1969-05-22

[Stage Direction]
Sixth report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, in French and in English-Mr. Ovide Laflamme (Montmorency).
[Stage Direction]
Seventh report of Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence-Mr. Wahn.
[Stage Direction]
Seventh report of the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration, in French and in English-Mr. Chas. L. Caccia (Davenport).
[Editor's note: The text of the foregoing reports appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, when the Honourable, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Greene) returned to the house recently following his illness he requested, and I readily consented, that he be permitted to work his way back into his portfolio on a gradual basis.
To permit this, a division of functions between the minister and the Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan (Mr. Lang) has been concluded and I should now like to inform the house of the area for which each minister will be responsible.

The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Greene) will bear full executive responsibility for the broad subject area of mines and geosciences which includes the geological survey of Canada, surveys and
mapping, the mines branch, the observatories branch and the polar continental shelf project. He will in addition be responsible for matters falling under the title "Mineral Development".
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)
The Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan (Mr. Lang) will bear full responsibility for those subject areas which may be broadly described as "water and co-ordination of renewable resources", and "energy development", including responsibility for the several Crown agencies and Crown corporations active in this area.
I should add that he will also continue to act as the acting minister in the event of an absence on the part of the minister.


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might take this opportunity to express on behalf of my colleagues our good wishes to the minister concerned. We are happy to see him back in the house. I express the hope that he will very soon recover his full capacity, if not his former inclination to carve up those of us on this side of the house at will. Certainly we will be anxious to co-operate in respect of the division of authority as indicated by the Prime Minister. Even though this may add further complexity to our position, particularly in light of the fact that everything is now under review by the government, I am sure we can cope with this additional hazard.



IMMIGRATION


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: I am pleased to make a statement on Canada's immigration policies and practices as they apply to members of the armed forces of other countries who seek permanent entry to Canada.
Members will recall my commitment to make such a statement following a government review of current practices. This review, which began late last year, was made necessary because of a number of difficulties which developed in the treatment of servicemen from other countries seeking landed immigrant status in Canada.

May 22, 1969
Immigration Policy
Up until January of last year, and for some years prior to that, Canadian immigration practice was not to process the applications- for permanent entry to Canada-of any persons known to be in the active military service of another country, unless and until such persons showed proof of discharge or imminent discharge.
In January 1968, this practice was eliminated in the case of military personnel applying from within Canada for landed immigrant status. For the most part, these would be servicemen who came to Canada as visitors and decided while here to apply for permanent entry. Under new instructions issued in January 1968, armed service applicants- including United States deserters-applying from within Canada were not to be refused admission because of their military status.
In other words, if a member of the armed forces of another country was legally in Canada as a non-immigrant, then decided while he was here to apply for landed immigrant status, such status was normally granted if he met normal immigration requirements.
At points outside Canada, at border points and immigration offices abroad, the instruction requiring proof of discharge remained in effect until July 29, 1968. On that date, the earlier mandatory practice requiring proof of discharge or imminent discharge was withdrawn, as it had been some six months earlier for military applicants who had already entered Canada as non-immigrants and then applied for landed immigrant status.
It was replaced by a practice which rested on the exercise of discretion given immigration officers under the regulations. Under this practice immigration officers at entry points and offices abroad could either consider or disregard active military service as a factor when processing applicants for landed immigrant status.
There still remained however a difference in the treatment of servicemen applying from within Canada and those applying at points of entry and offices abroad. The former, if they otherwise qualified, were granted landed immigrant status; the latter, on the other hand, could be refused entry even if they met normal selection criteria. The review which we undertook arose in part from this ambivalent situation.
The second matter which caused concern was the onus placed on immigration officers at points of entry and offices abroad to decide what if any bearing an applicant's military
[Mr. MacEachen.l
status should have on his admissibility. Even though a decision in this regard by an immigration officer at a border point or an office abroad had to be concurred in by a senior official, it still required the immigration officer in the initial instance, and indeed the senior officer himself, to rule on a highly controversial issue. The object of our review was to arrive at a practice which would apply equally to all categories of applicants and which would not require our officials to make such a difficult ruling.
In our review, and in making our decision, we also took note of the fact that our immigration policy is based on the principles of non-discrimination and universality. Hon. members will recall that in October, 1967, immigration to Canada except in the case of sponsored dependants was placed on what has become known as the "point system". Under this approach the normal practice is to admit all persons who achieve the required number of points, meet medical and security requirements, and have no criminal record. As hon. members know, points are based on such things as education, trade or professional training, knowledge of English and/or French, job demand in Canada, and so on.
As I noted earlier, in the case of military applicants steps toward greater liberalization were taken in January, 1968, and in July, 1968. We have now decided to carry the policy a step further. Membership in the armed service of another country, or desertion, if you like, potential or actual, will not be a factor in determining the eligibility of persons applying for landed immigrant status in Canada, whether such persons apply from within Canada at points of entry or at Canadian immigration offices abroad.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: If a serviceman from
another country meets our immigration criteria, he will not be turned down because he is still in the active service of his country. Therefore the selection criteria and requirements applying to him will be the same as those that apply to other applicants. Our basic position is that the question of an individual's membership or potential membership in the armed services of his own country is a matter to be settled between the individual and his government, and is not a matter in which we should become involved.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.
May 22, 1969


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I might note that in the past 15 months since the new policy was put into effect for military personnel applying from within Canada, some 72 persons identified as U.S. servicemen have been allowed to stay in Canada, and another 27 are currently being processed; 7 decided to return to the United States before their applications were disposed of, and 19 were turned down because they failed to meet normal immigration criteria. Even though the liberalized policy has applied within Canada for some 15 months, the figures do not indicate any substantial entry of U.S. servicemen to Canada as immigrants.
I should like to remind the house that Canada has already undertaken certain commitments in connection with the armed forces of other countries serving in Canada which may be designated under the Visiting Forces Act of 1967. Stated briefly, under the Visiting Forces Act servicemen of countries covered by the act who desert from their units in Canada are subject to arrest in Canada by military authorities, and return to their unit. Subject to this, the decision I have announced becomes effective immediately. The result of that decision is to place all armed service applicants on the same footing regardless of country of origin, and to bring our policy on military deserters into line with our treatment of draft resisters.
[DOT] (2:20 p.m.)


Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, whether or not we agree with the decision the minister has just announced, I believe we all agree that it is a good thing that a decision has been made to at least review the intolerable situation that has existed for Canadian immigration officers and the many other people involved in this issue.
It is obvious that the minister has been paying for the sins of his own predecessor in the ridiculous regulation with which he has had to cope during recent months, according to which Canadian immigration officers at points of entry and in foreign countries have had the responsibility of using their own discretion in dealing with deserters from the armed forces outside Canada who wish to enter Canada, a responsibility that immigration officers inside Canada have not had. This was due to the fact that those who otherwise come into the country are treated differently from those who apply from the outside and seek to cross the border legally so far as immigration laws are concerned. This discriminatory situation, so far as immigration
Immigration Policy
officers of Canada are concerned, has been intolerable and certainly has justified many of the arguments that have been made as to whether or not we in Canada should admit as immigrants those who are actually deserters from the armed forces of other countries.
There is no doubt that the minister has yielded to pressure from within his own party and also has yielded to outside pressure groups which have taken the attitude that Canada should be a haven for those who seek to desert from the armed forces and the military obligations of their countries.
What troubles me about this is simply that here is another example where we are actually taking the lead in encouraging citizens of other countries to flout the law of their own country in order to seek haven here in Canada. I wonder what would be the situation if we were at war as we were in 1939 to 1941 and other friendly countries, particularly those that are our neighbours, were to adopt a policy whereby they became an open refuge for those who sought to desert from the Canadian armed forces. I wonder if the minister would agree with such a policy, as obviously he has placed himself in such a position by accepting deserters from the armed forces of other countries.
It is not just the United States that is involved here, because most countries have compulsory military service. It seems to me that in view of the general breakdown of law and order in the world at large we should be particularly careful about encouraging a further disregard for the laws of our country which I believe the citizens of any country have the responsibility to respect and obey.
I notice that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) seems to find my remarks somewhat amusing. I cannot understand such a reaction or attitude, because in his responsibility as the head of this nation he must understand that we can only maintain law and order in this country when we give respect to the laws not only of this country but of others.
There is just one question that I would like to raise. In making his announcement the minister did not indicate whether or not there had been consultation with the government of the United States prior to his decision. I say this because he himself points out in the announcement the statistics that relate to deserters coming from the United States into Canada. I think that at least if this was to be the basis of the minister's decision it would

May 22. 1969
Immigration Policy
only be the act of a friendly nation for Canada to consult with the United States government about the effects of such a policy as it might relate to the government of that country, and those who desert from the United States armed forces.
However, this is not the time for debate. I ask the minister whether this kind of policy is the right policy for Canada to be taking, even having regard for the fact that down through the centuries of our history Canada has been a refuge for people from all parts of the world.
I need only mention the United Empire Loyalists and the situation which existed during the United States civil war, both of which hardly relate to military deserters. In spite of this, in the present situation it seems to me that the least the government of Canada could have done was to consult with the governments of countries whose nationals might be seeking refuge here after deserting the armed forces.


Mr. J. Edward Broadbenl (Oshawa-Whit-by):: Mr. Speaker, the government's decision on this question is one with which free and civilized men everywhere will agree.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Edward Broadbent: Members of the New
Democratic party-


Some hon. Members:: More flower power.


John Edward Broadbent: Perhaps those on my right would listen to my comments. Members of the New Democratic party, in contrast to some others, have a profound commitment to small "1" liberalism and to the free movement of people throughout the world. On this question we have said that the government's distinction between draft dodgers and deserters in terms of justice did not make sense and that in terms of Canada's immigration law it was unwarranted. We have said that a man's military status in a foreign country, whether the United States or Czechoslovakia, should have no bearing on his desirability as a citizen of this nation.
It is clear that some deserters and draft dodgers would not make good citizens. It is equally clear that many of them would make excellent citizens. The important point is that a military record as such, whether in the United States or anywhere else in the world, should have no bearing whatsoever on the question.

Contrary to the minister's assertion, however-and this is my only point of criticism -we repeat that we do not believe there is any innovation here in terms of Canadian law. As my party sees it, if the act had been properly interpreted in the first place the distinction made in recent years between deserters and draft dodgers would not have been made to begin with. We are pleased that the government has finally taken the position which should have prevailed in the first place. Just as one does not compliment a man who is normally a thief for not stealing a car, so at this time I do not feel strongly obliged to compliment the government for doing both what our law and civilized behaviour require.
Our tradition of welcoming those who are essentially political refugees goes back, as the hon. member to my right has just said, to the days of the United Empire Loyalists. I am pleased to see that this sound Canadian tradition has been restored.


Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, at first sight, we would indeed be in favour of banning any discrimination in the choice of immigrants, but if we take time to consider the actual reasons which led the government to change its attitude slightly, we must ask ourselves quite serious questions and our duty is to impart them to the house.
Our new policy, which concerns United States servicemen in particular should not one way or other embitter our relationship with our neighbours to the South.
We should remember other extremely important factors. Are the reasons which lead immigrants to become Canadian citizens strong enough? Are the applicants sufficiently qualified to be eligible? Is it desirable to admit people who come to Canada not because they like our country but because they feel compelled to disobey the laws of their own country? This is a factor that must be considered.
There are also other reasons with regard to this type of immigrants. We remember, as if it had happened yesterday, the conscription of 1942, and we know how deserters were treated. They were outlawed and run down by the authorities. Now, this is precisely the type of people we are going to accept in Canada.
For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I believe we cannot fully support this new government action.
May 22, 1969

[DOT] (2:30 p.m.)



CRIMINAL CODE


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Justice) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-197, to amend the Criminal Code.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-198, to amend the Canada Corporations Act and other statutory provisions related to the subject matter of certain of those amendments.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

[Stage Direction]
MEASURE SETTING OUT MAXIMUM NOISE LEVELS	\
Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-199, respecting noise in factories.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Barry Mather: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to combat a major health hazard in industry by requiring that the noise levels in establishments having contracts with the government of Canada shall be at a maximum of 85 decibels. The noise level at 85 decibels is said by health experts to be such that one can hardly hear oneself talk. I might point out that similar legislation to this was enacted earlier this week in the United States and is now law in that country.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I understand that the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Skoberg) has a question of privilege that he wants to bring to the attention of the house at this time. Unfortunately, because we moved a

Inquiries of the Ministry little too fast he was not given an opportunity to do so at the opening of the house. Perhaps hon. members might want to allow the hon. member for Moose Jaw to indicate to the house at this time what is the question of privilege that he desires to raise.


Mr. John L. Skoberg (Moose Jaw):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to rise on a question of privilege having to do with the failure of the government to respond to my appeals for a public inquiry into the alarming series of railway mishaps.
I originally brought the matter of rail safety and mishaps to the attention of the minister of transport on January 8, and to date there has not been any action on the part of the government to initiate or establish a public inquiry into the increasing number of mishaps on the railways. As a member of parliament who has some experience in railway operations, and inasmuch as I have been attempting, without avail, to have a public inquiry conducted, and particularly in view of the collision last night in which two members of a crew lost their lives and many passengers were injured, could I not, through you, Mr. Speaker, implore the government immediately to set up a public inquiry with terms of reference broad enough to conduct a meaningful investigation into the causes of such mishaps, and the safety of all rail operations?


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps it should not be necessary for the Chair to make a ruling on the point raised by the hon. member. He suspects, I would think, that this is not really a question of privilege. The hon. member has at most a grievance, perhaps a question that he might want to pose during the question period. I would not think there was a true question of privilege in any event since no motion was proposed by the hon. member. I suggest we go on to the business of the house at this time in our proceedings, which is that of oral questions.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, following up an answer that he gave me yesterday when he stated that the policy with regard to
8934	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry our national parks is flexible. I asked the minister whether this meant that the government of Canada had abandoned the previous firm policy adopted by successive governments, and as stated by his predecessor, the present Minister of Public Works, on March 5, 1968, when the then minister said that "the policy is, and always has been, that land for national parks should be made available free from encumbrance, and the national parks system then develops and manages the park".
In view of the fact that the federal government has always insisted on a province turning over absolute title to land before it can be accepted for national park purposes, does this represent a change in policy? I want to make it very clear that I am not objecting to the arrangement made in regard to the province of Quebec; I am seeking information.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I should like to object to the hon. leader's statement. I think he should make his point in the form of a question rather than in the form of a pronouncement. The question is a valid one, of course, and to the extent that the statement is a question the minister may wish to reply.


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, the government of Quebec is granting the federal government ownership and possession of the land of Forillon Park for a period of 99 years, in accordance with the principles contained in the Quebec Civil code regarding long leases which allow the transfer of ownership for a term of time.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Am I to understand that the government of Canada, negotiating as it is with the government of Nova Scotia for a satellite park in connection with Kejimkujic, will be prepared to accept land from that province on the same terms? Or, will the terms be negotiated as was done in the case of the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia and as was done in the case of the national park announced yesterday?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, 1 do not know if the provisions of the Civil Code may be applied in Common Law. We are negotiating agreements with the provinces; I did not receive any other suggestion of this kind from any province, and I have no intention of accepting any.

DEBATES	May 22, 1969


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I am asking the minister if he will review what he said and apply a uniform principle across the country. I ask this question, not to create trouble, but in the cause of national unity.



FINANCE


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister? In view of the imminent take-over of Royal Securities Corporation Limited by a United States company, may I ask whether the Royal Securities Corporation will continue as a Canadian money market dealer with rediscount facilities and thus participate in the weekly auction of treasury bills,, or does the government intend to restrict the rediscounting facilities of the Bank of Canada exclusively to Canadian owned investment dealers?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the details of that question, I must ask the hon. member to refer them to the Minister of Finance. On the principle of the matter alluded to by the hon. member I can only repeat, with more force than previously, what has already been said from time to time in the house. This matter is of concern to the government and may lead us to a position where we shall want to state some general policies that will apply to the role of financial institutions in the country. I can only confess that what the hon. member stated is a new happening and we are not in a position, under the law as we see it, to do anything because of constitutional and statutory considerations. But I recognize the seriousness of the operation and undertake to have the government look more deeply at the policy consequences of this event.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the serious implications flowing from having our financial institutions fall into the hands of foreign investors and in view of rumours that other investment houses are being solicited to follow a course similar to that of Royal Securities Corporation Limited, does the government intend to take steps to prevent this merger, lest it be followed by other mergers that eventually could affect the financial situation of the Canadian government?
May 22, 1969


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, whether we take any steps or not will depend on the policy decisions to which I have just alluded. Because there are these rumours I am stating officially that the government is concerned about these events. There is a need for us to look carefully at such take-over bids. I emphasize that, this position does not contradict the position of our welcoming foreign capital into this country. Nevertheless, we believe there are certain areas of our economy which are of great importance to us, and a decision will be taken by the government with regard to them.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the company will take a decision within a matter of days and since another government acted very quickly in the matter of an attempted take-over by a United States bank of a Canadian bank, will the government act or make some statement of policy before this merger goes into effect?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member realizes that under the constitution banks come squarely within federal jurisdiction. The institutions we are considering here do not fall squarely into the same category, and therefore we are not in a position to state policy with as much strength as would be the case if banks were being considered.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: 
Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, there appears to be unanimity in this house about the seriousness of this proposition. I believe the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs reported the other day that he was considering the matter. Thus far his information has been that we cannot act under the Combines Investigation Act. The matter is still being reviewed however. I envisage that if we cannot act in a strictly federal sense we might possibly alert the provincial governments to take some joint action in an area as important as this one to the Canadian economy and government.


John George Diefenbaker: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the prevailing concept of co-operative federalism, will the suggestion I am about to make have any appeal? Could the government of Canada not communicate with the government of Ontario, which has a securities commission with jurisdiction to act in this field? Has the government considered such action?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful that the questions which are being asked in the house this afternoon and the answers being given will in some appropriate way be brought to the attention of the government of Ontario.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A further supplementary question,
Mr. Speaker. The federal government has power in the matter of granting rediscounting facilities with respect to the Bank of Canada. Will the government indicate whether these facilities will be denied to Royal Securities Corporation Limited so that Merrill Lynch and associates will not be able to do through the back door what they are unable to do at the present time under their own name?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question, as I indicated when talking about the technical aspect of the matter, can more properly be dealt with by the Minister of Finance.



MONTREAL-LAY-OFF OF CANADIAN VICKERS EMPLOYEES

Mr. Real Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion.
As Mr. Michel Chartrand, a friend of the minister, advised 500 workers of Canadian
8936	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry Vickers to stay on strike as long as the federal government has not taken action to keep the shipyard in operation, is the minister taking steps to prevent Canadian Vickers from closing it down?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, as my bond of friendship with Mr. Michel Chartrand is about the same as that of the hon. member, it is certainly not for that reason that there would be an intervention.
As for the problem facing Canadian Vickers, it is extremely serious, and I think this part of the question should be directed to the Minister of Labour, and not to me.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question.
As Mr. Michel Chartrand is a friend of us both, would the minister consider advising Canadian Vickers to sell their shares to Mr. Michel Chartrand, so that he could become the employer?


Jean Marchand: The shipyard would close down even sooner, Mr. Speaker.



SHIPBUILDING


Mr. Martial Asselin (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, my question is a supplementary to an earlier one and should probably be directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
To avoid the closing down of Canadian Vickers and the laying-off of hundreds of workers, would the minister consider reapplying the policy of subsidies inaugurated by the Progressive Conservative government and which consisted in giving substantial aid to the dockyards for the building of ships?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: That policy is still in force, Mr. Speaker.


Martial Asselin: Mr. Speaker, I have a further supplementary question. Does the government still plan, as the minister said during the election campaign, to establish a merchant service in Canada, and in this way help save the shipbuilding industry in Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member is asking the minister for a general policy statement, and I do not believe such a question can be asked at this time.

DEBATES	May 22, 1969



FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT TO PARTICIPATE IN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE

Mr. H. Russell MacEwan (Central Nova):: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce if he or his department has advised the shipbuilding industry that the government will not participate in a committee to investigate shipbuilding in Canada?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Not to my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, but I will find out.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Has-tings):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. A week ago today the Minister of Justice advised the house that he had asked the Secretary of State for External Affairs to confer with the U.S. Secretary of State to clarify the position of Mr. Hal Banks and the possibilities of extraditing this man to Canada. Can the minister advise the house what the results of these conversations have been?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of Slate for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the State Department is now looking into the legal issues and will inform us as soon as possible of its conclusions. They have not yet reached a conclusion.



IMMIGRATION


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Now that he has satisfactorily cleared up the vexed question of the military status of would-be immigrants would he give consideration to revising the regulations so as to limit the purely subjective assessment of personality by immigration officers, which plays so large a part in the present point system?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the immigration regulations and the act are under review now, and that matter will be considered also.
May 22, 1969



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


Mr. Charles H. Thomas (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my question has already been alluded to by the hon. member for Moose Jaw, but it is of such a critical nature that I too would ask the Prime Minister if he will order an inquiry into the operations of the C.N.R. to determine if there has been a decrease in operating efficiency and a consequent increase in hazard to the travelling public?


Mr. Speaker:: While the matter is being pondered I will recognize the hon. member for Calgary Centre.



SHIPMENT OF OFFSHORE PRODUCT TO AREA WEST OF OTTAWA RIVER

Hon. D. S. Harkness (Calgary Centre):: Mr. Speaker, this question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, (Mr. Greene) or the Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan (Mr. Lang), whichever is in a position to answer. Has the government received information that since the opening of the shipping season on the Great Lakes off-shore petroleum products are being shipped into that part of Canada west of the Ottawa River which, under our national oil policy, is supposed to be supplied with western Canadian oil products?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister without Portfolio):: Mr. Speaker, I do not have information at hand in the nature of a recent report on the situation, but the matter is being looked into at the present time.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As a supplementary question will the minister take immediate steps to determine the extent of this penetration by foreign oil, and will he take immediate steps to see that it ceases?


Otto Emil Lang: As I indicated, Mr. Speaker, the facts are being found out and will be brought to my attention at an early date. At that time an appropriate decision will be taken.



MOVEMENT OF DRILLING RIG TO NEW ZEALAND

['On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, and with all deference I might suggest that we have not obtained an answer to that question which was asked previously.']
Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources of which I have given him notice. It arises from an announcement that a multi-million dollar drilling rig is being moved by Shell Oil from
Inquiries of the Ministry the Vancouver island coast to New Zealand. Can the minister advise whether this move was caused by the delay in clearing up the administration of Canada's offshore oil resources?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the notice he gave me of his question. The answer is no. There is no such reason for the move. The Shell Oil Company announced ten days ago the completion of its two-year drilling program on the west coast.



Mr. W. M. Howe (Wellington-Grey):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Probably he will take notice of it when he finishes his private conversation with the Prime Minister. It has to do with the trouble that so many thousands of Canadians are meeting in obtaining passports. Is it true that British immigration requirements have been relaxed temporarily because of delay in issuing Canadian passports?


Mr. Speaker:: I do not have a substantial objection to the question asked by the hon. member, but normally it should be asked directly rather than by asking for confirmation or denial of a statement. Substantially the question is in order and the minister may wish to reply.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, we have been in touch with the British government representatives here who understand the great difficulties that have been caused by the enormous increase in passport applications, and in the present exceptional circumstances I understand that entry facilities are being accorded in emergency cases to Canadian travellers whose names are notified in advance to the British immigration authorities by the Canadian authorities. In certain emergency cases also the British immigration authorities may admit a Canadian traveller who is able to produce alternative proof of identity and citizenship. In both sets of cases no guarantee can be given in advance. A traveller proceeding in this manner does so at his own risk.


