1968-09-19

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the right hon. Prime Minister. In view of the lapse of time since the Supreme Court rendered its decision relating to mineral rights off the coast of British Columbia, is the Prime Minister able to inform us whether it is the intention of the government to proceed with any further references to the Supreme Court relating to mineral rights off the coast of other provinces or is the government now prepared to engage in negotiations with the provinces regarding offshore mineral rights.


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: I believe there are two parts to the question. On the question of negotiation, Mr. Pearson had indicated that we did intend to reach equitable arrangements by negotiation with the provincial governments once the Supreme Court had established the law, as it has. These equitable arrangements will have to be found in negotiation with the provinces.
With regard to the position taken by other provinces in respect of Hudson Bay, our position is that the boundaries have been well defined by the 1912 act and that they follow the coast line of the provinces.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: My question relating to other provinces does not necessarily relate to Hudson Bay but rather to possible differences with regard to the legal proposition. In view of the questions I put to his predecessor, the former prime minister, last winter requesting a declaration of intention on the part of the government concerning whether it intended to proceed with further references regarding rights in other provinces or whether it was prepared to engage in negotiations, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether in view of the lapse of time the government is now able to indicate to the house whether it intends to proceed by way of further legal proceedings or by negotiation.


Mr. Trudeau:: I understand the question. We do not intend to proceed by further references. We intend to proceed by negotiation, and I will have a proposition for the provinces very soon.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: I should like to ask the Prime Minister a supplementary question which relates to the underwater resources of Hudson Bay and the agreement reached by the governments of Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba to divide those resources among themselves.
In view of the statement by one of the provincial ministers to the effect that the provinces had been led to believe that "if we agree, the federal government would withdraw", will the Prime Minister now confide to the house and to the country the nature of any negotiations or undertakings given by the federal government to these three provinces in this regard?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No undertaking whatsoever has been given to these three provinces in this regard, but the offer to discuss the whole subject on an equitable basis is of course open to them. However, there has been no commitment by the federal government that it would do more than that.



INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce on a subject which has been dealt with before. In view of the fact that the administration in Washington has objected to the price of Chrysler cars in the United States, has the minister made a similar objection to the company in Canada, or if not does he intend to do so?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of this questioning on automobile prices, I have been trying to differentiate the administration of the Canada-United States automobile agreement from the general pricing policy. I have been trying to give an account of the advantages of the agreement.

September 19, 1968
Inquiries of the Ministry The general pricing policy is one for which I am not individually responsible. The Prime Minister has already indicated what are his views and plans on that subject. This is the kind of division of subject that I have tried to convince the house should be made.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, may I rephrase my question and address it to the right hon. Prime Minister. I should like to ask him whether it is his or his government's intention to object to the increase in price which has been announced by the Chrysler corporation.


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, I have not exactly followed all the context, but the hon. member knows the federal government has no control over contractual price setting between a consumer and a dealer in respect of automobiles or other similar types of goods.


David Lewis: I should like to ask a supplementary question. My question did not suggest that the Prime Minister or the government would impose any control. I asked whether he or his government as a whole intended to object to the increase in price as being unjustified, in the same way that Washington has objected.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, could the hon. member explain the way in which he thinks we could object?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Max Salisman (Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker,
I should like to direct my question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the minister's responsibility for consumer prices, will he initiate an investigation into the increase of car prices in Canada?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I said yesterday, in answer to a question asked by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis), that I was considering the establishment of a committee in this area. The Prime Minister earlier said that we as a government were considering our position with regard to costs, and the publication of a white paper. All these matters are closely related to each other.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. In view of the time involved in organizing the arrangements suggested by the minister, will he consider an

immediate reference of this problem to the consumer advisory council?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, the consumer advisory council has not yet been appointed. I have appointed the chairman, and expect to appoint the rest of the council by the end of the month.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Real Caoueiie (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put my question to the right hon. Prime Minister.
In order better to inform the public on Canadian politics, does the right hon. Prime Minister intend to suggest an increase in the number of free broadcasts on the national network, in French or in English, in order to let the public know what is happening in the House of Commons?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, that is a question I should like to discuss with the Secretary of State.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of reports that Canada shares the opposition of France to a NATO ministerial meeting on the implications to the alliance of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, will the minister clarify Canada's position and say whether this country is or is not supporting the view that such a meeting should be held?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as I said in reply to a question yesterday, we have been participating with other members of the NATO alliance and the council in considering the implications of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Various proposals have been made in respect of a meeting of the council and the ministers concerned. No decision has been reached as yet. We are taking a position in accordance with Canada's interests.
September 19, 1968

and we are neither supporting nor opposing anyone else at the present time.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Mr. Speaker, in view of the questions asked in this house earlier in this session and the answers given by the right hon. Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs, will the Prime Minister give a positive assurance to the house that there will be no change in either Canada's commitment or Canada's position in NATO without prior disclosure and the opportunity for debate in this house?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: No, Mr. Speaker.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Charles Thomas (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact that last week the minister could not indicate what action the government would take to assist shippers in the Atlantic provinces because of the exorbitant l.c.l. rates, can the minister now tell the house whether some form of immediate relief is contemplated?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, there have been no specific developments in this area since last week. As I indicated then, every effort is being made to find something more effective for the Atlantic provinces than the provisions which have been in force previously. However, this is a very complicated matter, as my hon. friend knows, and the range of suggestions is not as broad or as promising as one would like to see. I can assure him of diligent study at this stage in the hope that we can come up with something a little more satisfactory.


Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland-Colches-ter North):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact that the increases in l.c.l. rates range as high as 400 per cent over what was previously in effect, and that these rates have now been in effect since last September, could the minister place a moratorium on these rates until he is certain the C.N.R. should have imposed them?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, all possible alternatives are under study, but I am not in a position this morning to indicate what the government's position might be.
Inquiries of the Ministry DOMINION-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS



QUEBEC-DISCUSSIONS RESPECTING LANGUAGES LEGISLATION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. In the preparation of the official languages bill, has the government previously consulted the government of the province of Quebec, particularly in view of the statement made in Montreal yesterday by the cultural affairs minister, Mr. Tremblay?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, we have indicated to the provinces that we would send them a copy of the bill after it was given first reading in this house in order that they may be able to express their views on the subjects, which only concern them very indirectly, in the establishment of bilingual districts throughout the provinces. The bill, of course, will deal with federal subjects, and it is only as a matter of courtesy and co-operation that we want to do this. There have been informal talks.


Robert Norman Thompson: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I further ask the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the government to make two languages official everywhere in Canada, and whether that will be done by way of a constitutional amendment or by a simple statute giving this guarantee.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the official languages bill will be in the form of a statute. The position of the government, of course, and we indicated this at the federal-provincial conference in February last year-is that we hope there would eventually be agreement between the provinces and the federal government on the establishment of constitutional guarantees to the two official languages which would go beyond the guarantees which now exist under section 133 of the constitution.
What is happening in Quebec is that they are saying they are not doing anything anticonstitutional. I believe they are right. They are contemplating the withdrawal of privileges which have existed for the English minority in Quebec, and our position is that we hope that rather than withdrawing privileges from the English minority in Quebec, privileges will be given to the French minorities in the other provinces.

September 19, 1968
Inquiries of the Ministry [Translation]



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker,
I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
Can he tell the house if the transfer of the federal administration of New Quebec to the government of the province of Quebec is continuing and if the Indians and Eskimos of that territory are satisfied with the way that transfer is being effected?


Mr. Speaker:: I think that the hon. member's question could easily be put on the order paper. It seems to me that this is a question of continuing interest and, in the circumstances, I would suggest to him very humbly to put it on the order paper.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. D. S. Harkness (Calgary Centre):: have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. What means has the government to enforce the program announced by the minister according to which overseas investments of Canadian non-financial companies will be restricted?


Jean-Luc Pepin: In general we intend to ask the companies investing more than a certain amount of money every year to report to us-this is stated in the announcement- and the report will enable us to check on the investments being made.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have a supplementary question. I realize it is possible to ask for such reports, but has the government any means of actually restricting these investments?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question as asked in not in order. I suggest the hon. member is asking for an interpretation of the powers of the government in general. Such a question is not in order.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have a further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will these restrictions apply to the exploration, drilling and

production of oil and gas by Canada's oil companies in overseas countries?


Jean-Luc Pepin: The statement describes the criterion for decision and makes a distinction, for example, between the countries in western Europe and the less developed countries. So we will have to assess where these investments are going.
To revert to the first part of the question, it is specifically stated in the communique that "the companies are being asked to provide information quarterly on international capital transfers and on planned capital transfers to overseas countries for 1968 and 1969 where transfers in excess of $200,000 annually are contemplated". I do not think there is any reason to doubt that this will be done.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hasi-ings):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. The Canadian Press reported last night that the Canadian government has sent a four man team to Vienna to help "especially qualified" refugees from Czechoslovakia who want to come to Canada. My question is, does this country intend to benefit by taking only the cream of the crop of these refugees or does it intend to give equal help to all refugees, irrespective of talent, who have fled that persecuted country to find freedom?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the provisions that have been announced with respect to entry requirements and financial assistance are available to all Czechoslovakian refugees. The purpose of the four man team is to assist the specially qualified Czechoslovakians who may want to come to Canada by exploring with them the opportunities that are available in this country. There is no intention, nor will this particular team bring this about, of taking any exclusive attitude toward any group of refugees.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Harris Hees: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Does this team intend to give the same kind of help to all refugees, irrespective of talent?
September 19, 19G8	COMMONS


Allan Joseph MacEachen: In a sense the team is composed of men from the scientific and educational fields, and within the limits of their skills they will be available to all the refugees. I think our own immigration officers are in a position to give all the necessary help to refugees in general, but in this particular case special assistance will be given by way of information to those who have special qualifications. For example, there is on this team a person from the National Research Council who might be able to advise Czechoslovakians who have decided to come to Canada what the situation is in the scientific field in this country. We think this is quite a useful thing to do. Another person has been suggested by the universities, and still another by the Canada Council. We thought this was extra assistance which could be made available to the Czechoslovakian refugees.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Waller C. Carter (SI. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries. Is the government giving consideration to restoring the salt subsidy previously provided to maritime fishermen?


Hon. Jack Davis (Minister of Fisheries):: The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no.


Walter C. Carter: May I ask a supplementary question. Has the Minister of Fisheries or the federal government received representations in this regard from the Newfoundland government?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The question as asked is not in order.


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Lancasler):: Well, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for
Malpeque.


Thomas Miller Bell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
I do not like to challenge your authority but, in a supplementary way, the hon. member has merely asked whether representations have been received from the Newfoundland government.


Mr. Speaker:: As I have ruled before, the simple question whether representations have been received is not in itself acceptable.
DEBATES	197
Inquiries of the Ministry EXTERNAL AFFAIRS



NATO-REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF STATEMENT BY U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: I have a question for the Prime Minister. Is Canada prepared to back the United States warning that any Soviet military action against West Germany would be met with an immediate NATO response?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated yesterday we would be bound by the terms of the NATO treaty, and we would act accordingly. Any decision taken would be in conformity with that treaty.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: In view of the contradictory nature of the answers given yesterday and today and the doubts that will be created in the minds of not only Canadians but the other members of the NATO organization, I ask the Prime Minister whether there has been any change or alteration in article 5 of North Atlantic Treaty, which provides:
The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by article 51 of the charter of the United Nations, will assist the party or parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action as it deems necessary including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the north Atlantic area.
The answer given by the Prime Minister yesterday indicates there is some wobbling in this regard, and I should like to know whether that is true.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, there has been no contradiction in the answers given. If there is any wobbling it is in the mind of the right hon. gentleman.


John George Diefenbaker: We are not going to enter into a controversy about wobbling. I would be able to say something to the right hon, gentleman in that regard because that is a subject on which he is a past master. In the meantime I ask him this. Why deny the House of Commons the opportunity of knowing in advance and discussing what changes are contemplated? I say that in view of the various statements made during the election campaign regarding NATO. Why shouldn't
198

September 19, 1968
Inquiries of the Ministry this house know whether there is going to be any wobbling by this government?


George Harris Hees: May I ask a supplementary question? The question is very simple. In view of the section read by the right hon. member for Prince Albert, is this country committed now to go to the aid of West Germany if she is attacked by the Soviet union?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I suggest to the hon. member that the question he has asked is similar to the question that was asked before. The answer might not be satisfactory to the hon. member, but an answer was given.


George Harris Hees: The question was not answered at any time, and the Prime Minister would like to answer now.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I think perhaps there was a bit of confusion because the supplementary question came before the answer to the first question. I do want to state quite clearly that there is no ground for believing Canada would fail in any way to discharge its obligation under the NATO treaty. This is point No. 1. I think the last part of the right hon. gentleman's question had to do with discussions about what we were going to do in NATO, and that is another question. It has nothing to do with the first part of the question. I am prepared to repeat what our position is. We have always said we were having a review of our foreign policy and of our military policy. When this review has become part of government policy, it will be discussed in the house. NATO will be part of this, of course. However, after that debate has taken place I do not want to make a specific commitment that I will tell the house before going to NATO whether our forces will be increased or reduced.



VIET NAM-U.S. KNOWLEDGE OF CANADIAN POSITION ON BOMBING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Randolph Harding (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of the Prime Minister's repeated statement that the bombing of North Viet Nam must cease immediately and totally during the Paris peace talks, has the Canadian government conveyed this position officially to the government of the United States?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the government of the United States is very well aware
[Mr. Diefenbaker.l
of the views of the Canadian government on this subject.


Randolph Harding: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I asked the minister whether this position as put by the Prime Minister had been conveyed officially to the government of the United States and, if so, whether he could give us the date-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest to the hon. member that he is merely repeating the question he asked in the first instance.



HARBOURS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Georges Valade (Sainle-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the hon. Minister of Labour.
As minister responsible to the house for the inquiry on security and pilfering in Montreal harbour, can he now give us the details in this respect? If not, when does the minister intend to give the house a complete report on this iquiry?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the minister will be prepared to make a complete report when the Smith inquiry finalizes its work, which will be at least a year from now. In the meantime I have been assured by Judge Smith that progress is being made, that questions and allegations appearing in local newspapers are being investigated and referred to the Smith inquiry. A complete report will be made both to me and to the Minister of Transport, who is responsible for the National Harbours Board and, therefore, the security of the port of Montreal.


Georges-J. Valade: 
Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member cannot ask Mr. Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker, it is only a the minister to check or confirm newspaper matter of drafting, reports.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Walter Deakon (High Park):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address this question to the Minister of Justice. Has the minister considered or reconsidered the elimination of the lash as a penalty for the commission of certain criminal offences?


Mr. Speaker:: The question is very general in nature and normally it should be placed on the order paper.



INTRODUCTION OF AMENDMENTS TO JUVENILE DELINQUENTS ACT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. Is it the intention of the government to introduce amendments to the Juvenile Delinquents Act in this session? If not, why not?


Hon. G. J. Mcllrailh (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to take that question as notice and give the answer later.



BILINGUALISM AND BICULTURALISM


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Martial Asselin (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister.
When does he intend to appoint a successor to Mr. Andre Laurendeau on the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: I have already discussed that matter with the co-chairman, Mr. Speaker. Certain names were proposed which I am now considering. At any rate, I think the appointment should be announced shortly.


Martial Asselin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a supplementary to the Prime Minister.
Would a delay in the appointment of the French-speaking co-chairman delay the work of the commission?
29180-14*



REQUEST FOR STATEMENT ON INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. R. Souiham (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question I should like to direct to the minister of trade and industry. In view of the serious economic plight of the western farmers through the loss of grain markets due to the 11 months lapse of the world wheat agreement, would the minister on motions give the house at the earliest possible date a full statement on the present status of the new international grain agreement?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I was invited to do so by another member of the opposition, and I do intend to do so. However, the hon. member is aware that a meeting is going on in Canberra at this very moment and I am waiting for a report. In due course I will be taking part in the present debate on this subject.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, may I give some complementary information in reply to a previous question asked by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain. I have just received a copy of the communique issued at the conclusion of the Canberra meeting. It is of great importance to grain growers in Canada, because it says:
The group of exporters expressed their satisfaction with the operation to date of the new arrangement and their determination to achieve its objectives including the observance of the terms of the arrangement with respect to minimum prices.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.



SHIPBUILDING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Louis-Roland Comeau (South Western Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. In view of the fact that heavy unemployment has recently resulted from the discontinuance of subsidies on wooden ships, does the government intend to reintroduce these subsidies soon?
200	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. E. J. Benson (Minister of Finance):: No, Mr. Speaker.


Louis-Roland Comeau: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. What measures does the government advocate to replace jobs that are lost in this industry?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is now asking a very general question which should more properly be answered by a statement on motions.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Jerry Pringle (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, I would direct this question as a matter of urgency to the minister of health and welfare. It has been announced that the hospital construction grant act will terminate on March 31, 1970. Will this impose hardship on hospital regional districts which have or intend to have approved projects under way, but uncompleted, at the termination date?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is referring to an event which will not take place for some months yet. Under the circumstances this type of question should be placed on the order paper.



THE SENATE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Hugh John Flemming (Carleton-Char-lotte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the right hon. Prime Minister. Was the government house leader in the other place stating government policy yesterday when he expressed the desire to have direct provincial representation in that chamber?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Not government policy yet, sir, but we have indicated that we do intend to review the whole composition of the Senate, perhaps to give it a greater function in terms of the regional composition and also the linguistic composition of Canada.


Hugh John Flemming: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is it the intention of the Prime Minister to recommend a change in the constitution to bring about that result when the constitutional conference takes place?

DEBATES	September 19, 1968


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Speaker. We have told the federal-provincial conferences that we wanted to discuss this subject with them, but we do not want to do it unilaterally if we can avoid it. We feel that this is a federal matter concerning all parts of Canada.



AIRPORTS

[Stage Direction]
ROUYN, QUE.-INQUIRY AS TO CONSTRUCTION On the orders of the day:
David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a question to the hon. Minister of Transport with regard to the proposed air terminal in Rouyn.
In view of the fact that the Treasury Board has already included that project in its estimates, can the minister tell us why the construction of that air terminal in Rouyn has not yet started, since the decision already goes back to several months?


Mr. Speaker:: Maybe the hon. member will allow me to suggest that this is a question for the order paper.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John L. Skoberg (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport; it is of utmost concern to railway workers. In view of the formal application made last January to the railway transport committee for a general order setting out whether or not it has jurisdiction over safety as it relates to railway employees, would the minister ascertain whether the railway transport committee has yet made a decision?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, I will take this question as notice.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Theogene Ricard (Saint-Hyacinihe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Agriculture.
September 19, 1968

Has he received representations from the Quebec apple-growers asking some assistance from the federal government for losses which they have suffered as a result of damages caused by hail in 1967.


Mr. Speaker:: I have already pointed out to the hon. members a moment ago that it is not enough to ask if representations have been made or if a request has been submitted to the government. The hon. member would perhaps wish to add something to his question.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I could perhaps rephrase my question, Mr. Speaker. Does the federal government intend to grant to Quebec apple-growers who suffered losses caused by hail in 1967 an assistance equivalent to that granted by the provincial government?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure what the hon. member means by equal assistance. If he is talking about the federal government matching the assistance that was paid out by the provincial governments I would advise the hon. member that the federal government has consistently rejected this kind of program. In many parts of Canada, and I am thinking now of the maritimes, Quebec, Ontario and Alberta, during the past years assistance has been refused on the premise that we are prepared to pay 50 per cent of the administration costs and 25 per cent of the cost of the premium of the crop insurance program, and such programs would apply anywhere in Canada. It seems inconsistent for us to make that offer and at the same time enter into direct assistance programs.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: That's a long way round to say no.



REQUEST FOR ACCELERATED DEPRECIATION ON FARM STORAGE BUILDINGS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of Agriculture although it is of relevance to other departments also. In view of the problems facing western farmers in the current crop year with regard to grain storage, and considering that Ontario farmers are also facing a problem with regard to corn storage, will the minister explore the possibility of providing accelerated depreciation on buildings constructed for the storage of grain and corn?
Inquiries of the Ministry


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, representations have been made to the Department of Agriculture and to the Department of Finance with respect to accelerated depreciation on storage for the purposes the hon. member has talked of. I can advise the house that the departments of finance and agriculture are exploring the possibilities of carrying out the hon. member's suggestion on a particular basis, and perhaps under specific terms, to meet emergency situations.


Mr. Ed. Schreyer (Selkirk):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I wish to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he has received a significant number of complaints from affected farmers that materials needed for the construction of on-farm grain storage facilities are hard to obtain this year, for some reason.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That question is not in order.



EXPO '67 INQUIRY AS TO PAYMENT OF DEFICIT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Henri Lalulippe (Compion):: Mr. Speaker, I direct my question to the hon. Minister of Finance.
Could the hon. minister tell the house whether the government has committed itself to the payment of the deficit incurred by the city of Montreal concerning Expo?


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me that the hon. member is asking a minister to confirm or deny a statement, and I do not think that the question is in order.



OLD AGE SECURITY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kings-way):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the hardship being caused to elderly people across Canada by the steadily rising cost of living, is it the intention of the minister s department during the present session to increase the basic old age security pension?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: No, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Shame.

September 19, 1968
Inquiries of the Ministry POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT



LITIGATION TO RECOVER MONEYS UNPAID BECAUSE OF STRIKE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: My question is directed to the Postmaster General. Has the minister received notice from any rural mail carriers that they intend to enter into litigation in order to collect moneys they feel rightly belong to them by reason of their having been available for work throughout the recent mail strike.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I suggest to the hon. member that this is another of those questions which, in the form it is put, is not in order.



NEWFOUNDLAND-REPORTED LOW WAGES OF POSTMASTERS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-Sl. George's-Si. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Postmaster General. In view of his announcement that two task forces are now being set up to probe the department's problems, could he indicate whether either of the forces will look into the question of the wages being paid to postmasters in the rural communities of Newfoundland, these men being paid at a rate as low as $22.20 for a 60 hour week?



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. W. Monieith (Perth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Was the Minister of National Health and Welfare speaking government policy when in a recent speech in Regina he indicated that by amendment to the Narcotic Control Act or by new legislation, prosecutions and possible penalties for marijuana users would be in a different form than at present, and that penalties for marijuana users would be less severe than those for narcotic users?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, the position of the government is that we have to apply the Criminal Code as it exists, but we honestly feel that there are many areas in which the Criminal Code could be amended. We have suggested many such areas. We feel that the whole question of narcotics users and the way in which they
[Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) .1
should be treated-whether such use is a crime or not-is open for examination, and I am happy that the Minister of National Health and Welfare is looking into the subject.


John George Diefenbaker: In view of the dissimilarity of views as to the detrimental effects of marijuana it would be commendable if the government gave consideration to the setting up of a committee of the house to look into this matter, and to ascertain whether marijuana is more detrimental than liquor or tobacco, something about which I am unable to speak. I wonder if the Prime Minister would give consideration to this suggestion.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This is exactly our intention, Mr. Speaker, to have it discussed or studied by the minister's department. Then he will discuss the way in which we should bring this matter to the attention of the cabinet and the house.



NATIONAL CAPITAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey):: Mr. Speaker, I believe my question should be addressed to the Minister of Public Works. In the last house, under the minister's predecessor, it was suggested that a committee be set up to deal with matters of the national capital. I wonder if the minister could give consideration to expediting the setting up of such a committee in the near future.


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, that question should be addressed to my colleague the Minister of Forestry and Rural Development, who now has responsibility for the National Capital Commission.


Barry Mather: May I address my question to that minister then.


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Forestry and Rural Development):: Would the hon. member repeat his question? I did not hear it; I was discussing a very important problem.


Barry Mather: Now that the minister is back from the forest I shall put my question to him. In the last parliament this house approved the establishment of a committee to deal with matters concerning the national capital. I wonder if consideration is now
September 19, 1968
being given to the establishment of that committee.


Jean Marchand: This is something we shall look into, and we shall report to the house on it.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Danforlh (Keni-Essex):: I wish to direct my question to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the very serious problem facing the edible oils industry of Canada, can the minister indicate whether a government decision has been reached with respect to recent representations made by the soya bean board? If so, was such decision in favour of their request?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman was good enough to give me notice of his question after I entered the house, and I sent for a reply to which I shall now refer.
I met with representatives of the Ontario soya bean growers marketing board on August 19 and discussed problems of vital concern to the board and to Ontario soya bean growers. Following that meeting the Agricultural Stabilization Board reported to me on the question of a price support on soya beans. It was the board's view that it was not prepared to recommend a price support plan for soya beans at the present time. This was based on a feeling that the major problem facing the soya bean industry is that of imported oils, and that the Agricultural Stabilization Act is not the appropriate legislation to meet problems of this nature.
I have received further correspondence from the soya bean growers marketing board, and I am in active consultation with them. May I also advise the hon. member that the department is looking into the long run question of whether there has been dumping of vegetable oils in Canada. Because of the route over which these oils come into Canada it is very difficult to establish prices, and to prove that dumping has taken place under the formula we now use.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest to the minister that this type of lengthy statement ought to be made on motions.


Mr. George Muir (Lisgar):: I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the serious situation facing the vegetable oil industries, as indicated by the
Inquiries of the Ministry hon. member for Kent-Essex, what action is the government contemplating in regard to the representations made to the minister by the rapeseed and sunflower industry of western Canada.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Well, Mr. Speaker, as of this date there have not been any direct representations made to me by representatives of either of these industries.


George Robson Muir: As a further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, I am sure the minister must be aware of representations made to the stabilization board. What action does he contemplate with regard to these representations?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I will ask the stabilization board for a report of their consideration of this problem.



REPORTED SHORTAGE OF STRUCTURAL STEEL FOR FARM STORAGE CONSTRUCTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edward Richard Schreyer: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed also to the Minister of Agriculture. I would like to ask him whether he has ordered or intends to order an investigation into the causes of the serious short supply of structural steel for farm grain storage facilities.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: No, Mr. Speaker, I have not ordered an investigation. I am not sure whether this comes within the ambit of the Department of Agriculture, but I will certainly be prepared to ask some of my colleagues, who are perhaps more directly involved in this, to see if we can find some reasons for it.



