1968-09-27

Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, the background of our great country is composed of telluric elements of great resistance. Each one of these elements contributes to the strength and personality of our country. From day to day those elements become more obvious, for it will not always be so. From time to time one is tempted to doubt the vigour of the Canadian identity, but in times of distress or of deep reflection, the powerful ties which unite us as Canadians stand out boldly.
Mr. Speaker, one of those ties is the stature of the men who are dedicated to public life in our country. Another tie is the fact that those in power in Canada have always, each in his own way, dedicated themselves to the welfare and the progress of Canada.
It may be said that Canadians have been well served by the men in their public life and that, when one of them passes away, regardless of what part of the country he comes from, it means a loss for the whole country. When a man of Daniel Johnson's stature leaves us, it is not merely the Canadians of that part of the country who are dealt a blow, but Canada as a whole.

Daniel Johnson exemplified those traits which any political leader, or any man, could well choose as standards of measurement: dedication to his country and his province; pride in the achievements and beauty of his culture and its language; courage in the face of adversities both personal and political; calmness and moderation on occasions when a lesser man would have exhibited neither; loyalty to his party and its convictions; devotion to his family.

All Canadians know that our country is going through a period of capital importance
for our future and that the basic values themselves are those which are sometimes questioned when the future is discussed.
There is no doubt that Mr. Daniel Johnson was one of the distinguished participants and interlocutors in that important dialogue which is now going on between Canadians and through which he was trying to find the common values on which the country could agree and unite. We will not forget that his objective was the recognition and the protection of the rights of French Canadians, since that protection is a matter of conscience for all Canadians and it is also, I think, the objective of all good men in Canada.
The people Mr. Johnson represented in the legislature, those who had elected him, those he had served for many years in his riding, know that they could not have a more conscientious, more energetic and, may I say. gracious spokesman.
On behalf of the government of Canada I express my most heartfelt sympathy to his family, to Quebeckers and to the government of Quebec.
Death could not come, Mr. Speaker, at a more untimely moment for this great Canadian.


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I was much grieved to hear of the death of Hon. Daniel Johnson.
His friends knew how heavy was his task but we hoped he had completely recovered and was able to resume his duties.
His death is a cruel loss for his family and deprives the country of an experienced and very talented politician. The country loses a man who, even in cases of disagreement at the official level, liked to retain cordial personal relations with the people he met.
He was a gentleman and those who knew him will regret his courtesy, his warmth and his charm.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)

Daniel Johnson lived his life in the public service, Mr. Speaker. He was first elected to the legislature of Quebec in a by-election late
490	COMMONS
Tributes to Late Premier Johnson in 1946. He was re-elected six times and served his legislature as deputy speaker and his province as a member of cabinet. Nearly seven years ago he was elected to lead his party. He led it well, and in June, 1966, became the premier of his province, one of the most important and difficult positions in this country. It is a good record, sir.

He was premier of Quebec at a time when the evolution of events in that province caused concern in other parts of Canada. It was therefore inevitable that he should be to a certain extent a controversial figure in his country.
I think that, at the present time, a premier of Quebec who loves his people and his country and wants to be loyal to them cannot help but be a controversial figure.
His course was a difficult one, but he followed it with patience and good humour.
He travelled across the country with his family. He wanted to get to know the country as well as he knew the province of Quebec where he was born.
Daniel Johnson wanted to build both Canada and Quebec, and he devoted his life to building a country where all Canadians could fulfil their aspirations.
On behalf of my party as an officer of the House of Commons and personally, because I had the opportunity to work with Premier Daniel Johnson and because I respected and considered him highly, I wish to offer my sincere sympathy to his family, his friends and colleagues as well as to the fellow-citizens of the deceased premier.
'[English]


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I join with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in *expressing our deep sense of shock at the death of Premier Daniel Johnson, and our sincere condolences to the government and people of Quebec and to the family of our late, distinguished Canadian. I speak on behalf of our party and of my colleagues who are here with me. I might add that a short while ago, over the telephone, our parliamentary leader, the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis), asked me to express his deep regret that illness prevented him from being here today to express his sorrow on this occasion.
We were all shocked this morning to hear .the news that came to us. Only yesterday we
.
DEBATES	September 26, 1968
watched and heard Daniel Johnson on television. He seemed to be in good health; certainly he was in good form as he discussed issues that are of concern to us in this country.
When we think of him we are conscious of the fact that he was an articulate exponent of his point of view, a point of view shared by many of our French speaking fellow Canadians. It must also be said that although he expressed strongly and vigorously his point of view, a great deal of credit goes to him for the fact that we have developed a state of dialogue in this country with respect to relations between French speaking and English speaking Canadians, and with respect to relations between Ottawa and Quebec.
Mr. Johnson, as I say, was a vigorous exponent of his views but he was also a loyal Canadian who believed that the destiny of this country is for us to remain together and build a strong and united Canada. Not only will the people of Quebec miss him, but Canada as a whole can ill afford to lose such a leader at this time.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues of the New Democratic Party, I wish to express my most sincere sympathy to Mrs. Johnson and to the members of her family.


Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Ralliement Credi-tiste I wish to join with the other members of the house to say how we were deeply grieved this morning at the news of the sudden death of Hon. Daniel Johnson, premier of the province of Quebec.
Such a death will be deeply mourned by all the Quebec people and the whole French Canadian nation, and especially by the people of Bagot county, a great part of which is included in Shefford constituency which I have the honour to represent here and which has just lost its member of parliament.
As premier of his province since 1966, and member for Bagot since 1946, he might still, on account of his experience and talent, have served the province of Quebec and all the French Canadian people for many years to come.
In its unfathomable ways Providence has decided that he would no longer be with us after giving yesterday the most eloquent and the most important press conference of his whole political career, as if it were to be the crowning achievement of his work.
September 26, 1968	COMMONS
How forcefully are we reminded of the fragility of life. Although it is full of great possibilities, it is at the same time limited and conditioned by its span and its events.
Mr. Johnson had the courage of his convictions. He had his own disposition, of course. I knew him very well because on many occasions, as members of a good part of the same riding, we presided at the opening of the baseball or hockey season and at the inauguration of sports centres or schools. That is how I came to know the premier of Quebec as a public man and also as a good father.
On television yesterday he said something which impressed me this morning. He said that his illness had made him more human. But today his ailment takes him away from humans and puts an end to his life.
This afternoon he was going to inaugurate the Manicouagan dam which is the most important hydro-electric project in Quebec.
Hon. Maurice Duplessis died in Scheffer-ville, an important mining centre in Quebec. His successor, Hon. Daniel Johnson, died on duty in Manicouagan, an hydro-electric centre in the same Quebec area, in circumstances similar to those which preceded the death of Mr. Duplessis, who liked to look upon Hon. Daniel Johnson as his own son.
DEBATES	491
Tributes to Late Premier Johnson
History will rate Daniel Johnson as a politician and a statesman who has definitely marked out French Canadian political life. His love of work, his loyalty to his province, his clearsightedness will be missed greatly in Quebec. The strenuous political life which he had set for himself and the responsibilities which he had to assume have unfortunately taken away too soon this dearly beloved father from his family.
On behalf of the Ralliement Creditiste we express our deepest sympathy to Mrs. Johnson, her children and all his relatives, and especially his constituents in the riding of Bagot.
Some of his political enemies might silently rejoice. As far as we are concerned, we share the grief of the whole French Canadian people.


Mr. Trudeau:: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, that this house do now adjourn.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to the motion of the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), seconded by the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), this house stands adjourned until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 2.50 p.m.

Friday, September 27, 1968



MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE

Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have the honour to inform this House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this house that the Senate has passed Bill S-2, an act amending the Publication of Statutes Act, for which the concurrence of this house is desired.



WHEAT-PRODUCTION, MOVEMENT, PRICES AND OBJECTIVES-CANBERRA MEETING

Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on wheat. World wheat production in 1968 will likely exceed 10 billion bushels, the third consecutive year in which the 10 billion bushel mark will have been surpassed. This is well above the average of the early 1960's. Competition for export markets will continue to be very keen. During the current crop year, for the period August 1 to September 18, Canadian exports of wheat and flour were 46.7 million bushels as compared with 43.6 million bushels in the same period last year.
Adverse weather conditions in western Canada have delayed the harvest and two weeks of clear warm weather are still required to enable farmers to complete their harvesting operations. Approximately 50 per cent of the crop remains to be harvested at the present time; the grades will be lower this year due mainly to frost and sprouting. The magnitude of the problem associated with handling tough and damp grain will depend a great deal on weather conditions during the next few weeks.
Top priority is being given to the movement of grain from the lakehead terminals to eastern positions for export and domestic use. This movement has been very impressive since the strike ended. During the first ten days of work over half of the 11,863 box cars waiting on track were loaded into the lake-head terminals. This has freed cars for movement from country points, and the movement from country elevators is now proceeding in a more normal fashion.
If there are large quantities of grain with high moisture, the Canadian Wheat Board, the Board of Grain Commissioners and the private grain companies will make every effort to handle such grain from the farmers before it goes out of condition. However, first priority must be given, before the close of navigation, to the movement of clean, dry grain to the lakehead for onward shipment to eastern positions.
As the house is aware, the purpose of the recent Canberra meeting was to review the world wheat situation and the operation of the new international grains arrangement since its entry into force on July 1. The result was positive. Exporter representatives expressed their determination to operate the new arrangement effectively and achieve its objectives, including the observance of the arrangement with respect to minimum prices. Satisfaction was expressed with the operation of the agreement to date and understandings were reached on action to be taken to strengthen the arrangement. It was agreed to fix minimum prices for two Australian hard wheats, and price guide lines were set for certain other wheats not listed in the schedule. New procedures were accepted for the collection of reliable ocean freight information for the calculation of minimum price equivalents and for keeping international wheat prices and export performance under continuing review.
The decisions and recommendations of the Canberra meeting will now be submitted to the prices review committee of the International Wheat Council, which includes representatives of importing countries. This committee will meet in early October, in London. The successful outcome of the Canberra meeting will contribute to price stability for wheat and facilitate the effective implementation of the grains arrangement.
The objective of the government of Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board is to secure 25 per cent of more of world wheat trade. This will mean exports of 1.3 billion bushels in the next three years.
Sales of Canadian wheat are being aggressively promoted on a direct seller to buyer basis. In conjunction with Expo, the Canadian Wheat Board invited all the major wheat buyers from around the world to visit Canada
September 27, 1968
494	COMMONS DEBATES
Recommendations of Canberra Meeting for marketing discussions and tours of our grain facilities. These visits aroused a great deal of interest and are now being followed up by Canadian Wheat Board missions into overseas markets wherever a sales potential exists.
[DOT] (11:10 a.m.)
I have written personally to senior trade commissioners of each of my department's offices abroad to ensure that no sales opportunity is overlooked. They are to submit market development suggestions based on their on-the-spot experience.
Private grain companies in their position as agents for the Canadian Wheat Board have a vast network of overseas contacts and are vigorously pursuing all export opportunities.
Individual sales on credit terms are being negotiated and I expect that the extension of credit arrangements by the government will result in the conclusion of significant sales in the near future. The government continues to purchase substantial quantities of wheat and flour for Canada's food aid program.
In order to mobilize more effectively the energies and experience of associations and organizations directly concerned with wheat exports, the government will establish, as a matter of priority, a national grains council. The Minister of Agriculture and I will be meeting with the interested groups in Winnipeg on October 16 to discuss the scope of the council's membership, its organization, administration, and terms of reference.
As I stated earlier, our objective is to export 1.3 billion bushels of wheat during the next three years. We are determined to do that or better.
In conclusion, the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Lang) and I are collaborating closely on all these matters. He will shortly be introducing legislation to double the level of cash advances for grain producers. Together with our colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, and with the help of the national grains council, we shall be addressing ourselves urgently and intently to both the short and long term problems and opportunities for the Canadian grain industry. The grain economy of Canada is a matter of national interest. Success in our production and sales policies and performance is a major factor in Canadian prosperity from east to west.


Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: am pleased the Minister of Industry, Trade

and Commerce has seen fit to make a statement. Many members of the party to which I belong, particularly from western Canada, have been pressing for information from the minister ever since this session began.
At the outset I might say we are happy that at long last the government recognizes the situation to be a serious one. I agree that western Canada is encountering serious difficulties from the point of view of climate. But farmers have faced bad weather before. The most serious problem which faces western Canada arises from the fact that when the international wheat agreement was negotiated by the former government-and many of the ministers responsible are members of the present administration-the negotiating team did not reach the conference at Geneva on time. In our opinion, and in the opinion of many experts in the agriculture field, the farmers of Canada were shortchanged in this regard. Before the agreement was approved by the various parliamentary institutions and governments of the exporting and marketing nations, the United States, a business country with a large surplus, dumped her grain on many of Canada's traditional markets.
This situation is the most serious which western farmers have faced since 1956 when approximately 700 million bushels of wheat were piled up on the farms and in the elevators. Crops are above average in most parts and quotas are very low-practically negligible. Financing is hard to come by at this time of the year and as a result farmers are having difficulty in meeting their obligations. Young farmers especially, who just entered the trade within the last few years, are unable to meet their mortgage payments, and if it were not for provincial legislation in Alberta and Saskatchewan foreclosure would be the letter of the day. Therefore I must say that on the shoulders of the government rests the responsibility for the fall-off in markets.
Members of the government can bring in new legislation which is commendable in reference to increasing the cash advances, and which will temporarily relieve the situation. On that matter I congratulate them, but the fact remains that the grain trade will not become healthy unless farmers are able to sell their commodities; and the loss of markets is the responsibility of the government.
Since the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) has said that the spokesman for western agriculture is now the Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan (Mr. Lang), together with the Minister of
September 27, 1968

Agriculture (Mr. Olson)-and this is no personal criticism of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce-I would hope that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) will see to it that the Wheat Board will fall mainly under the jurisdiction of a man from western Canada. I say this because when the Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan and the Minister of Agriculture go out to western Canada to discuss agricultural problems, the main problem involved is with regard to the Wheat Board and grain markets. How then can they intelligently answer western farmers, when the jurisdiction for the Wheat Board is in the hands of another minister who is not out in the field at that time?
Without personal criticism of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, who did an excellent job last year with reference to exports of petroleum, the first recommendation I would like to see emerge is that jurisdiction over the Wheat Board should be placed in the hands of the Minister of Agriculture, as was the case during the term of office of another government, or in the hands of the Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan, who has said he would inherit that jurisdiction.
As the Winnipeg Free Press has pointed out, the main thing is to export grain. Many critics are talking about a two-price system, but that would not mean very much to the western farmer because domestically we consume approximately only 50 million bushels in Canada, including some domestic consumption for feed stock. Therefore if we introduced a two-price system, as suggested by some experts, providing another nickel a bushel for exports, it would not help the western farmer very much. It is the responsibility of the government to find markets, and I repeat that the responsibility for the loss of those markets lies directly on the shoulders of some of the ministers who sit in the government.


Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskaloon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the minister has now made a statement in the house. Certainly it was time that a statement like this was made to clear up some of the serious doubt that farmers in western Canada have regarding the strength of our position in international grain markets.
I am glad the minister feels that as a result of the Canberra meeting there is finally going to be some real stability in the new international grains agreement. But if I heard the minister correctly he said that agreement has
DEBATES	495
Recommendations of Canberra Meeting worked satisfactorily up to now, and with this I would have to disagree. It has not, and the farmer in western Canada paid the shot last year by sacrificing sales and holding the line while the ground was cut from under us by other exporting countries. I sincerely hope that the minister's confidence in the I.G.A. and in other exporting nations is now justified.
I also hope that at an early date the minister will give us some of the facts as to what will be done by the proposed national grains council, and what its purposes will be. Until now we have had a grain organization, in terms of the Canadian Wheat Board, the Board of Grain Commissioners, and the integration of farm organizations into the advisory committee of the wheat board, that farmers have considered satisfactory. I think this house should be clearly told what the purposes of the proposed national grains council are, who is going to be on it, and what it is going to do.
[DOT] (11:20 a.m.)
A statement which appears in the Winnipeg Free Press, and which was circulated to us, says that there is a need to sell more for less. As a farmer I never became rich selling more for less. There apparently are people, not in this house I am sure but in some places, who believe we should do this. No mention was made of the inland grain terminals being used for drying purposes. I hope this will be part of the program for taking care of our out-ofcondition grain. Because of the confidence I have in the officials of the Canadian Wheat Board and the Board of Grain Commissioners I fully expect that this will be part of the program.


Mr. Bernard Dumont (Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, we are happy to note that one of the great Canadian resources is the abundance of western wheat. We ask and we hope that the government, fully aware of its responsibilities, will look upon this abundance as a manifestation of God's generosity.
This generosity should be used to feed humanity. There is no lack of technical means to transport this wheat to the countries which need it and it is the duty of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin), in co-operation with the Minister of Finance, (Mr. Benson) to find ways to distribute part of this Canadian wealth to those countries.

September 27, 1968
Post Office Changes
There is always a railway transportation problem for the eastern farmers, as the minister has stressed.
In 1962, in this house, I asked that grain elevators be built and transportation made by water. Everyone welcomed the suggestion that the waterways should be used to help the eastern farmers but, although the Liberals have succeeded the Conservatives, the problem has not been solved yet and today the question is how to move western grain to the eastern farmers. The farmers would pay much less by water and greater consumption would result, if the farmers did not have to leave their farms.
I cannot understand that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Cote) has not found a way to have grain elevators built in eastern Canada so that grain, so plentiful in western Canada, can reach eastern Canada, and farming can become an economic operation.
I hope, therefore, that this affluence will be distributed throughout the world, after the problem has been solved in Canada, so that this plenty which God allows will not be a punishment but a blessing for all the Christians of the world.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I have a statement regarding certain changes in the operations of the Post Office. The Post Office Department in its continuing study of the requirements of the various services has reached the conclusion that a number of changes should now be made. The increased costs of labour, supplies and transportation has added substantially to the cost of operating the Post Office Department. We consider that the department must operate within the limits of the revenue produced. The contemplated changes will produce a substantial reduction in the cost of operating the department.
Our studies have indicated that several services are no longer required to the same extent as in the past. Business firms generally are operating on shorter hours and on a five day week. There is not, therefore, the same need to provide postal service on week ends when most businesses are closed. I should like to remark here that approximately 80 per

cent of all first class mail originates in business and in government. It is, therefore, intended to close the post offices on Saturdays. Deliveries of mail will not be made on Saturdays. This will include letter carrier service, parcel post and rural route deliveries. Special delivery service will continue to be provided on a seven day week basis. Mail will continue to be processed and forwarded to destinations over the week end in order to be available for delivery on Monday. Mailings are generally very light on Saturdays and Sundays and this essential work can be carried on by a minimum staff.
In order to provide the means to purchase stamps on Saturdays, sub post offices which are operated in connection with retail outlets which are open on Saturdays, will remain open. A program to instal additional stamp vending machines will also be undertaken.
These changes, which are scheduled for implementation on February 1, 1969 will provide a much more desirable work week for the majority of postal employees. These changes represent significant improvements in working conditions and we are convinced they will be readily acceptable by the majority of Canadians.


