1969-07-25

COMMISSIONERS OF INTERNAL ECONOMY-EXTRACT FROM MINUTES CONCERNING MEMBERS' EXPENSES

Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to lay before the House an extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Commissioners of Internal Economy, concerning certain additional expenses payable to members.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the house will recall that a few days ago we constituted a special joint parliamentary committee on tax reform but at that time did not name the personnel. I have a formal order here which, if the house is agreeable, perhaps might be made in order to constitute the membership of the committee so that it can meet during the recess. I therefore move:
That the Members of the House of Commons on the Special Joint Parliamentary Committee on Tax Reform to consider the Government's proposals for tax reform be Messrs. Blair, Burton, Clermont, Comtois, Danson, Gillespie, Gray, Kaplan, Latu-lippe, Leblanc (Laurier), Noel, Roberts, Saltsman, Trudel, Danforth, Ritchie, Downey, Flemming, Harkness and Lambert (Edmonton West); and
That a Message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours thereof.


Mr. Winch:: Mr. Speaker, how does the House of Commons send a message to the other place when it has adjourned until October 14?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will have to consult the Postmaster General.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: It
will never get there by October 14.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, Your Honour just referred to the decision of the Commissioners of Internal Economy concerning certain additional expenses payable to Members of Parliament. If the house is agreeable I should like to move, seconded by Mr. Olson, that the said extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Commissioners of Internal Economy laid before the House today by Mr. Speaker, concerning certain additional expenses payable to members, be concurred in.


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


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, as one of the members affected by this matter I cannot give my consent to leave to discuss this motion at this time. My refusal does not concern the substance of the motion but rather the granting of leave. In view of the discussion in respect of the rules over the past several weeks and in view of the fact that the government wants to operate on the basis of the rules, I feel we should operate on that basis.


Mr. Speaker:: Since there is not agreement for the motion to be put, the motion will not be put.



MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT TO OCTOBER 22, 1969

Donald Stovel Macdonald: That when the House adjourns for its summer recess it shall stand adjourned until October 22, 1969, provided always that if it appears to the satisfaction of Mr. Speaker, after consultation with Her Majesty's Government, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, Mr. Speaker may give notice that he is so satisfied, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice, and shall transact its business as if it had been duly adjourned to that time; and
That, in the event of Mr. Speaker being unable to act owing to illness or other cause, the Deputy Speaker or the Deputy Chairman of Committees shall act in his stead for the purpose of reconvening the House.
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House


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


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to support the motion. I propose to move that the motion be amended by deleting the words "October 22" where they appear in the second line and substituting therefore the words "September 22".
[DOT] (11:10 a.m.)
I rise to present this amendment, Sir, on behalf of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. The effect of the amendment is clear: We should resume parliament not on October 22 but a month earlier on September 22. In view of the accumulation of serious problems facing this country it is immature and irresponsible for the government to send parliament off on a three-month vacation. I think the people of this country will be scandalized at the casual and apparently carefree attitude adopted by the government toward the problems of the country and its responsibilities to find solutions to those problems.
I do not deny for a moment that Members of Parliament are as entitled to a holiday as anybody else, and it must be clear that a good many members of parliament are rather tired today. Furthermore, we all have important work to do in our constituencies and elsewhere. However, there is no reason in the world that parliament should shut down until October 22. The people of Canada will regard a three-month holiday as rather too much of a good thing and as representing a very blase attitude toward our responsibilities.
I want to make it very clear where the responsibility for this proposed action rests. The government, and the government alone, is insisting on a prolonged adjournment and we on this side, at least those in this party, disassociate ourselves completely from this casual irresponsibility of the government. They are like kids who want to play truant from their responsibilities.
There is no reason-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I would suggest, Sir-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I would suggest that my hon. friends save their breath and their voices because if they are disturbed by what I have

said so far they may need their lungs more for what I am going to say later.
There is no reason for the government to keep parliament shut down for almost three months, except the complete disdain of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the cabinet for this institution. They do not like questions, they do not like free debate, and they find parliament a nuisance and an inconvenience. They cannot quite do away with the institution altogether but they impose rules which will give them complete control over it, and they will keep it adjourned just as long as they can.
In view of the kind of parliament envisaged by this government and its supporters in the house, a parliament which meets relatively briefly to endorse the decrees of Caesar after very cursory discussion, it is clear that the attitude of the government and its supporters toward the institutions of government in this country, the attitude of the federal Liberal party, particularly those in this government, differs very little from the views expressed by General de Gaulle-a great soldier, a great patriot, a great man, but hardly a democrat as we understand democracy in this country. It is not for me to suggest what kind of government or government institutions are suitable for France.


Mr. Trudeau:: Why are you talking about France?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: As I say, Mr. Speaker, it is not for me to say what is suitable for France. But it is coming through loud and clear all the time that this government envisages periodic elections and government in the meantime by press conference and pre-sessions of parliament. It is true we do not have a president, but a rose smells just as sweet by any other name-or a carnation, as far as that is concerned.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: So does an egg plant.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Now we are told that parliament is to meet toward the end of October.


Mr. Hogarth:: What year?


An hon. Member:: That was a great contribution, Hogarth.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I do not know. It might be put off for another year. In view of the problems that face the country, there is no adequate excuse for this action. The government
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
says it needs this time to get its legislative program ready for the next session. This is one of the most incredible explanations that could possibly be put forward at this point in time. The government was elected in June of 1968. This session of parliament began on September 12. It was stated in the Speech from the Throne, and it has been repeated numerous times by members of the cabinet and by the propagandists of the Liberal party, that the present session of parliament should be regarded as merely a "clean-up session", that the government, in its orderly and efficient way, wanted to tidy up all the legislative items that were hanging over from the Pearson administration. This session of parliament was chiefly to clear the decks for the new exciting legislation that would usher in the just society.
After spending a whole session of parliament dealing with legislative left-overs from the Pearson government, are the members of this cabinet seriously trying to pretend that they do not have a program ready for the next session of parliament?


Mr. Woolliams:: They do not have a
program.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: That explanation, Mr. Speaker, is just not believable, unless the government is more inept and dishonest with the people than we feared. It should be mentioned in passing that there were items, some of them very important, in the Speech from the Throne which the government has not yet brought forward in legislative form.


An hon. Member:: Due to filibuster.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I am not impressed by that interjection, Mr. Speaker. We hear all this talk about filibuster, and now the government is asking the house to recess for three months and to meet on October 22.


Mr. Crouse:: What a joke!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: It is comforting to have a government supporter show how hollow all this talk has been. What has happened to the educational television bill? What has become of that hardy, old perennial, the Canada Development Corporation? The government removed from the order paper the item having to do with the Indian Claims Commission, thus welshing once more on the understanding given to the Indian people. They have now decided to appoint a commissioner who, in effect, will decide whether there should be

Motion to Adjourn House a claims commission and, if so, what claims will be considered worthy of being heard by it.
[DOT] (11:20 a.m.)
What has become of this magnificently efficient cabinet structure, organized so finely that decisions roll out just as though they came from a computer? What has happened to it, Mr. Speaker? I suppose someone will tell us that committees are meeting in September and that it is a good idea to have the committees free to meet when parliament is adjourned. That is not the same reason that has been given to us so far in any explanation as to why the house is not meeting earlier. We have been told that the government needs time between sessions to get its program ready. This is very difficult to believe of this highly structured, highly organized, computer-like administration.
We have been told in the course of recent days that the government has urgent and important business to bring before the house when the session resumes. Some of it is even said to be highly controversial. This, we were told, was why they needed the weapon of rule 75c. Let us come back here in September and let us see that important legislation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: If the government is going to chop off debate when we start to consider legislation, I suggest it is going to be pretty hard to add to this more subtle form of closure by keeping parliament adjourned for long periods. I know how unappealing the idea is to the finer sensibilities of the hon. gentlemen on the treasury benches, but is it not time that the parliament of Canada began to deal with specific solutions to the disgraceful situation in this country regarding poverty? The entire field of anti-poverty measures has been left completely untouched by this government. I suppose they do not want to get their hands dirty.
We were told there has been a review of the whole social welfare system in Canada. Where is it and what is it? When will we see it? What new solutions does the government have to propose? These are questions that directly relate to the thousands of people who are hopelessly trapped by poverty.
While this government relaxes during the month of September, many young people will be prevented from returning to school. Many
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House will not be able to take advantage of educational training programs because they have not been able to get work and will not be in a financial position to do so. For every day that this government delays the introduction of effective anti-poverty measures, thousands of Canadians sink deeper and deeper into poverty.


An hon. Member:: Who is the author?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: We were told that the water act is supposed to be ready in the course of the summer. Why cannot we start work on that? What about the government's own public service pensioners? Are they going to continue to be put off while parliament is in recess? What about the veterans of our armed services? These people and others must be near the top of the priority scheme of the government, if there is one. The people of Canada can only assume that the just society is just a cynical piece of hypocrisy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Are we to stay out until October 22 and leave the country's anti-inflationary program to the tender mercies of this government? Then there is supposed to be legislation relating to corporate disclosure. Why can we not deal with that?
There is no need for me to go on longer detailing the list of things that need urgent consideration. All I will say in closing is that this motion to recess until the 22nd day of October may be all right for the hon. gentlemen opposite who consider this institution to be of small importance, and who consider the important decisions as being those taken by the government and not those taken by parliament. It may suit them fine. But I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that it will appear reprehensible in the eyes of the Canadian people, and I call upon the house to support the amendment I propose and to reject the date proposed by the government this morning.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of supporting the amendment which has just been moved by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield). Indeed had he not moved such an amendment I would have moved one along similar lines because I am in full accord with the proposition that parliament ought not to recess for three months and that we ought to be back in our places by at least September 22.
[Mr. Stanfield.l


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Why not earlier?


An hon. Member:: Why not?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Why did your members leave?


An hon. Member:: So did yours.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands has the floor.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I can understand the Prime Minister's petulance. He probably has not had much sleep.
I want to point out that the government motion that this house recess until October 22 completely destroys the credibility of the government. For months they have been trying to convince the Canadian people that parliament has been preventing them from passing much needed legislation, that they were obstructed in some way, or hindered in bringing in legislation which would completely revolutionize Canadian society. Now they have so little to present to parliament that they are suggesting parliament take a three-months' holiday.
In the house on July 8, as reported on page 10982 of Hansard, the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Macdonald) said that if there had not been prolonged debate on certain matters, particularly the omnibus bill on the Criminal Code, the government would have proposed many important measures. Well, if there are important measures which the government desires to see passed, there are two things we could have done. We could have continued to sit on into July instead of planning to adjourn on June 27. There would have been no objection on the part of opposition members to sitting during the summer months in order to discharge their responsibilities. We have done it before.
The second thing the government could have done was to call for the reconvening of parliament early in September, immediately after Labour Day. But the government has not done either one of these things. We have dealt with no legislation at all since the first two or three days in July, and now the government suggests it has nothing to put before parliament and that there is no need to bring members back before October 22. I would remind the house that if we start a new session on October 22 with the debate on the address no legislation will be dealt with until the month of November. This means a period
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
of almost four months during which no legislation will have been dealt with by parliament.
[DOT] (11:30 a.m.)
On July 22 the Prime Minister gave an interview before the television cameras, where he seems to prefer to carry on most of his debates because the cameras cannot interrupt, ask questions or talk back. At that time he said that the people were confronted with a "do-nothing parliament". I would point out that parliament has been very busy. It has been busy most of the time trying to get the government to take action on the important problems that are facing the country. But the country is confronted with a "do-nothing government". The best proof that it is a "do-nothing government" is that it does not even want to bring parliament back until October 22 because it has nothing to put before it.
I would ask Your Honour whether you can imagine a course of action more inconsistent than this. The government brings in rules changes, ostensibly for the purpose of streamlining parliament. But we now find that the only purpose of streamlining parliament is not to enable parliament to do more business but to give its members a longer holiday. Closure was not introduced so that the government could streamline parliament and deal with the important issues of the day; it was introduced so that we could have shorter sessions of parliament, so that the government could get parliament out of the road.
I said that the government's credibility had been destroyed because it had talked about legislation it wanted to put before the house and had not done so. Where is this legislation? Why is it not put before us? Why does the government not bring it down, either now or in September? The time has come for the government to stop bluffing and to start performing. The time has come to put up or shut up. To use an old fishermen's phrase, the time has come to "fish or cut bait". There is also an old printer's phrase that is apt, Mr. Speaker, but our parliamentary rules would not allow me to use it.
The real fact of the matter is that this government, particularly the Prime Minister, does not want parliament around at all. Parliament is an unnecessary encumbrance, a continuing embarrassment. Hon. members opposite would like us to go home because the opposition has become a nuisance. The opposition keeps asking questions that the government cannot answer. The opposition
Motion to Adjourn House keeps insisting that the government state its policies in regard to a whole host of matters, but the government has no policies and does not like to admit it. So the simple solution is to send members of parliament home and to keep them at home for as long as possible.
The government claims that it needs time to formulate its policies and to prepare its parliamentary program. If the President of the Privy Council is right and there is a lot of legislation that the government wanted to get through, then surely that legislation must be ready now. Therefore parliament could meet in September and deal with it while the cabinet meets to prepare any other legislation the government has in mind.
The government does not need three months to sit in an ivory tower to consider problems that have been before it for a long time. These are problems in regard to which the government has appointed task forces, committees and commissions. The desks of ministers opposite must be piled high with reports. If the government has no policies or legislation, then it should say so honestly. Let it say to the members of this house: "We are not ready because we have no legislation. We want a little time to think up some new answers to old problems, so please go away and leave us alone." That would at least be an honest attitude to take.
What the government is doing is telling the public, on the one hand, that there are many things the government wants to do but which an obstructive opposition keeps it from doing. On the other hand, when the government does have a chance to put legislation before the house, it tells parliament: "We don't want you around at all". The motion moved by the government to recess the house till October 22 demonstrates that the government is made up of phonies who are trying to fool the people of this country, and I want to tell the government that it will not get away with it.
During the course of the interview on July 22 to which I referred a few moments ago the Prime Minister said: "I think the greatest danger in this country was not closure, but the feeling of the people that the government was irrelevant, that things were happening, whether pollution, or housing, or moonshots, or urban slums, that parliament was not dealing with.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I hear a few backbenchers opposite applauding. I notice that the majority of the
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House government members have the uncomfortable feeling that the matters which the Prime Minister says parliament was not dealing with are the very things that the government has not been dealing with. Has parliament not been dealing with pollution? Certainly opposition members have raised the question of pollution on every conceivable occasion. But what has the government done in connection with pollution?


Mr. Hees:: Nothing.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It is almost two years since I heard the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. MacEachen), at a time when he was minister of health and welfare, make a resounding speech in the house about legislation that he was just ready to bring down and which, to quote his words, was going to give Canada pure water and clean air. Where is that legislation? Never has there been as much pollution in Canada as there is today.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I would take the liberty of bringing to the attention of hon. members that it is extremely difficult to follow the speech of the hon. member.
[DOT] (11:40 a.m.)


