1969-06-16

THE LATE EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that I speak for all members of this house and for all Canadians when I say how grieved we are this day on receipt of the news of the death of Earl Alexander of Tunis. His close ties with this country and his obvious liking for Canada and for Canadians gave him a special place in the hearts of all of us.
Earl Alexander served as Governor General of Canada from 1945 through 1952. During that period he became familiar to tens of thousands of Canadians who had the good fortune to meet him in his many travels throughout this country. To millions of other Canadians who observed his zest for life, his keen interest in skiing, and the roots which members of his family established in Canada, there evolved an open and sincere friendship and admiration. They responded as warmly to him as did he to Canada.

But it was long before his stay in Canada that Canadians heard of Viscount Alexander, who had earned an exceptional reputation during the war of 1939, as much by his military feats as by his talents as a great strategist. He directed the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 and was one of the last to leave the beach. Later, in Burma, he headed the Allied forces for two years, during the campaign against the Japanese. Moreover, in 1944-45, as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean, he contributed to the victory of the free world; at that time, a motorized brigade and two divisions from Canada were among the troops under his command.

Earl Alexander visited Canada many times following his return to Britain and his assumption of the office of Minister of Defence.
The Honourable the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), the Right Honourable Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) and I had the pleasure of travelling with him from Washington to Ottawa only a few weeks ago following the funeral of his old colleague in arms, General Eisenhower. But it is in his role of Governor General that Canadians will remember him best. Then, as host to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip on their first tour of Canada in 1951, he established new traditions at Government House by introducing his royal guests and the premises to a lively square dance.
Earl Alexander bears another Canadian distinction. He was sworn a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada.
The passing of Earl Alexander of Tunis will be widely mourned throughout Canada, the Commonwealth and much of the world. He will long be remembered for his human qualities, his inspiring leadership in moments of crisis, his courage, and for the devotion with which he performed his many duties.
I should like, Mr. Speaker, supported by the Leader of the Opposition, to suggest that as a tribute to the memory of this great public servant of his Sovereign, of Canada and of the Commonwealth, and as a mark of our deep sympathy with Lady Alexander, and with all members of Earl Alexander's family, we stand together for a moment of silence and mournful reflection.
{Whereupon the house stood in silence.]
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Sixth and seventh reports of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, in French and in English-Mr. Ouellet (Papi-neau).
[Editor's Note: Text of foregoing reports appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]
Questions
[Stage Direction]
June IS, 1969

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. Dinsdale: 1.	Who, in the Government of Canada, issued the Instructions to Air-Vice-Marshal Wait, Commandant of the Ottawa Division of the Corps of Commissionaires, ordering the replacement of unilingual Commissionaires serving in the National Museums in Ottawa by bilingual personnel?
2.	What was the reason and authority for the order?
3 Was the order related to the Official Languages Bill and, if so, in what way?
4.	What are the duties of Commissionaires on duty at National Museums premises other than security?
5.	Has the Secretary of State investigated the cases of Corporals Walsh and Clark and, if so, what conclusions has he reached?


Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Secretary of Stale):: 1.	The provision of bilingual personnel for museums was a result of discussion between C. J. Mackenzie, Secretary General of the National Museums of Canada and Air-ViceMarshal Wait of the Corps of Commissionaires.
2.	The reason was to provide service in both languages to the public visiting display areas in the museums. Under section 8 of the National Museums Act:
(1)	There shall be a Secretary General of the Corporation appointed by the Governor in Council to hold office during pleasure who shall be paid by the Corporation such salary as is fixed by the Governor in Council.
(2)	Subject to the by-laws of the Corporation, the Secretary General has, on behalf of the Board, the direction and management of the business of the Corporation in all matters that are not by this Act or the by-laws specifically reserved to the Board, a committee of the Board or a director of a museum.
3.	The Secretary General of the National Museums of Canada was cognizant of the Official Languages Bill, which received first reading in the House of Commons on October 17, 1968.
4.	To provide information to the public as to the location of facilities.
5.	No.


P.E.I.-NEW BRUNSWICK FERRY RATES
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	Is the Canadian National Railways seeking an increase in the rates on the ferry service between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick?

2.	If so, is it intended to hold hearings of the Canadian Transport Commission in Prince Edward Island on this issue?
3.	Is the government aware of any proposals to increase the rates on the Wood Island-Caribou ferry service?
4.	Have any protests been received in respect to the proposed increases?
5.	What is the range of proposed rate increases?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Transport):: 1. It has been decided not to institute any rate revisions on the east coast ferry services until such time as the new Atlantic Provinces transportation policy has been worked out and the government has had the opportunity to examine rates in light of this new policy.
2.	and 3. See answer to Question 1 above.
4.	Yes.
5.	See answer to Question 1 above.


WESTERN CANADA-MONTREAL OIL PIPE LINE
Mr. Thomson: Has the Department of Industry undertaken a study regarding an oil pipe line from Western Canada to the Montreal area and, if so (a) when was this study initiated and when was it completed (b) which government officials and/or outside consultants were involved in preparation of such a study (c) did the results of the study show that such an oil pipe line was economically feasible?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: a, b and c. In line with its continuing responsibilities for trade and industrial policy and development, the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce undertakes an ongoing examination of the problems and prospects for Canadian producers and consumers of petroleum. These papers are for internal use only and constitute privileged matter. The work referred to in this question does not have the stature of an approved departmental study as such.


APPLICATIONS TO INDUSTRIAL ASSISTANCE BOARD
Mr. Sallsman: 1.	How many applications have been made to the General Industrial Assistance Board?
2.	From what industries were these applications received?
3.	How many applications of these were rejected?
4.	What were the reasons for rejection?
5.	What is the present disposition of those applications not rejected?
June 16, 1969


Jean-Luc Pepin: 1. As at May 30th, 1969, 29 applications had been made to the General Adjustment Assistance Board for a ruling regarding their apparent eligibility for assistance. Of these, eight manufacturers applied for consulting assistance grants to assist them to develop sound restructuring projects. These grants were approved. Of
Aerospace, Marine and Rail Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Products
Apparel and Textiles Chemicals
Electrical and Electronics
Machinery
Materials
Mechanical Transport Wood Products
3.	Three applications for preliminary rulings regarding eligibility have been rejected and one application for loan insurance was declined.
4.	Of the three ruled ineligible: (a) one applicant claimed injury resulting from the Kennedy Round but the Board ruled that the company's problems predated and were not related to the tariff reductions; (b) the Board considered that a second applicant was seriously undercapitalized and was not in a position to exploit an export opportunity; and (c) the third was rejected because it was not a manufacturer. The Board declined the application for loan insurance as it was not satisfied that the firm could operate profitably.
5.	As of May 30th, 1969, of the 26 eligible applications: eight have been approved for loan insurance and one has been rejected; three were being held pending decisions by the companies as to whether they wished to proceed further; ten were the subject of detailed assessments concerning the viability of the proposed restructuring; and four have been withdrawn by the applicants.


VISCOUNT AIRCRAFT ON AIR CANADA FLIGHTS
Mr. Foriin: 1.	How many Viscount aircraft does Air Canada still have in service?
Questions
those ruled eligible, nine applications for loan insurance were considered by the Board.
2. The applications are dealt with by the nine Operations Branches of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Each of these branches is responsible for one of nine major industry sectors. Following this organization as a guide, the applications may
be broken down	by industries	as follows:Eligibility	Consulting	Loanrulings	grants	insurance4	2	i5	4	10 2	2	63 1 1	-	13	-	129	8	92.	What stage has been reached in negotiations concerning the Winnipeg base?3.	If the base has been sold, what was the selling price, what basis was used in determining the selling price and to whom was the base sold?4.	What are the terms of payment and if payment was not made in cash, what rate of interest is being applied?5.	What was the original cost of construction of the base?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The Management of Air Canada advises as follows: 1. Thirty-three.
2.	A Memorandum of Agreement has been signed by Air Canada and Northwest Industries covering the general terms of the takeover by NWI of the Winnipeg Base. Detailed negotiations between the two companies are now under way.
3.	As this is a commercial agreement with a privately owned corporation its contents are deemed to be confidential.
4.	See answer to Question 3.
5.	The Winnipeg Base was built primarily in the years 1937-44 and added to in 1954-55. The total investment in the facility over this period was approximately $2.5 million.


CHARLOTTETOWN AIRPORT WAITING ROOM
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	What is the seating capacity of the waiting room of the Charlottetown Airport?

June 16, 1969
Questions
2.	What is the floor space of the waiting room?
3.	How many flights normally call at Charlottetown daily and what is the total passenger load of the commercial aircraft which have normally scheduled calls at this Airport?
4.	For how long were members of the Corps of Commissionaires on duty at this Airport's terminal building and when and for what reason were they removed?
5.	What airports normally served by Air Canada are without the service of Commissionaires in their terminal buildings?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: 1. Seats for 32 persons.
2.	1,000 square feet.
3.	Five flights, aircraft mix according to requirement-Dart-Herald, 42 passengers and DC3, 26 passengers.
4.	Corps of Commissionaire personnel were on duty at this terminal building from a period after World War II until 1963. They were paid by the R.C.M.P. and when the R.C.M.P. informed the Department this would no longer be their responsibility, the Department decided, for reasons of economy, that Commissionaires were not required for Departmental purposes upon Charlottetown Airport. Commissionaires were hired from February 1, 1964 until October 31, 1964 for the Charlottetown Fathers of Confederation Meeting centennial celebrations.
5.	Airports normally served by Air Canada without service of Commissionaires in terminal buildings-Yarmouth, Val d'Or, Bagot-ville, Earlton, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Sudbury, Lakehead, Lethbridge.


DARTMOUTH, N.S., PUBLIC WHARF
Mr. Forreslall: What are the present plans of government for the long condemned Dartmouth Public Wharf?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: It is proposed to carry out restricted repairs to the Dartmouth Pier in the interests of safety and appearance as an interim measure until a policy can be formulated for this area of the harbour.


SOLID PRODUCTS PIPE LINE TRANSPORT
Mr. Gleave: 1.	What is the nature and scope of research into solid products pipeline transport in Canada?
2.	By whom is this research being made?
3.	What was the total cost of such research (a) during 1967 (b) during 1968?
4.	What was the cost of such research to the federal government?

5.	Was a specific study made on (a) wheat (b) potash?


Jean-Luc Pepin: 1. The only research in Canada in solid products pipeline transport that the Department is aware of is technical in nature and includes both laboratory and pilot scale studies. Both slurry and capsule pipelining either have been or are being investigated. Various solid products such as coal, potash, sulphur and iron ore are, it is understood, being considered as possible materials for transporting through pipelines.
2.	One organization which has publicized its research interests and activities in solid products pipeline transport is the Solids Pipeline Research and Development Association (SPRDA). This Association, which is a consortium of some 20 companies, assisted by and in cooperation with the Research Council of Alberta, has been active for some years in certain aspects of solids pipelining. Others which are interested, and in some cases doing research in solids pipelining, have not, to the best of the Department's knowledge, made their interests public and, therefore, the Department is not at liberty to disclose their names. It is understood that some universities have indicated an interest in the field of slurry pipelining but the Department is not aware of the nature or scope of their research activities.
3 (a) and (b). Only partial cost figures are available and which are confidential.
4.	Under the PAIT program expenditures in 1967 (calendar year) were $141,904 and in 1968 (calendar year), $223,697. Amount provided under the IRDIA program is privileged information.
5.	(a) As far as it is known, no; (b) Yes. It is understood that specific studies or, at least, a specific interest has been shown.


RATES CHARGED ON P.E.I.-MAINLAND FERRIES
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	When were (a) passengers (b) automobiles, first charged passage on ferries operated by the Government of Canada or its agent on the service between Prince Edward Island and the Mainland?
2.	What were the rates charged for each of the categories above and on what date were changes in such rates imposed?
3.	Has the Government of Canada received any protest from the Government of Prince Edward Island in connection with the latest proposed increase in these rates and, if so (a) what was the date of such protest (b) have other protests been received and, if so, how many?
June 16. 1969

Questions
4. Is it intended that hearings on this matter Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of will be held in Prince Edward Island before the Transport): 1. (a) and (b) Since the Govern-new rates are imposed?	ment inaugurated its service in 1916.
45 cents single $10.00 single No change $ 6.00 single No change $ 2.00 single 50 cents single $ 2.00 single 50 cents single $ 2.00 single could buy commuter
80 cents return no return no return no return no return $3.00 return 90 cents return $3.00 return no return no return
$15.00 for book of ten
tickets
2.	(a) Passengers Automobiles (b) 1928 Passengers Automobiles 1935 Passengers Automobiles 1958 Passengers Automobiles 1967 Passengers Automobiles
(Regular automobile users of ferry -i.e., $1.50 per crossing).
3.	Yes. (a) On 24 February Premier Campbell of Prince Edward Island protested in a submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transportation and Communications; (b) Yes. One further protest was made to the Minister of Transport by the Premier of Prince Edward Island but no further protests have been received by either the Department of Transport or the Canadian Transport Commission.
4.	The introduction of new rates is not contemplated at this time.


EXPENDITURES ON BORDEN-TORMENTINE FERRY SYSTEM
[Stage Direction]
Question No. 2,179-Mr. MacDonald (Egmonl): What are the forecast yearly capital expenditures and operating deficits for the improved CNR Northumberland Strait ferry system between Borden and Cape Tormentine over the next thirty years?
Donald Campbell Jamieson: Capital expenditures and the
years in which they are projected to occur as quoted in the Stanford Report are given below:
	Capital expenditure
Year	($m)
1969	10.0
1973	5.0
1977	15.0
1979	5.0
1982	5.0
1988	5.0
1992	5.0
1998	15.0
1999	15.0
The net operating deficit for 1978 is projected as just over $5m. With the advent of new ships and more efficient methods of operation the unit cost of handling traffic will
be substantially reduced with a corresponding effect on the deficit.


FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO FORMER FRENCH AFRICAN TERRITORIES
Mr. Diefenbaker: 1.	What is the amount of financial and other assistance that had been promised to each of the Republics in Africa which were formerly included in the Republic of France, by the Government of Canada during the next five years?
2.	To which countries, and for what respective amounts, were such promises made (a) by the Secretary of State, and (b) by the Honourable Lionel Chevrier?
3.	To which countries has such aid been promised, and in what respective amounts?
4.	What was the total value of financial and other assistance furnished by Canada to each of the said countries during each of the years 1966 and 1968 inclusive?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: 1. The amount of financial and other assistance promised to francophone countries of Africa for the next five years is broken down between (a) that which has been promised by the Hon. Lionel Chevrier in February and March 1968 and (b) that which has been promised by the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
(a) Assistance promised by the Hon. Lionel Chevrier:
	Number of	Estimated
	Approved	Canadian
	Projects	Participation
Algeria	9	$ 8,500,000Cameroun	4	4,388,000'Ivory Coast	4	2,605,000Morocco	5	8,140,000Niger	6	2,716,000Senegal	8	6,794,000Tunisia	13	6,455,000'49	$39,598,000
June 16. 1969
Questions
(b) Assistance promised by the Secretary of State for External Affairs:
Cameroun
Congo Kinshasa
Dahomey
Gabon
Malagasy
Mauritania
Rwanda
Togo

2 and 3. No assistance has been promised to francophone countries of Africa by the Secretary of State; the promises made by the Hon. Lionel Chevrier have been tabulated above in the first part of this answer.
4. The total value of the assistance furnished by Canada to the francophone countries of Africa during each of the past three fiscal years has been as follows:
Country	1966-67
Algeria	1,086,485
Burundi	2,703
Cameroun	727,505
Central African Republic	13,445
Chad	180,617
Congo Brazzaville	58,257
Congo Kinshasa	802,310
Dahomey	168,524
Gabon	28,372
Guinea	640,935
Ivory Coast	248,972
Malagasy	48,698
Mali	77,056
Mauritania	11,693
Morocco	146,445
Niger	74,532
Rwanda	778,123
Senegal	895,599
Togo	224,944
Tunisia	739,301
Upper Volta	12,000
Small Projects and Admin.	22,411
6,988,927


TORONTO AND MONTREAL AIRPORT HELICOPTER SERVICE
Mr. Robinson: Is the federal government, through Air Canada, contemplating the feasibility and/or introduction of a helicopter service from (a) Toronto International Airport to a downtown Toronto location and, if not, for what reason (b) Montreal International Airport to a downtown Montreal location and, if not, for what reason?

1967-68	1968-69 (Prel.)
363,415	3,296,592
4,239	7,173
1,071,143	1,417,821
23,567	21,492
216,988	254,435
28,115	29,658
793,053	299,808
226,140	264,405
52,136	49,678
23,401	9,857
431,954	661,308
71,864	119,310
66,475	61,335
9,950	2,656
1,648,173	231,089
56,894	1,609,949
747,622	819,662
697,186	1,039,967
275,232	379,591
2,025,696	3,792,214
18,836	17,046
39,138	46,205
8,891,217	14,431,251


Donald Campbell Jamieson: In so far as the Minister of Transport is concerned: The introduction and operation of helicopter services, like any other commercial air service, has to be licensed by the Canadian Transport Commission upon application by a carrier. This rule applies to Air Canada as well as to other carriers and therefore the corporation's management would have to decide itself on the merits of an	
June 16, 1969

operation before an application would be made. Air Canada informs me that at the present time they have no intention to apply for a licence to provide helicopter services.
The federal government maintains constant surveillance on developments in the helicopter field. Two reports published in 1966 (namely "Scheduled Helicopter Operations in Canada" by the Transportation Policy and Research Branch of the Department of Transport, and "Scheduled Helicopter Operations and their Applicability Within Canada" by the then Air Transport Board) provided a good assessment of the situation as it then existed. Both reports concluded that with existing equipment the introduction of scheduled passenger helicopter services would be premature, mainly due to the very high operating costs of the equipment available.
Nothing has happened in the interval since 1966 to change the situation. Two companies, Dominion Helicopter Ltd. and Pegasus Airlift, provided helicopter services at Expo 67, but I understand that the financial results were not altogether satisfactory. In the U.S., helicopter services have expanded in some areas and are threatened by STOL (short take-off and landing) aircraft in others. However, there are indications that high capacity helicopters may become available in the late 1970's with much lower operating costs; in the meantime, it is expected that traffic will continue its rapid growth. These developments will be watched closely to ensure that prompt and effective action is taken as soon as conditions warrant.


CANADIAN RAILWAYS PASSENGER SERVICE
Mr. Yewchuk: Did a senior executive of the Canadian National Railways state in a recent interview in Toronto that the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Pacific Railway should get out of the passenger business "because it doesn't make any economic sense" and, if so, does this reflect a change in policy either of the government or the Canadian National Railways?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The Management of Canadian National Railways advises as follows: The statements made by an officer of the Company when speaking before the Canadian Transportation Research Forum in Toronto were not intended to imply that Canadian railways should get out of the passenger business but that they should be relieved of the burden of running uneconomic passenger services. It was further stated that means 29180-642
Questions
were provided to do this under the provisions of the National Transportation Act of 1967.
There has been no change in the Company's passenger policy which was stated before the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications on July 5, 1966 and as restated on Page 15 of the Company's Annual Report for the year 1968 which was tabled in the House of Commons on April 24, 1969.


CHARLOTTETOWN AIRPORT INSTRUMENT LANDING SYSTEM
[Stage Direction]
Question No. 2,264
Mr. Macquarrie:: 1.	When is it intended to install an instrument landing system at the Charlottetown Airport?
2.	In the interval is it intended to place a mobile instrument landing system in operation at Charlottetown?
3.	What other improvements are contemplated for the Charlottetown Airport?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: 1. I.L.S. has been programmed for installation in 1972/73.
2.	No.
3.	The following items are programmed: (a) A non directional beacon 1970/71; (b) High intensity runway and approach lights 1972/73; (c) A new building will be constructed this summer to improve mail, baggage and cargo handling; (d) Plans for a new terminal building are currently under active consideration.


MONTREAL-CHAMPLAIN BRIDGE REVENUES
Mr. Beaudoin: 1.	What revenues has the federal government derived from the Champlain Bridge in Montreal, since its construction?
2.	What expenditures were incurred by the federal government for maintenance each year since its construction?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: 1.
Champlain Bridge
Revenue
Year	$
1962	162,574
1963	448,326
1964	624,879
1965	990,976
1966	1,329,190
1967	2,066,771
1968	1,962,420
Questions

June 16, 1969
2.
Maintenance
Year	$
1962	33,032
1963	53,350
1964	36,099
1965	44,150
1966	55,621
1967	132,579
1968	124,537


INSTRUMENT LANDING FACILITIES AT CANADIAN AIRPORTS
Mr. MacDonald (Egmonl): 1.	What public airports in Canada have Instrument Landing System facilities?
2.	Are there any provinces in Canada which do not have airports equipped with I.L.S. facilities and, if so, which ones and for what reasons?
3.	What steps are being taken to see that every province has at least one I.L.S.?
4.	What effect do I.L.S. facilities have on the usable ceilings for aircraft and are there any other benefits?
5.	Does Air Canada serve any airports without I.L.S.?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: 1. Abbotsford, B.C., Calgary,
Alta., Churchill, Man., Edmonton Ind. Alta., Edmonton Int'l. Alta., Fort Nelson, B.C., Fort St. John, B.C., Fredericton, N.B., Frobisher, N.W.T., Gander, Nfld., Grande Prairie, Alta., Halifax, N.S., Inuvik, N.W.T., Lakehead, Ont., Lethbridge, Alta., London, Ont., Moncton, N.B., Montreal, P.Q., Ottawa, Ont., Patricia Bay, B.C., Penticton, B.C., Port Hardy, B.C., Prince George, B.C., Prince Rupert, B.C., Quebec, P.Q., Regina, Sask., St. John's Nfld., Saint John, N.B., Saskatoon, Sask., Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., Sept-Iles, P.Q., Stephenville, Nfld., St. Hubert, P.Q., Sydney, N.S., Terrace, B.C., Toronto, Ont., Vancouver, B.C., Victoria, B.C., Whitehorse, Y.T., Windsor, Ont., Winnipeg, Man., Yarmouth, N.S.
2.	(a) Yes; (b) Prince Edward Island; (c) The justification for an I.L.S. is based on the operational requirements of the aircraft serving a given airport, rather than on the geographical location of the airport. Charlottetown, as the one civil mainline airport in P.E.I., has not, up to now, generated the type or quantity of traffic sufficient to justify an I.L.S.
3.	The Department has programmed, subject sufficient funds can be made available, the installation of an I.L.S. at Charlottetown during the 1972/73 year in anticipation that

the operational requirement will have developed by that time.
4.	An unrestricted I.L.S. permits approaches by scheduled operators to altitudes of 200 feet above ground with one half a mile visibility. I.L.S.'s also assist pilots in lining up with the runways at greater distances from the airport than when using a non-directional beacon, and also assist in establishing an optimum approach path under good, as well as poor, weather conditions.
5.	Yes.


BRITISH COLUMBIA INDUSTRIAL INCENTIVE AREAS
Mr. Harding: 1.	How many industrial incentive areas have been established in British Columbia?
2.	How many projects have been assisted to date in each area since the inception of the program?
3.	By area, what has been or will be the government's contribution to each project completed or proposed?


Mr. Russell C. Honey (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: 
DIESEL ENGINE PURCHASES FROM FAIRBANKS MORSE
Mr. Douglas (Nanaimo-: Cowichan-The Islands):
1.	Has the Government of Canada or any of its agencies placed an order for twenty-four twelve cylinder, turbo-charged, opposed piston, diesel engines with Fairbanks Morse (Canada) Ltd. within the last three years?
2.	Was the order proceeded with and, if not, was any compensation paid the company?
3.	If compensation was paid (a) what was the amount and (b) has a government investigation of the company's claims been carried out?
4.	If the answer to part 3(b) above is in the affirmative, what were the findings of the government investigators?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: 1. Yes.
2.	Procurement of components by Fairbanks Morse (Canada) Ltd., was commenced and consequent upon the government's decision to build only one vessel in lieu of the six originally approved, the number of diesels was accordingly reduced from 24 to four, the Company being compensated accordingly.
3.	(a) $724,275; (b) Yes.
4.	That the Company's claim was legitimate and the amount of compensation negotiated, fairly and reasonably covered the costs incurred by the Company resulting from the reduction in the number of diesels.


SUPERSONIC FLIGHTS OVER CANADA
Mr. Skoberg: 1.	Have the Department of Transport or the Canadian Transport Commission approved of Supersonic (SST) planes flying over and landing in Canada?
2.	If so, when was this decision reached?
3.	What specific research has been undertaken by any government agency or department regarding the effects of supersonic flying over Canada?
4.	Is the Canadian Transport Commission or the Department of Transport aware of the recent announcement by Air Canada that six Boeing Supersonic planes have been ordered to be flying in Canada around 1978?
5.	Has approval been given to the flying of the above planes over Canada?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: 1. No.
2.	N/A.
3.	None. The Department of Transport is following the development of this type of aircraft from the viewpoint of applying
29180-642}
Questions
restrictive measures should this action appear necessary.
4.	Yes.
5.	No.


DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE PUBLIC RELATIONS
Mr. Robinson: 1.	Does the Department of Agriculture have a public relations staff and, if so, how many?
2.	What was the total cost of public relations for the Department for each of the years 1960-68 inclusive?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: 1.	No.
2.	Not applicable.


USE OF HEAVY WATER IN NUCLEAR PLANTS
Mr. Corbin: 1.	Is heavy water of the kind that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited hopes to obtain from Deuterium of Canada Limited used in the operation of certain types of nuclear power generating plants?
2. If so, what is the function of the heavy water?
3.	What is the estimate of the time required for the construction of a nuclear power generating plant in ordinary circumstances?
4. If arrangements were made in 1969 under which Canada would participate in the construction of a nuclear power generating plant in any other country, would Canada be able to supply the necessary heavy water from its own sources, for example, the Deuterium of Canada Limited plant, and without increasing Canadian purchases from abroad?
5.	Is Canada still buying heavy water from abroad to meet Canada requirements?
6.	Has Atomic Energy of Canada Limited entered into a contract with any other potential producer of heavy water in Canada under which a supply of heavy water will be available to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited?
7.	If so, what producer, and when will the product become available?
8.	After any other producer begins deliveries, will the heavy water supplied by Deuterium of Canada Limited be surplus to Canada's requirements?
9.	What is the present estimate as to when Deuterium of Canada Limited will begin deliveries of heavy water?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister without Portfolio):: In so far as Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is concerned: 1. Yes.
2.	To slow down the speed of neutrons released on fission to enable them better to cause fission in other uranium nuclei.

June 1G, 1969
Questions
3.	About 5 years depending on size.
4.	This is the hope.
5.	Yes.
6.	Yes.
7.	Canadian General Electric Company Limited; by the end of 1969.
8.	No.
9.	Unknown.


TORONTO SHORT HAUL FLIGHTS
Mr. Gillespie: 1.	What is the estimated number of passenger flights originating in Toronto and terminating within 350 miles, and the number of flights terminating in Toronto having originated within 350 miles?
2.	What proportion of total scheduled flights does such short haul traffic amount to?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The Canadian Transport Commission advises as follows: 1. In 1968 at Toronto International Airport 34,683 scheduled passenger flights arrived from and 34,762 scheduled passenger flights departed for points within 350 miles.
2.	In 1968 these short haul flights represented 67 percent of all scheduled passenger flights arriving at or departing from this airport.


BUDGET FOR JORDAENS EXHIBIT AT NATIONAL GALLERY
Mr. Reid: 1.	What was the budget established for the Jordaens Exhibit held from November 29, 1968 to January 5, 1969 at the National Gallery and what were the projected expenses for (a) transportation (b) personnel (c) entertainment (d) insurance, and (e) other?
2.	What was the estimated attendance and what was the actual attendance for this exhibit?
3.	What was the estimated deficit budgeted for this exhibition and what was the actual deficit?
4.	How was the estimated deficit to be covered?
5.	How was the actual deficit covered?


Gérard Pelletier: I am informed by the National Museums of Canada as follows: 1. The budget projected for the Jordaens Exhibit, based on the display of 172 works of art, was $147,000 subdivided as follows: (a) Transportation, $95,500; (b) Personnel, nil; (c) Entertainment, $1,200; (d) Insurance, $9,000; (e) Other, $41,300.
2. The estimated attendance was 100,000 and the actual attendance was 18,222.

3.	The sum of $147,000 was budgeted for this exhibition, and expenditures to date, based on the display of 315 works of art, amount to $191,533.
4.	The total costs of the exhibition were to be met from appropriations provided by Parliament in the fiscal years 1967-68 and 1968-69.
5.	The total costs of the exhibition to date have been met from appropriations provided by Parliament in the fiscal years 1967-68 and 1968-69.


DEFICIT ON JORDAENS EXHIBIT AT NATIONAL GALLERY
Mr. Reid: 1.	Did the National Museum Corporation make any submissions to either the Department of the Secretary of State or to Treasury Board to cover the actual deficit incurred by the Jordaens Exhibition held from November 29, 1968 to January 5, 1969?
2.	Was any re-allocation of funds made to the Art Gallery from the sums originally allotted to the Museum of Natural Sciences, the Museum of Man, and the Museum of Science and Technology by the Board of Trustees of the National Museum at the beginning of the fiscal year and, if so, by how much from each of these three Museums?
3.	Was this figure over $100,000?


