1969-05-15

Mr. J. Edward Broadbeni (Oshawa-Whit-by):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege arising out of the tabling last Thursday, May 8, at the meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs of a document labelled a "cost-benefit analysis". This document was requested by me at a prior meeting of this committee, as reported on page 2045 of the committee proceedings. The chairman at that time indicated that it would be printed as an appendix to that day's proceedings. Although this was not done at that time it did appear as an appendix to the committee proceedings last Thursday, following a commitment made in this house on Wednesday, April 23 by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Forest).
The document was requested originally, Mr. Speaker, because in the context of a discussion on military research and development at the committee's hearing on April 1, the assistant deputy minister asserted that a cost-benefit analysis that had been done by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce showed that probably benefits would exceed costs at the ratio of 24:1.
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)
However, Mr. Speaker, the document which was finally presented to the committee was not, in fact, a cost-benefit study as prescribed by the Treasury Board Manual Planning Programming Budgeting Guide. In fact it is a one-page collection of items which bears no resemblance to a cost-benefit analysis. The committee, in short, was not presented with what was promised.
I raised this matter at the earliest opportunity as a question of privilege at the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs. This morning, Mr. Speaker, the chairman of that Committee ruled against my question of privilege and asserted that
since the parliamentary secretary to the President of the Privy Council had stated in this house that a cost-benefit study would be produced for the committee, a question of privilege should appropriately be raised in this place.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I move-
-that the subject matter of this question of privilege be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections to determine the course to be taken to obtain the promised cost-benefit analysis.


Mr. Speaker:: In accordance with the provi-ions of Standing Order 17(2) the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) gave notice to the Chair of his intention to raise a question of privilege. I think I should mention to him that although the provisions of the Standing Order indicate that a written statement showing the substance of the matter to be raised shall be filed with the Chair, there is not much advantage in informing the Chair about one hour in advance of the sitting of the house that a question of privilege is to be raised. The point raised by the hon. member is contentious, and at first blush I doubt whether it is possible to refer from one committee to another committee a question considered in the first of these committees.
A similar point I believe was raised by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) some weeks ago, when he suggested that the motion which had been considered in the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications ought to be referred for further consideration to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections. As I said, the problem raised by the hon. member has some complexity. Perhaps I might have an opportunity to look at the matter more closely and, later in the afternoon, after I have had a chance to look at the record, to give a ruling.


Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: May I remind Your Honour that the subject matter of my question of privilege to do with the motion for a certain matter to be considered by the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections is still before the house for debate.

Canadian Sovereignty in Arctic



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, honourable members will recall my indicating recently that the government would make a policy statement regarding the question of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. I should like to make that statement at this time.

I have already informed the house that Canada's sovereignty over its Arctic regions, including the islands of the Arctic archipelago, is well established and that there is no dispute concerning this matter. No country has asserted a competing claim; no country now challenges Canada's sovereignty on any other basis; and many countries have indicated in various ways their recognition of Canada's sovereignty over these areas. The government is not aware of any maps allegedly disputing Canadian sovereignty over certain Arctic lands. I can assure the house that if any such maps do exist they have no official standing and do not affect Canada's position in any way. The Arctic mainland and islands form an integral part of Canada and we have extended to them the administrative, legislative and judicial framework which applies to all parts of Canada.
With reference to offshore resources in the Canadian Arctic, as elsewhere, the Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf provides that the coastal state exercises over the continental shelf sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring it and exploiting its natural resources. These sovereign rights do not depend on occupation or on any express proclamation. No one may explore or exploit the continental shelf off any of our shores without our express consent. Canada's sovereign rights over the continental shelf in the Arctic follow from Canada's sovereignty over the adjacent lands, and again there is no dispute on this matter. No country has asserted a competing claim to the resources in question; no country has challenged Canada's claim on any other basis, and none can do so under international law.. Foreign companies carrying 
DEBATES	May 15, 1969
out exploration activities on the continental shelf in Canada's Arctic areas operate under Canadian permit and licence and in so doing expressly recognize Canada's sovereign rights. The same is true, of course, of foreign oil companies operating on any of our lands in the Arctic or elsewhere.
With respect to the waters between the islands of Canada's Arctic archipelago, it is well known that in 1958 the then minister of northern affairs stated the Canadian position as follows:
The area to the north of Canada, including the islands and the waters between the islands and areas beyond, are looked upon as our own, and there is no doubt in the minds of this government, nor do I think was there in the minds of former governments of Canada, that this is national terrain.

It is also known that not all countries would accept the view that the waters between the islands of the archipelago are internal waters over which Canada has full sovereignty. The contrary view is indeed that Canada's sovereignty extends only to the territorial sea around each island. The law of the sea is a complex subject which, as can be understood, may give rise to differences of opinion. Such differences, of course, would have to be settled not on an arbitrary basis but with due regard for established principles of international law.
I should point out that the legal status of the waters of Canada's Arctic archipelago is not at issue in the proposed transit of the Northwest Passage by the ships involved in the Manhattan project. As the house is aware, this project is sponsored by a number of oil companies and consists of a trial run through the Northwest Passage and into the Beaufort Sea off Alaska by the ice-strengthened tanker Manhattan, accompanied by ice-breakers of the Canadian and US Coast Guards. The exercise is intended to test the feasibility of transporting oil by this method from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay to the northeastern United States and perhaps to Europe.
Needless to say the trials of the Manhattan may be of considerable significance for the development of Arctic navigation. Such development is consistent with both Canadian and international interests, and I do not see that any conflict need arise between Canada's national policy and international responsibility in this connection. Arctic navigation will
May 15, 1969

be an important factor in the general development of northern Canada and as such it will, of course, be encouraged rather than restricted by Canada.

For these reasons the Canadian government has welcomed the Manhattan exercise, has concurred in it and will participate in it. The oil companies concerned and the United States Coastguard have consulted with appropriate Canadian authorities in the planning of the operation. The government will support the trials with the Canadian Coastguard icebreaker John A. Macdonald, as already indicated, and will also provide aerial ice reconnaissance and assume responsibility for the co-ordination of such reconnaissance. The government has also selected and appointed an official Canadian government representative on board the S.S. Manhattan who will act as technical adviser and as co-ordinator of Canadian support for the operation.
[DOT] (2:20 p.m.)


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I am a little puzzled by the length of the statement and the content of the statement made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), with one exception, in that it does not seem to take matters any farther than the ground he had previously covered, and I find somewhat disturbing the comment he has made with regard to the waters between the northern islands.
The Prime Minister refers to positions taken by previous governments and quotes the then minister of northern affairs in a statement made in 1958, laying claim to the islands and the waters between the islands and the areas beyond. I cannot help but wonder whether the effect of the statement made by the Prime Minister this afternoon is to abandon that claim which was asserted previously, leaving the matter strictly on the basis of following scrupulously what the Prime Minister refers to as the principles of international law, which principles are not always as clear as they might be.
I wonder whether this is the attitude that the government of Canada followed when it decided to extend Canadian jurisdiction over our seas. At that time the government of Canada did not set out to follow scrupulously the principles of international law, and of course other governments, for example the government of Iceland, have not done so.
Canadian Sovereignty in Arctic
But, Mr. Speaker, I do not rise to argue about the principles of international law but simply to raise the question of whether the Prime Minister in effect has abandoned a position asserted by previous Canadian governments, and to ask what is the reason for this abandonment if my interpretation is correct. Further, Mr. Speaker, if my interpretation is correct I think this will be regarded by the Canadian people as a matter of rather keen disappointment.
Sir, I would hope that the government would reconsider and bear in mind the fact that the principles of international law are not necessarily all that clear. At least the government should assert our position vigorously and aggressively. As I say, I am disturbed by the manner in which the Prime Minister seems to have abandoned the position taken by previous governments with regard to the assertion of our sovereignty.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that all members welcome the Prime Minister's statement asserting Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic regions and his intention to maintain that sovereignty. I would feel happier if the statement of the Prime Minister with reference to the waters between the islands of the Arctic archipelago had been more forthright. It seems to me that if there is uncertainty with respect to international law concerning these areas, the Canadian government would be well advised to state its sovereignty and allow any other countries that wish to dispute it to refer the matter to whatever international court or international jurisdiction exists, for a judgment on it. It seems to me that if the Canadian government leaves this matter in an indefinite state we are almost inviting someone else to suggest that we do not have jurisdiction, and that this is a question upon which we are prepared to compromise. I think the Canadian government ought to make its position clear beyond any shadow of doubt.
It is not only important that we categorically state our sovereignty over the Arctic regions, but we also remember that this parliament has a responsibility with reference to the resource development of those regions. A great part of the settled areas of Canada is already under the control of foreign oil companies and foreign investors. In many cases this is because provincial governments do not have the necessary funds or expertise to

May 15. 1969
Indian Act
develop these resources themselves or to set up a Canadian consortium for that purpose. But in these regions which come directly under the jurisdiction of the federal government, the Canadian parliament has an opportunity to set up a Canadian consortium with a majority of public ownership and control so that the development of these vast areas will redound to the benefit of Canadians today and Canadians of future generations. The Panarctic consortium which has been established is controlled in the main by United States oil companies. It seems to me that if this assertion of our sovereignty is to have any meaning it must go beyond merely asserting our control over territory; it must also assert Canada's intent to develop the resources of that area for the benefit of Canadians.


Mr. Real Caouetie (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, the members of the Ralliement creditiste are pleased to hear the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) say that Canada actually has sovereign rights on the Arctic islands, but there is some confusion as regards the surrounding waters.
At all events, we hope we never have to cross American, Russian or Chinese waters in order to reach any region in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, at any rate, the statement made by the Prime Minister makes it clear that Canada is sovereign, as far as those Arctic areas are concerned.
I approve also what the leader of the N.D.P. (Mr. Douglas) said, that if Canada rules the Arctic, we should endeavour to proceed with the development of the tremendous natural resources of that area, instead of letting foreigners take them over, to the prejudice of Canadians. To encourage foreign investments is perfectly in order, but it is not proper that foreigners should exploit all those resources to their advantage. A share should at least be given to Canadians who deserve, I believe, to benefit from the development of the natural resources of their country, specially in the Arctic.



PRIVATE BILLS AND STANDING ORDERS


Mr. Gerard Duquet (Quebec East) moved: that the second report of the standing com-

mittee on miscellaneous private bills and standing orders tabled in the house on Thursday, March 27, 1969, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. Raymond Rock (Lachine) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-193, to amend the Indian Act (rights of Indian women upon marriage).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Raymond Rock: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to enable an Indian woman to marry a non-Indian without being deprived of her rights as an Indian and thereby place her on the same basis as an Indian man who marries a non-Indian woman. Presently such persons lose all property rights willed to them by their parents.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
[DOT] (2:30 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker:: When shall the said bin be read a second time?


Some hon. Members:: Now.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to give the bill second reading now?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


An hon. Member:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Next sitting of the house.



CANADA DISASTER FUND

[Stage Direction]
On the order:
May 13, 1969-Mr. Harding-Bill intituled: "An act to provide for the establishment of The Canada Disaster Fund."
Mr. Speaker:: I am advised that the table has not yet received a copy of the bill in question. In view of the fact that the bill has not been presented it is difficult to propose first reading at this time.


Mr. Harding:: Stand, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Reserve.
May 15, 1969



MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S.O. 26 LABOUR CONDITIONS   ALLEGED URGENT SITUATION DISCLOSED BY RELEASE OF CURRENT UNEMPLOYMENT   FIGURES-MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER STANDING ORDER 26

Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave, seconded by the hon. member for York South, to move the adjournment of the house under Standing Order 26 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the urgent situation revealed in the unemployment statistics released today, showing 10.5 per cent unemployment for the Atlantic area, 8 per cent for Quebec, 5 per cent for British Columbia and 5.4 per cent as the over-all figure for the entire country, and the failure of the government to provide policies to cope with this situation.
More significantly, Mr. Speaker, since these April statistics do not yet reflect the 600,000 students who are presently entering the labour force seeking job opportunities for the summer months, it is doubly urgent that parliament adjourn to discuss this important matter.
In conclusion, may I refer Your Honour to your ruling of March 13, 1969, as reported in Hansard. Your Honour ruled that, in considering whether such a general subject can be put before the house, the general rule be discarded if the circumstances of a continuing situation reached critical proportions. I propose that such a time has arrived.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. There are two points I should like to make in connection with the motion proposed by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands, of which he has given appropriate notice under the terms of Standing Order 26. The first point has reference to the form of the notice. Standing Order 26 requires that a member wishing to move that the house do now adjourn shall give to Mr. Speaker a written statement of the matter proposed to be discussed. Subsection (3) adds that at the appropriate moment the member shall rise in his place and present without argument the statement in question. The purpose of the new rule is obviously to eliminate argument in support of or in opposition to urgency of debate.
I fear that we will return to the previous unsatisfactory situation which the house has
Labour Conditions
sought to correct in adopting the new standing order if the statement filed by an hon. member and read to the house is also an argument supporting urgency of debate. Hon. members may want to consider this suggestion when motions under Standing Order 26 are presented to the Chair.
When the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands proposed his motion and read the last paragraph I noticed that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Turner) wanted to rise on a point of order. I assume that this is the point he wanted to raise. If we revert to a situation under which hon. members take advantage of the opportunity of making a statement to argue urgency, I am sure we will then have members from the government side also wanting to rise on a point of order to debate the question of non-urgency, and we will then be where we were before the rules were amended.
In respect of the substance of the matter, I have to refer hon. members to rulings made in similar circumstances on January 14, March 13 and May 8 during the current session. It was then suggested to the house that by long established practice a motion under Standing Order 26 could not be entertained in such circumstances. I would have to make the same ruling, even in the particular conditions outlined by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands.
There is of course the additional consideration that by agreement this day has been set aside as an allotted day under the terms of Standing Order 58. I submit that circumstances would have to be extremely exceptional to justify an adjournment motion on a day which already has been allotted to the opposition for the purpose of proposing a specific motion of non-confidence.
I regret, therefore, that I cannot put the hon. member's proposed motion to the house.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the right hon. Prime Minister a question arising out of the proposals announced last evening by President Nixon designed to obtain negotiated peace in Viet Nam. Will the right