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I do not mind the interruptions, Mr. Speaker. There is an old saying in the north that if you throw a stone into a pack of dogs and one yelps you have hit something.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Never has the problem of pollution been so acute as it is today. Never have the people of this country been so conscious of what we are doing to the environment of the Canadian people. Where is the water act? Where is the legislation to deal with pollution? We have had no legislation, We have not got pure water or clean air. All we have had is a lot of hot air.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: When the Prime Minister has the unmitigated gall to say that parliament is not dealing with pollution, the responsibility rests right on his doorstep because he and his party are the people who should be introducing legislation to deal with the matter.
[Mr. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Island) .1
The second matter that the Prime Minister said parliament is not dealing with is housing. We are very conscious of the fact that parliament is not dealing adequately with housing. As a matter of fact, the government did nothing about housing until the hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Hellyer), when he was the Prime Minister's senior cabinet minister and desk-mate, finally got so frustrated that he gave the Prime Minister a kick in the place where the Prime Minister was going to kick the little boy in Regina.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: We finally got some legislation. It is inadequate legislation, but that is the only time the government moved with any commendable speed. The other matter the Prime Minister referred to that parliament was not dealing with was moonshots. I do not know what the Prime Minister wants us to do about moonshots, Mr. Speaker, but something which concerns the human race even more than moonshots is the danger of a nuclear holocaust that could destroy the human race.
As far back as March the Prime Minister said that the government would follow the question of the Safeguard A.B.M. system closely. He said that if Canada thought it would escalate the nuclear arms race the government would express its disapproval to the United States and to the world. On the other hand, if the government felt the Safeguard system would be of value it might be prepared to participate and its decision would be made known to parliament and to the Canadian people. Months have elapsed. The other day I asked the Prime Minister whether a decision had been reached. He said no.
In the course of the next few days the United States Senate will make a decision. The majority leader of the Senate says that in all probability the construction of the Safeguard A.B.M. system will be approved by that body. Instead of worrying about moonshots, the Prime Minister should be worried about the A.B.M. system. This parliament should have an opportunity to debate that question. We should be able to debate it on the basis of what the government's stated policy is, not on the basis of no comment and no decision.
The Prime Minister said the other day that parliament is not dealing with slum clearance. The only reason it is not dealing with slum clearance is that the government has not put any really useful and effective legislation
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
before the house so that we can deal with the question of slum clearance.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) keeps turning down every proposal on the basis that it is inflationary. Yet we have had no legislation to deal with the problem of inflation. Just two days ago the near-banks of this country raised their interest rates again. This will undoubtedly bring pressure to bear on the chartered banks to increase their rates further. An announcement two days ago indicates that the increasing interest rates for mortgage money has had the effect of reducing housing starts with the distinct possibility that starts this year will not even reach the 197,000 starts of last year.
Where is the legislation to deal with inflation? It took the government almost a year to set up the Prices and Incomes Commission. There has been no legislation on the matter of interest rates. There has been no legislation to implement the report of the Porter Commission to bring the near-banks under the control of the federal government through the Bank Act. There has been no legislation on inflation at all.
The government says that the most pressing problem in Canada today is inflation, yet there is not one piece of legislation before us now. We are going to be sent home until October 22. No legislation can be dealt with until November. Yet the government says inflation is a serious problem. There are many other problems, Mr. Speaker. I need not enumerate them all.
One of the most pressing problems is veterans' pensions. The veterans of this country have been waiting years for the Woods report. Now we have the Woods report. Instead of acting on it, the government is waiting for a white paper. They are going to send the report and the white paper to a committee. We could have had legislation in this session. If the government requested it, every member would stay here to deal with legislation to improve the plight of the veterans.


An hon. Member:: Where are your
members?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: They are coming back on Monday.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The hon. gentleman is worrying
about members. What he should worry about is where the government members were on the day parliament adjourned early for lack of a quorum.
Motion to Adjourn House


George Harris Hees: There were seven in the house.


Mr. Speaker:: Again it is difficult to hear the hon. member. I think in fairness I should point out that the verbal crossfire is between individual members on both sides of the house.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: One of the most serious problems which has not been dealt with by parliament because the government has no program and no policy is the plight of western agriculture. We are being asked to go home only a week before the end of the crop year. We do not know what the government's policy is going to be with respect to assuring the farmers that they will be able to deliver at least five bushels per acre in the present crop year which ends July 31. We have no understanding as to what the government's intentions are with respect to the price the farmer will receive in the new crop year which begins on August 1. We have received no indication from the government as to what its policies are to inject a massive infusion of cash income into the pockets of the western farmers.
[DOT] (11:50 a.m.)
The Prime Minister spent the best part of a week in western Canada talking to the farmers and meeting with various farm groups. When he had finished those discussions, at least he admitted that the farmers need money. When he returned we had a day's debate on this matter. The Prime Minister took no part in it. We had no announcement from the government concerning any policy envisaged for the coming year. The only reference was to legislation passed months ago to provide for cash advances on farm stored grain. Just a week ago I asked the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp), when he was Acting Prime Minister, when the government would make a statement concerning its policy in respect of western agriculture. His reply was very clear. He said it would have to be made before the end of the crop year. But we have had no statement.
It is very likely, Mr. Speaker, that important legislation will be required if we are to salvage the economy of western Canada. Next November will be too late. We should either be dealing with that legislation now or should be told by the government that it will have legislation ready for early September. We should be dealing with that legislation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.
11630	COMMONS
Motion to Adjourn House


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I want to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that the plight of western agriculture is not purely a regional matter. The farmers of Saskatchewan alone buy annually about $100 million worth of farm machinery, most of it coming from central Canada. They also buy large quantities of hardware, cars, trucks and other supplies. When agricultural income on the prairies declines by $430 million in a single year, it is only a matter of time until the rest of Canada feels the adverse effects of that decline. Here we have a government which professes to be concerned about the problem of the prairie farmers asking us, on July 25, to go home without any statement from the government about what it is going to do, and not only to go home but to remain at home until October 22 which means that in that period no legislation will be possible to salvage the situation in the prairie provinces.
There are a great many other things with which parliament has not dealt. In closing I wish to say there is only one reason parliament has not dealt with these matters. It is not because there has been obstruction. It is not because we are unwilling to sit here in the summer or come back early in the fall. The only reason parliament has not grappled with the problems that assail the Canadian people is that this government has no policies and no programs. It is completely bankrupt of leadership, and the motion today exposes that fact for all to see.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr, Real Caouetle (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, at one o'clock this morning, the Liberal majority applied the rule of closure. At 1:20, the sinister rule 75c was imposed upon us again by the Liberal majority and now, at noon today, they propose no more or no less the pure and simple closing down of parliament for three months.
The present government is heaved-handed when it comes to closure, while very serious and urgent problems not only remain unsolved but have not been discussed or introduced by the Liberal administration.
Mr. Speaker, we are about to go on holidays. I am not against holidays for the hon. members, but in all ridings we note that there are some people who do not have the means to take holidays but who have them to pay taxes and allow their member of parliament to go on holidays.

DEBATES	July 25, 1969


An hon. Member:: You have been on holidays for three weeks already.
Another hon. Member: Some members take ten-month holidays.


Mr. Caoueite:: I hear a member saying that some members take ten-month holidays. We know that. We see them in the house on holidays, because they are not brave enough to rise and state their opinions. Those people are on holidays for four years. However, they are not on holidays when they have to go and beg for votes which they obtain on false pretences to come here and wear out the seat of their pants in the Canadian parliament.
Mr. Speaker, I am not against taking holidays, even for three months, as was suggested by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Macdonald). That would be normal under a normal system, if the legislative program were brought in. As for problems, we solve them from day to day.
Hardly a few days ago, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) or the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) said that we could do nothing for western farmers with regard to their wheat surplus.
The Prime Minister went to Winnipeg and told farmers: You have wheat, sell it. It belongs to you. We have no miracle solution to suggest.
Recently the Prime Minister returned to western Canada where, in some places, he was given a rather stormy welcome. He was even insulted. The Prime Minister then made the following statement: We shall ear-mark $250 million to help western farmers. We shall provide them with those funds without interest until they have sold their crop.
And, in order to project a better image to the farmers, the Minister of Agriculture visited the same regions the following day and told the farmers: We may even ear-mark up to $500 million rather than only $250 million.
Mr. Speaker, in order to get the government to act, will it be absolutely necessary that the Prime Minister be insulted from one end of the country to the other, and that Canada's poor fling insults at him and at the government?
As far as the summer recess is concerned, the motion moved by the President of the Privy Council reads in part as follows:
-provided always that if it appears to the satisfaction of Mr. Speaker, after consultation with Her Majesty's Government, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment-
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
-at that time, the house might meet again in September, in August or early in October.
[DOT] (12 noon)
Mr. Speaker, would it not be in the public interest to solve the unemployment problem in Canada in July 1969, in order to assist some 400,000 unemployed who cannot earn a decent and honourable living in their own country?
Mr. Speaker, would the introduction of measures designed to efficiently fight poverty in Canada not serve the public interest? There are many poor people in Canada, Welfare recipients, for instance, write us day in, day out. The Liberal members also get the same kind of letters. Some mothers are utterly crushed because they have to manage to live on a monthly income of $110, $115 or $125. Mothers with five, six, eight or even ten children write to us: We have no security, we are entitled to nothing more than $125 or $135 per month.
Mr. Speaker, would it not be more important for the Prime Minister and the government to present legislation to improve social welfare so that every individual would have the right to life, security and liberty in his own country, that is Canada?
Mr. Speaker, is it more important to go on holidays or to solve these problems? Is it more important to go on holidays than to work at boosting the Canadian economy?
Day after day, the Prime Minister repeats that we have enormous problems to solve. Are we going to leave those problems pending? When the time comes for solving problems, the Prime Minister says exactly what he said recently to the representatives of the provinces: We have no money.
Would it not be more important, during the holidays, to look into the monetary system of Canada, in order to gear it to our opportunities for developing the country?
No, they prefer to move a motion to enable us to take holidays. Meanwhile, all problems remain unsolved and their study is deferred. The provinces complain to the federal government and municipalities complain to provincial governments, yet no solution can be found to those problems.
Mr. Speaker, I spoke earlier of western producers who, according to the Minister of Agriculture, will get up to $500 million in cash, as long as their wheat remains unsold. We are not against western farmers being assisted. We have always supported the measures that are likely to assist western farmers.
Motion to Adjourn House
But, Mr. Speaker, there are farmers in eastern Canada also. The dairy farmers in Quebec have surplus problems. Some farmers in the Maritimes, some potato farmers and corn producers in Ontario have to sell their production below cost price.
Mr. Speaker, the government does not propose anything to help these farmers. It is good of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture to solve problems, to help and to promise $500 million to the western farmers.
However, this does not complete the farm policy for the whole country. Has the government offered a national farm policy for Canada since it has come to power? Has the previous government ever presented a general farming policy for Canada as a whole?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member will allow me to interrupt him for a moment in order to remind him that the house is presently considering a specific motion. The hon. member should somehow keep in mind the rule of relevancy, and his comments should relate to the motion under consideration at this time.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) allows us to give the reasons why we will support it. The Leader of the Opposition himself blamed the government for its inaction.
The leader of the New Democratic party (Mr. Douglas) had every chance to come out with what he had to say, and this too is related to the amendment, whereby the house would resume its work at the end of September in order to solve the problems that have been set aside, and which the government or the Prime Minister did not want to put before the house.
Since the beginning of the session we have been asked to adopt bills of very little importance while the government neglected to introduce the important ones. That is why, we will support the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition, so that the house might be invited to meet sooner to enable the government to introduce its legislation. The government has certainly prepared its legislative program because for a year and a half now, we have been hearing of all those steps that have been taken to realize a "just society". So, legislation must be ready. Why wait before putting it before parliament?
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House
Some bills were introduced, namely the omnibus bill, other secondary bills were also put to us. This last month we have been discussing parliamentary procedures. But has that solved the economic problems in Canada?
To my mind, Mr. Speaker, it is important for the members to meet as soon as possible. If this was not urgent, I admit that perhaps we could take a break until October 22. I could even suggest better than that: that sessions always be held at set dates, that the opening of the session be set for such and such a date, the closing or adjournment for Christmas and the New Year be always from December 20 to January 18 or 20 and that the house adjourn in June to come back in September. In summer, the house would adjourn at the end of June or the beginning of July and convene when the school opens early in September, because there are so many school children on the other side and it would be too bad to deprive them of the education they are entitled to.
Mr. Speaker, I believe it would be appropriate for the government to pass legislation so that sessions should always be within fixed dates. However, owing to circumstances, such is not the case; we are asked to adjourn until October 22. The Leader of the Opposition suggests September 22 so that we may have a month for the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. As the leader of the N.D.P. pointed out, that would take about ten days or about the whole of October. In November we could begin with the bills that were so much promised by the government in the last Speech from the Throne.
Mr. Speaker, in the public interest, I believe it is urgent that we talk for instance about the underdeveloped areas the producers the farmers the overall agricultural policy in Canada, the social security structure that should be amended, old age pensions, pensions to veterans and retired people.
Those matters should be discussed as soon as possible. For three, four years or even five years already, the government has been asked to bring solutions in order to help those pensioners. The minister will say again: We are asked by the opposition to spend more money, but the government has less and less money.
And the Treasury will run dry because precisely the government allows financial sharks
[Mr. CaouetteJ
to increase their interest rates. The government will be supplied by financial sources on which it has to pay accrued interest. If it borrows $1 million or $1 billion on a 12-, 15-or 20-year basis, it would have to pay back $2 billion. And to pay off the second billion, it would have to borrow again, because this is how the system works.
[DOT] (12:10 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker, the Creditistes maintain that the first thing to be settled in Canada is the monetary system. The government should introduce in the house a specific, clear and definite legislative program with regard to the Canadian monetary system, which is at the origin of the inflation so often referred to by the Prime Minister. He dealt with it and we are sinking deeper and deeper into inflation which enables the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.
This is the system in which we operate and as long as that system controls the destiny of our nation, we will be in the same mess. Whether it be under the government of this Prime Minister or the next one or a former one, we always end up in a dead end and a solution is impossible to find. Such is the situation in which we find ourselves.
The government proposes now the adjournment until October 22nd simply because he has no solution to offer, because he does not have the courage to introduce its legislative program and to suggest solutions to the problems. Let him at least put the problems to the house and we are going to provide it with the solutions Canada needs.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the amendment purports to have the session resume on September 22 instead of October 22.
I listened carefully to the interventions of opposition party leaders. I must say that one of them did not surprise me very much. As for the other two, I will deal with them in a moment.
The hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette), the leader of the Ralliement Creditiste did not surprise me very much. He was never in power and he will never be. He does not know what is a government.


An hon. Member:: He will never know it.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He will never know it. This position is easy and quite clear. A very long time ago, no doubt when he was still a child, he stated his political theory and economic
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
philosophy. Everything boils down to the monetary system. He found the truth several years ago. He thinks he can stop thinking, studying and examining because he has the answer to everything: the reform of the monetary system. If there is too much pollution it is because of the monetary system. If housing is in a bad way, the monetary system is to blame. Canadian participation abroad also depends on the monetary system, and digestion too, for that matter.
Mr. Speaker, I understand why that party does not need any respite, that it does not need any time to study and do research. In theory, as well as intellectually, they have found out everything. They have only one thing left to do and it is to make the people believe it and for that, of course, they must talk. And in order to do so, they must of course, be in the house. Give them holidays and they vanish out of the picture. They become nobodies-they are just nil.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They are here, Mr. Speaker, to be seen and to be heard. They need a forum and there is none except in the house. They do not want to go in their constituencies, because the people there do not want to see them. They have heard the same things over and over again for too many years.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, they are welcome to stay in Ottawa if they like.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Temiscamingue has a problem. He wants to say a few words on the monetary system.


David Réal Caouette: You say you have no money?


Mr. Dionne:: That is always what is missing, dollars!


Mr. Speaker:: Order!


David Réal Caouette: You mentioned that in
Rouyn, you said you did not have any money.


An hon. Member:: You also said that in western Canada.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Temiscamingue and his colleagues of the Ralliement Creditiste might take advantage of the time we are allowing them to study the problems a bit and to examine the solutions we are proposing.
The hon. member has just mentioned my trip in western Canada and, talking through
Motion to Adjourn House his hat as usual, he referred to the solutions we proposed.
He refers to $250 million and $500 million that we are supposed to have thought up as a result of my trip in western Canada. It is not true, Mr. Speaker. It is only a matter of applying a policy already in existence which was misunderstood in the west. As a matter of fact, it is a policy of advance payments on unsold wheat. However, the hon. member did not understand it neither did several Canadians in the west.
That is why we are urging the hon. members to spend a little more time in their constituency in order to explain the policy or solutions that have been misunderstood.
Mr. Speaker, in order to understand and to be in a position to explain, one needs a little silence, a little reflection and a little study. That is asking a lot from the opposition parties, especially from the Creditistes, who have always been in possession of the truth in all fields. They should at least show some indulgence and realize that others are not as blessed and are trying to determine the extent of the problems and to find solutions.
And so, Mr. Speaker, in order to program to some extent the legislative year, we have presented the measures under study. We have implemented a recommendation contained in the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure, presented to the house on December 6 last.