Gérard Pelletier: I am informed by the National Museums of Canada as follows: 1. No.
2. During the 1968-69 fiscal year funds were reallocated as follows:
Increase Decrease

National Gallery of Canada 145,000 National Museum of
Natural Sciences	30,000
National Museum of Man	20,000
National Museum of
Science and Technology	78,000
Others	17,000
145,000	145,000
3.	Yes.


ILE-AUX-GRUES-MONTMAGNY REINFORCED BOAT SERVICE
Mr. Lambert (Belle-chasse): 1.	Does the federal government pay an annual subsidy of $1,700 for operating reinforced boat service for navigation across ice in the winter season for the crossing between Ile-aux-Grues and Montmagny and, if so, to whom?
2.	What is the nature of this service during the winter season?
June 16, 1969


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The Canadian Transport Commission advises as follows: 1. Yes. Albert Vezina, Ile-aux-Grues.
2. Service consists of three round trips per week during the winter season from November 16 to April 30, carrying passengers and freight with the ice boat Ile-aux-Grues Transport.


NAVIGATIONAL AIDS FOR CARIBOU-WOOD ISLAND FERRIES
Mr. MacEwan: Is it the intention of the Department of Transport to up-grade the navigational aids at Caribou, Nova Scotia and Wood Island, Prince Edward Island in order to provide a longer operating day and night service for the ferries operating between the Provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: No. Aids to navigation at both places are considered adequate for 24 hour navigation by ferry operators.


CANADIAN MEMBERSHIP IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Mr. Beaudoin: 1.	What is the number of international organizations to which Canada belongs?
2.	What is the annual cost to Canada for participation in each of these organizations?


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Postmaster General and Minister of Communications):: In so far
as the Post Office Department is concerned: 1. Two: Universal Postal Union; Postal Union of the Americas and Spain.
2. The annual cost varies dependant on the cost of maintaining the two bureaux. The cost for 1968-69 was $75,200.


CANADA MANPOWER AND IMMIGRATION COUNCIL
Mr. Brewin: 1.	Has the Canada Manpower and Immigration Council provided for by C. 13, Statutes of Canada, 16 Elizabeth II assented to the 21st of December, 1967 been set up?
2.	If not, for what reason?
3.	Have any of the Advisory Boards which the Minister of Manpower and Immigration is required by s. 12 of the said Act been established (a) if so, how many and which Boards (b) if not, for what reason?
4.	Has the Minister exercised the power conferred on him by ss. 2 of s. 13 of the said Act and established additional advisory boards?
Questions


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: 1. Yes, the Canada Manpower and Immigration Council has been set up.
2.	Not applicable.
3.	Four Advisory Boards have been set up: (i) Advisory Board on Adult Occupational Training; (ii) Advisory Board on the Adjustment of Immigrants; (iii) Advisory Board on Manpower and Immigration Research; (iv) Advisory Board on Co-ordination of Rehabilitation Services for Disabled Persons.
4.	No, the Minister has not established additional advisory boards.


MR. GERARD BEAUDET, MANAGER. PORT OF MONTREAL
Mr. Dumont: 1.	What is the salary of Mr. Gerard Beaudet, Manager of the Port of Montreal?
2.	What is the salary of his administrative assistants?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: 1. $23,500.
2. Assistant Port Manager, Administration, $21,000; Assistant Port Manager, Operations, $21,000.


REDUCTION OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA
Mr. Beaudoin: Does the government intend to initiate a policy to reduce the number of immigrants to Canada as a result of employment problems in this country?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: With the exception of sponsored dependent relatives, all immigrants are assessed on a point rating system which takes account of their occupational demand in Canada. This is not the only factor on which their applications are evaluated, nevertheless, it is one of the most important consideration, the purpose of which is to help equate immigration with employment opportunities in Canada.


SECOND TORONTO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Mr. Yewchuk: Will a second Toronto international airport be built off the shore of Lake Ontario and, if so, what precautions will the government take to ensure the safety of such an operation?
10150	COMMONS
Questions


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The Department of Transport is not considering an off-shore site for a second Toronto International Airport at this time.


ALTERNATIVE EMPLOYMENT FOR VICKERS EMPLOYEES
Mr. Yewchuk: Has the government taken any steps to provide alternative employment for the workers now unemployed by the layoffs at the Vickers Shipyards in Montreal?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Officers of the Department of Manpower and Immigration have met with the management of Marine Industries Limited, Sorel. This Company stated that commencing June 2-3 they will have 150 jobs available for tradesmen requiring skills similar to those possessed by many of the workers at Canadian Vickers Limited. In addition, Marine Industries Limited expects to hire over 400 skilled workers in the next two months. The management of this Company said they are willing to consider present employees of Canadian Vickers shipyard for these positions.
Because some workers may not want to relocate in Sorel, we also have launched a campaign through our Canada Manpower Centres in the Montreal area to find work in comparable trades for the workers. Present indications are that we will have reasonably good success in this endeavour.
Canadian Vickers Limited is also prepared to absorb a substantial number of the shipyard workers in their ship repairing and industrial divisions. To assist in this transfer of workers, we have offered to participate in the provision of training and retraining as required. Our Manpower Consultative Service is facilitating manpower adjustment planning by the Company and the unions.


ABOLITION OF P.E.I. FERRY TOLLS
Mr. MacDonald (Egmoni): 1.	Have representations been made with regard to the abolition of ferry tolls between the Province of Prince Edward Island and the rest of Canada and, if so, by whom?
2.	What has been the response of the government in this regard?
3.	Is serious consideration being given to this proposal?

DEBATES	June 16, 1969


Donald Campbell Jamieson: 1. Yes, by the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island.
2.	The resolution of the Legislature was acknowledged to the Speaker by the Office of the Prime Minister and referred to the Minister of Transport for attention.
3.	Serious consideration is always given to resolutions of a provincial legislature regarding matters under federal jurisdiction, even though the responsibility for any action is exclusively with the federal government.


CLOSING OF CUSTOMS OFFICES
Mr. Comeau: 1.	How many Customs Offices will be closed in Canada?
2.	How many by province?
3.	What is the location of those in Nova Scotia and when are these scheduled to be closed?


Hon. Jean-Pierre  Coie@Minister of National Revenue: 1. It is proposed to close approximately 68 small ports and outports throughout Canada.
2.	The decision as to which offices will be closed and when will be made only as a result of a complete study involving the economics, personnel and service aspects and will be therefore identified only at that time.
3.	See 2.


INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON STATUS OF REFUGEES
Mr. Fairweather: 1.	Has Canada acceded to the 1951 International Convention on the Status of Refugees and, if not, for what reason?
2.	Is Canada a party to the 1957 Hague Agreement on Refugee Seamen and, if not, for what reason?


Mitchell William Sharp: 1. The Canadian instruments of accession to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and to the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees which amended the Convention were deposited with the Chief of the U.N. Treaty Section in New York on June 4, 1969 making that the effective date of Canada's accession.
2. Canada became a party to the Hague Agreement on Refugee Seamen on May 30, 1969 with the deposit of the Canadian instrument of accession with the proper authorities in The Hague.
June 16. 1969

Questions
SACKVILLE, N.B.-C.B.C. LAND PURCHASES	AVERAGE AGE OF WAR PENSIONERS


Mr. Dinsdale: 1.	Has the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation purchased land in the Sackville area of New Brunswick?
2.	If so, from whom and what amount was paid for each parcel?


Gérard Pelletier: I am informed by the C.B.C. as follows: 1. Yes.
2. Albert R. Anderson, $25,000; Tantramar Enterprises Ltd., $5,000.


PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE AS DESIGNATED AREA
Mr. Diefenbaker: Will the government give favourable consideration to having the City of Portage la Prairie named a designated area?


Russell Clayton Honey: Mr. Speaker, the proposed new legislation on industrial incentives provides for the designation of regions after consultation with the provinces. Exploratory consultations with Manitoba have taken place but no decision can be made until parliament has passed the legislation.


PROMOTIONS OF REGULAR FORCE OFFICERS
Mr. Robinson: 1.	How many (a) Captains (b) Majors (c) Lieutenant-Colonels (d) Colonels (using the new Canadian Forces nomenclature) were promoted one rank in 1967 and in 1968 in the regular force?
2.	How many, by corps, of those appointed in Part 1 are of (a) French origin (b) English origin (c) speak French only (d) speak English only (e) are bilingual?


Mr. D. W. Groos (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence):: 1.	(a)	(b)	(c)	(d)1967	569	161	54	221968	261	105	47	112.	Without conducting	a survey,	and a
perusal of all the confidential personal files of the officers concerned, it is not possible to provide an accurate answer to this question and the necessary expert staff are not available to undertake the large amount of work which would be required to gather this information.


Mr. Robinson: 1.	What is the average age of war pensioners?
2.	How many war pensioners are (a) over 80 years of age (b) 70-79 (c) 60-69 (d) 50-59 (e) 40-49 (f) 30-39 (g) 20-29 (h) under 20 years of age?


Hon. Jean-Eudes Dube (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: 1. World War I, 76.5; World War II, 54.5.
2.
World War I World War II
(a)	6,393	568(b)	19,722	5,977(c)	475	18,548(d)	0	45,289(e)	0	34,075(f)	0	1(g>	0	0(h)	0	0


USE OF SODIUM CYCLAMATE
Mrs. Maclnnis: 1.	Are there any restrictions on the use of calcium or sodium cyclamate as an artificial sweetener?
2.	Has the government any plans to have the labels of soft drinks indicate the cyclamate content and to state daily maximum quantities that should be taken by adults and by children?
3.	Has a report been prepared on cyclamates for the Minister of National Health and Welfare?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1. Yes. Artificial sweeteners may be used only in special dietary foods recommended for carbohydrate or calorie-reduced diets and only if the food carries on the label a statement to the effect that it contains an artificial sweetener. Owing to these restrictions, artificial sweeteners are used in fewer foods in Canada than in the United States.
2.	No. The Food and Drug Directorate is, however, carefully reviewing all aspects of the use of the cyclamates with regard to the need for greater control over the levels of use and more prominent labelling of foods containing these substances.
3.	No. However, the Minister of National Health and Welfare is kept fully informed on the status of the cyclamates on a continuing basis.


CANADIAN FORCES OFFICERS SELECTED FOR STAFF COLLEGE
Mr. Robinson: 1. How many Officers of the Canadian Forces were selected for Staff College in each of the years 1967 and 1968 respectively?

June 16, 1969
Orders for Returns
2.	How many of those in Part 1 are of (a) French origin (b) English origin (c) speak French only (d) speak English only (e) are bilingual?
3.	What was the average age of the Captains selected to take the Staff Course in each of the years 1967 and 1968 respectively?


David Walter Groos: 1. 1967, 183; 1968, 172.
2.	(a) and (b) Without conducting a survey and a perusal of all the confidential personal files of the officers concerned, it is not possible to provide an accurate answer to this question and the necessary expert staff are not available to undertake the large amount of work which would be required to gather this information; (c), (d) and (e) This information is not readily available for 1967 and the remarks pertaining to (a) and (b) above apply. For 1968 (c) nil; (d) 131; (e) 41.
3.	For 1967 see remarks above. For 1968, 31J years.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. Gleave: 1.	When was the International Grains Arrangement signed and which were the member countries of this Arrangement?
2.	What were the agreed provisions of this Arrangement?
3.	When did the Canadian Wheat Board find out that certain member countries were not living up to the agreement?
4.	Which were those member countries?
5.	What is the estimated loss in markets for Canadian wheat due to member countries breaking the International Grains Arrangement?
Return tabled.


P.E.I.-REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON POTATO INDUSTRY
Mr. MacDonald (Egmonl): 1.	What reduction is expected in potato acreage in Canada in 1969?
2.	Where is it expected to occur and in what amounts?
3.	What was the average return to Prince Edward Island potato producers from 1958 to 1968 inclusive?
4.	Since 1960, in what years has federal assistance been provided to the Prince Edward Island potato

producers and what was the average amount of assistance to the Prince Edward Island producer?
5.	What representations have been made to the federal government affecting the price of marketing of potatoes (a) by whom have these representations been made (b) what has been the decision of the government with respect to these proposals or recommendations?
Return tabled.


ANNOUNCEMENT OF AID TO NIGERIA AND BIAFRA
Mr. MacDonald (Egmont): 1.	On what dates was it announced that Canada would send relief to Nigeria and Biafra?
2.	What means have been used to transport this relief?
3.	On what days did this relief depart from Canada, from what ports, with what cargo specifically, when did it arrive and where?
4.	How was this material obtained, was it donated and if purchased, were tenders called and, if so, what was the amount of the various tenders?
5.	How has this food been distributed?
6 How much is it estimated is still in storage at ports of reception?
7.	How much is still awaiting to be shipped from Canada?
8.	Has it been found that any of the food has been damaged or unusable and, if so, how much and what has been the cause?
9.	Is it contemplated that further aid will be sent, on what date, what kind and in what amounts?
Return tabled.


ESTIMATED BUDGETARY REVENUE
Mr. Howard (Skeena): 1.	What is the estimated budgetary revenue of the federal government, by source, for the fiscal years ending March 31, 1969 and March 31, 1970?
2.	What is the estimated revenue from excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco for fiscal years ending March 31, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970?
3.	What are the estimated revenues and expenditures of the Canada Pension Plan during fiscal years ending March 31, 1969 and 1970?
4.	How much money was invested in the bonds of each province (to the nearest possible date) ?
5.	How much money was paid to British Columbia under the terms of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act during the fiscal years ending March 31, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970?
Return tabled.
June 16, 1969



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister a question which I am sure he has anticipated and will welcome. Was the Minister of Agriculture stating the policy of the government when he expressed his delight with the high prices of beef and said that Canadian consumers should treat the beef price increase as an investment in their future, and that any boycott by consumers would only discourage expansion and make the situation difficult? Is this the present policy of the government?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I could not say it is a policy that was hammered out at great length, but it was a spontaneous and I think right reaction on the part of the Minister of Agriculture.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Was the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs stating the policy of the government when he said, as reported at page 9814 of Hansard, that he applauds the suggestion that consumers should boycott steaks and roasts to force down prices?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I cannot say whether the policy was hammered out at great length, but it was the spontaneous reaction of the minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I wonder
whether it is the intention of the government to continue this kind of dialogue with the public with a view eventually to reaching a decision-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: -or is it the government's intention to try to please everybody at once-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I must interrupt the Leader of the Opposition to remind him and other hon. members that we are now anticipating an order of the day. I understand that the subject raised by the Leader of the Opposition is to be the subject of debate later today.
Inquiries of the Ministry Hon. George Hess (Prince-Edward-Hasiings): I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.
Is this not-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands.



RESTRICTIONS TO PREVENT SALES INVOLVING RISK TO PATIENTS

Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare following up a question I asked last week with reference to the drugs which have been designated by the food and drug administration of the United States as being ineffective or even dangerous to patients. At that time the minister said the United States had not acted on these drugs. Since that time 49 drugs have been banned in the United States on the grounds that they were dangerous to patients. I should like to ask the minister whether the investigations of his department and consultations with the United States food and drug administration have led him to make any decision in respect of banning the same drugs here in Canada?


John Carr Munro: No, Mr. Speaker. I did check with the Food and Drug Directorate this morning in order to reply to the hon. member, and I would advise it is our feeling that the story the hon. member is quoting is erroneous. I would reiterate that the drugs in question have not been banned, but that their manufacturers have been given up to 40 days, -and I do not believe this time limit has expired,-to establish that the claims in respect of the drugs can be verified or substantiated. If they do not do so within that time, then perhaps action along the line of banning them will take place.
We are watching this situation carefully and we are in touch with the drug authorities in the United States. I should reiterate that this really does not involve a question,- although it is a point,-that affects the safety and health of the individual, but rather a suspicion that there might be claims in respect of some of these drugs which cannot be substantiated.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact the food and drug administration of the United States has ordered them to cease sale of these drugs within the 40 days, and in view of the

June 16. 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry fact the food and drug administration has found that the drugs can cause anything from alergic rashes to death on the part of patients, will the minister assure the house that his department is watching the situation carefully and will take steps to remove these drugs from the Canadian market, if the result of his investigations substantiates the result of investigation in the United States?


John Carr Munro: Mr. Speaker, if the investigation going on in the United States indicates this, I can assure the hon. member that this will be the course taken by the Food and Drug Directorate and the government. Let me reiterate that in our opinion as a result of investigations we have conducted to date we have an indication that the drugs in question, some of which are produced in Canada, cause no such ill effects.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Real Caouelie (Temiscamingue):: In the
field of another drug, Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Prime Minister.
Is he aware of the coming to Canada, by the end of June, of eight Viet Cong women who have been invited by the Voice of Women of Canada, with the special purpose of promoting the Viet Cong in Canada? Is the government taking steps to watch those women during their stay in Canada since they will move about quite freely, according to some reports?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I think I was informed of that visit some time ago, and it is in keeping with the policy of the government to let people in to permit the free exchange of ideas, but as is suggested by the hon. member, we expect them to come for the purpose of contributing to the exchange of ideas, and nothing else.


David Réal Caouette: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
Does the Prime Minister intend to adopt the same attitude toward the Viet Cong women as the one he had toward a certain French delegate who came to Winnipeg not so long ago and who was closely watched by the Prime Minister?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: A certain delegate, Mr. Speaker-


MAINLAND CHINA-REPRESENTATIONS BY MINISTER AS TO CANADIAN RECOGNITION
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is designed to relieve the feelings of Canadians who are concerned about the trip being taken by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Would the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs tell the house whether the Secretary of State for External Affairs has been able to catch up with an elusive Chinese communist in order to humbly present Canada's desire to recognize communist China? Have we an acting minister today?


Mr. Hees:: They don't know who it is.


Mr. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing to add to the statement of the Secretary of State for External Affairs.


THE MINISTRY
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Is it his intention in the near future to give metropolitan Toronto, which is at present represented by two members of the cabinet, equal representation with metropolitan Montreal- which has five members in the cabinet?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Fairweather).


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, can we take it that the Prime Minister does not intend to deal fairly with the great metropolitan city of Toronto? Obviously he does not, because the representation is five to two.


EXTERNAL AID
Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweaiher@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister that does not concern Viet Cong ladies or representation in the cabinet. I am sure he will be glad to note that. Will the right hon. gentleman say if it is now the position of the government that the Red Cross is, in the words of the federal Nigerian government, "an intolerable nuisance and a
June 16, 1969



major obstacle to peace" in the Nigeria-Biafra war?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Obviously, Mr. Speaker, this is an opinion of the head of the Nigerian government, and he did not consult the Canadian government before making that statement.


Mr. Fairweather:: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Now that the Red Cross is unfortunately paralyzed in its relief efforts, will Canada use other relief agencies such as Canairelief to further the essential movement of food and medicine into that country?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, we have no reason to believe, and I doubt whether the hon. member has any reason to believe, that this other form of relief would be more welcome to the Nigerian government than the Red Cross.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of what is reported to be the attitude of the government of Nigeria toward the agency the government of Canada has used to bring relief to starving people in that country, has the government of Canada considered making any representation to the government of Nigeria with respect to this matter?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Not at this time, Mr. Speaker.


BIAFRA-NIGERIAN BOMBING OF CIVILIANS
Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether the Prime Minister or the government would consider making representations to the federal government of Nigeria about the resumption of the bombing of defenceless civilians within Biafra.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Is it the intention of the government to reduce the isolation post allowance for Norway House, Manitoba, despite the fact that the present allowance does not meet the increased cost of living in that area?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest to the hon. member that this question could well be
Inquiries of the Ministry debated at the time of adjournment. If there is urgency, and the hon. member will give me notice, I will see that his question gets precedence.


Robert Simpson: Could I rephrase my question, Mr. Speaker? This is a very important matter. At a period of time when most people are asking for increased wages, these government employees are apparently in danger of losing part of their allowance. Is it the intention of the government to reduce the isolation post allowance for Norway House, Manitoba?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest that even as rephrased the question asked by the hon. member should normally be considered at the time of adjournment. As I said, I would be pleased to co-operate with him to ensure early consideration of the matter.


OLD AGE SECURITY
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. When the representatives of the senior women's committee for a pension increase interview him tomorrow, will he, in addition to the courtesy that I know he will extend to them, give favourable consideration to their request for an increase in the old age security pension to $125 a month?


John Carr Munro: I can assure the hon. member that I will take note of his representations, and in view of the representations made to the government in this respect I wish to reiterate that the whole subject matter of this program and other social welfare programs is under review.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May
I ask for how long?


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, may I address a question to the Minister of National Revenue. Is it now the policy of the government to allow the Indian people who live at the St. Regis reserve at Cornwall to bring goods into Canada from the United States duty free?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Cote (Minister of National Revenue):: No, Mr. Speaker.

June 16, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry CONSUMER AFFAIRS
REQUEST FOR RECONVENING OF COMMITTEE Mr. Barry Malher (Surrey): Mr. Speaker, may I address a question for the attention of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Having in mind the further increase in the cost of living of .02 per cent indicated by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, is the minister giving consideration to reconvening the Consumer Affairs Committee?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, in
answer to a similar question the other day I said that the hon. member should watch the order paper very carefully.


TWENTY CENTS PER BUSHEL ON DELIVERED QUANTITIES AS RELIEF MEASURE
Mr. John L. Skoberg (Moose Jaw):: I have a question for the right hon. Prime Minister. In view of the statement of the Minister of Revenue on June 6, that he was prepared to accept grain from western farmers in lieu of cash, and in view of the symbol of desperation which I have here to send across to the Prime Minister from a western producer on behalf of many farmers, will the government now agree to the payment of at least a minimum of 20 cents a bushel on last year's delivered grain as immediate relief of the disaster facing our agricultural economy?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have to bring to the attention of the hon. member that it is not in accordance with the rules or traditions of the House of Commons for members to produce the type of exhibit which the hon. member has with him at the present time. This is not a recognized practice. If we allowed hon. members to produce such exhibits, we would get ourselves involved in a position where perhaps all too often hon. members would want to table dead fish, herrings or red herrings, damp grain or wild oats. I therefore invite the hon. member to have his exhibit removed.


John Leroy Skoberg: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The reason that I thought this to be very important was that the western farmers do not wish to be left holding the bag, and I have asked that this be personally deposited before the Prime Minister today.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This can be done outside the House of Commons.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: May I speak on the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. It might simplify things if I had the house leader discuss with the leader of the New Democratic party ways whereby the salaries of the members of that party could be paid with this grain.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Speaking on the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, it is going to make things very difficult for the government if you rule that red herrings cannot be brought into the house.


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I am sure all members of the house will recall the time of the budget speech before the last one, when the Prime Minister toted a flower into the house.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. If hon. members wish to look at precedents, there is a precedent precisely on that point when one of my illustrious predecessors ruled that members could not bring into the house baskets of peaches and similar exhibits, but that an exception could be made in the case of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition wearing a flower in the chamber.


Donald MacInnis: The only difference is that on this day the flower was not worn, but rather sniffed all evening.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. May I suggest to hon. members that we should revert to business before the house.


TAXATION
Robert Lorne Stanfield: I should like to ask the Prime Minister a question arising from the apparent agreement at the federal-provincial conference that parliament and the provincial legislatures should generally have access to all tax fields, with the exception of customs duties and perhaps one or two other duties. I wish to ask the Prime Minister whether he would indicate if it is the intention of the government now to seek an amendment to the constitution to implement this agreement, and if so, how does the government propose to go about implementing an amendment?
June 16. 1969

Righl Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):
Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition had been following the documents on the constitution which we have been tabling he would realize now that all these constitutional conferences are part of the total package which will be discussed in due course. We have to take one thing at a time. It is not the intention of the government to implement constitutional amendments bit by bit.
fLater:]


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: May I ask the Prime Minister a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker? Is the federal government proposing to open up the field of indirect taxation to the provinces, and if so will this be with regard to a restricted area of goods, or to any goods which the provinces choose to tax through indirect taxation?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I repeat that the position of the federal government will be tabled at greater length in a few days. But to give a brief answer now, if there were a constitutional amendment permitting the provinces access to the indirect taxation field it would be generally restricted to taxes within a province. In other words, there would have to be constitutional measures to prevent a province using an indirect taxing authority to tax consumers in other provinces.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I take it, then, that taxes could be levied on any goods a province chooses to tax, provided the tax is levied within the province-that there would be no restriction on the kind of goods to which the tax might apply.


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


HUMAN RIGHTS
Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question with regard to the whole package. Perhaps the minister could help bring us up to date by making a statement on motions either now or on an early occasion as to how matters stand with regard to the proposed entrenchment of provisions concerning human rights and other rights, a subject which apparently was to have been discussed recently, and one which was given great prominence in earlier constitutional discussions.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The committee of ministers which met to discuss this particular aspect of the constitutional amendments brought a report to the conference last week. The report was received, and authority was given to the committee to pursue this work. Progress was reported, and progress was made.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I take it then, it is not the intention of the Prime Minister to make any report to parliament as to how matters stand, particularly with regard to this important matter.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Not today, Mr. Speaker, but if the opposition wishes to use one of its days to debate the constitution, we would welcome it.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Would not the Prime Minister consider making a report to the house as to how matters stand with regard to progress or lack of progress on the matter of entrenching rights in the constitution so that members of opposition parties may be fully informed and so that we can decide whether or not we ought to provide an opposition day to debate the subject?


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me the Leader of the Opposition is simply restating a question he has already asked.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Is it the
intention of the government to proceed with this or any other constitutional amendment before agreement on an amending formula has been reached? Would the Prime Minister consider this question and indicate whether such a formula might be discussed, rather than reply with flippant and frivolous answers such as he gave the Leader of the Opposition?


CANADIAN CONSTITUTION
David Réal Caouette: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
Could the Prime Minister indicate when the next federal-provincial conference on the constitution will be held and whether the officials intend to discuss the problems confronting different areas of Canada?
Righl Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minisier):
Yes, Mr. Speaker; we agreed before the adjournment that there would be another

June 16, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry meeting of the premiers before the end of the year, and that in the meantime, the standing committee of officials would convene in order to prepare that meeting.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put another supplementary question.
Is it the intention of the Prime Minister to table in the house the subjects to be discussed during that conference, whether on an opposition day or a government day? Could he give more details than he just gave the Leader of the Opposition?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I said Friday, I think, it was our intention to table shortly, that is in a few days, the federal working papers for the conference. If the opposition parties really want to discuss the constitution issue, they might have to be prepared to devote one of their days to such a debate; we would welcome that.


WHEAT-REQUEST FOR ACREAGE PAYMENT AS RELIEF MEASURE
Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Speaker. Bearing in mind the announcement that the Wheat Board intends taking in only five bushels this year, taking account of the recommendations of the agriculture committee, and mindful of the fact that the financial position of our farmers has been further aggravated by a crippling frost in the last few days, may I ask whether the government intends to announce any measures of relief, preferably in the form of an acreage payment, a temporary payment at this time, prior to the recess?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: This question has been asked on more than a dozen occasions already in the house. While I appreciate the importance and, in some cases, the urgency of the subject matter which has been raised, I have nothing to add to the answers I have given, namely that this is under active consideration.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
George Harris Hees: I have a question for the Minister of

Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Speaker. Two weeks ago in answer to a question I put to him in this house he advised hon. members that he intended to announce the setting up of machinery requiring importers to pass on in their entirety the tariff reductions which were being brought in by the budget. I understood this announcement was to have been made last week. Can the minister tell us, now, when he expects to make it?


Stanley Ronald Basford: It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that we are to have a debate on this whole subject this afternoon.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, this is a perfectly straightforward, honest and simple question. We are getting no answers in this house. Ministers sit there smugly. They smile and smirk while we get no information at all. Could I have an answer, now? The public would like to know.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Robert Simpson: I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare, Mr. Speaker. Has the government received protests from the Norway House hospital board, the hospital staff and the chief and band council of the Metis Federation with regard to the possible discontinuation of northern services and, if so. what is the nature of his reply?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will recognize that he is asking a question which I suggested to him a moment ago might be debated at the time of adjournment. It may be that I am in error and that this is a matter of urgency, but particularly if it is, the hon. member will have an excellent opportunity to ensure that it is considered at length at the time of the adjournment.