May 15, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry hon. gentleman or the Secretary of State for External Affairs indicate whether Canada is prepared to take part in the international advisory body suggested by President Nixon? Has there been any indication that the International Control Commission would be acceptable in this supervisory role, or would it be replaced by some other body?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, our experience in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia in the last 15 years has not been such as to lead us to seek out such an assignment. We would nevertheless examine very carefully any request that Canada serve in a new supervisory body. Whether we would be prepared to do so would depend in part on Canada's other commitments at the time, the terms of reference and the operation of the proposed new body, and on the anticipated duration of the assignment. It would also depend on whether, in our best judgment, the type of supervisory role envisaged would in the context of the statement be likely to make an effective contribution to peace and stability in the area.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, apparently I misunderstood the statement made some months ago by the Secretary of State for External Affairs in which he indicated that Canada was volunteering for such a role. May I ask now whether there has been any communication from the government of the United States asking whether Canada would be prepared to participate in such a role?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, if the question asks whether we have been requested by the government of the United States to agree with the proposal it has put forward, the answer is no. If the question is, are we aware of the possibility that we might be called upon to make such a contribution, the answer is yes. Indeed, we have made some preliminary studies of this question, and we have consulted with various governments about this role.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that my question was put so obscurely that apparently it was not understood. I meant to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether there had been any communication from the United States government as to whether Canada would be prepared to participate in such an international supervisory body.


Mitchell William Sharp: We have had no such request from the United States government, Mr. 
Speaker. But, as I said, in reply to the question as the hon. gentleman put it originally, we have had studies made in Canada and we have talked to officials of the United States government and of other governments about how such a role might be fulfilled. Because we feel this is a government with some responsibility in this area, and since we are perhaps the most experienced in the world in peacekeeping operations, we wanted to have some preliminary investigations of the problems that would arise if we received such a request.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Is it correct in summary to conclude that the government of Canada is not volunteering to participate in this role and will only make a decision after it has carefully assessed all the circumstances surrounding any proposal that is made?


Mitchell William Sharp: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure that would be the view which would receive the strong support of Canadians.


Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a supplementary question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Did the American authorities, the President directly or someone in the State Department, inform the Canadian government ahead of time of the proposal that the President of the United States intended to make, and was there any discussion not only with the government of Canada but with other friendly governments about the way in which the unhappy situation in Viet Nam might soon be brought to an end?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first question, as to whether we were consulted in advance about the statement made by President Nixon yesterday, is no. We have, of course, been consulting with the United States over a very long period of time trying to help in bringing about a solution to this very unhappy situation.


Mr. W. B. Nesbili (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, if Canada were invited to assist in the matter which has just been discussed, would the government prefer to do it under the present auspices' of the Geneva agreements, under United Nations auspices or auspices of that nature?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, our purpose would be to be as helpful as possible. It would be for those who are directly concerned in the conflict to decide what kind of request they would like to make to us that would be most
May 15# 1969	COMMONS
helpful. As I have indicated, we have not been very happy about the way in which the International Control Commission has operated. We do not want to repeat that sort of experience.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. As the minister has indicated, our experience with the International Control Commission has been nothing but unsatisfactory. Are we under the present conditions considering withdrawing from that particular body?


Mitchell William Sharp: No, Mr. Speaker.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the figures which were released today, showing an unemployment figure for the month of April of almost 5J per cent and involving some 435,000 unemployed persons, I ask the Prime Minister whether he intends to speed up the presentation to the house of legislation to set up a Canada Development Corporation and to establish industrial incentives and any other measures that will help to provide jobs in the near future?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: With regard to legislation, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion said a few days ago that he would soon introduce his bill. The government has been a bit inhibited during the past weeks in the advancing of legislation, and we hope that our progress will now be aided by the opposition.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
The Prime Minister has just said that for the last two or three weeks the government could not bring in legislation to eradicate unemployment. Why did it not do that instead of introducing Bill C-150?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the legislation which has been holding up the house is now disposed of, and in view of the fact that the legislation of the minister dealing with regional development has not yet been introduced, would the Prime Minister
DEBATES	8725
Inquiries of the Ministry undertake to have that legislation introduced within the next few days and give it top priority over anything else on the order paper?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We do not have the same conception of planning as the hon. member. His top priorities change every day with what he reads in the newspapers. We announce ours.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, at least I have some priorities.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


An hon. Member:: How do you like that?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I ask the Prime Minister when the government intends to come out of its lotuseating, never-never land and do something about the economic problems facing this country.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that some 43 per cent of those unemployed have been unemployed for more than four months, is this a matter of concern to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration, and would he consider making a statement to the house in the near future as to any plans he may have to put forward with regard to easing the difficulties from which these people have been suffering during a prolonged period of unemployment?


An hon. Member:: Let them eat cake.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend will have noticed that, as the figures reveal, Canada's labour force is now past the eight million mark.


Mr. Woolliams:: So what?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It is of some interest to observe that 7.6 million Canadians are employed at the present time.
So the notion of insisting upon the unemployment side does not give a proper perspective to the economic situation in Canada. There has been an improvement in total employment from month to month and year to year.. There has been a decline in unemployment from month to month. But there has been an unusually large increase in the labour force. My hon. friends will be interested in knowing that year to year the

May 15, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry unemployment situation has improved. It may be of further interest, as the figures show, to note that the unemployment situation is to a significant extent a regional one.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: It is all over the country.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I think it is a tribute to the discernment of the government that such a high priority has been placed on the regional economic expansion plan of the minister.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I asked the minister if he would in the near future make a statement on a specific point. I did not ask for a partisan speech in reply to a question which I did not ask.
I would repeat the question, Mr. Speaker. I ask whether the minister will consider making a statement in the near future on the point about which I asked him.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I will be delighted to consider making a non-political statement to the political question that has been asked.


Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary question.
Would the minister who has just said that the number of unemployed has decreased, explain why the number of people on welfare has increased in proportion to that of the unemployed?


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me that the hon, member's question might give rise to a debate. I feel we have started the discussion proposed by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas), and we could now go back to questions.



CANADIAN CONFEDERATION


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct to the Secretary of State a question which I could as well ask the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Last night, I was present at a meeting in Montreal of the Pro-Canada Association, and I heard a choir made up of 80 teenagers from Trois-Rivieres. Would the Secretary of State be prepared, for the sake of national unity, to foster a tour of that group all across Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: This question should be put on the order paper.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Has-tings):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice. On Tuesday last I asked the Prime Minister, in view of the statement by the Secretary of State of the United States clearly indicating that the new government is waiting for an application for the extradition of Mr. Hal Banks, and as the Ontario government has clearly indicated that it wishes to have Mr. Hal Banks back here so that he can be prosecuted for perjury, to indicate what action is being taken by the government to put forward thisi application for extradition. The Prime Minister answered that the Minister of Justice would answer the question. As the minister has had two full days to consider this matter, may we have a full answer to this very important question?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Justice):: will be glad to reply to that speech, Mr. Speaker. As I informed hon. members in this house on November 20 last during the debate on the estimates on the Department of Justice, the legal officers of the Department of Justice are of the opinion that, as a matter of law, the Banks case is closed since the extradition proceedings in the United States have been exhausted. That conclusion was arrived at in consultation with American counsel, namely Mr. Richard Kuh in New York City. Mr. Kuh was the counsel who acted for the government of Ontario in the extradition proceedings.
United States Senator Fannin met with Secretary of State William Rogers on Monday of last week and the Senator is quoted in the press to the effect that the position taken by Mr. Rogers is that nothing much could be done to reopen the case in the absence of a request from Canada. If what was said at this meeting has been fully and accurately reported, the position would appear to be that a further request for extradition by the government of Canada might result in further steps being taken by the government of the United States. This was what prompted the hon. member's question.


An hon. Member:: You are right so far.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I wonder whether the minister would not agree that the statement
May 15. 1969

he is making now is of the type which would normally be made on motions. He might wish to revert to motions for the purpose of making this statement-


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Napier Turner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was replying preamble for preamble.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


George Harris Hees: The minister has out-preambled me so far.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder whether the minister considers he has now answered the question.


John Napier Turner: In view of these developments, and at my request, inquiries are being made by the Department of External Affairs to clarify the position of the United States State Department in this matter.


George Harris Hees: A supplementary question-


Mr. Speaker:: Before the hon. member is allowed to put a supplementary question I think I should remind all hon. members that questions should be as short and to the point as possible, and that replies should be the same. If we are to have questions and answers as long as those we have just heard we might be placed in a position where the length of the question period would have to be extended, and I am not sure all hon. members would desire this.


George Harris Hees: My supplementary question will be very short, Mr. Speaker. Provided his inquiries show that an application will be accepted by the Secretary of State, will the minister undertake to make such application immediately?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


George Harris Hees: Have I got the minister's word on that? Come on.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's question is hypothetical.


George Harris Hees: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The minister's reluctance to answer shows that somebody is being protected against the due process of law, and that is Mr. Banks.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: I have to rule that this is not a proper point of order.


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: A supplementary question to the Minister of Justice. While further inquiries are being made, would the minister arrange for a showing of the Hal Banks home movies?



NATIONAL PARKS


Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Prime Minister.
The negotiations with regard to the development of the first national park in the province of Quebec are going at a snail's pace. Does the Prime Minister intend to meet the Regional Development Council for the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspe peninsula and the Magdalen Islands as requested by telegram by its chairman, Claude Jourdain, a lawyer, with a view to finding out the reason for holding up this project which is most important to the future of tourism in Gaspe and the whole province of Quebec?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I have indeed received an invitation to meet the chairman. I am willing to do it, if I must, but I feel that it might be more useful for me to say that this very day the government took a decision in this regard which, I think, will benefit the citizens of Gaspe and Canada as a whole. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development will advise the authorities of the province of Quebec of the terms of that proposal to find out whether it might be possible to reach an agreement.
Should we fail to do so, I might consider the request but, for the time being I have every reason to believe that our proposal will benefit all Canadian citizens.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for
Moncton.


Mr. Charles H. Thomas (Moncton):: Thank
you, Mr. Speaker. My question was for the Minister of Transport. Since he is not here today, and since his assistant is not here, I will defer it.

May 15; 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry NATIONAL DEFENCE



SUCCESSOR TO GENERAL ALLARD

Mr. J. M. Forreslall (Darlmoulh-Halifax East):: My question is tor the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. In the light of widespread reports in connection with the imminent retirement of the Chief of the General Staff, can the right hon. gentleman advise the house whether the government is now considering the question of a successor to this most eminent Canadian soldier?


Mr. Speaker:: I have some doubts whether this question has attached to it the type of urgency which would justify its being asked at this time.


J. Michael Forrestall: With all due respect, Mr. Speaker. I submit that the degree of trust and confidence which has to be placed and maintained in whoever is appointed to the office of Chief of the General Staff is such as to warrant at least an indication from the Prime Minister whether or not General Allard's retirement is imminent, or whether rumours to this effect are false.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Surrey.


J. Michael Forrestall: There are still 90,000 people in the forces. Why doesn't the government tell them what is going on?


An hon. Member:: Shut up.



NATIONAL CAPITAL


Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey):: May I address a question to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion in his capacity as the Minister reporting on national capital questions? I wish to ask him this: Having in mind the reported major developments in the Hull region of the national capital area-developments with which I personally very much agree-will the minister tell us if and when the legislation approved by the last parliament for the setting up of a parliamentary committee to deal with national capital matters will be implemented?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, as soon as our general policy with regard to the National Capital is known, I shall be happy to convene the parliamentary committee so that it may be discussed.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: My
question is directed to the Minister of Justice, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister advise whether his departmental officials have been conducting discussions with their opposite numbers at the provincial level with regard to the provision of a uniform system of aid to victims of crime, as well as to those who are called upon to aid police power and who are injured as a result of their actions in response to such calls?


John Napier Turner: We have not been in active discussion with the provinces on this subject, but in the light of the hon. member's question I think it would be useful if at the next meeting of the uniformity commissioners we were to take this up with the provincial attorneys general.



COMBINES


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: May I direct a question to the minister of health, Mr. Speaker? It has to do with the recommendation of the commission on sports to the effect that reserve terms in National Hockey League professional agreements should be outlawed, and the hon. gentleman's statement that he was considering bringing in legislation to this effect. Would the minister say, having regard to the statement by the president of the National Hockey League that parliament has no jurisdiction to do this, whether any opinion has been secured from the law officers of the Crown and, if so, what is the nature and the purport of the advice he has received?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: I would answer the right hon. gentleman by referring him to the reply my colleague the minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs gave in the house yesterday to the effect that, despite Mr. Campbell's opinion, my colleague is looking into this matter.


