1967-10-31

CANADIAN CONSTITUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Michael Slarr (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the right hon. Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister pay heed to the strong demand from across Canada for federal government leadership and personally attend the confederation of tomorrow conference as a means of showing some interest in a matter which is of concern to all Canadians?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I wish to bring to the attention of the Leader of the Opposition that the question is obviously couched in the form of an argument. That is not in accordance with the rules. The question should be asked directly.


Michael Starr: I shall rephrase the question, Mr. Speaker. Will the Prime Minister personally attend the confederation of tomorrow conference that is being held and which is of such great interest to all Canadians?


Right Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):: No, Mr. Speaker. This, of course, is an interprovincial conference. I do not know of any such conference which has been attended by the prime minister of this country, important though such a conference undoubtedly is. It has been made quite clear by the premier of Ontario that this is an interprovincial conference at which matters of provincial co-operation will be discussed by the governments of the provinces. Perhaps as a result of that discussion the provinces, or some of them, will be able to put on the agenda of the federal-provincial conference in January some subjects that can be discussed there on a federal-provincial basis.
Meanwhile the government will be represented by observers as is customary at provincial conferences. The four federal observers will be Mr. Jean Beetz, assistant secretary of the cabinet; Mr. Carl Goldenberg, special
adviser to the Minister of Justice on constitutional matters; Mr. A. W. Johnson, assistant deputy minister of finance; and Mr. Marc Lalonde, special adviser to the Prime Minister.


Michael Starr: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Does the Prime Minister not think Canada's confederation is far too important to be left to officials, and that the sooner he stops making speeches and starts attending these conferences the better it will be for Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Lester Bowles Pearson: No one is more concerned with the confederation of Canada than I am.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition does not think his question is more an argument than a question formulated according to the custom of the house.



PROPOSED INCREASE IN AMOUNT AVAILABLE FOR CASH ADVANCES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Ed. Schreyer (Springfield):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Now that the pattern is clearly emerging according to which grain delivery quotas will not be opened up significantly, can the minister say whether the government is giving immediate attention and consideration to the request for an increase in the amount available to farmers through cash advance legislation?


Hon. Robert Winters (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, this matter has been under consideration at a conference as recently as this morning. We are watching developments, and I may or may not have something more to say on the subject in due course.


Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In view of the recent statement made by Charlie Gibbings, president of the Saskatchewan wheat pool, would the government consider advancing credit to prospective wheat
3672	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry importing countries so they could buy wheat now and raise their standard of living, and at the same time improve the Canadian grain situation?


Robert Henry Winters: There has been no call for that so far. We have a well developed and well recognized aid program around the world. We also have a very aggressive marketing organization. This has been a highly competitive year in the marketing of wheat, but a pattern is developing for a more orderly market now, and our wheat is moving in a stronger flow than it was a short time ago.


Hon. George Hees (Northumberland):: have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the difficulty which the government or the wheat board are having in marketing our wheat, has the government given consideration to following a policy of cash advances on grain such as was brought into effect by the Conservative government a few years ago under similar circumstances?


Robert Henry Winters: Mr. Speaker, we will develop policies to suit the circumstances, but at the moment we are pursuing a very aggressive policy of marketing wheat and I think the activities of the wheat board are bearing some fruit.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of these remarks would the minister advise the House of Commons of the names of the people representing the wheat board either in Hong Kong or Peking, and does he not feel that his own presence at the negotiating table is important?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Real Caouelie (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Postmaster General. He stated yesterday that, some time in the future, the delivery service will be on a five day week basis, and that this would represent a yearly saving of seven and a half million dollars for the Post Office Department. What are the minister's grounds for stating that there will be such savings?


Hon. Jean-Pierre  Cole@Postmaster General: I did not make such a statement, Mr. Speaker. I can only say that the department

DEBATES	October 31. 1967
is now looking into this matter following Mr. Justice Montpetit's recommendations.


Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Can the Postmaster General tell the house whether the five day week would include the transportation of mail?


Mr. Cote (Longueuil):: The transportation of mail from where to where?


Robert Simpson: The first question concerned the possibility of the delivery of mail being put on a five day week basis. I should like the minister to say whether the proposal includes the transportation of mail in Canada on a five day a week basis.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Jack Roxburgh (Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker. I should like to ask the Postmaster General something which really has to do with a previous question. If his department decides on a five day week for the postal service, is consideration being given to enabling people in rural areas to obtain their mail on Saturdays if they so desire?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The question of the hon. gentleman appears to be hypothetical.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. B. Patterson (Fraser Valley):: should like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs if he is able to report any progress in his attempts to have the Secretary General of the United Nations granted authority to send a special representative to the Middle East to seek a peace .settlement in that area.


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of Slate for External Affairs: Mr. Speaker, the ten nonpermanent members of the security council have been meeting this morning and are meeting this afternoon to deal, first of all, with the suggestion that the Secretary General should have a representative in the Middle East to bring the parties together. The difficulties, however, in the discussion arise over the terms of reference of such a representative, and in particular the failure of both sides to agree on certain principles
October 31, 1967

involved in the settlement. The discussions are taking place this afternoon and I continue to hope they will be successful.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: May
I ask a supplementary question. If this effort fails, and we hope it does not, can the Secretary of State for External Affairs say whether the government of Canada has any further proposals to make to get this matter settled properly?


Mr. Martin (Essex East):: The discussion that is taking place amongst the ten non-permanent members has to do with a Canadian-Danish proposal. If this proposal does not succeed we shall certainly continue to put forward ideas which we hope might be accepted.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Alberi):: should like to ask the Minister of Transport a question further to the questions that were asked yesterday about lay-offs by the Canadian National in the Atlantic region. Will the minister bring about a stay of these lay-offs until meetings are held in Moncton between railway officials and the government in connection with these lay-offs?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of Transport):: All I can undertake to do is to continue the discussions with management and with the minister of manpower which have been going on to ascertain in what way we can be most helpful under the circumstances.


Thomas Miller Bell: Has the minister any more information along the lines of my question on Friday as to when these men will be laid off, where are they located, and what is the reason for this action aside from the rate increases the government brought about recently?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I have received no additional information. It has been confirmed that the reason for the lay-offs is directly attributable to a reduction in freight loadings. This year the loadings were something of the order of-
100.000	cars fewer than last year, which in terms of trains of 100 cars each represents
1.000	trains. This is a very significant reduction in the tonnage carried, and the reduction is directly reflected in the requirements of personnel to maintain the service.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Thomas Miller Bell: Since the minister of manpower took objection to the short notice in connection with these lay-offs, will the minister see that the notice is lengthened to cover the period during which these meetings may be held?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly bring it to the attention of the management of the Canadian National Railways for their consideration. This is a question which is primarily the responsibility of management, but I will be glad to point out to them the national concern that has been expressed here.


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: I should like to ask the Minister of Transport whether he or other members of the government have received notice of a mass meeting at Moncton to discuss not only the lay-offs on the Canadian National but also the closing of the steel plant at Sydney and the whole impact on the economy of the maritime provinces. Does the minister or any other minister intend to be there so the point of view of the government can be brought to the attention of the meeting?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, on the way into the house one of my colleagues indicated that he had received such an invitation. This was just stated casually on entering the chamber.
I have no knowledge whether any other members of the government have received invitations or what their reply will be.


Francis Andrew Brewin: A further supplementary
question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the importance of this matter to the whole economy of the maritimes, would the minister consult with his colleagues and try to make sure that someone attends the meeting?


Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland):: A
further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Transport. In view of the short interval between the time the telegrams have been received in connection with the meeting at Moncton and the actual date of the meeting, I was wondering whether the minister would consider meeting with a delegation of railway employees and others interested in this matter before any lay-offs take place.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, we have under constant consideration in what ways we might be helpful; but I can tell my hon. friend that no one has taken a more direct interest in this matter than the hon. member for Westmorland, who has been pressing on

Ociober 31, 1967
Inquiries of the Ministry every possible occasion for some action to be taken by the government.


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. We have had a number of supplementary questions on this matter. Perhaps we could go to a different constituency and another question. If the hon. member wants to return to the subject he will be given that opportunity in a short while.


Robert Carman Coates: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I rose to ask the Minister of Transport a question and all he did was to tell me about what the hon. member for Westmorland was doing. I am not interested in that. What I am interested in is what the minister is doing about these railway employees and those who are out of jobs.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport in connection with the Canadian National lay-offs in the maritimes. Will the minister discuss with the Canadian National its policy of farming out work, so that further lay-offs in the Atlantic area which result from work being farmed out may be eliminated?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: We have already discussed this at some length, but I would be glad to bring the hon. member's representations to the attention of the company.


Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: In view of the serious unemployment situation on Cape Breton island, the cloud which at present hangs over the steel industry and the lay-offs by the C.N.R. in the Atlantic regions, would the minister request the Canadian National Railways to delay the implementation of their new facilities at the port of North Sydney for a further considerable period of time in order that further lay-offs at that port may be avoided?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I will be glad to discuss this question with the management and ask for their comments on it.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question

to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister use his well known powers of conciliation to persuade his colleagues to agree on the reductions to be made in the present year's estimates so they may be announced to the house before the consideration of these estimates is completed on Thursday?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I will use my well known powers to try to persuade my hon. friend not to ask such meaningless questions.


George Harris Hees: A supplementary question. If the Prime Minister can set aside his snide remarks for a short space of time would he not consider it important that these reductions that have been talked about by the government for many weeks be announced before the completion of the examination of these estimates?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The question as asked is argumentative.


Michael Starr: A supplementary question to the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. In giving his answer does the Prime Minister mean that reductions in the present estimates are meaningless?


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I was referring to the hon. gentleman's method of asking questions.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
MEASURES TO MEET ALLEGED MONEY CRISIS On the orders of the day:


Mr. Colin Cameron (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance and is based on a report appearing in this morning's Gazette, in which the minister is reported as having said that within a few days he plans to make an announcement with regard to measures the government is going to take to deal with the present money crisis.
In view of the fact that this announcement was made outside the chamber, Mr. Speaker,
I should like to ask the minister whether we can be assured that when he comes to announce the measures he will do so inside this chamber to this gathering.


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I deny that there is any money crisis, but I can assure the hon. member that when the government brings forward its measures, they will be announced in this house.
October 31, 1967


Colin Cameron: I wonder if the minister has read the item which I have referred to, which says there is a money crisis.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member knows he cannot ask for a confirmation or denial of a statement appearing in the press.


George Harris Hees: Does the minister not consider the lowest bond prices and highest interest rates to be a crisis?



POLLUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Will his one man crusade on air pollution be adopted by his cabinet colleagues and become government policy?


Robert Henry Winters: Mr. Speaker, I was projecting some thoughts into the future which I think will have unanimous approval.


Mr. Bud Germa (Sudbury):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, Mr. Speaker. In view of the statement made by the minister when speaking to the sales and marketing executives club in Toronto recently, at which time he is quoted as having said "The air we breathe is said to be increasingly unfit for human use," can he tell this house what if any steps he plans to expedite pollution abatement legislation?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This sort of question has already been asked in the house on a number of occasions.


Mr. Knowles:: But it has not been
answered.



REQUEST FOR COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION OF PROPOSED LEGISLATION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Haidasz (Parkdale):: May I ask
the Minister of National Health and Welfare, in view of his concern for the abatement of air pollution, to kindly refer public bills No. C-25 and No. C-171 to the appropriate standing committee of the house.
Inquiries of the Ministry



TAX INCENTIVES TO PLANTS INSTALLING CORRECTIVE DEVICES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Philip Bernard Rynard: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Would the minister like to take another look at his answer as recorded in Hansard of October 26 at page 3497, in which he said that incentives are available to industry for air pollution measures? I have checked this, and in the light of the information I have received I wonder whether the minister would not wish to amplify or correct his answer.


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Unless I am wrong, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question also referred to water pollution.


Philip Bernard Rynard: No, it did not.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I am sorry. I drew that conclusion when the question was addressed to me and said that such incentives exist in the field of water pollution.



INQUIRIES OF THE MINISTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr.   J.-A. Mongrain@Trois-Rivieres: Mr. Speaker, I have a grave and serious question to put to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Could the minister or, in his absence, his parliamentary secretary, inform the house whether the hon. member for Lapointe (Mr. Gregoire) had been well' inoculated before he left for France, so that he may be immune from attacks of stupidity which might lead him to cry out "Long live free Brittany" on French soil?


Mr. E. Nasserden (Rosthern):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. It arises out of the statement by the Minister of Transport which indicated a decrease of 100,000 freight carloads during the past year. Does the Minister of Finance consider this phenomenon to be a good indicator of the state of our economy?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is asking for an expression of opinion. His question is not proper.
October 31, 1967

Inquiries of the Ministry FISHERIES



REQUEST THAT NEW SHIPS HAVE CANADIAN CREWS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (Queens-Lunenburg):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Industry. The Canadian Tuna Company Limited has built a tuna cannery at St. Andrews, New Brunswick, and ordered five tuna seiners some 200 feet in length, three to be built at the works of Canadian Vickers in Montreal and two at the Yarrows shipyards at Victoria, British Columbia. Since this entire operation has been heavily subsidized by the Canadian government through the Department of Industry, can the minister say whether his department has made certain that all personnel employed by these ships are Canadians?


Hon. C. M. Drury (Minister of Industry):: No, I have not, Mr. Speaker.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the Atlantic JAG is already under the command of a Portuguese, Captain Santos, who commands a full Portuguese crew, and since there is unemployment in Canada, will the minister investigate the possibility of hiring Canadian personnel for ships such as the ones I have spoken of which are engaged in deep sea tuna fishing operations?


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: I shall be glad to look into that, Mr. Speaker.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. M. Brand (Saskatoon):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, Mr. Speaker. In view of the ever increasing role of the food and drug directorate in safeguarding the quality of drugs in Canada, and in view of the Harley committee recommendations that the funds and personnel available to this directorate be increased, would the minister consider rescinding the recent order which cancelled the recommended increase in funds and personnel to the food and drug directorate?


Hon. A. J. MacEachen (Minisier of National Health and Welfare):: I shall be glad to con-


sider any reasonable request that is made by the hon. gentleman.



COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION OF BILLS RESPECTING CIGARETTE SMOKING AND ADVERTISING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Barry Mather (New Westminster):: My
question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Last week the minister indicated that he was giving consideration to referring to the appropriate committee the questions of cigarette smoking, cigarette advertising and disease. Is the hon. gentleman now in a position to say whether he has reached a decision?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Consideration of this matter has progressed to some extent since this question was last asked, and I hope I shall be in a position to decide definitely one way or another very soon.


Mr. W. M. Howe (Wellington-Huron):: supplementary question. In view of the national importance of this matter will the government take steps to ensure that all new types of devices or processes being devised to remove harmful ingredients from cigarettes will be examined, to make certain that if beneficial they will be available to the Canadian public?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is making a representation.



USE OF SAFETY LIDS ON HAZARDOUS HOUSEHOLD SUBSTANCES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kings-way):: I believe this question should be directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, but the Registrar General may be the minister responsible; I am not sure. In view of the tragic deaths of two Toronto babies this month from internal burns caused by household poisons, is the minister now prepared to enforce the use of safety lids on containers of such substances?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The question of protection from hazardous substances is presently under consideration, and if the legislative program permits we hope to introduce measures this session to deal with the problem.
October 31, 1967



VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL TRAINING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. V. Noble (Grey North):: I wish to *direct a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Is it the intention of the manpower department to eliminate business colleges from the manpower training program?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: We have no such intention, Mr. Speaker. I should like a clearer definition of the types of colleges the hon. member is referring to.


Percy Verner Noble: I may inform the minister that I shall send him a letter which will define them.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Robert Simpson: Now that the government has reached a decision not to reinstitute the roads to resources program, can the Prime Minister advise the house whether a similar type of program is being considered, as has been suggested on occasions in this house?


Lester Bowles Pearson: We are considering the provision of assistance to the provinces of an appropriate kind in this field when economic conditions make this desirable.



INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Ron Basford (Vancouver-Burrard):: My
question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Yesterday the hon. member for Vancouver East asked the minister whether his officials in Vancouver would attend to the situation which might result from possible lay-offs at the Victoria Machinery Depot in Victoria, and the minister promised to look into the matter and report today. Has he anything further to tell the house?


Jean Marchand: I thought I could report today, but I am still waiting for some information. I hope I shall get it later and be in a position to report tomorrow.
Inquiries of the Ministry TRANSPORT



TRENT CANAL-REQUEST FOR CANCELLATION OF PROPOSED FENCING OF LOCKS AND DAMS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, on Thursday last my hon. friend from Hastings-Frontenac asked the minister to state the intentions of the government with regard to fencing off the Trent canal system. The hon. gentleman said he would take this matter under consideration. Has he an answer to give the house now?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Not at the moment.


George Harris Hees: Would the minister give this matter serious consideration and report to the house as soon as possible in order that the public-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.



COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Francis Andrew Brewin: I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Has consideration been given to the suggestion made by Mr. Garfield Todd and a number of others that Canada should take the initiative in calling an informal meeting of commonwealth leaders to co-ordinate plans to deal with the apparent failure of sanctions to put an end to U.P.I. and bring about majority rule in Rhodesia?


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of Stale for External Affairs: I discussed this matter with Mr. Garfield Todd last Thursday. I would point out to the hon. member that the sanctions committee of the commonwealth countries continues to meet and that there are, of course continuing consultations among commonwealth countries at the United Nations. The Secretary General will shortly be making a report to the security council on the record of sanctions to date. If sanctions are proven to be ineffective there is no reason why they cannot be widened, and this course will undoubtedly be considered by the security council, the body which can most effectively deal with this matter at the present time.


Francis Andrew Brewin: I do not think the minister dealt with the particular point I raised, whether a meeting of commonwealth leaders

October 31. 1967
Inquiries of the Ministry to formulate plans on this issue was under consideration.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I think I did, Mr. Speaker.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries. In view of the closure of the herring fishery on the Pacific coast and the demand on the industry for meal and oil, would the hon. gentleman be prepared to introduce an appropriate motion in the house so this subject might be examined by the fisheries committee?


Hon.   H.-J. Robichaud@Minister of Fisheries: The closure of certain areas off the west coast to herring fishing is not new. This fishery has been closed from time to time, and I see no overriding reason at this time to accept the suggestion made by the hon. member.



PROTEST BY U.S. RESPECTING NEW FISHING LIMITS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Yesterday I directed a question to the Prime Minister in the absence of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Today I should like to address the same question to the hon. gentleman. It is as follows. Is the minister in a position to state whether he has received a formal protest or communication from Washington with regard to the proposed 12 mile limit? If so, what was the nature of the protest and of Canada's reply?


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of Stale for External Affairs: There has been no formal protest, Mr. Speaker.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked a supplementary question, and I wonder if today the Secretary of State for External Affairs might be in a position to announce the location of geographical coordinates on the Pacific coast.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I indicated in a statement before the external affairs committee that we had begun this work with regard to certain sections of the east coast. When I am in a position to announce further progress I shall announce it in the house.
[ Mr. Brewin.l



MANPOWER


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Melville Carlyle Germa: I wish to ask the Minister of Manpower and Immigration whether he is aware that there is an immediate need for one thousand miners and smelter workers in the nickel mines in Sudbury and, if so, what steps he is considering in order to alleviate this shortage of labour.


Jean Marchand: I am aware that there is a need for labour in the mining industry; I do not know whether one thousand or two thousand men are required, but this is a problem we are trying to solve. The mining companies have sent recruiting teams overseas to find miners if we cannot find them here in Canada.


Mr. M. W. Martin (Timmins):: Would the minister ensure that if this recruiting team is successful the men will not be denied employment simply because they do not speak English?


Mr. Speaker:: Order.



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr.   J.-A. Mongrain@Trois-Rivieres: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a question to the Minister of Industry and Defence Production.
Apart from some inquiries made in the house recently, could the minister say whether he has received requests from other sources asking that he take measures as urgently as possible concerning the adoption of the metric system and if so, have studies been initiated along this line?


Mr. Speaker:: I think this question should be put on the order paper.


Mr. Mongrain:: At ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edward Richard Schreyer: I have a question I should like to address to the
October 31, 19S7

Secretary of State for External Affairs. I wish to ask the minister whether his humanist and internationalist values and instincts have impelled him to make representations to both parties in the war in Viet Nam protesting the use of womenfolk for combat duty, or does the minister regard this development with equanimity?


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of Slate for External Affairs: 1 would be glad to look into that.


Edward Richard Schreyer: Mr. Speaker, I put the question to the minister in all seriousness, and I should like to know whether he has any response to make.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I did say, though I am sure the hon. member did not hear me, that I intended to look into this matter.



WATER RESOURCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. George Muir (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Secretary of State for External Affairs would be good enough to give me an answer to the question I asked in his absence yesterday.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was not here yesterday to deal with my hon. friend's question. The International Joint Commission sent its report on the cooperative development of the Pembina river basin to the Canadian and United States governments on October 26. The report is now being carefully considered by the authorities in both countries before any conclusions can be reached on the action to be taken in response to the commission's recommendations.



HIGHWAY SAFETY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi asked a question in respect to certain categories of G.M. motor cars that had been recalled. May I say that no formal notice was given to the government of the action taken by the manufacturer in this case. There exist, however, informal lines of communication and the government was made aware of the recall.
Inquiries of the Ministry
As yet there are no mandatory requirements in Canada for the automotive industry to communicate with the government officially. Consideration is being given to including this requirement in the over-all regulations being drafted for consideration in the development of our auto safety program.



REPRESENTATION OF PRODUCERS ON TRANSPORTATION SUBCOMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I was asked a question by the hon. member for Kindersley with respect to the representation of producers on the transportation subcommittee. In reply may I say it will be recalled that the grain transportation committee was established under the chairmanship of the chief commissioner of the Canadian Wheat Board. Members of this committee include representatives of the prairie wheat pools who speak for the interests of western grain growers. This is a subject, however, that comes more within the jurisdiction of the Minister of Trade and Commerce in his capacity as minister responsible to parliament for the wheat board.



REQUEST FOR PROHIBITION OF L.S.D. AND OTHER HALLUCINOGENS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, some time ago the hon. member for Simcoe East asked what steps the government proposed to take in connection with the regulation of L.S.D. and other mind expanding drugs. As my hon. friend will recall, a bill in connection with this matter was introduced in the other place in the last session, and it is hoped that bill will be revived and dealt with in this session.


Philip Bernard Rynard: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, will the minister see to it that this is done?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, it is proposed that it will be reintroduced in the other place this session.


Lewis Mackenzie Brand: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question. Since the minister has described L.S.D. as a mind expander, is he giving consideration to allowing the use of such mind expanders by other members of the cabinet on a permissive basis?
October 31, 1967

Supply-Treasury Board SUPPLY
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Batten in the chair.


The Chairman:: Order. House again in committee of supply, estimates of the Treasury Board for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1968. Vote No. 1. This vote will be found on page 560 of the blue book. The details are found on page 561.



TREASURY BOARD

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, including grants as detailed in the estimates, $4,478,700.
Herman Maxwell Batten: Shall vote No. 1 carry?


