
The Budget-Mr. Bigg from us with sterling. Our job should be to consult with financial experts and find some way to give purchasing power to Asia. On this narrow issue hangs the whole future not only of the agricultural industry of Canada but possibly of the peace of the world.
We should send trade missions not only to Asia but to every other corner of the world and find out intelligently what the rest of the world wants that we can produce. Canada is one of the few countries left in the world with virgin land. We can still plow new land in Canada. Most of the old countries of the world, particularly the over-populated ones, have worn-out soil. But in Canada we still have new land, and in western Canada new potash deposits are being developed.
Certainly Asia and the underdeveloped countries of the world cannot pay for many of our products, but we shall have to find some way of financing purchases for them. When we go abroad to sell a product such as potash we should use the combined brains of a number of industries. From the point of view of being able to sell pork to China, have we considered the possibility of renovating old steel drums from the oil industry, which are no longer capable of carrying high naphtha products but are still capable of being used for the shipment of products like canned meat and fruit? We might line the barrels with an inch or two of petroleum wax. Backward countries do not yet have electricity and in a place like China the people could convert the barrel linings into candles. We could ship our meat in steel, aluminum or plastic pails. The peasant people of Asia could use the pails for irrigation purposes or for household needs and thus we could sell them two products in one.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
I know that the price of pork or any other meat or fruit product when shipped across the Pacific is likely to be prohibitive unless we employ all our know-how in providing proper containers for the food when it is being sent there. By this means we will be able to help them increase their standard of living and thus help them get on their feet so that they can afford the high standard of living to which they are as much entitled as we are.
The former administration took up this matter very seriously. The idea was not received with deaf ears on the part of the government headed by the then prime minister and so ably assisted by the hon. member

February 7, 1967
The Budget-Mr. Bigg for Northumberland (Mr. Hees) in the Department of Trade and Commerce. There was a deficit of several hundred million dollars in 1956-57 but when we left office we had a favourable trade balance of $1,300 million. I note with some horror that we have now slipped back to a position even worse than that in which we were in 1957. The estimated trade deficit this year is approximately $2 billion, or three times as high as it was in 1957. This is not wholly the fault of any one department.
I suggest that in 1967 at least those people who are making money and are able to balance their own budgets should think about staying at home and spending here the $800 million or $900 million currently being spent abroad. Let us make our centennial year a successful one financially. We can do this simply by staying home and spending this $1 billion here. This would cut our deficit in half. In order to buy Canada back let us buy Canadian products. I shall not speak of tax incentives for they are there already. The Canadian people should wake up to the fact that it pays to invest in Canada. If they would do this and take advantage of the existing tax incentives we could reduce the unfavourable balance of trade still further.
I suggest to the Department of Trade and Commerce that as a publicity stunt they might mark clearly all Canadian products which are produced by Canadian owned corporations. The percentage to which these companies are Canadian owned could be marked on the cans containing their products. This could be done by using coloured bands. By the size of the maple leaf and the colour of the band on the can, one would know the extent to which the product was Canadian when buying it in a store. In the affluent society of which we are so proud we should make sure that a very large percentage of the money we spend remains at home. A sensible way in which to buy Canada back is to buy things made in Canada. We cannot afford to make things in Canada unless we buy them when they are made.
I think that the subject of taxation is a good place to bring up a favourite suggestion of mine again. I have in mind the problem of double taxation. In the somewhat tax free province of Alberta one pays as much as $600 or $700 a year in taxes on an ordinary six-room house. There is no exemption whatsoever from income tax in this respect. In the United States mortgage payments are deleted from taxable income. I suggest that we might

take a lead in this regard from our great neighbour to the south and do away with what I call double taxation as applied to householders. The whole burden of education is carried by those who own their own homes or, worse still, by those who are trying to buy their own homes under one of the existing mortgage plans. This is unfair. It is inequitable and actually it makes the purchase of a new home at present prices almost an impossibility for the average wage earner.
I think that centennial year would be a good time to set up the Indian claims commission. This is something which has been promised ever since the treaties were signed. If the Indian claims commission were established, the Indians would have a forum in which to air their complaints. The Indian claims commission could decide once and for all whether or not we have kept the treaties with the Indians. Perhaps it would be able to determine whether or not the twentieth century interpretation we have made of these treaties is an adequate one.
Those who are our first citizens should be given their proper place in this country. I notice with some satisfaction that the efforts made particularly by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Fane) have borne fruit. The Indian reserves at Saddle Lake and Goodfish Lake are getting electrification. They have waited a long time for this. I congratulate anyone who has had anything to do with this. In this twentieth century the Indian people are just as entitled to the amenities of life as we are. Now they will be able to wash their clothes, light their homes, study and enjoy themselves.
For too long a time the Indian affairs branch has taken a paternalistic attitude toward the Indian people. I suggest that the sooner we fill the Indian affairs branch either with Indians or with persons who have a first hand working knowledge of Indian problems, the sooner we will be able to improve the lot of the Indians. There is no point in educating one Indian and then sending him back to the reserve to become submerged in the hopeless task of trying to raise the standard of living of the people there. We must direct a mass attack on the Indian problem. As I say, we will accomplish nothing until the initiative which the Indians have to a marked degree is encouraged to the point where they can be put in charge of their own affairs. I have seen drafts of one or two of the bills to set up this commission. One of the proposals is that the Indian appointees on the commission could be
February 7, 1967

removed at the whim of the government. In one case it was suggested that this could be done by a joint order by the two houses of parliament. I do not care from whom the orders come. The Indian appointees to the commission must be responsible to the Indian people and to the Indian people alone; otherwise it would be better not to have any such commission because it would not be respected by the Indians. It would be something which would drive the Indians farther back rather than bring them ahead.
I am pleased also that something is being done about housing. There is no point in building shells of houses on Indian reserves and then expecting the Indians to finish them. The houses which are built for the Indians should be ready to be occupied. They should be equipped with proper doors, windows, heating equipment and everything else that is necessary so they can live in the extreme climate in which most Indian people live. It is absolutely a waste of time and money to build a shell of a house in which these people have to sleep on the floor. If these houses are not warm and comfortable the Indian people will not sleep in them. They will move back to the tent which has been the Indian's home for generations and they will keep themselves warm in the manner to which they have become accustomed for thousands of years. They will live in these tents and rip the lath off the walls and the shingles off the roofs of the houses so they will have firewood to keep themselves warm. Where the Indian people have had a chance they have measured up in every way to their brethren of European origin.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
We have just passed the omnibus transportation bill which portends strange things for the future of railroading. Let me refer again to the vision of the former administration which built lines such as the one to Thompson in northern Manitoba and the Pine Point line in the Northwest Territories. I never thought this was a gamble, as did some others, and it has paid off magnificently. Instead of busily considering where lines should be abandoned we should be considering where new ones may be built.
I have in my hand a map indicating proposed rail line abandonments. One need only look at it to see the great need for railway facilities in certain areas. Let me remind the house again of a promise made by
The Budget-Mr. Bigg many governments to the people of northwestern Saskatchewan and northeastern Alberta. They were promised a rational railroad system in order to move their agricultural products to market and bring in farm machinery, building materials and fuel. They feel, and rightly so, that they are paying exorbitant freight rates.
As an example of the situation let me refer specifically to the 38-mile gap in the rail line between Lindbergh, Heinsburg and Frenchman Butte, Saskatchewan. If that gap were filled 328 miles could be cut from the round trip between Heinsburg and Saskatoon. I brought this situation to the attention of the house before I had been a member of parliament for a month. I brought it to the attention of the railway experts in Montreal. They indicated they had no intention of completing this line unless I could show them how they could make money. They suggested that money could not be made because there was not a sufficient amount of freight to be hauled. They also indicated to me that they received additional money because of hauling freight the extra 328 miles. By the closing of this gap the farmers of that area would save a great deal of money. It would also effect a saving because boxcars would no longer have to be shunted in Edmonton at a cost of $11.70 per car. The railway indicated that was the cost some nine years ago and I am sure it has not gone down since.
The former administration took a step in the right direction a few years ago when the two rail lines to which I referred were built. That was an experiment which paid dividends. I see no reason why the building of other new lines would not have the same result.
There are tremendous deposits of natural resources in that area. Several years ago I indicated to hon. members that there is enough salt under the prairie lands around Lindbergh to last the human race for 1,000 years. I am glad to see that no one in the house is roaring with laughter over that statement. There is a vast vein of salt, of the table variety, in that area. It is believed to be from 88 to 250 feet deep and stretches for 350 miles. It encompasses an area about the size of Ireland.
In the area where the Peace river runs through the south end of Wood Buffalo Park there is a cliff of solid crystal gypsum. It is 100 feet high and stretches for approximately 17 miles. No one knows how far back it

February 7, 1967
The Budget-Mr. Bigg reaches. No one is particularly worried because there is enough gypsum in that cliff to fulfil construction requirements to rebuild every building in the world without even scratching the surface of that deposit.
In spite of all these natural resources our railway experts sit in Montreal biting their nails trying to balance their budgets. I suggest they cannot balance their budgets because they are lacking vision, guts and imagination. These experts should have some of the courage and imagination which brought people to these areas of our country. These people still hope that some day we in Ottawa will wake up and fulfil the promises made when they moved to these areas.
Nine years ago I promised these people that if the government would not complete this 38 miles of line I would go out and build it myself. I hope I will not have to leave this place to do so but I am a man of my word and I intend to hammer at the government until something is done. If the present government will not keep this promise I shall work harder to put the previous administration back in office. I am sure such an administration would do something about this situation rather than spending its time with the railway experts worrying about which lines should be abandoned.
Over a period of six years I have been talking about building a dirt road to McMurray. Both the provincial and federal authorities have said that the road cannot be built economically because there are not enough people in the area. However, when Sun Oil of Pennsylvania decided to develop the tar sands and spent $69 million on a pilot plant someone decided there were resources in northeastern Alberta and built a road.
The young people of this country are beginning to think we in Ottawa are nothing but a bunch of old fogies who spend our time fighting each other, looking for scandal and running each other down. They say that if they were in Ottawa things would be different. We are busily training these young people to think. It is a dangerous experiment if we think we can sit here and keep them out of public life. The way the red guard is acting in China is nothing compared to what will happen here unless we smarten up, and I do not think our young people will give us 20 years to do so. They want action and they want it now. If we are to provide free education we had better provide also work and opportunity. If we do so I am sure we will not have to worry about a brain drain to the

south. Great opportunities exist in Canada but our young people are not getting the advantage of them. This is our fault. It is the fault of those who were frightened by the depression as a result of which they lost their vision. If that vision has not been lost it has been seriously dimmed in the last five years.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
I was proud to be a member of parliament nine years ago and I am still proud to be a member of parliament but, like my friend who just spoke, I want to know when we are going to give up the dull habit of arguing and go back to the old habit of acting. I think that 1967 would be a very good year in which to act at least as much as we talk. If the government is short of ideas, I and others on this side of the house have them. If the administration is tired and has lost its vision, let it not worry. Hon. members on the government side said ten years ago that we could not form a government which would accomplish things, but we did.
I close my remarks by reminding the house again of the three figures which I think are significant. I believe they should be a warning to the present administration. If in five short years we were able to change a deficit of $700 million a year to a figure of $1,300 million on the blue side of the ledger, we can do it again. I admit that the job will be three times as hard because now we are $2 billion behind. However, we on this side of the house have men who know how to do it and who have had some practice. They did it once and they can do it again.
I do not necessarily want to wait for an election. Perhaps it will not come for a year or two because the government is being well supported by hon. members on my extreme left. So I beg the present government to start acting now. If it is too tired, we are willing to take over any time; if it is not too tired then let us have a few results. If it does not have ideas itself, let it ask us. Let us have a parliamentary committee working with dedication, and I do not mean the kind of dedication which is found in history books; I mean the kind of dedication which ends up on the blue side of the ledger in the bank. This is the only kind that has any real appeal for the people of this nation who are becoming very restless indeed.


