1967-12-18

Right Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure members of this house would expect me to express our feeling of shock and grief at the tragic accident that resulted in the loss of the prime minister of Australia over the week end.
Mr. Holt was a very distinguished Australian public servant over many years, culminating in his succession to Sir Robert Men-zies as prime minister only a relatively short time ago. In that post he had so much to offer and so little time in which to offer it. He was a very strong supporter of the commonwealth and a very good friend of Canada. I know from talks with him that he was most anxious to deepen and develop the friendship between our two countries, both as members of the commonwealth and as Pacific powers.
Mr. Holt will be greatly missed, of course, in his own country but also outside Australia. He was a man of energy, great enthusiasm and warm natural friendliness, qualities which we associate with Australians. He was a good and valued friend of many of us, including myself. I had the privilege of welcoming him to Ottawa officially last summer, and my wife and I had the privilege and pleasure of spending a day or so with him in the country. It was only last Friday, Mr. Speaker, that I received a message from him expressing the hope that my own plans would not prevent a visit to Australia and New Zealand which I was anticipating. He said he looked forward to receiving me as host and as friend.
Our deepest and most heartfelt sympathy goes out to his devoted and courageous wife, Mrs. Holt, and to the members of the family.


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to associate myself with the comments made by the right hon. Prime Minister. It is very difficult to understand this sort of thing when
it happens. It is difficult to grasp that our sister commonwealth country, Australia, should lose its prime minister through such circumstances. Although Australia is a long distance from Canada I believe Canadians feel a particular cordiality and warmth to the people of Australia.
All Canadians suffered shock and a sense of loss when they heard or read about this tragic accident. I believe all the people of Canada would wish us to extend to the prime minister's family and indeed to the people of Australia our deepest sympathy on this very sad occasion.


Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to associate my colleagues and myself in the expression of shock at the tragic loss of the late prime minister of Australia.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)
This was an unpredictable, sudden and shocking accident that took the life of the relatively young leader of a commonwealth country. We would like to join all members of this house in expressing our deepest sympathy to the people of Australia and to the wife and family of the late Mr. Holt.


Mr.   C.-A. Gauthier@Roberval: Mr. Speaker, in the name of our group and following the example of those who spoke before me, I join the right hon. Prime Minister in expressing our sympathy to the family of the late prime minister of Australia.
I wish to extend our deepest sympathies to the bereaved family and I hope that they will accept these words of comfort.


Mr. A. B. Patterson (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, we share with hon. members of this house the sorrow expressed over the untimely death of Right Hon. Harold Holt, the late prime minister of Australia. As has been mentioned, Mr. Holt has given many years of distinguished service to his country in both domestic and external affairs. His courage and leadership will be sorely missed at this time. We in this party join in the expressions of sympathy to his country, to Mrs. Holt and the members of the family in this hour of their sorrow and loss.

December 18, 1967
External Affairs EXTERNAL AFFAIRS



NATO-REPORTS ON MEETING OF COUNCIL

Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secretary of Slate for External Affairs: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence and I have just returned from attending the first ministerial meeting of the north Atlantic alliance council to be held at the new headquarters of NATO in Brussels. It seemed to both of us that in making a report to the house it would perhaps be prudent if I were to make a report in respect of the matters which involve me as Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Minister of National Defence would make a report as well, and that if this is agreeable these would constitute the government report at this particular moment.
The speed and efficiency with which NATO was able to move to its new headquarters are a credit to the Belgian authorities and to the NATO international staff.
This was an important meeting. Indeed, I believe it may turn out to have been one of the key meetings in the history of the alliance. NATO has reappraised its essential objectives and found them still valid, agreed on a new military strategy, and established guide lines for shifting additional emphasis to its evolving political-as distinct from military-activity. The guide lines were the product of the so-called Harmel exercise. At our last meeting in Paris in 1966 the Belgian foreign minister, Mr. Harmel, recalling the initiative taken by Canada in 1964, had proposed a study of the future of the alliance. As a result of this serious reappraisal it was possible to reach a consensus among all 15 members on the objectives and future tasks of the alliance. This consensus is expressed in an annex to the communique, which I should be pleased to table if it is the desire of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Martin (Essex East):: The member governments have confirmed that there is a continuing need for defensive military arrangements; I wish it were otherwise, but such arrangements are required, just as the regular payment of an insurance premium. In this field the alliance must display determination and firmness.
It was also confirmed that the activities of the alliance to promote a peaceful settlement, that is its political role, have assumed greater importance and should be emphasized. Here

is something which is partly new and challenging. In this field the alliance will require imagination and vision. It was affirmed that the political activities of the alliance will be all the more effective if there is full and timely consultation among the members. It was agreed that the military tasks of the alliance are not incompatible with, but rather a necessary complement to, a constructive political role for the alliance.
What does this1 signify for the alliance and for Canada? In the military sphere it means that as insurance against possible revived Soviet pressures in Europe, bearing in mind that Soviet military capabilities are still increasing, the alliance must maintain an effective deterrent force. For Canada, as a partner in the alliance, it means continuing to contribute, as appropriate, to the alliance's forces based in Europe and to those based in Canada.
On the political side the conclusions of the Harmel exercise mean that our habit of frank discussion among allies of the most important issues facing the alliance and the world, both collectively and individually, is to be further developed. Such consultations I believe are a powerful factor in promoting wider understanding of the issues facing the alliance, and in this way contributing to its cohesion.
The habit of co-operation and consultation in NATO fits it to perform a constructive role in many areas; balanced force reductions, arms control and disarmament measures, improvement of east-west relations, the shape and content of a European settlement and steps which may be taken toward negotiation of such a settlement.
We cannot expect instant or dramatic developments in these areas. There is much to be done, and it will be a painstaking and time consuming task to end the tensions in Europe and achieve a viable settlement. But much depends on the Russians as well as ourselves. It has been abundantly clear, for instance, that the alliance is prepared to explore mutual reductions of forces with the Soviet union and its allies as an important step toward security and stability. But there has been no indication as yet from the Russians, explicit or tacit, that they are ready to respond on this issue. But we must continue the search for agreement, and I can assure the house that Canada will be a vigorous participant in this search.
December 18, 1967

As I said at the conclusion of the ministerial meeting, NATO has confirmed and emphasized its determination to pursue what I think can be aptly described as a dynamic quest for peace. I can assure the house that the quest for peace will be as sustained and resourceful as we can make it.


Hon. Leo Cadieux (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to report on the meetings of the nuclear defence affairs committee and the defence planning committee which preceded the meeting of the NATO council about which my hon. colleague, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, has just spoken.
First I would like to deal with the meeting of the nuclear defence afftirs committee, which was established a year ago so that all members of the alliance could participate in the formulation of advice to the NATO council on nuclear policy. This committee received progress reports on the studies of the nuclear planning group of which Canada is a member. I would be prepared to table the communique of the meeting of the nuclear defence affairs committee if the house so desires.
I informed my colleagues in the N.D.A.C. that for Canada the main purpose of the changing strategic concept is to avoid excessive reliance on the early use of nuclear weapons for defence against aggression. We suggested that the political aspects of the problem be studied further.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)
The defence planning committee, which consists of ministers of all member countries except France, reviewed the work accomplished since their previous meeting in May, 1967. All ministers strongly endorsed the view, which was later reflected in the communique, that one of foundations for achieving an improvement in east-west relations and a peaceful settlement in Europe must be NATO's continuing defensive strength and capability to deter aggression.
Against this background the ministers considered the following main subjects: (a) the new strategic concept; (b) NATO force plans; (c) the standing naval force, Atlantic.
The new strategy of response against aggression makes provision for a flexible and balanced range of appropriate conventional and nuclear responses to all levels of aggression or threats of aggression. The ministers approved this concept.
External Affairs
For the first time the ministers adopted a five year rolling force plan. The current plan covers the period from 1968 to 1972. It includes a firm commitment of forces for 1968 and an outline of national plans for the period from 1969 to 1972.
As far as Canada is concerned, we reaffirmed the continued assignment for 1968 of our forces in Germany consisting of (a) the air division; (b) the Canadian mechanized brigade group. We also confirmed the continued availability from Canada for 1968 of
(a)	our already earmarked naval forces; (b) two brigades retained in Canada and already earmarked for Europe.
In respect of our plans after 1968 we proposed, as forecast in the white paper of 1964, to substitute one air transportable brigade group based in Canada for the two brigades now earmarked in Canada. We also outlined in general terms proposed reductions in the air division during the next few years. During the next year we shall be forming our new CF-5 squadrons for the support of mobile command forces. In doing this we plan to utilize the trained personnel which will become available as a result of later adjustments in the air division.
Hon. members will recall that when the original decision was made to earmark for SACEUR's strategic reserve two brigades stationed in Canada, it was envisaged that it would be feasible to transport this force to Europe in time to make a significant contribution. However, as a consequence of the gradual mechanization of our brigade in Germany and the corresponding changes in Canada, it has become increasingly apparent that the sea and air lift required to transport these forces to Europe in a mechanized form would not be available in time to be effective.
During the past few years the government examined a number of proposals to overcome this problem. One of these proposals involved the stockpiling in Europe of mechanized equipment for the balance of the force. Because of the expense and the impractical aspects, this proposal was dropped. As a result of the recent review of our military commitments both in Europe and elsewhere we have concluded that another proposal, that of an air transportable force, would be more appropriate and useful. As additional air transport becomes available this force, including men and equipment, can be transported to Europe in time to make an effective contribution. It would also provide us with

December 18. 1967
External Affairs
forces of sufficient flexibility to meet other requirements.
The new strategy of flexible response places more emphasis on dual-capable aircraft. Our air division has both a conventional and nuclear capability and thus is well suited to carry out the requirements of this new strategic concept.
The ministers also approved the organization of a new naval force. This force involves the transformation of the NATO Matchmaker naval training squadron into the standing naval force Atlantic consisting of six to eight destroyer type ships. Hon. members will recall that Matchmaker is a training squadron consisting of a number of ships from NATO countries in the Atlantic area. The squadron has been operating for the past few years and Canada has, from time to time, contributed a ship to it.
The major difference between Matchmaker and the standing naval force is that in Matchmaker ships joined the squadron for exercises; in the standing naval force they will be assigned for a given time and will be under the operational command of a NATO commander. Being composed of ships from various countries, the force will be a further visible evidence of NATO's solidarity.
Each participating country will assign a ship to the force for a fixed period during the year. Canada agrees with the concept of the force, and we are now studying the form of Canadian participation and expect to reach a decision shortly. Participation would not involve a new commitment but rather the assignment of one of the destroyers already earmarked for SACLANT to this NATO force.


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Calgary North):: I am
sure, Mr. Speaker, we all join in welcoming the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Minister of National Defence back to Canada after their week in Brussels. I believe we have obtained more information about what went on there from the newspaper accounts than the ministers gave us in their reports today. However, I think everyone who takes an interest in this matter was delighted to note that the Harmel report was accepted by all the NATO countries, including France, so the unity of NATO was maintained at this time. I believe everyone was delighted, too, that the emphasis in the Harmel report was on further steps toward a detente in Europe.
[Mr. Cadieux (Terrebonne) .1
As the minister has said, and as we all agree, we hope these steps will go forward satisfactorily. The warning issued by the secretary general of NATO, Mr. Manlio Brosio in connection with the very large Soviet forces stationed in eastern Europe, the extension of their naval activities and particularly the increase in their naval strength in the Mediterranean, should be heeded because they pose a considerable threat so far as western Europe is concerned. These factors emphasize the necessity of maintaining military forces of NATO in a state of readiness so they will serve as a deterrent to any aggressive action, which is their main function.
The Minister of National Defence mentioned that a new strategy had been decided upon, but actually I feel this is not so much a new strategy as it is a reiteration or a more definite statement of a strategy which has been in effect for several years. I refer to the reliance on conventional forces, in the first instance at any rate, in the hope that their use will prevent the necessity of any nuclear attack being made or a nuclear response by either side. The five year force plan mentioned by the defence minister is to be in effect for the next five years, but he did not tell us what it is. I hope at some future time we will be able to get more details with regard to the five year force plan of NATO and particularly Canada's contribution to it.
The minister has said Canada's commitments for 1968 are unchanged, but there have been a considerable number of reports that the brigade in Europe is to be reduced by 500 men. Perhaps the minister could be more specific about that during the question period. I hope the proposed reduction in the air division has not been a unilateral decision on the part of Canada. There have been considerable rumours about a forthcoming reduction in the strength of the air division, and as I say whatever reductions are made in the coming years-there must be reductions because the aircraft are wearing out and crashing-I hope they will be made in consultation with our allies.
So far as the new destroyer force is concerned, as the minister rather indicated this seems to me to be more or less a realignment of forces already in existence. The minister did not say whether we were contributing one destroyer to this force, as has been rumoured, so I hope once more he will be in a position to give us some information.
December 18, 1967

[DOT] (3:00 p.m.)


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to comment on this double barrelled announcement within the rules which require a brief statement; nevertheless I will try to stick to the rules. May I preface my remarks by welcoming both ministers back to the house. If they have been reading the newspapers they will have observed that however much the cold war in Europe is relaxing, the political wars in Canada seem to be heating up.
In his announcement the Secretary of State for External Affairs referred to one feature of the discussions about NATO which are certainly welcome. That is to say, the minister said its attention is henceforth to be directed to what he called constructive areas of activity, arms control and disarmament measures. We hope this is just not words but that the statement will be followed by action, because for too long NATO has taken on the appearance of nothing but a military alliance. Unless the detente in Europe is exploited by NATO, I suggest that NATO is not going to have a very long life. Therefore I hope the announcement made by the minister in connection with these matters will be followed by a form of vigorous initiative.
In regard to the remarks by the Minister of National Defence, I should like to reiterate a suggestion that has been made from time to time in questions asked by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch); namely, that the two ministers appear as soon as possible before a joint meeting of the external affairs and national defence committees of this house so the matters they have raised can be examined in detail by hon. members.
In so far as the statement of the minister, as far as I understand it, represents a plan of the government gradually to opt out of the air division in Europe and to concentrate upon air transportability, the minister and hon. members know this is a course of action that we in this party have been recommending for years. We are glad to see there is action at last. As far as we are concerned, Mr. Speaker, our only regret is that the action is not more decisive and vigorous than this. We do not believe there continues to be any useful role for our nuclear armed brigade in Europe. We think the Canadian contribution should be in the form of a mobile conventional force based on Canada, and we believe this fits in with what the minister said is the new approach of NATO.
We trust, Mr. Speaker, that these new approaches will be given full and quick
External Affairs
implementation, because at this particular time in Canada's history I suggest we just cannot afford to be spending large sums of money on forms of defence that are either obsolete or no longer useful in meeting any existing threat in Europe.


Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Revelsloke):: Mr. Speaker, it is difficult in many respects to square the statements of the minister for external affairs with what we see. He is, as we all know, tremendously skilled at manoeuvring, but it will require more than all his adroitness to shore up NATO while at the same time attempting to make the treatment the organization has received from the French government in recent years seem a triumph rather than a disaster. We welcome the fact that the move to Brussels succeeded at all, but we should not pretend that this will have strengthened the organization or that it will function fully without the complete participation of France.
We also know, Mr. Speaker, that all this talk about disarmament is wishful thinking. The Soviet defence budget for 1968 is the greatest in its history of military expenditure. We realize that the economies of western Europe which have been lagging recently will not need any more encouragement in turning to defence production as a means of fueling those economies. This is still the best device in today's world to keep an economy going.
I suggest that one thing urgently needed, and which perhaps could be done through NATO, is a study of the effects of the economies of the world ceasing to embrace any military expenditure. The minister shows concern for military development, but I doubt that the ability of Canada to save Europe by airlifting our forces to that continent is anything more than a dream.
Rather than thinking of military development I suggest we might well think of the political moves we could make, even within NATO. Here I think of our rather ambiguous approach to Portugal and our shoring up of the Turkish-Greek dispute in Cyprus all these years while those two countries have diverted their NATO strength from its original purpose.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the Minister of National Defence leave to table certain documents referred to during his speech, which have already been tabled?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
5522	COMMONS
Questions



EXCISE TAX ACT

Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Minister of Finance) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-191, to amend the Excise Tax Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



EXCISE ACT

Mitchell William Sharp: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-192, to amend the Excise Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



INCOME TAX ACT

Mitchell William Sharp: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-193, to amend the Income Tax Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. Gundlock: Has there been a study of resources on the Blood reserve prepared by Doctor G. D. Spindler for the use of the Indian affairs branch and, if so
(a)	what is the nature of the contents of such report and any recommendations made (b) in the event that such report has been prepared, has any use been made of the same by the Indian affairs branch (c) if such a study was prepared, what was the cost?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: 1. Dr. G. D.
Spindler prepared the material for chapters II and III entitled "Contemporary Blood Indian Community" and "Psychological Characteristics, Work Preferences and Values" respectively of the 22 chapter report on "The Economic Potential of the Blood Indian Reserve." (a) The full report contains an assessment of the resources of the Blood Indian Reserve, e.g. human, mineral, soils, rangeland, agriculture and suggests some methods by which these might be utilized to advantage.
(b)	Copies of the report were provided to the Blood band council who used it as a basis to undertake a more detailed study of matters relating to land use and economic development. A study is under way to determine the feasibility of irrigating 25,000 acres of reserve land as recommended in the report. Indian affairs branch made a financial contribution
[Mr. Speaker.)
DEBATES	December 18, 1967
to the cost of both these studies. Branch staff are also working in close conjunction with officials of the band council, Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act administration, and water resources branch in assessing the feasibility of irrigating some 8-9,000 acres of leasehold land, (c) The majority of the material for the report on the "Economic Potential of the Blood Indian Reserve" was prepared by federal or provincial employees. Dr. Spindler and Dr. Lok received $1,100 and $500 respectively for manuscripts written by them under contract. Preparation of maps, printing and publishing costs amounted to approximately $3,150.


SCHOOL ATTENDANCE, FORT ALEXANDER INDIAN CHILDREN
Mr. Jorgenson: 1.	Do Indian children of the Fort Alexander band attend the Powerview integrated school?
2.	If so, how many children of the Fort Alexander band attended the said school during the 1966-67 term?
3.	How many of the said children from the Fort Alexander band consulted prior to arrangements in the high school program for the 1966-67 term?
4.	Of those enrolled in the high school program for the said term how many successfully passed the high school program?
5.	Were the parents of the children of the Fort Alexander band consulted prior to arrangements being made for the said children to attend the Powerview school and, if so, what were the wishes of the majority of the said parents with respect to the choice of school to be attended by their children?
6.	Were any representations made by the parents of the children of the Fort Alexander band to attend the school at Lebret and (a) if so, were the children of such parents permitted to attend Lebret, (b) if not, what was the reason for not allowing attendance at Lebret school?


Arthur Laing: 1. Yes.
2.	In 1967, 24 of the registered Indian pupils enrolled in the Powerview collegiate were members of the Fort Alexander band.
3.	There were 24 pupils from the Fort Alexander band enrolled in grades 9 to 12 for the 1966-67 school year.
4.	Of the 28 registered Indian pupils who wrote examinations at Powerview collegiate in the Spring of 1967, 11 passed.
5.	The parents of the children of the Fort Alexander band were consulted prior to arrangements being made to include their high school students in the Powerview collegiate in 1962 and the majority expressed agreement to this proposal. This approval was ratified in January of 1966 by the band council when an
December 18. 1967

expansion of the joint agreement was suggested.
6. Three families made inquiries as to whether their children could be sent to school in Lebret. (a) The parents were informed that they could, of course, send their children to Lebret at their own expense but that the department could not sponsor such a plan, (b) The reason for this decision was that a comparable school was available in the community. Subsidiary but decisive reasons were the fact that such a transfer would mean moving the students from the curriculum of one province to that of another plus the expense of travelling and maintenance.


ATLANTIC PROVINCES POPULATION STATISTICS
Mr. MacDonald (Prince): 1.	On what date is it estimated the population of the four Atlantic provinces will reach the 2 million mark?
2.	How many persons were born in the four Atlantic provinces in the years 1950 to 1966?
3.	How many persons migrated into the four Atlantic provinces in the years 1950 to 1966?
4.	How many persons migrated from the four Atlantic provinces in the years 1950 to 1966?
Questions
5.	How many of those who migrated from the four Atlantic provinces in the years 1950 to 1966 were between the ages of 16 and 65?
6.	How many persons received financial assistance in migrating from the four Atlantic provinces from 1950 to 1966, and what amount was expended?


Hon. Judy V. LaMarsh (Secretary of Slate):: I am informed by the Departments of Manpower and Immigration, National Health and Welfare and Trade and Commerce as fol-follows: 1. Information not available.
2.	See attached table.
3.	Information not available.
4.	Information not available.
5.	Information not available.
6.	The manpower mobility program, administered by the Department of Manpower and Immigration, has been in operation since the beginning of 1966. Statistics on the number of people moved and on expenditures incurred are kept separately for moves within and from each province, but not by province of destination. As many moves are to neighbouring provinces, and the Atlantic region consists of four provinces it is not possible to give data on moves from that region.
Number of live births, Atlantic provinces, 1950-1966
Prince	Total four
Year	Newfoundland Edward Island	Nova Scotia	New Brunswick	Atlantic provinces1950	13.164	2.885	17,262	16,393	49,7041951	11,738	2,651	17,125	16,075	47,5891952	12,561	2,703	17,951	16,691	49,9061953	12,797	2,737	18,276	16,458	50,2681954	13,653	2,724	18,909	16,649	51,9351955	14,757	2,784	18,967	16,609	53,1171956	14,541	2,657	19,106	16,573	52,8771957	15,315	2,676	19,316	17,020	54,3271958	14,815	2,581	18,898	16,414	52,7081959	14,826	2,720	19,038	16,486	53,0701960	15,173	2,734	19,126	16,341	53,3741961	15,591	2,838	19,382	16,590	54,4011962	15,064	2,805	19,432	16,467	53,7681963	15,443	2,949	18,976	15,771	53,1391964	14,680	2,727	18,314	15,338	51,0591965	14,740	2,517	16,524	14,175	47,9561966	14,084	2,199	15,220	12,722	44,225
December 18, 1967
Questions


PRESERVATION OF INDIAN ART AND CULTURE
Mr. Barneli: 1.	Has the Indian affairs branch of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development a program of providing grants for the preservation and advancement of Indian art and culture?
2.	If so, when was this program inaugurated?
3.	How many individuals and/or organizations have received grants under any such program?
4.	What are the qualifications for eligibility for any such grants?
5.	How and to whom should an application for any such grant be made?


Arthur Laing: 1. Yes.
2.	Program approval was received January-19, 1965 and the program was inaugurated immediately thereafter.
3.	Thirty-three.
4.	Individual applicants must be Indians within the meaning of the Indian Act; the membership of organizations must include members who are Indians within the meaning of the Indian Act; the purpose for which the grant is requested must be one which is not provided for in other branch programs; The purpose must be one which will contribute to the preservations, growth and/or expression of Indian culture.
5.	Applications for grants must be submitted through an office of the branch on application forms available from branch offices, band councils, and friendship centres.


RETAIL CONCESSIONS ON ARMED FORCES BASES
Mr. Ballard: 1.	How many retail food stores are operated by the Department of National Defence on Canadian forces bases in Canada?
2.	How many retail food stores are operated by the Department of National Defence on its Canadian forces bases in Alberta?
3.	How many retail food markets are operated on a concession basis by civilians on Canadian forces bases in the province of Alberta?
4.	How many automotive service stations are operated on a concession basis by civilians on Canadian forces bases in the province of Alberta?
5.	Have there been in any recent modifications to the policy governing the operation of retail concessions on Canadian forces bases, and are any proposed changes presently under discussion?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: 1. None. Retail food stores on Canadian forces bases in Canada are operated by concessionaires or as non-public fund activities of units.
2.	None.
[Miss LaMarsh.l
3.	Two, CFB Cold Lake and CFB Edmonton.
4.	None.
5.	No. Some changes in operating procedures are under discussion.


HOUSING LOAN APPLICATIONS, PETERBOROUGH, ONT.
Mr. Brewin: 1.	Have there been any applications to the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation from the Ontario Housing Corporation for funds for the acquisition of lands for housing purposes in the Peterborough area during the last four months?
2.	If so, have any of the applications been refused and what are the details of such applications?


Hon. J. R. Nicholson (Minister of Labour):: 1. No.
2. See answer to 1 above.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. Nielsen: 1.	What was the number of (a) classified, and (b) casual employees on the strength of the Yukon forest service for each of the years 1957 to 1967 inclusive?
2.	For each of the said years, what was the total payroll and the total value of capital expenditures?
3.	For each of the said years, how many forest fires occurred and what was the estimated value of the timber loss?
4.	For each of the said years, what was the total cost of the operations of the Yukon forest service?
Return tabled.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether his attention has been directed to a report that included in one of the cultural agreements between France and Quebec there is a provision for participation by the government of France in studies and research in the domain of nuclear energy in the region of northern Quebec. Has the minister's attention been directed to a report to this effect which appeared in today's press? Can he say whether the report is correct? Can he say whether the federal government was furnished with a copy of the agreement, and whether this aspect has the approval of the federal government?
December 18, 1967


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member knows he cannot ask whether a press report is correct. Perhaps the minister still wishes to make a statement in reply to the question.


Hon. Paul  Marlin@Secrelary of Slate for External Affairs: I shall be glad to take a look at the press report and reply later.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. What was the reply? I could not hear it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I shall be glad to take a look at the press report, see what it says and deal with the question tomorrow.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: have a supplementary question to direct to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Can the minister tell us whether there have been any uranium finds in the province of Quebec?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: No, I cannot, Mr. Speaker.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Has the minister no information on uranium discoveries in the country?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I have no authority in the provinces in these matters. I am only responsible for the activities of Eldorado Mining and Refining Company, which is not involved in mining uranium in Quebec.


Mr. J. R. Keays (Gaspe):: May I direct a further supplementary question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Can the minister inform this house whether he is aware that official French delegations have visited the Chibougamau or Mistassini districts of Quebec?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I shall undertake to report tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the widespread evidence that a substantial proportion of Canadians continue to live in poverty, and in view of the government's announcement that the special planning secretariat will be disbanded, would the right hon. gentleman inform the house whether alternative arrangements are
Inquiries of the Ministry being made to continue the work of the special secretariat in what was hopefully announced to be a war on poverty?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the absorption of the functions of the planning secretariat by other departments does not mean that the work the secretariat was co-ordinating will cease in any way, shape or form. We shall continue that work, I hope, in all economic and financial policies we bring forward.


David Lewis: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the right hon. gentleman inform the house now or in a day or two exactly what departments are taking over the functions of the special planning secretariat, which I understand was established especially to deal with and co-ordinate remedies with respect to poverty in Canada?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, I shall be very glad to do that, Mr. Speaker.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Alexander Bell Patterson: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Would the minister advise the house as to the position Canada took on the United Nations resolution to ban assistance to South Africa, Rhodesia and Portugal because of policies being followed by those countries?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, we have, of course, opposed apartheid as practised by the government of South Africa. The resolution dealing with this matter, however, contained other matters that in our judgment were not within the direct capability of the United Nations. Because of that we had to abstain, but with the general purport of the resolution we were in full accord. Likewise with regard to the discrimination that is practised in Rhodesia, we have made our position well known on this point at the United Nations and elsewhere.