John George Diefenbaker: I was not here yesterday, but I saw that answer. My question is: Has the matter been submitted to the law officers of the Crown?
May 15, 1969


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I answered yesterday to the effect that this matter had been referred to the combines investigation branch.


John George Diefenbaker: That is not what I asked.


Stanley Ronald Basford: If I may finish: They will undoubtedly be considering the legal position in relation to Mr. Campbell's statement. As far as I know, the matter has not been referred to the Department of Justice, if that is what the right hon. gentleman is inquiring-to the law officers of the crown.


John George Diefenbaker: The Department of Justice is the only place to refer the matter.


Stanley Ronald Basford: I can assure the hon. member that a legal opinion will be sought if we feel that one is needed.


Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister also say, when his department is looking into the reserve clause in National Hockey League contracts, whether he will also consider looking into the same reserve clause on Canadian Amateur Hockey Association players' registration cards?



FAMILY ALLOWANCES


Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister.
As the bill dealing with abortion was passed in the house yesterday and as the number of births will probably decrease as a result, does the Prime Minister intend to increase or decrease family allowances in respect of such children as will still be born?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I volunteer to give the assurance that there will be no decrease in the number of births.



CANADIAN SOVEREIGNTY


Mr. Paul St. Pierre (Coast Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister which arises out of his statement that waters within the Canadian archipelago are considered to be Canadian. When will
Inquiries of the Ministry base line co-ordinates be drawn around the rim of the Arctic archipelago to enclose it, and when will maps be issued so that it will be clear to other nations where Canadian boundaries are?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Fisheries and Forestry said a few days ago that the co-ordinates would be published forthwith, and that from the co-iordinates the base lines could easily be drawn.


Paul St. Pierre: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The fisheries minister's announcement dealt only with the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. Our longest coastline is the Arctic.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Joliette.


Paul St. Pierre: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe that the Prime Minister is anxious to answer my question, which is: When will the government draw the base lines around the Arctic archipelago, since they are now drawing them on the eastern and western coasts of Canada?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Prime Minister does not appear to be as anxious as the hon. member.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion.
Being aware of the importance of co-operation between the government of Quebec and that of Ottawa regarding the Montreal international airport, could the minister tell us today if he has officially received from the Quebec government the assurance of such cooperation which, in my opinion, is necessary?


Jean Marchand: Not yet, Mr. Speaker.



INDUSTRY


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the takeover of Salada Foods Limited by the Kellogg Company, which is yet another takeover by a United States concern, will the minister

May 15, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry
undertake to make an early statement on	GRAIN
motions indicating whether the government request for legislation to assist
has a policy to counteract this trend?	prairie farmers


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated the other day, that statement would be more appropriate coming from the Minister of Finance, who has ministerial responsibility over these matters.



THE MINISTRY


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. Now that the right hon. gentleman has accepted, as he indicated yesterday in his reply to a question, the new role of the Secretary of State as minister of culture, when will he be making this status legitimate by establishing a department of cultural affairs?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I did not comment on the name yesterday, I indicated the function; and after all, what's in a name?


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: A supplementary question. In view of the Prime Minister's emphasis on the limited authority of the federal government under the constitution, when will he be discussing this matter with the provincial governments?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Secretary of State, at an earlier date when asked a similar question, said it was the view of the federal government-and I would reemphasize it-that it did not consider the whole area of the spirit and of man's mind was under the jurisdiction of any one government in Canada.



IMMIGRATION


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkion-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. In view of increasing concern among many Canadians about the treatment of United States deserters and draft resisters by immigration officials, is the minister in a position to assure the house that he will make an announcement about the policy review of this matter before the end of this session?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This question was asked on a number of occasions during recent days and I suggest that the question was answered when asked.


Mr. R. R. Southam (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture, but in his absence I am pleased to direct it to the acting minister. In view of the fact that the committee mechanics seem to preclude the bringing in of an early report and related policy recommendations following the recent tour of western Canada by the Standing Committee on Agriculture, will the minister consider making an interim statement of government policy designed to alleviate immediately the critical economic situation facing western farmers today?


Hon. J. J. Greene (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, as
agriculture is so very sensitive an area I think I had best refer this question to the minister for answer on his day in the house.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for our ever efficient Minister of Communications. The minister's department has been running full page advertisements in all the Toronto newspapers which read "Bet you forgot to use your new postal zone number!" Why did the minister's department forget to provide Toronto post offices with even a single booklet telling the people of Toronto what the new postal zone numbers are?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The minister will have the floor later today when he can perhaps answer that question.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question of the Prime Minister. Would he look into the matter of the retirement of General Allard and clarify the position for the sake of the 98,000 men still in the armed services?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is customary to comment on the retirement of civil servants or military personnel. This is something that will happen in the future; it is not a matter that is before the government now.
May 15, 1969



HOUSING


Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister without Portfolio who is in charge of housing. On May 6, I believe, he indicated to the house that there was the possibility of a meeting with provincial representatives to discuss housing. Can the minister say which officials he will be meeting, and when these meetings are going to take place?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister without Portfolio):: Mr. Speaker, I have had the
opportunity of having one meeting with the Minister of Trade and Development of the province of Ontario which was both exploratory and instructive. I think the next priority will probably be piloting the bill through second reading, which I hope will take place some time next week. As soon as possible I want to come face to face with the ministers, but in the meantime I have written them all and had return communication from some.



REQUEST FOR GUIDELINES ON URBAN RENEWAL

Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for that answer, which shows that we are on the move, but I should like to ask the minister whether he can assure the house that the government will give some indication with regard to its intention to establish guidelines in respect of public housing and urban renewal commitments before the house adjourns for the summer recess?


Robert Knight Andras: I think that would be a reasonable assumption, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is it the intention of the minister to bring forward amendments' to Bill C-192, which he hopes to pilot through the house next week?



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Mr.   Gaelan-J. Serre@Nickel Belt: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
Inquiries of the Ministry In view of the fact that unemployment is a matter of great concern these days, would the minister tell us whether he has taken the necessary steps to allow a greater number of unemployed to follow retraining courses this year?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the funds allocated for the current year have been greatly in excess of the funds for the preceding year. At present we are considering our retraining program with the provinces. Our retraining program will be as great as the resources available within the total programs of the government permit.


Mr. H. Russell MacEwan (Ceniral Nova):: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will the government reconsider its decision with respect to trainees having to be in the labour force for three years prior to being eligible for benefits while training?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, this has been a matter of continuing discussion between the department and provincial ministers. We have not yet been convinced that this would be a desirable move. We want to give the members of the adult labour force the maximum opportunity for training and retraining. Many in our labour force went through the economic periods of the 1930's and 1940's without having had an opportunity for training. We have an obligation to the adult labour force, but we are also attempting to serve the needs of the young people. We are therefore asking for people to be in the labour force for a certain period before training allowances are granted.



EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS

Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. In view of the numerous strikes throughout the country which may further aggravate the serious summer unemployment situation in regard to students, has the government any immediate, alternative plans which would assure students of summer employment? If so, will the minister be prepared to make an announcement of such plans at an early date?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We have
already spent quite a few minutes on this problem during this question period. When

May 15, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry the minister makes a statement on other matters, perhaps he may wish to make an additional statement on motions covering the matter the hon. member has raised.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, since the hon. member's question referred to the existence of strikes, may I say I am confident that the work of the Minister of Labour will remove any roadblock that exists in that direction.



EXCHEQUER COURT OF CANADA


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lotbiniere):: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice.
As, for an unknown reason, the publication of the rules of procedure of the Exchequer Court is being delayed, could the minister assure us that this publication will be available shortly?


John Napier Turner: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


André-Gilles Fortin: To the question I asked a moment ago, the Minister of Justice answered in the affirmative. Then, can he now tell us when those rules of procedure will be published in French?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the last time I answered that question, I spoke of two to three months, but I will inquire as to the date of publication.



WHEAT-GRADES IN POSITION FOR SHIPMENT

Mr. George Muir (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Can the minister assure the house and country that sufficient quantities of No. 2 Manitoba Northern wheat are in export position to fill our immediate export requirements and that there will be a minimum time lapse between the arrival and departure of ships seeking wheat cargoes at Vancouver and Fort William?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I was beginning to wonder whether this was my

day to be in the house. To answer the question, there is no problem so far as Vancouver is concerned. Three ships are now loading No. 2, and two are waiting. One of those will begin loading today and the second on Saturday. The situation is back to normal in Vancouver, if it ever was abnormal.


George Robson Muir: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister drew the attention of the house to his presence, I wonder whether he would now indicate whether any wheat is being shipped from the Lakehead? What is the sales position with respect to grain being shipped from the Lakehead?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I will try to bring a report to the house. I know the elevators are filled at this time. Shipments upstream have already started or are about to start. I shall try to make a fuller report tomorrow.


Robert Simpson: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. While preparing the report with respect to wheat shipments from the Lakehead, would the minister also prepare a report with respect to planned shipments of wheat out of the port of Churchill for the coming shipping season?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I will consider that.


Donald MacInnis: May I address a supplementary question to the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. In view of a certain remark by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, will the Prime Minister inform that minister whether he is supposed to be in the house today?



AIR CANADA


Mr. R. E. McKinley (Huron):: A question to the Minister of Labour, Mr. Speaker. Because there is great hardship to the travelling public, will the minister say whether he holds out any hope of an early settlement of the Air Canada strike?


Hon. Bryce S. Mackasey (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that hope springs eternal in the human breast. I think that is answer enough.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.
May 15, 1969



WATER RESOURCES


Mr. Waller C. Carter (SI. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I did not succeed in catching Your Honour's eye earlier. Since the matter I have in mind is of great urgency to the people concerned, would Your Honour permit me to ask a question of the Minister of Fisheries and Forestry?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have no objection if that is the wish of the house. I should bring to the hon. member's attention that he was not alone in not catching the attention of the Chair earlier during the question period. We try to see as many hon. members as possible, but when the questions are long and the answers are also long some hon. members are left by the wayside as we come to the end of the time allocated. However if there is no objection perhaps the hon. member might ask his question.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Walter C. Carter: Mr. Speaker, would the Minister of Fisheries and Forestry elaborate on the statement he released just before lunch to the effect that a form of assistance would be available to the fishermen of St. Marys and Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, whose livelihood has been cut off by the pollution problem in their area? Will the minister advise the house whether it is planned to give the fishermen affected by the serious pollution any form of compensation?


Hon. Jack Davis (Minister of Fisheries and Forestry):: Mr. Speaker, we have a team of officials in the area determining the extent of the damage and the degree to which fishermen's incomes are being reduced. It is the government's intention to make loans in order to offset the reduction in incomes so that the fishermen will not suffer from the closure of the fishery there. We hope, of course, to be able to recover those funds at a later date from those who caused the pollution in the first place.


Walter C. Carter: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister in his statement made reference to the fact that his department has taken stringent measures to ensure that no fishing is carried out in the waters where the affected fish have appeared. Could the minister assure the house that the plant which is reported to be the cause of the pollution will
Business of the House
be forced to remain closed until this problem has been resolved?


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, we are constantly in touch with the management of the plant concerned. There may be some test running necessary. I can assure the hon. member that the situation is being kept under very strict review.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, may I rise on a point of order which relates to a motion that will be before the house very shortly. It has been agreed by the house leaders that the time allocation for speeches shall be as follows: That the mover of the motion be allotted 30 minutes, that the minister who replies for the government be allotted 30 minutes, that the leading spokesmen for the New Democratic party and the Ralliement Creditiste be allotted 20 minutes each and that all remaining speakers be allotted 10 minutes. That will give a greater opportunity for hon. members to participate. If that is agreeable, perhaps it could be made an order of the house for this debate.


Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, this proposal was agreed to. May I ask the minister at this time whether there is to be any change in the business of the house for tomorrow or for next week? Will the business for tomorrow be as announced last night?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the understanding is that we will begin tomorrow with the official languages bill and that debate on that bill will continue until notice is given to the contrary.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the statement made about the time arrangement for speeches to be made today, may I say that the minister's announcement is a correct statement of the results of our collective bargaining on this issue. However I wish to make it clear that this discrimination with respect to the time allotted to the leaders of the two larger parties and the two parties in this part of the house should not be considered a precedent that will always be followed.

May 15, 1969
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We accept it for today and we agree to it, but with that understanding.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Can the house leader indicate what legislation will follow the official languages bill?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that following the official languages bill we will proceed with the housing legislation. Is it understood that my proposal with respect to the time of speeches is now accepted by the house?