Mr. Gerard Laprise (Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, the mini-budget debate we are continuing
February 7, 1967	COMMONS
today proves to us once again that the government is unable to administer the country adequately and democratically, according to the wishes of Canadian taxpayers; otherwise, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) would not have had to bring down this so-called baby budget which will be fraught with consequences for the Canadian taxpayers.
The Minister of Finance does not seem to realize that the heaviest burden of the government rests on his own shoulders; as a matter of fact, he has to face problems which are all the more serious as he is attempting to carry out his duties in a modern age with antiquated, obsolete and out-of-date methods.
The government is aware that older people, for instance, need more income in order to meet the steadily increasing cost of living. After numerous pressures from all quarters, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. MacEachen) agreed to increase the old age security pension, but one soon realizes that the purchasing power of those people will in no way increase when all the taxes announced in the present budget will come into effect. As a matter of fact, not only will the old people not get more goods and services and not be paid more than before but the purchasing power of all the others will also be reduced because of higher taxes.
The minister and his parliamentary secretary have tried and are still trying to convince the people that in order to make some under-privileged classes a little more affluent, a little more must be taken away from the workers, those who toil, those who transform and develop the country. That is unfair, in my opinion, because I know that what the older people were asking for was economic freedom, the freedom to choose the things they need to live decently the remainder of their lives.
We are capable of supplying the elderly with all they need without depriving any member of the Canadian community. The old people mainly require food, lodging, clothing, medical care and recreation, goods and services which we can produce and supply in abundance without depriving anyone.
Why then, must we deprive younger men and women through taxes in order to provide for our senior citizens? Why not simply lay down an up-to-date accounting system that would truly reflect the actual wealth of the country? Earthly goods were created to meet the physical needs of the whole human race,
The Budget-Mr. Laprise not only for the few or for certain classes of people. All need not enjoy the same degree of prosperity but all should at least be able to satisfy their basic needs. The means and methods of acquiring wealth are legitimate inasmuch as they are organized to this end. They are evil or distorted to the extent that they defeat this purpose. We know that Providence has placed upon this earth, especially perhaps in Canada, in one form or another, all that is required, with man's co-operation and, naturally, with an adequate social structure, to meet the essential needs of all human beings. The old people as well as Canadian families still have unsatisfied needs. As a result of the constant increase in the cost of living, the average income is inadequate to provide a decent standard of living.
And what about those with a low income or no income at all? They are dispossessed in the midst of plenty; they are dispossessed in the midst of undeveloped natural resources which we fail to transform into natural wealth.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the government can no longer govern according to the wishes of our society. But we are organized into a society and every well-organized society exists for the benefit and welfare of its members.
But because of an out-dated, obsolete economic system, many members of our society do not benefit from the advantages our Canadian society has to offer. Can we blame our methods of production, our industrialists, our farmers, our workers, our transport services, our teaching and health services? Not at all.
The whole problem lies in our distribution system. Available goods and services do not meet the needs of the members of our society. That is why everything goes wrong. That is why there is so much discontent and so many strikes of all kinds. That is the reason for so much undue hardship and for the imbalance in our distribution system. It does not serve its purpose.
Our economic system is not social, it does not allow each and every member of our society to enjoy the earthly goods provided for their welfare. According to the very words of His Holiness Pope Pius XI:
For then only will the economic and social organism be soundly established and attain its end when it secures for all and each those goods which the wealth and resources of nature, technical achievements and the social organization of economic affairs can give.
12750	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Laprise
And he adds, still in the encyclical Quadragesima Anno:
These goods should be sufficient to supply all needs and an honest livelihood and to uplift men to that higher level of prosperity and culture which, provided it be used with prudence, is not only no hindrance but is of singular help to virtue.
Then, it is recognized everywhere-at least I hope so-that production will attain its end only when it reaches the consumers, all consumers, and we must not stop or slow down the production of goods and services until all the needs of every member of our Canadian community have been met.
If the government keeps on operating through loans at the pace we have known since confederation, we shall never be able to celebrate our second centennial. If the government continues to tax the small wage earners, the poor, the have-nots, in order to give them a hand-out in social welfare from time to time, before 25 years we will live under a system of state socialism.
And to all those who would like to depend upon the state to fully ensure their wealth or their goods, I say that they would be well advised to consider the fate of our Indians in Canada. When we see how the government is managing the assets of the Indians, we are not inclined to try it out.
The system of private property and free enterprise has been able to supply goods and services in abundance. It is our responsibility to see that those goods and services attain their end, consumption.
To do that, it is necessary to have a modern economic system which meets the needs of our time. If our present economic system leads us to constant indebtedness, to the loss of private property, let us change it and follow the monetary system based upon the real value of our production and our productivity.
Let us adopt a monetary system that will allow a profit on production, although the ultimate objective of production should not be profit, but the fulfilment of man's needs. Profit is a tried and true incentive. Removal of this incentive altogether would jeopardize the output and would thus hurt consumers by forcing hardship upon them.
We need a system capable of maintaining the profit incentive and ensuring, at the same time, an adequate sharing and distribution of goods and services produced, thus serving the interests of both producers and consumers.
Only the Creditistes are proposing such a system and have been doing so for a long

DEBATES	February 7, 1967
time. As a matter of fact, it was submitted to this house when I was only 10 years old. At that time, right in the middle of the depression, the social credit proposals were laughed at and Canadians were starving from coast to coast in the midst of plenty. People were starving while food was destroyed and production stopped. The Creditistes continued to advocate their monetary system during the war; however, our war effort was not financed by social credit but by social debit, so that at the end of the war we had a debt of $18 billion.
The Creditistes continued to ask for a monetary reform. They were still laughed at. But although this is peacetime, we have a deficit of $27 billion. And that is not the end. The minister keeps on borrowing more, mortgaging our future even more. He keeps on taxing Canadians, dispossessing them even more to the benefit of high finance.
My colleague the hon. member for Vil-leneuve (Mr. Caouette) puts it very well when he says:
The big ones grow bigger in smaller number and the small ones get smaller in larger number.
That is the result of a debt money system, a false system.
Money and credit being a title and a call to production of any kind, the total amount of money and credit to be applied to production must be truly proportional to the volume and price of the total production realized or realizable on demand. That is why Social Credit feels that money is based on all the production existing or immediately possible, meeting the needs of the consumers and not on the selfish motives of some profiteers, such as the private controllers of money and credit.
Since, in modern society, you can have goods and services only if you can pay for them, then all members of society must have a minimum amount of money in order to get a minimum amount of goods and services.
Nowadays, money is obtained through salaries, dividends, social security measures and inheritances. This distribution does not, as we know, affect all members of society; therefore, another way must be found to guarantee each member of society a share of the goods offered.
This is one of the reasons why the Creditistes advocate the payment of periodical dividends to everyone from the time he is bom until he dies. Many problems, today more than ever, stem from the fact that salaries do not give workers the purchasing power
February 7, 1967

necessary to buy the necessities of life for their families and themselves, and this brings about repeated demands for higher wages and a whole series of strikes. But each wage increase is accompanied by an increase in the price of goods, new taxes on production and sales, which are added to the price of the goods. Wages, therefore, can never keep up with prices and, as a result, we always have this inadequate purchasing power. The Social Credit answer to this problem is the national dividend, which would increase purchasing power without affecting production costs, and the compensated discount which lowers prices without prejudice to manufacturers. This would supplement the income of consumers and enable them to purchase the goods they want.
With modern production techniques, automation as we call it, we no longer have to fear a dearth of goods, unless we really want it that way. It is becoming easier all the time to produce with less work, and this production must be brought within the reach of consumers. The only way to do this is to give them adequate purchasing power.
Economists, businessmen and labour leaders now admit what we have been advocating all along. Mr. Robert Theobald, a British economist with the United States government, says that we must separate the concept of work from that of remuneration, adding that each citizen should, as a matter of admitted and constitutional right, be assured of a minimum income during his whole life.
I should like to quote Mr. J. Fenwick, vicepresident of O.F.L., who said:
Automation endangers our traditional concept of a salary as remuneration for work. A new means to distribute purchasing power must be found.
May I also quote Mr. Gilles Endicott, director of research with the United Packinghouse Workers Union. According to Mr. Endicott:
Automation requires that we change our fundamental notion that wages must correspond to the work accomplished. However revolutionary this may seem, and even though it is contrary to the Calvinist moral code, we have accepted the principle that income should not necessarily be related to work.
Such statements confirm what we have been advocating. Since production is made easier through automation, we should adjust our financial system to achieve maximum production and consumption. We cannot do more and we should not do less.

The Budget-Mr. Laprise
We cannot and should not shirk progress which frees man from labour. There is obviously only one solution to the problem. If we want to keep the machines, we must develop a method whereby workers will be paid for the work performed in their stead by machines.
Income should be determined by the amount of wealth produced and not by the amount of work done. To distribute unpurchased wealth, we advocate the establishment of a national dividend, so that this wealth surplus can be distributed.
The establishment of a national dividend is not only feasible, it is justified from a moral point of view: it is required by justice. The increase in wealth resulting from a common effort represents collective and not individual earnings. This increased value due to a collective effort through automation and development of nuclear energy today fills up our store-houses to full capacity and it is the result of individual independence and skilfulness.
In the remote past, man worked alone, he was independent of his fellow-men, but he did not produce much. When he came out of his isolation, his production increased, but at the expense of his independence. When he tilled his own land, raised his own sheep, weaved his own fabric, he was a workingman independent of his fellow-men. But when he was torn away from his land to be assigned to special tasks and closely connected with his fellow-men, he had to give up his independence. He took to shoemaking perhaps, but others were weaving for him, tilling the soil for him. He no longer could be self-sustaining. His production capacity increased but he was just as poor as before. All he was getting-I am referring to workers in general-was a living allowance. The first theft was perpetrated at that time.
However, when the advent of the machine age reduced his work to the 20th part of a pair of shoes, he lost both his ability as a craftsman and his self-reliance. All he kept was his livelihood. Although his production kept on increasing afterwards, his livelihood, and nothing more, remained his sole reward. Uneasiness increased along with theft. And finally, when machines reached a state of perfection, and automation made its appearance, man had lost everything: independence, manual skill and his livelihood. He had to accept hand-outs and the theft was consummated.
February 7, 1967

The Budget-Mr. Deachman
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
This surplus of wealth is a collective inheritance after all. It does not belong to anybody in particular. It results from life in society and it depends upon it.
The national dividend is an alternative to sabotage. It eliminates vexation, disarms the social rebel and brings class struggle to an end. It provides encouragement to collective work and fosters social fellowship. It enables us to foresee a huge growth of our basic liberties for the future, crowning political liberty with labour liberty.
The dividend makes a free man of every individual. It frees the manufacturer of his chains by bringing him customers, by sparing him the alternative of official control which threatens him and subordinates the superior mind to the domination of an inferior mind. It does away with the obstacles to innovation in techniques and equipment, and encourages the invention of organization.
The national dividend gives freedom as well as security. It spares us the danger of an acquisitive society.
Mr. Speaker, to allow the distribution of our wealth, our monetary system must of necessity be reformed, and the reform must go much further than substituting nickel coins for silver coins.
Thanks to a distributive rather than restrictive economy, the position of minister of trade and commerce will be far more pleasant, since it will enable the government to guarantee every citizen's security without tampering with anyone's freedom.


Mr. Grant Deachman (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, I am prompted to enter the budget debate because of the remarks earlier this afternoon by the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Fairweather), who dealt with the rules of the House of Commons and some of the efforts that the house has been making to reform those rules.
The budget debate provides us with wide scope, perhaps almost as wide as that provided by the speech from the throne. It is also fitting that at this time a member of the House of Commons should choose to discuss the rules of the house, for it is only by amending our rules and modernizing them to meet the needs of a modem world that we are able to examine the accounts of government and the taxes of the people which are applied to pay those

accounts. Therefore a discussion this afternoon of the rules, which was so ably introduced by the hon. member for Royal, is very fitting and I should like to add some suggestions of my own, if I may.
In the course of his remarks the hon. member made some very significant comments about the rules of the early days and the amendments which were made to the British rules at the time of the Irish troubles and the Parnell incident. At the risk of repeating some of the points he made on that subject I wish to emphasize what is an important phase in the history of the rules of our House of Commons as well as the British rules from which our rules have evolved.
In 1867 we in this house inherited the rules of the British House of Commons of that day. They were rules which were fitted to the easy pace of the Victorian era and at that time served them very well. These rules, with some amendments, became the rules of the Canadian House of Commons. The British then moved from 1867 into the era of the Irish troubles, during which the British House of Commons was brought to its knees by filibustering and a performance which verged upon bloodshed on the floor of the house. At that time men behaved in a way in which men had perhaps never before behaved in an English speaking House of Commons.
When one reads the record of the Parnell incident and the assault which was made on the rules of the house of that day, one finds that the debates certainly exceeded in violence the pipe line debate which took place in this house, and the British House of Commons was shocked into reforming its own rules, particularly in respect of closure and the guillotine, reforms which went far beyond those that we have come to adopt and apply in this house, even to this day. Following the reformation of the rules in Great Britain the Commonwealth of Australia inherited the post-Irish trouble rules adopted by the British House of Commons. So there were in the old dominions three sets of rules which governed our respective Houses of Commons. In Canada we had the old pre-Parnell rules, the rules of the leisurely Victorian period. Then there were the rules of the British house, much more modernized as a result of those incidents and speeding up the work of the House of Commons of that day. Then there were the Australian rules which over a period have been considerably revised and are patterned along very advanced and modernistic lines compared with the other legislatures of the old dominions.
February 7, 1967