CANADIAN CONSTITUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George Hees (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the importance of

December 18, 1967
Inquiries of the Ministry arriving at useful and constructive conclusions at the federal-provincial conference that will be held in Ottawa at the end of next month or early in February, a conference that will deal with the constitution and other related matters, will the government take great care to ensure that material to be presented to the provincial premiers who will be attending the conference will be practical and constructive, so we can avoid the kind of conclusion which resulted from the conference which terminated so abruptly in Ottawa last Tuesday night?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member's question was more in the form of a speech. I think the latter part of his remarks probably out of order.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, may I assure you that I was not trying to be argumentative. I was trying to elicit some information from the Prime Minister on a most important subject. I think he wishes to answer.


Lester Bowles Pearson: As always, Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to my hon. friend for his advice which I know is based on deep knowledge and long experience.


George Harris Hees: May I thank the Prime Minister very much for his kind and well received remarks.


Mr. G. L. Chatierton (Esquimalt-Saanich):: May I direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. In view of the success of the confederation for tomorrow conference, is the Prime Minister giving further consideration to holding part of the forthcoming conference in public?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am not sure, Mr. Speaker, that that would be the best course to follow in respect of the conference that will be held in February. This conference may be different from that which was held in Toronto, which was an exchange of views. There was no question of dealing with proposals at that conference. Nevertheless I still hope we can hold the forthcoming conference in public to the maximum possible extent.


Mr. Eric Nielsen (Yukon):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since one of the primary subjects on the agenda at the forthcoming conference will be the bill of rights, will the Prime Minister assure us that Canadians who live above the sixtieth parallel, in the two territories, will be represented at least by observers in that part of the

discussion which has to do with the fundamental and basic human rights of all Canadians?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows we shall follow the course which has proved to be the best as a result of experience in the past, the course which was followed by governments that preceded our government. I can give the assurance that when matters of direct importance to those Canadians who do not live in provinces are before the conference, they will be directly represented there.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the right hon. Prime Minister a question relating to earlier questions concerning the forthcoming federal-provincial conference. Can he inform the house whether he has suggested to the provincial premiers, as has been reported, that they invite the leaders or representatives of opposition parties and, if not, will he in any case consider inviting the leaders or representatives of opposition parties in this house to the federal-provincial conference?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I certainly made no such suggestion to the provincial premiers and I would be straying outside my jurisdiction if I did so. I do not know where that report originated. As I did not make the suggestion I had better wait to see what stand they will take before we decide what we ought to do. If they invite their opposition leaders to this conference it would create a very unique and interesting situation which would have to be taken into consideration here.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: My question, Mr. Speaker, is for the Minister of Finance. In the light of the statement by United States authorities and others who are members of the gold pool, and in the light of the recent statement by the governor of the Bank of Canada, would the minister now answer that portion of my question which he took as notice on Friday and advise Canada just where we stand on this question of the gold pool and international monetary relations?
December 18, 1967

Hon, Milchell Sharp (Minister of Finance):
Mr. Speaker, on Friday the hon. gentleman asked me a supplementary question. I think I answered his first question by stating that we were not a member of the so called gold pool and that we have been kept informed about the operations of the pool. We have never been asked to join it, and we are interested in the outcome of present gold transactions. The second question the hon. member asked, as reported on page 5470 of Hansard, is:
Does this mean that dealing in futures in the gold market will not apply in Canada as well as in the pool countries?
The governor of the Bank of Canada over the week end asked banks and financial institutions to avoid selling gold on credit and to avoid dealing in gold futures.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister advise us whether the United States government has asked Canada to join in its action to maintain the price of gold at $35 an ounce and, indeed, to continue to shore up the dollar as the unit of international monetary exchange?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, that question is really the equivalent of asking whether we are a member of the gold pool. The answer to that question is in the negative. We are not one of those countries that are involved in supplying gold at $35 an ounce in order to maintain this value. We are, however, very interested in the stability of the international monetary system, and we will be co-operating with the United States in an effort to maintain the present price of gold. This is in the interests of ensuring the stability of the international monetary system.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Notwithstanding the fact that Canada is not a member of the gold pool, will the minister advise whether the United States government has asked the Canadian government to participate or assist in this action?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I thought I had answered that question on Friday when I said we had not been asked to join the gold pool.



REQUEST FOR CONTINUED PRODUCTION OF HALF DOLLAR AND DOLLAR COINS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Michael Starr (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Now that he has had time to give consideration to my request of last week, will
Inquiries of the Ministry he satisfy the desires of Canadians who wish to have souvenir fifty cent and dollar silver pieces, and thereby improve his public image?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Calgary North.


Michael Starr: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, will the minister see to it that more fifty cent and dollar silver pieces are minted so Canadians may have them as souvenirs of centennial year?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, may I say in answer to the first question that if it would help the hon. gentleman's image I would be very glad to print his effigy on one side. As to his question about dollars and fifty cent pieces, the matter of souvenir collections of coins is still under consideration.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the reports the House of Commons has received today from the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Minister of National Defence on the NATO meeting in Brussels, and keeping in mind the answer given to the house last week by the Prime Minister, may I now ask whether he will see to it that there is a joint meeting of the external affairs and defence committees before the Christmas recess?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Of course, Mr. Speaker, as my hon. friend knows the committee chairmen have the responsibility, but I shall be very glad to take up the matter with them and assure them that the two ministers would be very happy if the committees could meet this week.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I direct a supplementary question to the right hon. Prime Minister. Was the government's decision to withdraw the Canadian nuclear strike force from NATO influenced by this party's decision, at its 1960 convention, on its NATO policy?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.

December 18. 1967
Inquiries of the Ministry NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Has a decision been taken to reduce the Canadian army brigade in Europe by 500 men?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: Well, Mr. Speaker, this may be a question of vocabulary. Some redeploy; others rotate; we restructure.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: I think I could say that the aim for all is the same, that is to improve the ratio between operational and administrative forces.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister's week with the Secretary of State for External Affairs has not done him any good. May I ask him if in future the strength of this brigade group is to be approximately 6,000 rather than approximately 6,500?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: Approximately
6,000.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Then if this reduction of 500 men is taking place, is it to be accomplished by doing away with one or more units in the brigade and, if not, how is it to be
accomplished?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: Well, Mr. Speaker, I believe I gave my description for it; by restructuring.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I do not think restructuring means anything so far as we are concerned in this house. What does the minister mean by restructuring? More specifically, how is this reduction to be brought about?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have an easier question for the Minister of National Defence. At the meeting of the nuclear committee of NATO at Brussels was there any discussion of Canada's plan to negotiate out of its nuclear role, a pre-election commitment made to the Canadian people by the Prime Minister over four years ago?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, this was not actually on the agenda; therefore there was no discussion of it.


Mr. E. Nasserden (Rosthern):: As a supplementary question, did Canada have anything to do with drawing up the agenda?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: No, Mr. Speaker.



AIRPORTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Barry Mather (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question I would like to direct to the attention of the Minister of Transport. It concerns Vancouver International Airport. What consideration is being given to the protest of the B.C. federation of labour against the proposed establishment of a toll crossing over the Fraser river, which it is argued will become a financial burden to the airport users?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I suggest that this question be placed on the order paper.


Barry Mather: Ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker. FREIGHT RATES



MEETING WITH RAILWAYS TO DISCUSS NEW L.C.L. RATES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Did he as yet have an opportunity to meet with officials of the railways with regard to l.c.l. rates in the Atlantic provinces? If not, when does he propose to meet with them?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I have not yet had an opportunity to meet with them, but I have passed on to them the information following the meeting with the Atlantic premiers and the questions that arose from that meeting. The railways are now studying these various suggestions in order to decide what position they should take in respect to each of the propositions. Following that I shall be in a position to meet with them to discuss their positions and decide what further action should be taken, if any.


Robert Carman Coates: As a supplementary question, could the minister indicate whether he might
December 18, 1967

be able to produce a decision prior to December 25, which would be a very satisfactory Christmas present to businessmen in the Atlantic provinces?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I think the date is an admirable one, Mr. Speaker, but it will be determined to a considerable extent, if not totally, by the ability of the railways to come to a conclusion by that time.



WHEAT-POSSIBLE TRANSFER OF FUNDS FOLLOWING SALE TO CHINA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. As a result of the latest wheat sale to China will there have to be an appropriation from the federal treasury to wheat board funds?


Hon. Robert Winters (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: That remains to be seen in the light of wheat sales during the crop year, Mr. Speaker.



SHIPBUILDING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (Queens-Lunenburg):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries. On December 5 I asked the minister what action the government was planning to assist the wooden shipbuilding industry in Nova Scotia, and he replied that it was the government's intention to continue the subsidy program. .Has there been any change in the government's wooden shipbuilding subsidy program since December 5?


Hon.   H.-J. Robichaud@Minister of Fisheries: No, Mr. Speaker.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Then as a supplementary question would the minister explain his statement written to the fishermen's loan board at Halifax on December 5 and December 8 that "no further applications for subsidy-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: -will be approved-"


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member's supplementary is not in order.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker-
27053-349J
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member asked a question. He is now asking a supplementary question, seeking to have the minister explain a statement. That is not a proper question.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Then may I rephrase my question, Mr. Speaker. Is it the minister's intention to continue with the present wooden shipbuilding subsidy program?


Mr. Robichaud:: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is the department's intention to continue the subsidy on wooden ships, but I did write the fishermen's loan boards of Nova Scotia and of the other Atlantic provinces and Quebec, advising them that we had to review the subsidy position, due to the fact that fishing vessels had been completed and applications with respect to subsidies were sent in months after those ships had been engaging in fishing operations. We agreed at a meeting in Moncton on November 15 that all applications had to be reviewed to determine what money would be needed in supplementary subsidies to cover all applications for the current fiscal year.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: One final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister tell the house when the subsidy program will be reinstated?


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Mr. Speaker, there is no reason to reinstate the subsidy program. It has always been in operation, and still is.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Labour in his capacity as the minister reporting on housing. In view of the critical housing situation, and in view of the fact that the federal government, together with the provincial government of Ontario, has for years been the owner of a considerable tract of land at Malvern, near Toronto, which could be made available for a satellite town of 30,000 people, is the government going to contribute to the cost of services, which I understand is the main obstacle to proceeding with the plan?


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the hon. member that talks have been in progress for

December 18, 1967

Inquiries of the Ministry some weeks with the Ontario housing corporation with a view to making better use of the land that was acquired by the federal-provincial partnership some years ago. On Wednesday of last week I met with the minister, some of his officials and officials of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. We agreed on the appointment of a community planner and a consulting engineer in order to move ahead with this project. It is a strategically located site, one which we hope will be a model for other suburban communities in the years ahead.



EDUCATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question which I should like to direct to the right hon. Prime Minister. Is it the intention of the government to maintain, at the very least, during the coming year the level of funds available for student travel and exchange within Canada? I ask this question in view of the immeasurable value to the future of our country of the student exchange.


Mr. Speaker:: I realize the importance of the matter but I suggest that this is the type of question which should be placed on the order paper.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: I submit with great respect, Your Honour, that this question meets both the qualifications in respect of a question during this period.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member knows he can ask leave to debate the matter at the time of adjournment.



TRANSPORTATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Can the minister inform the house when the special studies on the social and economic impact of rail line abandonment in the prairies will be made available to the public?


An hon. Member:: He does not know what it is.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I admit I do not know what it is. I think perhaps I should take the question as notice, Mr. Speaker. However, I believe I can tell my hon. friend that the Canadian Transportation Commission will have to see quite a bit more water go under the bridge before hearings commence on this very important subject.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I have a supplementary
question, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister is taking this question as notice, when he reports to the house I wonder whether he will assure the house that there will be no future hearings on abandonment until these studies are available.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Some weeks ago, Mr. Speaker,
I gave the house that assurance.


Mr. R. R. Souiham (Moose Mouniain):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to the one asked a few moments ago by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris of the Minister of Transport. When will the independent cost analysis report on transportation be available? More particularly, I should like to know whether it will be made available before any further hearings on rail line abandonment take place?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, this is part of the same question I answered some time ago when I said the commission would be holding public hearings and that further representations could be made to the commission before a costing order was made. No further hearings on rail line abandonment in western Canada having to do with the wheat trade will be held pending the hearings on the costing order.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Can the minister assure us that the cost analysis will be free of any previous orders or preconceptions?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Yes, it is to be approached with a completely open mind. The conclusions that were taken previously are not to prejudice in any way the outcome of the anticipated hearings which will be held in the new year.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Secretary of State for
December 18. 1967



External Affairs, in the light of reports of unusual manoeuvres by a Soviet ship near
the west coast of Vancouver island-manoeuvres which apparently drew the attention of two Canadian destroyers-whether he is in a position to report to the house on the significance of this event?


Paul Joseph James Martin: No, Mr. Speaker, not at the moment, but perhaps tomorrow.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the
Minister of National Defence whether his department has any report which he is in a position to give the house in this regard?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I am informed that two Canadian destroyers were dispatched last week to give assistance or guidance to a Russian hydrographic survey ship if it should enter Canadian waters. It has been the usual practice to keep under surveillance any foreign ships which might enter our waters, particularly those which have given no advance warning of their intention.


Mr. T. S. Barnett (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Defence. Does he have any information whether the Soviet hydrographic vessel, to which he referred in his earlier answer to the hon. member for Kamloops, has been involved in a program of underwater explosions in the north Pacific south of the Aleutians?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I do not think I can go beyond the statement I made.



CANADA LABOUR CODE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. It relates to the Canada Labour (Safety) Code which was passed by parliament last December. Can the minister say whether this act and the regulations under it will be proclaimed before the end of this year, as the minister promised on several occasions; and will the administration of this act be brought into effect by that time?
Inquiries of the Ministry


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to inform the hon. member that the necessary order in council has been passed proclaiming the new legislation, and it becomes effective January 1, 1968. Some regulations have been drafted, and others are in the course of being prepared.



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND DISPUTES INVESTIGATION ACT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address this question to the Minister of Labour. Is he receiving protests from organized labour and/or others regarding Bill No. C-186?


John Robert (Jack) Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, there have been some communications received which might be regarded as protests and others which are not. These will be dealt with by the committee early in the new year, I hope.



BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. W. Prittie (Burnaby-Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State concerning educational television. When the Minister of National Revenue made his recent announcement concerning federal projects which are to be eliminated or postponed he made no mention of the transmission facilities for educational television. Does the government plan to build any such facilities in 1968?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The question is of such a general nature that I do not think it should be asked at this time.


Robert William Prittie: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State and it is similar but not the same as one asked earlier. Has the government made a firm commitment to any province to provide transmission facilities for educational television next year?


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: No, Mr. Speaker. As the hon. member knows, there is a draft bill to go before the committee and the committee has not begun*

December 18, 1967
Inquiries of the Ministry to deal with this matter. I suppose my colleague the President of the Treasury Board did not discuss this as a matter of dollars because there is no indication at all at this stage what proportion would be borne by the provinces or other interested groups and the federal government, or which provinces will be ready to put on enough hours of programming to make it worth while to build transmitters. It is not possible at this point, until we have seen what the committee has to say about it after it has heard witnesses and the bill has been put before the house, to ascertain how many would be required.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct this question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. In the hope that it will assist in breaching what appears to be an impasse between the Yukon legislative council and the government, will he assure the house that in addition to discussions with the territorial council in respect of any recommendations which will be contained in the forthcoming important departmental white paper, there will be discussions in respect of other matters concerning the reform of the Yukon Act which might originate with the council?


Arthur Laing: Mr. Speaker, as my hon. friend knows, the constitutional powers of the council of the Yukon Territory derive entirely from the Yukon Act. Its amendment is solely within the prerogative of parliament. I have already assured the council on a number of occasions that when the white paper is prepared we will discuss it with representatives of the council. I should not like to give any undertaking beyond that because in doing so I would be going beyond my powers.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister. Will he at least assure the house that he or his officials will hold discussions with representatives of the Yukon council prior to the completion of the recommendations which will appear in the white paper in order that the views of the council will be ascertained before the white paper is completed?


Arthur Laing: I fully expect to hear the views of the Yukon council whether I ask for them or not.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Ed. Schreyer (Springfield):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Trade and Commerce which he may wish to take as notice. Has his department now reached a position of agreement with the government of the province of Manitoba relative to the strongly voiced disagreement in respect of the marketing of fresh water fish? May I rephrase the question and simply ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether any areas of disagreement between the government of the province of Manitoba and the federal government have now been removed?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. With respect, I suggest that the question is too wide in scope to be asked in this way at this time.


Edward Richard Schreyer: May I rephrase the question, Mr. Speaker, and ask the minister whether he can say now if the government has any intention of implementing the Mclvor report on fresh water fish marketing?


Robert Henry Winters: Mr. Speaker, we have informed the government of Manitoba that there are areas of the report in respect of which we think we might work constructively and in harmony.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address my question to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the fact that the Kennedy round tariff reductions start coming into effect in less than two weeks does the minister plan to announce to the house before we adjourn on Friday any measure to ease the impact on agricultural producers who are adversely affected by these tariff reductions?


Hon. J. J. Greene (Minisier of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I do not have any plans in this regard at the present time, but I will be very pleased to keep the suggestion of the hon. member in mind.
December 18, 1967


George Harris Hees: In view of the fact that quite a number of weeks ago the minister advised me that the department was working on this whole matter, is he saying that they have arrived at no conclusions and that he has no information to pass on to the house regarding any plan to be put forward?


John James Greene: Some of the effects of the Kennedy round tariff reductions will only become evident when the economic results come into play after the implementation of the tariff reductions. On the basis of the information we have today we feel there will be nothing but benefit to Canada and the Canadian agricultural community in general. In the event that certain segments of the agricultural industry suffer any harm which should be alleviated by governmental action we will certainly be pleased to consider such action as becomes necessary.


George Harris Hees: In view of the minister's answer is he sure he has been opening all his mail?



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Minister of National Defence, but before doing so I hope he will allow me to express on my behalf and on behalf of all members of the house our congratulations to Wing Commander R. A. White, who I understand on Thursday established a Canadian altitude record for jet aircraft.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Harold Edward Winch: Having said that, let me now ask my question. It is my understanding, according to a press release issued by the information service of the Department of National Defence, that this altitude record was achieved with a CF-104 Super Starfight-er after six months intensive work by the Department of National Defence and private agencies. Will the minister please tell us why, if the CF-104 is to be phased out through attrition, this money was spent?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is making an argument now rather than asking a question.


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take
Inquiries of the Ministry this opportunity to complete the information the hon. member for Vancouver East gave the house. Wing Commander White actually flew at a height of 100,100 feet.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the right hon. Prime Minister if he can now answer the question I asked the other day as to whether legislation in respect of maritime transportation will be dealt with at a new session? I ask this because a simple yes would enable certain ambitious gentlemen to wander safely in Atlantic Canada in the four months ahead.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am sorry I have not answered that question before now, Mr. Speaker, but I will certainly look into it very carefully.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address my question to the right hon. Prime Minister. In view of the fact that after the government having answered some seven written questions today approximately 153 still remain on the order paper, will the Prime Minister prevail upon his ministers to answer as many of the simple ones as possible next Wednesday prior to the Christmas recess, especially those ministers who might be hitting the campaign trail?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not know of a single simple question on the order paper, Mr. Speaker.



RESEARCH


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Industry to advise the house whether the government is satisfied that the HARP project and all the personnel involved should be transferred to the United States?


Hon. C. M. Drury (Minister of Industry):: Mr. Speaker, of course the government is not

December 18, 1967
Inquiries of the Ministry satisfied that all the personnel of the HARP project should be transferred to the United States. Indeed, on a number of occasions I have expressed the hope that this will not take place and that it will be possible to find a climate for them in Canada.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: May I ask the minister whether the government through its agencies is actively co-operating in attempting to have these people remain in Canada to work on this useful research?


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Yes, Mr. Speaker.



PRIME MINISTER


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a constitutional question to the Prime Minister. I think Your Honour will realize that I am asking it now while there is time to deal with the matter involved. Will the government make the necessary arrangements so that the next Prime Minister of Canada, whoever he may be, and all future Prime Ministers can be styled as "right honourable" without having to be made members of the privy council of another country?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the question may be constitutional, but it does not appear to be very urgent.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the Secretary of State whether the ethnic press analysis branch of her department is being reduced almost by half effective March 1, 1968?


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked me a similar question the other day. My answer is, not that I am aware, but it may be that this staff is subject to the curtailment policy announced by the treasury board. It should be appreciated that the Secretary of State's department is like no other in that it is very small with just a few agencies and a few people attached to it.


Michael Starr: In view of the fact that this branch has been rendering valuable service,

will the minister look into this matter and protest that such a small department should be curtailed?


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



INQUIRY OF THE MINISTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edward Nasserden: Mr .Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of the strategic importance of the work he has been undertaking in his position as minister, does he believe events are so well advanced that he might be spared from the international scene long enough for a brief return to domestic political life?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I doubt it, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)



DIVORCE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, December 15, consideration of the motion of Mr. Trudeau for the second reading of Bill No. C-187, respecting divorce.
Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kings-way):: Mr. Speaker, when this debate was adjourned on Friday afternoon I was making the point that every responsible person believes that marriage should be a permanent relationship, seriously undertaken and with the full expectation of building a lifelong partnership. This is the ideal. I believe that most young couples have the idea that their union will be permanent, but the strains on marriage are very heavy today and many young couples are far from prepared to withstand those strains. Consequently, whether we like it or not there are very many marriages that fall by the wayside and many partnerships that prove not to be indissoluble.
Times have changed very greatly. When giving evidence to the committee on divorce Dr. Ollivier said that in the first 12 years after confederation parliament had enacted eight divorces, whereas in 1966 the Senate passed over 1,000 divorce resolutions. When we reflect on the fact that in 1966 people from only two provinces, Quebec and Newfoundland, were still coming to the Senate
December 18, 1967

with divorce petitions, we get some idea of the magnitude of the change. People from those two provinces alone brought to the Senate over 1,000 divorce petitions in 1966, and when we compare that with the eight divorces in all Canada which were enacted in the first 12 years after confederation we get some idea of the change.
I do not want to give the impression that there are not qualifications in this respect. In the first 12 years after confederation Canada was a very much smaller country and covered a great deal less territory than it does now. Also, the 1,000 divorce petitions in 1966 may have been many more than the number presented in a normal year from those two provinces. Nevertheless, times have changed greatly.
What is the situation today? We find that in Canada, whether we like it or not, no matter how much we may hope that all marriages will be permanent there are nearly half a million common law unions in which are not sanctioned in any way by marriage and the children of which are illegitimate. These unions have no position at all in law except in one or two very small respects. We also find there are very many couples, an undetermined number, who are held together in unhappy, strife-torn unions.


Mr. Cowan:: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question of the hon. member?


Winona Grace MacInnis: Yes.


Ralph Bronson Cowan: The hon. member used the term "illegitimate children" just now. I thought she was opposed to that phrase. Why is she using it?


Winona Grace MacInnis: the hon. member would like me to talk of illegitimate parents I will be very happy to accommodate him. It is one of the easier places to accommodate him, I may say. There are very many couples who are held together in most unhappy unions or in unions from which all the respect and love that brought them together in the first place have gone. These couples are together simply because they cannot get free.
Of the many letters which I, along with other members of the house, have received I would like to read just two. They come from Vancouver, one from my constituency and one from the constituency of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Laing). However, they are symptomatic of the letters which come to us from all
Divorce Law Reform
across this country. One letter reads in part as follows:
May I tell you that for 14 years my wife and I have lived apart. There is no possibility of a reconciliation. There are no children or religious differences involved. Ours was a marriage which was unsuccessful from the outset notwithstanding we lived together on and off for 15 years.
My wife is gainfully employed and is approximately 58 years of age. I am also gainfully employed and am 59 years of age.
Over the years I have attempted to secure a divorce under the existing laws. My wife is not interested in divorce. She advised me on many occasions that I could live with who I liked, but she would not agree under any circumstances to a divorce.
I believe I am a law-abiding citizen and of temperate and/or moderate habits. Surely the divorce laws will be amended to permit a person in my situation, and I believe there are thousands of us, to secure a proper divorce in order to attempt to live a normal life, and take a proper place in society.
May I urge you to be compassionate and understanding of the many people who, through no desire of their own, entered into marriages that did not work out successfully, and yet under existing laws are powerless to have such unhappy unions dissolved.
We have an example here of a union which was simply unsuccessful, where the partners failed to develop those human relationships that would have made the marriage successful, where there appears to be very little recrimination or bitterness but there is a settled conviction on the part of the husband that there cannot be a reconciliation. The wife evidently cares very little about the marriage because she has told him he can live with whom he likes but that she will not enable him to obtain a divorce.
In my opinion this is a very good example of the many hundreds of letters which all of us have received from people who want to be free. Frankly, I consider it is immoral to compel two such people to go on living together in a relationship which certainly does not make for happiness.


Mr. Trudeau:: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member realizes, of course, that this particular case could be solved by the new divorce law?