William Marvin Howe: As a supplementary question, is the same program being carried out with regard to any other countries?

8938	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mitchell William Sharp: No, Mr. Speaker. Since a very large proportion of the travellers from Canada going overseas are going to the United Kingdom it seemed to us that this was the area of greatest concern.


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Roy-al: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, may I ask whether the advertising campaign conducted about passports, which appeared in newspapers on Saturday, is the extent of the government's campaign in this regard, or can we expect a more imaginative program?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of this report, and of what he has now said about a certain position of Canadians going to the United Kingdom without a passport, and since British citizens travelling to certain European countries do not require passports, may I ask the minister whether this could be added to the position of Canadian travellers?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I will take this as notice, but it is quite some time since we severed our colonial ties.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question of the minister. In view of the considerable interest and desire of a large number of our citizens who speak French to visit France, would the minister consider making the same sort of representations to the government of France as he has done with regard to the United Kingdom in order to assist travellers to that country?


Mitchell William Sharp: I will take this question as a suggestion, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Is the government giving consideration to compensating the Wheat Board for the $160,000 it had to pay to Japan in compensation for damaged grain shipped to that country?


Jean-Luc Pepin: No, Mr. Speaker, but I was asked yesterday why it was a cash
[Mr. Howe.l
DEBATES	May 22, 19G9
payment. The answer I received from the Wheat Board is that the negotiations between the board and the Japanese Food Agency were meant to be confidential, but in the light of the publicity given to this matter I can inform the house that there was agreement by both sides that a cash settlement was desirable. It was further agreed that payment would be directed to the wheat research organization of the Japanese Millers Association.


John George Diefenbaker: The western farmer pays through the nose again.


John Stratford Burton: Has the government determined responsibility for the situation which arose in connection with this dispute?


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me that the hon. member is asking a question which had been asked previously.


John Stratford Burton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, and with all deference I might suggest that we have not obtained an answer to that question which was asked previously.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Has a decision been made by the government to withdraw completely our forces in NATO, and also has a decision been made to announce the phasing out dates? I ask these questions in view of the remarks attributed to the President of the Privy Council in London yesterday.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, my information is that the President of the Privy Council talked about a reduction and not a withdrawal. Therefore there should be no confusion.


Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to the question addressed to the Prime Minister by the hon. member for Oxford. In view of the fact that the President of the Privy Council said a decision should be made prior to May 31 on the withdrawal of Canadian troops from NATO, was the President of the Privy Council stating government policy when he made that announcement?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Is the hon. member referring to the date now or the vocabulary?


Robert Norman Thompson: The date.
May 22, 1969


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If it is the date, the vocabulary being reduction and not withdrawal, the Minister of National Defence informed the house yesterday, I believe, of the government timetable on that. The minister will be meeting next week with the NATO countries in Brussels. When he is in the house following his return from Brussels, which will be a week from Monday, he will announce to the house what transpired in Brussels. This will bring us, I think, to the first days of June.
Mr. Thompson,: Mr. Speaker, my reason for the question is the confusion that has arisen concerning dates. The President of the Privy Council gave one date and the Minister of National Defence gave another.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Oxford.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: My supplementary has been largely covered by the hon. member for Red Deer.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Prime Minister a supplementary question. In view of the fact the Prime Minister stated in the house some weeks ago that it was the policy of the government to be in agreement with NATO that the overall strength in Europe should be maintained, and in view of the fact that the government is now making it clear it is reducing its forces, whom does it expect to make up the deficit Canada is causing in this way?


Mr. Speaker:: I would think the hon. member's supplementary is argumentative.



DEFENCE PRODUCTION


Mr. P. V. Noble (Grey-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Is it the intention of the government to scrap or decommission the Bona-venture and the aircraft involved?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This question was asked yesterday.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


John Leroy Skoberg: Mr. Speaker, in view of the rash of mishaps on Canadian railways and the latest one last night on the Canadian National Railways,
Inquiries of the Ministry would the Prime Minister, with his colleague the Minister of Transport, take it upon himself to initiate immediately a public inquiry into the safety of train operations in Canada and the cause of these mishaps?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, this particular accident is being investigated by officials of the C.N.R. and the rail transport committee of the Canadian Transport Commission. We will wait to see what the report is before making any further statement.


John Leroy Skoberg: In view of the increase in the number of accidents and mishaps on Canadian railways and the impossibility of having a public inquiry before the Canadian Transport Commission, would the Prime Minister not initiate an inquiry of his own in this regard?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If we did I am sure the opposition would say, "Another inquiry; another task force".



IMMIGRATION


René Matte: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
Is he aware that Canadians, who now are American citizens and who would like to come back to Canada, are facing almost insuperable objections from the Canadian immigration authorities?


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion, the question asked in this way is not urgent. The hon. member wants to know whether the minister or the government is aware of certain facts. The question as put cannot be accepted.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE CONSIDERATION AT JUNE MEETING OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR NATIVE PEOPLES

Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Is he in a position to say whether questions concerning the constitutional responsibility for our Indian and native peoples generally will be considered at the federal-provincial conference in June?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, this subject is not on the agenda for the June meetings.

8940	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry


Robert Simpson: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Is the minister giving active consideration to changes in the existing federal-provincial cost sharing arrangement in respect of Indian programs?


Mr. Speaker:: It would seem to me that this question is of a general nature and of a type which ought to be placed on the order paper.



HOUSING


Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax-East Hants):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister in charge of housing. Now that the minister has had time to study his new responsibilities, can he indicate whether he will present amendments to the bill to amend the National Housing Act now before the house?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister without Portfolio):: Mr. Speaker, I will be making an announcement on housing policy in my opening statement in the debate on second reading, and all these mysteries will unfold at that time.



EDUCATION


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Manpower and Immigration whether he will take an early opportunity to make a statement about a matter of growing concern in the country. I refer to the difficulty of qualified Canadians in receiving university appointments in this country, and the growth in the percentage of trained personnel from outside the country who are employed. Would the minister make a statement to the house in this regard? Also, in view of the practice of other countries, would he express his view concerning whether it would be helpful for his department to provide a service in association with the annual meetings of the learned societies which might facilitate qualified Canadians having their abilities fully understood and known by Canadian universities?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to consider the possibility of making a statement on this subject. It should be mentioned, I believe, as a preliminary that Canada itself is incapable, according to my

DEBATES	May 22. 1969
information, of supplying the present needs of its own universities. There ought to be, on the basis of forward estimates, great opportunities in Canadian universities for Canadian scholars because at the present time in order to meet our own requirements we depend on the immigration of scholars from other parts of the world. I shall be glad to consider whether I can add anything useful in respect of the general question which has been raised.



INCOME TAX


Mr. David Anderson (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister concerning the employment in Canadian universities of Canadian professors. In view of the fact that United States professors come to this country because they are given a two-year income tax holiday and do so in great numbers for their first two years of teaching to enjoy that benefit, would the minister take up with the Minister of Finance the granting of the same two-year tax holiday to Canadian teachers so they can compete?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has made a representation which I am sure has been noted.



PUBLICATIONS


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Postmaster General. Is the government giving consideration to the removal of the exemption given to Time magazine in 1964 from the restrictions against foreign publications which became effective at that time?


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder how urgent this question is. I would think it is the type of question which should be placed on the order paper or discussed at the time of adjournment.



IMMIGRATION


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Are persons with criminal records admissible to Canada as immigrants?
May 22. 19G9	COMMONS


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I doubt whether that question is in order. Unless there are circumstances of which I am not aware I do not see why the question should be in order at this time.


Donald MacInnis: With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, when the minister made his statement on motions he referred to the admissibility of immigrants to Canada and to their having no criminal records. I should like to ask whether this still applies.


Stanley Ronald Basford: How did your ancestors get in?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the general regulations as to criminal records in respect of immigrants still apply. This may not be the fact but it may involve a condition; and that is a straight answer to the question.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, will the minister remember that Hal Banks is a deserter we very much want back?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the minister whether he is aware of the fact that deserters from the United States army are more or less criminals under the laws of the United States and therefore not admissible to this country?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest to the hon. member and the minister that this is a debate and I do not think the supplementary question should be allowed.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I now rise on a point of order in respect of the remark made by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Let me suggest to the minister, in reference to the remark he made about my ancestors, that it was not his ancestors who were involved but rather the natives who were responsible for that head he has.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think it should be mentioned for the record that both remarks were made in a spirit of levity.
DEBATES	8941
Inquiries of the Ministry HOUSING
LIFTING OF FREEZE ON PUBLIC PROJECTS Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre): Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister without Portfolio in charge of housing. If he has not already done so, is he now in a position to confirm the announcement made by the C.B.C. that the freeze in respect of public housing is to be lifted?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting speculation. I will be making my statement, as I said before, on second reading of the bill before the house.



THE MINISTRY


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker,, I should like to direct a question to the Prim^ Minister in connection with his announcement today concerning the division of responsibility in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. Will he advise who will be responsible for pollution control policy, if and when there is any?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, in so far as there is a policy coming under that department it will be related to the water aspect, and therefore the responsibility will rest upon the Minister without Portfolio from Saskatchewan.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, I assume that the minister will also be the sponsor in bringing in the bill relating to the water act?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is correct, Mr. Speaker.



REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT


Mr. Walter C. Carter (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion whether he is in a position to inform the house if the economic development plan for the province of Newfoundland, including Labrador, has been completed by his department and, if so, when we can expect an announcement?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I think I answered that question some weeks ago.
May 22. 1969

Inquiries of the Ministry We have established permanent contacts between my department and the representatives of the government of Newfoundland, in order to find the best solutions to the economic problems of that province, but no general program for Newfoundland is being negotiated between the federal government and the provincial government.



SASKATCHEWAN-REQUEST FOR STATEMENT RESPECTING FEDERAL ASSISTANCE

John Leroy Skoberg: Mr. Speaker, in view of the heavy losses incurred by many residents of Saskatchewan as a result of flood damage, can the Minister of Public Works now say whether he has received any communication from the Saskatchewan government indicating flood damage costs and, if so, what action has the federal government taken?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I cannot recall any
representations received from the Saskatchewan government in relation to work to be done by my department.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that on April 14 the minister told me not to lose heart and that my patience would be rewarded, and in view of the fact I have not lost heart and have been very patient, can the Minister of Veterans Affairs now tell me when the Woods report will be referred to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs?


Hon. John-Eudes Dube (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I will be consistent and advise the hon. member to continue to be patient.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, in view of the general notion that this session may adjourn at the end of June, can the minister say whether this report will be referred to the committee before that date?


Jean-Eudes Dubé: Mr. Speaker, we are advancing as quickly as possible with the preparation of the white paper.


Stanley Howard Knowles: asked about the Woods report, not the white paper.
[Mr. Marchand (Langelier) .1



NORTHWEST TERRITORIES


Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, before you call the orders of the day I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Inasmuch as it was some months ago that the minister said he had made his decision about the structure of local government in the Northwest Territories, can he advise the house now when he intends to inform the public about this decision?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Soon, Mr. Speaker.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


David Réal Caouette: That, in the opinion of the house, the government has failed to take adequate measures in order to give Canadians the benefit of a policy of distribution of goods and services which would allow each citizen to obtain his share of Canadian abundance.
Mr. Speaker, the motion we are moving today clearly expresses our sincere belief that-
-the government has failed to take adequate measures in order to give Canadians the benefit of a policy of distribution of goods and services which would allow each citizen to obtain his share of Canadian abundance.
o (3:20 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker, if we go back a year, everyone will remember-the government members especially-the promises made by this government to the effect that once elected, it would establish a just society in Canada.
In last year's Speech from the Throne we could read in many places that the government planned to establish a just society, to fight poverty in Canada efficiently.
Well, a year later, we notice that the just society referred to, has not yet been established. We notice that the number of poor people is increasing instead of decreasing. We notice that instead of fighting poverty, the
May 22, 1989	COMMONS
government takes measures designed to fight the poor, and not poverty.
We try to lull the people by emphasizing the fact, for instance, that we live in a tremendously rich country, and while the government and its emissaries go around preaching how tremendously rich and prosperous is our country, the poor increase in number and poverty still exists in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, at this stage I should like to quote an article which appeared in the issue of May 15, 1969 of the magazine Ensemble, under this title: "Elimination of poverty: a collective responsibility." Here is what it said:
Mr. Alfred Rouleau, Chairman of the Co-operation Board, stated that poverty breeds poverty, that the poor did not accept any more to be deprived of the essentials of life and that modern means of communication invited them to lead an easy life when they lack the basic essentials.
Addressing a Montreal audience, he said that disorders in cities were due more to the existence of poverty amidst affluence rather than to any ideology.
"In Quebec, about 450,000 persons (including children) are classified as people on welfare, whose family income is between $1,500 and $2,000 per year, that is from $35 to $45 per week. Those are the people who live in blighted areas of our cities and on marginal farms in our countryside. Add to that all the small wage-earners, the low income farmers and you will see that one out five Quebecers lives in poverty".
Such is the situation now, not only in Quebec but in Canada as a whole-because the poor are not all in Quebec.
Last Sunday I think it was, I heard mayor Drapeau speak in an interview in Montreal, about Man and His World.
When a mother blamed the municipal authorities for bringing poor people to "Man and His World", mayor Drapeau said: Admission is free for poor people.
Mr. Speaker, it is true that the city of Montreal wants the poor to get in free of charge on the grounds of "Man and His World".
However, on their way there, the poor from the north, the east or the west end of the city realize even more how poor they are and feel worse than if they had stayed in their own backyards.
Mr. Speaker, these poor people are not asking for miracles. They simply claim the right to live a decent life and nothing else. We must admit that the blame for this is to be put on the distribution system in Canada. Production is no problem. The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Mar-chand) who is here today knows perfectly
DEBATES	8943
Distribution of Goods and Services well that we lack nothing here in Canada, everything is here in every small community of every Canadian province. But there is a lack of buying power so that Canadians cannot buy the products, share in the affluence which is there, right under their nose.
And what does such poor distribution breed? Want, unemployment, lack of housing and a lot of things of which the people are deprived.
The government has done nothing to settle the economic problems of the Canadian people. There have been commissions, task forces, inquiries to ascertain whether there were indeed poor people in the Gaspe area, in the West, in the riding of Saguenay.


Mr. Gustave Blouin (Manicouagan):: You
have forgotten the poor people from Manicouagan.


David Réal Caouette: All kinds of commissions have been set up to find out whether there were truly poor people and their reports state: "Yes, Mr. Minister, we have poor people in Canada."
We have now been here for seven years, and it is always the same old story, year in, year out, whether it be under the Conservatives or under the Liberals: nothing changes or when there is change, we get more of the same, for there is no solution.


An hon. Member:: The same old gang.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, the government has done nothing to solve the economic problems of the Canadians. Bright prospects had been held out to us, policy "makers" were appointed, not planners, but policy "makers" to study the possibilities of planning production.
Go and ask western farmers who are stuck with unsold wheat whether they need people to work out policies or whether they need to sell their production.
Go and ask our Canadian industrialists, wholesalers, retailers, small businessmen, small manufacturers, whether they need the government to work out policies to enable them to produce; those people already have what they need and the required know-how to plan and organize their production.
However, consumers exist also. Now, they need those things, but they do not have any purchasing power. The problem is one of "distribution" not of "production". And yet we waste time, in the House of Commons, talking about increasing production.
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services I heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) tell us not so long ago: let us increase our productivity. We do not even manage to dispose of our present production, and stupid people talk about increasing it on the ground that it would solve the economic problem. But it is exactly the opposite that happens: we still have production surpluses. Underconsumption does exist in Canada. We are more concerned with getting into bedrooms than with solving economic problems. What have we been doing for a month and a half? We have been studying Bill C-150 to know whether a man could go to bed with another man and whether women could get an abortion. We have been discussing all sorts of things.
According to the government, economic matters are not urgent.
At present, we are still dealing with the question of official languages, which is no doubt important, but not the most important. Those who are hungry, in Montreal, in Quebec City, or in my own area are not calling for a legislation on languages. They are asking for bread, clothes and decent housing, because those are their needs.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Réal Caouette: There is a common saying: It's no use preaching to a hungry man. If the government were more hungry, it might listen more readily to grievances than it is doing now. But we have everything we need in this house. It is obvious. But our constituents, our fellow citizens, in short all Canadians are lacking something when there are in our country 432,000 unemployed.
Mr. Speaker, if the problem is not tackled at the root, it is because governments are controlled by financial interests. "Tell me who pays you, I will tell who you serve". This old saying still goes and is still true. When some people are elected with electoral funds, they shut up in the house. That prevents people from taking a stand.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Réal Caouette: Some will say that the problem does not exist in Canada alone, but if government authorities do not take a stand, Mr. Speaker, who will run the risk of tackling economic problems?
In the U.S. publication The Machinists of May 15, one could read the following: "Money [Mr. Caouette.l
lenders dominate this Congress", with reference to the American Congress-

Money lenders dominate this Congress.
One out of five members of the present Congress in Washington has financial ties with banks or savings and loan institutions.

-so those people cannot speak freely. A kind of financial muzzle prevents them from defending the small, the oppressed, those who need protection and deserve it. Where is the evil, the obstacle which paralyses the distribution of plentiful wealth?
In 1934, a world-famous American economist, whose books are translated in French, Harold G. Moulton, made a study of the material resources and the services the United States could provide to individuals and families. In his book "America's Capacity to Produce", he came to the conclusion that at the peak of their prosperity, of the boom, they produced to only 80 per cent of their capacity and in the worst period of depression, to only 50 per cent.
At the same time, some people are destitute. Some are without work, unemployment is tolerated or, in other words, it is poverty amid riches.
In 1934, here in Canada heaps of wheat were burnt, flour bags were thrown in lakes Superior, Erie and Ontario, potatoes were blue-washed in New Brunswick, oranges were poisoned in the United States and millions of gallons of milk were poured daily in the sewers of New York, and Chicago.
At the same time, there were 6 million unemployed in the United States and about 600,000 or 700,000 in Canada, while our population was only some ten or eleven million.
Mr. Speaker, those are facts. Goods are destroyed rather than being distributed. What is lacking? Production? No. Distribution!
This is what Economist Moulton wrote in his book, and he added that yet thousands of people were starving to death.
One could say the same of Canada today. Plants are not operating at full capacity in many areas and there are 432,000 unemployed in Canada, according to official statistics. The increase in the number of people with jobs between the months of March and April has been higher than usual for this time of year. The figure of 7 million represented an increase of 158,000, but our population has increased more than that. The situation in Canada is worse than ever.
May 22, 1969

Mr. Moulton carried on his study on how the needs of Americans were being met. He gave some diagnostics in a study entitled: "America's capacity to consume", while the one already referred to was entitled: "America's capacity to produce".
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
He said it was a matter of lack of purchasing power. There is the rub.
We are short of money to buy the goods offered for sale. Everywhere in Canada, stores overflow with goods of all kinds. There is plenty of clothing to clothe all Canadians, there is enough food to feed all Canadians. There is no lack of lumber, nails, workers or contractors to build suitable and salubrious homes for the whole population.
And yet, Mr. Speaker, a great many of our fellow-Canadians are deprived of all these things and must be satisfied with the scanty pittance offered by the welfare services or the Unemployment insurance.
The government tells us: "Get ready to tighten your belts further." We will see that happen at the beginning of 1970.
When 1970 rolls around, we shall ask our poor people to accept worse poverty, while we shall continue paying tribute to financiers without grumbling and without objection to the shameless exploitation of the Canadian people by financiers who have government authorities under their thumb.
Mr. Speaker, in 1968, the federal debt reached $32,126 million. This year the Canadian government will pay $1,600 million in interests only for the service of that debt, that is over 10 per cent of the total national budget.
In 1965, the debts of the provinces amounted to $12,642 million, the municipal debts added up to $6,597,437,000. The debts at the three governmental levels totalled $52,165,437,000 and on that aggregate, in interests only, we had to pay the sum of $2,009,240,000 in 1965-1966.
We do not ask those people to tighten their belt. No sacrifices are demanded of them, but rather of mothers, fathers, workers, farmers, producers. We are sacrificing the low-income workers. We crush them with taxes, while with a stupid complacency we bow to this system of national banditry which plagues the population.
Mr. Speaker, we sincerely believe-and we say so in this house-that it all boils down to purchasing power. Let me read an excerpt
Distribution of Goods and Services from "America's Capacity to Consume" by the same author:

The unfulfilled consumptive desires of the American people are large enough to absorb a productive output many times that achieved in the peak year 1929. Even in lines of basic necessities great wants among the masses of the people still go unsatisfied. The trouble is clearly not lack of desire but lack of purchasing power.

That is the problem, and the government is afraid to face it. In the conclusion of "Increase in salaries or decrease in prices", Moulton confirms his diagnosis, and I quote:
So, the fact that the purchasing power of the masses is totally insufficient to absorb, on the basis of existing prices, the production of our national economy is a clear indication that this automatic distribution of wealth has broken down somewhere and, as a result, economic progress is slowed down.
That is exactly what is happening in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, the members of the Ralliement creditiste are no fools when they suggest that the government should make use of the Bank of Canada to increase the income and the purchasing power of the citizens, so that they may be able to buy the goods of which there is an abundance in this country.
This year, according to forecasts, the national product will be around $70 billion and this will allow Canadians to earn around $52 billion.
There will still be, Mr. Speaker, a difference between Canadian production and Canadians' incomes. It will amount to about $20 billion; the government does not realize that.
When we ask for a distribution of supplementary incomes through national dividends, inflation does not come into the picture. It is not the Social Credit that causes inflation; it is the present system. Today, a dollar borrowed by the government is expected to swell to twice its size, to be worth two dollars; it is mathematically impossible.
One day I gave an example in parliament. According to official data, the building of the Jacques-Cartier bridge in Montreal cost $18 million. We paid $20 million interests on that bridge and we still owe $14 million. That is inflation.
The Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier) gave me this answer on television: "Yes, but see how useful the bridge is". The trucks can cross the bridge, carry heavy boxes, filled
May 22, 1968

Distribution of Goods and Services with goods, etc. A very subtle way of bringing us around to paying three times what the bridge is worth.
I told the Secretary of State that the $20 million paid in interest could have paid for another Jacques-Cartier bridge, beside the present one, so that we could have offered the population a better service. Through sophistry, they try to save face and to justify themselves before the public.
As I said Canadians lack purchasing power under the present system. That is what the Creditistes have said all along. Some people do not have enough revenue; the hon. minister, the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) and the hon. minister of Regional Economic Expansion are aware of that.
For others, income is eroded by taxes, thus weakened further. As to the unemployed, they have no income at all. Such is the situation in which a vast number of Canadians find themselves.
What do we propose? Many times in this house we have memtioned an increase in family allowances. We will ask again for family allowances, not taken from some and given to others in need, for that would be state socialism, which we fight, because we realize, as I said in English last night:
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)

If we keep taking away from the haves to give to the have-nots, eventually we shall reach a point at which we shall have all kinds of have-nots and not many haves in Canada.

Mr. Alfred Rouleau proposed the following:
1.	Increase family allowances.
2.	Guaranteed annual income.
At the time the chairman of the Co-operative Board was saying that family allowances should be increased, there are rumors in Canada that the government is about to cut back family allowances. They will probably not be taken away from families with yearly incomes of less than $6,000 or $5,000, but they will try to take them away from those with a yearly income of more than $8,000. They will reduce expenditures to be able to pay more interest to those who are now putting Canada into debt and are destroying the country.
Mr. Speaker, that is the solution the Prime Minister and the government will recommand, we are told to be ready to tighten our belt by early 1970.