In looking at the old dominions today, Mr. Speaker, we in Canada find ourselves the custodians of the most antique set of rules of all. Therefore any discussion of how to improve these rules in a way which will assist us to understand such problems as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) brings before the house in the presentation of his budget and to deal with the matter of supply is indeed appropriate at this time.
We cannot consider any debate on the budget without also considering what the budget is to do. The purpose of the budget is to raise taxes from the people in order to meet the government's financial needs or its supply. Supply comprises a great deal of the subject matter of debate on this floor, and much of the work of committees. It entails an increasing task for all committees of the house. They measure what the government has done in all its departments, review their proposed spending and make an intelligent assessment of it.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
We are governed by three principles in handling the money which the government receives from taxation of the people. Those three principles are, first, that no tax shall be levied without the approval of parliament. This is the purpose of a budget and the budget resolutions. Second, money cannot be spent without the approval of parliament. This, of course, is done through the estimates which are brought down early in the year and presented to us to be reviewed. Third, all accounts of the government shall be audited by parliament's own auditor and his report must be tabled in the house. We have a body known as the public accounts committee to which those accounts are referred. The report of the Auditor General reveals how many horses are on the payroll, how many streams flow through the printing bureau, or how many contracts have cost two or three times what they should have cost when the tenders were let.
Those are the three ways in which we in the House of Commons control income and outgo. I want to discuss each of them in the light of amendments to the rules and the provisional rules under which we now operate. This year we have an interim or second budget in the course of a single year. I recall some remarks of the minister not long ago when he said that perhaps we should be reviewing the fiscal needs of the country more frequently than once a year and should be
The Budget-Mr. Deachman examining two budgets a year. In reviewing the current budget one wonders whether we should not adopt the practice of having a major budget in the spring of the year to review the economic picture and an adjusting budget six months later to make those adjustments deemed necessary in the light of the economic conditions of that time. In Canada we are beginning to control our economic affairs on a basis which has taken many of the peaks and hollows out of the economy and is providing a much steadier flow to the economy than we formerly had. We should perhaps be looking to a House of Commons before which two budgets are presented, a major budget and an adjusting budget after a six-month interval.
I wonder whether more could not be done to test tax ideas in committees of the House of Commons. For the most part the budget remains a mystery to us. We sit here listening to the minister uttering the preliminary paragraph of his budget and wonder what he will reveal to us as a tax pattern. The budget has always been a carefully guarded secret and it is always difficult for a backbencher to know what form taxation will take. The backbencher feels he may not have much to do with taxation. He must wait to learn what is in the budget and the minister's budget resolutions. I wonder, for instance, whether it would not be possible to present white papers from time to time on the subject of taxation setting forth, let us say, two or three systems of taxation. Such a white paper could be examined by the committee on finance, trade and economic affairs or by a special committee of the house.
When the long-awaited Carter report comes before us I think we should have an opportunity to review a number of alternative methods of taxation. Members of the House of Commons not sitting on the government or treasury benches should have opportunities to make recommendations to the government and to the Minister of Finance in respect of tax systems. I think that we in the House of Commons lack a regular opportunity to make recommendations to the Minister of Finance in respect of tax systems.
With regard to the estimates, we have improved our committee system by forming 21 standing committees roughly paralleling each department of government to give the estimates that detailed examination which we attempt to give them on the floor of the house, but always fail to do so. Over the course of the last year there were more than
12754	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Deachman 300 committee meetings for the examination of estimates, more time than has ever before been devoted to this purpose. Hon. members had opportunities to ask detailed questions of senior officials of the civil service in respect of their own regions and constituencies. It was a feast of examination. It was good not only for hon. members, who had an opportunity never available on the floor of the house to examine the estimates in detail and to understand problems, but also for the civil service. It had a salutary effect on that body whose officials had an opportunity to come before many of these committees and present their ideas to members of the house. These officials took pride in what they were attempting to do and in the services of their departments. It was a worthwhile experience for all of us, one which members on both sides of the house would agree was desirable and not one from which we would wish to retreat.
The hon. member for Royal said that he felt there were too many standing committees and that their number should be reduced to 15, I believe. I am not sure that a reduction of the number of standing committees from 21 to 15 would be an improvement. It might be wiser to wait a little longer to test the present system and provide an opportunity to fit it into our method of working before deciding to reduce the number of committees to 15 or to some other number. After all, the 21 standing committees roughly parallel each department of government. As they stand they provide an effective means of examining estimates in detail, as we found last year. I suggest that we exercise a little caution before deciding we want fewer committees or more committees. We cannot judge precisely at this time whether 21 committees do or do not satisfy our needs.
I think it would be better to have smaller quorums, but even this is a difficult question to decide. We are a multi-party house and as nearly as possible proportionate representation on committees is given to all parties in the house. At the same time I think the introduction of the rule permitting members generally to go to committees and ask questions about matters in which they are interested has done much to provide opportunities for examination of the estimates. As long as this rule exists perhaps it is possible to reduce quorums to nine, let us say. e (5:20 p.m.)
With respect to the examination of estimates I wonder what we are going to do
fMr. Deachman.]
DEBATES	February 7, 1967
about a situation such as developed in the broadcasting committee. It began examination of the C.B.C. estimates last year, got stuck on one estimate and became involved in a special investigation that is still continuing. I think we will have to come to some kind of subcommittee system in which we are able to split the work of a committee when we find that some item of the estimates is expanding into a special investigation. We can never complete examination of the estimates and return them to parliament if committees are held up by a matter such as that involving the C.B.C. which was presented to the committee reviewing its estimates last year. Therefore I believe we are ready for experimentation in the field of striking subcommittees from time to time to examine some aspects of estimates as they move through committees.
In recent months a number of committees have travelled from place to place, and I think they have done so with very great effect. In its examination of a bill the transportation committee travelled from coast to coast. The agricultural committee is at the present time travelling to western Canada particularly to investigate matters concerning the handling of grain. I can think of nothing more useful to members of the House of Commons examining estimates or bills in committee than to travel to those places where they can see what is going on so they can assess the picture for themselves-and come back to the house better equipped to make recommendations. I believe it is also very useful for the people of Canada to see their members of parliament in the field from time to time taking a look at Canada and getting to understand the picture on the ground.
I know that in my province the M.L.A.'s have from time to time travelled from the capital city to various parts of the province, even to hold cabinet meetings. This has had a great effect upon the people of the area who like to see and meet their legislators and show them on the ground what is going on. I do not think this house should be inhibited by the cost of such travel or by such words as "junketing" and so on. I believe the people of Canada are glad to see their members of parliament coming to them on serious missions and taking up committee tasks in the field. I think this is an area we can explore and which we should expand.
February 7, 1967	COMMONS
There has been considerable discussion in regard to the appointing of staffs for committees over and above the clerical staff with which committees are now supplied through the committees branch. I refer to consultants, specialists, lawyers, accountants, and so on. I think we could become involved in enormous cost if specialists were attached to each standing committee and became entrenched as a kind of growing bureaucracy within the House of Commons. I would be much more favourable to a system which enabled committees to utilize experts for a short time while dealing with a particular topic, so that when a particular subject was before them for discussion they could employ a chartered accountant, an engineer, a lawyer, a university professor or a person of that kind who knew the subject and could be useful to them over the span of the discussion. I view with caution ideas to enlarge upon what seems to be a growing bureaucracy of people who spend a good deal of their time chatting amongst themselves and drinking coffee.
In the recent meetings of the transportation committee we found the services of an expert in this field a very useful addition to the work of the committee. Members from both sides of the house made use of the knowledge of that gentleman and referred to him difficult matters with which they wanted to deal in the examination of witnesses. I would like to see this process expanded within the committees of the house.
I wish to refer briefly to the public accounts committee, for here is a committee of the house that is already set up with a staff of specialists working under the Auditor General. It is one committee that has a staff capable of researching the accounts of the whole of the government service of Canada and of reporting to that committee. I think the public accounts committee might expand upon this work by undertaking some research into the problem of analysing how members of parliament can best go about the business of overseeing the work of government and departments.
When I look at the estimates and open up that great big sheet which sets forth some 30 or 40 standard objects, as they are called, into which accounts are broken down, I realize how primitive are the tools available to a backbencher to examine the accounts of government in an intelligent way. I can look at that chart and it tells me how much the Secretary of State spent on telephone calls or
The Budget-Mr. Deachman postage. In my opinion that is not a very useful item when I come to examine the accounts of government. It is the kind of item that one might dig out of the archives when this parliament has long since disappeared and look at with great curiosity, but it is certainly not useful to us in the examination of the public accounts. I wonder whether we should not perhaps be working through the Auditor General and the public accounts committee in devising better ways of examining the estimates that are presented to us so that we as members of parliament may become more efficient in our task of examining estimates in committee.
I now wish to say a few words about the proliferation of committees of the house. I believe we tend to proliferate committees in two ways. First of all, not only do we have 21 standing committees, which I believe are doing a very effective job, but we continue to appoint a number of committees to do special things. We have special committees appointed by the House of Commons and we have joint committees appointed by the House of Commons and the Senate, so that we have committees far beyond 21 in number. I would be much in favour of such special work being referred to the existing standing committees of the house so that they would become longstanding and expert committees capable of handling work under a method with which their members had become familiar. I would like to see less of the setting up and knocking down of ad hoc committees to attend to matters as they arise.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
The other way in which we proliferate committees is by failing to take out of circulation committees which have been doing a job for a long time, have virtually completed their work, and should be retired from the field at times when we are introducing other committees into the stream to carry out other jobs. We cannot expect to operate our committee system efficiently if committees are not retired from the field when additional committees are appointed.
This is why we have a situation such as we have today. In the current week there are 47 committee meetings, each lasting an hour and a half, making a total of about 70i hours of work for the week. By comparison the House of Commons itself puts in 34J hours work a week. At present there are twice as many hours of committee meetings as there are hours of meetings of the house.
February 7, 1967

The Budget-Mr. Deachman
One can imagine the pressure of these hours of work not only on the members who attend committees but on the inadequate numbers of staff who have to cope with such a situation. As we advance into each session and place this load upon our services the services gradually break down. The time taken for committee reports to flow back from the printer becomes longer and longer, our capability of getting translation done becomes less and less, and we compound our problems as we go along.
Having created a system of committees which is doing an effective job of examining the estimates, we now have a long way to go to learn how to control the services, to program the committees, to refer matters to committees, and to retire matters from committees when those committees are reaching the end of their work. If we learn to do this adequately we shall be at the point where we can build for ourselves a highly effective committee system which will benefit the backbencher, who can become more capable in examining the work of government, and will benefit the government and the civil service which can call upon the effective work of backbenchers in committees.
I listened with interest to the remarks made by the hon. member for Royal about the British system. Last September I visited London and had an opportunity to talk to some people about the British system. One of the interesting things there is that there is no publicity attached to their committees. Meetings are held mainly in camera and nothing is said or known about the committees until they emerge with their report.
Such a system would have a very deadening effect upon committees in this house because I think every member of parliament likes his constituents and the press to know what is going on in committees. I think it enlivens the work of the House of Commons to have the press attend committees every day and comment on the work of committees as it proceeds. We certainly would not be prepared to accept the British system under which the work is carried on behind closed doors until a report is released and a cold piece of news tabled in the house.
After talking to some of the people over there I left with the impression that we were making advances more quickly than they were, particularly in the field of committee work. I do not think we should be looking around us to see whether we can emulate the British system. Rather, we should be looking

at our own system and carefully examining it to see whether or not we can improve upon what already is an improving system which has done so much good over the course of the last year.


Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe East):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few comments on this unnecessary budget which we are debating today and will continue to debate for some days. It was supposed to be necessary in order to deal with the old age pension supplementary payments. Let us examine that argument.
At the time the legislation was passed there was over $300 million in the old age security fund. The legislation itself will not take effect until March 1. The main budget will be brought down in April or shortly afterwards, and thus it could have dealt with this matter. I realize it is only human to err, but to me this is an odd type of error. Not only does this budget take up the time of the house but it reflects on our senior citizens. It over-empha-sizes the pittance we are going to give them, even with a means test. The fact that the money is being raised by taxation is going to be broadcast across Canada in a six-day budget debate, and this at the very least must be embarrassing to our senior citizens.
We in the official opposition believed that our senior citizens should have been given the increase without a means test as a matter of right and that further taxation was unnecessary. In reply the government has stated that any social service must be paid for by the taxpayer. I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, that all other services provided by the government also have to be paid for by the taxpayer, and only when it came to the question of an additional payment to our senior citizens was it said that we would have to have a budget.
By this budget taxes are raised to provide a supplementary allowance ranging from $1 to $30 a month to our senior citizens. The old age security tax is increased from $120 to a maximum of $240, which should have been sufficient to cover the cost of the supplementary payments if it needed covering. I see no good excuse for imposing an additional 1 per cent sales tax which will probably mean an additional 2 per cent at the retail level. This hits the average fellow with a family with the same impact as it hits a millionaire. It also hits the old age pensioner whom it is supposed to help.
February 7, 1967

Let us take a look at what we are doing with regard to the old age pensioner. If he has an income or is able to earn $50 a month gardening or at some other work, the government taxes him $25 a month and in return pays him $5, but only after he has filled out an application form. The filling out of the form will be done with some difficulty in many cases and the form may even get the pensioner into difficulty if it is not completed accurately. In other words, Mr. Speaker, for every $2 of private income that he earns up to $60 a month, he sacrifices $1 of his $30 a month supplementary old age pension payment.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
But that is not all, Mr. Speaker. If he is under 70 years of age he also has to fill out an income tax form and pay income tax if he is liable. But even that is not the end of it. In one of the provinces, and perhaps in others, he has to make a payment for medicare. In the province of Ontario, from which I come, he has to fork up $30, which is a whole month's supplementary payment. How much is taken from him? Well, there is income tax and medicare. Does he lose his $30 a month supplement for the full 12 months? Is it taken from him if he has to live in a hospital or home where he gets custodial care? How about his hospitalization insurance? Then, of course, there are the increased taxes. As I have already said, there is an increase of 2 per cent on articles which are subject to the sales tax. I will stop there.
I think this indicates how our senior citizens are being treated in a country where at all levels of taxation governments take $18 billion from the people. The gross national product is around $52 billion. This means in round figures that we are taking from the people in taxes approximately one third of the gross national product.
Let us consider the municipal field. Here over 50 per cent of the taxes go for education. I contend that not a dollar of municipal taxes should go for education. This is something which is national in character and is necessary for our very survival economically. Therefore I contend that education should not be included in municipal taxation at all. The old age pensioner pays those taxes if he has property. If he does not pay the taxes, he pays the increased rent which is necessary to help the owner pay them.
I agree that municipal taxes should be levied to provide services such as sewage, utilities, police, roads, parks, and so on, and that
The Budget-Mr. Rynard they should be a deductible item for income tax purposes up to an amount of $500. Otherwise taxes are heaped on taxes resulting in double taxation. Never in the history of this country have we had so many payroll deductions. The other day a man came to see me. He works in a factory. He told me that there are seven deductions from his pay cheque. This man is the father in a family of four. He came to me because he was in difficulty. He was not receiving enough money to get by. He was receiving enough to provide the necessary food, shelter and clothing for his wife, his family and himself. You should have seen the clothing he was wearing. I think we have become a little case-hardened. We do not seem to realize in some of these cases that we are leaving these people with just enough money to barely get by. In other words, we are rapidly making them pawns of the state. We must accept the responsibility then for looking after them.
As I said before, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe it was necessary to increase taxes. I should like to place on the record a little item concerning the waste of tax dollars. It is taken from an article in the Globe and Mail of February 14, 1966, dealing with a speech made by the Chairman of the Ontario Economic Council. It reads in part as follows:
To back his statement that the governments do not seem to be concerned with the amount ol sheer waste in government programs, he cited the report of the federal Auditor General that governmental overhead was up 20 per cent in the past three years. More than $7,000,000 went down the drain for bomb toss computers we didn't plan to use, and inadequate planning for low-level radar installations led to extra costs of $3,500,000, he said.
The C.B.C. paid out $450,000 to its employees for work not performed and is paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in program content subsidies for private commercial T.V. programs. More than $500,000 alone is involved in one subsidy.
"Do we worry about this sort of thing?" he asked. "We are professedly concerned about private industry's alleged failure to train its personnel adequately. Are we ourselves, through our government, setting an example?
If most public efficiency levels were judged by the competitive standards now applied to the private sector, the results might not be too happy. Are we concerned about this fact? Waste in government costs us just as much as featherbedding, waste and inefficiency anywhere else."
I wish to draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, that our expenditures are now over the $10 billion mark. In 1962-63 they amounted to $6 billion. This to me seems to be a tremendous increase in expenditures. I am also concerned about who pays the taxes and how
12758	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Rynard we are treating the little fellow in this country. I am concerned about the man who is raising a family. As I have stated previously; I saw this man in my office the other day who has a deduction problem, but I see many more. I have an article here which I think covers their complaint pretty well. When there is an increase in the sales tax of 1 per cent or possibly 2 per cent at the retail level, the little fellow is being hit pretty hard. He is being hit just as hard as the millionnaire or the person who has an income of $15,000 or $25,000 a year. In many cases the little fellow is being hit harder because often he has a larger family. I think this excerpt from an article by George Bain in the Globe and Mail covers the situation very well:
He was an unremarkable figure with a nervous smile, the man with two dependent children (all taxpayers for the purpose of budget reports are either single or have two dependent children, whether they like it or not) and an income of about, say, $8,750.
Old $5,000-a-year-and-two-dependent-children was $700 short of qualifying for the privilege of paying more income tax to help build up the old age security fund to accommodate the projected supplementary old age pension of up to $30 a month.
He could argue, of course, that he was being called upon to do more than his fair share (as usual) in that the minister was also adding one per cent to the sales tax, which would be payable by everyone.
Since the man with $15,000 a year obviously wouldn't be buying three times as many (or three times as expensive) toothpaste, grass seed, television sets, socks, washing machines, kids' clothes, detergents, umbrellas, cars, cigarets and snow shovels, he, with his $5,000 and two dependent children, would be contributing relatively more to the take from sales tax than would the $15,000-a-year man.
Old $15,000-a-year-and-two-dependent- children could reply, of course, that the finance minister was going to be tapping him for $240 a year in income tax to sustain the old age security fund, an increase of a cool one hundred per cent from what he had been contributing for that purpose.
However, the maximum of $240 will be reached at income of $10,000 with the result that for every dollar earned of that last third of his income, $15,000-and-two-dependent children would be paying no penny more for old age security.
So that leaves the group between $5,700 and $10,000 enjoying the best of both worlds. And somewhere in there stands our hero, still (like the $5,000-a-year-man) spending all or almost all his income on necessities and necessary luxuries and therefore a relatively large contributor to sales tax revenues, and, at the same time, eligible for all or most of the increase in income tax.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
I think that sets out the situation. Let me take a moment or two to speak about investments, particularly those made some time ago by people who are now elderly. Many people