REQUEST FOR REPORT OF SPECIAL TASK FORCE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Russell Southam: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Can the minister advise the house whether the agricultural task force set up by the government early last session to study the various problems facing agriculture, and suggested remedies, has completed its work and when can we expect its report?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: No, Mr. Speaker, the task force has not completed its work. We expect to have an interim report in December, 1968, but we do



September 19, 1968
Speech from the Throne not expect the task force will have its complete findings and recommendations ready until some time later in 1969.



INQUIRY OF THE MINISTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Has the minister's attention been directed to discrimination against students at the University of British Columbia by the campus branch of the Bank of Montreal, which has refused to allow the students to establish accounts on which they can draw cheques? If so, does the minister intend to take action to correct this situation?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have some doubt whether this is within the minister's responsibility.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Has the minister now met with a minister of the Saskatchewan provincial government with respect to the refusal of the premier of Saskatchewan further to honour Indian treaties which provide that certain lands may be designated as reserves if the Indian people so wish?


Hon. Jean Chreiien (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I will meet a minister of the Saskatchewan government this afternoon and I hope that I will be able to meet the premier of Saskatchewan tomorrow.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Wednesday, September 18, consideration of the motion of Mr. Eymard Corbin for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment (p. 62) thereto of Mr. Stanfield.
[DOT] (12 noon)
[Translation1
Mr. Bernard Dumont (Fronlenac):: Mr. Speaker at the time of adjournment last [Mr. Olson.)
night, I was speaking about the riding of Frontenac, in the eastern townships, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, but I had not told you that Mr. Louis S. Frechette was born in 1748 in St-Ferdinand d'Halifax- where I shall take up residence-and that he was a member of parliament for that county. Apart from being postmaster, he was mayor. The name "Frechette" was one of the earliest to appear in Canada and it gives me great pleasure to know that a descendant of those pioneers has made his name illustrious in the Frontenac constituency.
Mr. Speaker, I did not mention either that this same riding of Frontenac is called the white gold region on account of the asbestos which is abundant there. In fact, its asbestos mines are the most valuable throughout the world. The preparation of $12 million urban development plan, to be spread out over a period of five years, is under way, for there is asbestos not only under part of the city of Thetford Mines, but also under a part of St-Maurice. There is a lack of refining facilities for this product in Canada in order to find work for our labour force and to obtain a product at a cheaper price as there are presently several asbestos by-products being used in the construction industry. Unfortunately, these mines are American-owned and we are, ourselves, but water bearers and wood hewers. Because of this mineral being exported abroad, Canada's economy is the loser.
As I was saying, speaking for the Rallie-ment Creditiste which is the official onposi-tion party of Quebec in this house, our Prime Minister was backstroking the C.C.F. party in 1962 and making fun of the Liberals. He is now witch-hunting following the Rossillon affair in order to better conceal the economic problems.
I visited personally French areas out west where I was made very welcome. Last week, I called up Therrien, in Alberta, in the St. Paul postal area and my party at the other end of the line said to me. Now that a French Canadian is leader of the country, he will try to downgrade the value of French Canadians in the eyes of the other provinces in order to remain popular in the eyes of historians. When I visited the western provinces-I went as far as Vancouver-no one thought I was a spy. A fortnight ago, I went to Nova Scotia to find out to what extent that province is unilingual. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) was premier of that province and did not do anything for the French, not even
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
in the field of immigration. But in spite of that, I was not called a spy.
No, Mr. Speaker, "Trudeaulatry" is not catching on in the ranks of the Kalliement Creditiste and after hearing some of the members of the government criticize the Prime Minister yesterday, I am still convinced that tomorrow he will need the whole Agent X -13 adventure series to discover all his enemies.
During the last election campaign, the present Prime Minister visited the province of Quebec but "Trudeaumania" did not catch on there. Newspapermen even said that the hearts of the young girls were frozen by the easterly winds coming from the icebergs in the St. Lawrence which made them indifferent to our Prime Minister. And that good Prime Minister did not get a kiss. Deception, in spite of such seriousness. And yet, an aunt of mine, who was born in the Gaspe peninsula and now lives in Montreal, has always assured me that the people of Gaspe are hot-blooded and affectionate. However, they have unusual common sense and they did not respond to Trudeaumania, the art of worshipping idols having gone out of fashion among serious people. Besides, the present criticism of the man in the street, even here in Ottawa, about our Prime Minister is that he is good for a joke every day. As a proof of that, one has only to see this photograph representing our Prime Minister looking at himself wearing a new tie or trying on a kilt to see whether it fits him well. It seems that the Prime Minister who is at the head of such an adamant government, does nothing but political appointments. In fact, there have already been twelve and there will probably be others. This very morning, we were advised of another appointment, that of Mr. Thomas Paul D'Aquino. I quote:
Mr. D'Aquino, who was a member of the staff at Mr. Trudeau's headquarters during the campaign for the election of the leader of the Liberal party, played an active part in Quebec political circles.
Another political appointment which indicates that patronage is even worse than during the Duplessis era. In his ivory tower, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister does not seem to know what is going on in some countries, as in Biafra, for instance, I read the following newspaper article this morning, and I quote:
In a statement issued this morning, the Biafran information services in Geneva stated, in part: "When the survivors realized the extent of the disaster, they broke into tears. Even emergency units personnel could not help but cry at the sight of the bloody remains of human flesh on the market-place
DEBATES	205
The Address-Mr. Dumont
In the meantime, our Prime Minister fidgets with his tie. Why are we silent while thousands of civilians are dying of hunger at this very minute, all because Nigeria, intending their extermination, refuses to let food supplies through? How can this genocide be perpetrated in 1968 without anyone objecting? Are not two million deaths enough? How many more have to die?
In the light of those facts, Mr. Speaker, should we not believe that the opening of parliament was delayed to let these people die and say, later on, that it is too late?
Mr. Speaker, I invite our Prime Minister to wake up, to put aside his adamant attitude and to make immediately some representations to Great Britain asking it to stop the sale of offensive weapons.
It is time to learn the address of Mr. Wilson, Prime Minister of England and to lodge the necessary protests, because at the present time a nation is dying. The Liberal party can rely on 155 members elected with money. I wish to give as an example one particular election, but the same thing happened in the 263 constituencies. This is the example which I wish to give you, and I quote:
Mr. Robert Kaplan, Liberal member for Toronto-Don Valley spent $68,369 to defeat the Conservative candidate Dalton Camp in the federal election of June 25.
Mr. Camp had spent $38,400 at a time when the members of the Ralliement Creditiste spent only $1,600 on the election of our leader (Mr. Caouette). My own election only cost me $2,500.
Mr. Speaker, I would be ashamed to belong to a party which would force a member to spend astronomical sums provided by the election fund in order to remain in power, as in the case of the member whose election cost $68,369. This shows that, outside the Ralliement Creditiste, there is no individual freedom, because those who spend $68,000 to get elected, the next day have to obey those who provided the money they needed.
Among other things, is it not true that the Shell Oil Company may have provided funds to the Liberal party, since they refuse to give out the names of those who contributed to the election fund of the Liberal party? This same company, while helping certain political parties, is preventing the Biafrans from taking possession of their oil wells and England, an accomplice of these international financial dealings, continues to let our Prime Minister sleep quietly.
206	COMMONS DEBATES	September 19, 1968
The Address-Mr. Dumont
In view of all those facts, in view of all those urgent problems one does not want to solve, I say to the Prime Minister: Instead of belonging to the Laski school of thought-he studied in England-belong to our Creditiste school of thought. It will cost you only $5 to become an active member and receive our newspaper. Come to our Creditiste congress which will take place at Sherbrooke on October 12 and 13 next. Since you are the champion of freedom, since you can give food to the hungry-our western wheat, for instance -since you want individual freedom to be respected, then ask the essential minimum for every Canadian; freedom and security for everyone, in wealthy a country like ours, which to-morrow perhaps could become the storehouse of the world, instead of letting these people starve.
Since the government has not proposed anything to stop inflation, since unemployment persists, since the committee of the Ral-liement Creditiste cannot at the present time have confidence in the government, I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) that the amendment be amended by inserting therein, immediately after the words "social problems", the following words:
"in order to fight efficiently against widespread poverty in Canada by means of a national monthly dividend paid to each and everyone and based on the national productivity".
Allow me, Mr. Speaker, to show to the Prime Minister and to his government that, in the near future-since he mentioned it himself several times-we will witness another attempt to get into the United Nations a country from which six million people have already fled.
Mr. Speaker, no doubt I shall be permitted to bring forward overwhelming proof against the entry of this country into the United Nations, and you are referred to all those fine representations made by each member of the Liberal party for acceptance of China, as can be seen from an article published in Le Soleil of September 7, 1968:
According to the worthy partisans of progressism and international understanding, communist China has to be brought into the United Nations; year after year, the same old arguments are brought forth for admission of mainland China to the United Nations.
[DOT] (12:10 p.m.)
Let us consider them and see whether they stand up.
First argument (a realistic argument opposed to an idealist one, a lucky find of our progressists") : "We cannot ignore 650 million Chinese
and practise an ostrich policy". Certainly not. But it is precisely by not admitting communist China into the United Nations that we prove we do not ignore it. The main objective of the United Nations is to safeguard peace in the world; it is normal that communist China should be excluded. For those who may have some doubts about that, here is historical proof:
-Undisguised aggression against South Korea in 1950

Barely disguised aggression against Laos in 1953 (aggression which is still going on) -Bombarding the islands of Quemoy and Matsu in 1958
-Invasion and colonization of Tibet in 1959 -Cleverly disguised aggression against South Viet Nam (begun in 1954)
-Aggression against India in 1962 -Subversion in all Asian countries -Threats, intimidation and provocative statements against all the countries in the world.
No other country in the world has committed so many acts of violence. It will then be considered "realistic" to admit communist China to the U.N. This is an idealistic policy, since the communist war activities are wilfully ignored in order to admit mainland China into an organization dedicated to peace. Magnanimity does not pay when we are dealing with Mao.
Second argument: The majority of the Chinese people have a right to be heard before the world. Certainly. However, does Mao speak for the majority? Surely not, whatever our fine minds may say. There is proof to substantiate this. First, let us consider the 6 million Chinese refugees who have succeeded in fleeing communist China as well as the other 30 million Chinese who have been massacred because of Mao's purges. Has this been forgotten by our freedom loving democrats? The Chinese minorities scattered over the globe unanimously disapprove of the Peking regime. Naturally, these opinions are ignored.
Mr. Speaker, on another plane, before my allotted time has run out, I would now like to mention the St. Leonard school problem. As I was saying before, I have been in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, but I have never been considered a spy. I cannot imagine that a person visiting here on a French liaison mission should be subjected immediately to comments when such a trip has been organized in order to meet friends. Therefore, I say that the only problem existing in St. Leonard is of an economic nature. If the English need a school, let it be built. If the French Canadians need a French school, a French school should be built for the French Canadians or those of French descent, and that will settle the problem.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister when discussing separatism, as reported on page 8 of on article in Cite libre, said and I quote:
-Generation after generation of Anglo-Saxons have lived in Quebec without getting around to learning three sentences of French. When these insular people insist, with much gravity, that their jaws and ears aren't made for it and can't adapt themselves to French, what they really want to

September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Dumont
get across to you is that they will not sully these organs, and their small minds, by submitting them to a barbarous idiom.
We must accept the facts of history as they are. However outworn and absurd it may be, the nation-state image spurred the political thinking of the British, and subsequently of Canadians of British descent in the 'Dominion of Canada'. Broadly speaking, this meant identifying the Canadian state with themselves to the greatest degree possible. Since the French Canadians had the bad grace to decline assimilation, such an identification was beyond being completely realizable. So the Anglo-Canadians built themselves an illusion of it by fencing off the French Canadians in their Quebec ghetto-and often nibbling at its constitutional powers through centralizing legislation-and fighting, with staggering ferocity, against anything that might intrude upon that illusion: the use of French on stamps, money, cheques, in the civil service, the railroads, and the whole works.
These words were written by the present Prime Minister in 1962 before he entered politics. He goes on saying:
Generations passed. Hopes of assimilating the French Canadians dimmed to a flicker (although right up to 1948, immigration laws continued to favour immigrants from the British Isles over those from France). But English-speaking Canadians have never given up their condescending attitude to their French-speaking fellows, even to this day.
Those are the words of the present Prime Minister, and to-day, when listening to him, one gets the impression that he would also like now, after fighting for that idea of our compatriots which had fallen into oblivion, to allow the French Canadians not to be respected in the French ghetto, to allow the minorities elsewhere in Canada not to receive the same treatment as we, in Quebec, are giving the English-speaking minorities.
He went on:
At Ottawa and in provinces other than ours, this nationalism could wear the pious mask of democracy. Because, as English-speaking Canadians became proportionately more numerous, they took to hiding their intolerance behind acts of majority rule; that was how they quashed bilingualism in the Manitoba legislature, violated rights acquired by separate schools-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am sorry, but I have to interrupt the hon. member whose time has now expired, unless the house unanimously agrees to grant him some additional time.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous
consent.
Mr. Dumont, seconded by Mr. Gauthier (Roberval), moved that the amendment be amended by inserting therein, immediately
after the words "social problems" the following words:
"in order to fight efficiently against widespread poverty in Canada by means of a national monthly dividend paid to each and everyone and based on the national productivity".


Mr. Lamberi (Edmonton Wesi):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order about the acceptability of that subamendment.
I feel that the hon. member unfortunately chose the wrong place to insert his amendment, because we would then have a double negative. It seems to me that it would be better, and it is only a technicality, if he were to add his subamendment at the end of the amendment. That would make more sense, in my opinion, because as moved, it creates some technical difficulties. I am not saying that the subamendment is out of order, I simply want to draw attention to the way it has been drafted.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. On the point of order, I think that the business of the house would be made easier if I read the amendment and the subamendment, as suggested by the member for Frontenac (Mr. Dumont):
But we respectfully regret that Your Excellency's advisers have refused to recognize or respond to Canada's current and urgent economic and social problems, "in order to fight efficiently against widespread poverty in Canada by means of a national monthly dividend paid to each and everyone and based on the national productivity".
The member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) suggests that this subamendment as drafted is ambiguous, that is possible. However, the intent and purpose of the subamendment are clear enough, and I think it would be preferable to accept it as such, instead of attempting to adapt it to the sentence or the term which the member wants to amend.


Bernard Dumont: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Lamberi (Edmonton West):: I can assure you that, in the English text, it is nonsense.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order.
The hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) is of the opinion that the English translation is nonsense.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, in its present form it is nonsense. It would make sense if it were added at the end.


David Réal Caouette: Yes, but at the end or after the social question? Personally, I am of the
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Danforth opinion that in French, at least, it is correctly expressed, the phraseology is complete.


Mr. Speaker:: In any case, the amendment has been accepted.


Harold Warren Danforth: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are well aware that I have the honour, as have many members of this house following redistribution, of being the first elected representative of a completely new riding, Kent-Essex. On behalf of the citizens of that riding I must extend our congratulations to you on attaining your high office. I should also mention the respect and admiration they have had for the manner in which you have discharged your duties in the past.
This area is indisputably the most southern area in Canada. It is affectionately and practically known by those who live there and those who associate with the area as the sun parlour of Canada. May I offer to you on their behalf a standing invitation to visit this area, either in your capacity as a citizen of Canada or in your official capacity, during the vacations which will occur from time to time. Because of your arduous duties you richly deserve these vacations.
[DOT] (12:20 p.m.)
I wish to continue in a very serious vein and try to bring to the attention of the government the tragic, almost impossible position in which the great industry of agriculture finds itself not only in my area but throughout the entire nation. I think most of us on both sides of the house l'stened to the speech from the throne with increasing uneasiness, and as it approached its finish we were sick indeed. I do not mean this in a partisan way. The fact is that the men in agriculture and in the industries associated with agriculture realized, when they heard that speech, that either the government was completely unaware of the disaster facing many segments of this great industry in the near future, unaware of the sore economic position in which they find themselves, or had abandoned any constructive attempt to do something about it.
It is true that the Speech from the Throne indicated that amending legislation would be dealt with at this session covering farm improvement loans, farm credit, and loans under the Farm Machinery Syndicates Credit Act, and that a national grains council would be established. Farmers certainly need this
TMr. Caouette.l
money but they know, as does every hon. member of this house on reflection, that this action does not solve anything. It does not solve any of the basic problems of agriculture. All it does is put farmers deeper in debt; it increases land values, the price of machinery and most of the components that a farmer must use in carrying on his business. It is true that farmers now need more capital. They need more credit. In fact, more credit will be absolutely necessary if they are to continue their operations even in the year ahead. But certainly these measures can be only a palliative and in no way a cure.
I wish personally and on behalf of the citizens I represent to congratulate the minister on his elevation to office. He is a man with whom I have worked for years and for whom I have the greatest respect. I respect his knowledge and background in agriculture. But I am not optimistic about what he can accomplish while sitting on the front benches of this government because the government through its actions has so decimated the Department of Agriculture and spread agricultural activities throughout so many departments that it is difficult indeed for the department to function as an entity. I fail to see how the minister, regardless of his ambition, his ability and his good intentions, can bring about a single solution to any of the major problems facing Canadian agriculture today. I shall deal with some of the current problems that require consideration by him, but I am sure that because of pressure from his colleagues the solutions put forward to these problems will be found to be inadequate.
The last time I spoke on behalf of the agricultural industry was during a debate on the estimates. At that time I was accused by members in many parts of the house of singing a song of gloom. In fact, the then minister of agriculture immediately rose to his feet and from a large and lengthy document tried to establish to the satisfaction of members that the fate of agriculture was not indeed as we on this side of the house had portrayed it. He said that in fact all was well and, indeed, that farmers had never had it so good.


Gerald William Baldwin: It was a pitiful document.


Harold Warren Danforth: One of the most outrageous allegations that minister made was that the borrowing by farmers of $400 million more from the government of Canada in the previous four years than ever before in history was an indication of their confidence in the government and its policy. In other words, he
September 19, 1968	COMMONS DEBATES	209
was saying that the deeper one goes into debt the more confidence one should have in the future of the agricultural industry.
What has happened since we last met in this house and discussed agriculture? The hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner), the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Muir) and the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankow-ski) have put on the record evidence of the catastrophe that has befallen some segments of the industry. I should like to deal with other segments.
What do we find? Rather than farmers never having it so good, I point out that the sugar beet industry in Ontario has collapsed in 12 months. It no longer exists as an industry; it is finished. The fruit and vegetable industry is fighting for its very existence. In the great greenhouse industry of southwestern Ontario, which is concentrated mainly in Essex county, some of its most permanent establishments have gone into bankruptcy in the last few months. This event shook the whole economic climate of that area. The oilseed industry, faced with tremendous imports of edible oils, is trying desperately to find a solution to its problems in order that it may survive economically. Western grain growers have found grain piling up in the west and tremendous backlogs along the entire grain pipe line. The feed grain industry finds itself faced with overproduction and falling markets. The great corn industry in southwestern Ontario has found that the prices offered for this commodity are in many instances lower than the cost of production. These are the main segments of agriculture, the very backbone of the industry.
The federal government is supposed to encourage and develop the agricultural industry. What has happened? If you could have stood, as I did this summer, on one of the most progressive farms in southwestern Ontario, with an acreage of the finest head lettuce I have ever seen, and found that not one single head of that lettuce could be cut because there was absolutely no market for it at any price, if you could have stood on receiving platforms of farm co-operatives, as I did, and seen beautiful cabbage of top quality brought in, the very first offerings of the season, and found that the growers of this cabbage would receive for their produce as a starting price less than the price they received at the end of the last season, if you could have stood with me and seen a farmer leaning against a gate with tears in his eyes, watching the dispersal of a dairy herd which
The Address-Mr. Danjorth took three generations to establish; if you could have watched with me beside one of the largest and best buildings developed for the production of pork that I have ever seen, and have indicated to you by that farmer, a most progressive and businesslike man, that the entire operation had been shut down because the margin of profit would not even pay the interest on his investment; if you could have gone with me into a feed lot, which looked like blocks of pavement with its mangers, silos and automatic feeders, and found the feed lot empty because of lack of credit and lack of financial return, then you would realize, as I and my colleagues have done, that the agricultural industry of this great country is in dire straits.
[DOT] (12:30 p.m.)
It is no wonder that there is no levity any longer in the farming communities of this country. It is a sad thing indeed to go into a small farming community and find no gaiety or banter in the machine shops, no gathering of the ladies' groups at the local churches, no winter card parties, no dances, and no community life. Rather, there is an almost deathly silence, and the reason for this is that the farmer and his wife are out in the fields working from daylight to dark to try to increase their production in order to cope with falling prices. It is no fun to park your car in front of a bank and see farmers coming out one at a time, white-faced and shaken, knowing that they face bankruptcy or the curtailment of their business. It is no fun to read the daily newspapers and find column after column of advertised sales involving dispersal of herds, dispersal of farm lands and dispersal of farm machinery, and to know that these men will walk off their farms with their wives, their kiddies, their suitcases and nothing else after putting a whole lifetime of effort into the production on this land which they love so dearly. It is no answer to have the government say it will increase farm loans, give farmers a little more credit and set up a grains council and task forces. Something is wrong.
I wish to give the greatest of credit to the Economic Council of Canada and the men who form that great body for their insight into this problem. I want to pay tribute also to the men in the United States department of agriculture who are seized with this problem. These men have the facts. If the government cared to, it could read these facts. These men know how many men are moving off the farms. To speak of inefficiency on the farms
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The Address-Mr. Danforth is to use a deluding phrase, a phrase of apology which the government uses because it does not know what is an efficient farm today. I do not know what an efficient farm is because a farm that was efficient yesterday may, at the stroke of the pen and a change of government policy, become an inefficient farm tomorrow. This is something that the farmers cannot control.
The time is past for us in this parliament to be content with using the old, hackneyed methods to solve the farm problems of today. It does not do the farmers of this nation any good whatsoever to point to the plight of farmers in other nations and say: You are no worse off than they or you are almost as well off as they. It is time that we in this nation used the tools and the facilities we have at our disposal and started to create in this country an economic climate which will make it possible for farmers not to have more credit, not to exist on subsidies, but to sell their produce at a price which will enable them to make a fair margin of profit.
Farmers in this country today-we all know thousands of them-certainly deserve as much as any other segment of industry. Farmers today surely deserve a fair margin of profit for their labour and for their capital investment, equal to that of other segments of industry. If we could assure them that justice will be done there would be no farm problem and we would not be faced with these men leaving the farms. The tragedy is that the farm situation is so bad that farmers themselves are encouraging and almost insisting that their sons and daughters leave the farm and seek some other form of employment, no matter what it is. There is nothing that fills the heart with greater compassion than to see a man and a woman on a farm working from daylight to dark, barefooted in the mud, in a desperate attempt to get enough money to send their son or daughter to college in the hope they will not suffer the same fate as they have because they are farmers in Canada. We certainly cannot be proud of this situation.
The government of this country must take absolute responsibility for the plight of farmers today. I say this advisedly, not in a partisan manner but in the light of existing conditions today. We no longer speak of the law of supply and demand where farmers and their produce are concerned. We must speak of managed markets. It used to be possible for a provincial co-operative, in which farmers

DEBATES	September 19, 1968
united to act as a group, to exert some pressure, to have some control of sales and to demand a fair price in the marketplace. Today this is not possible because of the changing trade patterns.
What can a marketing group do when there are now cartels and international food chains capable of buying food at bargain prices anywhere in the world and through their own organizations distributing produce to any single locality in the world where there is a prime demand for it? All too often this is so in Canada. We are producing perhaps a 30 per cent surplus of which we must dispose in order for agriculture to survive as an industry, and at the same time the records show that each year we import over $800 million worth of food produce. My point is that not only do we have managed markets and cartels but we have government action which by a stroke of the pen can destroy a market in this country that farmers have tried for months to develop. It is said that an unfavourable trade balance is why we have to make concessions to other countries to allow their products to come into Canada. The farmers have no control over this situation.
[DOT] (12:40 p.m.)
I could give a number of examples of the results of such action. The tomato canning industry in Ontario almost collapsed. Why did that happen? It happened because canned tomatoes were being imported into this country and delivered to the wholesalers at a price less than the cost of production in our own country. This was one result of government action. Millions of bushels of commercial corn were imported into Canada just prior to our corn harvest last year. The market collapsed and our farmers had to take 30 or 40 cents a bushel less. It was found expedient to allow this corn to come into this country.
It is no answer to the farmers of this nation, when they are faced with an influx of poultry, eggs and other products, to say that under present legislation the government can take no action. This does not put any money in the hands of the farmers. I say it is time the government began to show some backbone and started to think about Canada first. Within 24 hours other countries can impose a duty, in spite of the Kennedy accord, on our exports to them, so why can we not do the same? The government says we might offend the country in question. I do not believe that is so. I think we have to have a new
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
approach, the same approach as that used by labour, management and business. I say it is time the government of Canada talked to the governments of countries exporting to this country and discussed quotas or ways and means by which trade can be carried on that would be of benefit to both countries rather than a boon to one and a calamity to the other.
There are many avenues in which we could move to establish harmony between nations and stabilize our agricultural economy. We expected to receive an indication in the throne speech that this would be done. We expected that the government would take an absolutely new approach to agriculture. They told us that is what they were going to do. We had no reason, other than their past performance, to doubt that they might. However, the speech from the throne and the Prime Minister's speech leave no doubt in the minds of the farmers of Canada that unless something drastic is done the great farming industry of this country will collapse. We are not going to solve the problem by moving farmers off the land.
If this government is under the mistaken belief that the consumers of this country are going to get any cheaper food if it is imported rather than produced here, may I say at once that will never come about. If anyone cares to follow the history of these matters he will find that once the local industry has been destroyed prices go up. I say, that we have had trading patterns. We have managed markets. We have restricted opportunities for sales in our own domestic market as a result of the amalgamation of companies. It is my opinion that in the case of some agricultural products offered on the Canadian market, the number of buyers has been reduced to about six or eight. There is no such thing as competition from supply and demand. We know that in many cases the price is an agreed price. The free enterprise idea in our agricultural economy is nothing but a myth.
I believe, therefore, that at this time this government should take a new look at agriculture. Here we are, a country that at one time was the envy of the world because we were constantly bringing out new varieties, new products, new methods of processing, shipping, storing and handling. Within a few years we find ourselves fighting for our very existence. We have the means and the research facilities. We have the Department of Agriculture. We have the facilities in this
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The Address-Mr. Chappell country. Let us not think in terms of subsidies, of continually increasing the necessary credit. Let us think in terms of pouring money into research. Let us show some leadership. Let us show some activity. We have universities that can handle some of these problems. Our great dairy industry is in danger as a result of competition from filled milk products. I doubt that many members on the government side know what a filled milk product is. These are the things with which we are faced.
The consumers are not going to pick up the tab because they are highly taxed already. When we talk about greater efficiency on the farm or inefficient farmers, we are talking about a myth. We have efficient farmers. As a matter of fact, our problem is that we grow many products that we cannot sell. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, let the government assume responsibility for this industry as it rightfully should. It is an industry that is controlled by governments, federal and provincial. Today the farmer is told what crops he can or cannot grow, whether he can or cannot have credit, whether he can or cannot increase the yield, whether he shall or shall not ship, how the product shall be packaged, and so on. What other industry is fenced in like agriculture? If governments are going to fence in this industry and try to drive it to the wall, then I insist that government has the prime responsibility. Why send out a task force to find out what is happening? We should do something immediately to solve at least one of the major problems facing agriculture today.