Hon. E. J. Benson (Minister of National Revenue and President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend at this time to make a general statement with respect to Treasury Board activities. I made a rather long statement during the budget debate concerning activities in the area of government administration carried out by the Treasury Board. Due to the limited time available for consideration of estimates I believe it would now be better if I allowed hon. members opposite and on this side to raise any questions they may have with respect to the Treasury Board estimates, and then I will do my utmost to answer them.
However, I would like to pay tribute to Dr. Davidson, secretary of the Treasury Board, who has done a tremendous job in reorganizing the Treasury Board and in obtaining assistant deputy ministers in the persons of Mr. Cloutier, formerly of the civil service commission, Mr. Doug Love and Mr. Don Yoemans, who are looking after the three divisions of the Treasury Board, the personnel, management organization and program branches. I think they are doing a very good job putting into effect the advances in administrative techniques which were suggested first of all in the Glassco commission report and which have been carried further by the introduction of computer equipment in many departments, and by the introduction of finance officers and a new system of financial management in various departments of government.
I would be more than pleased to deal with any questions hon. members may wish to raise with respect to these estimates.


Mr. Bell (Carleton):: Mr. Chairman, the core of fiscal management and responsibility in government is Treasury Board. This is the afternoon of Hallowe'en, and perhaps it is as good a day as any to discuss our existing

financial status. It needs no spooks or banshees, no seers, to determine that something is radically wrong at the core.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Thomas Miller Bell: Let me put it this way, sir. Government competence or incompetence can be most directly and immediately determined by the activities of that compact group of cabinet ministers who constitute Treasury Board. There, within that small, exclusive body lies the test of fiscal responsibility, of administrative efficiency, of the utility and practicality of most government plans and operations. As well, Treasury Board decisions affect directly all aspects of the national economy in both the public and private sectors.
With no wish to be severe on the genial President of the Treasury Board I submit that Treasury Board has been weighed and found desperately wanting. Its failures, which I intend to describe this afternoon, deserve the outright censure of this committee and in the proper time, the sooner the better, will be repudiated by the country.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
There is a variety of reasons; the variety is equalled only by their abundance. I am disappointed by the absence this afternoon of any useful or meaningful statement from the President of the Treasury Board in introducing these estimates. This is the clearest indication of the growing arrogance of the government and its lack of concern for financial responsibility. There is one thing about which I can agree with the minister, and that is his tribute to the secretary of the Treasury Board. Dr. George Davidson is a man in whom I have unbounded confidence. I only wish the ministers who sit on the Treasury Board had the wisdom to follow his judgment and advice.
Last Thursday the Leader of the Opposition, in rather vivid and eloquent terms, exposed the fiscal incompetence of this government. The fact is that mistaken fiscal policies centring on the total failure to establish priorities in expenditures, resulting in an almost complete lack of genuine fiscal or monetary control, are gravely endangering the future of the nation and if persisted in could bring about a disastrous financial crisis. I do not use these words lightly, sir. For these factors the President of the Treasury Board and the Treasury Board itself must share the responsibility equally with the Minister of Finance. It is the function of the
October 31, 1967

Treasury Board to establish priorities, to weigh one requirement against another, to exercise a strong and firm rein upon runaway spenders. My plea this afternoon to the President of the Treasury Board is to change course at once, to set up genuine priorities and stick to them, and to restore adequate control over governmental expenditure. I ask him to do so before it is too late.
I do not wish to sound in any way an alarmist, for I have unlimited confidence in Canada. But informed economic observers are genuinely alarmed, and with good reason. It is not just a case of spend, spend, spend; it goes much beyond that. They neglect even to try to control inflationary pressures; we have actual encouragement of the establishment of the highest interest rates in history, rates which have become unconscionable usury; disregard of what Fraser Robertson describes as "an incipient old fashioned money panic"; failure even to attempt to restore confidence and faith in the investment market. These are all symptoms of the extent to which the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance, as well as the Treasury Board itself, have avoided responsibility and positive action. I suggest they prove that the government is bankrupt equally of ideas and responsibility. The respected London Economist speaks of the massive indifference to the symptoms. My submission is that we cannot afford longer to mask our eyes to the realities of the incipient crisis which this government has brought upon the nation.
The estimates which this Treasury Board has submitted to this committee for this fiscal year, with supplementaries, amount to $9,646 million, to which must be added $645 million in loans and advances for a total of almost $10,300 million. Additional supplementaries for the year will no doubt boost this figure to approximately $10,600 million. This is the amount which must be raised from the taxpayers and from the market.


Edgar John Benson: Perhaps the hon. member would permit a question. He tied in loans and advances. Of course he realizes the latter do not have to be raised from Canadian taxpayers.


Richard Albert Bell: I did not catch exactly what the minister said, but I think he will find that I said this amount will have to be raised from the Canadian taxpayers or the market. The minister knows perfectly well that he is having even greater difficulty in raising it from the market than in raising it from the taxpayers.
Supply-Treasury Board
The last full year of the previous government showed total expenditures of $6,364 million, broken down between $6,230 million in expenditures and $134 million in loans and advances. In other words the demands of this government upon the taxpayers and the market over a period of approximately 4J years have grown and increased by almost four and a quarter billion, or at a rate of almost a billion dollars per year. If this government were to remain in office for two more years, a fate from which Canada should certainly be protected, and the rate of growth of government expenditures should persist, this government will have doubled the level of spending in just six years.
Someone in the government is feeding out leaks about allegedly massive cuts to be made by the Treasury Board in next year's estimates of up to three quarters of a billion dollars. Indeed, I read this morning that cuts of $825 million were to be made. What is not said is that these are supposedly cuts from the estimates as submitted by each department for next year, and not cutbacks from this year's estimates. This three quarters of a billion is just a phony, unrealistic figure plucked from the air. My experience as a member of Treasury Board and earlier as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance indicates that it is very rare that Treasury Board cuts amount to less than 10 per cent of the estimates of the various departments as first submitted. So the alleged three quarters of a billion dollars is not any more and is perhaps less than would be normal in any year as a cutback from the original submission of estimates.
The latest leaked gossip is that $175 million or $200 million is to be cut off the estimates now before the committee of supply. Yet the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board have declined to answer the questions of the hon, member for Perth and others or to say whether these cuts will be made and, if so, where. This, despite the fact that the guillotine will fall on Thursday night and parliament will be deprived of any further right of discussion. In any event, a cut of even $200 million would be less than 2 per cent of these estimates. What a fabulous success that would be-2 per cent.
What I am pleading for this afternoon to the President of the Treasury Board and his colleagues on that board is the establishment of a genuine system of priorities. I am not asking for a cut in all expenditures right.
October 31, 1967

Supply-Treasury Board across the board. Indeed, there are some expenditures I should like to see increased, and I will mention one before I conclude this afternoon. There is nothing inconsistent in that approach. What I want the President of the Treasury Board to do is to establish priorities and take this house as well as the public into his confidence by telling us what priorities have been established, and the target dates. I suggest that only such action can bring about a restoration of confidence, an easing of the financial uneasiness existing among economists and on all the markets, a halt to inflationary pressures and bring about a rationalization of the interest structure.
The government has its choice; establish priorities and do so now or face fiscal and economic disaster. I use strong words because the times require plain speaking. This is the time to say no to the big spenders. I venture to submit that one of the biggest problems is that the Prime Minister is almost congenitally incapable of saying no. Indeed, if he had been born of the other sex it would have been quite disastrous.
I wish to deal briefly with the government's attitude toward parliamentary control of the estimates and of expenditures. The very bedrock of our parliamentary institution is the absolute control by this chamber of the public purse. The misuse last autumn of the contingency vote and the abuse by transfers from other votes drove a horse and cart through every known principle of responsible parliamentary government. I suggest it was of the most dubious legal validity, but irrespective of that it was constitutionally unacceptable. It was "an erosion of parliament's traditional role in controlling public funds", to quote the words of the Auditor General of Canada.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
Professor Norman Ward, on page 1 of his book "The Public Purse", states the theory and practice of parliamentary control of finance to be as follows:
Underlying all the others are two principles, both of which have to be supported by a number [DOT]of subsidiary principles and practices:
(1)	The executive should have no income which is not granted to it, or otherwise sanctioned by parliament.
(2)	The executive should make no expenditures except those approved by parliament in ways approved by parliament.
W. Ivor Jennings, in his great work on parliament, indicates that the principle of

control of expenditures on behalf of the public is to be found in Magna Carta and therefore existed even before a parliament in modern form was known. R. McGregor Dawson, at page 229 of his book, "The Government of Canada", speaks of these principles and adds:
-collectively they place the cabinet in a position where its responsibility in all financial matters is complete and ineluctable.
Sir, the contingency item, which until this last year was under the Department of Finance, was intended to be nothing more nor less than the petty cash account of the government to provide for minor unforeseen expenditures of the government. For quite a number of years the amount was $1| million and the language of the item was very strictly confined. When this government came to office the amount was $3 million. In these estimates the President of the Treasury Board asks that we vote $45 million for petty cash, $45 million for unforeseen contingencies. Poor old Mr. C. D. Howe got into such great difficulty when he said, "what's a million."
Judged by the government's other irresponsibilities perhaps this can be understood, but I suggest it is something to augment an item in the estimates 15 times over in just four years and to change its language and purpose. The change in the language of the item is too clever by half; it is an attempt to deceive parliament. Some of my colleagues will deal with this later in the debate. What I say now is that a petty cash account of $45 million is intolerable. An item worded in the form to which the present item has been changed is a denial of the basis of House of Commons control of the executive. Imagine the arrogance of a government which admits its incompetence in estimating to such an extent that it needs a $45 million contingency fund for minor unforeseen items!
I agree most wholeheartedly that provision should be made for the payment of public service salaries in days of parliamentary warfare, and I introduced a private member's bill last autumn which would so provide. I believe the pay lists should be separated from the other items. Civil servants and their livelihood should never be made the pawn of political infighting and should not suffer from parliamentary brinkmanship. I assert with the greatest confidence, however, that this Commons chamber must now reassert its basic purpose, its right to deny supply and to bring a government to its knees. If we vote a
October 31, 1967

petty cash item of $45 million and if transfers within items are unlimited by the Financial Administration Act, as this government arrogantly asserts, then the Commons has lost its most fundamental purpose. The executive will have made themselves the masters not only of parliament but of the people.
Earlier I mentioned that the establishment of a genuine system of priorities in governmental programming might in some cases require increased spending. I should like to discuss briefly one subject in respect of which I have some difficulty in using measured and moderate language in view of the government's dilatoriness and neglect.
Members of this house have been urging year after year and month after month an adjustment in pensions for retired public servants, including the members of the armed forces and the R.C.M.P. Finally, a reluctant President of the Treasury Board and the government yielded to the request and agreed to a reference to the special joint committee on the public service. Last May 8 that committee reported unanimously in favour of such increases. It was a knowledgeable and responsible committee of senators and members. But what has happened to the report? Apparently it has been pigeonholed in the deepest recesses of the east block. A score of times there have been questions on the orders of the day addressed to the Prime Minister, to the Minister of Finance and to the President of the Treasury Board; twice there have been adjournment debates. All this has resulted in the same inconclusive result-"under cabinet consideration", "decision in due course."
"Due course" is so long overdue that it is clear the government is off course. It is an open secret that the President of the Treasury Board would like to adopt the committee's report to which his parliamentary secretary was a party. I thought that when the former minister of transport fixed up his own increased pension by becoming president of the Canadian Transport Commission we had lost the chief enemy in the cabinet of effective action. But no. Somewhere, somehow, there remain in the cabinet men or a woman who oppose justice for our retired public servants. What about the Minister of Public Works, a man who represents so many public servants? I reiterate what I have said previously. He has a special obligation in this matter and he should either persuade his colleagues in the cabinet to accept the just demands of his constituents or he should
Supply-Treasury Board resign in protest. I suggest that the time for action is long past. Other countries have acted long ago. Other countries, and indeed our own provinces, have instituted a variety of systems of pension adjustment.
Time after time-and I shall not do it again this afternoon-I have placed on the record details of the increases achieved in other countries which face the same problems and are confronted with the same issues with which we are confronted. In Britain a formula increase is and has been for many years an accepted legislative fact; equally is such the case in the United States, in France, in Italy, in Australia and in New Zealand. What these countries have done can be done here in Canada without violation of any principle. I submit that it is a special obligation of the government to be an exemplary employer and to set the example for private industry.
It has been the action, or lack of action, on the part of this government which I described earlier that has promoted the unprecedented skyrocketing of the cost of living and has resulted in the eroding of pensions which frugal persons thought wholly adequate for their retirement. Pensions paid for in hard dollars have been eroded by creeping inflation which has accelerated to runaway inflation. The dollars drawn in the form of superannuation in many, many cases are worth less than 50 per cent of the dollars which were used to buy the pension entitlement. Elderly men and women who gave their best in other days watch hopelessly while their lifetime contributions to superannuation dwindle into insignificance. I submit that precedents for action across the world are manifold and that only the Canadian government refuses to act. e (3:40 p.m.)
I plead this afternoon with the President of the Treasury Board to end this day this charade of inaction and to bring hope and renewed belief in Canada to the thousands of former public servants who have served her so well.
One of the results of the legislation at the last session regarding the public service has been to transfer classification in the public service to the Treasury Board. I have grave reservations about this. I do not separate so casually the alleged managerial function of classification and the allegedly totally independent function of recruitment and appointment. Perhaps that is because I do not bow down to and worship all of the Glassco report.
3684
October 31, 1967

Supply-Treasury Board
The classification review of the public service has been a morale destroyer and a source of major personal tragedies from its inception, and it does not improve. "Red circling" is a familiar term. It bears no sinister connotation to those who have not experienced it. What I am unable to understand is how the very best personnel officials in our country have been guilty of some of the greatest public relations gaucheries respecting their own fellow employees.
We were told at the outset that a complete classification review was a prerequisite to the institution of collective bargaining in the public service-indeed, a sine qua non. Now there has been a total reversal of this argument. According to the return tabled on September 25, 1967 to my question No. 335, the completion of the classification review will depend upon the progress of collective bargaining negotiations. Such a chicken and egg argument I have seldom heard. While this goes on there have been many public servants who have been shifted into blind alleys and allowed to languish in the still waters of official neglect. I suggest to the President of the Treasury Board that the clean-up of the "red circle" program is long overdue. Through the loss in morale Canada has lost much more than if the classification review had never been undertaken. I suggest that a stop to this wastage of resources in the public service should be made now.
However, I want to return to my opening theme, the fiscal incompetence and the financial and economic mismanagement by this administration in general and by the Treasury Board in particular. It has been suggested that a new budget before the end of the year may be required and would be the solution-new taxes, new restraints, something new instead of the old fashioned virtue of thrift. Mark you well, sir, a new budget would mean three budgets in less than 12 months. No wonder there are difficulties when the public and the financial community are subjected to such uncertainties, to so frequent changes of course and pace. What this country needs is not a new budget but a new government.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, it is obvious that we are going to have a very interesting discussion of the estimates of the Treasury Board. I want to support the contention that during today's debate the government should take the House of Commons into its confidence and tell us something about its plans so far as financial and fiscal management are

concerned. I think I must also say that during the course of this debate our friends to the right, the members of the official opposition, should zero in and tell us where it is that they think cuts in expenditures should be made. If they are telling us that we should base our financial operations on the basis of priorities, I wish they would come out in the open and give us their list of priorities. I cannot help but have the feeling that the areas in which they would want to save money are precisely those where we think the public has a responsibility, particularly in the fields of health and social welfare. I would feel much happier about the demands of the Progressive Conservatives for cuts in government expenditures if they would pinpoint the places where they think there is waste and in particular if they would have something to say about a department where we feel there is huge over-expenditure, namely, the Department of National Defence.
However, for reasons that I think will be obvious, and taking a position that I am sure would be predictable in every quarter of this house, I wish to spend my few minutes this afternoon on one question, one that the hon. member for Carleton touched upon briefly but effectively. I refer of course to the way in which this government has delayed with respect to increasing the pensions of retired civil servants, including retired R.C.M.P. personnel and retired armed forces personnel.
At the risk of putting on the record something that has been said a good many times but because I think this is the day when we should get an answer from the President of the Treasury Board, may I point out that this subject has been under discussion for a great many years, indeed for well over 20 years to my own knowledge. May I also point out that the President of the Treasury Board ever since June of 1966 has made it quite clear that he is in sympathy with our demands for an increase in the pensions of retired civil servants. He has been good enough to make this clear in private conversation, but everything he has said in private conversation he has said publicly.
It all started in June of 1966 when the President of the Treasury Board expressed his personal willingness to have the matter referred to last session's special joint committee on the public service of Canada. He indicated of course that he would have to get the approval of his colleagues in the government before that reference could be made. He received that approval and the reference was
October 31, 1967

made in January of 1967. I insist that the reference of that question by the government after six or seven months of consideration was a clear indication to the members of the House of Commons and to our retired civil servants that they could count on something being done if that committee came up with a reasonable recommendation.
The committee spent many meetings in the early part of this year going over this problem. We had excellent chairmen in the person of my good friend, the hon. member for Ottawa East, and our good friend from the other place Senator Bourget. The result of our deliberations was that we came up with a unanimous report. Let me emphasize again that all parties and both houses were represented on that committee, and it came up with a unanimous recommendation that increases in the pensions of the three groups to which we have made reference should be made forthwith.
Since that time we have had a succession of assurances by the President of the Treasury Board and by the Prime Minister that this matter is under active consideration by the cabinet. I have the questions and answers here on my desk, but it is hardly necessary to put them on the record again. No one would deny the fact that we have been told the matter is still on the agenda of the cabinet and is still under active consideration. We have been told that a decision would be made soon. In fact we have been given every right to believe that this issue had some importance in the eyes of the government. But despite the fact that we have had all this consideration, nothing has been done.
Hon. members will recall that the report of the committee was made on May 8 of this year, the last day of the old session, and that some of us had hoped and indeed were led to believe that we would get action on it before we broke for the summer recess. We were disappointed in this hope. When during the first week of July and in particular of July 7, the last day before the recess, I pressed for action before we broke the assurance was given from the other side that this was a matter which could not be dealt with then but in very guarded words it was indicated to us we would get action in the fall.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
We came back on September 25, over a month ago, and still nothing has been done. We are still receiving answers that the matter is under active consideration and is still on the cabinet agenda. However, it appears as 27053-2331
Supply-Treasury Board though the whole question has been stalled. I should like to put in a word to other members of the house, particularly some of those who spoke to me outside the house on July 7 asking me why I was so impatient. They said it was only a matter of a couple of months, and why did I feel so dejected because we were not getting action in July; after all, we were going to get action in September. But here it is October, and tomorrow it will be November. Many people who might have benefited from a pension increase have passed away in the meantime. It begins to look as if many more will pass away before the government acts on this matter.
There is involved in this whole matter the word of the government, the integrity of the democratic, parliamentary process. I suggest that for the Prime Minister of the country and for the President of the Treasury Board to give the impression something was going to be done and then to disappoint these people is a disservice not only to the people themselves but to the whole parliamentary process. One thing that is necessary if the parliamentary process is going to work is integrity, keeping your word. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that has not been done in this case.
It is very nice to learn from the lips of the President of the Treasury Board that the matter is still on the cabinet agenda, and that as yet a negative decision has not been taken. However, this subject can remain on the cabinet agenda indefinitely with nothing being done for these people. So, Mr. Chairman, I insist that on this day, before we conclude discussion of these estimates, we should have a full statement from the minister that action is going to be taken, not at the end of the session, not next year, but right away.
I do not believe we need to go into a long argument to justify an increase in the pensions of retired civil servants. The justification for such action is set out in the report of the committee that was filed on May 8. The hon. member for Carleton has added to it in the remarks he has just made. The only argument ever put forward against such action is something like this: If we are going to do it for these people, then it may have to be done for others. Well, I agree. As a matter of fact, I feel this is one of the most important questions with which we are going to have to deal in the whole pension field. The government has begun to move in that direction just a little. It has one eye slightly opened down at one corner. The
October 31, 1367

Supply-Treasury Board government has accepted the principle of the escalation of pensions under the Old Age Security Act and under the Canada Pension Plan. It is a rather miniscule escalation people are going to get in January, 1968, but at least the principle has been recognized. I submit the time will come when all pension arrangements will have to include escalation after pensions are put in pay.
A great many people in this country have learned from experience that what looked like a decent pension when they were five or ten years away from retirement, what might even have looked like a decent pension when they went on retirement, was not much to live on five or ten years after retirement. If we are going to maintain the value of the pension principle, if we are going to support the general idea that people in retirement who helped to build up the country have a right to share in what has been built up, we are going to have to go for pension escalation across the board. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that the place for the government to start is with its own employees.
As the hon. member for Carleton pointed out, other jurisdictions have done this. It has been done by most, if not all, provincial governments. It has been done by a number of municipal governments and it has been done in other countries. There is no valid argument against taking this course and taking it now.
One of the things that we, as members of parliament, often would like to be able to do is to listen in on cabinet meetings. This is an opportunity we do not get. Do I see the President of the Treasury Board inviting us to attend some of these meetings?