Mr. Speaker:: Is it so agreed and ordered by the house?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough) moved:: This house regrets that this government's mismanagement of the postal service imposes on the country a steadily deteriorating service at higher cost to the public and contributes to a declining morale among the postal workers.
He said: Mr. Speaker, regarding the time limit for speeches, while the minister may need more than 20 minutes to defend his department's record, no overtime is needed for those who criticize it. One has only to read the press, hear the protests of patrons or read one's mail to know that the postal service, more expensive than ever before, is also less efficient. If there is in this chamber any member who has not had a letter of complaint about poor mail service, I am confident the reason for his unique position is that the letter or letters have not yet been delivered. There is hardly a newspaper which has not deplored and denounced the service offered Canadians by one of the most important utilities in the land.
The gentlest comment I can find is in the Ottawa Journal of March 5, 1969, in Richard Jackson's column:
A great deal of mail Is not being delivered on time.
Of course, Mr. Jackson was quoting the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) himself. On May 12 the Montreal Gazette declared:
There has been a limit to how long Canadians and Canadian businesses could put up with the

sort of Post Office service they have been receiving. That limit has been reached. While many have complained, they have been hoping that the dislocation, the delays and the losses of mail were somehow temporary. But bad service has by now settled down into a bad pattern. It has become the expected thing. And this is not tolerable in a modern industrial nation.
It is not just good enough to charge more for mail service than ever before and then to provide the worst service the public has ever known.
The Winnipeg Free Press, the Liberal tribune of the prairies, in an editorial headed "Scandalous Service" declared:
Since Mr. Kierans' reforms it is almost impossible to send a letter within Canada's main centres and have it delivered the same day. Where periodicals are concerned it's nothing but disaster
Indeed, Charles Lynch, senior savant of the Southam News Service, calls the Postmaster General "The Minister of Disaster" and, rugged royalist though he be, Lynch brings himself to confess: "I have no faith whatever in what used to be called Her Majesty's mail".
The press offer some solutions. One suggests we write fewer letters and thus hedge our disappointments. Charles King thinks it might be worth paying 10 cents and hopes that with the extra surtax we might get back to the former service. But the most clearcut recipe for improvements is that of the Oshawa Times: "Kierans Time is Up. He Should Go." Who am I to quarrel with the Oshawa Times'! With friends like these the minister scarcely needs an opposition!
We all know, Mr. Speaker, that postal service has sadly deteriorated. The past ten months have seen the sad chronicle of one major strike, partial strikes, near strikes, disruption, lowered morale. Indeed, everything is low but the costs. Instead of five cent mail for six day service, most Canadians get five day service for six cent stamps.
When the minister raised the local rates by 50 per cent to six cents instead of four cents per letter, I wondered about the logic of this action. It seemed strange that one should pay as much to get mail from one end of town to another as from one side of the continent to the other. But I discounted the minister's logic. There was a rational justification. It was simply that it often takes as long to get a letter across town as across Canada, and thus we have equalization of service justifying equalization of cost. I suppose in this process of justification he is doing his bit for the just society.
May 15, 1969

There is much I can record: the increase in the cost of stamps, mail boxes, keys, money orders and all the rest. A wholesale closing of smaller post offices and a drastic increase in newspaper subscription rates have also taken place. Even the Easter Seals' campaign for crippled children and the War Amputees service have been hurt, perhaps mortally. There are wickets at which you cannot buy stamps on Saturday even though a clerk stands behind the counter; vending machines that take only old quarters; cheques issued to the employees not written up correctly; zone books, as the hon. member for Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) pointed out, not in stock yet although the advertisements are in the newspapers. What a litany one can recite!
One of the most recent is the contribution of the minister's department to the great passport hold-up, or should I say hang-up? For weeks after the new forms and the new $10 charge were imposed, many Canadians were receiving the old forms at post office wickets. These were sent, more slowly and at greater cost, to Ottawa. Delays, new forms back from Ottawa, new $10 money orders to Ottawa again-no wonder there is a little congestion. What the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier) planted, the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) watered and the Postmaster General helped to flourish. If I wished to be biblical I would say, "What a Trinity".
I do not believe that this is administrative fallout from certain disagreements between the Postmaster General and the Secretary of State for External Affairs on certain external policies. I would not be so cynical as to believe that. Rather I am convinced it was a case of some faithful postal employee conscientiously following tlie ministerial edict. The Post Office must pay its way, it must go into the black. Would it not be uneconomical to get in new passport forms before all the old ones were used? A bit far-fetched? Perhaps. But possibly I am reading too many of the minister's speeches. By his futuristic word-painting of telephones in the sky, wired cities, waves of the future he seeks to throw stardust in the eyes of those who look at the mail service. I ask simply that his department do the elementary job of getting the mail of the Canadian people to its destination efficiently, speedily and surely.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
I am sure that before the day is over we will see the minister's expertise in skywriting. We will hear of the many studies- he has 29180-5531
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under way. But, Mr. Speaker, studied inefficiency is still inefficiency. Task forces, consulting firms and study groups may all have their place, but surely it requires no elaborate sophisticated apparatus of investigation to know that things are bad and are getting worse. To misquote Goldsmith, "The mail accumulates and morale decays."
I say in candour, Mr. Speaker, that personally I have the greatest respect for the minister. He has achieved great things in scholarship, in business, in provincial administration, and he still speaks well. I enjoy his addresses, but whether or not the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Cadieux) do, I cannot say.
But the time has come for the minister, excellent talker though he is, to act and not to talk. I wish I could express confidence in his willingness to take meaningful action. But I must conclude from what he has said in this house in recent months, in the committee, and on the many and varied platforms from which he has spoken on so many subjects that today we will hear the same tired catalogue of excuses that he has accumulated to counter charges of inefficiency in the Post Office.
The first of these famous excuses is that the major part of the mail continues to go through, that complaints represent a small and insignificant proportion of the mail carried. This excuse is not acceptable. This excuse is becoming paler and paler as complaints pour in from every corner of the country. That 70 per cent or 80 per cent of the mail goes through is small comfort if it is your letter, your key document, your business form that has gone astray or arrived too late to serve a useful function.
Another of the minister's favourites, which I have no doubt he will trot out today, is that only since he became Postmaster General have people started to watch and look at whether their mail arrives in time. It would be strange indeed if people had not counted the time from date of postage to receipt even before he was minister. The regrettable fact is that Canadians everywhere know that the mail service is just not what it was and what it should be, and as a result they are making the Postmaster General the butt of their jokes and the object of their anger.
No doubt the minister will later speak glowingly of the numerous reports he is commissioning. Had I spent a quarter of a million dollars on reports, one of which was a report on which further reports I should buy, I too

May 15, 1969
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would glow with pride. And when the first report came through saying in effect that I should mechanize the Post Office and modernize its physical plants I would glow even more, $250,000 more confident that what I had been told from all sources for ten months was in fact true. Reports are a poor excuse for action.
The minister will no doubt give the excuse that the buildings in Toronto and Montreal are inadequate, and God knows they are. That excuse, however, has become just that- an excuse. In committee over two months ago the minister spoke grandly of taking action to ameliorate the terrible working conditions in these major bottlenecks-improvements to take place some five to seven years from now money permitting. But only the other day the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said that expenditure by government and its creatures would have to be cut back. Where does this lead us, Mr. Speaker? I can only conclude from the minister's statements and that of the Prime Minister that Canadians are to be condemned to inadequate postal service for some years to come. We cannot let the minister use tears over the inadequate conditions in Toronto and Montreal as an excuse for action now to eliminate these bottleneck conditions.
We know too, and I think we can predict that the minister will tell us today, of his study to be brought down next month outlining Toronto's needs. But like all else in his department this report is future futuristic. It jumps over today's needs to talk about the 1890's.


An hon. Member:: 1990's.


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Yes, 1990's. I must have been thinking of conditions today. What we want to know is which of the many ways of moving today's mail today the Postmaster General intends to use.
Another diversion that he is almost certain to offer us is talk of his crown corporation idea, one which is supposedly being studied but even before the studies are completed is rapidly being adopted by the Postmaster General so that he may claim paternity not only for the studies but for the idea. We all look forward to September when Kates, Peat and Marwick bring down their study on this subject. But we are somewhat sceptical of the minister offering this report as a panacea for today's bad mail service. Will a crown corporation structure heal the distrust between the workers and management of the Post Office? Must we wait for September to start the mechanization schemes suggested by the

minister's consultants? It would be wrong for him to offer this report as evidence that the mail service will improve in the immediate future, as it must.
And as a final rationalization for the upset, for the disruption and, indeed, occasional chaos in his department, the minister will no doubt speak to us of diminishing deficits and freeing funds for welfare, for education, and for regional development. On this minister such suggestions are ill-fitting robes indeed. For this is the same minister who will divert many millions of dollars of Canada's resources, both public and private, from the very programs of which he speaks in order to foster the development of the favoured child of his department, Telesat Canada, and refuse the private sector the opportunity to put the satellite into service.
Coming from this minister this excuse is almost grotesque, for while on the one hand as a proponent of Telesat Canada he speaks of the need to extend, at great cost, television to that remaining 5 per cent of Canadians without it, on the other hand he withdraws in the name of economy from every Canadian the element of promptness and dependability in mail service which was so central to our national life. The minister, to say the least, has a strange sense of economy and a stranger sense of priorities. His evaluation of the written word as against the electronic message shows a wide disparity.
For communities of 400 or 500 he is prepared to engage in the expenditure of perhaps a quarter of a million dollars to bring them television, but in communities of the same size he will close down post offices that lose a few hundred dollars a year and he will offer a rural route service so that Canadians may buy their postage stamps and expensive money orders in subzero weather by flagging down the mail courier. I am not against the north and I love television too, in colour or in black and white, but let us have some sense of justice, some sense of propriety here. Let us not take a certain group of people and cut them off from standard communications in the name of economy and then with a lavish, generous hand splash out to others all sorts of conveniences at great cost. Let the Minister of Communications on the right know what the Postmaster General on the left is doing.
In some ways, Mr. Speaker, I need not have recited the litany of faulty service now being offered by the minister, nor need I have enumerated the problems, or should I say the running sores, in his department. The Postmaster General perhaps knows more about
May 15, 1969

his department than any of his predecessors ever did. Much of his knowledge, I can say in all honesty, is the result of efforts on the part of members of this party who have expended considerable effort in the last months to bring him to a state of education and increased awareness of the problems of his office. In addition to the education which we have generously and kindly given him, he has the advantage of the experience of his officials and the departmental information to which only he is privy.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
We have confirmation that the minister is aware of the problems in the Post Office as one fruitful source .of criticism of the department's procedures and performance has been the minister himself. I shall quote the Financial Post of the other day:
But X admit the attitude in the Post Office isn't good. It isn't as good as it was two years ago. Management and labour just aren't working together and the service is suffering.
In that respect he was reciprocating by giving us a good quote, and that I appreciate. But the time for stating problems, as the minister occasionally does, is over. The time for action is here. Every member in this house can criticize the Post Office. We have listened to the pleas of our constituents, the patrons of the Post Office. The minister knows the problems. We all know the problems, but he alone among us is able to do something to remedy a situation which is deplorable and is growing worse.
This is the challenge that faces him. It is not so long ago that the minister in a kindly reference likened me to Cassandra. He said he liked to hear my Cassandra-like utterances. I will accept that as a description more accurate perhaps than many of his forecasts. Cassandra did go about prognosticating w,oe. She did; she preached that things were not as they should be, and like myself she was not believed either. But she was right. I and others told the minister that publications in this country in the non-profit sector which perform a most valuable service in communicating essential information to the Canadian people could not stand the rates which he imposed upon them. The publishers said that. But he said, of course, that they did not know and that they were selling him a bill of goods. Well, they are not selling him such a bill of goods now because many of them already are out of business. Cassandra is not always wrong.
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We also advised him from time that the people in his department did not care for the regulations imposed as a result of the five-day delivery week. He said that despite what they said they were happy and the disproof did not come to him apparently until there were strikes, walk-outs and all the rest of it. Now we have adjudication and in fact at this very moment the matter is sub judice. We also said that the conglomeration of five-day delivery in one part of the country and six-day delivery in the rest would not work. Let us just look at our own mail to see how the service is working today.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: What mail?


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: "What mail", the hon. member in front of me says. So I would say to the minister that I do not mind being called Cassandra and I do not mind making doleful prophecies when he gives me little material upon which to make joyous ones. I say to him further that while it is all right to call me Cassandra he is in a situation that poor King Priam never had. Priam did not know enough to listen when he was being warned and receiving information. King Priam in his self-confidence went on until his city crumbled in destruction. The voice of Cassandra was not heeded.
I say to the minister how many more times do we, representing the troubled patrons of the Post Office, have to tell him that things are in bad shape? How much more time does he want to get things straightened out? How much longer does he need to snow us with a forest of mimeographed reports? How much longer will he go on assuring us that all is well in the land when everybody agrees with him except everybody who uses the Post Office? While it is fun, of course, to dabble in the sky, to be Buck Rogers on Monday and, a Star Trek hero on Tuesday and ride the waves of the future, there is still such a thing as mail. There are still people who like to communicate one with another and there are still some humble Canadians who think that their government is doing something for them at considerable cost-we recognize that-in taking their communications from them to the person or persons to whom they are addressed.
In all humility I suggest to the minister that he might address himself to this elementary problem and that the way to the future might begin with a little communication in the present. I would hope that this new and costly postal service which he has imposed