The chairman of the Co-operative Board said the following:
-to increase family allowances in a substantial way, in order to abolish poverty.
That is one way of doing it. The Ralliement creditiste keeps asking for an increase in the allowances. Besides, Mr. Rouleau is not the only one. The fourth recommendation of the Canadian Welfare Council, in January 1969, runs as follows:
Benefits levels should be increased substantially in the federal family and youth allowances programs, and youth allowances should be expanded to include student allowances.
They also recommend the following:
Higher benefit levels in family and youth allowances programs offer a most effective and equitable method of recognizing family size among lower income families. As social security benefits, they should be taxable, but again only if recommendation 4 is satisfactorily implemented.
-to increase allowances.
The rate of recovery from higher income families will depend upon the manner and degree of recognition of family composition in the income tax structure.
Mr. Speaker, those are recommendations in the Canadian Welfare Council report published in January. Another recommendation of the same report reads as follows:
A non-contributory program or programs should be developed providing for the payment of flat-rate benefits to all permanently disabled persons and dependent survivors.
In his book entitled "Free Men and Free Market", the American economist Robert Tho. Banan makes the following suggestion about a minimum annual income, and I quote:

We shall need to adopt the concept of an absolute constitutional right to an income. This would guarantee to every citizen of the United States, and to every person who has resided within the United States for a period of five consecutive years, the right to an income from the federal government sufficient to enable him to live with dignity. No government agency, judicial body or other organization whatsoever should have the power to suspend or limit any payments assured by these guarantees.

Mr. Speaker, those are findings and suggestions made by economists.
We appeal to the good sense of the government. We are not trying to play politics by proposing the motion now under consideration. We have only been suggesting to the government some Creditiste solutions for many years.
May 22, 1969
The Prime Minister told me the other day that this would lead to inflation. Mr. Speaker, it cannot lead to inflation, because we are already suffering from it, but the Ralliement creditiste has never suggested that money should be printed inconsiderately. The Ralliement creditiste has always advocated a perfect balance between purchasing power and the goods and services available; this means that the money in circulation should be exactly proportionate to production.
Today, in Canada, we are not experiencing inflation, but deflation. I see the minister shaking his head-
When citizens from the constituency of Langelier do not have a cent in their pockets, is it inflation or deflation? When those people are unable to buy goods to be found in stores like Pollack or Le Syndicat de Quebec, is it inflation or deflation? In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, inflation means having purchasing power without production. The money is therefore worthless, because nothing can be bought with it. The opposite is happening. Stores are filled with goods and the people are penniless. What do you call that? Inflation or deflation?
We are told about inflation because the government is looking for reasons to justify the poverty that prevails in Canada. Poverty is tolerated with an inconceivable and even shocking callousness, Mr. Speaker. For instance, some people lack the necessaries of life and some responsible people here tell us that inflation exists and that people must starve to death because our granaries are overflowing, and must be poorly dressed because there is a surplus of clothes.
Mr. Speaker, I knew the government in office in 1946, the same as in 1940.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
I remember the recession when the Right Hon. Mackenzie King was prime minister and when the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett succeeded him in 1930. Mr. King came back in 1935, singing the same old song: We are faced with a recession. At that time, thousands of people, young and old, were lacking the necessities of life and were literally starving in Canada.
And suddenly in 1939, by a miracle, thousands of dollars were found for purposes of international slaughter, and money was never lacking to make destructive weapons.
Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that if the government of Canada is able to find billions of dollars for killing purposes, it should also
Distribution of Goods and Services be able to find billions to guarantee the security and the freedom of the citizens of Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but his time is expired.


Some hon. Members:: More, more.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Has the
hon. member the unanimous consent of the house to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: The
hon. member for Temiscamingue.


David Réal Caouette: I thank you, Mr. Speaker and I thank all my colleagues for giving me the opportunity to conclude my remarks and I shall not misuse the extra time granted to me.
If we can find billions of dollars for killing purposes as I said earlier, why could we not find some to live, to ensure security and freedom to those who clamour for them? Is the minister trying to tell me today that a family of four or five persons receiving welfare allowances of $135 per month in Montreal, Rouyn-Noranda, in the constituency of Langelier, in Quebec City or in my hon. friend's constituency of Mercier can live on such a low income?
Every day, I receive letters that should be forwarded to the provincial government but the federal government provides 50 per cent of welfare allowances. Mothers who are deprived of the bare necessities at home ask for an extra $10, $15 or $20 per month.
They write: "Mr. Caouette, one of my children is ill, but I cannot pay the doctor, because I have no medical assistance card. Since I need some extra money, could you write to the Quebec government to get it for me?
All day long I have to dictate letters addressed to the Quebec government, asking for pension adjustments for destitute people in the province of Quebec. And if we must do it, it is because governments do not take their responsibilities.
I am convinced that the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion and the other government members receive letters like that. Therefore, they know the problem as well as I do. We know that there is no lack of products, because we have a very large quantities of everything in Canada. But we all know that it is the purchasing power which is lacking and even if we are called idiots or what

May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services have you, this is the whole problem. We manage to solve it in time of war, but we cannot do so in time of peace. What do we want? To guarantee the vital minimum by way of a national dividend based on the gap between the production and the national income of Canadians. This dividend would not be based on the moon or on some kind of a hoax, as some people suggest from time to time but on realities, that is on the products and on the affluence that exist. This dividend would be available to everybody, to children as well as adults, regardless of income, because if we cause inspectors to intervene, they will eat up all the dividend, and there will be nothing left for the private citizen. We should have as little bureaucracy as possible.
It is recognized that large companies pay dividends to their shareholders, and the largest company in the country is Canada. Why should this company, which produces more than it earns, not be entitled to a dividend for each of its members, while this right is recognized for the big corporations. According to Canadian statistics, whenever there are production surpluses people could receive a dividend to enable them to purchase such products. That would not create inflation but would balance the Canadian economy. That would contribute to a more rational system. We would no longer have to see people starving to death in front of loads of products.
What do we suggest? That real costs be reduced through compensated discount. It was done during the war. I remember the compensated discount allowed on milk for instance. The producer was receiving the full amount for his quart of milk, while the government was paying two cents which represented a benefit for the consumer. During the war, the compensated discount policy was applied but once peace was restored, it was no longer possible. Compensated discount can no longer be allowed.
We believe that those two methods would restore financial order in Canada. For the application of these two systems we must use the Bank of Canada if the latter is to serve Canadian interests instead of scheming with the other banks in order to cover up the misdeeds of the present banking system, of those who really steal the national heritage.
Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada is called upon to play quite a different role if government and parliament decide to use it. For instance, what prevents the Bank of Canada

from financing without interest the public sector of administration just as we do for some foreign countries?
The federal government has started using this policy of interest free loan to get the city of Montreal out of trouble; the government agreed to a $5 million loan-fancy, Mr. Speaker, $5 million-without interest, for the first time in the history of Canada. The government is improving.
I hope that thanks to enlightened men such as the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, we will succeed in obtaining loans without interest for the economic development of municipalities and provinces, leaving the private sector free to borrow from chartered banks as they do at this time.
That will not deprive the chartered banks of their lending power. However, that prevents bankers from ruining Canadians through a government which keeps taxing us, instead of giving us what belongs to us, fairly and rightfully.
Then, Mr. Speaker, we suggest that we should use the Bank of Canada. We do not mention it in our motion. The motion says:
That, in the opinion of the house, the government has failed to take adequate measures in order to give Canadians the benefit of a policy of distribution of goods and services which would allow each citizen to obtain his share of Canadian abundance.
In my opinion, that motion deserves the confidence of hon. members. The government should take positive and progressive steps instead of backward steps, while saying to the citizens of Canada to be ready to tighten their belts in 1970.
Mr. Speaker, we have had enough belt tightening. We had plenty of that in the past, and we do not want it any more. We want more freedom and real security, we what ministers who act positively, not ministers who follow the American astronauts in their trip to the moon. We want people who are standing on both feet right here in Canada, who can see affluence but also hardship.
If we want to fight poverty, the time has come for us, as responsible Canadian parliamentarians, to take efficient steps that will insure security and freedom for everyone.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I be-
May 22, 1969

lieve that the hon. member for Temisca-mingue (Mr. Caouette) will go down in history, and rightly so, for his well-known talent and probably because he is the only politician I know who has spent his life successfully repeating more or less the same speech.
That is a feat of which no politician has shown himself capable, and is very likely due to his personal qualities as a speaker. He is so colorful that we listen to him, even when we know beforehand everything he is going to say.
Naturally, when guilelessly or guilefully a man starts making capital of peoples misery, he soon knows the sweet taste of success. Whether he is a Socialist, a Communist or a Creditiste, when he addresses a crowd, a group of people who are hungry, of people who are poor and when he tells them: "They should solve your problem, give you more money," I know of no speaker with a modicum of talent who will not be applauded.
People applaud, and rightly so, because it is their way of expressing themselves, of making their problems known. And when these problems are publicly recognized, I think that in a democratic country that is a sound reaction.
But the hon. member for Temiscamingue and his group must not be led to think, because they are applauded when they denounce the present state of affairs, that people approve of their ideas; indeed, the same applause would probably be given to anyone, with totally different tenets, who would mouth the same strictures. Of course, we are not all economists. I am not, and neither is the member for Temiscamingue. Just by reading his speech, we can see that economics are not really up his alley and that he lacks the required technical knowledge.
I would imagine that it seems at first to make sense when you tell people: "You lack purchasing power, there are enough goods in Canada to satisfy everybody's need. Give us the money and we will get our economy going by buying goods". This seems like a simple solution and apparently it makes sense; but when the hon. member says that all which is produced could easily be bought if we gave money to the people, we might run into a snag.
For instance, we export about 90 per cent of our asbestos. If tomorrow, for any reason the world asbestos markets were closed I wonder how we could sell all our asbestos and who would use it.
Distribution of Goods and Services
I wonder who will consume the wheat surplus, if we have one. Will people be expected to eat bread even without being hungry, just because there is a surplus of wheat?
And if, tomorrow, there is no foreign market for the paper industry, even if our people were crammed with purchasing power, they will not be expected, of course, to purchase the surplus paper.
That is an over-simplified solution, as for the national debt which I would like to be lower, of course, as I would like less interest to be paid. But all that is at variance with what the hon. member said, because interest on the federal debt was paid to Canadians. It did not disappear. In fact, the hon. member does not care a rap about the truth concerning the federal tax.
Here are the facts: We pay the interest to Canadians. The problem about our economy is not really that of the purchasing power compared with the over-all production, but it is the distribution of wealth in our country, where some have more than their share while others have not enough; that is exactly the opposite of what the hon. member said, but obviously, he wants to have it both ways.
He says that we should give to everyone, but without taking away from the "haves", as if we had entered an endless course. Even if some people abuse and take more than their share, let us not touch them; that is consistent with his ideas. That is why he is generally against trade-unionism which precisely seeks to ensure a better distribution of wealth.
Anyway, I am not going to discuss the Social Credit theory, because if it had any sound basis, Mr. Speaker, it would have been adopted by at least one responsible political party in the world. I know there are missionaries, but, I also know that there are people who have not understood and who continue to fight for illusions unfortunately.
I once knew someone who was working at our place and who wore a piece of wire around his foot because he was sure it would cure his arthritis. He had faith, he was sincere, and it was very touching to see the confidence he had in this piece of wire. One day, I advised him to see a doctor, someone who knew about those things and since then, he is feeling much better. But it took longer than it should have to cure him. Of course, the miracle he was expecting did not happen, but maybe this was the only realistic means.
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services
So, in any case, that theory that nobody accepted and justifiably so, I do not intend to start demolishing it all over again, since this has already been done many times by persons both sincere and qualified. And even if it were completely demolished, the hon. member and his group would still believe in it, just like the guy with the piece of wire around his foot.


An hon. Member:: That is a good one.


Jean Marchand: At any rate, governments have constantly, with more or less success, made an effort to settle the problem of the bad distribution of wealth in the country. This has been done with more or less sincerity, sometimes more or less competently, but all objectives have not been reached, far from it. However, to say that nothing was ever done in Canada for the poor, for the low income group, smacks of demagoguery. You have only to look at the record of our social legislation to see an effort has been made, in good faith always, in order to fill the basic needs of the population as a whole.
This has been done through social security legislation, whether it be the workmen's compensation acts at the provincial level, old age security pensions, family allowances, unemployment insurance benefits, aid to the needy, assistance to the blind, etc. All those legislations of a social character are meant to help the poor.
I agree this is not enough. We have tried to protect people against the risk of illness; hospital insurance has been established to allow people to get medical care; since then, more people go to hospital for treatment. Last year, medicare was established. Of course, the Ralliement Creditiste objected to it. In fact medicare is designed to allow people without the means to do so to call on doctors nonetheless. We believe that citizens have basic rights in that respect. People cannot say that we did not deal with that problem. The government did.
Of course, it is very easy to make jokes about homosexuality and abortion. However, there are values much greater than those upheld by our hon. friends. We have constantly been concerned by the problems of the people.
As for me, Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of this government for three years. I have devoted all my energy and whatever talent I have to try and understand the

economic problems of the people and see whether a solution could be found.
First of all, I endeavoured to help the workers who had to face the drawbacks of technological developments. The government has substantially increased allowances in aid to workers. It has done away with discrimination. It has raised the mobility allowances. All in all, the manpower branch has been established to assist people facing difficulties.
I have taken over a new department and indeed my concern is to provide assistance for the underdeveloped and poor areas, and for the past year I have been having legislation drafted to that end.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
Will miracles happen? I am sure that the problem will not be settled once and for all. However, I know that there will be less people in hardship conditions. How many? I do not know. I am not a magician like the people of the Ralliement creditiste. I did not find the philosophers' stone nor any magic formula, I have no direct communication with the Holy Ghost. I am trying simply within the economic, social and political structures which I know to help the people whom I represent. I think that I can help them more in this way than by simply making speeches.
Anyway, we will, through regional development, help the areas which are in an advanced state of poverty. The legislation will be tabled next week. The department is already created and we will try to have the richer provinces contribute a little more in order to help the poorer ones.
As all political parties in the world-except that inspired group that has found truth and is really in communication with the Holy Ghost-either from the left, the right or the centre, or saints as Gandhi or his successor, we believe that there is a limit in the distribution or the production of money and the failure is not in the total amount in existence but in the distribution of goods.
Mr. Speaker, this situation also exists in Canada and it is far more complex than has been suggested by the hon. member for Temiscamingue. In fact, there is at the present time in Canada certain areas where inflationist pressures are felt and others where there is a deflation.
It is far from easy to find a policy which would eradicate inflation in some parts of the country without at the same time making
May 22, 1969

people of the underdeveloped regions poorer than they are. That is one of the difficulties with which we are faced and that is why we absolutely need a regional development policy because the phenomenon is real, since this is the way Canada is made.
While the unemployment level is rather low in Ontario, it is very high in the Mari-times and in the eastern part of Quebec.
In Ontario, price pressures are very strong but almost inexistent in Maritimes.
But changing the fiscal system for the sake of the Maritime provinces, would result in more inflation in Ontario and in the provinces who now enjoy real affluence. The balance is a delicate one to establish.
Naturally, it would be simpler to say to the Bank of Canada: Print two billions, worth of dollar bills tomorrow and give them to the poor. The problem would then be solved. How happy I would be, as would be everyone else! How happy the capitalists would be! But what can we do? We know that even the parties closest to the people have never considered it possible. Even those who were prepared to die for a political ideal never believed it possible.
As for us, we are humans looking for truth in the darkness. We are not privileged enough to be in the paradise of light and evidence, and with all our imperfections, we try to help people who need it.
What I do not accept is people saying that the government has not acted promptly enough. Some may say to the government that there is a lot more to do. I find that quite normal, because I spent my life repeating it, and I do not blame those who say so, nor those who are putting the pressure on. It is part of the internal mechanism of our democracy, and from the moment these mechanisms cease to work, we will be in an extremely serious situation.
Therefore, I quite understand that. But telling the people, in high-soaring flights of demagogic eloquence that nothing is done for the poor, the small ones, for the economic problems of this country, smacks of demagogy, I am sorry to say. As a matter of fact, some things are being done and we can take as witnesses the old age pensioners. Of course, they do not go and spend the winter in Florida with their pension. I admit it. Such remarks can make anybody laugh.
However, when two elderly persons in a family each receive now $109 a month, they can at least get the bare necessities, go to the

Distribution of Goods and Services hospital and be treated free. If there is a blind person in the family, he is entitled to an allowance. It therefore means that in this country, there is a social security system which, in spite of its shortcomings, is complete enough, at least to provide for all cases of extreme hardship.
We also have an assistance plan of which the federal government shares 50 per cent of the costs. Of course, it is no great catch.
Besides, I can remember the time when the workers at my hon. friend's garage, the hon. member for Temiscamingue, went on strike. They felt they were not highly paid, but the garage owner told them: All the same, I cannot give you more than you produce in the garage. I do not know whether he was right or wrong, but his argument could surely be justified.
But what are we expected to do? I, for one, have no financial interest anywhere, not even in a garage. I hold no interest in any bank, in any system in the world. If I were convinced that by printing two billion dollars tomorrow morning, I could settle the political problem of Canada, you can be sure that, being in a better position than the hon. member for Temiscamingue, I would surely steal his formula.
It is really easy to accuse others of bad faith, and of gerrymandering with electoral funds.
I was never deterred from doing anything because of electoral funds. If the time should ever come when that is the case, you may be sure of one thing and that is that I shall no longer be here, because I have no interest in such things.
I am not saying that our friends are dishonest. On the contrary, they have the same good faith as the man who came to our place wearing a piece of wire on his foot and I admire that, because it is a matter of faith, and I respect those who have faith, even if it is not the same as mine.
At any rate, the federal government has always tried ever since confederation to equalize income, with more or less success.
First of all a railroad was built, in the belief that this would help to create a common market, that all regions of the country would benefit by it and develop harmoniously. It was found to be untrue.
At the same time, the Maritimes shipyards were ruined; the Maritimes became poor, while eastern Quebec and Ontario prospered.
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services
For a long time the western provinces could not subsist due to the economic conditions of the wheat market. In the face of all sorts of difficulties, another formula was sought. And, following the Rowell-Sirois inquiry, the equalization payments formula was found, and money was taken from the richer provinces and given to the poorer ones to enable them to provide the same quality of service to their citizens, thus creating equality in Canada. After a few years of this system, one cannot say perhaps that the situation has been corrected but an effort was made to prevent the economic differences from widening between the rich and the poor provinces. However, those differences have not really been eliminated and are still too pronounced.
In the face of such facts-and the Liberal government was not necessarily the first to resort to such an innovation-special programs were sought in order to help underprivileged areas. As early as 1930 what is called in the West the PFRA was created. Then, late in 1950, ARDA and FRED were established. A little later, about 1963, 1964, 1965-I cannot recall the exact dates- an assistance plan was provided for the areas designated as underdeveloped.
When the hon. member for Temiscamingue says that we have set up commissions, this is a strange thing to say in a meeting. Only it is not true because ARDA-though this may be denied in the Lower St. Lawrence region-is more than a commission because an amount of $250 million has been voted for this single item. Maybe this program was not the one needed but to say that it was merely a commission is not true. ARDA may be considered inadequate and I, for one, think it is.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
An agreement was made with Prince Edward Island. The assistance provided to that province will amount to $250 million. It may not be enough. It may not be the right way. It is a sincere and honest effort. We believe in it. However, no one should tell us that it is a case where a commission will bring down a report. It is not true. It is irresponsible, Mr. Speaker, to say things like that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean Marchand: I do like to laugh in the House of Commons, and the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette) makes us laugh. However, I do not think that

such remarks will contribute to enhance politics. Why should we systematically depreciate what is being done?
I am not in favour of the Progressive Conservatives' policy but I feel that they really did something worthwhile when they instituted professional training programs which promoted the development of vocational schools. I am convinced that they did not go far enough. However this is another problem. But to say that nothing is being done to help anyone, is to repeat exactly the same thing as Mr. Chartrand, and I say that for the benefit of the hon. member for Temiscamingue.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean Marchand: Nothing sounds more like a speech by the hon. member for Temiscamingue, than a speech by Mr. Chartrand. They have the same substance, the same depth.
I feel, Mr. Speaker, that in the field of social security, great progress has been made in the last few years-the opposition party need not praise us for it because we are not here for that. What we do is being done with public funds and there is no need for praise. In my opinion, health insurance is a basic measure.
I fought for health insurance. I believe in it because people who are sick

I have been sick in the past and perhaps it has happened to the hon. member too-and who cannot afford to get medical care, are in a very great distress. We fought to set up health insurance. That does not mean that we should be canonized. It has been done in some provinces-the hon. member who leads the New Democratic party here did it in his own province before it was done here.
It is not a matter for mutual praise. We just have to say that governments, in our country, can make mistakes. They may not go fast enough, they may not go far enough. As for all those who systematically, enjoy-especially at this time when Canada, faces real difficulties, not only from the linguistic and racial viewpoint, but also from the economic viewpoint-making irresponsible speeches, I feel, Mr. Speaker, that they are depreciating politics and doing nothing useful.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean Marchand: There are people, even in my own party, with whom I fundamentally disagree on ideological grounds. I do not regard them as less honest for that. They try, according to their conception, to
May 22, 1969

solve the problems, but I do not see them in the same light. I am convinced that the very great majority of the Creditiste members, if not all of them-I would have to ask the leader to tell me that-want to help the Canadians.
I am convinced that the Ralliement creditiste wants to help the Canadians and their constituents. I do not question their sincerity. They have worked. Moreover, they have been useful, generally speaking, since they have stimulated us. Their theory, of course, will become a historical fact, as it happened with "Poujadisme" in France. People will say that a certain philosophy existed.
And that will be all. It will be forgotten. There will be something left of their action, and far from me the idea of attacking them mercilessly, to blame them for everything they did. On the contrary. However, I believe that when the government is attacked as it is now, this is somewhat unfair for the democratic system in which we live.
We have established special programs and their scope will be extended. We will try to make a more general attack against the so-called regional disparities. Of course, this is difficult, because there is only a certain amount of money at our disposal, and we must try to satisfy the main needs.
It is not possible, at the same time, during the same year, to buy a car, to go to Europe, to get one's wife a new fur coat, etc. This is not possible. The same principle applies on the national scale.
Those who believe that the Creditiste doctrine can solve the problems should go to India at the present time and they should try just by using the machine to print money, to solve all the problems which they have in that country.
Then, they will realize their arguments do not hold water. Anyway, we have tried to correct the discrepancies by equalizing taxes and by granting tax rebates to the provinces.
At present, all levels of government in Canada are paying $7,300 million in social benefits to help the poor.
Of course, it is not an extravagant amount. What are $7 billion? It all depends on the number of people sharing it. All the same, it is 10.6 per cent of the general gross income of Canada. It may not be enough and may not solve all the problems, yet, it is a help in our fight against poverty.
We shall now have to do our best to solve the problem of regional disparities. And we do intend to do so. There has been much talk
Distribution of Goods and Services about guaranteed annual income. This is not an idea to be discarded out of hand. Besides, we are now, in the government, in the process of revising the whole system of social welfare.
What will be the outcome? I do not know but our efforts should be coordinated. We shall have to find a simpler formula, so as to help those who are the most deprived.
Yet, we must manage to keep Canadian production growing and to allow our industrial technology to compete with its foreign counterpart because whatever may be said or done, if we do not produce globally the necessary wealth, we shall be unable to distribute it.
Once it is there, there will be another problem, that of distributing it equitably between all the groups of society. We have already tried to do that. Not that we boast in the least of having found the answer but we do believe that we have been doing our best, often in spite of the opposition and sometimes also with the co-operation of a fraction of it.
That is all I wanted to say this afternoon, about the Social Credit motion. Practically speaking, this motion aims at telling Canadians that we still have problems in Canada. Unfortunately we know it only too well; we know that some of our people are hungry. That is true. We know that many people are poor. We are eager to fight poverty but as a human institution, we are, unfortunately, no match for angels.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pity the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette), who brought in the motion, has left the house-temporarily, I hope-because it goes without saying that we would want to hear the comments from both sides, and especially those on the proposals he did not put forth this afternoon.
On studying the motion before the house, where we are told that the government has failed to put forth adequate measures to give benefits to Canadians, I gathered that what was meant was an adequate policy on the distribution of goods and services which would enable every Canadian citizen to share equitably in Canadian abundance.
This is a very free translation of the English version which I have in front of me. I should have thought that the member for Temiscamingue would have told us what adequate measure he would like the government to adopt. I was hoping that we would be given an inkling of what these solutions
May 22, 1969
8954	COMMONS
Distribution of Goods and Services would be. It may be, however, that the colleagues of the hon. member for Temis-camingue will give us a few examples of what they mean.
After all, I had the advantage, for the guidance of the Creditiste members, when I was a young man in Alberta, of studying closely the theories of that Moses, perhaps, that Mr. William Aberhart was in Canada, as the founder, the great advocate of the Social Credit movement.
And what the Ralliement creditiste has just discovered goes back to the thirties in Alberta.
It is too bad I had to speak just after the minister because he swiped the first ten minutes of my speech. In fact, my reaction was the same as his. I have been here a little longer than the minister and I can tell him that for every time he has heard a speech by the hon. member for Temiscamingue, I have listened to him three times because, as the minister said, we may have heard the same twice; one day on the violin, another day on the piano, but it was always the same tune. There may be a little go-go beat to it now, I do not know, but the same principles are still expressed in an over-simplified way.
What did the hon. member mean by these words:
-a policy of distribution of goods and services.