The Committee on Procedure recommended that there be a pattern of regular parliamentary sessions whereby a session would normally commence in September or October and the house would rise for the summer recess on or about July 1. There was no hidden desire on the part of the government to change this. We are following the plan that was proposed by the committee on procedure and about which I spoke in the house on December 10 last. At that time I explained that it was our intention as a government to follow this plan to have a regular legislative year which would begin probably early in October and end late in June. On December 10 I said we thought this was necessary, and I continued:
This would enable the government to complete Its legislative program during the summer months. By the time the house convenes, a substantial number of bills would be ready for first reading. The bulk of the legislative work would be undertaken in the autumn and early winter. The house would be able to concentrate on the main financial work in the spring and to complete it before a
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House summer adjournment. During each of three periods of the proposed annual session a fixed number of days would be set aside for the opposition.
And so on. This was the government's plan. We did not pretend that we had all the bills written up and all the policies defined for four years in advance. We said we would have to do a little bit of thinking and a little bit of reading of the reports which the leader of the New Democratic party (Mr. Douglas) has said are piled up on our desks. It is true that there are many reports we have to study and many policies that we have to think through. We have to give the civil service many directives so they can draft bills and prepare white papers under governmental direction in order that they can be examined by cabinet committees and then by the cabinet. These things take a little time.
I said that the leader of the Creditistes did not surprise me because he did not know much about governing. I am a little more surprised by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) and the leader of the New Democratic party because they were premiers; they were heads of government in the past. They used to know what it was to govern.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: And still do.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: What were they doing in those days? I think it would be fair to say that the legislative assembly of Nova Scotia sat perhaps two or three months a year. Why not six? Was it because they did not clear up the mess in their province?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.
[DOT] (12:20 p.m.)


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: What were they doing in the other eight, nine or ten months of the year? Were they off on vacation, as the leader of the New Democratic party just said? Is it because they wanted to send everybody home to do nothing, or is it because they thought that the purpose of the government was to come to grips with problems and to look for solutions, and that it was necessary for the members of the various political parties to be in their ridings, not only to understand the problems of the ridings but to explain to their parts of the province the problems in other parts?


Mr. Coales:: Then you better give them a whole year to explain it.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Do you want to ask a question?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) should be allowed to make his speech.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I would have answered this question if it had been put, but let me tell the hon. member's neighbour, the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Macln-nis), not to ask me any questions because I do not answer people who are not gentlemen.


Mr. Maclnnis:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order which arises from the remark of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) about not answering my questions. When he does not answer me he does not answer thousands of the constituents whom I represent, but at least he has not threatened to kick me, brown belt and all.


Mr. Bigg:: He kicks children only.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Stanley Howard Knowles: rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: I will recognize the hon. member in a moment. I would just like to suggest to hon. members that we should conduct this debate as objectively as possible, and I am not sure we are going in the right direction at the present time. I now recognize the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) on a point of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My
point of order is that I agree completely with you, Mr. Speaker, and I think that our debate will be carried on in a better vein if we do not say of members in the house that any hon. member is not a gentleman.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Without commenting on the point of order, perhaps I might revert to my original thought that we should return to the substance of the motion now before the house.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I was speaking to the amendment, Mr. Speaker. I related the reasons why we need to have a certain period of time between the sessions of this house, and I was saying that I was somewhat surprised that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) did not know about this. It is not so long ago that he was the head of a government in a province which had economic and social
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
problems. Was his solution to these to sit two months a year and send the members home on vacation for the rest of the time and go on vacation himself, or did he have to stay around and do some work? And if ten months were needed for him, why would three months be too much for us?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I must say that if both he and the leader of the New Democratic party had sat a little longer than six or eight weeks or even three months, perhaps they would not have left their provinces in such a mess and the federal government would not have to pick up the pieces.
I think we should encourage members of the opposition to leave. Every time they do, the I.Q. of this house rises considerably.
When the Leader of the Opposition rose to speak of truancy, there were only 27 out of the 70 members of his party in the house.


Mr. Baldwin:: And there were only 65 of
your party here at that time.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: One of the difficult problems with which we have to deal, and which takes a lot of our time in cabinet committees and in cabinet, and with which the civil service has to come to grips, is the problem of regional economic disparity. Much of this disparity occurs in the province of the Leader of the Opposition, and if he had not left that province in such a mess, if he had done a little more for education and housing, if he had not left the heavy water industry and Clairtone in such a mess, perhaps we would not have to deal with it now, and perhaps the economic situation of the whole region would be better.
But no, they wanted ten months of holiday a year. According to their interpretation of the reason for our three months' recess, we want to send members on vacation. Apparently that is what they did and they think we are doing the same. But we are not; we are not sending members home on vacation. I hope they will take a few weeks' vacation and I hope the ministers will do so also, but we certainly do not intend to take three months' vacation.
Our members of parliament, the members of the Liberal party, do things in their constituencies during the three months' recess.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I understand that the government of the leader of the New Democratic party sometimes sat as long as six or eight
Motion to Adjourn House weeks a year. Big deal! But when he is here he really comes to grips with problems. When he is in the opposition, he really knows how to solve problems which he did not know how to solve when he was head of a provincial government. We hear a lot of talk about wheat and about inflation. 1 wonder if the leader of the New Democratic party really did much to solve the problem of wheat when he was premier of Saskatchewan.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, come off it.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: When I was there last week I was appalled to see how many friends of his political party were misinformed about wheat problems, how his party has not really helped the people of that province to understand the real nature of the wheat problem, and how they have not helped this wheat growing population to embark on any kind of forecasting or planning in the solution of these problems. I can understand why.
The leader of the New Democratic party says that we are adjourning until October 22 because we want to give our members longer holidays. By virtue of the same reasoning which I applied to the Leader of the Opposition, I suppose that is what they did in Nova Scotia after sitting six or eight long weeks a year. They adjourned to send their members, as he said, on longer holidays. That is not the way we see it.
The opposition seems to think it has nothing else to do but talk. They say: if there is a problem, we will talk. If there is a difficulty, we will talk about it. If the government is going too slowly, we will talk about it. If there is a real problem in some part of Canada, we will talk about it. That is all they have to do. They do not have to govern, they have only to talk. The best place in which to talk, if they want a forum, is, of course, parliament. When they get home, when they get out of parliament, when they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer hon. members-they are just nobodies, Mr. Speaker.
[DOT] (12:30 p.m.)


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We are quite candid about it. We have to do some thinking. Before solving the problems we have to examine them in depth. They have to be discussed between ministers. We have to get departments to work on them. Sometimes we have to name outside experts or set up task forces to look for solutions. Then we have to take time to
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House discuss them; we have to arrive at policy decisions. Then we have to send them for drafting, whether in the form of white papers or bills.


Mr. Nowlan:: Macgregor Dawson said all that.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, but you should have read Macgregor Dawson.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I did.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: So the hon. member read Macgregor Dawson. Now they have two authorities on which to rely-Macgregor Dawson and the Canada Year Book.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, and the Colonial Laws Validity Act.
It is only fair to confess that unlike the leader of the Creditiste party (Mr. Caouette) we did not formulate our solutions for all time 50 years ago, or 60 years ago, I suppose. We have to find new solutions all the time because the problems of Canada are changing. I may say we also have to spend time doing so.
I would suggest that the role of the opposition-and this is perhaps a chapter which the hon. member for Annapolis Valley (Mr. Nowlan) did not read-is not merely to talk about everything, not merely to be against anything the government does, not merely to say that our Indian policy is bad, that our position with regard to the Commonwealth is wrong, and that we are failing to stop inflation. This is one of the roles of the opposition, of course, and this is why we have allotted to them under the new rules-


An hon. Members:: Isn't that kind?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -one quarter of the days in a normal parliamentary session. Hopefully this will give them a little time in which to talk against our policies and criticize our mistakes. But we urge them also to spend a little time trying to become a credible opposition.
We are told that the government has destroyed its credibility, Mr. Speaker. That is possible. We have come forward with policies which perhaps have failed to please everyone in the country. Someone asks, what policies? We have come forth, for instance, with a policy position on the Indian problem. When it was presented to the house I remember distinctly the leaders of all the opposition parties saying: Too late; you should have 
done that years ago; we have been pushing that for years; we told you so. In effect they told us we had adopted their policies, only many years too late.
A few days later, Mr. Speaker, the Indians began saying the policy was not such a good one after all-it is true they had once been against the Indian Affairs department, but now it did not seem so bad. The opposition switched!


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Suddenly our policy decision, which had been theirs, but which had been adopted ten years too late, was no longer theirs. Somebody in the country was against it. Right away, it was no longer their policy. It was wrong, and it should be reversed.
Perhaps our Indian policy is wrong, Mr. Speaker. We are asking the Indians to discuss it, and we are asking the provinces to discuss it too. Perhaps the Canadian people are not prepared to live without discrimination among themselves. Perhaps the Canadian people think there should be treaties between one section of the Canadian people and another section. Perhaps we shall not be able to succeed in selling what we believe to be the right Indian policy.
But what is the opposition's Indian policy? It was one thing one day, and ten days later it was another. Precisely what it was we do not know. On one day it was years too late and on another it was years too soon. It might not be too much to suggest that in the time between now and September 22 the opposition members should try to meet a few of their constituents who still believe in them, and perhaps they could take a little holiday. But they might take the time between September 22 and October 22, the extra month we are asking hon. members to take as an interval between the two sessions, as time in which to come up with an Indian policy. Possibly it would be better than ours and possibly we could hear about it.
As to the other subjects which have been mentioned, it is true we did not settle all the problems of Canada. We did not pretend we would. But we did bring some propositions forward. For instance, for weeks and months one hon. member kept asking me what we intended to do about offshore mineral rights.
I would say that we hoped to make a statement soon, next month, perhaps, or in two weeks time. Then one day we announced it. And not a word has been heard since then on the subject of offshore mineral rights. Is our
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
position the right one in the estimation of hon. members opposite, or is it wrong? We know that many of the provinces have approved its general lines while others have declined to accept it. The provinces will not get any guidance from the opposition, Mr. Speaker. Apparently they have not had time to think about it or to formulate a policy.
We have heard a great deal from the expert on oil. He has asked us constantly about our oil policy, and about the "secret agreement" which is a figment of his imagination. But what is the policy of the opposition on these complex questions involving offshore mineral rights? Should we divide the revenue-and I am talking now of the share which would accrue to the federal government-among the provinces claiming it, or among all Canadians? Should we divide it on a per capita basis? Should we divide it only among those provinces which have coastlines or should we give part of it to provinces which are already rich in oil, such as Alberta?
These are difficult problems, Mr. Speaker. We proposed some solutions. What are the solutions offered by the opposition? One day they hope to sit on the treasury benches. One day, they say, they will govern this country. And I am sure the first thing they will do is to abolish this infamous rule 75c. Their program is quite set in this respect. We know about that. And there will never be any closure under a Conservative government. I need not talk about any other hypothesis. This is their program. They will go to the people with it-"We shall abolish closure and we shall remove rule 75c".
What will they do about offshore mineral rights? What will they do to settle the Indian problem? What will they do about inflation? I realise I am probably testing your patience a little, Mr. Speaker, and I do not wish to deal at length with any of the issues. However, I want to explain that these are difficult problems
On the subject of inflation we have been asked, I suppose, 50 questions by one hon. member during the course of the year. They were not all in order, Mr. Speaker, but we have at least done something about inflation. We have not cured it, but we have provided for a budgetary surplus this year, the first, I believe, in 12 or 13 years. In order to continue this surplus we will have to do some more cutting. I remember that when we had to cut from our programs the causeway to Prince Edward Island the opposition were up in 29180-735
Motion to Adjourn House arms. They said we should have built that causeway. They told us to forget about the tunnel to Newfoundland, which had never been promised anyway, but the causeway was inviolate.
[DOT] (12:40 p.m.)


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Prime Minister did suggest that he was testing my patience in this debate, but the Speaker's patience cannot, of course, be tested. I suggest to the Prime Minister, as I did to the previous speaker, that we are not debating the budget or the Speech from the Throne; we are dealing with a motion to adjourn the house. The comments of hon. members should be related at all times to the motion and the amendment before the house.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I agree with you. The only point I was trying to make was that there are going to be some more difficult decisions that we will have to take during the next three months. We need three months because we are faced with the problem of further cuts in expenditure. We have had no guidance as yet from the opposition as to whether we should lay off more civil servants or should cut back on some public works. These are problems that are being dealt with by the government. We have a good deal of work to do. We will be using most of the summer, as I said in my speech on December 10 and to which I referred a moment ago, to prepare sufficient legislative material so that when parliament reconvenes it will progress efficiently in the next session.
Next session we are looking forward to hearing from the opposition not merely negative rejections of our positions but hopefully some constructive ideas that will help us as a government to be better informed to find solutions-not the problems which we can all see, but to find some of the solutions.


Gerald William Baldwin: Would the Prime Minister answer a question at this point?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes.


Gerald William Baldwin: During the course of the recess which lies ahead would the Prime Minister mind examining the 69 private members' notices of motions, the 133 private members' public bills and the numerous amendments that were put forward, substantially by members of the opposition, which might give the Prime Minister some guidance in connection with the problems confronting him?
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is true. I think the hon. gentleman will recognize that in much of our legislation we have tended to incorporate ideas that appeared in private members' bills. However* these are not always bills sponsored by members of the opposition; a great deal are sponsored by private members on the government side.

Before concluding my comments, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if it would be worthwhile to ponder over the considerable attention which the Leader of the Opposition has been giving to gaullism for several days. He constantly speaks about General de Gaulle, his tactics, he sees gaullism everywhere. It seems to me that it is somewhat out-of-date. I feel that this attempt to bring hate and contempt on a country and on its former president is strangely irrelevant. I do not know if-


An hon. Member:: It is despicable.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, indeed, it is despicable. I would ask the hon. member to count the number of times that his own leader has spoken of gaullism during the past few days and to note in what context he does it. That gaullism means the end of parliamentary government, I agree, but it is his interpretation. But what brings him to compare this policy with that of the government? I do not know.
AE I can say about General de Gaulle is that I did not always agree with his policy, but I will at least pay him this tribute that to my knowledge, he never considered, unlike the Leader of the Opposition, depriving any member of his privileges retroactively.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I am sure we have all listened with interest to the pompous, ghb, condescending lecture that has been delivered to us by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). I am sure we have aH been interested to learn from the Prime Minister's own lips that nobody, but nobody, in this country knows anything about running a government or a parliament except this self-styled little tin god on wheels. The pomposity of his speech is indicative of why this house finds it impossible to get along as other houses have been able to do, and to work out legislative procedures for the good of parliament and the country as a whole.
I want to join in this debate at this moment to speak to the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) and

to say why I believe parhament should not be recessing at the present time for three months. Between one and two o'clock this morning the government brought in by means of closure a guElotine measure that wEl allow it to program parliament, to turn parliament into an assembly Ene. At one end of the pipe you will put in proposed legislation; at the other end you will take out statutes aE polished and ready for proclamation to the people.
The justification for this action on the part of the government is that the opposition has been holding up parhament. In sending parliament home for three months the government is admitting that it has no legislation ready, and wEl have none ready for another three months. This indicates parhament has not been held up in any way, shape or form by the opposition. In fact the opposition has co-operated so well with the government that every piece of legislation that the government has brought forward has been dealt with expeditiously. Now the government has nothing to present to parliament and so wants to send members of parliament home for three months.
Parliament should reconvene a great deal earlier than proposed by the government because there is a great deal of work to do. The prime example of the sort of job parliament should tackle-the government has proved that it has no solutions at all to tackle this problem-is the No. 1 problem in this country, namely, inflation and the steadily accelerating rise in the cost of living. ParEa-ment must sit to solve this problem because, as I shall demonstrate in a moment or two, the government's policies have proved a complete failure.
What is the situation today in regard to inflation? By May 1 the increase in the cost of living during the previous 12 months had risen to 4.4 per cent. One month later, on June 1, it had risen to 4.7 per cent. On July 1, the latest date for which we have figures, the increase over the past 12 months was 5.2 per cent. We ask ourselves what is the figure going to be for the 12 months period ending August 1? The answer is that it will probably be close to 6 per cent because right at this moment the cost of living in Canada is rising at a rate of 10 per cent a year.
[DOT] (12:50 p.m.)
What solutions has the government offered to combat this rising inflation and this steadily increasing cost of living? It brought in three budgets by which it raised taxes. The cost of
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
living kept going up faster and faster each month. Finally the government brought in a budget on June 3 and introduced two new policies. Those new policies were, first of all, to stop building in large cities in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I appreciate the remarks now being made by the hon. member are in the form of an introduction to the address he is going to deliver to the house, but I have to remind him, as I reminded previous speakers, that the contributions of hon. members in this debate have to relate to the motion before the house.