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upon a reluctant public might begin to perform at least at the level at which the department performed before he took over. While that would not stop me from my role as Cassandra, it might diminish the frequency of my protestations. This is something he might enjoy. If it helps the Canadian people and the long suffering patrons of the Post Office I would welcome it too, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to lead off in this debate for the New Democratic party I would first like to express my own and I am sure the compliments of my colleagues to the hon. gentleman who just spoke on behalf of the official opposition. He began a debate which I submit by the time the day is over will have provided an opportunity to a large number of hon. members to illustrate and point out complaints, ideas and arguments to the minister and the government concerning improvements which need to be made in the Post Office Department.
When I end my remarks I intend to move an amendment to the motion to insert words to the effect that postal rate policies seriously threaten the continued existence of church, farm, labour and other non-profit Canadian publications. Those of us speaking on behalf of our party in this debate will have a number of principles and certain criticisms as well as this amendment to offer concerning the operation of the Post Office Department. We direct these not only at the Minister of Communications, although he must bear most of the responsibility for the present situation, I submit, because of his attitude, his entrenchment and his insensitivity, but also at the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), the cabinet and all government members because they are equally guilty and must answer to the Canadian public. The minister could not possibly have decided on the actions his department has taken without the blessing and full support of the Prime Minister, his cabinet colleagues and the Liberal backbenchers.
I submit that the actions of the Post Office Department in recent months are but another in a long series of actions and inaction over many decades which have been perpetrated by successive federal Liberal governments and have betrayed our nationhood, our dependence and our sovereignty. The actions of the Post Office Department with regard to service and rates have served to attack the wrong people and the wrong organizations. They have served to attack the increasing
[Mr. Macquarrie.l
needs of Canadians to communicate with one another. They send to stifle and even prohibit the ability of non-profit organizations and associations to maintain publications that provide a vehicle for their own members to talk to one another or communicate with their fellow citizens generally.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
In the past my leader, the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas), in reference to other matters affecting Canada's independence and relations with the United States, likened the attitude and action of the Canadian government to supine acquiescence. He was right then and he is still right, but in my opinion he was too kind. I would call it a knowing betrayal and unconscionable lack of concern for the preservation of Canadian sovereignty, unity and viability as an independent nation. This Liberal government, like former Liberal governments, has long since either given up on the possibility of Canada surviving as an independent nation or it welcomes its absorption and takeover by a powerful and massive although friendly neighbour.
The operations of the Post Office Department in regard to the imbalance with the United States in mail handlings and the outrageous subsidy for two massive United States publications are another symptom of this betrayal of our people to foreign domination. It is too much that our resources and our businesses are steadily being taken over-two more in the past week-but surely it is unbearable that we have to go to the extreme of aiding foreign enterprise to take over our minds and communications.
Let me illustrate how the minister might do something more than he has in respect of his concern about Post Office deficits. He and the government are worried about deficits, yet they allow deficits to continue which are in no way contributing to our country and its people. In his own financial statement and details of rate adjustments which he issued a few months ago the minister illustrated that the imbalance in respect of Canadian and United States second class traffic was as follows: United States mailings to Canada amount to almost 70 million per year. This is based on 1967-68 statistics. Canadian mailings to the United States amount to 17 million. The deficit in the number of articles handled is about 52 million and represents a cost deficit of about $3,500,000 per year. If the handling deficit remains steady compared with 1967-68, that is the loss. The minister seems
May 15. 1969

to be strangely lacking in concern about this deficit. The deficit, in spite of the minister's rate increases, also means a gift of $1,522,000 each year to Time and Reader's Digest which are what I call ethnic American publications.
In the minister's own documents his rate adjustments propose to increase the coverage of cost on second class mail involving Canadian daily newspapers from 30 per cent to 80 per cent. I do not object to that because these people are in the business of publishing newspapers to make money, and the great majority of their revenue comes from advertising. As closely as possible they should pay the cost of handling their newspapers, although there is perhaps some argument in favour of a slight subsidy.
If the minister accomplishes his aim in this regard there will still be a slight subsidy of about 20 per cent. If this is valid for Canadian daily newspapers I should like the minister and the government to explain to us and the Canadian people why Time and Reader's Digest will have to pay only one-third of the cost after the minister's new rate adjustments. I submit that the minister can pick up over $5 million, certainly not less than that, each year if he does two things: first, discuss with the United States authorities and then implement rates that require the payment of all costs of handling the imbalance of mail service between our two countries and, second, immediate implementation, and this requires no discussion, of rates for Time and Reader's Digest which cover the entire cost of handling.
The minister, the government and their apologists must quit using as a basis for subsidy to these two publications the outrageous myth that somehow because they are printed in Canada and contain three or four pages of Canadian news, which is either irrelevant or slanted or both, this makes them Canadian publications. This kind of criteria is nonsense. It is outrageous and is enough to give a coyote the heartburn. These two publications have no right to a subsidy in Canada. All they have is the privilege to make use of our postal services provided they pay the full cost of those services. They are in fact foreign publications put out for profit, and profit alone.
If the minister will illustrate by action his concern for deficits in these two areas, amounting to not less than $5 million per year, he will do something to convince many of us and many Canadians that he is serious. Instead, he attacks the wrong people and the
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wrong organizations. Instead, he seeks to pick up deficits from those from whom it might be easier to pick them up. He reminds me of the bully in the schoolyard who picks on the Boy Scout, the Girl Guide and the war amputee. He reminds me not only of a bully but of someone who is trying to solve the problems in respect of Post Office deficits by attempting to be half pregnant. This means he will be a born loser.
The minister is attempting to use so-called private enterprise efficiency methods in respect of an instrument that is basically a social enterprise designed to render service. He is a born loser. This is the way the minister has directed his concern. He is attacking nonprofit Canadian publications while giving those great candidates for social aid, Time and Reader's Digest benefits amounting to $1,500,000 per year. He is attacking Canadian non-profit publications and forcing them either to cease or substantially reduce the number of their issues.
Let me illustrate this fact. I can think of a publication that can really do something about Post Office deficits, if one were really to believe the department. I have in mind the Toronto Metropolitan Police Association's publication, News and Views. There is not a word of advertising in it, although if you want to buy a baby crib or a second-hand car from a fellow member of the force you can read about it. It contains news of the internal doings of the police association. It is all mimeographed, but the department suggests that here is an area where deficits can be reduced. Rather than $500 a year, the minister wants $2,500 a year.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
The minister can attack the Labour Statesman, a now discontinued publication of the British Columbia Federation of Labour. This was a non-profit publication by a Canadian organization. He can attack Le Travail, put out by the C.N.T.U., which has ceased to be published. By the way, the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier) had a great deal to do with this publication and was an important contributor to it. I hope the Secretary of State is expressing his concern to the minister.
The United Church Observer is another Canadian, non-profit publication. The costs of this publication have increased five times, from $30,000 a year to $145,000 a year. The minister tells us that he has doubled the charges in respect of Time and Reader's Digest. However, they are still receiving $1,500,000 a year by way of subsidy. The minis-

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ter should have tripled the charges on Time and Reader's Digest, but no, he needs to attack a publication such as the United Church Observer to help bring about his reductions.
Canadian Transport, normally published twice a month, will now be issued only once in the three months of July, August and September. This is a Canadian, non-profit publication. To add insult to injury, Postmark, the publication of employees of his own Post Office Department, has ceased publication. The minister is trying to apply an attitude of efficiency and organization which one usually associates with profit-making organizations. No one objects to efficiency, but the efforts of the minister and the government to apply an attitude of efficiency and money-making in respect of the Post Office, or any other public service essential to the national interest, such as applies to the Montreal Stock Exchange or the "Lovey-Dovey Finance Company" is to deny a fundamental principle that a social enterprise must have as its first priority and its first purpose the provision of service rather than making a profit.
Since when must the Post Office make money? Surely the provision of effective, efficient receipt, handling, dispatch and delivery of communications between Canadians is of such paramount importance that the incurring of deficits for that service is no crime. In fact, the paying of such deficits from the national treasury is surely a proper way for some of the costs of the service to be borne by Canadian citizens and corporations in a manner that has some relationship to ability to pay. In other words, postal deficits can mean that low income people and non-profit organizations will not be carrying a disproportionate share of the costs of a service that is essential to our national well-being and the survival of our culture and independence.
The Post Office is a social as well as a public enterprise. It needs a socialist to run it. The application of free enterprise attitudes and methods to its operations have not allowed, are not now and will not allow in the future, for its efficient and effective operation. We have been experiencing attempts by the government at efficiency for the sake of the internal operations of the department, efficiency for the sake of dollars, in the typical private enterprise way. This has resulted in drastically reduced efficiency in service to the public. It has further resulted in unreasonable and unwarranted hardship being imposed upon publications of non-profit, Canadian organizations and groups.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I shall move the amendment which I mentioned earlier. In doing so I would invite members on the back benches on the Liberal side to take this opportunity to get the message through to the minister and the government. I know I cannot ask them to vote against the government and defeat it. However, I ask them to take this opportunity to have at least half a dozen of them vote for the motion and arrange for enough other Liberal members to be absent this evening so that the government will survive by only the skin of its teeth. It may well be that in this event the minister and the government will get the message. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom):
That the motion be amended by inserting therein, immediately after the words "mismanagement of the postal service", the following words:
"including a postal rates policy which seriously threatens the continued existence of church, farmer, labour, co-operative and other non-profit Canadian publications".


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin), who has just moved an amendment to the main amendment, said in concluding his remarks that the Communications Department is run as a private enterprise, which explains why its operation is a complete failure.
I must say that if private enterprise was run in the same way as the Communications Department in Ottawa, our trades people and businessmen would have gone bankrupt long ago, because the policy followed in most cases is the same as in other countries where the minister is no longer responsible.
Mr. Speaker, at this stage, I must say that Canada has seldom seen a cabinet minister achieve national unity from sea to sea as totally and as fully as this one.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
From East to West, in the central provinces, everywhere, everybody is equally annoyed with the Post Office Department. Mr. Speaker, it is that kind of Canadian unity which we find today, to the same extent, in every field.
The no-confidence motion presented by the official opposition to the effect that the cost and the quality of the postal service are not adequate, is justified.
I somewhat doubt that the motion will even be passed by all the members. I even fear
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that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) mistrusts the motion and will tonight vote as usual with the Liberals, against the motion presented by a member of his party. It has happened before in the house, Mr. Speaker.
All that to say that, last fall, when the minister introduced Bill C-116 in the house, as reported in Hansard of October 21, we said to him then that he should increase the rates and decrease the services and this is exactly what is happening now. The minister at the time, as a justification for the increases, pointed out that a $ 100-million deficit had to be made up. If a $100-million deficit is cancelled, it will result eventually in a much higher deficit always at the expense of the small wage earner, the ordinary people and the workers.
The rates for the delivery of publications have been reduced from ten to three and apply to the following classes: dailies, weeklies and other periodicals. Dailies now have to pay 5c. a pound for reading matter and 15c. a pound for advertising matter. As to the weeklies, they will pay 5c. a pound if the circulation is below 10,000 copies. The other periodicals will pays 5c. a pound with a minimum of 2c. per copy.
The policy of the government or the minister, has led to a steep increase in the cost of subscriptions for those who must buy those publications.
For instance, Le Devoir, a Montreal daily, has increased its subscription rates by 275 per cent. Other newspapers did the same. Several publications were reclassified and new postal rates applied to them which are three, four or five times higher than they were before.
As my colleague from Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) said on October 21, 1968, as reported in Hansard, and I quote:
Mr. Speaker . . . the minister also received-
. . . the brief of the Corporation of Quebec Dailies Inc.
Sherbrooke's Tribune which has 6,978 subscribers and whose subscription rate is $4.60 at present, would be $13.70 at the new rates.
As far as Montrial-Matin is concerned, the cost would jump from $6 to $9.
In the case of Le Soleil, the subscription rate would be increased from $7.30 to $24.75.
As a result, I believe a subscription to Le Soleil now costs $40 a year.
Mr. Speaker, those are the results of the legislation introduced by the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) in October 1968.
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We are facing, since then, an increase in subscription rates. Associations' newspapers whose subscription rate is included in the membership fee are now third class instead of second class mail.
We can give examples: the newspaper Regards, which is the organ of the Ralliement creditiste, has become third class mail.
La Terre de Chez-nous, the newspaper of the farmers of Quebec, passed from second to third class mail, as well as Le Travail, which is the newspaper of the CNTU, and some other magazines of movements or associations.
Mr. Speaker, we think that this hinders information, while newspapers and publications with Communist leanings circulate freely.
Recently we read the following in the Owen Sound Sun-Time of May 7th, and I quote:

Photographically reproduced below is the masthead from the Quebec Communist journal Combat of March 28, 1969. Note in the third line that it has been granted second class privileges by the P.O. Department, registration number 1491. This number is allocated after second class privileges are granted. Combat had its number (1491) displayed six full weeks ago in its March 28 issue. Yet the Post Office Department is now "providing information" that the decision respecting this red organ is pending. Perhaps another question or two would be in order.
This was addressed to Mr. McIntosh of the Post Office Department.

Mr. Speaker, this is the exact picture published in Combat, a newspaper published semi-monthly at 5327 Park Avenue, Montreal. It is second class mail, registration No. 1491.
Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, this is discrimination against news publications.
The Postmaster General is therefore going directly for the population as a whole. It has become almost impossible to publish newspapers, such as the magazine Montreal, for instance, which has completely disappeared. In that connection, one could read in the May 9 issue of VAction, four or five days ago:
The prestige magazine Montreal which, for the past five years, was published every month, and later on, every six or eight weeks by the City of Montreal, will not longer reach its 517,000 select readers scattered in 148 countries all over the world.
The mailing of that glossy magazine used to cost $6,000 per month. That-
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-to all countries in the world, or almost.
Those charges would have gone up to $28,000 last November and to $55,000 since April 1st-
-1969, a month and ten days' ago-
-but the magazine has not been published since the major rate increase.
The Postmaster General is aware of that. People are not informed, not only in Canada, but in other countries also, of what is going on in Canada's metropolis, due to the establishment of prohibitive postal rates, that prevent some magazines from being published while others still benefit from the old post office legislation.
For instance, one can read in the Vancouver Sun "Reds and Hippies Get Special Rates".