And here, Mr. Speaker, I reflect what the minister has said. After all, Canada is not a stranger to the philosophy of Social Credit. It was in the mid-thirties the reason why we got the "A plus B" theory. It was the reason we got scrip money; it was the reason we got non-transferrable funds into special bank accounts, into treasury branches. It was the reason for, shall we say, the same blessed arguments, but none of the solutions then advanced has amounted to a hill of beans. As a matter of fact, many of them, such as scrip money, were colossal failures and a charge on the public.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
It was only certain traditional events which in actual fact brought about the change in the Social Credit philosophy as put forward by the government of the province of Alberta. I do not know, but today it seems to me that all those financial sharks, those enemies of the people, have now become very respectable. I recall when a former premier of the province of Alberta, along with his mentor, was running about the province and subse-


quently in Saskatchewan damning these financial institutions, these enemies of the people, with the perdition of brimstone and hellfire. He always referred to them as "THEY".


Stanley Howard Knowles: Now they are "THEY".


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: But with power, with wealth and responsibility there has been a change. As an hon. member has said, they have joined "THEY".
The hon. member for Temiscamingue, when talking about the national debt, referred to the amount owed to the so-called financial sharks. I do not know, but it seems to me that there are many trust funds on behalf of widows and children, many institutions and educational funds, which are holders of government bonds. Even hon. members may have Canada Savings Bonds or other government of Canada bonds tucked away somewhere.
In any event, let us look at the distribution of the national debt. As of the week of May 14 the national debt totalled some $23,218 million. How is this made up? Some $2,840 million is held in treasury bills, $6,070 million in Canada Savings Bonds, and all other direct and guaranteed. How are these securities to a total of $14,380 million held? The Bank of Canada holds some $3,895 million and the chartered banks hold a total of $5,316 million. Various government accounts hold $942 million, and the general public holds the residual, for a total of just under $13 billion. Therefore the general public, among whom will be found those financial agents, those enemies of the people, holds about half the national debt, and among them are all of the financial institutions, those so-called manipulators.
The argument of the hon. member is of the same stock as [Translation]
-a bogey-man, to which people resort to frighten small children. No. Listen, that will not do. It is demagoguery at its worst.

Certainly this government has failed to take adequate measures in so far as Canada and Canadians are concerned. It has failed to take adequate measures as far as inflation is concerned, and it has failed to take adequate measures in respect of regional disparity. We also have growing unemployment.
The minister is not a lawyer, but it seems he has learned some of the skills of a lawyer
May 22. 1969
from his former negotiations as a labour leader. There are two tactics a lawyer will accept; one is to confess and avoid and the other is simply to traverse. The minister did not traverse this afternoon because he indicated there were problems. In other words, what he did was confess and avoid.

He ignored the attack. He did not reply to the attack from the hon. member for Temis-camingue. He confessed, then ignored the attack: such are the tactics of a good lawyer. I pay him that compliment. After all, it is the last good thing I will say about the government-

The hon. member for Temiscamingue said that to live decently is a problem of distribution, that the cause is simply a lack of purchasing power. I am not going to indulge in any dialogue on Social Credit theories, but it seems to me that in his simplistic way the hon. member simply glossed over these problems and made the solution look terribly easy. How do you cure the lack of purchasing power? He did not tell us.
First of all, is it by taxation, by transfer payments? Let us consider the extent of the transfer payments. Do you know that in 1967, according to the statistics compiled by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics and a commentary by the Canadian Tax Foundation, out of total disbursements by the governments of Canada in the fiscal year 1967, amounting to some $21,200 million, about 41 per cent was in the form of transfer payments and subsidies from governments to individuals and groups? In other words, a little over $8 billion was in the form of transfer payments and subsidies.
The proposer of the motion said that you cannot simply tax the haves and give to the have-nots, because soon you will have all have-nots and no haves, and this is the end. But Eire we going to tax everybody and to what level should we tax? This is the question. To what level are we going to reduce taxes?
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
I have heard some advocates among social workers who talk blithely about a guaranteed annual income and who say that no man is entitled to an income more than five times greater than that received by the poorest man in the world-in other words, an arbitary figure. Is that what this policy would be
Distribution oj Goods and Services based on? Is it going to be based simply on the fact that each of us should receive according to his needs regardless of his production? If so, a married man with three children says, "I need so much" and every Monday, every second Monday or every first of the month there is placed to his credit in some form of account so many hundreds of dollars. By whom? By the government. How do you determine that he is entitled to this and that his neighbour, who may work twice as hard and have a greater income, is not entitled to the same payment? Are you going to take everything away from everyone and then say, "You need so much, we will give you so much"? We have to speculate on precisely what was meant because nothing was indicated. The point is, how does one achieve this distribution?
In my opinion one of the greatest obstacles to proper distribution is the excessive taxation practised by this government which keeps piling on taxes. It is possible that on the evening of June 3 we shall hear more about this question. The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp), who is listening to this debate, in 1967 brought forward a budget containing tax increases. We are being taxed to the level of government expenditures. Why? The reason given was that we were going to balance the budget in 1968 by virtue of certain cut-backs in expenditures. Those cut-backs were as phony as a $7 bill; they were merely paper exercises. We heard about cut-backs which would save several billions of dollars. This figure was reduced to $1.5 billion, and expenditures were eventually brought down to a figure in the neighbourhood of $10 billion when the figure was always going to be under $10 billion. This exercise of blue-pencilling figures on a sheet of paper makes good copy.
Then we had an increase in taxation, the 3 per cent surtax. The chief whip on the government side will always remember with embarrassment that we were told the government was going to balance the budget. What happened? By last October we had a budgetary deficit of over $700 million. The government is spending a great deal of money, and these were primarily transfer payments. Then the estimates were introduced, and instead of cutting back or even maintaining the level of expenditures of the government we found there was an increase of $880 million in expenditures over the previous year. What will we be told on June 3? Will there be further taxation to take us up to the level of

8956	COMMONS
Distribution of Goods and Services government expenditures? This is the difficulty. The government is taxing the people of Canada more heavily because of its reckless spending. We experienced in the first quarter of this year an increase in the cost of living of more than half the average over the past few years.
I refer now to the quarterly report of the Bank of Canada. I am sure my hon. friends in the Creditiste party consider a publication of the Bank of Canada tantamount to one of the books of the Bible, because to them the Bank of Canada is the cure-all for all our ills. I ask hon. members to my left to study this report of last April, especially page 306. There one sees what has happened with regard to inflation. Let us talk about those people on low incomes, fixed incomes, small pensions and those with limited savings. How have these people been affected since 1963, which I suppose was a banner year in Canadian history in so far as the government is concerned because that is the year in which they assumed office.
On the basis of the readjusted statistics the total index was 103 in 1963. This was an increase from 100 in 1961, the last year. The best year was 1963 with a total index of 103. By the month of March, 1969, the total index had risen to 123.2 In other words, there had been a loss of a further 20 cents. A person with a monthly pension of $100, on the basis of an annuity, now finds he can purchase less than $80 worth of goods and services compared with the purchasing power of $100 in 1961. This is the problem that lies at the root of the motion we are considering. This is where the blame should be laid. It is not a question of distribution; it is a question of controlling inflation and expenditures.
I could discuss this subject at length, Mr. Speaker, but my time is limited. I believe the government should concentrate more on productivity. The hon. member for Temis-camingue says that we should not worry about productivity. Why not? The greater our productivity, the lower the cost per unit, and the greater the opportunity for sales and the greater the opportunity for individuals to earn more money. With regard to inflation, there must be at all times that climate that will maintain economic growth and there must be in the public sector a reduction of the percentage take of the gross national product. I now refer to Chapter 1 of The National Finances 1968-69. This chapter reads in part:
On a national accounts basis, receipts of all governments - exceeded their expenditures in cal-

DEBATES	May 22. 1969
endar 1967. The Canada and Quebec Pension Plans were responsible for maintaining an overall surplus position of $157 million, about $190 million below the 1966 surplus of $348 million. Excluding the $886 million of collections for these plans, all governments had a deficit in 1967 of $729 million. Including Canada and Quebec Pension Plans total receipts were $21.3 billion while disbursements were $21.2 billion. On the income side this amounted to some 34.4 per cent of GNP-about 1.6 percentage points above the previous year-while on the expenditure side it was 34.1 per cent of GNP or 1.9 percentage points greater than 1966.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


An hon. Member:: Go on.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Could I have a few more minutes Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Is there unanimous consent to let the hon. member continue his speech?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: The hon. member for Edmonton West.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, as well as my colleagues in this house.

The federal government's share of total tax revenue in 1967 declined to 53 per cent as did nontax revenue, which fell to 36 per cent. The federal share of total revenue was 50 per cent, contrasted with 52 per cent in 1966. Its expenditure on goods and services amounted to over 34 per cent of total government outlays for these items and its proportion of the transfer and subsidy payment total was 53 per cent. Federal government spending (excluding intergovernmental payments) accounted for about 42 per cent of overall government expenditure. The provinces and the municipalities split the balance 32 per cent-26 per cent.
Therein lies the key. Federal government spending, excluding intergovernmental payments, accounted for a little over 40 per cent of over-all government expenditure and the other two levels of government accounted for a little less than 60 per cent. But their proportion is increasing. In my opinion it is not only a question of the federal government taking the necessary action in order to ensure that there is a climate conducive to the maintenance and expansion of economic growth. It behooves all levels of government to reduce their percentage of the take of the gross national product so that individuals may save and may be able to invest and
May 22, 1969	COMMONS
provide the capital that we so urgently need in Canada. The insufficiency of capital invites outsiders to walk in, to fill the vacuum and to take over more and more of Canadian industry, something about which there was a great deal of complaint in the house today and during the past weeks.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, if I may take the liberty of putting the motion of the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette) in my own words, it says that there is too much poverty in Canada, and too many of our people do not get their share of the abundance that we in Canada are able to produce. I agree with that statement. The only thing wrong with it is that it is an understatement, in fact the understatement of the year.
Before I go further perhaps I should do the usual thing and make it clear that I do not agree with the theories and solutions that are proposed by the hon. member for Temiscamingue, but I think that is beside the point so far as today's debate is concerned. Whether we agree or not with the political theories of our friends to our geographical left, I think they are to be commended for calling upon us today to consider the disgrace of the poverty and the inequalities that exist in Canada in 1969.
I listened with interest to the speech of the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand). I was hoping that he might say something by way of an answer to the problems set out by the hon. member for Temiscamingue, but about all he did was to characterize the hon. member as a demagogic orator. Having said that, he followed in the same pattern. Talk about demagoguery attacking demagoguery-we had it this afternoon. The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion described the hon. member for Temiscamingue as one who was apparently making a speech before an audience rather than a speech in the House of Commons, and then he himself did the same thing. He said that it is easy to talk about poverty and to get the poor to agree with you, but I suggest to the minister that one cannot dismiss the problem of poverty by calling it demagoguery to talk about it.
There are times when it seems to me that we who operate in the beautiful surroundings of Parliament Hill and enjoy the comfort of living in certain parts of Ottawa get a little too far removed from the reality of poverty 29180-567
DEBATES	8957
Distribution of Goods and Services as it is experienced by far too many Canadians. If you start to think of Canadian poverty, I am not quite sure where you begin. There is life as some Canadians have to live it in the outports of Newfoundland or in the fishing villages on the south shore of Nova Scotia. There is life in Campbellton, New Brunswick, as the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) saw it over the weekend, or at least he was photographed in its midst. There is the life that families live in tarpaper shacks in parts of Quebec and Ontario with the result that every winter we learn of many of them losing their lives by fire. There is the life in poverty or close to it that many of our 250,000 Indians experience in Canada. There is the problem of people who live in the blighted or slum areas of our cities from one end of Canada to the other. There is the poverty of children who receive education, particularly in some of our rural areas, far below the standard available in some other areas and far below the requirements of life today. There is the plight of our pensioners, and in a moment or two I shall come around to that matter again because a good deal of what I want to say on this motion revolves around the plight of our pensioners. There is the situation faced by many of our veterans, particularly those who are struggling to get by on the war veterans allowance while we wait for the Woods report, which does not even touch the war veterans allowance, to be referred to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.
But even after one has tried to face up to the poverty that exists in this country which we associate with people on welfare of various kinds, I think we need to remind ourselves that perhaps the greatest area of poverty is amongst what are known as the working poor. The Economic Council of Canada has done some studies in this area. As a matter of fact, the council has been making representations to one of the committees of the other place where it has been brought out in recent days that there are over 900,000 and perhaps one million families in Canada whose economic condition is below the poverty line. The poverty line as defined varies between families of several people and families of only two or three people, while another figure altogether is given for individuals. At any rate, the estimate of the Economic Council of Canada is that there are nearly one million families, perhaps four million or five million people in Canada, who are existing below today's poverty line.
May 22, 1869

Distribution of Goods and Services
The figures that the Economic Council of Canada has produced show that well over half of the heads of those families that are living below the poverty line are members of the working force who work part or all of the year. Poverty is not confined just to those who are old or unable to work, just to those who are on unemployment insurance, welfare or relief of some kind. For far too many of our people life goes on in a very humdrum fashion because although they are working, although they have the conventional means of livelihood in the form of wages that they receive, the amount is inadequate to maintain a decent standard of living. Many of these people are poor from the cradle to the grave, poor not only economically but in any opportunity to enjoy the so-called better things of life. It is all right for us who are here in this place to indulge in the making of fine speeches about the greatness of our culture and our tradition. It is all right for us to boast about the progress that our country has made. It is all right for us to be excited, as we are today, about adventures in the field of science, even if they are being carried on by people from another country. But for far too many of our people in this latter part of the 20th century life is too much a story of poverty.
I say to the hon. member for Temis-camingue that this is no day for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion or for the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) to spend their speaking time castigating him for his particular political philosophies. This is a day for us to face up to the facts of poverty and somehow to get to the point where we realize that it is our responsibility to do something about these facts.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
Later in this debate one or more of my hon. friends, depending upon how much time is available, will have something to say about some of the specific things we think should be done to provide a greater quantity of goods and services. There is the whole question of the priorities to be established between the private and the public sector; there is the question whether the role of the government when times are tough is to curtail expenditure or increase it.
We admit that if we are to provide a decent standard of living for all our people there has to be production of goods and services in even greater abundance than we are managing today, and we believe there are policies which governments can pursue to increase


the quantity of goods and services we produce. But along with the production of goods and services in abundance it is also of extreme importance that we follow policies of a kind which will get those goods and services distributed among our people on a fair basis. Some day it will be argued politically-and I hope the argument will prevail-that goods ought to be distributed on a basis of equality.
This is a word we seem to avoid. The hon. member for Edmonton West thought it was ridiculous for somebody to be saying that the richest person in the country should not receive more than five times as much as the poorest. That attitude will be laughed at some day; in fact, some of us laugh at it today. But if we are not yet ready for the distribution of goods and services on the basis of equality it is time for us to do it on a basis that is fair, and if it is to be fair there will have to be minimum standards that mean something; there will have to be guarantees of sufficient income to provide a decent standard of living applicable to all our people.
We say therefore that the social legislation which has been placed on the statute books of this country in the last 50 years-I say 50 years because certain things got started in 1919-should not be subject to ruination-and I see the possibility of this happening when the government talks about doing away with family allowances and putting old age pensions back on some kind of means or income test. I believe that if we are really concerned about maldistribution we must increase the amounts which get into the pockets of our people through programs which aim at distribution. We ought not to cut back these programs.
We have been asked to point to specific programs and proposals. Well, we say that family allowances should be increased. We say that old age security pensions should be increased. We say that war veterans allowances should be increased. We say that the federal government should really put money into education, that it should really put money into housing on a basis which would provide housing for the people who need it. These are proposals which are specific. They could and must be carried out.
Certainly there is a need for policies which will increase the amount of goods and services we produce. We also say it is essential to have policies leading to the effective distribution of goods and services to our people. This is not done by way of free competition in the marketplace. It can only be done when the government in the name of all the people
May 22. 1969

steps in to say: There shall be such things as housing, education, health care, family allowances, old age pensions and, yes, a guaranteed annual income distributed by the state to all our people.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, I can hardly advance more than a paragraph or so in a speech of this kind without making a particular reference to pensioners, and I should like to say a few words on this phase of the matter at this point. When we say there is too much inequality in this country, too much poverty, I point out that one of the areas in which inequality is most sharply felt is during the period of retirement. There is a general notion that because we have built up private and public pension plans over the past number of years this problem has been solved. When our fathers and grandfathers left industry or their employment there were no pensions for most of them. Today there is some kind of pension for just about everybody. But this does not solve the problem, particularly when no serious attention is paid to the rights and needs of retired people after they have gone on pension. The times I have said this in the House of Commons cannot be counted, I suppose. But it will have to be said again and again until something is done about the matter. It is completely unfair. It is a disgrace to permit everybody else, particularly those in the working period of life, to have ways and means of improving their incomes and thus their standard of living while saying to the older people: Once you have retired here is an income of X dollars; this is what you must live on for life.
As the years go by, the cost of living goes up, the standard of living goes up, wages and salaries go up. But the position of those who have retired deteriorates. If there is anything which is completely contrary to all the concepts of humanity I say it is the notion that somehow or other once a person has retired and been put on a pension he can fend for himself, watching his position deteriorate until at last he dies because he cannot take it any longer.
We insist that one thing which should be done in any set of policies designed to deal with inequality of this kind is to begin building into all our pension programs escalation provisions so that those who retire will be able to maintain a standard of living which improves-not just stays where it is-as does the standard of living of those who are working in Canada. This is not a new idea. Some companies have adopted it in years gone by.
29180-567J
Distribution of Goods and Services More recently,, a couple of well known companies such as the International Nickel Company of Canada and Imperial Oil Limited have made provision for the pensions of their former employees to be improved. A few other companies have done this on their own. A number have done it as a result of collective bargaining arrangements. I was pleased to read a report of a meeting a while ago under the auspices of the Public Service Alliance of Canada to the effect that that organization intends to work toward a certain goal, namely, that there must be incorporated into the Public Service Superannuation Act a provision ensuring that pensions, once put in pay, will escalate as wages and salaries increase.
The same applies to old age security pensions. We have established the principle that there shall be escalation but we have set a ceiling which means that the most a pensioner can get by way of increase is $1.50 a month each year if the cost of living increases by more than 2 per cent. The cost of living goes up far more than that, but $1.50 is the limit. Suppose you retire and get $78 by way of pension and have only the possibility of a $1.50 increase per year. Face the fact that in five or ten years your position will have worsened. A pension system will not be worthy of the name five, ten, fifteen years from now unless an escalation provision has been built into it.
Mr. Speaker, I see, if you do not, that my time is just about up. I shall wind this up in one sentence, though it may be a sentence with one or two commas in it. I do not think we should castigate the hon. member for Temiscamingue for his own particular political philosophy. I think we should face head on the problem of poverty and equality, as he put it, before the house today, and in facing it let us do something to meet the needs of those who require housing, jobs or education. Let us meet the problems of our Indians and of our war veterans. Let us pick out those particular groups for whom we can do something and see to it that their position is improved. This is why, because of my own life-long concern about these groups, I have spent part of my time talking about pensioners; and if we are concerned about eliminating poverty this is an awfully good place to begin. Let us do it, without any further delay.
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services [DOT] (5:10 p.m.)