Mr. Hyl Chappell (Peel South):: Mr. Speaker, it was a moving experience to take my place in this house amongst so many distinguished colleagues. It is with much diffidence that I rise for the first time. As did those who preceded me, Mr. Speaker, may I congratulate you and your deputies. May I also join with them in praising the mover (Mr. Corbin) and seconder (Mr. Marchand) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
I wish to speak on the expropriation of land by the federal government.
[DOT] (12:50 p.m.)
As a new member, may I refer briefly to the new riding of Peel South, whose constituents I have the honour to represent. We are faced with a problem which could arise in any riding, namely, the need to balance the
September 19, 19G8

The Address-Mr. Chappell rights of individuals against the requirements of government in expropriation cases.
The boundaries of Peel South roughly conform with those of Mississauga, one of the largest municipalities in Ontario. At the south we have Port Credit, a major terminal in the seaway system. At the north is Malton, dominated by the Toronto international airport. The area is now about 25 per cent developed, but it is well planned for future residential, commercial and industrial development. Its enormous potential, along with the regional importance of the ports, makes the municipality of Mississauga a major factor in our country's economic strength. The shortest look into the future affirms that these ports and other services will have to be enlarged, and this brings with it the inevitable expropriation of homes and other property. Expropriation does and will take place in every riding, but the imminence of substantial further taking of land to enlarge the airports at Malton and Montreal leads me to speak on this subject at the earliest possible moment.
As chairman of the comparative law section of the Canadian Bar Association I have been obliged to examine the laws of other jurisdictions, and while doing so I was struck by the fresh approaches being taken in other countries. Those countries which have not yet brought their expropriation laws up to date and in line with today's concepts of what is businesslike and just are rapidly doing so.
The Expropriation Act under which most federal expropriations take place was passed in 1889. Since then there has not been one amendment that affected the principle of expropriating property or the method of providing compensation.
The act was adequate for the social conditions and governmental requirements of 19th century Canada. Then expropriations were few, business was uncomplicated, land was plentiful and easily replaced with a minimum of disturbance to the owner.
Since the first world war social change has created the need for governments and their agencies to take more and more land. Concurrently other forces have striven to acquire and regulate land which is now relatively scarce in many areas. This tremendous increase in governmental expropriations has brought the subject into the spotlight of public attention. Today everyone could be affected, and everyone cringes at the thought. While not denying the need for governmental expropriation, owners rebel at the manner in which it is accomplished. To me, a member

representing one of the areas where new federal expropriation must take place, the shortcomings and antiquity of our act are most apparent.
What are these shortcomings?
No matter the complexity of the business being carried on or the extent of planning there may have been for expansion, there is no requirement that the owner be given notice of the intent to expropriate so that he may object and point out an error in choice or selection, or in the alternative adjust his plans.
Even when land is taken, which is done by the simple filing of a plan in the land registry office, the fundamental right of notice is not required; the owner is left to learn about it by chance. One wonders at this conflict with the bill of rights, which recognizes the right of an individual to enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law.
There is no requirement for the government to pay or offer to pay all or any part of the compensation at the time of expropriation, or even when possession is demanded and taken. Unless some amount is offered voluntarily, the owner is left to try to reinstate himself without funds. Needless to say, he cannot borrow on the security of his property because he no longer owns it.
In the event that the owner is unable to settle with the authority, he does not have easy and speedy access to a tribunal to determine the compensation. He must proceed by a petition of right in the Exchequer Court, with which he is unfamiliar, with all of the delays, expenses and frustrations which arise when there are no safeguards against them.
There is no guide line for the method by which his loss shall be determined. This has been left to case law. The case law principles, which determine the amount of compensation, fluctuate. There are gaps and inconsistencies in the statutory provisions. For example, if an owner's property is damaged by reason of the construction of a public work on neighbouring land, he may recover compensation. But if his property is damaged by reason of the operation of that same public work, he may not recover his damages.
He is entitled to interest at 5 per cent after he has given up possession, but this is not payable until the amount of compensation is finally determined by the courts. The interest rate was reduced in 1900 from 6 per cent to 5 per cent, and after judgment the interest rate is reduced to 4 per cent. When an owner is
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
faced with paying 9 per cent mortgage interest on the land expropriated from him, and at the same time paying perhaps 10 to 12 per cent on money borrowed to try to relocate himself, such unfairness may force him to accept almost any offer.
Consider what can and does happen to an owner whose $18,000 home, which is subject to a mortgage for $12,000 at 7 per cent, is expropriated. If the authority should volunteer an advance of $9,000, say, all of this must be applied against the mortgage, leaving a balance of $3,000. Years later, when he receives the balance of his compensation, he must pay $23,000, say for his new home and be burdened with a mortgage of $17,000 at a higher interest rate. In the meantime he has had to continue to pay interest on the balance of the existing mortgage on the land taken, but he receives only 5 per cent from the authority. For all practical purposes he is deprived of a home, or at least one which he can afford.
Or if an owner who has a small home worth, say, $10,000, with a mortgage on it for $8,000, accepts an offer of $10,000, he usudlly cannot replace his home for less than $12,000 to $15,000 simply because of the inadequate supply of homes in this price range. Thus he suffers a loss for which he was not responsible. Just last week an owner who lost such a home in Halifax paraded on our lawn protesting such treatment. He and others in his position expect expropriated homes to be replaced with similar ones.
Although an owner's land is invaded and diminished in value by an expropriation of part of it, or an easement over it or through it, such as landing equipment around an airport, he cannot call on the authority to take it all, as is the practice in England.
Although an owner's land may be depreciated in value because of general knowledge of pending expropriation-generally referred to by text writers as pre-expropriation blight-his compensation is set as of the date of expropriation without any allowance for reduction, which may be very substantial and was caused by the authority. In England such an allowance is made.
Hon. J. C. McRuer, retired chief justice of the high court in Ontario, in his royal commission report to the government of Ontario quoted Hon. J. Thorson, then President of the Exchequer Court who, in dealing with a federal expropriation, said in a judgment in 1956:
I am not aware of any other country in the civilized world that exercises its right of eminent
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The Address-Mr. Chappell domain in the arbitrary manner that Canada does, and unfortunately, the example set by Canada has infected several of the Canadian provinces in which a similar system of expropriation has been adopted.
Although all Canadians recognize the need to expropriate for public good, public good includes the need to protect the rights of individuals. There should be a better balance between the individual's rights and the public interest.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have to bring to the attention of the hon. member that it is slightly after one o'clock. I would invite him to continue his remarks when we resume the sitting at 2.30.
At one o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Hyliard G. Chappell: Mr. Speaker, when the house rose for lunch I was speaking about expropriations by the federal authority under the Expropriation Act passed in 1889. I had pointed out the shortcomings and antiquity of the act and the need to bring it up to date and more in line with today's concepts of what is businesslike and just. Specifically I mentioned that the act did not require notice to be given of the intention to expropriate or of the actual expropriation itself; that it did not require the expropriation authority to pay any part of the compensation to which the owner was entitled, either at the time of taking or later when possession was demanded; that access to the courts was not simple and speedy; that the act did not provide guidelines for the method by which the compensation and loss should be determined; and that the interest rate on compensation was still 5 per cent, as determined in 1900, while the owner who lost his property would have to pay much higher interest rates on borrowed money in order to re-establish himself.
I come back now to where I was.
Although all Canadians recognize the need to expropriate for public good, public good includes the need to protect the rights of individuals. There should be a better balance between the individual's right and public interest. If the law lags behind contemporary attitudes, strains, discontent and distrust emerge.
I hope I have sufficiently directed the attention of hon. members to this problem,
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. O'Connell that we may immediately bring our expropriation laws more in line with ordinary concepts of reason and justice and thus lead the way for the provinces and perhaps ultimately lead to uniform expropriation codes for all parts of Canada.
I have full confidence in this government and believe that if defects in our laws are pointed out they will be corrected. In this case there is an urgency. In British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario expropriation laws have been under review and are being changed. This is our opportunity to do more than patch up existing legislation. We must develop a new concept of compensation which will speedily put a man in the same relative position that he was in before government required his property or government activity affected it. If we act promptly our legislation may have the additional advantage of influencing the provincial legislatures before their new acts are passed.
The task is not as great as it may appear. England has kept her expropriation laws up to date for the last 120 years. New Zealand and Pennsylvania recently brought theirs up to date. In British Columbia and Ontario Hon. J. V. Clyne and Hon. J. C. McRuer have studied the whole subject and made detailed recommendations.
I understand from the Minister of Justice that a new act will be brought forward, but in the meantime, I am sure that the people of Peel South and all Canadians who are affected by expropriation may have the assurance of this government that everything possible will be done that may be done within the framework of existing legislation to relieve against the present deficiencies in our legislation.


Mr. Martin P. O'Connell (Scarborough East):: May I begin, Mr. Speaker, by congratulating you on your re-election and by congratulating Mr. Deputy Speaker and the Deputy Chairman of Committees for being elected to the important offices they hold. I also wish to congratulate the hon. members for Madawaska-Victoria (Mr. Corbin) and Kamloops-Cariboo (Mr. Marchand) for their excellent statements in moving and seconding the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne.
I have the honour to represent the newly created riding of Scarborough East, situated on the eastern boundary of metropolitan Toronto. The residents of my riding were formerly in the riding of York-Scarborough and
[Mr. Chappell.}
were so ably represented in the previous parliament by the hon. member who now represents York-Scarborough. On behalf of my constituents and on my own behalf may I congratulate the hon. member on his appointment as parliamentary secretary to the Secretary of State. In a previous parliament my constituents-and they well remember this -enjoyed the energetic and distinguished representation of Mr. M. J. Moreau.
As hon. members know, the borough of Scarborough for the past decade has undergone exceptional growth. It may well double in population in the next 15 years. The eastern portion of the borough, that part covered by the constituency of Scarborough East, is growing even more rapidly and promises to double in population in the next five years. Much of the undeveloped land remaining in Metro Toronto lies in the constituency of Scarborough East and the pressures for residential and industrial development are extremely high. Indeed, five areas within the new constituency, each of which will result in communities of between 20,000 and 30,000 persons, are in various stages of development.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)
One such area is the federal-provincial land assembly scheme at Malvern, involving some 1,800 acres acquired 15 years ago in 1953 but on which the first housing is expected to appear only in 1970. Hon. members will appreciate the severe strains caused by such growth, not only in blending new areas with established communities but also the strains on municipal finances in providing water and sewer services, schools, recreation facilities, public transportation and other services. In a constituency such as mine, residents come to realize the limitations of many urban municipalities as presently organized, administered and financed to meet growth problems, and accordingly they expect greater initiatives from the provincial government, particularly in lifting a more substantial part of educational costs from local property taxation. They expect also a better co-ordination of federal, provincial and municipal functions than, for example, has been evident in the tragically slow development at Malvern even in the face of a mounting housing crisis.
They expect new policies and programs from the federal government to cope with growth problems in such fields as inter-city transportation, rapid transit, pollution control, housing, basic utilities, and the creation of new towns within regional development
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
plans to relieve pressures on existing metropolitan areas. I will not expand on urban problems, Mr. Speaker, but I do hope to have an opportunity, together with provincial and municipal elected representatives in my constituency, to place a brief before the task force on housing and urban affairs when it visits metro Toronto at the end of this month.
I would like today to offer some thoughts and proposals for the development of policy in Indian affairs. I appreciate this is an extremely complex field, and though I have some small background in it I know there are many hon. members here more qualified by experience than I to speak on it because of the presence in their ridings of Indian communities. But I believe we were all encouraged to enter upon these problems by the references in the throne speech to Indians, to the righting of wrongs and the opening of new opportunities, and by the high priority placed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), shared by all hon. members, on the eradication of poverty and the attainment among us of a higher order of justice.
There is in Indian affairs in Canada a new citizen frontier. It is there because Indian citizens are now making a collective decision to integrate with general society. We cannot view this as anything less than a major turning point in the history of the new world. In our generation we are seeing a transformation of the life of native citizens, the giving up of historic communal isolation, as Indians come to see that taking possession of this land again really means sharing in the making of its future, and come to see that only by sharing in making a common future can they repossess themselves as full men and women and, as contemporary Canadians, be assured of retaining an Indian identity. That collective decision and turning point and our response to them are the new frontiers of opportunity and obligation opening before us in this parliament.
How are we to play our part? Let me begin by stating two basic assumptions that underlie what I propose to say. The first is that Indians in the main do wish to integrate with the general stream of Canadian life, to share fully in it as equal citizens but not to assimilate in the sense of disappearing as Indians. They seek to integrate as individuals and as entire communities while retaining a sense of communal or ethnic identity.
The second assumption is that the reservation community will remain the permanent
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The Address

Mr. O'Connell base of Indian community life for the foreseeable future, hopefully in a modified and more developed form. I will not stop here to defend these positions but I do wish to make them explicit because unless each of us defines his attitude on these two basic questions he will, with respect, Mr. Speaker, be unable to help shape successful public policy, and will be unable to assist Indians to build those internal strengths and programs of self-help vital to progress.
Before suggesting some specific proposals in such areas as economic development I would like to recall very briefly to hon. members some facts concerning the situation of Indians in Canada today.
The more than 225,000 registered Indians of Canada belong to some 556 bands living in over 2,000 reserve communities set aside by treaty over the past 100 years for their exclusive use and designed to support a traditional way of life. Many reservations have populations under 100 persons. However, 60 per cent of Canada's Indians, and over 70 per cent of Ontario's 55,000 Indians, live in communities with populations ranging between 500 and 2,000, with the exception of the Six Nations reserve near Brantford of approximately 8,000 persons.
These larger communities, as well as certain smaller ones, offer opportunities for economic and social development. However, not only have they been isolated from the mainstream of social and economic life, they have also been insulated from each other by language differences, inertia, poverty and physical distance. A wide range in the level of cultural development separates Indians from each other.
Internal divisions arise within communities as to the best course to follow, and the lack of effective local government machinery capable of developing a working consensus further impedes action. To meet the wide variety of needs under these circumstances there are required special and flexible approaches not yet available under the existing Indian Act nor, I would add, under the present structure of the Indian affairs branch.
The outstanding fact of Indian life is poverty. Indian poverty is self-perpetuating. It goes around in a circle that has not been broken in a century. No matter where one enters the circle, at the point of education, or at the points of health, housing, employment, community development, pride in self, or motivation, one is led from one point to the other
216	COMMONS DEBATES	September 19/ 1968
The Address-Mr. O'Connell
around the full circle. The circularity of Indian poverty and the inter-penetration of one condition with another surely means that only a broad, comprehensive approach can succeed in raising standards of life and personal development in keeping with current Indian expectations. The new Indian initiatives and the historical decision to integrate, to which I referred earlier, hold out the brightest promise in centuries that the cycle of poverty, with our help, can be broken in our generation.
You are already familiar with the main measures of the gulf of poverty across which Indian citizens live, and I will not review them here. Another fact of Indian life as important to us as poverty, and perhaps more important in its implications for a future of justice and development, is the sense of grievance and injustice harboured in many Indian communities. Again I do not intend to dwell upon this subject this afternoon apart from expressing the hope that the Indian lands claims commission bill will be introduced early in this parliament and, further, that we will deem it urgent and proper to amend the Migratory Birds Convention Act, passed by parliament 50 years ago and which, however unwittingly, did abridge and violate the hunting rights of Indians agreed to in solemn treaties.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)
I wish to turn now to some specific proposals which may contribute to progress. The first may be summed up as a plan for the economic development of Indian communities through industry and employment. Surely opportunities for gainful employment must rank in the forefront of all plans. One need not deny the central importance of education, but we tend to believe that education will solve all problems. Education is only one point on the circle. The essential point, I believe, is that success in other programs, like housing, welfare, health and general community development, depends to a major degree on building economies capable of supporting such programs and services. If we are to be serious about Indian communities and their self-reliance and not expect them simply to wither away, then we must integrate them as viable communities more closely with the mainstream, with standards of life approximating the general standard. This means attempting to create economic activity on or near reserves, wherever feasible, capable of providing employment and developing the community. In fact, as I see it a systematic program of economic development, such as I

propose to describe, provides the essential incentives as well as the means for other developments. Let me suggest the outlines of such a plan to replace the present weak, scattered and unco-ordinated programs of low capability.
To achieve economic development in difficult circumstances, there should be established an economic development agency closely related to, though not necessarily located within, the Indian affairs branch and staffed with professional, technical and development personnel, including Indians. Such an agency should administer an economic development fund of perhaps $25 million but be charged with more than mere lending functions. It would, for example, with the collaboration of the band councils, undertake feasibility studies for industrial enterprises of various kinds on or near reserve communities. It would undertake an evaluation of natural and human resources of Indian communities; it would make repayable loans and certain nonrepayable grants to assist in the promotion of industrial projects of Indian bands, co-operatives, individual Indians and approved nonIndian persons. The development agency, with the approval of band councils, would be prepared to supply technical and management personnel at certain stages of project development. With the approval of band councils, the development agency should encourage companies to locate certain operations on or near reserves to expand employment opportunities.
The agency should also seek to arrange with major Canadian industries to provide on-job training programs for selected Indian workers and be prepared to share in the wage and other costs of such programs. The agency should assume job placement functions and work in close co-operation with the manpower centres and existing vocational and technical training programs. It should co-ordinate and ensure the extension to reserve communities of existing development programs such as ARDA and FRED, the area development programs, and of provincial programs. An important function would be to conduct a study of credit available to Indians and to encourage savings and credit institutions in reserve communities.
Such is a brief outline of a development agency supported by substantial development funds and specialist personnel. It is designed to do a comprehensive job, recognizing that existing programs and facilities fail to meet
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
the special needs of Indian citizens, and recognizing also that industry and employment are basic foundations for success in most other fields. An essential requirement in complex development fields is for an agency more flexible than a government department and more capable of tapping provincial and other resources.
I should also like to draw the attention of the house to another salient in the new frontier-the need to encourage mutual aid associations, self-help and other organizations among Indians and Eskimos. Such voluntary agencies and groups proliferate in general society but only now begin to emerge among Canada's native people. Not only do we too often fail to encourage Indians to establish such groups, we fail to support those that do emerge. Consider for a moment the importance to individual pride and group solidarity of the aid organizations developed by immigrants. The civil rights movement, for example, has been a powerful force creating group pride and self-improvement. Indians need such mutual help organizations. The evidence,
I believe, is that group and individual pride and dignity are directly relevant to integration.
I would like to advance a proposal designed to bring assistance to Indian organizations and to serve an essential purpose in the cultural field which is so directly related to the question of Indian identity. This proposal, which is for the creation of a Canada Indian institute, is made as a response to Indian appeals and initiatives particularly on the part of Indian youth. Among the characteristics of a Canada Indian institute, as I see them, are the following.
It should be an autonomous national body established by the federal government upon the request, preferably, of a national conference of Indian people. Its relations with the federal government should be similar to those of independent councils and crown corporations, for example, the Canada Council. Its board of governors should be composed of Indians, Metis and other citizens. Its financing should be based largely on government funds but it should also actively solicit private funds from foundations, corporations and individuals.
Among the interlocking functions and activities of the proposed Canada Indian institute should be these: first, to affiliate with the Inter-American Indian Institute. This is an international body formed in 1940 and supported by some 18 member countries but
DEBATES	217
The Address-Mr. O'Connell not by Canada, I may say. It serves as a clearing house for information on Indian developments and on the methods of improving their social and economic conditions. There is no doubt in my mind that Canadian affiliation with the Inter-American Indian Institute would be of significant advantage to Indians of Canada. It seems to me there is every reason to expect that Canada's external aid program should include aid to other countries to assist in the development of Indian communities throughout this hemisphere and for cultural exchanges between Canadian and other Indian groups. Canada might indeed, a few years hence, become the host country to an international congress of Indian and other native people of this hemisphere to the great advantage of Canadian citizens, not only those of Indian and Eskimo ancestry. On the cultural plane alone, though I would add the political and social planes also, the native people of Canada have much to contribute to such a gathering. We know, for example, that some of the high art of the hemisphere has been produced by Indians of the northwest coast of Canada.
Another function of the Canada Indian institute would be to assist Indian, Metis and Eskimo organizations to develop, operate, assist, for example, and finance up to some reasonable point such organizations as the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians, the B. C. Native Brotherhood, the Union of Ontario Indians, the Alberta Metis Federation, the Manitoba Metis Association, the Quebec Indian Association, the Canadian Indian Youth Council, and the Canadian Indian Brotherhood. I mention only a few among many examples of regional, provincial and national native organizations. These organizations need financial aid to provide themselves with a small secretariat, to engage expert legal and other consultants, and to meet as organizations, and with other associations, in order to overcome decades of isolation as well as to examine problems and goals sufficiently to make solid contributions to development and to share in the decisions affecting their lives. It should be possible for government to contract certain community development functions to such Indian organizations since many of them can do the job better than government agencies.
[DOT] (3:00 p.m.)
Another function should be to establish a technical and a consulting group within the institute to provide educational services, research, much needed legal, financial and
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. O'Connell other advisory services to Indian and Eskimo communities and organizations.
The institute should sponsor an extensive travel program for Indian youth and adults on visits to other Indian communities and to other parts of Canada to familiarize them with their opportunities. It could and should assist in holding in Canada an annual Canadian Indian conference lasting perhaps one week and attended by representatives of all native communities and organizations, assisted by expert personnel. The holding of such annual conferences managed by native people and free from direct sponsorship by government would undoubtedly result in a growing self-confidence and consensus among native people as to their own goals in the days to come. It should result in an authoritative body of Indian people capable of enlightening the people of Canada and in influencing the course of future public policy.
The institute should undertake special programs to foster cultural development of Indian communities and cultural activity in the performing and expressive arts. This is a neglected area in Canada. Programs lack cultural focus and they falter. The new and promising cultural affairs section of the Indian affairs branch has subsided. The cultural field is one in which North American governments appear confused and unfamiliar, hence the need of a definite action capability on the part of the proposed Canadian Indian institute.
The objective must be to encourage native people to keep vital and to keep reworking those universal and particular elements in their cultural patterns that will assist them to participate fully in contemporary life while retaining their basic Indian or Eskimo identities.
Cultural development turns the key to community and general social development. We tend to forget this. It is here that internal strengths are generated, that a sense of communal identity and individual pride are rooted, and it is here also that native citizens make valued and unique contributions to the many cultural streams in the Canadian pattern. We can no longer conceal from ourselves, if we know what Canada means, that through indifference on the one hand or repression on the other, a people was deeply wounded through undermining the cultural source of their lives. If we are not blind, therefore, we will put in the highest category,


above education, above economic development and above housing, freedom and support for those cultural rights and needs, whether in the performing or expressive arts, in language or other cultural modes which Indian and Eskimo people themselves determine to be the basic nourishment of their being.
The institute should assist in establishing a Canadian Indian college, an institution largely unhampered with regulations as to previous academic requirements but geared rather to a flexible learning process and devoted to studies in Indian history, social and moral values, cultural patterns and attainments, and to their application to the needs of native people in the contemporary world.
I have been suggesting some rather specific new approaches and institutional arrangements in the development of policies in Indian affairs. I should like to conclude by telling hon. members that some months ago I had the duty, when president of the Indian-Eskimo Association of Canada, of writing to the then Prime Minister expressing concern at the underachievement and the apparent subsidizing of the community development program. I have to reiterate here that same concern regarding the non-realization of the great potential of that program.
At that time the association recommended the appointment of a task force-they have since proliferated-to examine the status of the community development program and to consider the feasibility of establishing an Indian development corporation capable of fulfilling complex social and economic roles not readily open to government departments.
The association recommended also high level discussions between the Prime Minister and the premiers of the provinces, believing that only when the provinces faced up to. their constitutional and moral responsibilities to extend their services and development programs to reserve communities would reai progress be attainable.
I would like here to renew this request for a ministerial task force and state that in my opinion the most important step that could be taken at this time is to engage Indian communities, Indian organizations and individuals as well as provincial authorities an other agencies in a sustained consultation to study the whole question in all its aspects so that new directions may emerge.
There is a tangled web of conflicting jurisdictions; there is an uncertain approach to responsibilities to Indians, Metis and
September 19, 19G8	COMMONS
Eskimos, and there is also a failure to consider the problems of urban and urban bound native peoples. There is a pressing question of restoring and upholding treaty provisions, the proper roles of such public service organizations as the C.B.C. and the National Film Board. There is also the question of the relevance of the present structure and functions of the Indian affairs branch to the changing needs of today and other matters on which a working body of information and knowledge independent of that now possessed almost as a monopoly in the Indian affairs branch would prove valuable to hon. members as they consider the role of this parliament in Indian affairs.
What I am suggesting is that the commendable start being made in the present consultations regarding changes in the Indian Act be followed by broadened consultations with Indians on matters they wish to have discussed so that they will in fact experience a direct participation and involvement in decisions affecting their lives and ours, as well as discussions with other relevant and responding resources, principally the provinces. This should not be another lengthy study by academics, valuable as that may be, but a study by a small task force touring the country and developing recommendations on policy and programs to guide this house in the steps I feel sure it will want to take at the earliest opportunity.
By suggesting a few initiatives I hope I have indicated a few of the considerations which such a task force might investigate.
It is my conviction that no group of citizens can in fact take greater strides to help us all create a just society than can the Indian peoples of Canada. We have not been listening to Indian citizens or responding to their needs. We can unite our futures in equality. An unrivalled opportunity to do so lies now before this parliament.


Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Aihabasca):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I wish to congratulate you on your election to the position of Speaker of the house. I have heard others describe your ability in superlative terms and I am sure that these descriptions are accurate. However, since I have had the pleasure of meeting Your Honour only recently and observing your direction of the house for a short period of time, I would simply like to say that I am impressed with your pleasantness, fairness and stability.
DEBATES	219
The Address-Mr. Yewchuk [DOT] (3:10 p.m.)
I am told that it is customary to confine the remarks contained within one's first speech to matters pertaining to one's constituency and therefore I intend to speak in that light. The constituency of Athabasca is the largest in the province of Alberta and is situated in the northeastern section of that province. It contains approximately 55,000 people and a variety of natural and human resources. At present probably the largest functioning industry of the constituency is agriculture. However, since the Athabasca tar sands are located in the riding and the oil refining facilities which are being developed at Fort McMurray are progressing, the possibility of oil refining becoming the largest industry in the near future is quite great.
There are also vast forest reserves in the riding. Wood Buffalo park is contained within the riding, and in Wood Buffalo park there are approximately 17,000 buffalo, together with minerals and other natural resources. The population of Athabasca, as I have mentioned, is quite varied. There are approximately 25 Indian reservations and several Metis colonies. Therefore problems pertaining to Metis and Indians are of great importance to me.
There are no cities contained in the riding. The major population centres, starting from west to east, are the towns of Peace River, High Prairie, High Level, Fort Vermilion, Slave Lake, Lac La Biche, Fort McMurray, Bonnyville, Elk Point, Cold Lake and Grand Centre containing the Canadian forces base. The largest towns are Peace River and Fort McMurray. Because the riding is so vast, with widespread population centres, there are many problems. Isolation is a great factor contributing to problems in the more northerly sections, since road construction in the north has been rather slow and many areas are accessible only by air with any ease.
The major problems in the riding as I see them, and about which I wish to speak, fall into three categories. The first, of course, is agriculture; the second, poverty and unemployment, with particular reference to Indians, Metis and small farmers. In this category I would like to include housing, unemployment and health and welfare. The third major problem is that of isolation, with subheadings of communications, particularly in reference to the construction of roads, and radio and television services.
I would like, therefore, to begin with the problems of agriculture. Most of the farms in
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Yewchuk the Athabasca riding are of the mixed variety. The average farm consists of about 200 to 300 acres under cultivation. Because of soil conditions in that part of the country, and because of the economic state in which agriculture is today, this acreage is not sufficient to constitute an economic farming emit. According to the Alberta department of agriculture, somewhere in the vicinity of 600 acres of cultivated land is required to make a functioning, economic farm unit.
The greatest single factor which has contributed to making these small farms uneconomical is the fact that the price of farm products has not risen in the past 15 to 20 years. I am referring in particular to the price of wheat, hogs and beef. On the other hand, the price of farm machinery has more than doubled during this period. We might use as an example a tractor which pulls a three-bottom plow. In 1950 this machine could be purchased for about $2,500. Today the same tractor sells for somewhere between $5,000 and $6,000. Because of this unhealthy economic situation, many small farms are being abandoned.
In general it appears that the small family farm is becoming obsolete and is on the way out. But I question whether this is the best solution to the farm problem. Not every farmer wishes to give up his small farm. Many people who live on farms enjoy rural living and do not want to move to cities; yet because of unhealthy economic circumstances they are forced to do so.
Shortly after the election, when it became apparent that a party other than mine would form the government, I was asked by many whether there would be anything I, as an opposition member, could do in order to reach a solution to the problems which exist in the constituency. My reply was that I would try to promote what I thought were good ideas and that I would support anything the government did which I believed would be good for the area. I said I would oppose only those things which I thought would not be good for the area or the country.
With this in mind, I wish to say that I do support one of the things which is being done to aid the plight of the farmer. I am referring in particular to the functions of the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act or ARDA, which is already in operation. I am bringing ARDA into the picture at this point because the act is set up to assist rural communities to improve their economic status.

Naturally, the farmer who is running a small, uneconomic farming unit should qualify for some sort of assistance through the ARDA program.
As I have mentioned, many people are giving up their small farms and some are enlarging their operations. The principles of ARDA are to help those who wish to enlarge their farms to purchase other, developed land or to clear and open new land. The ARDA program is also aimed at helping those who wish to give up their farms in order to be retrained and relocated in other jobs. This, in theory, sounds beautiful, but in actual fact the program is not working that way. The machinery of the ARDA program seems to be in great need of lubrication. It is ponderous and does not function effectively.
Only about two weeks ago I met with farm leaders in one of the areas of the constituency. They had attempted to deal with ARDA for the past couple of years. One of the projects, which was applied for more than a year ago, pertained to increasing the cultivated acreage. This was to be done through clearing and opening new land which existed on their farms. More than a year had gone by and nothing had been done to consider this project up to the time of our meeting. About three months ago some farmers applied to have their land assessed and sold through the ARDA program, and again nothing has been done to date.
The machinery of ARDA is set up in such a way that any given project proposed by a local community must go through five committees before it obtains final approval. The first of these committees is composed of ordinary provincial civil servants. If they approve the application it goes to a provincial deputy ministers' committee, then to a provincial cabinet committee and then to a committee in Winnipeg. Finally it gets to a committee here in Ottawa, which gives it final approval. If it takes more than one year to get by the first committee, how long will it take for a project to receive final approval? I am raising this matter because it is of some urgency. When ARDA was first described in my constituency farmers saw it as a ray of hope, but they are becoming disillusioned because of the slowness of the machinery.
Within the past six months, in one poll alone in the constituency it was found that 12 farmers had given up their small farms, but there was no ARDA assistance available to them for relocation, retraining or anything
September 19, 1968

else. The program I have just discussed pertains mainly to farmers who are in great distress, but those who are not in as great distress also have many problems. I have already mentioned one of these problems, namely, the high price of farm machinery. I am therefore anxiously awaiting the report of the Barber commission and hope it will contain recommendations which will provide some element of stability with regard to the price of farm machinery in relation to the price of farm products.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
The most glaring problem that farmers face today is that of the disposal of their products, particularly wheat. I am sure everyone is aware of the importance of wheat sales, and I am sure that any hon. member who has wheat farmers in his constituency will probably speak on this subject and will agree that action toward an aggressive world wide wheat policy as a long term solution to the farm problem is necessary, while a short term solution would be to make larger advance payments to the farmers for farm stored wheat. For example, I should like to see more of Canada's foreign aid be in the form of provision of food, particularly wheat, to other countries to a greater extent than has been done in the past. For instance, India alone has an annual birth rate of 21 million and is acutely short of food. Other far eastern countries are also short of food while we in our country have a vast surplus of food supply. It should be possible to neutralize these two great disparities in some way and at the same time to relieve problems of food shortage and lack of markets for our products.
The next major problem in the constituency which I wish to discuss is that of poverty and unemployment. As I mentioned before, it applies mainly to Indians, Metis and small farmers, but also to others. Along with this topic I might refer to the question of housing as it applies to my constituency. Reservations located in my constituency, as well as the Metis colonies which exist there, do not appear to be self-supporting at the present time. There appears to be insufficient capital on these lands to develop the land for agricultural use, and at the same time there are not sufficient numbers of other jobs on these lands to employ the people who live on them. This unhealthy situation contributes to a chronic condition of poverty, unemployment and underemployment with all its associated side effects.
The Address-Mr. Yewchuk
It soon became apparent to me in my travels during the campaign through most of the reservations and Metis colonies that the majority of Metis and Indians live in houses that are not fit for human habitation. I hasten to add, however, that there are occasional houses which are reasonably satisfactory. Because of poor housing conditions, overcrowding is very common. Poor water supply or no water supply is common. Many people living on reserves and colonies drink water from sloughs, lakes and streams. This type of drinking water is a definite health hazard and therefore dysentery is quite common among the children. Because of poor housing, overcrowding and undernourishment, the rate of tuberculosis in these areas is higher than nearly anywhere else in the country.
Many factors must be considered in order to try to improve the status of the poor in our area. When one considers that the Athabasca riding is probably the richest in Canada in natural resources-and again I am referring to the Athabasca tar sands-it is difficult to accept the fact that it probably also contains the largest number of poverty-stricken people of any constituency in the country. Many of our people who are in the poverty-stricken state are, of course, receiving provincial welfare, while some of the Indian people receive welfare from the federal Indian department. However, this is no way of solving the problem of poverty. The method of doling out welfare adopted today probably originated with Robin Hood. The idea is to solve poverty by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Here it is taken from those who have by the government and given to the poor by the government. But this does not solve the problem of poverty; it simply prolongs it. A poor person cannot be made not poor by a gift of money because once he spends the money he is poor again. Therefore I feel that giving people outright welfare is only a good temporary solution but is not a satisfactory long term solution to the poverty problem.
It seems to me that in order to eliminate poverty on a long term basis, resource development is required, and I am referring to development of human resources as well as natural resources. Human resources must be developed in such a way that a person can then look after his own needs on a permanent basis, and natural resource development must be carried out simultaneously in order to give him opportunity for employment in his home area.
222	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Yewchuk
The greatest factors contributing to poverty and unemployment in my constituency are lack of education, lack of trade skills and lack of jobs. These, of course, result in part from isolation, as mentioned before. So in order for a long term solution to be found, the poverty-stricken population must be assisted to develop to the point where they can eventually look after themselves. Therefore isolation must be removed, either by bringing training facilities to isolated posts or by moving isolated populations en masse to areas where they could develop their own potential, or else a combination of these two suggestions could be used.
However, education is only one factor in solving the problem of poverty. There are many others to be considered, such as community development programs, preventive social service programs, and the reassessment of the welfare program as it exists today. The reassessment of the welfare program is necessary because the present set-up discourages people from trying to look after themselves. A certain earning level is considered necessary to feed, clothe and shelter a family of a given size, and if a man earns a given number of dollars, then the difference between his earnings and his need is made up by the welfare department. However, if he earns less, then he simply gets more from the welfare department, and if he earns nothing he gets all from the welfare department. Sooner or later this encourages such people to earn nothing because they see no point in working when, if they do not, all of the money will come from welfare anyway.
I am not saying that this happens in the case of all welfare recipients, but am merely trying to point out the fact that the program as it exists takes away the motivation and the ambition of poor people to look after themselves. Therefore I suggest that the program be altered and that welfare assistance be given as a percentage of what a person earns or can earn after his earning potential and his needs have been considered so that to a certain extent, if he earns more he would get more from the welfare department. This would at least make him more motivated to continue seeking employment, however temporary it may be.
It has also been observed in my constituency where new industrial development is taking place at Fort McMurray that this does not necessarily solve the problems of unemployment in the area because many of the unemployed or underemployed are not trained for

DEBATES	September 19, 1968
the jobs which are available, and also because many of them have poor working habits and cannot hold jobs for long. As a result, people from other parts of the country are brought in to fill the jobs and the local unemployment problem remains the same. Therefore, in order that industrial development in that area can succeed in removing the unemployment problem, a co-operative effort must be made involving both the needs of the industry and the development of educational facilities. I wish to point out that there is a program of this nature in Lac-la-Biche. It is called Alberta Newstart Incorporated, and is designed to upgrade the way of living of the inhabitants in the area and to increase the earning potential of the unemployed and the underemployed. I feel this is a good scheme and I give it my wholehearted support. I wish to assure the minister responsible that I will do everything I can to ensure the success of this program.
I know that at the present time the Indian Act is under review and hearings are being held across the country with representatives of various Indian bands. I do not claim to be a good spokesman for Indians. I was told by an Indian once that it takes an Indian to really understand another Indian and his needs. However, from my conversations with many Indians it is my conclusion that Indians should be given as much autonomy as possible in the management of their own affairs. I feel that for too long the Indian has not been given enough credit for his ability to manage his affairs. May I remind the house that he managed quite well before the white man ever got here. In many areas there exist distorted views of what the Indian really is. Some people consider him to be subhuman and treat him accordingly. Some people do not know that he has the same needs, feelings, emotions and potentials as any other human being. I feel that if an Indian is given a chance to manage his own affairs, he will do more to solve his own problems than can anyone else.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
The final major point for discussion is the problem of isolation and lack of communication plaguing large sections of the constituency. It is urgently necessary that the roads to resources program in the north of a previous government be resumed in its original or in a modified form. Road construction through these northern areas, starting from Fort McKay, which is north of Fort McMurray, to
September 19, 1968

Wood Buffalo park, with a branch to Chipew-yan and then continued to join the highway to Fort Smith on the Northwest Territories border should be continued without delay. There has been delay in construction because of negotiations taking place between the federal and Alberta governments with regard to the boundaries of Wood Buffalo park. If the boundaries remain the same, and if the road must go through Wood Buffalo park, then the federal government is responsible for construction of the road within the park. The provincial government, of course, would be responsible for those roads outside the park's boundaries. I suggest that since negotiations concerning the boundaries have been going on for so long without reaching a definite conclusion, the federal government should go ahead with the construction of that part of the road which falls within Wood Buffalo park. This should be done in conjunction with the feasibility studies the provincial government is now undertaking concerning the best location for the road.
Once the road to Fort Chipewyan is built, then it could be extended to Uranium City in co-operation with the Saskatchewan government. Some communications on this subject between the two governments have already taken place. In any event, construction of this type of road would certainly be a great boom to further industrial development in that area, as well as in relieving the acute isolation of many settlements at the present time. While we are on the topic of Wood Buffalo park and the road, this may be the appropriate time to suggest that industrial development of mineral resources in Wood Buffalo park would then proceed. This development would provide employment for many of the residents in that region, particularly around Fort Chipewyan.
I wish to mention another type of communication at this time, and that is television and radio service to northern areas. The town of Fort McMurray has no television. The towns of High Level and Fort Vermillion do not have television service or satisfactory radio reception. Fort McMurray contains about 6,000 people, while High Level and Fort Vermillion combined contain approximately 4,000. The growth potential for these towns is good, and I would urge the development of facilities for these towns immediately.
C.B.C. television could be brought to Fort McMurray through Lac La Biche, and to Fort Vermillion and High Level through the towns of Peace River and Manning, thus servicing
29180-15a
The Address-Mr. Yewchuk large population centres. The lack of television facilities in these northern towns contributes a great deal to the feeling of isolation. I know consideration is being given to satellite transmission of television in the north. I certainly hope this materializes. One way or another, I feel it is urgent that television service be provided within the next year. Television facilities in these areas would create better recreational opportunities and would be informative as well as educational.
I should like to give an example of what I mean. During the campaign, about two or three weeks before election day, I went to meet people in some isolated areas and introduced myself as a candidate in the coming election. Not uncommonly, the reply was "what election?" This certainly brought out what lack of communication means in a given area.
In recent months we have heard numerous eructations of the phrase "just society". I wish to make some comments on this. This term has been heard often, yet the originator of the term has never really defined this so-called just society. Does it mean socialism or does it mean greater emphasis on free enterprise? Does it mean social measures aimed only in the direction of the greatest need? I hope it does not mean the creation of general, socialistic measures. I hope it does not mean socialism because I feel that if any justice in our society is to exist it has to be based on a foundation of maximum freedom for the individual. Individual freedom was mentioned in the Speech from the Throne. Justice or a just society cannot exist without a foundation of individual freedom because if across the board social welfare measures are introduced on a compulsory basis this takes away one's freedom of choice in two ways, freedom of choice whether or not one wants' the measure and freedom of choice whether or not one wants to pay for it. I hope, therefore, that in a just society humanitarian programs will be designed only for those who are in need and that freedom of choice will remain available for those who are not in need.
This brings me to the question of regional disparities. As I previously mentioned, solving the problem of the poor by taking from the non-poor is temporary and unsatisfactory. The problem must be solved not by taking from the non-poor and giving to the poor but by providing opportunities for the poor so that they, on their own initiative, can become non-poor. Local regional development would
September 19. 1968

The Address-Mr. Pringle lead to increased productivity in that area and the regional disparity would disappear.
Returning to the just society, may I say I feel that a compulsory medicare program, is not just. I am not opposed to medical insurance. I think that medical insurance is good, as is car insurance or fire insurance. However, I am opposed to compulsion because compulsion takes away a man s freedom of choice. When you take away a man's freedom of choice, then you are creating a situation in which there is decreased justice. I know the medicare scheme has already been discussed at length but I should like to see reconsideration of it. I agree there should be a conference between the federal government and the provinces to reassess the scheme as it exists, to provide medical services for the needy but on a voluntary basis for those who are not in need. In my opinion, this would be more just.
These are my comments, Mr. Speaker, on the three major problems facing the constituency of Athabasca today: agriculture, with particular reference to the uneconomic farm unit and wheat sales; poverty and unemployment, with particular reference to the Metis and Indians; and isolation, with particular reference to northern road construction and television services. I hope the government will take up the challenge and face these problems without delay.


M. Ervin Pringle: Mr. Speaker, I trust I will be forgiven if I mention the fact that three lovely ladies from Chilliwack, which is some considerable distance from here, have apparently come to this chamber just to hear me make my maiden speech. I rise as a neophyte to participate in the throne speech debate. I am only too pleased to join my colleagues in extending sincere congratulations to you, Mr. Speaker, on your appointment as Speaker of this house. The masterful manner in which you direct deliberations has already indicated that procedures here will be expedited. The province of British Columbia is especially proud that the hon. member for Kamloops-Cariboo (Mr. Marchand) was selected to second the motion for the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne which was so ably moved by the hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria (Mr. Corbin).
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
At the outset I wish to pay tribute to my predecessor, Reverend Alex B. Patterson of Abbotsford, B.C. He served my riding with
I Mr. Yewchuk.l

sincerity and desire for almost 18 years, broken only by a four year period from 1958. He was temporarily replaced by a more Conservative friend of mine, Mr. Harold Hicks of Agassiz.
I would also ask your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, to permit me to bring greetings from Mr. George Cruickshank of Abbotsford who was the last member of parliament of the Liberal party to represent my riding. He served the constituency diligently and well.
It appears fitting, Mr. Speaker, inasmuch as my election replaced the acting leader of a political party and the election of the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour (Mr. Perrault) also replaced the leader of a political party, that we now sit as neighbours on the side previously occupied by our predecessors. I assure the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) that although we are entrenched here next to the demilitarized zone, we shall at all times endeavour to represent our areas with a proper measure of decorum.
The speech from the throne confirms the pre-election assertions to my constituents-a pragmatic and fresh approach to good government.
My constituency is Fraser Valley East in the lush garden of Canada, British Columbia. By virtue of the comparatively limited space suitable for land farming, my area leans heavily to diversity in food production. The constant increase in urban population is creating new challenges to our farmers. The splendorous mountains serve to attract tourists but also severely limit future food production.
The preservation of green areas in the Fraser Valley has now reached a degree of urgency and is a challenge which must surely be met in the very near future. It is my fervent plea that during this session of parliament we will consider ways to provide leadership by persuading other governments, whether provincial, municipal or civic, to plan now for future land accommodation in the Fraser Valley, so as to meet the food requirements of British Columbia s urban areas and avoid costly transportation of products from east of the Rocky mountains.
The people of my riding view with increasing alarm the serious threat to our farm lands which will certainly result if plans proceed to establish new railway links through these rich lands. Our two national railways, acting in concert with B.C. Hydro, seem determined to impose the Roberts Bank railway line despite the alternative route which exists, a route
September 19, 1968

which has the full support of planning authorities and a host of interested associations. Thousands of acres of fertile cash crop acreage have already fallen prey to industrialists who are unquestionably placing monetary expediency above the present and future requirements of the people. It is the earnest wish of my constituents, as evidenced by the multitude of submissions, that parliament promptly use whatever jurisdictional authority it can muster to revise existing plans based on the findings of the lower mainland regional planning board.
The wise decision of the federal government to assist in distributing cereal feed grains throughout Canada on a reasonably equitable basis has resulted in accelerated development of the production of animal proteins for our daily diet. This segment of the agricultural industry, coupled with small fruits, cole crops, field vegetables and tree nuts, provides adequate supply with surplus to ship to other markets.
Fraser Valley farmers are somewhat puzzled by the recent report from the Economic Council of Canada to the effect that there is a serious gap in agricultural technological advance compared with the United States. Those who have been heavily involved in the production of eggs, poultry meat, dairying, turkey production, cash crops and vegetables simply cannot agree. The degree of continuous technological exchange between the United States and Canada as related to the above segments of the agricultural industry has been great indeed. It has been a two-way street beneficial to farmers in both nations.
It is true that financial resources available for research and development are limited in Canada and this permits our American friends to make more rapid progress. However-and this is my point-we have found no evidence of any attempts to stifle technological exchange. The limiting factors, Mr. Speaker, are population disproportion, disturbing to the Canadian domestic market, plus the variables of volume of production. Technological advances cannot create markets. Conversely, Mr. Speaker, they can aggravate costly surpluses. My constituents have already taken the necessary steps to operate their segments as economic units, acting as procurement commissions to secondary industries. This highly successful approach to marketing has been in operation for many years and operates without benefit of governmental or civil service interference other than
The Address-Mr. Pringle enabling legislation. Their theory is: "Production on a business basis to amply serve available markets with lower cost product controlled by area competition, subject only to necessary governmental ground rules".
My constituents were delighted to learn of the proposed federal marketing legislation announced by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson). Our people are looking forward to providing assistance through consultation and planning.
At this date, Mr. Speaker, a serious problem exists within the sphere of turkey production throughout all of Canada. The threat of imports of live and eviscerated turkeys from the United States at laid-down prices which are less than the Canadian cost of production is severely damaging our turkey industry. A close study of the circumstances responsible for this problem indicates that the very future of the Canadian turkey industry is in jeopardy.
The existing inequitable competition created by vertical integration in the United States bears no relation to technological advances. Volume of production and consumer population of 20 to 1, which establishes overall cost quotients, constitute an insurmountable barrier under existing tariff schedules. My constituents are pleased to know the Department of Agriculture now has this intolerable situation under study as a matter of urgency. I am advised by my constituents that the farmers in my area are unanimously agreed that government subsidies should only be established as a last resort.
The Fraser Valley, and especially my constituency of Fraser Valley East, has been threatened with flooding by the mighty Fraser river on a regular basis. Floods which have occurred have been devastating. The recently signed agreement between the government of Canada and the government of the province of British Columbia is indeed a welcome respite. Our constituents are looking forward to phase two as related to water level control in the upper areas and reiterate their request that progress be initiated as soon as economically possible.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
I am pleased to report that it is our privilege in Fraser Valley East to have a goodly number of Indian reservations within the area. It has been my privilege to meet with many of the chiefs of those bands and to become acquainted with their earnest desire to become involved officially in participation
.. 1
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Pringle in the planning of the future of Indian communities in Canada. We are proud to be acquainted with Chief William J. Mussell of the Skwah band, a graduate of the University of British Columbia and a leader of community life in Abbotsford, British Columbia. One does not remain long in the company of our Indian friends, when they are in session at their regular meetings, without being convinced that any delay in the rewriting of the Indian Act would indeed be a travesty of justice.
Few areas in Canada south of the Northwest Territories utilize modern aviation to span the inaccessible approaches to remote sections more than the people of British Columbia. Even those areas now served by highways lean heavily on all types of aviation to reduce travel mileage and conserve time. My constituency alone boasts of seven licensed airports. The popularity of aviation is such that one airport, Abbotsford, now hosts the largest air show on the North American continent. A show which started as an air circus many years ago has progressed to where it now serves as the acknowledged market place and air exposition of international aviation. No less than 340,000 visitors attended the three-day show in August, 1968. Among them were many from the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, and the United States. It is my pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to issue an invitation today to all those present within the House of Commons chamber to visit the show in 1969. It will be held in August.
My constituents place great faith in the future of aviation, especially at the general aviation or private flying level. Today's vast Canadian air transport system owes its favourable position to the pioneers who fought with unparalleled tenacity to prove it could be done. The Department of Transport must be highly praised for insistence in the belief that at some point in the past flying was here to stay. It is true that the development of huge aircraft now commanding preference for world travel is phenomenal. However, facts which are sometimes ignored indicate that general aviation and private flying have also advanced at an accelerated rate. It is the earnest hope of those who still pioneer the regional routes and fly privately that apathy relating to private flying will not develop in government to the point where Canadian aviation will be measured by the requirements of the large air transport companies. There is a challenge now for Canadians to

insist that technological advances necessary in the field of air navigation and airports keep step with other nations of the world.
I would be remiss, Mr. Speaker, if I failed, even at this date, to mention the impact that Expo '67 has had in stimulating the Canadian tourist trade. Many exciting and rewarding experiences await those who travel the length and breadth of our land. More Canadians than ever are learning about Canada. I know of no better method of promoting Canadian unity than for easterners to travel west and for westerners to travel east. Many new members of the house, including myself, are now determined to learn the other official language, not as a requirement, Mr. Speaker, but as a privilege. It will be my pleasure to endeavour to promote the tourist exchange concept in my area and to extend a sincere invitation to easterners to come on out west and get to know all of your vast, firmly united nation.
Despite our affluent society we confess that there are areas requiring special development, either to initiate progress or replace industry which is being abandoned in the interest of centralization or integration. It is our hope that guidelines to include all unfortunate sections of Canada will emerge from studies of all depressed areas.
The immense challenge involved in establishing a truly just society will require the united efforts of all Canadians, for a just society cannot be established by laws alone. The election demonstrated that Canadians have, with good reason, placed their confidence in our brilliant chief executive officer, the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Trudeau). His steadfast determination to involve all Canadians in the task of moulding Canada into an even more united and purposeful nation is inspiring this great land as never before.
I am proud to be a member of this parliament. I look forward to serving and working with all the members of the House of Commons. I look forward to participating in the decisions of Canada's twenty eighth parliament which I am sure will be one of the most productive in Canada's history.