Robert Simpson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I respect your suggestion that the question might be raised at ten o'clock. However I am asking the minister whether the government has received this protest, and if he would indicate his answer to it I would be in a much better position to decide how to proceed.
June 16. 1969	COMMONS



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Roy-al: A question to the Minister of Justice, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of National Health and Welfare has announced that a study is to be made of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. In the meantime, has consideration been given to the holding of a conference of attorneys general to study the question of uniform sentencing in drug cases?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Justice):: Consideration is being given to arranging a conference of attorneys general, and the subject suggested might be one for inclusion among the other items on the agenda.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East) moved:: That this house condemns the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs for his failure to protect Canadian consumers from the crippling burden of ever-increasing prices and, in particular, from the recent exorbitant jump in food and rent costs, despite this house's allocation of nearly $15 million to his department for the main purpose of averting such developments.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)
He said: Mr. Speaker, perhaps at the outset I might be permitted to offer my personal congratulations to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford)-though I assure him this will be the only compliment he will receive today-upon making at least one positive and outstanding contribution to the future of this country. I refer to the fact that he had a happy arrival in his family today and I accordingly congratulate him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James Aloysius McGrath: Notwithstanding the substantial increase in prices, the minister should at least hand out cigars on this occasion to celebrate, if nothing else, the fact that he will now receive the family allowance.
As I said at the outset, this is about the only area in which the minister can be complimented, because the problem highlighted
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers in the resolution now before the house is a very serious one. In a very broad sense it refers to the serious problem of the rising inflation now facing Canada.
There is no shortage of analyses by learned economists, businessmen and bankers, and by ministers in the house, not forgetting speeches by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, which all have one thing in common: They all seem to be pretending with grim determination to get inflation in this country under control. The many articles in leading journals of this country, the speeches of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the many editorials written by learned financial columnists all pinpoint in a sophisticated and interesting way the serious problem of inflation.
What should be of the utmost importance to this parliament and to this country, Mr. Speaker, is the grim toll that inflation is taking among the average wage earners of Canada and their families. I refer to the working man who is trying adequately to clothe, feed and house his family in this era of rising prices and spiralling inflation, and to the sad prospect of families going deeper and deeper into debt just to provide what some of us consider to be the bare essentials of life.
In analysing the situation it is interesting to note the response of the government to this very serious problem. The government has responded by raising taxes, supposedly to curtail inflation. All one has to do is to examine every budget that has been brought in by this Liberal government since 1965. Then finally in December 1968 the white paper on prices and incomes was published, and it is interesting to note that it recommended another study group to study a matter that has already received a considerable amount of study in this country. I suggest that is a weak response to this very serious matter. It took six months to name the chairman of the commission and we still to this day have not had the other members named. This points to the fact that this commission has yet to get down to work, for how can it start work when it does not yet its full complement of members?
Thousands of people in this country are suffering today from privation of every kind. There is every indication to the house and to the country that notwithstanding the much heralded just society, with all its great promise, thic governement just does not seem to care. There has yet to be an indication from
10160	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers either the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs or his colleagues in the government that they view this matter with the gravity it demands. It would appear that the just society is nothing but a hypocrisy, and a shameful hypocrisy at that, because it perpetrates a grave injustice on the working people in Canada who are suffering.
The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) has made a very useful recommendation in this house, namely that we set up prices and wage guidelines throughout the economy. This suggestion was made with the full understanding that it would not be popularly received either by the business community or by organized labour. Yet it is a constructive suggestion, a suggestion that takes into account the severity of the crisis that we are facing in this country today. Granted, it would be only an interim measure, but at least it would be one measure that would break the vicious stranglehold that inflation has on Canadians today.
It might be worth while to refer briefly to some statistics. Food prices in this country have risen steadily since 1965. In that year there was a rise of 2.4 per cent; in 1966 a rise of 3.7 per cent; in 1967 a rise of 3.5 per cent; in 1968 a rise of 4.1 per cent; and as of March this year the indication is there has been a rise of 2.5 per cent, giving a total increase in the cost of living in this country since 1965 of 13.7 per cent.
If I may break those figures down further, it is interesting to note that one of the biggest increases is in the price of food. The cumulative increase in the price of food since 1965 has been approximately 12.5 per cent. The cost of housing has increased since 1965 by 15.4 per cent. The cost of clothing since 1965 has increased by 14 per cent. As far as the cost of shelter is concerned, since 1968-in just one year-rents have increased by 4.2 per cent; home ownership costs by 8.5 per cent; property taxes by 7.2 per cent mortgage interest by 12.4 per cent repairs to houses by 5.2 per cent; and the cost of new houses by 8.2 per cent.
This is a catalogue of the injustices suffered by the working people of this country, the people for whom this government seems to have no regard. Inflation hurts the economy of the whole country, but it has its most severe impact on the average working people of the country, who can least afford to have their purchasing power eroded in this way. I refer to poor people in general, to those people living on fixed incomes and those who

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
must try to survive on the minimum wages throughout the country. These are the people who are being crippled by inflation. They are being crippled by this government's phony war against inflation.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)
It is obvious to all hon. members, Mr. Speaker, that the pensioners are the ones who suffer from inflation, because they are the people on the real fixed incomes. They cannot control the rapid decline in their income, as a consequence of inflation, and their actual standard of living. It should appear obvious to all hon. members that the plight of these people is to be deplored.
Pensioners are not the only group directly affected. The ability to avoid the burden of inflation depends on the consumer's ability to get more income. The poor of this country, the people who have been referred to as the other Canada, are indeed limited in that capacity. Generally speaking, they fall outside the trade union movement because they are largely unorganized and collectively inarticulate. They have no one to speak for them, save hon. members of this house. They have no one to champion their cause, not even the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Certainly they have given up hope in the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his just society.
Many of the people I indicated depend upon the minimum wage laws as their only protection. Individual hon. members are familiar with the minimum wage laws in their respective provinces. In my province of Newfoundland, it is $1 an hour for men and 70 cents an hour for women.
Since the last revision of the federal minimum wage laws in 1966, rampant inflation has eroded the value of their protection by over 10 par cent. It is these people we should be concerned about. The pensioners and the poor people are paying the heaviest price for this government's incompetence. Unfortunately this represents too large a proportion of our Canadian society. According to the latest review of the Economic Council of Canada, at least one Canadian in five suffers from poverty. Millions of pensioners must be added to this figure in order to arrive at a realistic consensus of the actual casualty figure.
It appears the minister's sensitivity to the plight of the silent constituency of the poor must be pricked more often by members of parliament, and I hope they will do so in the course of the debate today because hon.
June 16. 1969
COMMONS DEBATES	10161
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
members are their only spokesmen. The suffering poor of Canada are largely invisible. A country as rich as Canada need not and should not tolerate the increasing misery caused for these groups by inflationary price movements, even if that misery is hidden away in old houses, garrets and slums throughout the country. When we think of slums, garrets and inadequate accommodation, we immediately think of rental costs, because the poor of this country have to pay rents. All too often they are exploited by unscrupulous landlords.
Perhaps some statistics should be placed on the record. The consumer price index shows tenant costs have risen by 10.7 per cent from 1966 to March, 1969, with a 4.2 per cent increase between March, 1968 and March, 1969. In one year, Mr. Speaker, there was a 4.2 per cent increase. The Ottawa Real Estate Board reports the following: The present vacancy rate for apartment buildings is about 3 per cent. A 5 per cent vacancy rate would constitute a normal market situation, according to this board. Most of those vacant are of the luxury type with rents running on the average from $170 to $225.
It is a well known statistical fact that most people have to set aside 25 per cent of their income for rental payments in order to have a roof over their heads, but the great majority of the housing available for rent today is of the high priced variety, anywhere from $350 a month upwards. The situation is not expected to improve, since mortgage rates are increasing for the owners and, unfortunately, these increases are being passed along to the tenants by increased rents. The President of the Canadian Association of Real Estate Boards said this:
Sixty per cent of persons seeking homes do not have the income for one at current prices. Since they cannot qualify for C.M.H.C. loans restricting payments to 27 per cent of income they are forced into rental accommodation where many pay up to 40 per cent of their income.
These are the poor, the unrepresented people of this country. The minister knows of an instance, which was given publicity yesterday in a broadcast in which the minister appeared, of a woman and her six children living in this city of Ottawa. This woman is forced to live in two rooms on the third floor without the amenities, and must pay $120 a month rent because there is no public housing in the city of Ottawa available to her.
The Hellyer task force on housing covered this matter very adequately. It is very interesting to note what the former Minister
of Transport found out when he went across the country and visited the slums and ghettos of our cities. He went into the rural blighted areas of this country. He was so deplored and shocked at what he saw that when he came back he said to his colleagues in the government: If you don't do something about it, I cannot in conscience stay on in government. And this is precisely what he did; he resigned. I suggest the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs should take the same exercise upon himself. He should go across this country and talk to the poor people in our cities and rural areas. He can ask them how they manage on their low incomes and rising prices. These people have to pay the same prices as those in the middle and upper income brackets.
They don't manage, Mr. Speaker. If the real truth were known many of them, and especially their children, suffer the consequences of diet deficiencies. This is in Canada in 1969, the first year of the just society. Shame on this government and shame on their so-called just society.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James Aloysius McGrath: I will now deal with the area of prices, Mr. Speaker. I am glad the minister is in the house. I am sorry the Prime Minister is not here.


Mr. Woolliams:: There is nobody here.


James Aloysius McGrath: The government attendance in the house is probably indicative of then-care for the poor people of this country. The record should show there are only 10 Liberal supporters in the house today with the minister. I say shame!


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


James Aloysius McGrath: What did the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs have to say when he addressed himself to this problem? On June 5 at page 9815 of Hansard he said that he applauded the statement by the President of Loblaws that consumers should boycott steaks and roasts to force down prices. The minister did not have to give that advice to the poor people of this country, because they have not been able to buy steaks or roasts for some considerable time. But to those who can afford to buy steaks and roasts the minister suggested that they should boycott them. He applauded the statement of one
10162	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
of the largest food retailers in the country. He said:
[DOT] (3:00 p.m.)
-this statement is completely in accord with the findings of the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on Consumer Credit and Prices-
The minister was the distinguished co-chairman of that committee.
I am not going to quote from the report of the committee, but I do say to the minister that he is adopting the posture of a latter-day Marie Antoinette. The only thing I am sorry he did not say, and I say this for very selfish reasons, was, "If they cannot afford to buy beef let them eat fish."


Gerald William Baldwin: And she lost her head too.


James Aloysius McGrath: As my party's house leader has just indicated, and to this the minister should pay strict attention, Marie Antoinette lost her head.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James Aloysius McGrath: I suspect that if the minister carries on in the way he has been he will not lose his head but will lose his department. The rise in the retail prices of beef across Canada is becoming intolerable to Canadians. The price of sirloin steak last week varied from $1.39 per pound in Vancouver to $1.55 in Montreal, $1.59 in Toronto, $1.69 in seven other major cities, $1.75 in Halifax, and was so high in St. John's, Newfoundland, that nobody could afford to buy it.
Although some claim that the main impetus in the price increases comes from the long overdue price increase to farmers, it is grossly unfair to blame the farmers. The president of the Ontario Farmers Union has pointed out that the price the farmers receive for cattle has increased only about seven cents a pound but that beef prices to the consumer have gone up anywhere from 30 cents to 50 cents a pound. In fact he blames the increase directly on the chain stores. The recent increase in the cost of beef substantiates this point. Yet notwithstanding the pleas that have been made by hon. members in this house, and notwithstanding the resolution passed last week at the meeting of the Canadian Association of Consumers, not to mention numerous other resolutions passed in other parts of the country, the government sits idly by and refuses to investigate the serious and dramatic rise in the cost of beef.

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
Canadian meat packers maintain that they have been operating at a very low profit margin for several years. They claim that they cannot absorb any part of the basic increase in the price of meat without incurring a loss. Consequently they pass on the full increase to the retailer, and it is up to the retailer to adjust his prices accordingly.
But even if the price increase to retailers occurred at an awkward time, just when prices were moving from the winter to the summer pattern, it would be interesting to know why prices at the retail level are higher than those charged by frozen food suppliers. Other hon. members will have a great deal to say about this subject, Mr. Speaker. Some of them represent areas where this problem is of vital concern. Somebody in this country is profiteering, and the minister has the responsibility, under the provisions of the Combines Investigation Act, to find out exactly who it is.
In the course of his remarks in the house on June 5 and during a public affairs program on C.B.C. radio the minister said that this was the very essence of a free, competitive, market economy. The minister's philosophy is that if things are too high in price consumers should seek substitutes or alternatives. If this is the philosophy of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, why do we need a Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs? If everything is to be blamed on the law of supply and demand, what is the minister's role?
I suggest, and this is becoming increasingly evident, that the minister has followed in the footsteps of that other former illustrious member of parliament, the former Minister of Transport who built an empire for himself before he left the house. All the Minister of Consumer and Corporate affairs has done is create a department and build his own little empire in the bureaucracy of Canada.
Somebody has just suggested to me that we had a similar example a few years ago when the government set up a new Department of Industry. That department was set up in much the same way as the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. It took under its control various functions of government that were being conducted by other departments of government. Then we went the full cycle with the Department of Industry. A few years later the government had to tear the whole thing down, at considerable cost to the taxpayer.
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
The minister is another empire builder. Canadian consumers looked with real hope to the formation of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. They looked to the new minister as their knight on a charger in white and shining armour. All they got was a paper tiger. Some tiger-


Gerald William Baldwin: Some paper.


James Aloysius McGrath: And very costly paper. The working men and women of this country continue to suffer from rising prices. They continue to suffer the consequences of every rise in the cost of living index. It is becoming painfully evident that the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has neither the power, the ability nor the inclination to do anything about it.
Within the last year or so several studies have raised serious doubts concerning the adequacy of our retail food distribution system. In most cases the reports dealt with practices that were deemed injurious to the interests of Canadian consumers. In most cases the reports issued a clear call for study and action by the federal Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In all cases it appears that the minister and the government have chosen to do nothing to protect the Canadian consumers.
The first of these reports was that of the Royal Commission on Consumer Problems and Inflation, more popularly know as the Batten report. In December, 1963, the governments of the three prairie provinces jointly established this commission, under the chairmanship of Judge Mary Batten, to study the crippling problem of inflation. The commission received 150 submissions from the public and undertook a number of staff studies into specific questions. The report of the commission, which was made public in the spring of 1968, raised severe doubts about whether the consumer interest was being best served by the existing system of retail food distribution. According to the report the grocery industry is deficient on several important accounts. It may be worth noting them here.
The first point made by the report is that the largest sellers have acquired sufficient power to enable prices to rise above competitive levels, thereby earning excess profits for the large chains. The second point it made is that excessive building of stores has led to sub-optimal rates of utilization of stores. The third point is that the position and power of the chains have led to and require the use of
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers self-cancelling and costly advertising campaigns.
The commission made several recommendations which were of direct relevance to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. It might be worth while to remind him of these recommendations. It recommended that the governments of the three prairie provinces request an immediate investigation of the grocery retailing industry, under the Combines Investigation Act. Furthermore, the commission recommended that the three prairie provinces urge the federal Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to examine ways of eliminating the possibility of wasteful advertising and to prevent the use of advertising in the defence and fortification of positions of industry control. What has the minister done about this? How has he met this request?
[DOT] (3:10 p.m.)
As was to be expected the report of the commission stirred up some controversy. One of the grocery chains in western Canada published a vigorous denial of the charge that it had made any excessive profits in any area of Canada. But surely in this period of rampant price increases the consumers of this country deserve to know the truth from the minister who has the power to provide it.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: They have not exactly handed out a policy.


James Aloysius McGrath: As the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) says, they have not exactly handed out a policy to cope with this situation.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must interrupt the hon. member to advise him that his time has expired. If he has the consent of the house he may continue.


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


James Aloysius McGrath: I shall not detain the house, Mr. Speaker, and I thank hon. members for their indulgence. It should be noted that the implications of this report are relevant to all regions of Canada. It is a year now since these reports and their disturbing evidence became available. Yet what has the minister done? Perhaps it might be worth while to place on the record the final statement in the report on a study made by a University of Alberta research team:
-concern is shared (with the Batten Report) for the adequacy of the retail food distribution system. Our results substantiate certain Batten Commission
10164	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16, 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
results with no important areas of disagreement. We concur in the conclusion that a closer examination is warranted. To ignore the Batten report is to reject it.
That is exactly what the minister has done, Mr. Speaker. Other hon. members will be contributing to this debate during the course of the day, but before I take my seat perhaps I might ask the minister, before he gets too bogged down in telling the house about the tremendous machine he has built up around him in the new Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and before he starts giving statistics to the house to refute some of the things I have tried to say, to bear in mind one thing which should be the overriding consideration in everything he has to say today. It is the average Canadian, the working men of this country, the poor of this country and the regionally dispossessed of this country who continue to suffer from the consequences of rising prices and spiralling inflation.


Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kings-way):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic party I rise to support the motion of the official opposition which stands in the name of the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath). I believe the hon. member has made an excellent summary of the underlying conditions across this country and what the rising cost of living means to the many groups of people with moderate or low incomes. He referred to the fact that the former Minister of Transport had built an empire. If this is true I believe that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) has gone him one better because he has founded a dynasty. Of course he did not do it alone. I wish to urge him to extend the congratulations of all of us in this group to his partner in this enterprise. I am glad he has had this achievement because I am going to score him now for some of the other things he has failed to do.
The cost of living is up again. The figures have been given by the hon. member who has just spoken. I remind hon. members that the figures for May this year show that the overall cost of living is up 4.7 per cent over May, 1968. The cost of food is up 4.2 per cent. Housing is up 5.3 per cent and transportation is up 5.2 p er cent These increases are a devastating indictment of the government's failure to deal with the cost of living and prevent it rising still higher.
Much has been said about the spectacular rise in the price of beef in recent weeks. Undoubtedly this is a matter of concern to

the consumer. Once again the boycotters are on the march with the minister in the role of cheerleader but, regrettably, from the sidelines. It would be a mistake to consider that all that is at stake is the price of beef. This is only one item in the whole broad spectrum of the rising cost of living which makes life a constant irritation for all Canadians and is a growing nightmare for those on low income. The people in comfortable middle-class circumstances find this irritating, but the people in the low income group find it a growing and terrible nightmare because they have no slack with which to cope with it.
The minister says that his job is to protect the consumer. He says that the trouble is that everyone wants to eat steaks and so the price must rise. He sees his role as one of advising the consumer to buy cheaper meat, perhaps hamburger. But what about the tens of thousands of Canadians who have never been able to afford steak and now see their hamburger costing close to $1 a pound? I remind the minister that these people cannot eat his advice any more than the people of Paris could eat the advice of Marie Antoinette when they could not get bread and she advised them to eat cake. I say that if the minister is to protect the consumer his job is to find out why the price of beef has risen so dramatically and why the whole cost of living has risen so dramatically and steadily. Who is responsible? Who is getting the profit?
Much has been made of the fact that we have two ministers whose opinions are at odds. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has been urging consumers to boycott beef and at the same time the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) has been greeting the substantial rise in the price of beef with loud hosannas.
I do not think anyone believes the farmer is responsible for the rise in the cost of beef or other meats. I do not believe it. I do not think that even the Minister of Agriculture believes it. I believe a great many people have failed to note page 2 of the statement of the Minister of Agriculture. On page 1 he says that he is delighted that beef prices are high and rising. But when you turn to page 2 you see these words:
Mr. Olson said he hopes most of the current price increase is passed on to farmers, because they are the ones who must make the basic adjustment if supply is to meet demand.
This has not always been the case. During the past to years, farmers have been receiving less and less of the dollar consumers spend on beef.
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
In 1949, they were receiving 68.5 cents of every dollar consumers spent on beef. In 1966, it was 54 cents.
I would like to know what it is now and so would the Canadian public. The Minister continues:
We don't have to search far to find out where the extra margin is going. Everyone involved in getting meat from the farm to the store shelf has had an increase. The farmer has not; yet it's the farmer who needs the money to produce the amount and quality of beef we want to buy in our stores.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
So there is no use making a scapegoat of the farmer or saying, "Poor farmer, he has waited so long for this increase and now he will get it". Even the Minister of Agriculture is just uttering a pious, forlorn hope that most of the increase will reach the farmer, because he knows that in the past such has not been the case. No one believes the farmer is responsible for increasing the price or that he will receive the benefit. Who, then, is responsible? I heard a broadcast the other day which indicated that speculators have found their way into this industry, too, that people with a few dollars to invest are buying cattle in the final stages of preparation for market- cattle in what the broadcaster termed "cattle boarding houses"-and are making a nice and speedy profit on the transaction. If this is going on the public has the right to know. If there is gambling in food futures the people have the right to know. Gambling in food futures must stop. The minister and the minister alone is responsible for ferreting out the facts. These are facts we must have.
I could go on to document various examples of rising prices. I have here in my desk a tin of sandwich paste, although I cannot display it because you have precluded such action, Mr. Speaker. Around the first of April it was selling at two tins for 27 cents. The price rose, and I can show this on the tin, to two tins for 39 cents as of May 27. Part way through this exercise a correspondent wrote his member of Parliament who duly communicated with the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. The minister replied in part:
-considerable variation has occurred in the prices of the above product, due mainly to a price war among chain stores during the latter part of 1968 and the beginning of 1969.
He also stated that the company in question had provided specials during the last few
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers months of 1968 in order to meet competition. He then added:
It would appear that the two factors combined resulted in certain chain stores retailing Cordon Bleu meat paste at two for 27 cents for a period of time, after which the price returned to a selling level of two for 35 cents.
However, Mr. Speaker, the price did not stay there. On June 10 the same consumer said that since he had received the minister's answer the price had gone up from two for 39 cents on May 27 to two for 49 cents. I will let the minister have a look at this tin any time he wants to. This happened in two stores in the same town. The correspondent came to several conclusions. First of all he says there is no price war, minister or no minister, when you find the price going up and up steadily in more than one store. This means something else is at work. Second, he came to the conclusion that the profit on this sandwich paste must be in the neighbourhood of $1,000 per ton. When he remembered the big fuss and the investigation started by the late President Kennedy over the price increase of $6 per ton for steel, words failed him, and perhaps it is just as well.
He came to another conclusion, namely, that a very different attitude is taken in the matter of wage increases compared to price increases. He stated:
-as an employee our wages are greatly discussed before the annual working agreement is signed. It is then binding for one or two years, according to the marginal increase allowed.
This man is a trade unionist, and trade unions are not allowed to raise their wages at will. They have to go through a long period of discussion and red tape of various types during the collective bargaining process before any increase can be obtained.
What I want to know is this: If wages can be controlled in this way, why not prices? If wages can be held steady for one or two years after due deliberation and investigation, why not prices? These are the questions the public is asking the minister, but I regret to say that the minister is ducking them. The minister ducks for cover behind anything that it is possible to duck behind. The minister ducks behind the Economic Council. He says he cannot do anything until the Economic Council reports, but somehow this seems to be a receding horizon. He says he cannot do anything until the constitution is revamped because jurisdiction is divided with the provinces. The minister gives the impression that the provinces really have the lion's share of
10166	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16. 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers the responsibility in any event. So he ducks behind the constitution.
Is there anything to prevent the minister from sitting down, and discussing the problem with the provinces and then coming to an agreement? If there is, I have yet to hear it. The minister ducks behind his Prices and Incomes Commission. I do not know how long it is now we have waited to receive information as to who is to be appointed to the Prices and Incomes Commission. Somehow this too has become a receding horizon. We are getting information in little bits and pieces while the minister, as a means of avoiding action, ducks behind the fagade of the Prices and Incomes Commission which is not even set up yet.
I point out that all this new machinery in his department is costing a lot of money. The motion points out that it is going to cost nearly $16 million of the taxpayers' money to set up the machinery for this department to carry out its main purpose. I believe the taxpayers are entitled to see the minister take some kind of action. He may make mistakes, but who doesn't? One thing the taxpayers and the consumers of this country are not going to forgive is inactivity on the part of those who are unwilling to try certain things and simply sit and do nothing because they are afraid to do anything. All this machinery the minister is setting up could be used to good purpose. Somebody has said that the operation of it is exactly like a mill; if nothing is put into it it just grinds wind. I think nothing is being put in.
What are these groups investigating? What are they doing to justify the expenditure of this money? What are they doing to try to hold the price line or bring down the cost of living to the consumer? We have investigated housing, we have gone into transportation and dozens of other aspects of the cost of living which we believe are of concern; yet we have had not one scintilla of evidence that anything is being done about the cost of living. That is what the consumer cannot accept.
The minister evidently realizes how the Canadian public feels about this situation. I think he has a good deal of sympathy for the way they feel. After all, he is a consumer even though, like some of the rest of us, he is a well-padded one. At the Canadian Association of Consumers' annual meeting on June 11 he said:
Consumers "should" be fighting higher prices. Certainly, if "they" don't fight them, there is nobody else in the marketplace who is going to.
[Mrs. Maclnnis.l
I applaud that sentiment but I say that if consumers are going to fight against higher prices and the rising cost of living they deserve help and assistance from the minister. He is in the driver's seat where the controls are that should and could be exercised. Action is needed now in regard to meat prices. The situation in regard to beef prices ought to be another warning signal that the time has come for investigation and action.
Let me pinpoint the necessary steps. None of us wants to be regarded as being purely destructive in our criticism. People are suffering across the country and we want to see something done about it. We gain very little satisfaction in panning a government that is doing nothing. This government is obviously bankrupt of ideas or it does not have the courage to put its ideas into effect. You can take your choice. But we are going to attempt to see that our ideas are passed along to the people who sit in government. I am going to suggest several measures which are not new. They include several that we have urged over and over again. Perhaps they are new because they have never been used. In that sense they are brand new or store new, and they are worthy of a try.
First, there should be an immediate investigation into prices, beginning with beef prices. I am quite sure the farmers would say the same as the auto workers. I am sure they would say: "We do not mind you investigating the prices that we get for beef. Far from it, we want you to do so, but at the same time we expect that all the other people, including the speculators, the dealers, the people who own packing houses, the retailers and the wholesalers, will be investigated too." Wages, profits, prices, returns to the farmers and incomes of all sorts must be investigated in the package deal. Then people will be content to stand or fall by the result of such an investigation.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
There must be an investigation into prices.
I would rather it were conducted by a House of Commons committee so that the investigation would be carried out by a responsible body elected by the people of this country. If the minister insists on cluttering it up by making it a joint Senate-House of Commons committee, we will have to go along with that, but I see no reason why the investigation could not be carried out by a committee of the House of Commons responsible to this house. If other committees of the house are to
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
be sitting this summer in order to investigate matters, it is doubly important that one of them should be the consumers committee of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Donald MacInnis: I would consider my summer well spent if I were able to sit on such a committee and investigate this matter. That is an emergency measure. The next step is a permanent prices review board which will not work in the dark of some office where the public cannot get at it. It should be a prices review board before which manufacturers and other agencies will have to appear and justify any price increases they want to make. Let there be light on this subject. It is all this secrecy which creates public mistrust. Let these matters be brought fully before the public.
Rather than introducing half-baked amendments to the Combines Investigation Act that would allow its present restrictive jurisdiction to be interpreted a little more freely, we should bring in measures to afford real protection to the Consumer. The minister should either throw out the Combines Investigation Act altogether and bring in a piece of legislation with teeth in it, or provide the poor old Combines Investigation Act with real teeth that can be used on monopolies, cartels and all the other agencies that are applying a stranglehold to the neck of the consumer.
I say in closing, Mr. Speaker, that we in this corner of the house have sympathy for the minister. We think he has one of the toughest jobs there is. We do not think he yet knows the half of it, because if the cost of living is allowed to creep up and up and pensions and low incomes are allowed to stay where they are, if the gap between income and the cost of living widens, the minister will find he has a great deal more trouble to cope in the future.
Let the minister seek his real allies. His only real allies are the consumers of the country. Let him carry out his work in such a way that the people of this country know what he is doing. Let him turn the searchlight of publicity on what he and the department are trying to do to solve this problem. When the prices committee was set up two years ago the minister said that what triggered it off was the fact that the boycotters had the courage to march and raise a fuss about prices. I tell the minister that the boycotters are again on the prowl. If the minister is wise
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers he will again establish a consumers committee of the house to investigate fully the increasing cost of living. He will proceed from there to have not just study groups, seminars and high level, ivory tower enterprises involved in this question, but he will really get to work, put his back into it and take those steps that are necessary to bring down the cost of living.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, the motion introduced by the opposition is quite relevant to the situation which prevails at this time in Canada. It reads as follows:
That this house condemns the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs for his failure to protect Canadian consumers from the crippling burden of ever-increasing prices and, in particular, from the recent exorbitant jump in food and rent costs, despite this house's allocation of nearly $16 million to his department for the main purpose of averting such developments.
Mr. Speaker, since the end of the war, that is since 1945, prices have climbed steadily. At that time we had a government led by the Right Hon. Mackenzie King and prices were going up. The Right Hon. Louis St. Laurent succeeded Mackenzie King and prices kept on rising.
In 1957, when a Progressive Conservative government came to power, prices kept going up as usual.
A Liberal government succeeded a Progressive Conservative government in 1963, and prices were still going up.
In 1968, we turned to a government promoting the establishment of a just society and we are still looking for that just society because prices are sky rocketing.
However, this is paradoxical because the Conservatives, who introduce such a motion, fail as usual to suggest a solution.
The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis), a representative of the New Democratic party, has just made a first rate speech but, as far as a concrete solution is concerned, should we only provide for the establishment of a parliamentary committee to study prices, to inquire in the West, in the East and in the central provinces of Canada in order to see whether it is true that prices are high, that some company is making profits, or that salaries have gone up?
Mr. Speaker, that is not a solution. It is not by creating new committees and by dreaming up new government devices that we shall succeed in keeping prices at a reasonable level.
10168	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16. 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
There are solutions and I will give some in a tew minutes.
But at the present time, Mr. Speaker, we must bow to the fact that since the appointment of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs-that department exists only since the beginning of the present parliament-prices have spiralled.
Why was a Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs appointed? To conceal the perfidy of a system that crushes and cheats everybody. And while the minister is traveling across Canada, exploiters keep on exploiting people and neither the producers nor the consumers are benefiting but the intermediate bodies that are precisely protected by this government wile, which supports some people protected by the government who manipulate prices.
There is also the deplorable fact of the many strikes Canada cannot afford and which do increase the cost of goods, such as bulding materials. Every now and again there is a strike that leads to higher prices. Union leaders have yet to understand that.
This is so true that when a union-and please note that I am in favour of unions provided their members are respected- obtains a salary increase of 50c. or 75c. an hour for its members, that increase is reflected in a price increase of 75c., 85c. or even $1.00 an hour.
Finally, the consumer always pays, but the union leaders are not always honest enough to explain the situation to their members. That is why we witness the present spectacle that creates misery in the face of abundance.
Mr. Speaker, salary increases are not the only ones that are reflected in higher prices. There is also the drive for bigger profits. But one evil does not cure the other. Both are responsible. Demands must be reasonable. However, the worker must not be blamed for requesting a more decent standard of living.
The situation must be seen as it is and, as I said a while ago, when a 30c. or 50c. an hour increase is granted a worker, prices go up accordingly.
Thus the worker is always losing ground because of the increase in consumer prices.
Mr. Speaker, I said a while ago that the middlemen, the speculators get rich while the producer does not. His situation is even more deplorable. The western wheat growers, the eastern milk producers, the butter producers,