Mr. Heaih Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I may say at the outset that this is a somewhat casual way of announcing the diminution in the service of one of the great public utilities of this country. I note the minister is announcing on a week end that in effect the postal services will be operated on a five day week. Let me reflect further on the merits of the case.
I should like to say in passing that it is regrettable that the traditional courtesy extended in the house of allowing opposition members to have a gander at statements of ministers is not being followed. I have some difficulty in dealing with what the minister has just said. I noted his reference to the closing of some sub post offices and the retention of service in some others. It would strike me that, according to the dissertation that he has just made, he might be in danger of having the jurisdiction in effect, in relation to the service to be rendered, geared to another authority rather than the government of Canada. I think these matters must be looked at with great care.
It is also my belief that the whole subject might have been introduced in a less casual way, so that the matter at this initial stage could have been reflected upon by the people
September 27, 1968

of the country. It could then have been given more serious consideration.
I can promise that in the future we shall have more to say about this matter. At this time we have no reason to believe that there is not a good deal of merit in the suggestion. We do want to see improved facilities for the workers in our post offices, but we do not want any detriment to the service to our public.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I join with the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie) in expressing some amazement at the casual way in which a long standing practice in this country can be changed simply by a government announcement. It does seem to me that, with an item in the name of the Postmaster General on the order paper, which means that in due course we will be discussing matters affecting this department, there might have been a discussion in the House of Commons about this proposal before it was brought into effect.
The Postmaster General has made some pretty categorical statements about the extent to which businesses are on a five day week. It strikes me that he has been a bit rigid in what he has said, and that parliament ought to have had the opportunity to consider the position of those who may require service over the week end. I would point out that the suggestion that special delivery service will still be available on Saturday and Sunday is a way of saying that if people must have service on week ends, which they have been used to over the years, they will have to pay higher rates.
As the hon. member for Hillsborough suggested, there is undoubtedly merit in the idea of streamlining and making changes. We should not be people who say that because something has always been done, that is the way it should always be done. However, it does strike me as a bit alarming that we are beginning to get this succession of announcements on a unilateral basis from the government benches as to changes that are going to be made.
We had one from the Prime Minister a couple of days ago that we did not like. Now we have one from the Postmaster General. Who next without prior discussion, is going to stand up and tell parliament what is going to be done? As I have already said, there is an item on the order paper which we will reach in due course. I hope that when we reach it,
Post Office Changes
we will be able to discuss all aspects of the work of the Post Office Department.
[Translation}


Mr. Andre Foriin (Loibiniere):: Mr. Speaker, first I wish to tell the minister that we are glad of his endeavours to rejuvenate the Post Office Department and make it more efficient. However, I also want to tell him that we are disappointed that opposition parties have not been consulted once again-it is always the same thing. Opposition parties are not here just for the sake of appearance and should be consulted before measures like the one which is now proposed are adopted.
Evidently, the department must keep its operating costs within its income to be economical and to balance its budget. A close look at the revised estimates tabled this week reveals that operating costs-at least, as given-are much higher than had been expected. What has happened? No one knows and we cannot find out.
Le Devoir, on May 23, 1965, reported as follows, and I quote:
In his report dated September 27, 1965, Justice Anderson made the following comments:
"While in the process of determining whether the salary rates of postal employees are fair and reasonable, I reached a point where I wondered whether, with a view to ensuring a better postal service in Canada and to meeting the needs of the people who deal therewith, it might not be advisable to hand over the administration of that service to a crown corporation."
I do not mean to say that we are necessarily in favour of setting up a crown corporation, but I feel the house should know whether or not the hon. minister intends to transform the Post Office Department into a crown corporation, or whether he intends to continue making changes of minor importance as he is now doing?
Mr. Speaker, should those be the intentions of the minister, I feel it would certainly be in order for him to advise the house before making them rather than after.
[DOT] (11:30 a.m.)



NAVIGABLE WATERS PROTECTION ACT


Mr. Richard J. J. Durante (Comox-Alberni) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-105, to amend the Navigable Waters Protection Act (prevention of water pollution).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.
September 27, 1968

Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr, Durante:: Mr. Speaker, it is the purpose of this bill to place financial responsibility on the owners for the immediate removal of a wreck or its cargo causing water pollution or constituting a danger to water fowl or marine life.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the right hon. Prime Minister. In view of the statement in the prospectus filed by the government with the United States securities and exchange commission on May 25 this year, stating the intention to "reduce expenditures further to a level of $10,225,000,000 which would bring the government budgetary position for the fiscal year of 1969 very close to a balance," is it the intention of the government to honour that commitment to have the budget very close to balance?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, this seems like the beginning of the debate on the budget.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: Answer.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the estimates which were tabled the other day obviously make it clear that expenses which are not controllable by the government have risen beyond any expectation. It is obvious that we cannot break a statute or an agreement which has been reached with the provinces, and that these expenses have exceeded everyone's expectations. We have tried to compensate for that by cutting very seriously into all the controllable expenditures. We have done so in spite of the repeated demands by the opposition that we spend more in every area, and their objections to any cuts that we announce any day.
I think the federal-provincial conference of finance ministers which is coming up in the next couple of months will attempt to reach agreement with the provinces that cuts be made in the areas non-controllable by us. If we succeed, we will be able to tell the United States that we will come as close to meeting our intention as we can. But until we have either the authority of this house to reduce
[Mr. Durante.)
our statutory obligations, or authority from the provinces to reduce our matched grants, we cannot make this commitment.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Does the Prime Minister believe that either of the alternatives that he suggests, reducing the obligations shared with the provinces or reducing the statutory obligations of the government, have any prospect of enabling the government to achieve close to a balanced budget this year? Are these suggestions put forward seriously in reply to my question?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I repeat that this is really a budget debate. If I were to say we would triple taxes, I am sure we could balance our budget; but this is not a statement I am prepared to make now.


Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hasl-ings):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is it the intention of the government to try to balance the budget without raising taxes?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of Transport. Will he consider authorizing an independent engineering survey of the economics involved in re-routing the contentious Boundary bay railroad in British Columbia?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I invite the hon. member to place his question on the order paper.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Prime Minister and ask him if he intends to introduce during the present session legislation providing for an immediate increase in the pensions of superannuated civil servants?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, this is an example of the attitude of the opposition which complains each
September 27, 1968

time we make reductions and which, on the other hand, would blame us if we wanted to increase taxes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that already this session the Minister of Finance has said this matter is under consideration, will the Prime Minister answer the question that was just put to him by my hon. friend?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.



EXTERNAL AID


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, has the government
received a communication from the 80 Roman Catholic bishops who have been meeting in Winnipeg this week, strongly criticizing the government for hiding behind the curtain of non-intervention in Biafra? If so, would the Prime Minister table the communication and the government's reply to it?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, I do not know of any such communication. While I am on my feet I would say clearly to the churches, to the Canadian people and to the members of the opposition that there is a distinction between the government aiding Biafra over the head of a friendly state like Nigeria, and the churches themselves. The Red Cross did not get as much money from the Canadian people or from the churches as was hoped. If the Canadian people want to do more about Biafra, they are certainly welcome to do it; but both they and the opposition should realize there is a great distinction between the Canadian state helping a rebellious cause in a friendly nation and the Canadian people doing it themselves.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Harris Hees: I have a supplementary question.
I am sure the churches will be interested in the lecture which the Prime Minister has read to them; and as he has said that he is not aware of any communication-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member kindly ask his question.


George Harris Hees: May I ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the Prime Minister
Inquiries of the Ministry check with his office when he returns to it because I think he will find there a little something waiting for him.


Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: I wish to direct my supplementary question either to the right hon. Prime Minister or to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In the light of the fact that food for Biafra, in contrast with food for federally held territory, can arrive only by way of the Red Cross on the Fernando Po and the church groups on Sao Tome, will the government undertake to send some of the latest shipments of food to these islands so that they have some hope of reaching the Biafran people.


Hon. Miichell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, permit me to answer the question. I spent some hours with General Wrinch of the Canadian Red Cross discussing this question, and I think it can be done.


Bernard Dumont: Would the Secretary of State for External Affairs tell us if he intends to assist Biafra before or after the occupation by federal troops?


Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, my second supplementary question relates to the actual shipping of food. In view of the fact that the Red Cross and other relief organizations have said that Hercules aircraft are by far the best for this type of shipping of food into Biafra, has the government considered lending Hercules aircraft for this purpose to the Red Cross?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, there has been some discussion of this matter with the Red Cross. It is the considerations raised by the Prime Minister that have caused us to pause. Of course we would have no difficulty if the Red Cross and the other organizations which are supporting the Red Cross wish to charter a plane and fly it in any cause that they wish, but it is quite another matter for the government to get involved directly because I am afraid that that would be considered a very unfriendly act.


Robert Norman Thompson: The Swedish government is doing it.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Do I understand the Secretary of State for External Affairs to be suggesting that Canada would be reluctant to provide a plane for the Canadian Red Cross to bring relief to the people who are dying
500	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry because it might be regarded as an unfriendly act?


Mr. Diefenbaker:: That is what he said.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker-


George Harris Hees: Here he goes again.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Does the hon. member not wish me to speak?


George Harris Hees: Go ahead. We are all very enthusiastic and very pleased to hear you.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, may I repeat the government's position that we have helped the Canadian Red Cross; that much earlier we sent an aircraft, and offered Hercules aircraft to them. One of them went to Lagos with food and drugs.


Robert Norman Thompson: What good is it to Lagos?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: It is good for Lagos. We were acting in the way the Red Cross have suggested and we would still do that for the Red Cross. The point at which the government stops is when it is committing an act of war against a friendly state, which in this case would be Nigeria.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Don't say oh. Listen a little bit.


Mr. MacEwan:: Heil Hitler.


An hon. Member:: Dictator.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I invite volunteers from the opposition or from the churches to do as have volunteers in other parts of the world, that is to fly into Biafra to help these people. If the Canadian government were to put an air force plane manned by air force personnel at the unconditional disposal of the Red Cross, and if that plane were to be shot down over Nigeria, I am sure the opposition would ask us to send troops in there to protect our own people, and if they did that they would be showing a sense of irresponsibility because our action had been met by a hostile reaction. This is the dilemma in which we find ourselves. We commend the Red Cross, the churches and the members of the opposition as well as those members of the public for wanting to do something to help.


Mr. Bell:: You are changing your mind now.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We cannot intervene, short of commiting an act of war against Nigeria and intervening in the affairs of that country. May [Mr. Stanfield.}
DEBATES	September 27, 1968
I repeat that 29 out of 33 members of the Organization for African Unity have refused to do so. These African states themselves have said they would not interfere in the affairs of Nigeria. It would be very wrong for Canada to interfere in the affairs of Nigeria and to send our own army and air force there, even under a humanitarian guise, to do something which would be a violation of that nation's frontiers. I hope that even if the opposition does not see that, the Canadian people will. If they want to be generous with their lives and their money, I wish to heck they would.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Gérard Laprise: Mr. Speaker,
I have a supplementary question for the right hon. Prime Minister, following the speech he has just made.
He said that he did not want to take steps which the O.A.U. itself does not intend to take. Is the right hon. Prime Minister familiar with the reasons preventing the O.A.U. from taking a stand at present in the Nigerian conflict?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, those meetings were public- they were taking place in Algiers-and I think that the reports we have received are available to everybody.
The African states consider this to be a civil war within a state. All these African states themselves are made up of a great many tribes. They know that if one tribe rebels in just one of these countries, whether it be in Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa, Nigeria or Senegal, and if all the other African states were to intervene to help this one rebellious tribe, there would be fighting and bloodshed all over Africa. That is what they see and what the opposition does not seem to understand.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. I should like to ask the Prime Minister, in view of how the situation in Biafra has touched the conscience of the Canadian people-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Max Saltsman: -is he not prepared to have the government-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.
September 27, 1968	COMMONS



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister and ask him, in view of the fact that this matter of Biafra covers two or three departments, whether he can now give us any information that the deep humanitarian feelings of the Secretary of State for External Affairs for the starving people in Biafra have impelled the government to bring about, together with other nations in the United Nations, the introduction of a resolution.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I answered this question at the last opportunity I had for answering questions. We are still hoping it will be possible to have the humanitarian aspects of these tragic events discussed at the United Nations. However, as I have said before, I do not believe it will help the starving people of Biafra to have a debate in the United Nations on the political future of Nigeria, and that is the reason that most countries have been very reluctant to introduce a resolution in such a way that it would lead only to that type of debate.


John George Diefenbaker: I have a further supplementary question. May I ask the minister why Canada has not given a lead in this regard and launched a resolution, and why it has not found out which nations are against action being taken. While we talk and the United Nations dilly-dallies on this, thousands are dying every day.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, if I had any evidence to suggest to this house that the introduction of a resolution of this kind would help the people of Nigeria and Biafra, I would certainly have no hesitation in introducing it. The information I have obtained from all the countries with which our delegate has discussed the matter is that this must be approached in a way which will ensure that the United Nations deals with the humanitarian aspects and that a debate between the great powers of the world on the future of the government of Nigeria is not entered into.


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: I have a supplementary question. I wonder whether the Secretary of State for External Affairs could tell the house if he has had any reply to the letter which he wrote to the secretary
DEBATES	501
Inquiries of the Ministry general of the United Nations, and if he has, will he table it so that the house can see it?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I had hoped to have a reply by this week. It has not yet been received. I shall certainly table it as soon as it is received.


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breion-Easl Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Prime Minister. Since the Prime Minister and his government concern themselves with intervention in the internal affairs of Nigeria, why the somersault? They arbitrarily interfered in the internal affairs of Rhodesia and now there has been a complete somersault.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This was a United Nations decision; that is the whole difference. It was a Security Council decision.



AVAILABILITY OF VACCINE TO COMBAT INFLUENZA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the minister of health and welfare. In view of the alarming statement made by a prominent Canadian doctor that the A-2 flu bug will hit North America this fall, that it will be severe, and that at present no virus vaccine is available, can the minister assure the house that all necessary steps are being taken to provide the vaccine so that the public may be protected?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I believe the department is going to deal with this matter but I should like to take the question as notice and reply early next week.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Ian Watson (Laprairie):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the minister of consumer affairs. In the light of the projected closing of the Atwater farmers' market in Montreal, would the minister undertake to consult the Minister of Agriculture to determine the feasibility of joint consumer affairs-Depart-men't of Agriculture action to encourage farmers' markets in suburban and urban areas of Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has made a representation which I assume has been noted.
September 27, 1968

Inquiries of the Ministry INDIAN AFFAIRS



PAYMENT FOR MEDICAL TREATMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that medical doctors have been receiving from the federal government only approximately 50 per cent of their scheduled fees for providing medical services to the Indian people, can the minister assure the house that he will clarify this aspect of the government's policy when he makes his statement early next week?


John Carr Munro: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. I should like to ask the minister of health and welfare whether drugs are being dispensed on Indian reservations by unqualified persons, and whether this has been brought about by the government's economy drive. If so, how does it square with the just society?



CONSUMER AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kings-way):: Mr. Speaker, about 10 days ago I asked the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs whether he would consider the establishment of a standing committee for his department. I wonder whether he is in a position to say whether or not a decision has been made, and, if so, what it is?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minisier of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the answer is that I am still considering it.



REQUEST FOR MEMBERSHIP OF COUNCIL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland-Col-chester North):: My question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Now that the minister has announced by way of a press release that the federal-provincial conference on consumer affairs is to be held in Ottawa, beginning on October 28, will he tell the house whether the government has made up its mind as to the membership of the consumer council.


Stanley Ronald Basford: No, Mr. Speaker.
fMr. Speaker.]
fTranslation]



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
André-Gilles Fortin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the hon. Postmaster General.
Has he appointed a task force to study the possible conversion of the Post Office Department into a crown corporation? If so, will a report be tabled before the passage of the next post office legislation as announced in the Speech from the Throne?


Eric William Kierans: The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no. Such a report will not be filed before a year. Besides, it has no relation whatsoever with the bill, except that both will contribute to making the Post Office Department more efficient and more modern than ever.



BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State. It is in connection with order in council 1968-1809 and the press release issued yesterday regarding radio and television broadcasting facilities in Canada.
In the course of that statement, Mr. Speaker, the minister said that this is the first step to implementing the broadcasting ownership program. I ask the minister whether it is a fact that the next steps that the government has in mind and is giving consideration to are those dealing with monopoly control of broadcasting and newspapers in certain regions of Canada, the investigation and inquiry into interlocking control of media facilities, and the consequences arising (herefrom?


Hon. Gerard Pellefier (Secreiary of Stale):: Mr. Speaker, in fact it is one of the questions under study, together with the regulations which will govern community antennas.


John George Diefenbaker: Would the minister give the house, in a short moment or so, some idea what the government has in mind in this regard, over and above the assurance that
September 27. 1968	COMMONS
Canadian artistic standards shall be maintained by controlling the percentage of foreign ownership of these media?


Gérard Pelletier: Mr. Speaker, I do not think that there is any connection between those two questions.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I suggest that the type of information now sought by the right hon. member should be given by way of a statement on motions.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. In view of his predecessor's refusal to provide teaching facilities for both English and French to newly arrived immigrants, and his own assurance that he will take a second look at the problem, can the minister inform the house whether or not the government intends either to finance or to assist in developing services that would provide this teaching to immigrants, and also provide immigrants with a better understanding of their responsibilities in the matter of citizenship?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think that that information could also be given by the minister in a general statement on motions.


Robert Norman Thompson: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. With reference to your statement, the fact is that immigrants are arriving every day. The other day the minister said he had the answer to my question and he was prepared to give us that answer. Could we now have the answer to my original question?
Kon. A. J. MacEachen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):	Mr. Speaker,
recently the Leader of the Opposition asked a similar question. He asked whether the policy laid down by my predecessor was to be changed, and I undertook to consider that policy. I have done so since the Leader of the Opposition asked his question. The policy is to remain unchanged.
DEBATES	503
Inquiries of the Ministry AIR CANADA



WINNIPEG, MAN.-CONSULTATION WITH UNIONS AS TO SALE OF BASE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Transport. In view of reports that Air Canada is considering the sale of the maintenance base at Winnipeg to a private concern, will the government make an early statement on this proposal, and can the house be told whether the Air Canada unions are being consulted about the matter?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the suggestion of my hon. friend is merely speculation that is based on the work of the committee set up to study possible future employment at the base for the men who work there. A number of solutions have been and are being studied. It would still be premature at this time to say what will be the final result, but I can assure my hon. friend that I think we are getting closer to a solution. I hope to have a statement to make in the not too distant future.


Stanley Howard Knowles: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister take note of the second part of my question, which was: Are the unions affected being consulted?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: They certainly will be consulted, Mr. Speaker, before any decision is taken and implemented. I think they are pretty well advised as to what discussions have taken place, but they will become directly involved if a particular solution involves continuing arrangements with the employees that they would have to be party to.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: My
question is addressed to the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. Now that revised estimates have been tabled could he, since the Minister of Finance is unavoidably absent, give the house a closer approximation of the date when the budget is to be presented?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: No, Mr. Speaker. That is in the hands of the Minister of Finance.
504	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry PENITENTIARIES



REQUEST FOR RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF JOINT COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold Winch (Vancouver East):: My
question is addressed to the Solicitor General, Mr. Speaker. Since a special joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons on penitentiary matters has for two years been unable to complete its studies, will the minister advise the house if he will give favourable consideration to the early re-establishment of this committee?


Hon. G. J. Mcllrailh (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, I should be glad to take that suggestion under consideration.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Heath Nelson Macquarrie: My
question is directed to the Minister of Transport, Mr. Speaker. It is based on a Toronto Star report on the Charlottetown meetings of the task force on housing, the authenticity of which I have checked. My question has particular reference to statements by two members of the task force in which there is the implication that Prince Edward Island is a hopeless economic case. I particularly refer to the statement by Mr. Campeau of Ottawa to this effect: Why should we, in the rest of Canada, pay so much to keep people in Prince Edward Island?
Will the minister advise the house if such irresponsible and insulting remarks by people sent about the country at public expense are considered helpful to the solution of our housing crisis, and whether by reading to them the riot act and the terms of reference under which the task force was set up we might be able to prevent other gratuitous and offensive lectures, thus bringing about concentration on our grave housing problems.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


An hon. Member:: Give it to them, Heath.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member has made a suggestion. I assume it will be considered by the minister.