George Harris Hees: With great respect, Mr. Speaker,
I intend to show that there are very real problems that should be dealt with in the next three months. I intend to show the reason why parliament should be called back earlier than October 22. The policies which the government has produced are a complete failure. The only chance this country has of getting sensible policies effectively introduced is for the government to adopt those policies that are suggested by the opposition. I intend to suggest them today.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) taunted the opposition and asked for positive policies. I intend to give him positive policies on a number of subjects if he will just sit in his seat, as he so seldom does, and listen to what the opposition has to say regarding positive policies for solving the problems of the country. This is the reason the Leader of the Opposition introduced an amendment to the motion stating that this parliament has no right to be recessed for three months.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Tell us what to do about inflation! Go ahead!


George Harris Hees: I will be very glad to do just that. First of all I will tell you in the next couple of minutes about your policies.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, no. Tell us what you will do!


George Harris Hees: I will do that.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member will have to tell this not to the Prime Minister, but to the Speaker.


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The first policy that you have introduced is to stop
building-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not intend to adopt that policy at all! The hon. member should address the Chair.
Motion to Adjourn House


George Harris Hees: My apologies, Mr. Speaker. I got rather interested in my subject.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Interested in yourself.


George Harris Hees: I will relay my message through Your Honour. This policy of trying to stop building in the three provinces of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia has already been a complete failure. Every builder in those provinces will tell you this. The government tried to stop them by withholding the 5 per cent capital cost allowance. The Prime Minister cannot take it! He is leaving the chamber! He asked for positive policies. You come back into the chamber at two o'clock and you will hear them. You won't be here because you cannot stand positive advice.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


George Harris Hees: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I spoke directly to the Prime Minister because I was afraid he would be out of the house before I got through what I was saying to him.
I want the Prime Minister to be here at two o'clock. He will get the positive policies that I intend to lay before him for his consideration. I say he has not got the desire-I was going to use another word-because he makes a taunt, then turns around and runs away. He cannot stand the truth! I am going to give him the truth during the next 35 or 40 minutes. If the Prime Minister comes in here at two o'clock I will personally walk over and congratulate him. It will be very interesting to see if he has the plain, ordinary guts to come back into this chamber at two o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder whether we might return to the motion The hon. member has much less than 35 or 40 minutes remaining.


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Any builder in any city in Canada will tell you this policy is a complete failure because the cost of building is increasing at the rate of 12 per cent a year. If a builder postpones building for two years, as the government wants him to do, he knows that by that time the cost of building will have increased by 24 per cent.
The government in its naivety is asking the builder to absorb a 24 per cent increase in the cost of building for the sake of saving 10 per cent in capital cost allowance. This just does not add up. The builders in Canada are laughing themselves silly at this stupid, naive Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) who brought in a measure which any practical man knows simply will not work. That policy simply is not working.

July 25, 1969
Motion to Adjourn House
The second, and only other policy introduced was to bring in the Kennedy round tariff reductions three years ahead of schedule. That was supposed to bring down the cost of goods because lowering the import duties would make it possible for Canadians to buy goods cheaper. That would be a good policy, Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) required the importers in this country to pass on to the consumer the reduction in tariff which was introduced in the budget of June
3.	The minister is not doing it. He does not intend to do it. Like the builders the importers are laughing themselves to death at this government. There is nothing to require them to pass these tariff reductions on to the consumer, and so they are pocketing the tariff reductions. This policy is also a complete failure.
I see it is almost one o'clock, Mr. Speaker. When we resume at two o'clock I will tell the Prime Minister, and any other members who wish to listen, what should be done in specific, positive terms to lower the cost of living. On that high note-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It being one o'clock I do now leave the chair until 2 p.m. this afternoon.
At one o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2 p.m.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Hees).


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Harris Hees: Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, when I was speaking to the house-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Mercier (Mr. Boulanger) on a point of order.


Mr. Boulanger:: Mr. Speaker, my point of order is to tell you there is one Tory in the house, two Socialists and one Creditiste.


Stanley Howard Knowles: And
no Liberals.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, when I was speaking to the house before the luncheon break the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) challenged 
me to outline what I suggest the government should do to control inflation and the steadily rising cost of living. I am sorry to see the Prime Minister has not seen fit to come into the house at two o'clock. I assured him at three minutes to one that I did not have time then to outline these positive programs, but that if he would come into the house at two o'clock I would be glad to do so. It is easy to see that the Prime Minister is not interested in positive programs, and is not interested in positive suggestions which he has continually asked for. When an hon. member is asked to give them, rises in his place, and is prepared to do so, the Prime Minister turns tail and runs away.


An hon. Member:: You are a turn-tail too.


George Harris Hees: That is a pretty good indication of how the Prime Minister regards parliament. He is not interested in it. He is not interested in its operations. He is not interested in the ideas which are put forward in all sincerity by members of this house.
The first thing I would do to control inflation would be to control the government spending which has doubled in the six years during which this Liberal government has been in power. By so doing, the government could greatly relieve the upward pressure on prices, which is brought about by the increased government spending which has been going up at a phenomenal rate each year since the government took office six years ago. Several tunes in the past three or four years I have suggested that the government should do this, but on every occasion the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) assured me there was no need to do this, that the government's policy of raising taxes would look after the steadily rising cost of living-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I must remind him that the house is now seized of an amendment to a motion to adjourn. I realize it offers a fairly wide scope for debate, but it would be appreciated if the hon. member would relate more to the question of whether the house should adjourn until September 22 or October 22.


George Harris Hees: I shall be glad to do that, but what I am speaking about is the need for parliament both to remain in session and to return much earlier than October 22 because of the great many important matters which must be dealt with by parliament since the government obviously does not have the
July 25, 1969

answers to the problems, as has been demonstrated day after day in this house. The Prime Minister and other members dealt with these many subjects, and I am sure you will realize, Mr. Speaker, that what I am doing is the same thing. I am outlining the reason parliament should remain in session, and should meet again much earlier than the designated date of October 22.
As I say, the government has always answered that it cannot cut expenditures in the present fiscal year. It has assured the house that it would do so in the forthcoming fiscal year, the next year. But as you and I know, Mr. Speaker, cuts of that kind are the type of routine cuts that every minister of finance makes in the estimates of every department when they are brought before the Treasury Board.
Each minister, as much as he possibly can, always inflates his estimates before they go before the Treasury Board. He knows they will be cut very drastically. By putting in as much as he can, he concludes that he will receive the most workable package possible. Every minister, or every member of this house, who is, or has been a minister will realize that this is true.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: No.


George Harris Hees: So the cuts in the next fiscal year have always been simply routine cuts. I suggest that we ask ourselves whether it is possible to make cuts in the present fiscal year. The answer is yes, because it was actually done in 1962 by the then Conservative government. On June 23, 1962 the government of that day was faced with an international monetary crisis. In order to obtain the international credit which we need to keep the country's currency solvent, we were required to cut $200 million in expenditures immediately. Those expenditures were cut within a period of three days. Cutting $200 million on that date, effective during that present fiscal year, amounted to the same thing as cutting $265 million in a full fiscal year.
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)
Therefore, remembering that this can be done, the government should immediately cut one quarter of a billion dollars from its expenditures in the present fiscal year, thereby greatly reducing the upward pressure on prices, and lowering the increasing cost of living. Let us remember the reduction in spending that took place in 1962. If the government cuts $250 million from its expenditure this year, it would be doing little more
Motion to Adjourn House than the Conservative government did in 1962 when it cut its expenditures by $200 million in that fiscal year, during a period of three days. This can be done, and it is necessary that it be done immediately.
The second suggestion I have for controlling the escalating cost of living is to lower prices by increasing productivity. I urge the government, as I have done on many occasions in the past, to bring in tax incentives in order to interest industry in this country to invest in new plant, machinery, and production systems, necessary to cut the cost of production, materially and lower the selling price of goods. This could be done if the government introduced tax incentives. The cost to the treasury would be more than made up-many times over-in subsequent years as a result of greater sales abroad of Canadian products. The lower cost of production would make possible lower selling prices, and this could be brought about by greater productivity.
The third positive suggestion I make to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) is that he approach the provinces immediately at a federal-provincial conference with the objective in mind of persuading the provinces to give the federal government the means to impose consumer credit restrictions. As we all know the public today is being bombarded with advertisements urging it to buy anything from a packet of pins to a red convertible, with little or no down payment, and several years to pay. In other words the public today is spending a vast amount of money it does not possess.
We all agree that credit is very necessary to our economy, and reasonable credit should be made available. What I suggest is that unreasonable or ridiculous credit should be avoided. A down payment of at least 25 per cent should be required on purchases that are reasonable, and a payoff period should be allowed depending on the type of product. Today consumer spending is completely out of control, and vast sums of money are being spent that people ini Canada do not possess.
This great increase in the purchasing power of the Canadian people is one of the things pushing up the cost of living. There are inflationary pressures because there is an overdemand for goods resulting from easy credit. As the governor of the Bank of Canada advised the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs a few days ago, consumer credit control would undoubtedly have been imposed by the federal authority
11642	COMMONS
Motion to Adjourn House in the past two years if the federal government had possessed the power.
At the present time the provincial governments possess that power, and they are as worried about inflation, and the increase in the cost of living, as we in the federal government. I am sure if the Prime Minister called the premiers together, and asked for the power to bring in credit restrictions, enforcing a provision that credit be advanced on reasonable terms, thereby reducing this upward trend in prices, the premiers would be glad to give the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance this power.
My fourth suggestion to the government is that it should require the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, set up specifically to do this job, to protect the consumer against unfair prices for goods. This department has been in operation for some two years, but its record has been nil; it has not done the job it was set up to do, paid for by taxpayers' dollars. It has not required the producers in this country to keep their prices to the consumer at a reasonable level.
Let me suggest to the Prime Minister, who I am glad to see entering the house, although I am sorry he missed ten minutes of-


An hon. Member:: He missed nothing.


George Harris Hees: very constructive suggestions for which he asked, but which he obviously did not want or he would have been here on time. I say to the Prime Minister, now he has deigned to come into the house, that he should require his bumptious Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) to do the job he is now being well paid to do, but is not doing. His only activity today seems to be to sprain his wrist once in a while patting himself on the back, as he has done so often in this house.
A good example of what the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is not doing was referred to during the question period yesterday. He was asked by the hon. member for Wellington (Mr. Hales) whether it was the intention of his department to require bakers to pass on to consumers the savings that would immediately be made available to them as a result of the great reduction in the price of wheat. The minister refused to answer the question, signifying very clearly that he intends to do absolutely nothing about this situation, just as he has refused to do anything about requiring importers of goods

DEBATES	July 25. 1969
resold to consumers to pass along the lower prices made possible as a result of tariff reductions brought into effect three years ahead of time. This minister seems to be content with making snide and smart aleck remarks, and doing absolutely nothing constructive.
I hope the Prime Minister will review my remarks in order to ascertain what has been done by this department. I think the members of the house would be interested in hearing an answer to the question regarding that. I think the answer must be nothing, and that the minister has no intention of doing anything.
Those are the four suggestions I put forward to control the increasing cost of living which, as I say, is presently going up at the rate of 10 per cent per year. Statistics indicate an increase in the cost of living month by month. This has been taking place during the last several months.
The recess of parliament is intended for today, and it is proposed that we will not come back until October 22. This means that the processes of parliament will be absolutely worthless for this unnecessary extended period of time. This government attempted to increase taxes and has met with failure on each occasion. It is now attempting to bring in measures that will prevent the opposition from criticizing its actions. The length of the debate now indicates that that policy is not working.
Evidence today demonstrates very clearly that the reduction of tariffs as a result of the Kennedy Round, implemented three years early, is having no results. This is because the minister will not take action requiring importers to pass on these reductions to the consumer. What the government has done has been absolutely useless. The only way we are going to get action from the government is by staying here, requiring the government to answer questions regarding the positive suggestions we put forward, and requiring it to take some action on behalf of the Canadian people.
[DOT] (2:20 p.m.)
Another problem that should be dealt with by parliament, and obviously can only be dealt with here because the government refuses to take action, is that of pollution. The President of the United States has set a very impressive example by personally heading their environmental quality council. On
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
that council he has put all the senior members of his government. This is evidence of the fact that the President of the United States and the United States government consider this to be the No. 1 problem in that country. The problem is just as grave in Canada.
I have asked the Prime Minister on several occasions whether he will follow the good example of President Nixon, and he has simply said no. The Prime Minister could not care less about this problem. The water he uses at Harrington Lake is not polluted, and he does not give a hoot about the holidays and recreation of millions of Canadians being spoiled by pollution. He does not care that the beauties of our countryside are being spoiled because pollution is an extremely grave problem, and is becoming worse.
The government has produced absolutely nothing in the way of legislation requiring pollution to be controlled. It has not called the provincial premiers together to discuss what can be done on a co-operative basis. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that the government has done absolutely nothing. I direct these remarks to the Prime Minister, who asks for positive suggestions and then is too occupied to listen to them. He could not care less whether or not parliament meets.
We need a national pollution policy for this reason: It is very difficult for a province to bring in good, tough legislation requiring municipalities to instal the type of machinery costly machinery necessary to deal with pollution. Legislation must be enacted which deals with this problem on provincial borders. For instance if Ontario were to enact a tough law, industries from other countries that might be settling in Canada and looking for a place in which to establish a factory might say, "We shall not go to Ontario because they have tough laws with regard to pollution; therefore we had better go to Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia or somewhere else."
If we are to have the kind of legislation that is necessary to require industries and municipalities to instal the type of machinery that will remove bacteria from waste before it is released into the environment, it must be a national law which applies equally to industries and municipalities in all parts of the country. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is responsible-as is President Nixon, who has accepted the responsibility-for calling together the provincial premiers and proposing to them that there be a national law requiring pollution control in their provinces.
Motion to Adjourn House
The provinces know that a national law is the only thing that will be effective in this area; therefore they would welcome this kind of invitation. But the Prime Minister could not care less. He will not invite the provincial premiers to Ottawa to discuss this matter and put into effect an anti-pollution law. He cannot be bothered. He wants to talk about the constitution and matters of the classroom. As the former deputy prime minister, the hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Hellyer), said before he was forced to resign because he could no longer stomach the sort of thing that occurs in the cabinet, the Prime Minister is not interested in the practical problems that today plague the average Canadian. He is interested only in matters of the classroom, I suggest to the Prime Minister that now is the time to get out of the classroom, to call together the provincial premiers and suggest that they give him the power to pass a national anti-pollution law.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am listening.


George Harris Hees: I hope you are. This is the first sign of life that I have seen in the Prime Minister. Perhaps it is not too late, if he is listening. Very seldom does he listen in the house. He likes talking, but not listening. The Prime Minister should do what was done by parliament in wartime to make it easy for industries to get into the production of war materials.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Declare war.