Also: the Canada Viet Nam newsletter, organ of the communist Viet Cong in Canada. A further investigation revealed that the following revolutionary publications have been accorded subsidized second class rates.

The newspapers which try to inform the people honestly cannot take advantage of the same privileges.
I quoted a while ago the newspaper Combat and I shall now list some others:

The Progressive Worker. Subsidized by Peking through Anna Louise Strong, this publication features an assortment of revolutionary material and is pushed by such Peking line outlets as Progressive Books and Periodicals, 1867 Amherst Street, Montreal.
The American Exile in Canada. Organ of the American deserters and draft dodgers. The March 30 issue carried the second class mail authorization. This poorly produced mimeographed publication promotes the distribution of the notorious Manual for Draft Age Immigrants to Canada.
Logos. A Montreal "underground" publication which supports F.L.Q. terrorists and various revolutionary activities. Its current issue, (April) carries the second class notation.
La Lutte Ouvriere. Organ of the Trotskyites in Montreal, known in Quebec as the "Ligue Socialiste Ouvriere".
The Workers Vanguard. Organ of the revolutionary communist Trotskyites outside Quebec.
All these are given second class mail privileges while publications meant to work for the benefit of our people are not allowed these second class facilities.

[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)

Mr. Speaker, that is why we made representations to the minister on many occasions, regarding the privileges granted to publications bent on destroying Canada, when those same privileges are refused to magazines or newspapers trying to keep Canada together.
Turning now to another matter, I say that the bill introduced last October has imposed extremely difficult conditions upon mail carriers. The five-day week increases the load of these men, who must do the work of six days in five. This slows down mail delivery.
Recently, I gave a few examples to the minister, and I want to give him a few more:
A letter addressed to Miss Atholl Maining, 6960, Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, mailed in Washington on May 1, was delivered in Montreal on May 10. It required ten days, to get from Washington to Montreal. It takes as long as in the horse and buggy days. We have reached that point.
Here is another instance: a copy of The Reader's Digest, sent to the same young lady, was mailed in April, and was delivered in Montreal on May 7, 1969.
Another letter, addressed to the same young lady, by the Vermont Educational Television Society, and endorsed Dated matter, please, do not delay, was mailed in Burlington, Vermont on April 25, and delivered in Montreal, on May 7. A very efficient postal service indeed. The letter was endorsed First Class Mail.
I was in western Canada recently, and letters were sent to various people in British Columbia, in Alberta and in Saskatchewan. Those letters had left Ottawa 10 or 12 days previously but had not been delivered yet in those provinces. This is the kind of postal service we have now.
I realize that the minister has difficulties with certain union leaders. I know that he is sometimes; reluctant to take sides because he is afraid of losing votes by coming down hard upon them. However, the minister knows that the postal employees are not interested in starting strikes or creating difficulties, in spite of what some union leaders may say, for instance a certain Mr. Houle who stated on television in Montreal: I am going to close the central post office, I am going to close the post office in the north end, and the one in the south.
May 15, 1969

Mr. Speaker, there are laws to stop fellows like that from speaking like that and stirring up the workers in Canada. It is precisely because such people are tolerated, feared, that lamentable results such as those which are now seen in the Post Office Department come about.
Mr. Speaker, every hon. member insists that our postal employees are well treated. However, it is another thing to be threatened by people who never accomplished anything in Canada and are ready to stir up people on one against another. The Postmaster General should have been firmer on some occasions.
For example, the minister knows very well that the five-day week service does not serve the people well. He knows very well that the closing down of post offices is not right for the people. Nevertheless, small post offices are closed down, employees are laid off, and the five-day week is imposed, while the mail accumulates in post offices during two days, and delivery is delayed.
The present postal service in Canada is a disgrace, as I said earlier. The system is not satisfactory. We are in a mess because the minister was afraid.
When the minister will decide to stand up, to make the facts known to the people concerned, I am convinced that postal rates might be cut, because it is imperative.
Moreover, second class privileges should be granted to Canadian publications; since the population should be informed instead of being punished.
Also, a fuller, better and speedier service should be provided, because we keep getting complaints from everywhere.
I referred to one complaint, but I received a number of them when I visited western Canada. The same thing happens in the East.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the minister has achieved-as I said at the beginning of my remarks-perfect national unity. He has antagonized everybody across the country with his new legislation. Since everyone has the same complaint,, I would ask him, for the sake of national unity, to reconsider his position and to improve the Post Office Act so that all Canadians will be better disposed towards the government and especially towards the Postmaster General.


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I must first make a rectification.
The following newspapers mentioned by the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. 2918C-554J
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Caouette) were not granted special privileges: Logos, Canada-Vietnam News Letter, The Workers Vanguard, The American in Exile in Canada, The Communist Viewpoint and The Progressive Worker.

I have listened to the speeches of hon. members opposite and I should like to say right away that although some of their criticisms and complaints are justified-and specific complaints are what we are looking for in order to enable us to do a better job-in order to investigate them we should like to have the actual envelopes in our hands so that we can trace where the delays are. So many of these delayed letters come from other countries. There are parcels from the United Kingdom that had to come through New York where there was a three-month dock strike.


Mr. Thompson:: No, we have examples right here.


Eric William Kierans: Then give them to us and we will investigate them. This is the best chance we can have to find out what are the weak points in the Post Office administration. I think we have had enough of these wild generalizations.
All that has been said so far in this debate and anything that remains to be said was said far better just under one year ago, and I want to quote a certain comment:
-Post Office faces a crisis. Each year it slips further behind the rest of the economy in service, in efficiency and in meeting its responsibilities as an employer. Each year it operates at a huge financial loss. No one realizes the magnitude of this crisis more than the postal managers and employees who daily bear the staggering burden of moving the nation's mail. The remedy lies beyond their control.
I deliberately omitted three words from that quotation, Mr. Speaker. In the original quotation the first sentence commenced:
The United States Post Office faces a crisis.
That quotation is taken from the report of the Presidential task force on the United States Post Office.


Robert Norman Thompson: Why do we have to learn from the United States?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, I did not interrupt the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie) with one word. Although our Post Office can stand comparison and come out on top by almost any measure, the quotation itself could apply almost unchanged to

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the Canadian Post Office. The most important aspects of that quotation are, I suggest, first, the existence of a crisis in postal services everywhere in the western world; second, the fact that post office managers and employees are fully aware of it and, third, that the remedy lies beyond their control. The remedy lies instead with the government, and it lies with this parliament.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
Post Office employees are intensely loyal to their institution and take great pride in it. I have listened to these whispered rumours about sabotage,, but I put those rumours and insinuations against the fact that one of the unions is itself spending more than $65,000 a year of its own members' funds to educate the employees to do a better job. So they are loyal. This refrain time and again comes through all the comments of those consultants who are examining every aspect of the Post Office. A tremendous reservoir of talent and good will exists within the Post Office, and the government through parliament will have to provide those who work for the Post Office, whether as managers or employees, with the tools to do the job they want to do and have to do.
This crisis has been building up for years. It did not happen this year; it happened 10 to 15 years ago when decisions that should have been taken were not taken. Time and again the Post Office has been starved of resources and responsibilities. Today some hon. members seem to feel they have a licence to make any criticism they want of the Post Office. Specific criticisms I welcome, because they are extremely helpful to us. But the kind of criticism that is not helpful and not specific is damaging and,, I suggest, downright unfair. That kind of criticism was raised by an hon. member in this house last Tuesday night when, taking advantage of the protection afforded to him by virtue of his being a member of parliament, he pilloried a postmaster who lives and works 3,000 miles away in Prince Rupert. That postmaster was not present to defend himself and, in any case, would be incapable of defending himself against the kind of attack the hon. member chose to make. I quote his exact words, as reported at page 8673 of Hansard. He said in part:
Unprovable allegations oi racial discrimination have been whispered about-
Just imagine that; he talked of unprovable allegations. Well, they were not being whispered about when he got through shouting them in this house. In his own words, the

allegations were unprovable. I therefore suggest he owes the postmaster concerned a public apology.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Eric William Kierans: This was character assassination at its worst. Then he went on to talk about this unprovable allegation of racial discrimination. He applied it to the quality of management in the entire Post Office and later had the gall to ask me if I or my officers approved of tapping telephones throughout the Post Office. This kind of criticism hurts. It attempts to capitalize on a situation where the Post Office is at the moment vulnerable because we are experiencing some difficulties with delivery,, particularly in the key Mont-real-Ottawa-Toronto triangle. I think it is high time some hon. members of the opposition removed the beam from their own eyes.
The hon. member for Hillsborough was indignant, but there were some curious omissions from his speech and I will fill him in.
The rate increases we have brought down- yes, they are considerable. The reason, as I previously explained, is that they had been left unchanged for 17 years for first class mail and since the middle 1930's for other classes. During six of those years the government of which the hon. member for Hillsborough was a member preferred to hide from the public the fact that it was subsidizing the publishing industry. It never informed the public of the amount of that subsidy, made no attempt to bring that subsidy under control and made no attempt to distribute it on a more equitable basis.
Post Office employees are today experiencing some difficulties in reacting to change, and it does not require much wisdom to uncover the reason. We should have started bringing about improvements years ago if we wanted a complete management team today. We failed in our responsibility to provide Post Office employees at all levels with training to equip them with the skills to take advantage ,of the opportunities we are opening up. We failed to train them to manage and administer the Post Office effectively. Mr. Speaker, after five do-nothing Conservative years, guess how much was allocated for training within the Post Office budget? There are 41,000 employees in the Post Office, and what do you think was the total amount set aside for training? It was $15,000. That is where we failed. That is why we have problems today.
May 15. 1969


An hon. Member:: But you had better service.


Eric William Kierans: That worked out at 35 cents per man. What did that buy the men? A hot dog or a cup of coffee? Is that how you trained them? You spent 35 cents per man for training in the Post Office.


An hon. Member:: Peanuts.


Eric William Kierans: Our budget for training this year is $592,000, and there will be more money as we divert funds to make up for lost time. Next year we are budgeting for more than $1 million.
After training the next evident need of the Post Office was for mechanization. In 1962-63, when we were finally coming to the end of those years of Conservative irresponsibility, what was the amount of money spent by the Conservative government through the Department of Public Works for mechanization of the Post Office? Remember, Mr. Speaker, there were over 8,000 buildings right across Canada; there were problems, as Judge Montpetit pointed out, with lighting, heating, air conditioning and there was a need for mechanization. And what was the Conservative government's budget that year? It was $133,000 for mechanization. Imagine that! With over four billion pieces of mail going through, with more than 41,000 employees, with more than 8,000 post offices across the country, that government spent $15,000 on training and $133,000 on plant and equipment. There were problems, Mr. Speaker and they were easy to see and forecast with the ever growing avalanche of mail when the only policy that government had was to add more bodies, more people belonging to the political party supporting it, to already overcrowded buildings.
The root problem of the Post Office is that of personnel relations.


An hon. Member:: Poor management.


Eric William Kierans: After six years of being governed by the government of which the hon. member for Hillsborough was a member, the state of the Post Office was such that Mr. Justice Montpetit was directed to undertake an inquiry, and he brought down 282 recommendations in order to assure employees of the Post Office of minimum, tolerable working conditions. As I said, that report was finally commissioned in 1965 after the years of neglect had built up. We could see such
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pitiful things as lack of toilet facilities, wash-up space, recreational facilities, restrooms, and air conditioning.
May I read what Mr. Justice Montpetit wrote after having visited some post offices last fall. He said:
I would not be doing my duty If I did not first of all mention the numerous and excellent efforts made by the Post Office Department to correct or improve the "environmental or physical working conditions" of postal workers and letter carriers.
Naturally, all is not perfect, and the department itself acknowledges that fact. But, in my opinion, the department has made remarkable progress since October 1966 and continues, as the days and months go by, pursuing a well-conceived and well-planned policy.
We cannot make up for 20 years of neglect since the second world war in several months. That is the record of the party opposite-neglect, irresponsibility, and a refusal to face up to even the most obvious and urgent problems. If we are facing difficulties today, the wonder is they are not worse.
For years the Post Office has been forced to carry a sackload of other people's problems. Everybody wants their mail delivered on time and at the right price. They have a right to it, but they also have a duty to recognize the difficulties under which the Post Office is operating. I have said before that in past years Post Office employees by their wages reduced the deficit to the general public. To cure that situation cost two national strikes and a legacy of union-management suspicion which is not yet cured.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
If the people in Toronto complain about mail deliveries, they should also complain about the situation in which the Post Office itself first attempted in 1948 to build a new Post Office there. Today, 21 years later, we are still where we were at that time, the planning stage, but this time we really intend to do something about it. During that 21 years more bodies were put into that building, without air conditioning and heat, and the building was already overcrowded.
When people in Montreal complain about mail delays, as they have a right to, they should remember the steps we have taken: introduction of colour-coding, introduction of containers, new transportation schedules so that today 75,000 more Montreal mail items achieve next day delivery than a year ago. When the opposition complains about rate increases they should add, if they want to present an honest picture to the public, that the cost to the taxpaying public has gone