DEBATES	September 27, 1968



OFFICIAL LANGUAGES


Mr. Rene Maiie (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the right hon. Prime Minister.
Could he tell us whether the federal government has had consultations with the Quebec government regarding the drafting of a bill on the status of French and English as official languages in Canada?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: The only part of the bill which could be directly or indirectly of interest to the province, would be the part dealing with the definition of bilingual areas, and this is the reason why we have decided that after the bill has been read for the first time, we shall send a copy thereof to all the provinces. There were no formal consultations, but of course information was exchanged at the level of officials. [English]



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. Speaker. Considering the reply he made on September 17 to the effect that the government has no objection if the house wishes the Prime Minister or the minister to make a statement with regard to the renewal of the NORAD agreement, will the minister undertake to make such a statement within the next few days?


Mitchell William Sharp: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mitchell William Sharp: May I take this opportunity to answer two questions which were put to me recently. The first question was by the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Schreyer) who asked whether I would table or otherwise make public the contents of notes received by
September 27, 1968	COMMONS
Canada, as a member state of NATO, from the U.S.S.R. subsequent to the invasion of Czechoslovakia. I said on September 24 that I was not sure whether a note had been sent or whether there had been oral communications.
I have now confirmed, as I indicated then, that the two communications made to the Government of Canada by the Soviet ambassador were made orally and not in writing.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mitchell William Sharp: The hon. member for
Kootenay West asked me some days ago if we had received any requests for assistance by Canadian nationals who were visiting Czechoslovakia at the time of the recent invasion and, if so, had all these requests for assistance been processed. Our records disclose no instances of unfulfilled requests for assistance by Canadians who were visiting Czechoslovakia at the time of the crisis.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Warren Allmand (Nolre-Dame-de-Grace):: I have a question to direct to the Secretary of State for External Affairs regarding Biafra. Since there are in Canada Biafran students who risk losing their scholarships, and other Biafrans under the auspices of the Nigerian government who are afraid to return to Biafra, will the minister state whether his department is considering assisting those students to remain here and continue their studies. Also, will such persons be given special consideration in obtaining immigration visas to Canada?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, we have been aware of these cases now for a number of days and the entire matter is under consideration. It is very complicated. Some of these students are sponsored by the Nigerian government and they have been notified that their scholarships are withdrawn. Others are financed directly from Biafra; they have lost their source of income. Still others find that their passports have expired. They do not know whether they will be able to get back to Nigeria. It is all most complicated and we are looking at the matter sympathetically.
DEBATES	505
Inquiries of the Ministry VIET NAM-POSITION RESPECTING BOMBING BY U.S.
On the orders of the day:


Mr. J. Edward Broadbenl (Oshawa-Whitby):: I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. Speaker. Does the statement made by the minister in this house on Monday, September 23, on the question of the United States cessation of bombing in Viet Nam mean that the government has changed its position from that taken one year ago today when the then Secretary of State for External Affairs asserted that-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member's question as asked is argumentative and cannot be accepted.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: have a question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In the light of stories that are circulating, can the minister advise the house whether the intense neutron generator project is to be cancelled in order to pay for the furnishing of the minister's departmental offices?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Greene:: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: Order, Joe.
Another hon. Member: A supplementary-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question was not allowed and therefore there ought to be no supplementary question.


An hon. Member:: Very luxurious, Joe.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, since, because of yesterday's circumstances, the President of the Privy Council did not have his chance of leading us into the promised land, I wonder if we could inaugurate the new rules today. Could I ask the minister what will be the order of business to be placed before this house. What are his intentions or the intentions of the government with regard to business for the coming week.
September 27, 1968

Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, with the indulgence of the house may I refer to the business to be conducted between now and Friday, October 4, inclusive. As hon. members know, we shall begin by calling the motion for interim supply. When that has been dealt with we shall continue with the debate on the motion to set up a committee on statutory instruments. When that has been disposed of we shall then call the three resolutions with respect to farm financing, that is to say, with respect to the Farm Credit Act, the Farm Machinery Syndicates Credit Act, and the Farm Improvement Loans Act. It would be desirable, Mr. Speaker, that at such time as the bill announced by Your Honour this morning as coming forward from the other place could be dealt with under the rules, debate be interrupted to deal with the bill to amend the Publication of Statutes Act so that parliament may declare itself on the form in which statutes are to be published before other measures receive royal assent.
Subject to our dealing with the Publication of Statutes Act we would continue, after the farm financing resolutions, to consider the resolution preceding the bill to authorize the Windfall extension of Canadian National Railways, the time for and the various stages of which may possibly be abridged after consultation, in view of its non-controversial nature. We would then proceed to the resolution dealing with the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, and then that dealing with amendments to the Post Office Act. We would then move on to the second reading stage of the farm financing bills, assuming that the Windfall amendment has been dealt with, and to the second reading stage of the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, as well as second reading of the amendments to the Post Office Act. The timing of all this is, of course, subject to the difficulty of predicting the length of debate on each measure, as well as unforeseen events which may take place.


Gerald William Baldwin: Having in mind the controversial and difficult nature of the omnibus Criminal Code legislation and the fact that it deals with five specific areas, involving a number of substantive changes in the law in addition to procedural changes, would the minister consider discussing with his colleague, the Minister of Justice, the fixing of an early date for at least the introduction of this measure into the house so that the government might have the benefit of the advice of members of the opposition as to the best


way of dealing with this bill on second reading? The government seems to be irresolute, now, and might benefit from advice from this side of the house.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I will be pleased to discuss this aspect with my colleague, and I appreciate the suggestion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question with regard to a point which might be considered in connection with Monday. In view of the fact that arrangements are being made for a number of members of parliament to attend the funeral of the late premier of Quebec, could there be an understanding that Mr. Speaker might have authority to delay the start of Monday afternoon's sitting until those of us who attend the funeral are able to return? Then, if necessary, we could sit straight through the rest of the day.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: It seems appropriate that the house should meet at 2.30, but adjourn until later that day when the hon. members referred to by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will have returned.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreeable?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Malcolm MacInnis: My question is directed to the Prime Minister. As 15 days have passed since the opening of parliament, is the government now in a position to give a report to the house on the development and future plans of Devco?


Righi Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minisier: I would have to ask the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to consider that question.


John James Greene: I did not hear the question. Would the hon. gentleman repeat it?


Mr. Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Perhaps I had better wait until the Minister of Justice gives the minister his instructions. Since 15 days have passed since the opening of parliament, is the government in a position to give a report on the development and future plans of Devco?
September 27, 1968


John James Greene: Not at the present time, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald MacInnis: I am sure the Prime Minister will accept this supplementary question. Inasmuch as the legislation passed to set up this crown corporation requires the government to make a report to parliament within 15 days of the opening of a session, or of parliament, and since this period has now expired, should not the Prime Minister, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, or somebody on that side know at least what Devco is, and ought not the government to be in a position to make the report which the legislation says is required on the fifteenth day?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I will ask about this. I will even ask the Solicitor General to help us find out something about it.


Donald MacInnis: I realized when I asked my question that a ruling had been made to the effect that members are not permitted to direct questions to ministers of the crown on matters outside the scope of their departments. The government is try.ng to get away from that ruling. Nevertheless the ruling has been made. Possibly the Minister of Labour could take it upon himself to instruct his colleagues with regard to this development corporation.


Some hon. Members:: Manpower.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Jack Davis (Minister of Fisheries):: On
September 20, the hon. member for Gander-Twillingate inquired when the Winspear productivity report was expected and whether it would be tabled in the house. This study of productivity in the frozen fish sector of the fishing industry of Newfoundland, financed jointly by the federal and provincial governments, is proceeding in two phases. A report on the first phase, a preliminary survey of the situation, has already been received by the two governments and distributed to the industry.
The final report is expected by the end of October. As to its tabling in the house, that will be conditional on the obtaining of permission from various firms whose operations will be dealt with in the report.
Inquiries of the Ministry ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES



CANADIAN FOLK ARTS-TRANSPORTATION COSTS TO MEXICO

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: I should like to direct a question to the President of the Treasury Board. Is the minister prepared to reconsider his decision denying a federal grant of $7,000 to the Canadian Folk Arts Council to help defray transportation costs to Mexico, in view of the embarrassment and frustration presently being experienced by the council?


Hon. C. M. Drury (President of the Treasury Board):: A number of representations have been received on this subject from hon. members on this side of the house. I have undertaken to consult with my colleague the Secretary of State regarding this matter.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Can the minister give the house some indication of the date upon which an announcement may be forthcoming? There is, of course, urgency attached to this matter.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: I think an answer has already been forthcoming. What the hon. member is asking for is a favourable answer, or a change of decision. I cannot give an undertaking with respect to that, except to reply as rapidly as I can.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Is the minister aware that a denial may mean that Canada would be unrepresented at the world folklore festival held in Mexico city, in conjunction with the Olympics?


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: I am aware of the difficulties of the situation, Mr. Speaker.

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



INTERIM SUPPLY

["Order. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business has now expired."]
Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $3,776,197,303.75 being the aggregate of-
(a)	nine-twelfths of the total of all the items set forth in the revised main estimates, 1968-69, for the fiscal year ending the 31st of March, 1969, laid before the House of Commons at the present session of parliament, $4,852,052,274.75;
(b)	an additional two-twelfths of Energy, Mines and Resources item 60, Finance item 30, Legislation item 15, Public Works items 25 and 30, Secretary of State item 2, Transport items 15, 25 and 90, Treasury Board item 25, Loans, Investments and Advances items L35 and L125, (Schedule A) of the said revised main estimates, $35,666,416.67;



September 27, 1968
Interim Supply
(c)	an additional one-twelfth of Agriculture item 15, Energy, Mines and Resources item 75, Indian Affairs and Northern Development item 34, National Defence items 20 and 50, Privy Council item 15, Regional Development item 25, Secretary of State items 1 and 65, Transport item 5, (Schedule B) of the said revised main estimates, $6,681,409.50;
Less the amounts authorized by Appropriation Act No. 2, 1968, $1,118,202,797.17, be granted to Her Majesty on account of the fiscal year ending the 31st of March, 1969.
[DOT] (12:20 p.m.)


The Chairman:: Shall the resolution carry?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether it was the intention of the minister to make any further statement but if it was I would be glad to give way to him.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Mr. Chairman, apart from giving the usual assurances that accompany this measure it was not my intention to make any further formal statement.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Chairman, it is not my intention to propose any amendment or to withhold the granting of interim supply. Still, in the circumstances there are a number of things I feel impelled to say to the committee.
One must begin with the estimates tabled by the President of the Treasury Board a few days ago, and with the statement that the minister made in tabling them. The revised estimates presented to the house amount to some $10,670 million for the current fiscal year, more than $400 million higher than what we were assured by the government on various occasions would be the maximum. In other words, the estimates now tabled exceed the commitment given by the government by some $400 million.
We must consider the circumstances that prevailed when these assurances were given over a period of time. Last winter the government was in a state of financial and political crisis. One must recall that in the last fiscal year the government was operating at a deficit of some $800 million and that last autumn, almost a year ago, the then minister of finance and the then president of the treasury board, as a result of concern about inflation, began to be concerned about the size of the deficit and began talking about cuts in estimates for the year in which we now find ourselves.
Hon. members who were here in the house at that time will recall the talk of hon. gentlemen opposite about the cutting they were doing to the extent of some $650 million, I think, on estimates not yet presented to the
[Mr. Drury.l
house. Of course this was exposed as the phony claim it was since it was nothing more than the normal process of a government cutting back on estimates presented to it by departments. Nevertheless this was the beginning of a series of assurances given to the house and the country by the then minister of finance and the then president of the treasury board.
Eventually estimates were presented for the present fiscal year, and in accordance with statements made previously by the then minister of finance and the then president of the treasury board the total of these estimates was just under $10,300 million without any provision for medicare or write-off of the Expo deficit. The then minister of finance also proposed certain tax increases, and the budget was discussed on the basis of those estimates and those tax proposals.
In the month of February the roof more or less fell in on the government. A severe financial crisis developed, including a severe drain on the Canadian dollar, and this provoked further assurances from the then minister of finance and the then minister in charge of the treasury board in order to ease the minds of the gnomes of Zurich as well as the Canadian people. Further assurances were given, including a reduction of some $75 million more from the estimates.
Let us have no mistake, Mr. Chairman, as to what the firm commitment of the government was. The firm commitment was a ceiling of $10,225 million on estimates for the current year, although at that time I think the minister of finance of the day still made an exception with regard to medicare and the writeoff in connection with Expo. However, as matters developed, further assurances were made during the election campaign, in the course of selling a Canadian bond issue in the amount of some $100 million in the United States. A further assurance was given involving the honour and the good faith of Canada.
In the prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which I referred to this morning in a question to the Prime Minister, a prospectus signed by the Minister of Finance who I am sorry is not in the chamber, it was stated that it was intended to reduce expenditures further to a level of $10,225 million without qualification, even dropping the qualification relating to medicare and the write-off of Expo. This was a firm commitment in the prospectus filed with the S.E.C., which went on to say that this would
September 27, 19S8

bring the budgetary position for the fiscal year 1969 very close to a balance.
When the President of the Treasury Board tabled the revised estimates the other day he tried, rather skilfully, I thought, to give the impression, without saying so, that the government was living up to any commitment it had given because it had made, as it promised to do, a cut of $75 million, indeed, a little more, in the estimates over which it had control. Let there be no mistake, Mr. Chairman. The commitment made by the government was with regard to total estimates without qualification, and the revised estimates tabled in the house the other day by the minister violated that commitment to the extent of more than $400 million.
Last winter the assurances given by the then minister of finance were that the increase in expenditures this fiscal year over last would be held to about 4 per cent. In fact, according to the revised estimates it is about 8 per cent, which is just 100 per cent wrong, Mr. Chairman.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Of course there have been suggestions made to the press that the provinces are to blame for this increase in items which the government was unable to control, amounting to over $400 million. It is worth while to take a minute to consider the items that are causing the excess. There is an item of over $67 million for public debt charges, representing the increase in the cost of carrying the public debt over and above what was previously estimated. I suppose the provinces are to blame for that. Then there is an amount of over $28 million for payments under the tax sharing arrangements. I suppose the provinces are to blame for the faulty estimating involved in that.
[DOT] (12:30 p.m.)


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: I might point out to the right hon. gentleman that the action by provincial administrations-


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I am not the "right honourable" yet, but if the government continues behaving the way it has been I will not have to wait very long. This estimate is entirely within the control of my hon. friends opposite. I refer to the estimate of what payments will have to be made under the tax sharing arrangements. Provincial behaviour is not involved in this at all.
Another item is an amount of $13 million to cover the carrying costs of the temporary
Interim. Supply
wheat reserve. I suppose this is a result also of the behaviour of the provinces. Then we have $7 million for the unemployment insurance fund, $2J million for family allowances, $13 million for the Atlantic development fund and $19 million as the contribution to the public service superannuation account. I am not against these at all. The point is that there is absolutely no foundation for the suggestion by officials of this government that the mistake in estimating which was made was due to faulty figures provided by the provinces.
The shared cost programs do enter into the problem of the excess of $400 million. About $230 million is accounted for by the hospital insurance plan, the Canada Assistance Plan and the plan regarding post-secondary education. If we deduct these items there are still items amounting to some $200 million which have nothing to do with the shared cost programs.
Let us take these three items I have mentioned, the hospital insurance plan, the Canada Assistance Plan and the post-secondary education plan. Are we to believe that the officials of the Treasury Board are so incompetent when making estimates to be presented to this house? We must bear in mind the praise that was lavished on the Treasury Board by the previous president of that body. We were told about all the tools they now have for making forecasts. We heard about the computers and the highly sophisticated procedures by which they are now capable of making estimates four or five years in advance.


George Harris Hees: They cannot even make them four or five days in advance.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: We might take as an example the Canada Assistance Plan. The revised estimate in this regard is nearly $47 million higher than the first estimate for the current year. In the first estimates that were tabled the sum of $205 million was provided for the Canada Assistance Plan. Actually an amount of over $35 million more than that was spent in the previous fiscal year. In other words, the Treasury Board presented to this house estimates for the current year for the Canada Assistance Plan $35 million less than the amount actually spent last year. I do not know what one makes of that.
I suppose one might say that these initial estimates were calculated quite a while ago and that since they were probably made up at


George Harris Hees: Or both.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: In light of the information we now have, who could believe that on May 28 any minister of this government, who had taken the trouble to make inquiries, would sign that prospectus in good faith? That is only part of the story, Mr. Chairman. There have been bond issues sold since on the basis of the continuing assurance by members of this government that the ceiling on expenditures of $10,225 million would be maintained, and that in this fiscal year the accounts of the government would be close to being balanced. Every security sold by this government in recent months, including those sold in the United States and Canada savings bonds, and there have been hundreds of millions sold, has been sold on the basis of this assurance from responsible ministers of the government. Therefore I must say, although it is a serious thing to say, that the government of Canada in recent months has been selling bonds under false pretenses.
I say in all seriousness that the Minister of Finance, the President of the Treasury Board and the Prime Minister of this country must or ought to have known that the representations which were still in the minds of the people of Canada and others who were buying Canadian securities that the ceiling would
September 27, 1968

September 27, 1968
Interim Supply
administer that plan economically and effectively.
Post-secondary education is another. I think we would all agree that it would be a very serious mistake if this program were cut back. It would be a very serious mistake for the future of hundreds of thousands of Canadians and the country as a whole. So far as the Canada Assistance Plan is concerned, I think the approach has to be much broader than apparently the government has in mind. I believe the government has to think in terms of an overhaul of its whole anti-poverty program and should seek a new approach rather than the one suggested, which is just an attempt to place ceilings on the program now in effect.
Then there is the subject of medicare. I say in all sincerity that if the government feels it is necessary to review-and I do not criticize this; I see their problem-the rapidly escalating costs of existing shared cost programs, is not this the time to heed the request of the provinces to confer about the medicare program? Is not this the last chance the government really has to exercise some control over the escalation of the cost of shared cost programs?
I think the provinces sincerely want a medicare program. Most of them have indicated that they do not really like the present one; they are concerned about the effect it has on their other priorities. The government of Canada seems to be seriously concerned about the strait-jacket in which existing shared cost programs are placing them. If the government considers this to be the time to review existing shared cost programs, is this not all the more reason to meet the provinces and talk seriously about the medicare program? This may be the last chance the government has to keep this country out of a serious strait-jacket.
There were a good many other things that I wanted to say. The difficulty in which the Leader of the Opposition now finds himself is that there are so many things to be said against the government, and I do not wish to trespass too much upon the good nature of the house. But I will say that this parliament is only two weeks old, the government has been in office for about five months, and there is still time to change. There is still time for the government to pull itself together and begin to deal frankly and responsibly with parliament and the country.