DEBATES	February 7, 1967
invested in perpetual bonds in 1936 which cost between $97 and $100, par being 100. These people need this money now but find the bonds are only worth $53 or $54. Some $55 million worth of bonds were sold to people most of whom had to scrape and save to purchase them. They did so in the hope of providing something for their old age. I know of one lady who has $4,000 in these bonds and she now needs this money badly. All the coupons were used up by 1966, and I think anyone who is fair-minded would agree that these bonds should have been redeemed at that time at their par value. There is no basis for the argument that many of these bonds are now in the hands of investors in this country, because it should not make any difference who holds them. The government should redeem them at par value.
One can come to no other conclusion than that the government has reneged in respect of these bonds and has allowed those people who purchased them to be the goats.
I could refer to many other situations of this kind. Let me just say that a great deal of money has been going out of this country during the past year, creating a very serious situation in so far as our financial institutions are concerned. For every dollar that went out of Canada in 1965, six dollars went out in 1966. Perhaps this is the result of people becoming worried about the safety of Canadian investments.
I am not particularly concerned about the safety of Canadian investments because this country on a per capita basis has the greatest resources of any country in the world. Let us do some housekeeping and housecleaning and restore confidence in this country. The first thing that must be done in this regard should be done by the government. The interest rate on these perpetual bonds should be increased to 5J percent or they should be redeemed at par value. An increase of two per cent will only cost about $1 million.
Is it fair in a country with a gross national product of approximately $55 billion, for the government to shake the confidence of the people by reneging on its responsibilities, particularly when it would only cost, as I have said, in the neighbourhood of $1 million to increase the interest on the bonds? I urge the Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) to consider this situation and make some effort to correct it at once.
For a few moments I should like to refer to federal-provincial affairs. We in this house
February 7, 1967

have set up a health resources fund and recently we passed the Canada Assistance Act. There was some urgency to do these things and yet the Canada Assistance Act is not yet in operation. The health resources fund was established to provide medical centres of various types to train doctors and paramedical personnel. A fund of $500 million was set up to be spent over a period of 15 years. The premier of Ontario, Mr. Robarts, has said that the federal government shortchanged Ontario out of $280 million as a result of which he will have to reconsider all his health and welfare and educational measures and find out where he has to pare.
As a result of different approaches taken to health resource measures, construction of some training centres may have to be abandoned or put off for some time. This will create a slowdown in the training of the number of doctors and other personnel associated with the health and welfare of our citizens at a time when the numbers available are far below requirements and requirements for these services are rapidly increasing. Mr. Speaker, may I now call it six o'clock?


Mr. Depuiy Speaker:: Is it agreed that we call it six o'clock and suspend the sitting from now until eight?


Michael Starr: Yes, Mr. Speaker, from now until eight o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to provisional standing order 39A, to inform the house that the questions to be raised at ten o'clock this day are as follows: The hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Allard), External Affairs-Viet Nam-request for ban on arms shipments to U.S.; the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette), Broadcasting-request for review of regulations governing political programs; the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Aiken), Northern Affairs-departmental press release.



SITTING SUSPENDED


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed at 8 p.m. 23033-807
The Budget-Mr. Rynard THE BUDGET

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Monteith.
Philip Bernard Rynard: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying before our dinner recess, we have to put more money into research. This has become a vital factor in the world competition in which we find ourselves today. It perturbs me greatly when I realize that the provinces can only spend money and provide the buildings, on a matching basis, if they have the funds to do it. I think the solution of this problem in dominion-provincial relations is of paramount importance at the present time, and I mean the allocation of taxes.
As I said previously, the province of Ontario has been short changed to the tune of over $280 million and it is feared that not only education but also some of the health and welfare programs which have been set up in that province will have to be cut back. However, regardless of whether there are sufficient funds for construction of all the necessary buildings there is also a crying need for more teachers and researches. I hope that the Minister of Finance is listening.
There is today in Canada an urgent need for more teachers, to enable the schools to operate so as to educate more researchers and doctors. The first need which must be met is to provide sufficient funds to build the schools and to educate more teachers and researchers to train our graduates who, in turn, can themselves become teachers.
I do not think there is any need to elaborate further on this subject. Studies which have been carried out in the United States have shown that the social return from university education is between 8 and 11 per cent. This is a pretty good return, when one considers that it includes income tax and other taxes. According to those studies the private return alone is in excess of 12 per cent which indirectly in the long run will bring back more taxes. In Canada similar results have been obtained in the social field. The private return has been from 15 to 20 per cent. Therefore I say to the minister that if he wishes Canada to develop economically and to lay the foundation for this development he will have to provide the money with
February 7, 1967

The Budget-Mr. Rynard which to do it. In view of all this it is very hard to understand why the scholarship awards have been delayed.
This attitude on the part of the government applies not only to the field of medicine and medical science but also to industry. The other day I was looking at a brochure in which it was said that most of our engineers leave Canada to go to the United States, because if they stay here they only become some sort of managers. Surely the incentives to keep them here are insufficient when, through our own fault we cannot keep our well trained engineers in this country. Not only does industry suffer, but so does the whole economy of the country.
As I have pointed out on more than one occasion, this represents a very serious loss. The minister is well aware of the situation because he has been quoted as saying that we cannot expect the same standard of living in Canada as is enjoyed by the average American, because our productivity does not equal that of the United States. Surely, the way to cure that is to have better and more research scientists and more education. This is very well illustrated by the fact that in 1963 43 per cent of the male labour force between the ages of 25 and 64 in the United States had 12 years of education, as compared with the same age group in Canada in which only 25 per cent had the same number of years of education.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have pointed out that research was cut back. I think this is the highest type of folly that has been exhibited by this government. We are cutting off the hand that would feed us and keep the economy of this country strong. I do not feel there is anything to be happy about, in the performance of the government. People say, look at our productivity; it has gone up and our manufacturing has gone up by 50 per cent since 1961. This is correct, Mr. Speaker, but in the same period of time we had a greater percentage of increase in our imports. Where are we going? At the end of last year we faced a $2 billion deficit. Our manufactured exports picked up to the extent of 64 per cent in the same period of time, from 1961 to 1966 but when we examined the picture we found there was an over-all decline in the comparison with the same trading groups-or with other countries.
Now, Mr. Speaker, this is not good enough. If we are going to build a sound Canada, we have to educate the young people of this

country and we have to keep our trained personnel in order to give us the research that will produce the goods and bring our productivity up to par with the United States. I believe we could even outsell the United States, Mr. Speaker, because in this country we have the natural resources. We do not have to buy them, we do not have to bring them in; they are in Canada. All we need is the skills for processing them; but we cannot get those skills by cutting back on research expenditures. We must provide the money, we have the taxing ability to do so. When we cut back on the provinces, they cannot go ahead with the projects they need to provide the trained personnel for this country.
I want to go back for a minute and say that I do not believe the people are going to tolerate this type of thing much longer. We are living in a country with the greatest resources per capita in the world. We have resources of all types right at our back door, but we need the skills to manufacture them. Sometimes I get annoyed when the government points out that we are proceeding more and more toward free trade, because I believe that if our productivity is now only 70 per cent of that of the United States, then the logical conclusion is that with a free trade economy we would have little manufacturing in this country. I do not believe this is the way to build Canada.


Mr. Colin Cameron (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to spend too much time on the minister's budget. There is not much one can say about it. The minister himself described it as a mini-budget. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, like the mini-skirt, it occasionally reveals more than was intended, not for information of course or to show the condition of the economy, but rather to reveal the condition of the minister's personality. I have the idea that, having got himself into a position of promising a budget, because of a condition that prevailed in the economy at that time, and when, as is always likely to happen, conditions changed, the minister felt himself in honour bound to bring forward a mini-budget anyway. I think he may have had some purpose in doing so, but I suggest it had nothing whatever to do with the economy of Canada.
I seemed to detect on the part of the minister a desire to point a moral. I could really see all of the minister's Calvinistic ancestors peering over his shoulder as he drew up this budget. It seemed to me he was determined to underline and emphasize the old adage, that
February 7, 1967
in this sad vale of tears you get nothing for nothing and damn little for sixpence.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that is a point of view with which one could agree. No one will deny it. I suspect also the minister hoped to raise some question in the minds of the Canadian people the next time they begin to demand the expansion of social services or increased amenities for living. The minister hoped they would connect this clearly in their minds with the brutal fact of taxation. Again, I think one cannot quarrel with that point of view. On the other hand, I would suggest to the minister that the people of Canada may be asking themselves some rather different questions. I do not believe for a moment they are now likely to question the necessity and desirability of having adequate pensions for old people, adequate services for children, adequate disability pensions, retirement pensions. Most people in Canada accept the fact we are going to have these things. If we have any pretentions to being a civilized, progressive people, we must see that we get them for the Canadian people.
The sort of questions the Canadian people likely will be asking themselves are, not can we afford better old age pensions, but can we afford to allow businesses to evade taxation via the expense account route? Can we afford to have executive salaries undisclosed and untaxed in the form of cars, houses and the various perquisites that are provided by large corporations? Can we afford the insanely generous depletion and depreciation allowances which are permitted? Can we afford untaxed capital gains? Finally, can we afford to allow the gross misallocation of resources, which sees service stations being built on all four corners of an intersection, luxury apartments, fancy office buildings, when the housing needs of the Canadian people are crying aloud? These are the questions that are likely to be raised in the minds of the Canadian people by the minister's mini-budget.
Some of my colleagues have dealt perhaps a little more harshly, a little more decisively with this aspect of the budget. I do not propose to spend much more time with it, because in my mind the minister's mini-budget was a piece of rather ill advised nonsense. I think there is something about which the minister must be thinking now as the time comes close for the presentation to parliament of the real budget. I hope when he does so he will not regard this merely as a method of accounting for the housekeeping for the government of Canada, but that he will realize in 23033-807J
The Budget-Mr. C. Cameron the modern age the budget is one of the weapons in his control by which to control economic development in Canada.
For a few moments, Mr. Speaker, I should like to present the idea that we are now moving into an extremely different world than the one we have known up to this time. We have to regard our economy, not as a happy hunting ground for various people, whether they be labour or management or shareholders, but as a complex and extremely precariously balanced productive and distributive machine. If we look over the world today we will find that, no matter under what political philosophy this machine is being developed, it invariably takes the same form. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I think one might paraphrase the phrase of the famous professor, Marshall McLuhan, that "the medium is the message" by saying that technology is the organization. The technological development of the age dictates a certain form, a certain size and a certain type of productive organization.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)
What is important, of course, from a social point of view is what we are going to do with the products of that particular machine. The important thing is that we must grasp the idea that this is a machine, a structure, shall I say, that must inevitably be built to fit the technological stage we have reached today. One of our troubles is that we have allowed a great many excrescences, shall I say, of this machine to very severely hamper its efficiency. We have allowed a whole host of comparatively useless intermediaries who contribute little or nothing to impede progress toward the development of an effective and productive machine in this country.
One of the most important cogs in a modern industrial productive machine is provided by the financial institutions which contribute to its operations. Here in Canada we are at the present time in a very sad way in this regard. I do not need to point to the various collapses that we have had in the financial world; to my mind the matter is much more serious and goes much deeper.
I know it is not proper, Mr. Speaker, to refer to proceedings before a committee, but I think I can remind the house that at the present moment one of the committees of this house is dealing with some of the experiences of two or three financial institutions. We have