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Prior to recognizing the hon. member for Frontenac I have the honour to inform the house that a message has been received from the Senate informing this house that the Senate have agreed to the amendments made by the House of Commons to Bill S-15, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act and the Narcotic Control Act and to make a certain consequential amendment to the Criminal Code.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40 to inform the house that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Simcoe North (Mr. Rynard), Income Tax; l'hon. depute de l'Abitibi (Mr. Laprise), l'Expansion Economi-que Regionale; the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Stewart), Company of Young Canadians.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Caouette.
Mr. Bernard Dumoni (Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset of my remarks I should like first of all to congratulate the member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) on the humane way in which he dealt with the problem of poverty or the difficulty of obtaining purchasing power in Canada. If it were not that he has socialist ideas, we could accept him in our ranks because we know the representative for Winnipeg North Centre was not elected through electoral funds. The representatives of his party only have union funds with which to run honest elections.
I should also like to make a few comments on the statements of the member for 
Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) and the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand).
I am sorry the minister is not here, so that we could give him viva voce a few replies to his criticism of the member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette). However, in his remarks, I did not hear the Minister of the Regional Economic Expansion explain how $13 billion could be found in 1939 to wage that war which killed so many people and caused so much unhappiness.
And besides, in my opinion, the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion thought quite differently when he was a labour leader from the way he did this afternoon in this house. It seems to me that instead of trying to make fun of the Social Credit, he should try to understand it.
This morning, he was telling me that he had studied more books on Social Credit than we have ourselves. He makes me think of someone who would look into a matter fully to be able to destroy it better, and we often meet people who victimize others and say; I love you sincerely, smothering them to death at the same time.
It is in* the same manner that he studied Social Credit and that he has no doubt tried to make fun of it, because he did not understand a thing of the explanation of the member for Temiscamingue.
Besides, when he told us that he did not believe in new formulas, I might tell him that he is certainly not as daring as the pioneers who founded Canada. I could hold Jacques Cartier up as an example, who did not ask himself whether his father had come to Canada. He made for Canada and he founded our beautiful Canada. He had the guts to do so.
One may also give the example of Karl Marx who was not afraid to set forth the bad doctrine of communism, who was not afraid to go and setup a new regime which has conquered half the world today.
The member for Langelier and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, is not so daring, and I would like to see him tackle the problems of the Canadian Vickers and of Davie Shipbuilding, because their workers lack the purchasing power required to buy Canada's production.
We proposed a motion this afternoon because of this lack of purchasing power. I would like to see the minister go and meet with those workers out of work or on strike,
May 22, 1969

because they see their livelihood and their purchasing power disappear; let him go and tell them exactly what he told us here this afternoon.
Moreover, when he tells a story about the wire worn on a foot, he can say that again, because it happens that the Liberal Party has gone haywire. That is why he went haywire this afternoon when he told us that story.
The minister reminds me of this patient who went to see this doctor because he had hurt his leg, and he was told to apply a poultice on it, since there was no improvement, the doctor went to the minister's home to find out what was wrong. He saw that the minister had applied the poultice right on the spot where he got hurt, namely the railing of the stairs leading to the second floor!
So the minister does exactly the same thing in today's economic system. He puts a poultice where it hurts, on the railing, and he is unable to find a solution to our problem. That is why I even received a letter from a woman of the constituency of Langelier, who wrote: Would you ask the Bank of Canada to make a loan, interests free, to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, so that he can buy three dozen combs.
This afternoon, nobody gave a more serious and logical answer to the logical and serious statement made by the hon. member for Temiscamingue. I merely say that the minister then will certainly not find any solution with his new department, because that reminds me, much more of something we have seen in the past, and which may still be seen: the chap who tries to get hold of a horse by attracting it with a bowl of oats. The horse represents us, the consumers, and with his Department of Regional Economic Expansion, the minister presents us with a small bowl of oats, saying: Wait, be patient.
As for us, of the Ralliement Creditiste, we want to build a country, rather than merely mend fences.
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
We introduced this motion, which reads as follows:
That, in the opinion of the house, the government has failed to take adequate measures in order to give Canadians the benefit of a policy of distribution of goods and services which would allow each citizen to obtain his share of Canadian abundance.
Distribution of Goods and Services
I feel that with production, minus consumption, through a good accounting system, any amount of surplus in a country could be distributed as dividends, as the hon. member for Edmonton West asked us a while ago, to allow the Canadians who need it to purchase this Canadian production. When those problems are settled in Canada, then we can help other needy countries to solve their problems.
I would like to speak about a class of people who have reduced purchasing power at the present time. Progressive Conservatives or Liberals, as we noticed this afternoon, do not agree with us. The hon. member for Edmonton West and the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand)-who said that they were reading the same books- they reminded me of pupils cribbing from others at school-are of the same opinion. So, whether they are Conservatives or Liberals, they are exactly the same; they are elected thanks to the same electoral funds, and I will be in a position to prove that later on with statements I made in this house, when I was elected in 1962 and the Progressive Conservatives were in office.
For the time being, I would like to deal with that class of people who do not have enough purchasing power, the Canadian farmers. I have seen farmers in western Canada glutted with produce. People told us: We would like to be the granary of the world. They are ready to produce enough to feed the whole human race.
But because the system is faulty, because there is enough money to go to the moon or to wage wars, but not enough to distribute the abundance that exists, these people are faced with economic problems.
Any economic problem can be settled by men because it was generated by men. The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion may tell us that the Social Credit does not propose solutions; I tell him that we find solutions and that we are willing to support him if he brings about measures to put an end to poverty amid abundance.
This is what we want to do but through equitable measures. I said earlier that in 1962, I had noticed the statements of the government in office. I shall quote from an article published in La Presse of November 1962, in order to show you that, red or blue, we are changing our horse, but the driver is still the same, i.e. the financiers who contribute to the electoral fund.
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services
During the discussion of those agricultural problems, I introduced in the house a bill which would have had the effect of increasing the income of farmers, since it provided for the construction of grain elevators in order to reduce the price of feed grains.
This is what they said in November 1962:
It was to a Liberal, Mr. Whelan, of Essex South, that the task of killing the Dumont motion was entrusted.
A Conservative from Saskatchewan, Mr. Nasser-den, tried unsuccessfully to perform that task, but he was out of breath two minutes before the private members' hour expired.
Mr. Whelan had therefore to take up where he left off in order to prevent the vote on the motion which, had it been passed, would have put western farmers on the same footing as eastern farmers.
Then, in 1962, the Conservatives were in office. We were asking an increased purchasing power for our farmers who, in Canada, are the very basis of society, and because in the East, we wanted to be put on the same footing. A Liberal member and a Conservative member joined forces to kill the motion I was presenting. Later, they tried to bury this bill which would have done justice to our people.
When election platforms were being prepared, we heard statements like the following, and I quote:
-the only condemnation of his project came from a Conservative member, Mr. Nasserden from Saskatchewan, a Conservative, I repeat, therefore, a member of the party that Creditistes support wholeheartedly-
So said the press at that time, in spite of the fact that we were telling them to take action-
According to Mr. Nasserden, the project is immature. Except the latter, all those who spoke during the private member's hour on this project found some justification for it, even Mr. Arnold Peters, of the New party.
While he declared himself opposed to the ultimate end sought by Mr. Dumont, he voted like him in favour of equality of prices for farm products across the country-
Then, we can say publicly that as long as a government does not have a majority, he is trying to win us over in order to be able to say: "We know the answer". And, it is exactly the portion of oats, to which I referred a moment ago, that is offered to the horse, that is the consumer they want to win over, to make him wait that much longer.
And as for the statements on farm policy made around election time, what do they say?
A Liberal spokesman said the members of parliament from the east are working on this problem.

Both parties gave the highest priority to this matter, believing that a general election can happen anytime and that they must make their policy known in the house as soon as possible-[DOT]
The reason why it is hard for the old parties to establish a general policy in the field of agriculture, which would be interesting, lies in the absence of support in the house of a large number of members from agricultural districts, as is the case for western Canada-[DOT]
So much for that group of people who are neglected, who are forgotten. I do not object to a discussion of the agricultural problems of western Canada, I even welcome it. I want those people to be happy, but when the subject is Eastern Canada, nothing is said about those problems.
And if, even occasionally, as has been said since September last, because apparently the West is experiencing what has been too often called "the fatal rising tide of wheat" because of over production, we should be punished, would it not be ridiculous, Mr. Speaker? Would it not be illogical as long as there are under-fed human beings? If, as the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion suggested a while ago, we fail to find people able to change an economic system if it proves defective, it is high time that incompetent people should make room for others.
And in the explanation for the fatal rising tide of wheat, here is what one could read. The situation is the same in the United States and a newspaper headline described it as serious. Had they read the news, our grandparents would have normally concluded that North America was threatened with famine. How mistaken they would have been, for the meaning is exactly the reverse of what it might have been fifty years ago. For if in the United States as in Canada the wheat situation is serious, the reason is that there is too much wheat, as is the case with other farm commodities; what to do with it has become a problem. The dreadful fact is that the 1968 crop was a bumper crop.
The most striking feature in any village scenery is a string of huge metal elevators overflowing with wheat harvested these last years. Despite that enormous reserve, the government still guarantees it will buy at extravagant prices all that the farmers can produce, with the sole exception of the quota applying in some places.
There is even something funnier. To fight such a large productivity, especially in the United States, the government follows a diametrically opposite policy, under its land bank project, and guarantees a large income
May 22, 1969

to any farmer agreeing not to farm. The farmers who want to be partially unemployed, for they are nevertheless entitled to till their fertile land, draw $3,000 per annum. It so happens that, little by little, the validity of some Creditiste theories is recognized by allowing some people to get a guaranteed income of $3,000 per annum; but it is permitted to chartered banks that finance even the government of Canada, and to which a payment of $1,600 million must be paid in interest.
We are protesting against that, against the people here who are serving finance and who have been elected with electoral funds. They are mere puppets, blue or red, and they know that those people will say exactly what investors want them to say.
Furthermore, this wealth which exists and which would permit, should money be based on production, the granting of a dividend to every citizen because money distributed more lavishly could bring inflation, and also the so-called compensated discount, advocated by the Ralliement creditistes and by Social Credit, would reduce the cost of living and prevent all strikes, the great strikes which are causing disaster throughout Canada.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
Well, this surplus, as it exists in Canada, that is 1.3 billion bushels of wheat, has been accumulating for three years, which adds up to more than 4 billion bushels. The average yearly production in Canada is 650 million bushels. On a world scale, it is 10.8 billion bushels.
Those great exporters, who are also afflicted by an enormous surplus of wheat, made even greater by record crops, had decided simultaneously, although without previous consultation, to cut down prices in order to try and sell their wheat, so much so that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) was heard to say that the fate of western farmers is in the hands of Moscow and Peking. Peking where, yesterday, people were dying of hunger in the streets, Peking which, through a bad communist regime, managed to establish a better standard of living.
Why, with Social Credit, could we not solve, thanks to a distribution of purchasing power, all the economic problems of Canada and then fight Communism efficiently in the whole world, because I do not want Communism. It makes me think of a herd in a stable. It provides security, but it also puts a yoke on around one's neck.


Mr. Ross Whicher (Bruce):: Mr. Speaker, it does not appear that there are many sinners who will have the opportunity of hearing my sermon this afternoon. This is because of the fact so many committee meetings are being held in various parts of the building, and outside it, and also because many hon. members do not believe in the motion put forward by the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette).
I listened with great interest to the members who have spoken in this debate, particularly to the hon. member in whose name the motion stands. I would agree with the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand) who said it was the same old speech but, on the other hand, that the hon. member was a great orator.
How we can cure the troubles that beset Canada today by printing money is simply beyond me, but this is what our friends the Creditistes wish to do. This method has not been successful in any country in the world that has tried it. All have had to retreat from this path. This Social Credit idea started in the province of Alberta where serious-minded leaders adopted it, but even there it did not work. Indeed, as one of the Conservative party members has said, it cost the taxpayers of Alberta a considerable amount of money. If we printed more money and gave everybody in Canada a dividend, as suggested by the hon. member, what would the other countries of the world think? The Canadian dollar would decline in value and we would find ourselves in great difficulty in the money markets of the world.
The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion pointed out that much had been done to alleviate poverty by taxing the affluent and giving money to the poor in the form of old age pensions, which we all agree are probably not as high as they should be; in the form of family allowances, disability pensions, 
unemployment insurance funds, and so on. The minister was quite frank when he said much more remains to be done, and he mentioned such great social undertakings as medicare and hospital insurance. So much has been done in Canada that we have one of the highest living standards in the world. As the minister said, however, we can do better, and there is much still to be done. I would like to dwell on some of the things that worry me when I look at what is taking place in our country, things that I am sure worry all members of this great House of Commons and indeed worry people right across Canada. The word "inflation" is on the lips of everybody in Canada, and the question asked is, where is it all going to end?
Just this week, through the efforts of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey) who has been doing an exceptional job settling strikes across the country, we had another strike settlement which resulted in a 16 per cent wage increase over the next 26 months for Air Canada workers. I do not blame those workers for trying to get all they can because all workers, and professional people, are attempting to get everything they can. I mention Air Canada workers because they happen to have been involved in the last strike that was settled. One thing that is as sure as you are sitting here, Mr. Speaker, is that two years from today the Air Canada workers will be back looking for more money. If the settlement at that time covers just a two-year term, two years later they will be back again. If these settlements proceed on the basis of the one reached this week, 16 per cent over a 26 month period, then ten years from today the workers of Air Canada will be getting exactly twice as much money as they are now.
I give another example. A high school teacher in Montreal or Toronto today makes about $15,000 a year. Not all of them do, and I realize many get less, but ten years from today on the basis of a continuing 15 per cent increase over a two-year period, that high school teacher will be getting $30,000 a year. To go a little further, may I say that in a 20 year period, during the lifetime of many members of this House of Commons, a teacher in Ottawa, Hamilton, Toronto, Vancouver, or wherever it may be who today is earning $15,000 will be earning $60,000. Somebody must say no. Do we want the price of bread, for example, to be $1 a loaf? Is there any feeling that we are doing the right thing by continually keeping this old ball game going,
May 22. 1969

this spiralling inflation; somebody will have to say no.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
Let us mention the electricians here in Ottawa who are on strike. I am not blaming the electricians; I am talking about society as a whole. I suppose at the present time they are earning about $5 an hour in Ottawa. Ten years from today, at the present rate of increase, they will be earning $10 an hour and in 20 years they will be earning $20 an hour. I most respectfully ask the government what the plans are for the future so far as the wages and salaries of the citizens of Canada are concerned. Surely, as members of this House of Commons and as citizens of Canada, we have the right to ask our leaders what they intend to do about this. If we do not ask this question, it will be evident that we are satisfied with the way the ball game is being played.
I am taking part in this debate in order to let you know that I am not satisfied with the way the ball game is being played. I say that somebody must sit down and plan for the future of Canada, not ten years from now but rather two years or two months from now; that is just how serious the situation is. The word "controls" is one which is absolutely contrary to my way of life. While I respect my socialist friends to my left for the sincerity with which they present their beliefs, nevertheless, as I said before in this chamber, all we need do is look at little England which is drowning in a sea of socialism. I am against controls and socialism and am for free enterprise; but when we come to a chaotic financial situation, then something must be done. For example, during the war years we had wage and salary controls and controls on prices and profits.
Most respectfully I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the financial condition of the ordinary citizen and the various governments of Canada, municipal, provincial and federal, is worse today than it was in 1939 when the war started. I would be the last person to suggest that the government should place controls on wages, salaries, prices and profits; but I say to you, sir, that if they do not have any other solution they had better do that. If something does not happen, then 25 years from today the little corner grocery store proprietor, the big supermarket proprietor or the doctor- probably not the politician-and the school teacher, or whoever it might be, will have to take his money to the bank in a wheelbarrow 29180-568
Distribution of Goods and Services because money will have so little value by that time.
This is the reason I very respectfully, through you, Mr. Speaker, ask the government what it intends to do. I believe we should be given an answer. In many instances the poverty in Canada today is caused by inflation. I might ask what about the agricultural workers in Canada, the people about whom my hon. friend of the Ralliement Creditiste spoke a few moments ago? When I think of the 16 per cent wage increase granted by Air Canada last week, I think of the farmers of eastern Canada and western Canada. What has the government done for the agricultural economy? There has been a cutback of $5 million in the subsidy to the dairy producers and $4 million has been cut back in the premium to hog producers. The income of the agricultural workers decreases while the income of all others in society increases. This is not right at all. It is up to the leaders of our country to tell us what plans they have, not only for the so-called affluent but also for the people engaged in the agricultural industry and other small industries in Canada who are not enjoying financial success at the present time.
Most respectfully I say that I think I would be fair were I to ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) what they intend to do in respect of wheat next fall if western Canada should have a bumper crop. Perhaps that is a rhetorical question. The practical answer is that it will be piled out in the fields in western Canada because there will be no other place to put it. These are some of the questions to which I believe the government should give us some answers.
There is so much in Canada that is good. We have one of the highest standards of living in the world. We see large chauffeur driven cars around the Chateau Laurier and around the parliament buildings. We see many automobiles. I understand that in the city of Calgary there are more automobiles per population than there are anywhere else in the world. But what about the people who cannot afford cars, the poor people of Canada?
Much planning must be done. I feel one reason we have so many poor people in the midst of plenty is that we have so few people here in Canada. Can we be proud of the fact that we are the most sparsely populated country in the whole world? As I think I said once before in this chamber I do not believe
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services the Grits and Tories can be proud of the results of their immigration policies during the last 100 years. Twenty one million people from Newfoundland to Vancouver represents a ridiculous situation. What we need is a plan for the development of Canada which would include inducements for skilled workers who would make good citizens. Of course, in the past we have brought in millions of people but in my opinion we have not brought enough. There are those who say that we cannot find employment for the people we have now. Most respectfully I say that if we had 40 million people instead of 20 million people we would use twice as many neckties, eyeglasses, suits, shirts, automobiles, gasoline, cigarettes and so on. Consumer demand is what makes the world go around.
It is what made the United States a great country. With ten times our population, the United States has 14 times our gross national product. People create money, and we need more people here in Canada. I intend to say something, even if I am the only Liberal member in this House of Commons who makes statements of this type. This afternoon the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. MacEachen) announced a policy which would permit deserters from any army in the world to come to Ottawa and have the opportunity of Canadian citizenship. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I am absolutely opposed to that policy. I am opposed to it right down the line. Do you know that in Canada today we do not have capital punishment? This law was passed in this chamber. The situation in the armed forces of Canada is different. Do you know that today a member of the Canadian armed forces can be shot for desertion? In Italy during the last world war I found myself in a terrible position. Three fellows from a certain regiment ran rather than face the enemy. It was desertion; they were deserters. A Major grabbed me and said: "We are going to try these men right now because they ran rather than face the enemy. We are going to hold a field general court martial." These three fellows were frightened and I felt sorry for them. We had the opportunity of shooting these fellows. I suppose it was not really an opportunity, but the law was such it would allow us to shoot them. The least they could get if they were convicted of desertion was two years at hard labour. For your benefit, Mr. Speaker, I may say they were given two years and shipped off to Africa in chains. That is what we, as Canadians, did to our deserters during the last world war.


[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
I have no use for any man who will take advantage of the standard of living in his country and then desert that country when, as a result of the democratic process, he is called upon to serve that country. I make a distinction between the so-called draft dodgers and deserters. I have in mind those draft dodgers who know two months in advance they are going to be called up by United States authorities.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I did not want to interrupt the hon. member because I know how strongly he feels about this matter, but I have great misgivings about this line of argument in light of the motion before us. If I allow him to continue at length in this way, I will have no option but to allow other hon. members to do the same. These remarks have nothing to do with the motion before us.


Ross Mackenzie Whicher: Mr. Speaker, I will try to control myself. I was mentioning the fact that we need more people in this country, but not more of this type. We need more people to develop Canada. I have only one or two things to say before I conclude.
The minister has been listening to those of the younger generation who attend college. This is a small minority of our population, many of whom wish to tear down our universities rather than build them. Some of them think that we should let deserters from various countries come into this country and take out citizenship. We had a word during the last war which described this kind of action, and I am sure this word has been used in many other countries. That word was "yellow". Perhaps I will be the only Liberal member to stand in this house and speak in this way, but that is the way I think about these things. I will be able to go back home to my riding and look members of the Canadian Legion in the eye. I know they will not appreciate the action proposed in this house today.
I do not appreciate people of this type, but we do need more people in Canada. If we had more people we could develop this nation. We could consume more of the products produced here. The people in the United States consume 80 per cent of the wheat grown there, but we export 80 per cent of our wheat. There is no point in having a gold mine unless you have someone to do a little bit of digging. We need more diggers, more artisans, more professional people, doctors and
May 22, 1969
dentists. We need more of almost every kind of individual except politicians.


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


Ross Mackenzie Whicher: I think perhaps we have enough politicians to govern the country, regardless of how many additional millions of people come here.


Mr. J. H. Horner (Crowfoot):: In rising to speak on this motion, I must say at the outset that on reading it I realized there must be a vast difference in the standard of living enjoyed by Canadians. I listened with interest to the comments of the hon. member for Bruce (Mr. Whicher) in respect of the ineptitude of the government and its actions in curtailing expenditures in the field of agriculture. I could not do anything but agree with practically all he said, and I compliment him for being as frank and as honest as he was. Canadians would be much better off if all politicians were as frank and as honest as the hon. member in his approach to government legislation and action.
This motion requires the government to take action and to give consideration to policies involving the distribution of Canadian produced goods and services among Canadian people. This reminds me of the old Social Credit principle expounded by Mr. Aberhart, a former Premier of Alberta. I would be interested to hear the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) expound his theories concerning the distribution of goods and services. I should like to hear him tell us how Canadians could enjoy to a greater extent this abundance of Canadian production as the result of this government assuming a greater part in manipulating or handling these goods and services.
I do not disagree with the suggestion that the government should keep a watchful eye on the distribution of these goods throughout Canada, and to see that we meet our commitments in respect of overseas trade. The government should make every attempt to see that everyone has an equal opportunity to purchase these Canadian goods and services.
Recently this government set up a Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I am surprised that the minister of that department is not taking a more keen interest in this distribution of goods and services. Certainly, this government has concerned itself with the purchase of services, and it has initiated increased taxation. Last March this government imposed a 3 per cent surcharge tax. This was followed by a 2 per cent social 29180-5681
Distribution of Goods and Services development tax, a tax on some insurance companies and an increase in estate taxes. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) has estimated that these increases in taxation will yield an additional $845 million. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its annual report states, that this is the largest, new increase in taxes ever imposed by a federal government of Canada. This is an amazing thing. No wonder the government is able to suggest it hopes to balance its budget. There is no trick in balancing a budget if you keep a hand as deep in the pockets of the Canadian taxpayers as this government has done. A member of this government has suggested that there is no place for the government in the bedrooms of the nation, but this government certainly believes in keeping a hand very deeply in the pockets of the taxpayers of this nation.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It
being six o'clock this house stands adjourned until 8 p.m.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, on resuming my remarks on this resolution it might be in order to summarize what I said before the supper adjournment. Because of the short time available to me I shall deal with these matters rather briefly. The motion encompasses the whole economy of our country. I said before the supper adjournment that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) had stated the government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. However, the same Prime Minister is delving deeply into the pockets of the taxpayers. Before the supper adjournment I quoted from the Encyclopaedia Britannica which deals with this question. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) stated that a number of tax increases, including the 3 per cent surcharge tax, the 2 per cent social development tax and others, increased the revenue obtained from taxes last year by $845 million. The Encyclopaedia Britannica stated that this was the largest increase brought about by new taxes in any year in Canada's history. I wish to make it abundantly clear that this is the largest increase as a result of additional taxation in any year in Canada's history. The Prime Minister suggested that the government was prepared to balance the budget. Anybody can balance a budget so long as

