1969-01-23

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of standing committee on finance, trade and economic affairs, in French and in English-Mr. Gaston Clermont (Gatineau) .
[Note: Text of foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: I should like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs a question about something I read in the press

an announcement which I think might better have been made in the house. I should ask whether the statement attributed to him yesterday, that Canadian policy with regard to Nationalist China would be the subject of negotiation, indicates a change in government policy, or in the two China policy set forth by the Prime Minister some time ago.


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: As far as I know, Mr. Speaker, this government has never enunciated a two China policy. I am sure the hon. gentleman will agree that when we hold these discussions with the Chinese authorities which, according to this government, have as their objective the recognition of the Peking regime, the question of Formosa will of course be a subject for negotiation.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: The hon. gentleman has indicated that the question of the Formosan
government is to be negotiated. Has the government been in touch with the Taiwan government about this matter, and is there anything the minister can report to the house in this connection?


Mitchell William Sharp: The views of the Canadian government have been made public. Indeed one of the stated objects of the government is to bring about mutual recognition between Peking and Ottawa. The authorities of the Nationalist government know this, they have discussed it with me, and understand its implications.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: I should like to ask the minister whether, if he institutes discussions with the government of the People's Republic of China, he will make inquiries about the methods used by the government of that country in handling its relations with the press.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Could the Secretary of State say whether a position has actually been taken by the government of Canada with regard to the timing of contacts with the representatives of Communist China or, if not, when such decision might be taken? Can the minister indicate where contacts with representatives of Red China are likely to take place?


Mitchell William Sharp: No decision has yet been
reached. The subject is now before cabinet for decision, and when decisions are made they will of course be made public.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


Mr. David Lewis (York South):: I should like to address a question to the Postmaster General arising out of a speech he made last night indicating that the post office might branch out into other forms of communication, including telephones. I should like to ask the Postmaster General whether his intention is to include telephone communications as part of the activities of the post office, particularly in view of the continued increases in
January 23, 1963

Inquiries of the Ministry telephone rates which the Bell Telephone Company is demanding and receiving.


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, the exact words which I used yesterday afternoon in my speech were that to reorganize the post office on a business basis is itself a major undertaking. Beyond that, at this point I am in the realm of ideas, not policy. We may have to undertake major changes in structure to mould the post office into-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have to interrupt the minister for a moment to remind hon. members of the well established rule in connection with speeches that are made by ministers outside the house. The hon. member for York South can ask the minister a direct question. However, if he is now referring to a speech made outside the house he can only ask the Prime Minister whether the statements represent government policy. But I repeat that he can ask a question, if he so wishes, directly, as has already been done.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the indication that my question is proper. It was because of the minister's language that I asked him the question I did.
I should like to ask the minister a supplementary question. While he is preparing to make the post office more efficient, will he give consideration to introducing in Canada what is called the giro system for the post office, as recommended in and implemented by Great Britain, so that consumers can use the post office for other purposes and thus make greater use of the post office in competition with the chartered banks?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is asking a question of very general nature. I suggest it should not be asked at this time but rather placed on the order paper.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Transport and of the acting minister, may I put my question to the Prime Minister?
Could he inquire and tell us why it is now impossible for us to get in touch with Mr. Henri Roussel, a highly qualified expert at
[Mr. Lewis.)
the Montreal office of the Canadian Transport Commission who disappeared two days after his statement that there is no major objection to locating an international airport on the south shore, though his chief, Mr. Baribeau had asserted that an international airport would never be located on the south shore?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I do not think that the question as asked is in order.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether or not, as a result of the latest snub on the part of General de Gaulle to the representative of Canada, the government of Canada is going to make a protest and bring to the attention of the President of France the tremendous sacrifice of Canadians on French soil both in the first war and in the second war, and that this kind of thing is not appreciated by Canada, with egregious snubs from week to week.


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, I seem to recall that last year the right hon. gentleman's party thought that we protested too much over the Gabon matter, which was a question of substance. The question the right hon. gentleman has put concerns social events. We feel that it is within the sovereign authority of the government of France to give dinners to whom they want. I might add that I think that our ambassador in Paris knows of other places where he can get a good meal.


John George Diefenbaker: That was a gratuitous statement about this party. The government was not criticized for any action it took; it was the pusillanimous nature of the protest that we objected to. I ask the Prime Minister, in his trip to Europe did he pass over France because of the cold atmosphere existing between the government of Canada and the government of France?


Mr. Trudeau:: Well, Mr. Speaker, I admit I hoped to enter warmer climates, but I was not too lucky. It was raining in Rome also.


John George Diefenbaker: Was it not too hot?
January 23, 1969



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question of immediate urgency to the Postmaster General. It has to do with the implementation of the five day delivery. Will the minister undertake to make an early statement on motions outlining the progress of negotiations which were to resume this morning. Also, can he assure members of the Canadian public that they will not again become the victims of controversy or conflict between the department and its employees.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, a good many changes are going on inside the Post Office Department. I can assure hon. members of the house that I discussed these changes fully with the leaders of the two unions involved-we had a long discussion earlier this week-and, as the hon. member has suggested, negotiations are still proceeding.


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister has been so communicative will he indicate if the government intends to table the initial report of the task force which, in a heartening way, showed how the post office could save $50 million yearly.


Eric William Kierans: It is the report, Mr. Speaker, of a task force within the department and is a preliminary report only. I was pleased with the projected results contained in the report, but I want to satisfy myself that what is promised in it can be carried out.


Mr. Mac T. McCutcheon (Lamblon-Kenl):: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I wish to ask the Postmaster General whether, in view of increasing numbers of complaints about slow delivery and poor post office service, he will assure the house that before entering other communications fields, such as telephone services, he will make sure that postal service in this country is again raised to acceptable levels.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest that the question as asked is argumentative.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In the discussions going on with the postal unions has the department refused to assure union representatives that permanent employees of the department will not be laid off while

Inquiries of the Ministry casual employees continue to work for the department?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, the department has refused nothing and has made no promises. As I say, we are negotiating, and until a final meeting of minds is reached we will not give away any advantages we might have.


David Orlikow: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister assure permanent employees of the department that none of them will be laid off while temporary employees are kept on strength?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, I want to find employment for all people who work in the post office. I realize that in cutting down to five day weeks we shall wind up with excess man-hours. It therefore behooves me to find alternative jobs for those who will be affected, as well as to provide additional services to the people of Canada that are economic and justified. We have all this very much in mind, Mr. Speaker.



ESTATE TAX


Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hasiings):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Finance. In the very near future does he expect to present to the house the estate tax bill? I ask that particularly because strong pressure is being brought to bear on the government from within the Liberal caucus to present the bill in its present form and because there is strong support for the bill within the Liberal party.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The first part of the hon. member's question is in order, but the second part is out of order.


Mr. Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: The minister can answer half a
question.


Hon. E. J. Benson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I should simply like to say that the bill is a great bill which is good for the people of Canada. I had hoped to present the bill tomorrow, Friday, but I probably will not be able to until Monday because of printing difficulties and the translation. It is ready now.


George Harris Hees: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, has the minister been down to his constituency recently and talked to the people there? If he has done so he would not be able to make the answer that he has.
January 23, 1969

Inquiries of the Ministry Mr, Benson: People in my constituency Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton): We are in
trust me.	close touch, Mr. Speaker.


George Harris Hees: Wait until you get there, Ben. You have some news coming to you.


Edgar John Benson: I go to my constituency every week, which is more than you do.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Finance if he is going to continue to be so Arm in his estimates of public expenditures, and how long it is going to take to get bills printed?


Edgar John Benson: I would just like to say, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Calgary North.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

[Stage Direction]
QUEBEC-IMPRISONMENT AWAITING TRIAI_______

Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Has he had an opportunity to read the report on the administration of justice-the commission with reference to Quebec-and has he noticed in the report that some people have been several months in jail waiting for trial? Further, have the extra judges required been appointed by his department for Quebec?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minisier of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I have read the relevant parts of the report referred to by the hon, member. I might say that the daily administration of justice, the administration of the courts, is not directly a federal responsibility. As for the nomination of the judges, because I undertook to consult as widely as I could in judging the competence of men and women to be appointed to the bench, that consultation is still going forward. I hope there will be some appointments in the next two weeks or so.


Mr. Nielsen:: What's the matter with Judy?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the report mentions an increase in the number of murders in Canada has the minister worked out any liaison with the province of Quebec and other provinces so far as that matter is concerned?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I would like to ask another supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I am not concerned with the minister's touch. I was looking for action.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Will the hon. member ask a question?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Yes, Mr. Speaker. What action has the minister taken, if any, in reference to the 50 per cent increase in murders in Canada?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I think that the whole concept of violence in our society and the attitude that provokes that type of conduct are matters which, together with the provincial attorneys general, we are constantly concerned about, as indeed are all the people of the country.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the Minister of Justice said he is trying to find the best men and women for judgeships may I ask is the former hon. member for Niagara Falls under his contemplation at the moment?


An hon. Member:: Oh, you are smart.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Napier Turner: She does not immediately come to mind, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.



IMMIGRATION


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Manpower and Immigration I wish to direct a question to the acting minister. Has the government introduced or is the government considering the introduction of special regulations that would affect certain classes of immigrants from the United States?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Forestry and Rural Development):: Not as far as I
know, Mr. Speaker, but I will convey the question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration who will be in a position to give an answer later on.

January 23, 1969	COMMONS DEBATES



NATIONAL CAPITAL


Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Forestry and Rural Development, who has jurisdiction over the National Capital Commission.
In the light of reports which have been circulated since yesterday in press circles, can he tell us if the National Capital Commission will be soon abolished?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, as far as I know, no decision has been taken to that effect. A tripartite report has been forwarded to the federal government and to the governments of Quebec and Ontario, but no decision has been taken and the news or the rumour is unfounded.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: I would like to ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
As the Minister has insinuated that the structures of the National Capital Commission will be modified, can he tell us whether the province of Quebec will be consulted about these changes, given the financial contribution it will undoubtedly have to make?


Jean Marchand: The province of Quebec is always consulted, Mr. Speaker.



VANCOUVER, B.C.-EMPTY SHIPS LEAVING PORT

Mr. J. H. Horner (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address this question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In the light of his remarks last night and the debate which took place last night, would he explain to the house why big grain ships are leaving Vancouver today empty.


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, as at
2.10	this afternoon Ottawa time there were eight grain boats loading at Vancouver and 22 awaiting berths, which, as I remember well, are the same figures as of yesterday at
5.10	p.m.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The question was why grain ships are leaving Vancouver empty, not how many are being loaded. In the Vancouver 29180-299
Inquiries of the Ministry Province of today's date it is stated that, of two big grain ships, one has already left and another is scheduled to leave empty. Would the minister explain why they are leaving empty if everything is working well.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I will check on the value of the information.



NATIONAL SECURITY


Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, this question is for the Prime Minister. I wonder whether the Prime Minister could inform the house when he intends to table the report of the Royal Commission on Security, or at least report to the house on it.


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Two days ago I said we were still waiting for the consideration of an abridged version that would be acceptable for tabling in the house.



CROWN CORPORATIONS


Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Postmaster General. In view of the reported remarks made by the minister yesterday, which have already been the subject of a question in the house today, could he give us the answer to the following question: Is it the intention of the government to take over the Bell Telephone Company and transform it into a public corporation?


Eric William Kierans: So far as I know there is no such intention. The people on this side of the house have much more imagination and ideas as to how to spend money.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Postmaster General. I would ask him why he ignores the members to my right.


Eric William Kierans: I include them, of course, and the members of the government.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
January 23, 1969

Inquiries of the Ministry DEFENCE PRODUCTION



H.M.C.S. &quot;BON A VENTURE&quot;-ALLEGATION REGARDING OVERCHARGES IN REFITTING

Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, this question is directed to the Minister of Justice. On Monday last in answering a question put by the hon. member for Calgary North he indicated that informations had been laid against Remus Rodaru and Cardinal Engineering and Machinery Company Limited in connection with the Bonaventure bills. He also left the house with the impression that proceedings might be reinstituted. Can the minister affirm whether it is now possible to reinstitute those criminal proceedings that were terminated, as he explained on Monday?


John Napier Turner: said that the crown prosecutor here in Ottawa representing the provincial Attorney General had been unable to obtain the evidence of Erhardt Junkers in Germany and felt he had insufficient evidence to proceed, and the Crown applied to withdraw the charges. The magistrate refused the application and the preliminary inquiry was commenced. The Crown offered no evidence in the circumstances and the charge was dismissed.
In the circumstances described there was of course no trial. The hon. member is asking me for an opinion. It would appear that the defences of res judicata or autrefois acquit are not available. I think that is as far as I would like to go in an answer. It would be my view that if new evidence were furnished there would not be a bar to new proceedings.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Has the minister or the Governor in Council taken the necessary steps so that recipients of the war veterans allowance will not have their allowance cut back by the amount of any increase they receive in old age security or guaranteed income supplement by way of a cost of living bonus? This was done last year, and I am asking whether it is being done again this year.


Hon. Jean-Eudes Dube (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, these steps have been taken effective January first.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister whether consideration is also being given to increasing the basic amount of war veterans allowances?


Jean-Eudes Dubé: This is always under consideration, Mr. Speaker.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Henri Lalulippe (Compton):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister.
Would he tell the house whether he intends to intervene directly in the matter of the site of the future airport? Does he think the representations of Quebec will be seriously considered?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is asking the Prime Minister to express an opinion and his question, as he has put it, is not in order.



PRESENCE OF PERSONS IN GALLERY NOTING OPPOSITION ATTENDANCE

Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
A few weeks ago the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) drew the attention of the house to the fact that some people were taking the attendance of the opposition members in the house.
In the last few days, I have noticed that the very same people have moved from the gallery and now stand here, behind me, to check our attendance every day. I would therefore ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to see to it that we are not spied upon every day. Let them take note of the names of all the members, if necessary, but not only of the members of the opposition. Is this the procedure the Prime Minister intends to use to check absenteeism in the house?


Righi Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minisler: Mr. Speaker I am taking note of the fact that the member does not wish to be spied upon. If he has something to hide, I would ask those people not to take note of it.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, I feel that the Prime Minister's reply is most evasive and even arrogant. I have nothing to hide, but I think that all members should be watched closely and not only a few. We should all be
January 23, 1969

treated equally. Parliament is above the officials. We have a mandate from the people and, therefore, we are responsible to the people and not to those who go about in the lobbies scribbling things down in notebooks.


An hon. Member:: Have you got a spy in the press gallery or in the official gallery?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, I have had the occasion not long ago to complain personally about the fact that I was spied upon too much and I understand perfectly the hon. member's feelings.


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Lancas-ter):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister on this matter of attendance. Is the Prime Minister aware that the Minister of Finance is here today and he should not be, and did he give him permission?


An hon. Member:: You are a naughty boy.



OFFICIAL LANGUAGES


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether the Clerk of the Privy Council last October, as has been revealed by the secretary general of the National Museum, issued a memorandum urging the early implementation of the terms of the official languages bill and, if so, under whose or what authority was this done?


Mr. Speaker:: In view of the fact the hon. member is referring to an incident which is alleged to have happened last October I doubt whether there is urgency to the question. If there is urgency, and it is certainly not apparent to me, and if the Prime Minister feels it can be answered, I have no objection.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Mr. Speaker, if this cannot be dealt with as a question on orders of the day, perhaps I could deal with it as a question of privilege. As we all know, the official languages bill has not yet been dealt with by this house, and if there are memoranda going out from official sources this must be under 29180-299J
Inquiries of the Ministry somebody's authority, for it certainly does not have the authority of parliament.


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could be helpful. After the official languages bill was introduced in this house for first reading in October the Clerk of the Privy Council under my authority did write to various departmental heads to suggest that, in keeping with the government's desire to plan ahead, they take certain preparatory steps toward the day when they would have to implement such an act. There was no direction given for any specific action, but just an indication that provisions should be under way, so that when action was required the departments would be in a position to take it.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Mr. Speaker, the secretary general of the National Museum indicated that action was taken with reference to commissionaires.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That may have been the statement by the gentleman in question, but this was not under government direction.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question relates to what is referred to as the Stanbury-Field report on taxation of native Indian people, and the reply which the minister gave the house on Tuesday last. The minister made reference to the fact that there are certain aspects of that report which relate to the confidential nature of taxation on individuals, and I am wondering whether he would be prepared to table in the house the documentation which authorized this study, its terms of reference, authority and the like?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I shall look into the matter and report to the house as soon as possible.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask whether the Minister of National Health and Welfare has held any meetings with the provincial health ministers or the Canadian Medical Association
January 23, 1969

Inquiries of the Ministry in respect of the acute medical manpower shortage, and the provision of medical assistants?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, there has been some discussion, a lot of which has been going on within the medical profession itself. I assume the hon. member is referring to doctors' aides. Our department is involved in this discussion and reacting to these views but, as the hon. member knows, we are not the ones who can make a decision. This is a decision for agencies such as the medical profession itself.


Philip Bernard Rynard: Has there been any arrangement for a meeting with those bodies?


John Carr Munro: Not that I am aware of; but I will check, Mr. Speaker.


John Carr Munro: While I am on my feet, may I amplify my answer to the hon. member for Simcoe North. He might very well have been referring to the task force on health costs that was set up as a result of the last federal-provincial conference of health ministers and that has met today. This matter may well be discussed.



ESTATE TAX ACT


Mr. Jack McIntosh (Swiff Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question which arises from the remarks of the Minister of Finance at the annual meeting of the London West Liberal Association, as reported in the press, where he admitted that the new estate tax places a special burden on estates of which the major assets are not liquid. Why was this special burden placed on the heirs to family farms and family businesses?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is relating the question he has posed to the minister now to a statement made outside the house, and I am sure he knows the rules in this regard.


John (Jack) McIntosh: I have a supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member cannot ask a question supplementary to one that was not allowed.



OPPORTUNITY TO APPEAR BEFORE STANDING COMMITTEE

Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, now that a great discussion has commenced on the proposed changes in the estate tax bill, and how they will affect not only farmers and businessmen but homeowners in cities, will the participatory democracy about which the Prime Minister so often speaks go so far as to allow interested parties to present their cases to an appropriate committee of the House of Commons before the final disposition of the bill or, failing this-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I hope the hon. member does not propose to go on until two o'clock tomorrow morning. It seems to me he is making a statement rather than asking a question. I wish he would ask a question, so the Chair may have an opportunity to rule on it.


Stanley James Korchinski: Mr. Speaker, I have
already asked one part of my question as to whether the appropriate committee of the House of Commons might hear briefs, or whether a secretariat might be set up to accept briefs which would be available for public scrutiny, and which might indicate the public concern over this socialistic measure.


Mr. Speaker:: The question as asked by the hon. member is not one that can be accepted. It contains statements, allegations and expressions of opinion, and certainly as asked it cannot be received.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS

[Stage Direction]
PANARCTIC Oil___SHARING OF PROFITS BY

David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Now that Panartic Oil has announced that it is digging two wells on Melville Island, can the minister tell the house whether consideration is being given by the department to ensure that Indian and Eskimo residents of the arctic areas will share in the profits of any oil or gas lines in these areas made by Panartic Oil?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether shares of that company will be distributed to Eskimos

January 23, 1969	COMMONS
and Indians, but we have taken the necessary steps with Panartic to make sure that during the development work they will offer jobs to qualified Eskimos to work on Melville Island in digging operations.


David Orlikow: I do not think the minister understood my question. I was not suggesting that they get shares, but in many farm areas farmers get part of the profits from oil found on their land. I am asking that the same consideration be given to Indians and Eskimos.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I have nothing to add to my answer, Mr. Speaker.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


Erik Nielsen: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the minister whether it is the intention of the government to introduce the Indian Claims Commission bill again?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I answered this question a few days ago and my answer is the same.



SOUTH INDIAN LAKE, MAN-FLOODING OF HOMES THROUGH HYDRO DEVELOPMENT

Mr. E. B. Osier (Winnipeg South Centre):: I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Can the minister assure the house that his department will do everything possible to protect the interests of the approximately 100 Indian and Metis families at South Indian Lake who are now threatened with unilateral expulsion by the Manitoba government, due to flooding in connection with a hydro project?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I answered this question yesterday and we are extremely interested in the problem which a certain number of Indians in Manitoba have to face.
I would like to answer the specific question asked yesterday by the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) concerning
DEBATES	4713
Inquiries of the Ministry lawyers' fees. The department does not have to pay the fees of lawyers hired by Indians to defend them, but I am informed that the Manitoba government has assured the Indians that it would meet the expenses incurred by them to enforce their rights.



ESTATE TAX ACT


John (Jack) McIntosh: Mr. Speaker, since you ruled out of order a previous question of mine, may I now rephrase it and ask the Minister of Finance why he finds it necessary to place a special tax burden, as he has admitted, on the heirs of family farms and family businesses?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question is still argumentative.


John (Jack) McIntosh: On what grounds, Mr. Speaker?


John (Jack) McIntosh: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Twice I have tried to get a question across to the Minister of Finance. Last time I think you said that my question was argumentative. Was that the ruling you gave? I suggest my question was not argumentative and I should like to ask the minister why it is necessary to place this tax burden on family farms and family businesses.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I cannot allow the minister to reply to the question. The hon. member, along with other members of this house, has placed on my shoulders the burden, which is not always a pleasant one, of being Speaker of this house. I am called upon to interpret the rules. I have interpreted the hon. member's question as being argumentative, and the matter is not subject to discussion.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John (Jack) McIntosh: Well, Mr. Speaker, may I rephrase my question and ask the minister whether it is his intention to place a special tax burden on the heirs of family farms and family businesses.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think that that question is somewhat more acceptable than the first one, and I will allow the minister to answer it.
January 23, 1969

Inquiries of the Ministry


Edgar John Benson: have tried to answer each question which my hon. friend asked. Also, I would like to assure my hon. friend from Saint John-Lancaster that I am in the house today because I knew the Leader of the Opposition would be out of the house.


Thomas Miller Bell: Anybody who has eyes in his head would have seen that the Leader of the Opposition was in the house earlier, and I suggest the minister is here today because he is doing penance.


Gerald William Baldwin: I rise on the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I say that the Leader of the Opposition left because he could not get any answers from the government.


Edgar John Benson: I would simply like to say that it is very difficult to find out who the Leader of the Opposition is.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek can now see how argumentative his question was.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the question raised by the hon. member with respect to the speech I made outside the house,
I would simply like him to read the whole speech, in which I said that no undue burden was placed upon either family businesses or farms through the changes in the estate tax. If he wants, I will send him a copy of the speech.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is it not a fact that the minister believes that a special burden is placed on estates which are not made up of liquid assets?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I will have to rule again that this is an argumentative question.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. David MacDonald (Egmoni):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the continued depression in the potato market in all of eastern Canada, and particularly in Prince Edward Island, I wonder if the Agriculture Stabilization Board is now giving consideration to special support to acreage payments, as given last year, in order to offset the difficult times which farmers will have in putting in a crop in the spring?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge we have had no requests for that, to date, and therefore it is not under active consideration. However, the department is always ready to consider proposals of this nature.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax-East Hants):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Has the minister received representations regarding increased assistance to blind persons, and what is being done about these representations?


John Carr Munro: I am not aware of any such representation of late, but I will check into the matter.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskaloon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the statement recently reported that the government's long term policy is to abandon the quota subsidy system presently in use for the dairy industry, would the minister consider making a statement regarding the alternatives he will propose?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I will send the hon. gentleman a copy of the speech. If he will read it I am sure he will find that what I said is that it is the government's policy to remove the need for subsidies and quotas.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: I will allow the hon. member to ask a supplementary question.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: I wish to direct it to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Would the minister consider tabling the results of the study on the nationalization of the dairy industry in Canada, and the development of a departmental program in this area, as mentioned in the department's annual reports of 1965 and 1966?
January 23, 1969

Inquiries of the Ministry Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Minister not feel that hon. members of this Trade and Commerce): I will consider the house should also be entitled to peruse the matter, Mr. Speaker.	document and assess the interpretation made?