12762	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. C. Cameron allowed to grow up in Canada a whole conglomeration of financial institutions of various sorts and under different jurisdictions, some properly controlled, some completely uncontrolled, but all of them intruding themselves into the operation of our productive machine-a sort of ramshackle growth of financial institutions which apparently contribute nothing except confusion and doubt as to the ability of the Canadian people to produce the things they need to produce.
We have had before the committee on finance and economic affairs for some time a bill dealing with the major financial institutions of the country-the chartered banks. But always appearing over the horizon in all of our discussions are the heads of these various subsidiary financial institutions who are apparently beyond our control, or at least beyond the control that this government is prepared to exercise. As a consequence, Mr. Speaker, there is a growing concern in the public mind as to whether Canadian financial institutions are indeed as stable and efficient as we like to believe.
I think we should realize that they deal entirely with the savings of the Canadian people. If we are going to build a modern productive and distributive machine, such as we have not now and, indeed, such as no country in the world has yet, the sort of machine that is going to be made completely necessary by technological development, then we have to tackle this question of these institutions which we allow to dabble in the pool of the savings of the Canadian people.
We are doing almost nothing to streamline these institutions, Mr. Speaker. We are doing almost nothing to bring a vast body of them under adequate control; and we are not doing this because of the strictly doctrinaire approach of this government-and I might say it is the same doctrinaire approach that is displayed by the official opposition-a doctrinaire approach which is very pronounced when we come to deal with such institutions as trust companies, loan companies, insurance companies.
The principal doctrine, Mr. Speaker, is that it is the inalienable right of Canadian citizens, or some of them, to be able to collect the savings of their fellow citizens and themselves decide what they are going to do with those savings. We are, of course, trying to bring some of them under control through the deposit insurance legislation; but I am most struck by the fact that this government is not prepared to make a definite statement that it

DEBATES	February 7, 1967
will exert its authority under the British North America Act over all institutions that could be defined as doing banking business. The consequence is that no one at present knows exactly how our financial institutions are going to operate in the course of the next ten years.
We may feel at the present time that the institutions that we have controlled-that is, the banks and to some extent trust companies-are sufficiently controlled for the time being; but we must have some doubts about some other institutions when we see what happened to the Prudential empire, to Atlantic Acceptance Corporation, and when we saw the other day that the creditors of North American General Insurance Company would be fortunate to get 58 cents on the dollar.
I hear someone asking me about the socialized industries in Saskatchewan. I would be glad to deal with the socialized industries in Saskatchewan, but I do not think that the subject would be germane to this discussion. I know it must annoy members of the official opposition, and probably members of the government party, when I point to the fact that today they are the doctrinaire parties of this country. They are not prepared to abandon their doctrine-their sacred doctrine of the right of Canadians to exploit each other, and particularly in the financial field to have some control of the savings of others.
I think there is a very growing concern about this question. One of the matters we must deal with, one which I am sure we will have to deal with before the next decennial revision of the Bank Act, is the bringing under adequate control of the host of financial institutions of varying function, varying development and varying power.
I have been quite struck with the hesitation of the government to move in this regard, because it leaves them in a very precarious position. I have been struck by the way in which the government fears the reaction of provinces which have assumed squatters' rights in an area that is definitely assigned to the federal government and the federal parliament. But apparently nothing can be done about it because, as I say, this government is wedded to the doctrine of what they call free enterprise.
One of the major types of financial institution, one that deals very closely with the savings of the Canadian people, is the insurance company. I have been disturbed

I have mentioned this in this house several
February 7, 1967	COMMONS
times-by the endless proliferation of new life insurance companies which this parliament is asked to incorporate. We are being asked to incorporate more hands to dig into the pool of the savings of the Canadian people. It fragments this pool of savings. It robs us of any power to direct the investment of the savings of the Canadian people, because we leave those savings in the hands of these various individuals who have their own axes to grind, instead of being interested in the development of the Canadian economy.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that before too long this government will be prepared to consider doing what we in this party have suggested to them on a number of occasions, and that is to expand the operations of the Canada Pension Plan so as to offer the Canadian people a wide range of options. There is no reason for a Canadian citizen, who wishes to provide for his old age at a more generous rate than is given by the basic pension under the Canada Pension Plan, not having the opportunity to decide to contribute a larger proportion of his income in return for a larger retirement allowance, when his time comes to retire. I cannot for the life of me see that we should admit the right of any private individual in this country to acquire those savings with his enterprise and decide, himself, what he will do with those savings. So long as we can be sure-and we are not always-that the people who have contributed their savings, get their money back, get their savings back, we are asked to believe that that is enough. I do not think that it is enough. I think the savings of the Canadian people upon which all future expansion depends, should be firmly in the hands of public authorities.
None of us in this house yet knows what the government policies about the vexed questions of foreign ownership are, whether the simplistic views of the former minister of finance will prevail. Does the government hope to solve the problem by having 25 per cent of corporations foreign owned, or does it hope to persuade Canadians to buy 25 per cent of their shares? I do not know. This has never been cleared up.
I say that if we are to follow the policy of the former minister, it is an extremely simple minded policy, unlikely to yield results redounding to the interest of the Canadian people. On the other hand I see a vast opportunity for government initiative for developing the Canadian economy further, beyond this
The Budget-Mr. C. Cameron stage. If we have not too much pride we could take a leaf from the books of some of the developing countries of the world and invest jointly, publicly and privately. Some developing countries find no difficulty in getting foreign investors to bring in their capital, to erect industries with their know-how and entrepreneurial knowledge for 49 per cent of the enterprise. In country after country we find this is taking place. They get foreign capital without losing control of their economy.
I might say, as an interesting little footnote of history, that that great Canadian, Lord Thomson of Fleet, has recently entered into a contract with the government of Yugoslavia by which he is providing 49 per cent of the capital required to build a string of new tourist resort hotels on the Adriatic coast. Everybody seems pleased with this. Lord Thomson, with his well known desire to make money, appears quite satisfied, and the Yugoslavs seem quite satisfied that they will control the hotels being built partly with Lord Thomson's money.
The government also has not been quite forthcoming with what will happen to the project, the Canada Development Corporation, suggested by the former minister of finance. That was to be a vast, privately owned mutual trust, with government backing and public assets to help it along its way. Perhaps the government will go ahead with this idea; I do not know. This is another of the mysteries to be cleared up when the cleavages within the government party have been resolved.
I suggest that there is a place for a Canada Development Corporation different from the one advanced by the Minister without Portfolio. It could very well be attached to a revamped Canada Pension Plan. From that plan, I suggest, most of the funds could come. They could be made available to private enterprise, to joint public and private enterprise and to public enterprise, for the development of the Canadian economy. The result would be that in future the proportion of our economy in foreign hands will be much smaller than it is at present. We should not attempt to cut down that proportion by the ill advised investment of scare Canadian capital in minority shareholdings of existing corporations.
These are some of the things that I hope the Minister of Finance thinks about when he presents us with a real budget-not the rather funny little budget we had a few weeks
February 7, 1967

The Budget-Mr. C. Cameron ago, that does not appear to have had any justifiable purpose, except a moral one. The minister must also consider what fiscal policies he will institute with regard to the allocation of resources. It is not good enough for the minister to rely merely on the statistics of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, when speaking of our gross national product. He ought not to say that we have reached the limit of our development at the present time; we want to do too many things, and we have to call a halt. Unless he will examine the allocation of resources and devise a fiscal policy that will give us an allocation of resources better than the one we have at the present time, we can expect disappointments. I can think of a number of things which can be done. The sales tax can be adjusted, for instance, to encourage certain types of construction, certain types of industrial development and to discourage others. No one can suggest that there should not be a reallocation of resources in this country.
It is not good enough to go on shouting that we shall make war on poverty, when we do nothing to provide educational opportunities for vast numbers of our people-opportunities through which they might climb out of poverty. It is not good enough to say we have reached the end of our capacity to produce and to build, when we see around us in every city in Canada resources being wasted on projects of doubtful social value. We still have no houses.
It will not do for the Minister of Labour to content himself with holding a housing conference in the city of Toronto unless the government has solved the problem of reallocating resources. I might quote perhaps some evidence given to our committee by the governor of the Bank of Canada. When I asked him if he thought it was possible to use the interest rate as a means of allocating resources, Mr. Rasminsky told me bluntly, "No. I do not think it can be done". He said that that has to be done by fiscal policy. I asked him to make it quite clear that he meant that the government must get into its hands sufficient revenues to be able to make public expenditures in fields, such as housing, to which I have referred.
I hope the Minister of Finance will consider this question of the allocation of resources. I hope the next time he comes before us with a budget he will be able to tell us that the allocation is now discouraging redundant gas stations, redundant shopping centres, redundant luxury apartments, absurd prestige office

buildings, but is on the other hand encouraging housing for the Canadian people, schools for Canadian children, hospitals to care for Canadian sick and educational institutions to provide our badly needed health and educational services. I hope he will not read us a couple of paragraphs from his report and say, "As you see, our gross national product is at its highest level in history, therefore we must be prosperous, and we must have reached the limit." I do not think the Canadian people will be happy if the government continues with this kind of approach to their problems.
We have another problem also. It is about time we began looking at it. We should not be so ingrowing that we ignore looking at it. I was struck the other day with an editorial which quotes Mr. Escott Reid, a former extremely distinguished Canadian public servant who is now in the academic world. The heading reads, "The Most Awesome Problem Confronting Modem Man," and Mr. Escott Reid has this to say:
"The value of the present net long term official aid provided every year by all the rich countries of the western world to all the poor countries of the world is about the same as what the United States spends every year on space research.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
If the western world had last year increased its aid by just one tenth of last year's increase in its income, the flow of aid from the west to the poor countries would have doubled.
In recent years, Canada has been raising the level of its foreign aid by $50 million each year. Fifty million is less than 2 per cent of the annual increase in our wealth."
The editorial goes on to say:
Surely Mr. Reid is on the right track when he urges that Canada increase its aid from the present $300,000,000 mark to about a billion in the next four or five years. Our present figure is only half the UN standard of giving 1 per cent of the national production figure-and we are improving it much too slowly.
As Mr. Reid says:
''If we of the western world persist in our present policies on aid to poor countries, we will have earned the contempt of our children and our grandchildren for the kind of world we will have bequeathed to them. They will not easily forgive us for our short-sighted and ignoble policies on foreign aid."
I would hope that Mr. Escott Reid-and I am sure he does, because I know him- realizes that a prerequisite of doing what he advocates in the interests of our own preservation depends on the development in Canada of an effective and efficient productive machine; it depends on eliminating from our economy all these nonsensical financial
February 7, 1967

institutions that hang like barnacles on this productive machine and are allowed to hang there because the government of this country is in the hands of a doctrinaire party that tries to fit all its policies into the Procrustean bed of so-called free enterprise; that still believes there is some sense and justice in permitting private individuals to play with the savings of the Canadian people, to decide where those savings shall be invested and to ervation depends on the development in Canada.
I am convinced that sooner or later this government or another government will have to enter the modern world and realize, as I said earlier, that, to paraphrase Professor McLuhan, technology is the organization. If you go across the world, if you go to the Soviet union or any of the countries of eastern Europe, you will find exactly the same type of productive machine being built, because technology calls for it. The only thing is that they have scraped some of the barnacles off, but unfortunately they have also allowed some other barnacles to remain which are equally unpleasant, if not perhaps so destructive of their efficiency.
If we are to operate on any doctrinaire basis, whether it be a free enterprise doctrinaire basis or a socialist doctrinaire basis, we are going to land in trouble in the world of the future. Let us grow up; let us wake up, and let us realize that Canada is a country which can influence the course of world events if we are prepared to put our own house in order and clear out the rubbish which we deal with eternally and everlastingly because we seem to think there is some God-given right to fool around with the surplus values created by the people of Canada. These should be devoted to the development of a new Canada that can take its place in the world, as we have not done in the past because we have been afraid to do so, because we have not true wealth, because we know we are dependent on other powers to keep us going; and we are dependent on them because we have refused to rationalize our own society, industry and economy. I hope our own Minister of Finance, when he brings down his budget, will have some of these ideas in mind, and will have in mind particularly the idea of a reallocation of our resources in Canada so that we will wage a real war on poverty, so that we shall begin to eliminate the type of poverty that now afflicts us, so that we will cope with the problem mentioned by my hon. friend the hon. member for York South (Mr. The Budget-Mr. Isabelle Lewis) the other day, when he pointed out that poor housing is not merely a matter of living accommodation but is closely linked with juvenile delinquency, with general unhappiness and misery, and with social problems, for which we pay a tremendous economic price.
It is not good enough to say that these things must always be with us. It is perhaps all right for the godly to say that the poor will always be with us; but it is perhaps time we revised our idea of God and what is permissible in a modem, civilized country.


Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Gatineau):: Mr. Speaker, I am arrogating to myself a privilege in taking part in the debate which ordinarily follows the budget speech, particularly with respect to the supplementary budget presented by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) before Christmas.
Once again, the government of Canada has added a page of sound economy to our parliamentary history by providing, through rational and evenly distributed taxation, a minimum vital income for all Canadian citizens. This is yet another addition to social security measures recently implemented, such as the Canada Pension Plan and Medicare, which will undoubtedly place all Canadians on a superior level as compared with the standards of living throughout the world.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Gaston Isabelle: Mr. Speaker, I should like to take this opportunity to call the attention of hon. members to a phenomenon developing in the country which, I greatly fear, will soon lead us to a situation from which there will be no turning back. I am referring to medical personnel, particularly the family doctor.
We all know of the difficulties experienced by our government in passing the medicare bill; as time goes by, we become even more conscious and proud of the responsibilities we took upon ourselves, when the four great principles were put forward by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) in July, 1965.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
Still, Mr. Speaker, although we have accepted those four basic principles, although everyone seems to agree that health is a fundamental right of every citizen, that governments must recognize it as an undeniable natural right, the right to mental and physical health, although governments say "We have that responsibility", it remains that such a
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The Budget-Mr. Isabelle right must not be handed over solely to medicine, that is doctors, medical associations and medical colleges across Canada.
Ministering medical care belongs exclusively to medicine, as well as the structures of internal control. But the fundamental rules bearing on the right of the individual to health, are strictly a government responsibility.
I can already hear voices clamouring against the word "government", especially in view of the tempestuous climate created by the interpretation of the constitution in matters of health.
The central government, for the protection of citizens across the country, has the right to impose the principle of stable balance and general protection to which its nationals are entitled, whatever the province in which they live. That is what the present government is seeking to do and must do.
The method of practical implementation of this principle is within the provincial jurisdiction to the same extent, 1 would say, as the equalization principle which in fact, enables rich provinces to take an indirect hand in the fulfilment of, and the economic assistance to the so-called have-not and less favoured provinces.
Such is the spirit that must prompt each of us. The problem, sir, is that, in my opinion, there will be a lack of family doctors in Canada. And here is why. We must agree that medical research in Canada can be increased considerably. Nobody can deny that. The present government has already made a commendable effort by earmarking $500 million to medical research. There has already been so much discussion on this matter that it is not necessary to come back to it. It was also dealt with sufficiently in this house. It is better to start off as we do and to be sure to progress, by a sustained increase, toward higher peaks.
Mr. Speaker, let me pay a tribute, here, to the scientist who is commended for his extraordinary qualities and his highest merits because of his essential necessity and his untiring devotion in a modern nation. I refer to the family doctor, the general practitioner.
Unfortunately, if modern society can praise the merits of this man who is disappearing and abandoning this type of medical practise he loved so much, we must now examine our consciences and repeat what Professor Pasteur Vallery-Radot, then co-president of the 23rd

DEBATES	February 7, 1967
convention of French doctors, stated namely: "I have no hesitation in saying that, in its daily practice, medicine is erring. Why? Because it ignores the physician, the general practioner and is concerned only with the specalists."
We would have a lot to say in this regard but it is impossible for lack of time. We know that general practice is centred essentially on the family which is the basic unit of society. The family doctor is undoubtedly the best doctor in the country. He can look after the expectant mother, the children, the adults. He can treat people in his office, at the patient's place, the hospital, when it is necessary.
The family doctor should be really the medical practitioner and not only a switchman for the specialists. In that respect, I should like to quote the words written by one of my colleagues, Dr. Georges Desrosiers, in he Devoir of February 1962:
The public should be informed as to the role and value of the family doctor because a certain thinking has developed here, as everywhere else, which results in the fact that in some quarters, people only swear by the specialist who is consulted directly, and who often refers the patient later on to another specialist.
The role of the specialist would be namely that of a consultant. He would supplement the work of the family doctor when necessary. To allow the family doctor to play the part assigned to him, the general practice should be viewed as a special branch of medicine and we should take as much care to determine its standards and requirements as we did for the so-called specializations.
Unfortunately, although the medical associations throughout Canada are still praising to high heaven that courageous worker and saying how indispensable he is when it comes to dispensing medical care, in short in spite of all those bouquets, one cannot but feel that those are treacherous words and that the man whose talents are so highly esteemed -is doomed to oblivion.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Gaston Isabelle: On November 30, 1965, some witnesses appearing before the Hall commission, stated that:
Two per cent of Canadians had to see their specialist each month and that, therefore, the greater part of medical care given to Canadians should be administered by general practitioners or family doctors.
However, other witnesses stated that:
Demand that general practitioners be given consideration by the profession as well as by hospital and government authorities.
February 7, 19G7

This, Mr. Speaker, means total reform, particularly with the advent of medicare, of the whole concept of medical associations and of all medical school structures, which are also outdated. These organizations have become encrusted in a dangerous but regular routine and have accumulated more dust than prestige over the years. They have become much like stagnant waters and are even now in need of purification. Their only significant accomplishment boils down to resolution passing committees, whose powers are whittled down from year to year.
In certain areas, a great gap has been created, or at least everything has been done to widen the gap already existing between family doctors and specialists. I wish to point out to hon. members that if we do not have enough medical practitioners, if Canada is in 22nd position, with respect to the relationship between medical practitioners and population, having only one doctor for 852 persons, it is not because of a lack of federal research grants. It is rather due to the confusion within the medical profession; this situation must be remedied in the near future, if we are to have more family doctors.
It is inconceivable that, in 1967, some hospitals should have general practitioners as active members of their medical boards and that these practitioners should not be allowed to vote in the medical departments when general decisions in which they are involved are taken.
It is inconceivable that, in 1967, the general practitioner who makes a house call and finds the patient dying or almost, should have to telephone the specialist on duty at the hospital to ask permission to hospitalize the patient. That is scandalous, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Gaston Isabelle: It is also incredible that in 1966 and even in 1967-and I am ashamed to say it-certain hospitals in Montreal should have gone so far as to build separate washrooms for general practitioners and specialists.
We should regain our senses and realize the nonsense of such fantastic figures. As a matter of fact, in the last few years, the number of specialists has increased by 43 per cent, whereas the number of general practitioners throughout Canada has only gone up by 39 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, this makes no sense at all; in this case, there are more chiefs than Indians.

The Budget-Mr. Isabelle Out of the 24,000 doctors in Canada at present, 2,880, that is 12 per cent, are interns, and 90 per cent of them are specializing or preparing for a career in industry. After the arguments I have just put forward, one could hardly think of improving the medical situation by creating such ridiculous situations as the one in which we find ourselves today.
Mr. Speaker, may I refer to an item published in the magazine College of Medical Practitioners of Canada of August 1966, and I quote:
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)

Too long has the medical profession soft-pedaled the short supply of Canadian physicians. Too long has it concealed the urgent need for more family doctors from such groups of foreign physicians as those of the United Kingdom. Too long have Canadian doctors refused to come to grips with the excessive work load being carried by many of their members, and this load will be increased when universal health insurance is established.
Everyone knows or should know there is a shortage of physicians in Canada. This may not apply to a few of the specialties, but it is true generally and particularly of general practitioners or family doctors.

In an article published in Le Droit some time ago-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am quite hesitant to interrupt the hon. member in his flight of oratory and in the midst of such an interesting speech but I am wondering about the relationship that may exist between the speech he is making and the discussion on the supplementary budget now going on. There may be a very close connection between the two but it does not appear quite obvious to me.


Joseph Gaston Isabelle: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your remarks but I might point out that we are concerned with moneys that may be expended on research and somewhat imply the expenditures to be made to ensue a minimum guaranteed income. It is, Mr. Speaker, a problem related to the medical profession inasmuch as it may supply the care.
May I quote an editorial from the newspaper Le Droit entitled "The Family Doctor", relating to an article I read in a newspaper published by the College of General Practitioners of Canada:
There should have been a royal commission to tell the authorities concerned, that is the governments and the universities, that the general practitioner only-the good old family doctor-seems to be in a position to treat mankind as a whole.

February 7, 1967
The Budget-Mr. Pascoe
I will go further, Mr. Speaker. A few years ago, a prominent lecturer, Cardinal Paul-Emile Leger of Montreal, said at the University of Ottawa that the time has nearly come when a person calling on the doctor to have a particle of dust removed from his right eye, will be told: I am sorry but I am a left eye specialist.
I think the general practitioner is practically indispensable in rural areas, and far from useless in large towns where many heads of families with small incomes cannot afford the luxury of paying a specialist unless absolutely necessary.
Instead of making recommendations, I shall simply conclude by saying that more university centres with university hospitals should be built, without necessarily adding to the present number of medical schools. We should also make use of every available means, particularly electronics and television. Furthermore, medical associations and colleges of physicians across the country should be asked to put some order in their indescribable and legendary mess so that, in 1967, the general practitioner might be considered as qualified to practise general medicine everywhere, even at the hospital.
If those suggestions are accepted, Mr. Speaker, then everything else will follow: medical research will grow, the number of family doctors will increase, Canadians will be better taken care of, and more young people will enter medical practice in Canada.
We must put an end to the snobbery of medical education where most of the high-priests or heads of medical schools have embalmed themselves throughout Canada. Instead of fostering the progress of practical medical science, they have basked continually in the luke-warm routine of pompous and pious speeches which basically gratified only their pride to the detriment of general medicine, that is those who worked humbly and silently ministering the sick. The time has come to put an end to all this, to forget the old saying: "If you cannot become king, become a doctor."


Mr. J. E. Pascoe (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in this wide ranging debate I too might make a few remarks which are not directly connected to the budget, but which will be connected to the fiscal policy which comes under the jurisdiction of the minister. In this regard, while perhaps ranging a little wide, I am in the position of hon. members on

the other side, because very few of them have spoken directly on the budget. I think they might be in the position, as the saying is, of "damning with faint praise", because their silence on the budget, I would say, certainly has been very faint praise. Admittedly there is very little to praise in the budget. It could be described as a give and take budget. Actually it takes more than it gives. It imposes taxes to provide a graduated extra payment to some old age pensioners ranging from $1 a month to a maximum of $30 a month; at the same time it takes income away from many of the pensioners through income tax.
This budget, called the mini-budget, hits the pocketbook of our senior citizens in another way. It does this through the 12 per cent sales tax on drugs, which has been called a tax on illness. That description, in my opinion, is a very fitting one. Whom does it hit the hardest? The old age pensioner, our senior citizens who have helped to build this Canada we have today. I have a letter here from the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association. The Minister of Finance knows about this letter, because I understand he also has received a copy. I should like to quote very briefly from this letter, because I think it sets out very clearly the situation in respect of the 12 per cent tax on drugs:
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
During the past few years in particular, considerable public comment has been directed toward the cost of drugs. Since the early 1950's, our Canadian Pharmaceutical Association has repeatedly emphasized that the federal sales tax levy contributes significantly to the price of drug preparations. Only six specific drugs (not drug classes) are exempt from this tax.
In appearances before many committees and commissions having to do, in one way or another, with the provision of pharmaceutical services, our association has attempted to factually relate the dollars and cents effect of the federal sales tax on drugs. We have pointed out that the application of the eleven per cent tax-a highly improper tax on illness-cost the ill and diseased over $14 million in 1964. Now, with increased utilization of health-restoring pharmaceutical preparations, it can be assumed that the new twelve per cent levy, if not abolished immediately, will constitute at least a $16 million portion of their prescription drug dollars during 1967. Added to this will be the multi-million dollars effect on those drug preparations which the individual may purchase for purposes of self-medication.
That outlines the situation very clearly in relation to the mini-budget.
Many speakers have referred to housing or the lack thereof. I am pleased that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Nicholson), who is directly responsible for C.M.H.C, is now in the
February 7, 1967

house. We have heard a great deal about the serious housing situation in Toronto. This situation is also in existence in other major cities in Canada.
Recently a conference on housing was held in Regina. This conference was attended by the Minister of Labour. Actually this should have been headed a conference on the lack of housing because that was the subject under discussion. Also in attendance were the mayors of several cities, town officials, reeves and councillors. They all wanted information about how to obtain more housing loans.
An article which appeared in the Globe and Mail on January 5, 1967 was of particular interest to those who attended this conference at Regina. I should like to read briefly from this article which states:
Canada's housing program, both public and private, is a failure. Experts have different opinions on what to do about it. But almost all of them

public enterprisers, private enterprisers and middle-of-the-roaders-agree that the housing program has failed in the following ways:
Housing construction is falling behind the population increase. Fewer than 135,000 dwellings were started in 1966. H. W. Hignett, President of Central Mortgage and Housing Corp., said there should have been 150,000. He warned that 170,000 will be needed this year for new households, new Canadians and replacements for worn-out housing. Chances are that the number will be much less than that.
Housing is not being built fast enough to substantially reduce the backlog of slums and overcrowded dwellings.
There was a great deal of interest in that article at the Regina conference and it certainly sets forth the feelings of those people in attendance.
Let me now refer to some suggestions in this article regarding what can be done to relieve this housing shortage. It is suggested that the following should be done:
Create federal and provincial ministers of urban affairs and housing. Draw up a clear list of goals.
Launch industrialized mass-production housing at once, with standardization of parts and plans, but provision for variety to avoid monotonous ugliness.
Greatly step up production of public housing. Acknowledge that housing is a public utility. Mix income levels. Try to avoid ghettos for the poor.
There is one suggestion in this article which refers to something already being attempted near Ottawa. This is suggested to overcome the difficulties involved in crowded urban centres. The paragraph states:
Plan balanced satellite towns near metropolitan areas, to contain houses, apartments, stores, industries, ample playing space; schools, churches, community centres, social services; transit links with downtown.
23033-808J
The Budget-Mr. Pascoe
That may sound a bit far-fetched but it is something to be looked for in the future as a means of avoiding overcrowded city conditions.
The National Home Builders Association made certain suggestions to offset the mounting cost of home production, one of which was to exempt from sales tax, building materials on residential construction just as is done in the case of schools, universities and public libraries. That association also suggested as an incentive to home building the deduction from income tax of municipal taxes and of mortgage interest. It may not be feasible or practical to allow the entire amount to be deducted, but a deduction up to a certain limit would certainly be of assistance to home owners.
I should like to read one paragraph of this challenging program of the National Home Builders Association. It states:
Economists maintain that the industry should be increasing its production each year until it has reached a capacity of some 200,000 units per annum by the mid-70's. It is difficult to see the industry being able to gear itself to this production unless some method is found to assure a steady supply of mortgage funds.
At the Regina conference reference was made to a new method of apartment ownership. Under this arrangement apartment occupants actually own the building, pay taxes and operating costs. This type of project has been in existence for some time in Canadian cities, notably in Vancouver. Perhaps this would be the answer to the problems facing members of parliament who wish to obtain accommodation within a reasonable distance from the parliament buildings. I hope the Minister of Labour will give some consideration to this suggestion. It may well be that enough members are interested in such a project that an apartment block under this ownership arrangement could be constructed as a centennial project.
In a recent survey conducted by the publication "The Independent Businessmen" the following question was asked: Has tight money touched your business? The answer was: "Yes, 57 per cent; no, 39 per cent; no opinion, 4 per cent. This particular survey was taken last February but I believe the same answers would be given today, perhaps with the larger percentage in the "yes" column with regard to the effect of tight money on their business.