the corn producers in Ontario, the producers of textile products in the Eastern Townships, the wood producers in my area or in the areas of British Columbia, in short, those who are really producers are literally robbed just as the consumer is.
On the one hand,, the producer is in a bad spot; on the other hand, the consumer has not got the purchasing power to acquire goods or to buy what he needs. And the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Bas-ford) wants to investigate. An investigation on prices. This is not so difficult since we all know that prices are very high. In every field we know that there is a constant increase.
Recently the price of meat, for instance, skyrocketed. This compels the people, especially the poor, to eat baloney or hot dogs, which does not always help to keep the family or the children in good health.
One has to buy cheaper meat instead of the best grade meat which costs too much, molasses instead of maple syrup, and so on.
In any event, Mr. Speaker, with his income, the consumer cannot afford to face the cost of living. What do we, Creditistes, suggest to the government and the minister? That a new inquiry commission be established? That $16 million be spent to find out whether it is true that prices are high?
We know prices are high. So, the minister and the government must take action. To help the consumer, we ask for a compensated retail discount, a discount to the consumer for which the retailer is compensated. That would cost much less than the money spent on inquiries. Thus, the consumer's purchasing power would be increased while protecting the producer and the retailer.
It seems to me that it should be worth a try. But no! Because it is a Social Credit idea, they think it is funny. But, no one else has any solution to offer. Neither the opposition, nor the New Democratic party, nor the government, nobody has any solution. They want to institute inquiries.
People say: this one or that one made a fortune at the expense of the producer and the retailer. There are such cases. But there exist in Canada some laws to take care of cartels, of unscrupulous people, of those who work against the common good. And when a man or a company are caught red-handed, if instead of being fined $25,000, they had to spend 10 years in jail, the results would be different because those people would not want to be imprisoned.
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
A $25,000 fine is not too painful because the manufacturer immediately increases his prices by 1 or 2 per cent and makes a profit of 50 or 75 million, which helps him pay the fine. Imprisonment is another matter.
This act, that is the Combines Investigation Act, should be applicable to those who work against the common good. But it is not. Why? Because the government is afraid.
For window-dressing, a Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is appointed. This will relieve the consumer and convince him that he can continue to live without eating. This will convince the producer that he has merely to produce and draw a small income. This will convince everybody that the government does not want to act, but the entire population are being put off with fine words by the government and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.
Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservatives' motion deals with the constant rise in prices, especially the unrestrained increase in food and rent costs.
As for rents, what is being done? Is a laborer who earns $4,000 per year in a position to pay a monthly rent of $175? Poor families are compelled to live in slums and shacks. We see such shacks throughout Canada, a country which is said to be the richest in the world in natural resources.
If you visit the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, Toronto and Winnipeg, you will see that the problem is not a matter of language, French or English, but of slums throughout the country. When people die of starvation, no matter if they speak English or French, they do not feed themselves with their language. Poor people will eat only if they get food.
That point has not been grasped yet and people are left to their divisions and quarrels. There is talk of decent dwellings and of new legislation on housing. If one wants to build a house today-and the minister is well aware of the fact-the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation or the insurance companies charge interest rates of 10 or 12 per cent. Under the current interest rate, a $20,000 house payable over a 40-year period will cost $99,900.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
I do not believe a word of it when the government says that it wants to fight inflation. Why does the government not allow loans for housing at a maximum interest rate of 3 per cent, that is the administrative costs,
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers instead of loans at 10 or 12 per cent? They say they want to promote the construction of houses, so that payments can be lower. But as interest charges increase monthly instalments, repayment terms are extended from 30 to 40 years. The term is extended so that the consumer will pay more.
Mr. Speaker, not a single Canadian worker can afford the luxury-and it should not be a luxury

of owning his own house today. Even contractors have to borrow money at 9 and 10 per cent because of that system, and there is nothing the government can do.
Once again, the opposition has nothing to propose. They say the government does not behave well. What would they do in its place? Absolutely nothing. They do not know and they offer no solutions.
As for me, I have a solution to propose: housing for Canadian citizens at an interest rate not above 3 per cent.
And here is something even better than that: to truly help Canadians to become home owners, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation should get the credit it needs from the Bank of Canada, without interest, as it is done for foreign countries.
I do believe we must help foreign countries, but it is time we started helping the Canadians who build Canada to house themselves properly, to eat properly, to dress properly. For that, there is need of a definite policy, a policy which will make it possible to tackie the problem that holds everything up, that is, the financing problem: there is the rub!
But the government says the same thing over and over again: let us impose new taxes; let us increase taxes.
So we suggest that something must be done to put some order in our finance, in the money of Canada, in the Canadian monetary system and that it is time to stop crushing the producer as well as the consumer in Canada. Thus let us begin by putting some order in the monetary system. Money should truly reflect the wealth of Canada. We must not print money irresponsibly, as the minister already said, with a machine to make money. Money must not be printed in an irresponsible and unrestricted way.
However, we must take into account that it is possible for the Canadian people to make some real achievement in Canada. The government must assume its responsibilities, in connection with the monetary system, and we shall then be in a position to fight effectively
10170	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers and efficiently the rising cost of living and this shameful exploitation of the Canadian people.
When we speak of the consumer, we mean everybody, not only the miner working for Noranda Mining, in my area, but also the farmer in Beaudry, the people in Val d'Or, the leader of the N.D.P. (Mr. Douglas) and myself. However, Mr. Speaker, we must realize that a pound of butter costs just as much to the follow making $2,000 a year as to the member of parliament who is getting $18,000 a year. Clothing costs the same also and low-income people cannot even think of buying all they need. Why? Because they lack buying power. I suggest two solutions to this problem:	either increase the buying power
through a divident guaranteed by Canada's productivity, or through a compensated discount on consumer prices, which would benefit the consumer and would be compensated to the retailer who provides the goods and the services.
Mr. Speaker, those are two solutions we recommend. And the minister should consider them because he knows that with the present system he is just running around like a dog trying to bite its tail and never catching it.
So, Mr. Speaker, changes are due, and it is the responsibility of the government and the minister. Our responsibility is to suggest concrete steps to the minister, as I just did.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, in
entering this debate may I first thank the mover of the motion and the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) for their kind good wishes to me and my wife on the occasion of an addition to the family over the weekend. I understand there has been some concern in the house; I should like to assure hon. members that he has hair somewhat longer than his father's.
Before going further I should like to congratulate the opposition on what is obviously a new-found interest in the price of beef. One might consider, looking at this motion and listening to the speeches so far, that the question of beef prices and meat prices generally has been one of abiding interest to many members of the opposition for weeks and weeks. Nevertheless, I looked carefully through the record of the budget debate which took place only last week and found that not once was the question of beef prices raised on that occasion.

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
Again, the estimates of the department must be of some concern, because the motion talks about an allocation of some $16 million to my ministry. Well, my estimates were before the committee a week ago last Thursday, and members of the opposition thought I was doing such a fine job as minister-the program was so good-that they were passed in three hours during which time not once was a question asked about beef prices or about rent costs or about the Prices and Incomes Commission.
Some concern is shown in this motion about rents, which are exceedingly high. I shall not deal with the subject of housing because that is the responsibility of one of my colleagues. I do suggest, however, that more would be done to reduce rents if the house would give third reading as quickly as possible to Bill C-195, reflecting the government's housing program, rather than involving this chamber in the demagogic debate it has heard so far from the opposition this afternoon.
I realize that the hon. member who moved this motion is new to the house, though the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway is not. I find it startling that there should be errors in the motion itself. The motion states that the house has allocated $16 million to the department for the main purpose of averting certain unfavourable price developments. I am sorry the opposition is so little concerned about the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs as to pay no attention to what is said when estimates are before the committee. It was explained to the committee that some 68 per cent of the budget of the department is offset by its revenues; it is not a complete drain on general revenue as the motion implies. Out of the total budget of the department, some $6.5 million is voted to the corporate affairs bureau, to the operation of the patent office, the trade marks office, the corporations branch and the bankruptcy branch. I would have thought the opposition, bearing in mind its abiding interest in this matter, would at least have secured enough information about the department to have got the figures right.
Nevertheless, I do feel complimented by the fact that the opposition has singled out my department as the one to which its motions should be directed, and has tried to place blame upon me for the high prices of beef, meat generally, food and rents. It seems to me, though, that this is a motion which could just as well have been directed to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson), the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. June 16, 1969	COMMONS
Pepin) or to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson). I can only conclude it was directed to me because members of the opposition felt the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs was doing such a good job that they should move a motion to try to destroy some of the popularity it has with the people.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Everyone, including the government, is concerned about the rate at which prices and costs have been increasing in Canada. We are concerned about this both as consumers and as producers in the economy. There is no question that our prices and costs performance in Canada has been unsatisfactory for some time. The consumer price index has been rising in our view, as well as in the view of the opposition, at quite unacceptable rates-rates in excess of 4 per cent per annum.
The burden on the consumer is obvious, but the problem lies much deeper and I think it is good to reiterate this time and time again. As an international trading country our prosperity and prospects for development depend on our ability to sell abroad. Our exports have been running at record levels and we must continue to export at those levels. This means that, as a government and as a country, we have to keep our costs and prices in line with those of other countries. Indeed, we must try to do a little better than other countries and, generally speaking, we have been succeeding.
It is important to look at the situation in which many of our farmers find themselves, having to sell their products in a highly competitive world market when they are able to sell them at all. Yet at the same time the farmers are caught in a vicious cost-price squeeze through which almost everything they buy-their land, their tractors and implements, their fencing and binder twine-is at inflationary prices.
Looking at the question from another angle, let us consider the effects of inflation on personal savings. If our growth and development are to continue we must maintain a very high level of personal savings in Canada, and we cannot allow these savings to be devalued by inflation.
As hon. members have pointed out, this is far more than an economic problem, and we must recognize the importance of it as such. The government and I are also highly sensitive to the human aspect of inflation. Here I am talking about the people the hon. member
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers who moved the motion talked about, those who suffer first and who suffer the most. They are the economically weak, the unorganized, the elderly, the disabled pensioners and the poor. They cannot protect themselves, whereas the well organized and the economically strong can. They have the economic power to keep up with the trend in prices by bargaining for higher wages, by fixing higher professional fees if they are members of a profession, by raising rents if they are the owners of real property. Some businessmen are in a position to pass cost increases along to their customers in the form of higher prices. Unions can strive for a better deal at the bargaining table.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
All these things give relief to those with market power, but they only aggravate the problem for others and ultimately for everybody, themselves included. Meanwhile the first and the hardest hit are those Canadians who cannot protect themselves from the effect of higher prices. They are not organized to insist that their incomes match rising costs. They have no power to insist on a fair share.
I have said before and say again that a fixed income must not mean a fixed injustice. People without bargaining power cannot bargain for a better deal. It is no exaggeration to say that every man who irresponsibly raises costs is personally inflicting an injustice on a poor family, on a blind pensioner, or on an elderly retired couple.
This resolution focuses upon the cost of living, a matter of obvious concern to every member of the public. At the outset, however, I would be remiss if I did not state with some force that Canadians, along with citizens of perhaps one or two other countries, enjoy the highest standard of living in the world. This is a fact. It does not, however, deter us from seeking, by all means available to us, to maintain and improve that standard of living for all our citizens in every region of the country.
The cost of living has been going up at an unacceptable rate. The cost of goods to the consumer reflects, in part at least, rising costs incurred by producers and manufacturers. All these costs are, in large part, a reflection of the general upward trend of prices. The stabilizing or improvement of the cost of living, therefore, is to be accomplished by containing the forces of inflation.
Many factors affect the general rate of increase or decrease of the price level. I am,
29180-643J
10172	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers however, aware that we do not know as much as we need to know about the forces that foster and accelerate inflation. There are those who question that statement, but I think the three speeches to which we have just listened, which contained very few ideas and new proposals in regard to what we should be doing, demonstrate that we need to know more about the problem of inflation and how to alleviate it. It is to increase our knowledge in this field that I am setting up the Prices and Incomes Commission which will study this problem as one of its specific tasks.
I can say, however, that no one department can by itself fully control these forces and no single policy will bring about a solution. It is a complicated problem requiring a combination of sophisticated measures. The government has available to it a range of policy instruments developed over the years, and it is using those instruments. The most important and continuing tool available to meet inflation is, and will continue to be, monetary and fiscal policy.
I think other factors also ought to be mentioned. On the demand side, the rate of growth in federal government spending on goods and services has been sharply reduced and efforts continue to be made to restrain other forms of federal expenditure. Part of the problem is that every time we try to reduce government expenditure by cutting out or by proposing to cut out a program, all hell breaks loose in the opposition and objection is taken to such proposals. Hon. members opposite speak glibly of the need to reduce expenditure, but every time we try to do so we receive nothing but complaints from hon. members opposite.


James Aloysius McGrath: You will have to do better than that.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Efforts have been made to Improve the efficiency of the supply side of the market, for example, manpower programs for the training placement, counselling and movement of workers as changes in the structure of demand for manpower take place. We have asked the Economic Council of Canada to undertake a special study of competition policy best suited to contribute to greater efficiency and lower prices. I expect to :receive that report this month.


An hon. Member:: But you will not listen to it.
IMr. Basford.]
DEBATES	June 16, 1969


Stanley Ronald Basford: We listen to the Economic Council with a good deal more interest than we listen to the opposition because, judging from their speeches, they do not even read the reports.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Would the minister permit a question?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Certainly.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: If the minister listens so much to the Economic Council of Canada, why does he not follow their advice and establish some form of economic forecasting of the sort they have recommended for about four years?


Stanley Ronald Basford: The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) has read the white paper on price stability with interest, and one of its proposals was a short term economic forecasting unit. Therefore in that sense we have accepted the recommendation of the Economic Council of Canada.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: No, you have not.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Industrial development programs and research incentives designed to raise productivity are being implemented by the government. In its procurement policies the government of Canada has reorganized and centralized its operations to bring to bear the fullest measure of competition for supply contracts.
Canada's trade policy is being aimed at progressively extending the benefits of efficiency and cost reduction to be realized from international specialization. We are also impressed with the growing importance of wage and salary bargaining in the public sector as a factor in the movement of costs and prices, and we have been exercising for the last year a restraining influence in that area.
It is of particular importance, in my view, to develop the efficient operation of the price mechanism in our economy which in very large part depends upon very well informed consumers and upon the power of consumers to make their preferences felt in the marketplace. This is one of the fundamental objectives of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. The exercise of market power by informed consumers should have a moderating influence on the movement of prices.
Inflation is a world-wide phenomenon, but let there be no misunderstanding about it: my
June IB, 1969	COMMONS
colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) has, I think, made clear that the government is determined to end this intolerable rate of inflation and control the inflationary pressures in our economy. But unlike what the opposition suggests, this cannot be done by wishing. It cannot be done through simplistic solutions. It requires action on a number of fronts.
As I have explained, the most important of these is fiscal policy. In his recent budget my colleague the Minister of Finance forecast a surplus of $250 million. Lest anyone misunderstand the importance of that surplus let me point out, as he did, that it represents a change from the budget deficit of $566 million in 1968-69, meaning a swing in the economic impact of the budget of almost $1 billion, considerably more than one per cent of Canada's gross national product. I regret that the opposition, which is so concerned about inflation, is putting forward every day in this house some proposal to spend the budget surplus and thus put the government back into a deficit position. These financial measures, combined with monetary policy, are designed to provide a check on inflationary forces, and will ease the strain in capital markets. To keep the brakes on, the government is continuing the existing surtax on personal income tax and corporation income tax for 1968 and 1969 by extending it until December 31, 1970. The deferral of capital cost allowances in overheated areas of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia is a selective measure to cool down the situation without strangling necessary building.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
The budget address also announced tariff reductions to step up the last three stages of Canada's implementation of the Kennedy Round so that they will take effect immediately. This meant an immediate reduction of tariffs averaging about three percentage points on imports valued at $2 billion annually. In adopting these selective tariff cuts immediately, it was the government's view that increased competition would result which would in turn put downward pressure on prices. I was glad to see that some of the opposition members who spoke in the budget debate agreed that would be the case.
Cost savings to manufacturers and distributors should be achieved through the tariff cuts themselves at the same time that imports or the threat of imports places pressure on the domestic market. All this should help
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers keep down prices and benefit the consumer. It is, of course, difficult to forecast with any precision when and how the effects of the tariff reductions will be felt. Indeed, they may be positive effects which can be obscured by unrelated cost increasing factors such as transportation costs, crop shortages, wage increases, and so on.
We hope, however, to do everything within our power to ensure that increased competition are left free to bring about the necessary adjustments. My officials will make every effort to ensure that increased competition is not negated through price fixing or any other form of illegal conspiracy or restrictive practice.
The level of government expenditures is very important and I am sure some of you, if one can judge by opposition speeches, think absolutely nothing has been done in this regard. But the budget surplus did not just happen. The government recognizes the overriding need to keep its fiscal house in order. The opposition seem to forget such things as the end of the winter works program, the decision against proceeding with the Prince Edward Island causeway, the abandonment of the Queen Elizabeth telescope in my own province, the freeze on the public service. The opposition said we needed a surplus, yet opposed cancelling these projects. Over the last year all government programs came under scruting, with reduced expenditures in some cases and in other cases decisions against beginning desirable programs.
It is clear that the government has a major role to play in ending inflation and is determined to do its part. But it is too easy to say, as many do, that this is just a matter for the government. Attitudes in the private sector have to change if we are to bring inflation under control in an orderly way. There is no reason to doubt that governments can stop inflation. But some ways of bringing inflation to a halt are more painful than others. This is where the attitudes of private business, trade unions and individuals will be crucial.
The more restraint people in all walks of life are prepared to exercise in their pursuit of higher incomes the less need there will be for the government to slow down our rate of economic growth. People will have to adjust their sights to the prospect of price stability. What does this mean? It means that businesses should no longer assume that they can increase their prices without danger of losing their market. They should no longer assume that the extra cost of whatever wage
10174	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers increases they accede to can readily be passed on to the public. They should no longer assume that whatever new investments they may choose to make will pay off through an inflationary rise in demand for their products. It means that errors and excesses can no longer be expected to be painted over by inflation. The chickens will come home to roost. It means that trade unions generally will have to adjust their sights to annual rates of wage increases that are consistent with the rate of growth of productivity in our economy.
The decision, announced in the budget, to accelerate the rate of tariff reduction, indeed to put the whole of the Kennedy Round tariff reductions in force in one step, is designed to introduce more price competition into the Canadian economy at the time when we need it most. This should make a significant contribution to slowing down inflationary trends. Those businesses that are protected by the tariff against external competition are often the leaders in inflationary price increases.
I have talked about the role of government. There is a responsibility on everyone, on all hon. members and the consumers they represent. The individual consumer can make a contribution both to his own welfare and that of others. He must take advantage of a competitive situation, where it truly is competitive. That is to say, he should resist high prices and refuse to buy shoddy merchandise. The committee that Senator Croll and I chaired on consumer prices, of which the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway was a member, made the point that consumers can affect the prices of items simply by not buying them if they think the price is excessive, that in many cases there are substitutes or alternatives. This was said in relation to food but is equally true and more pertinent when talking about clothing, credit and loans, furnishings, automobiles; appliances, almost everything the consumer buys. So I urge consumers to inform themselves of the various prices offered, to shop around. If consumers are careless about their purchasing they are going to pay more.
Many consumers are disturbed about the price of beef, which has increased sharply in the last few weeks. I have already made some public statements on this question, but I want to explain briefly how this situation developed.
At the outset, I should emphasize that cattle prices are determined on the North American market and not in Canada alone. IMr. BasfordJ
DEBATES	June 16, 1969
We have in this country roughly 10 per cent of the combined Canada-United States cattle supply. Obviously, whether we are exporting or importing cattle, there is going to be a well-defined relationship between prices in Canada and in the major U.S. cattle markets. Choice steers were selling in the United States in February at about $29.50 a hundredweight-that is live weight, Mr. Speaker-but within recent weeks the price has advanced to around $35 a hundred, U.S. dollars. Canadian prices inevitably followed this trend.
One of the reasons for the increase in prices is that cattle numbers in North America have not been increasing fast enough to keep up with the population growth and with the desire of Canadians and the people of the United States to eat more beef. In 1960 the people of the United States ate 99 pounds per capita; in 1968 this rose to 109 pounds and for this year the estimate is 111 pounds. In Canada the estimated per capita consumption of beef in 1960 was 70 pounds, but it has risen now to about 90 pounds. This is partly a reflection of rising income levels during that period. Beef eating, in other words, increases with affluence. There is a seasonal aspect to the recent price increases in addition.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
The market naturally adjusts to the changing supply and demand situation. In Toronto in January supermarkets were paying 51 cents to 52 cents a pound for red brand beef sides. By early June the price had increased to 63 cents to 65 cents a pound. Some of the choice cuts make up a relatively small proportion of the total carcass and their scarcity is reflected in the sharp increases for such things as porterhouse and sirloin steaks.
When a situation like this develops some people start looking around for somebody to blame and, depending on their point of view, they will pick on the farmers, the meat packers or the supermarkets. We are facing the consequences of living in a market economy and there is no question that the market will remedy the present shortage even though this will take some time. In the meantime, I have said to Canadian consumers that they should diversify their diet a little more and search around for some substitute for cuts of beef which they think are too high in price. If North American housewives would be more discriminating in their purchases of meat the demand pressure would let up a little. This is a powerful weapon in the hands of consumers and I hope they will use it.
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
I trust that it will be evident to all from what I have said that any direct intervention by the federal government to control beef prices is not a practical solution. Only a few months ago we had demands from some of the parties in this house that we intervene in the lumber market, and even that we nationalize the lumber industry because of the record prices and market situation. The position in that industry has now been completely reversed. Prices are away down from what they were three months ago, and in some places mills are closing.
I have been reviewing over-all government policy developments. I should now like to outline the specific role of my department in resisting the upward trend of prices.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: I regret to interrupt the minister but his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Let him continue.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Stanley Ronald Basford: I am grateful to the opposition for allowing me to continue. In conclusion I want to discuss the specific role of my department in resisting the upward trend of prices.
It is important that there be a clear understanding of the role of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In simple terms it is the department's function to promote the efficient operation of our competitive market economy. I have repeatedly stated in the house that we are dependent for the level of prices of particular goods, as well as the general price level, upon the operation of market forces. Perhaps, therefore, I should state quite briefly what the concept of a competitive market economy means.
In the light of the confusion in the mind of the hon. member who moved the motion I must take this occasion once again to make it clear that this department was not established as an instrument of price control. This was made very clear in the debates at that time, and I hope the hon. member will reread them. The primary purpose of our consumer affairs program is to protect the consumer in the market, to improve his capacity for making choices, and generally to make the market work more effectively. To the extent that we succeed in improving the way the market works we should have some moderating influence on prices, but the general price level
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers will continue to be affected by broad economic forces. These forces are, of course, the concern of the Department of Finance and the Bank of Canada.
I should like to point out that in the short period of 18 months since my department came into existence we have initiated a program of sizeable proportions directed toward the improvement of both the demand and supply sides of the marketplace. I should like to describe this program in terms of two main functions, competition and information.
Several major departments can have an influence on the competitive policy of Canada. However, it falls to my department to be the focal point of competition policy. The Combines Investigation Act constitutes the embodiment of parliament's decision, made as long ago as 1889, to maintain a competitive market economy in Canada by prohibiting collusive and monopolistic restraints on the competitive process by the business community. This act seeks to keep the market free in those areas not otherwise regulated by valid provincial or federal laws.
The market should therefore be kept free to provide for consumers the best choice that can be made available of product, quality and price. Only if these choices are available can the consumer effectively exercise his sovereignty. Only if the market is freely accessible to newcomers will pressure be placed upon older established industries to seek ways to reduce their costs and improve their efficiency and pass on the result of such savings to the ultimate consumer.
One of the mechanisms provided in the act is the ability to reduce or eliminate the tariff on goods that are found by an inquiry to be subjected to restrictive practices, and this is a remedy which I am already seeking to develop. However, this legislation requires much improvement to make it fully effective. The director and his staff require a very significant increase in their resources merely to carry out the work that they have in hand. They, of course, have had to take their share of the government's determined program to reduce the costs of the public service.
Important areas of the Combines Investigation Act are in need of revision to make them more effective for current tasks. This is particularly true in the case of the provisions relating to mergers and monopolies. There is also a gap in the legislation to the extent that it does not cover many services which now make an important contribution to the gross
10176	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers national product. As hon. members are aware, this whole question is now under study by the Economic Council of Canada which is expected to report this month. When I have received the report, and I give the house this undertaking, I intend to move with all speed toward a revision of these laws. I have already taken preliminary steps within my department to receive the report and commence revising the Combines Investigation Act.
1 know that there are some members of the house who feel that we should have a new act right away. I think it would be very difficult to revise the act without first having a report from the Economic Council, and I think parliament would be foolish to consider such a revision until it had that report. The deputy leader of the N.D.P. appeared to agree with that position the other day.
I would like to mention one particular program of my department because I think it shows up the hypocrisy of the opposition this afternoon. As a further contribution to the more efficient operation of the market the government introduced Bill C-102 to weaken, in the case of prescription drugs, the patent and trade mark protection that has contributed in such an important degree to the lack of price competition in this market, and which contributed to the very high cost of prescription drugs. This afternoon we heard great eloquence from the opposition on behalf of the poor people, the people who cannot afford things that are priced so highly. But look at their record on Bill C-102. They opposed it both in this house and in the Senate. Had it not been for the members of the Official Opposition that legislation probably would have been in effect a year ago during which time it could have worked to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. So, Mr. Speaker, I was touched but rather cynical about the opposition's expressions of concern for the poor, remembering their record on Bill C-102.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
Six months ago I issued a white paper on policies for price stability in which I reviewed the current trend of prices, and emphasized the need to develop new techniques to supplement fiscal and monetary policy which are the most important means of dealing with such situations. Much has been said this afternoon about this and much has been said by the representative of the New Democratic party concerning the need for a [Mr. Basford.l
DEBATES	June 16, 1969
prices and incomes review board. I should like to discuss the Batten report. The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway had much to say about the need for a prices and incomes review board, and she has always chided me for not implementing the Batten report. I should like simply to quote the Batten report which seems to be her bible. It states:
This commission recommends against the creation of prices review boards, price control boards, or guideline policies. These are much more apt to conceal the real problems underlying and causing inflation and to confuse the issues, than they are to achieve any substantial successes.
So I should like the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway to reread the Batten report and reread what it suggests should be done. This is the reason we have not had a prices review board. This is why we have stated in the white paper the intention of establishing a Prices and Incomes Commission to examine the various causes of inflation and suggest to the government and the private sector possible courses of action to follow.
Although the inflationary trend is world wide we believe that this measure, the establishing of this commission, will make some contribution toward containing inflation in this country. My view is shared by Dr. Young, the chairman, a prominent and highly respected Canadian economist whose appointment I think has been welcomed by people across the country. In connection with the work of the commission, Dr. Young has said there are good grounds for believing the stated aims of the Canadian and United States governments that they intend to control inflation, and that there are good grounds for thinking that those who are betting on the continuation of a high rate or price increases will be proved wrong.
The Commission will be asked to inquire into and report upon the causes, processes and consequences of inflation and to inform those making current prices and income decisions, the general public and the government, on how price stability may best be achieved. They will undertake continued studies and investigations to this end and will publish reports. I am confident that the commission, as it proceeds with this task of giving public advice on how we may achieve better price stability, will be able to bring about a greater degree of restraint on the part of those in the private sector who are charged with the responsibility of making current decisions about prices and incomes. This will provide information that will assist those who determine
June 1G, 1969	COMMONS
policies with respect to prices and wages to make their decisions in such a way as to reduce the upward pressure on prices. The Commission can make a valuable contribution toward price stability only if it gets the cooperation it will need from all parties concerned.
I should add that prices and incomes policies having similar objectives have been instituted in other countries. We have been at pains to examine their experiences and to avoid the defects that have been apparent in them. For one thing, we are making it clear that the role of the commission is not a substitute for monetary and fiscal policy and other inflationary policies, but it is a supplementary policy supporting them.
Another aspect in which our policy differs from other countries is that we intend to establish a joint parliamentary committee to receive and to study the reports of the commission. I thought the order to establish the committee would be on the order paper today. Apparently it will be on the order paper tomorrow. This will be in accordance with the intention stated in the white paper. This will enable public debate to develop with respect to the information and recommendations made by the commission.
The joint committee will have a very important function to perform in calling witnesses, consulting experts and debating generally the ways and means which the Commission suggests for minimizing inflationary tendencies. This process of debate will further serve to heighten the awareness of business and labour groups, provincial and municipal governments and consumers at large of the situations that are causing the upward pressure on prices and ways in which they may be counteracted.
Therefore in outlining both the policies of the government generally with regard to inflation and the role of my department specifically, I think we have disclosed a consciousness of the concern expressed today by the opposition and the concern expressed in the motion before the house. I think the record of the government is one which indicates that we certainly do not have to take a back seat to the opposition in our concern for those problems and the effectiveness of our policies in dealing with them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, would the minister permit a question before he sits down? Is he in a position to say whether the government would be
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers favourable to the idea of the special committee meeting during the parliamentary adjournment?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, I shall bring this to the attention of the house leader for discussion. I had thought the motion would be on the order paper today. I do not know why it is not on the order paper. As the hon. member knows, the matter of the formation and meetings of committees is decided by discussion between the house leaders of the various parties.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, like the other members of the opposition I should like to congratulate the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) on becoming the father of a son because this no doubt will make him more conscious of the problems which face Canadians. I listened for about 60 minutes to the minister's speech which I think can be divided into four parts. First of all, there 'was a lecture which we have heard before concerning our sympathy for the pensioners, the veterans, the poor people and others on fixed, low incomes. With that I have no argument. Then he gave us a few suggestions about which I will have something to say. After that there was a package of abuse in which he tried to say that all the responsibility for the lack of action was due to the attitude of the opposition. Then there were a few promises for the future.
I should like to come to grips immediately with the first point. I could not help but agree with him. He had the whole house in the palm of his hand when he talked about the pensioners, the poor, the veterans and those on fixed incomes. We are really aware of what he said when he talked about these people. He asked who is to blame if he has failed in his responsibility in this new department. He said he would tell us who is to blame. He said it is all the Canadian housewives because they do not know how to shop and do not know how to buy. That is who is to blame. His second solution is to boycott. Then he said that the opposition has nothing to offer. So I shall start off by quoting a question I put the other day to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Let us find out what his answer was because at that time every Member of Parliament could have asked the same question. My question, as recorded on page 10036 of Hansard, was:
I should like to ask the minister whether he has given some thought to having the combines investigation branch look into the chain stores to
10178	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
find out whether there is a monopoly on beef because of the wide spread between what the producer is getting and what the consumer is paying for it.
If I might digress for a moment I should like to say I made it my business today to call the city of Calgary to find out what beef is worth on the hoof, What it is worth wholesale and what it is worth retail. When I give that evidence today I will be able to show that the problem is not with the producer nor the housewife but is with those people who are between the producer and the consumer. When the minister becomes conscious of that problem then I think he will be on the road to some solution.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
Here is his answer to my question, and it is a beautiful answer. It is not one of those philosophical answers like the scriptwriters provide; this one came off the top of his head.
I will be delighted to refer the question of the hon. member to the Director of Investigation and Research under the Combines Investigation Act, but I think he can take it for granted that matters of this sort are constantly under surveillance.
Then the leader of the N.D.P. put a very powerful supplementary question. He asked, and I paraphrase, whether, in view of the fact there is a good deal of evidence that some exploitation is going on in the rapid increase in the price of beef, referring to the difference between what the producer is getting and what the consumer is paying, the minister would take the matter in hand and get the director to act. Do you know what the minister then said? This seems to be his solution. He said:
With regard to the first part of the hon. member's question, if he has evidence which I do not have,
I wish he would send it along to me.
He would then pass it on to the director. What is the evidence? I made the suggestion last Thursday that the spread between the price of beef on the hoof off the ranches and the price the consumer is paying should be investigated. I believe that the minister, with the department he has and the law officers he has at his fingertips, should initiate an investigation by the director.
Instead, the minister today has indicted the ranchers. I am going to refer to that in a few minutes. He has got into a quarrel with another minister because they are on opposite sides of the situation at the same time. He has also indicted every housewife who goes shopping. He said they do not know what they are