Edgar John Benson: No, I simply say you would never sit in on them while you are a member of that party.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I believe that when this subject comes up there must be some pretty strong opposition. I do not mean opposition in terms of a great many cabinet ministers because the only two who have spoken out on the issue have been the President of the Treasury Board and the Prime Minister. Both of them have said they are in favour of it. It is my guess, therefore, that the opposition comes from somebody like the Minister of Finance. This is really no secret because he never was partial to it. I suspect that last spring the Minister of Finance was able to persuade his colleagues to put the matter off until fall just by arguing against hasty action. Now he is using the so-called financial
IMr. Knowles.]
crisis, which he denies but which everybody knows is upon us, as an excuse. He says, we cannot spend money here, we cannot spend money there, so we cannot spend money on these people either.
I find it quite immoral, Mr. Chairman, for a minister to take that position. If he is faced with a financial crisis and he has to be concerned with saving hundreds of millions of dollars, then it is immoral to decide that the people who must suffer will be the little people like our own retired employees living on pensions that they had reason to believe would provide them with a decent living in their retirement. The value of these pensions has been so eroded the people are having great difficulty in getting along.
So, Mr. Chairman, I suspect my guess is not far off, that it is the Minister of Finance who is holding things up, who is making it impossible for the cabinet to give a favourable decision on this question. However, this does not excuse the President of the Treasury Board. After all, this matter does corhe under his ministerial responsibility. The item in the estimates covering the superannuation account is in the estimates of the Treasury Board. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that the President of the Treasury Board having agreed to let this matter be referred to a committee, having given us the assurance the committees' report was being studied, having told us that the matter is on the cabinet agenda and that he has made proposals to cabinet, has a responsibility to get the matter through cabinet or to take the blame himself for having disillusioned and disappointed the 45,000 or more civil servants and their widows, plus the retired R.C.M.P. personnel, plus the retired armed forces personnel.
I submit that unless he is able to get action he is the person who has to take the final responsibility for getting nothing done. He is a very nice fellow. I forget the adjective the hon. member for Carleton used to describe him, but I will go along with it like other hon. members, I like him. He is genial, very easy to talk to about these matters. He answers our questions on the floor of the house. But when it comes down to this issue, niceness and geniality do not count; what matters is the goods one delivers.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, because the President of the Treasury Board has not yet delivered on this issue, because I believe it is so extremely important not only to the people concerned but to all our people, especially to the people who realize that pensions must be escalated, the people who realize that your
October 31, 19G7


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is to make the minister walk instead of travelling by car. It is a useless amendment which will be rejected by the house.
Moreover, I would like first to draw the attention of the hon. members for Winnipeg North Centre and for Carleton (Messrs. Knowles and Bell), who both praised the minister for his kindness and for being easily available to discuss their various problems, to the fact that neither of them has set forth a plausible and acceptable solution.
Priorities have been mentioned; the Treasury Board was held responsible for distribution of crumbs throughout the country. However, no concrete solution is proposed.
Supply-Treasury Board
The member for Winnipeg North Centre said: When the time comes for action, the minister gets flustered.
Mr. Chairman, every member of this house would like to obtain the most for his riding, everyone agrees, but it is up to the Treasury Board to decide. For instance, when we ask for the construction of wharves or federal buildings, priorities come into play and it is up to the Treasury Board to distribute the proceeds of taxes levied by the government, income tax, corporate tax or various other sources of taxation. It is a fact that the Treasury Board administers the country in conjunction with the government. And it is according to the amount of taxes collected that the government decides about such and such a project.
For instance, we have heard the Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) maintain at one time that the Canadian people were living beyond their means. What do the Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) or the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Benson) mean by "living above their means"? And that leads to the present situation where public works, construction, the country's economic growth and the development of its vast resources are slowed down.
We witness for instance the laying off of C.N.R. employees with 15, 17 and even 20 years of service; they were dismissed barely four days ago. They will lose their jobs, as of tomorrow, November 1. Why? It is alleged that there has been a reduction in the use of freight trains. Well, I dare the government to prove there has been a reduction in the use of C.N.R. freight trains in my area. None has occurred. Yet, 22 employees will lose their jobs tonight. Tomorrow, on November 1, these men will no longer be employed with the C.N.R. Why? Because the C.N.R. wants to cut expenses.
People live beyond their means, according to the Minister of Finance. So, let us discontinue all the services, let us prevent, as I said earlier, the normal economic development of our country, let us shrink down every department to the barest minimum, and we shall create a national problem that nobody wants.
Why this situation? Precisely because the Department of Finance, inspired by Treasury Board and the government, is caught in the system which has created this state of affairs.
I wish to call the attention of the minister concerned, the President of the Treasury Board, to the fact that this year our national product is expected to reach $65 billion, and

October 31, 1967
Supply*-Treasury Board that this compares with a total national revenue expected to reach approximately $47 billion, which makes a difference of $18 billion between the Canadian national product and the Canadian national revenue. And then the minister will say that we are living beyond our means.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
But to realize that we have the physical means, the tangible means, in short, the real means, all we have to do is pay a visit to the various business firms and industries in Canada. At this time, industries are cutting production because they are unable to find buyers. Let us go on a tour of the stores and warehouses; they are bursting with goods but, faced with this real abundance, we see the array of financial restrictions imposed on the whole population by the Treasury Board.
The stores inventories are the highest ever. But the people are unable to buy because they do not have the buying power, and the government has announced a "mini budget" to increase taxes. Why? The President of the Treasury Board admits it, the government only administers taxes and can operate only inasmuch as taxes are collected.
If we were concerned with a municipality, I admit that the question might be discussed more seriously. The same would be true if a province were involved, because a province has no monetary powers. They have taxation powers, but there is a world of difference between monetary power and taxation power. The province is helpless. But to have a sovereign government called the government of Canada content to administer through tax collection, Mr. Chairman, that is beyond understanding.
Who has such absolute control of credit beyond the government? Who has more power than the government? We saw it during consideration of the Bank Act last spring when parliament decided to reduce the bank reserves from 8 to 6 per cent, enabling the banking system immediately to create $4 billion in additional credit without a single cent of additional reserve.
The minister is aware that the situation in which we are living may still hold for some time but that it cannot hold forever. The minister also is aware that when the Canadian government issues a million dollars in bonds, the Bank of Canada buys them and, from that moment, the chartered banks have the power to create immediately a $14 million credit for every million in government bonds.
[Mr. Caouette.l
The government borrows from the banks instead of taking its credit at the very source, that is, from the Bank of Canada. The power to control the whole Canadian economic system is given to a few individuals and these individuals, this year, bill us for a debt on which the interest alone will reach the sum of $1,273,906,400. This represents a slight increase of $88,417,500 from last year, and federal members swallow it. Nobody rises to tell the President of the Treasury Board: Cut down the interest we are paying on the debt. No. Let us rather bear down on the pockets of miners, settlers, on the little Canadian worker. Bear down and crush him, but let us show respect and veneration for the interest on the national debt created out of nothing by a handful of individuals.
Mr. Chairman, the interests on the national debt only have increased by $88 million. Nobody complains, nobody disagrees. But the people are subject to restrictions. It is strange that no minister, no government member rises to protest against that outright theft, the interest on the national debt. And none of them protest against the restrictions and the control of priorities by the Treasury Board that the government is about to lay upon us in a few weeks by means of a mini-budget. On the other hand, that same Treasury Board will cost the Canadian people $183,908,000 this year or $40 million more than last year. Nobody objects to that. We find normal that the government should spend right and left, while failing to face realities in our country. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre was talking earlier about pensions and social security. Nobody is against those things. On the contrary, we are all in favour of the most elaborate, adequate and satisfactory form of social security for the whole population.
But nobody asks, for instance, where will we get the money for that. That is the problem. Everybody is willing to grant a pension to our old or needy people, to increase civil service salaries. Everybody wants it, but our financial system does not allow it. Instead of thinking in terms of physical possibilities we have in Canada to develop our resources and produce even greater wealth, we are thinking in terms of dollars.
Our administration depends on the revenues we get from taxation. What a lovely sovereignty for a government which calls itself sovereign. Is it sovereignty to have to kneel before financiers and ask their permission to grant a pension, to raise social security or to increase civil service salaries?
October 31, 1967

Mr. Chairman, nobody is opposed to these raises but, there again, has the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre told us of which department he would like to see the expenditures drastically reduced in order to allow for the salary increase? Could the hon. member for Carleton tell us later on to what department the government should go to get the funds for one priority or another? Neither of them suggests a solution.
Mr. Chairman, when we suggest a solution -because the Creditistes have one which they have advocated now for thirty-five years-some still attempt to ridicule it rather than try to understand it. Quite often we give them conspicuous examples. If the war were to break out tomorrow, do you think that those restrictions would exist? Of course not. We would then call upon the Bank of Canada to set up war plants all across Canada. There would be no question of any lack of funds. But, for peace, for the security of our fellow citizens, for the safety of the Canadian people, it is immediately a monetary problem and nothing else but that.
Mr. Chairman, what have we been suggesting for a long time? That the whole public sector be financed directly by the Bank of Canada, that a branch of the Bank of Canada be established in every Canadian province so that each one may look after its own administration according to its possibilities, its aspirations, its physical possibilities. And then we would no longer hear anything about separatism or independence, hatred among ourselves in Canada. The whole question of separatism, so topical in Canada today, is due to nothing but an economic, financial and even monetary situation.
That is where the problem lies and everyone will recognize it. In fact, it is the No. 1 problem in any riding but also at the provincial level, and it is so real that the premier of Ontario, Mr. Robarts, said in London two days ago that the discussion at the interprovincial conference on constitutional matters, which will be held in Toronto in the latter part of November, would boil down to a matter of dollars and cents for each of the provinces. Those are not my words, they are those of Mr. Robarts, the premier of Ontario. Are we beginning to open our eyes or are we simply talking through our hat? Are we afraid to deal with the problem, to get to the bottom of the matter, in short, to do as suggested by the great French general: Let us get to the bottom of things.
Supply-Treasury Board
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
Mr. Chairman, the Creditistes suggest that the public sector of our economy should be financed by the Bank of Canada, free of interest, so that when a road or a school is built, we do not have to pay three times the cost thereof, twice to finance companies and once for us. That is inflation. There is no need to fear social credit for inflation, because we have inflation right now under the present system. Indeed, that is what we are living now.
Mr. Chairman, we suggest that the private sector should remain as it is; let it finance itself as it does now. If I have a business and I need credit, it is normal for me to pay interest when I borrow from a chartered bank. But how can the public sector, which is non-profit, afford to pay interest to develop or to build something enduring, something which the people need?
Mr. Chairman, the Treasury Board has the responsibility of distribution throughout the country, but until now it has not distributed abundance, just crumbs remaining after financiers have taken what they want. Mr. Chairman, when we come to the point where % of the national budget constitutes the interest alone on the national debt, it is time for the members of parliament in general and the government to face up to what is going on in the country and the serious situation where we find ourselves.
People are afraid of separatism, of inde-pendentists, of this hatred arising between various parts of Canada at this time, but when one travels throughout Canada, one sees that the same problem is facing us everywhere, that is to say, in all the provinces, there are poor people in the midst of affluence. Each province is deeper in debt than it can afford to be, whether it is Quebec or Ontario, in short any province except Alberta and British Columbia which are the only ones without a direct provincial debt.
Mr. Chairman, Canada has no reason for being so heavily in debt. And above all, it has no reason for paying $1,273,906,400 in interest only on a fictitious national debt, on a national debt created by those who have the right to increase fourteenfold the reserves on deposit with the Bank of Canada, that is the chartered banks in Canada.
These points are not dealt with on radio, on television, in the press, Mr. Chairman. No. The financial manipulations of the country must be hushed up.

October 31. 1967
Supply-Treasury Board
Those who would cast light on the shameless exploitation of the financial system must be hushed up. Well, let it be hushed up. Such organized and systematic silences have bred revolutions in European countries. To avoid revolution here in Canada, on our Canadian soil, it is high time that we face the problem, not shy away from it, and accept a sensible solution which will, at long last, enable the Canadian people to unite, to see the whole of the country and to realize the wealth it owns. Nowadays, because people are growing less aware of their wealth, they rise against each other. As far as the financial question is concerned, the federal government lacks the courage to settle it, to bring finance in step with reality and have it serve the Canadian people.
Mr. Chairman, I will end on this note: as long as we have a system which forces men to serve money interests, we will be bogged down. But the day when a government, either Liberal, Conservative or Social Credit, decides to make money interests serve human beings, then the problem will be solved and there will be harmony and good feelings right across this great country.


Alexander Bell Patterson: Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak this afternoon on one particular issue. In beginning my remarks, however, I should like to say that if the Canadian people ever had any faith in the ability of the present government to administer in an effective way the monetary and fiscal policy which Canada requires, that faith is being rapidly undermined. The actions of the government have shown clearly that it is either unaware of the effect of its policies on the national economy or that it is struggling vainly and desperately to find an answer to problems which are too great for it to tackle.
I do not intend this afternoon to discuss the whole realm of monetary and fiscal policy. I think the views of this party were put in clear perspective at the time the banking legislation was before us and I shall not repeat the arguments which were used then. However, I believe the time has come for the government to take a realistic view of the economic situation and that instead of continuing to follow old programs and policies which have been tried over and over again and proven futile it should be bold and adventurous enough to try something different.
I recall speaking to a supporter of the government some years ago about monetary

and fiscal policy. He said: "We all know that the present system is not satisfactory or adequate to meet modern needs but I am not confident yet that you people have the right answers." So we are suggesting now that the minister and the government be bold enough to try something different. Even if it does not work 100 per cent as anticipated, such a plan, provided it brings advantages to the Canadian people, would be a step in the right direction.
I indicated when I began that it was my intention to deal with one particular matter this afternoon. It is one which has already been raised by the hon. member for Carleton and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre-the attitude of the Treasury Board and the government in relation to superannuated federal civil servants. A review of the record will show how often this question has been raised in the house and the many occasions upon which the President of the Treasury Board has indicated that the subject was receiving active consideration. It reminds us of what is said by the Minister of Veterans Affairs when we call attention to the need for increases in disability pensions, war veterans allowances and so on. He always said that the government is giving careful consideration to these matters, but so far nothing concrete has been done.
Similarly, nothing concrete has been done with respect to the pensions of superannuated civil servants despite all the recommendations which have been made and all the arguments which have been advanced in the house. I was a member of the public service committee while this question was before it for consideration. At that time there was general agreement that something ought to be done to increase these pensions. I do not recall even the government members on the committee raising any particular objection or questioning the desirability of increasing the pensions of superannuated civil servants. Perhaps I was naive, but I was of the opinion that after the tabling of our recommendations we could look forward to early action on this matter. However, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, we have waited and waited in vain. Even now we have no indication whatsoever that favourable consideration is going to be given to this matter.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
It is not necessary to present all the arguments in favour of such an increase. The
October 31, 1967

minister knows them very well. The government knows them very well. Each hon. member is well aware of the reasons why consideration should and must be given to this matter. Therefore I do not think anything will be gained by repetition of those arguments today. But I just want to add my voice and the voices associated with me in this chamber to the opinions already expressed that the time is long overdue when the minister and the government should give favourable consideration to this request.
During the course of the debate on the estimates of the Department of Veterans Affairs I said that if the government was considering economies I did not think it proper that those who had served in our armed forces should be called upon to bear the brunt of those economies. If the government is convinced that it must curtail and cut back expenditures I do not think this is an area in which cut-backs should take place. The levels must be maintained and improved.
I urgently request the minister to give immediate consideration to this matter and at least indicate that he is determined that the government will give favourable consideration to it. I hope that within the next few days he will announce that legislation will be introduced in line with the committee recommendations that increases be given to superannuated civil servants, to superannuated members of the armed forces and to retired members of the R.C.M.P.


Mr. Lambert:: Mr. Chairman, I cannot let this occasion go by without drawing attention to a practice that has arisen within the past few weeks in connection with the consideration of estimates and which first made its appearance last June and July under the so-called allocation of time for consideration of estimates. We have seen a flagrant refusal on the part of certain ministers of the crown to answer questions and arguments put forward until the point of guillotine was reached and they did not have to answer them. I trust this minister will be given and will take the opportunity to answer the legitimate questions and points put forward in this debate. If he is agreeable to this, perhaps he will go to his colleagues and twist their arms in order that they may share the same frame of mind.
I am not going to indulge in the naming of particular ministers-


Mr. Churchill:: Why not?
Supply-Treasury Board


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: -because we know that a number of them deliberately abstained from answering questions. In fact encouragement was given to other members on the government side to take up the time so that a minister would not have to answer. As a matter of fact it is common knowledge around here that one minister who did want to answer questions had his coat tails pulled by one of his supporters who asked him, "Are you foolish enough to want to get into the debate? Why do you want to answer? The guillotine will fall at six o'clock."
The main purpose of parliament is the voting of supply, and on this there must be no equivocation. However, finding some inspiration in what I think is a misguided view of the Glassco commission of the functions and purposes of parliament, newspaper writers, commentators and other people have started to worship at the altar of that great god efficiency. They say we must tidy things up. We must make the parliamentary process slick and work like the board of a tightly knit, smoothly operating corporation. To those people I would comment-as a matter of fact I say it should be required reading -volume No. 28 of the minutes of proceedings and evidence of the public accounts committee of November 23 last, and in particular the testimony of the Auditor General.
The Auditor General is not a servant of the government. He is responsible to this house and-


Miss LaMarsh:: He is not responsible-


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: He is responsible to this house, and the Secretary of State need not mumble under her breath that there is something wrong about the position of the Auditor General. Perhaps if she heeded the strictures of the Auditor General a little more, this government would be in better shape.


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: But he is wrong all the time.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Oh, the Auditor General is wrong? I am glad to see the hon. lady has that opinion but I will tell her she epitomizes the position taken by the cabinet that the cabinet and Treasury Board are above parliament. This is not so and it must never be so.


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: The Department of Justice says he is wrong.
October 31, 1967

Supply-Treasury Board


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I have known the Department of Justice to be wrong just as often as they are right-


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: We have to take their word.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: -and there is no question in my mind that the Auditor General is responsible to parliament. There is also no question in my mind that the Treasury Board, by its actions during the past few years, has set itself up as a counter authority to parliament and has sought to take away control of the public purse from the authority of parliament. I make that assertion knowing full well that there may be some opposite who will not share it and it may not even be shared by some of the gentlemen who work for the Treasury Board and whose personal abilities and capabilities I respect. But this spirit has grown up in the Treasury Board, as in the cabinet, that it and it alone shall have the control. That must not be the case.
As an example I would refer to the form of the estimates themselves. In 1963-64 there was a great consolidation of titles of estimates, presumably for the sake of efficiency. If hon. members will but look at what the Auditor General has to say about this, then I gainsay anyone on the government side or elsewhere to say that he is wrong in this particular instance. For example, under the present form of the estimates over 80 per cent of the expenditures of the Department of National Defence appear under one vote. We believe that parliament does have control, but by the proposed step we are giving the ministry a blank cheque. The same applies to other departments.
What has happened to the salary item under the Department of Finance, which is now contained within a contingency item in the Treasury Board estimates? In its present form it is asking the house to give the cabinet and the Treasury Board a blank cheque in order to get away from control of expenditures by parliament.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
Let us look back to 1963-64. As my colleague the hon. member for Carleton indicated, there was what he called a petty cash account amounting to some $3 million or $4 million. Let us refer to what this contingency item actually says. It refers to "miscellaneous contingencies or unforeseen expenses, subject to approval of the Treasury Board including the authority to re-use any sums repaid to this appropriation from other appropriations,

for awards under the Public Servants Inventions Act". There is a similar item providing for contingencies in respect of salary increases, and that is quite understandable. Salary increases which are retroactive cannot be determined and spelled out in the estimates of a department ahead of time. We know how long it takes to approve the estimates at the departmental and Treasury Board levels and print them in the blue book. We understand this but we do not agree to the transferring of this item to salary account generally in relation to the determination of amounts to make up for deficiencies or impending pay increases for public servants, particularly in the event that interim supply is not granted. Interim supply is in effect one of the means of parliamentary control of estimates.
I feel that such a transfer would be wrong both for the government and for the opposition. We should not in this way make the salaries of civil servants a shuttlecock in a struggle between the government and the opposition regarding government policies. In this way there might come a time when the government would use this lever, which is in effect a blackjack, to force the opposition to allow interim supply in order to pay the salaries of public servants who are the innocent parties in such a struggle. I believe this puts everyone in an unfair position and I do not accept the present wording which is even worse.
What is now being said is: "Contingencies -Subject to the approval of the Treasury Board, to supplement other votes or paylist and other requirements"-it says "and other requirements"-"and to provide for miscellaneous minor and unforeseen expenses." In other words, it refers to petty cash requirements. In 1965-66 there was a supplementary or contingency item with regard to paylists and other unforeseen expenses. At that time $6 million was provided for possible pay increases. However, in 1967-68 we have this new version which refers to other requirements. The item is for $45 million. If we look at the contingency item in 1966, vote 15 of the Department of Finance, we find that in actual fact by the time we had the main estimates and the supplementaries the amount was $110 million.
Let me refer to pages 1260 and 1261 of the committee reports in relation to the Auditor General's statement. In this year's estimates there is a provision for $45 million but we have not seen the supplementary estimates that are to come down.
October 31. 1967


Edgar John Benson: Of course you have.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: We have not seen all of them. We will not know how much this contingency amount will be by March 31 next. At that time it might amount to $145 million instead of $45 million, and for this reason I think this method is quite wrong.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Would you permit a
question?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Certainly.


Gordon Minto Churchill: At page 560 of the estimates book under item number 5 the estimate is shown as $45 million. Last year's estimate for this item was $29,651,300. In spite of this the Auditor General has pointed out that the item amounted to $110 million.


Edgar John Benson: Those were the main
estimates.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The main estimates showed a figure of $45 million. I presume this represents a comparison of the main estimates.


Edgar John Benson: So there is no doubt, that is the case. I should point out that of the $110 million to which my hon. friend has referred $106,226,670 represented salary revisions. Obviously all but a small amount was used in this way.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: We know there are these pay contingency items for revisions. However, as my colleague points out, the blue book is in fact misleading when it suggests there was only $45 million required for last year. The amount required was $110 million. I do not care really what the purpose was but the amount should be shown. The minister has given an explanation but the blue book does not give that explanation.


Edgar John Benson: The supplementaries are
shown.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: That is true, but we are being asked to look at this year's blue book to find the expenditures of last year in order to make a comparison, and this is quite wrong. I intend to quote as extensively as my time permits me from the statement of the Auditor General. Unfortunately the evidence before the committee does not enjoy as wide distribution as his report to parliament. For that reason I think as much of the pertinent sections of his testimony as possible must be put on the record. At page 1254 of the minutes of proceedings and evidence of the public accounts committee for November 23, 27053-2342
Supply-Treasury Board 1966 we find the following statement by the Auditor General:
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
The straight proposition of reducing the number of votes was and is very important because it touches directly on parliament's control of public funds. It may render life much easier administratively for the management, or the executive in this case-
This is what I said-the executive is the cabinet; the management is Treasury Board.
-but it also can reduce parliamentary control because fewer votes can result in fewer opportunities being available to parliament to discuss proposed expenditures, e.g., supplementary estimates.
This again is the point I have been making. The Auditor General goes on further to say that he has considered it his duty to follow closely the implementation of the recommendations of the public accounts committee. He said:
The first results are to be found in paragraph 51 (page 22) of my 1965 report to the house which, as you know, is still awaiting discussion on this committee's agenda.
From this you will see how the vote pattern actually adopted for the 1964-65 estimates differed in a number of instances from the pattern which had been seen and approved by the committee. You will see here examples of transfers made of funds between services which would not have been possible under the previous vote pattern. Last year it seemed to me important that I bring this to the attention of the house and I may say that similar differences have been noted again this year and will be the subject of further comment in my forthcoming report to the house for 1965-66.
We await this with anticipation. Then, at page 1257 the Auditor General said:
The Finance contingencies vote as it appears in 1966-67 itself represents a consolidation of votes. Up to and including 1963-64, two of the Finance votes had been vote 70 for the supplementing of salaries, wages and other paylist charges and vote 50 for miscellaneous minor and unforeseen expenses. These were combined by the Treasury Board into vote 15 in 1964-65 under the revised vote pattern I have described, and for that year and 1965-66 the vote was worded: "Contingencies- Subject to the approval of the Treasury Board, (a) to supplement the paylist provisions of other votes; (b) for miscellaneous minor or unforeseen expenses; etc." Now in the estimates and the supplementaries tabled in the house for 1966-67 the wording is simpler: "Contingencies-To supplement other votes and to provide for miscellaneous minor and unforeseen expenses ... and authority to re-use any sums repaid to this appropriation from other appropriations."
As I have indicated to hon. members, in this year there has been a reversion and also an addition so that we have not only the requirement for paylist but other requirements. This to me is quite unacceptable and I
3694	COMMONS DEBATES	October 31, 1967
Supply-Treasury Board say to hon. members that it should be unacceptable to this house because this form of preparing the estimates is a guarantee of absolute control in the hands of the executive and Treasury Board.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre moved an amendment which in effect is a criticism of the office of the President of the Treasury Board. This was the only way that was open to him at the time. Had we reached it, I would have moved an amendment to vote 5 to reduce that item. However, for the reasons I have given I shall support the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
I shall conclude by saying what I think is the purpose of the Treasury Board. The Treasury Board acts within the authority given to it by parliament and must never be permitted to set itself up as an authority in conflict with parliament. I am not attacking personalities within the Treasury Board. However, there has been an evolution, a progression, to more and more centralized control away from parliament. This is a movement which must be reversed if the democratic form of government is to persist and grow. Again I urge hon. members, as I think members on this side of the house will do without question, to support the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Mr. Graffiey:: Mr. Chairman, not only in respect of the discussion of these estimates but also on many other occasions since this house reconvened a number of weeks ago members from all parties on this side of the house have stated time and time again that because of the government's ill-timed fiscal and monetary policies it has consistently destroyed many of the options open to it to move the economy of Canada forward as it should be moved forward at the present time. Nowhere is this statement more true than in relation to what is happening in the Treasury Board under the present minister at this time. Canadians have been told, through a series of leaks planned or otherwise, that the present government is now advocating a number of major cuts in expenditures. I do not intend to argue about this. I believe the present administration will find much agreement on this side of the house and from the people of Canada that major cuts are necessary at the present time.