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, first I wish to extend my congratulations to you on being appointed Speaker. I am sure that you and the other officers who have been appointed will serve this house in a way we can all be proud of.
Before beginning my general remarks may I say that I was disappointed with several
September 19, 1988
aspects of the throne speech. I wish to mention four or five matters that are pertinent at this time to my constituency. As many hon. members probably know, one of the world's largest potash deposits is to be found near Easterhazy in the southeast part of the riding I represent. It was recently announced by I.M.C., the international mineral people, that they are planning to truck the potash to a point across the United States border for shipment on United States trains to Chicago. If that happens there will be serious economic repercussions to the city of Melville, which is a potash transportation centre at this time. If the transportation facilities are not to be used it will mean that many families in the area will be without jobs. I just wish to bring that to the attention of the house and I hope that it will be possible to avoid bringing about this economic setback to the community in Melville.
I also wish to express my concern about the cancellation of the winter works program, since it affects the cities and towns in my constituency. The cancellation will bring hardship not only for the towns themselves but also for many families. I am sure that as a result unemployment this winter will increase, and I wish to second the remarks of members of the opposition and on the government side who have spoken about this matter.
I also wish to talk briefly about the problems of the Indian Metis people. I have grown up with Indian people. I was raised on a farm which was near a reservation. There are about six Indian reservations in the constituency of Yorkton-Melville, and I would like to congratulate the hon. member who seconded the address in reply for his discussion of Indian problems. It is about time the Indian people had equality with the rest of society. It is about time they were given the right to make more of the decisions affecting their own lives.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
The most important issue in the constituency of Yorkton-Melville is, of course, agriculture. First of all I want to say I concur 100 per cent with what was said by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Gleave) in this house a couple of days ago. I think he quite adequately described the pressures facing Saskatchewan farmers today. He talked about the cost-price squeeze and its effect on the farming industry. The time has come when the government must act to alleviate the farmers' problems. We must introduce a
The Address-Mr. Nystrom vigorous campaign to sell wheat internationally. We must do something to raise the price of wheat. I suggest that the farmer receive $2.12 a bushel for all the wheat he sells abroad, and an extra $1 per bushel for wheat used domestically, up to a level of 1,000 bushels per farmer.
Something must be done about the skyrocketing increase in the price of farm machinery. Here I would suggest we begin by establishing a prices review board to investigate the cost of farm machinery. We must extend farm credit and make interest free loans available to young farmers wishing to establish themselves in the industry. Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in the province of Saskatchewan, and indeed is one of the basic industries in all of Canada. It is about time we started to realize this and gave farmers a better deal.
I would now like to introduce something new into the throne speech debate Mr. Speaker. I could go on to talk about many of the problems in my constituency but that is something I will be doing throughout the session. Now, however, I would like to introduce a new topic because it is very important to the government of Canada although it is something politicians, regardless of their political affiliations, do not talk about.
I do this for basically two reasons. First, I do not want to duplicate some of the things members of my party have already said and, second, more importantly it is an issue of very grave concern to this house and the country. I want to talk about young people and how they relate to this chamber and to the political process in Canada and throughout much of the world.
For young people democracy is on trial right here and now. We have heard a lot about alienation, about frustration, student unrest, riots, hippies, yippies, beatniks and similar groups within me youth community. All of these phenomena are important to this house for one reason. That reason is that the verdict on the democratic system by many of these young people has already been made and that verdict is guilty-guilty of irrelevance, guilty of lack of purpose, guilty of lack of meaning for their lives but, most important of all, the political system has been found guilty for its failure to produce results here and now.
I have mentioned alienation. What is alienation? It is the separation of the individual from his activity. Political alienation is the separation of the individual from



September 19, 1968
The Address-Mr. Nystrom what is going on right here in this house. What do I mean by this and how does one recognize this kind of alienation in society?
You can recognize this alienation in many different ways. The first way of recognizing it is by the sheer indifference that many have to the political process. On the one hand we have the drop-outs. I have mentioned the hippies, yippies, beatniks and the like, but on the other hand you have indifference on the part of what one could probably call the average kid, the average student who could not care less about the political process. This is the person who is a product of society's major institutions, the person who year in and year out has had the fact pounded into him that he must submit to authority without question. He has been taught to be indifferent, to be apathetic, to conform, and thus he does not really care what happens in the government of Canada or in the whole political process.
You also recognize alienation in a more articulated manner from many of the young people who have attempted to get involved in the decision-making process and have failed. You find groups of these people all over the world. To mention just a few there are the civil rights movement in the United States, the Viet Nam action committees in Canada, the United States and Europe, and we have student activists around the world.
This kind of activity is now cropping up in high schools. We have had recent instances of it in Montreal and in the province of Newfoundland.
This despair is found in student riots, for example, in France and Czechoslovakia. We can see it in many wildcat strikes breaking out throughout the nation. It is a frustration with the slow process of normal procedures of government.
What does all this mean to those of us who are here in parliament? I think it first means that young people are no longer interested in proving themselves to the political process as it exists. What it does mean is that the political process has to prove itself to them. It means that a government, a political party, and the leaders of political parties have to prove themselves to young people. And if they do not, not only will parliament be powerless in regard to the corporate interests of the country but it will also find itself powerless in terms of its relationship to an ever-increasing portion of society. This is the youth community and let me remind you, Mr. Speaker, that about half Canada's population, or more, is well under the age of 30.

This frustration is a real factor that we have to contend with in society. It appears not only in the youth community but in the slums and ghettos. It is becoming evident in the Metis groups and among the native population, and also among many of the small farmers in western Canada. I could mention various campuses and youth associations, but I will relate just one example which will demonstrate the point I am talking about. This is but one of the many examples where action was taken outside the political structure. Action was taken outside the political process to speed things up and make them more relevant, and it produced results.
The incident I am referring to took place at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. The faculty and students of the university used to eat together in one huge cafeteria. Then one day some of the senior faculty members decided they wanted a separate eating place for themselves and so they constructed a wall across the cafeteria dividing it in two. The vast majority of the student body did not like this. They objected to the wall being built. They went through the normal political structure on the campus to have the wall removed, but their request got tied up in committee after committee until one night a number of faculty members and a group of students got together and tore the wall down, and the wall stayed down. This is an example of where the normal channels failed and people went outside them to solve the problem.
In many ways this parliament is similar to some of the senior faculty of the university I have just mentioned. This is an institution which is not relevant to many Canadian people. If we do not open our eyes soon many more walls may be torn down by young people, discontented farmers, minority groups and the poor. Parliament and the university are similar institutions in our contemporary society. They are both primarily middle and upper class orientated.
The difference between the two is that there is a growing awareness within the university community. It is becoming aware that education is a right, not a privilege. Members of that community are starting to talk about universal accessibility to education at all levels. They are starting to talk about abolition of student fees, about providing living allowances to students, about expanding university educational facilities and making a university education more relevant to today's society.
Meanwhile, on the other hand parliament, the government and the speech from the throne have all failed even to recognize the
Sepiember 19, 1968

underprivileged and the powerless segments within our society such as the poor, the Indian and the marginal farmer, to mention just a few. If we do not open our eyes to this reality, Mr. Speaker, then many people within the near future will be left with no alternative but to start tearing down some walls of their own. These people are absolutely fed up with the verbal dribble, the fancy cliches and democratic rhetoric stemming from this chamber and that once again is found in the speech from the throne. It is becoming more and more apparent that the government cannot see the forest because of the trees.
I believe it was Rousseau who said, "Since inqualities exist within society it is the duty of legislatures to remove those inequalities." So far parliament is not playing an active role in supporting equality in Canada. If we do not affirm equality, dignity, and the right of people to act meaningfully in their own community, if we do not take some of the practical steps that have been suggested toward these ends, if young people do not get universal accessibility to education, if farmers do not get a two-price system for wheat, if the taxation system is not reformed, and if we do not do something about the ludicrous cost of housing and rocketing increases in rents then parliament will naturally become more irrelevant to people in Canada.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
If the impersonality and power of corporate bureaucracy are not torn down to allow people to participate, then parliament will fade farther into the background of peoples' lives, and they will naturally seek alternative paths of social change. Idealistically, government should be an institution which people can collectively work through to solve the problems which they cannot solve as individuals. As the age of automation increases the sphere of meaningful individual action increasingly contracts.
The need for open participatory institutions in society is becoming more and more a necessity. The basic institution should be government, the people, in other words; but it will never be so long as we are committed to a philosophy of Liberalism which is a philosophy of limited government. The basic philosophy of Liberalism prevents it from attacking private centres of power in society that lie at the root of our country's problems. Instead of control of irresponsible private power the government is deferential toward it.
The Address-Mr. Nystrom
We can see this failure in every segment of our society. I have mentioned a number of aspects. We see it in the taxation system, in the failure to plan the economy and in the failure in any way to grapple with the foreign ownership problem of our economy. Young people and other people as well are starting to ask many very pertinent questions. They are asking where the real roots of power lie in our country. They are starting to ask why the Liberal party, the government, does not release an account of their contributors in the last election campaign. Why will they not do this? It is relatively simple; they will not because then the people would know who have vested interests in the government of Canada. This is one of the major binds on democracy that can be placed clearly on the doorstep of the people sitting across the aisle.
Later I shall be introducing a bill to lower the voting age in Canada from 21 to 18. This is just one important way to open up society for participation. We all know that in the election campaign the Prime Minister invited young people to participate. He said, "Come, and we will participate together in building a greater Canada for all". But then he denied them the basic right of participation, the right to vote. The more one watches the government the more one realizes it is an old man type of government with an old philosophy and reactionary ideas.
We must face up to many problems in our changing world. The government must not act as a deterrent to change. It should be in the forefront of change leading the way. We must eradicate things such as poverty and pollution. We must reform the tax system and we must alleviate the housing crisis. In fact we must set up new objectives and priorities for society. If the government does not soon face up to some of these facts, then the youth image of the Liberal party will become mouldy and musty with age.
I strongly believe that if we open our eyes we can make some of these things more relevant. I have a lot of faith in the democratic system of government. All we have to do is make it more pertinent, more modern and get the people participating.
I should like to conclude my first speech in this chamber by quoting a line often used by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy just before his untimely assassination a few months ago. He said, "Some men see things as they are and say why; I dream things that never were and say why not."
230	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Asselin [Translation]


Martial Asselin: Mr. Speaker, I would like at the beginning of my remarks to pay the customary respects to the Speaker, and to you also for your recent appointment as Deputy Chairman of the committees of the house. I am convinced that if you follow the example of the Speaker, you will discharge your duties perfectly.
I would like also to congratulate the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the Throne (Messrs. Corbin and Marchand). Both made interesting speeches and deserve our congratulations.
I also want, Mr. Speaker, to welcome to the house one of my university colleagues, the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Gervais) who won his seat in the last election. We have always been a very good friends and, although we have had our political differences, our friendship has never been affected by them. I am therefore very happy to see him in this house.
Mr. Speaker, after a very eventful convention, the Liberal party elected a leader. Knowing the Liberal party as we do, we know that its members took advantage of the circumstances to place less accent on real leadership qualities but more on the candidate's gift for acting. In fact, during the election campaign, our Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) gave good account of himself as such by giving kisses unstintingly and keeping a constant smile. While refusing to deal with the main economic problems facing our country, he nevertheless succeeded in getting great majority.
And as the Conservatives are always magnanimous people, may I be allowed, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate him on the victory he won in the last election.
We were pleased, Mr. Speaker, to see the Liberal party at long last get an absolute majority in the House of Commons. How often has the official opposition not been accused of slowing down the business of the house, of systematic obstruction, of filibuster. Especially the last Liberal government accused us of so doing, to camouflage its lack of competence in introducing appropriate legislation in the House of Commons.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
This government having been elected with a majority, we hope it will take over the leadership of the house and the honourable members across the floor may rest assured that we, of the Conservative party, are going

DEBATES	September 19. 1968
to maintain our co-operation with the government in power in order to try and bring about for all Canadians legislation that will be beneficial to our nation.
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister had intimated after the election that his government would introduce legislation and a speech from the Throne, both of an extraordinary nature. He went so far as to say that the Conservatives would be amazed. In general, Canadians were expecting that the new Prime Minister and his cabinet were to present some extraordinary legislation which would be spectacular, different, imaginative, that would create an impact on the imagination of all Canadians.
Some political friends of our colleagues opposite who had come to Ottawa with the resolution to applaud the Speech from the Throne went back home extremely disappointed because they found out, as we did, that the Speech from the Throne presented by the government contained nothing but left-overs from the previous Pearson administration, heated up again in a new frying pan by the present Prime Minister.
For this reason, we cannot evidently congratulate the government on its Speech from the Throne, because we feel that it suffers from a lack of vitality and dynamism which the country needs at present to resolve the problems that are facing it.
Evidently, we had thought that this government would be a "new look" government with a new vision. A youthful Prime Minister would obviously stand out the moment the session began, but we have noticed that expressions such as were used during the election campaign have been incorporated in the Speech from the Throne and they were not defined.
During the election campaign, smiling his famous smile, the Prime Minister talked of the just society. He never said exactly what he meant by it. He never adapted the concepts of a just society to the political, economic and social problems facing Canada at the present time.
There is nothing in the Speech from the Throne to illustrate the concept of the just society of which the Prime Minister and his team spoke during the election campaign. In our opinion, therefore, this is again a case of the Liberal party formulating grandiose principles, as it alone does so well, in order to gain votes during an election campaign.
September 19, 1968
In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, a government which calls itself modern in 1968 must legislate in order of priority. We have often said so in this house. Even though priorities were mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, the Prime Minister has not told us what priorities he has established. We must examine not only the long-term priorities but also short-term priorities, because indeed we must not be blind. We are up against an alarming unemployment problem, for statistics reveal that 400,000 people without work or looking for work at this time.
We also have a housing problem. In fact, we know that a third of the population in the larger urban centres is still living in slums and that the government has not found a practical solution to try to help those people.
We know also that the cost of living is still extremely high and that women with children have a terribly hard time to make ends meet.
In addition, agriculture is not in a very prosperous state, and when I hear my colleagues talk about the problems of agriculture in the west, I would like them to come to Quebec to see the alarming conditions which prevail in agriculture there.
Although 10,000 farmers from eastern Canada, Quebec and Ontario came last year to beg the Minister of Agriculture to give them better prices for their dairy products, that problem still remains. The other problems submitted by the U.C.F. to the previous government were left unsolved and the present government must have forgotten them since there is not a word about them in the Speech from the Throne. [DOT]
Mr. Speaker, we also know that our economic growth is at a standstill. Our productivity needs to be boosted to make it more profitable and thus give a higher standard of living to all Canadians.
The economy of a country increases through the development of its natural resources, hence the necessity for a government that believes in priorities to advocate and introduce immediately in the house legislation for the establishment of short and long term programs so that our natural resources may be developed in a national way.
Another priority of the government is to introduce legislation and take decisions to increase the number of employment opportunities in our country. We all know that the government also intends to give priority to constitutional reform.
29180-16*
The Address-Mr. Asselin
Mr. Speaker, that is the list of priorities which we would have liked to see in the Speech from the Throne.
I should like to come back for a moment to the question of unemployment. We were exceedingly surprised when the present government, which calls itself the champion of co-operative federalism, suddenly and without warning the provinces, cancelled its winter works program.
The right hon. Prime Minister answered me in the house that the provinces knew that the government would cancel the winter works program one day, but he did not have the tact to warn the provinces in order that some alternative formula might be found to help the unemployed who will find it extremely difficult to find work during the winter. Similarly, the government should have notified the provinces so that they might in turn advise the municipalities that had prepared projects which would have been carried out during the winter, as they used to do previously.
Obviously, this may not be the ideal formula but, Mr. Speaker, putting a sudden stop to this program deals our workers a heavy blow. Indeed, I am convinced that if the Liberal candidates had told our people during the election campaign that the winter works program would be cancelled, the Liberal party would not have won the same vote percentage in the June election.
All this to say, Mr. Speaker, that steps like these are only announced after the election. What are we going to do, Mr. Speaker, to replace the winter works program? The right honourable Prime Minister was asked if he planned any substitute and he told us there was a retraining program. We are in favour of retraining, but that does not give work, in the short run, to our people. Manpower retraining is a good thing, and with additional learning people are better prepared to face the life ahead. However, the present manpower program did not, in my estimation, produce all the expected results. I observed that in one municipality within my constituency, sixty-year old people were being retrained and made to attend sixth and seventh grades; it made me wonder whether this program truly pursues the intended objectives.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)


Mr. Isabelle:: Better late than never.

232	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Asselin


Martial Asselin: Did my respected friend from Hull say something?


Joseph Gaston Isabelle: Better late than never.


Martial Asselin: But our people must obtain employment right away. My respected friend should try and convince the government, because next winter the unemployed in his constituency will ask him why the government has dropped so suddenly its winter works policy.
Some manpower retraining has indeed taken place. In your region, Mr. Speaker, some $250,000,000 are being spent, I believe, to retrain workers, revamp the social structures and renew the economic framework, so that these people might live. However, if one sticks to retraining alone and neglects the economic and industrial evolution, how on earth shall we be able to find jobs for all these retrained people? Retrain them by all means; well and good. But at the same time the government will have to consider creating new industries and new jobs so that those that have been retrained will be able to obtain some employment. Evidently, Mr. Speaker, the war against poverty is mentioned in the Speech from the Throne. Almost every speaker who took part in the debate mentioned it, but "war against poverty" is not a new term. Since 1963, we have heard that the government would introduce legislation to fight against poverty, but we are still waiting for it. The best way to fight poverty is indicated in the 5th report of the Economic Council of Canada. On page 131 appears a statement on the basic principles how to succeed in fighting efficiently against poverty and I quote:
The maintenance of high employment and strong and stable economic growth is crucial. No policies are more effective in helping to move families and individuals out of poverty than the combination of demand and supply policies required to sustain new job creation and the increasingly efficient use of manpower and other productive resources. Without success on this front, other anti-poverty policies are unlikely to be of much avail.
This is what I said earlier, Mr. Speaker. It is absolutely necessary when considering the retraining of our people, to find ways of helping them to get jobs so that once retrained, they may become useful members of the community instead of being dependent

DEBATES	September 19, 1968
on it. Now, when reference is made to "war against poverty", mention should also be made to war against social and regional inequalities, as mentioned by the Prime Minister during his campaign and in the Speech from the Throne. But they must not only be words or slogans. If extended studies on local problems are undertaken, as it has been done in your area, and if it takes ten years to obtain practical results, our people will have the time to die from hunger.
In my opinion, people who live with these problems understand them more fully. That is why, in dealing with questions of regional disparity, with underdeveloped areas such as yours, Mr. Speaker, mine and many others in eastern Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, a formula should be adopted which would make use of the economic development boards in each area and of the studies made by these boards, and the people should be asked what priorities the government should establish in order to help them to come out of their economic stagnation.
Mr. Speaker, if the government wants to legislate according to priorities, I think it will be necessary to amend the Canadian constitution. This is only a digression, for I do not intend to discuss the constitution fully today. Everyone knows that the whole Canadian people want amendments made to the constitution. However, it will be difficult to fight poverty properly if we do not first eliminate the overlapping of federal and provincial social security measures. At the present time, this involves a shameful waste of money, and we are witnessing the beginning of a fierce competition between the federal government and the provinces to see which of the two levels of government is best able to legislate in the field of social security. This has resulted in an overlapping and a duplication of federally and provincially supported social security assistance programs. In order to correct this situation, in my opinion, we must first review and amend the constitution so as to determine the precise extent of federal and provincial jurisdiction in the field of social security. As I said, money is being shamefully wasted at this time by the federal and provincial governments, because of overlapping jurisdictions when they want to compete in the field of social legislation.
So, a priority should be established and, in this connection, I think that the Prime Minister should follow the guidelines set forth in
September 19, 1968

the report of the Economic Council of Canada. Indeed, page 139 of this report says, and I quote:
In thus describing the kind of longer-term appraisal which we feel is required at this stage in order to develop more effective anti-poverty policies in Canada, it is important to keep clearly in mind the Canadian constitution and the fact that social policy is a field of concurrent jurisdiction in which all threee levels of government are active on a large scale.
Nor have we referred to the important discussions and decisions regarding social policy which lie ahead of the federal and provincial governments between now and the expiration in 1970-
Important changes in the relative roles of the different levels of government in the field of social policy appear to be in prospect.
And it adds:
This is where a start should be made to amend the Canadian constitution in order to define the jurisdictions of the federal and provincial governments.
When the Prime Minister tells us that there are priorities in respect to the status of our languages, we agree, but the top priority should be the constitution. Constitutional changes would serve to remove concurrent jurisdictions between the federal and provincial governments.
Mr. Speaker, I should also like to say a word about Canada's foreign policy.
Our Prime Minister has promised us that the foreign policy of his government would not show diffidence, since it would bear the stamp of independence and would, of course, be implemented in the shortest time possible.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
This morning and during the course of this debate, several hon. members have referred to the human tragedy which is taking place in Nigeria. I shall not bring the matter up again but I am convinced-at least I hope so-that the references made in this house have shown the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) the importance of Canada using its influence and its prestige with the government of Nigeria in order to put an end to that genocide.
I am convinced that if the government disregards the susceptibilities of some nations, it has enough prestige, as I said earlier, to appeal to Nigeria in order to put an end to the slaughter and the starvation prevailing in that country.
I cannot congratulate the right hon. Prime Minister for his foreign policy with regard to
The Address-Mr. Asselin France. Two years ago, the Liberal government-first the right hon. Mr. Pearson and then the former Minister of Justice, the present Prime Minister-launched a campaign against France. I must say that if that campaign continues, in view of the present course of statements, we are simply heading toward a break in diplomatic relations between France and Canada. Although the Prime Minister has declared in the house that he does not want any break, if he does not cease his present outright statements against the Quay d'Orsay, such as the one reported by today's Le Devoir, where he again accuses the French government of trying to demolish Canadian unity, he is heading for such an outcome. 1 thought that the Prime Minister as well as the Secretary of State for External Affairs had a well developed sense of diplomacy so that these quarrels and squabbles between the present government and the French government could be settled through diplomatic channels.
It is not my duty here to defend the French viewpoint, but I may nonetheless tell the right honourable Prime Minister of my country that one third of the French-Canadian people, whether they live in Quebec or outside that province, entertain cultural ties and are very closely related to France. If, unfortunately, this government should decide some day for some reason to break diplomatic relations with France, that would be the biggest breach ever perpetrated against this Canadian unity that everyone wants to achieve.
At the beginning of the session, the right honourable Prime Minister made a solemn declaration concerning the whereabouts in Canada of one Rossillon who apparently is an official of the French government. From what we hear from the French Canadians living in Manitoba, this gentleman was simply paying a visit there and was obviously inquiring about the French Canadians in Manitoba. In the meantime, the Prime Minister was telling a press conference about that visit. This action is not, in my opinion, bound to strenghten Canadian unity. I wonder if the Prime Minister has chosen this method in order to discourage the premier of Quebec from undertaking his trip to France or if he is simply aiming at a continuation of the escalation in unfriendly words. If the Prime Minister permits this kind of relations which have
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Asselin been going on for some time between France and Canada, I say that he is surely doing national unity a disservice on this account. I wish with all my heart that these discussions with France or other sovereign states were taking place through diplomacy on an international level.
Why air in public the errors a French citizen may have made on a visit to Canada? Why accuse this man of being a secret agent, an agitator in the pay of the French government? I am convinced that the right honourable Prime Minister overshot the mark when he applied those harsh words to a civil servant, a member of the administration of the French government. As a French Canadian living in Quebec, and on behalf of the French Canadians who live in the other provinces, I hope that the right honourable Prime Minister of our country will soon meet the President of France so that the two can sit together and discuss their grievances once and for all, and so Canadian unity might be preserved. If one wished to joke about it, one could ask the Prime Minister of Canada to accompany the premier of Quebec to Paris. The two could then perhaps, share together the warmth, the hospitality of the "Petit Trianon".
Mr. Speaker, for the sake of Canadian unity, I repeat, that once and for all an end must be put to the dissensions between those two sovereign states, those two countries we French Canadians love so well, France and Canada.
The right honourable Prime Minister told us that he was happy about the help France gives the French Canadians in developing their culture, their tongue, and safeguarding their traditions. I am convinced that if the President of France were to meet the right honourable Prime Minister, he would perhaps understand our situation on the national level, and the two might come to an agreement for the better interest of all Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, I should also like to say before bringing my remarks to an end, that it is with great regret that we saw our friends across the way alter, during the election campaign, certain facts concerning the constitutional position of some members of our party. I mean, for instance, the legislation which the government is now introducing on the constitution, on the status of the official languages, 
on the recognition of the French fact in Canada, on which our party, as early as during its convention in Toronto, had made the first move, and the basic principles of which it had recognized.
During the election campaign, our friends opposite tried to mislead the Canadians into believing that the Conservative party wanted to divide the country in two, that the Conservative party favoured two countries. Mr. Speaker, we have never intended that, we have never meant to say that, nor have we ever said that either during or before the election campaign.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member at such a crucial moment of his speech, but the time allowed to him under the rules has now expired. Unless he is given the unanimous consent of the house, the hon. member will not be able to continue his remarks.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Does the house agree to grant permission to the hon. member to continue his remarks?


Some hon. Members:: Yes, agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Agreed.


Martial Asselin: I wish to thank my colleagues for giving me this opportunity to continue my remarks, Mr. Speaker. I shall try to be brief; besides, I think I shall be through in a few minutes.
As I was saying, the constitutional principles set out by the Liberal party and now brought forward in the Speech from the Throne had already been recognized by us during our convention in Toronto.
The right hon. Prime Minister speaks of the constitutional equality of languages. We too referred to it in a resolution, in Toronto. Now, Mr. Speaker, for the sake of the record and to make some Liberal members understand that we are not against national unity, that we are not going to tear apart Canada on constitutional matters, I repeat that we never said that. We never said, when we spoke of two nations, "The two founding people", that this meant two Canadas. We only meant one Canada made up of two large majorities plus other ethnic groups, which of course, would be minorities.
September 19. 1968	COMMONS DEBATES	235
This is the reason why, when we presented our resolution in Toronto, we formulated great principles which, I think, are now being taken over by the Prime Minister of Canada.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
We have said that Canada is and must remain a federal state and that Canada is made up of the two founding nations endowed with historical rights, to which many people coming from a number of countries have joined themselves. We said that the constitution should be drafted so as to allow and promote full and harmonious coexistence, as well as advancement and equality for all Canadians. We have repeated and we even included it in a document drafted and adopted at the Toronto convention that the constitution is a Canadian document which could not be changed anywhere else. Therefore, I fully endorse my leader when he says to the hon. Prime Minister that the very first constitutional step this government should take is to repatriate our constitution so as to allow us to amend it ourselves.
I think that is the first priority from the point of view of the constitution and in that respect I fully agree with the leader of my party. We said also that, in our opinion, it was necessary to create a constitutional tribunal with the power to settle the constitutional problems which could arise between the provinces or between a province and the federal government, or still the problems which the Supreme Court of Canada could refer to it. That is one of the matters that were brought up during the federal-provincial conference on the constitution held here last February. We advocated also in that resolution that the constitutional equality of the French and English languages should be recognized to guarantee French Canadians throughout the country the right to get an education in their own language wherever possible, the use of the French language in the legislatures and before the courts, just as the Englishspeaking residents of Quebec enjoy those rights now. The status of the official languages is precisely what the Prime Minister wants to obtain today. It would mean that, at the constitutional level, we disagree. But it is precisely the constitutional policy, that kind of amendment to the constitution that the present Prime Minister wants to introduce.
The Address-Mr. Latulippe
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I think that we should agree on the need to amend the constitution. All Canadians are in favour of that. We must amend it so that all the groups living in this country can, under that constitution, enjoy equal rights so that Canadians of French, English and other origins can live in peace. Canadians must be able to live harmoniously, respectful of the rights of others, so that all together we may pool our efforts to build that great country we all love, Canada.


Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to have this opportunity to speak in this house. Even though I am almost an old-timer since this is my fourth term here, I still have many things to say, because the past efforts did not yield great results.
I take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate you on your re-election as Speaker. I offer my congratulations also to the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne (Messrs. Corbin and Marchand).
I will merely speak of concrete things in this speech, Mr. Speaker. Everyone speaks of a just society and of guaranteed incomes, but nobody ever defined these terms.
Mr. Speaker, I will now attempt to define these main terms. I would like to say to the people and to members of this house what are exactly the problems of our economy, where reforms should be made and where distributive economy should be applied, that is to whom should the benefits-or the products, if you prefer-of our economy go.
First of all, the human being should be protected if every citizen is to have full benefit of a living, active and progressive economy. All these conditions must be fulfilled if priority is to be given to the individual, who has been neglected in the past. Priority is given to finance, to capital, but the human capital is forgotten. Everything is done, nothing is neglected for the money capital, but the most noble, the most important one, the human capital, is neglected. This is what I intend to deal with and demonstrate in my statement.
All Canadians want a united Canada, but they also want a just society. Like everyone, we have been advocating a just society and a united Canada for a long time. That is nothing new.
September 19. 1968

The Address-Mr. Latulippe
The people heard vague words and believed that they were hearing something new. That is one of the reasons why they once again elected the great Liberal party. By the way, I should like to say right away, Mr. Speaker, that we intend to co-operate fully with the party in power and with all who present legislation intended to serve, protect and help the people and allow them to live decently. We will support all good legislation.
However, we will stand against all measures which do not protect the individual or which protect only capital. Naturally, we will oppose all tax increases, because they affect the individual unfavourably and because we are overtaxed already. We will support all good measures which are beneficial to the individual and which give him priority.
It is apparently agreed that we all want to build a united Canada in a just society which undertakes to eliminate provincial and regional inequalities. It is a worthy effort, a good attempt, a noble ambition, but a shared hope. There are inequalities not only in constitutions, but between the provinces, the different public organizations and the various regions.
First, there are inequalities affecting the family. Every individual must be allowed to live decently in his country. Canada is not only made up of more or less prosperous provinces and regions. A united Canada is made up also, and above all, of families enjoying more or less prosperity and of human beings who are more or less prosperous.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
There are persons, families, regions, provinces, institutions, municipalities that are more or less prosperous in a united Canada, within a just society. That is a noble pursuit that does not omit any aspect of the just society, of a united Canada. Canada is made up mainly of these 20,700,000 human beings who are Canadian citizens, made of flesh and bones, each with their own mind who are members of some five million dwellings or families in Canada.
Therefore, it is first on a personal and family basis as well as on a basis of the essential needs of persons and families that an immediate foundation of a just society must be realized and which will result in a united Canada this very year.

Assuredly, the large administrations on the national, provincial, regional, municipal, social and even on the international and world levels are important and deserve our continued attention.
Undoubtedly, all the great institutions were set up with the commendable idea of promoting progress, productivity and growth of economic activity in the interest of the whole community.
Nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, it should be realized, at last, that this is expected by the whole population, that is, our 20,700,000 Canadian citizens living in flesh, bone and spirit, and not only the 7,700,000 adult and productive citizens who are reasonably rewarded for their work or their capital.
Nevertheless, one should understand, in the end, that the whole population includes 13 million dependants, without work nor capital, without personal income, but entitled unquestionably to live among all of us, in a united Canada, according to the 1968 standard of living.
But for all that, it should be realized in the end, once and for all, that the right to live which every citizen without revenue is entitled to must be appraised and determined by a certain amount of money, the same way as a salary is set for any work, or the same way as interests are recognized by contract on any capital loaned or invested under conditions clearly determined between free parties.
So, if the 7,700,000 Canadian citizens contributing to national production receive a fair share proportional to their work or their capital, if, also those 13 million Canadian citizens without work or capital receive each month, in every home, a guaranteed minimum revenue, which constitutes their personal vital right, thus, and thus only, shall we have achieved a just society, a united Canada where every citizen will be happy and proud to live, respected and glorified, in the full view of the whole world filled with amazement.
Even though the right hon. Prime Minister did not make any promises during the last election, he said again and again that the objectives of his administration would be a just society and a united Canada. Those are happy words which were appreciated and which led the Liberal party to the victory. It is up to us now, Mr. Speaker, to convert those words into action, into deeds, into achievements.
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
Each citizen may have his own idea about a just society and a united Canada, but I think everybody would accept a conception whereby each Canadian citizen could share in the prosperity of Canada.
I feel the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in the just society and a united Canada envisaged should provide for what I have just pointed out.
It is not, Mr. Speaker, by begging, grumbling or advocating separatism. No one seeks to break away from a group where it gets a fair treatment. In this prosperous Canada, production reached $68 billion in 1968, that is about $3,300 per head or $16,500 per family of five, which is marvelous and satisfactory for the majority of Canadians. There is no reason for allowing such a magnificent production to be so badly distributed among the population of this country. Why, Mr. Speaker, is there so much suffering, so much poverty and insecurity amidst such abundance, so many riches, such a tremendous production? Let us at least work in such a way that the most unfortunate may reach a viable and convenient human condition. It is not poverty, Mr. Speaker, that must be driven away, not poverty against which we must wage war, as many members seem to believe, but injustice. It is fraud, frustration of the rights to live of each Canadian citizen. This must be eradicated.
Poverty in itself does not exist. But injustice exists. Inequities must be replaced by a little more justice. This is the point I want to make, Mr. Speaker. Chapter 44 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1960, well specifies that each Canadian citizen is entitled to life, liberty, security of his person and enjoyment of property whatever may be his race, his national origin, his colour, his religion or his sex.
We are only considering here the right to live of each Canadian citizen who is penniless and unemployed. We are considering the recommandations of the World Charter of Human Rights and of the Canadian Charter of Human Rights passed in 1960. We are only demanding that this right to live be recognized to each Canadian who is penniless or unemployed by allowing him to earn his living as we recognize his right to receive wages and the right to collect a rate of interest on invested capital. Therefore, if in Canada at the present time, our production
DEBATES	237
The Address-Mr. Latulippe worth $68 billion represents the work and the capital of 7,700,000 Canadian citizens who take part in the national production and who are paid according to the proportions of their participation, it must be recognized that the 13 million Canadian citizens, men, women, children, sick, unemployed, or old people who do not receive any income for their work or capital have an undeniable right to part of that production.
This is the reason I am fighting, through the sole use of my intellectual powers, to induce the 29 ministers of the Canadian government and the 263 representatives of the Canadian people to admit that they are legally bound by this right to life of everyone, especially that of the 13 millions dependant Canadian citizens, who have no work and no capital.
The right to live is the first of all the rights of every individual, from his birth to his last breath. This is what is or will be a just society. It is that vital personal right for 13 million Canadian citizens which I demand in a united Canada, a just society.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker, we could take 4 per cent out of those 68 billion of production to pay for that essential program of guaranteed rights to every citizen.
Therefore Mr. Speaker, since I have the honour to rise again in this house, I should like to show positive work, open to the best promises, taking into account the positive elements which make up not only this parliament but also and especially the whole people of this wonderful country Canada.
I say again, Mr. Speaker, that under God, in this giant country, every Canadain should grow amidst prosperity.
Mr. Speaker, if the voters in the riding of Compton gave me once again a good majority over the candidates of the other parties, they have told me often that it is because I have talked many times in this house about a better distribution of income among all the citizens of Canada, about increasing family allowances and the other allowances, which would at least abolish misery if not poverty.
Therefore, I thank my constituents for understanding me and voting for me. I would now like the 263 members of parliament to understand clearly also the need, the urgency and even the opportunity we are given to achieve immediately a better distribution of
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Latulippe income, expenditures and profits among all the citizens of Canada, between management, labour and dependants or between people, families and companies.
That is the crux of of the problem, if it could finally be understood.
It is not a matter of political party, nor of a philosophic system. It is a matter of fraternity, humanity, balanced economy and progressive policy, through unity, justice and goodwill. It is not a matter of race, nationality, religion, language, social classes. It is a matter of dollars, it is the right to live, to have the bare necessities. It is the right of a guaranteed minimum income for all Canadian citizens, 20,700,000 of them, of which 7,700,000 have incomes gained through their capital or their work, and 13 million are dependent on a productive citizen or society in general.
Let us open our eyes to this metaphysical and mathematical reality, capital and work are the two pillars of production, but production is geared to consumption. Now, there are in Canada, in 1968, 7,700,000 productive citizens and 13 million dependants.
There are in this country 7,700,000 citizens, drawing income from their work and capital, and 13 million citizens without any income derived from work or capital, but who all have the right to live in Canada according to the 1968 standard of living in this country. This right to live is a right that must be assessed and paid, as well as the right to give a salary for one's work or the right to draw interest from capital.
In our economic system, we are doing the opposite of what is required. Instead of paying a minimum guaranteed income to the 13 million dependent citizens, we are increasing wages and capital interests, thereby raising still more the cost of living for all citizens, even for the 13 million dependent citizens without work or capital and hence without any income.
In the case of the citizens who are producing through their work and capital, incomes increase while in the case of the dependent citizens, the expenditures are going up. The
7,700,000	producing citizens are taking advantage of an unbalanced economy while the dependent citizens and their dependants have to put up with this same unbalanced economy.
Here, I am convinced of bringing a logical and practical solution that can be applied immediately in the present and regular mechanisms of our Canadian monetary, economical and political systems of free enterprise,
[Mr. Latulippe.1
whether they are orthodox or capitalist. Why is no attention ever given to this problem? Why must I always speak in this desert? Perhaps I may hope that this desert will at last become a blossoming garden, not only for labour and management, but for all those without work or money and for all the needy who want a just society and a united country.
However, this unity can only be based on individuals and not on groups, companies, regions, provinces, towns or villages.
Canada is 20,700,000 people, and that is the basis on which we must establish a guaranteed minimum income, either through work, or capital, or the vital right of people without work or capital.
Why can the members of this house and this parliament not accept this suggestion immediately? That is why I say to them: Dear colleagues, in every one of your ridings, you saw them during the election campaigns, you saw citizens who have money, citizens who have work, and other citizens who have neither work nor money, who are dependent and without income, because they are too young, too sick, too old, too unfortunate, in short, for all kinds of reasons; you have even seen mothers who stay home and have neither income nor salary for the work they do as mothers and housekeepers.
Have you thought of that? In every home in Canada, to each citizen without work or money, we could distribute a guaranteed income of $1 per day per child, of $2 per day per teenager, of $3 per adult and of $4 per older citizen of 60 and more; have you ever considered how this could solve all personal and family problems in the field of daily finance?
That would be the end of hardship, poverty and insecurity. There would still be good and human poverty, sickness, accidents, occasional misfortunes, curable bad administration, but we would be through with hardship, poverty, insecurity in the normal and wholesome families of our hard-working, honest population which is willing to do the utmost in community life.
And do you know what all that would cost? It would cost 14 per cent of the value of the national production. Do you know that a single program could replace every one of the 200 costly plans administered under social welfare, that are a disgrace because of the famous inquiries which ruin the dignity and the respect of the human being and the private life of individuals and families?
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
Moreover, do you know that by so doing, society, Canada, and we here in this house, would together have done nothing more than something just towards human beings? Because the right to life, to the vital minimum, the individual minimum is not an optional charity, but a real right, a binding right according to justice, based on nature, on natural resources, on the divine fatherhood and on the rights of universal humanity.
During the Speech from the Throne, I was pleased to hear our gracious governor general utter the last phrases:
May Divine Providence guide you in your deliberations.
Could he not have added on the same tone: "and submit you to the sweet rigours of his divine chastisement".
For, in truth, we deserve chastisement. We can no longer let everyone lack the necessities of life in the face of the categorical statements of the most serious representatives of our political economy, the experts of our Economic Council of Canada. It is not up to me to start rewriting that instructive and well-documented volume. But it is my duty to draw attention to a practical solution which would abolish at least misery, poverty, insecurity in all homes in which live the 20,700,000 citizens of Canada, counted one by one, each of whom would always be assured of the necessary minimum income through his work, his capital or his own right.
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker, we have produced in Canada, in 1968, $68 billion in goods and services, of which $40 billion were used for the consumption needs of the population. Out of that production a surplus of $28 billion in profits was reinvested by a small number of citizens who already have more than they need.
DEBATES	239
The Address-Mr. Latulippe
Of those $28 billion in reinvested profits approximately 15 per cent or $4 billion come from individuals and 85 per cent or $24 billion from corporations.
I have here, Mr. Speaker, a table which would complement my speech, but which is too long to be quoted at full length. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would table it for printing in Hansard.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. Does the house agree to the member tabling the table mentioned in the official report?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
We should know the source of this table.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. I must tell the house that the document handed to me bears no indication of its source.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Is it an
official table of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, or merely a table prepared by the member?


Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Speaker, it is an official table taken from the Canada Year Book. It contains government statistics.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: We will
take the hon. member's word.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. In view of the fact that it is a rather short compilation, does the house authorize the hon. member for Crompton to include this document as part of his speech?


Some hon. Members:: The Address-Mr. Latulippe


Henry P. Latulippe: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you also to all the hon. members.
Mr. Speaker, I come now to my closing remarks. All that can and must be implemented by this government, by our 263 ministers and members, within the regular framework of our constitution, in our present confederation. This is my challenge, this is what I can show you without limitation. I have taken precautions in that respect. That is all I can tell you, a demonstration can be made by all possible means, by letters, by figures and by sketches, by science and by conscience, by knowledge and by simple common sense.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order.
I am exceedingly sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member in the expression of such noble feelings, but the time allotted to him has expired. Unless he obtains the unanimous consent of the house, I must recognize another member.
Does the house unanimously agree to allow the hon. member to continue his remarks?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Henry P. Latulippe: I thank the hon. members for allowing me to continue. I shall try to be as brief as possible.
Our federal government, our governor in council, to use the expression used by the 23 ministers have the legislative power to raise family allowances immediately to one dollar a day at least instead of the present 20 cents per day, which does not even pay for a quart of milk now. One is surprised at such a statement. All of it is written in the law, Chap. 109 of the Revised Statutes of Canada on family allowances. A similar gesture was made along this line in 1957 by the Conservative government at that time, just before a federal election, for which he was rewarded with the biggest majority since confederation. Does the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) remember it? Has he regretted such an initiative? Why has he not repeated it more often? He is ashamed to tell us. Let us go back to page 2806 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1952, on family allowances act Section, 11, where it is clearly stated:
The Governor in Council may make regulations to give effect and to carry out the objects of this Act,
Consequently, at the present time and according to the present legislation of family allowances, the governor in council, that is the 29 ministers of the present legislature elected by the people of Canada and according to the laws voted by the 264 members of
fThe Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard).]

Canada are the only ones empowered to increase family allowances by $1 a day, $360 a year for each child less than 16 years of age. They could also increase them by $1 a day for children from the date of birth up to and including 13 years and by $2 a day for children aged 14 to 21 as long as they are attending school in order to realize and put into effect the purposes of the present legislation which essentially consists in treating equally all the Canadian children. This is a matter of interpretation according to the talents and the sense of justice of the members of par Lament, the ministers of parliament and the government of Canada. It is because of such points of the law that our ministers can increase the interest on bonds without the authorization of the members in parliament assembled. When it is a matter of the almighty gold, there is less shyness and it is less demanding. May I quote an example to you? Only yesterday, September 17, 1968, all the daily newspapers of Canada were announcing that the government of Canada was issuing new bonds in the amount of $500 million, that is half a billion dollars bearing interest at 6, 6-J and 6J per cent. The fine print of the advertisement points out that the funds so obtained will be used to redeem government bonds amounting to $260 million at 5 per cent maturing on October 1, 1968.
Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, our government of Canada being unable to meet its obligations. They have matured. The government must honour them but it is unable to do so. To those millionaires that were drawing 5 per cent interest for each million, there is an offer by the government that in the future they will be paid 6J per cent or $65,000 yearly for a million instead of $50,000. This represents $15,000 more for "doing nothing" and for a period of 27 years, if you please, not to be reimbursed in advance as a precautionary measure. You will understand that this concerns the sanctity of contracts. However, to pay interest at a rate of $65,000 per million, instead of $50,000, did we think that low-income Canadians will have to pay higher taxes, that taxes will have to be raised, that the cost of living would go up? This will be terrible for children without the $6 family allowance, taxes will have to be raised, and the cost of living will be increased, affecting all citizens of Canada with no capital or earned income, who are dependent upon productive citizens or society in general.
Mr. Speaker, during the last election, at the time the campaign was in full swing, on June 15, 1968, the same gift of $500 million, or half
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
a billion dollars, was presented, except this time, the maximum interest rate was set at 7J per cent, or $72,500 per million. Now, this was again used to replace about $283 million worth of bonds at 2| per cent.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
This indicates, Mr. Speaker, how capital is well treated, how the golden calf is well treated, how capital is well taken care of. Why are human resources not as well treated, when it comes down to family allowances? They have not been raised once from 1945 to 1968. A real shame, Mr. Speaker. One does not want to do anything for human beings, but one can do everything for capital.
This, Mr. Speaker, will surely come to an end. However, I shall not be long, as I see an honourable member who tells me to stop, perhaps because he does not find this interesting. However, I think he himself is not much more interesting.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: On the
other hand, it was reasonable.


Henry P. Latulippe: Let us consider, beside that, millionaires who receive yearly $27,500 in interest from the government and are offered $72,500, or a yearly surplus of $45,000 per million for doing nothing. That is not funny. Yet, it seems nobody thinks about that. However, it is still through taxes imposed in large measure on the humble people, on the low wage earner and on the penniless that is increased the income of those who have a lot.
I would have much to say, Mr. Speaker, but I shall in the future get other opportunities. I shall then tell the house, as well as the ministers and the Prime Minister, that we are poorly administered, that we make every possible effort to assist capital, that it is a shame to give everything to capital and to offer nothing to the family, which represents also a capital. Everything is done to help money capital but nothing to help family capital.
Here, I am fighting for the family capital, the family as a capital, is entitled to live. It is our national resource, by it can exist both our society and our nation. It is entitled to speak and entitled to live.


Mr. J. A. Jerome (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, in the first place allow me to tell you that I am quite proud and honoured of having the privilege to take part in the proceedings of the house.
Having witnessed last week the tokens of admiration and esteem which you have received from all those who not only have many years of experience, but also hold
DEBATES	241
The Address-Mr. Jerome key posts within their party or the government, I take the liberty of telling you, on behalf of all the new members, and I am sure they will not begrudge me, that you can be rightly proud of all those praises. I wish to add right away my congratulations to those which you have already received.
I also want to join all those who congratulated the hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria (Mr. Corbin) and the hon. member for Kamloops-Cariboo (Mr. Marchand). Both stirred our enthusiasm by their brilliant first steps on the parliamentary scene, the first by moving the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne and the other by seconding it. But it is also important to emphasize that they have opened the way for a great majority of us who are new here.

I am very conscious and proud of being a member of this august chamber, and particularly proud to be one of the unusual number of new members in this new parliament. All of us I am sure approached this career with high expectations as to the possibilities of participating in this very vital and important work, and with a full knowledge of the sacrifices this life might entail. But whatever those sacrifices, I am sure all hon. members, particularly the new ones, are most eager to participate in the affairs of our country to the fullest possible extent. So, with these expectations and with the willingness to make the necessary sacrifices, we come to this chamber to see for the first time the manner in which this very important business is conducted.
What a tragic disappointment it was when we witnessed the performance of those who led the attack from the opposition side of the house in this throne speech debate. How disappointing it was to hear the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) who appeared to be preoccupied with a small number of appointments made by the government to positions in the government service. I suppose that was an invitation to us to review the record of that great province of Nova Scotia, of which for so long he was such a capable administrator. Undoubtedly there was the implication that we would not find such a thing had ever occurred during his term of office.
In my view this is not just something to gloss over, something to be hidden under the rug, as though like a small child this government had been caught with its hands in a cookie jar. It seems much more important to
242	COMMONS DEBATES	September 19, 1968
The Address-Mr. Jerome me that we should face with reality the situation which I, as a member of this house and a novice in political life, intend to do.
It would seem that in filling positions in the government service this or any other government should have the opportunity, when choosing between persons of equal capability, to give some consideration to those who have come forward and made some sacrifices in public life. If there is any dishonour in this, then I think all of us have a very disillusioned view of what this life entails, and the very worth-while work involved here.
I was also disappointed to hear the Leader of the Opposition clinging so closely to a program that was introduced only a few years ago, concurrently I suppose with the term of office of a Conservative government. I refer to the winter works program. Most persons to whom I spoke before coming here applauded the decision of the government, a decision which on the face of it was bound to be unpopular with many municipalities. Nevertheless many of the leaders in the municipalities whom I heard being interviewed, and whose comments were reported in the press, said that although this decision upset some of their planned programs, the winter works program had failed and was not doing the job it was designed to do. In the interests of governmental policy to cut-back in spending, this was a courageous and forthright decision for the government to have taken at this time.
It is encouraging to know that this government is prepared to do this kind of thing. What particularly troubled me was the constant reference, not only in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition but in others to which I will refer in a moment, to the absence of government activity in the field of housing and the absence of a reference in the speech from the throne to this very important and vital program. They would appear to be suggesting that they have no knowledge of the very active and vital work of the task force which is going on at the present time, and which is dedicated to that very program. It would seem that they are not aware that in this very city at this moment the task force is at work over in the west block. It would appear also that they are ignoring the calibre of the people who are serving voluntarily on that task force. It would serve no purpose to mention them by name now, except to say that if anyone on the opposition bench had taken the trouble to examine the names of the people serving there, the work that the government is doing would be obvious. That task force is hard at work and began its work