Mr. Crouse:: And honestly.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I have spent some time this morning developing one aspect of this matter, the lack of frankness of the government and the secrecy running through the whole fabric of the government. There is still time to break out of the financial strait-jacket in which the government believes it is. There is still time for the Prime Minister to call a halt here and now to the uncertainty and confusion growing about the policies of the government and their sense of commitment.
What is the impression given by the government? As I indicated this morning, they are certainly not committed to frankness. They seem to be committed neither to the monarchy nor to republicanism, neither to the parliamentary nor the congressional system of government. They seem to be fully committed neither to collective security nor to withdrawal from NATO. Certainly the government is not committed to compassion either at home or abroad. It has abandoned the anti-poverty program, and we express serious concern about the government's lack of concern with regard to Biafra.
The government has no commitment to excellence in Canada. It has cut down on science programs, on research and even on the arts. There is uncertainty in the country about the government's determination to play a part in western defence. There is uncertainty on the part of Canadians about whether we can expect the government to translate into action what we have always thought were Canada's ideals of compassion as well as justice for people. There is uncertainty in the scientific community and universities about whether the government takes seriously the need for scientific development in Canada. There is uncertainty about what has taken place in the discussions regarding the constitution.
There is a growing feeling in Canada that the government has no real sense of commitment. This being the case, let this chamber demonstrate that we have a sense of commitment. Let us encourage the government to courageously break out of its financial morass. Let the committees on external affairs and national defence draw up a program that could provide some relief, even at this late hour, to Biafra. Let the committee make its own assessment of Canada's role in NATO. Let the appropriate committee give the government a sense of priority so they may establish priorities in these fields. Let us have a committee study the constitution. Let us involve members of this house in the vital
September 27, 19S8

work of achieving a national consensus. That is what we are here for. Let the government appoint a committee of this house, or of the Senate and House of Commons, to study the question of poverty.
Before this house met the Prime Minister promised the country that this would be a jumping place. It looks like a jumping-off place for the government. But let us make it a jumping place. If there is no sense of commitment on the part of the government, let those of us in the opposition, those on the back benches on this side of the house, demonstrate that parliament and its members do have a sense of commitment, a sense of conviction and a sense of compassion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: One
o'clock.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Let this chamber make up, as best it can, for the deficiencies of the present government.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.
["Let this chamber make up, as best it can, for the deficiencies of the present government.\nAt one o'clock the committee took recess."]
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, it is not my intention to follow the arguments put forward this morning by the Leader of the Opposition, but I am sure we shall all await with interest a possible reply from the government to the points that he made. However, I do wish that when Liberals and Conservatives discuss this question of government expenditure they would look at it in terms other than just amounts of money and whether these amounts are higher or lower than were predicted. It seems to us that what really counts when you are dealing with government expenditures is the way those expenditures are made and the way in which taxes are levied for the collection of the necessary revenue.
We are concerned, of course, about economy. We do not wish to see unnecessary expenditure and we think waste should be squeezed out. However, our main concern about government expenditures is that they be directed toward making life secure and just for the people of this country. We think that is the purpose of government programs, that money spent on them, unlike much of the money that is spent in the private sector, is an investment in people. We want to see a further development of government programs which make it possible for people to have
Interim Supply
decent incomes, decent homes, adequate education and social security. We are not fazed by statements such as the Prime Minister made this morning when he suggested that the opposition asks for lower expenditures and at the same time for more programs. We think it is the business of the government to set up programs for the good of the people of the country, and we recognize that they have to be paid for.
The other side of the coin, as I have already suggested, is the manner in which government revenues are collected. We think that collection should be on as fair a basis as possible, that taxes, fundamentally, should be levied on the basis of ability to pay. There are details in the Carter report with which we may not agree, but in the main we regard it as an excellent document advancing the idea that taxes can be collected according to ability to pay, and also advancing the proposition that wealth should not escape taxation to the extent that is the case in this country. As I say, we get a little tired of these altercations back and forth between the government and the official opposition over the amount that the budget or the estimates may reach. What is important to us is the things on which the money is spent and the fairness of the taxation methods by which it is collected. We find both of the major parties deficient on both these counts.
I do not intend to elaborate any further on that aspect of the matter, but there is one other general comment I would like to make and then there are a couple of details to which I wish to refer. I may say that one or two of my colleagues also have some matters of detail about which they will be speaking later this afternoon.
The general comment I wish to make-and I am glad for this purpose to have the ear of my friend, the President of the Privy Council-is that I think the exercise in which we are engaged today demonstrates once again how urgent it is for us to review the methods by which we vote supply. Today we are being asked for roughly nine-twelfths of the year's estimates. The resolution is set up in such a way that it takes cognizance of the interim supply which was voted in the old parliament last March. It also takes cognizance of the fact that the government lived on Governor General's warrants for several months during the period of the election and thereafter. But the fact is that this motion not only covers all those months of expenditures which were not discussed in detail but goes on to provide supply for October, November and December.

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In other words, when this debate is over and we have passed the interim supply bill we will have approved nine-twelfths or 75 per cent of the year's expenditures without-and I say this quite frankly-any discussion in detail of the expenditures themselves.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)
We had the opportunity of making speeches on interim supply last March and we have the opportunity of making speeches today on matters of policy or on issues about which we are concerned. But if we keep this up for the whole 19 days that we have allotted ourselves for discussion of the 1968-69 estimates and supply at this session, we still will not get around to an examination, in any kind of detail, of the estimates that are before us.
I have been here for quite a few years now, Mr. Chairman, and cannot remember a session when we really did this kind of job and went into the details of the expenditures to ascertain whether or not they were correct, whether or not they were valid, whether or not they should be cut down or increased. We just do not use our supply days for that purpose. We use the days and we use the items as pegs for making speeches about matters that we think are important.
I do not deprecate what we are doing, Mr. Chairman. I do not downgrade it at all. I think it is important. It is an opportunity to get up on the floor of the house and deal with issues that we think are alive and current. However, in the process of doing this the job of critically examining the estimates just is not done by the House of Commons. It has been done in advance by Treasury Board. In a year or two from now it will be done by the public accounts committee after the Auditor General has made his report.


Gerald William Baldwin: If the government ever sets up the committee.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is a good point too.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: We want you as the chairman.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What I say now is not by way of castigating anybody. I am not assessing the blame. But unless there is some new machinery of a sort we have not had during the quarter of a century that I have been connected with this house. I do not see estimates being adequately discussed on the floor of the House of Commons. We have too much to do.

Even if we were to spend a whole year examining the billions of dollars of estimates, Mr. Chairman, we still would not do the job. The officials are not here for questioning, and the ministers are not as bright about these things as we might wish them to be. Perhaps they are not as bright-period. Surely the case becomes stronger every year for a reference of the estimates to committees that have the time and the research assistants to enable them to do the job properly. Otherwise, Mr. Chairman, we might as well give up the notion that in parliament we have any control over the pursestrings. The only control that is really exercised is by Treasury Board; and this morning the Leader of the Opposition wanted to fire the staff of Treasury Board. Then where would we be?
Therefore I plead that we take this matter pretty seriously. Someone may throw this back to me and tell me that I am one of those likely to be on the committee on procedure and that is the place for us to consider this problem. But, Mr. Chairman, we need the backing and the desire of the house for new machinery to do the job, a job that certainly has not been done for a great many years.
Total government expenditures for the year 1968-69 as at last report-they may go up again before the year ends-are in the order of $10,670 million, of which $5,780 million require to be voted. The rest of the money is provided by statute. By the time we get through with the exercise in which we are engaged today and include the interim supply that we voted last March, we will have voted $4,894 million out of that $5,784 million that is before us for this fiscal year without discussing any of the details at all.
In terms of examining the estimates, Mr. Chairman, this exercise is nothing but a farce. I do not say that debating interim supply is a farce. I think that having supply days when we raise issues such as that which the Leader of the Opposition felt he had to raise this morning and that other hon. members will raise this afternoon is all to the good. We are making good use of our time and I defend it. But the job that we talk about doing, examining the estimates, is just not being done by members of parliament anywhere at any time. I hope that the exercise we are going through today, will demonstrate the importance of the job that the procedure committee has to do, namely, to bring back some suggestions as to the ways and means of handling supply.
September 27, 1968

I said, Mr. Chairman, that while I was on my feet there were a couple of detailed matters to which I wanted to make reference. They are items that came up this morning. I am sorry that the ministers concerned do not happen to be here at the moment, but they may wander in. Maybe this is not the day that they do not have to be here.
This morning I asked the Minister of Transport about the Air Canada overhaul and maintenance base at Winnipeg. In particular I asked him whether there was anything to reports that Air Canada is considering selling that base to a private firm, one of several being mentioned in press reports. I also asked him whether this matter was under consultation with the unions of the employees who work for Air Canada at Winnipeg.
I must say that I was not at all satisfied with his answer. The minister's answer confirms that something is in the wind. He said that the report was speculative, but it looked like pretty solid speculation by the time he got through his answer. I had to press him a second time to answer the question whether or not the unions concerned are being consulted, and in effect he said that they know what is going on and that he will bring them into the picture just before the last documents are signed.
This is not good enough, Mr. Chairman. This is not participatory democracy. This is not involvement-and you remember that word, Mr. Chairman. The Prime Minister did not make many speeches during the last election campaign and the ones that he did make were pretty short. But the word "involvement" got into every one of them. This is what this great new political force was up to-getting the people of Canada involved in the running of their affairs. One of the affairs that affects people most of all is their work.
We suggest, Mr. Chairman, that if democracy means anything and if involvement means anything, the employees who work for Air Canada at Winnipeg should have some say if changes are being contemplated which put them into a position where they either have to pull up stakes and leave Winnipeg, as so many others have had to do, or transfer their employment from a crown corporation for which they have been glad to work to a private corporation for which they may not be so pleased to work. I urge the Minister of Transport not to think that he can satisfy us by saying that the unions will be told just before the ink is dry on the final signatures. They should be in the picture now in terms of the involvement which the Prime Minister
Interim Supply
said would be the key to public affairs in this country.
The other subject that came up again this morning, Mr. Chairman, is one which has been raised quite often. It arose this morning in a question from a friend of mine to my left who asked what the government is doing about the pensions of retired civil servants. I am sorry that the Minister of Finance is not here; we knew all week that he would be away, of course. However, I remind the Minister of Finance that during the time he was president of the treasury board he repeatedly declared his personal support for doing something in this regard. He knows the statements he made to some of us personally. He gave us the impression that it was only because the then minister of finance, now Secretary of State for External Affairs, did not agree that nothing could be done. Well, Mr. Chairman, the then president of the treasury board is now Minister of Finance and in a position to carry through with the things in which he said he believed.
I remind the government and this house that a report was tabled on May 8, 1967, which unanimously recommended that these pensions be increased. We all know that the amount of money in the public service superannuation fund is growing every year. There is more in the fund at the end of each year than at the start, despite the fact that pensions are paid out of it. I contend that the retired employees of this government are justified in claiming the right as well as the need for an increase in their pensions.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)
I am not going to be put off on this matter by the cavalier answers of the Minister of Finance or the retort the Prime Minister made this morning when he said, in replying to my friend's question, "See, this is the opposition. They ask for the cutting of expenditures and then right away they want more money to be spent."
As I said at the beginning of my remarks, the whole question when dealing with expenditure is not the amount being spent, not whether it is too high or too low or whether it is higher or lower than last year's amount. The question is, is the money being spent wisely? Is it being spent fairly and in the interests of the people? We should continue asking that that be done.
The only other comment I wish to make about finances is that I am alarmed about the

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Interim Supply
many references being made to federal-provincial conferences on shared cost programs. We are hearing such references from the Prime Minister, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Most shared cost programs directly or indirectly assist people. They provide funds, allowances, services, loans, work, or what have you, and when this government starts talking about reassessing those programs as a means of curtailing expenses it sounds to me as if it is planning a program of retrenchment so far as meeting the needs of the people of this country is concerned. That is not good enough.
I say to the government, listen all you want to the Leader of the Opposition and his claim that you must squeeze out waste and budget and estimate better than you have been doing, but do not think you are doing a public service when you plan the budget to save money if you save it at the expense of programs which aid the people of this country. So far this government has not demonstrated to us that it has any kind of new look or that it is trying to bring about the just society through the involvement of our people in the affluence of our times. Surely that is the important aspect of any monetary or fiscal program, and this ought to be our concern when we are dealing with the estimates of this government.


Mr. Gauthier:: to these amounts which will reach close to $275 million this year. It should control those expenditures more carefully. The objective is very good but we often notice in our areas, and it is probably the same everywhere else, that the management of these courses could cost less and be better adapted to each area.
The cost of medicare and hospital insurance will also increase. All these increases seems reasonable to me, Mr. Chairman, and there is no need to give very careful consideration to these expenditures to see that they are for the good of the people.
But the main question we ask ourselves with regard to these increases, is whether the government really looks for money where it is to be found. That is an important question for the members of the Ralliement Creditiste, because, in our opinion, so long as the financial system endorsed by the two old parties exists, we will keep on taking money from the little man, on the principle that if you want to get a dollar you have to ask for five. That, Mr. Chairman, is the principle we must get rid of. Discussions in the committee on finance, trade and economic affairs will have to deal with better ways of using our financial ressources, since we say that Canada is very rich, to serve the Canadian people and our society, instead of trying all the time to protect financiers and large companies, always at the expense of the worker.
According to the table showing the revenues, I note that personal income tax is still the best source of revenue.
I would like today, without being too naughty, to call the attention of the minister to the advisability of considering further the revenues of the country and forget a while the citizens' incomes.
I have often heard it said: Try to tax proportionally the rich and the poor, or to say it differently, be fair. We note there are so many exemptions granted to the higher levels that we are not at all surprised today, when living among the people and meeting the workers all year long, to hear recriminations and even a rebellious rumbling among the people who realize that they are taxed 150 per cent, while those who should be taxed enjoy the favours of the house and the Minister of Finance.
I believe this is the main point. It is the reason why I was asking earlier: Where shall we take the money in order to administer a budget? To this let us add at once: without 29180-34
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discrimination-and when I say "without discrimination", I mean by that it is discriminatory not to raise the maximum non-taxable income to $5,000 for a married man and to $3,000 for an unmarried man.
This, Mr. Chairman, is what I call social discrimination and we obviously shall have to eliminate it in 1968 or in 1969. Today, I appeal to the Minister of Finance, because he knows that there are some big magnates, some large companies, some large trusts, which do not pay any or hardly any income tax, while on the other hand the poor man with a family to support has to pay taxes on his meagre income which allows him the bare necessities of life.
I do not object to taxing luxuries, but when we have reached the point where, in a Canada that is said to be the second richest country in the world, we are taxing essential items, I must say that there is something wrong with our financial system. I wish today to put the finger on that flaw in the system for the benefit of the Minister of Finance, and I ask him simply-I do not want to talk much longer, this is why I took the floor, so that I may draw his attention to this point

if he wants to make both ends meet to go and get the money where it is and not where it is not, that is, in the workman's pockets.


Mr. Mongrain:: Mr. Chairman, I wish to be brief. I wish to say at the outset that I have no special mandate to speak in the name of the government; there are many ministers who will do that. But as a member of the government party I find it very hard to be one of the targets of this machinegunning without fighting back to a certain extent.
[DOT] (3:10 p.m.)
[ Translation]
Now, I have listened to the remarks made by the hon. members of Her Majesty's loyal opposition. When I hear the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) speak of the opposition, I draw my own conclusions. There must be a loyal opposition, another less loyal and then another disloyal. Since nobody ever makes any distinction when speaking of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, I am compelled to do so.
I have listened to the remarks made by the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) and I must say that he has performed a surgical operation without any anaesthetics. He has not even thought about giving the government any anaesthetics

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before operating and he was somewhat cruel in his operation. I am not saying that he was not a little bit right. I say that he has contributed here serious arguments which offhand, seem firm until, of course, we hear the responsible minister's reply. I believe he made an important statement. It was based on facts and figures. He acted as a statesman should, without guile or meanness. This must be acknowledged. I would not go so far as saying that he was any more right than the others.
The speaker for the New Democratic party, a while ago, has none the less conceded a few important aspects to the government, on which he disagreed with the loyal opposition of Her Majesty, but in the same breath, he expressed his own demands.
The spokesman of the Ralliement Creditiste has of course referred again to the philosophy in which he believes-and I think he is sincere-but it does not seem practical to those who feel that one has to live within one's means.
But the serious inconsistency in this whole debate, Mr. Chairman, is that on the side of the opposition-loyal, more or less loyal or disloyal-they accuse the government first of all of having exceeded its estimates by some $400 million. The government is accused of acting dishonestly towards the buyers of government bonds. At the same time, Mr. Chairman, while the government is accused of having spent some $400 million more than it had said it would, it is asked to spend hundreds of millions more.
The spokesman of the New Democratic party, for instance, claims that the pensions paid to superannuated civil servants are inadequate and could be increased.
The Leader of the Loyal Opposition of Her Majesty, after blaming the government for having spent $400 million too much, takes them to task for having cut down expenditures for research. Some of my backbencher colleagues demand investments of half a billion or a billion dollars. In fact, the government is blamed, for instance, for not constructing immediately the causeway leading to Prince Edward Island. It is called upon to build another Trans-Canada highway. In the meantime, that same party tells the government: you have spent $400 million more than you had forecast.
What has the government done? I would think it has acted as the family provider in looking after the needs of the Canadian community. When the government was accused of

fraudulous deeds with the bond buyers, I think that was a case of slander against it. I think this matter must have been overlooked by the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition who is usually more concerned with the interests of the country. If it is said across the country and throughout North America that this government is dishonest and selling bonds under misrepresentations, there is no telling what the results will be. I say this is not right and I know the minister will soon set the matter straight.
As a backbencher of this government, I must point out this lack of logic that I find hardly acceptable from people as intelligent as those who participated in the debate in blaming the government for spending $400 million in order to meet urgent requirements of the Canadian people. At the same time, the government is being blamed for not having spent some $1 billion, for instance, for pensions, for the completion of miscellaneous public works which have been posponed, for curtailing some investments in research, for neglecting to send food supplies to Biafra and, finally, for not doing enough about the sale of the western wheat.
One of these fine days, Mr. Chairman, we will have to make up our minds: do we want to spend money or not? If we spend and if we invest, we will have to raise taxes. But as soon as taxes are raised, the opposition criticizes the government severely for looking for money where it is to be found. There is no logic in our organization any more.
I know that our friends in the Ralliement Creditiste have a magic formula, and I would be the happiest man on earth if it were adopted. However, my friends in the Ralliement Creditiste forget that we belong to an international financial club in which there are some 70, 75 or 80 member countries, and that we cannot reform our monetary system unless those other countries decide to do the same at the same time, or our international trade-


Mr. Latulippe:: Would the hon. member allow a question?


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, if my hon. friend would be kind enough to let me finish my speech-


Mr. Deputy  Chairman@: The hon. member for Trois-Rivieres has the floor.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, I apologize for my weaknesses, but I am a man apt to lose the thread of his ideas when he is interrupted. If my hon. friend would be kind
September 27, 1968

enough to wait until I have finished, I will be happy to answer his question, ii I have some time left. I will have time, as I am going to be brief. And I will be happy to answer him, because I respect him.
Mr. Chairman, our friends should realize that wishful thinking is fine, that it is fine to say: We are going to reform the Canadian monetary system, but we are not alone in the world. As science develops, contacts between countries will become more numerous and we will be more interdependent. From the monetary point of view, we are probably more interdependent than in any other sector. That is indeed wishful thinking.
I excuse most of my friends, for I believe them to be sincere, but, in my opinion, to make people who are uninformed believe that these things could happen thanks to a magic wand which would reform the entire system is to mislead them.
Mr. Chairman, I want to defend the honour of Canada and that of the present government. I object to the statement that the government is dishonest in its representations. I deny the assertion that the government has broken its promise, since it has spent $400 million more than it promised it would, particularly in view of the fact that the very people who tax the government with this are the first to ask it to make investments far beyond its present means. This is obvious inconsistency which will probably persuade the Canadian public that the opposition is too stubborn in its role, and that, at times, it becomes inconsistent and illogical.
Mr. Chairman, I should be pleased to answer the question of my hon. friend.


Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Chairman, I should like to put a question to the member for Trois-Rivieres. He claims that we are members of an international pool and that without this international pool it would be impossible to finance Canada.
I should like to ask him, for instance, whether, if the other nations, including the United States and England, did not exist, we should starve to death in Canada?


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: 
Mr. Deputy  Chairman@: The question of the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Latulippe) has led the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres to begin a second speech.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order.
I wish to point out that my time is not up, but I thank you just the same, because I have completed my remarks.


Mr. Nielsen:: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Three Rivers is certainly in his right slot. It was a good deal more interesting-


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a question of privilege-

With regard to my hon. friend, Mr. Chairman, on a question of privilege I wish to tell him that my home town is incorporated in French and in English, and in the English

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version it is incorporated under the name of Trois-Rivieres.


Erik Nielsen: In any event, he is in the right party now after having shifted from being an independent. It is a typical sort of reaction for someone on his side of the house to take ten minutes to answer a simple question which took one minute to put, if that. It is indicative that although this is a new government, as has been pointed out, it is carrying on the same policies of doubt, the same old policies of uncertainty and confusion completely characteristic of its predecessor. It is not my intention this afternoon to put any blame for this sad state of affairs on the Prime Minister because, after all, he has been there only a short time. Like others, however, I do say that there has been absolutely no improvement in the situation.
The uncertainty with regard to external affairs has been very specifically pointed out this morning and this afternoon. In the field of economic policy there is not only doubt but, as was driven home in no uncertain terms this morning, there is outright deception. In the conduct of the business of this house there has been confusion. That is the record amassed in an extremely short time. We have a new government, yes, but there is nothing new about the manner in which it has been carrying on. The mistakes that are being made are kept more secret by the ministers who live in fear of being fired if they do not keep their lips sealed. There is uncertainty in respect of the policy concerning Czechoslovakia. There is confusion, dawdling and incredible incoherence in respect of our NATO policy.
With regard to the conduct of affairs in this chamber we heard the incredible proposal made last Wednesday by the Prime Minister that we should accept some kind of absentee government through the removal of half the members of the cabinet from their seats during the question period. What are they doing that is so urgent? Have we reached a point where cabinet ministers are so preoccupied that they cannot be in the house for an hour or less every day for the question period? Are questions of the government of this country of such an insignificant nature that ministers should not be required to answer questions on a daily basis? Is reform in some of the very vital areas of legislation unimportant? There have been cuts with regard to airport improvements and air navigational facilities, a matter of vital safety to the public. Are we to be denied the information to which the public is

entitled because the minister concerned is not here during the question period? Is the very sad plight of our Indian people not sufficiently important to require the presence of the ministers responsible?
There is unemployment and a host of other extremely serious problems. These problems have been generated by the standard set by this government. Now the Prime Minister suggests that some kind of absentee government should be set up in spite of these very pressing and urgent problems in respect of which the ministers should give answers. Is there to be any importance attached to the question period? If ministers are not present to answer questions, then the question period becomes absolutely valueless.
I do not intend to go through the authorities because the proposition is self-evident. It is not my intention, after so many years of precedent, to defend the question period, the time when members have the opportunity to place before the government matters of an urgent and serious nature. I do not wish to be met with the charge that I am basing my argument on precedent simply because I do not want change. When the Prime Minister made the statement the other day that perhaps the question period in itself is not the factor that should be blamed, the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres gave an indication of why the answer period is just as vital a factor in considering any alteration in the approach to this whole matter. Certainly the correct approach is not to have ministers absent.
The Prime Minister has not attacked the necessity of the question period in making his announcement. He simply put forward a unilateral proposal which would make the question period meaningless. The Prime Minister is quoted in Le Devoir of May 9 as saying that ministers have to waste at least an hour a day playing politics in the commons and that little would be lost if a regime were established that would liberate ministers from tiring parliamentary sittings. With this kind of attitude one might expect the type of announcement which the Prime Minister made on Wednesday. That attitude is an attack on the rights of the people who sent all of us here to probe the ministry by means of questions which are required to be answered in the public interest.
The minister without portfolio from Quebec-I believe he has a portfolio now but I am not certain which one it is-said in Montreal on June 2, as reported by the Canadian Press on June 3, that the government wants
September 27, 1SS8



to put an end to useless debate. This is the attitude of the ministry. Of course, the less time ministers spend in the house the less the exposure they are subjected to by the legitimate questions of the opposition, to which the public is entitled to answers, and the more likely they are to stay out of trouble. Perhaps that is the Prime Minister's motivation. The only conclusion I can come to is that his ministers have not been doing too well and regard parliament in the same way as the last Liberal government did. Therefore he simply intends to get rid of a nuisance or embarrassment.
I can inform the Prime Minister that if this kind of attitude on his part and on the part of his ministers continues his charisma will disappear very quickly. The arrogant assumption that the presence of ministers not only is not necessary but will not be available is a slap in the face of parliament. The ministers should and must be here during the question period. Otherwise, why bother to have a question period at all? If the house is to accept this and if the Prime Minister does not reconsider it, this is just a first step along the road to the ultimate throttling of parliament and the ultimate supremacy of the executive over the people as represented here in the commons.
I am not alone in that view; it has been stated before. Professor McWhinney stated very recently that the legislative arm of the government is being submerged in the supremacy of the executive. In my view, if this were true it would be a very undesirable trend. It seems to me that this type of announcement by the Prime Minister only drives the nail in the coffin of that kind of trend.
What are we to expect? During the last session and in the debate following the events of February 19 the Prime Minister said-and he believed it, because he nodded his head here two or three days ago when it was tossed across the floor-"we are the masters of the house", implying that "we can do as we please because we are the government, we are perfection personified." The implication is why bother to ask questions? They may not regard our questions as important, but the people who sent all of us here to ask questions have a different view. What, for instance, could be more important than the development of responsible government in our country, constitutional changes and a host of other matters, not to mention security and one or two other recent events which have
Interim Supply
been the subject of questioning during the question period?
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
The Prime Minister says that half of the ministers will be here. This is not really anything new because there are only half of them here at the best of times. There is the distinct danger that the half which will be present at any given time will be those who, in the Prime Minister's estimation, will not be asked questions.
Let me place before the Prime Minister another point for consideration. The absence of ministers will not deter the members from asking questions, but may have the opposite effect. I, for one, would just as soon put questions to the Prime Minister as the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The Prime Minister can be assured if the ministers are not in the house he will find himself fielding a greater number of questions. Perhaps that is what he wants. The members elected by the people of Canada sit here on their behalf, and have the unquestionable right to require the executive to give answers, to provide information and to account to the people. The Prime Minister is trying to curtail that right. The matter is as simple as that.
I have said enough to indicate that the Prime Minister should seriously consider this ill-advised move. If he is aware of the source of this information he should seek out the author and unveil to him some facts about parliamentary life. The ministers cannot be abstracted from their daily responsibilities in this house. That is their primary responsibility.
The Prime Minister may talk about what is done in England and other places, and we will take his word for it. Nevertheless, he will not and cannot suggest that England, which is a Unitarian state without a complex regional situation as we have here, is the same. The ministers are deliberately kept out of the house under the English system for several days during the week when questions are being asked. The Prime Minister, in his usual fashion, has explained the matter in honeyed tones of sweet reason, but there remains the inescapable conclusion that in essence there is a matter of government convenience and protection involved rather than the protection of the public interest.
As others have said, we have uncertainty in foreign affairs with the most uncertain foreign minister of all times. We have seen uncertainty in the conduct of the business of

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this house and uncertainty in the management of the economy. There is this legacy from the Pearson days of massive uncertainty which this government will have to throw off. On Wednesday we had another incredible example of government posturing and posing as the saviours of the economy, trying to turn an increase in spending into a saving. We all remember the story of the emperor's new clothes. The statement by the President of the Treasury Board yesterday was an apt illustration of that children's classic. I am sure you will remember the story. No one dared to tell the emperor that his beautiful suit of new clothes was non-existent, or at least existed only in the minds of his tailors. The emperor was in fact stark, staring naked. That was the position of the minister, at least economically speaking.
The minister talked about a saving here and a saving there, showing how the government by parsimonious cutting and scraping had saved $80 million. He went on to add, as an afterthought, even with that $80 million saving the total amount of the estimates was some $400 million above the previous unrevised, unexpurgated and unedited version. What was said by the then revenue minister, now the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development? He speaks about members saying one thing and then being inconsistent by saying something else. Let us hear what the new Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development had to say when he was the revenue minister. He said at Calgary on June 3, as reported by the Canadian Press on June 4:
The next budget will be a balanced one and every attempt will be made to hold the line on tax increases.
That is what one of the ministers that hon. members now support said on that occasion. Let's consider what the finance minister said in Saskatoon on June 8, as reported by the Canadian Press that same day. He said:
The Trudeau government if re-elected will reform the existing tax structure rather than adopt recommendations made by the Carter royal commission, which would give Canada 'a radically different tax structure.'
We can see that coming. The same minister said at Grande Prairie on June 7 as reported by the Canadian Press:
-economic expansion, reduced government spending and a balanced budget has increased international confidence in the Canadian dollar.
Here is one minister speaking in one case about a balanced budget, which apparently
[Mr. Nielsen.1
had already been achieved, and another minister saying that if the Trudeau government were re-elected there would be a balanced budget. Now we have these revised estimates presented by the President of the Treasury Board last Wednesday. They are up to their old tricks. They are trying to dazzle us with the same verbal footwork they displayed during the last election. This is what appeared in the candidate's handbook of the Liberal party:
Employment and growth depends on stability in prices and costs . . . The Main purpose of a selective prices and incomes policy is not government control over prices or incomes or any interference with competitive market courses. Rather it is to improve the framework within which a free market can work ... by assessing the impact of particular changes so other sectors of the economy, public and private, will know what action to take . .. tell other industries whether they should increase or decrease their dependence on a particular good or service ... give government a guide to tariff or tax changes . . . and bring home to the price charger that his short run benefit may conflict with his long-run goals.
That, in a nutshell, is the economic philosophy of those who now sit on the treasury benches. Now, we see this mysterious alchemy of Liberal government financing; by the wizardry of the wizard of Kingston, the present Minister of Finance, who is an old hand at this kind of thing, we have an increase of some $400 millions represented to us and to the people of Canada as a saving of $80 million.
The President of the Treasury Board laboured manfully-we give credit where credit is due-but one had the impression that he really did not convince even himself. Here is an hon. gentleman whom I am sure was as aware of the nakedness of the pretence he was trying to foist on the house as we all were, but in the presence of jovial Merlin, the wizard from Kingston, of course, he was compelled to plough on trying to transform a sow's ear into a silk purse. Even though the purse was empty, 1 suppose it was better than no purse at all.
The present Minister of Finance is an old hand at this kind of fiscal sleight of hand. Few will forget his most dazzling performance during the last session when, with copious pages of notes, he managed to show, to his own satisfaction at least, that by not accepting in toto the budgets as presented by each department he had managed savings running into millions of dollars.
September 27, 1968



[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
There is only one way we can reduce this kind of psychedelic financing-if we have to "make the scene", using the proper terminology in view of the changing scene on the other side of the chamber-to reality. It would be, for example, when a man's wife asks for a mink coat and he persuades her to settle for marten he convinces himself that he is much further ahead. This is the kind of thing that does not show up in a balance sheet. If this is to be the basis of this government's financial policy, it is evident that they can convince themselves they are doing a very fine job as long as their grasp continues to exceed their reach.
I am afraid, and I say this with all sympathy and the utmost good will, this government will have difficulty in convincing anyone above the age of three or four years, at any rate-although they seem to have convinced the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres- that increased total expenditures of more than $400 million amounts in reality to a saving of more than $80 million. At least I know that in the part of the country I come from, that kind of arithmetic is looked upon with grave suspicion and would certainly lead to questioning whether those indulging in it were competent to handle this nation's finance. I am inclined to think they are not.
What has been happening? The last financial report of the government, for March 31, 1968, the end of the fiscal year, showed a deficit of some $790 million. By no stretch of the imagination, even of the wizard of Kingston, can a deficit of $790 million be palmed off as a surplus. Therefore, it will have to be made up. On top of that we now have an additional expenditure of $400 million. Therefore, one can see that this government is heading furiously for its first billion dollar deficit. No wonder the Prime Minister took time off a few weeks ago to watch the Canadian Grand Prix. I suggest that he should spend more time watching his Minister of Finance who is now putting on the greatest fiscal Grand Prix of all time.
Meanwhile the previous minister of finance is doing for Biafra what he did for Canada's finances. One can only sympathize and shudder. We have had the excuse that the increases are statutory. Who brought forward the statutes? Whose policies were embodied in those statutes? Whose policy was the kind of medicare which this government has shoved down the throats of the provinces, at fantastic cost?
Interim. Supply
The Prime Minister said today during the question period, and I am quoting him, "We cannot break an agreement with the provinces". But that is precisely what his government did last year, or was it this year, when it reneged on the payment of the federal share under the vocational school arrangements between the federal and provincial governments. I do not believe there is a premier who did not convey to the Prime Minister and his ministers of the day his resentment of the action of the federal government.
Now, the government has the gall to get up in the house and bleat about the terrible cost of medicare. The former prime minister said it would not cost much, because the majority of the provinces could not afford it. We would have had medicare now if this government had met the provinces halfway and had done what the Leader of the Opposition has been calling upon them for months to do. We would have a medicare program that the provinces and Canadians in general could afford. What has happened in Saskatchewan? The government is forced to increase premiums and the deterrent cost in order to keep that program going. This is the kind of program the government wishes to force upon every province of Canada.
In regard to statutory costs, these are policies of this and the previous Liberal government of ill-starred memory, some of whose proponents are still with us. Now they say: Isn't it too bad. Everything is expensive, and we cannot control these things. If they cannot control these things, the only thing they can do is resign and let somebody who can, control them. Are they telling us now that they did not know what medicare would cost? Are they saying now that they did not take it into account? We have two provinces actually in medicare. They say medicare is throwing out their accounts. Yet the government solemnly stated in this house that they wanted all the provinces in.
You would have to go back to Hamurabi to find shattering evidence of total incompetence such as we have had from this uncertain and confused government. They are blaming the increased costs on the Canada Assistance Plan. They brought in this plan with a heralding of trumpets. Now they say: Isn't it too bad; it costs too much money. Certainly it costs a great deal, because the Canada Assistance Plan has simply contributed to the welter of overlapping, duplication and waste in welfare for which the Canadian taxpayer is having to pay. No one knows this more than the Prime

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Minister. He says he is taking steps to end it-at least, he has promised to do so-but it appears that he has not yet had time to go into action.
Therefore the country is still saddled with the hodge-podge of welfare bureaucracy with which the Pearson-Sharp legacy has left it. This is where the cost comes in. The Minister of Industry and the President of the Treasury Board get up in this house and cry about these increased costs. I sympathize with them; but why does not the government take action instead of indulging in these shallow attempts to convert real increases in the deficit to imaginary surpluses or budgetary balances? Even that phrase is now forgotten, because it is no longer a balancing of the budget but is referred to as a balancing of the national accounts.
I see no real change. There was supposed to be a fresh, new breeze that would invade this chamber and governmental approaches after the last election. There is certainly no change that I can see either in this chamber or in the policies of the new government. Indeed, the same old bunch is there, and obviously the same old policies are there. There seems to be no real intention of the Prime Minister to weed out the suffocating policies of the past and to follow the oft suggested course put forward, in terms of medicare and better policies, by the Leader of the Opposition and others during the last few months.


Mr. Slcoberg:: Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure for me, as a new member of parliament for the constituency of Moose Jaw, to speak briefly on the motion before us at this time. I realize, as others in this house, that the popular thing to do is cry out against government spending, no matter what that spending may entail. However, I am certain that every member in this house realizes that although a few savings can be effected in some quarters, the over-all budget must be recognized as having to be adjusted to the needs of the nation.
The questions I raise are whether the needs of every part of the country are being adequately met and whether assistance is being fairly distributed. I believe it is important for members of the house to understand that the constituency of Moose Jaw is made up approximately in the proportion of 50-50 in terms of rural and urban population. It can be suggested, therefore, that I am fully aware of the problems facing the rural and urban populations.