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Will the minister take it as notice-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I assume the minister has taken it as notice. I also notice the hon. member for Brandon-Souris on a question of privilege.



OFFICIAL LANGUAGES


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of privilege which I wish to address to the right hon. Prime Minister. In view of the possible infringement of privileges of the members of this house, with reference to the document issued by the Clerk of the Privy Council which has been circulated prior to parliament's consideration of Bill C-120, would the right hon. gentleman table that document so we could all peruse it?


Right Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there was an infringement of the privileges of this house.


John George Diefenbaker: There certainly was.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The document itself was an internal document, and I do not believe it is the usual practice to table such documents. But I repeat that the purport of the document was to suggest that, the bill having been introduced, persons to whom the document was addressed should devote some time to a close analysis of the bill, and give some preliminary thought to its implications.
This, to me, does not seem to be an infringement of the privileges of this house; it is giving to civil servants a copy of a bill which is in the possession of the house and which is a public document, and saying, as is obviously true, that it is the government's intention to proceed with this bill. It is on the order paper, and we want to proceed with it quickly. It is giving people at department level the occasion to do some preliminary planning-no action. That is the purpose of the document.


John George Diefenbaker: An invitation to use the axe.


Erik Nielsen: Since the document has been referred to, and partially interpreted by an employee of the government, does the Prime


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I do not feel so, mainly for reasons of principle. There is nothing in this particular document that there is any particular reason for withholding. I have it here; it is a short one of four paragraphs. It is an internal direction from one civil servant to another, on the orders of the Prime Minister, telling him to do some preliminary thinking about a bill which is before the house.


An hon. Member:: What about action?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The action will come after we have debated the bill.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Yukon on a point of order?


Erik Nielsen: On the question of privilege- and there may be a point of order arising, now. I believe our rules require that once a document has been referred to, as it has been, in terms of content, vaguely though the Prime Minister may have done so, it must be tabled.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I have no hesitation in ruling that the mere fact a public document has been mentioned does not require, under the rules, that it be tabled. Should a document be quoted from it has, according to our rules, to be tabled, if it is an official document quoted by a cabinet minister. But that is not my understanding of what has been done by the Prime Minister.


Erik Nielsen: Hon. members will of course accept your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but the Prime Minister has in fact referred to the contents of a public document, and I submit our rules now require it to be tabled.


John George Diefenbaker: On that point of order, I recollect at least two occasions during the time I have been here when reference to a document, giving a summary of the contents, or a summary of a portion of the contents, was sufficient to require that the document be tabled. Were it otherwise, we would be in a position whereby a minister could simply interpret what he wanted to-he could give his own version of a direction handed to these various departments, and then refrain from tabling the document in the house. I think Your Honour should reconsider this question, because your decision means that ministers may simply give their own ideas as to the meaning of a document, without the house
471G	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry having an opportunity to ascertain whether or not the statements made by ministers were in accordance with the contents of those documents.


Mr. Speaker:: Of course, the ruling I have given arises from the fact that I have often studied the precedents and the citations on this very point. It has so often arisen in the course of debate that hon. members demand that a document should be tabled, either because it has been referred to or because a minister has quoted from it.
I would think the citation I have before me justifies the ruling I have made.
A minister of the Crown is not at liberty to read or quote from a despatch or other state paper not before the house unless he be prepared to lay it upon the table.
My suggestion to hon. members is that the Prime Minister has not quoted from the document. The hon. member says he has referred to the content. That is not my interpretation of what has been done by the Prime Minister.


Mr. MacLean:: On the question of privilege,
I have a question I should like to ask the Prime Minister. Since it seems evident that the intent of this document was misinterpreted by at least one of the officials receiving it, and that he took action on it which resulted in the termination of the employment of a number of persons, will the Prime Minister consider reinstating all those people who have been affected by a directive based on what is, as yet, only a bill and not an act of parliament?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Without accepting the premise that any employment has been terminated as a result of a misunderstanding of the document, I am prepared to ask the minister to study this case. I have already asked him what has happened in other similar cases, and he has told me there has been no termination of employment-that there had been some shift in employment from one part of a building to another.


An hon. Member:: With loss of pay.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No termination of employment and no loss of pay.


An hon. Member:: Sent to Siberia.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: do not want to prolong the discussion unduly, but I thought my hon. friend from Peace

DEBATES	January 23, 1969
River was rising on the same point. Your Honour did make a ruling with regard to a document. I would respectfully recommend to Your Honour the reading of citation 159 paragraph 3. I would also point out that the Prime Minister indicated to members of the house he had the document itself in front of him.


Mr. Speaker:: I should like at this point to read from citation 159. I have before me 159 (3) which reads:
It has been admitted that a document which has been cited ought to be laid upon the table of the house, if it can be done without injury to the public interest.
This should be read along with citation 159(1). What I suggested to hon. members in the ruling I made a moment ago was that the document had not been cited by the Prime Minister. He referred to the document, but of course that is not the same as making a citation.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Gerald William Baldwin: May I
ask the President of the Privy Council to tell us, as leader of the house, the nature of forthcoming business?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (President of the Privy Council):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. As the house knows, today we shall begin the debate on second reading of the omnibus Criminal Code bill. Because of the wide interest in the bill and the prospective list of speakers it is anticipated we shall continue second reading tomorrow and on Monday.
In view of the heavy volume of business before the committees-the 15 legislative items before the standing committees-it is my intention to propose a motion similar to the one moved last November, that the sitting for Tuesday be suspended in order that the standing committees may pursue their study of the legislative items on that day.
On Wednesday and Thursday next I propose to call order No. 1 for the consideration of the business of supply. I understand there will be an opposition motion forthcoming on those two allotted days.


Gerald William Baldwin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that, inspired and led by the opposition the house has given second reading to 15 bills in seven days, can the leader of the house indicate when some constructive measures will be brought before the house-and I hasten to say I exclude from that description any measures sponsored by the Minister of Finance.
January 23, 1969


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Yes, Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to the hon. member for York South we shall soon be making an announcement with respect to the legislative program for the balance of the session, perhaps on Thursday next.
[DOT] (3:00 p.m.)



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


John Napier Turner: second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs of Bill C-150, to amend the Criminal Code, the Parole Act, the Penitentiary Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and to make certain consequential amendments to the Combines Investigation Act, the Customs Tariff and the National Defence Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, in introducing this massive bill I am very sensitive of the solemn duty that I have to the law of this country and of the effect that this bill, if adopted by the house, will have on the individual lives and individual human rights of everyone in Canada. I speak this afternoon with the confidence that this legislation is the most important and all-embracing reform of the criminal and penal law ever attempted at one time in this country. The omnibus measure contains matters of deep social significance which, in the course of time, will affect the lives of most of us, perhaps each one of us, in varying degrees.
I submit this bill to the scrutiny of this house, weighing as best I can the delicate balance between law and morals and the historic ideal of the rule of law in a free society. In placing these matters before you, sir, the government is endeavouring to have the criminal law reflect the attitude of what most persons believe to be reasonable and necessary for the well-being of our society or, to put it in another way, to bring the law into line with the times.

The interest shown in that project has been tremendous. No wonder that such interest often became argumentative.
In my opinion, it would have been absolutely unrealistic to hope that the proposals which have been made would be free of controversy. However, the fact that such controversy exists, although serious and sober, ought not to stand in the way of the proposed bill before this house.
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We have listened to and carefully weighed the arguments and the views from all sides and, on that basis, we have tried to draft a bill which, we believe, is sound and useful and will receive the approval of most of the people in this parliament as well as outside.

Much has been said and written recently about the concept of law and order. It was probably the underlying issue in the recent election in the United States. We are not immune from that discussion; what is happening there is contagious. We are witnessing what has been described as a new search for human values and relationships-relationships between man and man and between men and government, new relationships that have new meaning in the technical and psychological context of our age.
What this search and the accompanying changes mean, as far as I am concerned, are not a demand for law and order that freeze men into a predetermined pattern but law and order that respond to change and to movement and give us options. Because, sir, yesterday's order, if unresponsive to change, becomes tomorrow's oppression.

It is not the first review of the Criminal Code. However, I do not think that any other review of our criminal statutes has aroused such a great interest. It is true that in 1954, parliament studied and adopted a general review of the Criminal Code but its main purpose was, on the one hand, to give it a more orderly and understandable pattern and, on the other hand, to change and repeal provisions which had become obsolete. Since its inception in 1892, until the early 50's, the Code had been amended several times, but in a piecemeal fashion and without any overall plan. By making these remarks I do not wish to depreciate the results achieved by the review of 1954.
It was really a necessary and significant task. However, it did not get the kind of contribution which the bill under consideration has inspired all across the country.
No bill concerning the Criminal Code has been as much scrutinized and commented upon by members of the legal profession as well as the people in general.
This bill will be remembered, I am sure, as a high point in penal reform in Canada.
4718	COMMONS
Criminal Code

This bill is identified, and will be identified in the future, with the indelible imprint of our Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). It was he who had the courage to assemble it, to introduce it into parliament and to defend it across the land under the sharp scrutiny of a general election. If ever, then, there was a legislative measure that has been tested by public opinion and received a popular mandate, if ever the people of Canada have been given an opportunity to participate in public debate surrounding a legislative measure, it is this omnibus Criminal Code bill. We in this House of Commons, sir, have had a full opportunity to review and discuss it. The people of Canada have had every opportunity to look at it and to talk about it.
Since assuming this portfolio I have received representations, both public and private, from every quarter. I am glad to say that I sought all the advice I could from whoever would give it to me. I am grateful to those in the house and outside the house who have made their views known to me.
I particularly want to thank, of course, the members of the legal profession from whom we heard. I am grateful to the memberships of the various delegations who came to see us, and I thank the thousands of individual citizens who expressed their opinions to me.
We were, of course, in touch with the provincial Attorneys General, and with the permission of the house I should like to table at this time the correspondence sought earlier by the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) between the various Attorneys General of the provinces and the government of Canada.


Erik Nielsen: It is a little late now.


John Napier Turner: I said that I would submit it at the appropriate time. With the permission of the house I should like to table it now.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[DOT] (3:10 p.m.)


John Napier Turner: It took some time, I might say, to obtain the necessary consent of the Attorneys General, which explains in some measure the delay in tabling the documents. As will be seen from a comparison of Bill C-150 with the earlier Bill C-195, the representations we received did

DEBATES	January 23, 1969
result in certain changes. Finally, I am grateful to all hon. members from all parties who gave me their advice and counsel and understanding.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not easy to read. It contains 120 clauses in 126 pages. It takes a stand on some of the controversial questions of our time. Some of them pertain to the most inner part of our lives: life itself, death and the most delicate personal relations between human beings. I would be amazed indeed if even one of the hon. members showed an equal enthusiasm for all of the 120 proposals. Who could expect that? Any amendment to the Criminal Code induces controversy. Our response to this bill will depend upon our tolerance and our understanding of the needs of a pluralist society, a society where everyone must strive to reconcile his opinions and personal beliefs, including the ones dearest to his heart, with those of his neighbours, who are also earnest and sincere.
This bill will also test our respect for the sacredness of the law. It will prompt many of us to search their own hearts thoroughly.

Some hon. members have had to struggle with themselves to accept this bill. Some have had to struggle mightily because it deals with fundamental concepts. I understand this, and the Prime Minister and members of the government understand it. I hope nothing I say today or in the later stages of this bill will give any hon. member any impression other than that I deeply respect the consciences and private convictions of all hon. members.


Mr. McGrath:: Will the minister permit a
question?


John Napier Turner: With the indulgence of the hon. member I will, at the end of my speech. I know the pressures to which a good many hon. members are subjected, and I respect them. Nevertheless, I believe that all the provisions of this bill are beneficial and in the best public interest, and I hope the measure I am introducing this afternoon will eventually find favour with the majority of hon. members and, even more important, meet with the approval of most of our fellow citizens.
Despite the variety of the subject matters contained in the bill and despite the wide range of views held about them, the government is firm in its conviction that this house
January 23, 1969

and the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs later will deal with this bill as one bill, indivisible, and not as several individual items of legislation. When I first accepted this portfolio I wanted to assure myself that the will of the house could be properly tested on every clause. I am satisfied, particularly under the new rules, that this can be done. I am now satisfied that the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs will review the bill clause by clause. When the bill is reported back to the house from committee, amendments to any clause are permissible under the new rules. So, sir, no hon. member will be deprived of the opportunity of making his view or vote known or felt, if that is his intention.
Why should the bill be split? Hon. members are not being deprived any rights in respect of any clause. And if the bill were split, how would we go about splitting it? Would there be a separate bill for the clauses affecting therapeutic abortion, lotteries, the breath-alizer test or the gun law? How far would we go and where would we stop? The government is of the opinion that this bill stands for the general principle of criminal and penal law reform and should be dealt with by the house on that basis.
I want to say, too, that the government fully endorses this bill. It is a government bill, bears the government stamp and will be supported by the government. We feel bound to the bill as the principal item of social reform in this session of parliament. It is identified with our Prime Minister and party. We believe it has been tested favourably with the people of Canada and has met the approval of the people in a general election. We believe therefore that, on the one hand, we have the right and, on the other hand, the duty to stand behind the bill in all stages of debate that will follow.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Napier Turner: Again I want to say that I recognize the personal and individual trials of conscience that some hon. members have faced, and I hope that in my dealings with any hon. member I do not trespass on the inner preserves of his private convictions.
With the indulgence of the house I should like to deal with some individual provisions of the bill, with some of those that have provoked the most comment. One of the most significant amendments proposed in the bill is aimed at the drinking driver. I think all hon.
Criminal Code
members are concerned about the rash of highway accidents and death on our roads, and it might be useful to recite a few figures. In Canada, 5,379 people died in highway accidents in 1967. This was over 200 more people than died in the same way in 1966. Publications of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics show that in the years from 1958 to 1967 the number of persons killed on our highways rose by over 66 per cent and the number of persons injured in the same period in highway accidents rose by more than 100 per cent. During the first six months of 1958, compared with the similar period in 1967, increases were registered in all categories of motor vehicle accidents. Traffic injuries were up 8.4 per cent over the same period in 1967 and traffic deaths were up 4.1 per cent over that same period in 1967.
The point of this part of the legislation is that the drinking driver is responsible for a disproportionate share of these accidents. The truth of what I am submitting to the house has been forcefully demonstrated by the study carried on in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This study is regarded as the best and most exhaustive practical study in this field in North America. By careful comparisons of groups of persons who were involved in traffic accidents-the study extended over a year and each group covered some 8,000 people-the experts who conducted the study were able to demonstrate a number of things. They demonstrated that blood alcohol levels over 0.04 per cent are definitely associated with an increased accident involvement. The probability of accident involvement increases rapidly at alcohol levels over 0.08 per cent and becomes extremely high at levels above 0.15 per cent. When drivers with blood alcohol levels over 0.08 per cent have accidents they tend to have more single vehicle accidents, more severe accidents in terms of injury and damage and more expensive accidents than similar sober drivers.
Another point brought out by the study is that drivers in the higher alcohol level classes tend to become involved more frequently in the more severe accidents. Less than 5 per cent of the drivers in the 0.00 per cent alcohol level class are involved in fatal and serious personal injury accidents but almost 10 per cent of the drivers in the 0.08 per cent and higher alcohol level class are involved in the severest class of accidents. Thus an accident involved driver in the 0.08 per cent and higher alcohol level class is almost twice as frequently involved in a fatal or serious accident as the driver in the 0.00 per cent alcohol level

January 23, 1969
Criminal Code
class. This, then, I would submit to Your Honour is the answer to the question, what do deaths and injuries on the highways have to do with the drinking driver?
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
The next question which arises is, what assurance is there that the setting of a statutory blood alcohol limit and the compulsion to take a breathalyzer test will have any appreciable effect on drivers who drink and, in turn, on the death and injury rate? Apart from the obvious answer dictated by the figures I recited from the study, and from common sense, the experience in the United Kingdom gives ground to expect that if this legislation passes there will be several hundred Canadians alive next year who would not be alive if there were no compulsory breathalyzer test. There will be several thousand more persons uninjured and several thousand more hospital beds free for people with other illnesses which would otherwise be occupied by patients broken in bone and spirit in traffic accidents.

In addition to showing the part which is played in traffic accidents by drivers who take alcoholic drinks, the study entitled "Grand Rapids" supports the opinion that .08 per cent represents the real danger level. That is why this figure of .08 per cent was proposed by the standing committee on justice and legal affairs, a few years ago, by the Canadian Bar Association, by the British Medical Association and by the Legislature of Manitoba in its resolution of May 1968. It is also the figure which was used in 1967 in the Road Traffic Act in the United Kingdom.
As for the Canadian Medical Association, they recommend a figure of .05 per cent. The present bill recommends the adoption of a figure set-with the support of a number of authorities-at .08 per cent.
An act which would make it an offence for anyone to drive an automobile when the alcohol level in his blood exceeds .08 per cent would be unrealistic, from a practical point of view, if at the same time, it did not provide for compulsory tests.
Consequently, the present bill suggests that, under definite circumstances, a citizen could be requested to provide a sample of his breath to be analyzed. The bill does not request any sample of blood or urine.
[Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton) .1

When the resolution in favour of compulsory breathalizer tests was passed by the Canadian Bar Association, there were immediate outcries across Canada that such a proposal was a retrograde step and involved compulsory self-incrimination. I want to say that the traditional rules of self-incrimination apply only to statements or declarations made by accused persons. The view I am now expressing is supported by the Supreme Court of Canada. Self-incrimination does not extend to physical or real conditions or to mark such as a man's fingerprints, footprints, the state of his clothing, the state of his behaviour or the state of his breath. Under the bill the driver is not subject to a compulsory breathalyzer test unless at that time, or within the previous two hours, he has conducted himself in such a way that a peace officer, in the words of the bill, "would have reasonable and probable grounds" in arresting him for impaired driving.
The burden would be on the Crown to prove his conduct and if the arrest was not justified the driver would be entitled, with impunity, to refuse the breathalyzer test.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: If he doesn't he is
convicted.


John Napier Turner: We will discuss that, Mr. Speaker.
As a member of the legal profession and as someone who believes in civil rights I think any type of compulsion is unsavoury in a free society, and any type of compulsion enforced by penal statute or by the state must find its justification not merely in a rule of law but in the needs of the community. I am submitting to the house that the needs of the community more than justify the proposed amendment.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Don't misrepresent the law.


John Napier Turner: With respect, I do not think I am misrepresenting the law, but we can argue that later. As with other provisions of this bill, it is a question of weighing the conflicting interests-the balance of public convenience-that can never be totally reconciled. It is my view and the view of the government that in deciding which is the more vital to social order in Canada and to the benefit of the majority of the people in our country, there should be severe penalties in case of drinking and driving.
I am determined to fight murder on the highways and to combat carnage on the
January 23, 1969

roads. I am convinced that firmer action is required by this parliament to shake up the conscience and state of awareness of the Canadian people, and to support the sound sense of the admonition found on some billboards, "If you drink don't drive, if you drive don't drink." If you heed that observation I can say that is the admonition to which this test is applied. All of us have been in the situation where we have said to ourselves- and I am not a hypocrite about this-"There but for the grace of God go I."
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
I now want to talk briefly about firearms. A number of significant amendments are proposed which will tighten control over the availability and the use of firearms in the interest of public safety. This is a tougher gun law. There are some entirely new offences and procedures created by the bill. It provides for the making by a court of a prohibitory order against criminals who have been convicted of offences involving firearms. It provides for a new search and seizure procedure at the instance of the provincial Attorney General where the personal safety of any person is involved. It provides for a new offence of selling or in any way transferring a weapon to anyone under a prohibition order or to anyone of unsound mind. It provides for a new offence of dangerous use, carriage or possession of firearms, aimed at the trigger-happy hunter, the type who goes out into the woods, hears something and fires, the type who sees something, does not know what it is, and fires. At the moment juries are loath to convict because the only available charge is criminal negligence with a maximum penalty of life. This new offence will have a maximum penalty of two years.
The bill provides for a more realistic approach to the question of possession of firearms by younger persons by generally prohibiting children under the age of 14 from using firearms except under the personal supervision of someone who has a permit, someone who is lawfully entitled to use a firearm. It requires young people between 14 and 17 years of age to obtain a permit to possess a firearm of any sort.
I am going to confess to the house that I do not believe there is any foolproof gun law. Even if we were to withdraw every weapon in the country-


An hon. Member:: You would have a
revolution.
Criminal Code


John Napier Turner: -even apart from the political factors involved, if we were to enforce registration of every weapon in the country a gun could always get into the wrong hands, and in this area of legislation, as in others, it is not possible to reconcile all the conflicting interests.
I am glad to say that no gun enthusiast or organization of sportsmen or gun club has ever suggested to me that there should not be a gun law. The real issue, I would submit to hon. members, is to achieve controls which will discourage and penalize the criminal and the criminally careless, which will remove lethal weapons from the irresponsible or mentally ill, which will help to foster social attitudes against violence and which will at the same time leave the avenue open for responsible people to engage in legitimate sport and hobbies involving firearms in the same way as those interested in motor racing are left free under restricted and controlled conditions to exceed the speed limit.
I now want to turn briefly to the question of lotteries. I may say that I am dealing now with those clauses of the bill that have provoked the most public response and comment. The proposed amendments concerning lotteries-and when I use the word "lotteries" I mean games of chance generally-incorporate a fundamentally new approach in the sense that the amount and nature of gaming which will be permitted will depend to a considerable extent on the policy of provincial authorities in issuing the licences to which I will refer in a moment. The attitude toward lotteries in Canada varies in various parts of the country. The proposed amendments will provide, to an appreciable degree, for recognition of that fact. The nature of the proposed amendments might be described as local option within prescribed limits set in the Code. The amendments also clarify an important obscurity in the present law in relation to the conduct of lotteries by religious and charitable organizations.

I shall just deal, Mr. Speaker, with a few essential aspects. First of all, any provincial government, either alone or in conjunction with the government of another province, will be allowed to conduct a lottery. I was asked, on several occasions, whether municipal institutions would be also allowed to conduct lotteries, under the proposed act. The answer is no, except in the case of provincial lotteries where they may be appointed as representatives of the provinces.

January 23, 1969
Criminal Code
Secondly, no province will be allowed to conduct any lottery system in another province without being authorized to do so by the government of the latter.
Thirdly, charitable and religious organizations will be allowed to run lotteries under a provincial licence. How many and how big these lotteries may be will depend on the licences. As the law now stands, those organizations can occasionally have lotteries, but the words "occasionally"-"a l'occasion" -and "usually" explain the great differences which exist between the lotteries authorized in various regions of the country. In the final analysis, the attitude of the local authorities is the determining factor. And it is that ambiguity, which I pointed out a while ago, which will be removed.