May 15, 1969
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down. That cost is direct, in stamps, and indirect in the annual deficit, which this year was forecast at $130 million.
An hon. member of the New Democratic party recommended in committee hearings that all mail services should be free. I think we are more sensitive than the members1 of the New Democratic party. If all mail were delivered free of charge, the cost of transporting it would be $1 billion a year. The hon. member does not realize what the Post Office business is all about. The Post Office is no longer personal mail but business mail. Almost 80 per cent of first, second, third and fourth class mail is business mail. The New Democratic party recommends a $1 billion subsidy to the business community of this country. Where do they intend to get this money? Health and social welfare, regional disparity, medicare, old age pensions? They should balance their figures before talking. When the opposition opposes change in the Post Office, when members opposite criticize every attempt to change the Post Office to make it an institution that is less of a burden upon the Canadian public, an institution equipped to provide better service to the public, an institution that above all is able to provide its own employees with a more fruitful career, then members opposite had better reckon the consequences of refusing to change.
The originally forecast deficit for this year was $130 million. If we do not make any changes1, in 1975 the Post Office will have a deficit of $500 million. In the United States this year the deficit went up to $500 million. Do members opposite want a deficit in 1975 of $500 million or do they want the people who use these services to pay for them? I can think of an infinite number of better ways to spend $500 million than to cover a Post Office deficit, as suggested by hon. members opposite, a postal deficit which really only subsidizes the business community.
There is a second and more crucial reason for change and a consequence if we refuse to change. The Post Office above all is a human institution. It has 48,000 employees which makes it the fifth largest business in the country. The Post Office runs on people power. Each letter is delivered individually to each home. Each letter dispatched from one city to another may go through as many as 60 separate manual handlings.
These people have been shortchanged by their governments and parliaments. You can find the evidence for that accusation either in

the $15,000 spent on retraining 40,000 employees six years ago, or in the fact that at the head office of an organization which does close to $500 million worth of business a year there are fewer than 20 individuals earning more than $13,500 a year. That is what parliaments and governments have done to the Post Office since world war II. The effects upon them of this neglect, this year by year irresponsibility,, were expressed by the United States Presidential task force in the following words:
Regardless of any of the productivity improvement possibilities within the Port Office system, desirable as they may be, probably the most serious criticism is the failure of the Post Office to offer the individual employee the kind of opportunities for personal improvement and involvement that characterize almost every other phase of American life.
The Presidential task force continued with these sad words:
The salaries it pays are, in most places, competitive with those paid by private companies, yet there is widespread disquiet among postal employees. Time and again senior employees told us they would not recommend postal employment to someone beginning his working career. Many newer employees said they were staying only until a better opportunity arose.
Change is difficult, Mr. Speaker, for an individual or an institution. Those difficulties, and I fully recognize they are real, are more than worth while if the end result is a Post Office in which senior employees gladly recommend to their sons that they join the service and in which new employees stay on because the career opportunities are too good to be missed. That is the past. No matter who was at fault or what the faults were, it is over. The Post Office is now looking to the future and its responsibilities to the public and its employees.
I have twice quoted from the Presidential task force report which was completed in June of last year. President Nixon has informed Congress he will be presenting a bill to take action on it. These conditions are world-wide and, serious as they are in Canada, they are not as serious as elsewhere, but that is no cause for complacency or congratulations. We are at this moment behind both Great Britain and the United States, not in the quality of our service or in the level of our standards but in refashioning the Post Office to face the future, and indeed to face today.
May 15, 1969

[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
Hon. members know about the task forces that are examining every facet of our operations. They may recommend refashioning the Post Office as a crown corporation. This is the route that is being chosen both in the United States and in Great Britain, but of itself it is no panacea. However, by both of these countries it is being seen as an essential first step.
I will list the studies presently being undertaken. They are an organizational study, an environmental study which has already been published, management practices, management inventory, management information systems, blueprint for implementation, marketing, personnel administration-one of the most serious problems we have-a transportation study, mail forecasting, productivity, facility design and equipment utilization, mail sorting, distribution and pre-sorting. All of these are extensive studies and, as hon. members know, we even created a study group outside of them to study stamp design. Its report was critical, but we were glad to release it. We are not interested in being flattered. We are interested in knowing what our weaknesses are. We also have a special study taking place on the information branch, with emphasis being given to ways in which we can improve internal communication within an organization that is so vast and so diverse.
I hope to publish as many of these reports as possible. We are looking for criticism, but I cannot forecast in advance the content of these reports. However, it may turn out that, a substantial majority contain confidential information drawn from private sources or affecting internal management and financial affairs. In that event we will go to the idea of a white paper, but in no event will the decision be taken not to publish a report on the ground that it is critical-confidential, yes, critical, no.
That is the present picture. We are examining every phase of our activities. There is no single criticism made in this house this afternoon or earlier, or outside of it, that we have not ourselves identified long ago. In fact some have been identified that no one has spoken about.
Some criticisms of the Post Office, however, are unfair. If one believed some editorials it would seem that the Post Office alone stood between the Canadian publishing industry and bankruptcy. I suggest to hon. members that they compare the editorials now being written with those that were being written in
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these same newspapers last September. At that time when I said we were going to move to put the Post Office on a more efficient basis, to reduce costs and to attempt to balance the budget, there was not a newspaper across the country that did not hail the Postmaster General as being the ideal man for the job. But in the latter part of October when the details of the bill were published and they knew what my statement meant, nearly every newspaper across the country, with some very notable exceptions, turned the other way around. The attitude was, "Balance the budget, yes. Who, me? Never."
I suggest it is time that the publishing industry recognized that subsidies paid by the public are a privilege and not a right, that they imply certain duties, including a duty to suggest how large the subsidy should be and how it should be divided. We are not experts on the publishing industry and we do not claim to be. We do not claim to be able to construct an equitable formula that will give help to those publications that need it, whether they are non-profit or Canadian or American. I suggest that the publishing industry, which is still going to get a subsidy of $40 million from the taxpaying public in its second and third class elements, instead of taking the attitude that the subsidy should be larger or that it should not be cut, should come before parliament with specific proposals on how we should allocate the funds.
I have no objections to and can see a great value in support for Canadian periodicals- but define them, and say how much-just as I can see great value in helping Air Canada to fulfil its national mandate. But I object to subsidies to anyone, no matter how deserving, being hidden from the public and being mixed up in postal rates.
In summary, Mr. Speaker, the Post Office is going through a difficult period of transition. Change is always difficult. At the present time we are suffering an abnormal amount of criticism, and that is always difficult for morale. There are other difficulties which may be related to the fact that both management and unions inside the Post Office are new to the concept of a union contract. We are working on our first such contract in over 100 years of existence, and there has been on both sides perhaps a tendency to interpret that contract too literally, to look at the words and not, at times, at the implied intent behind those words, in other words, to treat it as a human document.

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Change itself has brought some uncertainty within the Post Office and criticism from without. We have had to cut back some services because they are no longer worth the cost, in much the same way as people now go to supermarkets because they no longer want to pay for the services of the general store. To expect, say, the Post Office to operate on a six-day week when virtually the rest of Canada operates on a five-day week, including members of parliament-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Eric William Kierans: -is much like expecting newspapers in these days of radio and television, still to publish four and five editions a day, or for railways to operate-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the minister but his time has expired.


Eric William Kierans: May I have consent to finish?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: May I suggest the Postmaster General might continue but let him talk facts.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous agreement that the Postmaster General may continue?


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I merely rise to ask the minister to indicate if he has nearly completed his remarks. I am sure we would not want to cut him off in mid-paragraph.


Eric William Kierans: I shall be only another
minute.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous agreement?
Some, hon. Members: Agreed.


Eric William Kierans: What we are setting out to do is to provide service in the style of today, to fulfil the real needs of people today, and to do this in a way which does not burden the general taxpayer with expenditures that go only to benefit a few.
I take tremendous pride in being the Postmaster General, and I want every one of the 48,000 people working for the Post Office to have exactly that same feeling of pride. O.K., we are subject to criticism, but we will smile at 'the people of Canada and they will smile back at us. These are the goals of the Post Office. We are moving toward them and moving at an increasing pace as we identify our problems and take action to solve them. For

that objective I ask for the support and the confidence of this house.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)


Mr. Mac T. McCutcheon (Lamblon-Kenl):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the Minister of Communications (Mr. Kierans), and right at the outset I should like to say that what is going to happen in the Post Office some day is wonderful. But I ask the minister, when is the mail going to go through? Heaven knows, there is enough to be said in criticism of the new broom in the person of the Postmaster General so that I will not have to do what has been suggested should be done, that is, criticize the Post Office Department. There is plenty of room for criticism right at the 'top. Nothing the minister has said in his remarks today, and I listened to them carefully, has changed my view that one of the main criticisms is his apparent advocacy of the barren and destructive concept of change solely for the sake of change.
To me the minister is the perfect symbol of our sick society, "a prophet of mindless action", to quote the distinguished Cambridge professor of English constitutional history, Geoffrey Elton. Since he assumed office and undertook to reform the Post Office Department and the postal service the minister has managed to alienate postal workers, disrupt service and impose burdensome and unjustified extra taxation on Canadians generally. This I believe is directly attributable to a blind dedication to the theory that change, no matter how unreasoned or how destructive it may be, is hound to be good. I should like to quote from the Monetary Times for the month of May, 1969. The minister is reported as having said:
I intend to reshape the Post Office not as an organization in the business of moving the mail, but as an organization in the business of communications.
The minister has embraced the proposed new communications satellite as the justification for his theories and the badge of his new regime. What he has failed to do is explain to Canadian businessmen and others who depend upon a reliable mail service for their daily bread just how his satellite or communications organization will ensure fast, efficient mail delivery, reasonably contented employees or relief from exorbitant charges.
I should like to revert to my earlier remarks about our sick society and mindless
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action. Perhaps we should not blame the minister too much for being one among many in our society who has fallen under the current intoxication of heedless and purposeless change. We see the symptoms and the results on every hand today. In the Montreal Gazette of Tuesday there is an editorial comment on the destruction of the small American town of Zap by a mob of young people bent solely and mindlessly on destruction pure and simple. This town in North Dakota has a population of some 300 people. A chance, tongue in cheek reference in a college paper to a "Zap-in" brought down a wave of 3,000 young people on that village who proceeded to leave it in a shambles.
This is simply an extreme example of what we see about us in this country all the time today. It makes no more sense and is no more reasonable or explainable than was the destruction of millions of dollars worth of computer devices at Sir George Williams University. I admit it would be unfair to equate the minister's chaotic reforms with either incident, but it is my conviction that the disruptive changes in our postal system and the other occurrences have their roots in common ground. Perhaps I might again quote Professor Elton as reported by Bruce West in Tuesday's Globe and Mail:
Our world is one in which reason is in retreat. The mentors of the day are prophets of mindless action. The current methods of argument are belief, assertion and the slogan, not rational analysis and exchange of views.
It strikes me that the minister's arbitrary decisions and stubborn refusal to listen to argument may very well stem from his adoption of "belief, assertion and the slogan" rather than the old-fashioned method of "rational analysis and exchange of views". People in public life, clergymen, politicians, educators and commentators, all appear to feel a compulsion to get with it and underwrite if not actually recommend basic and revolutionary change. Nothing is held sacred or useful any more if it lends itself to attack as being part of the "Establishment", whatever that may be. An establishment seems to be anything that has been in existence for more than a few years.
Recently I read an article by a Protestant clergyman propounding the theory that Christ was a Communist. The truly frightening thing about all this is that so much reform, so much change and so much revolutionary upheaval is preached and embarked upon without any thought of what its ultimate aim
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is or what results it will produce once it is instituted. This is the fact about today's restless urge for change which makes much of it mindless, purposeless and meaningless.
It may seem far-fetched to suggest that the minister is a dangerous anarchist or that he is an undisciplined and irresponsible teenager, but the fact remains, in my opinion, that he has been guilty in launching his departmental reforms of the very same sins of heedlessness, thoughtlessness and irrationality of which I have been speaking. The minister can talk all he wants about his bright new Flash Gordon or Star Trek world of the future with satellites, computers and automatic machinery of every sort speeding communications in Canada and to the world outside our boundaries, but that will not change the fact that since his takeover of the department and the institution of his so-called reforms a letter can take 10 days to go from Parliament Hill to a town in Alberta. Even a registered letter can take six days to go from Ottawa to Winnipeg or four days to go eight miles from Gainsborough, Saskatchewan to Pierson, Manitoba.
This morning I spoke on the phone with a very prominent photographer in Chatham. He informed me that he sends film to a colour laboratory in Toronto. Formerly it took three days. Now it takes two weeks if he uses special delivery and his costs are up 100 per cent. He finds that he can get quicker service by sending it to a colour laboratory in Edmonton.


Mr. Smerchanski:: What would you suggest?


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: I suggest frankly that the post, after all, is a public service, one of the oldest and necessary services our central government is supposed to provide for taxpaying citizens. Like any other service, taxpayers expect to pay for it. So far as I know there has never been any suggestion that such a public service should make money for government. There has never been any public cry for this.
The new minister, however, upon assuming office adopted the arbitrary attitude that henceforth the mails must pay for themselves and, perhaps by good fortune, turn a tidy littly profit for a spendthrift government. I suggest that this is contrary to the whole concept of a public service, particularly the postal service. Let us by all means exercise economies and good management in the operation of the Post Office Department but let us not expect such a service cost free. I would rather be able to rely on my mail getting there on time and receiving it regularly than

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get back a few paltry tax dollars which in all probability will only be squandered by some other department of government.
I would be quite willing to see some other minister have responsibility for the proposed communications satellite if I had any reason to believe that by relieving the present minister of this heavy burden he would be in a position to devote his full time to the very real need to restore our postal services to respectability and reliability. The present minister, however, cannot do it. He has lost the respect of his department and of the people of Canada. He has proven himself to be completely incompetent to cope with the details of effectively running the Post Office Department.