I would not like to see this government cut expenditures in fields that are having, and will have, disastrous effects on the economy of the constituency which I represent. I am sure every member of the house is of the same opinion in so far as his constituency is concerned. I am certain that all members of this house, and in particular all hon. members from the west, are aware of the seriousness of the agricultural situation at this very time. I have just returned from the Moose Jaw, Outlook, Davidson, Dinsmore, Central Butte and other areas of Saskatchewan where I have found the situation to be serious, to say the least.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
I realize that many members of the house, especially those from eastern Canada, do not realize the importance of the agricultural industry as it affects everyone in this country. I would respectfully suggest that if the agricultural industry suffers, then so does the entire economy of Canada. It is not good enough for the Minister of Agriculture to say that the government is keeping a close eye on things. Action is needed now to provide assurance to our western producer that cash will be available to meet his heavy commitments. There must be a guaranteed price for farm commodities, be they from the east or from the west. The cost of production to the farmer must be recognized and a fair return must be realized by the man who is doing the producing.
I say, Mr. Chairman, that there must be a guaranteed minimum price of $2.12 per bushel for wheat and $3.12 a bushel for the first one thousand bushels of wheat delivered from each farm unit to the domestic market. It has been said by some editorial writers and some members of parliament as late as today that the wheat industry needs no subsidy nor do we need a two price system for our grain. I can only say that it escapes me why the prairie farmers should be asked to subsidize some of the very same people who are saying no subsidies are necessary. Every other wheat exporting nation in the world, except Canada, supports its agricultural economy. I say it is high time that we appreciated the fact that we must support this basic industry.
It would appear to me that it is very unfair of this government to expect the Canadian farmer to compete with the treasuries of other countries, and this is what is happening at this particular time. The other countries are supporting their basic commodities, and
September 27, 1968

we in Canada must do the same. It is high time we took a close look at the situation. It may be interesting to note the drastic change which is taking place in our agricultural industry today. In the year 1942-43, 119,127 permit books were issued in Saskatchewan, while in the year 1966-67 some 92,302 were issued. This means that there has been a drop of some 1,118 permit books a year in each of the last 24 years. I ask that this government realize the plight of the agricultural producer and not cut but rather increase budgets in that area.
Another serious and immediate problem facing the city of Moose Jaw is that of the inability of that city to qualify for the area incentive program. As you know, Mr. Chairman, we are located some 42 miles from a rather large centre to the east of us which has the advantage of being the seat of the provincial government-which, by the way, I am given to understand should have been located in Moose Jaw but was stolen away one dark night many years ago.
It may be that the average wage level and the unemployment level make it difficult for Moose Jaw to qualify for the designated area incentive program. The reason for this of course is that thousands of displaced railway workers, Robin Hood flour mills workers, and packing plant workers, are required to travel to outside locations to find employment, leaving the city in a difficult economic position. The Minister of Forestry and Rural Development said that the government plans on checking this program periodically in order to see where exceptional intervention is necessary to improve the employment situation. I would ask this government to give favourable consideration today, not tomorrow, to the designation of Moose Jaw as a designated area under the area incentive program which was mentioned in the house as late as yesterday. I am completely familiar with the situation in Moose Jaw. Having sat on the city council for four years, I know that we have lost at least four industries which were prepared to settle in our city but which located in another area under the incentive program.
I am given to understand that we may obtain an industry soon if Moose Jaw becomes a designated area. I suggest it is easier, and far more reasonable economically, to stop the disaster which will result if centres such as Moose Jaw are not given the same advantage as others. This matter is urgent, and I ask the government to consider the designation of Moose Jaw as an incentive area.
Interim Supply
The third point I would like this government to consider is our transportation system. I do not think that I have to tell the members of this house about the difficulty of travelling from one part of the country to the other. I do not think I have to say how congested our airways are becoming in our young nation. I do not think any of us are looking forward to the day when planes will have to circle for many hours before landing. We all realize that an efficient air travel system costs millions of dollars, and it is safe to say that millions of Canadians do not want to fly when other means of transportation are available.
I have here an article from the Winnipeg Free Press of July 29, 1968 in which it is said that the congestion in U.S. airports is costing the government some $50 million a year. I suggest that if this government took the initiative and instituted an efficient transportation program, then possibly we could save a considerable amount of money in the future in so far as airports alone are concerned. We know that the government must give consideration to the establishment of a more efficient transportation system in our nation, and this must include an efficient rail system from coast to coast. We know the C.N.R. has taken the initiative in so far as passenger traffic on rail lines is concerned, and I suggest it is high time the government gave consideration to the establishment of a committee which would look into the over all structure of rail traffic. I have heard very recently that the C.P.R. is considering taking off eight cars from its transcontinental train, the Canadian. I suggest that those who have tried to obtain space on either C.N.R. or C.P.R. passenger trains are aware of the difficulties which are encountered.
I believe it is time an over-all program was instituted which would take these factors into consideration. I will not bring forth all the problems that are besetting our constituency at this time, but I would like to respectfully suggest to this government that there are areas in our economy that need immediate attention. I have mentioned just a few of these, and although I have not referred to the plight of old age pensioners and those on fixed incomes I expect a government which believes in a just society to have legislation in force in the very near future which would bring relief to these citizens. I ask this government to be realistic in its financial policies and not to favour one segment of our society to the detriment of the other. People must be given equal opportunities, otherwise, they

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Interim Supply
will find it difficult to say "I am proud to be a Canadian".
I say that any deficit incurred by the introduction of a national medicare plan is, in my opinion, well justified. It is only through such a plan that all citizens can receive equal treatment. In my opinion, any member of this house who speaks against a shared cost medicare program must be considered "suspect" and acting on behalf of private insurance companies. I, personally, commend the government for holding its position with regard to the national medicare plan. The people of Saskatchewan know what medicare means and they are not prepared to return to the days where the law of the jungle prevailed. Then, those who had money received treatment and those who were in financial difficulties found themselves treated as second class citizens. The previous speaker mentioned the Saskatchewan medicare program when he was condemning the government for over expenditure. I do not take issue with over expenditure but I do take issue with the protest against an increase in cost in relation to the medicare program in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan knew that the cost of medicare would mean an increase of approximately 5 per cent per year. The medicare insurance commission's annual report, which has just come out, shows that this estimate was correct. I can assure this house that the people of Saskatchewan realize that medicare is a program which they want. They showed it by voting in six new members of the New Democratic party.
I could dwell at length on the individual items in this interim supply motion, but nothing would be accomplished. My only purpose in bringing these items to the attention of the house is to indicate a few of the areas which need close attention and which need a greater infusion of government spending if conditions are to be improved in this country of ours.
[DOT] (4.00 p.m.)


Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Chairman, I am happy to have the opportunity to say a few words on interim supply.
I understood that the government or the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) wanted to balance the budget this one time. There is talk of balancing the budget, the economy of the Canadian government.
Mr. Chairman, we are in favour of economic balance, but all efforts made to balance the budget have led us to economic and political

chaos. That is where the balancing of the present system has led us because it is impossible to try to balance it, because it is mathematically impossible.
By trying to balance the government system, we throw the economy of corporations and individuals out of balance. If we want to balance the government budget, we must impose a higher tax on companies and individuals. Now, by taxing companies and individuals, we reduce the purchasing power, and by so doing, we bring about recession, we increase unemployment, and the consequence is a complete breakdown of the system.
The hon. member for Trois-Rivieres (Mr. Mongrain) said earlier that in the present system, it is normal for a government to make allowances for facts, for present circumstances, to get along according to its resources, to rely on others to take action. If there were no other countries, we could not five, we would starve, but as they exist, we have to co-operate.
We have to follow suit. If they are destitute, we must be destitute; if they restrict credit, we have to restrict credit. In order to balance the budget, Mr. Chairman, we must restrict the credit available to the people. This restriction of credit leads to disaster and stagnation for, under our present system, one has to go into debt to do anything. We need money to balance the budget. The government has only two ways of raising money: personal income tax or new loans.
At the present time, the government is practically at a point where new loans are impossible. New bonds worth $500 million were issued at the beginning of the month.
We assumed another obligation because we issued another $500 million, another half a billion dollars, in bonds on June 15 during the election campaign. As a matter of fact, the government of Canada has just floated another bond issue totalling $500 million.
For instance, in the June 15 issue bearing interest at different rates, the highest rate being per cent over a period of 27 years, it must be noted that one share of the $500 millions was intended for the reimbursement of $283 millions, at 2| per cent, that is an increase of 4J per cent in the interest rate.
So we are trying to balance the budget by paying more on bonds. We are not even able to buy back our old bonds; we have to get new loans at new interest rates to pay back our bonds. That is why I would like the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) to tell us what he will do to balance his budget. If all we can do is strengthen capital, pay more for
September 27, 1968

September 27, 1368
Interim, Supply
Like everywhere else, production in general is overabundant. We should only have to fill the gaps and the shortages by drawing from the enormous surplus or from the extravagant reserves. There are extravagant reserves, Mr. Chairman, which are allowed by the Minister of Finance, by the government in power, but those extravagant reserves, which are hidden, which are secret or semi-secret, are never touched. As to the capital surplus, it is not taxable.
If you do not have any money, instead of always emptying the pockets of those who, owing to the present system have already too little or are already short of money, go and see where the reserves are hidden, go and see where there is too much money and take it. You will then be able to finance and balance your budget, while at the same time providing a minimum of security to various corporations or individuals.
All this can be done by the federal government in Ottawa. Under the present constitution, no other group, not even the provinces, has the power to stop the central government from regulating currency, credit, banks, the circulation of money, capital interest and the rights of Canadian citizens of which the first is the right to life.
Under the Canadian constitution, it is definitely up to the government to fix interest rates, but the government is evading its responsibilities. It is allowing interest rates to fluctuate according to the trend on the market. The market, the stock exchange, and all those bodies which are exploiting the people are tolerated and approved by the present government and the present Minister of Finance.
If we cling to this monetary system to try and have a balanced economy in Canada, we will never come within reach of it. We will never be able to have a balanced economy if such corrupt practices are not eradicated, because they are prejudicial to all citizens who have a right to the good life in this country that overflows with riches. The country is rich, but its people are poor, they are starving, they are taxed and in debt up to their necks.
Expenditures exceed the estimates of governments of all levels: federal, provincial and municipal. The same situation exists for school boards, and in 99 per cent of Canada's economic agencies. And we think we can balance the budget with the principles, the data

and the practices of the past, when such principles and practices have led the country to disaster and to ruin.
The present problem is supposed to be settled without anything being done about our economic disaster.
The most important of all justices, Mr. Chairman, is the economic justice. It is the justice of the primum vivere assured to each Canadian citizen, the basic justice. Everything else will come to boot. First things first. All this cannot be obtained immediately within the framework of the present monetary system. No need really to change anything. Just let us find out where things went wrong.
There is a gross injustice in the income tax schedule. The taxpayers pay $3 of income tax while corporations pay $1, a $2 difference. Corporations enjoy extraordinary privileges as far as income tax is concerned. Individuals, on the other hand, have to pay their taxes in full. Their income tax is deducted from their salary, it is deducted from their pay cheques. One steals from the working man, one steals the bread from the mouth of Canadians, from the poor ordinary citizen, but one lets large corporations get richer by allowing them to pay less taxes than the wage-earner.
When a corporation pays $1 in income tax, the individual citizen has to pay $3. And this does not take into account the extravagant reserves and all kinds of privileges which enable corporations to capitalize exaggeratedly and by all kinds of means. Those who know what is going on in financial circles are well aware of this.
Mr. Chairman, the economic potentialities of our country have increased at a vertiginous rate, but with our present system of increasing debt, we are inevitably heading for the abyss, where we are being precipitated head down as our country is in the process of being built. Those who are putting us head over heels in debt are slowly choking us. The present government allows it, as did the former government.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
If we accept scientific and technological progress, why not also accept progress in the field of public financing? Social credit would specifically allow man a just share of the manufactured products.
There will be more and more unemployment amongst Canadian workers if we refuse to recognize the primacy of man over money.
September 27, 1963

Automation should please man and help him, instead of crowding him towards poverty and that type of insecurity which lowers him in his own eyes.
Instead of being cool towards the logic of our principles and philosophy, the people, the various classes of society, social organizations, everyone should realize that they provide the only way to give man access to the goods created by machines, progress and science.
We have reached that turning point in the economic activity of our country. We must accede to progress through social credit, lest we be smothered by progress as it exists in our present economic system.
If we really want security with freedom, it is up to the people to make a choice. The financial problem is everyone's problem. Social credit alone tackles money problem, current problems.
Instead of taming men, women and children, as the old parties do or have done in the past, social credit wants to tame money and credit, so that human beings can fulfil themselves freely.
As much money and credit must be made available to the people as there are goods and services. That would make for a balanced Canadian economy, that would ensure honest comfort to each and everyone. We could increase family allowances. We could pay higher pensions to the elderly, the disabled, the blind and the veterans.
Let us use the Bank of Canada to that end, to facilitate the development of our natural resources to finance the provinces, municipalities and school boards, to help the farmers and promote housing.
Instead of levying taxes on building materials, we could readily help the taxpayer by abolishing the tax levied on those materials and by lowering interest rates and thus reduce administrative costs, instead of tolerating usurious interest rates as the old parties have done since confederation.
Except for depressions and wars, what did the old parties bring us? We had the Grits for 22 years and the Tories for five. What was the difference between the two of them over 27 years?
Mr. Chairman, it is time to put our cards on the table. We are not satisfied, the Canadian people are not satisfied with the present system operating in our country. There is general dissatisfaction, there is fear, insecurity and unnecessary hardship. A great deal of essential goods are lost and, on the other
Interim Supply
hand, two thirds of the people of the world go hungry.
It is a barbaric absurdity. For lack of figures, human beings are dying and our governments, which see all those people die, still refuse to establish figures.
The banker's pen increases the figures only by increasing debts. Since no one likes to get further into debt, they avoid the banker. There is a shortage of debts, but we can see no abundance of debts.
No other alternative but to turn to the banker to satisfy our right to necessities. It is not the will of God that there should not be any borrowing facilities. Those are rules made by our governments, by men, by human beings who call themselves intelligent.
They merely say: Working men, farmers, increase your production, bring out the goods of the earth. As the banker does not bring out his credit at a rhythm equal to your bringing out the goods of the earth, you will have to give them away or let them perish or stop producing them. Bring up children, good Canadians; give them a good education by dint of privations, prepare them for life, but as the banker will not allow any credit at the same rhythm you are bringing up children and educating them, your young people will not be able to sell their labour, they shall be unemployed and shall lament over irretrievable errors.
When it comes to money and figures giving access to goods, man is being adjusted to figures. Man is there, hungry, while there is an abundance of bread, a lack of credit; no credit be given, bread will mildew and man will disappear. That is what we are coming to with our economic system.
Mr. Chairman, I would still have many things to say, but I will limit myself to suggesting that as long as we have not assumed our responsibilities and as long as we have not adjusted our economy to the present goals and real facts, we will be faced with the discomfiture of economic and political somersaults.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Chairman, for several days I have been endeavouring, along with my colleagues, to secure some statement from the government on the subject of international and commonwealth events. It is now evident that the house will not have any opportunity to discuss these questions for weeks, if not for months, to come.

September 27, 1963
Interim Supply
This is a subject which the government is not very anxious to discuss, or have discussed, because in the period since June 25 the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs, have gone from bungle to bungle in connection with several matters. I mention immediately that although the Prime Minister is not in the house his office was notified that I intended to deal with some matters in connection with which mention would be made of his stand; I can appreciate, knowing the weight of responsibility which rests upon him, his inability to be here. This afternoon as I look over the house, realizing that we are dealing with a most important matter involving the expenditure of vast sums of money by way of interim supply, I begin to ask myself whether we in this chamber are discharging our responsibility of examining the expenditures of the government.
May I point out that before the election was called three months' interim supply was passed. During the four month period after the election the government secured its supply by way of Governor General's warrants. Now, it is asking for a further three months' supply for October, November and December. Hundreds of millions, billions of dollars are involved. How many ministers are here? Three. Is it any wonder that my hon. friend from Yukon should ask: why should this government wish to follow the course enunciated yestex-day under which ministers would stay out of the chamber more often. This is one occasion, connected with the expenditures of the country, which demands their presence. I know they are busy-turning out press releases. But the time has come when the people should know that by this scant interest they show contempt of the chamber to which they give their vocal allegiance.
In the past several months, and I intend to refer particularly to international affairs, Canada has sunk to its lowest level in the opinion of other countries in consequence of the uncertainty which has been shown and the loose statements which have been made by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs, a state of things which can only lead to international misunderstanding and international chaos. Before I turn to this subject, however, may I say that I was glancing through the general summary of expenditures this year in which are set forth the savings being effected. One of them is $34,368,200 in connection with the centennial commission. They are not spending that

amount this year. That is understandable because the centennial is past. But they put in a saving of approximately $35 million in order to bolster up this fancy variety of financing in which they are indulging. The people need not be deceived. I have to be careful in the choice of words, and I say the Canadian people are going to get the greatest taxation picking that this country has ever known because of the wastefulness of the government.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
I remember how they spoke in such pious tei'ms and said that the day of deficits was past. That was back in those dark years of 1963. Today we face the largest deficit in Canada's history at a time when there is an expanding economy, because of the fact that waste has become the yardstick on which this government operates.
I want to be fair. Speaking the other day about the just society, and looking at all the M.P's who have been honoured by securing highly paid positions-some did not run; others ran, also ran-I said that the just society was apparently just for Grits. I have to amend that. Today, a new sense of responsibility and respectability is added by the fact that Hon. Michael Starr has been joined with the 15 or 16 others. All I can say is that the addition of Mr. Starr reduces my previous observation by one eighteenth.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: We seek talent where we can find it.


John George Diefenbaker: I must hear those words from the hon. gentleman. I don't want to miss anything. What did he say?


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: I just remai'ked that we look for talent where we can find it.


John George Diefenbaker: There are still quite a few defeated Liberal candidates and I can only be convinced they don't have those qualifications. I certainly realize their qualifications don't equal Michael Starr's. When this government starts running out of Gi'its for appointments we are indeed approaching the millenium.
All over the world we find peoples and nations at loggerheads with Canada. When the government picked the Rossillon affair I think it went to the bottom of the barrel to find something on which it could build a case. It has all the earmarks of a smokescreen to cover up the international shortcomings of
September 27, 1968



the government. Our troubles with the United States began in the summer in connection with the underselling of wheat in various parts of the world. When we were in office we told them, "You shall not do that." But the United States administration today does not pay much attention to what Canada says, and Canadian notes.
You will recall the famous case of Hal Banks, when the government of Canada was greatly shocked by the political conduct of the Secretary of State in the United States in doing something in an election year that had not been done by the administration in that country throughout the years, overruling their pseudo or semi-judicial officers. Then after that event, which I criticized at the time as a political event, we find that a very fabulous sum was advanced by Banks' trade union to the Democratic party shortly after Mr. Banks received that declaration of purity and freedom from extradition.
I have been wondering why it is that France and the United States have practically turned their backs on Canada internationally. However, the answer is clear when one reads a statement made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. He piled up deficits and was not able to carry out properly his financial responsibilities, but now he is tinkering in international affairs in regard to which his knowledge is certainly not of the best. He made a speech in which he said, "We go all over the world distributing money". Look at the distribution.
I find in the general summary that the external aid office this year will expend $142,503,000, or $9,315,000 more than last year. I always thought these expenditures were for the purpose of raising standards, to assure the people in lesser economically developed countries that they would have new opportunities. But that is not so today.
Here is what the Secretary of State for External Affairs said in Edmonton on June 10:
Canada will limit the number of countries it will help . . . beneficiaries will be the West Indies, some French speaking countries, mainly in Africa, and countries already under the Colombo plan-
That is all right if the sentence ended there, but then the minister gave the reason for these contributions:
Canada's aim is to check American influence in the West Indies and France's influence in its former colonies-
Did you ever hear of the granting of international aid on such a basis, that you are
Interim Supply
trying to undermine American influence in the West Indies, and the reason you are giving assistance to former French colonies is in order to separate them from de Gaulle and the government of France? That is the most frightful commentary on the unaltruistic purposes for which assistance is being given today.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: It is hard to understand. If he were not a man of sober second thought one would come to the conclusion that he spoke under the inspiration of the moment. In effect, the minister said we are operating in the West Indies and helping their people so that American influence will be diminished.
Mind you, cabinet ministers in the last few days have been very concerned about Africa and the feelings of African countries. Yet, the Secretary of State for External Affairs says we are going into Africa to see whether or not we can chisel away any close relations between France and her former colonies. Actions like that certainly do not breed good feelings internationally.
Then we come to the field of the Commonwealth. I do not apologize at all for mentioning the Commonwealth, but it has become one of the dirty words in the government's vocabulary. There is no mention any more of the Commonwealth. I wonder why. For several years I endeavoured to secure the consent of the various Prime Ministers to meet occasionally in Commonwealth capitals for those conferences that bring together the various nations. At one time there were only two or three who objected. In 1968, the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth offered to come to Canada for the first time in all history, and the government of Canada said no. If I understand the reason it was, "We are not ready for them." This is a strange commentary on a government that one would think would realize the strength, the efficacy and the mission of freedom of the Commonwealth.
I am not going to mention the crown today except in a passing way. The other day in the house I said that for some reason there was no mention of the Queen or the crown in the speech from the throne. The only reference to the throne is in the name of the speech. I wonder why? Well, I made a remark the other day and it was challenged. I obtained a copy of the special program on the Liberal leadership convention which was a remarkable effort on the part of the C.B.C. I enjoyed every bit of it. It was well constructed by

September 27, 1968
Interim Supply
Cameron Graham, one of the finest producers we have in our nation. At page 12 we see what the announcer said:
[DOT] (4:40 pjn.)
The most important regional meeting of Liberals is at the end of January in Montreal. It's the first opportunity for Pierre Trudeau to demonstrate his platform style, and the verdict of most of his audience is ecstatic. He is confronted with a tricky political problem when the delegates pass a resolution to abolish the monarchy in Canada.
I do not know what was tricky about it. The Secretary of State voted for its abolition and now he is one of the cornerstones of the government of Canada. So, there is no penalty to anyone who holds the view that there should be abolition of the monarchy. Here is what the Prime Minister said when speaking to newsmen after the Montreal Liberal meeting:
Question:	Was it just an accident that you
weren't in there when the vote was taken?
Trudeau: It's an accident, yes.
Question: What would you have done? How would you have voted?
Trudeau: I probably would have voted against it, but just because I like to be against the current, I suppose.
Now, there is the highest justification for anyone to vote against the abolition of the monarchy; he preferred to be against the current. Then, the questioning continues:
Question: You would not have abstained though?
Trudeau: I might even have abstained. I think I would have voted against,-yeah.
I think that is the proper pronunciation of "yeah".
Although probably that's just because I'm an ornery person.
We never found him that way. We heard him today benign, unsaturnine and attractive in the way in which he answered questions. He said:
If I'd have been completely logical-
Now, this is where the mind comes into it. He went on:
-I would have abstained because I... you know, I don't give a damn.
I thought the Prime Minister said that he had not uttered those words. That is the attitude of the government on the question of the monarchy. "I don't give a damn." That is not enough. This Commonwealth means more. Our constitution says that parliament consists of the Queen, the Senate and the House of Commons. Surely, an answer such as that is bound to rouse feelings of annoyance, exasperation and worse.