George Harris Hees: Declare war on pollution, you bet your sweet life. And let us see you do it, instead of sitting in your seat and doing nothing. To make it easy for industries to get into war production the government of the day made available to industry low interest loans, very fast write-offs, and other inducements. The machinery that industry and municipalities must invest in, in order to take the bacteria out of waste, is very expensive. I suggest to the Prime Minister that he make this move as a means of helping industry and municipalities to do something to solve the problem. Nothing will be done if we simply keep talking of pollution the same as we talk about the weather.
The Prime Minister has to do three things. He has to call the provincial premiers together. I see that the Prime Minister is making notes on a little pad. I will give him time to write down that suggestion. I am speaking through you, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.
11644	COMMONS DEBATES	July 25. 1969
Motion to Adjourn House


George Harris Hees: The Prime Minister must persuade the provincial premiers to give him the power-they will do this readily because they are anxious to solve the problem-to pass a national anti-pollution law which will make conditions in all provinces the same, and then there will be no question of industry going to another province if the regulations with regard to pollution are not so difficult there. In addition the Prime Minister should make low interest rate loans available to industry and municipalities, and fast write-offs. If he does that, he will be taking a good step forward.
I now wish to speak about the matter of poverty in this country. Last August, nearly a year ago, the Economic Council of Canada made available a very valuable report to the Canadian people and the government. It devoted 38 pages to the question of poverty, which it described as a national disgrace. When the Prime Minister was asked whether he agreed with that description he said yes. So the Prime Minister knows that poverty in this country is a national disgrace. The government admits it is a national disgrace, and it came into power pledged to bring in the just society, which should include the elimination of poverty.
On September 13 of last year I asked the Prime Minister whether he would consider increasing the federal minimum wage as an example and inducement to the provincial governments to follow suit and bring minimum wages up to a reasonable level. This is very necessary because, as the report of the Economic Council of Canada pointed out very clearly, poverty does not exist to the greatest extent with people who are on welfare. Those people are usually maintained just above the poverty level. The report pointed out that those suffering poverty in this country are for the most part living on minimum wages, which vary across Canada from 80 cents an hour to $1.30' an hour.
The Prime Minister is making some motions about the time. I am glad that for once he is paying attention to what we have to say. I ask the Prime Minister not to worry about the time; I will look after that. My time is not up; I have a few more minutes, have I not, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. If it is of any help to the house I would inform hon. members that I am watching the time quite closely. The hon. member still has three minutes.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I apologize, but I was not drawing the hon. member's attention to the time he had, but to the time I have-and I have no more time to listen to him.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister came into the house for just a short while today. That is quite a concession on his part because he hates the place, as he demonstrated last night. I am glad he came into the chamber for just a short time today. I hope he will accept the very sound, practical suggestions I have made regarding what the government must do in order to solve the problem of pollution.
[DOT] (2:30 p.m.)
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey), who is the self-styled Babe Ruth of the bargaining table, appears on television every once in a while, takes a bow and announces proudly that he has engineered a wage settlement for a strong, powerful union, giving that union about a 10 per cent increase each year. He takes a bow and says that he is very pleased and proud to do so.
But the people on minimum wages for whom this government is responsible, the people in federally controlled industries who work on minimum wages, and of whom there are many thousands, are receiving a wage of $1.25 an hour which was set more than four years ago. Since that time the cost of living has increased by no less than 17 per cent. What does the government expect these people to do, tighten their belts by 17 per cent? That is exactly what it expects them to do. Their idea of the just society is to give fat and well justified raises each year to strong industries because these industries can make trouble for them by going on strike. But they sit back and do nothing for the people who are weak and not organized, who live on minimum wages and who suffer poverty which the Prime Minister agrees is a national disgrace.
All they do is watch the cost of living go up by no less than 17 per cent in four years, and do absolutely nothing about it. That proves what a bunch of phonies they are. So much for their just society. I want to know what the government are going to do about that. I say they should immediately raise the minimum wage so that it would more than compensate for the increase in the cost of living that has taken place in the last four years, and show they mean what they said during the election, namely, that they would bring in a just society.

July 25, 1969	COMMONS


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired. I know the hon. member is anxious to continue but he can do so only with the unanimous consent of the house.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Apparently there is no unanimous consent.


George Harris Hees: I have given you all the lesson you can absorb.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Prior to recognizing the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Gleave) I might perhaps express the misgiving I have. It seems to me that we are getting more and more into what amounts to a budget debate or an address debate, and I think all hon. members appreciate the difficulty in maintaining relevance to an adjournment motion. I appeal however to hon. members to try to relate their remarks to the motion before the house.


Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your admonition that our comments should be relevant to the motion. That is not very difficult. There are all kinds of arguments and reasons why we should assemble again here on September 22 instead of in October. First there is the business of this nation which is crying for attention, and there are economic circumstances that exist in both western and eastern Canada and which can only be described as unfinished business so far as this house is concerned.
We have spent the better part of a month discussing a procedural question, and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) himself charged the opposition with being stupid even to discuss it. So if we were stupid to discuss it, I wonder what one can say about the government which brought it in. As a result this month, which could have usefully been used to deal with some of the real problems that exist, has been lost. What should have been done has been left undone.
Surely the Prime Minister cannot be unaware of the circumstances existing in western Canada. He went out to have a look, and the people there made him very welcome. If he is out there again on September 22 I am sure they will make him welcome again, because I suspect that the government will have done no more in regard to the conditions that face the western farmer by September 22 than they have done up to this day in July. We
Motion to Adjourn House have had no report from the Prime Minister since we came back. He has not chosen to rise in his place in the house and say, "This is what I saw when I went to visit the people in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta." He did rise today and in the course of his address told the leaders of two opposition parties what he thinks of the kind of shop that they ran when they were in their provinces. I have some sympathy for him and I am sorry that he came to Saskatchewan at the particular time and under the particular circumstances which he did. We have suffered a Liberal government for some five years in that province and what the Prime Minister was seeing were the results of that administration.
All we see is the ineptitude of the federal Liberal government in its marketing policy, as is evidenced in the present situation of western grain farmers. I can understand why his impressions were as they were.
The reason for the real urgency in meeting again a month ahead of the date suggested by the government is that we may have some report on what has been accomplished in regard to the very serious difficulties that face Saskatchewan and western Canada.
Let me point out that as of October 22 we will be about ten days short of a quarter of the new crop year in marketing western grain. We start on that crop year on August 1, and there is no indication from the government, either through the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson), the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) or the Prime Minister that they are aware of the depth of the problem in the marketing of western grain. I am speaking not only of wheat. I am speaking also of barley, flax, and rapeseed. There is no indication as yet that the government are aware of the magnitude of the problem they face or that they have put in motion the machinery to deal with that problem. If they have done so, they have not told this house.
The Prime Minister expressed his contempt for the opposition, and for individual members of the opposition. Perhaps this is why he has not felt it necessary to inform people such as myself, who were elected by the voters in Saskatchewan, and who are backbenchers, how the government intends to deal with the problem. He referred to us as nobodies. Fortunately I do not mind it because I know the traditions of this house, and the parliamentary traditions that went before it.
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House
I know to whom I am responsible. I am not responsible to the Prime Minister. Perhaps some of the unfortunate individuals sitting on the other side of the house are, but I am not. I am responsible to the people of Saskatoon-Biggar, and as long as they return me to this house I shall stand in my place and speak on their behalf. I want to tell the government that I have not that much confidence in them that I am willing to wait until October 22 to see what they have done for and to the people of Saskatoon-Biggar.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)
I have here two reports, one from the meeting between the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, and one from his meeting with the National Farmers Union. These reports represent what these two organizations have chosen to send out following the meetings. One would look in vain in either of them for any reference to an in-depth discussion or study of the problems of marketing grain on the world markets of today. This is a time at which the International Grains Arrangement is in danger of collapse. Indeed, it has collapsed as far as minimum prices are concerned. The nations which have signed it, responsible nations which have been content to seize the benefits which they have received under the GATT negotiations, have disowned it. They now say to the Canadian grain growers: It is too bad; yet we are putting up with it and the government is putting up with it.
Why do we not have the courage to stand as a nation and say: A bargain is a bargain? Does the government not have the courage, using the Wheat Board and the other instruments at hand to go into the markets of the world and get our share of those markets? Hon. gentlemen opposite do not have that kind of courage or that kind of initiative. They are willing to let the thing go down the drain. If this is not the situation, this house has been told nothing to the contrary.
Other nations sell wheat and barley. What prices should we sell at? We have asked the minister these questions but have been given no firm answer except that present policy will continue. If we have failed by doing what we are doing at the present time, why do we not set about doing things differently? These are the questions: what prices, what volume, how fast will our stocks move? I do not want to wait until October 22 to learn the answers. When they appeared before the standing committee, the officials of the Canadian Wheat Board were asked about promotion programs, 
the adequacy of their staff and the countries they intended to approach with a view to sales. The answers were not encouraging, When asked about price differentials between ourselves and our competitors, they had to say we were at a disadvantage. Is this disadvantage being corrected?
I do not mind diversification being discussed with western farmers. Some of us will diversify. A great deal is being done in this direction now. But diversification alone is not the answer. The problem facing western Canada is, first of all, a marketing problem, and it is not being met. At the beginning of the new crop year there is no sign that it will be met, any more than the transportation problem is being met. The transportation of western grain during the past year has been a disgrace to the efficiency of the Canadian nation. We are reaching the end of the crop year when a five-bushel quota will be set up at most of these stations. They are running box cars up and down the country as fast as they can these days, but the situation is still confused. Some farmers will get their quota in, and others will not. Confusion is all we are offered, yet communications are the very lifeline of this nation.
The Prime Minister sneers at Saskatchewan. In 1964 when the Liberal government was elected in Saskatchewan, they took office in a province which had been well governed for 20 years and which understood what communications were about. We had a grid road system through the municipalities and on to the highways. It was modern and up to date. We had placed power in most of the farms. We had provided assistance for the modernization of farms so that living conditions might be comparable to those in the cities.


Mr. Cullen:: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Yes. No, I do not think so, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Well, I have changed my mind. It is my time, and I intend to use it. I notice that members on the other side have repeatedly refused the normal courtesy of allowing some of our members to continue their speeches, so I shall not permit a question.
It is this forward look in terms of communication and transportation which the present administration needs.
Last fall, immediately after the election, there was a grain handlers' strike in western
July 25. 1969

Canada. It was settled on the eve of the date on which this house met. Why? Because if it had not been settled the government would have been obliged to answer questions about a situation which was totally unsatisfactory. One right which still remains in this house despite 75c is the right of the people back home to have somebody representing them here who will speak on their behalf and demand that the government shall answer. This is what parliament is all about.
The Standing Committee on Agriculture made certain recommendations in its report. It might as well have stayed at home. The Minister of Agriculture says we have met these recommendations-that the introduction of cash advances will mean the injection of many millions of dollars into the western economy. Do the Minister of Agriculture and the members of the house not know that not one extra dollar will be available to the individual as a result of these cash advance payments? I could have taken exactly the same amount of money by way of cash advance on August 1, 1968, as I can take on August 1 of this year.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but may I again express some misgivings about the range of this debate. I have been very patient and have listened to him with great interest, but may I remind him that we are discussing an adjournment motion. I would ask him to relate his remarks about agriculture as much as possible to the need for deciding whether the house should reconvene on September 22 or October 22. I appreciate his difficulty but I invite his co-operation.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: I would have to admit that I am straying a little from the motion, but these matters are urgent. That is what concerns me about setting back the time for returning. Matters that could have been dealt with before now will not be dealt with until October 22 if this amendment is defeated. Thus there will be this much more delay and time for dallying on the part of the government. This much more time will be lost for taking effective decisions, and time is of the essence under these circumstances.
I have said what I want to say on this adjournment debate. My point is that the needs of the people of this nation, and particularly of those in the area I represent, are not being met. The standing committee on agriculture toured eastern Canada; I am sure 29180-736J

Motion to Adjourn House the farmers there are only a little better off than western farmers, though some might not even be as well off. Perhaps I should make a plea for them too. My direct concern, of course, is with the area I represent.
I will stop at this point, Mr. Speaker, since I know from the tone of the Prime Minister's address this morning that it is very unlikely that anything I say might cause him to change his mind.


Mr. Osier:: Would the hon. member now permit a question?


Mr. Depuiy Speaker:: Would the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar permit a question?


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Yes.


Edmund Boyd Osler: It is not a very important question, but when the hon. member was discussing the role of the ex-premier of Saskatchewan, whose government may or may not have been an excellent one, I was not clear whether the hon. member was relating the length of those legislative sessions to the excellence of the government. That seems to me the point that had been discussed earlier. Did the ex-premier acquire excellence only because his legislature had long sessions, or did he acquire excellence as a result of his skill and ability, which have nothing to do with the length of sessions?


Alfred Pullen Gleave: I am very pleased that the hon. member opposite concedes that the former premier of Saskatchewan achieved excellence. He achieved that excellence not because of time but because of ability and imagination.


Mr. Ray Perrauli (Burnaby-Seymour):: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to be provocative today; nor is it my intention to be long. I do not want to prolong this debate, but some statements have been made that should be answered by those of us who occupy the government back benches.
I am sorry the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Hees) is not in the house, because he certainly propounded a new theorem this afternoon in that the profundity of his remarks varied indirectly in ratio to the decibel volume of his voice. We thought this afternoon that we were to be treated to a description of what the policies of the Official Opposition would be were they to be entrusted with the responsibility of government. We were told that the government should cut expenditures and fight inflation, but time did not permit the hon. member to delineate those areas where certain programs
11648	COMMONS
Motion to Adjourn House should be curtailed and money saved. Then a few minutes later we were told that more money must be spent on pollution, that we should have a national pollution policy. The burden of the hon. member's remarks rested on those two concepts-first of all, that we have to cut budgetary expenditure, and secondly that we have to spend more money fighting pollution.
I do not think the hon. member made a constructive contribution to the debate, especially in view of the fact that the debate relates to whether or not the proposed recess should extend until October 22. It is unfortunate that when he was a member of a previous government the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings was unable to produce the kind of action that he is advocating today. It is unfortunate that the party whose leader is an exponent of retroactive justice is not as skilful in developing retroactive policies. It is likewise unfortunate that many of the events that occurred between 1957 and 1962 cannot be undone.
I do not want to continue in this vein. Rather, I want to read to the house some quotations from the debates of the Nova Scotia house of assembly when the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) was premier. I should like to put on record what he said when answering opposition criticisms that he had failed to develop constructive policies, that he had failed to take sufficient, effective action in time. As reported at page 107 of the 1967 debates he said:
I am sure that any member oi the house can present a list of projects which are desirable and important. Any member can stand in his place and say that this should be done and that should be done, but our resources are limited in comparison to the needs to be met, yes, inadequate in comparison to the needs to be met.
Then when he was accused of failing to provide sufficient programs at the session in 1967, he said:
Time will tell... I suggest that we are certainly not meeting all the needs, but we have tried to allocate the resources that are available toward the most pressing needs in an effort to produce the most beneficial results that we can offer our province and its people.
The hon. gentleman went on to point out that not everything can be accomplished in one short session. Then he continued-and this is a truism of anyone who occupies a position of government:
-even this government cannot please anybody.
[Mr. Perrault.l
DEBATES	July 25, 1969
It is clear, I suggest, that when he had the responsibility for government he recognized the need for time for long-range planning. This is what he was asking the opposition to understand in the Nova Scotia house, and he should surely be just as understanding now when he occupies such an important position in the House of Commons.
In the one breath we heard the opposition complain about too short a recess. They alleged we should have recessed a month ago. In the next breath they complain the recess will be too long, that we are obsessed with plans for taking holidays. These are the arguments we have been hearing in recent days. What they do not tell the Canadian people is that almost all of them have had extensive vacations during the rules debate. Their system of triple platooning for vacation purposes would make the Green Bay Packers look like a Little League squad. This talk about selfless dedication to parliament, while many of them have sampled vacation delights around the country, is really quite laughable as far as government members are concerned, and I think the people of Canada will understand.
Speaking about the recess, legions of opposition members rise in their places to remind us that this has been the most productive parliament in the history of Canada. Member after member of the New Democratic and Conservative parties has made orations in this house to this effect. They ask why we need rule 75c since this is the most productive parliament in history. But somewhere down the line their ideological mores have become short circuited. The leader of the New Democratic party (Mr. Douglas) today accused the government of being a "do-nothing" government, one devoid of ideas. He suggested we were cowering in fear that our legislative nakedness would be exposed if the house were to meet earlier than October 22. These two concepts, of course, are not mutually compatible. You cannot be the most productive government in the history of Canada, with more legislation going through in a given number of days than in the past, and be a "do-nothing" government.
[DOT] (3:00 p.m.)