Winona Grace MacInnis: Yes, indeed. I want to come to that in a moment because I realize this is just one example of many hundreds of people who have been waiting and waiting in a very law-abiding and patient way for the new divorce legislation which will give them release. In this case it will give the husband release and will provide release also for his wife, even though

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Divorce Law Reform
apparently she does not want that release. I think much of her reluctance may stem from the fact she feels that under existing conditions it will not be recognized by the community as being a proper thing to do. The other letter is quite different. It is from a woman in my constituency who says in part:
I am one of thousands of deserted women in this country who have no hope of obtaining my freedom while the present laws exist. No one has seen or heard of my husband since he left us three and a half years ago. Only his creditors really looked very hard, but they gave up. I cannot prove adultery although it was well known he left with a woman who took half her husband's bank account with her. However!
My children are now six years and four and a half years old and lovely children. I do not attempt to meet anyone else because to me there is no point. That would probably end up in a common law relationship. This I do not desire for myself or children. But I can see why so many people are forced into this type of situation. With the problems a woman alone has to face in society, it can happen just from sheer human need.
e (4:00 p.m.)
I believe that this woman also can be helped by the new legislation, and I point out that here is a very fine type of woman indeed. Even if she could do so she does not want to expose herself to the temptations of a common law relationship because she does not want her children to grow up in such an atmosphere.
Fears have been expressed that the new legislation might tempt people to rush into divorce unduly and thus destroy the sanctity of marriage. But here we have a woman who has been waiting patiently for some years and who values the sanctity of marriage to the point that she does not wish to enter into a relationship which would violate her conception of a proper marriage because she does not wish her children to grow up under those circumstances.
I am sure that these two people and many others like them will be feeling gratitude now that the new legislation is on the point of being passed. I think we should express our appreciation to the minister in this regard. These marriages are dead and there is no hope of reviving them.
What must we do for people who find themselves in this situation at the present time? Two things can be done. We can either refuse to widen the grounds for divorce, pretend that a need for it does not exist and persist in festooning dead marriages with funeral flowers. In other words, we would go on perpetuating an immoral situation. Marriages that have failed have been called an

unholy deadlock. I call them unholy wedlock. The other alternative is to do what the government is now preparing to do, to update our divorce legislation and in a measure at least clean up the hypocrisy which has surrounded the problem of broken marriages for so long.
Although I was not a member of the committee on divorce and consequently was not present at their deliberations, nervertheless I have learned that two concepts are embodied in the bill before us. One of them is the concept of matrimonial offences which I call the theory of crime and punishment. It consists of a number of offences, any one or a combination of which would enable people to apply for a divorce with a reasonable hope of getting it. Until now adultery has been the only ground for divorce in Canada, whereas now other grounds have been added, one of which is marriage breakdown. This is a completely new concept. Under this concept, when a marriage is dead and can be proved to be dead for a number of reasons and when the court upon suitable advice and investigation finds that a marriage is dead, a divorce may be granted on the ground of marriage breakdown. The two concepts, marriage breakdown and matrimonial offence are contained in the same piece of legislation.
Like the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Brewin) and other hon. members who have spoken, I would have preferred to see us do away with this patchwork quilt of various matrimonial offences and to judge marriage on the sole ground of breakdown based on the various factors which have contributed to the breakdown. I believe a marriage should be judged on the basis of whether or not a human relationship has failed beyond the possibility of reconciliation. I believe that henceforth marriage breakdown should be the sole ground for divorce in Canada. We should avoid having to go through the 30 years of experience which Britain had to go through after having combined the concepts of matrimonial offences and marriage breakdown in one piece of legislation. I believe that Britain's experience has proven to the satisfaction of the British people that it does not work. This is demonstrated by the fact at the present time that country is on the verge of introducing in parliament a new bill whereby divorce may be granted solely on grounds of marriage breakdown. Britain is going to do away with the old-fashioned patchwork quilt of crime and punishment and matrimonial offences and adopt the new
December 18, 1967

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
birth control information or contraceptive devices. However, these people recognized there was a great body of people whose consciences would allow them to have this information. We found, for the first time in my experience, that the people who did not want to use this new legislation themselves were nevertheless willing that other Canadians who would make use of such information should have it.
We hope, Mr. Speaker, that within a few days we shall see the minister introduce legislation which will change the law relating to birth control in such a way as to leave it open to the individual conscience as to the use to be made of birth control knowledge or legislation. At the same time no one would be forced to accept this knowledge or these devices if their conscience did not permit them to do so. I believe this would be a good solution for Canada. Incidentally, I would be remiss in my duty if I did not express my appreciation of the stand of the churches in these fields of social legislation. The churches have given leadership in these fields. The churches have recognized that times have changed. They have realized that if they are going to help people they must do so in a very practical way.
In connection with birth control it was most interesting that the Canadian conference of Catholic bishops came before our committee when we were discussing birth control legislation. They said that they themselves were not too interested in changing the law on birth control but they knew the present law was unenforceable and that when a law is unenforceable it is bad legislation because it brings about disrespect for the law. They gave us the green light to go ahead and make the changes for the people who want the changes and whose conscience will permit them to use the information.
It would be my hope that before we have finished the discussions on abortion now taking place we would find that every church would be prepared to go that far. A number of them have already done so. I should like to see the other churches which have not yet committed themselves or have not yet appeared before our committee make it possible for those people who so desire to have the abortion laws liberalized.
I should like to say a word now about divorce. I was pleased when I read the report of the joint committee on divorce to find these words:
Witnesses before your committee have stressed:
"That those whose religious principles are against

divorce in any form should no longer be able to impose restrictions on the personal lives of those whose principles differ in this respect".
This view has been unchallenged and the representatives of the churches appearing before your committee have wholeheartedly endorsed it. "The Christian church no longer has the right to force its views on a pluralistic society", declared the Baptist Federation of Canada, a view endorsed by the Catholic Women's League of Canada.
I want to quote from their brief:
While we do not believe in divorce ourselves we cannot expect the laws of this country to be used in such a manner as to prevent those who, unlike ourselves, do not believe that marriage is monogamous and indissoluble, from acting in accordance with their own religious convictions... We would also emphasize that while we have beliefs in the matter of marriage, we do not wish to impose those beliefs on the entire Canadian society through the medium of civil law.
On this permissive basis of allowing people to use this legislation when their conscience permits and not forcing it on people whose consciences do not permit, we are prepared to accept this new divorce legislation. I should like, of course, to see it go farther. Unfortunately the minister has put it at the point where he thinks he has a Canadian consensus. As the law goes into practice I would like to see the emphasis shifted more and more from the crime and punishment matrimonial offences basis to the marriage breakdown basis. I am convinced we shall get there before too long in this country. I believe the main points we must safeguard now have to do with the children of the marriage partners. Almost equally important are measures which must be taken, probably within the provinces, to see that the cost of divorce is brought down within the means of those people who would like to use this legislation.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
Before I conclude I should like to congratulate the minister on being able to get this legislation before the house at long last. I should not like to leave congratulations without referring to some of the men who helped keep alive for so many years the idea that we needed this legislation. I believe that the co-chairman of the divorce committee, Senator Roebuck, will feel that his long life has indeed been crowned by the achievement of this type of legislation. Reference was made to Senator Aseltine who got a bill through the other place which sought to widen the grounds for divorce but unfortunately died on the order paper of this chamber. I should also like to refer to the hon. members for Skeena (Mr. Howard) and Timiskaming (Mr. December 18, 1987

Peters) who, unpopular though their efforts may have been at the time, nevertheless kept alive the need for this legislation to be brought into being so as to get divorce out of parliament and into the place where it belongs, the courts of this country.
Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer to the person who perhaps more than anybody else started the agitation for modern divorce laws in this country. I refer to my father, the late J. S. Woodsworth, who in 1928 when there were nearly 300 divorce petitions, 95 per cent of them from Ontario, clogging up the machinery both of this house and the other place, turned himself into a single Horatius at the bridge, if you will, and as every divorce bill came up for discussion talked about it, examined it, asked about the children and made a complete and utter nuisance of himself in the interests of getting those divorce petitions out of the house and into a place where they could receive proper consideration. His final tribute was the passage of his own bill in 1928 to provide for divorce courts in Ontario.
All these and many others, Mr. Speaker, have helped over the years to achieve this legislation, and it needed the efforts of every one of them and many whom I have not mentioned. This bill is a real step forward. I hope we shall go the rest of the way before too many years have gone by and that we shall discover that this divorce legislation is not going to destroy or weaken marriage in this country. Marriage is far too important an institution for that.
I also hope this legislation will do what a number of us believe it will do, aid in building and strengthening personal responsibility on the part of individual men and women. For personal responsibility on the part of ordinary men and women, Mr. Speaker, there is no substitute.


Mr. Macdonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the hon. lady would permit a question?


Winona Grace MacInnis: Surely.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: The hon. member said in the course of her remarks that it was not appropriate for parliament to legislate, particularly in the criminal law, on matters of moral judgment. I would draw to her attention Part IV of the Criminal Code which involves a series of offences that in turn involve moral judgments-rape, incest, indecent assault. Is she saying that they should not be included in the criminal law?
Divorce Law Reform


Winona Grace MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I thought I was voicing the thinking of the Minister of Justice in this regard when he said that in his opinion it was not the business of the country to legislate morality. However, the minister can speak for himself.


Mr. Antonio Thomas (Maisonneuve-Rose-mont):: Mr. Speaker, the house now has before it a bill to reform the Divorce Act in which many people are concerned. I hardly need to add that the most concerned are precisely those involved in this dilemma, who are waiting for the house to carry out amendments and pass new legislation which will not so much facilitate obtaining a divorce but make clearer and more realistic the grounds for divorce.
Like many members, I have received briefs and opinions. I have picked among the best elements brought to my attention and I shall use the very same words and phrases, so as to avoid changing their value or meaning.
I received in my office people involved in matrimonial problems who feel that only a divorce would enable them to reorganize their lives, but the requirements of the act were in no way in accordance with their means.
Being of the Roman Catholic faith and brought up in the observance of religious principles that were taught us, it would have been difficult for me, even a few years ago, to take position on such an issue, because it was said that only the death of one of the spouses could dissolve the bond of matrimony. Today, it should not be imagined that canon law has been changed or that the oecumenic council has changed the religion, not at all. The council has mitigated the legislation, eased the standards, but has never changed anything else. On this point I take the liberty of quoting an article published in the Medicine Hat News and reprinted in La Presse on April 24 1967, and I quote:
Increased tolerance.
The Catholic bishops of Canada are to be congratulated on having withdrawn their opposition to the mitigation of civil divorce legislation in the country.
The brief of the Canadian Catholic Conference on this occasion emphasizes that for the Church, the bonds of matrimony are sacred and that civil authority has no power to dissolve them. They add that Canada is a multidenominational country and that the present civil law is open to abuse.
This is surely a welcome proof of increased religious tolerance in Canada. And that is the hub of the problem. No one can deny the Catholic

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
Church the right to have its own laws on matrimony. It is only when the Church attempts to block a bill involving both non-members and members of the Catholic Church that a conflict arises-
The bishops' brief removes one of the last obstacles to government intervention. When the sittings of the divorce committee will come to an end, the federal government will no longer have any excuse to abstain from legislating.
I feel bound today, as a legislator, to try to make my humble contribution to this debate and may God guard me from any blunder which might bring on me the anathema of the legislators of my church. Besides, the religious authorities of various provinces will be able to accept and endorse or reject the new civil law. In the meantime, it can be said that the basis of the present Divorce Act is not sound. It considers divorce as a relief granted to the innocent party, because of an offence committed by the guilty party.
Experience teaches us that only adultery which, in most provinces, is considered as an offence against the nature of marriage, constitutes grounds for divorce, and yet, adultery is only one form of offence, among others, which can cause the failure of marriage. There are many other forms of offences and their seriousness can vary considerably. Marriages have been broken up through offences other than adultery, and the present legislation tends to increase the bitterness and antagonism, because in divorce proceedings, how often is there agreement between the parties concerned. An adultery is invented and staged in connivance with the parties involved and the witnesses are paid to give evidence before the courts of what they saw and heard. To begin with, we must ensure a stricter enforcement of this condition which seems to the advantage of better-off, and give those of slender means opportunity to submit their grievances to the same courts.
I support the concept under which divorce is the legal and true recognition of the breakdown of marriage. Valid methods will then have to be developed to ascertain the failure, and a proper period of separation provided to show that the situation is lasting.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
It might be necessary to consider other matrimonial offences-because they are at a negative level-such as sexual intercourse including manifestations of sadism, acts of cruelty on the person of the spouse or the children, or de facto desertion. As far as desertion is concerned, it will be necessary to consider the whole of Canada as the domicile and not the evidence of domicile from one
[Mr. Thomas (Maisonneuve-Rosemont).!
province to the other. Besides the bill stipulates as much.
Mr. Speaker, even if I recognize that various matrimonial offences are committed, I find it difficult to admit that their simple existence constitutes grounds for the dissolution of a marriage, as the system of proceedings permits it. First of all, each major category of offences considered includes various situations which are greatly different. There is a fundamental difference between adultery committed on an impulse, as an isolated act, and a series of continuous adventures, or yet a liaison used to hurt and aggravate the spouse.
Similarly, there is a tremendous difference between blows given under provocation and maintaining a permanent attitude of anger and hostility, an attitude that can lead periodically to blows or that tortures the other spouse or the children and which manifests itself through verbal maliciousness as cruel as blows.
Experience has taught us this:	when
spouses discuss the causes leading their marriage to a dead-end, doubtless they throw violent accusations at each other but almost invariably they come to recognize, in some way or other, their respective share of the blame for reaching that situation. When they discuss divorce, it seems that the requirements of the law make them feel ill at ease, which leads them into presenting a cooked up version of the facts.
I think too that mental illness should be considered in the same way as physical illness and, to my mind, it is contrary to common sense and conscience to consider an illness as an offence or as grounds for divorce in itself. The presence of the spouse or children as well as the nature of the relationship between them may be one of the factors largely contributing to the recovery of the sick person. On the other hand, strained matrimonial relations may have contributed to the development of the illness.
The same applies in the case of a criminal. When a spouse must serve a sentence, even a long one, this does not involve a matrimonial offence but it involves going from a legislation and a procedure based on the matrimonial offence concept to a legislation and procedure based on the concept of matrimonial breakdown.
The hub of the problem consists in developing adequate means to prove such marriage breakdown. Proper application of the
December 18, 1967

legislation will depend mainly on the adequacy of the tests to establish the fact.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I am asking divine providence to enlighten our leaders so as to pass just and equitable legislation for all, because all must be equal before the law.


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweaiher@Royal: Mr. Speaker, since the house is anxious to proceed to the committee stage of the bill I shall not prolong the discussion. I merely want to say that in this measure we see an interesting example of the country having been well ahead of parliament for some years in the matter of divorce reform. As usual, parliament has reacted rather than anticipated. I think that we as a government and parliament are now meeting our responsibilities in a most serious area of social need in which the need for reform has been evident for many decades.
The committee has done its work and it is, to use a legal expression, functus. That is a pity. It is also a pity that its timetable did not permit it to hear professional and other criticisms of the actual bill. Perhaps this is an area of procedure that might be discussed at some future time when we are discussing the reform of parliament itself.
In the case of a fundamental change such as the one that is the subject matter of this bill, once the committee has completed its study and the officials have drafted the bill and the minister has presented it, it would be better if the committee had an opportunity to get professional and other views on the matter. I do not blame the minister for what has happened. Clearly, a change in the parliamentary set-up is needed. Perhaps in a few months the minister will have the opportunity to lead a government that will bring about such an interesting innovation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Fairweaiher:: Speaking for myself, I can think of no more distinguished person on the government side to lead such a government.


An hon. Member:: Why not support him?


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: No. I will stick by my own man.


An hon. Member:: Join us.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: No, I have no interest in joining. I shall give you the files to show you what can be done.
Divorce Law Reform
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
I happen to be one of those who are convinced that there is a good deal to be said for the marriage breakdown concept. Some call it the marriage breakdown theory, but it is not a theory. In my opinion this parliament or other parliaments will some day accept that concept. I have sympathy for the minister inasmuch as he has not had the benefit of experience in this area that others in other jurisdictions have had and therefore has not seen fit to make the drastic change of incorporating the marriage breakdown concept in the bill as the sole ground for divorce. But I do want to say at this point that just because one or two members of the party of which I am glad to be a member happen to be interested in the marriage breakdown concept does not in any way say we do not view this major reform in our social legislation with a very great deal of enthusiasm and are not anxious to join in supporting the bill as its various stages are passed by parliament. I think that is pretty clear to those who sit over here. Just because we have individual views on the method of reform does not in any way detract from our very great approval for Bill C-187.
As a one-time practising lawyer I wish to say I feel that most of my brethren will find the role of conciliator, as envisioned in clause 7, really not a very good answer to the many requests of church groups and others interested in divorce reform for a meaningful attempt at marriage counselling and marriage conciliation. One hon. member has spoken about the system in Australia. I hoped something like that would be made part of this bill, but I share the view of the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Aiken) that many lawyers, not because of any wish to circumvent the law but because of the pressure of business and the fact that they are not trained as marriage counsellors, will make the provisions of clause 7 a rather routine proceeding. This, I think, would be a pity.
However, speaking for myself I wish to say I found that when husbands and wives, or one or other of them, approached me seeking my services the marriage had long since passed the point that efforts to reconcile the differences would have been of any assistance. Although I recognize that in most instances this would be a provincial responsibility I has hoped that through a joint federal-provincial effort a more meaningful type of marriage counselling service could have been provided.

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Divorce Law Reform
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and other hon. members to forgive me if I make one point having to do with the jurisdiction in my own province. I asked the minister a question about this point at an earlier stage during the course of his speech. Clause 2 (e) gives a definition of court, and in New Brunswick it is given as "the trial division or branch of the supreme court of the province." In my own province a single judge sits as a judge of divorce and matrimonial causes in only one city, the capital of New Brunswick, and I have heard rumblings to the effect that despite the definition provided in this bill the responsible officials in that province will attempt to circumvent what I am sure is the clear intention of parliament by maintaining the present system.
Speaking for many people in the legal profession in New Brunswick and also speaking as a representative of the people in at least one of its constituencies, 1 must say I would hope very sincerely that upon the enactment of this legislation all judges of the Queen's Bench division of the province of New Brunswick, as they make their circuits, will be hearing divorce matters. It would be a very great pity if this were not the case.
I think that over the next two or three years we have to be prepared for a large increase of petitions for divorce because this legislation will seek to remedy the very serious problems that have been enunciated not only by hon. members in this debate but also by very many people and institutions who presented briefs to the parliamentary committee on divorce. But I do not think we should be alarmed. I am sure those of us who have made some study of the subject will not be alarmed by a large increase. I hope others will not be put off should this happen. I hope we will all recognize that in many instances an opportunity for relief is being given to very many people who are suffering severe hardships and handicaps as to their own status and the status of their children simply because for 100 years the law of divorce in Canada has been so pernicious. I share the views of those who anxiously look forward to the clarification of the status of so many children through the instrument of a reformed divorce law.
I know that a vast majority of members of parliament will support the bill. I know they will do so conscious of the sanctity of marriage, conscious of the need to strengthen the family as the basic unit of our society, but conscious too that there has been a very evident need for reform and that we but do

our duty by responding to the initiative, taken by the divorce committee and the minister, to try to bring some relief where it has been so obviously needed for so long.
tTranslation]


Mr. Yves Forest (Sianstead):: Mr. Speaker,
the new divorce legislation has been well accepted everywhere, and rightly so, because it brings fundamental changes that have been awaited and desired for a long time by a large part of public opinion. It replaces provisions that have become old fashioned and obsolete, particularly in our present social climate.
I had the pleasure and the benefit of sitting on the joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons to consider the whole question of divorce and of sitting on its steering committee. Whe have received a lot of very interesting briefs, particularly from various religious denominations. Under the chairmanship of Senator Roebuck, well versed in the question and gifted with a rare energy and lucidity of mind for a man of his years, and assisted by one of our most distinguished colleagues, the hon. member for High Park (Mr. Cameron), this committee sat most actively and, on June 20 last, presented a report which has certainly helped and guided the Minister of Justice (Mr. Trudeau), as he himself indicated.
As a member of a religious denomination advocating indissolubility of marriage, I was greatly interested and impressed by the logical and realistic attitude taken by the Canadian Catholic Episcopate in its brief presented before the committee. A distinction is made especially between the moral or religious order and the civil or political order. While upholding the permanence of the conjugal bond, they recognize that civil authorities, under certain conditions, have the right to make the present legislation, more flexible as requested by a great number of citizens, for the common good of the civil society.
That new attitude of the church was surely inspired by the principles of religious freedom adopted at the second Vatican council, in December 1965, when the resolution proclaiming that man is entitled to religious freedom was passed.
Since, at the religious level, our country is a clearly pluralistic community, a pluralistic society, that freedom must be guarded more closely than ever and to confuse civil and religious legislation could easily be a source of misunderstanding and uneasiness.
December 18. 1967



Besides, as pointed out by the Minister of Justice, this is an act which will allow the dissolution of the civil tie of marriage but, of course, it does force anyone to remarry if that goes against moral or religious convictions.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
If, as has been suggested, civil authorities are fully entitled to legislate in divorce matters, it must be kept in mind, however, that the family is the fundamental unit of society and that it is essential to do everything possible to preserve and maintain it. Divorce should only be a measure of last resort, taken after every possible means has been used to avoid a Anal breakdown.
Several other religious groups have expressed the same views, as concerns education and preparation for marriage, and promoting appropriate organizations designed to reconcile spouses experiencing difficulties. Those proposals are sound and worthwhile, of course, but are not easy to implement, because of the conAict of jurisdiction in such matters, and they concern rather the civil rights of the parties involved; this is rather a provincial matter and it might be advisable for the governments to deal with this important aspect of family relations when they meet for consultations or conferences on the constitution and its amendments.
However, the bill under study has provided, in many instances, for procedures of conciliation and it grants extended powers to the courts with a view to encouraging reconciliation between the spouses who will be granted a divorce only when it is certain that a reconciliation is impossible.
I have reservations about the efficiency of some of those means, but time and practice only will allow us to judge, and the law can then be improved accordingly. The report of the joint committee and the present legislation both recognized the wish of the state to maintain marriage as the basic institution of society and as its source of stability, but for those who believe in the dissolution of a union that has become unbearable or unendurable, the grounds for divorce have been duly extended in order to eliminate mainly the well-known effects of the present situation and also offer an opportunity to legalize the situation for thousands of Canadians living now under common law marriage.
I believe also that the government was right in following the recommendations of the joint committee and in rejecting the principle of marriage breakdown as grounds for
Divorce Law Reform
divorce, as recommended by some reports submitted to the committee and by a few committee members. This theory may seem attractive at Arst sight, but I think that our courts would have too much freedom, too much leeway, and we would incur the risk of having excessive or inadequate interpretations depending, of course, on the area of the country concerned, and that would surely lead to confusion, uncertainty and inconsistent court Andings.
It was more prudent and more realistic, for the time being at least, to provide the courts with some guidelines, some speciAc orientation for granting divorce when evidence of matrimonial offences or marriage breakdown is produced, pursuant to the provisions of the legislation. As it is, our courts are not yet organized, and they lack the expert or investigative services required for the application of such a formula.
Mr. Speaker, I shall not dwell upon the grounds for divorce listed in clauses 3 and 4 of the bill. They reproduce in the main the worthwhile and logical recommendations made by the joint committee. Practice and experience will show us whether these provisions should be revised later, always, of course, subject to the rigorous and explicit condition stipulated in the law, which is that divorce will only be granted if the court decides that	there	is no hope	of
reconciliation.
Mr. Speaker, I have more serious reservations or doubts concerning corollary relief measures, in the present circumstances, particularly with regard to the division of property, alimony and the custody and care of children. With a few other members of the committee, we tried in vain to introduce amendments to alter the recommendations of the committee in this connection. However, I note with pleasure that, in the present legislation, no reference has been made to the separate maintenance of spouses and since it is a matter concerning property, it will continue to come under the provincial laws.
For the moment, and as long as the provincial authorities do not decide to establish courts to deal with family problems, as I suggested, I wonder whether, in the case of the province of Quebec especially, it would not have been advisable, to avoid any confusion and any conAict of jurisdiction, to restrict ourselves to the problem of divorce as such and follow the practice existing for years and under which parliament has never looked after matters of alimony and custody

December 18. 1987
Divorce Law Reform
of children which have been settled by the competent courts, most of the time by the superior court in the district where the spouses are living following an action for separation in accordance with the Civil Code. This will certainly create some ambiguous and unfortunate situations, for example, if a decision has already been made in connection with the alimony or the custody of children before the superior court and if, thereafter, an action for divorce has been lodged before the exchequer court and a party has obtained contradictory orders. Even if the orders delivered in accordance with clauses 10 and 11 of the legislation can be registered before the superior court and carried out as orders of that court, in my opinion, some practical difficulties and perhaps some detrimental delays could occur, if changes are required under the orders as a result, for example, of a change in the state or condition of the parties.
I think that this whole problem should be considered and I presume that the Minister of Justice will consult with the provincial authorities, especially on matters of procedure or rules on practices to follow.
At this time, I will merely raise another important point in the bill, that is the change in jurisdiction. Until now, citizens of Quebec and Newfoundland who wanted a divorce had to present their petition to parliament and, since 1963, to the Senate especially where, after hearing the petitions, a commissioner made reports to the Senate.
Now, these petitions will be presented to a division of the exchequer court, until the province of Quebec decides to present them to the superior court, as provided by clause 22 of the bill, where other suggestions are also made.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
It is a happy amendment which should above all reduce considerably the cost of getting a divorce. That will abolish the discrimination which existed against people without much money.
That division of the exchequer court will sit at any time and anywhere in Canada. That should facilitate hearings, but since this will be, I suppose, travelling court and will be without the necessary services or machinery to discharge duties or execute its orders, I hope that this will be a temporary provision and that, following consultations with the province of Quebec or within the framework of the amendments to the constitution, if it is not possible to transfer the whole field of marriage and divorce to the provinces to

maintain a perfect uniformity in the country or for other reasons, at least our provincial authorities will very shortly create real courts which will have jurisdiction over all problems concerning the family, including divorce.
These courts would be presided by judges who would have taken specialized courses in domestic relations and who would be assisted by experts such as psychiatrists, social workers, doctors, etc. Thus they could consider family problems as a whole, whereas at present these problems may have to be handled by several courts or jurisdictions, either civil or criminal, depending on whether separation, custody of children, refusal to provide alimony, etc. are involved.
This, Mr. Speaker, would be in the best interests of the family. Moreover, it would take place in an atmosphere conducive to the best possible settlement of family problems both legally and socially.
I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that there will be in the future, some agreement between the provincial authorities and the federal government in respect of jurisdiction, in order to prevent this mix-up and this confusion which make it impossible to take any concerted and planned action in this important field of human relations. Since divorce and its related problems will always be with us and be of concern to a greater number of our citizens, why not recognize this undeniable fact and, at last, make available to those who are entitled to this privilege and who wish to use it, the most complete and the best organized means to achieve this end, which, after all, Mr. Speaker, would only strengthen the very institution of marriage?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, the house and the country were presented with a variety of views on divorce at the committee hearings and I had hoped that as a result of the recommendations of that committee and the deliberations put forward the government would have had the sense to present what I would consider a better bill. As a lawyer I am appalled by some of the provisions of this bill and I will make some reference to them. I have my own views with regard to the sanctity of marriage, the preservation of family life and the purpose of this legislation, and naturally they may not coincide with the ideas of every member in the house.
December 18. 1967