We have heard more from individuals on the proposed amendments concerning abortion than on any other provision. This aspect of the law was also the subject of exhaustive consideration by the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs. It is a matter that is undoubtedly of profound concern to all of us, and it has been the subject of debate, often very emotional debate, for a number of years.
The Prime Minister and I have both said on previous occasions that in considering this proposition before the house it is important to bear in mind the uncertain state of the present law. To assume that the present law on abortion is clear and thereby to move on from there to allege that the amendments are too stringent, or not stringent enough, or in substance change nothing is, in my submission, arguing from a false premise. The fact is that the present state of the law is not clear and one of the overriding purposes of the legislation is to clarify it.
The legal officers of the Department of Justice have been unable to find a single reported Canadian case, involving a charge of unlawfully procuring an abortion, which discusses abortion for medical reasons as a defence to that charge. Some claim that in Canada there is no defence whatever to a charge of procuring a miscarriage based upon medical considerations; others argue that a miscarriage may be procured if it is necessary to preserve a woman's life; and still others maintain that the law is not being amended in substance but is merely being codified and will reflect what is now being done in hospitals under responsible management by ethical members of the medical 
profession with the tacit, if not the express, approval of those responsible for the administration of the criminal law.
The essential point of the proposed amendments is that abortion shall not be unlawful if a committee of physicians in an accredited hospital certify that in their opinion the continuation of the pregnancy of the female person, of the mother, would or would be likely to endanger her life or health. Those are the words of the clause. I wish to emphasize that the test is danger to the life or health of the expectant mother.
Whether an abortion is justified for the reasons mentioned will involve the making of a decision by members of the medical profession based on medical considerations. Needless to say, that judgment will have to be made in a bona fide manner. Under this bill abortion based solely on considerations of eugenics or the commission of sexual offences is not included. Therapeutic abortion committees will not be called upon to decide whether a criminal offence has been committed. We have considered that such a therapeutic abortion committee is not the proper forum to deal with questions of that kind.
I realize full well that this matter goes right to the essence of life, goes right to the bone. There is not going to be any consensus on this issue in this house or in the country. There are those on the one hand who abhor abortion for any cause, or for any reason whatsoever. There are those on the other hand who would make abortion wholly permissive or at the personal option of the woman. We have not reached a consensus between those views in this bill. We have reached only what I might call an accommodation. When the life or health of a mother is in jeopardy, therapeutic miscarriage will be absolved from the penalties in the criminal law.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
This proposed legislation does not authorize the taking of foetal life; it does not promote abortion. It simply removes certain categories of abortion from the present place they have on the list of indictable offences. I want to repeat that the legislation does not promote abortion; it permits it under the restricted circumstance where the mother's life or health might be in danger. I believe that any member-and I say this after a good deal of personal reflection-may in good conscience support this clause if he is convinced as I am that its net effect will be to foster rather than impede the general public and civic good.
January 23, 1969

That is the test I would urge members to apply to this particular issue.
I should also like to mention specifically certain other amendments. I realize I will go a little longer than the permitted time.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You
have unlimited time.


John Napier Turner: Thank you for reminding me. There are 120 clauses and 126 pages in the bill. Even within the restricted scope to which I am now limiting myself I will be doing inadequate justice to the bill.
These amendments remove certain sexual conduct between consenting adults in private from the purview of the criminal law. There is one point which I cannot emphasize too strongly in this regard. It is that parliament would not, in enacting these amendments, be condoning this type of conduct. Parliament by not imposing the criminal law upon fornication or adultery is not thereby condoning fornication or adultery. By having broadened the laws affecting divorce during the last parliament, parliament did not by that promote or condone divorce as a remedy worthy of emulation. Individuals will continue to be responsible to themselves for their moral behaviour.
I should like to place on the record a passage from the Wolfenden report dealing with this matter in the United Kingdom:
Unless a deliberate attempt is to be made by society, acting through the agency of the law, to equate the sphere of crime with that of sin, there must remain a realm of private morality and immorality which is, in brief and crude terms, not the law's business. To say this is not to condone or encourage private immorality. On the contrary, to emphasize the personal and private nature of moral or immoral conduct is to emphasize the personal and private responsibility of the individual for his own actions, and that is a responsibility which a mature agent can property be expected to carry for himself without the threat of punishment from the law.
Portions of this bill relate to the operations of the Department of the Solicitor General and fall within the jurisdiction of my colleague who is here sitting in the house with me. They deal with the Parole Act, the Penitentiary Act and the Prisons and Reformatories Act. There is in addition one section of the Criminal Code, section 634, which deals with imprisonment of over two years and less than two years. That proposed amendment is also the concern of the Solicitor General (Mr. Mcllraith).

I feel, I must point out briefly the eight main topics which fall within his jurisdiction:
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I shall not deal at length with these amendments, as the Solicitor General (Mr. Mcllraith) will comment on them in due course. At this point, I shall limit myself to pointing out that they deal, among others, with the following topics:
(1)	the circumstances which make it necessary for delinquents to be imprisoned in a penitentiary or a provincial institution;
(2)	an increase in the number of members on the National Parole Board;
(3)	the continuous supervision and orientation of those delinquents who are released, not on parole, but for having accumulated remissions in excess of 60 days;
(4)	the crediting of the remission periods deserved by the inmate in the calculation of the length of his parole;
(5)	the obligation to credit to the inmate the period of time during which he has been held after suspension of his parole or while waiting for its cancellation;
(6)	faster transportation to the penitentiary of inmates originally detained in a provincial institution while their appeal is heard;
(7)	a proposed new standard for remission applicable to the inmates of provincial institutions in order to allow them to be eligible for total remission as they would have been allowed had they been detained in a penitentiary.

That is neither an exhaustive nor a detailed exposition of the provisions of the bill which fall within the jurisdiction of my colleague, the Solicitor General. He will be explaining further that part of the bill relating to the matters for which he is charged under his statute.
I do not wish to go into any detail about the amendments in respect of harassing telephone calls, but I would hope that that provision will be looked into by members of the committee. I draw it to the attention of the house.
There are some important amendments relating to suspended sentence and probation. At the committee stage I hope these amendments will be given thorough scrutiny.
There is an important amendment in respect of misleading advertising which transfers the provisions of section 306 of the Criminal Code to the Combines Investigation Act and gives the federal Attorney General jurisdiction over the prosecution. I cannot

January 23, 1969
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resist saying that the consumer has a fundamental right to correct information and that truth in advertising is essential to any charter for the consumer. I hope these amendments will more effectively protect the consumer's right to correct information in future. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) and I intend that there shall be vigorous enforcement of these provisions on a national basis.
In response to many pleas from societies and others concerned about cruelty to animals there are some important amendments in the Code relating to cruelty to animals. There are also some important provisions relating to fitness to stand trial and insanity, basically to the effect that the guilt of the accused should be first tested before the issue of insanity is tested so that insanity does not prevent the nature of innocence or guilt from remaining forever in abeyance. Hon. members will want to review these very carefully.
There is one matter I should like to mention which involves the detention of witnesses. I mentioned it when I introduced the bill before Christmas. Under the law as it now stands a material witness in a criminal case can be detained with no time limit prescribed if there are grounds to believe he will not appear to testify when required to do so. Under the amendment it is proposed that no witness shall be detained for a period exceeding 30 days unless prior to the expiration of that time he is brought before a judge. It is proposed that a person detained as a witness may on his own motion, within that 30-day period, make application to be brought before a judge. Unless the judge before whom the witness is brought is satisfied that his continued detention is justified, either because of evidence adduced at the time of that application and because it is clear that his evidence at the trial itself will be material to the case, the judge will have to order him to be discharged or released on recognizance. On the other hand, if the judge is satisfied that his continued detention is justified, he may order that he remain in custody but the total period of detention shall not under any circumstances exceed 90 days.
The case which gave rise to the proposed amendments was brought to light by the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefen-baker). I am sorry he is not here now to hear me say this. It involved the detention for several months of a young fellow, 20-year old Henri Berube, at Montreal because it was alleged that he had been an eyewitness to the murder of James D. Ross. I hope it will give

the right hon. gentleman some personal satisfaction to know that his crusade in this particular case has brought a remedy into the criminal law.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Napier Turner: I now
ask the house to proceed with the second reading of the bill. As I understand the precedents and the Standing orders of the house, Mr. Speaker, consent at the second reading of the bill represents agreement on the main principles of law reform, within the limits of the bill, as well as on referring the bill to the committee.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)

May I say to members of the standing committee that I appreciate the considerable amount of work that will now be before them if the house grants second reading to this bill. I am confident that members of the committee will give this measure a thorough study and their best judgment. This bill will provide a major test for the new rules and the broadening of our committee system. I have always believed that the power of the legislature should be strengthened as against that of the executive. The committee system should provide members of parliament with a forum in which to exercise their individual judgment and in which to obtain the necessary information upon which to base that judgment. The proper functioning of our committee system is not to my mind an Americanization of our parliamentary traditions but rather a means whereby the individual member of parliament can better fulfil his role as an intelligent servant of the people in the way they intended when they put all of us here.
I do not intend to tamper with the freedom of the committee. I respect its membership and its collective judgment. Under the new rules the committee will technically be able to call witnesses as it deems fit. I do not intend to transgress upon the committee's prerogative in this regard, and I hope I am not doing so now if I remind the house that certain aspects of this bill have already received deep study by members of the House of Commons, particularly those relating to abortion and the breathalyzer test. When the committee in its good judgment sees fit, my parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Louis-Hebert (Mr. Cantin), whom I wish to thank publicly for all his help and support
January 23. 1969

in the presentation of this bill, will consider it a privilege, as will I, to appear before the committee together with the officials of the Department of Justice.
May I say in conclusion that there is nothing immutable or unchangeable about the criminal law in this country. There is nothing infallible about parliament which enacts it. Reform of the criminal law should not be just a decennial tradition-not just once in ten years. I think reform of the criminal law should take place more frequently than that and more frequently than even just once each parliament. If in the light of experience any changes or additions to the Criminal Code appear not to have been in the public interest, they can always be changed or repealed at any time. Nor will I hesitate to bring forward any further amendments in the future whenever that appears to be in the public interest, as I subscribe to continuous legal reform.
The government intends to establish an independent national law reform commission having as its principal term of reference the continuous reform of federal statutes, giving us the ability as well to plan ahead in the development of our law. This commission will be independent of government and will be charged with an objective assessment of our law and its applications. We have established a research branch in the Department of Justice so that the justice side of the department will be just as effective as the Attorney General's side.
It is my hope that shortly after this bill has been dealt with I will be in a position to introduce another bill dealing with, among other things, wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping, pre-trial detention and bail.
I ask the members of this house to summon up their best collective judgment in the analysis of this complicated measure. Today all of us here embark once again upon that endless search for justice and for an understanding and compassionate system of law, perhaps falling short of the goal in our uncertain stumblings but always seeking the ultimate reach of the human heart.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I think I would be remiss in my duty and responsibility as the first speaker for the official opposition on this serious matter if I did not say that I listened to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) with great interest. I know he took great care in preparing his address.
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I suppose this might be an afternoon when all the critics of lawyers might look upon us and say that they all have certain characteristics and to some degree are slightly charismatic. To take a personal approach for a moment, last year I noticed a comment in the Globe and Mail-someone drew this to my attention over the weekend-that I sometimes impersonate Perry Mason. I felt very deeply about that, a little touched and a little hurt. I am about the age of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), not a chicken or a boy. I have been practising law for 25 years. If Perry Mason appears to act like me then I suggest he has copied some of my methods over the years.
On the serious side, we have a motion before us that this omnibus bill receive second reading and be referred to the standing committee. The order of business reads:
Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs of Bill C-150, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Parole Act, the Penitentiary Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and to make certain consequential amendments to the Combines Investigation Act, the Customs Tariff and the National Defence Act.
Although I do not intend to do so now, at the conclusion of my speech I will move the following amendment, and I read it now to bring it to the attention of hon. members, particularly the spokesmen for other parties:
That the said motion be amended by adding after the words "National Defence Act" the following:
"and the said standing committee be instructed to make and bring into the house four separate reports in relation to the following matters contained in the bill,
all clauses:
(a)	referring to abortion;
(b)	referring to homosexuality and gross indecency;
(c)	referring to lotteries and gambling; and
(d)	all the remaining clauses of the bill."
We say at the outset that the committee should be instructed under the new rules to bring in four distinct and separate reports on the matters I have set down in the amendment I intend to move at the conclusion of my speech. I realize and appreciate that I am treading on new ground. Under the new rules the philosophy and purpose behind second reading of a bill before the house are completely changed. Under the former rules governing the procedures of parliament the matter of principle was under consideration and discussion, and when the speeches were finished and the question was put the vote and decision of the House of Commons were made on the principle of the bill itself. In brief, when we considered the principle of

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the bill we considered the fundamental primary elements and the fundamental truth and the general law contained therein. We also considered the fundamental moral motive and the substance of the bill, particularly in respect of a bill such as this. But second reading of a bill has been downgraded and is now a matter of procedure only.
Under the new rules a member of parliament can wholly disagree with the principle, the substance, the motive and the purpose of a bill and vote for it on second reading because he is merely sending the bill on a trip to a standing committee for study. We have always had the procedure, and I want to make this clear because some people think this is new, of studying a bill by referring it to a standing committee of the house. I need not bring to your attention, Mr. Speaker, with your years of experience as our Speaker, the great volume of changes made in the National Transportation Act. Actually a brand new bill was produced as the result of the many hours, days and weeks of study by the committee before it was brought back to the house. Many amendments were moved to the bill by that committee. Many suggestions were made. So the fact that under the new rules the standing committee will consider this bill clause by clause is nothing new. This is not a new reform; we have been doing it ever since we have had the parliament of Canada.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
The Minister of Justice said in the House of Commons on January 16 in answer to my oral question that the bill would not be split into categories or divisions separating that part of the bill dealing with acts in private between husband and wife or consenting 21-year old adults, that part pertaining to gambling and lotteries for particular purposes, namely, when the proceeds are used for a charitable or religious object, or with regard to wagering on horse races, agricultural fairs or exhibitions, etc., that part of the bill legalizing an abortion to a female person where the continuation of her pregnancy would be likely to endanger her life or health and, lastly, the other general terms and amendments to the Code with which the Minister of Justice dealt at the end of his speech. The minister, as we do, once wanted the bill categorized and broken down in order that abortion, homosexuality, lotteries and the other amendments could be considered separately so that every member of the House of Commons could vote
according to his conscience. That is what we want.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: There is no way in which the minister can say that this is not what he intended and that he has changed his opinion. In fact I say to the minister now that his presentation in this regard seemed to be apologetic. He was regretful and was on the defensive; he protested too much. He laboured hard trying to explain and justify his position. So far as the test of the general election is concerned, I will not go into that subject. I will only say that it was not part of the government's program to go to the people on matters of homosexuality or abortion. Perhaps the charisma of the Prime Minister might have had something to do with it.
I need not remind the house that lotteries, homosexuality and abortion are matters of great concern to our consciences. They are matters of concern to the sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives. They are matters of concern impelling all Canadians toward the right action according to their consciences. They are matters that are complex, made up of component parts of ethical and moral principles that control or inhibit the actions or thoughts of every Canadian. They may be described as involving for every Canadian an inhibiting sense of what is prudent, just and right. These subjects must be given strict and reverential examination. I want that kind of consideration, and the Canadian people want it so they can express themselves and their consciences on these separate and distinct matters. I suggest the Minister of Justice also wants this.
This leads to comprehending the complexity of these many subjects affecting the conscience of every Canadian. There are members on both sides of the house who will have to compromise some of their principles and, above all, compromise the principles of their constituents, because we are not here primarily to study and understand our own consciences. We are representing the people of Canada-265 members speaking for 20 million Canadians. That is why we are here. Parliament is the people's conscience. There are members who would vote for all parts of the bill except those clauses dealing with homosexuality. That is the way some of them feel, and that feeling exists among members on the other side.


An hon. Member:: How do you know?

January 23, 1969


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Because I have talked to some of them. Here I would say to the new members that there is a gentleman's agreement that one never discloses the source of one's information by name. However, let me not be put off the track.
There may be members who would vote for all parts of the bill but those sections in reference to abortion, and they should have that privilege. Others might vote for those sections of the bill if the word "health" was legally defined, and they also should have that privilege. The same problem may arise as to lotteries. To carry the argument to its conclusion, on the one hand there may be members who will not vote for any of the sections dealing with homosexuality, lotteries or abortion but are prepared to support other merited changes and reforms to the Code. The whole package may be good politics but the way in which it is presented to parliament exemplifies rotten procedure and bad reform.
I do not believe I am treading on sacred ground when I remind the government and the minister that various religious groups and bodies differ on what they consider acceptable to their faiths, their religious institutions and their consciences. It is utter nonsense to suggest that members of parliament and indeed Canadians, who were one of the first peoples to be guaranteed their religious freedom by the common law, by the Bill of Rights and by other statutes, can separate their spiritual and the temporal responsibilities. I remember when in July of 1960 the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) pointed out in the debate on the Bill of Rights that Canada was the first nation to get its religious freedom by statute. Students of political science will recall the following words from St. Matthew, which have been quoted in many political texts:
Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's;
And unto God the things that are God's.
Of course we must differentiate between the spiritual and the temporal. Therefore this bill should be separated and divided so that all changes can be fairly decided upon according to the consciences of members of parliament and the people of this nation. I point out that when the Minister of Justice was campaigning for leadership he realized and appreciated the degree of feeling connected with some of these matters and felt the political pulse of the delegates. He said that this bill would in fact be considered in the manner I suggest today, that it would be
Criminal Code
divided to allow us to express ourselves according to our consciences and our feelings. I ask him now, why the change? I ask him in all sincerity, because he knows I respect him as a friend, who runs his department?


John Napier Turner: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not recall ever having said that during the leadership convention. Mind you, I said a lot of things but I do not think I said that.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I never thought that from the time the convention was called until now the minister had ever stopped running for the leadership. But I will not get into an argument about that. If he says he did not say it during the active part of the leadership campaign, let me tell him he did say it on TV and to the press. I have the clippings. I do not intend to get into an argument in that regard. But since he is rising on a point of order let me ask him: Who runs his department? Does he or does the Prime Minister?
At the end of my speech I shall make some points concerning why I consider my amendment to the main motion to be relevant and in order. Before I leave this point let me make it clear that we in this party did not move that the bill be not read a second time, nor did we move that the standing committee not study it. We merely intend to move an amendment on the substance of the bill, that when it goes to committee it be studied in a certain manner. I submit that this puts the amendment in order.
I will now go on to another aspect dealing with the Criminal Code. The Minister of Justice said that these are the greatest changes made since the Code was enacted in 1892. I felt he downgraded that great Canadian, Mr. Garson, who was minister when great changes were made to the code, and the minister knows it. The present Criminal Code of Canada is at best a haphazard arrangement based on English precedent, historical accident and outdated mythology. The minister has not scratched the surface in this regard. We can trace the foundation of the Criminal Code back to the work of Sir James Stephen. His draft code of 1868 along with Burbidge's Digest, which was really an edition of Stephen's work in a Canadian context by Mr. Justice Burbidge of the Exchequer Court of Canada, became the Canadian Criminal Code in 1892 after being presented

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to the parliament ol Canada by the then minister of justice, Sir John Thompson.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I am very happy that I have pleased one section of the country.
The development and improvement of the Code over the past 70 years has been largely by way of amendment. The minister told us today: I have got this bill now, but I shall be adding something else tomorrow. He is like Alice in Wonderland. When we look at this great article we see this beautiful, fine picture of a Canadian who is a great reformer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: But he has had to admit that everything he has done to date the Prime Minister has handed to him on a platter. Yet tomorrow, like Alice in Wonderland, he will become a great reformer.
My good friend from British Columbia over there is a member of the bar. I hope he will give this measure some study because I am sure it is important to him and to his people.
As I was saying, the development and improvement of the Code over the past 70-odd years has largely been by way of amendment, as is proposed today. The desirability of proceeding in this manner has been challenged by a leading Canadian authority, Professor Alan Mewett, who in an article entitled "The Criminal Law, 1867-1967" which appeared in the Canadian Bar Review stated:
The numerous amendments present a shocking indictment of the process of criminal legislation.
Professor Mewett concluded in somewhat dejected fashion-he did not appear to be as excited about the Code as does the Minister of Justice-by saying:
Thus, tampered with and tinkered with, it remains the monument of the eminent Victorian, Sir James Stephen.
Later he added:
But it is not a cause for congratulation that Sir James Stephen would be quite at home with the Criminal Code of 1967.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether this same unhappy conclusion could not be drawn in 1968 or in 1969? Of course it could. What should we be looking for, then, when we consider the reform of the Criminal Code? We heard what the Minister of Justice had to say in this regard and I think most hon. members would be in accord with much of his thinking

as to the need of a codified law relating to the morals of the nation.
The notion that crime can be placed in a single category is erroneous. Violent crimes create a climate of fear in the streets of our growing cities. White collar crime, though important in economic terms, is much less visible than are crimes of violence. The material cost of crimes such as petty theft, consumer fraud, violations of the Combines Investigation Act and embezzlement dwarfs, in economic terms, all crimes of violence.
To control violent crime and white collar crime we must have laws which are practical and acceptable to modern interpretations of life and human behaviour. The Minister of Justice agrees with me in this regard. This is why I hoped the minister, when he talked about amending the Code, would really do a job and not merely scratch the surface.
The value of proper laws and proper law enforcement cannot be underestimated in connection with the control of crime but I have felt for years that we must get at the breeding grounds of crime. What are those breeding grounds? Crime breeds in the cesspools of injustice. Crime breeds in the urban slums of our fast-growing cities. Urban poverty makes people the victims, not the masters, of their environment. A bad environment becomes the hereditary property of succeeding generations.
In order to launch a major assault on crime we must attack the conditions of despair and denial of human opportunity in which crime can grow. However, crime still thrives under conditions of affluence; it is white collar economic crime which is erroding the capitalistic system and promoting more controls, less freedom. Carried to a conclusion, this kind of crime will lead us farther down the road of socialism.
In brief, police, courts and prisons cannot by themselves control crime. We must all deal with it. We must also deal with the underlying causes of crime, the immense and stubborn forces which pervade our environment, form our character and determine the quality of our lives. Through long-range effort in a new land of bountiful resources such as Canada, we can surely conquer poverty, ignorance, disease, discrimination, family breakdown, injustice, social tension and despair. But while we must strive to uproot the causes of crime we must put our practical mind to work in amending the various sections of the Criminal Code in such a way as to guarantee that the law is respected, and so that it shall
January 23, 1969

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not protect the rich while constituting an injustice against the poor. Crime is a national problem in terms of our constitution, and that is why we are debating the present measure in the House of Commons today. Law enforcement, as the Minister of Justice reminded us earlier this afternoon on the orders of the day, is a provincial and local responsibility. This parliament has a legal responsibility, but there must, of course, be some liaison between the hon. gentleman's department and others working in the field of justice and law enforcement. Incidentally, I wish the R.C.M.P. was still under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice so that liaison might be improved. I see the Solicitor General (Mr. Mcllraith) looking at me somewhat sharply, in a manner he can use at times-


Gerald William Baldwin: A sardonic smile.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: It is for us to bring excellence to every aspect of the administration of criminal justice-to correction, to courts, to law enactment in every jurisdiction in Canada. Laws must be reformed. They must be repealed if enforcement is impossible, if the majority of people find them unjust and no one pretends to obey them and, above all, if no one is willing to enforce them. Surely this is the purpose of amending the Criminal Code. At least, I hope it is.
We hear a great deal of discussion about reform. Let us consider what we might have done today. Despite the length of the bill and the number of clauses, 120 in all, many significant and desirable changes are regrettably not included. One of the most urgent areas of reform is our system of bail in Canada. The Minister of Justice has mentioned this in the past, but I note we are not being asked to deal with any specific proposals here. Why could we not have been given a thorough review of the Criminal Code and cleared the whole thing up in one shot without further delay? I am pleased to think the Minister of Justice agrees with me. In the October, 1968, edition of Maclean's magazine, which I hold up for hon. members to see, the hon. gentleman sets out his conception of justice and is reported as saying in part:
-a man has to have equal right to counsel; provisions like bail have to operate equally as between rich and poor-
Recently a report appeared that in one of our great provinces in this nation people have waited months, even years, for trial. This sort of thing does not happen in only one province. Representatives of the party to which I
belong have asked for a royal commission to look into these things but there has been no affirmative approach to this request on the part of the government. Why was bail reform not included in this omnibus bill? Provision should have been made. When we asked him about it the minister said, in effect; It should be there but it is not. What he really means to say is that the Prime Minister would not let him insert it.
The original idea of bail was, of course, to make certain that the accused would appear. But our existing bail system is not ensuring this. There are many problems. Magistrates generally set bail according to the offence charged rather than according to the chances of the accused reappearing for his trial.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
I began to practice law 25 years ago, though let me say I did not inherit a law practice or have that kind of affluence bestowed on me. Like many of the lawyers in this House of Commons I had to do a lot of police court work. What happened when I went to the police court to have bail set in a case? The first thing that the magistrate asked Crown counsel was what the accused's record was. The accused might not have been in trouble for five years, but if the police knew the man's record and that he had committed a certain crime five years previously, in some cases they rounded up all such suspects and charged them with vagrancy. Then they stayed in jail. These young, disillusioned men who thought they had rehabilitated themselves, would tell me they had been in jail since Friday and had lost their jobs, that their families thought they had returned to crime.