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. I have no objection to this bag of fetid wind continuing this kind of speech, but I am not going to allow him to put words in my mouth or in the mouth of any other member of this party. We have said it has been a productive session in terms of co-operation.
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
We never referred to it as being a productive session in terms of bringing down solutions to problems which face this country.


Raymond J. Perrault: I could cite numerous references in Hansard where specific members of the opposition stated, this has been one of the most productive sessions in the history of Canada. I am prepared to send these quotations to the leader of the New Democratic party before the adjournment of the house. The fact is, of course, that this has been a productive government with more being accomplished in a shorter period of time than in any other period in our history.
A recess does not mean we are going to hang up the sign, "Gone fishing". It does not mean the shop is closed. It means unprecedented work on parliament hill on many of the problems which have been referred to by opposition members today. There will be a great deal of action in the weeks to come. On the one hand we hear the charge that the government is trying to ram through too much legislation on too restricted a schedule. On the other hand, the government is accused of having nothing to advance. I say the poverty of the logic is manifest.
I had the record of the dates of the recesses of parliament drawn a few moments ago. The dates of the recesses and resumption are as follows: 1957, December 21, to January 3, 1958; 1958, none; 1959, none; 1960, April 13 to April 25, and December 21 to January 16, 1961; 1961, July 13 to September 7; 1962, December 20 to January 31, 1963; 1963, August 2 to September 30; 1964, December 18 to February 16, 1965.
Almost all of these were short recesses, yet this government which proposes a longer recess in also the government which the opposition credits with getting more done than any other government in the history of Canada in a given period of time. During the three month recess much will be done by members of all parties, both here in Ottawa and at the constituency level. The argument the opposition provides is one of the most unusual than can possibly be developed with regard to a recess.


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, we have viewed quite an exhibition here today. Probably most members have never seen anything like this in many, many years. During my 12 years in this chamber I have never seen such a scurrilous attack make on leaders of every opposition party as that produced by the Prime
Motion to Adjourn House Minister (Mr. Trudeau) today. One immediately asks the question, why has the Prime Minister adopted such an attitude? I can arrive at two quick and immediate conclusions. The first is that the Prime Minister and his government are running like a bunch of scalded cats because of the attitude they have adopted with regard to Rule 75c. The second is that since they have secured through closure the passage of Rule 75c, they no longer feel they need the co-operation of the opposition parties in order to run parliament. They are going to run it as a one-man show.
We do not believe that parliament is the prerogative and the soul right of the Prime Minister. We are willing to come back here on September 22 and endeavour, on behalf of the people who have sent us here, to secure the kind of action that those people need, must have and have not received to the present time. We are going to see that the government is well aware of our determination to serve our country and serve it well in the House of Commons.
I can well understand the approach of the Prime Minister is this debate. I have before me a copy of today's Globe and Mail, Friday, July 25. There is a very significant cartoon in that paper. It shows a picture, that I assume is a picture of the Prime Minister, through the eyes of the cartoonist. He has these words to say. First, "I have silenced my cabinet". This has been done very effectively with the roster system. Then he says, "I have silenced my party". There was never any great doubt about that. Third, "And now, that stupid opposition". Fourth, "Nobody says anything anymore". He is deaf because he will not hear and is not here. Fifth, "In Parliament" and, sixth, "I might as well do away with it". He has been endeavouring to do his best to "do away with it".
There have been a lot of comments about Caesar and Little Caesar. As far as parliament is concerned, I think it is an institution for which Brutus would be better suited than Caesar. In his remarks the Prime Minister made comments about the conduct of both my leader and the leader of the New Democratic Party during their tenure as premiers of provinces of this country. He made some statements about the performance of Robert Stanfield as Premier of Nova Scotia. I will not bother to go into the details of the Prime Minister's argument, but I will say that during the period that Robert Stanfield was leader of the Conservative Party in Nova Scotia,
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House every time he went to the polls the people gave him a greater endorsation than they did the time before. I am quite willing to leave it to the people of Nova Scotia to determine the kind of performance which Robert Stanfield produced for the people of that province.
[DOT] (3:10 p.m.)
If the Prime Minister has any thoughts about Mr. Stanfield's performance in Nova Scotia, he should look at the election results of June 25, 1968, not just in Nova Scotia where one Liberal barely managed to squeak through, but throughout the Atlantic provinces especially Newfoundland which has had a Liberal government for the past 21 years. No, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did not enter this debate because he was concerned about the way in which the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) performed when he was Premier of Nova Scotia. He entered this debate because he was trying to put some backbone in the backbenchers of his party who will have to go home and during the next three months try to explain to their constituents why this guillotine is necessary in this parliament, and why they sat back and said nothing. I want to say to the Liberal members of parliament that the Prime Minister said members of the opposition do not wish to leave parliament because when they get 50 yards away from the House of Commons they are nobodies. Let me say that he has twisted this statement. Liberal backbenchers cannot even hope to achieve this position because they are faceless, nameless robots. When the button is pushed to support the Prime Minister, who is all but a dictator in every way, shape and form, they jump.
If we are forced to spend three months away from the House of Commons, we will do our work. We will see that the people of this nation are made well aware of the type of performance that has taken place-not throughout this session because this was a good session until July-prior to June 27. It was a good session. It operated in harmony and co-operation. It was a session that moved on whatever legislation the government brought forward. I do not say that the legislation introduced was necessarily the type of legislation that would receive top priority by the opposition parties. What I am saying, however, is that what legislation was proposed was dealt with constructively, reasonably and efficiently.
Never let it be said, Mr. Speaker, that this was the most productive session in the history of parliament so far as the Canadian people

are concerned. But it can be said to be one of the most productive sessions in the history of parliament so far as the government is concerned in respect of the legislation to which it gave priority. But there is a great difference. We in the Atlantic provinces would like to come back here on September 22 with the hope this government might take some action that would be of value and benefit to our people. Every day we see statistics which indicate that unemployment is escalating, that the cost of living is escalating and that there is nothing for the people of the area which is better today than it was yesterday. Indeed, almost everywhere we look we see indicators which lead us to believe it will be a pretty tough winter for everybody in this country, especially those hundreds of thousands of people who will not be able to find employment. We should be here endeavouring to pass the type of legislation that will give some hope to the hundreds of thousands of people who will not be able to find employment. But instead, we are to be in our constituencies because the Prime Minister has deemed it so.
I say to Liberal backbenchers that things have not changed a great deal. During the pipeline debate of 1956, when the Liberal government brought in closure, the Liberal backbenchers were singing, "Hail, hail the gang's all here, what the hell do we care". They have not been doing such singing this time. I say to them that when the next election comes along they will be in the same position in which they were in 1956 and 1957. It will be the end of a government that is doing its best to eliminate completely any kind of criticism.
The Prime Minister really has not changed, Mr. Speaker. When he was Minister of Justice in 1968 he rose in this house and told members of the opposition that the members of the government were the masters of this house. Today, he says they are the masters of this house, and even more. He says they will not even bother having a house. He says we will meet as little as possible because, after all in his opinion the debates are stupid and most of the members are either bums or idiots.
The attitude of the Prime Minister is that he would just as soon be away in his ivory tower dreaming dreams of things which might be accomplished in some way other than by having to put up with the inconvenience of parliament. He has now regimented his cabinet ministers so that they only dare appear in the House of Commons on certain days. The Prime Minister said that when the
July 25. 1969

members of the opposition leave the house they upgrade the I.Q. of this chamber. Apparently he has also reached the conclusion that if he can get some of the cabinet ministers out of the house he can upgrade the I.Q. of the cabinet. He probably believes that, since he has a roster system now the cabinet ministers are not much of a problem, and since he has regional desks the backbenchers are not much of a problem. It is not necessary for him to find out from the backbenchers what is going on in given areas of the country. All he need do is go to his regional desks to find out what is happening and where it is happening.
All I can say to the Prime Minister is that his computers and regional desks did not work very effectively when he made his trip out west. He failed so badly when he went out west that he has not yet recovered, and probably never will. I suppose the Prime Minister believes that since he has the roster system and the regional desks, there is only one thing more he really needs and that is the guillotine. Then he can handle the obnoxious members of parliament who give him difficulty by asking many questions which he cannot answer.


An hon. Member:: These nobodies.


Robert Carman Coates: Yes, these nobodies. Members of the opposition do not need to get 50 yards from the House of Commons to become nobodies; they are nobodies every day.


Mr. Muir (Cape Brelon-The Sydneys):: What does this make the people who voted for Trudeau?


Robert Carman Coates: We now have a new kind of parliament for the Canadian people to see, completely different from the parliament that was elected on June 25, 1968. It is different from the parliament the Prime Minister led the people to believe would be in existence after June 25, 1968. It is a parliament devoid of democracy. It is not interested in democracy and is not interested in the type of action that is required for the benefit of the people of Canada. We, from the Atlantic provinces, listened with interest, and more than passing interest, to the comments of the Prime Minister during the election campaign about regional economic disparity and about the just society. We had some hope that when he was elected Prime Minister legislation might be introduced that would be of benefit to the Atlantic provinces and would eliminate the chronic problem that has been with us
Motion to Adjourn House throughout generations. So, we from the Atlantic provinces came to Ottawa in anxious anticipation of what might be presented to parliament to correct the economic imbalance in this nation.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
We heard the throne speech debate. We listened to the grave words associated with the establishment of the new Department of Regional Economic Expansion. We had hopes, but we find now that we had nothing but hopes because no action has been taken in the Atlantic provinces which would make us believe that times might be better tomorrow than they were yesterday. One of the first actions taken by this government was the cancellation of the Northumberland Strait Crossing, a transportation link that has been promised since Confederation. The former Liberal government initiated some construction on this project, but this government cancelled it.
Today, we are beset with concern in respect of the possibilities of the base consolidation program of the Department of National Defence. We do not know what is going to happen. We have been given an assurance by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Cadieux) that every possible consideration will be given to these people. The minister is a good man, and I personally have faith in his honesty and integrity, but we will not be here to find out what happened. It may be, as the minister indicated in the house, the various members affected by this consolidation program will be informed; but surely this is the type of program which parliament itself should consider. Parliament should be sitting in hopes that some solutions might be proposed to offset the economic hardships that follow a decision of this nature.
The Prime Minister says we will not be here when this decision is made. He says we are going to go home and we are going to stay at home until October 22, like it or not. We suggest that anything which might be discovered in 2J months should not require another month for consideration. There is no reason for members to be away from the House of Commons for such a long period of time, particularly when some action is required by the country. The hon. member who preceded me referred in his remarks to parliament in recent days. Certainly, in the 12 years I have been a member of this house members have never been asked to take a recess for such an extended period of time.
11652	COMMONS DEBATES	July 25, 1969
Motion to Adjourn House
If there was ever a time in the history of this country when parliament should be here it is now, when the economic difficulties facing this country are so significant. They are so foreboding and frightening that no one could have any confidence in a government that has talked more and done nothing to face up to the realities associated with inflation and economic hardship.
The Prime Minister will accomplish little or nothing for anyone, including the backbenchers-certainly nothing for the office which he holds, or the people of Canada-by the type of performance we witnessed today. Certainly, he did nothing for the dignity of this country. Let him now take notice that there is nothing to be accomplished by getting into the gutter. There is no one in the opposition who is going to get into the gutter with him; if he wants to be there, he will be there by himself. We are not going with him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Carman Coates: I was utterly shocked to hear in this chamber, where there has always been evidence of that degree of respect hon. members have had for each other, the Prime Minister gratuitously and without reason say to a colleague of mine, who is a good man, a tough man fighting for his constituents, that he is no gentleman. That is about as low as anyone can get. We are not willing to get that low or go down into the gutter with the Prime Minister.


Robert Muir: That hon. member also fought for his country.


Robert Carman Coates: His war record alone stands as something the Prime Minister should consider. This is an indication of the kind of day we have had. I was not here on "black Friday" in 1956, but this is another black Friday in parliament.


Raymond J. Perrault: Mr. Speaker, would the hon, member entertain a question?


Robert Carman Coates: Sure.


Raymond J. Perrault: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member tell the house who was the premier of Nova Scotia when the heavy water plant at Glace Bay was started?


Robert Carman Coates: At that time in Nova Scotia-


Raymond J. Perrault: I should like the hon.
member-


Some hon. Members:: Wait for the answer.


Robert Carman Coates: If you will sit down I will answer the question.


Robert Muir: The
Prime Minister doesn't even know him. He is one of his bums and idiots.


Robert Carman Coates: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that it was the present Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. MacEachen) who took credit in all the newspapers in which he could have his name printed for allocating the power plant to Nova Scotia.


Raymond J. Perrault: I asked the hon. member to tell the house who the premier of the province of Nova Scotia was when the Glace Bay project was implemented.


Mr. J. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whil-by):: Mr. Speaker, being a mere backbencher of a minority party, after hearing the Prime Minister's (Mr. Trudeau) harangue today, I hesitate to get to my feet. The only consolation I have is that for some peculiar reason the Prime Minister gives more status to a mere nullity in the House of Commons than a member once he is outside this house. Once I leave this place and I am 50 yards down the street I am according to the Prime Minister a nonentity. Perhaps there is something in favour of being a nullity rather than a nonentity, at least by the Prime Minister's reasoning.
I found the entire speech of the Prime Minister extremely distasteful in tone, even if it contained a series of arguments which have to be taken seriously. Let me refer to one or two of the statements the Prime Minister made. He referred to the period of time we should adjourn for the summer. The tone of his argument in this respect was extremely, intellectually arrogant. His was the kind of argument one should not make during the normal discourse or conversation between civilized adults. Certainly, it should not have been made by the Prime Minister of a democratic country.
The attitude the Prime Minister took in respect of the leader of the Ralliement Credi-tiste (Mr. Caouette) was very reprehensible. It is one thing to disagree with an individual's ideas and say that in your judgment he is mistaken, but it is quite another thing to call that person a fool. I suggest that is exactly what the Prime Minister did today. This attitude, considering the whole history of democracy even back to the times of Athenian Greece, is extremely unpleasant. I hoped that the attitude of the right hon. gentleman
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
would change when he became Prime Minister. I hoped he would display a little more modesty and a little less of the assumption that he knows all the answers and other people are not likely to know them, especially the backbenchers of his party on mere members of the opposition. I believe that by his speech today he did a disservice to himself, both as an intellectual and as Prime Minister of this country. I shall not say anything more about his attitude because I want to deal with the substance of his speech before making my own comments.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
As I understood it, the substance of the Prime Minister's argument was that the government needs a recess of three months in order to prepare legislation for next session. He cited other legislative bodies, namely, those of the provinces of Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, which have in the past had extremely short sessions presumably, he argued, so that their cabinets would have time to prepare legislation. In one sense this is a good argument and should be considered seriously. My answer to it is twofold. One is that, as everyone knows, the sessions of provincial legislatures are becoming longer each year as the responsibilities of those governments become greater. The duration of the sessions of provincial legislatures is not becoming less but is in fact increasing. Therefore, one has to make a practical judgment about the length of time necessary to prepare legislation. The general trend is that the sessions of provincial legislatures are becoming longer.
The Prime Minister is entitled to make a judgment about the length of time this house is required to sit. On the other hand, we are entitled to make a judgment about the length of time required in this respect. Reference to the legislative experience of the provinces or other national governments is not directly relevant to the question. We have to consider the kind of legislation we want introduced in this country, and how much time should be allowed during the summer for its preparation.
The Prime Minister's argument seems to be that only during the summer months can the cabinet get together and work out its legislative program. I think this is ridiculous. Cabinet officials and civil servants work all year. What is true is that during a recess members of parliament are not in the House of Commons to raise serious questions and carry out
Motion to Adjourn House serious work on legislative committees. That argument was explicitly put forward by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), the leader of my party and the leader of the Ralliement Creditiste. Their argument was that the government should be introducing legislation now. It has had, God knows, enough time to prepare legislation. It has had more than a year since the election in which to prepare meaningful legislation. We on this side of the house suggest that rather than taking another three months to dawdle and fiddle around, undertaking more studies, the government should be introducing legislation now. Members on both sides of the house should be dealing with meaningful legislation in our legislative committees.
Before I deal with what has not been done and what could be done if we returned to the house earlier than October 22, I wish to give a small amount of credit to the government for what it has done. During the past ten months we have passed two significant pieces of legislation, and two only. One was the languages bill and the other was the omnibus Criminal Code bill. In the main, both these bills were supported by all members of the house. They were old pieces of legislation in the sense that they were part of the Pearson program. I do not say that in criticism of the present government. The fact is that this is the only significant legislation with which we have dealt during the past ten months.
We have been dealing with legislation covering the kind of things in which the Prime Minister is interested. It is bound up with an area that I believe he takes seriously as a politician and as an intellectual. I refer to legislation dealing with civil liberties. The languages bill and the omnibus Criminal Code bill are very important because they bestow important rights on individual citizens. This is a subject to which the Prime Minister is committed because of his civil liberties orientation.
Since the 18th century all civilized people have had a commitment to civil liberties; there is nothing new about these principles. To some extent such legislation is new to this country, but it has been in existence in other countries for the last 200 years. The languages bill and the omnibus Criminal Code bill were necessary pieces of legislation, but I suggest they will benefit relatively few people. I do not say this to denigrate the legislation, but there are not millions of Canadians who are homosexuals; nor are there millions of Canadians who will be directly affected by
July 25, 1969