David Orlikow: Tell us where. Which cuts?


William Heward Grafftey: I do not think that is necessary. I do not have any specific cuts in mind at the present time. We will hear the hon. member in due course when he takes part in this debate. I again repeat that it is apparent that major cuts are in order at the present time and apparently are being made. Most members of this house and many Canadians are asking why there is a necessity for wholesale cuts at the present time. They are asking why this disorganization has arisen which has necessitated this activity by the Treasury Board.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
I shall not preface my very brief and general remarks on priorities with any notion that government per se is just business, big or otherwise. Far too many people when discussing governmental activities say that government should be run like a big business. I do not agree with this, although I do agree that we need more business attitudes in the running of government day to day. The main question that I want to put briefly this afternoon, one that has already been mentioned, is: What is the reason for this cutting back activity by the Treasury Board at the present time? The simple reason is that the present administration is guilty of a lack of long term or even medium term thinking about where this country is going and how its economy should be planned. How else could the government have found itself in the mess it is in today? Is it the result of long term or medium term planning? Of course not. It is the result of a leaderless, rudderless government going from crisis to crisis. I am sure the hon. lady knows what I am talking about. She has been looking for a president for the C.B.C. for a year now. That is not the result of long term planning.


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: Ask the Prime Minister about it. I have nothing to do with it.


William Heward Grafftey: The hon. lady is blaming the Prime Minister. He will probably blame her. The surprising thing about this government is that in their state of inactivity they blame everyone but themselves. The fact is that the chaos in the Treasury Board today is the result of a lack of long or medium term economic planning. It is also the result of the government's refusal to allocate priorities in the economic and social fields.
What do we mean when we say this? Let us not bandy this expression about. What do we mean when we say modern-day governments must plan social and economic priorities not only within the federal sphere but in
October 31. 19S7


Jean-Luc Pepin: How can you plan without cutting?


William Heward Grafftey: How can the government cut Without planning? If you plan in the first place you will find that you do not have to cut the way the government has been cutting. Can the minister really argue against that? Is that not happening now in the Treasury Board as a result of the government's efforts to do everything at once and to please everyone at once by ill-timed fiscal and monetary policies? All of a sudden it found there was not enough money to go around, and so it has to cut here and there. Will the minister tell me that this does not create uncertainty on the local level? How can citizens look forward in the long and medium term when they do not get the kind of leadership they are entitled to from the central government?
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)


Edgar John Benson: Would the hon. member permit a question? Does he realize that when this government was elected there were no targets set for departments? There were no budgets beyond one year. Now, however, every single department of government submits to the Treasury Board a five year forecast. This is long term planning.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


William Heward Grafftey: If I may paraphrase Robert Burns, did he not say that the best laid plans of men often go astray? The plans of this government have gone astray. There may be planning but there is no planning with the provinces. There is no planning with the people who count in terms of setting priorities.
I want to terminate my remarks by simply saying to the government that I hope we will not have to go through another period of wholesale cuts such as we are experiencing at the present time. I recognize that they are

DEBATES	October 31, 1967
desirable right now because of the facts of economic life. I hope that sooner rather than later, because we have been appealing to the government along with many of the premiers of the provinces, the government will take time out to sit at the conference table with the heads of the different levels of government to get agreement on these things. In other words, there should be plans for priorities in the social and economic field. You will find there is much more agreement, as I said before, than we realize there is. If this is not done sooner or later, then we will be back in the house within another year listening to the kind of reports we have been getting from the Minister of National Revenue today.


Colin Cameron: Mr. Chairman, I must confess I am a little confused in trying to ascertain what the position of the official opposition is with regard to government cuts, about which I have read in the newspapers. So far as one can determine from the last speaker for the official opposition, the Conservative party hopes the government will put on the brake and drive straight ahead with a foot on the accelerator. This is not usually considered a good method of driving.
Sometimes I am reminded of my long political career. Years ago, before many members of this house were born or were very old, I entered the legislature of British Columbia. At that time I thought, now I am really going to see the cream of the province of British Columbia, the real brains; they have to be here. I am going to see someone who will enlighten and impress me tremendously. I still remember the great shock that overcame me when I began to realize there was no one there any brighter than I was, and I was not very bright.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Was it worse when you came here?


Colin Cameron: I thought when I came here I was coming to the centre of information. Surely I was going to meet the really bright, intellectual lights of this country. I was ready to take a properly humble attitude toward these people whose names I had been reading in the newspapers all my life. They must be men of tremendous capacity. Again, I had the disconcerting experience of realizing that one after the other of these people I was prepared to set up as idols had feet of clay. They revealed that they were little, if any, brighter than I was, and again I admit that I
October 31, 1967

am not very bright. This was very disconcerting.
There was one person we used to hear about continually, but I had not met him. His name used to crop up all the time but he was almost a mysterious personage. His name popped up everywhere as the ultimate in competence, a man who really knew how to make the economy work, a man who had made it work during the war as one of C. H. Howe's boys. Here was a man who would finally put things on an even keel after the rather bad start that this government had had and the rather distressing experience of the previous government. Finally, of course, this mysterious personage emerged as the present Minister of Finance.
Again, I must confess to a feeling of considerable dismay because I believed the stories that here was competence incarnate. Well, we have to admit that today things are in a very bad mess. Even Peter Newman has had to wash his hands of the Liberal party and the Liberal government. Peter has really been a faithful apologist for this government. Admittedly he has had many disappointments as a great many of his idols have suddenly revealed their clay feet. Only recently has Peter finally thrown up his hands and said that the government is in a mess and does not know what it is doing. There is no doubt about it, things are in a mess.
It is all very well for the Minister of Finance to tell us, as he told us today in answer to a question of mine, that there is no such thing as a money crisis. I was quoting from a report of his speech in Montreal. I do not know whether he used that term in Montreal, but certainly he conveyed the impression to his audience that he considered there was something that could be termed a money crisis. This is a very bad expression, I admit, and one that rather offends my pedantic nature. However, we all know what is meant. Things are in very bad mess financially in Canada.
Our friends in the official opposition appear to think that the financial and economic troubles we are experiencing are caused solely by governmental extravagance. I have no dobut whatever that there is a great deal of governmental extravagance, a great deal of governmental waste. I submit, however, that this cannot be the real cause of the troubles that are now overtaking the Canadian economy.
In the first place, I feel we should be careful not to draw such sharp distinctions
Supply-Treasury Board between public and private expenditures. They all come out of the same stream of wealth production. It is when you try to spend that wealth in the two places at once that you get into trouble. It is when you try to build the unnecessary sort of buildings that have been undertaken in Canada and at the same time have the government perform the necessary social services it has to look after that you begin to run into trouble. It is when the capital of the country is allowed to behave as it wishes, without any control from the central authorities, that we begin to run into trouble.
We are told almost ad nauseam, and have been for some years, how dependent we are on foreign capital coming into this country to keep our economy on an even keel and to enable us to expand. However, I have two reports here which indicate what has been happening to the Canadian economy and provide an answer to the questions I have been putting to a number of my economist friends who try to tell me our troubles have arisen because our level of investment has been falling. When I suggest to them this is a nonsensical, meaningless statement because investment cannot fall as long as the total money supply is expanding, they retreat muttering in their beards.
It may be that investment is not taking place in the spots in which they are accustomed to finding it. I suggest what we are seeing today is a flight of capital from Canada. This flight of capital in no way differs from other flights of capital in the past and is caused perhaps by the same reasons that have caused flights of capital in earlier times and in other countries. One of the reasons in this country has been that the government simply refuses to control and direct the economy.
There has been a sharp rise in the volume of Canadian trading on the Chicago and midwest stock exchange. Very interesting figures are contained in a report in today's Globs and Mail. These figures indicate that the transactions of Canadian stock brokerage firms who hold seats on this exchange rose from $58 million in 1966 to $325 million this year. These figures indicate where a lot of Canadian capital is going and it has to be replaced, of course, by importation of capital. Then we have the Gazette stating quite
October 31, 1967

Supply-Treasury Board unequivocally that there has been a flight of capital from Canada.
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
In a country already capital-hungry, the need will be intense. Will the capital be found?
It is unlikely to be found until Canada is able to present to Canadians and to the world a more confident outlook. The fact is that Canadian money is itself moving out of the country in enormous amounts, to seek more attractive opportunities for investment elsewhere.
This is an astonishing editorial comment, Mr. Chairman, when one realizes the level of interest rates in Canada. One can only assume it is a profound disquiet over the manner in which the government of Canada has been conducting our affairs that causes these funds to be flowing out of the country. I was warned some months ago by a man in a position to know that there was a serious flight of capital taking place via mutual open-end funds from Canada into the United States, and I presume that this is another example of that same tendency.
This is posing problems for us, Mr. Chairman, that the government is refusing to meet. Not long ago I asked the Minister of Finance whether he did not think that two policies to which this government is committed are mutually incompatible. One policy is the maintenance of a fixed exchange rate and the other is the maintenance of the $2,600 million maximum reserve that we have agreed to keep in our agreement with the United States. My question was prompted by a news item that the Bank of Canada had been obliged to get into the market in order to drive down the value of the Canadian dollar to the pegged level of 92.5 cents United States. It had been pushed up, of course, by the inflow of capital which we are repeatedly told is necessary in order to keep Canada going and to keep Canada expanding.
I am going to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it is useless to belabour this government, as has been done from the official opposition benches, on the ground that they have brought troubles upon us by their extravagance and not to point out that the cure for these troubles lies much deeper than that. It lies in the fact that the government will not control the operations of our economy. I suggest that before long the Minister of Finance is going to have to make a choice. He is going to have to go to the International Monetary Fund and negotiate us back into a floating exchange rate or he is going to have to abandon the agreement with the United States to maintain only a maximum of $2,600 
million in American funds in our exchange reserves. The two policies are incompatible and they are becoming daily more and more incompatible.
Whether the government is prepared to do that is another matter, Mr. Chairman. I would doubt that they are. I think we shall flounder along and probably the government will adopt, as the minister has hinted thus far that it will adopt, the crude method of turning the screws on the economy, allowing unemployment to rise, so as to overcome for the time being the problems that the government is facing. We certainly will not solve these problems by severe government cuts which are not compensated for elsewhere in the economy.
I can see a place where there could be a cut, Mr. Chairman, and I should like to ask my Conservative friends where they would cut. I can tell you where I would cut. I would cut the defence expenditures. It is 14 years since I first sat in this house and every year since then the government of Canada has spent $1,500 million, $1,600 million, $1,700 million on so-called military defence. No minister of national defence and no government spokesman has ever been able to tell me what defence has been achieved for Canada by these expenditures. So I have no hesitation in saying that I would make cuts there if I thought cuts had to be made.
Even so, Mr. Chairman, I would not make cuts and leave it at that. I would transfer those expenditures to other fields which would develop the Canadian economy in a way in which we can continue to advance, expand and develop. But we are not going to do this merely by turning the screw now in a crude, undifferentiated and unselective way, or by going to departments, as the government is doing at the present moment according to the spokesman of the Conservative party who appears to know-I do not-and whittling a few million off here and a few million off there. All we do by that method is to further the decline in the Canadian economy and increase the problems of the Canadian people.
I hope the government will eventually realize that there is no distinction that can properly be made in an industrial economy between public expenditures and private expenditures, that it is a case of deciding what is best for the Canadian people. Those on the government benches tell us, of course, that they are helpless in the hands of our constitution. We have had pointed out to us several times that provincial and municipal
October 31, 1967

expenditures have been rising above federal expenditures, which I think they did for the first time last year or perhaps the year before. That is perfectly true. But I also suggest that any federal government worthy of the name can reach agreements with the provincial governments without too much difficulty. The fact is that provincial governments are obliged to make their policies conform to those of the federal government if the federal government wishes to ensure that outcome.
I have yet to see this government or any other federal government deal with the problem of reaching agreements with the provincial governments by advertising to the people of the provinces the answers that the federal government has to obstacles that may be put in their way by the provincial governments and thus bring provincial governments to the frame of mind which will induce them to co-operate with the federal government. These things, I am sure, can be done if we have a government that is prepared to govern. And to govern today means more than just holding the ring as a referee; it means direct participation in the economy of the country.
In a news item the other day there was a hint that the legislation relating to the Canada Development Corporation, if and when it comes before us, will be of a very different type from that envisaged by the former minister of finance. His concept of it, you remember, Mr. Chairman, was a sort of vast mutual fund which was to be used for purchasing back minority shares of foreign-owned corporations. The news item to which I refer, which had all the earmarks of an inspired leak, was that the present Minister of Finance has in mind using the funds of the Canada Development Corporation for that sort of rationalization and regrouping of Canadian industry that the members of this industry have been pressing upon him now for a year and a half.
I hope that this is the plan and that it goes beyond the sort of guide lines and pleadings that he suggests in his dealings with the rest of the economy. I hope that this means government participation and intervention in developing and controlling the Canadian economy. If our government will do that, Mr. Chairman, I think we shall no longer have the trouble we presently have of capital shortages, of continually increasing interest rates, of a rising consumer price index, of declining production, of a declining gross
Supply-Treasury Board national product or rate or growth in Canada. We shall go ahead in the way in which anyone with any common sense realizes that this country can go ahead.
I say this because there are few people on the face of the earth so fortunate as the Canadian people, with resources that are unmatched anywhere on the globe. If we fail to take advantage of these opportunities in Canada to produce a society that will be an example for the rest of the world, then we should be thoroughly ashamed of having elected such an incompetent government.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
I hope our Minister of Finance will realize this is an opportunity. I hope that for him this is not merely an unfortunate situation in which he finds himself without knowing how he got into it. I hope he and his colleagues are prepared to do the sort of thing that a modern government in a modern industrial society must do if democratic government is to survive in an industrial age.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Chairman, I am
impressed with the interest the members of the Liberal party have shown in this afternoon's debate. Their attendance is an indication of how worried they are about financial conditions in this country. The amendment before us may have induced them to be present. I hope that the minister whose estimates we are considering will not interpret the presence of so many of his party's members as enthusiastic support for his activities. He knows that the reason for their presence here is the amendment. It seems that the members of the minister's party are not sure when the vote is to come.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: We know that the vote is coming.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It seems that when attendance of certain hon. members is desirable we should have a vote in committee.


An hon. Member:: What about the Tories?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Members of our party will appear at the appropriate moment.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Members of the Liberal party do not seem to place great reliance on the President of the Treasury Board; they rush in to give him support. The members of my party, on the other hand, are quite capable of
3700	COMMONS DEBATES	Oclober 31. 1967
Supply-Treasury Board looking after themselves and at the appropriate moment they will appear to support the amendment-I hope.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The amendment is the only means available to us to express our dissatisfaction with the government's failure to take action with regard to retired civil servants and others who have been waiting patiently for the implementation of a certain report. The hon. member for Carleton has drawn this matter to the attention of the house on many occasions and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre followed his example. I support their point of view. I think this amendment is essential in order to drive home to the government that action must be taken in this regard.
Other hon. members have mentioned the ill effects of the stringent allocation of time for estimates. I have spoken on this subject on many occasions. At this time I believe that the mistake in setting a 30 day limit on the discussion of estimates has been brought home to all members of the house. We are facing a financial crisis which can most usefully be discussed on the estimates of the Treasury Board and those of the Department of Finance. Yet the limitation imposed on the house means that we have only another two and a half hours left today for the discussion of these major matters and the time that will be available on Thursday. Then the guillotine will operate and millions of dollars will be voted without a full discussion of whether it is advisable that this money should be spent.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is hundreds of millions of dollars.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The hon. member says that the amount will run to hundreds of millions of dollars. I do not know. The total may be in the billions of dollars. This demonstrates the weakness of setting a time limit for the study of estimates, especially such a short time limit as 30 days. As other members have said, no subject is of greater importance to the House of Commons than the financial aspects of government. During the last two years these financial aspects have, unfortunately, been shoved into the background. Estimates have been taken on a hit or miss basis; sometimes they have been postponed. Year after year we have voted interim supply so that expenditures may be maintained.


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: The last time you were in office you did not call them at all.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The estimates have not been subjected to the careful and close scrutiny they should have. Ministers of the crown have not been called on to defend their policies.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The minister is in the house for one day and has a lot to answer for.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Ministers have not delineated their policies. We saw an example of that sort of thing last night. The Minister of Industry failed to return to the house at eight o'clock even though his estimates were before the committee. The chairman thought that the committee was still dealing with the Department of Industry and called for the passing of item No. 1. The hon. member for Carleton properly objected. Then we had a change of business; we took up the Department of Public Works. The estimates of the Minister of Industry may not come before the committee again. Without any answers from him his estimates will go through. The guillotine will operate. The steam roller on the government side of the house will cooperate to push items through.
We talk about reforming parliament. Over the years one of the reforms advocated was shortening the time for the discussion of estimates. I and other hon. members of this party opposed that concept from the beginning. The idea was tried on a trial basis and we have been operating under the concept of limitation of time for discussion of estimates for two or three years. The idea is a complete failure. What has happened this year has shown it up in its stark reality. I am sure that members of the combined opposition will oppose making permanent the temporary rule that set a limit of 30 days for the study of estimates.
Several speakers outlined in considerable detail and with eloquence the financial troubles of this country. The hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands said that we were placing too much stress on cutting back expenditures. I hope he approves of the suggestion to cut back reckless expenditures. That is not our only argument. It is one that we have been stressing today and we have stressed it for a simple reason. During the last three months we have had indications from the Prime Minister's office and elsewhere that great reductions in expenditures were to be made. It was said that hundreds of millions of dollars were do be cut from expenditures. Anyone who has been in the house for any length of time, and certainly anyone who has served on the government
October 31, 1967

side, knows perfectly well that is the phoniest, yes, the phoniest cutting back of expenditures that we have ever heard of.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Gordon Minto Churchill: 
Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend has a sense of humour.


Gordon Minto Churchill: My genial friend, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, is paying close attention to me, as he always does. If he would only accept my advice from time to time he would have a much happier life.
Our attention has been drawn to the contingency fund under one item for the Treasury Board. I well recall the fight we had in the House of Commons a year or two ago when this fund was so badly misused. Now the minister in charge of Treasury Board has enlarged the amount. He wants to have a blank cheque for $45 million.
In 1966 we pointed out the background of this contingency item. That story has been repeated today by the hon. member for Edmonton West. The item should be restored to its former position of a contingency fund to meet unforeseen expenditures, and it must be remembered that there are always
October 31, 1967

unforeseen expenditures. Several times the Auditor General has drawn attention to the misuse of this fund and to the change in it with which he does not agree. As recorded in volume 28 of the minutes of proceedings of the public accounts committee for November 23, 1966, the Auditor General drew attention to this fund and made a recommendation which I think should be emphasized time and time again. I quote from page 1289 of the minutes as follows:
I think in circumstances such as these it would be more meaningful and certainly more helpful to the house in its control of the money supply were the amount of the individual departmental requirements for the additional salary money to be the subject of supplementary estimates put in by each of the departments concerned-in fact it seems to me that this is precisely what the supplementary estimate procedure is for, namely to bring to the attention of the house unforeseen expenses encountered by a department, e.g., retroactive salary revisions. If a change like this were to be made, then the Finance-
It is now the Treasury Board.
-contingencies vote could be returned to its original concept, namely that of a small fund to be retained for unexpected and unforeseen items.
This is what we are seeking. Let us go back to the proven system of a contingency fund that was used for a specific purpose, not a fund which is so enlarged now that in effect it is a blank cheque to the Treasury Board.
Despite the explanation offered to me privately by the minister in charge I still wonder why in the contingency item for 1966-67, as listed on page 560 of the blue book, there should appear just over $29 million instead of the $110 million that was voted for that item under the main estimates plus the sup-plementaries. If the minister had been smart he could have shown a reduction instead of an increase, but nevertheless he is badly misusing this fund and, as the hon. member for Edmonton West pointed out, it is all contained in the fine print which talks about the nature of contingencies. We have objected and we continue to object to three words which were emphasized by the hon. member for Edmonton West. Those three words are "and other requirements." They leave the field absolutely wide open for the minister and the Treasury Board to use this money for any purpose that may occur to them.
Consequently, sir, we feel that these estimates should not go through in their present form. We have given an opportunity to the minister to make a revision which I am sure the committee would quickly accept. In effect he could make a reduction. He could reduce
DEBATES	3703
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion this item by $40 million. I am being generous; he would still have $5 million left for contingencies, much more than used to be the case in the past. This item used to be $1J million. Then it was raised to $3 million, and owing to the inflation that has taken place under this government I am willing to let it be raised to $5 million.
When we have reduced the minister's salary we could make a reduction of $40 million in item No. 5. Following that the Secretary of State for External Affairs could suggest that we save another $3 million on his military escapades abroad, making a total of $43 million to be saved. This is a saving which I have proposed in less than 30 seconds, and it shows how easily and quickly people can deal with saving money if they want to put their minds to it. That is what I suggest should be done, sir, and I will have great pleasure in voting for the amendment when the vote is called after eight o'clock.