Erik Nielsen: It is still happening.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: You bet it is still happening; it occurs every day. Reform in this regard would have made my heart pump with the proper kind of blood.
Then let us consider the great problem raised by marijuana. I remember one case in which Crown counsel was E. J. McCormick, Q.C.-he told me I could use his name-and the accused came from a good family. Counsel told me that the accused was going to appeal and that he wanted the magistrate to reduce bail. The magistrate said he could not, that the matter had to go to the high court. While arguments of this sort go on, the youth becomes further frustrated and stays in jail.

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More disturbing is the result of surveys that have shown that in some cities well over half of all accused persons did not raise the bail that was set at their first court appearance. I can assure you, Mr, Speaker, that the half who remained in custody were not the rich.


Erik Nielsen: How about bail for Indians?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: The hon. member for
Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) mentions bail for Indians. Not only can they not get bail, but they never have counsel. I have seen Indians in court in the Peace River area. I went up there twice to defend an oilman on an impaired driving charge. The rich do have to come to us fellows who represent the poor, and I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker; it is because we have a knowledge of criminal law. Clarence Darrow's life illustrates that. When the railway companies got into trouble they came to him.
Even when the accused is able to raise his bail there is often an inexcusable delay in releasing him. The rules relating to the security that an accused can use are anomalous and unrealistic. Finally, there is a multitude of problems concerning professional sureties and money lenders.
I have not given an exhaustive outline of the problems, but I trust that it has been sufficient to illustrate that the minister was abundantly right when he said that bail revisions should be included in the omnibus bill. Did the minister do so, Mr. Speaker? No. I heard a member from the New Democratic party ask why not. As long as this discrimination exists it means that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.
I now want to move to another section. Section 622 of the Code provides the judge with discretion, in cases where the maximum penalty is not more than five years, to impose a fine in lieu of imprisonment or in addition thereto. But in cases where the maximum sentence is more than five years the judge cannot impose a fine in lieu of or in addition to imprisonment.
I had an experience two or three years ago in defending a couple of university students on marijuana charges. We went through the preliminary hearing because we wanted to plead before the high court where we thought we would get fairer justice. Under the Narcotic Control Act the maximum sentence for possession and use of marijuana is seven years. The accused in this case were Americans and counsel for the Crown contended
[Mr. Wooliams.l
they should have been charged with trafficking, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.
Let us apply this case to section 622, since we are talking about reform. The maximum sentence was more than five years so the judge could not impose a fine in lieu of imprisonment or in addition thereto. Therefore, what did the lawyers have to do? We went to work in back rooms to devise a method to enable the judge, who wanted to fine these accused, to send them back to the place in the United States whence they came. We found a case that held that the judge can count time spent in jail awaiting trial, although the court of appeal of Alberta disagreed on this point with the court of appeal of British Columbia and held it could not be done. Since it was about this time of day we asked the judge to give them one day in jail and a fine, and that is what he did. We found a House of Lords case which held that since sentence was passed after dinnertime the accused did not have to serve any time in jail. This sort of thing is not good enough and should be the type of reform that the minister should come to grips with. He has a large staff in his department and it would not be too difficult to overhaul the Code.
Some of the offences which fall into the category with which I am dealing are false pretences and theft under $50. The $50 limit was set so long ago that it is now ridiculously low as a result of inflation. It is difficult to steal anything worth under $50 any more, even from Woolworth's. A bit of shoplifting or siphoning gas, involves amounts that are under $50 as a rule. Therefore I think some consideration ought to be given to changing the figure of $50 in the same way as in district court, as opposed to the small debt court, the jurisdictional limit has gone up. In addition, under the Narcotic Control Act possession of marijuana carries a sentence of seven years, and this is likewise outdated.
One of the distinguished members of this house, a former Attorney General who is a member of this party, was talking about this very matter the other evening and remarked that we would all be upset if we found our own children using such substances. We would be even more upset to find them being used by professional men and people from certain families. I am going to deal later with the poor people who do not have any chance at all. I think we would all be upset if we found our children charged under this kind of outdated, Victorian law. I think the sentence should be a fine.
January 23, 1969

What happens to the poor boy or girl who has no counsel? I recall an occasion when four lawyers worked on an argument that asked the judge for a sentence of one day in jail and a $500 fine. Can the average man afford this kind of counselling today? Of course there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.
Let me deal with some other anomalies. That same section of the Code provides for the giving of time to pay. But who goes before judges on theft and false pretence charges? Mostly people without money and without jobs, with little education and with few prospects. Some of them will scrape up the fine but others, after asking for a number of extensions, find that they are unable to raise the money. What happens? They go to jail.
I thought that in this great "just society" the day had ended when a person went to jail for debt. Take the case of a boy accused of an offence whose father can afford to pay the fine. The fine is paid. But take the case of a boy whose father cannot find the money to pay the fine or who has no father: he goes to jail for debt.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
The present Code provides that a magistrate has, with the consent of the accused, jurisdiction to try any offence except a handful like rape, murder, treason, etc. This means that between 85 per cent and 90 per cent of all criminal cases are tried by magistrates who are overworked. Thus, if a youngster who has no record does not plead guilty he frequently elects trial by magistrate. The old hand almost invariably chooses the high court. He knows the ropes and knows he stands a better chance, especially with a good counsel. The old hand then has the benefit of a lengthy preliminary inquiry and, if committed for trial, has the right to change his election to a district court or other high court. That right stems from a decision of the Supreme Court. He can even, during a preliminary, re-elect to be tried by the magistrate. Authority for that statement is Cooper v. The Queen, a Nova Scotia case which was affirmed in the Supreme Court. Thus the magistrate's time is taken up with lengthy preliminaries and the district court judge or the court of Queen's Bench hears all the evidence again. If all magistrates were lawyers one might not object if their jurisdiction were absolute. But in some parts of the country, in Alberta especially, magistrates are not necessarily trained in the law. It is dangerous,
Criminal Code
therefore, for an accused to appear before an untrained magistrate.
Many years ago a magistrate in southern Alberta, after hearing evidence for a couple of days, said, "I will now deliver my judgment." The judgment he delivered was: "I have seen you grow up, sonny. You never were any good to start with and you are still no good, so I am going to send you to penitentiary." Some hon. members may laugh, but I took the matter seriously. I took it to the court of appeal and the judges there concluded that the magistrate had not considered the evidence. What would have happened to that boy if no lawyer had taken the case to appeal?


Mr. Mcllraith:: Was the magistrate referring to the accused or the lawyer?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I don't know, George. I will not get into an argument because I took the case very seriously. You go back to your mortgage practice.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I was only joking with the Solicitor General. I have recognized over the years that he is an able lawyer. I was only trying to be humorous, not facetious.
We must review the question of jury trials. In some instances the legal process, where a man elects trial by jury, is extremely slow. On the other hand, in Alberta one can elect to be tried on almost any kind of charge by a judge alone without a jury. That stems from old legislation passed in the days when the Northwest Territories were sparsely settled. There were not enough people to make up juries and judges had to try cases alone. Alberta is the only province where such legislation is in effect. Personally I believe that the jury system provides substantial justice for the average man. He is tried by his peers who intuitively do the right thing. In this respect the whole question of the administration of criminal justice cries out for attention and reform. Not only should the appeal system be modernized but the entire pre-trial process of preliminary hearings, grand jury hearings, etc., ought to be examined.
Part of this examination or reorganization might include the following suggestions with respect to preliminary inquiries. At present, if the accused does not elect to be tried by a magistrate there must be a preliminary hearing. As hon. members who are lawyers know even where accused wish to go to a high

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court to plead guilty-an example is the two university students I mentioned-they must still go through the preliminary inquiry process before reaching the high court. Why could the government not say that in instances like that the preliminary inquiry could be waived? Why could an accused not go directly before the trial division of the Supreme Court? That sort of reform might be considered. That is the sort of reform Canadians who read the Prime Minister's book thought they would see. It seems that we are to have jam tomorrow but not jam today.
One of the cornerstones in the common law system of criminal law is the traditional principle that the accused is presumed innocent until his guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt. However, there have been in the past exceptional cases in which the legislature has thrown upon the accused the onus probandi of a part of the issue. Strong objections have been raised to legislation of this type so much so that members of the judiciary have made such comments as "it is a pernicious method of proof to introduce into the common law." Another judge said that legislation of this type is opposed to every principle of what is right and just and to the entire spirit of British law. The most outstanding example of this type of legislation is section 295(1) of the existing Criminal Code which reads:
Every one who without lawful excuse, the proof of which lies upon him, has in his possession any instrument for house-breaking, vault-breaking or safe-breaking is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.
Under the existing legislation, in theory anyone could be charged for having a flashlight or screwdriver in his glove compartment, objects which I am sure many of us have in our cars. That is because the offence is complete when the Crown establishes possession by the accused of a screw driver, flashlight and so on. There has been much general concern over the years about this type of legislation. In June, 1967, Mr. Justice Hall said in a Supreme Court of Canada decision in Tupper v. The Queen:
Whether Parliament intended it or not, s. 295 (1), as it reads, permits of no other interpretation. It puts the possessor of many necessary tools of trade, automobile accessories and tools and hundreds of similar instruments used and carried daily for routine purposes which might be capable of being used for house-breaking in the position that merely from being in possession under the most innocent circumstances, he can be brought into court and put to the proof that he has a lawful excuse for having a screwdriver, a flashlight or some other such household tool or instrument in his car, boat, tool kit or on his person at any given time or place which includes his home. It can be argued
[Mr. Woolliams.l
and readily accepted that this may not happen frequently, but it can and may happen if Parliament really intended what the section says when, without any qualification as to time or circumstance, it put the burden of proof on the person in whose possession any such item may be found.
How does this section of the Criminal Code affect, say, a young man who in his youth did a little breaking and entering for which he was convicted and who is picked up by a policeman a couple of years later when a robbery occurs in his district? If a policeman finds in the glove compartment of the young man's car a flashlight or screwdriver he can charge him with possession of burglars' tools and the onus is on the boy to prove his innocence. He needs a good lawyer. And many of our young men caught in a similar trap cannot afford one. It thus becomes incumbent on us to take a very careful look at this type of legislation and assure ourselves that any departure from significant principles of the common law are clearly justified.
In this regard the committee will have to balance carefully the competing forces that will be created by proposed section 224A, popularly called the breathalyzer section. During this inquiry committee members should also satisfy themselves as to the reasons for removing the words prima facie which precede the words "evidence" in a number of places.
When talking about the breathalyzer test the minister said, "But you don't have to take it." If my interpretation of the section and that of other lawyers is correct, it means that if the policeman who stops you is reasonably sure you have been drinking and asks you to take the test and you refuse to do so, you are then guilty of an offence. Let me say at once that as a Canadian I agree with the minister that murder on our highways must be ended. He quoted some interesting figures. They show what happens when the use of alcohol is abused. But legislation seeking to cure the evil of the drinking driver must not be a worse evil than the one it seeks to cure.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
Next I wish to direct my attention to the problem of an accused's right to obtain counsel. The present Criminal Code in section 709(1) states in part:
-the defendant is entitled to make his full answer and defence.
Any hopes that this would provide adequate protection for an accused were abruptly shattered in 1966 in Regina v. O'Connor when the Ontario court of appeal held that where the accused was refused permission to obtain
January 23, 1969

counsel at a police station he was not prevented from making a full answer and defence at his subsequent trial. An appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada upheld this decision. In other words, the accused has a right to demand a lawyer for his trial but it does not give him the right to obtain a lawyer before the police question him, or under certain procedures that take place at the preliminary hearing. He is entitled to make one telephone call. He calls his lawyer and if the lawyer is out, then that is his call.
It is essential that we bear in mind that the judicial rule is that relevant evidence is admissible regardless of how it is obtained, with the exception of confessions of accused obtained under duress or promise. Consequently, it is relevant for the purposes of the trial whether the method of acquisition contravened the Bill of Rights which states:
-no law of Canada shall be construed or applied so as to . .. (c) deprive a person who has been arrested or detained (i) of the right to be informed promptly of the reason for his arrest or detention, (ii) of the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay-
Mr. Justice Aylesworth of the Ontario court of appeal stated in Regina v. Steinberg:
The appearance of justice is an important element to be considered in criminal matters-
Notwithstanding this statement we still do not have, not even in the so-called just society, adequate provisions to ensure the right of an accused to counsel throughout the period of his detention-and how important that is to a first offender.
I want now to direct my attention to certain matters which, as I have said, affect the conscience of every member of parliament and every Canadian, namely, those sections dealing with abortion and homosexuality.
In reference to abortion the amendment does not change, in my opinion, what has been the general social practice and the basic general judicial interpretation of the Criminal Code at the present time. Section 209 states:
(1)	Every one who causes the death of a child that has not become a human being, in such a manner that-
The words "in the act of birth" have since been added.
-if the child were a human being, he would be guilty of murder, is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.
(2)	This section does not apply to a person who, by means that, in good faith, he considers necessary to preserve the life of the mother of a child that has not become a human being, causes the death of the child.
Criminal Code
In other words, there are exceptions. Today if a doctor in good faith decides that the life of the mother is of prime importance he can perform the operation without the consent of a committee and is exempt from being charged with an offence under the Criminal Code. This has been interpreted by the House of Lords, which decisions are usually followed by the Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada.
The words, "preserving the life of the mother" are to be construed in a reasonable sense. They are not limited to the case of saving the mother from violent death; they conclude the case where continuance of the pregnancy would make her a physical or mental wreck.
That is Rex v. Bourne, House of Lords, 1939. In other words, section 209 is interpreted, without the words in the amendment "in the act of birth", to include not only preserving the life of the mother but also where her life would be physically or mentally wrecked. Section 195 of the Criminal Code gives the legal interpretation of a human being.
The new section states that a qualified medical practitioner who procures miscarriage of a female person and a female person who permits a qualified medical practitioner to procure her miscarriage will not be guilty of offences if the therapeutic abortion committee of the hospital where the miscarriage was procured has certified that in the opinion of the committee the continuation of pregnancy would be likely to endanger her life or health. What is the difference? Have the legal beagles really suggested this change or has it been in the hands of hanky-panky politicians?


An hon. Member:: Oh!


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: An hon. member says "Oh". Mr. Speaker, with the greatest respect to the member who said that-


An hon. Member:: Who said it?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: -I have talked to lawyers and if necessary I can quote a professor who claims there is no difference. That is his opinion, but of course the law is the subject of various opinions.
Were the women of the nation consulted? There is only one woman member of this house and perhaps she feels this would have been better left in the halls of injustice waiting for women's emancipation.
The great quarrel, apart from those who are against any kind of abortion or the legalizing of a miscarriage, will likely revolve around the definition of the word "health". What does health mean? The House of Lords

January 23, 1969
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stated the test that continuance of the pregnancy would put the mother in a state of physical or mental wreck. Does the new law go farther? This reform is spoken of in glowing terms. Is it window-dressing to be gobbled up by those who have studied the changes or are they merely overcome by the propaganda they have read? In the scientific medical field, with the extension of the application of psychology and psychiatry health could have a very wide definition. Words grow with sociological changes.
I think it is important, on behalf of my party and the people of Canada, to put on record certain arguments presented to me by members of my party and by societies regarding their feeling as to therapeutic abortion.
In 1933 the Supreme Court of Canada awarded an unborn child-a foetus-damages when the unborn child was injured while in the womb and the injuries were caused by the negligence of another. I would like to quote from a brief dated October, 1968, of the Knights of Columbus, an organization representing a large section of this country. I hope the committee examines this brief. Possibly the minister had to walk a tightrope but that is the responsibility of leadership and being a minister. I am not being critical in that regard. The brief states:
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
Unquestionably all adhere to our solemn obligation to respect the life of other human beings. Our contention is that this obligation embraces the life of the foetus. Rather than establishing a difference between foetal life and life after birth, the thrust of science is in the other direction. Indications more and more favour one human life in a maturing process with characteristics of individuality perceptible even at the moment of conception. Can anyone ignore the implications in the voluntary destruction of foetal life? When the probability of human life is involved, is one free in his dealings with it?
Our concern is the direct killing of the life of a foetus. On the other hand, we readily admit that a mother is not morally required to forgo medical treatments which will save her life if by doing so the unintended death of her foetus is incurred. Anything less than a mother's life such as personal convenience would be a disregard for life, and the sacrifice of greater values for lesser ones. No one has to tell a mother that the life she carries in her womb transcends the animal or vegetable. The physical and mental morbidity attached to abortive procedures gives ample evidence of her convictions and of those who surround her. In addition, medical tradition dictates that operative procedures are indicated only to prevent or correct pathology.
From the medical standpoint we strongly support the statement of the Catholic Hospital Association
[Mr. Woolliams.I
of Canada: "We know of no satisfactory arguments, nor even a consensus in the medical profession generally, for the opinion that abortion except for the rare instances when desperate measures are called for to save the life of a pregnant woman, can truly be regarded as a therapeutic means to preserve her physical and mental welfare."
That is their position. I want to make it clear, in my position this afternoon as spokesman for my party, that I am like the minister; I do not take a position. I want the committee to take a look at it. But I say to the minister that if there has ever been a bill upon which we should have a free vote in parliament, this is it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I would have thought more of the Prime Minister's just society and his just leadership if he had said to the Liberal caucus and to the great national Liberal party: You have a free vote in this regard. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that we have considered that in the light that everyone on this side of the house can vote according to his conscience.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, my remarks on this bill will be quite lengthy but I suggest that even if they are lengthy they may shorten the debate. My speech was prepared by myself and the members of the justice committee of the Conservative party, and I want to thank them for their help. We are setting forward the issues which the committee must take a look at, and we are placing the position- of our party on record, that everyone should have the right to vote according to his conscience on these matters.
I have said that the women have been neglected. Now I want to read from a brief submitted to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada by Mrs. L. E. Moyer of Nova Scotia. Again I say that this is not my position. I am just pointing out what some of the people of Canada think. I quote:
And yet, a significant proportion of Canadian women (it may well be a majority) are opposed to abortion for reasons which should be of interest to all Canadian women. We are not all religious fanatics; we are not all naive to the realities of modern behavior; and we are not all relics of the Victorian era who would impose on modem society the evils of puritanical and artificial moral standards. We are opposed to abortion for reasons which have to do with freedom and justice in a democratic society; and for reasons which have to do with promoting full status for Canadian women as free, independent, responsible human persons
January 23, 1969

473$
who are worthy of respect. I suggest that these reasons deserve to be heard: that they deserve to receive a public exposure which at least apprpaches that which has been given to the other side of the question, realizing, of course, that abortion can hardly be considered a popular topic of discussion. The majority of people, understandably, are loath to discuss it or even to think about it at all.
I pause at that point to say that doctors do not like to talk about it. The doctors who perform these operations at various stages under the old Code do not like to discuss it.
Also, we must face the fact that affluence and the pursuit of pleasure have bred in modern society a certain softness or lack of moral courage which strongly resists subjects which are painful or even disturbing, especially where morals are concerned-
Then she asks these three questions:
Three fundamental questions naturally emerge as containing the whole issue. And it is not necessary to be a theologian, or a medical doctor, or a legal expert in order to answer these questions. And yet, they are never faced and never answered.
1.	Does an unborn child constitute human life?
Under the old Code, section 195, we know the answer.
This question usually is disposed of by referring to it as an "old saw"; and red herrings are dragged out in the form of references to such matters as whether the soul is more important than the body. Sometimes the answer is given that an unborn baby constitutes "developing" life. But it is not his life which is developing. He has life already. It is not even his personality which is developing because his personality already has been determined. And how can we speak of life as "developing" anyhow? So the question remains unanswered: does an unborn child constitute human life? And, if not, the interesting question is raised: what then is an unborn child?
2.	Under what conditions, in a free society, can direct and voluntary taking of innocent life be permitted by law? The proposed legislation would permit abortion under certain specific conditions. But, if an unborn child is not a human individual, why should abortion be restricted at all? Is the proposed legislation telling us that under certain conditions which may relate to the general welfare of an individual, Canadian law should provide that innocent human life can be destroyed? Or, is the proposed legislation telling us that certain conditions are necessary before a woman can have an unwanted growth removed from her body? It must be telling us the one thing or the other. And both statements are completely unacceptable.
3.	What will be the immediate and the long-range effects of such legislation on Canadian women as individuals and on Canadian society as a whole? I think that the main reason this question is never answered is that sufficient study to make possible a satisfactory answer has never been undertaken.
There are two viewpoints, one from a ladywriting to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women and the other by the Knights of Columbus. These are some of the
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questions that the public are asking and these are the matters which the committee must examine, discuss and weigh well. Is the Code badly worded? The minister said so. I agree. Is the minister curing this problem? I think not. I pose this question to the minister: Have the Canadian Medical Association and the doctors in the various provinces agreed to take this responsibility thrust upon them by the Criminal Code? And are the doctors fully protected as well as the female patients?
The special committee sat and studied many briefs concerning abortion, under the chairmanship of Dr. Harley, and were unable to agree on any kind of definition of health. Mr. Speaker, may I call it five o'clock as I think this is a good place to break off my remarks for the moment.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Speaker:: Before proceeding with private members' business 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 Broadview (Mr. Gilbert)- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-program respecting pollution problem at Dunnville, Ontario; the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale)-Bilingual Requirements for Commissionaires at Museums; the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie)-Post Office Department-negotiations respecting five-day delivery.
It being five o'clock the house will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, notices of motion (papers), private bills, public bills.



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Frank Howard: That an order of the house do issue for a copy of a document entitled "Local Government on Indian Reserves" prepared by the Policy and Planning Directorate of the Indian Affairs Branch, dated August 4, 1967.