as soon as possible after this government came into office. It has received many briefs from all parts of the country, and has a full schedule laid out for the three forthcoming months. Its program is an ambitious one, indeed.
I should like now to refer to the speech of the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis) who followed the Leader of the Opposition. If this performance was not as great a disappointment to a new member, it would be from the standpoint of theatrics. The remarks of that hon. gentleman were delivered in perhaps a little more flowery language, with more pathos and tragedy, and more prosaic beauty, but they did not contain any more substance, or an appreciation of the basic nature and value contained in the speech from the throne. It is no wonder that in his remarks the hon. member for York South confronted the Prime Minister with a Shakespearean idiom. It was a theatrical performance at best, full of sound and fury. To carry the quotation further, it was full of sound and fury but signified nothing. That was the most disastrous thing about it all, except for his reference to the situations in Biafra and Nigeria. He spoke as if this government did not concern itself about these problems and was not aware of the grief, tragedy and starvation of these millions of people. From his observations one would be led to believe that this government was not aware of the genocide being permitted day by day, by red tape if nothing else, in many places of the world,- something we are powerless to do anything about.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
What was particularly disappointing is that we waited throughout this diatribe to hear what it is that this government should be doing, what program, action or positive step the government should take, as suggested by the hon. member. In order to demonstrate the terrible default of this government we were finally greeted with precisely the proposal that the federal government of Nigeria has refused to agree to a second air strip. He then said that surely the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) or the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) ought to know that Sweden has agreed to lend a plane to the International Red Cross, and if that was the case why did not Canada do the same. After all this diatribe, this was the positive proposal put forward by the hon. member, in his effort to demonstrate the inadequacy of the government in this regard. This situation was covered, however, by the Secretary of State
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
for External Affairs, who said that everything was being done by the Red Cross that could possibly be done and that when more could be done by Canada we would be prepared to assist. Obviously by his remarks the hon. member for York South has wasted the time of the house. He spent several minutes on a foreign affairs peroration having no substance whatsoever.
The only leader on the opposition side of the floor who did not fail to disappoint us was the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette). With his good humour and his wild, fiery style he is never disappointing. Unfortunately, as I listened closely to his remarks, it seemed to me that, flowery as they were, and delivered with such good humour, they were irrelevant to the speech from the throne.
I am sure that I can find agreement among all new members on both sides of the house when I say that the common tragedy of this debate has been the failure of hon. members to recognize the fundamental character of the speech from the throne, having due regard for the majority position in which this government finds itself. For longer than we care to remember this country has experienced and has suffered from the dilemma of minority governments. One member of the N.D.P., against whom I campaigned, continually suggested that he preferred a minority government, that he espoused a government with a minority. I suppose the logical conclusion is that it is only in this situation that this party could acquire this artificial power it has never been given by the electorate.
Notwithstanding the espousal by the hon. member for the N.D.P., we all realize that this neglected country gave a clear mandate to the government. On June 25 of this year the electorate of Canada helped the Prime Minister to gain the success he deserved. They elected a sufficient number of members to allow him to sit in this house with a majority, and to carry on a program of work not only day by day or week by week, and surely not at the will or pleasure of the opposition, but for a period of some four or five years.
How fitting it is that the speech from the throne should outline the philosophy of the government and the programs it intends to carry forward. In this way it demonstrates the fundamental character of the programs that have been planned. It will allow time to plan the use of human resources, time to develop programs through research, time for study and active investigation by the capable
DEBATES	243
The Address-Mr. Jerome committees of this house, and at the same time it introduces as a matter of urgent priority proposals for parliamentary reform. How appropriate it is that this reform and these far-reaching programs should be concomitant. This will allow parliament to receive and fully consider these programs in the months and years ahead. These are not day to day programs, and in none of the speeches I have heard or read by hon. members have I seen any recognition of this basic fact, or any understanding of these constitutional reforms. The subjects to be dealt with include matters of unity both in a personal and urbane sense, matters of justice and the Criminal Code, problems of industrial relations and disputes, and the system of continuous reporting on prices and costs.
There has been some reference to population expansion and the difficulties caused by urbanization. There has been reference to foreign affairs, including Viet Nam, Biafra and Czechoslovakia. All of these situations and conditions are a challenge to democracy. The programs that have been referred to will expedite our way of doing things and make it possible for us to keep pace with the times.
The challenge put forward in the speech from the throne relates precisely to the shaping up and sharpening up of procedures, so that we can be on time and in pace with the vast volume of legislation and work of this house that is now required to meet the growing needs of our great country. It is for this reason that I suggest those from the opposition who have spoken have failed to understand and appreciate the basic character of the speech from the throne.
Let me hasten to add my support to those who have spoken in support of the address in reply moved by that hon. gentleman on this side of the house, the hon. member for Mada-waska-Victoria (Mr. Corbin), and seconded by the hon. member for Kamloops-Cariboo (Mr. Marchand).
In addition to these general remarks about the speech from the throne I understand it is a traditional privilege given to new members of this house to say something about the beauties of their particular ridings, for the benefit of those hon. members who have not had the opportunity to visit them personally.
The riding of Sudbury is made up mainly of the city of Sudbury and the town of Copper Cliff. We have many beautiful lakes and wooded areas. We have a beautiful new university and a beautiful park which surrounds the one lake in the city. When describing the beauty of that city I must admit sadly that a
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Jerome
great deal of the beauty is to be found in the people themselves, rather than in its physical characteristics. The reason I say that is that we have stood by and witnessed an ineffective program by the provincial government regarding the problem of air and water pollution, much of which is the result of the mining and smelting operations in the Sudbury riding.
One looks at the agricultural potential and the beauty of the area surrounding the city of Sudbury, and then, in a sense of pity, observes the devastation which has occurred to the natural beauty of that area as a result of smoke and gas emitted from the stacks of the smelters. What has been permitted over the years has allowed the mining operations to pollute the air and the waters, so that the grazing lands have been literally destroyed beyond all possible imagination. This has destroyed the beauty of the area and has done away with any possibility of agricultural endeavour. The area is no longer very beautiful, and this is no longer a very scenic city.
Either by constitution or by tradition, this area has been left to the exclusive jurisdiction of the provincial government, and its programs have been ineffective. The only guide lines or criteria of those programs have been directed toward the removal of the noxious sulphur content of the gases emitted by the smelter. But these efforts have been linked to guide lines which suggest that, as long as a smelter is economic, and as long as it has been able to provide for the removal of gas, it has been allowed to operate. As long as these companies have been able to make money, or in some cases even break even, the company has overlooked the pollution that occurs, and the noxious gases have been removed only to the minimum required for a profitable operation.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
Surely, Mr. Speaker, there must be an area here for this government. Surely it is now time that the federal government moved into this field. We enjoy rights in this area, certainly, under health and welfare, certainly under agriculture, mines, energy and resources. We have clear precedent for authority in this area to get in and work, if not exclusively in this field then in co-operation with the provinces. I know that some legislation is intended, but I urge this government to look very closely at the problems of air and water pollution that exist in the riding of Sudbury which I represent.
It is easy for me to stand here and in my description of these problems condemn the

companies that mine the ore and smelt it there, to condemn the companies associated with them in removing these noxious gases, or attempting to remove them partially only, to the extent that they are able to sell on the market the products gained thereby. But it is not quite as simple as that, for this is not the only area of our country that we leave to the industries, to be guided by economic necessities or economic advantage. A company is entitled to carry on its business for a profit. That is basic to the free enterprise system. Nor is it our function, or my proposal, that the government should be controlling the operations of companies to change that motivation or to in any way diminish the existence or the strengthening of the free enterprise system. But where the legitimate interests of two parties or two groups meet or are in conflict, where it is in the legitimate interest of the company to work its mines for a profit, at the same time it is surely in the legitimate interest of the citizens to be protected from these noxious gases wherever posible. Surely, Mr. Speaker, in order to fill that area in between there is a role for government.
If the provincial government were occupying that role and carrying it out to the fullest of its ability, that might be well and good. In fact, the tragic experience in my riding -which is what I am particularly concerned about-is that this has not taken place. I understand, from speaking with other members who are faced with the same problem, not only in the mining industry but in other industries as well, that they have had similar experiences in other provinces throughout the country. This all the more emphasizes the fact that the time is now for the federal government to move into this field with force, energy and vigour, to do the kind of things that the provincial governments have failed to do.
So in closing, Mr. Speaker, I would plead with this government to look into the problems of this vast pollution and contamination of the air we breathe and the water we enjoy, for the pleasures and for the necessities of life, because even as we stand here, at this very moment the expansion program taking place in the mines of International Nickel Company and Falconbridge Nickel Mines means that the operation is being carried on in such a way as to further prejudice the clear water and clean air that Sudburians are entitled to enjoy. So, Mr. Speaker, this contamination is taking place and is continuing. This government, I plead, should give urgent prior'tv to this problem and see to it that
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
where the provinces have failed, the federal government can succeed.


Mr. Lundrigan:: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that it is approximating six o'clock, could we agree to call it six o'clock, although I am prepared to speak at this time?


Mr. Speaker:: Does the house agree that we call it six o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock, or
approximately six o'clock, I leave the chair until eight o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
John Howard Lundrigan: Mr. Speaker, first of all let me extend my congratulations to you and to your deputy on the appointment to the positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively. I feel that the events to date have more than justified the wisdom of the selection of the presiding members of this house. I should also like to express a word of congratulation to the hon. members who have taken part in the debate to date, and to say without fear of contradiction or qualification that the calibre of the debate in this house is worthy of the trust which has been placed in the representatives of the various constituencies throughout Canada.
I should also like to express my appreciation of and to offer congratulations to a former member of this house and a member of the cabinet of the previous administration, who was my opponent during the recent election and also my predecessor, for the great contribution he has made to the house and upon his recent appointment, of which most hon. members are aware. I am referring of course to Hon. Charles R. Granger.
I need not reiterate the many observations made by my colleagues and other hon. members with reference to the speech from the throne. I need not go into detail in pointing out the ways in which the present administration in its blueprint for the immediate future has neglected to come to grips in any way, shape or form with the problems facing the Canadian nation at this particular period in our history. I need not point out the ways in which the government's planned program of action has disappointed the people of the Atlantic region, the people of Newfoundland, and my constituents in Gander-Twillingate, in
DEBATES	245
The Address-Mr. Lundrigan failing to realize the urgency of the multitude of problems, general and specific, and the areas of inactivity to which the government must address its program.
No, Mr. Speaker, one does not have to repeat in this house, to the Canadian nation or anywhere else, any of the charges that have been made to date, for it is quite obvious, even to the least astute reader, that we have been presented with another document which contains a tremendous amount of philosophizing and, as my opponent said this afternoon, sound and fury signifying nothing.
I will not mention the fact that the speech from the throne made but one reference to the whole problem of the fisheries, especially as it pertains to the Atlantic area, and to the constituents whom I have the honour to represent.
I will not mention that the only reference to that subject was in relation to an amendment to the legislation governing the Fisheries Improvement Loans Act, an amendment which certainly is a far cry from the fond hope for a fisheries policy which would help alleviate the burdens of a group of people, which I can say without qualification is the hardest working group of people in Canada, namely the Atlantic fishermen.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Howard Lundrigan: The only indication we have had of any planned action by the federal government in relation to our fisheries problem is the abolition of the salt subsidy. The higher cost of production of fish resulting therefrom, the reduction in the price of a quintal of fish, which ranges from $6 to $10, coupled with a general increase in the cost of living, makes the problem facing the fishermen in my part of the country one which has already reached emergency proportions. I say to this government that if action is not immediately taken-and I mean immediately, not next year or five years from now-in order to ease the burdens faced by thousands of my people, then many Canadian citizens on the east coast of Canada will have second thoughts about the virtues of being Canadian citizens.
I will not mention the fact that the whole business of regional disparity received but a passing reference among a dozen other things. May I be permitted to quote the following passage which reflects the government's position on regional development:
My ministers will bring before you legislation relating to the encouragement of manpower programs, regional improvements, domestic investment, export development and resources administration,
246	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Lundrigan including a Yukon mineral act and an oil and gas production act relating to Canada's increasingly important northern resources.
This general reference to regional disparity appeared to be an afterthought which appeared somewhere toward the end of the throne speech. Is this the kind of priority which we were led to believe would become foremost in the proposed government programs to be brought before the house by this Liberal administration? This is not the kind of priority that we in the Atlantic area had expected.
I will not nauseate hon. members present by making reference to the just society. I think this concept, which was coined by Thomas More in his famous book "Utopia", has paid the necessary political dividends and is about to be considered another of the dead issues characteristic of past administrations.
No, Mr. Speaker, I refuse to address any detailed remarks to the points briefly mentioned above, for I feel I would be belabouring the obvious to the point of boring my colleagues. However, I will serve notice that now, and for the remaining years of my service to my constituency, I propose, as frequently as you will permit, sir, to draw the attention of this house to the multitude of problems facing my constituency, my province and the Atlantic region of which I am so proud.
I think perhaps that hon. members will agree, and bear with me with their usual attention and respect, if I take this opportunity to familiarize them with the constituency of Gander-Twillingate. I feel that it will be the responsibility of all my colleagues and of my worthy friend, the hon. member for Bu-rin-Burgeo (Mr. Jamieson), to avail themselves of every opportunity to advance the position and make known the problems facing our island home, because I feel that, with few exceptions, the house has not had an opportunity to hear a realistic and frank appraisal of the problems which have forced Newfoundlanders to live in conditions which could only reflect the livelihood of people who are not bona fide members of this great Canadian nation.
The most northern extremity of my district falls in the provincial district of Green Bay, and all my colleagues and my many friends in this house who have visited that part of Newfoundland will agree that the blessings of confederation are virtues which these people only read about in the newspapers and in the recorded history of recent times.
[Mr. Lundrigan.l
DEBATES	September 19, 1968
I have the privilege of representing the many island communities of Notre Dame Bay, specifically the island communities of Twillin-gate, New World island, Fogo island and Change islands. I think, sir, if any hon. member, regardless of his potential, determination and drive, were to dedicate his whole effort in an attempt to alleviate the unbearable burdens faced by many of the constituents in this area, he would have a full time job.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
My colleague, the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), has drawn attention to the tragedy which has befallen what was a thriving community of 14,000 souls on Bell Island, Conception Bay. I think every Canadian who is worth his salt must feel a little ashamed when he realizes that he is part of a society which has allowed this kind of modern tragedy. The same type of tragedy is befalling the residents of the island communities of Notre Dame Bay. By way of example, may I point out the nature of the conditions on Fogo island. Fogo island presently has a population of 5,000 people. It is, as it were, a fishing vessel moored conveniently off the coast of Newfoundland amidst the abundance of Atlantic fish.
A couple of decades ago, it would have been an inspiration to anybody to visit Fogo island and observe a most industrious, prosperous and conscientious people, assuming their proud place amongst the prosperous communities of Canada. Things have changed on Fogo island and today the majority of the residents of this area are barely able to keep body and soul together.
Not too many months ago the only living father of confederation, the man who led Newfoundland down the blind alley and left it there, namely the premier of Newfoundland, enunciated a great federal-provincial plan to activate the economy and develop the communities of Fogo island. Hopes were revived that the pride which was theirs would return with the return of prosperity. We have heard nothing more of that, Mr. Speaker, and the whole business is being excused with the cliche that promises, like piecrusts, were made to be broken. These people are not only forced to endure the hardships of unemployment, the low standard of living which has befallen them, but are compelled, like many other residents of the island areas in the Atlantic region, to live in isolation from the cultural and economic advantages of the rest of our society. This situation is caused by the prohibitive cost of transportation to the mainland of our island
September 19, 1968

province. It is a situation which this parliament has to remedy if it is to regain the respect of the residents of the whole of the Atlantic area and of the elected representatives of that area.
I could go into detail, Mr. Speaker, and outline another sad story. The whole region of the straight shore of Notre Dame Bay and the whole of the area of Bonavista North suffered from the crippling effects of the great fire of 1961. In 1961, as the result of the crippling effect of a great forest fire, with which I think all Canadians are familiar, the possibility for these people to earn a livelihood literally went up in smoke. The only difference between the situation now and seven years ago in Bonavista North and Notre Dame Bay is the fact that the only possibility for the people to earn a livelihood has gone without any replacement.
A couple of days ago I raised a question in this house by inquiring of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) as to whether this government had any plans for Gander comparable to those he mentioned when he indicated that $32 million would be spent to develop air terminus facilities in Vancouver, which would then become the western metropolis for Pacific coast trade.
We in Gander are eagerly awaiting a positive response to this question so that Gander will become the eastern air metropolis for Atlantic trade. All hon. members will agree that the azimuthal factors peculiar to Gander do support and justify a tremendous amount of federal attention and federal investment in this area. I feel that the economic stimulation resulting therefrom will provide the boost needed for the whole of the east coast of our province. It surprises me that such a program has not attained fruition long before now.
It behooves me, Mr. Speaker, to mention the community of Bishops Falls, which has a population of over 2,000 people and which has, as its main source of revenue, the terminus of the Canadian National Railways. I am still amazed at how casually both the premier of our province and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hellyer), have taken the decision to abandon the rail passenger service which was announced by Hon. Mr. Pick-ersgill, President of the Canadian Transport Commission, from his summer home at East-port after the June 25 election. We, the Progressive Conservative members of Newfoundland had the privilege of travelling across the island on that service immediately prior to the opening of parliament.
The only observation I have to make is that the service is being used to a greater extent
The Address-Mr. Lundrigan than it ever has been, despite the calculated efforts of the Canadian National Railways to allow this service to deteriorate in order to discourage its use and thereby justify its termination. I call for an investigation into the actions of the Canadian Transport Commission, the Canadian National Railways and the negotiations of these bodies with the Newfoundland government. It must be obvious that collusion existed and the reasons ought to be exposed.
Questions posed to the Minister of Transport by my colleagues and me at the opening of the house as to why Canadian National Railways passenger service was being abandoned received replies to which I should like to draw the attention of all hon. members. I refer to Hansard, page 22, column 2, paragraph 3 where it is stated, in effect, that because of the cost and the declining usage of the service this action was taken. The minister made this statement despite the fact that passenger service is costing a mint of money across the whole of the Dominion. When I am faced with this kind of logic, I am forced to ask why Newfoundland was selected as the province to lose its rail passenger service.
Is this the kind of logic that is to be applied to other areas of our economy? I think all hon. members present, and the Canadian people as a whole, must sympathize with the position with which we are faced, especially when one realizes the whole of our passenger service is to be terminated, and not a little passing track. The whole of our passenger service is to be terminated as of April 15.
I am as aware as other members in this house of the great sums of money that have been spent in Newfoundland during the past 20 years of confederation. We feel pride in being Canadians. I do not believe you will find people anywhere in Canada with greater allegiance to this country than the people of Newfoundland. I have had many great moments standing before great gatherings of young people and hearing them sing our national anthem, with great enthusiasm. We are proud to be Canadians. I think that Newfoundlanders are aware that great sums of money have been spent in Newfoundland during the past 20 years.
We are not looking for handouts, Mr. Speaker. This is not the type of people we are in Newfoundland. The premier of Newfoundland might certainly have gained the reputation of being so inclined, and I think that the federal government might have reciprocated and enhanced this particular image. It would
September 19, 1968

The Address-Mr. Mackasey have been healthier for the government of Canada to have co-ordinated the efforts of all government agencies in an attempt to develop the great resources of our province, thus providing economic stimulus for the whole of the dominion.
I demand here and now, Mr. Speaker, that the federal government set up machinery immediately to investigate the ways in which federal allocations of money to Newfoundland have been used during the past two decades. I think that the federal government has a responsibility to see that funds are spent in such a way as to result in the desired development for which they were allocated.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, in closing and in thanking Your Honour and this house for your attention, I challenge the government of this country to take its responsibilities seriously and make those changes that were guaranteed to the people of my eastern province in the terms of union of 1949. Let us stop treating Newfoundland as a young, irresponsible adolescent, one to be satisfied when an opportune occasion arises.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, there have been, and rightly so, many tributes paid to Your Honour since the beginning of this particular debate. I know I speak for all members of the house when I suggest that it was the impartial, capable and firm manner in which you conducted the sessions of the last parliament more than any other single action that has hastened the day when this parliament may be blessed with a permanent Speaker.
I should also like to take advantage of this occasion to congratulate the mover and seconder of the speech from the throne. As has been pointed out on many occasions, their speeches in both instances were very eloquent, and it is obvious that both of these young men will make a meaningful contribution to the House of Commons in years to come.
I became a member of this house, Mr. Speaker, in 1962. Since then I have met many members and made many friends, not only in my own party but in other parties. I do not think anyone would mind if I said that I have some regret, on looking around the house, at finding missing some of my hon. friends in the other parties, members who accepted defeat gracefully, understanding the insecurity of our chosen vocation.
It has been my good fortune, as one who appreciates and who likes the House of Commons and the debates which take place here, 
to have heard the speeches of the various leaders of the four parties in this house. Perhaps in previous sessions I earned the reputation of being aggressive and belligerent.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, no.


Martial Asselin: Never.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Thank you. I am glad you gentlemen have changed your mistaken opinion.


Mr. Woolliams:: What are you looking for, a compliment?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I should like to pay a compliment to the hon. gentleman who leads the official opposition in this house. Listening to his address, and while appreciating his criticisms, I was particularly impressed with the degree of sincerity expressed by the hon. gentleman and with the grasp and command of the French language seized by him during the short time he has been in the house. As one who comes from "la belle province" and who after 47 years still speaks French with an Irish accent, I can assure the hon. gentleman that his efforts were most commendable and certainly much appreciated.
I was no less impressed by the eloquence of the house leader of the New Democratic party. I think it is safe to say, Mr. Speaker, that this gentleman is one of the great debaters of this house, indeed of most previous houses. I think he is one of the great debaters of the last decade, even though, Mr. Speaker, as I have said on so many occasions, both his and his party's philosophies are more reminiscent of the 19th century than the 20th.
As for the hon. gentleman who represents free enterprise and Social Credit in this house, I think the humour which he brings to our debates in stressing his point, the Social Credit theories which we may not appreciate but which we all respect, is a welcome addition to the debates of the House of Commons.
This is my first opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to participate in debate for some considerable months, because of illness. Certainly it is the first time I have spoken as a member of the cabinet. It goes without saying that as Minister of Labour I intend to support my leader to the best of my ability. I have known the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) for some considerable time. I remember his first public speech, which was made in my riding in 1965. I watched with fascination and with approval his rapid rise from the backbenches of this party to the highest position in the land. The
September 19, 1968	COMMONS
victory of the Liberal party in the last election, Mr. Speaker, a victory which provided this government with a majority for the first time in a decade, proved to all of us that our Prime Minister more than any Canadian in political life today best personifies the spirit that characterizes the Canada of 1968.
I think Canadians everywhere, regardless of their political affiliations, are demanding a voice in government. They are longing for a Canada with a sense of purpose, a sense of destiny, a country on the march. Above all, Mr. Speaker, in the last election the people of Canada demonstrated as never before their belief in one country united from sea to sea, with two official languages, a country made up of people of diverse cultures. This was the real message of the success of the Liberal party in the last election. We have advanced-and I say this in all sincerity-to a position where all members of this house, certainly the leaders of all parties, accept this concept.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
Perhaps I may be permitted to say a word or two in tribute to the former leader of my party, Mr. Pearson for whom I have particularly deep affection. As I travelled across the country during different political campaigns, concerned primarily with national unity I never ceased to point out that perhaps this great Canadian's contribution to national unity would be best understood and appreciated when he had left the political arena. I think that is the case, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether members of all parties would be so united tonight were it not for Mr. Pearson's wisdom in establishing the B and B commission. I wonder if our centennial experiences and successes of last year would have been as great without a distinctive Canadian flag which represented, I think, the pinnacle of success of the Pearson years.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Oh, no.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I was speaking to a former minister of labour the other day-and incidentally he had represented a party other than the one I belong to-who reminded me that the minister of labour can never be a popular figure in the house.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Don't get discouraged.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: At best, he is tolerated. If any strike that occurs is not settled within 24 hours the minister of labour is accused of being in default of his duty.


David Lewis: We will give him 48 hours.
DEBATES	249
The Address-Mr. Mackasey


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I am not a reactionary, but there are many who are on the hon. gentleman's side of the house.
To be perfectly fair and sincere, I must say that if the minister of labour intervenes too soon in a dispute he is considered a reactionary; if he waits too long to intervene he is accused by the Leader of the Opposition of lack of judgment, of being without any appreciation of what is inevitably described in every newspaper in the country a national emergency. That criticism has been raised in this house during this debate.
It is my duty, I think, to express my philosophy and viewpoint regarding labour and labour unrest in this country. I think too few people understand and appreciate the free collective bargaining process; too many in this country fail to distinguish between labour and management in assessing blame for a strike. On those rare occasions when we have found it necessary in this country to introduce ad hoc restrictive labour legislation, that legislation inevitably has worked against the best interests of labour and has come down on the side of management. That is not the type of action that I, as Minister of Labour, intend to prescribe to my colleagues.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: This government, Mr. Speaker, is a responsible government. It knows full well that it cannot initiate actions which will be isolated; it knows that each action produces a precedent and a basis which will influence future actions and attitudes. It upholds the philosophy underlying the collective bargaining process in this land and it believes this philosophy to be that most compatible with the aims and aspirations of our free society. It believes that extraordinary legislative action should be delayed as long as possible; that is, as long as there is a glimmer of hope that the parties to the dispute will settle that dispute according to their own formula, or as long as the national welfare is not fundamentally threatened on a broad scale.
If the pursuit of this belief leads to a situation where national strikes occur, causing inconvenience and sometimes short term hardships, then that is the price Canadians must be prepared to pay for our type of freedom.
Recently, Mr. Speaker, when visiting Poland I spoke to the minister of labour in that country and I was informed that there are no strikes in Poland, in Russia, in East Germany, or in any country behind the iron curtain.
250	COMMONS DEBATES	Sepiember 19, 1968
The Address-Mr. Mackasey Strikes are one of the penalties, one of the inconveniences that a free society such as ours must accept periodically.
The government believes that legislative action to end a strike is a serious and regrettable step, which may be taken only when it is established beyond all doubt that the continuation of such strike represents a threat to the national well being. The minister of labour would rather be criticized in this house for being too slow to take away the legal rights of hard working Canadians than complimented for being quick to do so. Frankly, I am tired of hearing people presume that the Department of Labour is nothing more than a necessary evil, that it reacts rather than leads, that it shows no initiative, that it plays little or no part in the settling of disputes. Above all, I am fed up with those who maintain that the department is not truly concerned with the seriousness of strikes and their potential consequences. The department is most vitally concerned and is constantly taking every step open to it to bring about settlements that will be just to the worker.
What of the record of the Department of Labour in this year of so-called strikes? Perhaps hon. gentlemen opposite might be interested in some figures. Certainly those who represent urban constituencies will be.


An hon. Member:: What about the farmer?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: This year there have been 100 collective bargaining disputes which came under federal jurisdiction and were referred to the Department of Labour because they could not be settled through the free collective bargaining process without government assistance. Of those 100 disputes, Mr. Speaker, 94 were settled without recourse to strike action. I think that that is an excellent record of which the Department of Labour and the labour movement can be proud.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. MacEwan:: There are farmers, too.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Some farmers in Saskatchewan might agree with that N.D.P. philosophy.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: We could abolish strikes; we could eliminate them, if that is the philosophy of the hon. gentleman who interrupted me just now.