May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services there remains in the pockets of our taxpayers money with which to pay additional taxes. The theory is that Canadian taxpayers can dig a little deeper into their pockets and find a little more money with which to pay increased taxes.
However, the government will find that there has been a tremendous drain upon the resources of Canadian taxpayers. Those resources will ultimately be strained to the limit and our taxpayers will not have the money to meet additional taxation. This is the position in which Canada finds itself.
The hon. member for Bruce (Mr. Whicher) spoke about the money supply in this country. I believe he spoke fairly accurately about the economic facts involved in the government increasing our money supply. The hon. member said that we run into the terrible danger inherent in the old Social Credit theory of Mr. Aberhart in respect of increasing the money supply. He said that putting this theory into practice would increase inflation tremendously. What is the situation today? We have inflation. This government has already tripled the money supply. As evidence of this one has only to study the figures relating to the years 1964 to 1969. The money supply in Canada has tripled, as have interest rates.
What good has the policy of the government achieved in this respect? Old age pensioners in this country pay income tax to the government. This is a shameful thing. Primary producers have to sell their products in the world markets at a desperately low price because of the inflation in this country. Inflation has not helped these people. In addition, as the hon. member for Bruce so aptly pointed out, this government has reduced subsidies paid to our primary producers in the field of agriculture. I emphasize that the government has reduced the support provided to these primary producers. This is a shameful act on the part of the government.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
The government has now reduced its assistance to those very producers, another shameful act. Mention was made by a member of the New Democratic Party of that party's dreams and ideas concerning the way in which Canada should develop. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) said that in his belief at no time in Canada's history should the richest man ever receive more than five times what the poorest man is receiving. This is an interesting solution to the problem of poverty. If the poorest

man receives a lot of money, I suppose the richest man might well receive a great deal also. However, we must remember-and note of this should be taken especially by those who project the social credit philosophy-that trade barriers throughout the world are continuing to break down and that the economy of Canada must always bear a close relationship to the economy of the world. Whether or not the ideas of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will ever come true, I am not prepared to say at this time.
I can well remember the idea put forward by Khrushchev that some day and some place capitalism would fail and socialism would take over. Perhaps the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre would agree with this. However, I do not. I think we have reached a period in Canadian history in which the taxpayers of our country are saying that the tax load is too heavy and we must take some steps to reduce it. We have just seen Air Canada go through a severe strike which, to some extent at least, tied up the economy of the country. A settlement was reached according to which wage earners were granted an increase of around 16 per cent over two years in the actual cash received. However, if we take into account all the other advantages thrown in, the increase is nearer 22 per cent over two years, which is very substantial. The hon. member for Bruce (Mr. Whicher) spoke about it.
Let us go back to the time some years ago when the government gave the St. Lawrence Seaway workers an increase which amounted to 32 or 33 per cent. This increase started an inflationary cycle which has not stopped yet. Inflation is the result of such increases being given to wage earners. Wage earners cannot be blamed for demanding high wages. They, too, are caught in an inflationary cycle. What is the real problem? The real problem is the take home pay received by the wage earner, the farmer and the person who is trying to pmchase a house, a car and all the things we consider to be necessities in our society today.
Before the supper break I voiced my disappointment at the fact that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Bas-ford) did not oblige the house by being present during this debate which deals with the distribution of goods and services. It is, after all, the consumers who will gain from any reduction in the cost of goods and services. I would have liked to hear the minister's comments on this.
May 22, 1969
I should like to quote from an article which appeared in the Winnipeg Tribune of May 17, 1969. It reads:
Ronald Basford, the federal minister of consumer and corporate affairs, has announced 27 regional offices will be established by his department-to be staffed by 600 persons. That's only the start. If this new department proliferates at the same rate as the department of manpower, there'll soon be thousands of righteous snoopers leeched on to the public purse.
That would be well and good if they could earn their pay by bringing about a reduction in the cost of goods and services as well as a better distribution of these goods and services rather than increase the taxpayer's load. But will they really do that? I doubt it. They are too concerned with the problems and complaints of the taxpayers and not sufficiently concerned with the problems that bring about the complaints. This article goes on to say that:
-during the last nine months of 1968, the federal department of consumer and corporate affairs processed 3,109 complaints. During that same period the Better Business Bureau here-with only a staff of four-processed 16,389 inquiries-
That gives us a basis for comparison and some idea as to what can be done. This article goes on to suggest that the reason for most of those inquiries was lack of information about the product concerned. It said that only 556 of the inquiries represented true complaints, and even those could be cleared up when they were taken up with the companies concerned. I am in full agreement with a paragraph in the article which reads as follows:
There can be no question that governments have a role to play in the area of retail trade practices- including advertising and selling claims and methods. The vast majority of businessmen here concede that a certain amount of government regulation is not only inevitable but also is desirable, to eliminate unfair competition from unscrupulous businessmen.
There is no question in my mind that the government should watch very closely the amalgamation, the merging and the combining of various companies so that we can keep prices as low as possible and allow all people an equal opportunity to enter into business. In other words, the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission should be more active. If we allow the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to run hither and yon dealing with consumer complaints which stem from lack of education rather than try to solve the problem,, we will not get further ahead.
Distribution of Goods and Services
All this may serve as a political base from which the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs may be re-elected and re-appointed to the cabinet after the next election, but it will not bring about any real reduction in prices. What is the real problem? I suggest that the real problem of today's wage earner lies in his take home pay. Recently, a prominent speaker in the city of Edmonton-and I give this as an example-stated that Air Canada had tried to hire a test pilot of some ability who worked for Boeing Aircraft in the United States. At that time he received a salary of $35,000 a year in the United States. Air Canada offered him $3,000 more a year. He asked whether with the $3,000 more a year his take home pay would be larger than he was getting in the United States. The accountants figured it out and said that Air Canada would have to offer him $53,000 in order to equal the pay he took home from his job in the U.S. Naturally, he did not accept Air Canada's offer.
We speak about a brain drain. Is it any wonder that there is a brain drain when we have a Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and a Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) who will increase taxes by $845,000 in one year and who have announced they will bring in another budget this year? I suppose we can expect another tax load and Canadians will again have to dig into their pockets.
I think that the distribution of goods and services would be more efficient if this government took the advice of a former minister responsible for housing who firmly believed that every taxpayer should own his own house and who gave him a chance to do so. He wanted to remove the 11 per cent sales tax on building materials and allow the taxpayer a deduction from his income tax for the payments on his house. I would go one step further. If we go back in history we will see that since 1941 the average wage has doubled. In February of 1969 the average wage earner received $115 a week. But what have we done with the income tax exemptions? We have made no effort whatsoever to increase them. I believe that the income tax exemptions which were established back about 1941 at $1,000 per single person should be increased to at least $1,500 and married couples would then have an exemption of $3,000. I am not asking for pie in the sky when I suggest this. I think we should be moving in this direction. I would go one step further.

May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)
Let us now consider the great traffic congestion in the greater Montreal area where two and a half million people live. Get out into the streets of Ottawa when everybody is leaving work. It is the same in every other major city in Canada. The automobile is a necessity. Why does not the government give the city-dweller the same privilege as is given to the farmer when it comes to depreciation allowances applicable to necessary means of transport? We are bound to recognize that the automobile is a necessity if one is to work and live in a modern city.
I think we ought to go a step further and say that education is a necessity. We must give practical recognition to the importance of education by saying that when a boy or girl is attending university and still living at home, the education fee can be claimed as a tax exemption.
I see you are becoming a little nervous, Mr. Speaker, because my time is running out. There are a couple of further points I should like to make. I contend it is wrong to train people and then prevent them from earning all they are capable of earning, to discourage them by the provisions of our tax laws. This, too, is a situation which ought to be dealt with by amendments to the Income Tax Act.


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired. He could continue, of course, with the unanimous consent of the house.
Has the hon. member the unanimous consent of the house to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am short of time. I have tried to speak as fast as I can. I shall make the rest of my remarks as brief as possible.
I was saying that having gone to the extent of providing schools and universities, we ought to allow those who have benefitted from these studies to earn whatever they are capable of earning, instead of imposing a penalty on them. A housewife staying at home most of the day might well be a laboratory technician or a teacher, for instance, but our present taxation policy discourages her from going out to teach or work as a nurse or laboratory technician. We should be prepared to allow such women to claim the cost of employing someone else to look after the house or to discharge other household duties, as an acceptable tax deduction. This would

encourage them to undertake work of a kind for which they had been trained or for which they had acquired special skill, very often through assistance from government levels.
I have another point. Doctors are allowed to claim in respect of tools and equipment. Yet garage mechanics and a number of other people with similar technical skills are not allowed to do so. Remember, we undertook an extensive program of building technical and vocational schools so that students might acquire some of these very skills. We built such schools from coast to coast, from Victoria Island to Newfoundland. We acknowledge that tools are necessary in order to follow these trades, yet their cost is not an acceptable deduction for tax purposes. In my view, this is a mistake and I would urge the government to give serious consideration to revising its taxation policy in this regard.
There is one other subject upon which I should like to touch briefly. One of the most desperate poverty pockets in our society is that represented by our native people, Indians and Eskimoes. For the last hundred years society has maintained and kept these people but we have made no real strides in encouraging them to become equal partners in contributing to society generally. I believe greater efforts could be made in this direction.
We must give these people the right to run their own affairs. Our efforts so far have not been particularly successful, and if we acknowledge this fact it might be as well for us if the government used very great caution indeed before moving in on the affairs of society generally. I am one who believes that the least government possible may well be the best government. Consider, in this connection, the effect of setting up the machinery of the consumer affairs department. It will require a staff of 600 people, and this is only a beginning, in order to monkey around in our society without even getting at the root of the problem. This is where our greatest problems lie.
I urge the government to give this resolution serious study. Hon. gentlemen opposite find themselves trapped at present in an administrative policy which perhaps is taking them and, consequently the people of Canada, down the long road toward the further entrenchment of government in every walk of life. This, I feel, is not the answer to our basic needs.
May 22, 1969


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, the Social Credit theory provides that credit will be distributed free of charge and will be guaranteed by our country's resources. In other words, our country is overflowing with raw materials and energy resources, and our agricultural potential is tremendous. All those riches serve to guarantee the value of this new money.
That is no longer economics, Mr. Speaker, but sheer madness. As we have learned at our expense, here in Canada, a country is not rich because it has uranium in abundance. A country which has urnium is rich if a demand exists for that product, if there are no other competing producers whose prices are lower, if laboratories do not come up with a product capable of replacing uranium and if the needs for uranium are of a persisting nature which justifies its mining, etc. That is a lesson which both Creditistes and separatists must learn.
Ore does not have a value simply because it is in the earth, because it exists. It has a certain value to the extent that it is scarce, that it is useful and that it can be brought at a low cost to the markets which can use it. As new deposits are discovered and the scarceness element decreases, the number of our resources could very well decrease also; those resources might even lose all value.
The value that social credit or a national dividend will put on depends directly on the decrease in the present property's value.
Free credit, whatever its purpose, will always result in the destruction of property.


An hon. Member:: That is false.


Eric William Kierans: What do we stand to lose? To be exact, everything we possess.
It may be that we will have twice as much money in our pockets as a result of the Social Credit dividends, but if the shoes of our children cost five times as much-


An hon. Member:: Tell us something about stamps!


Eric William Kierans: -what would we gain? We are all affected by inflation, as the value of our dollar, of our deposits in credit unions, of our savings bonds and of our wages, disintegrates under the effect of that cancer.
When prices rise, wages lag behind at first, but after a while, the race begins. But some producers of raw materials cannot insist upon higher prices on foreign markets. That is how
Distribution of Goods and Services inflation can eliminate Canada from many world markets, and that is likely to increase our unemployement which is already quite serious.
This may be a hard fact, but I do want to state it: Even the worker who is unemployed now could find himself in a worse situation; he also would have something to lose if the situation got worse. In fact, as unemployment increases, his opportunities to find a job decrease.
Bertrand de Jouvenel recalls an Armenian proverb which says: "The earth is like a pot and man is like a spoon in that pot." And the hon. member for Temiscaminque (Mr. Caouette) goes further and says: "We will give you bread." Mind you, not work, but bread.
But the earth is not a pot, and we are not spoons. Shall we base all our system of values and our morals on our consuming power, or shall we base it on our power to contribute, to give, to work and to increase the well-being of mankind?
That individual consumption should be the object of human life, of the moral society, never in the history of mankind has such a mortifying proposal been made to a nation. Socialists and Communists are more honest than that; they recognize at least the value of work, and agree that the fundamental principle on which every society must rest must be some sort of reward proportionate to the effort, to the initiative and to the economic contribution of the individual.
All of us would like to receive without giving anything in exchange, yet I feel it is very untimely to promote the philosophy according to which the right of individuals to get their share of available goods and services should depend less and less on their participation in the economic life of the country.
There are some honest and sincere people in the Creditiste party, but they are led, and I should say led astray, by certain persons who simply do not know what they are doing. The rich will see their money lose all its value, the worker will see his purchasing power decline and even the unemployed will see their hopes deceived, as higher costs and inflation rule us out-


An hon. Member:: This is not true!


Eric William Kierans: -of every market, thus bringing about increased unemployment and-
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services


An hon. Member:: This is not true!


Eric William Kierans: -and more closing down of plants.
I wish I could propose to the people of Canada a means of receiving without giving. I regret to say so, but such a policy does not exist. It is a myth: the Social Credit myth.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lolbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I could hear the speeches which have been delivered since the begining of the debate on the motion moved by the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette) that says:
That, In the opinion of the house, the government has failed to take adequate measures in order to give Canadians the benefit of a policy of distribution of goods and services which would allow each citizen to obtain his share of Canadian abundance.
This afternoon, we had the oportunity to hear a speech by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand) and one by the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) who could not do any better than resume the minister's arguments, for Conservatives and Liberals are the same, there is nothing different about them-and we have just heard the Minister of Communications (Mr. Kierans) who is also the hon. member for Duvemay and, has in his turn, just taken the floor and tried to lead people astray.
Mr. Speaker, I will try by all means to be more positive and honest than those who spoke before me on this motion now before us, because we believe this to be a basic problem that must be considered objectively.
This motion is an attempt to get at the root of the problem, the basic evil of the Canadian monetary system. I want the Minister of Communications to listen to the simultaneous translation, because he seems to understand English better than French. I hope that the knowledge we want to impart to him will show the side of the poor people, to him who always lived among the rich when he was with the Stock Exchange.
It is about time for them, Mr. Speaker, to look at the other side of the coin and to find out that 68 per cent of Canadian workers make less than $4,000 per year; those people are in a better position to understand what we mean by saying that the government did not take appropriate measures to allow an honest and equitable distribution of goods.
Those who had an easy life, with campaign funds and high finance, cannot understand what we tell them.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, 68 per cent of all Canadians, whose income is $4,000 or less, according to the answer I got from question No. 636 I had put on the order paper, those people do understand.
They do not necessarily react as the Hon. Minister of Regional Economic Expansion would have us believe this afternoon, when he said that the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette) was making a laughing-stock of himself.
Mr. Speaker, we do not make a laughingstock of ourselves, we tell people the truth, we tell it like it is. This government does not make people laugh, it makes them cry, because it is not open and above-board. It tells people: "Vote for the great and fine Liberal party, vote for a majority government, and you will have a just society." And what do we see: The rich are getting richer and richer and wealth is concentrated in fewer hands, as time goes by; the poor are getting poorer and poorer, and they increase in number. This is what the present government brought about.
Mr. Speaker, through the ages all the great social issues had one question in common: how to distribute the wealth created by production.
Let us define our terms, because many people seem unable to understand them. They have ears and hear not-and they have not heard since the very beginning of this debate. This has to stop, because we want this discussion to be constructive.
First let us consider capital. We can agree on a definition. In our views, it is the amount of money needed to process raw material, to convert it into something else; this is done both by men, workers, farmers or others, and by machine, that is to say through automation.
Then there is work, another term which we must define together. To us, it is an element of production the capital, provided by the worker. Work, either by man or by machine is a capital of sorts and a factor of production, under the impulse of the financial capital provided by the employer.
Therefore, theoretically, those agents which all contribute to production must be given a share in proportion to their cooperation. However, it goes without saying that this distribution is not made between abstract entities, but between real beings, which have obligations to meet, i.e., between human beings.

May 22, 1969

Therefore, that distribution must be fair and equitable. So, distribution of the profits from capitalization, of the yield from the labour capital, and the financial capital, that is, purchasing power.
I am sorry that the Minister of Communications left the house. Maybe this would have turned on his light that is using only a 60 watt bulb. In the capitalist system, capital, one element of private property, plays a more important part than material and labour.
Those are the real facts. The result is, that inevitably private property is dominated by the undue importance attached to capital compared to labour.
In time, through the incentive provided by this system and with the present governments, we find that capitalism becomes a huge socio-economic organization in which capital, and especially money, plays a leading part and an abusive one. Since this government supports capitalism, labour agreements, salaries, working conditions, private properties themselves come against open competition on the market, while the government takes care not to intervene.
Such a system is abusive because the legislator, being in the pay of capital and high finance, is unable to check that competition, in order to distribute more fairly the fruits of capital and labour.
The government tells us about control and stabilization of costs and prices. Now, its only achievement is to establish commissions. And what will such commissions settle? Absolutely nothing.
The government says, opportunely or not, that we should increase productivity and continue producing, that our production is insufficient. However, on our side, we say that the problem is not one of production.
The problem is that the people do not have enough buying power to use up our production. Should we emphasize the need to produce? Certainly not, Mr. Speaker.
What about the hard work done by the worker or the farmer, the white or the blue collar worker?
The big capitalists, in collusion with the government, be it Grit or Tory, for, in fact, there is nothing to differentiate them from one another, have created that situation and the ordinary people, the poor, and the humble are the ones who are made to suffer.

Distribution of Goods and Services
Capitalism, as it is now viewed, becomes abusive and wrong. Big business, from the increasing omnipotence of its financial means, ends by monopolizing trade and small businesses, by absorbing the production and the sales. Unemployment follows and grows. It becomes a chronic ill, a necessary evil, fostered by the governments. Gradually, big business controls prices and sales for its own advantage. That is why we say that the newly-formed commission can only consider the problems and will bring no solutions.
The result is the subjection of the working class to the joint-stock companies, the fantastic opulence of some, the extreme poverty of a great many, contempt for the dignity of labourers, for work, for the common weal and for the very social aspect of economic activity.
Creditistes contend and rightly so-the situation proves it quite clearly-that there is poverty amidst affluence. That is a fact. It is a race between prices and salaries which is called inflation and which is due to the human, legitimate and deep desire of each individual to get his just share of life, happiness, security, economic, social and political freedom. Everyone is entitled by his birth and as a man to a vital minimum, to a guaranteed minimum income, in other words, to a national dividend, as advocated by the Creditistes.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
Unfortunately, the abuses of the capitalist system deprive the individual of that guaranteed minimum income since it fails to ensure it. It is a blow to private property. This is the doing of socialism and it is just the contrary of what was said earlier by the Minister of Communications who is misleading people in that regard.
This is why we are perfectly justified, owing to the situation of Canada and of Canadians, to bring in a motion of censure against this government which has not taken effective measures to stop the abuses of such a system but also has taken steps to worsen the problem: tax increases, removal of ceilings regarding interest rates on agricultural loans, on loans to fishing operations, etc. The bills this government has proposed and passed since the beginning of the session, taking advantage of its arrogant majority, have pushed Canadian families and small enterprises deeper into debt and more quickly still. There again, private property is being attacked.
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services
We are sure, and economic councils and experts agree, that the problem to be dealt with at the present time is not a problem of production, because with technical progress, new machinery, automation, the discovery of new sources of power, an abundance of products is possible. That is not where the problem lies.
The time has come to have society as a whole, each person within society, including the young, share in this abundance. The time has come to distribute this production in a socially-minded way, without prejudice to anyone's rights, without depriving man of his freedom, to protect private enterprise. That to me is the best solution.
Mr. Speaker, because of the present interest of the matter in this country and the controversies to which it has given rise between supporters and opponents, it would be dishonest, to say the least, to ignore this method of distribution of the abundance we do not know what to do about now.
Humanity has a right to life, that is the fundamental principle. To enable it to live, there must be an appropriate distribution of wealth. In our times, the division between capitalists and wage-earners has not always given good results. I do not believe that Communism would do any better, quite the opposite. Nevertheless, capitalism should become more concerned about the community, about society.
Social Credit does not object to capitalism in itself. The Creditiste economy wants instead to improve capitalism by making it, both on the economic and on the social levels, more equitable, more human or in other words, more social.
Social Credit insists on the fact that the present economic life is not organized to distribute goods produced or created by the resources of nature, labour or industry.
It seems indeed, Mr. Speaker, that a lot of people are hungry and destitute, not because there are not enough goods to give them a decent minimum, but because the present economic life or still better, the monetary system is not well organized.
And the small industry is not only unable to subsist, but it experiences difficulties in trying to survive.
In support of that finding from the Creditiste point of view and in order to bring up something new, I would like to refer to a

very seldom quoted but quite interesting statement by Daniel-Rops who said:
What is essential? That man live or that goods sell well? All the academic arguments cannot convince us that human beings must die in order that a certain margin of profit be protected. If work and the value attached up to now to our monetary and economic systems are now conflicting, the only logical solution should be to dissociate them.
Jacques Maritain also, in his book entitled Les droits de I'homme et la loi naturelle, stated on page 132:
And a deeper right still demands that we all, as coheirs of the common good, freely share the basic material and spiritual goods of civilization to the extent that the community or groups can allow their free use to their members, helping them to break free from the necessaries of matter and to progress in the life of reason and virtue.
Major Douglas, founder of the Social Credit proclaimed his belief and conviction as follows, and this proves that the ministers were wrong in what they said this afternoon. He said, and I quote:
We profess that all goods that are produced by society, through common social effort and which are the results of the division and work of the technique and the machine must first of all serve to meet the needs of society.
We call for social utilization of social production and to this end, there must be a social distribution of the wealth produced from a balanced purchasing power.
Mr. Speaker, we must remember that the purpose of any economy is to satisfy the material needs of man.
On the other hand, our present economic system is a huge machinery having three main mechanisms.
Here again, our Liberal and Conservative friends are unable and unwilling to admit the fact, because of their ties and of their masters. On the one hand, we have the production mechanism. On the other, that of consumption, and between the two, that of distribution.
This organization is imposed by the very nature of things. Are not products made to be distributed to consumers?
The capitalist will say that products and their value must be protected to the extent that they should disappear or be destroyed, as was done in the past with butter and so many other products, while mankind is starving to death. The Creditiste will say in turn that society must achieve its goal as a whole as well as in its parts and that we must therefore give the people, the workers, etc.,
May 22, 1969	COMMONS
not only what is physically possible and morally desirable, but above all the necessary, the guaranteed minimum income, namely the national dividend, their share in the national product and its monerary counterpart, the compensated discount.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
Short of that, Mr. Speaker, we are in the situation we know now, and that is poverty in the midst of abundance, then private property, private enterprise, and the individual cannot survive. Capital is the only thing now that survives and prevails.
The individual remains the servant of money, which is nonsense. That is exactly what young people challenge nowadays, because of the unjust things due to the famous dollar symbol, because their elders have to work, to sweat day after day on account of that dollar, to be a slave to it. Young people nowadays are protesting and we shall see that phenomenon, on May 31st, on June 1st in Montreal on the occasion of this great demonstration, "Carrefour 69", organized by the Young Catholic Workers, who are neither Creditiste, nor Liberal, nor Conservative nor NDP followers. More than 10,000 young people will gather there, create committees on unemployment, etc. and try to find a solution, but who will be unable to find anything else than what we say, namely that man should be the master, that money should be at the service of man and that justice must be done in every way in that field.
Since machine is replacing man more and more, man will consequently have to live. Since we are heading more and more towards a civilization of leisure, where working hours are reduced, where union members themselves call for shorter hours, those labourers and workers must nevertheless share the purchasing power, even if their income is reduced because they work less. This is inevitable because of machines, of automation.
But our monetary system is not geared to that type of civilisation. I agree with those who question this seriously, through peaceful means, such as the group "Carrefour 69", because this will mean a new awareness, a new collective soul-searching on the part of our youth. In this, they set the example for some of their elders, parents and many legislators who do not even dare to seek a solution to the problem. The only thing they can do is to run down the Creditistes and say, "All you have is a money machine; that is useless".
DEBATES	8975
Distribution of Goods and Services
Mr. Speaker, our young people are more objective than many of our legislators; they try to find a solution basing themselves on the principle, the idea, that there may be something worthwhile in creditiste doctrine just as there may be in the socialist doctrine or the capitalist doctrine.
It is a matter of keeping one's eyes open, of being objective, and not of saying: The Creditistes are stupid, demagogues, as the minister did, poking fun at them, because that is all they found to say this afternoon. I should like to close my remarks on that.
I am still very perplexed personally, and I do intend to tell all the young people I meet to continue to challenge those who would fool the people and mislead them. Why? On November 1st last, I asked this question...