I was very gravely disappointed that the government saw fit to apply the pressures of government sanction without allowing a free vote on a matter of this kind. To me the question of divorce is as important as abortion, and is as important or more important than capital punishment. Yet members are being blackjacked in this regard by party positions having to be taken. I can only say I regret that the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson) did not, having said that members would be free to express themselves and to vote as they wished, avail himself of the opportunity to allow them to do so. This whole matter has now been made subject to limited party positions. We know very well that the whip will be used. This is a very queer way for the minister to suggest that moral views should not apply. I wonder what sort of moral eunuchs he thinks we are, that we can be bland and take other than an objective position in respect of a matter so fundamental as marriage and the dissolution of marriage.
I recognize that everyone has a right to his own opinion, and from the beginning I have felt there are many areas in which our marriage and divorce laws should be changed. I am not suggesting I am a devotee of what I think has unfortunately taken hold of some of our colleagues in this house in respect of galloping, permissive morality. Their attitude is that as long as people want to do something let them go ahead, as long as they feel they should not be married let them put their marriages asunder. I have in mind particularly some of the extensive remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) I simply cannot agree with the type of morality that allows people to go ahead and get a divorce whenever they want. I think we must have a certain sense of responsibility and that there are norms to which society must conform. I would not like it to be said that we are instituting in this country a form of marriage and divorce legislation which would ultimately lead to consecutive polygamy, in other words, to something akin to the coupling of rabbits or the mating of mink.
I have seen a number of judges performing, if I may use that term advisedly, and I know their view is such that they will not decide whether a man and woman shall remain together. I know the view they will take in respect of this measure; this measure can become merely a convenient vehicle for consecutive polygamy or divorce by consent. If we go all the way with the concept of the
Divorce Law Reform
breakdown of marriage being the main or sole ground for divorce-and this bill makes a mockery of reconciliation proceedings- then the decision will be taken by the parties themselves, because that will be the evidence put before the court. This evidence will reflect the attitude and the views of the parties, not the results of extensive investigation by the courts. There is no machinery whatsoever to provide for such investigation.
In case anyone should suggest that clause 7 imposes any degree of reconciliation machinery, let me say that this is patently wrong. The hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Brewin) referred to what he called the farce of the "three C's" and said that the answers to the questions involved were stereotyped. I can readily visualize the affidavits of counsel pursuant to clause 7. They will indicate that the lawyer has brought to the attention of the parties those provisions regarding conciliation and that the clients have been informed of marriage counselling and guidance facilities known to the lawyer.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
Let me tell the minister that as a junior counsel I did a good deal of this type of work. In addition I was a member of the board of the Edmonton family service bureau and in every case with which I was associated I asked my clients whether they had gone to that family service bureau. I said, "I will make the appointment for you." In most cases they did consult social workers or family service workers. For some that was the end of it. But many more came back because, they said, the other party would not go. All I would have to do to comply with this clause would be to put in an affidavit that I had informed the client that there was available this or that bureau and had discussed with him the possibility of a reconciliation with his spouse. All I would have to do would be to ask the client, "Would you consider reconciliation with your spouse?" That is all I would have to do; that would constitute a discussion.
Clause 8 deals with the court's inquiry. I have pointed out to the minister that in my humble estimation this procedure will be totally inadequate for true, meaningful reconciliation. Knowing the attitude of certain men on the bench who say it is not their purpose to keep a man and woman together, I say that this provision will become perfunctory and therefore meaningless in our law.
554$

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
I am not saying there are no conscientious men on the bench but I know there are many who are not that conscientious with regard to these matters. Divorce has never been a palatable subject for most judges. As a matter of fact, I know a good many eminent counsel who would have been excellent judges but who told me that under no circumstances would they consider accepting an appointment to the bench because they would have to sit on divorce cases. They had no moral scruples with regard to divorce but took this position because of a personal distaste. The same thing applies with regard to lawyers who have said they would never accept an appointment to the bench, if one was offered to them, because they would have to sit on capital cases and did not want to sit in judgment on a man's life. This was their personal approach.
I want to come back to the gounds for divorce that are opened up in this bill. I point out immediately to the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway that the grounds for divorce as they exist today in this country are not limited to adultery. As a matter of fact, the grounds that appear in paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 3 are applicable in most provinces where divorce is allowed. I have had experience of this in the province of Alberta. This bill has introduced the strange anomaly of a marriage offence, not as an additional ground but merely as a ground for divorce that a person has gone through a form of marriage with another, without anything further. There does not have to be any sexual relationship.
Subclauses (a) and (b) of clause 3 talk about sexual offences or sexual aberrations, and then we have the mere going through of a form of marriage without anything further, whether or not it was culpable as would be the case in order to found a charge of bigamy under the Criminal Code. We know people have been innocently involved in a second form of marriage because they thought they had the right to marry and there was not sufficient evidence to establish a charge of bigamy. In such cases there may have been nothing more than a form of marriage and yet a provision is introduced in the bill establishing this as a marital offence; one might say one of the mortal sins of married life. I say this because clause 3 really consists of, shall we say, the major offences, and in clause 4 are the additional grounds, somewhat less than those contained in clause 3 but still sufficient to establish grounds for divorce.

Then we come to the question of physical and mental cruelty. With this provision I agree, with the reservation that I trust we shall not have that burned toast concept of mental cruelty which seems sufficient for some courts to grant a divorce, or that rather odd, eccentric conduct that shall be deemed to be mental cruelty a la Hollywood or of the type on which some jurisdictions are prepared to grant divorces. I am surprised the government did not follow the example of the British act and include incurable insanity as a ground for divorce. Perhaps it can be argued that clause 9 (3) establishes insanity because it deals with separation and its continuance. This is a sort of back door approach, if I am right in what is intended to be included in the bill.
Two psychiatrists spoke to me last week and said they hoped they would be able to write to me and make representations that incurable insanity be deemed to be a ground for divorce. According to their reading of the bill this was not provided in it. The minister may be able to point out to me where I have missed it in the bill, but with the greatest respect I have not been able to find it. We then come to the additional grounds contained in clause 9 (3).


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Insanity for how long?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I said incurable insanity. The word "incurable" has only one meaning. If it is intended that there shall be hope of rehabilitation, I am greatly surprised at the interpretation of "hope " contained in clause 4 (1) (b) where the following words are used:
-and there is no reasonable expectation of the respondent's rehabilitation within a reasonably foreseeable period;
We must remember that in these circumstances a divorce will probably be granted In other words, the expectation of the respondent's rehabilitation is hopeless within a reasonably foreseeable period. But when we were dealing with the death penalty and the abolition thereof the Prime Minister said there is no man who can be deemed to be hopeless for rehabilitation. These words have been used with regard to the death penalty but with respect to divorce, if a man is an alcoholic or a drug addict it does not take much to declare him hopeless, I am wondering why we must apply different standards to "hope".
December 18, 1967

[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
Also, I find it rather incongruous to see introduced in a bill on divorce a ground for nullity which until now has presented no difficulties whatsoever. If a marriage has not been consummated it is not a marriage but merely a form of it. The jurisprudence has been in existence for generations that nonconsummation is a ground for nullity. Then why introduce it into a divorce bill?
There is another aspect of the bill which I must confess I find strange and on which I would have liked to hear the opinion of the Canadian Bar Association and of some other legal authorities. I refer to domicile. Nowhere in the bill is domicile defined except by inference under clause 6 in which we are asked to accept the definition of domicile of any jurisdiction in the world, including Las Vegas, Reno and Tijuana, Mexico. Under clause 6 we are to recognize foreign decrees based on domicile as locally defined and Canadians have the right to remarry as long as the law of the jurisdiction in which the decree for divorce was granted states that the parties were domiciled there.
For example, under the law in Nevada a divorce may be granted after six week's residence there, which is equivalent to domicile. In Tijuana, Mexico, I believe it is possible to file papers for a divorce on the basis of attorning to that jurisdiction. Is that what we are prepared to accept in Canada? This provision will introduce all sorts of complications. I may be wrong and I am subject to persuasion otherwise but I would say that this bill introduces more problems than it tends to cure from a legal point of view, although not necessarily a social point of view. When it comes to the application of the law it is difficult to distinguish between legal and social effects. It will be remembered that if the bill goes through unmodified, all Canadians will be subject to what I consider to be a legal horror because of the difficulties it will introduce.
There is one provision in the bill on which I wish to commend the minister, namely, the provision for the extension of jurisdiction for divorce to courts in provinces which at the present time do not have that jurisdiction. I think this is a logical and reasonable extension. However, that is the best I can say for the bill.
On the whole I would have liked to see a much better bill brought forward, with less rush imposed on us. It is true that there were many committee hearings at which numerous
Divorce Law Reform,
witnesses and various organizations were allowed to bring forward their recommendations with regard to marriage and divorce. I would have liked more people to speak about making it more difficult to get married and about preparation for marriage. Under this legislation it will be as easy to discard a spouse as to take one, which we know is relatively easy. One could do it as easily as buying a suit and discarding it after a period of wear. I do not think, with all due respect, that this is what we should be legislating for.
I grant you, sir, that there are many situations in which appropriate amendments to our law could have been made, but I say to the government that it should have taken the precaution of putting forward its proposals for examination by judicial bodies and others who could have commented on them. This legislation will have a long lasting effect. To have a proposal imposed upon the house and to ask the house to act on it under the pressure of a pending Christmas adjournment is totally wrong. I am not at all concerned about the government's desire for speed in passing this legislation. This is a very important piece of legislation because it affects all the people in this country much more than does, for example, the Broadcasting Act or the taxation bills, and yet we are asked to rush it along. I find this to be a rather strange attitude on the part of the government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Is the
house ready for the question?
If the Minister of Justice (Mr. Trudeau) speaks now, I must inform the hon. members that he will close the debate.


Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Minister of Justice: Mr. Speaker, my first word is to thank the hon. members from all parties for their constructive attitude in this discussion.
From all sides valuable comments have been made on this legislation and I have felt a sincere desire by all to improve it and to achieve a truly modern and useful divorce act for our country.
At this stage I could not reply in detail to all the questions that have been brought up. I believe I shall have the opportunity to do so during consideration in committee, but I should now like to touch upon three general questions which are also the questions that cropped up most often during the comments by the various members.

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Divorce Law Reform
The first question bears on the issues of the breakdown of marriage and reconciliation procedure. The second bears on jurisdiction of the courts, for instance, the suggestion that was brought forward several times to give jurisdiction to county courts. The third question deals with conflicting legislation, for instance, between this legislation and the Civil Code of the province of Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to say generally that all those questions can be answered by a single comment, namely that such matters give rise to very difficult problems with regard to federal-provincial relations.
Those are questions that cannot be answered without taking into account the conflicts of jurisdiction and that cannot be solved if the complexity of the federal system is overlooked. It is really a field where cooperative federalism is called for, and it is in that spirit that I, for one, have sought to improve the present Divorce Act.
I think that most proposals made for the commendable purpose of improving this bill implied some degree of provincial action, because almost all the solutions suggested concerned, either directly or indirectly, fields coming under provincial jurisdiction.
The government was faced with this dilemma: Should it wait several years before amending the Divorce Act, years which would be spent usefully negotiating with the provinces toward the setting up of a new system of courts, perhaps family courts as was suggested, which would have wide powers to act in the field of reconciliation? Should it still wait a long time to solve the very real problems of conflicting rights which this bill poses, and then perhaps, one, two or three years later introduce a bill, after rather complex negotiations, because they are related to constitutional matters, and members know that the constitution is not now an easy matter? Should the government wait for one year or perhaps several years to produce a bill closer to perfection, or should it act as soon as possible and attempt to introduce the best possible bill under our jurisdiction and let negotiations continue, as I have repeatedly indicated, at federal-provincial meetings, and undertake direct negotiations later which would eventually lead to improving the law?
We, on this side of the house, have decided in favour of a procedure which the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) considers perhaps a little too precipitous, a little too hurried, and which is certainly liberal rather than conservative with regard to the time factor.

In our opinion, the legislation we have prepared is quite within the jurisdiction of the federal government; we have gone as far as possible, and I suggest to the hon. members that they examine the bill and criticize it in that light.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)

The point I said I should like to deal with in a little bit of detail before going into greater detail when we reach the committee stage is the point of marriage breakdown. This concept or theory is a very progressive one and one to which I have not so much of a philosophical or moral objection but one in which I see real difficulties of a legal or constitutional order. Let me deal first with a matter of substance. I should say first, Mr. Speaker, that we have dealt with the marriage breakdown concept in a certain form. The bill itself speaks of breakdown and this is more than lip service. We are introducing the breakdown concept as one which is supplementary or additional to the concept of offences. This is a completely new approach in our law, of course.
As I say, it is not mere lip service and what we are attempting to do is to spell out the conditions under which the courts may or shall find there has been breakdown. When I listened to those members who objected to our approach discussing this problem it seemed to me that they always came back, in one way or another, to the type of legislation we have here. They would say that they favoured the breakdown approach, nothing more and nothing less. However, when called upon to spell it out in a little bit of detail they always indicated legislation giving the factors of the breakdown, giving some guidance to the court. For instance, I should like to refer to page 5484 of Hansard where I find the report of the eloquent speech made by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin). He referred to a private bill introduced in the United Kingdom, not by the government, which has not yet reached any stage of implementation. He made a fairly good summary of the provisions of the bill and then said:
There will henceforth be only one ground for divorce in Britain.-proof that "the marriage has irretrievably broken down". This will be deemed to have happened:
(a)	If the parties have ceased to cohabit for two years-
We have this in our law but we have set it at three years. It may be too much and perhaps the period should be shorter. This is
December 18, 1967

a matter for discussion. We are now talking about the theoretical concept of breakdown and giving guidance to the courts. The bill the hon. member mentioned is a proposal which has not even reached the stage of legislation and is no improvement on ours. Once again, it is a question of time. We have three periods in our bill. We have the one year concept for non-consummation, we have two years for certain circumstances of imprisonment and we have three years for normal separation. We even have five years when there is desertion by the petitioner. These periods can be discussed and changed, but certainly the concept has been established in our bill.
The next ground is:
(b)	If the couple have ceased to cohabit for five years, even though one does not want divorce-
This is exactly our five year test in the case of desertion. Then, ground (c) reads:
(c)	If there is conduct which a husband or wife cannot be reasonably expected to endure, or adultery which either cannot after reflection forgive.
What is the great difference between this proposal in this revolutionary bill and ours? What is conduct which one party cannot endure or adultery which either cannot after reflection forgive? We have the adultery test. We have forgiveness in the sense there is a possibility of condonation. In so far as conduct which could not reasonably be expected to be endured is concerned, I cannot say what is meant. Surely our provision covering cruelty would, in most cases, cover this. I say that even those who propound their abstract theories, when they are called upon to spell out what they mean, in most cases adopt this type of answer.
Another illustration will be found at page 5500 of Hansard where a question asked by the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Brew-in) of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Gilbert) is recorded. The hon. member for Broadview was indicating a certain preference at that point for the concept of divorce which is included in our bill. The question reads as follows:
Does he not see you could still have breakdown which would require separation for three years, if that was the sole reason for the action; but if there was the so-called outrageous conduct you could then say the marriage had broken down in a period less than three years.
Well, this is our test. If there were no reconciliation and if there were such outrageous conduct, then you could say the marriage had broken down in a period of less
Divorce Law Reform
than three years. Here again the phrase "outrageous conduct" is wide. What does it mean? This is a test the courts will have to meet one way or another. I am not convinced that even those who want to talk about the substance of this procedure are talking about anything very different, if I am to judge from these examples, from what we are doing.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
Procedure is something else again. The breakdown of marriage concept which has been espoused from many quarters presupposes a complete change in our conception of courts and justice. I should like to read a few brief quotations in this connection, and I refer first to the excellent report of the special joint committee on divorce, page 116. I am not going to read as much as I would like, but this matter is dealt with very clearly in this passage:
The novelty of the marriage breakdown theory does not He simply in the grounds it proposes for dissolutions of marriage, but also in the procedure that would be required to effect the system. Indeed, it is not the essential vaUdity of the theory that seems to merit the most careful inspection at this stage, but the practical consequences that would flow from it, were it to be adopted.
The existing system for the trial of divorce cases based upon the adversary method, the traditional practice of our courts, whereby the judge is the arbiter between two contending parties, would have to be changed. The procedure would have to be that of an inquest or inquiry into the state of the marriage, if the marriage breakdown system were to work. The parties would not provide all the evidence and the court might have to seek out and introduce evidence of its own.
According to this quotation, Mr. Speaker, I think you would need to have a different concept of what is a court. Also required would be experts trained in social services and family matters to give evidence. This would involve questions such as the children of the marriage, how they would be cared for, what was the pre-existing situation, problems of delinquency and so on.
This gets back to the difficulty I referred to at the outset of my remarks, that we are embarking on certain areas that are under provincial jurisdiction. I suggest we would have to negotiate for some time with the provinces before being successful in setting up this type of court. As I have said, we took the attitude that we should act now and do the most we can under our present jurisdiction. We will improve the law as time goes on but we cannot refuse the obvious remedy of divorce in those cases that will be embraced under the terms of the bill as presently framed.

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
I should also like to cite a short extract from a report presented to the British parliament by the lord chancellor in November 1966, command paper 3123. I refer to the conclusions of the report, which are to be found at page 54 and sum up a very long argument set forth in the command paper:
The proposals of the Archbishop's Group on Divorce made in "Putting Asunder"-
This was the proposal of marriage breakdown.
-though they are to be welcomed for their rejection of exclusive reliance on matrimonial offence, are procedurally impracticable. They propose that there should be but one comprehensive ground for divorce-breakdown of the marriage- the court being required to satisfy itself by means of a thorough inquest into the marriage that it has failed irretrievably. It would not be feasible, even if it were desirable, to undertake such an inquest in every divorce case because of the time this would take and the costs involved.
Once again, Mr. Speaker, this is a mere summary of the argument. I cannot deal with it in detail though it has been excellently presented in the report. However, a few lines that appear on page 32 spell out the argument that is here summed up:
If the inquest was to become a genuine one-
I should like the hon. members who are so keen on the marriage breakdown concept to realize this point.
-preliminary enquiries by trained personnel would have to be undertaken and the actual hearing would have to take much longer than at present. Moreover, it seems to us that public opinion would be unlikely to regard it as an improvement if in every case the whole matrimonial history were ventilated in public. In effect, this would be to introduce into every divorce case the distressing features of defended divorces which at present constitute only about 7 per cent of the total. The Archbishop's Group appear to face this prospect with an equanimity that we cannot share. If our divorce laws are to be made more humane, it seems to us that the undefended divorce affords a better model than the dilatory, expensive and distressing defended divorce.


Francis Andrew Brewin: May I put a question to the minister at this point?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Of course.


Francis Andrew Brewin: In his discussions of this matter has the minister considered the fact that the objection raised by the law commission in Great Britain to the necessity for an inquest in all cases on the law of breakdown would be met by a provision that after a period of separation, say three years or whatever it may be, there would then be a prima facie presumption of breakdown? If the law were to provide for this, the necessity for an

inquest or inquiry would be confined to those cases where there was some other ground that properly deserved investigation. Has the minister considered that point? If he reads the report of the law commission carefully he may find the suggestion that I am making to him.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the type of point that I made a moment ago. By putting this three year test into the breakdown concept you are destroying the purity of the breakdown concept. We are making provision in the bill for evidence to be given to the courts which is indicative of breakdown. We are also avoiding the necessity for an inquest by giving the courts in some cases three years before finally settling the matter. Under clause 4 (1) (e) we are providing for a three-year test.
Under the proposition advanced by the hon. member the purity of the breakdown concept is destroyed, and, as I shall show in a moment by reference to the Archbishop's report, this is not desirable. The hon. member is suggesting a shortcut which is contrary to the spirit of those who support the breakdown concept. However, if he will be patient for a moment I should like to read an excerpt from "Putting Asunder" which expresses this argument exactly.
I also wanted to refer to a quotation from the London Times of May 8, 1967 where there is a fairly enlightening quotation from Lord Gardiner, but in view of the time factor I shall not read it. It is very much to the same effect, namely that the difficulty of marriage breakdown is procedural in nature. It is not the concept itself. It is the impossibility of writing it into our system of law as it presently exists. I should like to pass on to a few short quotations from the report entitled "Putting Asunder" prepared by a group appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in January, 1964. Those who are familiar with this report will realize that the marriage breakdown concept meets with the same difficulty in the United Kingdom as I am outlining now. This report contains a number of recommendations respecting the divorce courts, recommendations which are regarded as so necessary, and here I quote from page 76, "that we could not continue to support the principle of breakdown if they were not implemented in substance."
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
What are those recommendations, Mr. Speaker, which would have to be implemented and which, if not implemented, would
December 18, 1967

prevent the breakdown concept from being accepted? Quoting once again from page 76 of the report one finds the following:
(c)	that the accusatorial procedure should be replaced by procedure appropriate to inquiry into the condition of marriage relationships;
(d)	that means should be devised to ensure that all relevant information and conditions would be brought to the court's notice;
(e)	that steps should be taken without delay to enlist the officers the court would need.
The report then goes on to point out that an uncontested case could, on occasion, call for greater care and judicial skill than a case which was contested.
There is another part of this report to which I wish to refer, Mr. Speaker. I refer to appendix C, the second part of which consists of an essay written by Mr. Quentin Edwards, a barrister at law and one of the members of the group that was appointed by the Archbishop. The conclusions of Mr. Quentin Edwards which are expressed at the bottom of page 135 and on the following pages are that the whole constitution and procedure of the high court under existing statutes and rules create reasonable doubt whether the high court could, if the substantive law were changed as recommended, satisfy the requirements prescribed as necessary to administer the new law. His conclusions, as set out on page 136 of the report, are that serious consideration might well be given to establishing an entirely new system of courts.
There can, I think, be little doubt that the wholesale adoption of the marriage breakdown concept as advocated in the report "Putting Asunder" would necessarily require the creation of new matrimonial courts that would administer the new laws after a form and procedure quite different from our existing judicial institutions across this country. It would be necessary, for example, to have welfare officers, social workers and other officials attached to such courts to administer effectively the marriage breakdown concept.
I think it would also be necessary to have the judges of these courts specially trained in the field of matrimonial relations so that they would have a proper understanding of the dynamics of marriage and the causes of breakdown. The report is, for this reason, more visionary than real.
The appendix also sets out types of difficulties that we are not presently able to solve at the federal level of government under the constitution. In this instance, particularly, we were faced with this dilemma. Should we hold up divorce reform for X
Divorce Law Reform
number of years until we have written a new constitution and perhaps given the provinces jurisdiction over marriage and divorce problems or should we perhaps attempt with the provinces to deal with this matter which, remotely, or not remotely, so far as the administration of justice is concerned, comes under the federal government's jurisdiction? In the face of this dilemma we answered that we must act now under our jurisdiction and that we could not wait until the whole judicial system was reformed in order to satisfy those who, for very good, theoretical reasons, prefer the breakdown concept.
My argument is very much the same with respect to the reconciliation procedures contained in the bill. Admittedly, those procedures are not as far reaching and as thorough as many good meaning people would like to see. Personally I also regard reconciliation procedures as being most important. I can only say that I think we have gone as far as we can under this law. That is to say, we have gone as far as we can without embarking on a prolonged and involved process of federal-provincial consultation.
In saying that we adopted the procedure of acting now I want to add that I am not trying to minimize the importance of federal-provincial consultations. I, for one, would have preferred those consultations to have taken place 10 or 15 years ago or sooner. We would then have a system of courts-call them family courts, integrated family, marriage and divorce courts, or what you will- in which to apply the pure marriage breakdown theory. The fact is that we do not have these types of courts now. They would need to be set up, and that step can only be taken after long consultation with the provinces. I thought it preferable, and perhaps more in keeping with the will of the nation, to proceed with divorce reform as quickly as we could without, of course, neglecting any very important factors.


Mr. Bell (Carleton):: Would the minister permit a question? Would he say whether, since this bill has been introduced and distributed, he has received any representations from any of the attorneys general of the provinces or other representations on behalf of provincial governments?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We have sent copies of the bill to each deputy attorney general. So far as I know we have not had any representations from them yet. I have had certain representations from members of the courts

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
in the provinces. They have been very helpful and indicated to me ways in which the law could be applied with the greatest possible success. That is important to us. As I said in my speech at the resolution stage, we intend to carry on a great deal of consultation at the governmental level and at the level of the chief justices to implement many of the provisions of the law.


Richard Albert Bell: Will the minister
reveal the nature of these representations to us before the bill is finally proceeded with?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I have no objection in principle, of course, to revealing them. I am suggesting that perhaps I will not have received a great number of representations by then. I hope that the bill will be passed fairly soon. I do not think it is very realistic to hope that before the bill is adopted I will have got very far with such representations. May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to provisional standing order 39A, to inform the house that the questions to be raised at the time of adjournment tonight are as follows: The hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Mather), Unemployment Insurance-inquiry as to inclusion of hospital employees; the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Bell), Public Service-request for reconsideration of increase refusal; the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), Public Service-pensions of retired civil servants.


An hon. Member:: A doubleheader.
[DOT] (6:00 p.m.)


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Order. It being six o'clock, the house will now proceed to private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, notices of motions.



CANADIAN CULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the order: Private Members' Notices of Motions
May 9-Mr. Alkenbrack-That, in the opinion of this house, the government should give immediate

consideration to the advisability of establishing a Canadian cultural council to encourage the development of nationhood, recognizing the existence of our cultural plurality.
Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of my seatmate I wonder whether somebody on the government side would be good enough to request that this motion stand so that it may hold its pride of place.


Mr. McNulty:: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding from the hon. member who proposed the motion that he does not want it stood.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rinfret):: Is it
now considered by the house that this motion is dropped?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Order discharged and motion withdrawn.