Howard Russell MacEwan: Get on with your speech. Nobody interrupted you.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Of these 94 disputes where strike action was avoided, 78 were settled at

the conciliation officer stage and the other 15 were settled by conciliation boards set up by the Minister of Labour. In other words, we have had six strikes out of potential of 100 strikes this year. At the present moment two strikes of minor consequence are still unsettled in this country. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that any reasonable man looking at these figures cannot deny that this is an excellent record.
It is pointless to review potential strikes or disputes where strike action was averted. I could direct the attention of the house to such disputes as the ones involving Air Canada, the CTV network, the Quebec Harbours Board and several others which, if they had gone to strike action, would have caused tremendous inconvenience to many people in this country and would have brought a tremendous economic hardship to many.
Personally I regard every strike as a breakdown of communications, as a failure on the part of labour, management or government, or all three, to communicate soon enough to resolve differences. I do not think that labour is without sin. I often wonder at the advice that some of the leading labour leaders in this country give to their membership; I often wonder at some of the distorted facts they publish and at their lack of co-operation. For instance, when the Prime Minister of this country suggests the establishment of a prices and income control board this board would inevitably work in the interests of labour. The co-operation of labour in the establishment of such boards is not always forthcoming.
I wish now to talk about a specific strike, that of the grain handlers, because that matter is of interest to many members on the opposition side. I think that that strike shows in a classic way the problems that the Department of Labour and the government are faced with in strikes of considerable magnitude. In the case of the grain handlers, as in the case of the seaway workers, all the procedures of the collective bargaining process had been exhausted. In both cases circumstances surrounding the strike and the serious consequences to the country resulting from the strike were under constant review by the department.
The main issue in any strike is this: When does a strike, unpleasant though it may be, become a national emergency? In other words, when does the public inconvenience become a public emergency? When does a private right become a public wrong and at what precise moment do the considerations to be given to these matters weigh heavily in
September 19, 1968

favour of legislative action? The government must take into account a large variety of factors, including these: Has the legal collective bargaining process been completely exhausted by the parties? What are the long and short term effects of the continuance of the strike? Are alternative services possible and operative? Is there any real hope of a settlement being reached by the parties involved and, if so, at what time and how? Is there any physical suffering as a result of the stoppage? Is the safety and health of citizens imperilled or is the security of the country undermined or weakened? These are most, though by no means all the questions, Mr. Speaker, that must be considered in determining whether a strike truly constitutes a national emergency.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
There is no standard formula that has yet been determined or developed that we can apply to one, let alone all the strikes affecting the public interest. We are always faced with the agony of careful judgment, of frank appraisal; but I think the entry of government through legislative powers can only be justified when a national emergency is clearly present and not when a reactionary press decides there is an opportunity to infringe once again on the free collective bargaining rights won so hard by the labour movement in this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, there is no text book, no foolproof formula to decide what is the appropriate moment to move into these disputes. In the final analysis it is a matter of judgment when a strike becomes a national emergency, an emergency that justifies restrictive legislation. With respect to the lakehead dispute, Mr. Speaker, the strike referred to by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), he suggested that I should have moved into that dispute a month ago. We do not know what he would have had us do, or what he would have done a month ago to restrict the rights of the free collective bargaining process, thus forcing the men back to work.
I have no idea what the hon. gentleman had in mind a month ago, but I do know that a month ago there was no national emergency as a result of the strike at the lakehead in this country, and that is a fact I am quite willing to substantiate now or at any other time. Mr. Speaker, my justification for not intervening sooner in the grain handling dispute was based on facts and figures supplied to my department by people who know the
The Address-Mr. Mackasey industry. I have been able to establish to my satisfaction, if not necessarily to the opposition, that not one single grain sale was lost as a result of the strike. Not one market was jeopardized or one commitment not honoured. Our commitments to existing customers were filled.
There was sufficient grain, in anticipation of the strike, at the port of Montreal to look after the customers in the eastern part of this country, the domestic customers. In short, Mr. Speaker, two, three or four weeks ago there was no justification for government intervention in this particular dispute.
Now then, Mr. Speaker, what changed the condition? What made this particular unpleasant strike become a national emergency? I think those on the other side of the house who are more familiar with the west than I know and appreciate the real reason, and if they are honest they will support my argument. The new unpredictable factor which changed the strike into a national emergency was the condition of the new harvest that is about to be reaped in coming weeks. It became apparent that the drying facilities at the lakehead would be needed to make this crop saleable, and to make certain its quality would not deteriorate.
This really was the fundamental difference in the problem at the lakehead last week, as opposed to the basic problem five weeks ago when, if the Department of Labour had listened to the advice of the Leader of the Opposition or of editorialists around this country, we would have walked in again with compulsory arbitration and forced the men back to work. That is what he wanted to do-


Robert Lorne Stanfield: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, is my hon. friend suggesting that I suggested he should have ordered the men back to work?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for putting words in the mouth of the Leader of the Opposition. Perhaps he should have clarified what he said. I am quite prepared to sit down and ask him what he would have done, since he raised the question in his speech and suggested we should have moved in five weeks ago.
I will tell you what I was prepared to do, Mr. Speaker. I am quite prepared to tell you what I intended to do. I intended to introduce compulsory arbitration in the house at the first opportunity when the session opened, if the strike was not settled, based on legislation advanced back in 1958 by, I think, the opposition. But in addition I had prepared a measure, and obtained the permission of the
252	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Mackasey government, to introduce and establish an industrial inquiries commission into the whole operation of grain handling in the west, to determine if management could afford the wages asked by the strikers at the lakehead.
In other words, if this house, or this government, or this Minister of Labour is going to be called upon in the future to introduce restrictive labour legislation in the House of Commons, then he is going to make sure it is restrictive not only on the rights of labour but on the rights of management as well. That happens to be my basic approach.
I realize full well the shortcomings of the Department of Labour. I do not want to mislead the house and say the department cannot be improved or that our record is without blemish. There are strikes we have not settled. There are two not settled this evening. But we have already taken action to upgrade the department, to introduce new methods and increase the size of the staff without reducing the excellence and the efficiency of the conciliation branch.
We are waiting for the Woods report, the task force set up two years ago at considerable cost, which will delve into the whole problem of labour from an academic point of view and a practical point of view, that concerns the working conditions in this country. We are waiting for this report to be tabled in December, as it should be if it is on time, and then we will submit it to a standing committee for its recommendations.
In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we are not standing still. We are investigating and proposing amendments to revise the I.R.D.I. Act, so that we can supplement the Woods report to make the Department of Labour what it should be, one that the government, the opposition and Canadians in general can be proud of. That is my mandate. That is what I intend to work toward.
I think there is another point I should emphasize, and perhaps it is the most fundamental point to the whole free collective bargaining process. No matter how we streamline our rules and update the I.R.D.I. Act, and upgrade the facilities of the department, no matter what legislation we may import from Scandinavia, or England, or any other country around the world, or how many eminent jurists prepare briefs and hold hearings, the one main ingredient needed to avoid labour disputes is the will to settle a strike, the will of both parties, the desire of both parties to avoid strike action. This is precisely the difference between the 93 strikes that were settled and the seven we were not able to settle
DEBATES	September 19, 1968
without action. That very intangible factor is the will to settle.
The work of the Department of Labour involves people, probably more than any other department of government. This is the point that is not always understood by our editorialists. It is not always understood by my colleagues and by members of the opposition. Without the will to settle, all the legislation in the world is useless, and the will to settle is a responsibility that lies just as heavily upon the shoulders of labour as it does on the shoulders of management.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me say that this week there has been a lot of talk about poverty. I am sure that concern for the poor people of Canada is not the exclusive domain of the Liberal party. Knowing so many people in this house, as I do, I am sure all of us are concerned about poverty and how to solve the problem of poverty. I think we are all agreed it will not be solved overnight, but I think one of the keys to its solution is the need to increase productivity, and increased productivity in this country depends on good will and co-operation between management and labour. That is what we should be working towards in this country. The day has long gone by when management can consider labour as a necessary evil and labour can consider management as something intolerable, an attitude still too prevalent in this country.
I think that possibly the problem of labour unrest in this country is not one solely for the domain of the economists. I think it should also concern our social scientists, sociologists and psychologists. There should be some forces, some people who can understand and reach labour and management and make both parties understand the value of communication. Both parties must understand that the prosperity of this great country depends on the productivity of our secondary industries; and productivity I repeat, depends on cooperation between management and labour, and a mutual respect for each other's particular problems.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
Until we achieve that type of productivity, so that we can take advantage of the Kennedy round and the export markets around the world, and are in a position to compete successfully with other countries of the world, then we can talk about the just society for the next 50 years. Labour has a responsible role to play on behalf of the people who are not unionized. Seventy per cent of the labour force has no official spokesman. Who

September 19, 1968

speaks for them in this house? These people have a right to share in the free society. Organized labour has a moral obligation to these people. It has an obligation to co-operate with management just as management has a moral obligation not to treat workers as slaves. Government, labour and management can increase productivity and make the just society possible.


Louis-Roland Comeau: Mr. Speaker, first of all I wish to congratulate the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), the leader of the Senate, the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. MacEach-en) and many others who have helped me become elected to this house. I could not see how I would be elected until these people arrived in my constituency.
I am quite proud to represent the people of southwestern Nova Scotia in the House of Commons. I say this because it is a difficult constituency to represent. It is difficult because all problems exist in my constituency. We have the problem of disparity, housing, poverty, welfare and transportation. The fishing industry faces immediate problems, and many more. It is difficult also from a geographical standpoint because Nova Scotia is barely latched on to the rest of Canada. In addition I represent the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia. Due to this fact the governments seem to forget that people exist there. It is difficult from a racial standpoint because in southwestern Nova Scotia there exist-and I say "exist" because many are not living but merely existing-people of many races. As well as white English speaking people we have Acadians of French descent, we have many people of the Negro race and also a few Indian bands.
Yes, amid difficulties, people exist there. However, when asked by my constituents what I should do in respect of the disparity, poverty and other problems I have simply answered, "The just society will take care of that; don't worry, you will get your share." I hope that my statement will be justified. I hope that the fishermen of Nova Scotia will obtain the same prices for their catch as are obtained by the fishermen of British Columbia. I hope that the people who have emigrated to other parts of Canada will be able to return home to enjoy the same standard of living in southwestern Nova Scotia as is enjoyed by the people of Ontario and other parts of Canada. I hope that the just society will provide for the young people of Nova Scotia a place where they can remain.
The Address-Mr. Comeau
We are not asking for handouts. However, we do desire long term planning with regard to the many problems which face the Atlantic area, particularly Nova Scotia and southwestern Nova Scotia. We require immediate solutions to our problems. We require an immediate solution to the problems affecting our fishing industry. The government has been warned that the fishing industry of Nova Scotia is in the midst of the longest slump ever, with warnings that it could collapse within two years. The chairman of the Western Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association has announced that only Ottawa can come to the rescue, that only Ottawa can relieve the problem. We read in the press that the fisheries ministry has no pat solution to these present problems. Six processing firms have been driven out of the market this year. Over 10,000 residents on the southwestern shore of Nova Scotia will be forced to leave the area. I hope that the organization which is projecting the just society will act soon. Otherwise, as one gentleman said, "We will all have to move out." We are looking for immediate solutions. In addition we are looking for long term planning of the fisheries problem.
The Minister of Defence Production (Mr. Jamieson) while in Nova Scotia on September 3 of this year said that planning is essential to ensure that a decent life, as well as good jobs, is offered to all. Planning is also essential in the field of public works. We are not asking that every village have a new wharf or breakwater. We are asking simply that there be planning so that we will be able to develop good deep water harbours, while maintaining and preserving the present wharves and breakwaters which are already in existence. We ask that the just society distribute evenly the funds available for public works.
There has been planning in the field of transportation. There has been planning for almost 20 years in relation to a Digby-Saint John ferry. I anticipate that soon this will be a reality. But we do not want 20 years of planning. The Prime Minister knows something about our transportation problems because he was fogged down in Yarmouth. At one Liberal campaign meeting Senator McLean stressed the need for improved transportation facilities, larger wharves and more adequate harbour facilities. I hope this statement will be honoured.
I hope that the new department of regional development will formulate some plan to benefit our region. As a result of the discontinuance of the shipbuilding subsidies the
254	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Orlikow shipyards have closed and there has been heavy unemployment. It is our hope that the just society will provide alternative employment for these people, so that they will not find it necessary to go to Chicago, Ontario or elsewhere in order to find employment. Many of my constituents at the present time are not in a wage bracket that enables them to build homes under the National Housing Act. I ask the just society to remedy this situation.

I also ask that the just society fight for the rights of the French minority in Nova Scotia, the district I am representing.
I call Acadians in Nova Scotia second class citizens, because we cannot write or speak properly, either in French or in English, the two official languages of Canada. We must correct this situation with the help of French television and other means recommended by the B. and B. commission. Let us be fair when we distribute funds to the Acadians of Nova Scotia.

The government should not be afraid to get things done in southwestern Nova Scotia, because if four years from now I lose my seat in the House of Commons because things have been done in my constituency I will be proud that I have had some part in this.
I could continue, but I believe this is sufficient to convince the government that the people of the Atlantic provinces, and particularly the people of southwestern Nova Scotia are facing difficult times because of the lack of plans and foresight. I could talk about the harbours from Parkers Cove to Clyde River. I could enumerate the needs. I could go on to talk about a second ferry from Yarmouth to another American port. I could go on and talk about the many studies and inquiries that have been made in southwestern Nova Scotia without any action being taken, but I will leave my comments until later occasions when the ministers concerned are in thier seats. I doubt very much that they will read my comments in any event.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
I want to emphasize in respect of this just society that we need action. I will support any government move to uplift the standard of living in the Atlantic area and particularly in southwestern Nova Scotia through any ARDA or regional development agency.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin, as almost
[Mr. Comeau.l
DEBATES	September 19, 1968
every other member who has participated in this debate has done, by congratulating you on your re-election as the presiding officer in this house. A democratic system can only work if the people in the country, whether they are the majority or the minority, have the right to express their views. A democratic government can only work if the members elected, whether they be in the majority or the minority, have the right to express their views and have the feeling that they will be treated with fairness whether they sit on the opposition or the government side.
The years that I have been here since 1962 have been hard years, and they have not been easy years for the Speakers of the house, because they have been years _ of minority government. I am sure that the view I now express is that of every member, and certainly of every member who has been here during previous sessions, that the work of the House of Commons has been made a great deal easier as a result of the fairness, the wit, the humour and charm with which you have handled the difficult task you have been given.
We have heard a good deal in the past months about the just society. The people of Canada were told during the election campaign that one thing this government would do if it was re-elected was move toward a just society. There is reference in the throne speech on several occasions to the just society. However we were given little detail in the throne speech, or in the speech of the Prime Minister the other day, about what a just society means and how it will be implemented. We were given about as much detail as the people of Canada were given during the election campaign. In fact we were told, as were the people of Canada, that there was no need to worry about what a just society meant. We were told that we did not need to understand it or know the details of it, but that all we had to do was trust the Prime Minister. He said that in God's good time, and some of us wondered just who God was, in that sense, we would get a just society. We are still waiting.
I agree with those newspaper columnists who still have great admiration for the Prime Minister and who say that we cannot do everything in one year. Speaking for a great many people, not only members of this house, we would like to see a beginning made on a new, exciting and just society. We would like to see a beginning to the creation of a more equitable Canada of the kind we were led to
September 19, 1968

believe we would begin to see if this government was re-elected. We have yet to see any signs of that.
Indeed, when you try to get anything specific from this government, you receive nothing but empty phrases. It is a common thing in this year 1968 for Canadians, whether they be politicians, university professors, newspaper columnists or ordinary citizens, to look at television, read newspapers and magazines and listen to the radio to learn about what is going on in the United States. We feel that we are quite a bit better off than those people. We are not directly involved in the war in Viet Nam, which many people in Canada believe to be an unjustified war. We do not have the race problems that exist in the United States, or at least we do not admit to them.
It is my belief that we are almost unanimous in our contempt for President Johnson. Last week when the Chrysler Corporation of the United States announced a price increase on the 1969 models, President Johnson, the one for whom a good many of us have a good deal of contempt, did not hesitate to condemn that action of the Chrysler Corporation. I am sure that General Motors and the Ford company will soon follow suit, at which time President Johnson will no doubt take issue with those automobile companies, too. The late President Kennedy not only condemned United States steel companies for increasing their prices, but forced them to rescind those price increases.
We have experienced increases in the prices of some very important and basic commodities within the last year or so. Some months ago we had an increase of about 15 per cent in the price of copper. This was brought to the attention of the government and it was pointed out that the copper companies, Noranda, Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting, and International Nickel, had never made a larger profit than they had during the last year, and that there was no need for that increase in price. It was pointed out that the price of copper was increased because there was a shortage at the time. This government did nothing about that increase.
Last week when Chrysler Corporation announced its intention to increase its prices, members of this chamber asked the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) if he would intercede. Today the Prime Minister was asked whether he would intercede. What did the Prime Minister say today? He said: "Well, what can I do?" The Prime Minister could certainly do as much as the president of 29180-171
The Address-Mr. Orlikow the United States. He could at least express on behalf of the people of Canada their contempt and their regret that a company such as the Chrysler Corporation, as well as companies such as General Motors and Ford, who will undoubtedly follow suit in the next week or so, would increase prices at a time when their profits have never been as large.
Several years ago the government of Canada, formed by this same government party, made an agreement with the government of the United States under which the tariffs which had been collected on imported automobiles from the United States would be waived by the Canadian government. It was agreed that the $50 million savings in excise tax would go to the companies in order to establish a system under which there would be virtually free trade between the United States and Canada in automobiles. It was felt this would allow these companies to become more efficient, produce more cars at a lower cost and that the prices of automobiles would be reduced in Canada.
It has been said for many years that the reason cars have cost more in Canada than in the United States was the result of our industry being smaller, with smaller production runs, and that it cost more per unit to produce a car here than in the United States.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
It was said, when the auto pact was implemented, that we would become more efficient and would not have to produce hundreds of types of models in Canada; that we would concentrate on half a dozen or a dozen models, would produce more cars in Canada, would not have to import them from the United States, and this would bring down the price of automobiles. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) tried to argue today, first of all, that the differential between United States prices and prices in Canada had been reduced since the pact was brought into effect. There is not a word of truth in that statement.
I have here some figures which were prepared by the united automobile workers, the union which I believe represents 99 per cent of the automobile workers in Canada. These figures show what has happened to automobile prices in Canada, as compared to those in the United States, in the years since 1964 when the tax was implemented. In 1964 a six cylinder, four-door sedan produced in Canada had a suggested retail price in this country- and these figures are in U.S. dollars, so that members of the house will understand that the comparisons are correct-of $2,569. In the
256	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Orlikow United States the same ear sold for $2,338, a difference of $231. The price in Canada was 9.9 per cent higher than in the United States.
The price in Canada for a 1965 model of the same car was $2,581. The price in the United States was only $2,350. There was the same difference in price, namely $231 and 9.8 per cent. In 1966 we had the same difference in price. In 1967 the difference in price was reduced by one half per cent. We were still paying 9.4 per cent more in Canada than they were in the United States. This year, the last year for which we have prices, the cost in Canada for this car was $2,727. The same car cost in the United States $2,501. The difference was still 9 per cent, that is, we were paying 9 per cent more for cars selling in Canada than they were in the United States, even though we have a free market.
It has been said, and not denied, that cars produced by the Ford Company in Oakville and sold in Toronto cost more than the same cars produced in Oakville, exported to Buffalo and sold in that city. If this is true- and I know it is-we can assume either one of two things, that the Ford Motor Company is losing money on every car it sells in Buffalo, which I do not think any member of this house would believe for one moment, or the profit for every car sold in the city of Toronto by the Ford Company is exorbitant. Yet the Minister of Trade and Commerce simply waves this fact aside and refuses to do anything, as does the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau).
We are not talking about some poor fisherman in Newfoundland. We are not talking about some poor farmer in the interlake area of Manitoba. We are talking about some of the largest corporations in the world. General Motors has assets of over $10 billion. The Ford Motor Company has assets of over $5 billion. Chrysler Corporation has assets of over $2 billion. Are the Big Three automobile firms in financial difficulties? Are they not making adequate profits? Do they need this price increase? These are difficult questions to answer precisely because this government, which believes in a just society, has never taken the trouble to enact the most elementary legislation which would require the automobile and other companies operating in Canada, both Canadian and foreign owned, to publish financial statements showing their assets, the extent of their sales and what their profits are. Therefore we cannot be exact in regard to the figures of these companies but some very interesting, and I think pretty accurate, estimates have been made.
[Mr. Orlikow.)
DEBATES	September 19, 19S8
An article which appeared in the Globe and Mail of January 19, 1965, said in part as follows:
According to one estimate, the average annual profit of the auto manufacturers often has run to around 30 per cent of their net worth, that is the total amount of their invested capital compared with a more normal 10 to 15 per cent return in other industries.
While the balance sheets of most of the major producers are closed to public scrutiny, one federal official estimated that in a good year the profit earned by one of the leading Canadian auto producers might run as high as 80 to 90 per cent of invested capital.
This is the kind of company about which the Prime Minister said today he could not do anything. I want to compare that in a moment with the kind of thing the Prime Minister said recently in connection with a group of workers who had the temerity to go on strike, something they had the legal right to do. We do know that in 1967 Chrysler of Canada made a profit, after taxes, of $27,797,000. We do know that the Ford Motor Company of Canada increased its profit between 1966 and 1967 from $16,781,000 to $31,580,000. In other words, Ford Motor Company practically doubled its profit in Canada between 1966 and 1967. Yet we are now being told that despite these very high profits the Chrysler Corporation-and I am sure that in the next few days Ford and General Motors will be doing the same thing-will be increasing the price of 1969 automobiles.
I make these criticisms of the government because I do not believe the government cannot do anything about automobile prices. Of course, Mr. Speaker, the government cannot order the automobile companies to hold the line on prices. Of course, the government cannot, or will not, institute price controls for automobiles. They certainly cannot do this if they are not going to institute price controls on everything else. But there are a number of steps which a government which believes in a just society could take. I wish to list just four steps which the government could take.
First of all, I think the government could, and should, protest publicly the price increases announced by Chrysler and the increases which I am certain will be announced in the next few days by Ford and General Motors. Surely the Prime Minister of Canada, who believes in and has spoken so often and so eloquently outside this house about the just society, can do at least as much as President Johnson of the United States.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)
Second, the government can, if it believes that the automobile companies of Canada are
September 19, 1968	COMMONS DEBATES
charging too much for their cars in this country, remove the tariffs on the importation of cars. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) gives just the answer I would expect from him; he shakes his head that they cannot do it. Of course they can do it. They can remove the tariffs so that if I, a Canadian citizen, want to buy a car and I am being overcharged, as I know I am, I can go to the United States and buy the same car, thereby saving a substantial amount of money. If the government did that, the Canadian car companies would bring their prices down and thus their prices would become competitive.
Third, the government can order an investigation into the operations of the automobile manufacturers by the anti-combines division so we could get a look at what is actually happening in that industry. Are they really making net profits of 40 per cent or more, as has been alleged by informed observers of the automobile industry, a net profit which is exorbitant?
Fourth, the government should, in the very near future, enact legislation requiring companies, including the automobile companies, to publish financial statements showing their profits year by year, so that the public could judge whether or not the profits of the companies, and therefore their prices, are exorbitant.
These are some of the things which the government could do, and I would urge them to do it. When the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) have been asked in the past few days what action if any they will take, they have made it very clear that they have no intention of taking any action. Indeed the Prime Minister indicated today that there is no action which he could take. I find it strange that the Prime Minister, who believes in the just society and who cannot take any action to control the exorbitant profits of the automobile companies, can hold press conferences at which he lectures workers and tells them to be sensible, reasonable and patriotic, that they should not rock the boat and that they should not ask for exorbitant wage increases, which the Prime Minister implies they are doing.
I should like to quote a couple of sentences from two articles written by George Bain of the Globe and Mail published on July 17 and 18 in which he quoted extensively from a transcript of a press conference given by the Prime Minister. I should like to ask the mem-
The Address-Mr. Orlikow bers of this house to compare the Prime Minister's attitude when he spoke about the postal workers with that which he took today when he was asked to do something about automobile corporations and their exorbitant demands for an increase in the price of cars. This is what he said when he was asked about the strike and about the demands of the workers:
You know that government is the only employer who can meet any wage demands, no matter how high or how preposterous they be, because the government.. . has no money of its own. It just takes money from the taxpayer, whereas in the private sector there is a rock-bottom ... beyond which the employer cannot go because if he gives more he ceases to be able to operate efficiently.
Certain wage increases mean just transferring resources from the shareholder to the workers, but there is a point which, if you transfer any more, the company goes broke ...
I do not know whether the Prime Minister was thinking about General Motors, Chrysler or Ford, but there is not much chance they will go broke; there is perhaps more chance that the government of Canada will go broke than that the same would happen to General Motors.
Mr. Bain had some very interesting observations to make about the Prime Minister's speech. It is reputed that the Prime Minister does not read the newspapers, and I am sure he does not read Hansard, so he may not read what I say any more than what Mr. Bain writes, but I find it interesting because during the campaign Mr. Bain was full of admiration for the Prime Minister, as were most newspapermen. This is what Mr. Bain wrote:
Reactionary may not be the word. But the total effect of those words, to my mind, is to foster public prejudice against all wage demands in the public sector, without regard to whether a particular wage demand may be eminently justified to correct a gross inequity.
In other words, what Mr. Bain is saying is that if the Prime Minister thinks that the wage demands of the postal workers or of any other group of workers are exorbitant, he should say so and not blame all workers, as he did in this press interview, for being guilty of demanding exorbitant wage increases. I say the Prime Minister should adopt the same principle in both cases, that of the strikes and that of the price increases of the automobile manufacturers. He should give the people of Canada a lead. He should do as President Johnson has done and as President Kennedy did before him. He should say to the automobile companies of this country that they are big and efficient enough and that their profits are large enough so that they do not need the

September 19, 1968
Division
price increases which they have announced for the coming year.
When we talk about automobiles, we no longer refer to a luxury. Automobiles are a necessity in this day and age. In most cities of Canada workers often drive 10, 15 or 20 miles or more in each direction to go to work. Farmers need cars, and nearly every citizen of Canada feels he needs a car and buys one. It seems to me that if the Prime Minister and his government really believe in a just society, about which they talk so frequently and so eloquently, they should apply the principles, which one would expect in a just society, to the kind of case which I have tried to document today, namely the unnecessary and exorbitant increases which are being proposed in the prices of the 1969 automobiles by Chrysler and other corporations of Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It being 9.30 p.m. it is my duty, pursuant to section 4 of standing order 28 to interrupt proceedings and forthwith put the question on any amendment now before the house. Is the house ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the amendment to the amendment? All those in favour of the amendment to the amendment will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Call in the members.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment to the amendment lost. The question is now on the amendment to the main motion. All those in favour of the amendment please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say, nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: Call in the members.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment lost.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, may I call it ten o'clock.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Gerald William Baldwin: May I ask the government house leader what will be the government order of business, particularly following the throne speech debate, and the order of that business and its priorities, so that the opposition parties, including this one will be able properly to prepare to meet that particular order, which I hope will be given to us tonight?


Mr. Macdonald (Rosedale):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. On the assumption that the throne speech
debate would go to the full length, which would be next Wednesday, we would anticipate calling interim supply for Thursday. In the event that the throne speech debate terminates earlier than that, we would be calling a number of the items on the order paper, most probably with respect to farm financing, items Nos. 5, 6 and 7.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, with respect, the minister speaks in terms of probability. Cannot the government house leader tell us definitely what business will be put before the house following termination of the throne speech debate?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: It certainly
would not be the government's intention to cut off the traditional rights of hon. members to participate in the throne speech debate.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: I have to suggest to hon. members that it is irregular to have a debate after ten o'clock.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Just on a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I assume my hon. friend did not mean to deliberately misinterpret what I asked him. I asked him if he could not tell the house with certainty, rather than probability, what the order of business would be following termination of the throne speech debate, and the interim supply.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I repeat we expect to call interim supply immediately following the throne speech debate. I would certainly be glad to have further discussions with my hon. friends opposite regarding the order of business but we propose, as indicated, to call the legislation with respect to farm financing.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This house stands adjourned until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.


[Stage Direction]
It being six minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, Seplember 20, 1968