The Assistant Deputy Chairman:: Order. It being six o'clock it is my duty to leave the chair pursuant to section 3 of the standing order 15.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It is my duty, pursuant to provisional standing order 3 9A, to inform the house that the questions to be considered at the time of adjournment tonight are as follows: the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Gilbert), Housing-Toronto-compensation in urban redevelopment project; the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Woolliams), External Affairs-Viet Nam- reaction to United States offer to cease fire; the hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Haidasz), Pollution:-possible health hazard from fertilizer plant at Dunnville, Ontario.
It being six o'clock the house will now proceed to the consideration of private members business as listed on today's order paper, namely, private bills and public bills.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Thursday, October 19, consideration of the motion of Mr. Basford for the second reading of Bill No. C-113, to incorporate Commercial Solids Pipe Line Company.
[Stage Direction]
October 31. 1967
Private Bills
Colin Cameron: Mr. Speaker, as I recall I had been speaking for about two minutes when the time ran out on the last occasion that this bill was before the house. It seems to me that in our centennial year it is very appropriate to recall some of our Canadian history for the purpose of giving us some guide lines for the future in the field of transportation. As I am sure every member of the house recalls from his study of our history, it is about 80 years ago that a transcontinental railroad was finally built across Canada which bound together the various parts of this country. This was a tremendous undertaking and one that was absolutely necessary if Canada was to emerge as a national entity. It was the means by which the very diverse parts of this enormous country could be welded together. One could not expect that at that period the railroad would be constructed in any way except by private enterprise or that the benefits of constructing it would accrue to anybody but private citizens or groups of private citizens. At that time the concept of social and communal rights was rather undeveloped.
[DOT] (6:00 p.m.)
After the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway there was a spate of railway construction in various regions of the country which culminated, as I recall, in 1912 with the construction of the line to Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast in the constituency of my hon. friend from Skeena. Many members will recall the sad history of that vast railway construction period in our Canadian history. They will recall how grafting contractors, corrupt governments and greedy individuals and groups contributed to what became almost a national disaster which necessitated the government of Canada moving into the picture and cobbling together all the various ill-fated railway projects which had been constructed without any hope of an economically sound future.
We have not yet recovered from the results of that particular page in our history. Almost every year one hears complaints in the house about the cost of Canadian National Railways which was the result of the government taking over these bankrupt railway projects that had been built in that expansionary period. We still are paying the cost of allowing private interests to move into a field on which the whole of our economy rested, the field of transport upon which our whole national economy relied and depended. We allowed it to be the happy hunting ground

for those who wanted to make profits from the development of the new Dominion of Canada. I suggest that this burden has been too hard on the Canadian people and it is only now that we are beginning to get on top of it.
For many years it has been pointed out that the government's action at that time, while in some ways commendable, was also very badly contrived because of its position that the best thing to do was to allow certain groups in our economy to profit from the operation of the economy. Therefore, instead of allowing these concerns to go bankrupt, instead of allowing their bonds to drop out of sight, the government of Canada on behalf of the taxpayers of Canada guaranteed them, and from that day to this we have been carrying a very heavy burden.
We are now moving into a new age with new methods of transportation. Perhaps the most striking and significant is the one outlined in Bill C-113, to incorporate the Commercial Solids Pipe Line Company. The purpose is to transport by modern methods commodities that hitherto have been transported by railroad or water and perhaps to a minor degree in recent years by air. In the main it will be commodities carried by railroads that will be transported.
We can be sure that technological advances will improve the scope, capacity and ability of these pipe lines to transport goods in pelletized or solid form as is now being attempted. I assume there is every anticipation on the part of this company that the operation is going to be very profitable; otherwise it would not have distributed the very expensive brochure I and other members have received from the sponsors of this bill. We can be quite sure that the moment it is demonstrated that pipe lines represent the modern method of transportation and that this is a means by which promoters can make fortunes for themselves, their colleagues and associates, we shall have a spate of pipe line construction as great as the railway construction which occurred 50 to 60 years ago. We may very well experience an even greater disastrous result. It may well be that we will have to come again to the rescue of bankrupt transportation companies because they have built pipe lines as the railroads were built, paralleling each other across this country. In my own province there are two railroads running down the Fraser canyon, one on one side and one on the other, periodically having to hop across
October 31, 1967

Private Bills
and change places before arriving at the same destination, Vancouver.
There has been a scandalous waste of resources so far as the Canadian National is concerned, and of course evidence of that is the very heavy load of debt placed on the Canadian people by the government which decided it had to rescue these bankrupt operators. I plead with the house to be very careful not to permit Canada to embark on another period of wasteful construction of a means of transportation and to realize that in this day and age there is no place in the field of transportation for private interests. This is too important a factor in our economy.
We have seen in recent years the transfer of virtually all electric power production and distribution from private to public hands. We have seen the various utilities across the country falling into public hands because private hands have proved incompetent or incapable of providing the services required. I submit that transportation, particularly transcontinental, which is the means through which our country is tied together, is too important a matter to be left in the hands of private interests or promoters whose concern, quite legitimately and legally, is to make profits by the transportation of goods in Canada.
I hope the house will decide not to pass this bill. I hope the government will thereupon take note of the refusal of the parliament of Canada to embark on what I think is a very misguided project and undertake the sort of research and development which will lead to public investment in a properly integrated pipe line transportation system in Canada. For that reason I move:
That Bill C-113, an act to incorporate Commercial Solids Pipe Line Company, be not now read a second time, but that it be read a second time this day six months hence.
[DOT] (6:10 p.m.)


Mr. H. A. Olson (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, we have just seen another example of the kind of action that will result in a refusal to hear people who are anxious to develop Canada's natural resources. I think it is a pity that it is possible for a very limited number of members to hold up that development, particularly in the field of research and transportation, which is so vital to the economic well-being of Canada as a nation. I say this because the passage of Bill C-113, as all hon. members know, would not in fact give any company the right to build a solids pipe line or any other kind of pipe line. Indeed, all it would do is set up a legal entity
which could make application to the Canadian Transportation Commission and thereby have the opportunity to place before the commission its proposal and the economic arguments in favour of it.
If we should at this stage take the action suggested by the amendment the bill would not even be referred to the committee. The sponsors of this company would not have the right to be heard in any forum. I think that would be unjust and unfair. Anyone who has respect for the concept of justice and democratic discussion should at least provide an opportunity to the sponsors to state their case before members of this house. A bill similar to this one has been before the house now for nearly two years without being given second reading. If this bill were given second reading and referred to the committee, the officers of the company could be called before the committee to state their case.
Section 24 of the National Transportation Act which was passed by this house earlier in 1967 provides that subject to subsection 2 no company shall operate a commodity pipe line unless there is a certificate in force with respect to that pipe line. Therefore, even if the bill should pass through all stages in this house this would not permit the Commercial Solids Pipe Line Company to begin immediately construction of a pipe line or go into the pipe line business, in this case the moving of sulphur from Alberta to the west coast.
Other stringent conditions have also been laid down in the new National Transportation Act such as section 25 which provides that the transportation commission before it grants a certificate must study such things as the economic feasibility of the pipe line, the financial responsibility and financial structure of the applicant, the methods of financing the pipe line and the extent to which Canadians will have an opportunity of participating in the financing, engineering and construction of the pipeline, and any public interest that in the opinion of the commission may be affected by the granting or refusing of the application.
The company has already stated there will be a public offering of shares when they have reached the stage in their research where they find that the project is probably economically feasible. That, of course, is not certain at this time. I believe that in Canada we must pay far more attention to the modernization of our transportation industries so that we can remain competitive in international markets in respect of many commodities. Wheat, for

October 31. 1967
Private Bills
example, is very important but many other raw materials are produced in Canada, such as sulphur, which fall in this category.
In many other countries sulphur is produced much closer to tidewater than it is in Canada. Unless we find a more economical way to move this material from the point where it is produced to the coast we will be participating in the restriction of the expansion of our world markets for sulphur. Sulphur is a product which is basic to industry. It has been said that sulphuric acid is the work horse of the chemical industry. Sulphur is the major and essential ingredient of sulphuric acid. If Canada is to expand its industrial base, both in respect of the production of raw materials and also its secondary industries, sulphur will become one of our most important resources.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope that hon. members will not prevent this bill from getting second reading so that it may be referred to the committee where we will have an opportunity to hear from the officers of the company. There will be plenty of time after the committee stage to disagree with the arguments which may be advanced. It seems to me that it will be a very serious miscarriage of justice in so far as this house is concerned if we refuse them the opportunity to state their case to certain members of this house.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Olson). I appreciate, of course, that he is pretty well compelled to speak in the way in which he did.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Compelled by common sense.


Frank Howard: He says he is compelled by common sense. That is the compulsion which caused him to be right where he is at this very moment. It was the common sense of abandoning the stupidity of the political philosophy to which he adhered before. His piety, however, seems to have increased since moving from one place to another in the house, a piety which is a bit glossy and does not go very deep because the arguments he has used just do not hold water. The hon. member, who for years has been the official spokesman on procedure for the government, should know the fallacy of his approach when he says that the representatives of the company will be denied a hearing simply because an amendment has been moved which would mean that the bill would 
be given a six months hoist. There will be an opportunity for all members to vote on this amendment. I cannot conceive that the hon. member for Medicine Hat has prescience in respect of the result of that vote.
[DOT] (6:20 p.m.)


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: No, but when is it going to be taken?


Frank Howard: As I said, the hon. gentleman is the official or unofficial spokesman on procedure for the government and has been for many years. He does not need to ask me when the vote is or is not going to be taken. He has knowledge of the rules, as has anyone in the house. The question which he just asked from a sitting position indicates clearly that he was speaking with tongue in cheek when he tried to categorize certain members as participating in a denial of rights simply by exercising their opportunity to move a particular amendment in order to express an opinion about this bill. He said that it was shameful, or words to that effect, to hold up the development of research into the transport of solids through pipe lines.
I was here when the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) spoke on second reading of the bill some time ago. I listened to him at that time and I took the trouble to find his remarks in Hansard because the hon. member for Medicine Hat made some reference to the fact that research was being held up simply by the moving of the six months hoist by my colleague, the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowi-chan-The Islands (Mr. Cameron). There has been a fair amount of research into the transport of solids by pipe line. Undoubtedly there will be continuing research into this mode of transportation regardless of the passage or otherwise of the bill before us. I should like to quote what the hon. member for Edmonton West, a fellow Albertan of the hon. member for Medicine Hat, had to say on June 1 as reported on page 853 of Hansard:
I think we should go further into the study of solids pipe lines and recognize that the basic work in this connection has been done, as indicated by the hon. member himself-
The hon. member who moved second read ing of the bill.
-through the research council of the province oi Alberta, using not only funds provided by that province

In other words, tax money.
-but in addition funds made available by the Department of Industry.
October 31. 1967

Private Bills
I presume our federal Department of Industry.
The organizations taking part in this research are known as SPRDA-Solids Pipelines Research Development Association-and SPESA, standing for Solids Pipelines Economic Studies Association.
Here are two organizations in receipt of public funds from the province of Alberta, my hon. friend's own province, and from the federal Department of Industry which, according to the hon. member for Edmonton West-and I do not discount his words one bit-has already done the basic research work. With this knowledge, which I am sure the hon. member for Medicine Hat had because he is from Alberta and is knowledgeable about these things, for him to stand up and say that the simple moving of a motion by my colleague, the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands, for a six months delay will hold up research convinces me completely that I should discount his remarks as a lot of froth designed for one purpose only. I believe it is not his purpose to advance the transporting of solids in this manner but to protect some other interests which he did not reveal. Let me read further what the hon. member for Edmonton West said.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: We all know what the hon. member for Edmonton West said. It is recorded in Hansard.


Frank Howard: I have difficulty in understanding the hon. member when he is standing up and has the floor but it is impossible to comprehend what he is muttering from his seat. If the hon. gentleman has something to say or would like to ask me a question he knows the rules, having been an expert on the rules for many years, and he can inquire whether or not I want to yield to a question. It is only then that he will be intelligible, although I doubt it.
Let me read further what the hon. member for Edmonton West said.
Let us face it. Not only were government funds involved in these technical and economic studies but a consortium of about ten Canadian companies which are interested in transport was involved. The Canadian National Railways has an interest in SPRDA. So have the C.P.R., Canadian oil companies, and other industries.
Why should the C.N.R., the C.P.R. and the oil companies and other interested industries not have an interest in the transporting of solids by pipe line? They do not deserve to be in business if they do not have that sort of interest because this is a new mode of
transport and its impact upon the transportation industry far transcends any knowledge the hon. member for Medicine Hat may have about the matter. Its effect upon the Canadian people may be such that it warrants every possible examination of this proposal, including the basic right of any hon. member to move a motion for a six months' delay without having to listen to the dull mutterings which we heard a moment ago about rights, duties and obligations.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Would the hon. member yield the floor for a question? I should like to say for the sake of the record that it is my information, and the hon. member might comment on it, that the work being done by the Alberta Research Council and the Solids Pipelines Research Development Association is in the field of transportation by pipe line in capsule form and that the proposal before the house is for a slurry pipe line, which is quite a different thing. I believe that the research which the hon. member referred to was research on capsule pipe lines.


Frank Howard: I am glad the hon. member asked that question because the house will recall that although he is the sponsor of the bill he was, understandably and for a very good reason, absent from the house when second reading of the bill was moved and his colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Deachman), introduced the bill on his behalf. I was hesitant about the name of the constituency because of the redistribution, and I am not certain what the location of the hon. member is. Thus the confusion.
The house will also remember that the last time this bill was before the house, I think it was a week ago today, I took the course of asking whether the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard would like to make some introductory remarks and explain his position with respect to the bill because he did not have the opportunity to do so the first time. I asked him to make that explanation without closing the debate as normally would be the case. The hon. gentleman then got up and said "I did not ask for any such opportunity". I submit to him that he did not ask for the opportunity then, he did not take it when it was offered to him, and members of the house were therefore not acquainted at an earlier time with the information he has now put forward by way of a question. However, I have no comment to make on whether or not the statement made by the hon. member is factual. I do not doubt his

October 31, 1967
Private Bills
word but I am just not aware of that situation.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: May I ask the hon. member a question? I would like to have his permission first.


Frank Howard: Nothing pleases me more than to give permission to the hon. member for Medicine Hat to do whatever he likes.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Would the hon. member tell the house whether or not he believes that all of the research and experimentation necessary to develop an economically sound pipe line for the transportation of sulphur can be done in a laboratory on a pilot basis or whether it is not also necessary for at least one company to find out whether or not it can be done successfully?
[DOT] (6:30 p.m.)


Frank Howard: We all know there is a great difference between theory and practice. It may be necessary to conduct experiments in connection with the transportation of solids, in whatever form they may be, by whatever mechanism there may be within a pipe line. This does not carry with it the implication that we should place in the hands of the Shell Oil Company the sole responsibility for this method of transportation or say that we want this company to have this position in our economy. If the hon. gentleman had been listening he would have heard the parallel that was drawn between the development of our railroads in this nation, as described by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Cameron), and the position we are in at the moment with regard to solids pipe lines.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: The railways are under the transport act.


Frank Howard: The hon. member sits there muttering, and I cannot hear him. When he sat down here as a Social Crediter he was clear and understandable, but since he has been infected by those who have been vacuumed into the Liberal party he is not so clear. I do not want to delay the vote that may come on this bill. I expressed the view privately to some members who were interested in the bill that I really did not have too much concern about it one way or the other. After looking at the bill initially I thought if we desired to do this sort of thing it would not hurt to go into a few more details about it.

Subsequently, and particularly after listening to the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowi-chan-The Islands, who related to us the historical concept of the development of another mode of transportation in this country which is leaving us in a position of suffering, and after listening to him outline what should be done to preserve the public interest in this particular case, I was influenced to take a second look at the item. I wondered whether or not we should give any endorsation to the proposal at this time.
We have not had a great deal of explanation from the sponsor of the bill. In fact the only words he has uttered in support of it this session were the ones in which he said he did not want to say anything, and the words he uttered in reply to a question relating to the type of research that was being done. In the absence of some announcement of the philosophy behind the introduction of this bill-it may have been given in another session, but we are here now-I wonder whether we should proceed too hastily in the direction of giving the bill passage and referring it to a committee.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I might add that I am not too strongly in favour of the amendment to give six months hoist. In fact at the moment I doubt very much whether I will vote for it. In the light of the way in which parliament has been operating lately we could be sitting here six months from today. Thus, if the amendment passed we would be committed to give second reading to the bill automatically six months from today. This may be an exaggerated interpretation of the rules, but it is an illustration of the way rules are altered in their application. Situations arise which were not foreseen at the time the original concept of the six months hoist was introduced.
I would not want to put myself in the position of supporting an amendment which, if carried, would mean that six months from today an hon. gentleman on the other side might rise on a point of order and say that the house ordered this bill for second reading six months ago. I cannot therefore support the amendment too strongly, although it may be that others who are more knowledgeable as to the rules will convince me it is the thing to do. I simply say that in closing.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question?


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, I think we
should not have a vote between the hours of six and eight o'clock.
October 31. 1967


Stanley Ronald Basford: In view of the fact the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) is not particularly in favour of the amendment, I ask for unanimous consent to have the vote at this time.


Frank Howard: As I pointed out, I am not supporting the amendment too strongly. However, I may change my mind and I should like to have an opportunity to think about it for an hour.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It has been moved by Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands) -


Frank Howard: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have objected to a vote being taken between six and eight o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: May I read the
standing order that is applicable. Standing order 6, paragraph 7 reads:
No vote shall be taken between six o'clock p.m. and eight o'clock p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays-
The Chair has to decide therefore whether or not there is going to be a vote. The Chair must proceed to the point where the house decides a vote is or is not to be taken. If the house decides a vote is to be taken, then that vote will be deferred until eight o'clock. This is my interpretation of the standing order. I must go along with the usual procedure to the point where the house decides a vote is or is not to be taken.
The question is on the amendment. Those in favour will please say yea.


Frank Howard: I am still objecting to a vote being taken.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I must advise the hon. member the Chair is not taking a vote. The Chair is determining whether the house wishes to take a vote.
Those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it; the amendment is lost.
The question is now on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Yea.
Private Bills


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the standing committee on transport and communications.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, June 20, consideration of the motion of Mr. Cameron (High Park) for the second reading of Bill No. C-112, to incorporate Aetna Casualty Company of Canada, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Gilbert (p. 1746).
[DOT] (6:40 p.m.)
Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, on June 20, 1967 when this matter was last considered my colleague from Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) had the floor for a brief moment. Regrettably he is not able to be here at the moment to proceed with his remarks. I think it is common knowledge that he had the unfortunate experience to be hospitalized while attending a conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, that he is now in hospital in another country and accordingly not in a position to be here to proceed with his remarks about Aetna Casualty Company of Canada.
I spoke on this bill on second reading, as did other hon. members, and I cannot take the time of the house to go into the intricacies of detail in connection with the company because this would necessitate rereading from Hansard some of the thoughts expressed by the sponsor of the bill, and others who spoke at an earlier stage.
One of the interesting points about Aetna Casualty Company is that it is the subsidiary of a company based in Hartford, Connecticut. Most of its business is conducted in Canada, but the interesting point is that its business of insurance is carried on with companies that are also subsidiaries of United States corporations.
This, Mr. Speaker, is one of the very bad features of a corporate structure such as this, because there is a sort of closed circuit. One company sets up a subsidiary in Canada, owns and controls it and makes decisions with respect to it, whether it be a production company, a distribution company or what have you. These decisions are not based on the worth that may accrue to Canada but are based upon influences which are brought to bear upon the parent company in another country, in this instance in the United States.
This company based in Hartford, Connecticut has been operating in Canada through

October 31, 1967
Private Bills
its subsidiary for some years, and its subsidiary in Canada has been carrying on its business of insurance with other United States subsidiaries. In other words, there has been no involvement whatever in the day to day economic life of Canada; it is simply an engagement to insure items with which other U.S. subsidiaries would be involved.
I have remarked on another occasion what this bill covers in the way of insurance, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps I may be permitted to relate them to these remarks because they form the principal part of the bill. This company wishes to be incorporated to carry on and transact insurance business in the particular fields and classes of fire insurance, accident insurance, aircraft insurance, automobile insurance, boiler insurance, credit insurance, earthquake insurance, explosion insurance, falling aircraft insurance, forgery insurance, guarantee insurance, hail insurance, impact by vehicles insurance, inland transportation insurance, livestock insurance, machinery insurance, marine insurance, personal property insurance, plate glass insurance, real property insurance, sickness insurance, sprinkler leakage insurance, theft insurance, water damage insurance, weather insurance and windstorm insurance.
I have listed 26 classes of insurance coverage which this company is seeking to have authority to sell in Canada. Presumably they are the classes of insurance that the company has been selling up to now, it having been in existence in this country for some 40 or 50 years. You can see from the recitation of the types of insurance, encompassing the alphabet from A to Z, that almost every type of insurance coverage one can think of is included. In other words this company wants to become involved in the whole range of insurance, with the exception of medical coverage insurance, hospital insurance and the like, and life insurance. Every class of insurance relating to real property is, I presume, included here.
The indication is, Mr. Speaker, that this company wants not only to engage in the full range of insurance coverage but wants this range in order that it may carry on its activities of insuring every type of insurance coverage under the sun with only subsidiaries of United States corporations.
The 1965 premium income of Aetna Casualty increased 17 per cent over the year before, to $665 million. This is a fair sized amount of premium income and I am sure represents millions upon millions of dollars

of real property insured, all of it under the cloak of foreign ownership.
We know the position taken by the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) on foreign ownership. He told us on a nation-wide television broadcast that he is partial to Canadian ownership. We know what is the position of the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Gordon); he has clearly said on many occasions that he is partial to Canadian ownership. There are those in the cabinet who do not disagree in essence with the President of the Privy Council but disagree only about some of his methods. However, they too are partial to the concept of Canadian ownership.
As I have said before on a number of occasions, Mr. Speaker, I think it behooves this parliament to concern itself with Canadian ownership. The Canadian and British Insurance Companies Act requires that companies that sell certain classes of insurance, are newly incorporated and do not have an international connection prior to a certain date, must have the element of Canadian ownership in them that puts majority control in the hands of Canadians. This is the philosophy of the statute law of this parliament as it applies to life insurance companies. The government, through the Prime Minister and others, have clearly said that it is their hope, desire and intention that all companies in Canada will become Canadian owned. To this extent we want to assist in every way we can.
A moment ago, Mr. Speaker, we dealt with a company that fell into this category. We did not touch on the ownership aspect of that matter, but this will arise on another occasion.
[DOT] (6:50 p.m.)
I cannot conceive of this parliament even considering passage of a bill to incorporate a company which is owned and controlled in the United States. The policies of the company are determined by what is valuable for the United States company. The company is to sell insurance only to other subsidiaries of United States owned corporations.
It is bad enough that we are asked to incorporate a company that has shown no interest in becoming Canadian owned, or in being responsible to the Canadian economy and the Canadian society. Yet we are asked to incorporate a company that has not exhibited one iota of interest in becoming Canadian owned; it is to remain exclusively under the control of Aetna Casualty Company of Hartford, Connecticut. This company
October 31, 1967

which seeks incorporation under the aegis of the parliament of Canada will sell its insurance policies only to companies which also are subsidiaries of United States corporations. These subsidiaries in other words will take out insurance policies for any one of the 26 classes of insurance which the company seeking incorporation wishes to sell.
It may be seen that insurance money will be put into the hands of a company which has no direct responsibility to the Canadian economy, in the sense in which other companies that are wholly owned within the nation have responsibility to the economy. It is too much to ask parliament to consider incorporating such company.
Some time ago the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Winters) sent a letter to all such subsidiaries telling them what he thought was involved in good Canadian corporate citizenship-I think that is the term he used. The practice of good Canadian corporate citizenship should not involve, I think, one company being the subsidiary of a second company which sells insurance only to other subsidiaries, thus maintaining a closed circuit so far as money is concerned, with control of the company to be incorporated being retained in the hands of those who live in another nation.
Under such an arrangement insurance premiums paid are directed to a company which is controlled in the United States. I submit that we ought to look at a number of recent precedents that act as guide lines for companies that seek to be incorporated by parliament, or for companies that are subsidiaries of corporations of other nations. One example is that of the Mercantile Bank. I shall not go into details, but here was a situation in which the government of Canada expressed itself firmly and with determination with respect to the matter of Canadian versus foreign ownership, requiring Mercantile Bank within a certain period to comply with the rules of the game, so far as Canada was concerned.
Another precedent was that of United Investment Life Assurance Company, which was a subsidiary of a United States corporation. United Investment came before parliament seeking incorporation. After that company ran into the obstacle of being questioned about its good Canadian corporate structure and citizenship the parent company voluntarily said that within a certain period-and it is only reasonable that some time should be permitted for this to happen-it
Private Bills
was prepared to divest itself of its ownership of the Canadian subsidiary. Failing that, under Canadian insurance legislation, the shares of that company held in the United States would lose their voting power
In other words, if United Investment Life Assurance Company did not comply with the rules as established for Canadian ownership, the shareholdings in the United States would lose their voting authority. That meant that shares held by Canadian shareholders would be the only ones with voting power; hence control of the company would rest in the hands of Canadians.
As I say, we have had two precedents in recent months. United Investment Life Assurance Company came before the house a few days before the summer recess. It was given third reading in July and went to the Senate. I do not know what the Senate has done, but the example of that company, I suggest, ought to be followed by the Aetna Casualty Company of Canada. I commend such a course of action to this company, through the hon. member for High Park, who follows diligently his responsibility in looking after such matters. I am sure that he will communicate with the company to tell them these thoughts-if they do not know them already-and I hope the company will come forward and say, "Yes, we voluntarily believe that what the Prime Minister says should occur, what the Minister of Trade and Commerce thinks should occur with respect to good Canadian corporate citizenship, and what the President of the Privy Council says should occur, will occur, and we shall become a Canadian owned company."