SHIPBUILDING


Mr. H. Russell MacEwan (Pictou) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, the government should give immediate consideration to a return to adequate shipbuilding subsidies, and regional tendering and allocation of new construction, overhaul and repair.
He said: Mr. Speaker, first may I say it is a pleasure to take part in private members' hour. When a private member places one of these motions on the order paper he, of course, takes his chance on when it will be called, and I am glad that after some period of time the important matter with which my motion deals has now come before the house. If I may speak politically for a moment I wish to say that embodied in this motion is a resolution adopted by the Atlantic provinces Conservative candidates at a meeting in the city of Moncton, New Brunswick, and one which is most important to the Atlantic area.
I intend to divide my remarks into three sections, the first dealing with the matter of steel trawler construction in the Atlantic area. The building subsidies for steel fishing trawlers and other commercial ships were introduced in a policy brought forward by the previous government when the former hon. member for Trois-Rivieres was minister of transport. These subsidies have meant a lot to Canadian shipyards.
I recall going to the Canadian Maritime Commission, which is now part of the Canadian Transport Commission, and speaking with its chairman, Alex Watson, a man of
December 18, 1967

Scotch descent and naturally very durable, who had worked hard to have the subsidy scheme introduced and adopted by the previous government. For ordinary commercial vessels 40 per cent was the amount set as the percentage to be paid by the federal government and for steel fishing trawlers the amount was 50 per cent.
This program accomplished two things. It assisted our Canadian fishery companies to get up to date equipment in the form of new trawlers so that they could compete with foreign fishery trawlers off our coasts. Second and of no less importance, it provided the means whereby our shipbuilding yards could compete with foreign shipyards. Prior to its introduction our fishing companies, in most if not in all cases, bought their vessels from European shipyards where, because of the assistance given those yards by their respective governments, they could get their trawlers at a lower price than they would have had to pay in Canada.
As has been widely reported and commented upon, on the night of December 7 the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Benson) made the following announcement:
The 50 per cent subsidy now provided for the construction of steel hull fishing trawlers will be reduced to 35 per cent, effective tonight.
I wish to emphasize the suddenness with which this cut was made. I have looked into this matter and I am advised that a number of fishing companies were in the midst of negotiations with shipyards to have new vessels built when this announcement was made on December 7 and that the announcement may well mean the negotiations will end without any settlement, causing a terrific loss to the shipyards.
As reported in the New Glasgow News of December 11, one of the executives of Jerry Nickerson and Sons Ltd. stated:
The 15 per cent decrease in subsidy has given us two choices-build abroad or not build at all.
The Nova Scotia deputy minister of fisheries, Brian Meagher, was reported in the same newspaper as saying:
an average 150 foot trawler costs approximately $1,000,000, of which 50 per cent has been paid by subsidy. Its annual catch is valued between $250,000-$300,000 and it gives employment to 100 men ashore and 15-19 men afloat.
From this it will be seen that the construction of trawlers means not only work for our shipyards but also work for those engaged in our fisheries. The effect of the minister's announcement was too sudden.
Shipbuilding
I think that debate on the motion I have proposed comes at an opportune time, and I would urge the	government	to	reconsiderthe matter of subsidies on the construction of steel fishing trawlers. Not only should the applications for subsidy now in the hands of the Department	of	Industry	be	considered,
but there should have been a date set warning the shipyards and fishing companies that were engaged in negotiations when the subsidy was to be cut.
I wish to quote now part of an editorial which appeared	in	the Halifax	Chronicle-
Herald of December	14:
Perhaps the reduction-
The reduction in subsidies.
-is designed to show people in landlocked parts of the country that the maritimes have not escaped Mr. Benson's axe entirely. If retained for a prolonged period, however, it might have a most harmful effect on shipbuilding in the Atlantic provinces, which has already been hit by a slump in orders for both steel and wooden fishing vessels.
There is a danger that once demand for new construction and the replacement of existing vessels begins to pick up, the reduced subsidy will persuade fleet owners to look elsewhere for their vessels. Modern steel trawlers, suited to northwest Atlantic fishing operations, are being built in quantity in various countries. There are numbers of ways in which Nova Scotia and other Canadian buyers can obtain easy credit terms for these foreign-built ships.
It would be a serious matter for Canadian shipyards if foreign builders obtained a substantial toehold in this way. The price would be ridiculous: a meaningless federal bow to fiscal prudence.
In the first budget introduced by the present government the then minister of finance, the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Gordon), pointed out the number of millions of dollars which had gone into this project. It is money which I think was well spent. The subsidy was 40 per cent for ordinary commercial construction but now it has been cut to 25 per cent and will remain at that level until May 31, 1969. After May 31, 1969, it will be reduced still further by 2 per cent a year until it reaches 17 per cent. As a result construction of this type of vessel will decrease.
[DOT] (6:10 p.m.)
Part of my motion, Mr. Speaker, deals with regional tendering. I believe there should be regional tendering, but the government has adopted a policy of national tendering. I remember the time a few years ago when tenders were called for the first coastguard vessels. I recall that the low bidders were two St. Lawrence river yards. The lowest bidder in the Atlantic area at that time-and this shows that regional tendering could

December 18, 1967
Shipbuilding
help-was a shipyard in my own constituency, Ferguson Industries Limited. I went to the minister of fisheries at that time, the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres, and put forward a proposition to assist employment in Canada. I proposed that two of the contracts should go to the St. Lawrence river yards and the third should go to the yard in my constituency since it was the lowest of the Atlantic area bidders. I can think also of the case of the ferry plying between Portugal Cove and Bell Island, Newfoundland, the John Guy. Regional tendering was permitted in this case and as a result the shipyard in my constituency obtained the contract. This system gives not only the major yards but particularly the smaller yards an opportunity to tender and thereby keep the shipyards employed.
Certainly in my area and most areas during the last few years there has been very little naval repair work given out in the form of contracts because the number of ships has been cut down. In my own area, with the exception of one or two very small contracts in amounts under $25,000 nothing has been done in that regard in the last three years. I believe that naval work could be allocated to these yards. I am not sure whether this practice is carried on now, but the Department of Defence Production had a system whereby they would put a ship into a shipyard and if the management could do a good job and finish the contract before a designated time a bonus was given based on a bonus system. I believe this was a good thing.
I do not wish to take up too much time because I believe other members wish to speak on this matter. The most important point is that there should be a return to the subsidies. As I say, I hope the government will look into the matter of returning to the former subsidies in respect of the construction of steel fishing trawlers. If we do not return to the former system. I am afraid, as pointed out by the executive of Jerry Nickerson and Sons Ltd., that the ships either will be built abroad or not at all. If they are built abroad it will mean that foreign companies will be building our ships and will have their foot in the door. This will be fatal to our shipyards.
Shipyards are necessary not only in peacetime but also in wartime. We must keep them active in peacetime in order to provide the necessary work and employment and so that in the event of war they will be ready to deal with matters of national concern. We do not want to be left without our shipyards. I
[Mr. MacEwan.l
think the shipbuilding subsidies program is what has helped put our shipyards on their feet. A decrease in the subsidy or the taking away of the subsidy would have the reverse effect. I should like to refer again to _ the article which appeared in the Chronicle-Herald of December 14:
It would be a serious matter for Canadian shipyards if foreign builders obtained a substantial toehold in this way. The price would be ridiculous: a meaningless federal bow to fiscal prudence.
The Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Robichaud), in answering a question I asked the other day, pointed out that the amounts which had been paid out were $24 million for steel vessels and over $6 million for wooden vessels for the fisheries. All I can say is that I hope this resolution will come to a vote and pass and that the government will give consideration to the meaningless cuts they have brought about. If money was spent it was money well spent.


Mr. D. W. Groos (Victoria (B.C.)):: Mr. Speaker, one of the great advantages of private members' hour is that it provides an opportunity for us to air our opinions on matters of concern to our ridings. I think there are very few members in the house who are more concerned about shipbuilding than myself. Like my colleague and friend from Pictou I have in my riding, as it is now constituted, some shipbuilding facilities. There are two major shipyards, one large H.M.C. Dockyard at Esquimalt, and one medium size shipyard which specializes in building certain types of craft. Unfortunately, one of the major shipyards is in the process of scrapping its shipbuilding facilities. It is remaining in the steel fabricating part of the business. This is a result of the present state of affairs in the country.
I think one of the troubles in Canada at the moment is that while we have a government ship procurement policy and hand in hand with it have a shipbuilding subsidy program, we do not have a maritime shipping policy. It seems to me that the two should in fact go hand in hand if we wish to be honest and sincere about this whole matter. There does not seem to me to be any point in building ships purely for the sake of providing employment. This costs money in very large quantities and there may be better ways to provide employment.
In Canada with our population I do not think we can keep a large shipbuilding industry going on government contracts and subsidies alone. I believe we must become
December 18, 1967

competitive in world markets. We must build for the world. I think we can do that. We did at one time have a massive shipbuilding industry. Our achievement in wartime was simply magnificent. I wonder how many hon. members realize how stupendous it was. For example, I do not think there is a member in the house who is not aware of the fact that the Clyde river and Clydebank in Scotland are a huge shipbuilding area. In the port of Vancouver during world war II a larger tonnage of shipbuilding was turned out than was turned out in the whole of the Clyde river area. That is a remarkable achievement. Of course, with the peacetime cut-backs construction has diminished so that at the moment on the west coast, for example, we have remaining two large shipbuilding facilities and various shipbuilding organizations of a smaller nature.
As I said, we do not have a national shipbuilding policy. We have a policy of ship procurement which to my mind is on trial. The present situation is that the government, for the first time, has lumped together all its shipbuilding requirements whether they be for the Department of National Defence or for another government department. They have stated what their requirements are to be. They have forecast these over a period of years and have given this information to the shipbuilding industry across Canada so that these yards now know that when times are tough and they need extra work they can sharpen their pencils and become really competitive.
[DOT] (6:20 p.m.)
I went along and do go along with this government policy and I think we must at least try it out to see if it will work. There have been many signs that we can compete on the west coast, in spite of our higher wage rates, with shipbuilding yards on the east coast of Canada. I do not have the figures in this regard at my fingertips but I will come back to this point later. In the United States the situation is different. As I said earlier, we should not only have a ship procurement but a maritime shipping policy. They do have one in the United States and I think it is called the Jones Act. Their declaration of policy reads in this way and I quote from subsection 1101:
It is necessary for the national defence and development of its foreign and domestic commerce that the United States shall have a merchant marine (a) sufficient to carry its domestic waterborne commerce and a substantial portion of the water-borne export and import foreign commerce of the United States and to provide shipping
Shipbuilding
service on all routes essential for maintaining the flow of such domestic and foreign water-borne commerce at all times, (b) capable of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency, (c) owned and operated under the United States flag by citizens of the United States, in so far as may be practicable, and (d) composed of the best-equipped, safest, and most suitable types of vessels, constructed in the United States and manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel.
It goes on to state:
It is declared to be the policy of the United States to foster the development and encourage the maintenance of such a merchant marine.
That is what the Jones Act says. The policy is clear, concise and desirable, but I think experience has shown that it is also expensive. I could read a few more provisions which have been developed over the years as they have gained experience. For instance, they have a construction differential subsidy. It is one of the things that followed the establishment of a national maritime policy. This subsection reads:
Any citizen of the United States may make application to the federal maritime board for a construction differential subsidy to aid in the construction of a new vessel to be used in the foreign commerce of the United States. No such application shall be approved by the board unless it determines that (1) the plans and specifications call for a new vessel which will meet the requirements of the foreign commerce of the United States, will aid in the promotion and development of such commerce and be suitable for use by the United States for national defence or military purposes in time of war or national emergency;-
It then states that the board must also determine that:
-the applicant possesses the ability, the experience, financial resources, and other qualifications necessary to enable it to operate and maintain the proposed new vessel, and (3) the granting of the aid applied for is reasonably calculated to replace worn out or obsolete tonnage with new and modem ships, or otherwise to carry out effectively the purposes and policy of this chapter.
I will not go farther with that point, but they have a maritime policy from which flows the requirement for a construction subsidy. There is also the important fact that if you are going to have a maritime policy and build ships you ought to have the facilities for building the ships. In the next paragraph it is stated:
The federal maritime board shall submit the plans and specifications for the proposed vessel to the navy department for examination thereof and suggestions for such changes therein as may be deemed necessary or proper in order that such vessel shall be suitable for economic and speedy conversion into a naval or military auxiliary, or otherwise suitable for the use of the United States government in time of war or national emergency.

December 18, 1967
Shipbuilding
In order to make the policy economical it then goes on to say:
All licensed officers of vessels documented under the laws of the United States, as now required by law, shall be citizens of the United States, native born or completely naturalized; and upon each departure from the United States of a cargo vessel in respect of which a construction or operating subsidy has been granted all of the crew (crew including all employees of the ship) shall be citizens of the United States, native born or completely naturalized.
I am trying to show how complicated this matter becomes. It then says, and this will be of help to hon. members who were talking about this before-you will be happy to hear that I seem to have lost my place.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Walter Groos: To make this an economically viable operation the act states:
Any officer or employee of the United States travelling on official business ... shall travel and transport his personal effects on ships registered under the laws of the United States-
It then goes on to state:
Whenever the United States shall procure, contract for, or otherwise obtain for its own account, or shall furnish to or for the account of any foreign nation without provision for reimbursement, any equipment, materials, or commodities, within or without the United States, or shall advance funds or credits or guarantee the convertibility of foreign currencies in connection with the furnishing of such equipment, materials, or commodities, the appropriate agency or agencies shall take such steps as may be necessary and practicable to assure that at least 50 per centum of the gross tonnage of such equipment, materials or commodities .. . shall be transported on privately owned United States flag commercial vessels-
I read this to show that the problem in respect of providing subsidies to the shipbuilding industry in Canada is not simple. To spare hon. members on all sides of the house I have only read parts of the law. I have here an extract from a Seattle newspaper which gives a fairly good idea of how this policy is working in the United States. The article refers to how the Jones Act applies to people in Alaska and it states:
Rightly or wrongly, many Alaskans see those laws-"Jones" or "inter-coastal"-whatever you prefer-as slowing the northland's development because they in effect limit competition and raise the cost of shipping.
As they stand now, those laws outlaw shipping of U.S. goods between two U.S. ports in a foreign vessel. A vessel qualifies as "foreign" if it wasn't built in a U.S. shipyard.
Later it states:
Alaska just recently put on the heat in the U.S. Congress to permit the shipment of goods on Canadian ferries en route from here to Alaska but the measure was defeated.

The coastal shipping laws, as far as the rest of the economy here is concerned, have done their work too well. For one thing costs are higher on the U.S. vessels. Put those two facts together and it practically meant the death knell for the regions water-borne shipment of lumber to the U.S. east coast.
Let me point out this fact, however, still quoting from this article:
[DOT] (6:30 p.m.)
Lumber from British Columbia, however, has all but taken that market away from our region's producers. During the month of October, for instance, British Columbia sent 64.8 million board feet of lumber to the east coast via ship; Washington-
Another lumber state.
-7 million; Oregon, 11.3 million.
The difference doesn't turn on the quality of our lumber or the price here.
That is one example. You lose trade when you try to confine the shipment or your own materials to your own ships. I think another example that we all remember is the United States wheat sales last year to China. Because of the requirement by the government of that country that half of those wheat sales would have to be shipped in American bottoms, the cost of the wheat to the Chinese was increased so that they were no longer agreeable to buying it from the United States. The United States suffered; we were the ones who benefited.
This notice of motion calls for adequate shipbuilding subsidies. I think this is a little vague. I am not too sure what "adequate" means. I would have preferred the language to be a little more definite. How is our present system working? Some rather interesting figures came to light only yesterday. I refer to a press release issued by the Department of Defence Production, dated December 12, which says:
Shortly after 3.00 p.m. today, proposals for the construction and outfitting of the four helicoptercarrying destroyers (d.d.h. 280 class) were opened publicly by officials of the Department of Defence Production with the results as indicated in Appendix A.
Appendix A shows that for the lead yards two firms, Davie Shipbuilding Ltd. and Marine Industries Ltd., bid on the construction of the lead ship and one other. The indicated price for Davie is just over $24 million and for Marine Industries it is about $20.5 million.
For the follow-up yards, two more ships, Marine Industries came up with a bid of just about $18.5 million, Davie Shipbuilding came
December 18, 1967



up with a bid of $22.5 million, Halifax Shipyards, that is Dosco, came up with a bid of just under $35 million and Burrard Dry Dock, in North Vancouver, came up with a bid of just over $49 million. This looks pretty bad for the west coast, but what it suggests to me is not that regional tendering is the answer but, as I am beginning to suspect, that the method of tendering needs looking into. There cannot be a spread of $31 million between the east coast and the west coast in respect of bids for identical ships.
On the west coast we have a wage differential of 70 cents an hour, or about a dollar an hour with fringe benefits; but the difference in wages is not $31 million. To my mind there is something wrong with the way those tenders were worded. There must have been too many vaguely worded clauses in the tenders which allowed for different interpretations between the east coast and the west coast, and the interpretation given on the west coast called for a far more expensive construction. I shall be very interested to see what is the final cost of these ships when construction is completed.
I am just about finished, Mr. Speaker. I want to see a shipbuilidng and repair facility kept on both coasts of Canada. If we are to be a maritime nation we must not only build ships but repair them on both coasts. I think there are ways of doing this other than by means of direct subsidy. I believe the shipyards have shown commendable activity and skill in diversifying and becoming steel fabricators, and in imaginative ship construction projects. They have developed in my own area some very highly skilled procedures in the building of offshore oil drilling rigs. I want to see this sort of activity continued.
I think there is a very large field for Canada contributing through external aid in the building of shipping; and shipping, of course, involves not just ships and offshore oil-drilling rigs but all sorts of other types of steel fabricating. I see that my time is just about up, Mr. Speaker. I wish to deal at another time with a scheme I have of trying to develop in Canada, using our external aid program, a school of harbour development by means of which we can use our shipbuilding facilities and talents as part of the contribution to our external aid program. However, as I say, I will do that at another time.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, I had not been asked about this before, but I will now advise the Chair that I am seconding the resolution proposed by the
Shipbuilding
hon. member for Pictou (Mr. MacEwan). Since he has made the points forcibly and well, I do not intend to make a long contribution to this debate. I also know that several other hon. members would like to make their points.
I will certainly try to keep more on course than the distinguished hon. member for Victoria, B.C. (Mr. Groos). I know in his naval career, when he was at the helm of some of the mightiest and most expensive pieces of armament that this country produced, he would not have gone off on quite the same tangent as he has this evening, with regard to certain developments that really deal more with shipping policy than with shipbuilding subsidies, regional tendering and the allocation of ship construction, overhaul and repair.
It seems to me that the policy being adopted by the government is one that will put shipbuilding activity at a new level and force it to seek its own level in this country; and I am afraid that level will be below sea-level. The other day the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Crouse), in one of the most impressive questions I have ever heard since coming to this chamber, pointed out very quickly that there had been a devaluation of the British pound to the extent of some 15 per cent, and an additional 15 per cent cut in the subsidy on steel-helmed fishing trawlers from 50 per cent to 35 per cent, so that in effect there is being heaped on this Canadian industry an additional 30 per cent in cost above that which existed before Wilson's devaluation, and the Benson abattoir treatment of government spending.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Jardine McCleave: A 30 per cent difference represents a drastically changed picture indeed and something that, as the hon. member for Pictou has pointed out, the Chronicle-Herald dealt with in a good editorial on Thursday, December 14. It is true that there has been a temporary slowdown in the demand for new construction and replacement of existing vessels, but that will not always be so. Given those two conditions, it is quite likely that the fishing interests will turn their attention to other places.
[DOT] (6:40 p.m.)
In the constituency represented by my colleague and myself we have the Halifax Shipyards. We have been told in discussions with officials of Halifax Shipyards-and this is also a matter of public record-that they

December 18, 1967
Shipbuilding
consider the fishing industry to be the greatest source of work for these yards. As most people who know the Halifax area will realize, the shipyards lie alongside the dockyard and alongside what is left of the Royal Canadian Navy, and yet these officials told us that the shipyard potential is in the fishing industry, and not in naval construction or naval refits. So instead of being able to take steps to offset the effects of the devaluation of the British pound and to adjust to that situation, we have taken steps which go hand in hand with the devaluation, but to the detriment of Canadian industry. We were met with various suggestions, that the work should be done on tender call, and the like. However, let us ask ourselves: if we have ever set up this type of industry on an economic basis in this country. I suggest we did not because if we had done so the yards on the St. Lawrence river and those on the west and east coasts would never have been asked to tender on the D.D.P. program. Perhaps the tenders would have gone overseas, or around the world to places where these ships can be built on a much lower wage scale and at a much lower price than in Canada.
So we have to admit that our defence contracts are partly used as an economic development weapon. Once we admit this, we must also admit that the various regions in Canada must be treated equitably. We have the west coast, where obviously the wage differential in comparison with the Atlantic and east coast yards puts them out of the picture. Then there is the St. Lawrence river, where another set of economic conditions prevails; and finally there is Atlantic Canada, the area I serve, where still other economic factors are at work. So if we grant that defence spending is a necessary economic weapon in the hands of Canadians, then perforce we must grant that it cannot be applied in the way in which the government is presently applying it, a policy with regard to which my hon. friend for Pictou (Mr. Mac-Ewan) is seeking an answer. I think it is an important point.
I should like to say in conclusion, because I did promise to speak briefly, that it is difficult to understand how on earth there can be national tendering systems all across Canada for every last thing that government departments need, when there is no national transportation policy in this country. Firm after firm from the Halifax area has written to me complaining that when the D.D.P. tenders were called they could not attempt to put any in because the vicious l.c.l. rates 
increased their prices so much that competition simply became impossible. I make this point because the Atlantic resolutions, to which my hon. friend referred, will be brought up again after the next election to save the day for the hard pressed Atlantic industry.


Mr. Grant Deachman (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to deal with a couple of points with regard to the motion before the house which deals with the building of vessels in general, and fishing vessels in particular. A remark was made by the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. MacEwan) which perhaps should be challenged, that is that the reduction of subsidies for shipyards was made suddenly and that they were not prepared for it. I am given to understand by the government that the shipyards were warned a year ago of the impending reductions. They were informed that no subsidies would be granted under the existing rates for work that could not be completed within two years. So apparently they were aware of the impending reductions in the subsidy.
I believe it would be useful to give the house an idea of the size of the subsidy and what it has meant to the industry. For example, $24 million will be paid for steel hulls this year, and the Department of Fisheries, under its wooden ship construction program, will put out another $6J million, which makes a total of $30J million in subsidies granted to the shipyards for both steel and wooden hulls in the course of the current year. This subsidy has been granted for a number of years, and in the course of its history it has proved the capability of yards to turn out ships. Surely the capability of yards on both the east and the west coast must have improved as a result of the number of ships built under the subsidy. I think one of the direct benefits to the Canadian shipbuilding industry has been the fact that the subsidy has enabled them to improve their capital equipment and to build up a capability for meeting the very kind of competition for which it was designed.
Bearing this in mind, I think we should look at the money that we as the government have put out in subsidies, and ask ourselves just how we propose to handle this. Does a subsidy have to be continued indefinitely, and must it be repeated year after year, or is it possible that the government can put out money, as it has in shipbuilding programs, to encourage shipbuilding yards to improve their capability and meet their competition.
December 18, 1967

and finally to reduce the amount of subsidy and turn government funds to some other purposes?


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Would the hon. member
permit a question? Would he care to tell the house to what better purpose these funds could be put than assisting the shipbuilding industry, which would automatically assist the electric, the steam, the heating and the steel industries in Canada, as well as all the varied industries which make up the very fabric of this nation?


Grant Deachman: I do not think it is a case of determining to what better use money could be put. One way of dealing with the matter would be simply not too levy the tax. If it is possible with less subsidy to enable the shipbuilding industry to stand on its own feet, then surely as legislators we should strive for a position in which the ship building industry could operate on a smaller subsidy per hull, if it is possible to reduce the amount of subsidy granted to the industry. When the hon. member asks to what better purpose the money could be put, I say it might be turned back to the people to be used at their own discretion. We are often told by hon. members on the other side that we overspend. Perhaps money granted to this industry has now served its pupose to encourage the shipbuilding industry to a point where it can meet some competition.
I am glad to see in the house this afternoon the hon. member for Queens-Lunen-burg (Mr. Crouse) because when he and I served together on the fisheries committee it was he who raised the question of the Golden Scarab, a Canadian subsidized vessel which was built in Canadian shipyards and which I am sure the government, in providing money for the building of that and similar ships, expected would ship in Canadian waters, hire Canadian crews, come back to Canadian docks and send its fish to Canadian markets, thus benefiting the economy of Canada. But as he explained so well to the committee, this was not what happened. Indeed the Golden Scarab disappeared from the Canadian scene. It fished in foreign waters, took on foreign crews and landed its catch in foreign ports for processing. This vessel therefore was literally lost to the Canadian economy after it had been built here.
[DOT] (6:50 p.m.)
We recommended, and my hon. friend was a party to that recommendation, that the
Shipbuilding
Canadian government should tighten up the policing of subsidies of this kind, and that there should be in the subsidy more than merely the provision of funds to assist in the building of a hull. We should make sure that the hull will remain useful to the Canadian economy beyond the date of its launching. This motion suggests that the government should give immediate consideration to a return to adequate shipbuilding subsidies. I think one of the things we should make sure about is that the funds we provide do not simply build hulls, but that those hulls continue to perform a useful service to the Canadian economy.
It is not only in connection with the building of fishing vessels that such situations crop up, but they occur everywhere in connection with vessel construction under the Canadian subsidy system. I have in my hand a copy of the Appropriations Act, which includes the regulations in respect of capital subsidies for the construction of commercial fishing vessels. The definition of shipowner is a citizen of Canada, a company incorporated in Canada or Her Majesty in the right of any province in Canada. Under this definition, then, any foreign company which wants to take advantage of this Canadian subsidy can come to Canada and incorporate itself or gain control of a Canadian company already established. Such a company could then use the dollars which are obtained by virtue of the subsidy as leverage for acquiring an interest in a Canadian shipping company.
We had one famous example of this on the west coast. A locally owned tugboat company became owned by a United States company from New York. The United States company then provided the funds necessary for the building of vessels under the subsidy. The vessels were built in Canada and the Canadian government paid for the building of these vessels for this United States owned company. These vessels then went into competition on the Georgia strait with vessels of Canadian owned companies operating in those waters. These Canadian funds, raised from Canadian taxpayers, were made available to a United States company through the device of the subsidy, and were used as leverage to acquire an interest in a Canadian firm. The vessels were used in competition with those owned by Canadian companies.
I believe we should consider very carefully this aspect of the question of shipbuilding subsidies. I have raised this issue before in the House of Commons, and I raise it again

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
tonight because I really believe that the funds are not being put to the best use. In the case of the Golden Scarab, these funds were used to build a ship which sailed off into foreign waters. In the second case, the funds were used as leverage by a foreign company to acquire a Canadian company and to go into competition against Canadian companies. I believe these subsidies should be made available to Canadian firms, and they should not be capable of being used as leverage by companies from other countries.
I could give other examples. There are many barges operating in the Georgia strait carrying wood chips and paper. More and more these barges have come to be built and operated by the pulp and paper companies on the west coast. At one time they were operated by locally owned shipping firms which operated up and down the strait. However, the availability of these subsidies has meant that pulp and paper companies owned and operated in the United States have found it profitable to use this Canadian subsidy to build barges for use in that area.
So I ask, does anyone in this house really feel we are putting this money to good use when it is being used as leverage funds for the purpose of assisting United States based pulp and paper companies operating in Canada? I feel this resolution should have added to it some clause which would enable us to look into these aspects of subsidies, as well as the other questions which have been raised by hon. members opposite.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members business has now expired. The house will resume the business interrupted at six o'clock.
At seven o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Trudeau for the second reading of Bill No. C-187, respecting divorce.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe I was winding up my argument as to why we dealt with breakdown and reconciliation in the way we did, instead of trying to satisfy, shall

I say, the theoretically pure concept of breakdown for which some hon. members have been pushing. I just want to wind up by spelling out in a little detail the kind of procedural change that would be required by the introduction of a concept which made several eminent British spokesmen declare- and this was referred to by the joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons on divorce-would be foreign to British law, and therefore I take it would also be foreign to Canadian law.
It is not so much the word "inquisitorial" that is distasteful; it is the practical difficulty of giving over to administrative boards or tribunals a type of decision which under our concept we give to the courts as part of the rule of law. A thorough application of this breakdown concept would really mean that we would authorize some kind of board or administrative tribunal-I am not quite sure what kind it would be; hon. members who spoke on the breakdown concept did not detail what they envisaged-which would have absolute or quasi-absolute discretion to inquire into all aspects of a marriage, and then reach a decision on standards which are the board's own and which were not tested by any text of law. Any decision of an administrative board could be appealed, only with great difficulty, because it would really mean substituting one administrative discretion for another.
Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I think it is closer to our concept of the rule of law for judicial tribunals or courts to apply the law, as we see it, and not for boards to inquire or pry into the very intimate aspects of the lives of the parties to a divorce suit. I think this law is a good one in the sense that the facts presented to the court spell out what is the state of marriage breakdown, and the court must accept those facts.
For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I feel that the procedure adopted in this bill is the best one. As I indicated earlier, it is the only one we could implement now without going through the very long procedure of reforming our judicial system.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to inform hon. members that I am not opposed to any particular reform. Some hon. members have stated that eventually the government will come in a few years-some hon. members said in ten years-to accept this concept. I agree with that statement quite readily, Mr. Speaker, first of all because it means we will still be in office in ten years-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.
December 18. 1967


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I realize that was not the
intent of the remark. Second, and less facetiously, I hope that over a period of years the application of this law will be studied by members of all parties. Certainly both the government and the Department of Justice will study its application, and if we can work toward the kind of tribunal referred to, I think, by the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Forest) and establish a court that will look into various other aspects of family life, then this is only to be desired. However, until we reach that stage I submit that we had to move on divorce as we have.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question just before he leaves that particular point. Would he not agree with the feasibility of setting up a continuing study of this matter with the attorneys general and, say, the chief justices, who hold annual sessions now, to the end of exploring divorce reform on a continuous basis? We have had rather a large lump of it now, but perhaps the matter could be considered on a continuous basis hereafter.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, this is an excellent suggestion. I was going to say this later, but I welcome the opportunity to say it now. There are going to be meetings of provincial government officials and of chief justices which will be called to enable them to look into the aspects mentioned by the hon. member, and I hope these meetings will be taking place very soon. This is the reason that the last clause of the bill provides that three months will have to elapse before the legislation can be implemented.
As we get to the clause by clause study of the bill, Mr. Speaker, hon. members will realize, if they have not done so already, that many rules of procedure will have to be worked out. There will even be some conflicts of law which we hope to solve before the bill is put into operation. The meetings suggested by the hon. member are a very important part of the application of this bill. At these meetings we hope to study the various aspects that have been raised in the correspondence to which the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Bell) referred earlier this day, and of which I expect we will be hearing more.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
The second point I wish to deal with, Mr. Speaker, has to do with the county courts. Much has been said in this house about the need to have this legislation applied by county courts rather than by superior or supreme
Divorce Law Reform
courts, as is the case under this bill. I meet this objection by quoting once again from page 77 of the report "Putting Asunder":
For those reasons we-
"We" being the authors of this report,
-cannot approve bringing uncontested cases into the jurisdiction of the county courts. We find ourselves in agreement, as did the Morton commission and the Denning committee, with the words of the Gorell commission of 1912.
Then follows a quote from the Gorell commission:
-the gravity of divorce and other matrimonial cases, affecting as they do the family life, the status of the parties, the interests of their children, and the interest of the State in the moral and social well-being of its citizens, makes it desirable to provide, if possible, that, even for the poorest persons, these cases should be determined by the superior courts of the country assisted by the attendance of the bar, which we regard as of high importance in divorce and matrimonial cases, both in the interests of the parties and in the public interest.
That is the end of the quotation from the Gorell commission. I continue quoting from page 78 of "Putting Asunder".
We also fear that transfer of divorce jurisdiction to the county courts could have the effect of impeding more radical reforms that eventually might be seen to be desirable.
The point here is that, traditionally, the superior or high courts have always been regarded as having jurisdiction in matrimonial cases. The principles which are contained in the new divorce bill change many of the laws which have been applied by many of our courts for many years. There are in excess of 80 county and district courts in Canada, a substantial majority of them being in Ontario. There are none in the territories or in the province of Quebec. Incidentally, the province of Quebec does not have county courts. All Quebec judges are judges of the superior courts and as such fulfil the role of county judges. Therefore in Quebec and in the territories, the kind of objection that has been raised does not apply.
It might be appropriate to indicate that each provincial legislature, if it so desires, can provide that county court judges shall act as local judges of the supreme court. Each province, if it so desires, could meet the objection which has been raised as to distance or as to the unattainability of superior courts. Each province must decide this matter in the light of its own problems as they arise in the administration of justice for that province.