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
doing and this is causing the trouble. Let us take a look at the situation.
At the stockyards in Calgary beef from one of the great beef producing areas of Canada is selling for 32 cents or 33 cents a pound. Yet beef is selling in the chain stores-I do not want to indicate the name of this friend of the Minister of Consumer and1 Corporate Affairs, though I might have to mention it when I quote the article-at extremely high prices. I will give the prices for the various cuts. T-bone, club and porterhouse steaks are selling for $1.89 per pound. Last year steak was selling for about $1.19 per pound. What the minister is really saying is that the cost of beef on the hoof went up three cents to five cents per pound but went up 68 cents a pound in the stores. The minister says there is no evidence and asks us to give him the evidence. He says he has no evidence. Surely if beef on the hoof has gone up three cents, four cents or five cents a pound while the price in the stores has increased by 68 cents, there is ground for an investigation.
I am .well aware of the cost of getting this meat off the hoof and onto the plates of consumers. Let us take a look at what happens to beef. A yearling steer is taken to market- most of our beef comes from this source-and is sold in the stockyard at 32 cents to 33 cents per pound. It will weight about 800 to 900 pounds, more or less, and will dress out at approximately 60 per cent of live weight or 480 to 500 pounds. How, then, does the minister explain the price moving up by 68 cents a pound in the stores and only three cents, four cents or five cents a pound on the hoof? If that is not evidence enough for the Director of Investigation and Research, then there never has been any evidence. This, of course, does not take into account the liver, heart, kidneys, head and that sort of thing.


An hon. Member:: What about the tail?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Someone said something and I could have mentioned that too, but I do not intend to be caught up by such an aside because this is a very serious matter.
A back quarter would weigh about 80 to 90 pounds. I am advised that there would be about 18 pounds of sirloin steak, and 36 pounds of T-bone and porterhouse steak in that one quarter. In this area beefsteak is selling for approximately $1.89 per pound. There would be approximately 12 pounds of rump roast which sell at $1.09 per pound. There would be about seven pounds of sirloin tip roast at approximately $1.29 per pound
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
and there would be approximately 14 pounds of fat cut off that 80 to 90 pound rear quarter.
In other words, meat on a pro rata basis has gone up about 60 cents per pound in the stores whereas it has gone up about three or four cents per pound on the ranches or at the stockyards. There is where the trouble lies.
Let us take a look at what the minister has to say about this situation. I wish I could put more of these figures on the record. On June 14 the minister had this to say when he was dealing with beef, and he repeated it again today:
Federal consumer affairs minister Ron Basford has urged consumers to boycott beef, saying they are the only people who can bring the price down. His statement supported a boycott called by Leon Weinstein, president of the Loblaw Groceterias Ltd. supermarket chain.
As the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) pointed out, the president of the Ontario Farmers' Union said that what should be done is to boycott the purchase of everything in that particular chain. The minister has been running around talking about boycotting beef but this would hurt a major industry in Canada which is not guilty, namely, the ranchers or producers of beef.


Mr. Horner:: The only non-subsidized part of agriculture.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I agree with that. What has the Minister of Agriculture been saying? Let me refer to a release dated June 13, almost the same day the Minister of Corporate and Consumer Affairs supported the boycott. This is what led the Leader of the Opposition to ask his lead-off question during the oral question period, and to say that hypocrisy exists in the govenment.
The Minister of Agriculture makes the statement that there should not be a boycott, while the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs says that there should be a boycott and at the same time blames the ranchers and housewives of this nation. At least in this regard the Minister of Agriculture has his ear a little closer to the political ground than the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. This is what the Minister of Agriculture said:
Farmers will be using their increased income to expand herds, to build new and better facilities, to experiment with better methods of beef production and to increase the size of their farms. In the long run, consumers will benefit by receiving an increased supply of high quality beef.
The release then states:
Mr. Olson questioned the wisdom of boycott action-
29180-644J
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs said today that we had better raise our voices against this kind of increase and start boycott action, and then criticized the housewives of this nation. He said we were hypocrites and irresponsible. Somebody has got to go from this wishy-washy government when its members appear to be on both sides of every question that arises in the nation.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Where does Kierans stand on this question?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: That is exactly what I was coming to. Thank you, Mr. Leader. We had the same situation in respect of NATO. The Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) was worried about NATO and wanted our troops withdrawn, while at the same time the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Cadieux) and other ministers were trying to make certain that Canada took some degree of responsibility for our collective security. What hypocrisy that was! How can they sit together? The minister who was the head of housing resigned but these men have no sincerity. They are irresponsible and will not resign.
The Minister of Agriculture questioned the wisdom of boycott action and pointed out that any attempt to take back the increase gained by the beef producers would merely discourage further expansion. What the Minister of Agriculture has said is that if people boycott beef in the stores production will decrease and this will worsen the problem. Let me make it very clear that the producer is not getting a large share of the profit. The real increase in price is not apparent until after the beef leaves the hands of the producer. The pretty little lecture we have had from this great economist, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, leads us to believe that he does not agree with that situation. He had better get together with the Minister of Agriculture.
When the Department of Consumer Affairs was set up I warned, and I repeat now, that it was just windowdressing because the department lacks the constitutional authority to do anything about the high price of foodstuffs and other commodities. The minister refuses to have the Director of Investigation and Research under the Combines Investigation Act make an investigation. He refuses to come up with any solution to this problem except for the consumer to boycott beef in the stores. The Canadian people will soon find out, if they have not already, that all the fine
10180	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers talk of the minister will not bring down the price of foodstuffs and will not control inflation. These lectures have been going on for too long. They are merely an exercise in semantics-government verbiage. The minister is guilty of verbicide, of political butchery with his own cabinet, because nobody will believe him.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)


An hon. Member:: Verbicide?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Yes. Look it up. It is a new word. Verbicide is the butchery of words. That is real semantics. The retailer is making approximately 17 per cent gross on the retailing of meat, and of course he has to take into account spoilage and wastage when it occurs.
I oppose any boycott of beef on the ground that it would not only work against the producer but would not bring down the price of beef; it would in fact increase it. Such a boycott would affect, first the consumer and, second, the producer. It would shed no light on the question of whether there is virtually a monopoly by the middle-man, or what is known today as the middle-corporation. If the minister carried out an investigation he might be able to find out what is causing the high cost of beef. The minister should immediately investigate the great spread between what the producer is receiving and what the consumer is paying for all cuts of beef.
I ascertained in the committee last year that the Combines Investigation Act does not need all the amendments which people suggest. I was told in the committee that they do not have the proper staff, the proper scientific people who have the necessary knowledge to look into these matters. This question arose when I asked why they did not investigate the price of gasoline at the retail level. I have never figured out why a gallon of gas should cost the same in the city of Calgary, where it is produced and manufactured, as it does in the city of Toronto where it is not produced or manufactured. These people told us they could not investigate these matters because they did not have enough staff with which to make the investigation. The same thing would be true whether they were concerned with the price of beef, eggs or butter.
The minister is taking a very irresponsible approach when he says the opposition is not making any suggestions to solve the problem. He says he has not the necessary evidence. Surely the Minister has sufficient evidence when he knows that in the stores the price of

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
beef has increased by 68 cents while on the hoof it has increased by only four cents.
I should like to make one thing clear. I do not believe that in the light of the cost of machinery, land, transportation and labour the producer is making an excessive profit, but he is being used by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs as a scapegoat and is receiving the blame for the increase in the cost of beef. The producer is barely getting by, as a result of the cost-price squeeze that was mentioned earlier this afternoon.
I think the person who wrote the minister's speech is out of date. The minister spoke about binder twine, which has not been used on the farms of western Canada for about 30 years. I think the minister's economic policies are just about as outdated.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The minister was smoking behind the curtain but you have smoked him out and he is now in the chamber.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: As the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) has said, we have now smoked the minister into the chamber.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Why did I receive representations last week about binder twine?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I don't know. It must have been from somebody who was lost from your constituency.


Stanley Ronald Basford: They were from Saskatchewan.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I would be surprised if the minister-I say this in all good humour- were so ignorant about harvesting equipment and farming equipment in general use in Canada today. The equipment used is not a binder. The only binding we have is the binding of this government on the Canadian consumer and taxpayer.
In the city of Calgary steak increased from $1.19 a pound last year to $1.89 a pound this year. When you consider the price of all cuts of beef you find exactly the same situation exists. In May, 1968, the price of steak across the country-these figures were obtained from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics- averaged $1.18 a pound, and in May of this year it was $1.38 a pound. Round steak in May, 1968, was $1.06 a pound and in May of this year it was $1.21 a pound. In May of last year rolled rib roast was $1.04 a pound and in May this year it was $1.13 a pound. Today rolled rib roast is selling in Calgary at $2.10 a pound. It has increased in price by $1.06 over
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
last year, and of that increase the producer is receiving only three or four cents a pound. In view of this, surely the minister can come up with a better argument than he did this afternoon when he tried to lambaste the opposition by saying we have no suggestions to offer.
I suggest to the minister that there should be a full investigation into this matter. He should get the Director of Investigation and Research under the Combines Investigation Act working on it. The minister should take some of the $16 million that has been talked about as having been allocated to his department and put it into the hands of people who will investigate this situation. The friend that he mentioned in one of the chain stores, the person who is backing him in his policy, will soon run for shelter when he finds out what kind of a monopoly there may be in this country.
How can the consumer with three or four children, when both the man and the woman have to work, take the cheaper cuts and prepare the necessary meals under their working conditions? The minister talks about housewives not shopping properly. Since the Liberals assumed office in 1963 a great many more wives have been forced to work in order to make ends meet in this cruel society. When husband and wife come home, both tired, they cannot prepare the kind of supper in their little high-rent homes that they could if the wife were able to stay at home and take care of the family. They buy the higher priced cuts of beef and more expensive food because it can be prepared more quickly. The minister should not include 100 per cent of the housewives in his remarks because he may need some of them, even in Vancouver, one of these days.


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


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Does the hon. member have leave of the house to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I have almost finished, Mr. Speaker. We in the opposition have warned the government about the inflationary trends. We continually pointed this out when they advanced grandiose programs and talked
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers about cutting expenditures, at the same time continuing to outspend all other levels of government. I tell the house frankly that recently I missed a vote in the house. I have not missed very many. That vote was on the languages bill. If I had been here I would have voted to send the bill to committee.
I received the other day some information from a government department. I shall not say which department it was. The information I received was not in the area we are discussing at the moment. This is just one example of waste and inadequate planning by the government. The government set aside $125,000 to change a traffic circle on the trans-Canada highway at Banff. That program has been cancelled or delayed. What will they do with the $125,000? They put up new signs in Banff last year, and they will take that money and spend it on further new signs. This is a government that is supposed to be cutting costs. I am sure that all those people who believe we have a great nation made up of two great cultures and languages are of the opinion that at this stage, in a place like Banff, this is one expense we could avoid for another year. This is just one example of the wasteful expenditure of the government.
I object very strongly to the minister saying that the opposition is asking for programs to be implemented that will cause greater expenditures. I ask him to show me anywhere in Hansard where I have stood in my place and asked that more money be spent. I would like to see some of our taxes cut. The main plank of the government's budget was to impose a surtax in order to stop inflation. That surtax is against the people with fixed incomes and against the people living on pensions. It is making them poorer and poorer and it is making it more difficult for them to fight an inflation which the government created.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
Members on the government side are trying to ride two horses at once. I was impressed with the speech of the Leader of the Rallie-ment Creditiste when he spoke this afternoon. He did not ride two horses at once-he pointed to the problem. Government members try to have a great love affair with producers and with labour. They are only encouraging the ever-spiralling inflationary trend which drives wages up to buy consumer goods. Profits go up to pay the wages. So the bitter struggle goes on until the government finds a solution to the problem. The government might have to go back to the 30 per cent
10182	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers formula the former Prime Minister adopted which started an upward trend that even the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has not been able to curb.
It is a long year since the Prime Minister was elected on the slogan, "the just society". People are beginning to realize what "just society" means. It means squeeze some more. The other day the Prime Minister said to the press, "take a bath". I say to him and to his government that it is time this government took a cold shower to enable them to face up to some of the cold realities and practicalities confronting this nation. Surely it will not be long before other ministers resign if they are responsible and honest and have the kind of integrity of other ministers who served other great Liberal governments and had the courage to resign. The Minister of Agriculture cannot say he is against a boycott because it is bad, for that is the only policy which the government has put forward. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs says he is for a boycott. The Prime Minister has to decide between the new father and the Minister of Agriculture. He has to make that decision. One can understand now why the ministers come to the house only on odd days. I have found out why. So they do not have to answer questions and face up to their political and economic responsibilities.
I want to end on this note. This is one of the opposition days. I say to the minister that we have been criticized because of some of our suggestions and because they have not always been positive. I say to the minister that the day the government pirates took away from the official opposition and the other opposition parties the right to control the pursestrings of the nation they gave the opposition the right to say to the government: "Unless you come up with some definite and positive solutions you will get no more of the taxpayers' money to squander on unworkable ideas." When the government changed the rules in that regard they emasculated parliament. When the minister delivered his lecture I am sure he excited the freshmen but not the seniors. There were only ten Liberals in the house listening to him. This state of affairs was brought about by the government when it changed the rules and took away control of the pursestrings from the opposition. We lost our power but we will regain it when public opinion is aroused in the next three years sufficiently to turn the government out of office.
IMr. Woolliams.]
DEBATES	June 16. 1969



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: 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 Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-Canadian National Railways-consultations respecting pensions of retired employees; the hon. member for Surrey (Mr. Mather)-Noise Abatement-steps to combat national problem; the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Yewchuk)- National Parks-boundaries for Wood Buffalo Park.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. McGrath.
Mr. Roberi P. Kaplan (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in this debate because of the need to counteract the impression created by the motion and confirmed in the speeches of the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) and the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) that price stability and inflation are entirely the responsibilities of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford). I have been hearing about beef, but it sounds like boloney, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. Member:: You can afford both.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: It would be doing a disservice to the Canadian people to make them believe, as the motion implies, that price mechanisms are entirely to blame for inflation at the consumer level, and it should be borne in mind that the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs limits its activities in connection with inflation solely to a consideration of price mechanisms.
Therefore, to draw attention to some of the profound factors responsible for the very serious and dangerous inflationary trends in the last few months, I am compelled to broaden the context of the debate. I do so
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
with some diffidence because I am not an economist. What I wish to do in the very few minutes I have is to review the traditional government tools for dealing with inflation in the context of the very peculiar type of inflation which we are experiencing in the marketplace today.
One could say that times are very good today, but the question I want to consider is one which is perhaps on the lips of or coming to the lips of more and more Canadians who participate in our economic life. That question is: If things are so good, how come things are so bad? This is the paradox that dominates economic life today, and it is no exaggeration to say that a growing number of people in this country are getting scared. The weak in our society, old age pensioners, retired public servants, veterans, and people who have saved to arrange for comfortable retirements-the people that I meet every day in my riding-are getting scared. But they are not the only ones. The rich, the strong, the captains of industry, our largest corporations, our municipalities, and people with vast resources of credit are scared too. But the paradox is that we have never been better off, that employment levels in most parts of Canada are healthy, that we are in a period of stable progress and growth which has not abated, except in constructive ways, since the war. Expansion proceeds at a record rate, and there are no signs of depression or even of recession on the horizon. The private decisions of thousands of economic planners to proceed now, to expand now, to buy now, in short to spend and to borrow now, contradict any assumption that a recession is even a remote possibility.
Perhaps the most resourceful of the foregoing statements is the last. Let me elaborate on that. If economic planners in our economic community have learned one lesson in the past 25 years is is this: Don't wait for spring, don't wait at all, do it now, buy it now, borrow now. Virtually every private economic decision made since the war to postpone a spending program or to postpone borrowing in the private sector has been proved to be a mistake. This observation does not apply only to business and government but also to family economic decisions. How many young families would not be better oft today if they had bought the home they now need last year or, better yet, two or five years ago even if they did not need it five years ago. Industry is in the same position. Those who waited to expand until their sales market justified it are sorry that they waited.
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
Underlying the popular attitude which I have just described is a deep and wide confidence that there will not be a depression, and a faith that governments have perfected their techniques for maintaining growth, if only in the interests of full employment, and will not permit a recession. Otherwise, if a depression or a recession were expected, it would pay people to wait before making their big commitments. More private decisions to wait would take the steam out of the economy and if this were to happen, inflation would be curbed. But because people believe the opposite, that is, that inflation will continue and that there will be growth, and act accordingly, we are faced with an economy in which the risk of loss in an enterprise is completely discounted. If growth is assured, there will be no losses, and there are no risks in expansion, even premature expansion.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
I submit that not enough thought has been given to the facts of life, the conventional approaches, as they apply to an economy where there is this new underlying confidence. All past economic policy becomes questionable because it was based on a system in which decision-makers were prepared to face the possibility of declining prices and shrinking markets. These are alternatives which imply advantages in consolidation and in delaying commitments. People no longer think this way.
I should like to review the traditional solutions which are being applied to this new form of inflation. There are three standard and traditional government techniques. First, there is fiscal policy. How does fiscal policy apply under these new assumptions? In the case of fiscal policy one can see there should be no change; the proper tax response to a boom, to a "demand-pull" inflation, would be to raise taxes, reduce expenditures and seek balanced budgets. This forces economic decision-makers in the private sector to wait, if only by reducing their means to proceed through taxation.
A second traditional device for controlling inflation is that which is associated with the government's role as a consumer. When private demand increases and prices rise, it is still appropriate even under the new assumptions, as under the old system, for the government to reduce its demands for goods and services.
10104	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16. 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
But when it comes to the third aspect of these control devices, that of monetary control, there is a striking difference. I should like to elaborate on this. Under the new assumptions, the old monetary policy is totally wrong; in fact, it does the opposite of what is required. Traditionally, the government gets the Bank of Canada to raise the interest rate hoping in this way to deter people from expanding, on the theory that businessmen do not want to assume the risk of high fixed costs of interest, particularly over long periods of time. In the past they knew that if they borrowed at high rates and their competitors were able, after waiting, to borrow at lower rates, their competitors would be able to undersell them. It seems clear, however, that this type of reasoning has become obsolete. People feel they are taking no real risk by paying high interest rates because they are confident there will be no depression or recession tomorrow-that prices will be high enough and markets broad enough to support their high costs. This knowledge or belief arises because it is felt that the government's control over the economy and its dedication to the goal of full employment implies such consequences.
If I am correct in this observation, Mr. Speaker, it follows that raising the interest rate in these circumstances has no effect in reducing inflation, and does not curb borrowing. Rather, as I see it, it increases inflation. If interest rates were lower, and if high taxes and reduced government spending were maintained as policies, I submit we should experience less inflation than we are seeing today. Higher interest rates are causing inflation; they are themselves inflationary. Such, at any rate, is the undeniable conclusion one must draw from all the fiddling with interest rates which has taken place from late 1957 until the one per cent increase of last week by the Federal Reserve Board. Possibly a usurious increase of the sort which took place last week-an extreme increase-will take effect in a way in which mild and moderate increases have failed to take effect in the last ten years.
It is not said often enough or clearly enough that Canada does not and cannot have an independent interest policy. Our interest policy is the United States interest policy. I am not proud of this, but my feelings on the matter and the feelings of other Canadians do not affect the question at all. In the growing and important debate on foreign ownership and its effect on Canada, much has been said
EMr. Kaplan.]
about our inability to control our economy. I reject this criticism, not totally, but when it is made on a holistic basis.
The present occasion is perhaps not one on which to discuss the broad subject of the high input or, to be precise, the high United States input into our own economic system, but in order to deal with the topic of inflation, as I have been doing, I must refer to the serious political problems which Americans face, problems which have resulted in what I regard as a counterproductive interest rate policy.
Like ourselves, the Americans deal with inflation in their economy by regulating government spending, by the use of tax devices and by means of an interest policy. The Americans have been unable to control government spending to the extent we have been able to do. In Canada we have been much more successful. Of course, they have two wars to fight, one in Viet Nam and the other in their cities, and these take a toll. This leaves the Americans with only two devices- the taxing power and control over the interest rate.
Under our system of cabinet government and majority control the government can, in practice, impose taxes at will in the interest of combatting inflation. In this respect I believe the Canadian government has done its duty even to the point of pain. But the United States government has no comparable straightforward procedure for implementing tax policies, however urgent. Last week, for example, the United States administration sent to the house ways and means committee six former secretaries of the treasury to make a bipartisan appeal for the retention of the income surtax. Yet today there is still no assurance that its efforts in this regard will succeed. It is obviously most difficult for the United States government to rely on tax policies or on tax proposals to control inflation. It is therefore left with its power to control the interest rate. I believe it is this uncertainly about tax proposals which has led the administration to rely too heavily on measures of the Federal Reserve Board intended to fill the breach arising where reduced public spending and increased taxation are not available. Monetary policies alone, however, cannot control inflation and these efforts in the United States have injured the economy of that country and are injuring our own economy. As I suggested earlier, they have backfired and high interest rates have become an inflationary factor.
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
I have a few minutes left, Mr. Speaker, and in these few minutes I should like to consider the responsibility of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I have argued that there are weaknesses in the traditional devices used to control inflation. I have suggested, without taking the opportunity in this debate to elaborate, that there is little one can do to ensure the success of an independent interest policy in this country at present; there is nothing we could do, assuming we want to maintain the present rate of influx of foreign capital and the present rate of economic growth.
One suggestion was attributed to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath). It was that the government ought to try the approach of putting out guidelines. Guidelines, in a few words, involve picking a rate out of thin air, or one arrived at after study, and declaring that all good citizens are required to forgo increases of more than, say, 6 per cent in any one year. This sounds as though it might work, but the fact is it was tried in this country a few years ago and found to be unsuccessful. Guidelines are taken by people in today's economy to represent the minimum advances permissible. If the guideline is set at 6 per cent, for instance, a manufacturer feels he is not doing his duty if he does not raise his prices by 6 per cent. Similarly, a union feels it is entitled to an increase of 6 per cent and begins bargaining on the basis of that 6 per cent. Guidelines are too simplistic, and I hope the suggestion I mention has been incorrectly imputed to the Leader of the Opposition. We have had experience with guidelines and found that they are inflationary in themselves.
Earlier in my remarks I referred to the feeling among buyers and borrowers that no depression or recession is likely. This is supplemented by a conviction people have today that inflation will continue, that prices will continue to rise. This in itself disturbs the mechanism of the marketplace. Despite the fact that there is still some slack in the economy, some unused capacity, and adequate supplies of most goods and services, people have learned to consider the marketplace unfair, a futile place in which to bargain. It is into this area that the new Prices and Incomes Commission has been launched to try to give the public the information it requires to offer resistance to prices that are not justified by an underlying cost push. This is not a superficial matter; neither is it an easy task. It is an approach that requires study in depth.
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers [DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
The hon. member for Calgary North suggested that the commission can stop price increases. The matter is not as easy as that. The commission must go behind an increase to demonstrate it is not justified by a cost push and analyse the cost of the product, employees' salaries, tax increases and rising transportation costs. All these factors have to be considered. The government cannot be expected to develop its policies, as the hon. member for Calgary North does, by reading newspapers and advertisements. Surely to be credible as a force the commission has to know what it is talking about. The commission has been slow in starting. It is beginning to study a new field. But I must say, in conclusion, that I am not yet prepared to write off its efforts, and I wish it well.