An hon. Member:: Seven o'clock.


Frank Howard: May I call it seven o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hour for consideration of private members business has expired. The house will resume the business which was interrupted at six o'clock.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Batten in the chair.



TREASURY BOARD

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, including grants as detailed in the estimates, $4,478,700.
Herman Maxwell Batten: Order, please. It being seven o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At seven o'clock the committee took recess.

October 31, 1967
Supply-Treasury Board [Translation]


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Maurice Rinfret: Order. The house in committee oi supply, estimates of the Treasury Board for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1968.


Mr. Winch:: Supporting the amendment which is now before us in connection with these estimates, I should like to add an additional reason for believing that something is wrong and that the minister, the department and the government should be condemned rather than commended.
I make reference to what in my belief is the failure of the government to enforce its own regulations with respect to the terms of employment of civil servants. Information coming to my attention leads me to believe that the government is gypping its own employees-that in many cases it is not paying them for the work they are doing.
I should like to remind the minister of the actual wording of the government's own regulations with respect to the remuneration of employees:
Acting Pay
38.	(1) Subject to these Regulations, acting pay shall be paid to an employee from the date on which he is required to perform the duties of the higher position than the one held by him.
(2) Except where the Commission otherwise authorizes, acting pay shall not be paid to an employee for a period in excess of twelve continuous months.
39.	Acting pay shall not be paid to an employee who is required to perform the duties of a higher position than the one held by him for a period of less than two months.
40.	(1) Where an employee is required to perform the duties of a higher position than the one held by him, he shall be paid acting pay
(a)	if there is a scale of rates of pay for the higher position, in accordance with the provisions of section 22 as if he had been appointed to that position; and
(b)	if there is no scale of rates of pay for the higher position, at the rate of pay for that position.
That is the actual wording of the regulations with respect to acting pay in the case of federal civil servants. Mr. Chairman, I have received complaint after complaint from members of the civil service that these regulations are not being carried out. Apparently if one is in the higher echelons employed in a supervisory capacity, and if one has to do the work of someone in a higher grade there is no difficulty whatsoever about getting acting [The Chairman.]
pay, but if one happens to belong to a lower echelon-then just try and get it!
The delays go on and on forever. I was told as recently as last week by civil servants in both Montreal and in Ottawa that these people are kept waiting until either they drop their demands because they are fed up or else leave the job. These people tell me it is not only a question of gypping some of the employees-the practice is actually fraudulent; the government is defrauding its own workers by withholding their legitimate pay. I have personal knowledge of civil servants who have worked for more than a year in a higher grade without being paid the increased amounts to which they were entitled. I have in my possession statements signed by their superiors to the effect that they were doing good work and doing it in a responsible way. Yet when they asked for acting pay, they were refused.
I have seen some of the letters sent out by the deputy ministers and I maintain that these letters are full of evasion, endeavouring to circumvent the wording of the regulations and consequently cheating civil servants of their proper rate of pay. I think this is a disgraceful and disgusting situation. I can call attention to statements in my possession in which supervisors say, for example, "This man performs work over his grade in a satisfactory manner and his knowledge is presently sufficient for this type of work."
Again, I have statements such as the following: "Since this assessor works on the same types of files as a grade 3 assessor with satisfactory result, he is entitled to grade 3 pay." But the employee concerned does not get it-and he has been on this job for more than a year.
I saw a letter from the deputy minister about a week ago. I have read it and re-read it. It is nothing more or less than evasion, and I sincerely hope something will be done about this situation. Anyway, since our civil servants are receiving treatment of this kind from the minister, from the government and from the departmental heads I think there is an additional reason for voting non-confidence on this estimate.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, I shall probably disagree with my colleague and hon. friend, the mover of the subamendment, for a reason which I should like to explain as briefly as possible.
October 31, 1967

Day after day in this house, I hear honourable members ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Sharp) or the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Benson) for salary increases; others ask for the financing of the Dosco deficits, so that a few hundred or thousand people are not put out of work; I hear other members ask the government to take over a shipyard in order to keep in operation a concern which seems to have a deficit; others beg the government to prevent the Canadian National from laying off some employees because the railway wants to proceed with automation, to renovate its operations in order to do away with deficits.
I hear hon. members ask for higher pensions and generous scholarships; others complain that not enough money is allocated for research; some want protection along waterways; others anxiously await medicare; still others say that Expo has resulted in a large deficit and that centennial celebrations have cost a lot of money. All these hon. members would like to get subsidies for their ridings. Meanwhile, at another moment of the debate or at another time of day, I hear from all corners of the house members blame the government for the rising cost of living and the continuous tax increases and say that it is the fault of the government for allowing taxes to increase.
Hearing all those demands, Mr. Chairman, I conclude there is something wrong somewhere and that if we do not want the cost of living and taxes to go up, something will have to hurt somewhere in the present context.
And when I hear the official opposition chide the government for not fulfilling its duties towards the nation, I tell myself it is six of one and half a dozen of the other, because if the opposition were now in power, it would have to operate within the same financial system as the present government and it would have no more latitude.
Then, when there is talk of priorities, I feel that it is a matter of opinion, that if everyone continues to clamor for increases, as I mentioned earlier, everyone is going to pay for it; someone will have to foot the bill, because you cannot expect miracles.
We might do well to pause for a moment and to ask ourselves where such ever-increasing demands will lead us, while at the same time they cause some people to blame the government, rather illogically, with taxing away with one hand what it
Supply-Treasury Board gives with the other, which cannot be avoided anyway. Whatever party is in power, I think this is unavoidable.
We might do well to remind ourselves that our national debt now stands at about $15,971 million, and this is our net debt; our gross debt totals about $26 billion, or something like that. This represents $792.22 per capita, not per family, in Canada. Another thing about which we should remind ourselves, this national debt-and I take my province as a typical case-plus the Quebec debt, which stands at $1,524,800,000, plus the total municipal debt, average out at this time to $2,062.83 per capita in Canada.
If we add to this private debts, that is, debts to banks, finance companies and other similar institutions, it would mean a further amount of $7,062,000,000, or approximately $353.10 per capita. Therefore, the total indebtedness of every Canadian would be $2,415.93. And then, I have omitted school debts, since I do not have those figures. I have not referred to mortgages either, because I did not have time to check the figures.
This means, therefore, if it is admitted for the purpose of this discussion that an average Canadian family comprises 4 persons, the father and mother and two children, that every Canadian family would be indebted for $9,663.72, and, with the interests added, that amount could be almost twice as high, at a conservative estimate, especially for long term commitments. This would represent, therefore, something like a $14,000 debt for every Canadian family.
Mr. Chairman, I think we are faced with a case where the question should be asked: Where are we going? How will all this end? Will we be able one fine day to pass the sponge and wipe out all these debts? We, who are responsible for the public weal, are we justified in continuing to ask the government for increases, benefits and subsidies without thinking that tax increases will be required? Or, Mr. Chairman, are we not faced with a drastic situation that will remind us once again that our financial system is becoming obsolete and that we will have to revise it? Please note that I am not trying to blame either the current government or the official opposition; I say that the two parties alternating at the helm are operating in the situation where they have little elbow room.
The question is probably more relevant than it might seem at first. Might it not be
October 31, 1967

Supply-Treasury Board time to revise in depth our financial and fiscal systems? Like most of my colleagues, I read the vehement protests that came up after the Carter report suggesting a review of taxation which, in some quarters, was considered as rather socialistic. I do not say that I personally approve all the conclusions of the Carter report, but I wonder if its impact might not open the eyes of all Canadians to this situation which will shortly become a dead end, a catastrophe, if not a financial bankruptcy.
Once again, Mr Chairman, I wonder, and I have said this before, if it might not be time to call what I would refer to in a term applied in other areas, the Estates General of high finance in the country, to ask them to submit to self-reform before the demands rise, before protests become more and more vehement, in short, before the demonstrations become violent in many cases due to the problems facing the Canadian people in meeting the demands of a rising cost of living and the rising taxes. Precisely due to everyone's demands, I wonder if it is not time for the Estates General of high finance to meet, examine their own conscience and say: Together with the government, we will undertake a financial reform from which will possibly ensue a parallel tax reform in depth. Possibly, the government might have to go further and borrow some of the ideas of our friends in the New Democratic party who claim that certain high-yield enterprises should be controlled by the government to help lighten the tax load? In this, I will support them more easily than in their demands to cut the minister's salary.
When I heard that, I was tempted to suggest a double salary for the minister who so patiently listened to everything which was said to him this afternoon, but then he would have to pay too much income tax. I shall be satisfied to suggest a salary increase of $1 as a reward for his patience and his good spirits without too much of a burden in terms of income tax.
Mr. Chairman, we are all serious-minded people in this house and the situation is not going to be corrected by talking like Tories or Grits, with that kind of racing game in order to know who will be in power tomorrow, who will have succeeded in further demolishing the party in power, who will have improved the situation, who will have helped to correct it. It will not even be with those insulting criticisms against the government from some high finance leaders, when

in fact they take part in the formulation of the financial policy and share in the responsibility of the situation for which they blame the government.
I say that we are bogged down. All those of goodwill will have to get together and have a close look at the whole financial or taxation system. They will have to decide once and for all to propose basic reforms, fundamental reforms. Conservatives and N.D.P. suggestions will have to be used, and perhaps some from the Creditistes also, as they are not all wrong. Above all, anyone who is entrusted with the common good, all of us here, we shall have to forget our political or electoral ambitions for a few days and decide that we shall get at the root of the problem.
Mr. Chairman, I merely want to recall this: shall we wait till there is a popular uprising to strike at the root of the evil? Let us remember that it is no use preaching to a hungry man. And we already have alarming omens of a revolt threatening every day to generalize, to be increasingly violent.
I think it is time for everyone to sit down and to examine one's conscience, and that will not be done merely by blaming the minister for an alleged carelessness. I for one say that the present minister, who is on the carpet this afternoon, does his utmost, as did his Conservative predecessors-perhaps I was not here to judge them but I was keeping a close watch on the business of the house. I think that all members of this house are men of goodwill who try to do their best, but have to operate within a system leaving them very little latitude.
And I have no desire to blame the minister; I feel inclined instead to extend to him my sympathy and my co-operation, as I would do if a Conservative minister were in his place tonight and would probably be doing his best too, in the circumstances, and would not feel inclined to say that it is because of his inefficiency that things are going wrong.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, in view of the criticism that was raised this afternoon by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre and others in respect of ministers not answering questions I deemed that before the taking of the vote I should get up and say something about the questions which have been raised during this far-ranging debate.
October 31, 1967

The amendment proposed, and which will not be passed, really has no effect at all on my salary. The hon. member I am sure knows this very well and realizes that the result of taking $17,000 from my estimates is that 170 salaries will have to be reduced by $100 or that I fire perhaps a janitor, an elevator operator or a couple of secretaries, or something like that.


An hon. Member:: That is eyewash.


Edgar John Benson: The hon. member for Carleton spoke this afternoon about priorities and asked what are the government's priorities? Since we became the government we have instituted a system involving a five year forecast under which all departments are now submitting their objectives five years in advance. Let me assure the hon. member that when it becomes necessary or when we deem it necessary or in the interests of the country to limit expenditures, this is not done in a haphazard method. I am sure he knows that, having had vast experience on the Treasury Board. What is done is that the proposed expenditures of each department are considered carefully and only selected items of the various departments are removed or revised. This government has decided that it will not have the fiscal mess the Tories had in 1962. It is our responsibility to make sure that the fiscal and monetary policies of this country are handled reasonably and well and we are facing up to those responsibilities.


An hon. Member:: When are you going to start?


Edgar John Benson: Indeed, in 1963-64 after huge deficits under the previous Tory government we almost balanced the budget. In 1967-68 in the face of what looked to be a possibility of increasing unemployment in the country and a decrease in the expansion-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Edgar John Benson: Everybody across the hall- across the chamber from me-warned us about unemployment more than six months ago.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a question of privilege.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, there seems to be a great deal of-


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman.
Supply-Treasury Board


An hon. Member:: Tell the minister to sit down.


Maurice Rinfret: Order, please. The hon. member for Bow River is rising on a question of privilege.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I can be very brief, Mr. Chairman. I should just like to remind the minister that he is not speaking in a hall, and we are not all Liberals on this side of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, if I may continue, this afternoon we heard a great many recommendations from across the hall, but not one except the one from the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, who is very responsible, included a suggestion as to how to reduce expenditures. He suggested that we take $40 million out of contingency vote number 5. That might be a good idea, but parliament has already granted us $26 million of that amount. He did not bring that to the attention of hon. members.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Have you spent it already?


Edgar John Benson: The contingency fund is
cleared out at the end of each year by the repayment from other funds, and as everyone here knows, the only charges to that vote last year, except for some $800, were charges for salary and wage provisions, and additional establishments.
I should like to know from hon. members opposite what they would like us to cut. Would they like us to take away increases to old age pensions, which they suggested should be based on a flat rate of $25 a month?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Be honest. That is not a budgetary item.


Edgar John Benson: Would they like us to-


Mr. Ricard:: It is up to you to determine your priorities.


Edgar John Benson: Would they like us to take away the Canada Assistance Plan? Would they like us to take away supplementary payments on old age pensions? Would they like us not to proceed with medicare-and I believe there are many over there who would want us to do that.


Some hon. Members:: That's right.
3716

Oclober 31, 1967
Supply-Treasury Board


Edgar John Benson: Would they like us not to contribute to the provinces the 50 per cent of the operating costs of post-secondary education, which we have taken on? Would they like us to cut off funds to the Atlantic Development Board, simply because they never provided them in the past?


An hon. Member:: Hogwash. You are not telling the truth.


Edgar John Benson: Do hon. members opposite want us to abolish the retraining program which we have expanded greatly this year at a cost of some $135 million? Do they want us to abolish youth allowances to boys and girls aged 16 and 17 who are continuing in high school?


An hon. Member:: We want to abolish you. t


Edgar John Benson: Do they want us to stop putting funds into ARDA, which we have done to a much greater extent than they ever did?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Edgar John Benson: Do they want us to stop our aid to industry, which is vital if this country is going to expand.


Some hon. Members:: Nonsense.


Edgar John Benson: Do they want us to cut back on C.M.H.C. loans-and this is not a budgetary item, but in respect of which hon. members opposite mentioned boastfully this afternoon they had only $100 million in loans some years ago? We have put over $600 million of government money into loans this year for housing alone.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Be honest.


Edgar John Benson: Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, they would like us to decrease the subsidies to milk producers, which we gave last year after urging from the other side?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, I cannot
understand why members opposite are so upset. They asked me to reply to their questions, and I am attempting to do just that.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Why not answer them
honestly?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, there were a number of references from the opposite side of the house this afternoon to vote 5, and claims about its misuse. Vote 5 was used once

last year to meet salaries and wages of civil servants. It was proposed by the hon. member for Carleton, and I agree with him, that civil servants should not be subjected to blackmail. I agree; but I also believe that the employees of contractors, who cannot be paid when the opposition attempts to blackmail the government, should also receive sympathy from the members of this house.
I can assure hon. members opposite that it would not have been necessary to use vote 5, although we did have legal opinion that this was quite proper, if hon. members opposite last fall had not been trying to blackmail the government at a time when they had something going on down at the Chateau Laurier.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
Now, Mr. Chairman, there really were not a great many other items raised this evening, except the one raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre in respect of which he says he has based his amendment on the matter of pensions for retired civil servants. Members of the house know my position on this matter. They also know the position of the government at the present time is that this is a matter which is receiving consideration by the government. It is a government responsibility and an announcement will be made in due course.


Gordon Minto Churchill: You said that last night.


An hon. Member:: For the fiftieth time.
Another hon. Member: Give him a hanker-chief.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, I think I have referred to all the questions that were asked this afternoon. Indeed there were not very many questions asked. There were a lot of very general statements made this afternoon about monetary and fiscal responsibility, and references to other things such as no forward planning, and so on. I believe that if members would look back at the speech I made during the budget debate they will find exactly what we are doing with regard to forward planning. I see no reason to repeat that speech at this particular time.
In conclusion I should simply like to thank the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres for suggesting that my salary be increased by one dollar. Indeed, I would not mind having my salary cut by one dollar.


An hon. Member:: Oh, how generous.


Edgar John Benson: The motion before the house, however, really has nothing whatsoever to do with my salary. It is simply a motion which
October 31. 1967

expresses the dissatisfaction of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre with regard to the government's handling of the suggestion from the committee that pensions for retired civil servants be increased. He is perfectly within his right to put forward this kind of motion. I trust the house will make its decision on it.


Mr. Monteith:: Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to participate in this debate on the estimates of the Treasury Board this afternoon and this evening, until I heard this very political speech of the minister. It reminded me of the first budget of the hon. member for Davenport, and the time the Secretary of State, the ex-minister of national health and welfare, introduced the first attempt at the Canada Pension Plan. There was nothing but politics at that time. I should like to say that there is only one thing which matters in respect of this particular situation; that is, the complete incompetence and irresponsibility of the government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jay Waldo Monteith: The government has failed completely in its responsibility to the Canadian people. On June 1 last the Minister of Finance introduced a budget. At that time we told him he was facing a difficult situation so far as Canada was concerned. This situation has steadily developed along the lines we predicted at that time. Although he should have, the minister did not take our advice. He was told what we faced-inflation, a higher cost of living, and all these things with which the Canadian taxpayer is so concerned.
Today we are facing another mini-budget of some kind. As the hon. member for Carle-ton said, we have had three in less than a year, and this one undoubtedly will increase taxes. I am concerned tonight for Canada. These people across the aisle are not doing what they should be doing. They should be paying attention at this time to the estimates for the year 1967-68 and not for the year 1968-69, which they are only playing around with in cabinet. The Minister of Public Works last night suggested they are dropping a certain amount. How much is it? It is in this evening's Ottawa Journal. I will not take the time to look it up, but the amount I believe is many millions of dollars. He said they would cut off the construction of the garage underneath the hill. This is a presumed expenditure for 1968-69. We do not know what in the world it is all about. He said they would take tenders in November, 27053-2351
Supply-Treasury Board and that there would not be any money spent on this until next year. There is nothing in this year's estimates.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: The one dollar item was taken out.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Jay Waldo Monteith: Mr. Chairman, it was not in the original estimates.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Order, please. Perhaps
members of the committee will give the Chairman an opportunity to hear what is being said.


Jay Waldo Monteith: One dollar in the supplementary estimates was taken out. What ridiculous nonsense; subterfuge and camouflage is all it is.
Mr. Chairman, as I said at the beginning, I had not intended to participate in this debate, but the sham which has been going on across the aisle in this chamber has got my goat; I can't take it. I refuse to accept the sham that is being thrown out by this government, when members of the government are trying to indicate that they are making savings to the credit of the Canadian people. If they want to talk about the 1968-69 estimates, then I say to them: Bring them out; tell us what you are reducing and from what figure. As the hon. member for Carleton said this afternoon, this is something which has been done throughout history; the original estimates are presented to the Treasury Board and they are pruned. Of course they are. As a member of the Treasury Board I know all about this. I should say, as an ex-member of the Treasury Board-excuse me. I would not want to be a member of this Treasury Board.
I shall say nothing more other than this: The government has been trying to bamboozle the Canadian people. The members of the government have been trying to indicate that they are making great savings. Not one saving has been indicated against the 1967-68 estimates. I want to see where they are making savings. It is just subterfuge on their part when they attempt to suggest they are making savings against the 1968-69 estimates. This is nothing but the greatest sham the Canadian people have ever had to face.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, may I ask a
question of the minister. Will he take action to see that the civil servants are paid according to the work they are doing.

October 31, 1967
Supply-Treasury Board


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, I must apologize for not having dealt with this particular question. I have not had any particular instances brought to my attention by the hon. member. I can assure him that if he will bring these instances to my personal attention I will see that every single instance he brings up is looked into.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Chairman, would the minister answer a question. The minister stated-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Chairman, I am not sure whether members of the house are asking for a speech or a question. I will restrict myself to a question. The minister told us that he has already made use of $26 million out of the contingency fund. Would he indicate for what purposes that money has been used.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, I did not say I had made use of $26 million. I said that parliament had voted in interim supply $26 million of the $40 million amount.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I have a supplementary question then. Why did the minister ask for a portion of that money in interim supply if he was not going to make use of it? What has happened to the $26 million?


Edgar John Benson: I have here seven pages listing the amounts that have been used out of the contingency vote. When the estimates were granted they were repaid out of the estimates approved by the house.


Gordon Minto Churchill: This is a double shuffle.


Jay Waldo Monteith: In other words the minister used it at random.


Edgar John Benson: Pardon me. The seven pages of items are from the 1966-67 estimates. As my hon. friend and those opposite who have been in the Treasury Board in the past know, the standard procedure is that items such as payments of $400,000 to milk producers in 1966-67 were financed out of the contingency vote and repaid when parliament approved the estimates. I would be very pleased to go over the whole list or to provide it to anyone who would want to read the 1966-67 items paid out of the contingency vote.


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Chairman, if the President of the Treasury Board would undertake as soon as Mr. Speaker is in the chair to ask leave to table this document, so that it would be available to all of us, it would be acceptable to us.


Edgar John Benson: I would be very pleased to dc that, Mr. Chairman.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Chairman-


An hon. Member:: Here is the Chinese war lord.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: They are like crows on a fence, Mr. Chairman.