Let us pass on to the question of Czechoslovakia. In the month of May NATO was to be emasculated. It was said that our troops were not needed over there any more and that they should be brought home. The Prime Minister said-and I always have the quotation for those who would like to have it-that so far as NATO is concerned he would retain the political membership. One week before Russia moved into Czechoslovakia one of the representatives there said that there was no danger whatever. What about all these people who are over there? They do not know what the U.S.S.R. is going to do. We know today how they strike against their friends. Yet there are those who say they have turned over a new leaf and that all is going to be well. That sort of talk should be all over now that we have seen the fate of Czechoslovakia.
What did the Canadian government say about Czechoslovakia? Well, the first observation by the Prime Minister was, "Let the people behind the iron curtain stew in their own juice." He let these people behind the iron curtain stew in their own juice. This is no longer a private member but the Prime Minister of Canada speaking of a country where the little bit of freedom was breaking down under the tanks and troops of the U.S.S.R. What did the Secretary of State for External Affairs say? His words were these, "The attack on Czechoslovakia is disappointing." Is it any wonder people are asking what is this government's concept of international affairs. There have been two versions of the "stew" observation. One is that if the iron curtain countries are having troubles at home let them stew in their own brew. The other is, "Let them stew in their own juice". Neither is the kind of observation that a great nation like Canada should be making. This was the Communist "Munich" for Czechoslovakia. It will not be the last. The U.S.S.R. promised to get out. They are still there and they are buying winter clothing which means that they intend to stay, and Canada says, "Let them stew in their own juice."
After three or four weeks of prodding the government did decide to let some of these refugees into Canada, but for four long weeks this government did nothing but cynically stand aside and look upon Czechoslovakia as just another country.
Then we come to the question of Biafra. That is one of the most sordid stories in Canadian history. The Secretary of State for External Affairs swings his arms out widely
September 27, 1SS8



and says he is a humanitarian. Humanitaria-nism will not meet the situation in Biafra while thousands die each day. The people of Biafra will not survive by the use of empty words which is the result of a bureaucratic balancing act by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Just think of the cynicism in the answers given regarding Biafra. On July 10 the C.B.C. inquired of the Prime Minister what Canada was going to do with regard to Biafra. This was just two and a half months ago. His answer was, "You have the funniest questions." What is this? Is this an appreciation of the seriousness of events there?
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
Later he said aid might be sent to all the needy persons, but it could not be sent to everyone. I should like to see what the priorities are that rate before the needs of the Biafra people. That is not the attitude of a government filled with the spirit of humani-tarianism as voiced by the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
What are you going to do about the situation? The members of the opposition have pressed for action. What answer did we get again today? We received a cynical shrug and the answer that nothing can be done. Weeks ago we told the government to try to bring this matter before the United Nations and we were told that could not be done because the government did not know how to draft a resolution that would be humanitarian. It didn't want a political resolution, but for God's sake, will this government act now when thousands are dying? The answer we receive is that the government must be careful because 27 African states believe that this is an internal affair. These are most of the African states to which we are giving aid. Are we giving this aid, as suggested, to undermine the relationship between them and the republic of France?
The Prime Minister had an interview, program no. 51-22103-8001, and he was asked about this question. He said:
-it wasn't my purpose to try and achieve any awards for the Speech from the Throne or from my speech in the debate. That's not the object of government, is it, to get bleeding hearts or purple hearts,-
He finally ended up in the course of that interview by saying this:
Well I'd like to discuss it with you, Mr. Lynch. I would like to discuss it with the Canadian people because my heart bleeds as much as anyone else's when I know that people are starving. But there
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have been civil wars before, and the question is, once again, that the African states decide that this thing is an internal question.
He went on to say that if we act we will have our planes shot down. Why will Canada not act by placing a motion before the United Nations? If the other nations will not join Canada, we will at least have given the lead to the world by saying that this is wrong.
Why is there this unimaginative diffidence to act? Sometime the government will have to act, perhaps when these people over there are all dead. Perhaps then this government will step in and say it will put a resolution before the United Nations. I suggest in all seriousness that something should be done now. I agree that the government cannot do everything and may not get such a resolution through but at least if it tries, Canada will be taking a stand which it has not taken up to now. All the elusive evasiveness of saying that we have sent over quite a bit to Lagos, and we are sure that somebody is getting it, does not help. There is no way that we can force the government to act on a matter like this. The inertia of the government in respect of this matter cannot be met by an opposition that is smaller in number, but at least we can present a viewpoint and ask once more that the government take action.
I do not know who is the acting minister or the acting acting minister of external affairs, but I take it-what is his portfolio-it is the Minister of Industry and so on. I can never keep up with the way you fellows change because you change like a shufHeboard. You go round and round, but I do not intend to deal with ministers without portfolio today. We do have a Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan in the chamber. All I can say to him is that I would have liked to see Saskatchewan represented by a minister rather than one without portfolio.
One begins to realize now why the government does not want international affairs discussed. There has been one fumble after another. The government created this smokescreen as a result of the Rossillon affair, and it has fumbled in respect of Biafra and Czechoslovakia. This is a government that sits, listens and wonders. At some time, it will have to act. We ought to have a debate on international affairs. The Prime Minister today brushed aside our questions. He often looks over at us as though he wondered how he ever got here. His attitude gives the impression that he wonders why we discuss matters like this when his government is in
September 27, 1968

Combines Investigation Act office. My mind goes back to February when they threw the rule book out the window and the then Minister of Justice said in effect: We are your masters. The government had a minority then, but today it has a majority.


Erik Nielsen: Heaven help us.


John George Diefenbaker: The masters of February have a majority today with the result that we are faced with the largest deficit in history. We now have millions and millions of bushels of wheat in storage, and no attempt is being made to face the problems of western Canada, or problems in general; yet taxes have been increased three times in the past two years. This is the government composed of all the whiz kids.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order. It being five o'clock, in order for the house to proceed to the consideration of private members' business, shall I rise, report progress and request leave to sit at the next sitting of the house?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, before we proceed to Private members' business I wonder whether I might have the permission of the house to revert to motions to refer to the report of the Cape Breton Development Corporation which was tabled in English on April 23 of this year, and on September 19 of this year in French, referred to in the question asked by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I think it might be of assistance to hon. members in the house to indicate that the report, being the annual report of the Cape Breton Development Corporation for the year ending December 31, 1967, was tabled in English on April 23 of this year, and may be found at page 841 of Votes and Proceedings. The French language version was tabled on September 19 of this year. In addition to that, at page 50 of Votes and Proceedings, there is the following notation:
Interim capital budgets of the Cape Breton Development Corporation for the year ending December 31, 1968 pursuant to sections 21 and 26

of the Cape Breton Development Corporation Act, 1967, together with a copy of Order In Council P.C. 1968-709 dated April 10, 1968, approving same. (English and French).
This is in respect of the matter the hon. member inquired about this morning.


Malcolm MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, having regard to the question I posed earlier today, let me say that I was aware of this fact. I wanted to know when the government was going to make public this report in view of the requests by the people of Cape Breton. In addition, I am glad to have discovered that someone in the government has finally found out which minister is responsible and has come up with an answer that could not be provided this afternoon by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and three of his cabinet colleagues.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being five o'clock, the house will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely public bills, private bills.


COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT
Donald MacInnis: the second reading of Bill No. C-2, to amend the Combines Investigation Act (professional sports).
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am reintroducing this bill. It was originally put forward by the then hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard on February 25, 1966. Because that hon. member is now present in the person of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Bas-ford), I reintroduce the bill with all the confidence in the world that he will stand up and support it. I am also confident he will persuade his colleagues on the front benches and the back benches on that side of the house to support it.
I am sure the bill will have a speedy passage, because of the remarks of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) during the election campaign when he told an audience in British Columbia that every major city in Canada is entitled to an N.H.L. team. I realize that as far as T.V. returns are concerned, this will be painful. I know that an expansion of the N.H.L. to include Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, Hamilton, Fredericton, Saint John, Halifax and St. John's, Newfoundland, will be quite a task. But the Prime Minister
September 27, 1988	COMMONS
thinks this should be brought about. In view of the fact that the member who originally introduced this bill is now a minister, and the Prime Minister is very much in support of it because he also indicated his intention to carry out an investigation of professional sport. I fully expect the bill to be passed this afternoon.
As I have said, the bill was originally introduced by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and has received the support of the Prime Minister, according to the statements he has made. The purpose of the bill, of course, is to bring professional sports under the Combines Investigation Act. I do not expect the minister to support something that is in any way different from the bill he introduced, and therefore I shall quote the remarks of the minister as reported at page 1779 of Hansard for February 25, 1966:
This bill will amend the Combines Investigation Act to provide that those who conspire or combine together to limit or restrict the opportunity in Canada of persons to participate in or observe any professional sport and which operates against the public interest shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for two years.
With those words, Mr. Speaker, I conclude my remarks and look forward to receiving the full support of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, his colleagues in the cabinet and government backbenchers.


Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this excellent bill, No. C-2, to amend the Combines Investigation Act to include professional sports within the purview of the act. I foresee very good prospects for its ultimate success, because the history of this measure is that it is supported by at least three of the parties represented here. It was introduced by a member of the government, the then hon. member for Van-couver-Burrard, on two previous occasions, as Bill No. C-132 in 1966 and as Bill No. C-99 in 1967. Also, as we have just heard, the bill was introduced by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Maclnnis). Therefore, it apparently enjoys the almost unanimous support of this house.
As a member from a riding in the greater Vancouver area, I have a particular reason for being sensitive about the way professional sports franchises are awarded. This is not only because recently, in spite of substantial federal and local investment in the most modern sports facilities in Canada, the $6 million Coliseum in Vancouver, that city has twice been turned down by the N.H.L. in Its request
DEBATES	535
Combines Investigation Act for a major hockey league franchise. The reason given originally for this refusal was that Vancouver had no suitable rink. This reason is no longer pertinent. The specific reason for the latest refusal escapes me at the moment, but I think it revolved around the proposed ownership of the team and the franchise applicants, who were somehow undesirable.
We of Vancouver also recall that some 15 years ago our first request to have a Canadian football league franchise was rebuffed. Our subsequent application was successful. However, I will not dwell or elaborate upon B.C.'s professional football team. In any event, hockey fans where I live are being denied the opportunity-and I quote from the bill-to participate or observe professional hockey as it applies to the major league. Some people where I live are unkind enough to say that the lower mainland people cannot watch first-rate hockey because a three-way split of television revenue would obtain, instead of the present rather comfortable Toronto-Montreal arrangement of lucrative television proceeds.
The former hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard, now the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, had this to say when introducing his bill in 1966. I shall not read the same portion of his remarks as was read by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond. Further down on page 1779 of Hansard for February 25, 1966, the then hon. member for Vancou-ver-Burrard is reported as having said:
While this amendment includes all professional sports it is immediately directed at the National Hockey League whose president, Mr. Clarence Campbell, has made it clear that its owners are interested only in their own welfare and not the public interest.
I am certain that members of my party would agree wholeheartedly, as I do, with this statement. Since it was pointed out previously that the matter of combines legislation comes under the direct authority of the hon. member who previously introduced the bill, the now Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the amendment before us should proceed with the speed of lightning.
This is a very fortunate private member's bill indeed, Not only was it originally sired by the minister directly concerned, but it has been adopted by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, and I would be pleased to act as its godfather. But if this were not enough, at least two other ministers of the Crown have spoken in positive terms about the sentiments expressed in the bill. On
September 27, 1963

Combines Investigation Act June 4, 1967, the then registrar general, now the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner), was reported in the Toronto Star as follows:
Ottawa to rule 'pro' sports Turner says.
Registrar General John Turner said in the commons yesterday the government intends to put professional sport under the regulation of federal authority.
The article further says:
He said he hoped the Combines Investigation Act can be amended soon to include professional sport.
Today, an official in the combines branch revealed that the government move was touched off by Vancouver's failure to get a National Hockey League franchise. When the N.H.L. doubled in size this year by adding six teams, the new franchises went to U.S. cities.
One year later, on June 4, 1968, the government re-emphasized its position when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) stated during an election campaign visit to Selkirk college in Castlegar, British Columbia.
"The federal government must do more for sports," he said. New N.H.L. franchises have gone entirely to the United States instead of partly to Canada, while U.S. baseball's national league has awarded a franchise to Montreal.
Every major Canadian city is entitled to an N.H.L. team, the Prime Minister said.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
It appears then that we have what amounts to an all party agreement that professional sport is indeed a big business and that clearly it belongs within the regulatory conditions of the Combines Investigation Act.
There is one other aspect of the bill to which I wish to turn my attention for a moment, and that is the phrase "restrict the opportunity of Canadians to participate in". I should like to put the emphasis on the words "to participate in" professional sports because I believe that it expresses the personal freedom aspect of the bill as opposed to the public interest aspect which I have just discussed.
With the growth of television sport programs and the attendant commercialism, an inverse relationship is developing whereby major leagues are growing at the expense of the minor leagues. In the short run there are fewer opportunities for athletes to earn their living by doing things they do best and like to do best.
Since there are fewer opportunities for professional athletes to learn their trade in independently owned minor leagues and teams, there is a consequent limiting of a player's freedom to sell his services to his own best economic advantage. Particularly pernicious is the current vertical integration

of the sports industry which allows an "owned" player to be consigned to the minor leagues-on occasions permanently and without his consent-at a time when other major leagues could use him and he would like to play for them. This is feudalism of the worst possible kind and a direct invasion of the rights and freedoms of an individual.
The Carl Brewer amateur reinstatement case was a recent example of the power of the N.H.L. owners, but most fans will remember how early attempts at forming a hockey players union-a right now given freely to other citizens in an enlightened age-were crushed by the moguls.
Questions about players' contracts have been raised repeatedly in this house, so it is not a matter of small concern or even a new one to the people of Canada. Just over a year ago the N.H.L. governors finally accepted, after a difficult fight, a players association, not a union but a fairly innocuous sounding thing called an association, to fight for players' rights and contracts.
The fight is far from won, and that is why we need to pass this bill as it is, paying special attention to the phrase "the right to participate in professional sports" for the sake of the individual athlete. I am not speaking now of the star or the exception, but rather of the average athlete whose professional life is exceedingly brief-it is even worse than a politician's-and much of whose time must be devoted to his profession so that often little time is left over for him to prepare for another career when his playing days are over.
In conclusion, I want to make two points. There are powerful lobbies constantly at work both here and in the United States to exempt professional sport from the anti-trust legislation. Over the years the U.S. congress, especially in the 1950s, has been bombarded to exempt professional baseball, football and hockey from the anti-trust legislation, and many attempts have nearly succeeded. In 1961, the sale of television rights was exempted. Senate judiciary committees in the United States have made anti-trust recommendations relating to sport. I cite these cases to indicate that a large section of the people in the United States and their elected representatives have had reason to believe that professional sport is a big business, a virtual monopoly, and needs greater public control.
The final point I would like to make in support of the bill is to say that I think we can take one further step along the road to
September 27, 1S68	COMMONS
encourage greater interest and accomplishment in Canada's young athletes and thereby stimulate Canadian pride inspired by such people as Barbara Ann Scott, Harry Jerome, Nancy Green and Jean Belliveau. "Champions", says Nancy, "provide the impetus to get people participating at the grass roots level".
I commend the bill as a measure to bring champions and major sports to more people in Canada sooner, to encourage our athletes to stay in Canada and to receive recognition by playing for Canadian teams before live Canadian audiences. May I also remind hon. members of the statement made by the Minister of Health and Welfare on August 14, as reported in the Toronto Star, when speaking about the new sport task force when he said "I can't really see how the franchises come within the terms of reference".
I am certain that this bill will ensure that individual and public interests are well cared for. I, therefore, believe we should pass the bill with all possible haste.