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He said: Mr. Speaker, in order that there may be some continuity tor those who will be reading this debate and because it is sometimes necessary with such motions to point out that they have been transferred from another point in time I think I ought to put on the record just what is involved. The motion I sought to move yesterday asked for the production of a particular document entitled "Local Government on Indian Reserves", prepared by the policy and planning directorate of the Indian affairs branch under date of August 4, 1967. Yesterday when giving the reasons that the document could not be produced the minister said that it was a document marked "Confidential for discussion purposes". He said further:
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
This document was intended for field officials and I do not think that we could table it in the house since it is a departmental document prepared for internal administrative purposes.
I pointed out yesterday and do so again today that if it was a document prepared, as the minister said, for internal administrative purposes there is a tremendous amount of confusion and misunderstanding within the department itself because the document in question was given fairly wide distribution to people who were not officials of the Indian Affairs Branch and who were not employed by the branch in any capacity. In other words, departmental officials gave at least semi-public distribution to this document. That is how it came into my possession.
However, since the document deals with a fundamental and basic aspect of authority which the native Indian people should have over their own affairs I felt it would be desirable to attempt to have it tabled in parliament so that it would be a public document in the full sense of the word and would be available to all the native Indian people in Canada and not just a few of them. I have discussed this matter with a number of the native people who indicated they would like to have the document made available to them because it reflects the government's attitude as to local government control and the determination by the native people of their own affairs which is something that is pretty fundamental to them.
Without trying to offend the minister or without trying to sound as if I am offending him I submit that this is another example of the basic philosophy within his department and the government. Government tends to be
[Mr. Howard (Skeena) .1
secretive. It tends to be aloof from the general public in respect of the publication of documents for discussion. It tends to be a closed circuit corporation. It wishes to do things within a vacuum or behind closed doors. It does not want basically to bring people into the discussion and the development of programs and ideas which relate to them. I submit that this is simply an extension of that concept of secrecy. So far as I am concerned the concept of government should be the reverse. It should be open, friendly and generous in its discussions with people. It should do its best to obtain the confidence of the people in every possible way and only maintain secrecy in a unique situation and not as the traditional way of doing things. It is with this attitude that I disagree.
In respect of secrecy and the refusal on the part of the government to take the national Indian people into its confidence, I submit that the fact that the document itself is embarrassing to the government is the real reason it does not want to make it public. By its construction, by its phraseology, the document indicates a government attitude which is disdainful of the right of the native Indian people to control their own affairs. All this is taking place at the same time that so-called convention conferences are being held. On the one hand the government tells the native people that it wants to talk to them about certain things and obtain their views, while on the other hand it prepares documents of the type I hold in my hand and refuses to make them public and give to the Indian people the thinking within the internal structure of government about things as fundamental as local government control.
Without reflecting upon a vote of this house, I point out that a few days ago we asked in the house for the production of another document relating to the fish and game laws as they apply to the native Indian people. That was refused. Subsequently there was a vote on the matter in the house and the majority, including the minister, voted against making that report public so that the native Indian people could see what was included in it about something as basic as fishing and hunting rights. When the committee was set up to deal with the fish and game laws the gentleman who is the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and who was then the minister in charge of Indian affairs on behalf of the Liberal government told us that when that report was prepared it would
January 23, 1969



be made available to the native Indian people. But when it finally was prepared it was kept as a secret government document.
The government does not always act in this way. I have in mind another internal report which was prepared within this branch that the government saw fit to make available to a member of parliament from the Liberal party so that he could make a speech in the house based upon that so-called confidential report. So we have a sort of two-faced approach here in that the government is prepared to make available for political reasons so-called confidential reports which deal with some aspect of Indian affairs and yet in other cases, such as in respect of a document like this, it is determined to keep them as secret as it possibly can.
This document has the heading "Local Government on Indian Reserves". I am arguing that it should be made available to the Indian people because it reflects the attitude of the government and of the whole structure of the Indian Affairs Branch with regard to wanting to control the activities and destinies of the native Indian people and the councils they elect. This is all the more reason that it should be made public. The attitude of the government and the department is a reflection of their approach to the municipal structure.
When in respect of the Garden River reserve a disagreement rose about whether or not the council was properly elected, the involvement of the Indian Affairs Branch added to the confusion. A Mr. Eric Boyd, who I believe is the head of a section in the branch and who incidentally I do not think is competent to fill the position he holds although he may be competent as a public relations man, told us in the midst of the discussion concerning the election of the Garden River reserve council that the reserve was just like any other municipality. That reflects the attitude of the department in wanting to foist on the native Indian people an authoritarian structure similar to that of municipalities without asking them what they want to do.
In this regard I should like to touch upon an aspect of the situation in British Columbia which is fraught with tremendous danger for the native people of that province. I do not know whether the minister is familiar with it, but I certainly ask him to look into it and accept the responsibility with which he is charged in his position of protecting the rights of the native Indian people not only in
Indian Affairs
the province of British Columbia but in every province.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
The British Columbia legislature recently passed, at the request of the government, an amendment to the municipal act which permits the people on Indian reserves to become incorporated as municipalities. If any band of Indian people in the province of British Columbia becomes incorporated as a municipality under the provisions of this act, unless the minister and the federal government take some protective measures they will lose every single, solitary square inch of reserve land and every last penny in their capital account funds which they may have as a result of the sale of any land. They will lose every penny that may be held in trust for them by the department.
There is an order in council in existence in the province of British Columbia which dates back some time before the war. It was passed as a result of the McKenna-McBride royal commission into Indian affairs in British Columbia. When the province transferred to the federal government certain lands as a result of that royal commission inquiry which were to be Indian reserves, it passed an order in council which said that if any band becomes extinct the reserve lands and the capital account moneys from the sale of any reserve lands would revert to the grantor, that is, the provincial government. It was the opinion of the legal advisers of the Indian Affairs Branch in the early days, when the Indian people of a community were thinking about becoming a municipality, that if an Indian band in the province of British Columbia became organized as a municipality it would become extinct as an Indian band and would lose every inch of reserve land. It is incumbent on the minister, and I know how sincere and dedicated he is in respect of the cause of Indian people, to take steps to deal with this situation if this has not been done or it has not been brought to his attention.
The document we are trying to have made public contains page after page suggesting that Indian reservations will eventually become municipalities. I submit the government cannot keep going in two directions at the same time. The government cannot continue to advance the idea that Indian communities should become municipalities without taking protective measures to make sure that they know what they are doing, know

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what the situation, is and have access to this document. These people should be informed what the government is doing to protect and preserve their rights down to the last iota.
The document refers to the establishment of a local government bureau which is supposed to act as the co-ordinating agent of various regions, hold discussion meetings and smooth the path through the Ottawa headquarters. This is an embarrassing phrase to the public servants in the Indian Affairs Branch. The document refers to smoothing the path through the Ottawa headquarters.


Mr. Peters:: It is a two-headed thing.


Frank Howard: My colleague suggests it is two-headed. I have already said today, although not in the house, that there is a tribal war going on in this department between the minister and the real minister, as he has been called on some occasions, the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Andras). This is one of the few departments that has two heads and no direction. These two heads have been fighting with each other for favours from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and about which one is really the head of the department.
In any event, this document was prepared within the branch and refers to the necessity of smoothing the path through Ottawa headquarters. We all know that the Indian Affairs Branch has been in the business of producing red tape for so long it has enough red tape for all the government departments and lots left over to confound and confuse itself as to what it is doing, but to have it written clearly in a document prepared by the department that there is a need to smooth the path through Ottawa headquarters is probably one of the reasons the document has not been made public in any formal way.
The people who conceived this idea felt that the local government bureau should be based in Ottawa. This is just more centralization and another example of the ivory tower attitude. These people feel they should not get into the field or talk to these native people about what they are doing or what they want. These officials want to maintain themselves insulated here in Ottawa with all the rest of the useless bureacrats who exist in the Indian affairs department. They want to set up another structure to deal with this idea imposed upon the native people. That is why this document has not been published.
The document goes on to say that regardless of any desire to permit the Indian people

a free hand in running their reserves on a local basis the department cannot in all practicality divorce itself entirely because undoubtedly these people will require some guidance and control. Those sound to me like the words of bureaucrats. This is the type of thing the minister does not want the people to know. He does not want them to know the department is thinking in terms of authoritarianism and control.
That is not the only place in the document where the word "control" is used. It appears throughout the course of the document, and is used in reference to the necessity to control the affairs of native Indian people. This is the old paternalistic attitude which has plagued the Indian people of this nation for the last hundred years. It is the attitude of the government that the native Indian people are not competent to run their own affairs and that somebody in Ottawa has to do so for them.
There are a number of references in this document to controlling these people. For instance, it suggests that it is incumbent upon the department to control their affairs and that within reason it is necessary to establish control agencies. This type of reference continues for page after page. This is the real reason the document has not been published.
The minister has not told us this, but I know from speaking with him that he exudes sincerity. I know this from the manner in which he speaks, the nice phrases he uses and the intensity with which he approaches Indian affairs. I am sure he would like to make this document public. I am sure he would like to say yes, Mr. Speaker, let us make it public because it deals with Indian affairs and with something fundamental, namely, a people who desire to run their own affairs.
The minister is engaged in consultation and conference with Indian people all across this nation. He has told them to come and tell him what they want to do about their own affairs. The question which begs an answer is, why does he not make this document public?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Because it is not my policy.


Frank Howard: I notice the minister making copious notes of what I am saying. I am sure he will get up and reply. I am looking forward with interest to what he will say, and I am sure the Indian people will be interested. It is far more important that they listen to what the minister has to say than that I listen. I know that the minister in his heart could not have said the nice things
January 23, 1969

about the Indian people which he has said over the months if within his heart he really did not feel it was desirable to make this document public.
I know that the minister's confrere, that other chief who is trying to run the department, the hon. member for Port Arthur, feels in his intestines that a document like this should be made available. The difficulty is that these hon. gentlemen are subject to the pressures of the department. They have not got guts enough to stand up to the deputy minister and departmental officials who have been making life miserable for the Indians for a donkey's years. They have not got the intestinal fortitude to tell them what to do. Instead they are telling you.
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but the time allotted to him has expired.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has just told me why I should not produce the document, because he said it is a bad document and is paternalistic. If this is so, it is not my policy to be paternalistic to the Indians. I do not want to create the impression that it is the policy of the government to be paternalistic. However, we will be judged by our acts. Even if we produce thousands and thousands of documents, what will count in the last analysis is what the government and I will decide in terms of making it possible for the Indians to make their own decisions. We will not be judged by what some member of the department may write about the problem but rather by the decisions we will make. It is on that basis that the Indian people will judge us.
I am quite happy that the hon. member has asked me to produce the document. The reason I am not doing so is not that I am too shy to produce it but that if I were to do so someone in the Indian community would be sure to say that it is our intention to be paternalistic. Perhaps there are some people in the department who have such an approach and such a mentality, but I can assure the hon. member that because of my background I could not possibly make a good colonialist, and it is certainly not my inclination to be paternalistic. If that is the impression of the hon. member for Skeena from reading the document, then he will agree with me that there is no point in tabling it. If it
Indian Affairs
gives the impression of a paternalistic attitude on the part of the government, we do not wish to create any such impression.
There is another argument which I want to make. If we were to produce every document that some people in the department decided to prepare in order to put forward new ideas, then it would be impossible to operate the department. We have nothing to hide. Certain internal propositions are made which appear in documents that are not yet complete and which, if tabled too soon, can create a bad impression. The hon. member knows very well that I have said many times to Indian communities that I will make sure the Indian people of Canada will have the opportunity to make their own decisions at the band and at the reserve levels. I think this is badly needed because it will give the Indian people the opportunity to develop leadership qualities. Studies are made along these lines to see what kind of government can be given to the Indian people at the band level. They are useful, but at some point we will have to make a decision when we revise the Indian Act. It is at that time that these things will be changed.
I said to the hon. member and to the public in general that I think that most of the Indian people right now are willing and able to make their own decisions, but we have to make it possible for them. I do not think it is right for me to be obliged to sign a document when an Indian wants to get a loan from C.M.H.C. If he wants to do that, he should be able to deal directly with the corporation and not come to me as if I were his white father.


William Arnold Peters: What the Indian wants is a rich guarantor.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Many things have to be changed. For example, I do not think it is right that in 1969 all the Indian lands are still in the hands of the minister as a trustee. We have to do something about this. This land belongs to the Indians and they should be free to do want they want with it.
I cannot agree to produce the document because it is an internal document. As the hon. member for Skeena said, if it is a bad document I do not want to give a false impression to the Indian people. In fact, he himself said it is not necessary to produce it.
I am glad he asked other questions and I will look into them. He asked a very important question about the British Columbia government and what it has decided in order to make it possible for Indian reserves to

January 23, 1989
Indian Affairs
become municipalities. He warned me that there is some danger of the Indian people in these localities losing their lands or losing the money which they have in special accounts. Personally, I am not aware of that amendment, but I will look into it. As I have said many times before, I will ensure that every action taken by anyone in the department is in the best interest of the Indian people.
I feel it is important that I should point out to the hon. member that he is asking me now to overprotect the Indians and to be paternalistic. When I am not, on the other hand he blames me and says I do not care. It is very difficult. I hope that some day he will make up his mind. If he wants the Indians to take their proper place in Canada, he should allow them to make their own decisions. When one of us makes a decision it may be good or bad but this is the price we pay for our liberty. I cannot always be paternalistic and protective toward the Indians. I cannot always tell them that they have the freedom to do this or that but they must not have too much of it, or tell them to come and see me to get advice or to obtain my signature. At a certain point in time we will have to make up our minds. I think that many Indians desire to become full citizens. They want to share both the advantage and the responsibilities of being Canadians, and they want to have the same freedoms as we. We have to move in that direction and we have made some progress with the programs that we initiated a few years ago. There is a long way to go yet and many problems to solve.
For example, in terms of education we have made great strides. Ten years ago only 15 per cent of the Indian people were going to school above the fifth grade. Now 95 per cent of the Indians are in school above the fifth grade, and this has happened in the short period of 10 or 11 years. It is a big improvement. I know that education is the key, and we have to do more about it. If good education is provided to the Indian people, they will have the mobility they need to find their place in Canadian society. I think we have to favour any programs which will allow the Indian people to fit into our society. We have to admit that it is increasingly difficult for some Indians to live in the traditional way in the far north, fishing and hunting. For many of them it is not economical any more to do that, and we will have to educate them to permit them to adjust to society and to find employment.

I am glad to report to the House of Commons that last Friday, when I was speaking in Edmonton, I said to the chamber of mines of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon that they have to take the step of giving employment to the Indian people because there is a problem of the turnover of employment in the north and the best way to solve it is to train the Indian people to do those sort of jobs. However, I think we should not always expect the Indians to adjust to us. I said to the Indian people that we have to adjust to them also, and with the Indian people we will have the best possible labour force we can have in the north. I think we are moving in the right direction.
There are other examples of the type of policy we are developing. For instance, in the contracts that we sign with some of the mines that are developing in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories that are under federal jurisdiction, we insert clauses which force companies to hire Indian or Eskimo people. I know we will have to give special training to Indians, but we have programs for that and we will develop new ones.
I am glad the hon. member is so concerned about the Indian people. I know he is sincere and he wants to do the best for them. He can criticize me-that is what I am here for-but I hope he will offer some positive criticism in order to help me solve the problems. I do not think that to produce a document which, according to the hon. member, shows a paternalistic approach will help the cause. I can read that document, but it is not a new one. It was drafted in 1967, so it could not have been drafted while I was minister. Even if it were, this is no proof that everything produced by civil servants is approved by the minister.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
I hope the hon. member will agree with me that I do not have to approve everything which is put forward to me. If documents are bad, I will not approve them. This document might perhaps give the false impression that I want to be paternalistic. I do not. Because of my age, I do not think I could be a father to 250,000 people. Again, because of my background I am a very bad colonialist. I cannot, unfortunately, because of the rules, produce the document. In these circumstances, perhaps the hon. member will accept my explanation and withdraw his motion. I understand his point. The fact I do not produce the document is not related to the substance of it
January 23, 1969

but to the rule that there are certain documents which are intended for internal purposes to help ministers make up their minds.
Incidentally, I do not intend to ask anyone to get it back. It is the person who gave out the document who is responsible, somehow. We shall be judged in the last analysis by the way in which we orient the policies of the department and in a few months I think the hon. member will learn very clearly that I do not want to be thought paternalistic.


Frank Howard: Would the minister permit a question? May I ask him, now that he has made this tremendously predictive speech, whether he will disown the document to which reference has been made?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I cannot disavow or accept the document; I say that I have not even read it all and I do not intend to read it today, but I am generally aware of what is in it. It contains statements which I can accept and others which I reject. However, I cannot reject it in full; as in any other document, I take what is good in it and reject what is wrong.

I thank the hon. member for telling me what is bad in the document.


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lolbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a question to the minister.
He has just stated, in reply to the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard), that he has not read that document and that he does not intend to do so today. If he has not read it, how can he know what is in it and say that the document is confidential and that it cannot be tabled today?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: This is not the point, since the document concerned was published in 1967 and dealt with the possible administration of reserves or the development of reserves into municipalities. I have read reports on the problem, but I have never fully examined the document. I am merely acquainted with the summary and I say that I do not wish to table it, since it is a document intended for internal use and for the information of departmental officials. This is why such documents may not be published.
It is a matter of principle. I think that we are entitled within an administration to exchange views. But what really matters are 29180-301
Indian Affairs
not the views of Tom, Dick and Harry within a department, but the minister's decisions. The documents will help me to form an opinion. However, I do not have to accept or reject it entirely. As I said a while ago, we will take what is good in that document, as in others, and reject what is wrong.
I do not think that this attitude is contradictory.


William Arnold Peters: I shall speak only briefly on this subject.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


William Arnold Peters: You talked me out of it. There is so much enthusiasm being shown by hon. members who wish me to continue at length that I will do so.


An hon. Member:: Oh.


William Arnold Peters: This document was published by the policy and planning directorate of the minister's department. I presume it was circulated on August 4, 1967. It is not a new document. I really have not read it thoroughly; I have just glanced at it. This is a very poor copy. The department should make it a little darker for the sake of those of us who possibly need glasses.


An hon. Member:: Try to get a better copy next time.


William Arnold Peters: I am concerned about the secrecy employed by the department in circulating a document which certainly has some merit. If it has no merit at all, then the director should, I suggest, be fired. If these people are not producing anything of value, then we should get rid of them. I notice the minister says he has not read it. However, I should have thought his executive assistant would have considered it worthwhile bringing to his attention, or that the director himself might have been in contact with the hon. gentleman on this subject.
I have five or six Indian reserves in my riding, so I am personally interested in these matters. I was interested in the question which was raised by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) involving Chief Pine.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: On a point of order, this question was raised by the hon. member for Skeena and the problem was resolved after I had received representations. I declared the election was valid, and that is all. I do not understand why the hon. member should wish

January 23, 1969
Indian Affairs
to talk about it now, unless he wants to congratulate me for what I did.


William Arnold Peters: I think this does really concern us; it is the paternalistic aspect of this document which is involved. In this particular case, one of the agents decided there were 603 Indians on the reserve and that they would be entitled to six representatives. After the election had been held, it was found the Indians numbered only 575. The Chief came to me about it. I found out afterward that he had gone to a number of other people as well. He is a very good politician. I have known Chief Pine for a long time and he is a smart cookie in many ways. He came to me with a legitimate problem. The Indian Affairs branch said there had to be another election because it had been found there were fewer Indians than expected. The minister would not say he was willing that the band should have an extra councillor. I checked with Chief Pine and he told me there might be ten meetings held. Councillors get $25 a meeting, so the amount at issue would be about $250. What happened, was this. The Indians met the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), the Prime Minister turned to the minister responsible for Indian affairs, and said: "Settle it". The minister did the same thing as the spokesman for his department, the same thing as the law officers in the branch. He said: I cannot.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I said, yes. And the six councillors elected are now in office.


William Arnold Peters: That is not as I understand it. The minister said, no, because this question had been referred to the legal branch of the department for an opinion. The lawyers said it was not in order to override the provisions of the act. The matter was referred to the Department of Justice and that department gave a similar opinion. In these circumstances, an order in council was passed giving authority to do something which is not allowed by the act itself. This was done merely to make legal an interpretation of the act which, really, turned upon a technicality. After all, there is always room for a little give and take where figures fall very near a dividing line.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
The point I am making concerns the act, not what the minister has said. This document expresses really the thinking of the officials in his department. I do not blame the minister for telling the house the document

cannot be made public. He is really telling us that he does not know what is in it, whether it should be made public or not. As a matter of fact, I disagree with the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard); I think it is fairly representative of the thinking of the departmental officials. He said it was a bad document but I do not think it is. I say it fairly represents the paternalistic attitude of many of the Indian affairs officials.
I have heard the minister address numbers of meetings in my area and I know that his approach is conciliatory; that he is interested in giving his own views, not those expressed to him by his officials. He has done much to bring about a dialogue between himself and his colleague and Indian bands in particular areas. In my opinion, this document does represent the views of the planning directorate of the Indian affairs branch. I think it should be circulated and torn to pieces. It is paternalistic and departmentalistic.
I know that the Indian agent, who was in my area for a while, never bothered to talk to the Indians for months and months. I know for a fact that he did not attend one reservation for a period of five months. I do not think he counted the Indians or even looked at the roll.


Frank Howard: Did he cash his pay cheque?


William Arnold Peters: being tabled because it is fairly representative of the opinion of the planning directorate. I think that before making a new code for the Indians we should put our own house in order, and this document gives us some basis for so doing.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I will answer the hon. member concerning this problem-


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, may I point out that the minister really does not have this particular right.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I was just going to confirm that. The minister has spoken and he cannot speak again.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, although I have spoken an argument has been raised to which I think I should be entitled to reply.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, I
would be glad to suggest that the house give unanimous consent to the minister to make these comments, because of their value and the importance of the subject.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not want unanimous consent for something to which I am entitled.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There is some confusion whether this debate has or has not expired. If it has expired, then my impression is that the minister can close the debate, speak for five minutes or some limited time. My impression is that the debate has expired, unless other hon. members wish to speak? Then, I recognize the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, do I only have
five minutes to speak?


David Lewis: We will extend it to you.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I would like to deal with this matter of the Garden River reserve. In my opinion, the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) completely missed the point. It was a question of deciding whether we could legally recognize the election of a sixth councillor in the Garden River reserve. According to the official, it was not a matter of discretion. There had been an error, and it was 29180-3011
Indian Affairs
provided in the act that on a reserve, there can be one delegate for every 100 people. Now, on election day, there were not 600 Indians on that reserve. Therefore the official had no right whatever to do anything but to void the election.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
I know it is ridiculous that this mistake should have happened. We have made the appropriate remarks to the official concerned; everyone knows it is fairly easy to count to 603 or 575. Such a mistake is ridiculous but it has been made. In fact, there were not enough Indians on the reserves to allow for the election of more than five representatives.
We have asked the Department of Justice for advice, and we have been assured that by an order in council we could confirm the election of six councillors instead of holding another election. I thought it best to settle things this way.
However, I cannot, as a minister of the Crown, go beyond what I am authorized to do by the law, and then the law did not give me the authority to validate the election of the six delegates.
That is why I had an order in council passed. Today I wonder how come, after I have straightened things out, the hon. member blames me for having done so. If I had not settled the situation, he would have blamed me for having done nothing.
I would ask the hon. member to tell me if he wanted five or six Indians on the reserve to be elected. If he does not know what is the exact situation, he should have asked for information before making representations in the House of Commons.
As far as the document is concerned, I do not have to reject or accept it. I repeat my point which is quite simple. Hundreds of documents full of suggestions are prepared in all departments to enable the minister to formulate a policy.
The documents themselves are not very important. What is important for the Indian people, as well as for the house, is to know the minister's policy. And I receive advice and recommendations of all kinds and from all sides.
Like all ministers, there comes a time when I have to take a decision. However, it would be impossible, in my opinion, to table all the documents prepared by our officials; first of all, the house would not be large enough to hold them and, moreover, that would involve a waste of time for everyone.

January 23, 1969
Indian Affairs
Each official has his own responsibilities and, if he gets an idea, it is his duty to refer it to us, if he thinks it is of some value. As administrators, we have the responsibility of determining the value of an idea.
In addition, I believe that unless we can assure our officials that their suggestions shall remain confidential and also that there is no risk of a public debate following whatever proposals they dare make to the government we cannot expect a sound administration.
I recognize that the ministers' actions and the government's policy must be discussed in the house. However, the documents that paved the way to such policy should not be debated in the open.
Getting back to what I said earlier, I have nothing to hide about what is in that document. Eventually our policy on the administration of the bands and the reserves will become known. A while ago, I told the hon. member for Skeena that we intend to allow the Indian people to participate to a larger extent in the administration of their own affairs, since, in many cases, they are both well informed and determined to make their decisions by themselves, and we shall devise the necessary policies to concretize our aims.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Skeena.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, if you had risen earlier I should have presumed that it was to ask whether the minister had unanimous consent of the house to carry on with his remarks. I should have been happy to accede to any request by the minister to continue, since I do not think he should be saddled with any five minute time limit.
The minister has said on two or three occasions that it is not possible or advisable to produce all documents prepared in the Indian affairs branch. But he misses the point. We are not asking for all documents. We are asking for one specific document which has been drawn to the minister's attention but which he has not yet read. We are asking for a document, and this is an important point, that has been distributed to a number of native Indian people by persons working in the department. A number of Indian people have therefore looked on the document as a document with some official status. Indeed, the minister gave credence to that belief by saying he could not produce the document because it was confidential.