In other parts we call them the yapping jackals.
Perhaps the minister may be able to
explain where reductions have been made in the increased costs. Yesterday a return was filed to a question that I had put on June 23 last which was formulated in the same way as a question which I had filed in February, and on which the return had been made on March 1. My question was as follows;
As of June 15, 1967, how many persons In the employ of (a) the public service of Canada (b) the armed services (c) crown corporations or agencies, were being paid salary or pay and allowances, or emoluments in the following categories (i) $18,000-$20,000 per annum (ii) $20,000-$25,000 per annum (iii) $25,000-$35,000 per annum (iv) $35,000 and up per annum?
The answer is very illuminating. In the year 1966 there was a total of 1576 persons in that over-all category who were being paid $18,000 or more per year. In the public service category there were 522 at $18,000 or more; 397 at $20,000 to $25,000; 67 in excess of $25,000 and 23 in excess of $35,000. The armed services had 159 persons at $18,000 or more; 50 at $20,000 to $25,000; 12 at $25,000 to $35,000.
In the crown corporations there were 195 persons at $18,000; 116 at $20,000 to $25,000; 28 at $25,000 to $35,000; and 7 earning in excess of $35,000.
To that was attached a rider that Air Canada, the C.N.R., the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation and the Polymer Corporation advise that it has not been considered in the best interests of their
October 3L 1967

respective corporations to disclose data on employees' earnings other than what is available through the Dominion Bureau of Statistics.
Now comes the answer which was furnished to me on Monday last. May I point out that the total has jumped from 1576 to 2218 in the period of nine months.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Minto Churchill: There is a 40 per cent increase.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: According to my calculations this is just in excess of a 40 per cent increase in the total number of people in the $18,000 a year category, and over. I am sure this is recorded in yesterday's Hansard but for the purpose of this record I will repeat it today. The answer to my question was as follows with respect to the Public Service: (i) 922; (ii) 576; (iii) 33; (iv) nil. I do not know what has happened in the interval to the 23 who last October were getting over $35,000. The Secretary of State will have to explain how that discrepancy has arisen.
In the armed services we have the following figures: (i) 157; (ii) 53; (iii) 10; (iv) nil. As a matter of fact there has been a slight diminution in numbers in the armed services.
In the crown corporations we have the following figures: (i) 274; (ii) 162; (iii) 32; (iv) 9. I agree that as regards the crown corporations these are not budgetary items but I suggest that all of the others are. Possibly there may be a slight exception where a statutory salary is paid, but most of the salaries are fixed by order in council or at the senior level of the public service. We must consider this answer in the light of the continued refusal to consider the retired civil servants, who have not had an adjustment since 1958, some of them not at all because they did not qualify for the revision at that time. I think the minister was patently dishonest with the house in that he was speaking about non-budgetary items, while we have been talking about budgetary items.
I also wish to refer to the Minister of Public Works. Last night no indication was given of the fate of the items that appear for the Ottawa area or in fact anywhere else that are listed in the estimates for this year. We are not speaking about next year's estimates. It has been repeated almost ad nauseam that it would be possible to work out a system whereby $3 billion could be cut from the estimates for next year. All one would have to do is to indicate to the departments
Supply-Treasury Board that they bring in everything they have, and then these excessive proposals would be trimmed. This is a simple exercise. The frequent references in the press to the amounts that are cut back in the estimates are pure fluff and propaganda of the worst kind. What is interesting to Canadians as a whole is what the government is doing with this year's expenses, and what it is doing to encourage the provinces to cut back. For instance we want to know from the Minister of National Health and Welfare or from the Minister of Finance what has happened to the Health Resources Fund, the $500 million which was a condition prerequisite to medicare. Everybody had been complaining that there was a shortage of doctors and nurses. The government's answer was to propose the granting of $500 million over a period of, I believe, 15 years to the provinces and universities for the provision of medical facilities.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
What has happened? Today the provinces are cutting back on precisely these items. In my home city of Edmonton there was an $88 million medical centre proposed, for the purpose of medicare as it now exists in Alberta. Capital construction programs had been forecast for the universities in Calgary and Edmonton for the next five years at a cost of over $300 million. The province has told the three unversities at Lethbridge, Calgary and Edmonton they will have to get along with $175 million among the three of them. The minister of health for the province has announced the indefinite deferment of most of the medical centre. Alberta is not an isolated case.
What happens now as a result of the deferment of these medical facilities, which are a condition prerequisite to medicare? Are we going to go on blindly, notwithstanding, and institute medicare? I think that would be the height of folly. Until we are ready to institute medicare on a proper basis, it would be better to carry on with the schemes that are in existence in the majority of the provinces. The provincial governments are coping with the facilities they have and doing the best job they can within their resources. In my opinion, this is an absolute must at this time; otherwise we can say to the government what the financial writers have been warning the government for some time. If the Minister of Finance and his colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, are unable to hear those warnings the crisis or storm which will occur

October 31, 1967
Supply-Treasury Board Will make the 1962 crisis appear to be a soft, gentle breeze.


Mr. Gordon:: Oh, oh.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The President of the Privy Council dismisses this as airy, fairy stuff. I suggest to him that he should read what many financial authorities are saying. Their knowledge of finance is as great as, if not greater than his. These are the points I wanted to make with regard to the minister's speech.


Edgar John Benson: I am sorry, but my hon. friend apparently wants me to hear complaints and not answer questions. I could not gather the exact implication of his reference to civil service salaries. I was wondering if he meant that civil servants were overpaid.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Oh, you are a smart aleck.


Edgar John Benson: I certainly don't think they are. I believe civil servants are reasonably well paid, and I think we should continue to be reasonable employers. I believe also the hon. member will find that the number of persons in the income categories he talked about, as compared with private industry, is much lower proportionately than is the case in private industry.
Then he mentioned the statutory items. The statutory items are in the blue book and form part of the budget, but we cannot cut them. The total expenditures include the statutory items.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I am sure the minister did not want to impute a wrong motive to me. What I was talking about was the grossly overswollen numbers in the public service.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just before the vote is taken, if it is about to be taken, Mr. Chairman, may I say a further word. In the closing remarks of the speech the President of the Treasury Board made a short while ago he correctly described my amendment. The amount of the reduction suggested in the amendment happens to be the amount of his salary and car allowance as a member of the cabinet, not counting his indemnity and the allowance he gets as a member of parliament. The purpose of the amendment, as confirmed by the President of the Treasury Board, is to express the dissatisfaction of the House of Commons over the way in which the President of the Treasury Board and the government have handled a very important matter.

I take issue with him, however, when he refers to that important matter as merely a suggestion made by a committee. Yes, it was a suggestion made by a committee, Mr. Chairman; but to call it only a suggestion is an indication of the failure of the government to take it seriously. As the hon. member for Ottawa East, who I hope is with us on this issue, will confirm, this was a positive recommendation made unanimously by a joint committee representing all parties in this house and representing both houses of parliament.
The committee itself was given the subject by the House of Commons on a motion made by the government. The government took seven months to make the decision to present the motion for the whole question to be referred to that committee, from June, 1966 to January, 1967. The committee considered this matter in all its implications. There were witnesses representing the retired civil servants, the armed forces and the R.C.M.P. There were government people heard. We went into the whole question of the state of the superannuation fund, the cost, and all the rest of it. We considered all the possible ways of dealing with the matter. We came up with a unanimous recommendation which was presented to this House of Commons on the morning of Monday, May 8. That day the President of the Treasury Board said the matter would be given active consideration. Every week, and in fact sometimes two or three times a week, from May 8 until July 7, the President of the Treasury Board and the Prime Minister assured us the matter was receiving active consideration.
I have quotations here on my desk, including most of my questions and the answers I received, but I shall not take the time to read them into the record. The Prime Minister said several times that he hoped a decision would be made shortly. When we rose on July 7 and had to leave the matter over until the fall, we were assured that the matter would be dealt with when we met in September. Here we are in the fifth or sixth week of the fall session and the President of the Treasury Board asks us to accept his assurance that the matter will be dealt with in due course.
This is not good enough. Therefore, I hope the committee will support my amendment, and in so doing will register its dissatisfaction over the way in which the government has handled this important matter. If this vote says anything, I hope it will say to the government, in the name of the people for
October 31, 1967

whom we speak, that we want action on this issue. I hope we will have the support of all those who are concerned about this issue, and in particular the support of members such as the hon. member for Ottawa West, the hon. member for Ottawa East, the hon. member for Russell, and others who are aware of the seriousness of the problem. I commend this amendment to the support of the committee.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Is the committee ready for the question?
Amendment (Mr. Knowles) negatived: Yeas, 76; nays, 87.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)


Herman Maxwell Batten: I declare the amendment lost.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Government administration-
5. Contingencies-Subject to the approval of the treasury board, to supplement other votes for paylist and other requirements and to provide for miscellaneous minor and unforeseen expenses not otherwise provided for including awards under the Public Servants Inventions Act, and authority to re-use any sums allotted for non-paylist requirements and re-paid to this appropriation from other appropriations, $45,000,000.
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Chairman, in view of what I have said previously I now move:
That item No. 5 of the estimates of the Treasury Board be reduced by the sum of $40 million.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Is the committee ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.
Amendment (Mr. Lambert) negatived: Yeas, 73; nays 88.


Herman Maxwell Batten: I declare the amendment lost. Shall vote 5 carry?


Jay Waldo Monteith: Just one point, Mr. Chairman. I know that this afternoon the minister was trying to explain to the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre why in the 1967-68 estimates the expenditure for the previous year was $29 million, plus, whereas actually $110 million was voted. I am a very humble chartered accountant, as is the minister, and I am wondering whether he could explain this in simple terms so that I can understand it.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Chairman, the amount that appeared in the original estimates is the amount shown in the blue book. Vote No. 5, which used to be vote 15, is added to each
Supply-Treasury Board time there is the necessity to make a salary revision or retroactive pay increase. During the year these came to a total of $96,187,420. Establishment additions and underestimates came to $10,039,250, giving a total of $106,226,670. Each amount was included in the supplementary estimates, which accumulated to the total of $110 million. Allotted, and remaining a charge under this vote other than salaries, was only $808, and there were lapses of $3,772,502.


Jay Waldo Monteith: Am I right in suggesting, then, that the $29 million was something that was not picked up from other departments by reason of supplementary estimates?


Edgar John Benson: What happened was that the vote started out at $29 million. Then as we moved along it was added to by way of supplementary estimates as necessary in order to cover items that had not been reimbursed at that point through supplementary estimates. I have a list that I will table when we move out of committee, and I will table the list at the very first opportunity.
At the end of the year all items except the item of $808 and the salary adjustments had been repaid to the vote after approval by the house in the estimates.


Jay Waldo Monteith: Well, Mr. Chairman, I do not want to hold up the committee, but I wonder whether the minister would sit down with me some time and kindly explain the whole situation.


Edgar John Benson: My hon. friend is an accountant, and I am too, so we speak the same language. I would be very pleased to do that.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Shall vote 5 carry?


Gordon Minto Churchill: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
6b. To provide that where a person referred to in subsection (3) of section 4 of the Statute Law (Superannuation) Amendment Act, 1966, has made an election referred to therein before the expiration of six months after the coming into force of this provision, such election shall be deemed to have been made within the time prescribed therefor by section 4 of the Public Service Superannuation Act, $1.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
Thomas Miller Bell: This is another of those $1 items. Perhaps the minister would explain why the government is using this highly unsatisfactory device instead of following the suggestions which have been made with respect to a statute law amendment act?

October 31, 1967
Supply-Treasury Board


Edgar John Benson: I also believe that in due course we might consider the Statute Law Amendment Act with respect to such items. This item is to take care of a particular difficulty which, as my hon. friend knows, often arises under the superannuation account. There are some $1 items with respect to it from year to year. This is done to assist those who are unfairly treated in the superannuation law, because of some technicality. At some time in the future some amendments under a Statute Law Amendment Act might take care of this.


Richard Albert Bell: Who are those who are being unsatisfactorily treated, and who require this $1 item to take care of them? I do not like to see such problems arising after the amendments made as recently as the last session of parliament.


Edgar John Benson: I have not the details of the particular item here, but I shall be pleased to get them and let my hon. friend know what is involved.


Mr. Fulton:: Can the minister tell me whether this item will cover those who were supposed to make an election with respect to special benefits? I am talking of a provision that is available to ex-members of the armed forces who have the insurance provision available to them, who joined the civil service and then, after leaving the civil service, were required to make an election within one month. Some of them failed to do so. Will they be covered by this provision?


Edgar John Benson: If my hon. friend will wait for a moment I shall try to answer that question.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Why not let that stand and take up item 10?


Edgar John Benson: Could we let this item stand, and go on with item 10?


Richard Albert Bell: While the minister is getting the answer to the point that has just been raised will he look at another point and perhaps deal with both at the same time? The item I refer to is the one immediately following item 10. It is also a $1 item and was put in, in order to deem "the expression 'regulations made under... the Public Service Superannuation Act' ". This includes certain regulations under the Financial Administration Act. Why, when we legislate by a $1 item, is it necessary to have in the estimates a situation whereby you take out of the estimates something. It may sound confusing, but does this mean that we no longer tMr. Bell (Carleton).]
"deem". Why does this item arise. What is the reason for it?


Edgar John Benson: Perhaps I can first answer the question about vote 6. It involves persons who did not get enough time to elect for civilian war service under existing legislation.


Richard Albert Bell: My only point is that we legislate by a $1 in one year; then we come along and, as it were, unlegislate by a $1 item. This is getting to the height of ridiculousness.


Gordon Minto Churchill: This is the only reduction in the estimates for 1967-68.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Shall item 6(b) carry?


Edmund Davie Fulton: No, Mr. Chairman. I asked a question. I agree with my colleague for Carleton thoroughly that legislating by $1 items in the estimates is bad practice, and sloppy. It shows that the government has not anticipated those things it ought to have anticipated. Nevertheless, we are asked to legislate by this $1 item.
We are being asked:
To provide that where a person referred to in subsection (3) of section 4 of the Statute Law-
And this item refers to the Superannuation Act:
-has made an election referred to therein before the expiration of six months after the coming into force of this provision, such election shall be deemed to have been made within the time prescribed therefor by section 4 of the Public Service Superannuation Act.
Obviously, this provision is designed to ensure that those who have not made an election within the time prescribed by the Superannuation Act, will, if they make an election within six months of the coming into force of this provision, be deemed to have made the election in time.
It so happens that recently several cases have come to my attention involving exmembers of the armed forces. They were entitled to what is known as special death benefits by way of an insurance policy which is made available to the government through the veterans legislation. If such persons join the public service the premiums of that insurance policy, as I understand it, are paid by having deductions made from their salaries as public servants. If they retire from the public service-and I am afraid I do not know the details-there is some provision that they must make an election in order that their premiums may continue to be deducted
October 31, 1967

from the pension they receive. They have to make that election within 30 days of their retirement from the public service.
I have been informed of instances, and I am told that there are other instances, where persons retiring from the public service did not have this provision drawn to their attention. They assumed that automatically they would be restored to their former status and that the deduction would be made from their pension. They now find that, not having signed the form to make an election to be restored to their former status, their right to the special death benefit is being questioned. I wish to know whether the provision we are now being asked to legislate in this manner will apply to those former members of the armed forces who, being entitled to special death benefits, after joining the civil service and retiring from the civil service and not having elected within the time prescribed, are to have the provisions made available to them which appear to be available to ordinary members of the civil service.


Edgar John Benson: This provision is not to cover the circumstances referred to by my hon. friend. This extension is to deal with persons who did not get enough time to elect for civilian war service, and is with respect to superannuation accounts. I shall be pleased to look into the situation my hon. friend has referred to, which is a different situation, and we shall see what if any action is justified.
With regard to the other item which was raised, the question was asked with respect to delegislating, as it were, with a $1 item in the estimates. We are not doing that. The $1 item is being shown in the 1966-67 column to record the amounts voted for that year. The $1 item was, in fact, voted for 1966-67 and no corresponding authority is required for 196768 since the 1966-67 authority continues into 1967-68. This item is put in for purposes of comparison only.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)


Jay Waldo Monteith: On a point of order, I take exception to the wasting of the time of this committee while the minister waits for information from the gallery in answer to some of the questions which have been directed to him.


An hon. Member:: Cheap.


Jay Waldo Monteith: The minister cannot, of
course, be expected to know all the answers and no one has suggested he should. But it
Supply-Treasury Board used to be the case that a minister piloting his estimates through the committee had his officials before him and answers could be given much more rapidly. I object to the fact that we are wasting the time of the committee purely to satisfy the ego of ministers who imagine they can get their estimates through without any help.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
10. Government's share of surgical-medical insurance premiums and government's contributions to pension plans and death benefit plans for employees engaged locally outside Canada who are excluded from the Public Service Superannuation Act, to the unemployment insurance fund in respect of government employees paid through the central pay office and to the hospital insurance (outside Canada) plan, $16,980,000.
Thomas Miller Bell: Before the final item carries may I direct a question to the minister and ask him as simply as possible whether there will be any reduction of any kind in any item of these present estimates? Will the appropriation bill which is to come before us on Thursday night be in the exact amount of the estimates which are before the house, or will there be any of these reductions about which there have been leaks to newspapers to the extent of $125 million or $200 million? If there are to be any such reductions, where will they appear? Will the minister say whether there are or are not such reductions? Will he, on this final estimate of the Treasury Board, take this committee fully into his confidence?


Edgar John Benson: We have made it perfectly clear that we are dealing with the 1968-69 estimates in relation to items which are presently being reviewed. We have made it clear on every occasion-


An hon. Member:: Except to the press.


Edgar John Benson: -and also to the press that we are now working on the 1968-69 estimates. The Minister of Finance has said he feels that the budget of this year was quite appropriate in the circumstances of this year, and this is still our position. The estimates which will be approved tomorrow night or Thursday night, I believe, will be the estimates which have been passed by the house, including the supplementary estimates. If, due to a reduction of programs which would come into effect before the end of this fiscal year, and which would be in March, there is any lessening of the amount, this will of course be reflected in lapses in the estimates.
3724

October 31, 1967
Supply-Treasury Board


Thomas Miller Bell: The minister has now made it evident that there is no attempt on the part of the government to effect any savings with respect to the estimates for the current year-they are to be exactly what they were, and all these stories which were linked with the press, and which appeared in the newspapers about savings of $175 million and $200 million in the current year are total eyewash.


Some hon. Members:: Hear hear.


Edgar John Benson: On a question of privilege; no one to my knowledge has ever said that $175 million a year or anything else would be saved in the current year. It has always been clear to everyone involved that we were dealing.with next year's estimates.


Thomas Miller Bell: We are talking about an entirely different situation. The figures which have been mentioned were in relation to the current year.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Thomas Miller Bell: All right. Now the minister is telling us that the government is attempting only to cut off $175 million or $200 million next year. Is that right?


Edgar John Benson: No, that is not correct. The amount is much greater than $175 million. We started off with cuts amounting to over $600 million in proposed expenditures for next year. That was the first round. The second round of cuts is now in progress.


Thomas Miller Bell: There. The type of eyewash, the type of propaganda which this government has fed to the newspapers, is now totally exposed. What they have been leaking to the newspapers is that in the current year there were cuts amounting to $175 million or $200 million. They were suggesting that in the next year the amount would be $750 million or $825 million. Figures for next year are totally meaningless because any cut mentioned would represent a reduction from a figure which was nothing more than the original spending proposals of the departments. The fact is, the minister has now made it abundantly clear that the government has no plan for saving and that it will merely carry on a propaganda war.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Deachman:: On a point of order: What is abundantly clear is that hon. members opposite have been sitting here and voting

without understanding what is going on in the committee.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Fulion:: I should like to ask the President of the Treasury Board, now that my hon. friend from Carleton has smoked him out with regard to these so-called savings in expenditures, to tell us by what amount next year's estimates exceed this year's.


Edgar John Benson: The Minister of Finance has said that in the next fiscal year we should balance our budget on a national accounts basis. He knows that the deficit for this year was estimated as some $740 million. He also knows that the deficit on an ordinary accounting basis will be between $200 million and $300 million if accounts are to be balanced on a national accounts basis.


James Ross Fulton: That does not answer the question. We are being told the government is pruning $750 million or perhaps $825 million off the estimates, which we now find are next year's proposed estimates. What I want to know is the amount by which the proposed estimates for next year exceed the actual estimates for this year. I expect they exceed this year's figures by probably $1.5 billion, so a cut of $825 million will still leave us with a substantial increase in government spending next year as compared with this year. I ask the minister to open up this subject. Let him tell us what was the increase in next year's proposed estimates as compared with this year's estimates.


Edgar John Benson: The hon. member will have to wait until he sees next year's estimates, which we shall table in the house in due course as we are required to do when the amount of the estimates is finally determined.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I do not propose to wait until the minister tables them next year. This afternoon-and I suggest it was a breach of the Privy Council oath-the Minister of Public Works made a statement that an item included in next year's estimates had been eliminated. Admittedly, it was not very large-it was a $1 estimate, not in itself a very great saving and a long way from $825 million. Now the President of the Treasury Board has referred to next year's estimates and the subject is before us for discussion. We do not propose to carry this year's estimates until he tells us by how much the proposed estimates presented to him exceed the total of this year's estimates, and thus determine the
October 31. 1967

extent of the bluff attached to the so-called savings drive by this government.


An hon. Member:: Silence.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think the President of the Treasury Board forgets that the government is accountable to the House of Commons and to the committee of supply and that he is required to answer questions put by the committee before his estimates can be carried.


Edgar John Benson: I am quite willing to answer any questions on the estimates which are before the committee, the 1967 estimates. I am not prepared to answer questions on estimates which have not been presented to the house.


Edmund Davie Fulton: In view of this unprecedented refusal to answer questions-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -with respect to matters which the minister himself has brought into discussion, I move that the committee do rise and report progress.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Herman Maxwell Batten: Order, please. May I have the motion in writing? During discussion of vote 10 of the estimates of the Treasury Board, Mr. Fulton moved that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the said motion?
Motion (Mr. Fulton) negatived: Yeas, 32; Nays, 89.


Mr. Webb:: Mr. Chairman, the only reason I rise is to raise a point of order. One of the members who took part in this debate not too long ago contravened his oath in committee, another committee of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Roderick Arthur Ennis Webb: It is shame on the part of the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra who took part a few minutes ago in this debate and I do not think he should have been recognized by the Chair or by the house.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Herman Maxwell Batten: Order, please. This completes the estimates of Treasury Board. The committee will now take up the estimates of the Department of Agriculture for the final year ending March 31, 1968. Vote No. 1 will 27053-236i
Supply-Agriculture
be found on page 8 of the blue book, and the details on page 11.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration including the Canadian agricultural services co-ordinating committee, contributions to the Commonwealth agricultural bureaux, and a contribution to the agricultural economics research council in an amount equal to one-half the contributions to the council from other sources during the fiscal year but not exceeding $50,000, $6,652,800.
Herman Maxwell Batten: Shall Vote No. 1 carry?


Hon. J. J. Greene (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Chairman, no doubt it will be a pleasant change for the committee to move from the vitriolic fields of the Privy Council to the gentle, bucolic glades of agriculture.
Rather than take the time of the committee at the present time with a detailed review of the specific items in the estimates I feel it might be useful to spend a few moments reviewing very briefly some aspects of the situation in Canadian agriculture. The timing is particularly appropriate in that we now have available some of the data collected by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics in the 1966 census.
To me it is of particular interest to note the adjustments that have taken place and are taking place in Canadian agriculture, adjustments which will produce in Canada a more viable and effective agriculture and which should do much to correct the difficulties that have plagued not only Canadian agriculture but agriculture pretty well all over the world in the past few years. I think the generic problem of agriculture in the past few years has been the trend to larger units, the urban trend, the movement of population from the land to urban municipalities. This results not only from new opportunities in urban centres but from the new efficiencies in agriculture which enable a far higher rate of production than was possible in the past and which render a need for fewer people in agriculture than used to be the case in the past.
It is worthy of note that during the five years from 1961 to 1966 Canadian agricultural production has risen very significantly. Returns to farmers have moved upwards and this has all been accomplished with no significant increase of land under production, although there has been a spectacular increase in recent years in the percentage of improved land making up the total land area in Canada's farms.