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform


Mr. Bell (Carlelon):: Would that not involve a reference and a report back, thus greatly increasing costs for litigants?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Before the minister answers I must advise the house that the minister's time has expired. Has he leave to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, with great respect I think the minister is making a most important statement and I am sure the house will give him leave to continue.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the minister leave to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I thank the house for permitting me to continue. I have as much interest as hon. members have in getting on with this matter. I shall answer the hon. member's question briefly. The matter would not necessarily have to proceed in the way the hon. member for Carleton indicates. It would suffice that provincial legislation itself may decide that particular county court judges may hear divorce cases. The hon. member shakes his head. I refer him to the decision of the supreme court. It is Attorney General of British Columbia v. Lloyd G. Mackenzie, Q.C., 1965 Supreme Court Reports, page 490. That decision said that a county court could sit as a divorce court.
It happens that in Ontario, provincial legislation enables county court judges to sit, in connection with certain matters, as local judges of the high court.


Thomas Miller Bell: That would be, surely, on a reference and report. Those two steps are most important. There must first be a reference, then a report. These, in each case, involve additional costs for the individuals involved.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That type of procedural question would have to be ironed out and it would be settled differently in different provinces. It could be settled in the way the hon. member indicates, but it need not necessarily be done that way.
I was arguing, Mr. Speaker, that the supreme court or high court is the natural court to render decisions in these types of matters. It seemed unwise to change our procedures radically. It seemed unwise to change the functions of courts at the same time as the substantive law is being changed.

In addition, to confer jurisdiction on the county courts would necessarily involve the inclusion of some principle that would enable a selection among those courts to be made. I am simply suggesting that that would be another factor that would have to be considered.
The hon. member raised the question of costs. That question is important, but I just wish to say this. Superior courts or supreme courts are not necessarily more expensive than county courts. Surely this is a matter which will be decided and fixed by the rules of courts, or by the code of civil procedure. I was hoping that this type of matter might be discussed in the meetings with the chief justices, meetings to which I referred a few minutes ago. Though the question of costs is important I do not think we should assume that necessarily it will be more expensive to litigate in supreme or high courts.
As a federal government we were dealing with effectively. Problems of legal aid, as with all aspects of the matter. Some aspects, however, the federal government, cannot cope hon. members know, cannot be solved by federal government action alone. At least, those problems can be solved only with great difficulty, if at all, where the federal government acts alone. Problems to do with lawyers' fees cannot be solved by the federal government, and court costs are fixed by rules.
Clause 19(1)(c) of the bill provides:
A court of appeal may make rules ...
(c) respecting the fixing and awarding of costs;
Subclause (2) provides:
-the governor in council may make such regulations as he considers proper to assure uniformity in the rules of court

We have therefore some leverage in this matter. I can only suggest that this type of question ought to be settled by provincial consultation. Again therefore we did not find it advisable to give jurisdiction to courts which seemed traditionally unprepared to decide these very substantial matters of rights, merely because costs were to be involved. That matter could be settled by another approach. In other words, here again we did not try to deal with everything in this bill. We have tried to draft the bill as best we could according to the powers we have.
e (8:20 p.m.)
The final point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, has to do with conflicts of law. Here I am thinking mainly of a few points which were
December 18, 1967

raised by the hon. member for Quebec-Mont-morency (Mr. Laflamme) and the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Forest).

The problems raised by those members are extremely important. They gave us a real course in comparative law and I believe that we have taken that fact into consideration ourselves when drafting this bill.
It is obvious that the present divorce legislation, which is perfectly along the lines of the constitution, may, as a result, affect some other existing statutes under the Criminal Code. Here again, we have not felt that the decision to vote on a divorce legislation should be postponed indefinitely, nor deemed it necessary to wait until all legal conflicts are settled beforehand. I think it would have implied lengthy negotiations, and I am even inclined to say, very lengthy.
We have preferred to pass the legislation and keep strictly to questions of federal jurisdiction with the idea that later the courts will try to solve the problems of conflicting legislation under the principles applicable to other conflicting legislation throughout the country.
As for the question of the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency (Mr. Laflamme) concerning children, I should simply indicate that the children over 16 will keep the rights they now have under the Civil Code. The present legislation deals with decisions rendered for children under 16, but the fact remains that section 165 and following clauses of the Civil Code dealing with alimony are not deleted for all that. These clauses apply to filiation and it is clear that the divorce legislation which breaks the bonds of matrimony cannot in the least break the bonds of filiation. Therefore, it may be that a 20-year-old son, wishing to pursue certain studies, may avail himself of the Quebec jurisprudence to the effect that he still has a claim on his father, regardless of the fact that the latter is divorced. In other words, the rights of filiation are unaltered by the Divorce Act.
There are other examples of conflicting legislation which I should like to deal with, but I am pressed for time and I hope that the hon. members will ask me questions with regard to the clauses themselves when we study the bill in committee. For the time being, I ask for your indulgence, since we are ready to move second reading of the bill
Divorce Law Reform
and I should like to thank the hon. members for their attention and conclude my remarks.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Rinfret in the chair.
On clause 2-Definitions.
Mr. Aiken:: Mr. Chairman, I propose to move an amendment to clause 2 to give divorce jurisdiction to the county and district courts. I shall give my reasons very briefly because the matter has been very carefully canvassed by members during debate on second reading, and a reply has been given by the minister. I think that the key to the success of this legislation lies in the question of jurisdiction. In the first place, high courts mean high costs. Divorce should not be the privilege of those who can afford it, but rather the right of those who merit it.
Second, divorce in the assize courts means divorce in a hurry. This has been one of the complaints over the years about divorce litigation, that it was shoved in without proper consideration, to be taken care of during proceedings in the assize courts at times when the judges had many other things on their minds. A very simple amendment to the bill could take care of this objection.
Third, reconciliation proceedings require continuing effort. In most areas county court judges are able to adjourn from time to time in order to follow up on reconciliation efforts. The high court judges are not. If these reconciliation proceedings, which some of us feel are unsatisfactory anyway, are to be at least carried out with some appearance of reality, then they should be carried out by judges who are able to continue their consideration of the matters involved.
These are the three points I want to raise. They were raised originally when I spoke on second reading, and I think they are still valid.
I would like to say a word about the minister's reply, because he made two or three points which had not been brought out previously. The first is that the provinces can now designate their local judges, who are county and district court judges, to try divorce actions. All I can say is that this power has been there all along, but it has never been used, except in Nova Scotia as my hon. friend from Pictou tells me. In general, across the country, this power has not been

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
used and there is no reason to think the new law will result in any changes unless there is some direction. Therefore I do not think that point is valid. If the law has been there in the past, this bill will make no change in that respect.
The minister also mentioned that the regulations as to costs could be made by the committee which sets up rules of court in each province. Here again I say that such committees could have done this all along. They could have made provision to make divorces less costly. If it is the intention to make them less costly, I am sure these committees would expect parliament to give them some lead; but we are giving them no lead in this legislation-except what may be gleamed from the debate on it, and the vote which we shall have now-to show that parliament really intends that the costs should be kept down. So while the minister made a number of good points, I really think that it is fundamental to grant divorce jurisdiction to the county and district courts.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
Over the week end I have become even more completely convinced of this, since so many people have said that the purpose of this legislation, as expressed during the committee meetings and here, is to get away from the practice of having so many common law unions-I will not call them marriages, because they are not-which result in illegitimate children and in a negation of the sanctity of marriage itself. This is the purpose of this legislation.
In the first few months or years we would hope that many of these unsatisfactory unions would be made legal. This would be done by a party obtaining a divorce from his or her spouse, who lives somewhere else, and marrying the person with whom he or she is living. If this procedure is to cost a substantial sum of money, then it will not happen. These people, many of whom are unable to obtain a divorce because they cannot afford it, will be in no better position after this legislation has passed than they were before. So we will end up with a person who can afford a divorce getting it more easily on broader grounds while those on marginal incomes who would be unable, or would not have the desire, to raise several hundred dollars to obtain divorces in the high courts will more likely abandon the idea and buy new refrigerators or washing machines for their homesteads, rather than get divorces. This is a real possibility under any circumstance.

If this legislation does nothing more than broaden the grounds for those who can afford a divorce, then it will not help the situation. I believe we will find that the very objectives which I know the minister and the government have will go by the board unless this parliament directs that the county court judges are intended to be the judges who will preside over these trials. Unless this parliament directs that the costs shall be kept to a minimum, then I am sure the desired objective will not be achieved. If reconciliation proceedings are intended to be real, this will be more difficult and will shove up the costs unless there is jurisdiction in the county courts. County court costs are known to be generally less costly, regardless of how one looks at it. They will keep the costs down to a reasonable amount; they could be kept very low.
For all these reasons I urge very strongly that the minister reconsider this question of jurisdiction. I will pass up all my other objections if this one suggestion is accepted, because I believe the rest will all come together. In respect of the marriage breakdown, the minister has moved in that direction. He has not moved as far as some of us would like to see him move, but he has moved. On the question of reconciliation he has moved, perhaps not as far as we would like to see him move, but there is the seed of a move toward reconciliation procedures. On the matter of the county court jurisdiction, however, there is no movement at all. In fact, if it is resisted here, then it can be taken that the intention is to keep the jurisdiction with the high courts, keep the costs up, and not to reduce the costs. I would ask that the minister consider this question of the other courts, because I believe this is fundamental.
Now, Mr. Chairman, in order to give effect to this I have an amendment which I should like to propose. I might say that this is an amendment in which all our members on this side concur, even though we have some differences of opinion in respect of the marriage breakdown question and how far it should go. We are in agreement that the county court jurisdiction should have effect. We have taken clause 8 out of the draft bill proposed by the joint standing committee, and we would like to see it included in the bill which has been proposed by the minister. I, therefore, move:
That subclause (e) of clause 2 be amended by adding at the end thereof the following:
"(vii) In any province with courts having jurisdiction to dissolve marriages, the county or
December 18, 1967

district courts shall have jurisdiction, equally and concurrently with the superior court therein, to dissolve marriages and to provide ancillary relief, on any existing ground or on any ground added by this act: Provided that, on the application of any party thereto, an action for dissolution commenced in a county or district court shall be transferred to the superior court, and provided further that any ancillary relief granted by the superior court coincidentally with a pronouncement of dissolution may be enforced, and may be varied from time to time as circumstances may require, by the county or district court in the county or district in which the petitioner resides."


Maurice Rinfret: For the information of the committee, I shall read the amendment moved by the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Aiken):
That subclause (e) of clause 2 be amended by adding at the end thereof the following:
(vii) In any province with courts having jurisdiction to dissolve marriages, the county or district courts shall have jurisdiction, equally and concurrently with the superior court therein, to dissolve marriages and to provide ancillary relief, on any existing ground or on any ground added by this act: Provided that, on the application of any party thereto, an action for dissolution commenced in a county or district court shall be transferred to the superior court, and provided further that any ancillary relief granted by the superior court coincidentally with a pronouncement of dissolution may be enforced, and may be varied from time to time as circumstances may require, by the county or district court in the county or district in which the petitioner resides.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Chairman, I should like to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Muskoka-Parry Sound. I shall try to make my remarks brief, because this matter has been discussed previously. There are some differences I have with the minister which I do not think can be very easily resolved and, although I may move or support amendments, I do not expect to persuade the minister. However, on this particular point concerning the jurisdiction of the county courts, once again I urge the minister to give consideration to this amendment.
There are a number of reasons. First I should like to refer to the report that was made by a joint committee of the House of Commons and the Senate. The members of this committee included a great many lawyers who are experienced in this field, including some from the Senate such as Senators Roebuck and Croll, for example. In addition, many hon. members on the government side of the house endorsed this report.
Divorce Law Reform
The report contained a unanimous recommendation that the jurisdiction be a concurrent jurisdiction in the county courts, and the reasons therefore are set out in the report. Although I do not propose to read this at any length, I should like to read the following which appears at page 261 of the appendix to Votes and Proceedings of June 27, 1967:
It is the practice in those provinces where dissolutions of marriage are granted for jurisdiction to be exercised by the superior courts. This practice has obvious disadvantages. The procedure of the superior courts is costly and involved, and these courts, burdened with cases of a more weighty character, tend to dispose of their long lists of divorce cases as quickly as possible and in a perfunctory manner.
I suggest that the voice of experience was speaking when that statement was made and that it is a fair statement of fact. I should like to read further from the report of the committee:
It would seem a far better solution-
And they have dealt with the idea of the family courts.
-to vest in the county courts concurrent jurisdiction with the supreme courts.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
These courts have advantages over the superior courts for the disposal of local divorce cases. Their procedure is less involved and consequently less costly. County court judges are resident in county towns and their local offices and officials are readily available at all times. The judges can be easily reached when an order needs to be explained or varied and when additional provisions are required. Furthermore, county court judges are more familiar with the local circumstances and situation, as well as being more accessible, and consequently are in a better position to make helpful judgments.
These remarks were not just those of any individual speaking; they are the remarks of a whole group of experienced lawyers and other members on the committee, both from the Senate and from the House of Commons, who heard the evidence and looked into this matter and came to this serious conclusion. I think it is up to the minister to give a little better answer as to who advised him to change this particular conclusion. I want to assure him that the points made here are correct. County court judges are accessible in various parts of the country, and I think particularly of the province of Ontario. I ask the minister to consult the lawyers in his own party in this house, who have had experience in these matters. They will repeat exactly what I am saying at this particular time.
The minister sweeps aside lightly the question of costs, and I do not think it should be

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
swept aside that lightly. The costs that are involved in this matter are going to be substantially lower in the county courts than they are in the supreme or superior courts. I cannot set an exact figure on this, but I suggest the difference lies somewhere between $200 or $300 for the average case in the county court, particularly if it is not opposed and there is a brief trial, and $600, $700 or $800 in the supreme court, again assuming that there is not a long trial. So we have the possibility here of cutting in half the costs, to litigants. Having this opportunity to cut this cost in half, why do we not avail ourselves of it by accepting that improvement which is recommended to us by the committee?
There is a lot more than this, and in respect of this matter I think the best witness we had before the committee, and I am a little prejudiced because he was a former partner of mine, was Mr. Justice McRuer, formerly chief justice of the high court of Ontario. In giving evidence before us he said this:
Jurisdiction in regard to divorce is in the superior courts, in the supreme court of Ontario. Jurisdiction in regard to custody may be with the surrogate court, which is the county court judge, the supreme court judge, or it may be that a family court judge can make an order for custody.
He then said:
I always felt awfully helpless in deciding a question of custody as a supreme court judge. I was very remote. I would go to Welland, and I would probably not be back in Welland again for five, six, or seven years. It is the same with other judges. We go on circuit, we go in and hear a case and we feel that we are not at the bottom of it at all, but we make an order for custody.
This evidence can be found in the proceedings of the divorce committee at page 597. Mr. Justice McRuer then went on to point out the complications when they are asked to review these matters of custody. They have to get in touch with the judge in the capital, in Toronto if the case is in Ontario, or elsewhere. He gave many illustrations of these difficulties.
The minister said something about not having to change this jurisdiction here in Ottawa, as the provinces can do this for themselves. I suggest that is not a good enough answer. If this parliament sets the jurisdiction in the superior court, I doubt very much if a province could do anything to shift it somewhere else. Let me read what Chief Justice McRuer told the committee- and the minister will find this at page 599 of the evidence, if he is interested. I do not

know whether he has even looked into this. He mentioned the case in the Supreme Court of Canada and the British Columbia case, although I have forgotten the name. Chief Justice McRuer said:
I would like to see in the first place a dominion act, in that it would be necessary for the dominion legislation to confer concurrent jurisdiction on the superior court and on the county court so far as Ontario is concerned. When you get to Quebec you do not have county courts, you only have the superior court there. In British Columbia they have been able to do this by provincial legislation. But I doubt very much if that could be done in Ontario, because the majority of the courts hinge around the history of the local judges of the supreme court, county court judges who are local judges of the supreme court.
Mr. Justice Judson's judgment would probably go the whole way and Ontario could do it, but I think it is very dangerous. I think it ought to be done clearly by legislation of the dominion government, because 20 years from now the point might be raised that the divorce was not valid because the court did not have the jurisdiction in a case where inheritance or something of that sort was involved; you have to be very, very sure of your ground.
The chief justice was speaking here about the necessity of dominion legislation to clear up this question of the jurisdiction of county courts. The minister suggests we should let the provinces do this, but I ask him to listen to what the chief justice of this high court said. I would not be in the least surprised if the chief justice of this high court, with years of experience in this field, knew a little bit more than those presently advising the minister in this regard. I suggest we do not need to leave this matter in doubt.
There is one other point I want to make. The minister turned to the English procedure and he quoted from "Putting Asunder", the book I quoted from, and for which I have an extremely high regard; but the passage he quoted dealt with the situation in England, and the county court in the jurisdictional system in England bears little resemblance to those in Canada. In England they do not have the vast distances which make it inappropriate for supreme or superior court judges to be responsible for these matters. I remind the minister that under his own bill it is necessary for matters of custody and maintenance to be dealt with and varied, and I assure the minister that in practice this will create a real and actual complication, as well as injustices. If someone lives up in Port Arthur, for example, and has to send down to try to catch a judge who is in Toronto or on circuit somewhere else throughout the province, this becomes'difficult.
December 18, 1967

The minister said, and I think he has a point, that perhaps some of the local county court judges for one reason or another may not be particularly suited to the very important function of dealing with these matters. If that is so, they should not be sitting at all.
The amendment moved by the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka suggests concurrent jurisdiction. I know there are many points in regard to this matter on which I differ from the minister, and I do not expect him to pay very much attention to some of the changes I suggest. It would be difficult for him to do so, because the substance of the act is written down and he cannot be expected to back down on decisions that have been made by the government. However, in respect of this particular question of jurisdiction of the courts, he could make this bill far more acceptable throughout Canada if he listened to what he has been told today by experienced lawyers in every corner of the house. I hope that he will find some way to take a second look at this matter.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I have a very brief explanation, Mr. Chairman. I must say that in the very few instances where the government departed from the recommendations of the joint committee we did so only after great hesitation an consideration. In reply to the hon. member for Greenwood, who wants to know more about who advised me, I must say this is a cabinet decision. There are in the cabinet a great many lawyers who have had a lot of practical experience in the application of divorce law.
I do not think I need go beyond saying that this is a government decision, not a personal one. I must take exception to the phrase the hon. member for Greenwood used, to the effect that I swept lightly aside the question of cost. I am afraid the hon. member was swept aside by his own enthusiasm and lack of memory. I did explain that this question of cost was an important one, but, the government considered that the question of principle had to be dealt with first; and, in view of the fact that we were introducing divorce law that went way beyond any divorce law which had existed in Canada hitherto, we felt that this completely new concept of divorce, at least during the initial years, should be adjudicated by the high courts and not by the county courts.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
The reason of substance is the one that was given in the report, "Putting Asunder". It is not here a question of distance so much
Divorce Law Reform
as one of substantive law. It is of such a nature that it should be decided by the high courts at least during the early years. This was the first step taken by the government in terms of logic. Then it said: What is the consequence of this on costs? We realized that the costs question was not solved in the same way if the matter went to the high courts as if it went to the county courts. But we felt, as I explained this afternoon and this evening, that the question of costs is one that can be dealt with in another way. If, for reason of principles, we felt it should go to the high court, we decided we should follow our principles and that the question of costs could be decided in other ways, such as by consultation, as suggested by the hon. member for Halifax.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether it would help the minister if, because of the logic of the cabinet to which he has referred, there were added at the end of the proposed amendment, "provided, further, that such judges of county or district courts may exercise concurrent jurisdiction in any province upon the request of the lieutenant governor in council of that province"-in other words, take in the unanimous recommendation of the committee and make it a request of the province? I think this is frightfully important. We have had two expressions of opinion, plus the minister's response, but I have three other facts which I think must be injected into the debate.
This matter is really at the heart of, or is one of the real pedestals of divorce reform. The question has been asked whether it would mean a diminution of costs or less expense to the petitioner if there were county court jurisdiction in this matter. I think in honesty I would have to say, as a Nova Scotian lawyer, that we already have such differences in jurisdiction that the difference in cost is not a compelling factor; there would be less expense in county court, but not enough to justify the step that is being taken. However, I must point out to the committee that of some 470 divorce cases tried in Nova Scotian courts in the year 1966, there were 200 tried by county court judges exercising jurisdiction in the court for divorce and matrimonial causes, or the supreme court as it would be familiarly known here. That is almost 50 per cent of the cases.
So what is the logic of the cabinet decision going to do, if the minister does not accept the amendment? This logic would mean that for the next couple of years we will have

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
amendments to the Judges Act every year so that an extra couple of judges could be appointed in Ontario, British Columbia, etc., because the burden would simply become greater on the supreme court judges. We know, if I may use the word, that a conservative estimate of the number of divorce cases in Canada is now around the 9,000 mark per year and that this number will double at least for the next couple of years, throwing a burden on the courts that will be extraordinarily difficult to meet.
In Nova Scotia, even with the judges of the supreme court, and 11 of the 12 county court judges working on divorce cases, it will mean a tremendous load for them. But for other provinces where the county or district courts have no say at all, I would say the burden would become insuperable.
There is the point about readier access to judges. I talked to a lawyer in Truro, Nova Scotia, tonight. Truro is 60 miles from Halifax. Lawyers and their clients, one would think, could drive from Truro to Halifax to have their cases tried. But this lawyer said: Would you impress upon the House of Commons the fact that having our county court judges deal with divorce cases in Truro is, even though it is close to Halifax, a tremendous boon to parties because they would have to wait for a circuit judge to come to Truro or go to Halifax at some convenient time. When dealing with mileage and people losing half a day or a day's pay in order to be a witness, you are dealing with factors that are in my opinion pretty considerable. This is another reason why the county court approach commends itself.
Others have mentioned this matter but I think it should be banged home over and over again, as I did on second reading. The very first time I saw the bill it struck me as extraordinary that under clause 8 the judge must lean over and face the petitioner, respondent or both and say: Is there any chance that you can come together and give up seeking this divorce? One of them might say yes, and the dear old soul would then say: We will postpone this hearing for 14 days to give you a chance of reconciliation. And off he goes. As has been pointed out, he goes on circuit and it may take years and years to catch up with him.
What will be the effect of this provision? As a lawyer I have a duty imposed on me, when people come into my office, to say: Is there any hope that this marriage can be saved? I am sure other lawyers do this as

well. Under another clause of the bill you are supposed to give them certain advice. There will come a point early in the proceedings when the lawyer will have to say: "Madam petitioner, the judge will ask you whether there is any hope of reconciliation. I can advise you, my client, that if you say yes at that point your case will have gone for at least 14 days and you may never catch up with it again, or at least for months and months or years and years.
These are pretty considerable factors. I do not care what happened in 1912 in the Gorell committee. There was a different form of legal values then. We are talking of the here and now, and the unanimous recommendation of a divorce committee of both houses of parliament. If we are really serious about cutting costs for people, the amendment of the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka, commendable as it is and as much as I support it, will not be enough; we should have the guts to get down to a better administrative, more workable approach.
In any event, Mr. Chairman, let us deal with the here and now and arrive at the most practical measure possible. I suggest to the minister that if he does not like the amendment of the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka perhaps he would consider it with these extras added:
Provided, further, that such judges of county or district courts may exercise concurrent jurisdiction in any province upon the request of the lieutenant governor in council of that province.
I so move, Mr. Chairman.