When I asked the minister if he disowned the document, he retorted, "How can you disown something you know nothing about?". He did not disown it; neither did he adopt it. He said he would take from it what was good and reject what was bad. Of course, the minister will interpret what is good. If his interpretation coincides with the interpretation of our native Indian people, well and good; I will agree with him. Otherwise, I will not.
We have a document which the minister refuses to reject and refuses to adopt. This document has already been circulated amongst our Indian people. They consider it has some stamp of approval. In the short time the minister has occupied his portfolio he has learned no doubt the degree to which our native Indian people distrust the department which, in the years it has existed, has done practically nothing to dispel that distrust. Over the years it has acted in an autocratic, overbearing, paternalistic and stupid way when dealing with Indian affairs. If the minister maintains his attitude that the document in question is secret after a number of native Indian people have seen it and have concluded that it enjoys some official status, he will be doing himself a disservice, to say nothing of the disservice done to our native Indian people. Surely when this motion for the production of papers appeared on the order paper appropriate officials in the minister's department ought to have drawn the document to the minister's attention and told him what was in it. That did not happen and reflects on some officials. No doubt someone in the minister's department said, "We cannot disclose this document. It is marked 'confidential'." Perhaps the person who marked it confidential is the same person who told the minister the document could not be disclosed. The minister, apparently without question, accepted the opinion of some official in the department that a certain document was confidential. He did not bother to look at the document.
May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hour for consideration of private members business having expired, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
January 23, 1969



COMMONS DEBATES AFTER RECESS

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton) for the second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs of Bill C-150, to amend the Criminal Code, the Parole Act, the Penitentiary Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and to make certain consequential amendments to the Combines Investigation Act, the Customs Tariff and the National Defence Act.
Eldon Mattison Woolliams: At five o'clock I was discussing the definition of health in relation to the amendment on abortion. I said the special committee, under the chairmanship of Dr. Harley, studied many briefs relating to abortion, but were unable to agree to any definition of health.
It is my personal opinion the moment you define words you get into many abstract judicial interpretations of what the legislators meant, while on the other hand the failure to define health forces the high courts, the Courts of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada to legislate. They must, in their capacity and responsibility, arrive at a definition. What is their reaction to this kind of legislation?


Erik Nielsen: Perhaps you should wait until the minister is present.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Oh well, he's been pretty good today.
All of these matters must be studied by the committee. Under the said section, causing the death of a child that has not become a human being in the act of birth is not illegal if the doctor causing the death considers it necessary, providing the operation was performed in good faith to preserve the life of the mother. The onus is on the crown to prove the operation was not done in good faith. This is called the Bourne principle. Allowing the medical practitioner to exercise his own judgment in the act of birth is an act separate and apart from the amendment. If, however, the pregnancy is to be terminated prior to the act of birth, the matter indeed becomes very complex.
Criminal Code
I would like to pause here for a few moments. There has been an addition to section 209, and this is what makes it so horrible and is something I think the committee will have to consider very carefully. I have been most serious all the way through this, but I could not be more serious when I refer to this. The old rule said:
Every one who causes the death of any child that has not become a human being, in such a manner that, if the child were a human being, he would be guilty of murder, is guilty of an indictable offence-
What has the minister done by adding the words "in the act of birth"? Under the old rule if a doctor came to the conclusion ini good faith that the life of the mother would be impaired and without the operation she would become a mental and physical wreck, then he could proceed to operate. For the moment I am dealing only with the addition of the words "in the act of birth". These words are dealt with by Professor Mewett in the Criminal Law Quarterly, Volume 10, 1967-68 at page 385 which I suggest every hon. member should read. I will not quote the article but will explain the meaning.
A doctor could wait until a woman was in labour before taking the life of a child to save the life of the mother or to prevent her physical or mental wreckage, without regard to the new amendment and without ever having a committee or certificate. That is not my interpretation, it is what the professor says. That is the law. If there is any question of this, then analyse it. When does a person become a human being under the Criminal Code? Section 195 reads:
(1) A child becomes a human being within-the meaning of this act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother whether or not
(a)	it has breathed,
(b)	it has an independent circulation, or
(c)	the navel string is severed.
That is the legal definition and I leave it at that. I ask in all seriousness that the committee divide its report into separate subjects. We are not dealing with the price of grain or the loss of a market, we are dealing with the beginning of human life.


Erik Nielsen: And the end of it.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: As the hon. member said, "And the end of it". This is the reason I am so serious. I have pleaded many cases and have never been more serious than I now am. I want to know on what I am voting because this is a very important subject to the faith

January 23, 1969
Criminal Code
and conscience of the men and women of this nation. I know the committee may clear up this matter but it could be easily smoothed over. It is easy to make a great speech, or half of one, regarding murder on the highways. I do not intend to deliver the other half.
The Bourne principle allows a medical practitioner to exercise his own judgment in the act of birth. If, however, the pregnancy has to be terminated the matter becomes very complex.
I repeat that this new amendment does not seem to carry the law as it is being practised a step further. There are those who will maintain that a woman's body is her own. There are those who will maintain that the law will leave entirely untouched the problem of an unmarried pregnant woman, the victim of rape, or the respectable married woman who does not want a child. I believe the law remains the same in that regard. I trust the committee will inform us if my view is correct. One writer said if that is all the law really does, a pregnant woman would be well advised to wait until the onset of labour, then have the child disposed of under section 209 without the rigamarole provided for in the new amendment involving the meeting of a committee, approval, the certificate, plus the operation.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
Now I turn to a new subject, the section dealing with homosexuality. The new clause 149A, refers to acts which are categorized as acts in private between husband and wife or consenting 21 year old adults. It does not say 21 year old adults; it says 21 year old persons. Are these adults at 21 years? In brief the new section appears to legalize homosexuality under two conditions. They are that the acts take place between a husband and his wife or any two persons, whatever their sex may be, over the age of 21 years. The committee may want to ask these questions.
The marriage licence permits two persons to commit acts which, if they were not married, they could not commit until they were 21. If the act is committed between two people, and one is 20 and the other one 21, does that make it only more immoral or does it make it morally right? The committee may want to ask, why is it legal in the criminal sense for two persons over the age of 21 to commit an act in private while one person under 21, married, but not to the other person commits the act in private and becomes guilty

of criminal offence? The question might be asked, does the marriage licence, by itself, legalize in the criminal sense these acts? Well, under the Code it does. The question of moral law is for the committee to decide. The reason my speech is taking so long, Mr. Speaker, is that these things must be analysed.
In an historical sense, since 1631 when the Earl of Castlehaven was executed for the rape of his wife and sodomy with his servants, we have come a long way in these matters. In 1954 in the United Kingdom a special departmental committee, under the chairmanship of Sir John Wolfenden, was appointed to consider the problem of homosexual offences. In its public report in 1957 the committee recommended that private homosexual acts between consenting adults should no longer be a criminal offence. In 1960 the British House of Commons approved the recommendation 213 to 99.
I would like now to quote from an article entitled "Law and Morals" by Norman St. John-Stevas, in the Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism. It is rather lengthy but it deals with this subject in a very broad manner.
United States law on homosexual offences was greatly influenced by English law, and homosexual acts between males are punished in all the states. The type of acts punished, however, and the punishment laid down, varies from state to state.
In Canada, the punishment varies from province to province, because although the law is uniform, the sentences vary from judge to judge.
Penalties may be as low as one year's imprisonment with a maximum of three, as in Virginia; or as high as a maximum of seven years, as in Rhode Island; or a maximum of sixty years, as in North Carolina. Some states distinguish between different types of offences, and penalties are graded according to which offence is committed and whether there are aggravating circumstances. No comprehensive figures are available on law enforcement but in some states certainly the law appears to be only spasmodically enforced. In New York City for example, in 1948 there were only 146 arrests for sodomy and in 1949 the figure was 112. From 1950 to 1954 only 89 sodomy cases were reported in the United States of which 27 were in California, nine in Texas and five in New York. Nearly all the cases involved some public element.
In England figures for prosecutions and convictions have been made available through the Wolfenden report, which show that the English laws are not dead letters. Indictible cases rose from 390 in 1931 to 2,504 in 1955. For the three years ending in March 1956, 300 adult offenders were convicted for offences committed in private with consenting adults. Homosexual conduct between
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women is not punished in England, and although it may be theoretically in America, it is so rare as to be negligible in practice.
The Catholic and traditional Christian attitude to homosexuality was developed at a time when there was little knowledge of either the extent or causes of homosexuality, and today these approaches need to be modified in the light of new knowledge. Homosexuality is now known to be much more widespread than was thought in the past, as the researches of Dr. Kinsey and others have shown. In the first of the Kinsey reports, published in 1948, on the American male, Dr. Kinsey used case histories of 12,000 men. He concluded-
And this is rather startling,
-that 37 per cent of the male population of the United States had had some homosexual experience between the beginning of adolescence and old age. For males who had remained single until the age of 35, the figure rose to 50 per cent. Of the male population 25 per cent had more than incidental homosexual experience or reactions for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. Of the males 8 per cent were exclusively homosexual for at least three years within these age limits, and 4 per cent of the white males were exclusively homosexual throughout their lives after the onset of adolescence. Dr. Kinsey and his assistants found these results startling, but when they were checked they yielded the same result. An aberration is not, of course, right because it exists, as Kinsey at times assumes, but the figures do indicate that homosexuality is not a problem confined to a tiny group of perverts but one of much wider social significance.
What are the causes of homosexuality? Medical evidence and opinion can supply no agreed answer, but it is widely accepted that apart from perverts who have turned to homosexual practices entirely of their own free will, there are inverts, who form the majority, whose psycho-sexual impulses are directed more or less exclusively towards persons of the same sex. Traditional Christian thought has been ignorant of this state of inversion and has tended to regard the whole problem as one of perversion without extenuating circumstances.
The writer goes on and points out that the law on homosexuality has never really been enforced. He points out that where it is enforced, the majority of the people convicted are not the type of people who should be put in jail. He points out that there is nothing to show they will be rehabilitated if they are put in jail. Even the churches go along with that view.
Many people who have considered the subject conclude that our common law does not effectively distinguish between sin, which is a matter of private morals, and crime, which is an offence against the state having anti-social consequences. However, many of us who have practised before the bar of justice, and others in many fields, know that punishment has been imposed on a small minority of offenders
in Canada and sometimes on those who least deserved to be imprisoned.
Our standing committee must reach the conclusion in the light of scientific, psychiatric, psychological research and knowledge that imprisonment is largely ineffectual to reorient those with homosexual tendencies. I would ask the committee to consider this question: If a law is ignored, if a law is unenforceable, if it is indeed unjust, is that not grounds to make the change even though we may abhor legal permissiveness? These acts are accepted in Canada de facto today if not de jure. Does this section solve the problem? It might. That is for the committee to decide.
I now turn to the question of lotteries. Coming from Calgary, where Mrs. Mary English has dedicated her life to the support of legalized lotteries to be used for medical research and charitable enterprises, and where she has gathered 500,000 signatures and claims that she journeyed from coast to coast to obtain these on a shoe-string budget of $1,000, I would hope that the committee would take a very liberal viewpoint-and of course I mean with a small "1"-on the suggested changes. I think that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) in drafting these sections of the bill has walked a very tight rope, in fact razor-edged.
The minister has endeavoured not to offend those who consider lotteries as gambling, even when the funds go to support churches and social welfare enterprises, and those who accept lotteries as good, moral, legal sport. The strongest argument that Mrs. English puts forward is, and these are her statistics:
-the Irish Sweepstake draws about $100,000,000 each year and only $6,000,000 returns. That means $94,000,000 benefits another country.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Why should we accept these facts? If we were to wake up some morning and read in the paper that John Jones, our neighbour, won a sweepstake, then was charged under the Code and put in jail, we know what a hue and cry would go up. So, this law is unenforceable. Do these new sections allow the Kinsmen or other fraternal organizations to run a raffle in order to raise funds to build a swimming pool for children? I doubt that; I do not know, but I do not think so.
Then there is the section on firearms. I would like now to briefly direct my attention

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to the sections which would amend the Criminal Code with regard to offensive weapons. It is significant that the provisions in this bill differ substantially with the original proposals contained in Bill C-195, the original bill of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). This raises some very interesting questions. I suggest that the committee must give careful consideration to these.
We are faced with a basic conflict between the legitimate use and regulation of firearms. We must discern how we may best impose restrictions that will effectively limit their improper use. We have been lucky in Canada. We have not had situations like those in respect of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. Sometimes these influences take a little longer to come to this country. In making these changes, I submit that we must be careful not to turn the responsible and legitimate gun enthusiast into a criminal. We must also ask why the so-called sawed-off rifles and shotguns have been removed from the prohibited category to be placed in the restricted or registerable category. We must ask whether it is prudent to permit the classification of weapons to be exclusively by orders of the Governor in Council. We must ask whether provisions should be included to stop the sale of war surplus weapons at the source rather than legislating restrictively after they reach the market. I am thinking particularly of the United States where at one time people were able to order machine guns from a catalogue.
We may be thankful that we are not forced into a situation of legislating by hysteria and yet me must not let this lull us into a feeling of complacent disregard. Before I move my amendment, I should like to thank the house for the time and patience accorded to me. I have been lengthy because this is a difficult subject to cover. We in this party have set out very clearly where we stand. We feel that these matters affect the conscience of every member of parliament and believe that there should be a free vote. I should like to assure the minister that our criticisms have been offered in the spirit of a sincere and judicious desire to improve upon the criminal legislation of this country. I would furthermore like to express my appreciation to the minister for his efforts in this regard. We do appreciate the difficulties that are inherent in this type of legislation due to the unique multi-religious, racial and linguistic structure of Canada. Nevertheless, we also trust that the minister and indeed all members will take heed and accord due consideration to the manifold
problems which have yet to be resolved in this particularly viable area of concern to every Canadian.
I shall now move my amendment. I ask:
That the said motion be amended by adding after the words National Defence Act the following: And the said Standing Committee be instructed to make and bring into the house four separate reports in relation to the following matters contained in the bill,
All clauses:
(A)	referring to abortion
(B)	referring to homosexuality and gross indecency;
(C)	referring to lotteries and gambling; and
(D)	all the remaining clauses of the bill.
I have copies of this amendment in French and in English.
You will note, Mr. Speaker, in making the decision in this regard, that you will be breaking new ground. This precedent you establish tonight, Mr. Speaker, will either confine us in a small room under the new rules or permit us to be somewhat expansive. The motion says that we will have second reading and then the bill will go to the committee. We are only saying that surely parliament is paramount over the committees; that we stay here in the House of Commons and that the committees are creatures of parliament. I hope this amendment will receive support from other parties because they may feel the same as we do about the matter so far as it affects the conscience of all Canadians. We only ask that we have an opportunity, with four distinct reports, to express ourselves. We are all different. We all come through a different religious door. We all came up through a different kind of family. Some of us in this House of Commons have adopted children. Some of us feel very deeply about some of the clauses in the bill.
When we are considering a subject which affects the conscience of all of us, surely we should have the privilege of testing it here in parliament. It may be, from what the minister said, that the government has made up its mind and will vote us down; but we want the opportunity of at least being voted down. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to give this matter the fullest consideration. I plead with you. I realize I am breaking new ground. I do not do this lightly. I do it having regard to the feelings in our communities and the pressures from the groups in our communities.
I ask you tonight, Mr. Speaker, if there is any doubt in your mind, to consider this and weigh it with the legal officers who have served the House of Commons well. Do not

January 23, 1969

brush it aside because it is too great a problem. We may not in our lifetime here, or in the lifetime of future members of parliament, again deal with such important matters that affect the conscience. Give us an opportunity to express ourselves on the separate items. I would hate to think that because I felt deeply about one section of the bill I would have to vote against reform that must come.
I realize that in the heat of debate some of us say this, that and the other, but I believe I have always respected the Chair. So, with the greatest respect, I say that great judges make great law because they have the creative capacity to have the vision to see social needs. We only need think of Oliver Wendell Holmes to realize that great judges, great lawyers and great thinkers cut and carve new ideas and establish new precedents because they interpret conditions in broadest sense in the light of great changes. I have made the greatest plea to you I can possibly make as a member of parliament. If it is the will of parliament to vote down this amendment, I will accept parliament's will with grace. If the amendment should be set aside because it is out of order under the new rules I believe I will feel-and I say this with the greatest respect, Mr. Speaker

that I have been denied my time in court.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Before the Chair is called upon to make a ruling on the point of order which has been raised by the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams), I wonder whether hon. members would like to make suggestions and refer to authorities and citations for the guidance of the Chair.


John Napier Turner: I should like to do that with your permission, Your Honour. I would not like my submission to be interpreted by the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) as an attempt to deny him his day in court. As a matter of fact, when I listened to his speech it reminded me of Louis Nizer's "My Life in Court". Certainly he has had his day and evening in court.
The hon. member for Calgary North was right in one essential respect, that we are breaking new ground. We have to refer to the rules as amended, standing order 74, paragraphs (1) and (2) which state:
(1) Every public bill shall be read twice and referred to a committee before any amendment may be made thereto.
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(2) Unless otherwise ordered, in giving a bill a second reading, the same shall be referred to a standing committee, but a bill may be referred to a special or a joint committee. A motion to refer a bill to a standing or a special committee shall be decided without amendment or debate.
There is little within the terms of this standing order to indicate whether in making a motion for reference it would be in order for the house to impose conditions on the manner in which the commtitee shall report back to the house. That, of course, is what the hon. member for Calgary North is attempting to do. He requires in the terms of his amendment that the standing committee be instructed to bring back into the house four separate reports; one referring to abortion, another to homosexuality and gross indecency, another referring to gambling and, according to his own omnibus motion, the other report would involve all the other clauses of the bill.
I submit to Your Honour that the reference to the committee under the main motion we are debating is not a question for any general discussion but relates to a particular bill. This is not a general question upon which the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs is instructed to report from time to time, or to examine a general area such as electronic eavesdropping or wiretapping, but concerns the examination of a specific bill. What has been referred to the committee under the main motion is the bill itself.
That motion gives the committee the discretion, the ability and the capacity to analyze the bill clause by clause-all 120 of them. It gives the standing committee the opportunity of moving amendments to that bill, clause by clause, provided the amendments are relevant to the bill and within the general ambit of the overall amendments to the Criminal Code and the penal law.
The purpose stated by the hon. member in moving his amendment is to enable the house to declare itself severally on the four different aspects of the bill into which he would divide it. The very essence of the committee consideration relates not just to those four aspects, but to the bill itself and to every clause in it. Any amendment that is relevant to any of those clauses; any amendment that human ingenuity could devise that is relevant, may be decided upon by this committee during its clause by clause consideration of the bill.
What is more, under the rule as amended, standing order 75(5), when the committee report is brought back into the house, it is

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open to any member, not just a member of the committee as I read the rules, after having given Your Honour 24 hours notice, to move any amendment relating to the general scope and ambit of the Criminal Code and related statutes as contained in this omnibus bill. So, the argument of the hon. member that unless you accept this amendment as admissible the members of this House of Commons are not going to be given the opportunity to express an opinion upon any individual clause just does not make sense.
Under the standing rules as they are now amended, both in the committee and particularly at the report stage, no member is denied the right to speak or vote on any particular clause of the bill. On this basis I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to rule the amendment inadmissible as being redundant.
I think it is appropriate at this stage to recall the well-established principles applicable to second reading and which I submit have not been changed by the recent amendment to standing order 74. It is open to me to argue that these citations which used to apply to the old standing order 77 now apply to the new standing order 74.
According to Beauchesne's citation 381 and following there are only two types of amendments that can be made at this stage of our proceedings. One is a dilatory amendment; the hoist for six months, and the other, is what is called a reasoned amendment where the principle of the bill and only the principle may be opposed by way of a negative proposition.
I think the citations following 381 make it clear that amendments on second reading should not attempt to do what can be done directly in the committee. In other words, my second ground for opposing the admissibility of this amendment is that it anticipates the action of the committee and impinges upon its discretion. It should not be admitted by Your Honour for that reason.
I want to urge a third reason. I respectfully submit to Your Honour that you should not admit this motion for consideration in this house on this third ground as well. If we are to admit this type of amendment where would we stop? How finely could a committee divide its report on an individual statute no matter how complicated? How finely could we divide it? The hon. member suggests that we divide it into four parts, abortion, homosexuality, gross indecency and so on. If his principle were accepted, who is to say that we should not divide it even more finely?

Who is to say we could not deal with the gun law separately? Who is to say we should not separate that portion of the bill in relation to the Solicitor General-paroles, penitentiaries and reformatories? Who is to say we should not consider separately that part under the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford)?
I am suggesting that this principle, taken to an extreme, would reduce the procedures of the House of Commons to absolute absurdity. I cannot find the exact citation of Beau-chesne, but I do recall having read that it is the government's prerogative to introduce a bill based on the policy it intends to implement. It is the government's prerogative to present to parliament a piece of legislation, grouping together the parts of that legislation it deems consistent and ready for parliamentary scrutiny. It is within the constitutional jurisdiction of government, having regard to usage and the general practice, to enact distinct statutes for distinct branches of law. What my hon. friend from Calgary is attempting to do is suggest that the constitutional discretion of the government ought to be interfered with by reaching beyond parliament into the committee and dividing the bill.
I have another reason for opposing the admissability of the amendment, Your Honour. I want to submit to you that this is an indirect attempt to try to do what cannot be done directly, namely, to divide the bill at the second reading stage. On a motion for second reading, the motions the Opposition may propose are now clearly defined, and so far as I can see they do not include the right to divide the bill. The amendment can be dilatory or it can be reasoned, and reasoned amendments must not be concerned in detail with the provisions of the bill. They must attack the principle of the bill. But the amendment introduced by the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) reaches into the very details of the bill.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
I want to say also that since there is no motion for a resolution before you, in my humble respect, and since the hon. member in his arguments is trying to get by the back door what he could not get by the front door, Your Honour should not feel himself bound by any precedent involving a motion to divide a resolution. I do not think the 1964 decision by Speaker Macnaughton on the flag resolution has any bearing here because second reading of a bill is distinct from the division of a resolution, particularly when the
January 23. 1969

grounds for that division were, in the opinion of the speaker, two mutually exclusive clauses.
Surely there is no mutual exclusiveness in the clauses of a bill put together by the government, presented as one bill to the House of Commons and which stands together on the general reform of the penal and criminal law.
I submit to you that, relying on May's 17th edition, page 544, this type of motion to instruct a committee is not merely in the nature of an amendment but is rather a substantive motion, and being a substantive motion notice would be required according to the rules of the house.
I have one final word to say, sir, as to your own prerogative, if you would allow me to direct my attention briefly to that. It is my submission that since this is not a motion to divide but is an amendment directed to the committee, Your Honour's discretion is limited to admissability, only, that is whether the amendment as an amendment can be admitted to the house for a vote by the House of Commons. Your Honour's discretion does not go to the substantive decision as to whether the amendment should be tagged on to the bill. In other words, even if Your Honour were to decide-


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: May I ask the minister a question?


John Napier Turner: In a
moment. I should like to continue now if I may. Even if Your Honour were, in your good judgment, to decide that the amendment were admissable-and I have been arguing as strongly as I can against that point of view -your discretion is limited to the question of admissability only and not to the substantive question as to whether the amendment should be attached to the bill. In other words, it would be up to the house to vote upon it, even if it were admissable.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the argument of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) it seems quite obvious that members on the other side do not want to see a vote taken on the basis of each individual question that is raised in this bill. No one for a moment denies the desirability- which seemed to be the implication the Minister of Justice directed toward this side-of the bill going to the committee to be discussed there in the fullest possible sense clause by clause, and for the committee to advance amendments that it sees fit. What the
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amendment seeks to accomplish is to give to every member of this house the right to voice his opinion on matters that affect the individual conscience just as deeply as did the question of a flag and as did other debates in those days which the minister can well recollect. The minister tried to distinguish between this amendment and the flag question, but that is a precedent which Your Honour is going to find extremely difficult to circumvent. I would submit to the Chair that on that occasion Mr. Speaker Mac-naughton split a resolution right down the middle and caused the house to vote on two aspects of it. At that time, this was certainly not the desire of the government nor the intention of the bill which was introduced by the government.
The amendment of the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) seeks to do one thing on an occasion which will not arise again in the proceedings on this bill, namely to give directions to a committee which, under the new rules, must consider the bill before it comes back to the house. The directions which the amendment of my friend seeks to give to the committee is that the committee, instead of bringing back an omnibus report on an omnibus bill, is to bring back to the house a report which will permit hon. members the freedom to vote on a portion of the bill. They would have freedom to vote on whether or not they wish to accept the government's views on homosexuality or on the other amendments contained in the bill. This is a freedom which I would like to exercise and which, I daresay, a good number of hon. members on the opposite side and in the rump on this side as well would like to exercise.
This is the only time at which we can make such an amendment. It is an extremely important decision which Your Honour has to make because if the amendment of my colleague is refused, then, in my view, an unduly restrictive interpretation of the new rules will be imposed upon us.
The Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) has attempted to make a case to Your Honour based on the fact that the precedents established under old rule 77 apply here. But I do not see how we can extend these precedents particularly in view of standing order 74 (1) which reads as follows:
Every public bill shall be read twice and referred to a committee before any amendment may be made thereto.