Mr. Mac T. McCutcheon (Lamblon-Keni):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I believe it is a fair statement to say that the minister shares with all Canadians great concern at the high cost of living. However, I must go further and point out that showing concern about a problem and doing something about it are two different things.
I class the minister as one of my personal friends. I have known him for many years. May I take this opportunity to offer Mrs. Bas-ford and the minister my sincere congratulations on the increase in their family.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: I have had a great deal of admiration for the minister through the years, having worked with him for three years at least on the joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate that investigated the high cost of living.
In my opinion the Department of Consumer Affairs has been touted as a palliative to Canadian consumers, but as far as having a restraining influence on prices is concerned its effect has been nil. I go further and say that this is not exactly the fault of the Department of Consumer Affairs, far from it. The fact that the government of which the minister is a member has mismanaged the economy of the country has been very effective in driving up the cost of living, and all the consumer and corporate affairs departments in the world would be unable to rectify the situation. Everything has got out of bounds, and much of the distress can be attributed to the complete unawareness of the government of the factors contributing to the
10186	COMMONS DEBATES	June 1G. 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers type of inflation we are now caught up in. Indeed, this belief was expanded on by the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Kaplan) who has just resumed his seat, and may I congratulate him on a very thoughtful speech.
It seems to me that the government has regarded inflation with one eye on the old textbook description of inflation-too much money chasing too few goods. It is obvious to all of us in this chamber, this tremendous group gathered here between five and six each night, that this is not the type of inflation from which we are suffering. If you have the money in Canada today, Mr. Speaker, you can buy anything you set your heart on. I repeat-if you have the money.
The cause of our distress today can be blamed in large measure on world conditions and on a government that failed to recognize the danger signals and do something about the problem long ago. We members of parliament, led by the Liberal government, removed the ceiling on bank interest rates some time ago, with disastrous effects that we see all around us today. The banks really needed that measure. The financial statements of the chartered banks show that profit levels are up 30 to 35 per cent. Government spending has continued at very high levels, with continuing government demands on the money market helping to bring about interest rates that are prohibitive. This in turn has driven up the cost of buying goods, renting houses, and everything else.
In addition, the government continues to increase taxes, which in turn has the effect of increasing prices right down the line. Labour has had no recourse but to ask for more money. The net effect of labour's demands has resulted in purchasing power remaining constant, because each increase in wages has brought with it an increase in the cost of goods. It is a vicious circle, like a dog chasing his tail.
Therefore, in order to pacify those whose complaints about the cost of living have been vociferous and to offer them something by way of meeting their demands for a halt to the ever-escalating cost of living, what has the government done? A government that is sterile of ideas did the obvious; it brought in a new department. This was a simple way of trying to take off the pressure, since the government had nothing concrete to offer in the form of a solution to this serious problem.
I should like to know what we have received for the $16 million expended thus 
far. The minister had the effrontery to suggest in his remarks today that the house had rushed through his estimates. This is another example of the government's modus operandi. It brings in the estimates of suspect departments on the very last day available under the allocation of time for supply.
One thing we do have is Box 99, about which the minister speaks quite a lot.


Stanley Ronald Basford: The hon. member has written to it.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: It has received several complaints over the past year, including some from my office.


Stanley Ronald Basford: And they have been dealt with.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: I am delighted to hear that, because I was just about to say, in fairness, that there have been a few convictions, though chiefly in regard to false and misleading advertising claims. This is all to the good; there is no complaint at all in this regard. However, the department will have to show the house something more tangible than that in the near future if we can ever hope to justify the department's expenditure.
As I mentioned earlier, the people of Canada have had to seek increased salaries and wages just to keep up with the cost of living, though in some instances this has been difficult to accomplish. However, there is one exception in the long list of increases, and that is the percentage of one's income required to be spent on food. This percentage has shown a reduction almost continuously since world war II. In the years prior to world war II the food requirements of the average family in Canada cost in excess of 30 per cent of that family's total wage or salary. As I say, this percentage has steadily declined, with rare temporary interruptions in the decline, until today the food budget of the average family is approximately 19 to 20 per cent of the take-home pay. I am not suggesting for one minute that we should reverse this trend, but I do suggest that it is a factor to keep in mind.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
What are we getting for our $16 million? I represent an area in Canada that is noted for beef cattle finishing feed lots. It was of great interest to me to find out what was going on in the beef business. To be fair, you cannot take isolated cases. You need the whole picture. Where would a person normally expect
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
to get that type of information? I wanted to get an answer to what I thought was a reasonable question, namely, what was the average price of beef in supermarkets across Canada in 1968 compared with the prices today, and were any discernable trends developing?
One would expect to receive this type of information from the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, provided one had not forgotten the debate which took place when this department was established. That is exactly what I had done, forgotten these debates. I should have remembered this was just a Liberal government proliferation of departments. I should have remembered it was a department without teeth-like me.


Stanley Ronald Basford: You were on the committee that recommended it.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: I am sure hon. members are interested in knowing how I made out. Seven phone calls between 10.12 and 10.30 got me the following replies: Six responses "unavailable at the moment, he or she should be back about 11; in the meantime, for the information you want you should phone such and such a number".
I remember being on the committee. I remember a very bright, intelligent lady in the consumer business, Miss Ordway. When I telephoned her office, I was told she was busy on another line and I could not disurb her. I persevered and finally on one of my phone calls I was given the following information by a young lady: "We have no information on comparative prices, perhaps you can get your information from D.B.S. or the Department of Agriculture". I was also told "Professor Young might compile this type of information, but probably not because he will just specialize in trends". I say that Professor Young has his work cut out for him, because it looks as if the whole department is going to revolve around him.
I am prepared to give the minister and his department all the time they need, but they better start cutting the mustard soon in order to justify the expenditures involved in this department. I say to the housewives allied against soaring prices and all the consumer groups who are protesting against the high cost of living, don't get your hopes too high that the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs will, or for that matter can do much for you. I predict the department's biggest contribution will be to take $16 million more tax dollars.
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
I did not give up because I wanted to get some relative figures on the retail prices of beef in 1968 compared with today. I got in touch with D.B.S. and received the following information. Last year on the Toronto market, which is Ontario's largest, the wholesale price of dressed beef averaged 50.8 cents per pound. This price is the equivalent of 1,050 to 1,150 pounds of live weight cattle, bringing on the average in that same market $28 to $29 per hundredweight, with the odd top grade going as high as $31 per hundredweight. Recently, the price has moved up to as high as $37 and $38 per hundredweight. This indicates an increase of 22 per cent to 24 per cent in the price to the producer. Since that peak, the price has dropped off $1 to $2 per hundredweight and as of this morning the price on the Toronto Cattle Market is $35 to $36 for the above mentioned type.
The question then is why did the price of beef go up and why will it not drop too much? The reason I received from D.B.S. is that the cattle population in Canada in 1968 was only 98 per cent of the 1967 total, yet the human population of Canada grew by several percentage points. In other words, there are not as many cattle in the country. As the minister said the other night and repeated today in the house, supply and demand rules the market. I would be the first to admit that figures are misleading. The number of cattle in Canada does not tell the whole story. The number of cattle ready for market tells the story, and this is where we are short.
I received the following figures from D.B.S. this morning. They show the average retail prices across Canada for May, 1968 and May, 1969 and reported telephone prices from meat departments in stores in the city of Ottawa as of this morning. Sirloin steak, May, 1968, $1.18; 1969, $1.39 and today in the Ottawa supermarkets, $1.69; round steak, May, 1968, $1.06; May, 1969, $1.21 and today, $1.39; rolled rib roast, May, 1968, $1.04; May, 1969, $1.13 and today $2. These prices are being charged today in the chain stores in the city of Ottawa.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do
they arrange financing?


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: There is something funny going on! These prices indicate two things to me, Mr. Speaker. First, the producers have finally received a long overdue increase in their prices. Second, using the figures of May, 1968 and May, 1969, the increase is pretty much in keeping with other increases in the
10188	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16. 1966
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers cost of living. However, the prices being charged in Ottawa chain stores today, compared with past averages, is something else again. I question if prices will decline very much in the near future in spite of the minister's unqualified support of a certain supermarket head. This gentleman's advice to housewives to boycott high beef prices does not impress me as much as it obviously impressed the minister.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
Two weeks before this gentleman made his pronouncement I happened to be in a livestock broker's office when he slammed the phone down in disgust. I asked, "What was all that about"? He replied, "The chains have just left the market; they are going to boycott the Toronto market." I do not know whether the company owned by the minister's friend formed one of those chains or not, but as they are leaders in the field I suspect they probably did. As I say, this was prior to this gentleman's appeal to the ladies to conduct a boycott. As Shakespeare said, "Methinks he doth protest too much." But, Mr. Speaker, it may be good for politics. Perhaps the minister's friend may decide to go into politics in Toronto, as has been suggested by a certain senator from that area.
Today choice cattle in Toronto are selling at $35 to $36. Comparable grade cattle are selling in Chicago at $35. The live price of Canadian cattle needs to drop only $1 per hundredweight and then it will be feasible to export Canadian beef to that midwestern market. There are added costs in exporting from Ontario to Chicago as compared with marketing in Toronto. First, there is $1.50 per hundredweight duty. Then, there is 70 cents per hundredweight extra freight costs, and about 50 cents per hundredweight for extra shrink. But there is a plus factor of exchange on money of 1\ per cent so that cattle, particularly in Ontario, can and will go to the U.S. if the Canadian price declines as little as $1 per hundredweight.
I strongly suggest to the minister that he and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) try to get on the same team because I think there is very little that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) can do about this situation. The Minister of Agriculture hit the nail on the head when he said:
Past prices were not high enough to attract enough money into the expansion of beef production, so prices are starting to rise this year because demand is growing faster than supply.
IMr. McCutcheon.]
The minister also emphasized the fact that Canadian consumers would be well advised not to try a boycott. He pointed out that if more farmers were forced out of beef production, then the consumer would ultimately have to pay an awful lot more money for meat. I suggest that the housewives, the buyers of beef, can do an awful lot. I was interested to hear the minister's advice to housewives today. Supermarkets and butcher shops are in a quandary trying to sell meat.-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired. He may continue only with the unanimous agreement of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: I will be finished presently, Mr. Speaker.


Stanley Ronald Basford: You were just going to agree with me, so I wanted you to continue.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: Indeed, on many of the items I do agree with the minister. I was just about to speak of the customer who goes to the store and says to the butcher, "There is too much fat on that piece of beef. I don't want to have to pay for all that fat." But chain stores and other buyers of meat will not accept an animal from the producer unless it does have some fat on it. So, the customer asks, "Will you take the fat off?" The butcher does. Then as she approaches the door he says, "Mr. Butcher, would you have a little suet so I can cook this meat?" When all the fat is removed it automatically increases the price of the product.
I suggest to consumers that they should keep the pressure on, but they should apply it to the government to cut down on its profligate spending, so that taxes can be reduced as well as the high cost of money. In my opinion, these things have contributed more to the high cost of living than the increase in the price of food.


Mr. J. Edward Broadbenl (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I was much encouraged when the minister rose today to say he was highly sensitive to the problem of inflation, particularly when he emphasized its effect on the poor, and more especially on those in the categories of pensioners and unorganized workers. I found his expression of concern, grounds for optimism. I thought he might be about to announce some new, startling and
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
imaginative program to deal with the problems that these people face. But instead we got a rehash of the same thing we have heard in this house for many months, with nothing new whatsoever.
If he and his government had been concerned with the problem you would have thought he would have done something to deal with the unorganized workers, the regionally impoverished workers, the persons living on pensions. You would have thought the government would have implemented the Woods report recommendations dealing with veterans pensions. But no, the government has waited over a year and done nothing with respect to that report. You would have thought the government would have been concerned about retired civil servants living impoverished lives. But no, it has not acted to increase the pensions of retired civil servants. The Canada Pension Plan, in which there is a wonderful 2 per cent escalator clause, is absolutely useless in an economy which has an annual inflation rate averaging four per cent. Even with a 2 per cent pension increment, the people receiving it must live at a 2 per cent lower standard of living.
You would have thought that the government, dissatisfied with a winter works program which had some faults and there is no doubt about that, would have revised that program; made it more imaginative and expanded it. But no, the government scrapped the winter works program. Again you would have thought that the government of one of the few countries in the industrialized world which in the last 10 years had an average unemployment rate of around 5 per cent-and some 40 per cent to 45 per cent of Canada's unemployed are located in Quebec alone-would have adopted a crash program to deal with unemployment. But of course, we have nothing like that.
On paper we have a very good program to deal with regional economic disparities, but in the current budget only a few paltry millions of dollars are devoted to it. You would have thought the Watkins report recommendations would have been dealt with in some meaningful way by the government, but again we have seen no action. Instead, what do we get? We have had a series of measures which reveal the Herbert Hoover mentality of the government. The solution favoured by the government is one which has been favoured by governments for some 30 years, that is to have sound fiscal and monetary policies.
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers [DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
What does this mean? It means, of course, an effort to cut down wherever possible in the public sector of the economy. We receive little homilies from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs day in and day out on this. I should like to make two points on this issue. First of all, if we are concerned at times in the short run about inflation and if we do want to cut back on investment expansion, why must we always concentrate on the public sector? Why are no selective cut-backs in force in the private sector of the economy? Do we need more office buildings which cost millions of dollars in Montreal or in any other city? Do we need more gas stations? Do we not need in fact some control over the sector of private income which selects investments when we decide to cut back to deal with inflation? Some people think we should not cut back when there is a need for houses. They believe that we should perhaps pour millions of dollars as directly as possible into a corporation which would be responsible for housing. But a government so committed ideologically to a privately dominated and privately run economy can think of cutting back in only the public sector. Such a government then has the nerve, in my judgment, to go to the public and say it is doing the public a favour when in reality it is cutting back on funds for housing, hospitals and schools in an already impoverished public sector of the economy.
I should like to leave that point because, although I believe it is important, I do not think the principal method of dealing with inflation should be this kind of selective action with a bias in favour of private interests and against government initiative in creating a fully employed work force. We need an expanding and efficient economy. In short, we should have had white papers which contained policies for full employment. To my knowledge, never in the history of this country have we had such white papers. We receive papers such as the one concerned with policies on prices, or whatever it was, which we received just before the new year.
What should be done? I think we should quit fooling around with meat prices and items of this sort. What we should be concerned with is developing an economy which is as independent as it possibly can be in a modern interdependent world. This means we must free ourselves from the overwhelming influence of the United States economy. We
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers cannot deal in a meaningful way in Canada with interest rates when these are connected through the general economic structure with the interest rates in the United States. Over a 10 or 15 years period we must break the nature of our branch plant economy and create an independent, Canadian owned efficient industrial economy. I spoke at length during an earlier session of this parliament and therefore shall not take much more of parliament's time at this moment in suggesting the ways in which this should be done. The leader of my party and the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis) in a recent debate elaborated on policies which would be very important for this country in this regard.
There is one item which I think might be mentioned, especially if we compare it with the many small efforts which are being carried out by the minister's department. If I had to choose at this point, I would say we should reduce that department's budget to $1 and all the funds which are allocated to that department should be put into a Crown research and development corporation. If primarily we are concerned about a research institution, why do we not in this country develop a pool of talent which would be available to private and public enterprises. Such a research and development corporation would be able to make recommendations about development of industry in Canada based on our resources both physical and human. This would lead to an efficient, competitive economy in the international market. We have never dealt with this point seriously. It has always been pooh-poohed as some ivory tower scheme. As I mentioned previously Japan, the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have committed themselves to precisely this kind of policy over an extended number of years. It is not an ivory tower scheme at all. It would involve some serious structural changes and the serious spending of money on research and development in this country.
I should like to leave this part of my speech and move on to a comment about the Prices and Incomes Commission. I was pleased that today the minister did not leave us with any grand illusions about the ultimate efficacy of this commission. His previous statement provided no ground for optimism on this score. I believe he has decided to back down a bit and talk more about the monetary and fiscal policy dealing with inflation rather than the Prices and Incomes Commission. I think perhaps he has found out that in this 
June 16, 1969
country there is very little confidence, especially among professional economists, in this Prices and Incomes Commission. I ask the minister why he has not been able to fill the vacant positions on this commission? When are the two commissioners to be appointed? I wonder whether part of the difficulty is that the academic community, to name one part of the community, is entirely disenchanted with the "academic" commissions established by this government. They have seen what has happened in respect of the Carter Commission report and the Watkins Commission report, as well as others.
I suggest in all seriousness that there is little intellectual respect among those professionally concerned with economic matters for the intentions of this government. Particularly among economists who have a genuine social concern about this country, I have heard the view expressed-and I imagine the minister has also heard this view expressed- that the net effect of this Prices and Incomes Commission is likely to be a negative one. I think the minister suggested himself that he is aware of this. If we do have publicly revealed statements about general trends in wages, for example, who is likely to be affected? The minister suggested that the private sector of the economy, the management level or the oligopolistic level in this country will not pay much attention to it. They will set their prices as they always have. They are quite unconcerned about whatever guidelines might be established. So, basically, are the powerful trade unions. They will be as successful as they have been in bargaining or at least will not be greatly affected. They will be affected, if anyone is to be affected by this Prices and Incomes Commission-
[DOT] (6:00 p.m.)


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I might draw to the attention of hon. members that so far as I have been able to ascertain there are just a few minutes left to the hon. member to complete his presentation. It may be the disposition of hon. members to allow the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby to complete his speech before we rise.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Edward Broadbent: I should like to thank my colleagues in the house and I promise I will be very brief.
What I was going to suggest is that the only groups who will be seriously affected by public revelation of prices, incomes and

June 16, 1969	COMMONS
income trends in the country will be the unorganized and the weak. Those recommendations or guideline statements will be used to keep down the wages of those who are already in an unfortunate position in terms of bargaining strength. Hospital workers, unorganized workers and civil servants will be forced to remain at their low level of wages.
Therefore, like many professional economists, I have little faith at all in the ultimate effect of this Prices and Incomes Commission.
I have been brief and I think I have made one or two constructive suggestions, the details of which have been elaborated by me and other spokesmen of my party earlier during this session. What I think is most important for us to keep in mind is that this government espouses a concern for the unemployed and those on fixed incomes but is still talking in terms of ideas that were outmoded in the 1930's. The government is either incompetent or unconcerned, and on neither ground should it go before the Canadian people with any degree of confidence in terms of its actions.


Mr. Speaker:: It being after six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At 6.05 p.m. the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
Mr. Hyl Chappell (Peel South):: Mr. Speaker, I had not meant to speak on this motion, but I find myself drawn into the debate because of a difference of opinion with some of the previous speakers. In opening, may I say a few words with respect to remarks made by two earlier speakers. The hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) purported to give the count of Liberal members in the house. I differ with him in that count; I believe he overlooked counting the Liberals on the east side of the chamber. The hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) mentioned the high price of steak in that city and indicated that he suspected a price fixing or monopoly. He did not bring forth any evidence of price fixing or a monopoly-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: What is the department for?


Hyliard G. Chappell: nor was there any suggestion that all the stores, or even two stores,
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers sold steak at the same price. There is no indication that any housewife has complained that she suspects price fixing or a monopoly, nor is there any suggestion that the small butcher's shops are in cahoots with the large stores to maintain the high price of steak. In any event, I would say to him and the people of his riding that if there is any such evidence and the people bring it forward, I am confident that the Director of Research and Investigation under the Combines Investigation Act will take prompt action.
I agree that the price of food, clothing and living accommodation is too high; there is no question about that. I also agree that each Canadian would like to see his own income go up and at the same time prices remain stable for all goods and services. Obviously, this cannot be. We must look for some other solution. Let us first examine the high cost of rental accommodation. Surely, we must accept the fact that rent is determined by the selling price of accommodation, that is, the selling price of a home or condominium unit. Then, why are these prices so high? There are five basic elements: there is the high cost of financing, the high cost of land available for development, the high taxation which places the full expense load for education on the municipality, archaic zoning provisions, and high construction costs.
The task force heard representations from all parts of Canada. They considered these matters and made recommendations. Within days the government introduced the new housing bill, and I suggest it covered everything within the jurisdiction of this Parliament. Although much has been said about the high cost of financing, we are living in a dream world if we do not accept the fact that high interest rates in this country are substantially controlled by the interest rates of the United States. The interest rate in that country now exceeds 8 per cent, and unless our interest rates are higher our money will be drained off immediately.
During the last seven or eight years land ready for development in the Toronto area has increased in price by about 300 per cent. Something should be done, but the solutions lie completely within the jurisdiction of the provinces. In respect of planning and taxation I point out that whereas 50, 60 or 70 years ago, when Toronto had a population of not more than 200,000, we built attractive, semidetached houses on 20-foot lots. Many streets of such houses are still there to be seen. Today, almost every municipality demands a
10192	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers 50, 55 or 60-foot lot and a large house in order to provide a tax base to pay for the educational costs.
This type of planning is now out of date and should be changed by the province. If not, we will have immensely stretched-out cities with transportation nightmares, and parents taking one to two hours to get home to their children after a day's work. The province should change these zoning provisions to allow more flexibility for high-rise apartments, some 20 or 25-foot lots, and mobile home parks. The basis of taxation should be changed so that a municipality may allow homes to be built on lots of this size without impairing its ability to provide education. But perhaps the most important and urgent matter today is the high cost of construction. Today, it is considered modest to ask for a 15 per cent incease in wages or salaries over a two-year period. This attitude is now almost chronic. But a 15 per cent increase in a two-year period is a 30 per cent increase in a four-year period. When one considers the increase upon increase, let us say it is a 50 per cent increase in a six-year period. We cannot increase wages by 50 per cent in six years and not cause continuing inflation. The hon. member for Lambton-Kent (Mr. McCutcheon) said that unions have no option but to make these demands. I ask, what about the construction unions? They make no such modest demands. There, the wage rates of the trades vary from $6 to $8.50 an hour, which produces for them an annual income greater than that of a member of parliament and of some professional people who took years to prepare for their profession. In addition, usually the member of parliament and the professional people work considerably longer hours.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
The construction unions have taken a stranglehold on Canadian housing, and with their monopoly they are driving up the cost of living for every Canadian at a fantastic rate. Whereas in the United States in 1962, construction workers increased their hourly rate by about 12 cents an hour, the increase now is from 50 cents to 75 cents an hour. Recently such a strike was settled in Toronto at $1.71 an hour, over a two year period, plus considerable fringe benefits. This would amount to something between 85 cents and one dollar an hour. We ask ourselves: Can a teacher on $7,000 a year or a clerk on $3,000 afford the luxury of their services? The payment of 
DEBATES	June 18, 1969
these exorbitant wages not only drives up the cost of construction but, in addition, increases the price of goods. Factories have to be built and these service people are on the staff. The effect of these wage increases are also indirectly reflected in our economy and thus upon our cost of living as well causing the spiralling inflation. In addition, the action of these people sets a precedent. Other labour groups must, for their own self-preservation, demand substantial increases to have any hope of hiring the services of these trades.
I do not question the right to strike. It has done much to improve the living standards of many. But in some cases the power is too great, and recently it has been exercised without responsibility. I do not quarrel with the individual seeking gain, but sometimes he does not gain. If he is on strike for six or eight weeks, the increase he gets usually just compensates him for the time he lost his income. The people who gain are the union organisers. They become important on T.V.
I say to each member of this house: Just imagine what the price of food would be if farmers should ever be paid at the same rate as these construction people. Let us take it further, and suppose that we increase proportionately the wages of all those who process the food between the farm and the final sale to the consumer. No doubt, in order to keep rents down some may recommend rental control, but I do not think logic would allow us to consider rent control unless all prices and all incomes were fixed. Surely, each of us want to see that only as a last resort.
What has the government done? We have cut back on government spending; we have discouraged commercial building and we have balanced the budget. The minister has appointed an advisory council of experts to advise him constantly as to what can be done. At this point we must warn the public to stop purchasing and to save and invest some of their money to slow down the heated economy. Secondly, we must warn some of these people who make excessive demands that if they keep it up, and the spiral is allowed to speed up, we will get to the point at which no one will be able to afford their services. If it does keep up ones insurance and ones pension will be completely eroded away-in fact the whole life insurance industry will be destroyed.
Personally, I do not care about the fact that the price of beefsteak has become so high. I have literally felt embarrassed at the price for which one can buy chicken and turkey,
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
and I wonder how the producers live. I would not consider it too great a hardship to live on chicken and turkey for a while instead of beef.
May I say in conclusion that this is a real problem with which we must grapple and which we must solve, but this is something that all Canadian people must feel and on which they must co-operate. The minister has done all he can at the moment, but if we do not get some co-operation with respect to these wage demands, we may have no alternative at some point in the future but to fix rentals, prices and wages.


Mr. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton Centre):: First, I should like to congratulate the minister on his and Mrs. Basford's addition to the family of little Master Basford. I think it is quite commendable, and we on this side are looking forward to those 5 cent cigars.
Never have I listened to such arrogance and conceit as I have listened to today from the minister who claims that he is highly sensitive to the poor who, he claims, are unable to talk for themselves and who cannot protect themselves against higher prices. This is why this motion is particularly appropriate at a time when the cost of living weighs heavily on every Canadian. It is particularly appropriate at a time when the government has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in the fate of ordinary Canadians forced to pay more and more for less and less. It is appropriate at a time when Canadians are forced to run harder and harder to stay where they were a year or two years ago. The costs borne by the consumer, the householder, the homemaker and the salaried wage earner have gone up and up, while salaries have not kept pace. Nobody knows this better than the minister. Nobody cares less than the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau).
What is the use of this kind of motion? Is it going to produce any action from the government? I doubt it. The government must know what the situation is. They have been told about it for the past three years. We have been telling them about it and so have other opposition parties. In the face of high interest rates, prices that are way out of line, rising costs, and increased competition from abroad, the government has shown a total lack of interest. In the face of an increase in consumer prices of something in the nature of 14 per cent in the past three years, the government has done little to show its awareness of the problem.
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
We have had a Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. It was established with tremendous fanfare. With equal fanfare the minister set up a committee before which there was a parade of witnesses, each of whom disclaimed any responsibility for what is happening. Somebody somewhere is taking a rake-off. The minister was not able to establish who it was. Surely, the minister cannot pretend that his department has been a success. The facts and figures speak for themselves. We have seen the greatest increases in prices and costs in Canada's peacetime history. This speaks for itself. The minister cannot show that his department has been instrumental in saving the consumer a single penny. He certainly cannot demonstrate that his department has been instrumental in holding down prices. If he had done so effectively, Canadian consumers would not find themselves in their present position.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)
As one surveys the whole spectrum of price and cost increases, one finds there is hardly an area in which consumers are not obliged to pay a great deal more now than they did when this government came to office. The tragedy is not that the government has failed to take action, the real tragedy is that the government doesn't give a damn.
Never were truer words spoken than those uttered by the former minister of transport (Mr. Hellyer) when he said, with a great light dawning, that this government was incapable of dealing with the nuts and bolts issues. I do not intend to repeat at length his great panegyric, one which gained the admiration of thinking people everywhere, but in the course of it he placed an expert finger on the real weakness of the government. It began as a government divorced from the people. It is now a government divorced from reality. It is a government which has occupied its time and the time of this house chasing the will-o-the-wisp of medico-socio tinkering while the people who voted it into power could not make ends meet.
Last week, while interest rates took another giant step upward with the full approval of the government, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was prepared to carve up the constitution like a chicken and hand it trussed up on a plate to Ontario and Quebec. Only a couple of weeks ago the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) brought down a theoretical budget which continued the iniquitous 3 per cent surtax and placed a freeze on development in
10194	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16, 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers western Canada. Hon. members opposite know this to be the case. They produced a plastic budget to go along with the new plastic constitution and now they expect us to bow down and tell them how great they are.
While the government is obsessed with prefabricated prophesies dreamed up in the back rooms of the Liberal party, Canadians are becoming fed up with the way in which basic issues are ignored and neglected. A great number of people are leaving the Prime Minister-the number is rapidly reaching the proportion of an exodus. There was the minister of transport. He gave us, as his reason, that the government was not dealing with the real problems. There will not be much disagreement about that. Then, there were two of the Senatorial pillars of the Liberal establishment, Senators Lang and Aird, who left in disgust at the pussyfooting in connection with our NATO obligations. This proves conscience can exist in the other place. Now, we find the Stanburys getting restless.


An hon. Member:: Which one?


Steve Eugene Paproski: The gentleman in the other place. When members of the government's strategy board in the other place get fed up, things have to be really bad. This is the stage which has been reached as we come to deal with the present motion, one which simply opens up a corner of the general disarray and inertia of which the government has been guilty. As an example of the administration talking out of both sides of its mouth at the same time, we find the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) urging consumers to boycott beef while the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) expresses satisfaction over rising prices. I would be the last to disagree with the Minister of Agriculture when he says it is time the farmers got a fair return, and this is especially true in the light of the government's inability to sell wheat. One can understand the hon. gentleman's relief at the prospect of increased income in western Canada. But it is certainly an indication of the ineptness of the government when the only solution the minister in charge of consumer affairs can think of is for consumers to boycott beef which they cannot afford to buy in the first place.
What the minister has failed to deal with to the satisfaction of consumers is the course of events between the time the beef leaves the farmer's hands and the time it is placed, neatly wrapped in cellophane, on meat counters across the nation. Can the minister explain

why the price per pound should increase by 200 per cent between the loading chute and the supermarket counter? The chain stores claim their profit is only 2 per cent, and that is reasonable. Somebody is taking a beating, and it is usually the people at each end of the stick, that is to say, the farmer at one end and the consumer at the other. The Minister of Agriculture feels he has taken care of his end successfully, which leaves the minister in charge of consumer affairs holding the dirty end of the stick. Perhaps that minister should now boycott the Minister of Agriculture.
When the most experienced and far-sighted minister in the government, one holding the senior portfolio of transportation, says the government is not doing a job, we are bound to believe him. I refer to the hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Hellyer). What is happening with regard to interest rates, the cost of money and consumer prices all along the line just proves how right the former minister of transport was when he said this government neglects the nuts and bolts issues.
There are a lot of nuts and bolts in government, Mr. Speaker, and I am afraid that in this government there are more nuts than there are bolts. The best thing the government could do to help Canadians everywhere would be to resign.
Mr. Warren Allmand (Noire-Dame-de
Grace): Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we have before us today the resolution of a demagogue.


An hon. Member:: A what?


Mr. Allmand:: I say that, because it oversimplifies the question-


James Aloysius McGrath: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. I say with great respect that I am not a demagogue, and the hon. member should not say that I am.