Maurice Rinfret: Is the
committee ready for the question?


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Chairman, I am quite happy to accept the amendment to my amendment.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Chairman, while the table is getting things in order perhaps I may say a few words, not to meet the substance of the argument, once again, because I think the issue is joined, but because I would not want certain misconceptions to go about.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
The difficulties mentioned by some hon. members are real of course, but they must not be exaggerated. I have heard it said on different occasions that it is sometimes necessary to wait six months or a year for some superior courts in certain provinces to reconvene. That is not a real objection because the rules of a court can be changed. If a court
December 18, 1987



decides that attempts should be made at a reconciliation, after which it adjourns for 14 days so that all the evidence may be brought in, in view of the fact that the evidence has not been heard and the issue not yet solved, the court can be deemed not to have been seized of the case. In the event that it has been seized of it, the rules of the court could easily provide that the file be transferred to another judge coming to that city at a later period.
Let me say one final word with regard to the matter of costs. If the house wants to deal with the question of costs, I think it is possible to write into the law that no costs would be involved. This is done in the criminal law which is under federal jurisdiction. I think that under the constitution it would be possible to write into the law that no costs will be involved and that the divorce will be granted at the expense of the state. We may be prepared to accept this at a later stage. The point I am trying to make is that in this bill we are trying to settle primarily the question of principle. Although the matter of costs is an important one to us, I believe it can be solved by means other than the ones indicated in the amendments that have been moved.


Maurice Rinfret: The question is on the subamendment. Is the committee ready for the question?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Chairman, I am afraid I will have to speak in explanation of the manner in which I shall be casting my vote. As desirable as it may be for other reasons, I will have to vote against the subamendment and will probably find myself for the first time in my career here on the same side as hon. members opposite, although it is certainly not by choice. I may explain to my hon. friend from Halifax that my reason for voting against the subamendment is that the divorce courts in the Yukon have a separate and distinct jurisdiction. We have no county or district court and we have no lieutenant governor in council. The subamendment would therefore be absolutely meaningless to us at the present time.
The Minister of Justice has asked the council for their views with regard to the transfer of the administration of justice, which would be a great step forward in constitutional reform if anything comes of it, and I hope it will. However, in the meantime, since the subamendment will be meaningless to the Yukon jurisdiction, and I dare say the the same applies to the Northwest Territories,
Divorce Law Reform
I must oppose the subamendment. It would be harmful in that the amendment could be made applicable to the jurisdiction in the Yukon if, for instance, power were given to the commissioner instead of to the lieutenant governor in council.


Maurice Rinfret: Is the
committee ready for the question?
Amendment to the amendment (Mr. McCleave) negatived: Yeas, 46; nays, 67.


Maurice Rinfret: I declare the subamendment lost.
Is the committee ready for the question on the amendment?
Amendment (Mr. Aiken) negatived: Yeas, 49; nays, 66.


Maurice Rinfret: I declare the amendment lost.


Richard Albert Bell: Mr. Chairman, I have no intention of delaying the final decision on this clause, but I want to put directly and immediately before the minister the very issue upon which he himself has alleged this matter could be settled.
He has said that immediately the bill is passed he intends to consult with the provinces, and that as a result of these consultations the legislation may have to be adjusted. If I may, I should like to give the minister full freedom of action to make the necessary adjustments after he has had these consultations. Therefore I propose to move-
-that clause 2(e) be amended by adding at the end thereof the following words: "Provided, however, that in any province or territory having county or district courts, the governor in council, upon petition of the lieutenant governor in council of such province, or of a territorial council, may order that such county or district courts shall have jurisdiction in such province or territory equally and concurrently with the court of such province or territory hereinbefore mentioned.
And provided further that, on the application of any party thereto, an action for dissolution and ancillary relief commenced in the county or district court shall be transferred to the court hereinbefore specified.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
This is a very simple amendment. It gives to the governor in council full freedom of action in any particular province, if the lieutenant governor should ask for the authority to be invested in the county or district court. In the territories, it gives that right of request to the territorial councils. The provincial executive council or the territorial council is closest to the people and best able to decide the appropriate tribunal. I think

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform
the minister can accept this amendment and it would be a real contribution to getting the legislation through this chamber.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I will not have very much to say about this bill, Mr. Chairman, because, as will be understood, I am not deeply exercised about the widening of civil grounds for divorce. But I do suggest to the minister that he should carefully consider the amendment moved by the hon. member for Carleton, because what does concern me about this bill is the potentially great increase in cases that will come before our courts. I believe that what the Minister of Justice should consider is whether he will find that, having passed this bill, there should occur a log jam in the superior courts of this country.
I am seriously concerned that this may be the case, and therefore I commend to the minister the consideration of this amendment which gives to the lieutenant governor of a province or the territorial council the opportunity, if they find the superior courts becoming over-burdened with petitions for divorce, to petition the governor in council of Canada to relieve against that situation.
The governor in council would then have the right to say, on that petition, that county and district courts may exercise concurrent jurisdiction. The result of the passage of this amendment would not be to deprive the superior courts of jurisdiction, but rather to confer concurrent jurisdiction on county and district courts. I do know the minister must be concerned with the expeditious disposition of cases. However, this amendment does not do violence to any principle which he or the cabinet may have had in mind in settling jurisprudence, but rather gives flexibility to the disposition of cases, which may well be found to be necessary if we are not to have the whole administration of justice bogged down with the burden of petitions from which burden relief could not otherwise be given.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, I am not a lawyer and therefore I am not familiar with all the ramifications the Minister of Justice has indicated are involved in the consideration of this principle. It seems to me the proposition is a fairly simple one. We are going to have a backlog of cases as the previous speaker mentioned. The Canadian Bar Association says 500,000 people are involved, and this may represent 250,000 cases being brought before the courts in the next ten years. This will probably be equal to the

number of cases being heard by the courts previously. The minister raised an objection which in my opinion indicated that a number of judges of the country courts have been appointed who are incompetent, perhaps a far larger number than we are aware. This of course indicates that the patronage system we use to appoint judges is not a good one. I believe this is the only reason the minister has given for his objection to this procedure.
The minister said the decision with regard to giving jurisdiction to superior courts was a cabinet decision. I am sure they did not say they had to limit it to superior courts. No doubt the cabinet did say they would have to put these matters into courts where they would not get out of hand. I believe this statement illustrates the incompetence of county and district courts. This may be true, and if it is, then the 250,000 litigants who will be involved in divorce matters should not be foisted off on these lower courts.
The next matter of concern, of course, is costs. Then, too, on sundry occasions lawyers are always willing to bandy about that old phrase, "Justice delayed is justice denied". I know from my own limited experience there are cases now coming before the Supreme Court of Ontario which date back two years and which have not been heard as yet. If you ask about these cases you are told the judge has not had time to reach them. If you write the judge, he says the case was not on his docket and therefore the lawyer is to blame. If you ask the bar association they will say, "A plague on both your houses". The person making the inquiry is never sure who is to blame. He changes lawyers, tries again and the delay is continued.
I believe the minister should have a better argument than saying to the people of Canada or to members of parliament that this act is going to be so difficult to administer that only superior courts of the provinces are going to be able to handle it. We are not going to be faced with so many new divorce actions; but there have been many divorce actions pending the passage of this legislation. I am surprised at members on the other side. These are the members who stood up and said, "Let us not rush things", when this subject was before us two or three years ago. They should decide not to be sheep, and should take unto themselves the right which the Prime Minister gave on other occasions when moral matters were involved. This is a moral matter. Many people are waiting for relief from situations which developed
December 18, 1967

through no fault of their own, and this legislation will grant them some relief. It seems to me we have an obligation to see that they get their case before the courts as soon as possible, with as little cost as possible.
I am sure the minister is not prepared to come back to parliament and ask us to double the number of supreme court judges in any province. I suggest, too, that no negotiations take place in the back room between the minister and the attorney general of a province. We should decide here to give jurisdiction to county and district courts. Surely we will be able to make our legislation and regulations simple enough that even some of these judges who may be incompetent will be able to understand them. If we cannot, then this is a sad reflection on the type of judiciary we have at the junior level, and who appear before John Q. Public at all times. They should be able to understand what appears to me to be a fairly simply bill. We have to decide what the grounds of divorce are and what the regulations will be, but I do not think it is stretching the imagination too far to suggest that most county and district court judges are competent to handle the provisions of a simple bill.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)
If hon. members opposite are going to wait five years before making this decision, then the responsibility will be on their shoulders. I remember I carried on my shoulders the responsibility for delaying divorce actions, which these same hon. members said at the time should receive free and easy passage. In this case I would suggest they question their moral justification for their present stand.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to take very much time. The hon. member for Kamloops and the hon. member for Carleton presented very able arguments to the minister, and I suggest it is possible that unless the amendment is accepted there will be a huge backlog of cases before long.
There is one question about which there is no argument, and that is that leaving jurisdiction in this matter entirely within the superior courts will increase the cost of divorce. I am astonished at the attitude taken by the minister and the hon. member for Fort William who have always been noted for their humanitarian interest in such matters. They are supporting, in effect, a piece of legislation which provides one law for the rich and another law for the poor.
Divorce Law Reform
I would appeal to the minister to reconsider this matter. This is not a piece of political legislation but something that every member of the house is anxious to expedite and approve, Although we never attribute motives to members of this house it seemed to me that the minister gave the appearance of ministers in the "good old days" of the Liberal party who regarded any suggestion coming from the other side of the house as unworthy of any merit.
I appeal to the minister to take a leaf from the book of the former minister of transport who, when dealing with a very detailed and complex bill in this house last session, accepted no less than 70-odd amendments. The amendment moved this evening was put forward in good faith by members of the house who have had a great deal of experience in the practice of law. It is moved for no other purpose than to try to improve the bill.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I appeal to the minister and his colleagues not just to dig in their heels and lay their ears back simply because someone on this side has made a suggestion. I ask that they give it consideration and not support what is, in effect, one law which will favour the "cocktail set", making divorce easy for them, while making divorce not so easy and more expensive for others.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Chairman, I agree with the intent of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Carleton and with some of the reasons given by the hon. member for Kamloops for giving the provinces an element of choice here. The administration of justice is mainly a provincial matter, and the problem will arise, of course, that there will be a greater number of divorce cases in the provincial courts. Indeed that is the very purpose of the bill. Even if the hon. member for Kamloops is not over-enthusiastic about enlarging the grounds for divorce, he has no objection to our doing so. Inevitably the number of cases in the courts will increase.
The question is, which courts will try these cases, the county courts or the superior courts? Whether it be one or the other there will inevitably be congestion. It does not seem preferable a priori to congest one court rather than another; the result in either case will be-


David Lewis: Would the minister permit a question?

December 18, 1967
Divorce Law Reform


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: May I just finish my
remarks. I do have difficulty making sure that my final phrase fits in with the first phrase, but when I have finished my sentence I will permit the question.
I was saying that the congestion will be in one court or the other. Inevitably the provincial legislatures will have to move to increase the number of judges at one level or the other. I would suggest to the hon. member for Timiskaming that it is a question for the provinces, as he well knows, to increase the number of courts in the provinces through their own legislation. All we do federally is to fill the vacancies.


David Lewis: Mr. Chairman, it seems to me the minister is missing something. Is it not true that if both levels of court are given concurrent jurisdiction, and there are in Ontario about 50 county courts-


Thomas Miller Bell: Actually 65.


David Lewis: Yes, 65 county and district court judges, plus 20 supreme court judges, all with concurrent jurisdiction, then the likelihood is that the congestion will be spread over a much wider area. This surely is of value to the courts.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member's question is really leading me to the second point that I was going to make anyway, a point I have made over and over again. We are giving the provinces a choice. We are saying that divorce is a high court matter and we are putting this into the law. But we are going on to say that if a province wants to provide for additional local judicial officers of the high court, to which county court judges can be appointed, then it can do so. But it will do so by provincial legislation, rather than by order in council as suggested by the amendment. However, the result is the same. The province can take action in one way or the other and decide for itself where the congestion is going to be.
If there is going to be congestion, then this can only be eased by an increase in the number of judges. Surely the situation cannot be met by shifting judges from one level to the other; more judges will have to be appointed either to the one court or the other.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, may I repeat that the decision is a provincial one. The federal government is not deciding that there is to be a distinction made between the high court and the county court. I do not think the

argument about one jurisdiction for the rich and another for the poor should be addressed to me. If a province wishes, it can place all its courts on the same level. This is the case in the province of Quebec and also in the territories. The distinction between the county and the high court is not one of our creation. It falls within the administration of justice in a particular province.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to get into a long argument on this question with the minister, but it is a fact that in some provinces in this country, Ontario for example, there are 65-as somebody said- county court judges permanently sitting in county towns, many of whom are not overburdened with work. On the other side of the picture there are 20 supreme court judges who go on circuit, and in some county towns stay for only a week or two weeks at a time.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)


Thomas Miller Bell: Two days.


Francis Andrew Brewin: It is for two days, as the hon. member for Carleton has said. I accept his amendment. In any event, whether it is two days or two weeks the fact of the matter is that often high court judges must deal with important criminal matters, murder trials and similar matters, and often they are not able to deal with divorces.
Really, I think the hon. member for Carle-ton has suggested a sort of compromise which ought to appeal to the minister. The minister said that the decision of cabinet was involved here. I do not know how deeply the cabinet looked into this matter, but I do know how deeply the committee on divorce looked into it and the unanimous conclusion they arrived at.
If this is a matter of cabinet decision and if what I say is true, that the legislation will not work this way and that there will be much congestion of cases on supreme court lists, then the amendment of the hon. member for Carleton, that the governor in council should take authority to direct that some cases go before county courts, should be accepted. I never saw such reluctance on the part of the governor in council to take unto himself additional powers. Usually the reverse is the case.
This is not a partisan matter. Because some of us see with great clarity the difficulty that this legislation will cause, we plead with the minister to accept this solution to the impasse we are in. It is all very well for the minister
December 18, 1967

to say that he is concerned about costs. Traditionally, the county courts are the cheap or low priced forms of administering justice, and the superior or supreme courts are the high priced forms of administering justice. Some can afford to go to the high courts to have their matter decided, but those who are concerned with family and personal relationships are not the sorts of people who can afford to go to the higher and more expensive courts.
Amendment (Mr. Bell, Carleton) negatived: yeas, 50; nays, 63.


Maurice Rinfret: I declare the amendment lost. Shall clause 2 carry?


An hon. Member:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 3-Grounds.
Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Chairman, I introduced an amendment to clause 3. I will not discuss it at great length, but it deals with the basic question of the principle that is before the house.
The amendment that I now propose would base the law of divorce on the marriage breakdown approach. I spoke about this on the resolution stage and on second reading. Several members in the house, including the hon. members for Peace River, Royal, Parry Sound-Muskoka and others have also spoken about this.
I know that the minister will not accept my amendment. Quite frankly, I do not see how he could accept it because he has argued vigorously and at length that he is not prepared to do so. Nevertheless I propose to put this amendment before the committee in order that the principles that are involved may be made clear.
The principle is this. In the view of some of us it is necessary to change the whole approach to divorce. Divorce ought to be based not on a procedure of accusation, not on a determination of which of the parties is guilty or innocent, but on a finding of whether the marriage is dead. This is the basic principle I wish to make clear.
The minister spoke about this matter and said, that, although it might be a nice idea, it was totally impracticable. I do not agree with him; I think it is perfectly practicable. The Mortimer commission, according to the archbishop's committee, spoke about the pure form of breakdown. The minister said that that would have no application under this bill. He said that if we accepted the pure
Divorce Law Reform
form of breakdown we should become involved in an inquisitorial form of procedure. What I propose in my amendment is the following. I would move:
That section 3 of the bill C-187 be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
(1)	A petition for divorce may be presented to a court by a husband or wife on the ground that a marriage has irretrievably broken down and that there is no reasonable likelihood of reconciliation.
That is the basic amendment that I propose. It substitutes the one matter of marriage breakdown for all the concepts of matrimonial fault, all the rigmarole of collusion, connivance, condonation and the phony adultery trials. That is all the courts would need to determine. The minister said, after quoting the British report, that adopting the marriage breakdown concept would entail an inquisition into a marriage, in every case. I recognize that problem and for that reason I include subclause 2, as follows:
(2)	Where the parties have lived separate and apart for a period of not less than three years, then it shall be prima facie presumed that the marriage has irretrievably broken down and that there is no reasonable likelihood of reconciliation.
The minister might say that that is not the pure form of breakdown. I am not interested in purity; I am interested in something that will work. At the end of a lenghty separation-I do not care whether it is three years or five years, or whatever the period is-the court would be entitled to presume the breakdown of the marriage.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
There would then, under those circumstances, be no need for lengthy inquests or difficult inquiries. As a matter of fact it might not be much more difficult than it is today to go through these hotel and motel trials that we have had. With respect to the third subclause in my amendment, it reads:
(3)	The court may refuse to grant a decree of dissolution of the marriage if it is satisfied that to grant a decree might prove unduly harsh and repressive to the respondent.
The reason I include that is that it is possible to conceive of a case in which a person has behaved very badly and that person might seek a divorce, but the courts might think it a hardship on the wife to grant the divorce. Therefore Mr. Chairman, I will move that clause 3 be amended, and my amendment be substituted for it. If this amendment were adopted-and I am not over optimistic that I can suddenly persuade the solid phalanxes of the government to agree with me at this

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Divorce Law Reform
stage of the day-then clauses 4, 7, 8 and 9 of the bill would not be necessary.
This is a new concept, a concept supported by the churches, a concept put before our committee and which we think makes sense. It bypasses the old method of doing things. It bypasses 30 years of English experience of doing things, and I suggest puts the matter on a more fruitful and sounder basis. The object of divorce legislation should be to provide that where the marriage tie no longer represents a reality, where the marriage is completely dead, and when it no longer serves the purpose of marriage, which is the life-long living together of a man and a woman, then the law shall determine that the marriage is at an end. It has been suggested that I should read this amendment again, Mr. Chairman. I am perfectly willing to do so. I shall read it in English and perhaps you, Mr. Chairman, might read it in French. I move:
That section 3 of Bill C-187 be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
"3. (1) A petition for divorce may be presented to a court by a husband or wife on the ground that a marriage has irretrievably broken down and that there is no reasonable likelihood of reconciliation.
(2)	Where the parties have lived separate and apart for a period of not less than three years, then it shall be prima facie presumed that the marriage has irretrievably broken down and that there is no reasonable likelihood of reconciliation.
(3)	The court may refuse to grant a decree of dissolution of the marriage if it is satisfied that to grant a decree might prove unduly harsh and repressive to the respondent."
As I have mentioned, if this amendment were adopted it would also replace clauses 4, 7, 8 and 9 of the bill.


Maurice Rinfret: Is the
committee ready for the question?


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Greenwood is correct when he says that there is not very much chance of this reform finding favour with parliament, but as one who had the privilege of seconding the hon. member's earlier bill, which would have brought this new concept into play, I want to be on record as supporting it. Some people, when they consider the marriage breakdown concept, rather sneeringly consider it to be woolly headed. I rather prefer to think of it as really a much clearer concept than that envisaged by the somewhat lengthy bill presented to us by the minister.
Of course the minister, and I said so earlier today, is entitled to credit, as is the

government and I hope so will be parliament, for a reform. But I think it is well to remind ourselves that reform is a relative thing. Many jurisdictions have long since amended their divorce legislation. As the hon. member for Greenwood has said, we have the 30 years experience of the United Kingdom to guide us and they are about to adopt, I am quite satisfied, the marriage breakdown theory.
I hoped that I would have been part of a parliament that could have been a real pioneer in the matter of the reform of divorce laws. But apparently parliament-or perhaps it is Canadians, although I think I would rather restrict this to parliament at this stage-is not brave enough to break really new ground in this field. Perhaps parliament, to quote a well known statesman, is too timid to excite the daring.
The Montreal Star in an editorial on December 11 had this to say about the present bill, under the heading "Divorce Compromise":
Where the bill falls short of social need is in its attempt to define marriage breakdown, to set limits within which a broken marriage must fall before a court can say that breakdown is irrevocable. Breakdown is a matter of fact in the individual case. If the fact is established to the satisfaction of the court, then the court should be empowered to grant a divorce.
It had been my hope that this parliament would have seen fit to accept this major reform.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I think it will be understood by the committee that as far as we on this side of the chamber are concerned, that is in the official opposition, while we have been prepared to support the bill on second reading-in other words, while we have been prepared to see a reform in the laws of divorce because we recognize that the present legal situation, to put it mildly, is far from satisfactory-yet from that point on, there is some difference of opinion on this side. For instance, I find myself now under the necessity of disagreeing with those on this side, not only some of my own colleagues but the hon. member for Greenwood, who would seek to make the marriage breakdown theory the only ground for divorce.
I respect the point of view of my colleagues who feel this way, but I would like to suggest to them that, whether they realize it or not, what they would be doing is stacking the cards against marriage. In my view the cards, if they are going to be stacked at all, should be stacked the other way, that is,
December 18, 1967

that the presumption should be that a contract of marriage, properly solemnized by either a civil or religious ceremony, or a combination of the two, is a contract for life. There are family obligations which arise out of that contract which are not within the competencee (9:50 p.m.)


Mr, Priilie:: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: -of the parties to that contract to dispose of by their purely voluntary act. The parties having entered into a contract of that nature by their voluntary act, have yet assumed obligations which they cannot voluntarily dispose of. That is my approach to this question.
I think therefore that in approaching this matter of the grounds upon which the marriage may be dissolved there should be clear, distinct and somewhat narrow grounds. As I have said I personally share the point of view which says that one's own religious convictions should not be imposed on the rest of society: Therefore, with some difficulty I go along with this bill. But when someone suggests what to me seems to be an attack upon the whole idea of the sanctity of marriage as a contract with all its consequences, then I find that I must disengage myself from the point of view which relies upon this concept of the breakdown of marriage as being too careless a basis upon which to say that the marriage contract may be dissolved.


Robert William Prittie: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.


Robert William Prittie: Does the hon. member think that a person such as the Archbishop of Canterbury would be party to an idea that would be against the institution of marriage?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am not aware that the Archbishop of Canterbury is taking part in this debate.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a very few remarks in respect of this amendment. In the first place I should like to clarify something that did not seem to come out right. On Friday when speaking in the house I suggested there were several shortcomings in the bill and suggested also that amendments would be moved. Some reports indicated that I would be moving an amendment to incorporate marriage breakdown on behalf of this party. I do not think this is
Divorce Law Reform
what I said, but I can understand that some mistake might have been made because I was not sufficiently specific.
When I attended the meetings of the committee I was much impressed with the good sense of having one uniform law of divorce in Canada. At this time, in this bill, we have two opposing theories. We have the theory of the marital offence in which the cause matters. Then we have the theory of the marriage breakdown in which the cause does not matter. These two are opposite; they are both contained in the same bill and I have the feeling this will be self-destructive so far as this bill being effective is concerned, and so far as making up a jurisprudence in Canada is concerned. I do not intend to repeat the argument I made on second reading. I do not think the minister was quite fair in his assessment of what marriage breakdown as proposed to the committee actually meant.
I should like to point out to him that subclause (1) (e) of clause 4 actually includes a good part of what I consider the marriage breakdown theory to be, except that clause (e) provides no safeguards whatsoever. Personally I should not like to see the basis of marriage breakdown being made easier. I should like to see it made more difficult. Subclause (e) says that a divorce can be granted if the spouses have been living separate and apart for any reason for a period of not less than three years. There is marriage breakdown in a nutshell. However, it does not have the safeguards which were included in the bill which the committee recommended.


Mr. MacEachen:: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. I have in mind seeking a means to sit until eleven o'clock. If you agree, I would ask that the committee rise and report progress.


Maurice Rinfret: Shall I rise, report progress and request leave to sit
again?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: That pursuant to section (6) of standing order 6 this sitting be extended until eleven o'clock this day or until consideration of Bill No. C-187 in committee of the whole be completed, whichever shall be the earlier of these two eventualities.

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Divorce Law Reform


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the said motion?


Ralph Bronson Cowan: I object.


Mr. Speaker:: In view of the fact that there are fewer than ten members who have risen in support of the hon. member, the motion is deemed to be carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration in committee of Bill No. C-187, respecting divorce- Mr. Trudeau-Mr. Batten in the chair.
The Chairman:: When the committee rose, clause 3 was being discussed and the amendment thereto by Mr. Brewin. The hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make this one point, so that it will be clear why I think this bill is incomplete and why I believe one idea of the marriage breakdown theory would be acceptable. Here we have in the bill under subclause (e) what in effect is a marriage breakdown clause. It merely provides for divorce if the parties have been living separate for three years. The report of the joint committee and the opinion of most people who are in favour of the marriage breakdown theory in Canada is to the effect that this must be hedged about by some safeguards, and that it is not good enough just to create a ground for divorce and call a marriage breakdown a cause for a divorce. This is not good enough.
The recommendation of the joint committee was that, in addition to what is in this bill, the court must find, before it can grant a divorce, first, that the marriage is permanently finished; second, that every reasonable effort at reconciliation has failed; third, that there is no likelihood of the situation improving in the future; fourth, that the question of due care and maintenance of the children is settled; fifth, that no public interest is affected and, finally, that no undue hardship on the other spouse will result.
[DOT] (10:00 p.m.)
That is what the special joint committee recommended, and if the present bill had those safeguards and everything else was eliminated but clause 4 (l)(e), we would have a reasonably acceptable marriage breakdown

bill. What we have is a marriage breakdown ground without the safeguards. The safeguards are not there, and it is my opinion that what I propose, which is in essence contained in the amendment, should be included. If you are going to allow a divorce merely after three years separation the least you can do is make sure you have a perfectly valid case, that the marriage is at an end, that efforts have been made to restore it and every other provision has been satisfied in favour of separating two people. This is what I say is wrong with this bill and why I am in favour of a limited marriage breakdown proposal.
The minister did, as he stated in his own words, go a long way toward what I consider the ground of marriage breakdown. In fact, I think he went so far he could have eliminated the rest of his bill and left this one provision in, and have a good marriage breakdown bill by adding the safeguards I would put in.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Would the hon. member not think that these safeguards are contained in the clause on reconciliation and in clause 9 in respect of the additional duties of the court?