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If one were to stop there, then one must conclude on the strict reading of that subsection, that there is no amendment possible at this stage and that the bill must be read a second time and immediately referred to the committee.
The Minister of Justice, however, did not go on to read the second subsection of that new rule which stipulates.
Unless otherwise ordered, in giving a bill a second reading, the same shall be referred to a standing committee-
Unless otherwise ordered!
I submit to Your Honour that those preliminary words permit the Chair to make an order qualifying the reference to the committee. The Minister of Justice attempted to make a case against the proposition that any possible amendment with respect to the reference is possible at this stage, but if Your Honour will refer to item 40 on today's order paper he will see that under the date of December 19, 1968, the following wording appears:
Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs-
Here we have an item placed on the government order paper which combines not only a motion for the second reading but also a motion for reference to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. This seems to be in keeping with the interpretation with standing order 74 (2) which I have read to Your Honour.
There might be some doubt left in that regard, and I might refer Your Honour to the proceedings which have taken place before in this session and which are reported in Votes and Proceedings for November 15, for example. I am sure that other instances could be selected at random from Votes and Proceedings of this session. At page 228 we find the following:
The Order being read for the second reading of Bill C-8, an Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (Qualifications of Voters and Candidates);
Mr. Stanbury, seconded by Mr. Borrie, moved- That the said bill be now read a second time.
And debate arising thereon;
Mr. Macdonald (Rosedale), seconded by Mr. Pepin, moved-
That the motion be amended by deleting therefrom all the words after the word "that" and substituting therefor the following:
That the said bill be not now read the second time but that the subject matter be referred to the standing committee on privileges and elections.

[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)


David Lewis: What does that prove?


Erik Nielsen: It proves there is power at this stage for an amendment to be put to the motion which purports to send a bill to a committee. An amendment is permissible in this regard, and if my submission with respect to 74 (2) of the new rules is acceptable, the motion is subject to variation.
The minister put forward the argument that the precedents attached to standing order 77 would restrict any amendment under the new standing order 74, to giving a bill a six month hoist and to negativing the principle. Speaking for this side of the house my hon. friend made it very clear that we are not moving an amendment to give the bill a six months hoist, or one that is designed to negative the principle. He was advancing an amendment which would give hon. members an opportunity to vote independently on those aspects of the bill which strike deeply at the consciences of all of us.
While the minister dealt at some length with the prerogative of the committee, I suggest that the overwhelming interest here is the prerogative of hon. members of this house and of the house itself. Surely, Your Honour, at this stage the house has direction over what it intends to ask a committee to consider. When I recall what the Minister of Justice had to say, I doubt very much whether he could have put forward that argument in all seriousness. He referred, for instance, to the responsibilities of the department in respect to the Penitentiary Act, the legislation controlling reformatories and the several other acts which are affected by this bill. But if his argument in that regard is acceptable, what is to prevent any minister introducing a bill which deals with the Department of Transport, the Department of National Health and Welfare and the Departments of Defence and Defence Production, and lumping them all together to be sent to the committee on estimates with an instruction that it should bring back a miscellaneous report on an omnibus government bill.
I believe there are many hon. members who are especially concerned about at least two of the principles in this bill. I, for one, would like to have the opportunity to exercise an isolated vote on these subjects because I have some strong views on each of them, as have other hon. members. I do not like to be compelled to vote yes or no on a measure which is all embracing without any opportunity to discriminate.
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We are simply asking the Chair to accept an amendment which would set a very desirable precedent under the new rules by allowing the house to retain control over the manner in which measures are sent to committees and to retain the freedom of hon. members to vote on questions which come back from the committees after the subject matter has been referred.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: It seems to me I can immediately assist the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) in his dilemma if all he is concerned about is the opportunity to vote separately on one or two of the questions which concern him and his hon. friends. I can do this by drawing his attention, as did my colleague the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner), to the terms of standing order 75(5) which states:
If, not later than 24 hours prior to the consideration of a report stage, written notice is given of any motion to amend, delete, insert or restore any clause in a bill, it shall be printed on the notice paper.
Paragraph eight of the same standing order says:
When the order of the day for the consideration of a report stage is called, any amendment of which notice has been given in accordance with section (5) of this order shall be open to debate and amendment.
Any hon. member of the house, including the hon. member for the Yukon, therefore has an opportunity to move an amendment at the report stage to any one of the 120 clauses of this bill.


An hon. Member:: Is a recorded vote taken?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Yes, a recorded vote with Mr. Speaker in the chair.


David Lewis: And it does not split the bill in any way.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: The point is that hon. members will have an opportunity to record their dissent and to suggest changes in the bill. If this is all hon. members opposite are asking for, their argument is met in one stroke by the change in the rules which was made on December 20.


Mr. Melvin McQuaid (Cardigan):: May I be
permitted to make one or two observations on the point of order? With all respect, it seems to me that both the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) and the leader of the house have misread the motion. They have based their
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arguments on the assumption that the motion asks that the bill be split. The motion does not ask for that at all. It simply asks that the standing committee be instructed to bring in four separate reports. We are not asking the committee to change the form of the bill, but to bring in reports upon which we can vote separately. One of those reports would refer to abortion. Those who wished to vote one way or another on this matter would have an opportunity to do so according to their consciences when that particular report was under consideration.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish to thank hon. members who have taken part in the procedural debate, the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen), the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Wool-liams), the hon. member for Cardigan (Mr. McQuaid), and the hon. ministers who were good enough to enlighten the Chair on the important point of order raised this afternoon and this evening by the hon. member for Calgary North. The Chair particularly appreciates the consideration shown by the hon. member for Calgary Noth in giving early notice of his intended amendment. I am not sure whether this has helped his cause or not, but at any rate it provided an opportunity to study the main aspects of the interesting procedural point raised by the proposed amendment.
It is hardly necessary to remind hon. members that the Chair cannot rule on the merits of the hon. member's proposal as opposed to the method supported by the minister in the presentation of the bill. It is not for the Chair to determine whether it is proper or appropriate or politic for the government to present this legislation in the form of an omnibus bill. The only ruling which is within the competence of the Chair is whether the hon. member's amendment is procedurally correct and acceptable at this stage.
What we have to determine is whether it is possible under our rules to move an amendment at this stage which in effect is an instruction to a committee, and whether the effect of this amendment, if allowed, would constitute an instruction to divide or split the bill.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
The hon. member for Calgary North argued at length this afternoon, and with great force, that hon. members should not be called upon to vote for or against a motion which contains two or more distinct propositions. The bill would then be divided in so many different motions so that the sense of the house could

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be taken on each of the propositions individually.
The many aspects of the division of a complicated question were discussed and subsequently ruled on by Mr. Speaker Macnaugh-ton during the flag debate. As pointed out a moment ago by the hon. member for Yukon, on that occasion Mr. Speaker did divide the complicated resolution which was then before the house for consideration. However, as hon. members know, and as was indicated, I believe, by the Minister of Justice in the course of his argument in support of his own point of view, what was before the house when Mr. Speaker Macnaughton reached his decision was not a straightforward motion for the reading of a bill but a complex motion. The purpose of the amendment was to divide a resolution; it was not an amendment to divide a bill. I am not forgetting the very important point raised by the hon. member for Cardigan in this regard and I will come to it in a moment.
There may, of course, be considerable justification for dividing a complicated question stated in a motion as distinct from a bill, because such a motion is essentially a one step proceeding with the Speaker in the chair. There is then no opportunity for the house to consider and to vote separately and individually on the propositions which constitute the proposed resolution.
Again, I repeat that the procedural position is entirely different in the case of a motion for the second reading of a bill. As I stated at the outset, a close scrutiny of precedents and authorities I suggest to hon. members in all humility, leads to the conclusion that a motion to divide a bill by way of an instruction to a committee cannot be entertained at this particular stage of the house proceedings.
In fact, standing order 74 (1) precludes such a motion. It reads as follows:
Every public bill shall be read twice and referred to a committee before any amendment may be made thereto.
There are well accepted forms that can be used to amend not the bill itself but the motion for second reading of the bill. In particular, it is open to hon. members to move a reasoned amendment; that is, a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to or differing from the principles, policy or provisions of the bill, or otherwise opposing the progress of the bill. The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Calgary North, as he has said himself, is not a reasoned amendment but an instruction to the committee to which the bill is to be referred.

On this point, I would like to refer hon. members to citation 222 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, which deals with the division of bills by instructions to a committee. The citation reads, in part:
-the right theory is not that the instruction should be given whilst the bill is still in the possession of the house, but rather after it has come in the possession of the committee.
There is, of course, an opportunity to vote on individual propositions when the bill is considered in committee. I readily recognize the objection raised to this point by the hon. member for Yukon, the hon. member for Cardigan and the hon. member for Calgary North. It is not the same thing to vote on the individual propositions in committee as to vote against or for the individual propositions in the house itself.
However, what is much more significant is that under the new standing order the house itself-as distinct from the committee-is given an opportunity to debate, to amend, to oppose or to reject any particular clause of a bill. This is the point that has been made by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Macdonald). This new procedure is made possible under the provisions of standing order 75. Thus, every proposition in a bill can be submitted to the house itself for the purpose of obtaining a direct and specific vote on any individual proposition. This decision is taken by the house as distinct from the committee, and it seems to me that in some measure this answers the objection raised by the hon. member for Yukon.
The hon. member for Calgary North has advanced the suggestion that the significance of second reading has been altered by the new rules, and he expounded this view in a very interesting way this afternoon. Although this is not clear from the rules themselves, I would think this is a fair interpretation of the new relevant standing orders. The vote on second reading is less a vote on the principle of the bill and more a decision of the house to send the bill on for further consideration at subsequent stages of proceedings. If this interpretation is correct, it seems it should now be even less difficult for hon. members to vote either for or against the main motion, since such vote would not constitute either approval of, or opposition to, the principle of the several propositions contained in the omnibus bill.
In view of the precedents, citations and rules by which the Chair is bound, I must therefore conclude that the hon. member's motion cannot be put to the house at this
January 23, 1969

time. In reaching this decision I am somewhat comforted, as I pointed out, by the fact that the new rules of the house will make it possible for hon. members to achieve, to some extent at least, a similar result by taking advantage of the report stage proceedings of the revised standing orders of the house.
I should say that I was to some extent disturbed by the suggestion of the hon. member for Calgary North that if an adverse ruling were made on the procedural acceptability of his amendment he would feel he would not have had his day in court. Even though he is an experienced solicitor, a member of the bar of excellent reputation and with wide experience in the country, I am sure that he must have had an occasion or so when he was not successful in court but felt that, even though he had not won the day, he had still had his day in court.
That comment is not part of my ruling, and perhaps I am overstepping the bounds of jurisdiction of the Chair. However, it does seem to me that the hon. member for Calgary North has today had a brilliant and most impressive day in this, the highest court in the land.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, there is one further point that was raised by the President of the Privy Council with which Your Honour did not deal, and that was concerning the matter of notice. For the clarification, particularly of members on this side, I was wondering whether you would deal with the question whether or not notice is required under standing order 75(4).


Mr. Speaker:: I cannot, of course, rule in abstracto. The hon. member knows that he cannot ask the Chair to rule on a situation which is not before the house. He is asking the Chair to interpret the rules with regard to a situation which may happen later on if such notice were given. It seems to me, having read the rules, that it is clear enough what is required to bring the matter before the house at the report stage.


Erik Nielsen: I was not asking Your Honour to rule on a hypothetical matter. The President of the Privy Council did raise the point and put it to the Chair, and I am wondering whether the Chair would rule on it.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the reason I did not rule on it was that I did not consider the argument relevant.


David Lewis: Fortunately for hon. members, Mr. Speaker, I do not have
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unlimited time. Therefore I will try to confine my remarks to the 40 minutes which are allotted me; if I do not succeed it will not be for want of trying.
Before dealing with the substance of the bill, I want to say that my colleagues and I agree that it is proper for the bill to come before this house as one bill. We believe that the new procedure will enable every member who has any particularly strong feeling about any part of the bill to move the necessary amendment at the report stage, to get his views heard and to get those views voted on separately from anything else.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
I also want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Wool-liams). The logic of his argument on abortion escaped me. He first stressed, as I will later show, that the amendments to the code do not really change the law in any basic sense. Then he spoke very eloquently about the need to give opportunity for expressions of conscience with respect to an amendment which brings in no change. Those words left me wondering, Mr. Speaker. I could not follow their meaning.
We welcome this measure as an important one. I emphasize that it is only a partial and rather inadequate revision of the Criminal Code and related statutes. We think these revisions of the Criminal Code should be on the statute books of Canada and are long overdue. I therefore do not propose, nor do any of my colleagues, to move any amendment to the bill at this stage. We shall try to improve the bill in the standing committee and, if necessary, at the report stage. But we want to take no step that will delay passage of this measure. We want even these inadequate revisions of the Criminal Code on the statute books of this country.
Although the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) defended the bill excellently and impressively, if I may say so, I submit that the claims he makes for it are very much exaggerated. The suggestion he and others have made that these revisions of the Criminal Code constitute a tremendously radical reform is a complete and utter exaggeration. In my view important social matters in this bill are treated with timidity or, to use a favourite word of the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker), pusillanimity. Certain matters are treated narrowly and inadequately; and this is 1969. Important provisions concerning the public law of this

January 23, 1989
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country which ought to be included in this bill are not included. I know of no excuse why they should be delayed. Furthermore, I suggest to the Minister of Justice and to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that many of the proposed amendments in the bill ought to have been included in the Criminal Code of Canada long ago. They were recommended by committees and commissions ten years or more ago. Therefore, the minister must forgive me if I cannot be as lyrical about this piece of legislation as he is.


John Napier Turner: We are not
on the same side.


David Lewis: I underline that those responsible for this bill cannot claim to be flaming revolutionaries or radical reformers.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just
"catcher uppers".


David Lewis: They are just "catcher
uppers", as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) says. With the indulgence of hon. members, Mr. Speaker, I want to express some general propositions that, in my view, ought to govern public and criminal law in a modern society. I emphasize that in our present society people generally, and young people in particular, are impatient with hypocrisy and cant which are so often expressed in our law and more often seen in the application of our law. They demand, and I welcome that demand, that we show consistency in our democratic pretentions and that parliament show consistency in the kinds of laws it passes.
In our criminal law we ought to amend everything that is a relic of the past and not consistent with modern morality. We ought to amend every provision that does not fit the technological age in which we live. That, it seems to me, ought to be the major guide to the way we revise our Criminal Code.
Also, our law ought to be alive and dynamic. It ought to be responsive to emerging situations in society. At present it is not. We do not amend our Criminal Code as soon as circumstances in our society require that to be done. It takes years of study and argument before we take a slight step in the direction of amending the law, such as is represented by many sections of the present bill.
As a member of the bar, and I say these words with respect to our judiciary, our law does not develop sufficiently through any actions of our courts. That is to say, in our system judges are bound by what lawyers

call by the frightful name of stare decisis. They are bound by precedent. That is, they are bound to apply the law as it was 40, 50 or 100 years ago. Every time I am in court and I hear counsel say, "I will now cite the law to Your Lordship and for the benefit of my learned friend,"-my learned friend being what lawyers call each other while hiding their daggers behind their backs-I can be sure that some dusty law will be referred to. When counsel says, "My Lord, may I recite a recent decision," you will find probably that the decision dates back to 1875, or 1850, or at the latest 1900. When a lawyer says in court, "I will now cite the leading case in this matter," it frequently happens that the leading case is 200 or 300 years old. Our habit of binding our courts by precedents of the past has made it difficult and almost impossible for our judges to interpret the law in a manner that will bring it to life and allow it to respond to the needs and developments in our society.
In trying to reform the criminal law we must remember that in 1969 we cannot define as a public crime certain actions which come within the ambit of personal conscience. We cannot define as criminal certain actions which, in another context, may be defined as sinful, or whatever other word one wishes to apply to them. When I studied the history of the law in my university days in England and here, I learned that much of our law developed during a period when society was governed by the church as well as the state. A good many of our laws can be traced to that historic fact. As society develops, and as the separation of church and state developed, the influence of the church in the formation of laws has become less and less. I urge that we do not term public crimes those actions which are matters for an individual's conscience. Behaviour which is governed in private by an individual's conscience ought not to be the subject of any provision in the criminal law.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Lewis: Confusion has arisen because of confusion in the use of words. At some point in his speech the hon. member for Calgary North said that a certain amendment-I forget which one-would legalize something. That was sheer semantic nonsense. The amendment to the section dealing with abortion does not legalize anything, the amendment to the section dealing with homosexuality does not legalize anything. Nothing is legalized. All these sections do is remove the
January 23, 1969

taint of crime to certain actions which are merely personal matters to the persons concerned, actions which do not impinge on the public good or the rights of others because of the provisions in the law. These amendments do not legalize one thing. As I have said, they merely remove the taint of crime from certain behaviour, therefore making it permissible for people whose conscience permits them to behave that way, a way which was formerly prohibited. And it permits those whose conscience does not allow them to behave in this way to follow their conscience. This is all the law does.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)
Another principle, Mr. Speaker, which I think is relevant in 1969 and on which the bill is inadequate is that every psychological and psychiatric study has shown that penal institutions ought to be concerned with rehabilitation rather than punishment. The idea of punishment, vindictiveness and harshness toward human beings who have committed an offence against society is an old fashioned idea.
I submit to all my colleagues in this house and to all fellow citizens who are moved by deep religious feelings, that the ethics of all religions and all denominations the world over pleaded that we treat those who have fallen by the wayside humanely and compassionately and not with vindictiveness. Our criminal law ought to reflect this. This is the basic concept of Christian and Judaic and all other religions the world over. I always find it difficult to understand people who are sincere in their religion, but are not prepared to approach the public law in this way.
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, another principle I would like to mention is that there are very few absolutes in human behaviour. There are some moral absolutes, but very few. I can think of nothing that should more properly fall into the category of the absolute than the duty of the state to protect and preserve human life. I agree this is one of the most important and most pressing duties of the collectivity, but even that, Mr. Speaker, is not absolute.
There is no one in this house, regardless of his feelings toward abortion, birth control or anything else, who would deny a policeman the right to kill a criminal who threatens his life, or to make that a crime. No one wants to remove self-defence in the proper circumstances as a defence against a criminal charge. But more important still, even though the duty
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of the state is to protect and preserve human life, in certain circumstances we support war and send our young men to kill and be killed, not always even to defend our lives but to defend what may be basically less than our lives, although just as important. We send them to defend those values which we believe deserve defending with our lives. Thus, even the duty of the state to protect and preserve human life is not absolute. The state knowingly and deliberately sends people to kill and be killed for the preservation of those values which collectively the people of a region, country and the world are not prepared to sacrifice.
Another elementary principle we ought to bear in mind, and it is relevant to some of the amendments which have caused a great deal of discussion, is that no law is a good law if in fact it is unenforceable or if when enforceable, it is discriminatory.
The laws regarding abortion, homosexuality and many other offences under the present Criminal Code are in certain respects unenforceable. When they are enforced it is against those who cannot afford the best legal assistance.
The Minister of Justice referred to the fact that he and his advisers have been unable to locate Canadian jurisprudence dealing with abortion covered by the old law in which the medical question had been a factor. The reason is obvious, Mr. Speaker.


John Napier Turner: The prosecution was not taken.


David Lewis: The reason prosecution was not taken is that when a medical decision is made, usually it is in relation to people who can afford the funds to acquire the necessary medical assistance and legal advice when it is needed. Only those people are prosecuted who do not have the funds and find it necessary to resort to unethical medical practitioners or to quacks. It is only in those situations where you have prosecution and that is why the other situation could not be found. Therefore, any amendment which makes the law more enforceable and more equitable is an improvement in our law and should be welcomed by everyone.
Finally, there is one more principle I would like to mention. There is an educative value to the law. People think of the law as concerned only with coercion, with enforcement. However, the law also has an educational value. A good law which is in tune with the modern age, reflects modern developments,

January 23, 1969
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expresses a good moral objective and serves an immensely useful purpose, has a psychological and educational effect on a community, and amendments which achieve this result are good for the law and for the country. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that my colleagues and I welcome this bill, that is, so far as it goes. I am going to express on the part of some of us, objection to the short step which has been taken.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)
But together with my colleagues, and I am sure with other hon. members, I do want to see a public law in this country, and a criminal law as part of it, which is modern, humane, compassionate, responsive to the technological age in which we live, responsive to the fact that we no longer live in little rural communities but in huge urban conglomerations, responsive to the developments in psychology and psychiatry; a criminal law based on compassion and on the determination to give people a chance to rehabilitate themselves and be much less concerned with an eye for an eye, blood for blood, and life for life as being the major objectives of our law.
Now, in the time at my disposal tonight I want to turn to some specific matters which are in the law and some specific matters which are not in it. I want to deal with the most controversial matters first. I therefore come directly to the amendment to the abortion section. In my view, Mr. Speaker, the amendment does not go nearly far enough.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Lewis: In saying this I must in all honesty, as the leader of my colleagues in the house, inform the house that there may be one or two of our members who do not agree with what I have just stated. However, I am speaking for the party, for the caucus, for the overwhelming majority of my colleagues when I state this, and of course when I state it I want to emphasize that I have nothing but absolute respect for those who disagree with the position that I put forward.
I appreciate that the question is a matter of individual conscience and everyone must act by his conscience. It would be the height of presumption and cruelty not to respect that, but it would be the height of timidity and political expedience for me not to state fully and frankly the views which I hold.
I say first of all that the hon. member for Calgary North was right when he said that if

the old section with regard to abortion is read together with an exactly similar law interpreted by the British courts, courts as high as the House of Lords in that country, then there is no addition to the present abortion law at all. All you have is the word "health" added to the word "life".
The hon. member for Calgary North proved to this house, in a way that makes it unnecessary for me to cite one of the things I have here with me, the fact that the interpretation of a similar section in the English law by the House of Lords-which undoubtedly would be followed by our courts here-meant that life encompassed health, a perfectly logical conclusion, and that therefore the change in this section of the Criminal Code dealing with abortion does not change the law at all.
But what distresses me even more, Mr. Speaker, is that the proposed change in the abortion law will not decrease illegal abortions by one single case. It will not have the slightest effect on the number of illegal abortions in this country. Because the old law made no change, and the new law makes no change in the old law, therefore the new law makes no change-it is a perfectly simple syllogism. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the private bill introduced by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) is the only intelligent and modern way to deal with this question of abortion, and at the proper opportunity in the standing committee we will put it to the test of that committee. It is to remove from the Criminal Code any reference to abortion.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Lewis: Don't let anyone be shocked by this. The decision should be one which is made by the patient and the medical advice which the patient obtains. It is not a matter for lawyers to decide. It is not a matter for courts to interpret. It is not a matter for legalistic arguments about the meaning of words. I can almost hear the hon. member for Calgary North in court-he is obviously a very able counsel-interpreting health, as lawyers do, in one way and, in another situation where his case requires it interpreting it in another way. When you are dealing with the health and happiness of people in that context, there is no room for that kind of legalism and there is no need for that kind of legalism.
It may be necessary to have a law in the Criminal Code or elsewhere putting certain responsibilties on the members of the medical profession with respect to the advice which
January 23, 1369

they should give in this particular instance, although personally I am not anxious to have even that. But I submit to you it is perfectly reasonable, it is highly moral and in tune with the development of the social conscience to leave the question as to whether or not a pregnancy ought to be terminated to the woman and her medical advisers.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Lewis: I have often had occasion to disagree with members of the medical profession because of their attitudes, the attitudes of some of them I should say, with respect to medicare and the like. But I do not speak with tongue in cheek when I say to my fellow members who are doctors and physicians outside this chamber that I have complete confidence that all but the unethical members of that profession-and every profession has unethical members, mine as well as other professions-would be as careful about doing an abortion, or advising a woman to have an abortion, as any law on the statute books could require. The very training of the physician from the first day he goes into medical school is a training to preserve life, to improve life and not to do away with it. The attention which the physician gives to maintaining existence for a human being who has passed any capacity to act like a normal human being is evidence of the length to which members of the medical profession go to protect life, not to abandon it.
I am most anxious that with respect to this important measure in our social law there be a real amendment, a real change in our law, not the kind of change which the minister has proposed and that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was originally responsible for, which makes no change in the law at all. It is not an act of radicalism or even liberalism, small "1". It is an act of timidity to avoid the tremendous political difficulties that might be in the way of presenting a more thorough amendment such as modern society requires.
There are social questions that enter into the matter as to whether or not a pregnancy should be terminated, as well as purely medical questions about the life and health of the patient. There are social questions surrounding the family, surrounding the woman. There are psychological questions involved in whether or not a pregnancy ought to be terminated. There are problems related to whether or not the child, when it is born, will be a whole child or a deformed child. The amendment does not even deal with that
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point. It does not make legal an abortion in a case when the physician is convinced the child would be a deformed child, with all the unhappiness and the misery that that creates not only for the child but for the environment and the family.
All these problems as well are involved in the very soul-searching question as to whether or not a pregnancy should be terminated. The minister does not touch on any of these questions in his amendment. He does not come near any of these questions by the amendment which has been proposed. I welcome the amendment because it clarifies the law a little. It makes it more certain that the health of the woman will be considered. I hope the courts will interpret health to mean the health of the mind and of the spirit as well as physical health. Therefore, I welcome the addition of that word, but it does not go anywhere near as far as in my view the amendment should have gone.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
I want to deal briefly with the homosexuality changes which have caused a great deal of discussion. I know that to normal people this practice is an odious one, an unaesthetic one if you like; but to make it a crime in all cases is to be insensitive and cruel because this deviationism obviously is due to certain psychological and other factors. This behaviour requires charity and treatment rather than criminal prosecution. I find it very difficult to see how the change which is proposed in the bill can be seriously opposed except by those who would discard compassion and understanding toward people who suffer from tendencies we may consider unacceptable and undesirable but for which they obviously are by definition not responsible.
We support the amendment with respect to breathalizer tests. I am not personally worried about the intrusion into civil liberties and rights in this case because personal freedom is not absolute either. We constantly require the freedom of individuals and the freedom of their actions to be circumscribed to the extent, and only to the extent, that the public good requires it. The fact that someone may be inconvenienced on occasion is irrelevant and certainly unimportant in comparison with the fact brought out by the Minister of Justice with regard to slaughter on the highways. If this law should enable society collectively to save one life in the next year, let alone several hundred lives, it is worth while and we support it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.