October 31, 1967
Supply-Agriculture
Cash income from the sale of farm produce in the year 1961 totalled $2.89 billion. In 1966 the figure stood at $4.23 billion, a growth of 46 per cent.
In the same time total net income, that is, realized gross earnings minus operating and depreciation charges and adjustments for the value of inventory changes, rose from $935 million to $1,978 million, a growth of 112 per cent. But perhaps the most outstanding feature of these changes has been that these increases in farm income have been brought about by growth in productivity and efficiency on the part of Canadian farmers. This is well demonstrated by the fact that in 1961 the Canadian consumer spent 23.8 per cent of his or her income on the purchase of food, while in 1966 this dropped to 21.9 per cent, one of the lowest levels of all the countries of the world.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
How was this accomplished? As I mentioned earlier, one important factor is the continued adjustment by the farmer himself. While I think it is true that from time to time there has been consumer unrest, when they have complained regarding the increasing cost of food, in fairness to the farm community it should be pointed out, as I have tried to point out today, that the Canadian wage earner is spending a smaller and smaller percentage of his income on food. This can be attributed to the efficiency and greater productivity of the farmer. Surely the Canadian consumer cannot expect to find higher and higher wages in the marketplaces where he or she labours, and at the same time not expect that the farmer should have a commensurately increasing income for his efforts.
Looking first at average farm size, in 1961 the average Canadian farm consisted of 359 acres. By 1966 this had risen by 13 per cent to 404 acres. While the figures vary greatly from area to area, with farms in Saskatchewan averaging 763 acres, all areas showed distinct growth in farm size.
In respect of livestock and poultry products, specialization has continued to be the order of the day. For example the average number of hogs on farms has risen almost 50 per cent in 5 years from 24 head to 35 head. In respect of dairy cattle a like trend is indicated. While adjustments were slower a 20 per cent increase in average herd size was experienced during the period 1961 to 1966.
The importance of this adjustment in livestock production units can best be realized

when one notes that returns from livestock make up about 55 per cent of the farm cash income that Canadian farmers received in 1966. Beef production continues to grow in importance, with the percentage of farm cash income from livestock and livestock products attributable to the beef enterprise rising in the past ten years from 28 per cent to 38 per cent.
Although as a result of climatic conditions wheat production has fluctuated, and 1967 represented a downward fluctuation, without exception the agricultural community has been astounded by the actual crops grown. This would not have been the case were it not for the changed technology, the improvements that farmers have wrought and the results of research. Normally western farmers can expect 9 to 12 inches of rainfall during the growing season. This year in Alberta and Manitoba this was down 31 per cent and 27 per cent respectively below normal. Saskatchewan received an average of only 4.55 inches which is 50 per cent below normal. This was lower than our traditionally bad year of 1937 when an average of 5.8 inches of rain fell in Saskatchewan from April to September. That year Saskatchewan farmers produced only 36 million bushels of wheat at 2.6 bushels per acre. This year the average for this big wheat province is forecast at 15.8 bushels per acre.
These adjustments and the technological changes have been assisted by government policies, in part through the operations of the Farm Credit Corporation. In view of some comment the other day in this house I should like to point out that last year Canadian farmers grew the biggest wheat crop in history. While they and they alone can claim the credit for that magnificent production, I suggest that government policy and the general burgeoning of the economy of the country have brought about some effect, and certainly contributed to the farmers' confidence in growing that size of crop.
Also last year the largest wheat crop in Canadian history was sold. Certainly in the past few years the order of the day has been not only for more and more production but greater sales of wheat. When we think of the past I think the largest sale was one of 340 million bushels. Last year we were playing an entirely new game in sales when they exceeded 500 million bushels on the export markets.
Hon. gentlemen opposite were most concerned last year about the price of wheat.


An hon. Member:: We still are.
October 31, 1967


John James Greene: Since this government took office the price has been higher than it has ever been, and certainly higher than it was during the administration of hon. members opposite. This year hon. members opposite were concerned about the sales of wheat. I suggest that they should whistle both tunes at the same time, or stop whistling from one side of their mouths on one occasion and from the other side on another.
Very clearly the farmers are not only concerned with price but also with volume sales. Certainly it would be of little benefit to western farmers to have a very high price if that high price pushed them out of the world markets. For those of us who have the responsibility of government and for sales on behalf of the western farmer, our aim must ever be to achieve the best possible price consonant with the maximum volume of sales. That has been this government's policy.
Hon. gentlemen opposite made some suggestions the other day in respect of the Kennedy round and the world wheat agreement. There was criticism of the officials attending the Kennedy round and an implication was made by one hon. member to the effect that a satisfactory agreement had not been arranged. There was also the suggestion that the prior world wheat agreement should have been renewed, rather than negotiating a new wheat agreement under the aegis of the Kennedy round. If the prior world wheat agreement had been renewed there would have been a 21 cent loss in minimum payments to the Canadian farmer. If that is the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite, they have changed their minds since last year when they were advocating higher prices. Since hon. gentlemen opposite sometimes express the view that they are the only ones who are in any way concerned with the welfare of the western farmer, let me point out that for all their protestations, during their tenure in office they never did see fit to guarantee payments to the western wheat farmer at the minimum new world wheat price, as this government has done.


An hon. Member:: We never had to do that.


John James Greene: I might also point out that the agreement has been made at $1.95J a bushel, not $1.64 a bushel which was the minimum during the tenure of office of hon. gentlemen opposite. Even at $1.64 the government of that day was not prepared to guarantee the minimum payment to the western farmer.
A comparison of data with data from previous census figures gives some concept of
Supply-Agriculture
the range and pace of the changes taking place in agriculture. The most remarkable feature is the increasing rate of adjustment toward larger farm businesses. For example the exceptional increases can be seen in the number of farms with sales over $15,000. As we can see, these have more than doubled in number in the ten years from 1951 to 1961. This number has more than doubled again in the five years from 1961 to 1966. This is not only a credit to the ingenuity and efficiency of the Canadian farmer, but in some way it must be concerned with the general prosperity and well-being of the country. Surely that had something to do with making this possible within the last five years.
The number of farms with sales between $10,000 and $15,000 has followed a similar pattern. It is also significant, although the total number of farms continues to decline, that all classes of farms with sales of $5,000 or more have increased substantially and the numbers in all classes below this level have decreased. The 1951 census showed over 85 per cent of all farms with sales of less than $5,000. Only 55.2 per cent were in these classes in 1966, the greatest decline being those farms with the lowest level of sales. In numbers of farms, 21.2 thousand had sales of $10,000 in 1951, while 95,000 farms were in this category in 1966.
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)
There are, of course, a great many factors involved in these changes but there is little doubt that the availability of capital on appropriate terms has greatly assisted these improvements in the structure of agriculture. Without indulging in complacency, we have good reason to believe that the operations of the Farm Credit Corporation have been a strong influence in encouraging-and more importantly-facilitating these necessary changes. Without detracting from the essential contributions of improved crop varieties and livestock, better machinery and technology or the improving managerial ability of farmers, the advantages of any of these can only be fully realized if there is capital available so they can be combined into efficiently organized farm businesses.
In this connection it is of interest to note that in the fiscal year 1961-62 the Farm Credit Corporation made a total of just under 6,000 loans in an amount of about $69 million. In 1966, doubtless due to the increased awareness of farmers as to the need for and validity of the utilization of technological advances, the loans had risen to over 12,000,


Edward Nasserden: Mr. Chairman, may I call it ten o'clock.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the house leader whether there has been any change in the program he announced last night?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No, Mr. Speaker; the program is the same as outlined last night. 1 should like, however, to fill in the department which we propose to call on Thursday, which is the Department of Finance. It, when completed, will be followed by the Department of Justice.
October 31, 1967



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the house under provisional standing order 39A deemed to have been moved.
[DOT] (10.00 p.m.)

['On behalf of the Minister of National Health and Welfare I wish to express thanks to the hon. member for Park-dale (Mr. Haidasz) for bringing this matter to the attention of the house this evening.\nI am sure we all appreciate the seriousness of the problems that air and water pollution pose not only for Canada but for almost every country in the world. Air pollution is now a common problem affecting cities in nearly every country of the world, and is the result of human failure to realize that the atmosphere has a limited capacity to receive the impurities we have poured, and still continue to pour, into it. Not long ago we talked of air pollution in terms only of smoke and grime of factories, steam locomotives, and dirt and stench from industrial processes. Even these we were inclined to tolerate as a sign of our prosperity. These still exist but there are additional sources of pollution\nOctober 31, 1967', 'resulting from the operation of motor vehicles and airplanes, which have appeared on the scene in great and increasing numbers to add substantially to the problem of air pollution.\nAs to the particular question brought up this evening by the hon. member for Park-dale (Mr. Haidasz), the emission of fluorides from chemical fertilizer plants, phosphate types, is a well known cause of air pollution problems. Typical effects of such emissions are burning of leaves on trees and vegetables, and bone damage to cattle. The main route of fluoride to the animals is by ingestion of grass which can accumulate large quantities of these compounds without being itself affected. Recent reports of the situation at Dunnville appear to be identical to others concerning cases which have been well documented elsewhere.\nDEBATES\t3733\nProceedings on Adjournment Motion\nIn Ontario emissions from such premises are covered by the Ontario clean air act. This is administered by the Ontario government, but the Department of National Health and Welfare would be prepared to assist by advice or active participation if requested by the province. However, to date the Department of National Health and Welfare has not been asked to intervene and it is assumed that the province of Ontario does not consider outside assistance to be needed.\nMotion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.26 p.m.\n[The following items were passed in Committee of Supply this day:]']
Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, a short while ago I asked the following question which was recorded in Hansard of September 25:
My question is directed to the Prime Minister in the absence of the Minister of Labour. Have the Minister of Labour and the officials of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation approved the formula of compensation devised by the city of Toronto and approved by the provincial authorities for home owners whose homes were expropriated in what is known as the Donmount urban renewal area in Toronto?
The reason for that question was that the commissioner for development in the city of Toronto had devised a complicated formula for additional compensation to owners in the Donmount urban renewal area and had received provincial consent for this formula for which he was now awaiting federal consent. What has happened in the meantime is that on the advice of a city solicitor it has been determined that under the law this formula could not be used in determining the compensation, and that the home owners are bound by the provisions of the expropriation procedures act, which is an Ontario statute.
The reason for my concern is that Donmount is one of the many urban renewal areas across the country which has had to deal with the major problem of compensation to home owners. This problem in the designated areas has arisen because of certain confusion among the city officials in determining due compensation. The owners in these urban renewal areas have found that when they received compensation for the homes they own and have then gone out to the marketplace to find another home they were paying from 15 to 25 per cent more for an equivalent home in another area of the city. Many of them have had to assume larger mortgages than existed on their former homes and have had to pay larger mortgage payments, which include the high interest rates that people have to pay for homes in Canada today.
Of course the people most seriously hurt have been old age pensioners and people on fixed incomes who had no intention of moving and were satisfied to remain in the area
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion for the rest of their lives, but have found themselves forced to move, have received low payments for their homes, and then had to pay high prices for homes in other areas, at the same time having to make payments from incomes on which they could get along quite well in their former homes.
As a result a great public clamour arose not only from the owners in the urban renewal scheme but from the public at large.
As a result, the principle of a home for a home has emerged. This has caused a great deal of concern to city officials, and it needs clarification because many people thought that the term "value to the owner" only meant the market value, and many people were led to believe by city officials and others that this was the basis of compensation for these people.
The principle has been expressly set forth in the Exchequer Court of Canada in the decision on the National Capital Commission v. Millen. There are five main principles with regard to due compensation which must be taken into account. First is the acquiring of equivalent premises, which is why the slogan "a home for a home" has achieved such prominence today: second, the payment for temporary accommodation and storage of furniture during the period involved while finding equivalent premises; third, the payment of moving expenses and fourth, the payment for the almost certain impossibility of utilizing the furnishings which had been acquired for the expropriated property. Then, fifth, and this is the important part, Mr. Speaker, compensation should be paid for personal inconvenience if people have had to acquire this new property, for miscellaneous expenses and for the general destruction of family life incidental to moving a family from one neighbourhood to another.
The question arises, Mr. Speaker, just what is the government doing to give leadership to the implementation of these principles with regard to compensation in connection with these urban renewal schemes? Thus far the onus has fallen on city officials, and there have been occasions when city officials have asked the Minister of Labour (Mr. Nicholson) what principles apply with regard to compensation for these people. The general disruption theory and the theory of a home for a home have not been clarified by the Minister of Labour. I ask the minister just what leadership he has given in connection with this problem of deciding the proper principles for compensation for homes in these renewal scheme areas, so that the schemes
October 31, 1967
3730	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion may move forward without prejudice or financial injury to the owners, and at the same time ease the housing crisis somewhat?


Mr. B. S. Mackasey (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Gilbert) primarily asked a question, but naturally he took advantage of the seven minutes to insinuate there had been a lack of leadership on the part of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Nicholson) in this whole field. This is rather unfair, since I have only three minutes to answer these insinuations, but I suppose the hon. member would be mainly interested in my answer to the main question.
The formula for compensation that will apply to the urban renewal program has been approved by the Minister of Labour. The hon. member shakes his head, but until I am notified otherwise I take it as a fact. I checked this aspect at six o'clock in anticipation of the question, and I was a little perplexed, in view of the answer, as to why the question was still on the late show. I was assured by the department that the answer was, yes.
The question of lack of leadership which the hon. member infers may be more a question of ignorance on the part of provincial and civic authorities, not only in Toronto but across Canada, in not being aware of the legislation available to them. I wonder whether, under his definition of leadership, we are obliged to take the civic authorities by the nose and acquaint them with a law of which their own legal departments should be well aware.
The original formula, which my friend has failed to point out, was unsatisfactory to the people affected. I agree that the principle of market value is not good enough. Some compensation must be paid for disruption, and a home for a home is a fair exchange. If, as a result of inflation or any other factors, the compensation paid is not sufficient to permit a person to acquire another home, then additional compensation should be paid to these people. Certain people in Toronto took such strong objection to the original compensation that they fought the battle for additional funds.
I must remind the hon. member that if the original formula was unsatisfactory it was not the fault of the federal government. We agreed to absorb 50 per cent of the compensation paid. The formula was designed by the provincial and civic authorities, and we had no jurisdiction over it. Provincial law was to


establish what the compensation should be and we agreed to go along with it. We waited until the new formula was introduced, and we readily agreed to the new formula and to the additional compensation to which the hon. member has alluded.
I apologize if he has not been notified directly that this additional compensation has been approved by the federal government. Again I assure the hon. member I am giving him the information I received as late as six o'clock. I suggest to him that this is not a question of lack of leadership, perhaps, so much as a lack of understanding of the legislation that is available to civic and provincial authorities. They should take a second look at it and check on what does exist.
[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)



Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, on October 12, 1967, as reported at page 3012 of Hansard, I asked this question:
In view of the minister's statements yesterday and today in reference to the government's position, does the minister take the position that if they do not come to the negotiating table the United States should withdraw from Vie Nam?
Then the Speaker said the question was somewhat argumentative, through an almost identical question was then asked and answered. With respect, any question asked by the opposition that has any potential political sensitivity or that seeks to find out information where a government stands in reference to any domestic or international problem can be categorized as argumentative. I feel that we have been prevented from getting information from a government which refuses informative answers. To say the least, they are evasive. Gag the opposition and no real information will be forthcoming.
To come to the subject, every Canadian, in particular all members of parliament, desires peace with all his heart, and abhors war and all the barbarism that it encompasses, and I firmly believe that so do all Americans. However, world power is in a far different position than a country which has not that status. Difference of opinion on this matter arises as to the method to be used to achieve peace and security in this world. Sir Winston Churchill once said the devastating atomic weapons themselves are the greatest deterrent against war. World war II brought war to the civilian women and children. Those
October 31. 1967	COMMONS
who have seen evidence of attack by bombing are always reminded of the words "man's inhumanity to humanity".
Does the minister believe that the United States of America should not have become embroiled or entangled in Viet Nam? Does he believe if the bombing stopped Ho Chi Minh would come to the peace conference table? Does the minister believe that if Ho Chi Minh fails to come to that conference table the United States would get out of Viet Nam? Does the minister agree with Prime Minister Wilson's position in reference to Viet Nam? Do Australia, Japan and other SEATO treaty members agree with the minister's position? If not, why not? Will Ho Chi Minh come to the peace table if the United States agrees again to the cessation of bombing?
It must not be forgotten in considering all these difficult questions-and I do not know the answers-that in January-February of 1966 the United States did cease bombing for 37 days. And did not Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong build up their forces in consequence and infiltrate the South Vietnamese area? Were there not five pauses by the United States in bombing over a period of two years and eight months?
But have not the United States and the U.S.S.R. some common ground in that both believe in some form of containment policy in reference to China? Surely Canada's interest must always be for permanent peace, and international affairs must transcend narrow political partisanship. In considering these questions, may I quote from a statement made by the secretary of state of the United States on October 12, 1967. This is what he said on that occasion, and I am sure these words are well known to the minister:
President Johnson has emphasized, time and time again, his interest in a prompt and peaceful settlement of the present struggles in Southeast Asia. Just two weeks ago, in San Antonio, he said:
''The United States is willing to stop all aerial and naval bombardment of North Viet Nam when this will lead promptly to productive discussions. We, of course, assume that while discussions proceed, North Viet Nam would not take advantage of the bombing cessation or limitation."
Can there be a more reasonable proposal? Is there anything unfair about such a simple proposition? Is it not clear that if Hanot is interested in peace it could say "yes" publicly or privately to the President's offer?
A rejection, or a refusal even to discuss such a formula for peace, requires that we face some sober conclusions. It would mean that Hanoi has not abandoned its effort to seize South Viet Nam by force. It would give reality and credibility to captured documents which describe a "fight and negotiate" strategy by Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese forces. It would reflect a view ip Hanoi
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that they can gamble upon the character of the American people and of our allies in the Pacific.
I know the minister will agree with me when I say that the United States, which is our neighbour, is a world leader. It is the leader of the western world, and that country is in a difficult position. But I felt that I asked a reasonable question.
The minister was complimented for taking a firm position. He left the quiet diplomacy about which the Prime Minister and he himself boasted, and took a position against the United States at a very sensitive time. I should like to know what the answers are. Where does the government stand? If Hanoi would not come to the conference table previously when the United States ceased bombing, what evidence has the minister tonight that Hanoi would come to the peace table if the United States stopped bombing now?
Has the United States now taken a hard position, with respect to trade, against Canada? These matters are all interlinked. I also wish to know the minister's position so far as the Prime Minister of Great Britain is concerned?


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of Slate for External Affairs: Mr. Speaker, in three minutes it will not be possible to answer all questions which have been asked but I should like to answer the essential question which was asked of me the other day and again tonight.
I have made it clear on a number of recent occasions that there is no absolute guarantee that a suspension of the bombing will necessarily and immediately bring about a beginning of talks leading to peace in Viet Nam.
What seems to me to be very clear, and what I am convinced of, is that talks of any kind cannot get started unless the bombing is stopped. If it is stopped I believe that an entirely new situation will then exist in which considerable pressure can be brought to bear on North Viet Nam to enter into peace talks. A situation in which the bombing is no longer being carried out would force the North Vietnamese to react, especially since they and their closest friends have placed such overwhelming emphasis on this point. If this point were met, I should think that a number of countries which have particularly close relations with North Viet Nam would use their influence constructively and in the interests of peace.
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1 think it can be assumed, too, that Canada and other countries like Denmark, Norway and Sweden which have spoken out as Canada and other like minded countries have, would appeal urgently to Hanoi to seize the opportunity opened by the suspension of bombing to meet for talks. An inflexible position on the part of North Viet Nam, and an adamant refusal on their part to show a willingness to break out of the prevailing tragic and destructive impasse would, I think, place a serious responsibility on them for the war's continuation.
If however they did not respond in the way world opinion would urge them to do, I admit that the resulting situation would be serious. As I have said before, it could run the risk of reversion to exclusively military measures of perhaps a more powerful kind and, in this sense, I recognize that there is a calculated risk. If it fails-and in all realism I think it is only right to keep this possibility in mind-there will be new problems and new anxieties to deal with, but it would be impossible to forecast what precise possibilities would then be open to countries which have consistently tried to help to foster the beginning of negotiations.
As I said to the external affairs committee last week, any foreign minister and any government can shape a country's foreign policy only in the light of the actual circumstances before them at the time. In the hypothetical case under consideration this might well include some new factors; much would depend on what had happened in the period immediately following the suspension of the bombing.


Stanley Haidasz: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity given to me tonight to pursue the question I raised a few days ago in the house about the important issue of air pollution in the Port Mait-land-Dunnville area of southwestern Ontario.
The crux of my question the other day was to find out whether the federal government through its responsible officials is investigating the reports of alleged harmful effects to man, livestock and vegetation attributed to fluoride fumes which have been emitted from a chemical fertilizer in the Port Maitland-Dunnville area.


e (10:20 p.m.)
Serious accusations, charges and counter charges have produced alarm and confusion among the people concerned. It has been reported in the press that the damaging effects of fluoride in the atmosphere over the Port Maitland and Dunnville area were known to the responsible provincial authorities as early as 1963.
It is also known that under an arbitration decision taken last year, the chemical fertilizer plant in the Port Maitland area was ordered to compensate the local farmers for livestock and plant diseases caused by fluoride fumes. Recently local farmers have made serious complaints about damage to human health.
A lung specialist from Detroit has been reported as saying that fluoride fumes are poisoning farmers, cattle and crops. I am interested in finding out tonight whether federal officials are investigating the charges and claims made by the affected parties in the Dunnville area; whether any federal assistance in this matter has been offered or requested; whether any federal monitoring centre has been established in this area and whether any air sampling from the Dunnville area has been studied by federal technicians. We want to know what specific steps have been taken.
I would like to encourage the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. MacEachen) to be bold, innovating, and reformist in the fight against air pollution.


Mrs. Margaret Rideout (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare):: On behalf of the Minister of National Health and Welfare I wish to express thanks to the hon. member for Park-dale (Mr. Haidasz) for bringing this matter to the attention of the house this evening.
I am sure we all appreciate the seriousness of the problems that air and water pollution pose not only for Canada but for almost every country in the world. Air pollution is now a common problem affecting cities in nearly every country of the world, and is the result of human failure to realize that the atmosphere has a limited capacity to receive the impurities we have poured, and still continue to pour, into it. Not long ago we talked of air pollution in terms only of smoke and grime of factories, steam locomotives, and dirt and stench from industrial processes. Even these we were inclined to tolerate as a sign of our prosperity. These still exist but there are additional sources of pollution
October 31, 1967

resulting from the operation of motor vehicles and airplanes, which have appeared on the scene in great and increasing numbers to add substantially to the problem of air pollution.
As to the particular question brought up this evening by the hon. member for Park-dale (Mr. Haidasz), the emission of fluorides from chemical fertilizer plants, phosphate types, is a well known cause of air pollution problems. Typical effects of such emissions are burning of leaves on trees and vegetables, and bone damage to cattle. The main route of fluoride to the animals is by ingestion of grass which can accumulate large quantities of these compounds without being itself affected. Recent reports of the situation at Dunnville appear to be identical to others concerning cases which have been well documented elsewhere.
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In Ontario emissions from such premises are covered by the Ontario clean air act. This is administered by the Ontario government, but the Department of National Health and Welfare would be prepared to assist by advice or active participation if requested by the province. However, to date the Department of National Health and Welfare has not been asked to intervene and it is assumed that the province of Ontario does not consider outside assistance to be needed.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.26 p.m.
[The following items were passed in Committee of Supply this day:]


[Stage Direction]
1.	5, 6b, 10.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, November 1, 1967