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I must interrupt the hon. member whose time has expired, unless he has unanimous consent to pursue his remarks.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


André-Gilles Fortin: I shall take one minute. I thank the house, and Your Honour for their
kindness towards me.
Mr. Speaker, on November 1st last, I asked-I shall conclude on this hoping that the members will think about this-what steps the government intended to take to check poverty in Canada. The reply was this: Commissions will be appointed. I should like to spare myself the trouble of reading the answer, but I should like to refer the members to question No. 636 asking them to take the time to read the reply. I can supply them with a copy of it. They will then see how many falsehoods we heard today.
I asked, in that same question, how many workers were earning less than $3,000 a year in Canada. You know that the purchasing power $3,000 a year represents is clearly inadequate, the cost of living being what it is. Mr. Speaker, here is the answer given by the government, by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin): 47.9 per cent of Canadian workers earn less than $3,000 a year. As for those who earn between $3,000 and $4,000, about whom I asked the same question, the answer was 20.9 per cent. This, Mr. Speaker, makes a total of 68 per cent of Canadian workers, of Canadian bread-earners getting less than $4,000 and this does not include the unemployed, 450,000 in Canada. If you add the additional unemployed, you will realize that the decisions made by the governments, in this respect, whether now or
8976	COMMONS DEBATES	May 22, 1969
Distribution of Goods and Services before, were nothing else but floundering. They have been endlessly going round in circle without solving the problem. On the contrary, they made things worse.
Mr. Speaker, I do not want to make of it a political issue but only that we should ponder over it and ask my hon. colleagues in the house to consider the problem, to consider it in earnest for if they do not, one day the young people will no longer be satisfied with gathering at "Carrefour '69". They will have to blast up the whole system, to put there some kind of justice and equality for there will be no other answer.
When we have a percentage of 68 per cent of our Canadian workers earning less than $4,000 a year and with more than 450,000 unemployed, we must, in all fairness, question ourselves and stop impeaching others with demagogy, stupidity and so on.


Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, we in this party do not share belief in the remedies which the party to our left puts forward as being all-corrective for the situation of poverty in Canada. However, we are grateful to the Ralliement Creditiste for having put this motion on the order paper today because it has forced the house to consider a situation which, in my view, is far more important than a number of other situations on which we have spent a lot of time this session. The motion reads:
That, in the opinion of the house, the government has failed to take adequate measures in order to give Canadians the benefit of a policy of distribution of goods and services which would allow each citizen to obtain his share of Canadian abundance.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
Because of committee work today, I found it necessary to miss most of the debate in the house. However, I have heard that statistics have been given by many speakers to show the extent of poverty in Canada. One such statistic has just been cited by my friend to the left. He pointed out that 68 per cent of Canadian workers receive less than $3,000 a year, if I heard the figures correctly. This is about as damaging as any statistic that could be given. The Economic Council points out that one Canadian in five is living below the poverty line. I think it is time that we asked what poverty is in Canada today. Again, I believe the shortest and perhaps the most authoritative way to answer the question might be to quote the Fifth Annual Review of

the Economic Council. I shall read from page 104:
The problem of poverty in developed industrial societies is increasingly viewed not as a sheer lack of essentials to sustain life, but as an insufficient access to certain goods, services, and conditions of life which are available to everyone else and have come to be accepted as basic to a decent, minimum standard of living.
So, it is not whether a person is actually starving to death in the streets which determines whether he belongs in the poverty category. It is the fact that he is condemned, in a society in which we are able to produce a good standard of living for the normal citizen, to exist on a much lower standard. That is poverty in a modern, industrialized society. It is exceedingly widespread in Canada. If we do not do something about it, we will find ourselves in the same condition in which societies which are older and more developed than ours find themselves; that is, we will have many troubles and outbreaks because injustice simply cannot be tolerated longer by the people.
Poverty today is not what it used to be. A good many years ago poverty was limited to a very small proportion of the people. They were people who were unfortunate or in some way badly handicapped. Their problems were taken care of by charitable organizations and later on by government handouts of various kinds. I should like to point out, however, that poverty is not of that nature any more. Those of us who come from the large cities such as Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, and perhaps some not so large, know that there are large numbers of people of the third and fourth generation who have never known any other kind of life but poverty. If we look for the reason for the increase in delinquency and crime as the months and years go on, we will find it in these homes because they are the seed bed in which these things grow. When you find large numbers of people in the cities who are in this poverty situation, and have been for three or four generations, you begin to understand what the cancer is today that is spreading from generation to generation.
A child who has never experienced any life other than slum conditions is handicapped before he even leaves for his first experience at school. No amount of tender care, wise direction by the teachers, rehabilitation programs, head starts, or anything else in school will ever make up to him for those years which he spent in a slum environment. He can never overtake it. Now, we are beginning
May 22. 1969

to have another kind of poverty. We have the type of poverty that is hitting our rural districts. People are being forced off the land because they can no longer earn a living for themselves. This is applicable particularly to the younger people.
We find that no less a person than Andre Saumier, assistant deputy minister in the new Department of Regional Economic Expansion, said there is little point in forcing a farmer to leave the Gaspe to join the ranks of the jobless in Montreal. He said that sweeping plans for redevelopment of poverty stricken rural areas should not be launched unless the people displaced by the program can be absorbed elsewhere in the economy. This is what Mr. Saumier told the Senate Committee on poverty yesterday.
As I say, in our cities we find more and more people living in conditions of poverty. Let me give as an example a situation in our capital city which has been drawn to my attention. This is not my riding, but the report was given to me by a woman whom I know very well. She and her husband are both engaged in real estate work in Ottawa. I shall read her letter because what she has to say is very well put:
Here are some details of a young family which may help you illustrate the desperate need in this city for low rent housing. I shall try to be brief.
Mr. and Mrs. Vincent X have, for the past 3 years or so, been tenants in a property we manage-
Then, she gives the address.
They have 9 children-ages 6 to 15 yrs. All attending school.
As a result of an accident at work (for which he received no compensation) Mr. X's brain was injured and he became an epileptic-very severe seizures. To compound his troubles he developed a stomach ulcer-during a seizure last month it burst and he hemorrhaged fatally.
He had received his notice to vacate in January. Because he could not find a place we gave him another month-no luck-and then he died. Because of the circumstances we allowed Mrs. X another month. She was to have been out yesterday. Despite her efforts she could not get a place to live. We are allowing her this last month but she will have to get out at the end of May. (At the rental today the building is not even producing enough to pay operating expenses, let alone major repairs which must be effected immediately. It is not economically feasible, in fact it is financial disaster, to keep renting the units as single family dwellings unless the rents are doubled-rather than be a party to that we are changing its use and converting to smaller rental units. In the immediate past, before this tight housing situation, and despite the fact that the rents were low-this building was a heartbreak to manage-low income and welfare families were so often dirty and destructive and would not keep the rent paid. At present, in this row there are two families in arrears of rent- one of them for nearly $300).

Distribution of Goods and Services
Even if inadequate accommodation at $175 or $200 was available (it is not because of the 9 children) Mrs. X is allowed $100 rental allowance- anything above that is taken out of their food allowance. Goodness knows, the children are thin enough now.
There are houses, expropriated by the N.C.C. which are vacant and boarded up but there is no low rent housing available-welfare recipients are only allowed to occupy 10% of a low-rent housing development. This desperate situation was brought on in part by the city, too, using its expropriation powers with gay abandon while not having a backlog of housing available. Our ward alderman told me there are 60 homeless families. The cost to the city, housing them in marginal hotels is enormous.
If Mrs. X does not find a place to live her family will be broken up. Mrs. X is a good mother, loving and kind and her children are clean, polite and well looked after. She has had so many problems with a husband who drank, out of sheer misery and frustration, and trying to manage on an inadequate income-that she is receiving psychiatric treatment.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
I would be afraid of what might happen if she is separated from her children. She is unnaturally calm.
The older men have made last minute efforts to find something-and I am doing my best-the Huards are Protestants but our church does not seem to have any organization to help them.
No one else would help them, either. Let me refer to another case of poverty. I could talk about this for a long time. There are many cases of this type in all parts of Canada. Here is a letter from an individual who lives in my own city, a woman I know very well:
We have a son 38 now out of work. The man he used to work for hasn't anything for himself, let alone anyone else and he usually puts furnaces in houses. Things are getting so people cannot afford even such necessities as furnaces. Our son was only working casual labour so has not been able to save for a rainy day so to speak. And having no trade complicates matters a bit. He also had a nervous breakdown a month ago and is still under Dr.'s care. Now on top of that the building inspector has been around and we have to sign a paper to say it would be a hardship if we didn't allow our son and his wife to live in the illegal suite in the basement of our home, as if it wasn't enough for him to be unemployed and sick. What is to become of him with no trade? He is not alone either.
I could read you many such letters from pensioners, young people, elderly people, incapacitated people and ordinary people, all of whom are poor. What are we going to do? We cannot shut our eyes to this situation. If we do, we do so at our peril. I think only of those citizens who will turn to crime as a result of poverty.
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Distribution of Goods and Services
Let me now read to you from the Economic Council report which states in part:
We believe that serious poverty should be eliminated in Canada, and that this should be designated as a major national goal. We believe this for two reasons. The first is that one of the wealthiest societies in world history, if it also aspires to be a just society, cannot avoid setting itself such a goal. Secondly, poverty is costly. Its most grievous costs are those felt directly by the poor themselves, but it also imposes very large costs on the rest of society.
These include the costs of crime, disease, and poor education. They include the costs of low productivity and lost output, of controlling the social tensions and unrest associated with gross inequality, and of that part of total welfare expenditure which is essentially a palliative made necessary by the failure to find more fundamental solutions. It has been estimated in the United States that one poor man can cost the public purse as much as $140,000 between the ages of 17 and 57.
No matter how much the government wants to cut back on services, it is not going to cut back on the cost of police and other services necessary to deal with situations resulting from poverty. The government will then find itself dealing with a number of situations instead of one. It will have to take part in providing solutions to those problems resulting from poverty. In order that we can bring up our citizens in the proper way, the government will have to use its money to keep them in health and security.
This is the situation we face. Just what has this government done during this session to alleviate it? I suggest that this government has a poor record with regard to the poverty situation. Earlier in the session the government announced it was going to do something to raise the basic old age pension. We have now had a 2 per cent increase in the form of an allowed statutory increase, but at the same time the cost of living increased by 4 per cent. As a result, the gap has widened.
We were told by this government there would be no increase in veterans' pensions. Again, the gap was widened. The cost of living went up but pensions remained the same. We have been given a number of reasons for the failure to raise pensions. The government, in fact, has not told us directly they cannot be raised but has told us that this situation has been under active, earnest and serious consideration. This government has given us every excuse in the book.
We have considered legislation on various subjects, but none of it has contained provision for alleviation of the housing situation or for urban redevelopment. Perhaps such legislation will be forthcoming, but it is not before us yet. This government has not offered any

DEBATES	May 22, 1969
solution in respect of these situations. It has not given any encouragement to the belief that it will be taking measures in respect of low rental developments and urban development. Is this government afraid to do so? I hope it will bring in measures to do something for this element of our society. These people cannot exist without public housing. This country must be concerned about the lack of housing, just as we, individually, should be concerned.
What is the answer to this soaring cost of living? We were told the other day that the government is setting up another commission to study the cost of living, prices and income. The ledger is completely blank in respect of action on the part of the government along these lines. The government has done nothing in respect of training these people, such as the man to whom I referred who is now 38. Perhaps he cannot be retrained because he is not capable of taking courses. The government has turned a deaf ear to the requests of such people who live in the areas from the maritime provinces to Vancouver.
The only measures the government has taken have been directed to an area so small that they really have had little effect. There is no accommodation in large cities for these people. This is a very black picture. I wish it could be better. We have heard about some accomplishments along these lines as a result of government action, but we know of none in respect of the needs of those people who live in poverty or in that layer just above it. If we do nothing for this latter group, they will very shortly fall into the poverty group and the conditions under which they are now living will worsen.
It is all very well to say we do not have the money to do these things. We are being told all along the line that something will be done. We anxiously await the fulfilment of these promises, but we know very well that the government will again tell us it is not able to provide measures necessary to deal with poverty. The government, on the other hand, has indicated it can afford to combat the cost of living and the increase in the cost of housing. It apparently intends to deal with many other things of this nature.
If war broke out tomorrow we would see the same thing happen as happened when World War II broke out. Many factories would be converted to the production of war materials. After the outbreak of World War II factories were opened to cope with the tremendous need for uniforms, equipment,
May 22, 1969	COMMONS
ships, planes and other things. We had training courses for pilots, observers and other combat teams. If this sort of thing can be done during wartime it can be done during peacetime in respect of our war on poverty.
We do not follow any old Social Credit policy. We do not believe in the appointment of Crown corporations as an answer to the situation. We do not think the government will succeed in solving this problem in respect of poverty by a false or unrealistic approach. Such an approach might be followed by the opening or re-opening of factories, but would not develop a sound or profitable economy. The only result would be an increased tax load.


An hon. Member:: Will it ever?


Donald MacInnis: I see hon. members on the other side smiling. I suggest to them that these necessary things should be done before other things are carried out. These people in the poverty class can work and will work. Before you call me to order, Mr. Speaker, and I notice that you are becoming a little restless, I should like to say one or two things.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I must bring to the attention of the hon. member the fact that her time has expired.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, may I just finish this sentence?


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)


Donald MacInnis: I will make it reasonably short, Mr. Speaker. Before this session is much further advanced the government should at least decide how it can give the people in the poverty bracket in this country faith that the government means what it says, that it intends to work, however slowly, toward achieving a just society.


René Matte: Mr. Speaker, the motion which we presented today was rather important since we were tremendously honoured with the participation of two cabinet ministers.
We must admit that this intrusion of the minister in a Creditiste debate is for us a kind of victory, because if we analyse the present political situation in our country and more particularly in Quebec, we find that the
DEBATES	8979
Distribution of Goods and Services government, nay, the party in office has just realized that people are ready to try something new, that they are ready to carry out what the Minister of Regional and Economic Expansion has called illusions.
Mr. Speaker, we are not afraid to put these so-called illusions into practice.
And the participation of these two ministers in this debate shows quite clearly that the Liberal party found that the Creditistes become stronger and stronger, more and more important, not because they are Creditistes as such, but because the solution they offer, in this time of extreme confusion from one end of the country to the other is the only one that bring something new.
Mr. Speaker, you will allow me to challenge the most important argument of the hon. Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand). I looked at him from the galleries this afternoon, and the minister was really in fine fettle. He congratulated us, the Creditistes, for having successfully prodded the Establishment, for having finally budged one of these administrations which followed one another and which never thought of implementing solutions which are as simple as shelling peas, Mr. Speaker.
When the hon. Minister of Regional Economic Expansion tells us that he would be the first one to accept our suggestions right away, and that if it were useful to spread around two more billions-that was the figure he gave-to help solving the problem of the distribution of wealth, he would do it immediately and that he would be happy to do it.
And he went on to tell us how he is trying, personally, and along with the government, to solve that problem, how they have set their heart on solving it, and how they are trying everything under the sun. But it is passing strange. Why try so hard, with all kinds of plans, while rejecting our solution out of hand. Why reject it? Mainly because it has never been tried before, they tell us, it has never been put to work.
Mr. Speaker, this is sophistry, an essentially stupid argument. 1 wish to offer a few comparisons.
Mr. Speaker, fifty years ago, if our grandparents had been told that in a few years they would be able to see animated images transmitted across hundreds of miles, they would have said that it was an illusion, pure utopia, a ridiculous or even an insane idea.
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services
Mr. Speaker, today we see on our television screen, things which may be happening thousands of miles away. The mad illusions of a few years back have become a fact.
Closer to home and this comparison has even more value I think-we have a saying: To promise the moon and stars, which means something impossible, an illusion. Well, this afternoon, we were only nine miles from the moon-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


René Matte: -and next month, American cosmonauts will land on the moon.
The illusions, the fancies, the mad ideas of yesteryear have come true.
Mr. Speaker, should we be blamed for a policy, a doctrine that is so much in the van of progress that when it was set forth in the thirties it was like asking for the moon and the stars.
But today, after partial attempts made in British Columbia, in Alberta, no reform such as the one we advocate has been achieved. It remains that Social Credit governments in those provinces are firmly established.
It remains that the illusions, the phantasms, the utopias forecast by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion can become real, at least in part. And we have the proof of that. This comparison proves that one should never say in this world that a thing is not good just because it has not been attempted.
Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the simplest calculation should be a cause for more serious reflection. Is a thing not good just because it is advocated by the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette), leader of the Ralliement creditiste? The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion addressed the hon. member by his name during his speech, instead of mentioning his riding as required by the standing orders of the house.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker, is it because our members come from rural areas, from Eastern Canada, specially from Quebec, that this is no good. If we helped as he said to get things moving, if we helped in making the government take more serious consideration of the problems of poverty, of the distribution of goods, is that demagogy? And what is the difference between that and demagogy that makes people believe that there will be a just society thanks to legislations such as those that have been enacted since last September? That, is the utmost in demagogy, indeed!

As compared to the one used by the government, our kind of demagogy-if you want to call it that-is at least much closer to reality and it seems to me that they should not blame and send to the devil people who spare no effort to promote progress, advancement, and who want only to provide all the people with a system that is really adequate, a system that would help to solve the problem of distribution.
The Minister has also admitted that it is a problem of distribution and that the government was trying hard to solve it. The funny thing is that distribution as set up by the government-and we have all kinds of evidence of this-tends to distribute always in the same place. And the poor remain poor, and the rich continue of course to be rich and even to get richer as they are always at the receiving end.
Mr. Speaker, there is no need to exert ourselves to find programs to make that kind of a distribution. When we recommend another kind of distribution by an easy method, that is to increase the purchasing power, I do not see why it should be called utopia or demagogy.
In my opinion, the very statements of these ministers are the proof that we are right.
They prove that we are taken seriously, since they took the trouble to appeal to the big guns to try and stop our irresistible progress towards the total understanding of what we have been preaching for years.
Mr. Speaker, the minister said, at the beginning of his speech when he commended the leader of the Ralliement creditiste, that he found it very pleasant to listen to the leader of the Ralliement creditiste, especially as he could guess in advance what his speech would be, the same as always, but nevertheless, he enjoyed listening to him.
I have already said, during that famous debate on the omnibus bill, that as a former teacher who taught for thirteen years, I have long learned that when you deal with blockheads, it is quite necessary to repeat the same thing over and over again in order to be understood.
Mr. Speaker, when a truth is obvious, does one have to use other words? Should one find other subjects, other reasons, in order to explain something which is real in itself and cannot be changed? If we advocate a monetary reform, and expect through it to radically change society and the freedoms of the human being, we shall keep on repeating the same thing. That is our purpose. To
May 22, 1969

accuse us of repeating the same thing all the time is a compliment paid to us. That means that we stick to our ideas, to our principles, to our convictions, that we do want to achieve our aim.
Mr. Speaker, after all those opinions put forward during the debate, we are more and more convinced that in the maze of policies, even if the Minister of the Regional Economic Expansion winced once more when the leader of the Ralliement creditiste mentioned planning, and of course, we know that the government is engaged in planning and is even interested in doing so, especially when a former labour and socialist leader is concerned. Indeed, we know how fond they are of planning.
Mr. Speaker, we also have a plan for reform and want you to understand that we are serious. We would like you, for once, in order to prove to us that we are really wrong, that this is utopia, to be decent enough to tell us that you are going to give it a try. And when the hon. member for Temisca-mingue (Mr. Caouette) is telling us over and over again about what happened during the war, it is because it is a striking example of how problems born from the most extraordinary recession we have experienced in years were solved by the war. Why? Because the money required to step up production, to carry on and to win the war was made available.
Why do we repeat over and over again the same arguments? Because we simply want this plan which worked in time of war to work in time of peace. Those things seem easy to understand but when we are up against ill will, the only thing we can do is to come back over and over again to the same subject until we have made our point.
In conclusion, I would like to stress a few comments on the participation in the present debate of the Minister of Communications (Mr. Kierans). The Minister of Communications is another one who has taken at heart for some years now the task of fighting against Social Credit. He always fights in the same way. He always brings forward the same arguments and this time he brought out the one we were advocating, namely to distribute money, and said we had no policy to help labour.
Mr. Speaker, here again is an argument that is completely illogical. Of course, if we increase the purchasing power, we increase the consumption of products, we therefore have, that is the producers of such goods
Distribution of Goods and Services have to increase their labour force; as they increase it, they create more work and thus turns the wheel and we finally achieve a just society. It is the only way to achieve that just society.


Mr. J. A. Mongrain (Trois-Rivieres):: Mr. Speaker, to reply to all the speeches made this afternoon, especially those of the Credi-tistes, would lead us so far that, in the end, it would be a great loss of time.
Their notice of motion reads:
That in the opinion of the house, the government has failed to take adequate measures in order to give Canadians the benefit of a policy of distribution of goods and services which would allow each citizen to obtain his share of Canadian abundance.
First, it is not very clear, because it should be explained what is meant by "his share of Canadian abundance" and "a policy of distribution of goods and services". Solutions should be proposed.
Our friends, the Creditistes, suggest as a solution to distribute national dividends among all Canadians. And where is the money to come from? They do not seem to worry too much about that. They are relying on natural resources.
I think two refutations were quite eloquent, even though the Creditistes won't admit it, and even though they are vexed when they are told they are not always logical, that they are day dreaming. We should remind them that they make no bones about calling other members who do not think like them, names much more offensive than the one they are given.
In the course of the debate who lasted more than three weeks for instance, they went so far as to call us on this side of the house murderers. I therefore think they should not be so sensitive and bear to be called once in a while dreamers or visionaries.
Mr. Speaker, I shall restrict my speech to a few remarks about poverty. It is a fact there is poverty in Canada. It is a fact that there are some in every country of the world and that there will be some also after we have disappeared from the earth's surface, and I did not invent it; nor do I want it. It is said literally in the Scriptures by someone who is superior to us all, and even superior to the members of the Ralliement creditiste. It is Christ who said one day: "The poor always ye have with you".
May 22, 1969

Distribution of Goods and Services [DOT] (9:40 p.ra.)


David Réal Caouette: Yes, poor in spirit.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Whatever means you take, there will always be some poor people.
I understand it is our responsibility to fight poverty by all means and this is what we are trying to do as far as possible, and perhaps our friends, the Creditistes, are not aware of it, because they are satisfied with the semblance of truth.
Nevertheless, it is said that, actually, Canada's economy ranks third in the whole world, the first place being held by West Germany and the second, by the Netherlands. I am not saying those things in order to suggest that we should be satisfied with the situation that is ours. It is true that we must always strive for perfection.
I should like during a few short minutes to answer a statement I have often heard from the spokesmen of the Ralliement cre-ditiste, who are rightly complaining that poverty exists in Canada. This is what they say: There is a gross national income of $67 billion in Canada, expenditures amount to about $47 billion. Then, where are-and I quote these figures roughly, naturally- where are the other $20 billion going?
And they suggest that this amount simply goes into what they call the capitalists' pockets, because once in a while they favour private enterprise, then socialism. They say they are against socialism; but the next day, they declare themselves in favour of private enterprise.
Their reasoning is somewhat difficult to follow. Let me show you. I take the official figure. The gross national income is $67 billion.