Mr. Hyl Chappell (Peel South):: Mr. Speaker, while I admire the desire and the attempt of the mover and seconder of the bill to break the hold of these so-called sports barons over their athletic serfs, or to put it another way, to loosen their tentacles from the youthful players in the hockey farm systems,
I must speak against the bill because in my opinion it is not possible to accomplish the desired result by a public bill. Nor do I believe it is wise to consider a sport amendment to the Combines Investigation Act at a time the whole field to which the act relates is under intensive study and review.
Since February 29, 1966, the date referred to by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Maclnnis), this is what has happened. In July, 1966, the late Hon. Guy Favreau, former president of the privy council and the minister then responsible for the administration of the act, announced that the whole subject of consumer affairs, including combines and restraint of trade, was being referred to the economic council for a comprehensive review and for a report. He also said that any amendment to the legislation should be in keeping with the fundamental philosophy of the act and that it would be unwise to enact temporary or piecemeal amendments.
In March of 1968 the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner), then minister of consumer and corporate affairs, stated in the house that the prohibitions in the Combines Investigation
DEBATES	537
Combines Investigation Act Act did not cover the service factor of the business community under which sports would be classified but related only to articles which could be the subject of trade or commerce, their transportation, storage or rental. He also asserted the desirability of obtaining a possible new jurisdiction, namely civil jurisdiction, for enforcement of the act under the trade and commerce head of section 91 of the British North America Act. At that time he pointed out that the specific subject, as referred to the economic council, was still under consideration by them.
The director of investigation and research, under the act, in his report tabled in the house, stated that a research study into service industries, at present not within the scope of the act, including professional sports, was in progress. At present, parliamentary authority to legislate in this area rests upon jurisdiction in the criminal law field. Because of the nature of the enforcement, the act appears criminal in purpose. However, it is well recognized that at least to date the purpose of the legislation is an economic one, namely, to provide competitive behaviour and thus to maintain free and open competition as a stimulus to the optimum use of resources in a free enterprise system.
It may very well be that the economic council may find a concurrent basis for authority under the trade and commerce head of section 91 of the B.N.A. Act which would then allow civil enforcement. In my opinion it would be much better if those entrusted with the enforcement of the act had the alternative of proceeding by civil action, leaving to criminal proceedings only the most flagrant violations.
In a criminal prosecution, the proposed indictment usually goes before a grand jury which can throw it out, and sometimes does. If the grand jury allows the matter to proceed, a criminal trial follows. The criminal process is long and expensive. Quite often the prosecution is not successful because the issues are numerous and complicated and the onus of proof is heavy in a criminal case.
While I was acting for the prosecution in a case under the Combines Investigation Act, I was struck by the time and expense necessary to prepare to prove all the details required in this type of criminal prosecution. I expressed the view at that time, and do so again, that breaches of the act could, in most cases, be dealt with more efficiently and with less expense in a civil action.
September 27, 1968

Combines Investigation Act [DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
What are the advantages, Mr. Speaker, of proceeding in a civil action? First, there is an examination for discovery, which is like a pre-trial examination of the other side under oath. At this time admissions can be obtained as to the great majority of the facts and all of the documents are produced and admitted. This would narrow the issue and reduce the number of witnesses at trial. This in turn would cut the length of trial and expense. For years these lengthy proceedings under the Combines Investigation Act, proceeding as they have on a criminal basis, have been congesting our courts and slowing the judicial process. The average length of time for one of these proceedings is from one to two months.
One might ask how a civil procedure could be effective when we cannot provide for punishment by fine, as in a criminal case. We must remember, however, that in civil proceedings we have the injunction or restraining order which is most effective. If, after the injunction is granted, the breach of the act continues, an application can be made to have the directors and officers of the corporation committed to jail or fined for contempt of court. This can be far more effective in enforcing the act than a fine against the corporation, which is usually paid out of the corporate treasury and does not cause any hurt to the person who caused the offence. Further, in a civil case the offending corporation would be required to pay the legal costs of the proceedings against it, which in many cases would exceed the amount of the average fine imposed.
Another possibility is the consideration of the American system where an independent commission issues a cease and desist order, leaving it up to the alleged offender to show that the order should not stand.
Section 32 of the act to which the proposed amendment would be attached, and under which most of the prosecutions are brought, reads as follows:
(1) Every one who conspires, combines, agrees or arranges with another person:
(a)	to limit unduly the facilities for transporting, producing, manufacturing, supplying, storing or dealing in any article,
(b)	to prevent, limit or lessen, unduly, the manufacture or production of an article, or to enhance unreasonably the price thereof,
(c)	to prevent, or lessen, unduly, competition in the production, manufacture, purchase, barter, sale, storage, rental, transportation or supply of an article, or in the price of insurance upon persons or porperty, or

(d)	to restrain or injure trade or commerce in relation to any article,
is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for two years.
I emphasized the word "unduly", Mr. Speaker, because it appears in the first three paragraphs (a), (b) and (c). There have been many judicial interpretations of the first three clauses. The Supreme Court has stated that section 32 is designed to protect the public interest in free competition, and that it is a crime to conspire, combine, agree or arrange to unduly prevent or unduly lessen it. The statute proceeds upon the footing that the preventing or lessening of competition to the prohibited degree is in itself an injury to the public.
I do not know of any prosecution under paragraph (d) to which the proposed paragraph (e) is similar in thought and wording. In the first three paragraphs the word "unduly" is used, and this is a guideline for the courts. But under paragraph (d) there is no guideline and no words of limitation. The words are so wide as to be practically meaningless.
The proposed amendment, which if agreed to would be paragraph (e), appears to follow the thinking in paragraph (d) and simply states that to limit or restrain persons from participating in or observing sport to the detriment or against the interests of the public is an offence. A prosecution under this paragraph would indeed be most difficult, and I feel would not accomplish the result sought.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, as proposed paragraph (e) reads it is conceivable that a charge could be laid against a coach for benching a player or against a refereee for suspending a star player for two or three games, particularly if this occurred during a national play-off. Is that what we seek to have included?
In any event, Mr. Speaker, the proposal is out of step with the philosophy of the act. It does not deal with maintaining competition among employers of athletes as with other employers covered by the act, but rather seeks to protect the rights of people to participate in or observe a professional sport. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, if the act is to be widened to include services, as the Economic Council and director of investigation and research under the act may very well conclude, it may be that many other services should be covered,-I can think of many but I shall not name them-in which event all of these new sections should be drafted together
September 27, 1968	COMMONS
to conform with the over-all philosophy of the act.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I support what the mover and seconder of this bill and the earlier bill wish to do, I think it unwise to amend the act in this manner when it is most doubtful that it could bring about the desired result. The research that is going on will probably produce a far more effective and efficient procedure.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this bill because my interest in it arises from the fact that it is an attempt to break open the combines act and to bring in a new type of offence or new type of matter which is not there now. As has been mentioned by other hon. members, the combines act presently covers offences relating to the sale of or trading in commodities; it does not deal with the sale of or trading in services.
For some time now I have supported movements to change the act to cover services. This bill is an attempt to amend the combines act to bring within its terms professional sport. While I support the thought and principle behind this attempt, I think it would be bad legislation if we amended an act such as this, or any other act, merely to bring in individual instances each time there was a complaint. This time it might be professional sports; another time it might be the laundry business or business consultants, and so on. A public service industry might be involved. I submit our legislation would be much improved if we amended the Combines Investigation Act to cover the sale of services as well as the sale of commodities.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
Some hon. members of the house and many members of the public wonder why it is an offence to restrain trade and fix prices with respect to the sale of commodities when it is not an offence to fix prices with respect to the sale of services. There seems to be no good reason for the distinction. Looking at the history of the act we see that when it was first passed the main problems related to trade in commodities and not to services. Then service businesses were operated under small proprietorships in local shops, and so on, and competition was intense. Now large syndicates are in the service industries. Appropriately, as mentioned in this bill, one must include all professional sports, which are very big business indeed.
DEBATES	539
Combines Investigation Act
I would be favourable to amending the Combines Investigation Act but I want the amendment to bring in not just professional sports but service industries generally, included in which are the professional sports industries.
We are told that the director of investigation and research for the combines department often receives complaints related to combines in service industries. Since his authority is limited, he has not been able to take action. In some instances where the applicability of the act is uncertain, that is, in gray areas, there have been actions before the courts in cases where services have been tied to the sale of commodities. For instance, there is the well known case of the Queen V. Beamish Construction, which went to the Ontario Court of Appeal. In this case different construction men combined together before submitting construction bids to the Government of Ontario, I believe. They were charged under the Combines Investigation Act and the Ontario Court of Appeal decided that since these men were to build something for the Ontario government they were combining to sell services; and the sale of services did not come under the act. Therefore, what happened was found to be not illegal.
There is also the case of the Queen V. Canadian Coat and Apron Supply, in which a company was charged with violating the provisions of the Combines Investigation Act in that it was restraining trade with respect to the supply of towels and laundry services to different businesses. That case was dismissed because the court found that the company performed a service; and service industries, even in instances where commodities were involved, were not covered by the act.
I think, therefore, that the act ought to be amended to cover service industries, since there may be a restraint of trade which involves services as well as commodities. I submit that this ought to be considered. As the hon. member for Peel South (Mr. Chappell) said in his speech, the entire Combines Investigation Act and all pertinent combines legislation has been referred to the economic council for consideration and recommendation.
A major complaint against the Combines Investigation Act is that there is confusion in the minds of many about its true principle or purpose. Is the Combines Investigation Act designed to attain economic goals or is it principally criminal legislation? Many, including economists and experts in this field,
September 27, 1968

Combines Investigation Act feel that the Combines Investigation Act, in its concentration on restraints of trade, concentrates too much on the fact of combines rather than on what may be good for the economy. It has been suggested that we ought to decide whether a combine or a monopoly is good or bad for the country. In drafting or applying such legislation consideration ought also to be given to the state of employment in the economy, to the balance of payments, to the effect that any particular industry has on our foreign trade, to the formation of domestic capital, to the question of the ownership of Canadian industry and to regional development and economic planning. All those factors ought to be taken into consideration before we decide whether a combination or monopoly is illegal. The present act does not allow for these considerations.


Donald MacInnis: Would the hon. member permit a question? There has been reference to the fact that this bill, in referring only to professional sports, is narrow. Before others of the hon. member's party attempt to talk the bill out, does the hon. member not think it might be a good idea to allow the hon. member who originally introduced a similar bill, the hon. member who is now the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Basford to say whether he now supports the principle of the bill he previously introduced.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. If the hon. member has a question he ought to ask it now.


Donald MacInnis: With respect, sir, I submit that the Chair ought to govern the conduct of hon. members according to the rules of the house. I do not think it is the duty of the Clerk of the house to interfere with proceedings in the house or to call to the attention of the Chair what is happening in the house.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace.


Donald MacInnis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I have the floor. I heard the question and am willing to answer it. The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond-I preferred the name of the old constituency, Cape Breton South-asked me, I think, if I should like to see the minister introduce a bill similar to the one I am suggesting ought to be introduced. I say, yes. I feel that perhaps-


Donald MacInnis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I said nothing about having the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs introduce an amendment to the bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. There is no point of order.


Donald MacInnis: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is not entitled to put words I did not say into my mouth. I said nothing about the introduction of any bill by the minister. I asked whether the minister would support the bill he originally introduced. I believe that bill was allowed to carry and, as I recall, there were objections at that time-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, if I had had a chance to look into that bill when it was introduced my criticism of it would have been similar to my criticism of the hon. member's bill this afternoon.


Donald MacInnis: Is that so?


William Warren Allmand: I have great respect for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I know that when he introduced his bill he was so taken up with the situation in Vancouver at that time that he did not look at other aspects of the matter. I know that today the minister takes a broader view.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)


Donald MacInnis: Oh.


William Warren Allmand: The hon. member had a chance to speak this afternoon. He took that opportunity and now I wish he would remain quiet while the rest of us are attempting to make our speeches.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


William Warren Allmand: I believe that now that the hon. gentleman is a minister and has responsibility for this legislation he would agree that it would be better to make provision for a broader amendment which would include all the service industries, among them, professional sport. In fact, I believe the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond would also approve of this suggestion. I notice he took up the exact wording used by
September 27, 1968
the minister when he drafted this bill; there was not much originality shown on his part. But he supports the principle, and I believe he would also support a broader amendment which would cover the service industry generally.
When I was interrupted I was discussing the need for an even more drastic amendment to the combines legislation because, as I have said, the present legislation does not consider the ultimate goal which a combines act is intended to achieve; it does not consider a situation in which combines and monopolies might be in the best interest of the economy. In Britain, in the common market countries and in Australia, changes have recently been made in the combines legislation to allow these factors to be taken into consideration. These countries have legislation similar to our own. Restraint of trade is illegal, but they do provide, now, for a situation in which the establishment of a monopoly might work to the benefit of the economy as a whole by speeding industrial growth, helping the employment situation, advancing foreign trade, and so on.
A number of studies have been made on this point including a most important one by V. W. Bladen and S. Stykolt who wrote a paper entitled "A Combines Policy in the Public Interest". They stated that the Canadian combines policy had paid too much attention to the form and too little to effects; that competition, as it had been interpreted by those administering the policy, had seemed to be an end in itself rather than a means to an end, that end being a well functioning economy delivering the maximum amount of goods and services at a minimum real cost.
In other words, what we need is a complete revision of this act, taking into consideration the part which combines might play in helping a society achieve its economic goals. The economic council has been asked about these things and we shall have to await a report. In the meantime, with respect to this bill, let me say I would support a measure which would include professional sport but that if we are to amend legislation as important as combines legislation we should not do so piecemeal but include an amendment which would cover all the service industries.


Mr. Ray Perrault (Burnaby-Seymour):: commend the sponsor of this bill. I know he has a great personal enthusiasm for this measure, an enthusiasm which is shared by many members of this house, particularly, I think, 29180-35
Combines Investigation Act by some of the members from the province of British Columbia.
We have reached a point where professional sport, indeed all the service industries, should be made subject to combines legislation. This amendment is a good amendment but it does not go far enough. I am confident that the report of the economic council will propose that regulations be more far reaching than the type anticipated in this amendment. Professional sport in this country, now growing at a phenomenal rate, should be regarded in the same light as any other business enterprise. Cartels in professional sport are just as wrong as cartels which operate in restraint of trade and against the public interest in any other sector of the economy. Yet some of the professional promoters, particularly the hockey moguls in Canada today, attempt to suggest to us that their sole interest is to provide leisure-time entertainment for the working people of Canada and that profit is the furthest thought from their minds.
They claim they are not in business, that they are sportsmen, and that because they are sportsmen their activities in the area of professional hockey and football should not be made subject to the normal regulations which apply to industry in Canada. They say they are not in sport for money; they just want to provide lots of fun for Canadians on Saturday nights. And when it is suggested that they should be made the subject of investigation they throw up their hands in horror and say they are being dealt with unfairly and that they are victims of discrimination.
The plight of the hockey barons in Canada today is somewhat less tragic than the plight of little Eva hopping about on the ice floes. The National Hockey League is big business in every sense of the word. Last year Maple Leaf Gardens Corporation netted a profit of $900,706. In the six months ending February
29,	1968, they netted $735,702. The Canadian Arena Corporation of Montreal in the year ended June 30, 1967, realized profits amounting to $487,658 and in the year ending June
30,	1966, $506,233. The current market price of Maple Leaf Gardens stock, one of the hottest on the market at the present time, is $32.88, today and the Price of Canadian Arena Corporation stock is currently $355.00.
These are interesting figures in relation to an industry which says it is not really in business at all. It is estimated that the philanthropic triumvirate made up of Stafford Smythe, Harold Ballard and John Bassett

542	COMMONS
Combines Investigation Act have seen their extensive holdings of Maple Lead Garden Corporation stock increase in value five times since they purchased it, and on the basis of the $3.10 a share dividend declared last year each of them or their companies trotted home with half a million dollars in dividends alone. I suggest there are many companies in Canada governed by combines legislation which failed to match this heady and scintillating performance. Yet we are told professional hockey is not big business in Canada.
Ask the people of Vancouver what they think about the N.H.L. and whether or not it is big business. Two years ago our great Canadian game of hockey pioneered new territories. It was expanded. It was not a case of "go west, young man." It was "go south to the United States, where the action is." Did Vancouver, or Calgary, or Winnipeg get a franchise? Were the Maritimes even considered? No! It was the "hot" hockey cities of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Oakland, Los Angeles and Minnesota which were awarded franchises. Vancouver, with the finest hockey arena in the world, seating over 15,000, was left out in the cold.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
Forget about the fact that Vancouver is a great sports town. Forget about the fact that even with a somewhat indifferent football team we can fill Empire Stadium with 30,000 fans for every home game. Even forget about our history as a former Stanley Cup city, for indeed we were competing for the Stanley Cup at one time. Forget about our contributions in men and money to the national game of hockey. Forget all about that. The franchises went to the United States, to some centres where the fans could not care less, where they did not know what was taking place on the ice. Oakland, California, had 1,500 fans for one game, watching a listless team, in a centre filled with bewildered, dispirited people.
Why was Vancouver left out? Mr. Clarence Campbell and the directors of the N.H.L. said they did not think the quality of the Vancouver presentation was adequate. Mr. Speaker, the person who was going to help to run hockey in Vancouver was Foster Hewitt. But they said that he did not know enough about hockey. The fact is not that Vancouver lacked experienced management. The fact is that Mr. Stafford Smythe came to Vancouver and he wanted the people of Vancouver to give him, free of charge, a vast chunk of real estate in downtown Vancouver where he said he would

DEBATES	September 27, 1968
erect a hockey stadium. He wanted, in effect, a licence to print money. He, was very upset at the ingratitude of the natives of British Columbia when we rejected his proposal.
More important, these sportsmen, these philanthropists of the N.H.L. did not want to split up the $2.5 million that they get each year from television rights. They did not want to divide it three ways with another Canadian club. More than that, Mr. Speaker, when they looked at the television possibilities of those United States "markets" they fairly drooled, and any suggestion that they wanted to advance Canada's national game in other Canadian centres went completely out the window.
What do these Canadian sports bosses want this year? There are record profits at the Gardens, and record profits at Montreal, but now they want $4 million for the television rights. They have not given any indication that they want to divide this money with new clubs in the Maritimes or with clubs in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary, or any other centre. In Maple Leaf Gardens seat prices are going to be boosted again. This is not bad for an organization which says it is in a nonprofit business, that it is not really in business at all, that it is really 'just there to please folks". British Columbia has been patted on the head. They say that if we stand in line, if we watch our P's and Q's and if we are loyal to N.H.L. standards then, when they expand again, we just might get a franchise. I tell you this, Mr. Speaker, the people in western Canada are not holding their breaths.
Then, there are some people who say that this is a business which should not be regulated. What about players' contracts? Here again the N.H.L. is riddled with restrictions on freedom. Where else in the world would you find a situation where a hockey player, when he decides to retire, cannot find work in any other hockey organization, even upstairs sweeping the floor, unless he gets permission from his former owners?
Take the case of Red Kelly, a former member of this house. What happened to Red? You read about it. Most of you sports fans know. He retired from the Leafs and wanted to coach the Los Angeles Kings. The Leafs management told him, "You cannot get that job with the Los Angeles Kings unless we make a deal with the Los Angeles club." The fact is that under the feudal sports baronies established in the National Hockey League, Red Kelly couldn't sell popcorn for the Los Angeles Kings unless he got the approval of Stafford Smythe and his pals.
September 27, 1968	COMMONS
There are still some people in Canada who want to defend the status quo. They say it is the same all over the world. It is not, Mr. Speaker. Take the case of the Baltimore Colts' Ray Berry, an outstanding player fqr the Baltimore team. The day he retired he was hired by the Dallas Cowboys as end coach. He had his new job the following day. There were no deals, no feudal property rights involved. He was a free man. In England soccer players are often sold by their clubs. "Transfer" is the word they use in England, and the price may go up to $300,000. What happens when a player is transferred from one team to another in Britain where they are very zealous about the protection of human rights and freedoms? The player is called in and asked if he wants to be transferred. If he says yes he gets a percentage of the transfer fee. In Canada, if an N.H.L. player does not report to the club to which he has been sold then that is the last time he puts on skates in Canada or anywhere else.
How long are we going to tolerate a situation like this in Canada, let alone the matter of the profits? The Profits which are being gathered by these organizations are not subject to regulations affecting normal business. Some sports writers have said that N.H.L. players are well paid. Some of them are, but others of real talent are languishing in the minors, caught in that feudal web where their rights are restricted, a web which prevents some of them from making the N.H.L. with some other team. Clubs should not be able to send players to the minors if other N.H.L. clubs can use them.
I believe that players should be tied to specific clubs only for the length of their contracts instead of being the lifetime property of the clubs with which they sign. In any other business, and hockey is big business, if an employee works with a major company and fulfils his obligation to that company, he can go to work in an ancillary field. Why are civil rights denied to so many of our professional athletes?
Professional sport must be placed under federal regulation, but this should go beyond
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Business of the House
professional sports. It should also apply to service industries, and we should make sure that the kind of legislation which we pass in the House of Commons is going to be air tight, is going to be water tight, that it is not going to be possible for some of these professional sports promoters, making millions of dollars as they do each year, to find a loophole through which they can drive wedges to the detriment of the public. The sooner this is done the better, especially in view of the substantial increase in leisure time which will result in expansion of professional sports of all kinds.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the Combines Investigation Act must be amended to provide that those who conspire to combine, to limit, or restrict the opportunity in Canada of persons to participate in or observe any professional sport, and which operate against the public interest, shall be guilty of an offence and appropriate action taken. I look forward to the recommendations which will come from the economic council, and let us hope the government acts on a broad scale, not on the worthy but limited scale suggested in this bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business has now expired.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Donald Stovel Macdonald: Before you announce the adjournment of the house, Mr. Speaker, could I just confirm for the benefit of hon. members that, subject to the arrangements we made earlier this day about the possibility of the house sitting later on Monday, we will continue with the debate on interim supply.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: It being six o'clock p.m. this house stands adjourned until Monday next at 2.30 in the afternoon.
At 6.01 p.m. the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
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Monday, September 30, 1968