Mr. Speaker:: I am not sure whether the hon. member wishes the Chair to make a ruling on whether it is unparliamentary to call another member a demagogue. I would think the term is rather strong and I hope it is not the type of epithet which will become part of the ordinary language of the House of Commons. Perhaps the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace might wish to indicate that he did not-


William Warren Allmand: I did not think the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) was so sensitive. If he is, I shall be pleased to withdraw any implication I may have made with
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
respect to him. What I meant was that the resolution merely oversimplifies the problem of increasing prices, really fails to define the problem and offers no solutions whatsoever. The resolution gives the impression that there are panaceas in regard to inflation, that there are magic solutions, that all that a government has to do is more or less to snap its fingers and these problems will go away. Having listened to members of the opposition parties in this debate, it is rather difficult to understand what is being suggested to solve the problems of inflation.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
This afternoon the hon. member for Lamb-ton-Kent (Mr. McCutcheon), I think it was, said that the problem of rising prices was due to the government spending too much money. A member of the New Democratic party, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broad-bent), said he thought we should spend more money in certain areas. This clearly illustrates that there is no simple solution to the problems of inflation. It is also clearly illustrates that the opposition parties have no obvious solutions to meet these problems.
The condemnation of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in this resolution for his failure to protect the Canadian consumer is tantamount to a condemnation of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro) because there is still sickness in this country, or a condemnation of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) because there is still crime being committed in Canada. There are many more measures that could be taken, of course, to improve our price situation, but I submit that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has done some extremely important work since he took office last summer.
If we are to measure the minister's effectiveness we might do well to compare the price record in Canada with that of other countries. No doubt this has been done before, but I think we have to keep reminding the opposition parties of it. For example, in the period 1952 to 1968 Canada ranked with the United States in the maintenance of price stability and had the best record when compared to the other western industrialized countries. During this period Canada and the United States had a 1.7 per cent annual rate of increase, compared with Germany with 1.8 per cent; Italy, 3 per cent; The Netherlands, 3.2 per cent; Britain, 3.2 per cent; Sweden, that great socialist paradise, 3.4 per cent; France, 3.5 per cent and Japan 4.0 per cent.
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers


Stanley Howard Knowles: Per
cent of what?


William Warren Allmand: Yearly increase in prices. According to a table in front of me, Canada and the United States had the best record in this regard in the period 1952 to 1968.
In the period 1965 to 1968, a shorter period, our record was not as good as it was in the longer run, but it was still very commendable. During this period the annual increase in prices in Canada was 3.7 per cent, compared with 4.1 per cent for The Netherlands; 4.8 per cent for Sweden and 4.8 per cent for Japan. Germany and Italy were lower than Canada during that period, and the United States had an increase of 3.1 per cent, 0.6 per cent lower than Canada's level. However, our record was still extremely good.
I point this out to show that, if the problems of inflation are as simple and easy to solve as the opposition parties would pretend, then they must be the only experts in the world who have the answers. It seems that the economic advisers of other countries do not have the answers, because if they did their countries would have a better rate than Canada in the matter of price stability. If we really want to assess the record of this government and the minister, we must compare that record with that of others.
The resolution before the house states that the minister and his department have not been doing very much since the minister was appointed last year. I should like to refer to some of the very important things that this department has done. The department was formed a little over a year ago. When this minister took office last summer-


James Aloysius McGrath: He is not even staying here to hear you; that shows how interested he is.


William Warren Allmand: He knows what I am going to say so well that it would embarrass him to stay in the house to listen to all the compliments I am going to pay him. However, I think the opposition members can listen to what I have to say and I give them credit for doing so.


Mr. Peters:: It ain't easy, either.


William Warren Allmand: Since last summer the
minister first of all reorganized the consumers branch in the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Secondly, he established the consumers advisory council. He also introduced and had passed the bill to control drug prices. The minister has introduced a bill
10196	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers dealing with hazardous products. He has just introduced another bill to amend the Companies Act and bring in new provisions regarding disclosure, and so forth. The minister has set up the prices commission, and he has in the works two other very important bills; one to set standards for labelling and packaging, and another to amend the combines act. This gives a total of seven important items with which the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has dealt since his appointment last summer, and it is a very commendable record.


Steve Eugene Paproski: The minister is even eating a beef sandwich.


William Warren Allmand: It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that the speeches of hon. members opposite are not as good as their remarks while other people are speaking.
In pointing out some of the difficulties in resolving the problems of inflation and price increases, may I refer to the report of the consumer prices committee which was submitted to this house on April 20, 1967. This report was the product of the committee that was chaired by the present minister and which received, I might say, the unanimous support of all parties in the house at the time.
I should like to refer to a paragraph on page 4 of the report which reads as follows:
Much of the expert testimony of both academic and government economists emphasized that the increase in the cost of living which has been observed in Canada in the recent past is a complex phenomenon. There have been many influences at v/ork and these in turn set up chain reactions which ultimately permeate the economy and have a buoyant influence on particular prices and on the price level in general.
Then, on page 5 there is this paragraph:
This complicated process-
That is the process of price increases and growing inflation.
-is sometimes oversimplified and an attempt made to attribute a general price increase solely to some particular group such as trade unions, business, financiers, farmers, profiteers or even consumers themselves. The evidence presented to your committee did not support any such unsophisticated view. It is instructive to note that the trend of consumer prices in Canada and the United States has exhibited a similar pattern.
This pattern shows that during the same period of time the price level in Canada had a tendency to follow that of the United States. When the consumer prices committee was sitting, it heard from many economists and experts about the causes of price increases

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
and possible solutions. Not one of these economists suggested that the solution lies in price control. When each expert appeared before the committee, we asked him if the solution was price control. Almost unanimously, they replied that if you try to deal with the problem of inflation through price control, you deal with the symptoms and not the cause of the problem. In other words, you will not really solve the problem for the Canadian consumer by controlling a particular price or prices because this will have a chain reaction which will affect production. In the long run, the consumer will either not get the product concerned or the inflationary pressures will be channelled into other products and other areas.
* (8:40 p.m.)
I wish to refer to the fifth Annual Review of the Economic Council of Canada in which they discuss price stability. I recommend to members of the opposition parties that they read this report because in it are several suggestions for dealing with price stability. Most of these suggestions have been taken up by the government, but to my knowledge none of them have been dealt with today by members of the opposition parties. At page 194 of the review dated September, 1968, the Council states:
One of the main themes of that Review was that there is no simple, easy and quick "policy solution" to price and cost instabilities. A wide range of policies must be brought to bear on the problems.
At page 195, the review continues:
After due allowance for the influence of external price and cost changes, over which Canada may have little or no control, and from which we cannot fully insulate ourselves, we suggest that five essential policy elements are needed to achieve the best possible reconciliation of our price stability goal with other basic economic and social goals. These five elements are:
(1)	the "big levers" of demand policies-monetary and fiscal policies;
(2)	an equally important group of supply policies;
(3)	a number of special policies to cope with particular problems;
(4)	greater public knowledge and understanding about prices and costs; and
(5)	trade and tariff policies.
These are the five solutions put forward by the Economic Council of Canada. The first solution relates to monetary and fiscal policies. I suggest the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) and his predecessor in the last two or three budgets made an attempt to deal with inflation through these tools. The record of the Minister of Finance in this respect is as
June 16. 1969	COMMONS
good as that of any other country in the world using monetary and fiscal policies. However, that is not the only solution.
Secondly, the Economic Council states we must have effective supply policies. Under supply policies they refer to greater labour mobility through manpower policies, improvements in productivity, adjustments to technological change and policies to improve regional balance. In the last two or three years, this government and its predecessor have done much to act in all these areas. The manpower mobility and retraining program was set up by the former government under the leadership of the Right Hon. Mr. Pearson. Productivity was given assistance through several pieces of legislation. One of the newest refers not only to productivity, but regional balance. It is the new bill introduced by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand) with regard to regional industrial incentives.
Third, the report refers to adjustments to technological change. Here again, some of the manpower policies which have been put forward by the government attempt to deal with these matters. Fourth, the Economic Council has stated that there should be better coordination in federal-provincial fiscal planning. During the last two federal-provincial conferences, and in the meetings of officials between and before these conferences, the government has put forward plans to have a better and more efficient control over federal-provincial programs. The government has stated several times this sort of thing is extremely necessary if we are to control prices and inflation in Canada. Action is being taken on that recommendation as well.
As a fifth recommendation, the Council states there must be more information for the Canadian consumer with respect to the reasons and the causes behind pricing. It suggests that a planning committee on economic affairs of the Senate and House of Commons be established. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) in this past week or so stated it is his intention to set up such a committee very shortly. In his white paper on price policy which he put out at the end of last year, the minister stated his intention to set up such a committee.
The next recommendation, and this is a very important recommendation, states that we should try to deal with inflation and price increases through reduction in tariffs and trade barriers. I do not know whether any of the opposition members have dealt with this
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers matter. It is well known that in the budget brought down just two weeks ago one of the important provisions was a full implementation of the Kennedy round proposals dealing with tariff reductions and doing a,way with trade barriers.
You cannot have it both ways. When the government does things such as establishing a prices commission, reducing tariffs, establishing supply policies and production policies, you cannot criticize them at the time such measures are introduced and two months later in a debate such as this pretend that the government is not doing anything. The opposition parties would be more constructive if they would try to make improvements at the time the legislation is brought forward. All we get on opposition days are litanies of complaints and grievances against the government, but not much constructive advice as to the problem at hand.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


Mr. John Lundrigan (Gander-Twillingaie):: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I should take part in this debate because, after having listened to the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand), I wonder if there are any problems in Canada relating to consumer and corporate affairs, the rising cost of living or such other matters as have been mentioned by hon. members today. The hon. member should make the same speech to the people and listen to the reaction. I would have thought there would have been general agreement with the hon. members for Saint-John's East (Mr. McGrath), Lambton-Kent (Mr. McCutcheon), and Edmonton Centre (Mr. Pa-proski) regarding the problems facing the Canadian nation, rather than the theorizing, hypothecating and all the other big words one can use to describe the speech to which I have just listened.
I wish to say a few words nevertheless, because I am very interested in the vote of $16 million for this year which the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) has to piddle around with. That is a poor choice of words, but that $16 million is supposed to be used by the minister to curtail inflation and bring costs under control.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
I suggest the minister has been doing an excellent job building up his expense account because he has certainly been travelling a lot.
10198	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16, 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers Every other day I read a speech that the minister has made in Vancouver, in Edmonton or in some other part of Canada. In those speeches he has indicated to the consumers, "If you have any problems you come to Papa, and Papa is going to solve all of them." He indicates that with speeches, persuasion and perseverance the cost of living is going to be brought down. This is very good advertising politically, but if some of the branches of the minister's department were to review this kind of advertising perhaps they would find that it falls into the category of false advertising. If one looks at the results of the minister's department for the last year, and I can speak with experience only of that year, one could conclude that most Canadians one would think this is the kind of advertising they see in connection with many cereals. It is to be taken with a grain of salt, or to be taken with a hogshead of salt, to use a good Newfoundland expression.
We can have our study groups, our think-ins, our speeches, and all kinds of appointments to various bodies and, according to the minister, this will do the job eventually. I have one suggestion I could make to the minister. Let him turn over the $16 million to me. I then would give back $15 million to the Treasury Board, become a millionaire and achieve the same results as he has achieved with respect to the cost of living.
In all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, I just cannot agree with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand) who says that there is no problem. I cannot see that things are working well in Canada. I cannot understand how the average Joe, Tom, Dick or Harry in Canada is making a go of it. I cannot see how he can buy enough of the proper food. In so far as the cost of food is concerned, I am not going to explain that to the minister. This has been done adequately and well in this debate already.


William Warren Allmand: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Is the hon. member rising on a question of privilege or a point of order?


William Warren Allmand: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. Twice in his speech so far the hon. member has stated that I said there was no problem of inflation in Canada. I just said that the opposition parties never gave any solution for the problem.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is referring not to a question of privilege but to a point of debate.


John Howard Lundrigan: Mr. Speaker, I cannot see how the average fellow can get along today in view of the cost of living. According to the papers I have read, the only cost that has gone down has been the cost of toilet paper. Take the cost of clothing. I cannot see how the average person can adequately clothe his family. If he can afford to buy building materials, he cannot afford to have a house constructed. If he happens to need a repair job done on his home, he just cannot pay the carpenter or the plumber.
If the average Joe has a health problem he had better stay sick because he cannot afford to pay the doctor. If he takes part in a government health plan, his taxes will go sky high. If he wants to buy a car, and the average person in Canada cannot afford to buy a car, the first problem he faces is where is he going to get the money? Secondly, if he does get the money how can he afford to pay the interest on the loan?
Then, he is faced with the cost of educating his children. I can give the minister some facts on the costs of education. Further, if the average Joe does get an education, where is he going to get a job in this country? Even the church is saying, "You have to pay more money." The clergy have to go on holidays and they want an extra dollar. Mr. Speaker, all the time I am talking about the average Canadian Joe. If there is a dollar left after he has paid for the necessities of life, and usually there isn't, the government will take it in taxes.
The average Joe used to be able to buy a dozen beer now and then. Following the recent tax increase in Ontario the price of beer went to $5 a case, so he cannot do that. He couldn't afford it in Newfoundland at any time. If he wants to go on holidays, first of all the government taxes hotel costs at 5 per cent or 10 per cent. Then, if he gets to an hotel he cannot afford to tip the waitress enough, and the waitress won't give good service unless she gets a good tip. If he has a television set he can't afford to get it repaired or timed up.
I could continue in this vein and talk about the cost of furniture.
What if the average Canadian Joe is not working? Here, I am talking about 20 per cent of the Canadians who lived in Atlantic Canada last year. In Newfoundland well over 20 per cent of them were unemployed, and in
June 1G, 1969	COMMONS
some parts of Atlantic Canada and in the more rural parts of Newfoundland, over 50 per cent of them were unemployed.
If he is unemployed, is it because he does not want to work or is it because there is no job opportunity for him? I would like the minister to decide this one. But it isn't his problem. He got elected; he doesn't have to worry about these things. I hear all this talk about, "Send your dollars to Care of Canada." Sometimes it makes me wonder.
If the average Joe happens to be unemployed there is just no chance in the world for him to get beyond the level of holding body and soul together. He can forget about education and the other amenities. This is the same guy I was talking about a few minutes ago, whose taxes are so high that he has little alternative but to go on strike or watch his pay cheque go out the government window.
We in the opposition have brought this matter to the attention of the government this year. I look around and see many members who have told the government, "You are taxing the Canadian worker into the ground." Some hon. members across the way say that is the way to bring inflation under control. They say, "Let us put a 3 per cent surcharge on his income tax; let us bring in an indirect taxation policy for all the provinces." This is the great cry I heard from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) today, that we are going to allow the provinces to tax Canadians indirectly. As taxes increase the average man pays another $5, another $10 or another $15. He gets himself in debt to the point where he has difficulty surviving, then he goes on strike. If he gets higher wages, then the government taxes him more. You cannot blame the average Canadian for becoming restless in the Canadian labour market. I see a number of hon. members here who are quite aware of the labour problems.
Am I going to blame the average Canadian for this? I feel like blaming somebody for the high cost of living, but when I see the results of the budget I cannot blame the average Canadian. As a matter of fact, I can only express surprise that he has not gone further.
Now, Mr. Speaker, if I may become a little parochial I will reflect on the position of the average Newfoundland worker today. In Newfoundland his per capita income, believe it or not, is roughtly $1,000 a year, about half of the average income in Ontario. If the average Newfoundlander who has a per capita income of $1,000 has a wife and two children, he will then have $4,000 per year.
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
If you are living in Newfoundland and you make $4,000 a year, you have quite an income. You are perhaps a professional person. You are certainly not the average fisherman because fishermen make $1,000 per family per year. Anyway, this chap makes himself $4,000 per year. Let me explain what the average person can do with that, but let me take another Newfoundlander who is perhaps in the more usual situation in Newfoundland. I refer to the person who, according to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, in February and March, 1969, was working for $62 for a 44.8 hour week. But as a matter of fact he wasn't, because he was out of work at that time. But if he had been working, he would have been making $62.
Now, if he works five months a year he is a lucky Newfoundlander-June, July, August, September and October. If the companies do not close him out before October he is fortunate. That nets him $1,240. Now, if the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey) is not too tough he might be able to sneak in under the unemployment insurance regulations and get another $700, which brings him up to a total of $1,940. There are tens of thousands of people like him in Newfoundland.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
Let us allow him 27 per cent for housing or let us make it 25 per cent; that is roughly $45 a month for housing. If he owns his own home he can put on clapboards every 25 years. If not he, has a place for $45 a month equivalent to the average Toronto outhouse if they still have them there. They don't-all right. In other words, he does not have a place to live. I am talking about an O'Brien when I am talking about an average Newfoundlander. Let us allow him 20 per cent for food. That is $25 a month or enough for two T-bone steaks at the Red Line restaurant for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. We will allow him 15 per cent for clothing. That is enough for sneaker boots for his family if he has a gymnasium, but probably there would not be one at the school. Let us allow him 10 per cent for education, or about, $10 a month. Let us allow him 10 per cent for his leisure. We will even give him a holiday. That gives him approximately two bottles of Screech per month. That is what I am talking about.
This may seem a little funny to many hon. members, but I am talking about the average Newfoundland person who works in the average fishing operation and is trying to provide for his family delicious meals of the type for
10200	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers which we do not pay very much in the parliamentary restaurant. I should like to refer again to the average fisherman in Atlantic Canada, and I am glad to see the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Davis) here tonight because he will well remember what I am going to say. Last year we had what everyone thought was a very good program by which the average fisherman was guaranteed-Mr. Speaker this is a word we really love, "guaranteed"-that he would receive for his fish the average of the price that he had received in the previous three years. This is what he was guaranteed last year. So he received between 2 cents and 4 cents per pound if he lived in Valleyfield, Newfoundland and as high as 4 cents a pound if he lived in the more affluent parts of the province. This was the guaranteed price for his fish. If you look at the prices of this type of product on the market it is difficult to believe what has happened.
Again this year, everyone was delighted to find that the same fisherman would receive the same price for his fish that he had received in the previous three years. Forget about the increase in the cost of living, the increase in taxation and the increase in educational costs, they were to be guaranteed the same price they received in the past three years. So, he received this year between 2 cents and 4 cents a pound and as high as 4 cents a pound for his fish. Look at the price per pound of fish in the supermarket. You would never believe it., I tell you that you will look twice before you purchase it. It is a little difficult to believe. I looked this weekend and a pound of fresh Atlantic cod was selling for 75 cents a pound and a pound of fresh haddock was selling for $1.25. Where is the money going? It is not going into the pockets of the fisherman because he is being literally so dehydrated economically that he will blow away. This is the situation with which we are faced. The money is not going into the pockets of the average Canadian fisherman. Something must be wrong. The minister sits there, but he spends $16 million. The department says, "Come to Poppa". We are coming to poppa, but poppa says he has no money. He has no power; he has nothing.
In this blue document I do not see one bit of evidence that anything is being done for the consumer. I see all kinds of people earning $16,000, $18,000, $20,000 or $35,000 working for the minister. There are all kinds of administrative costs. I should like to have hon. members look through this document. The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace [Mr. Lundrigan.l
DEBATES	June 16, 1969
(Mr. Allmand) has left his seat but is still in the house. I say to him that he should glance through it and see where the money is going. I do not see any evidence there of anyone in this department working to help the consumer. The minister is building a $16 million empire for himself. I would like to have this $16 million. As I said before, the country would save $15 million and I would be a millionaire.
I could go on and talk about the cost of education. I went to university in 1956. I spent $720. I did not drink any beer. I did not smoke any cigarettes. I purchased my books I studied and spent $720. Two years later I spent $1,500. In 1965 I was a student again. It cost me and my family-this is not a good statistic-approximately $7,000. This year I doubt if the average Canadian student could get through university with less than about $2,000. But the same student cannot find a summer job. If he does find a job he cannot earn enough money to buy his books and pay his tuition. Four hundred and fifty dollars is about the cheapest tuition fee you can find at a Canadian university. Again, if he does happen to get this $450 he will end up having to obtain a student loan with the highest rate of interest. I could go on and tell the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs that we do have a problem in Canada. Frankly speaking, I do not see any great effort being made by the government. You can present it in black, white, green, red, yellow, orange or in any way you like to show that we have a problem but they shake their heads. They do not see it.
Perhaps we have a government so geared to the sophisticated thinking about the great contributor to party funds that they cannot see beyond this. Basically, I do not think this government identifies itself with the average Canadian. I do not mind not being able to solve a problem overnight, but I do mind when we have a government which does not have in mind the interests of the average Canadian.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, during the course of the debate today, or at least that part of it which I had the privilege to hear, there has been a great deal of complaining on the part of the opposition about consumer prices but no mention of what they would support by way of action to come to grips with the problem.


An hon. Member:: You are the government.
June 16, 1969


Mr. Crouse:: Resign; we will take over and show you.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: We do not need to resign. The opposition members had a chance from 1957 to 1962 and again into 1963. They demonstrated how they could mess up the finances of the country. They were thrown out of office by the people of Canada and the number of seats they lost was an all time high. An opinion has been expressed that the opposition are confused. It becomes evident every day how the opposition is confused, so I do not think we need carry on a debate in that vein.
I think we should come to grips with the problems and identify them in an effort to indicate what ought to be done about them. I believe it would be wise for the opposition to say they believe the government ought to impose price controls, if that is what they favour. Certainly, it seems to me it is not in keeping with their responsibility to simply complain and try to point out some problems without suggesting what they would support by way of solution.


Gerald William Baldwin: Read our amendments for the last six months.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I read it.


Gerald William Baldwin: Not this one, all of them.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: My only purpose in rising is to indicate that the basic producers, for the most part the farmers in this country, have not had an increase in the price of their raw materials in relation to the increases that have been charged at the retail level. I want to develop that point slightly, and then perhaps have one or two things to say about what has in fact happened over these a few years. The prices received by farmers for the products they sell, on the average have increased very little in recent years. In fact in 1951, 18 years ago, the index stood at 296.8 based on 1935-39 being 100. Of course we have to use that index because that is what was being used at that time. Last year, for the full year, the index was up to 302.2 on this base, or only up about 1 per cent. For the last month which is available, April, 1969, the D.B.S. indicates the index stood at 301, so it has gone up about 1 per cent on the average since 1951.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
The composite index relating to what was paid by farmers for the goods and services they need in order to carry on their operations, and this excludes their own living costs,
10201
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers rose by 70 per cent during that period. So when we contend that farmers have not received a justifiable increase in the prices of the products they sell on the market there are statistics to bear out this fact.
For example, there were some complaints about beef prices. On May 1, 1952, choice steers sold in Toronto at $25.26 per hundred weight or about 25J cents. That is not the highest point at which beef sold, but by May 1, 1952 beef prices had declined rather significantly from what they were a few weeks earlier.
Then, we turn to May 1, 1964, but I can give you the figures for 1963 or 1962 if hon. members think they would be happier figures because these were the years they were in office. I am not blaming them for the price of beef, but I am pointing out it had declined by May 1, 1964 to 24\ cents per pound. In May of 1966, the price stood at an average of 27i cents per pound for choice steers in Toronto. Bearing in mind these figures, sirloin steak sold on the market in 1952 for 93.4 cents per pound. There was a very small increase in receipts to farmers. By 1968, the price of sirloin steak had gone up to $1.26 per pound, with very little change in the live price of beef.
There has been a great deal of discussion about beef prices in the last few days, but this is not the only commodity for which there has been a price change. Let us turn to pork, for example. On May 1, 1952, a Grade A hog sold in Toronto at $26 per hundred pounds, and by 1968 this had gone up slightly to $27.55. Let us then take a look at the price of pork products being sold over the counter. On June 16, 1952 the price of pork products had increased. For example, pork chops were selling at 56.3 cents per pound. By 1968 this had gone up to 88 cents per pound and there had not been a significant change in the price received by the farmer.
You could go on and on to show this situation in respect of one commodity after the other. For instance, eggs were selling at 59.1 cents a dozen in 1952 and by 1968 the price had not even been maintained but had dropped to 55.6 cents.


Mr. Bigg:: Where was that?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: That is the average price here in Canada.
The point I am trying to get at is there are some other inputs in the cost factor between the producer and the consumer who purchases at the retail level. To make a blanket

10202	COMMONS
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers condemnation of the government or anyone else involved in this situation, in my opinion, is not being honest, realistic or fair. There has been a very important change during that period of time in the kind of services that the consumer has demanded, and I mean demanded in a way that the consumer would be willing to pay for during this period of time. I am suggesting this is where we need to address our attention. What has happpened in processing along the way?
We had a very thorough examination made several months ago during which time witnesses were called. An attempt was made to see what justification there was for these price increases by the Joint Committee on Consumer Prices.


Mr, Horner:: Would the minister permit a question?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Certainly.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: If the minister believes there are other inputs that have caused these huge price increases, is he aware that in the last two weeks since the campaign was started by the minister of consumer affairs, the price to the producer has gone down about two cents? This is strictly the result of this campaign. Why did he not act quicker in condemning his colleague?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I did not act sooner, quicker or anything else in condemning the minister, because he was talking about the retail price of beef and I was talking about the price to the producer, which is not the same thing. My hon. friend knows that probably better than I do.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: He was suggesting a boycott on beef in order to lower the price.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: The point is that there has been a significant change in demand in respect of the amount of processing and other things which relate to the cost factor between the producer and the consumer.
To speak specifically to the matter of beef,
I	think it is pretty well known, and if it is not I should like to point this out, that the beef cattle population in Canada during the past three years or so has been declining. In 1951 the number of cows and heifers on farms which were kept for beef purposes was estimated at about 1,250,000. This number rose in a relatively steady fashion for ten or
II	years, and by 1965 had doubled. Since then there has been an annual reduction in the number of beef cattle on farms. For example,

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
in 1968 there were 2,920,000 as compared with 3,035,000 in 1965. I do not believe there is anything more convincing that the production of a certain commodity is not paying sufficient returns than the fact that people discontinue production or reduce it. That is exactly what has happened.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Might I ask the hon.
minister a question?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I understand the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) had a chance to make a speech earlier today. Perhaps he would let me do that now because I am trying to sort this out in perspective. If we are to have the quality and quantity of beef in Canada that I believe Canadians ought to have, because we can produce it here, surely Canadians are not going to object to paying the producer for the cost of that production.
There is a choice that consumers can make as to which cut to buy at certain seasons. Certainly, the entire beef animal is not made up of steak. There is a great deal more to that animal and I know that even today when all these complaints are being made there are cuts of high quality beef available at substantially lower prices than those quoted here in the house. I think this is more directly related to what the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) was talking about.


Stanley Ronald Basford: They just want to confuse things.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: When the farmer takes his animals into the stockyard he has to sell the whole animal, not only the sirloin and T-bone steaks.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: We discussed that.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: You may have discussed it, but I am not sure you appreciated it.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) was not here today to hear my speech. He did not think it important to be here this afternoon. The only point I want to make is that I was very fair in that regard, pointing out that the dressed weight of a beast represents only 60 per cent of his weight on the hoof. I was very fair in showing the difference, and very careful in that respect. I ask the minister.-*
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)


Mr. Whelan:: You are splitting hairs.
June 16, 1969


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: You could not split fish; that is why they made you Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries. The hon. member is ignorance personified.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: To further substantiate the point I am trying to make, I would like to quote some other statistics. In 1949 the farm value, or the farmer's receipt, as a per cent of the retail value on domestically produced foods- this includes the whole group-was about 60 per cent. By 1950 to 1954 his percentage of the dollar had gone down to 56 per cent; by 1955 to 1959 it had gone down to 47 per cent. Then there is the period that hon. members in the opposition like to talk about. I refer to the years 1960 to 1964. In that period, the percentage of the farm value of food had gone down from 47 per cent to 43 per cent. So, there was not any change just because a different government was in office. By 1965, the farm value was 44 per cent; by 1966 it had risen to 45 per cent; and in 1967 it went down to 43 per cent.
This has been going on regardless of change of government, and so on. It seems abundantly clear to me that when there are great complaints about the increase in the cost of living index and the component part related to food, this increase has not occurred because the farmer has obtained larger receipts. I notice that there are complaints about the cost of living and these complaints are usually made in regard to food; indeed, two or three years ago far more attention was paid to that component of the cost of living index than any other. Yet when you examine the facts, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics figures from 1950 to 1965 show that the price of food has increased less than any other component factor in the cost of living index. It is important that this be understood by the consumers of Canada.
I could go on for quite a long time and select other food items. I could go on and quote statistics to substantiate what I am trying to point out. However, I shall not do so because the opposition suddenly say they agree with me and have pointed out these things. We realize that there is an increase in the cost of food, but I suggest that when complaints are made that it is because of gross farm receipts, this is not the place to look for the increase in the cost of living.
I would also like to suggest that neither the opposition nor the people of Canada would like this or any other government to introduce rigid price controls. Price control in a free market economy is effected by what the
10203
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers consumer demands with her purchasing. There has been a very significant increase in the processing, packaging, servicing, and so on demanded by the Canadian consumer. I am not saying the Canadian consumer is wrong. If he or she wants it that way, of course all they need do is purchase highly processed foods. This has been going on for a long, long time.
The conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I say that if the situation with respect to beef is to be one in which the producer will be denied this recent adjustment in price, we will return to a situation where it is not profitable to produce these animals. I suggest that further down the road there will be more difficulty, because the supply situation will not meet the demand. This is precisely what has happened in the beef market during the last few weeks. What is more-and perhaps this is to some extent being overlooked-exactly the same thing is happening in the United States. Indeed, the increases we have experienced in this country were triggered in the United States some time in late March or April. So when we talk about a deficit supply of beef in relation to the demand, this is not confined to Canada; indeed, it is not even confined to North America. However, it did occur here rather suddenly. The unfortunate thing about this situation is that the price of beef did not start to move up and keep pace with the general price structure eight or ten years ago, If it had, we would not suddenly have found ourselves in the position we are today where there is an acute shortage in relation to the demand.
I hope all those people who may be inclined to condemn the farmer and the producer for the situation today will bear in mind all these other factors that are not only equally important, but are substantially more important in regard to what has happened to the price of some food products.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I rise with some hesitancy to speak in this debate, because I ask why I should make, in the eyes of the consumers, a knight in shining armour out of this so-called consumer affairs minister. He has attempted to gather consumers' votes all across Canada. It is a well known fact that there are more consumers than producers. It is a well known fact that there are more votes to be gathered by appeasing the consumer and asking: Who cares about the producer? The producer has become a very lowly force in the political sphere of Canada.