Motion to Adjourn House the official languages bill. Those pieces of legislation are important, but they do not affect very many people.
What does profoundly affect the citizens of this country and people all over the world is socio-economic legislation, that is, legislation aimed directly at improving the material well-being of the average income and poor people in society. We have not done a damned thing in that regard. There have been tentative approaches to serious legislation in this area. We all recognize that there is a housing crisis. Every serious Canadian has known that for the past five years there has been a housing problem. What has this so-called progressive Liberal government done about the housing crisis? It has introduced a little tidbit of legislation which will benefit only those people earning more than $8,000 a year. It has not done anything to assist the poor people in our cities. It has not done anything about slum clearance. It has done nothing to assist the average working man who lives, for example, in a city such as mine who although being a prosperous Canadian, relatively speaking, cannot buy a house because of the high interest rates that are in effect. The government has done nothing for housing except effect a marginal improvement for middle class people. So much for the progressive Liberal party and what it has done to solve the housing problem.
What about taxation? The great reformer, Prime Minister Trudeau, introduced one piece of legislation dealing with taxation. He instituted the 2 per cent social development tax which is one of the most reactionary pieces of legislation presented to the House of Commons. We have no capital gains tax. There has been no revision of the tax structure to assist those people with families and earning $4,000 a year or less. So much for what the government has done to assist the poor and the average income man in this country.
The government introduced a good bill dealing with regional poverty. But what happened? The government allocated a pittance of funds for the program, enough to buy a newspaper for every poor Canadian but not much more. So we have a good bill but no meaningful action in terms of allocation of money. Then, there is the wheat situation. I shall not spend any time discussing that problem because in the last few months hon. members of my party and those of the Conservative party have demonstrated what a 
disastrous year farmers in the prairie provinces have had. Again, we have witnessed a very callous attitude on the part of the Prime Minister to the problem. No one is denying that the problem calls for a serious, long-range program. Statements have been made to wheat farmers, such as, "Look fellow; you will have to change your growing practices. It's too bad, but we don't sell your wheat". This is a callous attitude and should not be adopted towards any citizen of this country. It is one thing to say, "We must work out long-range programs", but quite another to say to a man, "You made a mistake; why don't you do something else, fellow?"
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
It is foolish and irresponsible to say to such a man: "You have $100,000 in capital equipment so you are not poor". It is absurd, when everyone knows that he can do nothing with that capital equipment. Who is going to buy it? Are there many people in my city or a city in the east likely to move west to buy one of those farms? Of course not! These statements seem to me to suggest an absence of constructive policies on the part of the government as well as a callous attitude.
One other item about which something should be done within the next couple of months is an increase in the pensions of the thousands of veterans in this country. The Woods report has been waiting around for many months now, a report upon which the government has decided not to act. Even some backbenchers in the Liberal party have said that this report should have been sent to an appropriate committee a long time ago and that action should have been taken on it. But this has not happened.
These are the five areas in which the government has either done nothing or has done something to benefit only those who are already well off. It seems to me inconceivable that people on the other side of the house should not see their government for what it is. It is the most conservative government we have had in Canada in 15 years. Any serious political scientist or economist describing the regime we now have would reach that conclusion, I am sure.
It seems to me that we are adjourning much too soon or, if we are to adjourn now we should come back in two months time. If the government is interested in something
July 25, 1969	COMMONS
other than civil liberties, which are important, if it is interested in dealing with regional poverty, not only in the maritime provinces but also in the heart of our major cities in the so-called prosperous provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, if it wants to redistribute income, if it wants to help pensioners, whether they be veterans or simply our elderly citizens, then why do they not wish to come back here sooner, by the middle of September? This course would enable us to get on with some serious social and economic legislation which would provide substantial benefits for the average and poor Canadians?


Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: As
a member of this house representing one of the regionally dispossessed areas of Canada I am astonished, as I am sure the people I represent will be, that this parliament is on the verge of adjourning for three months when there are so many serious problems facing the country. We have been through a very critical session and, as has been said by many members who have participated in the debate on the rules, a very productive session. It is true that parliament will never be the same, but surely that is not to suggest that parliament no longer has a role to play.
I sat here today and listened with amazement to the speech of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) when, as is often the case, he misconstrued our motives and indeed tried to impute motives. I could not believe my ears when I heard him say that perhaps one of the reasons we were opposing a long adjournment of three months was that we had some doubts about our status when we leave this place. Indeed, the Prime Minister suggested that we would no longer enjoy the distinction of being hon. members when this place adjourns.
In my view, this is indicative of the contempt in which the Prime Minister holds parliament, the utter contempt with which he has treated parliament, because the role of a member of parliament is a long and well established one. There are ample quotations on the record and authorities on this subject. Our responsibilities as members of parliament or as 264 ombudsmen are continuing responsibilities whether or not this house sits. Indeed, we are going to have even more responsibilities during this recess trying to justify to our constituents and to the Canadian people why, in the light of so many serious problems facing Canada, we allow ourselves to take a three months' recess.
Motion to Adjourn House
The Prime Minister and the government house leader have had their way. We saw them last night as they appeared in the house, complete with white carnations, showing their utter disdain, which has been so characteristic, behaving like two bank robbers who apologize for having shot the teller because they had to get the money. They got their way. What they have done to parliament in the process only time will tell. Today, we witnessed the spectacle of the Prime Minister losing his cool, a quality which has come to be so characteristic of him. Indeed, we saw him representing himself as a great man, a great devotee of General de Gaulle whom he maligned in this house just a short time ago. But now it becomes fashionable for the Prime Minister, who loosely tosses out charges about hypocritical speeches and stupid filibusters, to behave in such a way as to leave himself open to this very type of accusation.
Perhaps it can be said of him that if he gets his way in this instance he will behave like a latter day Nero who is content to fiddle while Rome bums, because while parliament stands adjourned for three months not only do the serious problems facing this nation continue but they continue to escalate without solution. These problems will continue without reference to hon. members of this house who, whether or not the Prime Minister accepts the fact, have the responsibility of continuing to represent their constituents and to protect the national interest in the best way they can. How can I go back to my unemployed constituents and say I have three months off? They will look at me and say: We have 12 months off, the only difference is that you are getting $18,000 a year for it whereas in our case our unemployment insurance benefit expired long ago. We are relegated to having to get on our hands and knees, swallow our pride and beg for welfare from the state. What can I say to them? They are underhoused; in many instances they are under-nourished because of a lack of a proper diet, and they are over-governed. They have no opportunities and they are suffering the consequences of 20 years of unrestricted Liberal dictatorship as well as the type of arrogance that we saw manifested in this house in the last few days.
In the final analysis, these are the people who have to suffer the consequences of the arrogance of a government that has gone mad with power. I should like the Prime Minister to go to Newfoundland or to the Atlantic provinces and talk to the people who are regionally dispossessed, and who suffer the

July 25. 1969
Motion to Adjourn House consequences of regional disparity through no fault of their own.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
We are moderate people in the Atlantic provinces. We are reasonable people. But how much are reasonable people expected to put up with? Poverty continues to be a major problem in this country though the government continues to ignore it. Our people continue to suffer the consequences of spiralling inflation, of high interest rates, of the lack of adequate housing, of the lack of ability to buy suitable houses, of the lack of public housing. They are beginning to realize the serious consequences of pollution and the failure of the Government of Canada to meet its responsibilities in this direction. They know from personal experience what the rising cost of living means. The working people of this country and those living on fixed incomes not only in the region from which I come but from across Canada, in the cities and on the farms from coast to coast, know the consequences of the monthly increases in the cost of living index because they experience them on a day to day basis as they go to the store to buy provisions for their families. Can you blame them for thinking: surely, the government must be able to come to grips with these serious problems over which we have no control.
We have a government which is determined to operate in a parliament whose members have been relegated to a position of rubber stamps. Perhaps this is the reason the government insists on proceeding with its plan for a three month adjournment. Under the new rules, perhaps we can get up and make a few speeches but we shall no longer be able to directly influence measures which will be brought forward for enactment. We have already given up our traditional, ancient right to withhold supply to the government. It was a sad day, Mr. Speaker, when that right left us. But at least we gave it up voluntarily. We gave up some of our debating days, too. We gave these things up because we wanted to co-operate with the government in a spirit of goodwill. We wanted to co-operate with the government because at that time we had no reason to suspect that its intentions were anything but honourable. Now, this government stands indicted by its own action.
Sure, we can come back in September and meet in committees. If the committees are anything like the committees were this session, conducted by partisan chairmen and 
controlled by a government which only accepts reports with which it agrees, this exercise could easily and usefully be dispensed with. Parliament should be asked to come back in September, at least, to discuss even on the basis of the limited power we now have, the serious problems facing the country.
The Atlantic provinces are passing through a crisis unparalleled in the history of confederation. The province from which I come is on the verge of a serious financial crisis. It is a well established fact that the same applies in the province of New Brunswick and in the province of Prince Edward Island. What is this government doing? It suggests parliament should take a three month recess and expects us to go back to our constituencies and defend this action. Members opposite may laugh and jeer because they got their way in this instance but I hope that when they have to face the unemployed, the badly housed and the poor in their constituencies they can find a good explanation for adjourning for three months. If they do, perhaps they will let us in on it, because I do not know what I shall say to the people I represent. What can I say to them? Nothing has been done by the government so far. They have been retrogressive steps. We see fish plants closing all over the place. We see advantages we have enjoyed in the past taken from us. We have lost the salt rebate. The fisheries are in a crisis. Yet the government sits by and does nothing. Perhaps the government wants parliament to adjourn for three months in order that it can prepare the country psychologically for what tQ expect-


Mr. Speaker:: I have to interrupt the hon. member. It being four o'clock the house will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business, namely, private bills.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, March 13, consideration in committee of Bill No. C-101, respecting London and Midland General Insurance	Company-Mr.	Lind-Mr. Faulkner in the chair.
James Hugh Faulkner: When the committee rose on Thursday, March 13, clause 1 of the bill was under consideration.
July 25, 1969

On clause 1-Change of name.


Mr. Lind:: Mr. Chairman, this is a bill to change the name of the company concerned from London and Midland General Insurance Company to Avco General Insurance Company. The company does not desire to change its capitalization nor to make any corporate change other than the change in title.
I urge hon. members to accept the bill before us. The company has been doing business in Canada for a number of years, operating not only in Ontario but across Canada and it has rendered good service to Canadians. A few years ago the company was purchased by the Avco Delta Corporation. All the bill seeks to do is to change the name of the company from London and Midland General Insurance Company to Avco General Insurance Company.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)


Mr. Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Chairman, something much more fundamental is involved in this bill than the mere purpose stated by the sponsor. True, on the surface, the intent is to change the name of the company. But what is of much more fundamental importance, something that has been explored on many occasions in the house, is the extent to which parliament is being asked to give formal endorsation to the concept of further inroads made by foreign capital into the Canadian economy, and whether it is desirable to accede to such request.
London and Midland General Insurance Company is not a simple, uncomplicated company with a Canadian structure, as the name would lead us to believe. It is a company that is involved in as large an international or multi-national corporate entity as exists anywhere, especially in the finance or insurance field.
When this bill was first considered before the committee, a Mr. David Alexandor, the parliamentary agent for the company, gave certain evidence. I should like to refer to that evidence to indicate the intricate involvement of London and Midland General Insurance Company in the finance and insurance world.
Mr. Alexandor initially explained, as did the sponsor of the bill, what appears on the surface of the bill to be its purpose. Then, he went on to make reference to Delta Acceptance Corporation, indicating that it was incorporated as a public company under the laws of Ontario on March 26, 1954. Then, in July 1962 Delta Acceptance Corporation Limited acquired all the outstanding share
Private Bills
capital of London and Midland General Insurance Company. In other words, since 1962 London and Midland General Insurance Company ceased to be a Canadian company in the full sense of the word, and in fact became a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Acceptance Corporation. Delta Acceptance Corporation subsequently changed its name to Avco Delta Corporation Canada Limited.
Perhaps, it would be worth while to set out, as did Mr. Alexandor, the extensions that Avco Delta Corporation has in the insurance, finance and other fields, in order to indicate we are not dealing here simply with a proposal to change a name. Perhaps I should read from the text what Mr. Alexandor said:
In addition to London and Midland General Insurance Company the following companies are also subsidiaries of Avco Delta Corporation Canada Limited. Avco C.F.C. Limited which was formerly C.F.C. Finance Corporation Limited, Avco Delta Dominion Limited which was formerly Delta Acceptance Canada Limited, Avco Delta Quebec Limited, which was formerly called D.A.C. (Quebec) Ltd., Avco Finance Limited, which was formerly The Crescent Finance Corporation Limited, Avco Highland Plan Limited, which was formerly called Highland Trial Plan Limited, Avco Delta Realty Limited, which was formerly Grand Prairie Investments Limited, Adanac General Insurance Company of Canada, Avco Delta Realty, Manitoba, Limited, which was formerly called the North West Mortgage and Finance Company Limited, Consolidated Finance Western Limited, Empire Acceptance Corporation Limited, General Finance Company Limited, Lorne-Bruce Motors Limited and Waverly Finance Company Limited.
The latter company, Waverly Finance Company Limited, wishes, or at least wished at the time of the committee hearings, to make an application to change its name to Avco Security Canada Limited. Adanac General Insurance Company, which we are told by Mr. Alexandor conducts a very limited operation, will be wound up in a short time.
Then, Mr. Alexandor goes on to indicate further involvement of the other companies. He says:
Four out of the last five companies named which were Consolidated Finance Western Limited, Empire Acceptance Corporation Limited, General Finance Company Limited and Lorne-Bruce Motors Limited are non-operating and it is intended to wind most of them up in the near future pending, for example, the distribution of a designated surplus, the maturing of debentures and the transferring of any old business still remaining. One or two of these companies are just corporate shells. Therefore, in effect, there are ten companies in this group which are operating at this time. All of these ten operating companies bear the name "Avco" in their corporate name except for Adanac General Insurance Company of Canada and London and Midland General Insurance Company.