Gordon Harvey Aiken: No, I do not, and that is my objection. As has already been said, there is no requirement on the court to hear any witness, or any evidence that there has been any effort at reconciliation. All the court has to do is ask the petitioner whether there is any likelihood of reconciliation. If the petitioner says no, that is the end of the reconciliation procedure. There are a lot of provisions in there as to what will happen if the petitioner or the respondent says there is hope of reconciliation, but what counsel or petitioner is going to go into court with the intention of losing his case? If the petitioner goes into court with the intention of saying to the judge, yes, we can get together, then why bother because the case is either going to be adjourned, set aside for reconciliation proceedings or dismissed. I have never heard of anybody going into court with a losing case, and that is exactly what he would be doing.


Richard Albert Bell: You mean with the intention of losing.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I accept the correction. They do not go in with the intention of losing the case. It is not a requirement of the bill that inquiries be made as to whether a social worker, the Children's Aid Society, a clergyman or anybody else has worked on the case
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or that they should be called before the court. I think it should be required that someone be called in to say they have been involved in the matrimonial dispute and have tried to effect reconciliation. Therefore I believe that this reconciliation procedure is a waste of effort.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The court can nominate a conciliator without consent of the parties.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I agree, and that puts us right back to the question as to what control the judge is going to have. What judge is going to waste his time if all he is required to do is ask the question? He is not going to waste his time having counsel chase him all over the province to follow up on reconciliation procedures. That is what is wrong with this, and why the county court should have jurisdiction.


Mr. Basford:: Mr. Chairman, 1 do not want unduly to delay the passage of this bill in the committee, and I did not enter the debate on second reading for that reason, but I should like as briefly as possible to put on the record my feelings about hon. members' suggestions. The hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka very logically brought out in respect of the marriage breakdown concept the very reasons for my opposition to it.
I know it has been said in the house and reported in the press that this concept that was placed before the committee, of which I did not have the honour to be a member, was a modern, progressive theory of divorce reform that we should adopt, namely the theory of marriage breakdown. The amendment of the hon. member for Greenwood that is before the committee is to strike out all the specific causes and all the marital offence clauses and simply substitute the concept of marriage breakdown.
The reason I oppose this amendment is that I think it would make divorce a great deal harder to obtain in this country than will be the case under the bill as it now stands. It seems to me that the amendment before us could run the risk of leading to a situation where it would be almost impossible to prove before a judge that the marriage had in fact broken down.
The requirements of proof under the amendment are that the marriage has irretrievably broken down and there is no reasonable likelihood of reconciliation. I can imagine judges in my own jurisdiction, and without making any invidious references at
Divorce Law Reform
all I can well imagine judges in the province of Quebec, for example, before whom it would be virtually impossible for petitioners to prove that the marriage had irretrievably broken down and that there was no reasonable likelihood of reconciling the parties.
It seems to me that petitioners before the courts have a right to divorce on the grounds enumerated in clause 3, and they should not have to prove to the court that the marriage had broken down because one of those offences has been committed and there was no chance of reconciling it. I believe that if one spouse has committed adultery, the other spouse has the right, as a matter of freedom of choice, to decide whether he or she should go to court and ask for a dissolution of the marriage. It seems to me that if one spouse has committed bigamy, the other spouse should have the right to go before the courts and, after proving the first marriage, the second marriage and the identity of the parties, obtain a divorce on the ground of bigamy.
One could deal with all the specific grounds of clause 3 which the amendment seeks to strike out. In my view the people who are concerned, those who become involved in marital situations, should have the right to go to court and ask for a dissolution of their marriage on these grounds. To pass this amendment, and require them to go through the difficulty of proof that I can envisage in the amendment, would make it extremely difficult in some jurisdictions to obtain a divorce and would, I suggest, lead to an extremely costly procedure for the parties involved.
A moment ago I mentioned the question of bigamy. It seems to me that if someone has the right to a divorce or dissolution of his or her marriage on the ground of bigamy, it is a fairly simple procedure to prove the first and second marriages and the identities of the parties involved. But if this amendment were accepted, a person whose spouse had committed adultery would have to go to court and prove something far more difficult, first that the marriage had irretrievably broken down, and second that there was no reasonable likelihood of reconciliation.
I believe that there are in this country judges who, in spite of the fact that one's spouse had committed bigamy, would still say: You should go to a couple of psychiatrists and see if you cannot work out your problems and keep this marriage alive.

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[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)
It seems to me that the people of this country should have the right to dissolve their marriages on the grounds set out in clause 3. This is a right which they should be free to exercise of their own free will, and we should not take it away from them.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to speak for more than a few minutes.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Francis Andrew Brewin: I knew I would get applause for that statement. However, I do want to comment on what was said by the hon. member for Kamloops. I am not sure I have his exact words but I think he said that the concept of marriage breakdown would strike at the sanctity of marriage. I want to take exception to that point of view. I may be wrong, and we are all entitled to our own opinion on this matter, but the fact of the matter is that this proposal was put before the divorce committee first of all by the United Church, second it was fully supported by the Anglican Church of Canada, and third, it is in line with the report made by a group of churchmen appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The point they made is that the breakdown theory is more consonant with what I would call a Christian or a religious concept of marriage. I agree that we in parliament must not necessarily try, and the church does not ask us, to enforce a view of marriage which is consistent with the religious view.
The church recognizes that we are legislating for the community as a whole, but they made it very clear that in their view a secular divorce law based upon breakdown would do more honour to the principle of marriage as a lifelong union than would a divorce law based upon the so-called matrimonial misconduct.
This, in a sense, meets what the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard has said. He is perfectly right, the marriage breakdown concept would make it harder for some people to get a divorce. It would certainly mean that perhaps in cases of a casual act of adultery the courts would have to inquire whether or not there is a possibility of reconciliation. So in some cases it might narrow the opportunity for obtaining a divorce. On the other hand it would broaden the opportunity for obtaining a divorce to include all other cases in which the marriage in fact was found to be dead and there was no likelihood of the parties getting together. So in some respects this

concept narrows down the possibility of obtaining a divorce and in other respects it broadens it, but it is a new and a different concept.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say a few words on this matter as an Anglican who differs from my friend from Greenwood and also from the Rev. E. S. Reed, Bishop of Ottawa, and other Anglicans who presented evidence before the committee. I can tell these hon. gentlemen that they did not represent many Anglicans in this country when they made their representations before the committee, although I am sure they made them in good faith and with the best intentions.
I should like to read briefly from page 119 of the report dealing with grounds for divorce. It reads as follows:
The commission points out that not only would trial procedure be more painful to the parties, hut it would be considerably more extensive in the time and space it would occupy. If all cases were to be inquired into, trials would inevitably be longer. The vast majority of cases at present are undefended and therefore can be dealt with both swiftly and without complications. The proposed system would necessitate more courts, more judges, and, most essential, the new procedure would require large numbers of trained investigators and social workers to assist the court. All this would be extremely expensive and would have to be paid for largely by the taxpayer, although it would no doubt be reflected in higher cost of divorce to the parties as well. Far from making divorces simpler and cheaper, it might well have the opposite effect.
I want to say in this connection that I have had some discussions with members of the committee and members of the other place who are very well versed on this problem, because I was somewhat concerned about various proposals put forward to establish the breakdown of marriage as the only ground for divorce.
As I said before, I talked to some members of the committee and some members of the other place who are well informed on the subject. They told me that if this section were implemented a certain amount of snooping would be involved into the private affairs of individuals. I must say I take a very dim view of any procedure that would entail this sort of thing. I base my stand on an experience I had some years ago, and I am going to cite that experience.
A lady I knew of impeccable character, whose husband had left her, was in receipt of relief owing to her unfortunate circumstances. The social welfare worker, who at that time had no training, called on the
December 18, 1967

neighbours to enquire if this lady was living a good moral life. Two or three of the ladies informed her they had seen a man's laundry on the clothesline. The lady from the welfare agency searched the house and found a box of man's laundry. This laundry had been done by the lady out of the goodness of her heart for an old gentleman who was in poor circumstances. As a result of this snooping, the lady in question was promptly denied her welfare payments. The whole village, who knew the lady very well, was in an uproar and she finally got her welfare payments back because of the indignation of many good Anglicans and other church people in the district.
I was told by these gentlemen in the other place that if we have the breakdown theory incorporated in the bill, as suggested by some members on this side of the house,-and I fully appreciate their sincerity,-it would involve some snooping on the part of social welfare workers, probably at the corner grocery store, to find out how the people were getting on together. If I am incorrect in my understanding, I should like the minister to explain the meaning of this amendment before we conclude debate on this section. I am one who is very concerned about that sort of thing in every aspect of life because I believe in the rights of the individual.
In conclusion, I want to say a word or two about the concluding paragraph of this report which appears on page 122. It reads:
The real problem with this simplified version of the marriage breakdown theory is an extremely basic one. How long a period of separation should be required before a husband or wife can ask the courts for a divorce? The witnesses proposing the inclusion of separation as a grounds for divorce in some system or another, have suggested various periods of time ranging from two to seven years. Similarly, the Mortimer group in England thought three years; the members of the English Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce (1951-1955) believed seven years to be a reasonable time. If the period chosen is too short, the parties might rush into a divorce without having time to recover from either a violent matrimonial quarrel or a passing affair or infatuation. Nor might they have time to consider whether the difficulties in their marriage were capable of solution.
On the other hand, if the period is a relatively long one, say three years, what becomes of those who presently can obtain divorces on the ground of outrageous conduct by their spouse? Must they have to wait three years? It seems unlikely that a period could be agreed that would render justice to all parties in both categories. Therefore, it does not seem possible that breakdown could constitute the sole and comprehensive ground.
I accept that statement.
If the period of separation is to be more than six months, then it can only offer a practical
Divorce Law Reform
solution if it is coupled with other grounds which would provide more rapid relief. This is not to reject marriage breakdown ideas completely. Far from it. The introduction of it through the ground of separation is discussed in the following section of the report.
I just want to say there is no question but that the introduction of this bill is a great step forward toward the curing of growing social difficulties in Canada. We give the minister credit for that. I suggest we should get experience from the application of this bill and as a result of that experience on the part of the federal and provincial governments as well as the courts, we can come to some conclusions which would make it easier to amend this act, with all respect for the marriage ties.
[DOT] (10:20 p.m.)
Amendment (Mr. Brewin) negatived: Yeas, 15; nays, 73.


Herman Maxwell Batten: I declare the amendment lost. Shall clause 3 carry?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Chairman, this afternoon on second reading I raised certain questions about the thinking of the government on the introduction of a series of what were considered to be matrimonial offences. For example, I referred to the provision in (c) "has gone through a form of marriage with another person". In suing for divorce under that provision all one would have to do would be to prove the marriage ceremony, or the purported marriage ceremony, whether innocent or culpable.
The minister shakes his head. I do not know how much practice he has had with regard to this kind of matter, but there are cases of persons entering into a form of marriage believing themselves free to do so, and there have been no actual sexual relations. This is not the ground in paragraph (c); its provisions relate to a person who has gone through a form of marriage with another person whether entitled to do so or not.
I wonder why this ground of divorce is being introduced. This afternoon I asked the minister why incurable insanity was not included as a ground and I received no answer. At least if the minister answered 1 was not present to hear him. I wonder where in this bill there is any provision to grant relief in a case where one of the parties becomes incurably insane. Grounds for less serious matters are included in the bill. For instance where a person has become an alcoholic or a drug addict for a period of

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Divorce Law Reform
three years and there is no reasonable expectation that he will be rehabilitated within the reasonably foreseeable future, relief is granted.
Again, I put strictures on such types of interpretation. Under this legislation a person who is married to an alcoholic, for whom in the reasonably foreseeable future there is no cure, is granted relief. Where the husband is the alcoholic the legislation will grant to the wife the right to a divorce. In another case, next door perhaps, where the husband has become incurably insane, the law will not grant the wife any relief. Does the minister say, perhaps, that under clause 9(3) there is a backdoor way out in a case of incurable insanity? I should like to hear the minister's reactions to these propositions.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: With respect to the first point, which has to do with clause 3(c), the form of marriage. As the hon. member assumed, that clause was included in order to facilitate proof of this offence. Take the case where a husband has left the country and has gone to live in some other country with some other person.


Erik Nielsen: Tibet, say.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If this clause were not included the petitioner would have to go to the expense, trouble and difficulty of proving an adulterous relationship with the corespondent. As a result of the inclusion of this clause the petitioner need only bring some kind of certificate to show that the respondent has gone through a form of marriage. The difficulties with respect to proof are largely avoided.


Erik Nielsen: May I ask a question. When the cabinet considered the wording "has gone through a form of marriage" did it intend that that form of marriage should be a form of marriage that is recognized by Canadian law?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I should not give away secrets of cabinet. Let it suffice to say that "form of marriage" was used precisely to indicate that it could be a kind of marriage ceremony or relationship which is not provided for under our law, but which corresponds to our general concept of marriage.
[DOT] (10:30 p.m.)
There could be any type of marriage which is recognized in another country, which would have the effect of a bigamist relationship. But once again it is in order to avoid

the proof of adultery that we use this expression "form of marriage" as attested by whatever documentary evidence is admissible in our courts, as to the existence of some marital relationship elsewhere.
On the other point of incurable insanity, I can only indicate to the hon. member for Edmonton West that this particular case would be solved by clause 4(e)(i). If the petitioner was not living separate and apart for three years from the person who is incurably insane, or who indeed is inflicted with any incurable disease-it could be physical as well as mental-we are asking parliament to assume he did not want a divorce.
A husband or wife, out of Christian charity and out of love for their spouse, may decide to live with the afflicted or diseased partner. As a matter of fact I hope this will happen in a great number of cases and that the parties will not be encouraged to separate under this legislation, merely because we permit a divorce at the end of three years. We are assuming that a great many people will continue to live with their spouses despite the fact that their spouses are ill. But we are saying in this bill that if one of the parties decides not to live with the other sick party, and has not done so for three years, then we take this as evidence of marriage breakdown.
Therefore you have the three year test here, the same as in the narcotic or alcholic ease, the difference being that in one case they do not have to live separate and apart, while in the sickness case they would have to live separate and apart. The problem raised by the hon. member is met in this way. I think the government showed some distaste for spelling out the sickness case, lest it appear to assume that the parties would be deciding to separate merely because one of them was incurably ill. But it is certain if that is the case, and they do decide to separate, their divorce will become possible under clause 4(e)(i).


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Chairman, I know that most marriage ceremonies include the words, as mentioned by my learned colleague from Queens, "in sickness and in health until death do us part," but I am just wondering whether it is quite right, if we are going to go to this extent in opening up the grounds for divorce, that the person who is married to an individual who becomes violently and incurably insane has to wait for three years under the provisions of clause 4(e)(i), as the minister has indicated. What is the rationale
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in making that person wait for three years? After all, it is not the will of the parties which separates them. It is the state which takes the person who is incurably insane and puts him in a mental hospital or asylum. That is a forcible living apart caused by illness, but with the sanction of the state. In those circumstances what would justify the waiting period of three years? The waiting period of three years with regard to the alcoholic and drug addict does not specify that they shall have lived apart for that time.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: There is no magic in the three years. We have taken this test, and I think it is a rather conservative one, as indicative of a decision of the parties to seek divorce. If one looks at the ground for divorce under the English law he will find that it is unsound mind or continuously under care for five years. In Australia it is unsound mind and unlikely to recover, and has been confined for a period in the aggregate of five years. In New Zealand it is unsound mind for an aggregate of seven years out of the previous ten. These are not magic figures. We are using a rather liberal figure of three. I suppose I have no explanation other than to say that we want to be a little more liberal than some of these other countries. I have other examples from other countries, but I do not wish to take up the time of the house now.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Chairman, as a member of the committee which had something to do with the drafting of clause 3 (c) in its original form, I might say that some of us were aware of cases before parliament involving, for example, a Nevada type of divorce which the party who remained in Canada found could not be recognized here. This party did not have to prove that the divorce had gone through, but had to prove that the other person had been involved in adultery or sexual intercourse with another person. This meant that the party was involved in the old detective situation. This meant that hundreds of dollars were involved in having to fly detectives to Nevada, or wherever the person had wound up. This might add $1,000 or more to the cost of the petition. We thought it was high time that a situation of that kind was cured. In today's world, especially when dealing with 50 different types of divorce jurisdictions in the U.S.A. alone, we thought it was high time something was done about this situation.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Divorce Law Reform
On clause 4-Additional grounds.
Richard Albert Bell: Mr. Chairman, subclause (1) (d) of clause 4 intrigues me. It permits a divorce on the ground that the marriage has not been consummated. I confess I am one of those innocents who always believes there is no marriage unless it is consummated. How can you dissolve an unconsummated marriage on the ground of divorce? This is something which passes my understanding. I think the minister has nullity and annulment confused with divorce in this regard. I believe, as well, he has become involved in some difficulty in relation to recognition, domicile and other aspects relating to the matter of nullity versus divorce, or annulment versus divorce. I do not intend to raise the issue at this hour of the night or to pursue it to any extent, but from a legal concept I believe subclause (d) makes absolute nonsense of the law which hon. gentlemen in this house who have been trained in the law have learned at a variety of law schools.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Chairman, I think I can answer that briefly. If one looks further on in the bill at clause 26 (2) he will find that this repeals all other laws respecting divorce but that this repeal provision does not repeal the law to the extent that it constitutes authority for other matrimonial causes. This clause 4 (1) (d) is necessary to catch the so-called annulment cases or non-consummation cases which are not caught by the annulment clauses of existing legislation.
[DOT] (10:40 p.m.)
I will give one example. Under the civil code in the province of Quebec you can obtain an annulment for non-consummation when there are physical defects and so on, provided you demand it within a period of three years. If you do not, your right for annulment under the civil code is lost. This present provision would help people who had lost the right under the civil code. They could still act under this law, and that is the reason we have this type of change. While I am on my feet-


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: May I interpose a question here? I am wondering why we should try to relieve laches in this way where the provincial code imposes a penalty for laches with regard to bringing an action under voidable grounds? After all the marriage that is non-consummated is not void ab initio, it is merely voidable. The minister fully understands what we are talking about, even if some of

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the technical legal terms escape other hon. members. Why in these particular instances should we include this one ground in respect of a voidable marriage? Why not include as well the legal incapacity to enter into a marriage which, of course, is a ground for annulment, and the other grounds? The rationale would be the same. I cannot see why we should cure with this bill those laches which are imposed by the Quebec civil code, if they are retained in respect of a time limit. We have this in other jurisdictions as well. Why are you relieving the situation in this respect?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: For the very simple reason that we are providing a double remedy for failure to consummate because of physical impotency, one remedy being annulment, and the other being divorce because of marriage breakdown. This does not apply to non-consummation because of wilful refusal. In the case of wilful refusal only the divorce remedy would apply. In the province of Quebec, for instance, you cannot get an annulment even within three years because of wilful refusal when obviously there is no physical impotency. Under this hypothesis if a person had never consummated the marriage and refused to do so for a period of three years the remedy of divorce would apply.


William Arnold Peters: I should like to support this amendment for a different reason. From what was said at the committee hearing and from my own experience in this regard, the part with reference to refusing to consummate the marriage relates to another problem which came to our attention. I refer to the example of a homosexual for reasons of convenience getting married and not consummating the marriage. This has happened in a number of cases and it is almost impossible under any circumstances to find a remedy in any period of time. It seems to me this will solve this problem, particularly if it means what I as a layman consider it to mean.


Robert Jardine McCleave: I wanted to ask the minister to answer a question I raised during second reading. Would not (e)(ii) of clause 4 be more clear if it read "by reason of the desertion by the petitioner"? I take it that the victim of desertion has the remedy within three years, but the person who deserts is given a remedy after five. I think the clause might be better phrased.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 
Mr. McQuaid:: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could inject a note of caution at this stage of the proceedings. First of all, has paragraph
(c)	been carried?


Maurice Rinfret: Order. The committee heard the amendment read by the minister. Shall the amendment carry?


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Melvin James McQuaid: Paragraph (c) bothers me a little, Mr. Chairman. It provides that the marriage shall be deemed to have broken down if, for a period of not less than three years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition, the petitioner has had no knowledge of or information as to the whereabouts of the respondent, and so on. I am wondering whether, as a matter of precaution, it would not be advisable to insert in there that some reasonable effort must first have been made to acquire the knowledge.
This provision makes it unreasonably easy for a petitioner to go into court and simply say: I do not know where my spouse has been for the past three years. Having said that, the marriage is deemed to have broken down-


David Lewis: What about the last words of that paragraph?


Melvin James McQuaid: The last words are
"throughout that period, has been unable to locate the respondent." I suggest that the petitioner should establish that he or she has made some reasonable effort to locate the other spouse. I suggest that words to the following effect should be inserted somewhere in the clause, "having first made reasonable efforts to acquire the knowledge", or,
December 18, 1967

"'having first made some reasonable effort to locate the other party."
An amendment of this sort would not seriously affect the bill. While we all agree that worthy cases should be given relief, I think some precaution must be taken to protect the marriage state and not make divorces too easy to obtain. I do not think this would be an unreasonable burden to place upon a petitioner, namely to show that he or she has made some reasonable effort to acquire knowledge as to where the other spouse has been, and that he or she has made some reasonable effort to locate the other spouse.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Here again, Mr. Chairman, I agree with the intention of the hon. member, but I suggest we have made this kind of provision in clause 9 (1) (a), where it is provided that the duty of the court is to refuse a decree which is based merely upon the consent, admissions or default of the parties or either of them. If the court considers that the lack of knowledge or information is not bona fide, I think it will be compelled under clause 9 to refuse the decree.
[DOT] (10:50 p.m.)


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the minister how wedded he is to the three year period mentioned in clause 4 (e). It seems to me that one year would be a sufficiently long period of time and would serve the purpose of protecting children not yet born at the time of separation. I wonder if the minister would accept an amendment for two years, which would be a compromise.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Chairman, I repeat that there is no magic in this figure of three. It is the figure which has been suggested by the joint committee. Subclause (e) mentions three years, subclause (a) mentions two years where the spouse is in prison and subclause (d) mentions not less than one year in the case of non-consummation. Here again I can only say that we have not been unduly severe. In the British law the period for desertion is three years. Frankly, we are not wedded to this time period, but we have given consideration to the various periods possible and we thought that three years would be a good start. The hon. member realizes that if we were to change the three year period in this subclause, consequent changes would have to be made in the other subclauses.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the minister a question on subclause 2 which provides-
-where the existence of any of the circumstances described in subsection 1 has been established, a 27053-352
Divorce Law Reform
permanent breakdown of the marriage by reason of those circumstances shall be deemed to have been established.
The minister is aware that there are presumptions in law which are rebuttable, and there are irrebuttable presumptions. That is to say there is a presumption which exists until it is disproved, or there is a presumption which cannot be disproved by evidence to the contrary. I wonder which form of presumption is referred to here. I call the minister's attention to the following words in subclause 9 (d):
-where a decree is sought under section 4, to refuse the decree if there is a reasonable expectation that cohabitation will occur or be resumed within a reasonably foreseeable period.
I would assume that subclause 2 creates an irrebuttable assumption that the marriage has broken down, but it might be useful to clarify this and I invite the minister to do so.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Chairman, this subclause is clearly a precautionary one. We are just stating that the court in certain circumstances must come to the conclusion that there is a breakdown. The law could have been written without this clause, but we wanted to make it clear that it was the obligation of the court in certain circumstances to reach the conclusion that there was a breakdown in the marriage. This does not prevent it from acting under other clauses. Once again this is perhaps an excess of zeal on the part of conscientious draftsmen, but I think the clause may be useful and is certainly not harmful.


Mr. Gilberl:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the minister a question with regard to clause 4 (1) (a) (i) and (ii) in which the words "the respondent has been in prison for a period of not less than two years" appear. Does it constitute actual time spent in prison and does it take into account time off for good conduct or parole?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I think the way the clause reads, it is the actual time spent in prison. If there has been a parole or a pardon, obviously the physical separation would not have taken place.


Ralph Bronson Cowan: Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to take any part whatever in the discussion of this divorce bill. However, since the house has seen fit to grant an extra hour to discuss it, there is a point or two which I

December 18. 1967
Divorce Law Reform,
want to comment upon. Now, clause 4 (1) Cb) reads:
.-the respondent has, for a period of not less than three years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition, been grossly addicted to alcohol or a narcotic, as defined in the Narcotic Control Act, and there is no reasonable expectation of the respondent's rehabilitation within a reasonably foreseeable period;
This is not the first time that this mundane parliament has discussed a moral question. Recently we were adjured and advised that people were beyond the pale if they did not spend the rest of their lives in reforming criminals. I presume a person who is considered to be grossly addicted to alcohol or a narcotic must be considered a criminal since he must have had at least one conviction if not more registered against him.
In view of the great moral lectures that were read to us in the very recent past, I should like to quote from a speech delivered by Sir Winston Churchill in the British House of Commons some years ago when he was Home Secretary:
The mood and temper of the public with regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country. A calm dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused, and even of the convicted criminal against the state; a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment; a desire and an eagerness to rehabilitate ...; tireless efforts toward the discovery of creative and regenerate processes; unfailing faith that there is a treasure, if you can find it, in the heart of every man. These are the symbols which . .. mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation ... proof of the living virtue in it.
Then, a few years ago, in an article in the New Statesman, Anthony Storr made the following statement:
To condemn him as inhuman is to fall into the trap of treating him as he treated his victims; as a thing, not a person, a thing on whom we can let loose our own sadistic impulses, not a fellow creature who might, even yet, be redeemed.
As the South African writer Alan Paton once wrote:
-but to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offences.
A few weeks ago, in discussing one aspect of moral law, we were asked to spend the rest of our lives reforming certain people. In this bill, introduced by the same cabinet, we are told to spend three years and at the end of three years we are to come to the conclusion that there is no hope for this criminal.
Therefore he can be deprived of his spouse. If we are going to read moral lectures to the public of Canada to the effect that they must spend the rest of their lives reforming criminals, why should they not spend the rest of their lives reforming those people addicted to narcotics or drink as specified in this bill?
This bill imposes a three year limit, and at the end of three years we will show the criminal what we will do to him. We are going to deprive him of his spouse. I was brought up on the old principle that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I do not like duplicity. I do not like hearing people use an argument one day to the effect that we must spend the rest of our lives reforming those who are unreformable, and then the next day be presented with a bill to the effect that at the end of three years we conclude there is no reasonable expectation for rehabilitation of a person within a reasonably foreseeable period. In so far as one type of person is concerned, we spend eight years, ten months and one day reforming him, but we are told that after three years we can come to the conclusion there is no reasonable expectation for rehabilitation of this other type of person within the foreseeable future.
Shall I call it eleven o'clock, sir? e (11:00 p.m.)


Maurice Rinfret: Order. It being eleven o'clock shall I rise, report progress and request leave to sit again at the next sitting of the house?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Edmund Davie Fulton: Tomorrow?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, we will continue with this bill.


Richard Albert Bell: And after that?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The broadcasting bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Tardif):: Pursuant to the order made earlier this sitting the house stands adjourned until 2.30 p.m. tomorrow.


[Stage Direction]
It being three minutes after eleven o'clock the house adjourned, pursuant to special order.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, December 19, 1967