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Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
One can readily see why the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Bas-ford), the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) and the government have attempted to bring down the price of beef to the producer. In fact, since the minister's statement of two weeks ago one can check the statistics of the livestock market and he will find I am stating the fact. Two or three weeks ago in the Calgary market the price of prime steers to the producer was 35 cents a pound. Today it is down to 33 cents a pound. This is a direct result of the fear instilled by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs when he bought the argument of Loblaws which was quoted earlier today, and I shall quote it again. This newspaper article reads in part as follows:
Federal Consumer Affairs Minister Ron Basford has urged consumers to boycott beef, saying they are the only people who can bring the price down. His statements supported a boycott call by Leon Weinstein, President of the Loblaw Groceterias Ltd. supermarket chain.
The minister should put a feather in his hat because he has already brought down the price of beef to the producer by two cents a pound. I heard over the weekend the great defence of the primary producer by the Minister of Agriculture, who stated that the price of beef is justified. The producers have had no basic increase since 1951, when the price was as high as it is now. It took a sharp drop after 1951, and then slowly worked its way up again.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)
I ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) : How are we going to keep up the price to the producer in view of the fact that his colleague in the cabinet is urging consumers to boycott beef? Is that the way the price is going to be maintained? I do not think he would agree with the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, and certainly no one in the primary producing field would agree. It is all well and good for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to agree with the grocery chains and the supermarkets, but what about the Batten report which was supported by the prairie provinces a few years ago? Who did the commissioners think was the biggest culprit responsible for the increased cost to the consumer? It was not the primary producer. They suspected it was the chain stores, and they had plenty of evidence to substantiate their suspicions. The minister said: Bring out your evidence, and a

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
member on the other side also asked for evidence. The Batten report brought forth plenty of evidence.
One can go back and look up the Gordon report of 1956 and 1957 in which the whole matter of the price of meat was dealt with. The minister sits there and chews his hearing aid. He would be better off if he put it in his ear and listened. It is all well and good for the Minister of Agriculture to suggest that, although he has come late to the defence of primary producers, better late than never. I suggest to him that he came to their aid two weeks late. What is the official position of his government with regard to the price of beef? That is the question that farmers ask themselves today. What did the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) have to say about this three weeks or a month ago in Vancouver? He said he urged primary producers in New Zealand and Australia to export beef to this country in the hope that it might lower the price of beef to Canadian consumers. How would it lower it, since it still has to go through the same marketing process and it still has to go through the same chain stores? It would lower the price of beef to the primary producer. That is who would be hurt.
There are two ministers over there against one. I think the one minister who is attempting to defend primary producers, instead of coming in two weeks late to their defence, in the future had better be two weeks early because he is against two ministers and it is pretty hard to predict where his leader stands in the matter. I would be inclined to think he is with the two rather than the one. In fact, there is no question about it. The price of beef has increased purely because of the shortage in the supply of beef, ever since the winter of 1964-65. One can go back and check the records to see that there has been a diminishing number of cows in the beef industry in Canada. At the same time the consumption of beef has gone up in the last 20 years, and so has the quality of the product. One has only to check the number of red and blue brands of beef that has been slaughtered every week over the past number of years to see that the percentage has gone up steadily every year. Consumers today are eating a better brand of beef. They are paying a little more for it, but it is nothing in comparison with the way in which the wage rates have increased.
Why has the number of cows gone down? Because farmers have not been able to foresee a return on the capital invested in the
June 16. 1969	COMMONS
ranching business which would warrant maintaining their cattle. That is the answer. Ranches have gone out of business and ranchers haven gone into other forms of the livestock industry. The Minister of Agriculture knows this well.
The same thing has been taking place in the United States, so that producers over there cannot ship cattle into this country because their prices are also high, as high as ours in any case. Prices here have gone up to where they should be. Now I ask: How are we going to keep them there, and how will we maintain this return? Members of this house know well the problems which agriculture faces today. The only phase of the agricultural industry that is not subsidized to any degree is the beef industry, and I defy the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs or anyone else in this house to stand up and say that this is not so. There may be an odd experimental farm or an odd grading or testing station here or there that is subsidized, but on the whole the beef industry is the only sector of agriculture that is not subsidized whatsoever. What is the government prepared to do in that regard? Hit it on the head and knock it down so that it has to be subsidized! This is the line of reasoning of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. I pity the Minister of Agrictulture whose defence of livestock producers is so weak. Surely, he can do better. Certainly he should do better.
I do not want to belabour the point this evening because in doing so I fear I will only aid the campaign which the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has started. However, I must point out that agriculture today faces a severe crisis. There is wheat that has not been sold and there are feed grains that have not been sold. Our dairy products are subsidized to the tune of approximately $130 million a year, and yet surpluses are piled up in warehouses all across eastern Canada, particularly powdered skim milk. To top that off, the federal government has not assisted the farmers in marketing their products. On top of all that, most of southern Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan suffered a severe frost last week which brought untold damage once again to the agricultural industry. As if that was not enough, we now see the minister launch a campaign, with the aid of the C.B.C., to boycott the purchase of the one product which
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers the farmers produce without aid from the government.
I urge the Minister of Agriculture to consider how we are going to keep the price of beef at the level at which it should be. How will he convince the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs that the culprit may well be the chain stores which he so ardently supported? Is it because the Liberal party supports big money? Is it because big money has bought the Liberal party so that he has to support them in return in this hour of crisis for the agricultural industry? Is it because they have contributed a great deal toward the recent campaign of his lader? Is this why he feels that he has to support them and why he takes up their cause to protect them? The Batten report gives plenty of evidence as to why this situation has developed. Why does he not look into it? Is he afraid to find evidence that his own friends are the culprits and that the big money interests of the Liberal party are the culprits? Is this what he is afraid of?


Stanley Ronald Basford: We are already investigating.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: That is very interesting. I hope the minister carries this investigation to the limit in order to obtain the answer. As has been mentioned by the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams), the price of beef to the consumer has gone up by approximately 68 cents a pound, which has brought a very small increase to the producer. Some of that increase has already tapered off as a result of the campaign which the minister started with the aid of the C.B.C. and the other news media.
I ask the Minister of Agriculture to take action in the defence of the primary producer and to do his fighting in the caucus. Let him condemn and educate his colleagues in the cabinet before they make any unwarranted charge against the only sector of the agricultural industry that is not a burden to the taxpayer today. Before they make any foolish statements again let him counsel them, advise them and urge them to seek advice from the people who know. These careless, offhand statements only reduce the price to the producer.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
There is one point the minister may have overlooked. When the producer received the lowest price for his product, the margin open to the chain stores goes up. This is documented in the Gordon report on our economic
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Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers prospects, a report which came out in 1956 or 1957. When the primary producers receive least for meat on the hoof, whether hogs or cattle, the margin of profit open to the chain stores and processing plants widens, because there is a readiness on the part of consumers to buy. This is why the chain stores want the price of beef to the producer to drop; it is so they can get a bigger profit themselves. One has only to look at their profit figures to see that they have not suffered, The very fact that the numbers of cows has been so greatly reduced from 1954 onward suggests that farmers and ranchers have suffered, and have reduced their herds correspondingly. Once again I urge the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) to advise his cabinet colleagues so that they can make shrewder public statements, statements less injurious to the industry.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to see a fight developing between the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson).


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: What fight?


William Arnold Peters: It may be a paper fight. It certainly has not done any damage to the individuals concerned if they are carrying on a publicity campaign over the C.B.C. However, they have drummed up some interest in he subject and it may all be worthwhile. My view is that agricultural policy should be explained by the Minister of Agriculture to the minister of consumer affairs, because such policy has played a great role over the past few years in bringing about higher beef prices in Canada.
The minister referred to the year 1952. I remember that in those days we were producing milk. The milk went into a national pool where it was turned into large quantities of butter. The government's whole attention at that time was directed to the elimination of a butter surplus.
I recall that in those days we were selling day-old calves for $2. The other day I was surprised to learn from a person in the cow-calf operation that he had to get at least $100 from various sources as the price of that calf. Well, if the price of calves increases from $2 to $100 one can expect that the price of beef will be prohibitive. We have spent time and effort over a long period in getting rid of surpluses as they developed and part of our problem today lies in the nature of the short term measures used to get rid of those surpluses. Visiting dozens of farmers in the last 
DEBATES	June 16, 1969
few weeks, we have noticed an extreme shortage of calves for the feed industry. In future, the production of calves will become more and more difficult, partly because in western Canada the Liberal government has made plans to end what it calls the nonefficient production of cream.
Everyone raised on a farm knew that cream was uneconomic to produce. However, it is a by-product of the dairy industry. Many farmers were shipping one shotgun can of cream, but they were using the skim milk on the farm as a by-product to feed five or six calves.
All these calves went to the feeder cattle industry either directly or indirectly. We have cut this out. We have eliminated 30,000 or 40,000 of these producers who were so ineffective from the point of view of the government. I do not care what the minister of consumer affair does. Over the last ten years we have eliminated an important source of calf production in this country and we shall not be able to replace it. I think it is ridiculous for anyone to consider going into a cow-calf operation in circumstances where calves are worth $100. As I say, we used to sell these calves for $2 each. Indeed, only a few years ago I can remember going to auction sales and seeing day-old calves sold at from $15 to $25. Nowadays, there are not enough calves to meet the demand and prices will continue to increase.
The Department of Consumer Affairs will not be able to control this movement unless it is able to control the long term planning of the whole industry. Fortunately, here in Canada we have been able to produce food at low cost. We have not experienced the high field prices which have prevailed in other countries. We have always been able to produce in abundance. But if we make it uneconomic to operate any segment of agricultural production we shall be faced with shortages, and we may even be obliged to import food.
I listened to one of the speeches made this afternoon by an hon. member who was evidently using up some of the notes he had made for the budget debate. He told us this country had not done any worse than the United States. If the minister of consumer affairs is really interested in doing something for the consumers of this country he had better look at the attitudes his colleagues are taking toward the financial institutions of this country, because in every instance we have been discussing the problems of the agriculture industry we are finding that at the basis
June 16, 1969	COMMONS
of those problems lies the high rate of interest. Many of those who are engaged in the agriculture industry today are no longer farmers as I knew them or as the Minister of Agriculture knew them. They are agricultural-industrial producers and in most cases they are operating with at least $100,000 in capital, most of it borrowed at between eight or nine per cent. If they are to survive they will have to pay these rates and the only person who can enable them to do that is the consumer.
Any minister of consumer affairs worth his salt will have to consider methods of reducing the cost of capital or else we shall be in serious trouble. To return to the point I had begun to make earlier. The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand) said there was no problem-we were not much worse off than the United States. Possibly he has not looked at the financial pages reporting developments in the United States, but there is an indication that the United States may soon encounter yet more serious difficulties than those which face it at present. Apparently there is not sufficient money available to allow transactions to be made on the stock exchange-indications are that there may not be enough paper money to head off a run on the banks should a run develop. The hon. member may tell us we are no worse off than the United States but I can find little consolation in this assurance. The other day we talked to a number of farmers who were buying fertilizer, a most important commodity in all spheres of agricultural production.
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)
I was interested to note that farmers have to go to the United States to buy a new type of liquid fertilizer. It is not produced in the United States; this fertilizer is produced but a few miles from the farms of these farmers, yet it has to be bought in the United States from some source and delivered to them. This source was only a few miles away. Certain financial interests have now become involved and this liquid fertilizer is moved in bulk by trucks to the United States border. The bill of lading is then signed at the customs office, the fertilizer brought back into Canada and delivered to farms 15 to 20 miles away, I should like to know why this situation has not been referred to the combines investigation branch for investigation. These farmers were told this would be a waste of time. They were told that perhaps the United States might not sell them any fertilizer if they asked for an investigation. In the interest of reducing agricultural costs I think the minister would be
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers quite justified in spending some money in holding an investigation into such a situation. The farmers are told they will be penalized if an investigation is held, that consequently the investigation is not worth the effort.
There are many other commodities apart from fertilizer that might bear examination. I have read many reports by the combines investigation branch over the past three or four years and I agree with them that the penalties imposed are but a licence. A lot of money is being made from disgraceful monopolies of this sort. There is no effective combines legislation in this country. There is no protection from combines that increase the price of beef on the market.
A few minutes ago I noticed the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Davis) reading the back page of this evening's Ottawa newspaper, and if my memory serves me aright-though I did not pay too much attention-cheese is advertised at 56 cents a pound in Ottawa. Normally, this cheese sells in Ottawa stores for 78 cents, but apparently it has been put on special at 56 cents. The stores can do this because that cheese costs only 41 cents a pound in Belleville. The store would have to send the cheese from Ottawa to Belleville and pay for transportation both ways in order to store that cheese, so it is much better to sell it at 56 cents a pound and content yourself with 15 cents a pound on the transaction.
By selling that cheese at a fair market price of 56 cents a pound-and I suggest it could be sold a hell of a lot cheaper than that-we are helping the farmers in this area who produce cheese. We are also providing our consumers with a good protein diet at reasonable price. Why not investigate this situation and ascertain whether or not the mark up on Canadian Cheddar cheese is reasonable? I suggest a combine exists in the sale of cheese in which almost every dairy in the country participates. Only occasionally will a wholesaler put out a loss leader to a chain store, and this is to help the chainstore operator and does not show an interest in supplying a high protein product to the consumer.
It is my opinion that the consumer should not demand low cost agricultural products if this means the end of the industry. In my opinion we are not going to be able to reduce the price of beef to the consumer; rather the price will go up. It will go up because we have destroyed the cow-calf operation which is the basis of beef production. Without calves you cannot raise cattle for beef production. Western farmers can have as many bushels of
10208	COMMONS DEBATES	June 16. 1969
Failure to Reduce Prices to Consumers
gram as they want to give the cows, but unless you have a cow-calf operation you will not produce any beef from this source for the Canadian market.
It must be borne in mind that you cannot produce overnight a cow-calf operation; it is a long term project. This sort of operation was effectively destroyed when we decided to discontinue butter production from farm separated cream. I suggest the cabinet evolve some long term programs to deal with this problem and other problems, such as the present surplus of skim milk powder. I do not think we are going to change anything, but I do hope that the minister will consider the problem of combines that I have mentioned and the long term agricultural problems so that we can perhaps do something to remedy the situation before the consumers finds themselves unable to buy groceries.


Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I realize time is running out but may I have two or three minutes to debate this matter. I listened to the hon. member for Peel South (Mr. Chappell), the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Kaplan) and the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. All-mand) but I should like to comment first of all on something said by the hon. member for Don Valley. The hon. member said that as long as there are no signs of a depression or a recession, all is well. I do not understand that type of reasoning. After all, when the noose is tightening around one's throat one knows the end is very close. At such times you do not worry about whether or not there is going to be a depression or a recession.
I suggest that what is required is a policy to remedy what is a fact of life, namely a policy that will enable the people of Canada to buy what they cannot at the moment afford to buy. The hon. member for Don Valley must have thought that he was debating this question in front of some high school children, because he referred to economic theories and went on and on. The important thing to remember is that it is a fact of life that the cost of living is going up and up. Inflation is simply beyond comprehension.
I heard the hon. member for Peel South say that he was not even interested in the price of beef. Perhaps he is a vegetarian or is a consumer of caviar, but I should like to inform him that there are many people who are interested in the price of beef. These people want to know just what is going to happen to prices in this country; it is as simple as that.

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace dragged in the usual red herring and put many statistics on the record relating to the position in the United States.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


James Aloysius McGrath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the house would be disposed to let the hon. member continue for an extra five minutes?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to continue for five minutes?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Hon. members have somewhat embarrassed me, because I could carry on for some time now. Let me inform the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace that we are not interested in statistics in the United States or in Great Britain. What we want is some leadership from this government. The hon. member refers to the position in the United States of America, but that country has a gross national product that is five times ours and a population of 210 million. Let him not compare their economy with ours. If this government has any programs, we will carry them out. I was tickled when I saw the hon. member stand up to justify the minister's position. That is plural. One says, go ahead and block the increase in the price of beef. The other says he is happy about it. I would like to see members of the government get together now and again and come out with a statement on which they all agree. They say it does not matter. Nowadays frustration seems to be the point of this government- frustate the people, bring in the red herrings.
[DOT] (10:00 p.m.)
It is very important that we debate items of this nature because I think the government is pulling the wool over the eyes of the Canadian people. Do you know what the government thinks is important? They think the official languages bill is important. I say one thing, if the bellies aren't full, you don't have to worry about any official languages bill. The government talks about the omnibus bill and homosexuality between two consenting adults. Who cares about that? Abortion? That may be important to some people, but those are the nitty-gritty issues. What is important are the nuts and bolts or bread and butter issues.


Mr. Caiik:: May I ask the hon. member a question?
June 16, 1969


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: No, you cannot ask me a question. I have only four minutes. I wish to read a little story which will take up the balance of my time. This story is from the book, "Life for the Choosing", the 44th Annual Report, 1969, Board of Evangelism and Social Service, the United Church of Canada. The reference in this story is to poverty in Vancouver. I am even bringing in some one else's riding: I am reading from page 95.
When you're old and alone and you measure your days with nickels and dimes, rising prices are more than an inconvenience. They choke off life's last small pleasures and kill the final glimmer of hope for something better.
Mrs. McLeod was asked, how do you live on $1.54 a day? She replied, poorly. Now listen to this:
Old people, Mrs. McLeod rationalizes, have little need or yearning tor rich fare such as steaks, chops or roasts. She shops for bargains in liver, chicken wings, sausage; soup bones, at 10 or 15 cents each, are a staple.
That is almost what you would call soul food, Mr. Speaker.
"I make a lovely soup from two or three bones and some vegetables," she said. "I make enough for a week and put it in jam jars in my refrigerator. I have a jar of soup every day for my lunch."
What I want to know, Mr. Speaker, is whether or not the government is going to project the principles of the just society. The people of Canada are waiting for leadership. I say to the government, don't be hesitant to come before the people of Canada with ideas. I know the government is bankrupt of ideas. There is a crisis here that must be faced, Mr. Speaker. The people of Canada cannot stand the rising prices which we pay for meat, clothing, housing or rent. People need direction. This is the call of the government. This is why they have 155 seats, temporarily. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to complete my remarks.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It
being ten o'clock, it is my duty to inform the house, pursuant to section 11 of Standing Order 58, that the proceedings on the motion are considered to have expired.
I understand the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) will announce the house business.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the government house leader I think it would be
10209
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion useful to put on the record the business for tomorrow, and may I remind hon. members that the house will meet at ten o'clock in the morning. The first item to be called will be No. 75 on the order paper, third reading of Bill No. C-192 regarding the National Housing Act. The second item will be No. 82, report stage and third reading of Bill C-201, again to amend the National Housing Act. Following that we will deal with item No. 78, report stage of Bill C-195 to amend the Fisheries Improvement Loans Act, and following that No. 90 on the order paper, second reading and reference to the committee of the whole of Bill C-207, dealing with Atlantic transportation assistance. If we conclude all of that tomorrow, then on Wednesday we will deal with item No. 4 on the order paper, report stage of Bill C-120, the Official Languages Act.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the house under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been moved.

Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I believe a request was made that this item be postponed until another occasion, when the Minister will be here, and so perhaps you might call the hon. member for Surrey (Mr. Mather).



NOISE ABATEMENT-STEPS TO COMBAT NATIONAL PROBLEM

Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey):: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago on Orders of the Day I attempted to ask the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro) a question relative to noise, and particularly noise in industry. I wanted to know what consideration the government is giving to this very important area of public health. Noise is now recognized as a major non-fatal disease in the United States, and last month that country took legislative action to combat it. At the time Mr. Speaker ruled the question out of order and, accordingly, I take advantage of this late period to raise it again.
Hon. members may recall that a few weeks earlier a bill of mine was given first reading, the point of which is to limit the noise

10210	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion volume in factories or other establishments having business with the Government of Canada to 85 decibels. I want to say at once that this limit of 85 decibels is a very high level and one which, in many minds, should be reduced to a much lower level. But in my opinion it would be a start and an example. At 85 decibels the noise volume is described by health experts as, "when you can hardly hear yourself speak." I am very hopeful that the Minister of National Health and Welfare who, in my opinion, is a very forward looking minister and is taking up the several health problems of the nation as best he can, will be interested in trying to do something about noise as a health factor as soon as his department can get around to it.
Hon. members may be familiar with recent magazine and newspaper agitation for action on this issue, I quote from an editorial in the Toronto Globe and Mail of May 26, which says in part:
How many of us escape . .. sound pollution? Even farmers, who are supposed to be safe in the quiet countryside are going deaf at a rattling rate because the tractors they drive make a racket from 7 to 29 decibels above the 85 decibel level at which hearing is damaged. Such hearing loss is imperceptible in its advance until it becomes serious, and it is incurable. Dr. Douglas Warren of the University of Toronto's School of Hygiene has described deafness, whether partial or total, as Canada's major non-killing public health problem. It is a sad condition, too, which often drives the victim into emotional isolation.
Yet this very serious problem has scarcely been assessed, let alone tackled.
I wish to give another brief quotation from a submission of the Ontario Federation of Labour, as follows:
The number of industrial workers subjected to harmful noises very likely exceeds those exposed to any other occupational hazard.
As I said earlier, last month the United States government moved to combat this health problem caused by noise. My question tonight is again, what action does the government, either through the Department of National Health and Welfare or the Department of Labour, intend to take to combat industrial unrest in Canada.
[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)


Mr. Yves Forest (Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Davis) who will not be here tonight I shall try to answer the hon. member's question. First of all I should like to commend the hon. member for his timely

DEBATES	June 16, 1969
comments in respect of this growing problem. The department is actually preparing a summary of its activities in this area which will be forwarded to the hon. member shortly. At this time, however, I should like to report to the house that the matter of noise pollution control has been under review and development by the department for some time. The Department of National Health and Welfare, as in the past, continues to work with various other government agencies such as the National Research Council in an attempt to find solutions to specific problems and perhaps more importantly to develop practical standards to guide industry and government in the control of these growing problems.
The department intends to continue its current level of activity in the forthcoming fiscal year with a possible increase in its activity in the next fiscal year in recognition of the growing need for information and practical measures of control.



NATIONAL PARKS-BOUNDARIES FOR WOOD BUFFALO PARK

Paul Yewchuk: Mr. Speaker, my brief talk this evening arises as a result of a question I asked the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Chretien) a few days ago. I do not know whether he is here or whether someone is here to answer for him. I saw him here a few moments ago. I asked him whether he could give some information concerning when negotiations with regard to the boundaries of Wood Buffalo park would be resumed between the province of Alberta and the federal government. I put this question to him because I feel the people of northeastern Alberta, Fort Chipewyan, Fort Smith and the people in part of northern Saskatchewan in the Eldorado region as well as the people in Fort McMurray, have been victimized by this government and to some extent perhaps by the government of the province of Alberta.
This victimizing has been done as a result of the two governments blaming each other for inactivity in respect of the development of Wood Buffalo park. There are two major problems which I should like to mention. One concerns the industrial development in the area of the park to provide jobs and the other is the matter of the construction of roads in the vicinity of the park in order to provide a communication link with the rest of the province. As I mentioned previously, the greatest problems in this region are those of isolation, unemployment and abject poverty among the
June 16, 1969
citizens who live in that section of the country.
In February, 1968 a northern roads conference was held at Fort McMurray at which representatives from the Alberta, Saskatchewan and the federal government participated. At that time these representatives from these three governments indicated that as soon as the federal government and the government of Alberta could reach some settlement concerning the boundaries of the park some sort of industrial development program would be undertaken.
When 1 came here last fall, I attempted to find out what negotiations, if any, were in fact going on. Much to my dismay I found that no active discussions had been going on for two years or more, and that the responses given to the people in that region brought about a misconception of the situation on their part. Prior to Christmas I asked the minister this question:
Are active negotiations under way between the federal and the Alberta governments concerning the Wood Buffalo Park boundaries and is an agreement imminent?
The answer was:
No, however, it is anticipated that discussions with the province of Alberta will be resumed in the near future. It is not possible to state when agreement will be reached at this time.
I spoke to the premier of the province of Alberta three weeks ago. At a public meeting he indicated that as soon as an agreement could be reached concerning where the boundaries should be they could proceed with some industrial development to provide jobs for the people of that area. I should like to know whether any negotiations are going on at the present time, whether the federal government has any plans to negotiate the ownership of that park, and if so when. The provincial government indicated it is willing to make a trade with the federal government for some land which I think is known as the "badlands". It is not willing to give as many acres of this land as are contained in Wood Buffalo Park, since this is such a huge area. The provincial government has at least led the people to believe that industrial development would take place in that region if that trade could be made and that development would be possible once it was no longer park land.
It is fair to say that the people in northeastern Alberta are tired of hearing one government blame another by saying that unless an agreement is reached nothing will happen 29180-6465
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion when there really is no intention that anything will happen. I was in Whitecourt a few weeks ago and the people there still think something is imminent and will happen within a few months or within the next year. I do not think anything will happen and it is not fair to the people in that area of the country to mislead them in this way.
There is to be a new road conference at Eldorado in the near future when people are supposed to be told about a new highway north of Fort McMurray to Fort Smith and Fort Chipewyan. The provincial government apparently has surveyed this highway and it will release information as to whether it will go ahead. I wonder whether the minister can tell us that the government really plans to participate in the construction of a highway like that. If he cannot, will he say so in order that the people will not expect something that is not going to happen? It is time we were honest with the people of Alberta, and I hope the minister can provide some of these answers.


Hon. Jean Chrelien (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the hon. member for calling my attention to this problem of which I have been aware now for some time already.
It is true that in the Wood Buffalo Park, in Alberta, some problems now under consideration do exist.
The first matter which I should like to bring up is whether or not the Wood Buffalo National Park should be a provincial or federal park.
I must tell the hon. member that the land which was set aside for the Wood Buffalo National Park belonged to the federal government and that only later on was the control over that land passed on to the Alberta government. That land has always belonged to Her Majesty in the right of Canada and it is wrong to say that we should hand it back to the government of Alberta because it never belonged to it.
The Wood Buffalo National Park is a very big park. I know that problems do exist, that Indians are living there, and that it might be possible to work out some arrangements in order to meet their wishes and to promote their economic development. The problem exists and we are now studying plans related to it together with the government of Alberta.

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I must admit that negotiations may not be going as fast as the hon. member would wish, but in 1967 or 1968 I think my predecessor informed the government of Alberta that he was considering the possibility of some exchanges that might solve the problems now existing in the Wood Buffalo Park, which would enable us to complete our national parks network in Alberta by acquiring the undeveloped lands in the south of the province. However, the negotiations are still going on.
As for the problem of the road, I must say that it is a huge park and almost intact which constitutes one of the rare areas in Canada and even in America where such a large stretch of land has been reserved for the conservation of wild life. We have had some success with the conservation of the western buffaloes which represent a very important part of our national heritage.
I know that within 10, 15 or 20 years the people of Alberta like the other Canadians will be grateful to us for having taken the necessary measures to maintain this park in the best possible condition.
As for the question of building the road, it is connected with the importance of the park and with the activity that can be found there.
I know that the province is interested in building a road near the park and that some
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border adjustments would perhaps be necessary so as to allow for its construction. I am prepared to discuss the matter with the government of Alberta in order to find a solution to this problem.
But I doubt that we have the necessary funds to build a road-unless the Alberta government wants to do it at its own expense-seeing the province can afford it; if it were to decide to do so, an agreement could certainly be reached-from the southern tip of the park to the Northwest Territories. Later on, it might be possible, but according to me, we would be unable to build it across the park within the next few years.
I can assure the hon. member that I take a personal interest in the problem, and that I shall take all the necessary steps to meet the demands of the people who live in the park, the Indians and, at the same time, to find an equitable solution not only for the citizens of Alberta but also for all those Canadians who are interested in conserving that land for future generations.


Mr, Deputy Speaker:: Order. This house now stands adjourned until ten o'clock tomorrow morning.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.24 p.m.

Tuesday, June 17, 1969