February 7, 1967
The Budget-Mr. Pascoe [DOT] (9:20 p.m.)
I have a letter here from two young people who displayed great initiative and self reliance in starting a poultry farm. They have written about their difficulties in obtaining financial help to expand their operations. I will not read the letter. I will just say that they were told by various people that both the federal and provincial governments were backing the poultry industry and therefore they attempted to find out just where and how such help could be obtained. However, they have not been able to find any government agency which would help them to expand their business. They have asked for any arrangement which could carry them through until July, when their new flock of chickens will be producing. They said they had ample markets for all they can supply, including a contract for 1,800 dozen eggs per month and another for 1,000 dozen eggs per week in June or July. They asked where they could get help.
I have suggested to these young people that they should contact a branch of the Industrial Development Bank. I believe that the I.D.B. can help them in financing this project, and if not I believe that there should be some changes made in the set-up to make this possible, because these young people are looking for help, they are ambitious and certainly have the background for operating this sort of enterprise.
There is another point which I should like to make, Mr. Speaker, and to which I should like to draw the attention of both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Benson). It concerns the high valuation placed on farm land for estate tax assessment upon the death of the owner. I have taken up this question more than once with the Department of National Revenue.
Estate tax valuations of $125 to $150 an acre on farm land which was the deceased person's original homestead, or which may have been purchased by him a few years ago for $25 to $30 an acre, appears to be a capital gains tax. I do not believe the government has as yet adopted a policy for the imposition of a tax on capital gains. The valuation on farms for estate tax purposes appears to be very arbitrary and final.
These valuations do not always appear to be equitable. I have drawn to the attention of the Department of National Revenue three cases in a little over a year where the estate tax valuations on three farms in the same
area were set by the department at assessments ranging from $85 an acre to $125 an acre for what would be considered to be the same kind of land.
The particular point I want to emphasize in these estate tax valuations concerns the preservation of the family farm. Consider, for example, an 800-acre farm which has been built up by a farmer in the expectation that his son will carry on. In one case I have in mind the son is actually operating a farm owned by his father. The father has died. The estate tax valuation on the 800 acres is $125 an acre. This amounts to $100,000. The widow benefits by an exemption of $60,000 but the estate tax levy on the remaining $40,000 could well be such as to force the widow to sell the farm in order to pay the tax, thus removing the farm from family operation.
I suggest that the government should lighten this burden by lowering the estate tax valuation on farm land. I contend this should be done at least where a son or a daughter is taking over the land from the father. Such a policy is essential if family farms are to continue.
My main concern, as I have indicated, is with regard to these high estate tax valuations on farm land. Perhaps I should take this occasion to put on record suggestions from influential sources that the estate tax should be abolished. I am referring to an editorial which appeared in the Regina Leader Post of November 25, 1966 headed "Tax on Estates Should Go". I think this editorial will commend itself to the government because it was discussed at the provincial Liberal convention in Saskatchewan which expressed the opinion that the levy should be abolished. I will quote one paragraph from the editorial, which reads as follows:
Spokesmen for the farm interests gave strong support for the proposal. Eventually a resolution was passed which requested either the elimination of this tax, or a reduction in the size of the slice the state takes out of taxable estates.
Again I will draw the attention of the government to the fact that this was passed by the Liberal association at its convention in Saskatchewan.
In the same connection I wish to refer to the 1966-67 statement of policy announced by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which I believe is very influential and has the ear of the government. Rather than paraphrase what they said with regard to the estate tax I

February 7, 1967

should like to put on the record the verbatim text of their statement:
Among the criteria generally employed in evaluating a tax are its revenue producing character and its effects on the growth of the economy. A strong case can be made for the abolition of the estate tax on this basis.
As a source of revenue the estate tax was estimated to yield in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1966 only 1.4 per cent of total estimated federal budgetary revenue. The income tax, on the other hand, yields approximately 50 per cent of total revenue and the sales tax nearly 20 per cent. Of all the different types of federal taxes levied, the estate tax yields the least.
With regard to the effects of this tax on the economy, to the extent that it discourages the accumulation and retention of capital in Canada which would be available for equity investment, it has a depressing effect on the rate of economic growth. On the positive side, it is, today, clear that the repeal of this tax would be the greatest attraction to permanent equity capital that we could devise.
I should like to draw this to the attention of the Minister of Finance because essentially it is in accordance with what he preaches. It goes on to read:
With respect to incentives, the effect of the tax is difficult to determine but in various cases the tax obviously acts as a deterrent to saving, and through this, capital formation. It has undoubtedly encouraged estate planning and the development of increasingly sophisticated and successful devices to avoid both its impact and the onerousness of Its administration.
At a time when the federal government it trying in other ways to discourage the sale of Canadian business to foreign owners, the impact of this tax, particularly on small and medium sized business, is to force such sales in ever increasing numbers to the detriment of both Canadian ownership and our balance of payments.
The following is a recommendation of the chamber of commerce:
In view of the adverse effect of the estate tax on the economy, and the relatively small amount of revenue produced by this tax, it is recommended that the estate tax be abolished.
The following is an excerpt from a letter which I received from the editor of "The Independent Businessman".
Here's our latest issue. I hope you will be interested in our story on the front page telling how the anticipation of succession duties is preventing the expansion of one company.
It is unfortunate that a tax, which is unproductive, should prevent productivity.
I think these quotations certainly emphasize what I was trying to say.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)
I agree with earlier speakers that the minibudget was not necessary but was rushed in at the last minute because a budget had been
The Budget-Mr. Keays promised by the Minister of Finance. The 1 per cent increase in sales tax, from 11 per cent to 12 per cent, has raised the cost of living. The minister admitted this in his budget speech. The sales tax increase would not be necessary if the amendment before us were adopted. It is for this reason I support the amendment, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. J. R. Keays (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, I could not feel the least bit antagonistic to the government at this time because a few minutes ago I saw the hon. lady member for Westmorland (Mrs. Rideout) sitting with the hon. member for Saint John-Albert (Mr. Bell). I know they were talking over the events of the last few days. I should like to tell the hon. lady, however, that I watched her on television a few nights and I thought she was doing a wonderful job for a lost cause. If they had more people like her, possibly the results would have been a little more favourable for her party.
However, all those who have participated in this debate brought about by the minibudget presented on December 19 have stressed the futility of this exercise, and I do not intend to pursue it any further. It would have been much better if we had had a statement from the minister dealing with our financial conditions. This would have given us an opportunity to assess the situation and bring forward suggestions for measures which could have been undertaken to assure the continued growth of our economy and to reappraise the measures which we now have for increasing productivity. These measures would have been assessed then in a positive way, instead of in the negative approach this government has taken since the budget of last spring to offset these elements in our economic life which have tended to strangle progress and development.
It would have been much better if the Minister of Finance had re-read his budget speech of last spring and removed some of the restraining measures which he applied to our economy and which, in his own words, would have been those which tended to have inflationary effects. The monetary situation has been getting worse, with tight money being the major cause of the lack of increased productivity. Certain taxes have tended to discourage increased production, and here I refer to the sales tax on building materials and production machinery. I believe the minister will admit that if positive measures had been taken, such as the removal of the sales

February 7, 1967
The Budget-Mr. Keays tax on building materials and the advancement by six months ot the removal of the tax on production machinery, many of our firms who have today curtailed their development programs would have gone ahead with their plans.
The minister knows quite well that a company with plans on the drawing board usually schedules its developments for execution in a definite period, and only those firms that have sufficient capital can go ahead with their plans. Others are being restrained and in many cases, as the minister will eventually find out, the curtailment of their plans will probably lead to a definite cancellation, thereby reducing their productive capacity.
In so far as the sales tax on building materials is concerned, it is quite evident that the removal of this tax would not have placed any additional burden on the manufacturers of these materials. We could have had a specific reduction in the price of these materials because of the ample supply and the ever increasing consumption of them. There was more at stake in this than simply a monetary measure, because this government has forgotten that the consumption of this material would have been in the formation of housing units which were a necessity to thousands of low income people in this country.
As most speakers have already mentioned, if positive measures had been taken to encourage the building of housing units we could have contributed to the elimination of suffering and delinquency. Moreover, such a step would have contributed in a positive way toward the construction of recreational facilities near the housing units, and the children of these low income families would have been able to fraternize and know each other better, thereby contributing to a will and a desire for a better life.
While I am on the subject of the 11 per cent sales tax on building materials, I believe it would be proper to discuss the discrimination which I believe exists now in the imposition of the sales tax on these building materials. A retailer pays the 11 per cent sales tax on building material based on the manufacturer's cost, but the same retailer selling lumber for the same purpose has to pay the 11 per cent sales tax on the retail price. Admittedly, it is not the retailer who suffers but rather the consumer. This has the additional effect of increasing the cost of housing in the way that I have already described as utter discrimination.

I wish the minister would take into account these questions which I am now raising and inform the house of his reasons for allowing the continuation of this situation. For my part, I cannot find any justification for this discrimination because I accept the principle that the taxation of these commodities should be on an equal basis, and that one product in a certain category should not carry a heavier charge than another. I intend to raise these questions again at some future time if answers are not forthcoming from the minister. In order to balance the economy it is necessary for the monetary and fiscal policy of the government to work hand in hand. I can see that the government has paid only lip service to this basic requirement.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
On many occasions the government has suggested that it will be necessary to curtail its own spending on capital projects. Mention has been made of the cancellation of an expenditure of roughly $100 million by the Department of Public Works. I shall be very interested to see, when the details of the estimates appear, which expenditures have been curtailed by the department. I notice the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Mcllraith) is taking quite an interest in my remarks, and I know he has the welfare of all Canadians at heart. I wonder whether he has had much to do with any curtailment or reinstatement of expenditures in his department.
It is wonderful to be able to plan construction and to develop a national capital, Mr. Speaker, but was it not premature to begin construction of the centennial arts centre without first knowing its fabulous cost? Other statements have been made recently in connection with the construction of other buildings in the national capital zone, and although I would be the first to suggest that these buildings are needed by the administration, I doubt whether it is necessary to undertake them at a time when the government believes that curtailment is still required in order to defeat inflationary pressures. It seems to me that the government's statements in this regard are contradictory. Perhaps they prefer to remain blind to the proper means for eliminating these inflationary pressures on the economy.
Notwithstanding statements which we have heard in this house, Mr. Speaker, the economy of this country is not as buoyant as we have been led to believe. Looking ahead a few months to the completion of many major
February 7, 1967

projects in Canada we can well ask ourselves where our people are going to find employment. Signs are already evident that the pace of the economy is slowing down. It is time for the minister to reassess the situation and perhaps consider the disbursement of the refundable tax collected under the terms of our last regular budget.
The elimination of the sales tax on building materials, as I have already said, would accelerate to some extent the construction of homes so badly needed in this country. With the backlog that is now evident and with the normal requirements of the year, the government has a tremendous task on its hands to encourage private industry to invest its money in the mortgage market and to get small investors to reactivate their capital.
When we consider, Mr. Speaker, that billions of dollars in savings accounts across the country could be used to greater advantage both to depositors and to the economy, I fail to understand why a program of information cannot be undertaken to tell these depositors of the advantages of investment in the housing field. Far be it for me to say that some of this money is not being used to advantage by the banks for lending purposes, but there is still room to encourage a substantial amount of these deposits to be used to the benefit both of investors and the general economy.
The government seems fearful of inflationary pressures, Mr. Speaker, yet it is contributing to the prolongation of the period of inflation every day that it fails to take steps to correct the housing problem. It is evident that if we are called upon to perform in 12 months what should normally take 30 months we are going to put some additional burdens on our manufacturers, on machinery and on the labour required for our housing construction plants. In this way we will have too many people chasing too few materials and too little labour, thereby causing inflationary pressures on the economy.
The increase of 1 per cent in the general sales tax has also had the effect of increasing the cost of goods at a time when we should be concerned with the problem of reducing costs. The additional amount of $120 which the government is going to extract from the taxpayers is again threatening to kill the chef that serves the main course.
Private enterprise and initiative has been the cornerstone upon which this country has been built and has prospered. It is time that we began to ask ourselves if we have not
The Budget-Mr. Keays reached saturation point in the matter of taxation of the individual and of the corporation. What initiative is there for progress, for increased productivity and for the welfare of employees when systematically in every budget we seem to wish to take a little more from the corporations?
It is true, Mr. Speaker, that government expenditure has to be met by taxation. So has the cost of social measures. But do we have to do everything within a given period? Is some planning not possible whereby some public capital expenditure is delayed or spread over a longer period, thus giving a chance to industry to have a few years respite from extra taxation in order that it may make a larger contribution to the development and advancement of our country? Spending at all levels of government is such that every Canadian is being taxed way beyond his means to pay. Also the period for which we are mortgaging our revenue is getting way beyond any rational planning, e (9:50 p.m.)
The very first day of confederation was founded on the wish and will of every father to embark on a pilgrimage, to erect a solid basis for our future. That was private enterprise. Let us not now falter and embark on a system destined to bring misery, unconcern, and evil to this way that has brought us through the first hundred years.
There is room for improvement. Let us improve this system. Let us rededicate ourselves to the vow, to the initiative, which will reward our personal wishes, which will be to the welfare of our country and will be to the benefit of the path we all pursue.
Private enterprise needs encouragement; corporation taxes need to be eased. We always look to corporations to fill the gap when we need taxes. These words I feel are noteworthy, and I feel depict the argument I have tried to advance.
Corporate profits as a whole clearly have not gone ahead of economic growth. They have lagged, if anything; they have not kept pace with the increase in labour income. Manufacturing profits lagged appreciably last year, the most profitable year in our history. Those profits trailed, reflecting the intensified cost price squeeze that has become more acute than ever. This has not stopped Ottawa from taxing profits more heavily in 1965 than in 1956. The investment of manufacturing industries in new plant and machinery has risen more rapidly than its profits have risen. In

February 7, 1967
The Budget-Mr. Prittie 1965, as in 1956, total outlays came near to equalling industrial profits before taxes. Those investments are nearly double the profits, after taxes. Some of this investment represents newly raised capital, financed out of retained earnings. In other words, it is that part of profits not distibuted to shareholders as dividends.
There is no question that corporate profits in this country at this moment are reasonable, and that the shareholder has a right to share in this income. Let us be aware of overtaxing corporations, because in taxing private industry we tax the individual who contributes to the capital needed by corporations, needed for the development of industry, for the increase of productivity, and to offset the cost of living. The investments of the individual make our corporations competitive and satisfying.
I have but one wish. I wish that the government would become more realistic and see in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Perth (Mr. Monteith) the warning signal that a new look must be taken at the government's policies. We must implement measures while will encourage industry, not discourage it; which will activate, not slacken and which will incite and not weaken the will of the individuals who are the pillars on which rests our future.