July 25, 1969
Private Bills
I would like to point out that prior to the change of name of Delta Acceptance Corporation Limited to Avco Delta Corporation Canada Limited that Company became an almost wholly owned subsidiary of Avco Delta Corporation which is a Delaware company. This occurred in 1984. In turn, Avco Delta Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Avco Corporation of New York. There is one other Canadian company using the name "Avco" which is not a subsidiary of what we call the parent company,-
Then, Mr. Alexandor goes into more detail. From that recitation of the company's corporate involvement we see very clearly that the purpose of changing the name of the company from London and Midland General Insurance Company is to tie the company more closely in a psychological way to the massive Avco Delta finance structure. In other words, the present name of the company is detrimental to Avco Delta, which seeks not only the continuation of the subsidiary position of what was at one time a Canadian company, but in addition to that to give the company the stamp of Avco's own corporate international or multi-national structure.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
This brings us to the question of government policy as it relates to foreign ownership in the field of finance, in the field of insurance and to Canadian economic activity in general. London and Midland General Insurance Company is simply one facet of it. There has been ample dialogue in the country, ample discourse of ideas and ample expression by many people in Canada, about the necessity of taking some steps to halt and eventually reverse the trend toward a greater and greater domination of our Canadian economy by foreign interests. We all know that while foreign ownership presumably carries with it certain benefits, mainly the benefit of investment money in the nation, it also carries with it a far greater number of detrimental effects.
One of these is the siphoning out of the country by way of dividends part of our national wealth expressed in terms of dollars. Another awkward feature is the tendency of these multi-national foreign companies resident in another nation to concentrate a great part of their research activities and the like in the structure of the company in the foreign country. In other words, they disregard the Canadian section of their activities in so far as research, engineering and other matters are concerned. This is detrimental to us.
[Mr. Howard (Skeena).l
There is a tendency to do a certain amount of the total administrative research and engineering work in the parent company. There is also a tendency to offer an inducement to Canadians to leave Canada and work in the head office of the parent company in the United States. This trend is also detrimental to Canada.
There is a tendency for the parent company, and this has happened on a number of occasions, to make decisions about what it will do economically based on the political and economic considerations in the foreign country rather than on the necessities that may exist in Canada. In other words, as has been shown in a number of instances, not in the finance field but in the manufacturing field, the decisions of the United States Congress, the laws of which are applicable to resident companies within the United States, have extra territorial effect and are detrimental to Canadian interests.
The more we sell out our economic interests to foreign capital, the more we sell out the possibility that we ourselves can use our national resources and our own wealth for the greatest possible advantage of Canada. There has been ample public conversation and discussion about this. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), apropos of what he said this afternoon, does not really need any great period of time for an interchange of ideas in the cabinet. He does not need a lot of cabinet committees to understand and appreciate the difficulties attendant upon Canada in so far as foregoing ownership in concerned.
We had a very extensive royal commission to examine all these prospects, the report of which was made and subsequently hidden in some recesses of a government office. The government has had an opportunity to do something about this. In so far as the insurance industry is concerned, representatives of the Canadian government told the insurance industry in a private way, not in public conversation, not to worry about the objections being raised in Canada about the incorporation of foreign insurance companies. The government would take steps to protect the interests of foreign investors in Canada.
Representatives of the insurance companies went home contented and happy, knowing they were going to receive that protection. They knew they would no longer have to explain their activities by way of the private bill process in parliament. They knew they would no longer have to come before a public body, such as the standing committee, to ex-
July 25. 1969

plain what they wanted to do. The Canadian government told the insurance and finance industries in the United States, because that is where most of the owners are, not to worry and fret because their interests would be protected.
The government lived up to its word. It sold out Canadian interests and introduced bills in order to carry out that commitment. There are a number of pieces of legislation on the order paper designed to amend the Canada Corporations Act, The Foreign Insurance Companies Act, the Loan Companies Act, the Trust Companies Act and the Canadian British Insurance Companies Act. A reading of those companion pieces of legislation shows that the government has not considered the views of Canadians about foreign ownership and the detrimental effects of it. It has considered the vested interests of the foreign corporations and has come down four-square on the side of foreign domination of our industry.
These bills are certainly not having any trouble in the other place, with all the boards of directors endorsing everything that is protective of foreign investment. If those bills subsequently become law, it will mean companies like the Avco Delta Corporation, Seaboard Finance-which has appeared before parliament and has not a very good relationship with its borrowers-and other similar companies who have a large chunk of the Canadian economy in their grasp will be able to walk into the office of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) and offer him whatever is necessary to obtain a charter. They may get a change of name, an alteration in their capital structure or a stock-spilling arrangement. Such companies will be able to obtain whatever alteration they need with the complete sanctions and blessing of the Canadian government. All this will be done in the close confines of the minister's office.
These companies will no longer have to come before the Canadian public, the standing committees of the House of Commons, to explain why they want the particular changes, why they want to split their stock. They will be able to engage in all sorts of relatively underhanded corporate activities to preserve their own position and increase the ownership they have of the Canadian economy. The government studied the matter carefully, weighed the interests of the foreign owners of the United States corporate entity against the interests of Canadians, opted for
Private Bills
the foreign owners in the United States and disregarded the interests of the Canadian public. This is a preposterous insult emanating from the government of Canada. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs have talked publicly about the value of Canadian companies. They talk publicly about the necessity to protect our whole national economy and the various interests of Canadians, but privately, quietly and secretly they act in the opposite way. This, of course, is typical not only of this government but of previous governments which have been stamped with the same label, namely that of being two-faoed about most matters; they say one thing and do another.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)


James Hugh Faulkner: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired.


Mr. Barnett:: Mr. Chairman, it had occurred to me that members of the house at this hour on Friday afternoon, rather than listen to me talk, might prefer to observe a period of 20 minutes' silence to reflect upon the body blow that was delivered in this house to the freedom and rights of members of this parliament. But, on reflection I was afraid the Chair might say such a silence would not be relevant to the subject matter of the bill which is now before us. I did think of another alternative. I thought that perhaps the 20 minutes' silence might be used to observe the symbolic death of what I understand was once a genuine Canadian company and which, according to the sponsor of the bill, enjoyed the respect and confidence of the community in which it originated. I am not sure whether the hon. member sponsoring the bill would be prepared to agree that that is the kind of observance he would want, inasmuch as he is prepared to sponsor a bill of this nature in this house.
This is the first time I have spoken on the subject matter of Bill C-101. When I read through its provisions, it seemed to me I was meeting once again an old friend or old enemy whichever way one might prefer to describe it, because there was a similarity to certain other bills which were before us in previous parliaments. The explanatory note is very similar. It states that the sole purpose of the bill is to change the name of the company to Avco Insurance Company from London and Midland General Insurance Company. This may seem to be a very simple and

July 25. 1969
Private Bills
innocuous proposal to which there should be little dissent. However, I believe it is necessary that we give some detailed attention to what is being asked by the bill. The hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) gave us some of the details in respect of the proposed new Avco Insurance Company. Under its present name this company is involved in what is known as the Avco group.
When this matter was before the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) asked the obvious question. He asked what does Avco stand for. The witness before the committee replied that it is an abbreviation of the names of aviation companies, and through the years has dwindled down to Avco. I suggest that while the name may have dwindled down, the activities of the corporation have not dwindled down. Indeed, the company would appear to have enlarged to the proportion of a giant octopus. The president of the London and Midland General Insurance Company said that the parent company in New York has become something along the lines of what might be called a conglomerate, involved in such things as aeroplane parts and extensive research and development, including the mechanical heart.
One can see, Mr. Chairman, that what is now the London and Midland General Insurance Company is something which is quite large indeed, and that the funds gathered through the corporate side may be directed into a great many different fields including indeed, if I may say so, what is sometimes referred to as the military industrial complex in the United States of America. I suppose one might develop a line of reasoning which would indicate that through this kind of mechanism the people who buy insurance through this company are directly or indirectly assisting in the financing of the United States war effort in Viet Nam. So, Mr. Chairman, it is not very difficult to indicate to the house that when the explanatory note says the sole purpose of this bill is to change the name, it is not as simple as that.
It may be true that the passage of this particular bill will not greatly affect the corporate structure of the company, but I submit that members of the house must give consideration to the fact that if they lend their assent to this proposal they are in effect putting their stamp of approval on something which I suppose, for practical purposes, has already taken place, namely the drawing into the United States conglomerate of some of the financial institutions of Canada.
This bill was under consideration by the committee of the whole on March 13 last. Not having participated in the debate on that occasion, I have looked at some of the remarks which were made during that particular part of the consideration of the bill. I notice that the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Deachman) saw fit to intervene in the debate. I shall read, in part at least, the remarks he made. On examination of those remarks, I have concluded that the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra is almost as adept at turning the truth upside down as the Prime Minister, who demonstrated his capabilities during the discussions that have taken place in this house in the last couple of days.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
I thought I might make one or two comments about the arguments presented on that occasion by that hon. member. He said:
No one can argue this case better than do the hon. members who, throughout their history in the House of Commons, have been confined to the far left hand corner of the house-
I should like to correct the hon. member's statement. There was an occasion when we sat in the far right hand corner of the house and he and his colleagues were sitting on this side of the chamber. I realize that may not be significant or relevant to the argument the hon. member has advanced, but I am sure he would not want that inaccuracy to remain unnoted.
The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra was talking about Canadian companies. In reference to our theories about the desirability of having foreign ownership and investment in Canada, he said, as reported at page 6589 of Hansard for March 13:
-hon. gentlemen opposite, who have held up these bills, have constantly argued that foreign capital militates against the progress of the Canadian economy and Industry. We do not believe that on this side of the house.
The hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) is recorded as having said at that point:
That is not true.
The manner in which the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra was presenting the argument indicates that the hon. member for Timiskaming was quite correct on that occasion. The argument presented by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra obviously had nothing to do with the subject matter of this
[Mr. Bamett.1
July 25, 1969

bill, because the nature of his remarks indicate that he was talking about the kind of company which puts investment into natural resources in Canada and brings about industrial development.
This is a subject matter on which various people in Canada have differing views at this time. I agree that the hon. member was correct in that regard. This is an important question, but it is not the question which was being discussed in relation to this bill. It is quite apparent that this bill has to do with a financial institution, the function of which is to gather the funds of the Canadian people into a pool. Our submission is that this is an area of debate very different from that being pursued by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra. The argument which applied in one connection did not necessarily apply to the other.
I am one who believes we have been very foolish in the manner in which we have allowed industrial development and exploitation of natural resources to take place in this country. We have allowed foreign companies to gain control through the investment of a very small amount of equity capital and, in many cases, allowed that control when the actual capital investment has been raised from Canadian sources in non-equity form. This process should be reversed. As I have sometimes said, if we had taken a leaf from the book of the United States in the way it has drawn foreign capital, we would be in a much more sound position than we are today. Unless I am very much misinformed, the United States drew in large blocs of investment capital from abroad-in a large part from the United Kingdom-and most of that capital inflow was in the form of borrowed funds which the United States paid back with interest.
What we have in this bill is something completely different. In fact, what we are acquiescing to is the idea of a United States company being able to gain control of a Canadian financial institution and, through that mechanism, invest Canadian funds wherever it sees fit. I submit this makes the argument advanced on March 13 by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra completely irrelevant to the subject matter of the bill. I say that while emphasizing again that his remarks on that occasion were completely inaccurate in portraying the position he alleges we in this party have taken.
The whole question involved in some of the debates that have taken place during this particular procedure has a significance which is
Private Bills
much greater than the subject matter of the particular bill we are discussing today, or the subject matter of some of the similar bills we have had under discussion in this and preceding parliaments. I think it has been made clear time and time again by some of us who have spoken-some might say at length and some would say at great and undue length- that the bill represents an opportunity to attempt to draw the attention of the government to what we consider to be a very serious trend in our society. This trend is going to militate seriously against the future economic viability of the Canadian economy.
We have been adopting this course not because we have any particular vendetta against this particular company, or against its United States parent corporation, but rather because we feel we should draw the situation to the attention of that country. We feel that we should control our own economic and political destiny. It is for that reason I do not want to see this bill passed. I feel that somewhere along the line some Canadians ought to take a stand to reverse this trend which has been so apparent in recent years in Canada, and one which has been accelerating more and more. This trend is not new.
I believe I am right when I recall that the first essay I wrote as a first year university student was entitled "The Americanization of Canadian Life". I do not mind admitting to hon. members that I was a member of the arts class of 1931 at the University of British Columbia. As a young university student, I had some concern about what was happening in Canadian life and to the Canadian economy. That concern is something which has been with me through all the years since then, a concern about which I have become increasingly aware during the time I have been a member of the Canadian House of Commons.
I must say that most of the arguments which have been advanced by those of us who have spoken during these debates on this bill, and others like it, appear to have been falling on deaf ears in this house. There certainly does not appear to be recognition by the Canadian government of the fact that steps should be taken to prevent us from having to deal with situations such as the one alluded to in this particular bill.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)


James Hugh Faulkner: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.
"662	COMMONS DEBATES	July 25, 1969
Adjournment of the House


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether the committee would be agreeable to rising and reporting progress. I think there might be a possibility of disposing of the business that was before the house earlier today.


James Hugh Faulkner: Mr. Macdonald (Rosedale) moves that I rise and report progress.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, the President of the Privy Council can move that motion if he wishes. There would not be unanimous agreement otherwise.


James Hugh Faulkner: Mr. Macdonald (Rosedale) moves that I rise, report progress and request leave to sit again at the next sitting of the house. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
ADJOURNMENT TO OCTOBER 22, 1969 Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (President of the Privy Council): Mr. Speaker, could we have the consent of the house to revert to motions for the purpose of calling the amendment and also my motion, which were under consideration earlier today? I think there might be disposition to dispose of them at this time.
Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, we are agreeable to that being done. I shall say nothing more than that having made the case which we set out to make, we are prepared to let the house come to a decision on the issue at this time.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is substantially our position, Mr. Speaker. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that one of the reasons for the kind of agreement that we have reached is our concern for the staff.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, as the official opposition and the New Democratic party have done, we agree to the proposal of the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Macdonald).
[The Chairman.]


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
The house having reverted to motions:
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Macdonald (Rosedale), and the amendment thereto of Mr. Stanfield.
That when the house adjourns for its summer recess it shall stand adjourned until October 22, 1969, provided always that if it appears to the satisfaction of Mr. Speaker, after consultation with Her Majesty's government, that the public interest requires that the house should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, Mr. Speaker may give notice that he is so satisfied, and thereupon the house shall meet at the time stated in such notice, and shall transact its business as if it had been duly adjourned to that time; and
That, in the event of Mr. Speaker being unable to act owing to illness or other cause, the Deputy Speaker or the Deputy Chairman of Committees shall act in his stead for the purpose of reconvening the house.


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


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on the amendment to the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the said amendment?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the amendment carried?


Stanley Howard Knowles: On
division.


Mr. Speaker:: The amendment to the main motion is negatived, on division.
Amendment (Mr. Stanfield) negatived on division.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the house wish the Chair to put the main motion at this time?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the said motion?
July 25, 1969	COMMONS


Some hon. Members:: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: Carried, on division.
Motion agreed to on division.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by Mr. Mcllraith:
That this house do now adjourn.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the said motion?
Order, please. Before adjourning the house I should like to take one moment to thank hon. members for the excel-
Adjournment of the House lent and heart-warming co-operation which they have extended to the Chair during this long session. The last two or three weeks have been trying for hon. members and perhaps for the Chair also.
I hope hon. members will, in a gesture of good will, join the Speaker; there will be the usual friendly meeting for a few moments in a room which is not room 75 but is still room 16.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 4.48 p.m. until Wednesday, October 22, at two o'clock p.m. pursuant to special order.

Wednesday, October 22, 1969