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I should like to say a brief word about lotteries. I wish to say to hon. members that I have no moral objection to lotteries. I have no moral objection to gambling. I hope hon. members will believe me, although they may easily conclude that I am protesting too much. But I have never gambled. I am not interested. It just bores me.


Mr, Turner (Oliawa-Carleton):: You are a
member of the N.D.P.; you have to be a gambler.


David Lewis: I am told that I ought to be a gambler because I am in the N.D.P. In that sense the hon. minister is right; but I am gambling on the basis of principles which I hope some day to persuade the hon. minister to see.


John Napier Turner: That is a real long shot.


David Lewis: It probably is. So long as it is a long shot we will continue to stand by our principles, something which I would recommend to other hon. members in this house.
I have no moral objection to lotteries or gambling. I do have objection to heads of families gambling at the expense of their families. That is a different question. But if people want to have lotteries I do not have any moral objection to them. I therefore welcome those changes which enable charitable and religious organizations to carry on lotteries for charitable and religious purposes. I see no objection to that at all. I do, however, have considerable objection to a change in the law which would make it possible for states to hold lotteries. I do not object to this on moral grounds but on the simple social ground that-and this is now a word which has been made parliamentary by the Prime Minister-this is a hell of a way to raise money for social purposes.


An hon. Member:: What about Jean
Drapeau?


David Lewis: He tried it and failed. If we need funds for social welfare we ought to raise them directly from the people who have the funds. They should make funds available to society because they are the people, whether they are in the middle or high income groups, who have made their income, either in a profession, business or wherever, as a result of the collective effort of society. They ought to provide, through taxation, the funds necessary for social purposes. To me it is just

simply unacceptable to have gambling or lotteries for that purpose. This would destroy every possibility of planning the economy. As I read this clause I could imagine the minister of finance-either the previous, present or future minister of finance-trying to determine what revenues will be available for social measures. He would consider the revenues he would take from taxes and then have to make some kind of guess concerning the amount of money that would come in from lotteries. He would try to balance his budget on the basis of lotteries. Seriously, it is for reasons of this kind that I object to state lotteries. Gambling is not the way to raise money for social purposes.
I am almost at the end of my time, but I hope the house will let me have a few minutes longer. If I may I should like to say a few words about the section dealing with insanity. I wish to say to the minister that the amendments he has brought in with regard to insanity deal in my opinion-I am not an expert in criminal law-with the least important part. They are very important and very necessary, but they do not deal with the most important section of the Code relating to this subject; that is section 16 itself. What is needed is an amendment to section 16 which defines insanity. That is what is needed- We need an amendment to the law which will get rid of the old outdated, hoary, untenable, no longer appropriate McNaghten rules by which our courts are governed. This just makes no sense at all in 1969. The minister has not amended that at all. He has not touched section 16. The courts are still able to apply completely inapplicable laws that are no longer in tune with the developments in psychology and psychiatry.
What the minister does give us, however, are very useful means of appealing, in certain circumstances and under certain rules, when the question of insanity arises. But I submit that it is much more important that we amend section 16, the definition of insanity itself. I recommend to him a private bill which was tabled during a previous parliament by my colleague, the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Brewin). In this bill he applied the rule adopted by the United States court of appeal 14 or 15 years ago.
Finally, I should like to say to the Minister of Justice that my colleagues and I greet with pleasure the amendments to the Combines Investigation Act dealing with fraudulent advertising. Let me emphasize that advertising in our modern society is not the kind of
January 23, 1969

thing it was even several decades ago when the Combines Investigation Act was first passed and these sections were first included in it. I do not remember the year.


John Napier Turner: 1936.


David Lewis: I knew it was several decades ago. Today advertising has become one of the major industries in society. It is the means by which people are persuaded to want what they get.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order.
I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.
Sone hon. Members: Carry on.
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Does the house give unanimous consent for the hon. member to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


David Lewis: Thank you very much. I
appreciate the kindness of hon. members. I was saying that advertising in our modern society does what Professor Gad Horowitz states in a chapter of a recent book. It makes certain that people want what they get instead of getting what they want.


John Napier Turner: That is
Galbraith.


David Lewis: No, that is Horowitz, but since
the minister wants Galbraith I will give this to him too. As Professor Galbraith pointed out, and this is why this is important and why I will have something unkind to say to the minister on the subject:
It is part of the strategy by which firms minimize their subordination to the market; by which they take labour and capital supply, public policy and prices within their broad ambit of control.
He says that in our modern society the individual, instead of being sovereign in our economic system is, in large degree, the instrument of advertising. So that false advertising, fraudulent advertising and improper advertising ought to be prohibited in the strictest possible way. So far as the proposal by the minister is concerned, the strictness appears to me to be there, to the extent I have been able to study the words.
I have in my files a clipping of a statement made in some speech by the minister of consumer affairs and reported in the Financial Post of November 9, 1968. In this speech the
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minister underlined that he had very few people in his department able to enforce these provisions about false advertising; the amendment he has proposed to the Combines Investigation Act. If that is the case his law is not worth anything. No law, however good, which remains on the statute books without being enforced is worth the paper on which it is written. If this minister, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) and the government as a whole are serious about stopping false and fraudulent advertising, and serious about protecting our society against the manipulations which the advertising industry performs on innocent people, they ought to provide the funds to the minister, or whatever other department may be available, to give them the staff to enforce the amendment which has been presented. Without that, this is a sham and nothing more.
If the minister has had difficulty in getting funds from the cabinet or the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury), as far as my colleagues and I are concerned we hope that he fights as hard as he can to get the necessary staff to enforce the law which is contained in his bill on this point.


John Napier Turner: That was in 1967, when I was the minister of consumer affairs.


David Lewis: The minister says it was 1967.
I want to be finished by at least ten o'clock, so as not to take to extreme the kindness the house has shown me. I want to list several things that are not in the bill which make the bill much less useful than it ought to have been. I cannot for the life of me understand why the bill does not contain provisions for the right of an accused to counsel. This is contained in the charter for human rights which the Prime Minister presented to the constitutional conference a year ago. It is still there, therefore the government believes in it. It is obvious that this charter may take a long time to come into being. The gestation period has been a year already, and I think it will be one or two more years. This will not be done in months. In the meantime, why should the right to counsel not be written into the criminal law? There is no excuse for this. It is not too difficult a subject on which to draft an amendment to the Criminal Code. We should guarantee the right to counsel to every person who requires counsel. The absence of this right is what makes one law for the rich and one for the poor. It is the capacity to have the best legal advice which makes the difference in the application of the law.
4762	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
For the life of me I can see no reason why an amendment dealing with electronic devices and the privacy of the individual should not be in this omnibus bill. There has been a great deal of writing about this and there have been recommendations by commissions. If I remember correctly, the hon. Mr. McRuer made a recommendation on this subject. It should not be beyond the ingenuity of even the junior members of the minister's staff to draft an appropriate amendment on this subject.
Why should it require more than one single line to remove the barbaric corporal punishment laws from the Criminal Code? Why should that have to wait until the future? All it would require is a few words, namely that section so and so be deleted. Why does that require years of study and thought? That ought to be in the amendments before us.
For a long time we have talked about expunging the criminal record which remains on the books against a person, in spite of the fact that for years he has led a clean, decent and social life. Why should this require years of study, and why does this bill not contain a simple amendment to expunge and put aside a criminal record after a period of time? I think it ought to be five years.
Why do we have to wait for months and years before we straighten out the shameful conditions in respect of bail in our criminal law courts? The hon. member for Calgary North dealt with this subject at great length.
I have read at least two or three books and, God knows, a dozen or two dozen articles on this subject. It has been written upon to the point that there is nothing left to be said, although academics will still find something to say as they always do. This does not require any long study. There would be no difficulty in drafting something to deal with this subject.
The time urges me to conclude my remarks, and I will end the way I started. The bill before us has many good features. We will support it and we will facilitate its passage, but we feel it is far short of the kind of revision to the Criminal Code that should have been before us in view of the long gestation period which both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice have taken on this measure.


Mr. Bernard Dumont (Fronienac):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

DEBATES	January 23, 1969
We, of the Ralliement Creditiste, agreed willingly to let the parliamentary leader of the New Democratic party, the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis), pursue his speech. We hope therefore the same co-operation will be granted us tomorrow.
Secondly, I would like Your Honour to ask the house for leave to prolong this debate. Since we sat yesterday until two o'clock in the morning, why not do likewise today?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. It being ten o'clock, it is my duty to proceed to the questions to be dealt with on the adjourment motion.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the house under standing order No. 40 deemed to have been moved.

Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, a short time ago I asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Greene) a supplementary question regarding a statement on the responsibility of the federal government concerning the pollution problem at Dunnville and the responsibility of the federal government to set federal standards on pollution control. This question followed questions to the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier) concerning the C.B.C. program "Air of Death" which was shown on channel 6 on October 22.
[DOT] (10:00 p.m.)
A portion of the film dealt with the health issue at Dunnville. The pollution problem at Dunnville arose as a result of the operations of two industrial plants, E.R.C.O., which is the Electrical Reduction Company Limited and the Sherbrooke Metallurgical Company Limited, both of which are involved in industrial processes and both of which were involved in the Dunnville pollution problem. As you probably know, Mr. Speaker, as a result of many complaints a three man committee was set up by the Ontario government to study the pollution problem at Dunnville. The committee made a report and made recommendations with regard to the basic problem of pollution to the Ontario government. I am going to read short excerpts from their
January 23, 1969

recommendations. At page 307 of the report they said:
Since damage to animals, plants, and various materials has been caused by fluorides in the emissions from the ERCO plant at Port Maitland, it is essential that ERCO should install the necessary equipment and modify their operations to reduce dust emissions from the lagoons, and emissions from the curing sheds, to acceptable limits under full plant operation. The payment of even generous compensation is not a substitute for good operational control: compensation payments should be an emergency policy only.
I should point out that arbitration awards in 1965, 1966, and 1967 totalled $271,000 concerning livestock, field crops and horticulture in this area.
A further recommendation was that:
The Sherbrooke Metallurgical Company should become acutely aware of their pollution problem and should study the advisability of increasing the height of their stacks by a factor of 2.
The third recommendation was that:
Meaningful standards should be established by government for the permissive concentrations of various pollutants in the air, relative to the effects on human health, livestock, and plants. The standards should acknowledge differences between rural, semi-urban, and urban areas.
Another recommendation is that:
Because of the high pathogenic bacteria count reported from several cisterns in the area, the use of such water for drinking purposes should be discouraged. If it is necessary to use such water for drinking, residents should be advised to clean their cisterns regularly and to use the appropriate amount of chlorine.
These are a few of the recommendations that were contained in the report with regard to the specific problem of pollution at Dunnville.
But the more basic recommendations to the government are contained on page 311 where they say:
There were many facets to this ad hoc study- the chief ones being the effects of the pollutants on:
(a) human beings: this facet was of critical concern. It revealed a potential human health problem and was especially significant to the medical and dental professions, the many specialists within those professions, and the Department of Health.
With regard to:
-cereal, forage, vegetable and fruit crops: The damage and the potential damage of pollutants on such crops was of the utmost economic and agricultural concern.
Then they dealt with a recommendation concerning:
-cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, and bees: The rearing of livestock in a polluted area was of great individual and general agricultural concern.
DEBATES	4763
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
They dealt with drinking water as follows: -drinking water: Whether drinking water comes from deep wells, shallow wells, cisterns or streams, it is a practical and important factor-
Lastly, they say that:
Pollution is a natural and ingrained fact of life. Pollution control is yet in its infancy. We suggest that the government adopt an even greater sense of urgency in developing "anti-pollution" policies and in establishing the organization to implement them.
I bring this to the attention of the house, Mr. Speaker, because my experience as a member of the standing committee on national resources, and the testimony we heard when the estimates were before the committee recently, indicate to me that the Canadian government shows very little concern about this problem and is reluctant to exercise leadership in helping to overcome it.


Mr. Rosaire Gendron (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I believe all hon. members share the concern the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Gilbert) has just expressed. It shows his good disposition and his care for the welfare of mankind, that should really concern government authorities.
But we should not forget for all that that we do not live in a Unitarian country, but in a country where the distribution of jurisdictions takes place at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, and that the municipalities are provincial creatures. Therefore, the pollution problem in that particular municipality comes under provincial jurisdiction.
However, I do not mean by that that the Department of National Health and Welfare as well as the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources should ignore that serious problem, because air, like water, goes across frontiers without any passport, and is therefore a matter of national concern. The government is now trying, through research, to set up standards, to convince the provinces and to negotiate with them in order to establish throughout this country a standard policy as regards the serious problem of air and water pollution.
I do hope we will soon be able to enter into agreements with the provinces and, as a result, to establish legislation that will remove the serious dangers that have been revealed, especially in the municipality of Dunnville.
January 23, 1969
4764	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion [English]



BILINGUAL REQUIREMENTS FOR COMMISSIONAIRES AT MUSEUMS

Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: have raised this question on two successive days, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, I asked the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier) whether he would review the dismissal of the 15 commissionaires from the national museums located in Ottawa. You will recall that these men were dismissed because they were unilingual. The only assurance which has been given us on this question is that new jobs will be found for them elsewhere.
I now discover that the government has no right to do this, because it is the responsibility of the Corps of Commissionaires to place these men in jobs. I have also found that some of these men have not been placed in new positions. Some have been demoted. I think this information is generally known to hon. members and to the public.
The most disconcerting aspect of this question is that it is hard to find anyone who will accept the blame. Everyone seems to be ashamed of what has been done. Actually, it should be the responsibility of the board of trustees which, since last April, has been in charge of museum affairs. The Chairman, Mr. Jean Ostiguy, recalls no such decision having been made by the board. There was no consultation with the Department of Veterans' Affairs with respect to the veterans' charter and veterans' preference as applicable to employment with the government of Canada. The minister has denied responsibility. The Secretary General of the National Museums, Mr. Charles MacKenzie, said he gave a directive to Mr. Wait who is in charge of the commissionaires in the Ottawa area. Now, there is a further development. Mr. MacKenzie said he received his instructions from the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Gordon Robertson, in a communique last October which urged departmental heads to implement the terms of the official languages bill as soon as possible. Today, in the house, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) admits that he authorized the directive that was sent out by the Clerk of the Privy Council.
[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)
I raise the issue at this time because what has been done is patently unjust. When deputy ministers employed in the government of Canada are found linguistically deficient, they are sent on an expensive course at the taxpayers' expense. Some of these courses cost as


much as $150,000. But when commissionaires are found linguistically deficient, they are removed from their positions.
All of these commissionaires are men with outstanding military service to their country. Clause 9 of the Official Languages Act bill merely states, to summarize it, that it is the duty of departments to provide services to the public in both languages in certain locations. I also further discovered that commissionaires are specifically forbidden to engage in conversation with the public except in emergencies; their duties are security and custodial only.
I think I can best present the core of this problem tonight by quoting part of a speech made by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) to the Kiwanis Club in Ottawa recently. At that time he expressed the two sides of the problem of promoting bilingualism in the public service in Ottawa. He said that the program is designed to correct the injustices of the past, while avoiding the creation of new injustices.
I believe that an injustice has been done in this case. Further, I urge the government to review the whole matter and to see that these employees who have been dealt with unjustly are restored to their positions. As I say, today the Prime Minister further admitted to being the author of the directive that caused the whole unhappy process, and which incidentally was an infringement on all the rights of members of parliament because the Official Languages Act has not been dealt with by this house. It is not good enough to lay the blame on civil servants. I believe that the responsibility lies with the government, and the remedy is in their hands.


Mr. E. F. Whelan (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale) is to be congratulated on his interest in this subject. Many of us are aware of his constant watchdog approach to this topic. I have listened to his question. The minister answered him yesterday, and I can assure all hon. members that the question of bilingualism in our national museums is of utmost concern to the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier). He has never neglected or ignored this question.
I think that the Secretary of State has shown deep concern about the accusations that have been made. He has asked about reports that some commissionaires have lost benefits or even salary. In view of the statement of the Prime Minister today, I am sure
January 23, 1969	COMMONS
that he too is concerned about any unjust treatment to which these veterans are subjected. We have been assured that this matter will be investigated, and a further report to the house will be made in the near future.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT-NEGOTIATIONS RESPECTING FIVE DAY DELIVERY

Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Mr. Speaker, my question deals with the problem being encountered by the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) with reference to the implementation of the five-day week delivery. We have been told that there have been discussions on this important matter. I submit that if discussions have been held, then the message is obviously not getting through. Someone in the communications department is not communicating.
It is now clear that the minister's hopes of last fall have not been justified. The five-day delivery plan is not being accepted. It has been changed in its application, and now rural and urban Canadians are in two different categories. The plan was to cut down expenditure but not to cause anybody to lose his job. There is anxiety on this question. In addition to changing the scope of the plan the minister has had to change the date. Instead of February 1, we now hear it is to be February 17.
Yet there is great unrest. Obviously there is resistance from the employees affected, mostly those who work on the sortation process. Why these matters were not fully and carefully ironed out in the many weeks since the announcement was made is difficult to comprehend.
Previous to the last postal strike which disrupted this country there were signs and portents long before the event. The department showed no sign that it saw what was coming.
While it is agreeable to think big for the future, to dream dreams, to talk about the waves of the future and the ringing of telephones, under the sponsorship of the post office department, it is also prudent to look at some of the knotty problems of the present. The public is interested in knowing what is going on. Will employees work to rule? In today's Ottawa Citizen, Roger Decarie, council co-chairman and President of the Letter Carriers' Union of Canada, is reported to have said:
There is no question of work-to-rule,... We're just keeping track of time.
DEBATES	4765
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
The same article quotes the secretary-treasurer of that organization as saying that the requested action can be considered:
-either work to contract or work-to-rule.
Farther down that same article says:
Adding fuel to the controversy was a departmental memo to postmasters ordering them to remove from post office bulletin boards copies of the council bulletin sent out last week.
That is a very, very serious matter constituting a form of industrial action on the part of the post office.
Field representative Don J. Mowat of the Letter Carriers' Union of Canada said, as reported in the same article:
At present our boys are in an all-out war with the postal department.
That is a very, very serious state of affairs. This morning's Globe and Mail had this to say:
The move is not expected to have any effect on mail delivery but may result in postal employees working longer than their 40-hour week and, as a result, claiming overtime bonuses.
There is a danger that the five day delivery week may not be a cost saving project after all. I say to the minister, or his representative, before it is too late it should be pointed out to both sides in this controversy that the public is in no mood for any disruption, dislocation of retardation of mail service. There has been a constant stream of increased charges flowing from the post office. We have had increased charges for stamps, money orders, newspapers, and now rent on boxes is to be increased. Apparently the boxes produce for the Post Office Department revenues of $2.5 million. They cost the department $4.5 million in administration and maintenance, although I do not see how that figure is arrived at. Even the cost of postal box keys is to increase from 35 cents to 50 cents.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: That is Liberal inflation.


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: In the midst of all this, there is a growing public complaint that although costs are going up and up service is slipping. One hears this too often for one to be complacent about our Post Office Department.
In the face of this, I think all concerned should take warning. If the minister has to backtrack on his plans for five day urban delivery, so be it. But let all concerned beware of making the public one again a victim of the dispute between the post office and its employees. The tolerance point of the public is low indeed.
January 23, 1963
4766	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion


Mr. Yves Foresl (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I have been asked by the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) to reply on his behalf to the question raised by the hon. member for Hillsborough. I regret that I can offer no substantial information at this time. Discussions are continuing, as they have been for two weeks, between senior officials of the Post Office Department and the Council of Postal Workers. These negotiations are concerned with the implementation of the five day week, which will come into effect on February 17 and with the institution of what is called single mail processing by which letter carriers will no longer be required to return to the post office in the afternoon for the purpose of sorting mail. In addition, the Minister has met with the leaders of the unions involved.
[DOT] (10:20 p.m.)
On the other point raised by the hon. member, namely that of the directive by the unions to their members to enact what he has termed, or some newspapers have termed, work-to-rule, I can say that according to

available information no such attempt is being made. No action taken by postal workers has resulted in any delays to mail delivery and service, and the fact that this should be the situation is an indication of the sense of public responsibility of those employees.
A small number of postal workers in a limited number of areas have exercised what they consider their right to return to the post office for a wash-up at the end of their day's work. Such action has no effect upon mail service. The post office disputes the right of its employees to take such action, and I repeat it has been taken in only a few instances. This matter forms part of the continuing discussions between post office officials and union representatives, and will be decided early next month by an adjudicator appointed under the Public Service Staff Relations Act.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: The
motion to adjourn the house is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this house stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.25 p.m.

Friday, January 24, 1969



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of standing committee on finance, trade and economic affairs, in French and in English-Mr. Gaston Clermont (Gatineau) .
[Note: Text of foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]