David Réal Caouette: That is not income, but production. That is something else.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Let us say that there is $100 million more for the year 1968. The official statistics indicate, however, that in that $67 billion gross national income, there is what we can call some indirect capitalization drawn from taxes and used, for instance, for the maintenance of roads, schools, hospitals and various similar public services, these requiring altogether from the various governments in Canada about $9,500 million each year. This means that the $67 billion are somewhat reduced.
There is also another part of that gross national product which helps to cope with

what is called the depreciation of businesses, farms, dwellings, industrial equipment and this is as important, for example, as the workers' tools if we wish to maintain the productivity in the country which includes another $7| billion.
This means that we have already reached some $16 or $17 billion which must be subtracted from those $67 billion.
There is another $7J billion which is affected by the federal and provincial governments to welfare services of all sorts. There is a wide range of them.
This is to say, that after having noted that the gross national product amounts to $67,100 million of gross national product, according to the figures for 1968, there only remains $42,600 million for the daily needs of Canadians. Now, our friends from the Ralliement creditiste ask: "Where does the rest go?" Well it is there. They know it, because they are as well informed as we are, but they play the devil's advocate; they forget to quote the figures that they should quote under certain circumstances.
I would say, that they are not more justified when upholding the cause of poverty to say that the government has done nothing and when I refer to the government I include the previous governments as well as the present one, because according to them, they are all governments of bad guys financed by slush funds who have sold themselves body and soul to financiers. There is an American saying: "Ignorance is bliss." Our friends of the Ralliement creditiste are blissful people. There are so many things that they are ignorant of.
In addition, they have another complex, the Pharisee complex: "God I thank thee that I am not as other men are."
I alone am good. No other man is virtuous. I have much sympathy for my friends, the Creditistes, and even though I do not share their opinion, I shall fight until I die to protect their right to err, and to err, and to err again. But I would object if they kept on deceiving their constituents who have less opportunity to get information, and who, for some reasons outside their competence, may be simple souls, with a poor grasp of public affairs.
Briefly, I would like to say that our present government is not dreaming; it clearly sees the needs of the Canadian collectivity and wants to solve them, not in thirty-five years from now, as one speaker said earlier. He said: "We have been waiting for thirty-five
May 22, 1969

years." Thirty-five years ago, we could not ask for the moon, but we have finally reached it. It may take another thirty-five years or perhaps another century, to bring it over here. Meanwhile, some poor people need help today, in 1969. Modern governments who are realists, who do not have their head in the clouds and do not wish to deceive the population, have taken concrete measures. I refer to governments who may come into power, or once were in office, and not to those who dream that one day, perhaps in a hundred or a thousand years, they will finally be called upon to conduct public affairs.
Mr. Speaker, there are social and concrete laws, and they know it. Why not admit it? There is such thing as family allowances. They are not high enough? I agree. But they exist. They did not exist thirty-five years ago.
There is the old-age pension. There are also pensions for disabled people. Medicare, student loans, subsidies, grants of the federal government for the construction of school or hospitals, all these things are to help the poor and not the rich.
The grants to universities, to research, all welfare legislation and recreation grants are real, concrete assets.
There is also the ARDA program to foster the economy of some regions and some legislative measures to help farmers. I know there could always be more. That is what our friends say to the poor of the province of Quebec. I observed that in all polls where the Creditiste candidate was gaining in my own county, most of the people lived on welfare allowances paid by the federal or provincial government, because they were taught by the Creditistes not to be satisfied with what they had.
They were not told: "You have this and that," but "You do not have enough." They were not told: "Your father did not get any of this", but "You do not have enough." They were not told: "Your grandfather did not know what welfare meant", but: "You do not have enough. Demand, demand, ask for more."
It is easy to promise the moon and the stars when you do not have to deliver. And since then, Mr. Speaker, this government has increased unemployment insurance benefits; it has promulgated a law on guaranteed minimum income which, after all, does help the needy. It has organized retraining courses in order to give more schooling to the unemployed so that they may get jobs. Grants have
Distribution o} Goods and Services been authorized to move the unemployed from one place to another where they may find a job; unemployment insurance is about to be adopted by most of the provinces. Assistance to regional promotion would have been voted if my friends from the Ralliement creditiste would not have spent three weeks in telling us obscene stories. Furthermore, the Canada Assistance Act is contributing to the solution of special cases. Help to consumers will be provided by the hon. minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford). After all, this is quite a number of laws.
Provinces are benefitting from the fiscal equalization program. Such measures tend to help the poor, the low-paid workers, those who have less financial means than others.
But to say that the government is not looking after people is not true. It is demagoguery, it is luring the public with things which my friends from the Ralliement creditiste could not give themselves. It is a kind of charlatanism, Mr. Speaker, which makes them say that they have magical cures to all ills.
A while ago I saw somebody laughing when the minister was mentioning that some sick persons thought that a small piece of wire around a leg or an arm could cure them. One knows the stories about those magic powders, one knows them to be false promises. One knows about those midway barkers who say "Come in and see the big show". Come in, and we will show you how to become millionaires. How to learn English in ten hours. How to play the piano in fifteen. That is what our friends of the Ralliement Creditiste are doing: they lure the population with unattainable prospects.
Obviously, those in poverty-they have always existed and will always exist-follow the saying that it's no use preaching to a hungry man, and they say to themselves: we might as well try that. However, they promise them things which will bring them cruel disillusions.
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)
One may ask, Mr. Speaker, if anybody with a sense of responsibilities, who takes part in the administration of a public body as important as the federal government, which is responsible for ten provinces and 21 million people, has the right to lure an uninformed population with such bright prospects. Such a person must believe himself to be more intelligent than God, Who said: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. The Creditistes,
8984	COMMONS
Distribution of Goods and Services for their part, say: We will pay you to loaf, we will give you dividends every month. I can assure you that the Creditistes do not have any inferiority complex.
Mr. Speaker, I think that we could have lengthy discussions on poverty. We could find solutions. Constructive proposals have been made this afternoon by one of my colleagues of the Liberal party, and by some hon. members of the Progressive Conservative party. I do not want to repeat them all, that would be tedious.
Before offering a suggestion to my party, that I believe constructive, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that economic stagnation has a pause. I am not forgetting that the economic problem is world-wide and some countries, more important than ours, are suffering from it more severely than we are. I would give England and France as examples. The United States have had to increase their taxes by 10 per cent recently to fight inflation. Canada is also a victim and every responsible member of this house wishes to find constructive means to fight this wave of inflation.
There is to my mind something irrational in the way we are going about it, and I wish to make a practical suggestion. While we are adopting legislation to strengthen regional economies, while we are voting moneys for this purpose, for example, in the lower St. Lawrence region as well as in other parts of the country, we are allowing a situation of which I cannot approve to go on. A number of my colleagues, even some members of the Ralliement creditiste, with whom I am not always in agreement, do not approve of this either. I mean that proliferation of strikes which, in most cases, is not justified by serious reasons. I am holding here the last bulletin of the Department of Labour, which we received today. It tells us that, and I quote:
The total time lost because of work stoppages in the month of April reached 272,490 work-days, that is the equivalent of a loss of 20 man-days per 10,000 man-days-
Take 272,460 man-days at $1.50 an hour, which is very low, and which could be worth $2 or more; that means we lost during that month over $3 million in salaries to workers. That, without mentioning the other benefits, such as those in the subsidiary industries which depend on those large concerns. Nor do I mention, for instance, the taxes of all kinds which the governments lost. This means that multiplied by 12, we would get a total loss of some $60 to $70 million, due to work stoppages through those strikes which, most of
(Mr. Mongrain.]
DEBATES	May 22, 1969
the time, are not justified, and are nothing more than prestige strikes or rivalry strikes amongst the unions.
Mr. Speaker, to my mind strikes have become obsolete. Regardless of what their leaders may think, I feel that labour groups should submit themselves to labour tribunals made up of economists, specialists in labour law and sociologists, who would settle the differences. They would then no longer be able to force the workers to stop producing for the nation, to lose their salaries, thus getting into debt and never being any further ahead:
I would even go further. I would even say that today the majority of union members are fed up with being led to strike time and time again by union leaders who do not seem to have any sense of responsibility. I say that is one of the reasons for the losses to be made up by people who earn only from $3,000 to $4,000 a year, which obviously is not enough to live as one should in the 20th century.
I think we should legislate to try to reduce this increasing number of strikes, and I sum up what would have taken me probably half an hour or three quarters of an hour to say. It is that we will not manage to solve the problem of poverty in this country through demagogy, by telling childish stories or by making puns which are good for laughs, of course, but which do not solve anything.
We will manage to solve the problem of poverty if the labour organizations together with the governments agree on some kind of a moratorium, a kind of agreement for one, two or three years and say: We agree on certain measures, we shall stop our little bickerings in order to agree on constructive measures and to build our economy as other countries have done.
Take West Germany, for instance, after the second world war was completely ruined and deprived of all its factories and its equipment and which, precisely because of this solidarity between labour movements and the government, managed to rebuild its economy and to make it so powerful that, today, it is the most powerful in the world and is able to come to the assistance of the countries which plundered it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It being ten o'clock it is my duty to inform the house that, pursuant to section 11 of standing order 58, the proceedings are now deemed to have been completed.
May 22, 1969


[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the house under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been moved.
Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I offer no apology for bringing to the minister's attention the case of the filching tax collector. I realize that this matter has been brought to the attention of the minister on many occasions, but there is an old axiom which says that the squeaking wheel gets the grease. I will at another time go into greater detail on the parsimonious way in which the old age pensioner has been treated. He deserves better treatment in the light of the way inflation and over-spending by governments have robbed him.
It was for this reason that I attempted the other day to bring to the attention of the minister the very serious anomaly in present practice relating to the old age pensioner who is receiving supplemental benefits. Nothing could be more ridiculous, having put the pensioner to all the trouble of a means test, than the government's forcing him to reveal his sources of income, however meagre they may be. The government grants him a small benefit and then reduces, it by taxation; renders him ineligible for hospitalization and requires him to pay his OMSIP premiums.
I am sure the minister will on reflection agree that there is a definite lack of fairness in forcing people on welfare to pay income tax, placing them in the position where in granting them one benefit the government takes away two other benefits. I know that this was not the intent of the government's regulations. I simply ask the minister to put his social conscience to work and put and end to this nonsense. If the old age pensioner tries to earn a few dollars, the government taxes this money at the rate of 50 per cent in estimating the amount of supplemental benefit to be paid.
As the minister knows, the supplementary benefit is paid to persons whose proven income is such that they are felt to be in need. It is for this reason that they receive the additional benefit, bringing them up to $109.20 per month from the normal $78. I know the minister would not like to live on $109.20 per month, with or without a means test. In fact, no member of this chamber
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion would want to live on this amount for a month; yet that is what we are asking our old people to do. Often, they are in straightened circumstances. Do not forget, Mr. Speaker, a means test has been applied, but in spite of that we take away from our old people more than we grant.
[DOT] (10:00 p.m.)
Many of our old people, as I have reason to know, are ill and unable to take care of themselves. Yet the addition of this small, supplementary pittance-I cannot call it a pension- makes them ineligible for free hospitalization. They have to pay their own medical care premiums. I, therefore, ask the minister if he thinks, in all fairness, this situation can be justified. I am sure that, since he is noted for his fairness and concern, he will agree an end must be put to this anti-social policy.
There is no problem in the case of social assistance recipients, since the welfare payment is not subject to income tax. But the old age pensioner who is forced to take a means test-after all, we recognize him as being in need-and who is granted an income supplement as his right by law is forced to pay income tax on this meagre pittance. I believe that on reflection the minister will recognize the stupidity of this ludicrous tax on what amounts to a welfare payment, which causes a great deal of hardship and suffering.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, how can you find shelter for half the amount of the old age pension today? On half the old age pension, where are you going to eat? What about your clothing and necessary incidentals? Our old people should be treated with compassion. Inflation steals their hope of trying to get by next month without being forced to eat a little less food. Our old people must keep a shelter over their heads. In addition, many old age pensioners need medical attention, only half of which is paid for if they receive any taxable income. I know that many of them need drugs for these chronic medical conditions which become more frequent as people grow older. Yet we do not help by providing drugs.
I suggest to the minister that it is 20 years since any change was introduced to our system of income tax deductions. The cost of living has gone up, up and up, but there has been no comparable increase in income tax exemptions. In all fairness, I suggest that a revision of our exemptions is long overdue. Even if our old people were allowed an exemption of an extra $500 of income, that would take care of much of the problem. We
B986	COMMONS DEBATES	May 22, 1969
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion should thereby stop the taxing of these welfare payments.
In this country there are about 600,000 people, sir, between the ages of 65 and 70. Many of them qualified under a means test for a supplement. I speak on their behalf tonight and appeal to the minister to remember them. Many of our old people must depend on our sympathy and understanding to ensure that justice is done.


Mr. H. E. Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised a matter that has been raised previously by hon. members on all sides of the house. I believe the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. All-mand) presented to this house a notice of motion along somewhat similar lines several weeks ago.
I suggest to the hon. member that he is mistaken when he refers to the test of eligibility for a guaranteed income supplement as a means test. It is certainly not like the means test that formerly applied to various types of disability payments or pensions before the introduction of the Canada Assistance Plan, since it does not take into account assets but only income received or earned. And if I am not mistaken, not all income which is received is included as income for the purpose of the guaranteed income supplement.
Also, the test in question-an income test- is based on information provided in a form filed by the applicant himself and not provided through the efforts of an inspector going to the applicant's home, as was done with means tests which applied to disability and similar payments before the introduction of the Canada Assistance Plan.
I would also like to suggest that the hon. member is mistaken when he suggests that amounts earned, sufficient to have the guaranteed income supplement reduced, are taxed at 50 per cent. This rate is only paid by people who earn much more than people whose income is limited to the old age pension and to the guaranteed income supplement. The supplement is designed to make up the difference between the old security pension and a maximum, which is now approximately $109 per month. To the extent the supplement is reduced because of other income of the pensioner, this is certainly not a tax but a recognition of the fact that the purpose for which the supplement is paid has not been demonstrated because of the applicant's income.
It is not because of the action of the federal government that it may turn out that a pensioner, because of the income he gets, is ineligible for OMSIP or premium assistance for hospital insurance from the Ontario government. If I am not mistaken this is due to the action of the Ontario government, a Conservative government which I presume the hon. member supports, and I suggest therefore that he direct his complaint on this aspect to that government.
Finally, with respect to changes in tax laws, as I have pointed out on previous occasions the tradition of budgetary secrecy prevents the announcement of tax changes until the actual budget is presented, but, as the Minister has said, in the preparation of the budget we consider all submissions that have been made to the government in this regard.
[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)
fTranslation]


Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, on May 7 last I addressed the following question to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion:
Could he tell us whether consultations are taking place between his department and the Quebec government for the designation of Abitibi as a special area with regard to the granting of financial assistance to promote industrial development in that area?
Today, the minister happened to say that in the course of last year, his department and himself have been busy drafting a legislation to meet my request, which concerns not necessarily the Abitibi area only, but all areas in Canada where the rate of employment is low.
When I asked that question, my purpose was to urge the minister's department and the government to look favourably upon that large area which has been plagued for years with underemployment and whose population has to migrate to neighbouring provinces to earn a somewhat decent living.
Therefore, the standards used to implement a legislation piloted by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin), in order to designate areas, were not entirely adequate as far as the designation of those areas was concerned, and they failed to see the depopulation of an area. So that is what happened in the Abitibi area.

May 22, 1969

The No. 3 Paper on north-western Quebec tells us the following:
Economy consists in the over-all activities of an area or of a country, assessed on a monetary basis. Those activities are divided into two classes: production activities and consumption activities. Production includes three sectors: primary products, secondary products and third products.
The primary sector consists in the development of natural resources. In our area-
The Abitibi area-
-it includes mines, agriculture and forestry.
The secondary sector is the one in which natural resources are being processed. In the north-western area, such process is carried out in pulp and paper mills, in saw-mills and in a few other manufactures.
Therefore, we have enormous wealth or natural resources in our Abitibi area, which includes mining, agricultural and forest resources, and we do not have enough secondary industries where those natural resources can be processed.
On the same day, a Liberal member directed a question to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand), dealing with the northern Ontario area, namely the Timmins area. And the minister answered then that a subsidy had been granted to an American firm, the Texas Gulf and Sulfur, a subsidy that amounted, I believe, to more than $6 million to build smelting works at Timmins.
Since this area, which is next to ours, is now considered as a designated area and since the American corporations can avail themselves of government subsidies. I imagine it is becoming embarrassing for the government to overlook the Abitibi area, which is encircled as by a horseshoe, for all the surrounding areas are designated areas, except the Abitibi region which has a large rate of unemployment.
We have about 10,000 people suffering from under-employment. These people live either on unemployment insurance benefits, either on social welfare allowances or attend preemployment courses. The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, I believe, is responsible for these training courses given to adults. It is one thing to give them new employment opportunities, but it is another thing to create such employment.
That is why I ask the government, the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, to see as soon as possible, if that has not already been done, that negotiations are initiated with the Quebec government in order to designate this area as a special one, so that we may avail ourselves of the advantages of other
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion regions and be able to develop processing industries for our raw materials, thus giving employment to our people and freeing them from this quite permanent tendency of being either unemployed or on social welfare.
I think the minister should consider this request which is not only coming from the hon. member for Abitibi but also from all businessmen, from all those who are interested in the development of that region, and I will point out to the minister's representative that in our region businessmen are going ahead, since we have reached a stage where we must build ourselves our roads to future developments.
So I think, that our businessmen's activities prove that we are determined to go ahead. But the government or governments should do their share.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand) has already informed the house, the officials have been consulting with the provinces about future programs. But, obviously, the choice of the areas which may be designated under an improved incentives program, is one of the matters that must be examined by federal and provincial officials.
On behalf of the minister, I wish to assure the hon. member that the Abitibi area is not neglected in these discussions. However, I must point out that a final decision shall not be made on any area, until the new proposed legislation concerning industrial incentives has been considered by the house.
I believe I can assure the hon. member that the government is concerned with the economic expansion of the whole country, including the Abitibi area.


Mr. Ralph Siewart (Cochrane):: Mr. Speaker, the day before yesterday I raised a question in the house regarding the infiltration of Communist oriented individuals into the Company of Young Canadians as reported to me by the district high school at Kapuskasing. I received a letter from the principal of the high school, Mr. W. J. Peacock, who formerly was head of the history department. This person was really very disturbed, as am I, regarding the attempt to influence our young people in high schools with the Communist
May 22, 1969

Proceedings on Adjournment Motion doctrine. I think the best way to explain this would be to read what Mr. Peacock wrote in his letter:
Yesterday we had as a guest speaker in our school a representative of the "Company of Young Canadians" by the name of Mr. Graham Deline. He had written to us several weeks ago indicating that he would be in this area and that his services would be available to the students of our school.
I had thought that this would be an ideal opportunity for Grade 13 students to contact a representative of a much heralded organization. We made arrangements for him to have the opportunity to meet and talk with all our Grade 13 students. What he said to them, while rather radical, was in the main, tolerable. Our Guidance Department arranged that he have lunch with them at a local restaurant and three students were invited to accompany them.
After this meeting, the students returned to the High School and protested the fact that they were being bombarded with Communist propaganda. Enclosed please find a copy of the Canadian Worker, one of several which he distributed to our students.
This gentleman had a young lady with him who, while not a member of the "Company of Young Canadians", claimed to be doing social work with "hippy" groups in the Ottawa area. A group she mentioned that she was associated with is called "The Diggers". I don't know the significance of the term "Diggers"; all I know is that the first Communist movement in the Western World originated in Puritan England in the 1660's and was called "The Diggers".
Mr. Deline told our students that he was working through and with Universities and Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology in the Ottawa area. Some time ago, Mr. Diefenbaker brought to the attention of the House that a large number of the members of the "Company of Young Canadians" had extreme leftist tendencies. I present you with a fact, not a rumour.
I should have expected that as a High School Principal I could have been safe in drawing a speaker from an agency established by our Federal Parliament, and that our school was not risking exposure of our students to revolutionary propaganda. I personally object to contributing as a taxpayer to the employment of people who make it their business to undermine everything I respect.
The letter continues, but I should like to give just a little idea of the type of propaganda that was distributed to those students. This is a copy of the Canadian Worker with the headline "High School Struggle Begins". Then it states:
The first known high school struggle in Canada in recent years involving a group with a clear-cut socialist strategy broke out into the open at Forest Hill Collegiate last Monday, April 28.
Such words as "bourgeois press" are used. Then, the article goes on to state:
The paper also carried a parable of Forest Hill Collegiate, an academic school located in a predominately Jewish bourgeois and petit-bourgeois "professional" suburb-
And so on.

The article then mentions the lessons taught to the students. There are several points in it, the first being what Lenin had to say. It reads:
Mao says, "Dare to struggle, Dare to win". Events at Forest Hill have proven that no significant change, even the bourgeois democratic struggle (explained by Lenin as the necessary stage to precede the fight for socialism) now being led by the Student Guard, involves a hard fought battle.
The paper is full of this kind of thing. In one of the papers we have advertisements for books written by Mao Tse-tung and other works by other Marxist authors. This is the first time to my knowledge that a specific case has been brought forth indicating that the Company of Young Canadians may be influenced by people who are actively involved in communist agencies.
The people of Canada are supporting this Company of Young Canadians. I suggest it is time that people like this fellow Deline were thrown out of the organization. It is time we made a thorough examination of the organization to ensure that there are no others like him. Perhaps this fellow has already left the organization and is now acting under false pretences. I do not know that, but this would make the situation even worse because he would be giving the impression he had the approval of the federal government to work against everything we hold dear.
I am not one of those who feel that communism is just another political idea. I believe this is something that works against the fibre of our Canadian nation. We cannot sit here and allow this kind of thing to happen, particularly when these people are using Canadian funds to oppose what we, as a free nation, are trying to do.
[DOT] (10:20 p.m.)


Mr. Robert Slanbury (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows, of course, that the Company of Young Canadians is an independent organization by statute. It is not directed in any way by government, is subject to review by parliament and particularly the committee of which the hon. member is a part. However, I would be very pleased to pass on to the Company through the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier), the hon. member's information and comments.
I have been advised by the Company of Young Canadians that Graham Deline is not a member, although he is a former volunteer of the Company; that the Company had received
May 22, 1969
a number of requests from principals and guidance counsellors for information concerning its work, and because of this interest the Company has in recent weeks made available volunteer members and some former volunteers to speak about the Company of Young Canadians at various high schools. I am told that favourable comments have been received about all such speakers, including Mr. Deline. The Company advises me that it has received no complaint from Kapuskasing or any other source about Mr. Deline preaching communism. However, I am informed that Mr. Deline's name is no longer on the Company's list of available speakers.
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion I am sure the Company will note with interest the information which has been passed on indirectly from Kapuskasing. No doubt the Company would be glad to hear directly from people who have such information. I think the Company would want to assure the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Stewart) and all hon. members that if any persons are operating contrary to democratic interests and infiltrating the Company of Young Canadians, when this information is received by the Company those persons will be promptly filtered out.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.26 p.m.

8991

Friday, May 23, 1969



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Sixth report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, in French and in English-Mr. Ovide Laflamme (Montmorency).
[Stage Direction]
Seventh report of Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence-Mr. Wahn.
[Stage Direction]
Seventh report of the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration, in French and in English-Mr. Chas. L. Caccia (Davenport).
[Editor's note: The text of the foregoing reports appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]