Robert William Prittie: Mr. Speaker, my speech in this debate will be as relevant as the rest have been. It will have something to do with the budget, something to do with estimates and a great deal to do with government finance. I do not have much time this evening, and I will simply introduce the aspect of the subject I want to deal with, the federal government's role in the financing of universities, and research in Canada.
When the estimates are presented to us soon for the next fiscal year, the large amount for university grants, included in last year's estimates, will be removed. In that regard I think this government has made a regrettable decision.
Hon. members will recall that on October 31 last the Minister of Finance speaking for the Prime Minister-this was just following the tax-sharing agreement conference with the provincial premiers-announced the federal government's intentions concerning university grants, technical and vocational education, and adult education. He announced that the federal government was getting out of the field of university financing; that it would transfer four points of personal income tax and one point of corporation income tax
[Mr. Keays.l
to the provinces, and let them do the job the government had done before.
The same thing held true for vocational and technical education. At the same time there was staked out a field in adult education, which was defined. I am glad to see the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Allard) is here this evening. He is interested in the question of education and the federal government's role in it. I hope he will be here tomorrow when we continue.
May I call it ten o'clock.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the house under provisional standing order 39A deemed to have been moved.

Mr. Maurice Allard (Sherbrooke):: Mr. Speaker, on January 18 last, in this house, I stood for discussion on an adjournment motion the following question, and I quote:
Since our sales of arms to the United States seem to have increased by 82 per cent in 1966, is it not the government's intention to ask for some changes in the Canada-U.S. defence production sharing agreements, so that our claims for peace in Viet Nam would not be merely rhetorical and our participation in the International Control Commission would be more consistent and effective?
According to recent statistics, in 1966, the United States has placed orders totalling $300 million for arms to be manufactured in Canada, while Canada has placed orders for an equal amount of U.S.-made arms.
The increase in United States purchases in Canada is explained by the Viet Nam war. A good part of the expenses is for aircraft, electronic equipment and explosives.
Such exchanges of arms and of manufacturing originate from a 1959 Canada-U.S. agreement on armament. From then to last September, the United States spent $1,430 million in Canada, as compared to $1,230 million agreed to by Canada.
What are the implications of such military transactions between the two countries on Canada's military and diplomatic policy?
Facts show two things. First of all, our ties with the United States are sweeping us in the wake of American policy, on the military,
February 7, 1967	COMMONS
diplomatic and economic fields. Second, our diplomatic policy does not always reflect our military policy and our economic interests.
On the diplomatic front, at the international level, Canada is seen as the promoter of peace. It often offers itself as a mediator. It makes many efforts, secretly and publicly, toward a peaceful settlement of the war in Viet Nam. Together with India and Poland, Canada is a member of the International Control Commission in Viet Nam. Within international organizations, Canadian representatives condemn war, deprecate poverty in all forms and advocate aid to underdeveloped countries.
Those are surely fine gestures, Mr. Speaker; but, on the other hand, we let the United States use Canadian made weapons in Viet Nam. Such an illogical action might embarrass us greatly and reduce, on the international level, our influence and our role as peacemaker.
Of course, we are bound to the United States by defence sharing agreements. But such an exchange of arms should be used exclusively for the common defence of the North American territory and our other joint undertakings under NATO and the United Nations. We should not get mixed up in this way with military and diplomatic objectives of the United States which are strictly their own.
That is why we should know from the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Martin) whether, on account of the presence of Canadian arms in Viet Nam, the letter or the spirit of the 1959 agreements between Canada and the United States have been violated. Otherwise, the Canadian government should ask for a proper review of those agreements right now so that our position does not appear so contradictory and controversial to Viet Nam.


Mr. D. S. Macdonald (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of Stale for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the first observation that I think should be made about the question asked by the hon. member is that the facts cited by him in his question were refuted in the answer given to a question placed on the order paper. That answer is to be found at page 12520 of Hansard.
The basic issue involved in this question is not limited, as I am sure the hon. member would like to limit it, to what is the balance sheet of operations between Canada and the
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion United States with regard to Viet Nam; rather it extends to the total of relationships between Canada and the United States in the entire context of the western alliance.
That alliance was formulated many years before the present involvement of the United States in Viet Nam. It is the hope of this government, and I would hope of the hon. gentleman also, that this alliance will continue unimpaired after the present hostilities in Viet Nam have been brought to a peaceful conclusion. Let me interpolate at this point that every diplomatic effort on the part of the government of Canada has been pressed toward a peaceful conclusion of these hostilities.
What is really involved in this suggestion is whether Canada should, for the reasons cited by the hon. member, throw over or risk throwing over the efficacy of the NATO alliance. The suggestion made by the hon. member that the government should take this action is not a new one. It has been made by a number of thoughtful Canadians who are concerned about the current conflict in Viet Nam. Only recently a group of university professors made representations to the government about this matter and some of their representatives had the opportunity of discussing it with the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Martin).
The Prime Minister explained to these representatives that the government, while it understood and had sympathy with their concern about the war in Viet Nam and their desire to bring it to an end, could not agree with the request that Canada impose a ban on arms shipments to the United States until the end of that conflict. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister referred to these matters in the house on January 19, and in his statement he made it very clear that the export of arms and defence equipment to the United States is covered by our defence production sharing agreement with that country, and that it is not the government's policy to stop the export of defence equipment to our NATO allies.
No commercial exports of any kind from Canada to the United States have been prevented by government action, in accordance with long-standing practice, and I suggest that reflects the principle of the open border with respect to export controls between our two countries, so that no licences are required for the export of any Canadian goods to the United States.
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May I point out in conclusion that there have been no direct shipments of armaments of any kind to Viet Nam from Canada.


Mr. Auguste Choquette (Lolbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Bechard) for being kind enough to stay a little later than usual, even though some friends from his riding have come to see him about the return to Gaspe of La Grande Hermine. I appreciate the gesture of the hon. member to whom I am putting my question, and I ask him to kindly submit it to the minister concerned.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Jean Pouliot, of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, recently submitted a brief to the parliamentary committee on broadcasting on behalf of the organization of which he was the spokesman.
Among the interesting suggestions made by Mr. Pouliot, some dealt with possible amendments to the Broadcasting Act which, as is well known, is old and obsolete and contains undescribable anachronisms. Such anachronisms occur particularly in sections 17 and 18 of the act concerning political broadcasts.
It is a known fact, Mr. Speaker, that private stations, particularly private television stations, are hesitant to carry such programs because, according to many, political broadcasts lack animation and colour. They are likely to reduce the number of viewers, or "ratings" as we say in French. Thus, very little sympathy is shown for political broadcasts, for which the broadcasters must not be blamed.
[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)
This is partially explained because the act is not too good. Clearly, it is an old act that has not been brought up to date for years. And while dramatization is mentioned, there is no definition of dramatization. The word is simply there, without its meaning being specified. As a result, the private stations are concerned about dramatization and will not grant political broadcasts any latitude, a latitude that would enable them to become much more interesting and to reach the public much more easily.
The first suggestion I make to the minister, through his parliamentary secretary, is that the term "dramatization" should be clearly and well defined so that we know once and for all what that means, and in what framework

DEBATES	February 7, 1967
a political program may be presented. Private television stations have a much higher rating than C.B.C. channel 4, in Quebec city, as well as channel 10 in Montreal have certainly more viewers than the C.B.C. Then-


Maurice Allard: Channel 7 in Sherbrooke.


Auguste Choquette: And channel 7 in Sherbrooke-I thank the hon. member for having mentioned it-has a higher rating than C.B.C. Now as the private stations have no political programs, politicians are unable to reach the general public.
And forcing private stations to have free broadcasts, that is almost impossible, and as Mr. Pouliot said in reply to a question of mine: We have expenditures to meet and we cannot afford to offer that free of charge, to put free broadcasting time at the disposal of politicians. The C.B.C. does it.
Mr. Speaker, what I would suggest is that the state should subsidize the private stations to allow them to broadcast political information on the same basis as the political broadcasts made by the C.B.C., that is to say private stations should also have political broadcasts subsidized by the state. One might say: Where will the money come from? We could start by saving money at the C.B.C. The time has come to appoint the president of the C.B.C. and I hope that the man chosen will be a real administrator. When it is realized that programs such as the one dealing with the Munsinger affair cost millions of dollars, that the one on the von Thadden affair cost thousands of dollars and that Rene Levesque was sent to interview a premier in Paris when the C.B.C. already had a correspondent there. The C.B.C. is overdoing it and if it had a competent administrator we could save enough money to subsidize the private stations which could allow politicians free broadcasting time. It is almost unbelievable that politicians cannot use private stations to broadcast their message as they have every right to do. Those are the grievances I wanted to call to the attention of the hon. member for Bonaventure to whom I wish much success in his efforts with the mayor of Gaspe to get the Grande Hermine back to Gaspe.


Mr. Albert Bechard (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to offer my sincere thanks to my friend, the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Choquette) for supporting, along with many other hon. members, the repatriation of the Grande Hermine to Gaspe.
February 7. 1967	COMMONS
Mr. Speaker, anyone who knows how cool and quiet the hon. member for Lotbiniere is when appearing in political television programs or elsewhere, will not be surprised at the protest he voices against this anomaly contained in the Broadcasting Act, with respect to political programs.
Since it is my duty to defend the act, I must say at this point that, in my opinion, the tragedy of political broadcasts has not been criticized very much by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or the public, when one thinks of the supersaturation of programs across Canada, particularly in the province of Quebec and in some other areas. I am referring to certain hon. members very well known to everyone here; I should like to mention the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette) for instance, simply in order to point out that I feel the act leaves quite a lot of freedom in this regard.
However, I agree with the hon. member for Lotbiniere when he says that private stations should receive certain grants in order that political parties may make their policies known through more widespread broadcasting facilities.
I will convey with pleasure to the Secretary of State (Miss LaMarsh) the remarks the hon. member for Lotbiniere made tonight and which I feel, are most appropriate.
As the hon. member for Lotbiniere knows, an amendment to the Broadcasting Act will soon be introduced, if not by the end of this session, at least at the beginning of the next one. I trust this amendment will be satisfactory not only to all the members but also to all who, throughout the country, stand for justice and freedom for all citizens.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I asked the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development a question regarding a press release issued by his department under the name of a private member. Very often that type of question is taken as an accusation, and I am sure that some of the minister's colleagues assumed that because I asked the question I was implying, first that the minister was wrong, and second, that I would not have done it myself in his position. I did not
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion intend to leave that impression. We sometimes say in legal terminology that to crossexamine does not mean to examine crossly.
Quite the contrary, at times I am sympathetic toward the idea that recognition should be made of the services of private members in announcements of this kind. As an example let me refer to the proposal put forward by the Secretary of State regarding the presentation of centennial honours by private members in their constituencies.
At this time I should like to know whether there has been a change in policy, a new policy adopted, or is this a specific and isolated case. This is only one announcement I selected from a number I receive in my mail every morning. This is the first I have seen of this particular type and I wonder whether some change in policy has been made.
So far as the reference today by the Prime Minister to the policy of the then Mr. Walker, now Senator Walker, a former minister of public works, let me say that he followed a similar course. He did at times give recognition to private members in this way. Even then I was not sure what the exact policy was.
If this is a new policy I should like to know how far it extends and under what conditions the names of private members will be associated with announcements in respect of public projects. I feel this does involve a matter of policy, rather than the isolated recognition of a particular private member for some reason. I would appreciate some advice from the minister regarding this matter, and I should like to know whether this policy will apply only to members on the government side or to other private members as well.


Mr. Knowles:: After all, there are more of us on this side.


Arthur Laing: I should like to thank the hon. member for his remarks and particularly for abandoning the acerbity with which he asked the question this afternoon. Apparently he has had second thoughts. Let me assure him there is no policy in this regard. The hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. O'Keefe) worked so hard on the Signal Hill project I thought it only fair that his name be associated with the announcement in respect of the contract.
The hon. member has suggested that this is the first time the government has embarked on such a policy. I had occasion to check
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Proceedings on Adjournment Motion through only the past press releases of my department, and found many similar cases in days prior to 1963. The first such press release referred to C. J. Oliver Limited of Calgary which was awarded a contract amounting to $107,400 to build a new administration building in Kootenay National Park. This was announced by Arthur Smith who was then the member for Calgary West.
[DOT] (10:20 p.m.)
Another one is dated January 4, 1962. It reads:
The administration headquarters of Kootenay National Park is to be moved away from the Sinclair Creek area of Radium Hot Springs according to M. L. McFarlane, M.P., for Kootenay.
Another one reads:
A contract valued at $437,585 for the supply of 169 buildings, to be erected in communities in the Northwest Territories and arctic Quebec, has been awarded to Dalite Corporation (Canada) Limited, Toronto, it was announced by Miss Margaret Aitken, M.P. for York-Humber, on behalf of Northern Affairs Minister Walter Dinsdale.
In another one Mr. Arthur Smith, M.P. for Calgary South announced a building contract of $33,210 had been awarded to Engineered Buildings Calgary Limited, of Calgary for the supply of an office building. Jasper Sedan Chairlifts Limited has been awarded the concession to operate a 3,000-foot-long gondola lift as announced by Dr. H. M. Homer, M.P.
DEBATES	February 7, 1967
for Jasper-Edson. And then Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams, M.P. for Bow River, announced on behalf of resources minister Walter Dinsdale that a $308,826 contract has been awarded.
I have a whole sheaf here and I will make sure that the hon. member gets a copy of them so that he can refresh his memory. It would appear now that he does not wish me to embark upon this program-


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I would like the minister to answer my question.


Arthur Laing: -because he is afraid that I would permit one good habit to corrupt the world. I have been as fair to hon. members on the other side of the house as any minister. On the occasion of the opening of the Pine Point railway I asked the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) and the hon. mem ber for Athabasca (Mr. Bigg) to accompany me. Some time ago we announced the opening of a penitentiary. At that time we may well have associated the name of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Woolliams). We will consider each of these on their own merits and we may be making announcements through the member in certain instances. This will not be a definite policy, but we will take them as they come.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.25 p.m.

Wednesday, February 8, 1967