Mark G. Smerchanski: That is your opinion.


Mr. McCuicheon:: It is the opinion of the bulk of Canadians, I believe. It was a little thing to him, but it was big in the eyes of Post Office boxholders in January this year when he tried to collect rent a second time even though people and firms had valid receipts for paid-up box rents.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)


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


Malcolm Wallace McCutcheon: Mr. Speaker, I have just one paragraph left.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there agreement to allow the hon. member to carry on?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: Mr. Speaker, it was not until the justice department handed down an opinion stating that proper Post Office receipts constituted a contract that he backed down. His attitude was: If I can get away with it, never mind the ethics. This was a small item with not much money involved but it was enough to destroy the minister's credibility. One would not buy a used car from a man like that.


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak during this debate I should like to say that Canadians have never paid more for and received less from postal services than today. The residents of my own province of Manitoba might as well be living in the Rupert's Land of Hudson's Bay Company days when mail at best came half yearly by sailing ship and canoe.

In my opinion, the sad decline in convenient and reliable service by the Canadian Post Office and the steep increase in cost to ordinary Canadians is attributable to only one man, the new Minister of Communications (Mr. Kierans).
He alone can take credit for the fact that in Canada today private mail pick-up and delivery services are preferred by many people to the service provided by his department. He alone must bear the responsibility for doubling the ordinary postage rates, for no other reason than to raise a quick buck for his free-spending cabinet colleagues and to create a reputation for himself as a great innovator and reorganizer. He may well have come perilously close to innovating and reorganizing the postal service right out of existence.
Without experience in postal matters, without experience in federal administration and with nothing but far-out theories and an all-consuming desire to enhance his reputation as an artist of radical change,, he took over the Post Office Department and proceeded to turn it upside down. He has done such a thorough job of disruption that by now there is little hope that a new minister could sort out the mess. He has reduced postal service to that of the days of the horse and the windjammer. In many ways a band of native runners carrying letters would be a more efficient way of handling the mail than the one he has instituted. Arbitrarily and without any adequate supporting evidence he has increased postal rates to burdensome proportions. By his heavyhanded and inept handling of Post Office employees he has all but destroyed departmental morale.
In a few short months the minister has successfully ruined a great public service which has operated for the benefit and to the satisfaction of Canadians since Confederation. Why has he brought about this havoc? In the name of what economist and business administrator has he acted? Apparently the only excuse for his actions has been his own opinion that all public services should pay their own way, that the postal service was running in the red and that he, the lone ranger of the Montreal Stock Exchange, must saddle up and ride to the rescue.
I for one do not believe there is any basis for the minister's contention that a public service of the nature of postal delivery should necessarily pay its way. I think every Canadian taxpayer would expect the department to be operated with economy and business efficiency. But I do not believe that the public of any nation would expect essential public
May IS, 1969

services to be operated at a profit like a private business venture. The essence of government and its chief purpose for being is to provide services for citizens which must be provided centrally and universally. That is why people pay taxes to government. They need and seek certain services and are willing to pay for them through taxation.
If the minister's theories of departmental self-sufficiency were carried to a logical conclusion, we would turn our armed forces into a crown corporation and expect it to show an annual profit. What municipality in this country expects its fire and police services to show a profit? The whole concept is absurd. This might be an interesting point for discussion in a class of first year university students but it can hardly be taken seriously by anyone with maturity or experience in the operations of government.
It is my belief that the minister has constituted a national disaster, and the damage he has already done to our postal services may render them beyond restoration. He might well be replaced by a competent man charged with the task of restoring public confidence in our postal service, bringing postal rates more in line with the realities of the general usage of such a public service, and generally making the Post Office Department tick with its old effectiveness.
I would have no objection if the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) allowed the present minister to stay on in some communications role. He might be quite happy if he were left with his satellites and his computers. But I urge most strongly upon the government that something be done quickly to make our postal services once again reliable, efficient and satisfying to the vast majority of Canadians who are today disgruntled, dissatisfied and despairing of the present Post Office regime of the hon. member for Duvernay (Mr. Kierans).


Barry Mather: Mr. Speaker, in rising to say a few words on this question I should like to say immediately that today's discussion on the regrettable state of our postal services is most timely. It is true that the rate of unemployment in the country is now over 5 per cent. It is true that our national air line is grounded. It is true that our passport office is inadequate in the light of modern demands. It is true that the cost of living has increased by a very substantial 1.1 per cent in the past month. With all these troubles it seems to me that the government inadequacy which has probably had the most annoying
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effect on the greatest number of Canadians has been caused by the policy of the Postmaster General.
Under the present minister we have seen an increase in the cost to consumers for postal services. He has even put out during his brief time in office an unsatisfactory stamp, one which resists perforation. He has admitted that it is poorly perforated. This probably adds to the cost of the consumer because one is apt to tear off one and a half stamps in trying to get one stamp. This may add somewhat to postal revenue, but at what cost in patience to the letter writer?
In my opinion there was no need to increase ordinary first class rates from five cents to six cents. For many years this service paid its way whereas other services have not.
The greatest public complaint has naturally centred on the substandard quality of delivery service. It has been said that we now have in Canada a five-day delivery service. It takes five days to deliver a letter almost anywhere. Let me quote briefly from one or two publications in reference to our present postal service. I quote first from the Winnipeg Free Press which carried an article referring to "the scandal of the century". This is stronger language than I would use because, like other hon. members, I am aware of the fact that there are legitimate difficulties involved in the changeover the minister has attempted to make. Nevertheless let me quote from this article which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press. After stating that present postal services represent the scandal of the century; the article continued:
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
Since Mr. Kierans' reforms, it has become almost impossible to send a letter within Canada's main centres and have it delivered the following day. Where periodicals are concerned, it's nothing but disaster. Second-class mail is obviously left to accumulate.
I ask the house to take particular note of this passage:
One is almost back in the days of Jalna, when a month's supply of the Times arrived by the mail boat to be read at breakfast each day, with exactly one month's delay.
I should like to quote briefly from an article which appeared in the Montreal Gazette of May 12:
There has been a limit to how long Canadians and Canadian businesses could put up with the sort of Post Office service they have been receiving. That limit has been reached. While many have complained, they have been hoping that the dislocation, the delays and the losses of mail were

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somehow temporary. But bad service has by now settled down into a bad pattern. It has become the expected thing. And this is not tolerable in a modern industrial nation.
Quite apart from the letters all hon. members are receiving almost every day of the week from people complaining about the difficulty of getting their mail through the postal service, the major complaint is from many church, farm union, co-operative and association papers, small publications which are put out in the interests of the membership or particular group and which under the new rates imposed by the Postmaster General are being asked to pay three, four and five times as much as they paid previously. As a result, these papers are going out of business or are having to cut back from weekly to monthly publication. Speaking in the House of Commons last fall, when the new postal policy was first unveiled, I said:
I agree with the Postmaster General in one respect. I have in mind his statement that the Canadian postal service is one of the best, if not the best, in the world. I would only qualify this by saying "it was" rather than "it is". I am not sure it will continue to be the best under the proposals the hon. gentleman is putting forward.
I do not often regret that I am right about anything, but I really regret that I was entirely correct and that under the present policy our once splendid mail service, by which five billion pieces of mail were distributed every year, the vast bulk delivered without error and within 24 hours, is a thing of the past.
I and my party have urged for many years that business mail and publications which are distributed for private profit should be made to pay their way. This has been our position, and we complimented the minister when he moved to bring it about. But we also asked that the question of non-profit publications should be referred to committee for a proper review, and that small publications which are not published for profit should be allocated a rate which would not curtail their circulation and communication.
It is very easy for those on this side of the house to rise on this subject and make a very critical attack on the postal service. I used to be in that service at one time. I admire the service. I think the minister is well motivated; I believe he attempted to do what he thought was the right thing. What he has done, in effect, is try to perform two or three surgical operations at the same time. This is a very dangerous situation with regard to both surgery and the postal service. We in this

country have had eight postmasters general in the last ten years. I hope the present one will not take it as a personal criticism when I say that my party and I hope he will not be the last Postmaster General that we have.


Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval):: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be rather brief since I have only been allotted ten minutes.
I should like to draw the minister's attention to a number of facts, after all the criticisms he has just heard.
I realize that running his department is an overwhelming task. I wonder, however, whether he has been pursuing the right aim, either to make the Post Office a profitable concern or to provide efficient service. In my opinion, since he runs the department, he has tried rather to make a paying business out of the department which, like the Department of National Defence, is not a department meant to make money but a commercial department.
It is primarily a service department, as the Department of National Defence is meant is ensure protection and I think it should first aim at service. I think the best example of lack of service is the closing down of rural post offices. In my riding, it is certainly one of the areas in which the minister has not tried his best to provide an adequate service to the people.
In my own riding, three post offices have been closed down and a fourth will soon be. I wonder if the minister and his officials have looked fully into the problem.
I have not dwelt on the other problems, because the minister had some arguments. But here is what the minister wrote, in a letter addressed to me and dated November 4:
We are now taking the necessary steps to close down the post office at Saint-Stanislas, Que.-
-a rural parish.
-which serves only 28 patrons.
They will now be served daily on the present route of Mistassini, R.R. No. 3.
Moreover, this road will be extended so as to serve daily the 25 users who now receive their mail through Saint-Stanislas, R.R. No. 1.
I will remind the minister that on February 25 he received from the council of the parish of Saint-Stanislas a petition signed by 40 objectors, and I can assure him that even today there are in the village of Saint-Stanislas 40 users rather than 28. I am not sure, but if the minister can guarantee, even to these 40 users, that the mail will be delivered to them at their door, that will be a lesser evil.
May 15, 1969



These public boxes are a problem in our villages, especially in winter, when the snowplow knocks them all down on its way, as it happened in some villages not tar from Saint-Felicien.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
One could knock down this collection of public boxes one fine day in those parts of the country where winter lasts six months a year. This is why I want to draw this problem to the attention of the minister, and especially of his officials.
The latter should once again make a study about this post office, and convince themselves that there are now 40 users. According to the regulations, according to the correspondence, the minister said that he was closing the post offices with 30 users or less. As in this village there are 40 users and others will arrive next summer, I wonder if the minister has good reason now to close this post office.
Besides, he tells us, I think, that this other service, that is the rural mail delivery service, costs about $3,332.
I simply wish to point to the minister that if he came to make a survey-I do not know whether it is route No. 1 or No. 3-he would find out that there is one with about only three or four users left, while the route is still carried out in the whole division.
In my opinion, those people would be ready, with the village inhabitants, to give up the money allocated for that route, serving three or four users, so that it could be spent in the village. This would balance expenditures without involving any surplus, although an inquiry should be made to find out if those three or four users would really be ready to yield their rights in favour of the village inhabitants. To say the truth, it seems they would rather get their mail at the village post office. In my opinion, we could deal with the financial problem that way, to the satisfaction of the people there, while providing them at the same time with good service.
Last Saturday, namely on May 10, I went to Saint-Stanislas to discuss with the association's president the postal problem, because a council was created to deal with this question. I met the association's president and he discussed the matter with me. I told him that at the earliest opportunity in the house, I would draw the minister's attention to that. In my opinion, this is a very interesting proposal, as at present that post office is not really up to the standards set by hon. minister, who says
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that where there are less than 30 families, the post office will be closed.
The minister has received the request, signed by 40 persons, and dated February 17, from the secretary-treasurer's office of the Saint-Stanislas municipality, which said, and I quote:
Mr. Minister,
We, the undersigned, residents of Saint-Stanislas, in the county of Roberval, who are not being served through rural mail delivery, firmly object to the closing of our post office.
Mr. Minister, we request, through our federal member, that the St-Stanislas post office, in the Roberval riding, be kept open and we ask you to take into consideration the fact that:
The rural mail service cannot replace the use of a post office which provides many services even to the people already served through rural mail delivery in a climate as harsh as ours.
The closing of our post office would greatly affect all our public bodies such as: the credit union, the city council, the school board, the manufacturing plant, the farmers wives club, the convent and others-the services of the post office are indispensable and preferable to all the inconveniences of the rural mail delivery as far as all our organizations are concerned.
That request was signed by 40 users. The minister is well aware of that.
Without going into further detail on the subject, I should like the minister to reconsider the case before putting this post office under lock and key because, in my opinion, these people need their post office. They live far from other centers and it would simply be an injustice to take away their post office.
The officials should make a thorough study of the rural mail routes. It is also claimed that the post office is not a paying proposition.
It must also be noted that the St-Stanislas post office and Rural Route No. 3 of that parish are in the Mistassini postal district and that Mistassini Rural Route No. 3 is in the St-Stanislas postal district.
I believe this is a mistake. The revenue of profit-making routes in considered as part of the revenue of the Mistassini post office, when that is not the case at all. Those routes belong to St-Stanislas, and the amounts should appear in the revenue of St-Stanislas.
I do not imagine that the officials are prejudiced, and I would not like to criticize their inspector-who likely is also a postmaster-or anybody else, but I simply ask that justice be done. There should be a serious inquiry. I am sure that the minister will realize that that village needs its post office, and that it can

May 15, 1969
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rightly expect from the minister a decision to the effect that it will remain open.

Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-Si. George's-St. Barbel:	Mr. Speaker, in supporting the
motion as presented by the party to which I belong I am pleased to have the opportunity of attempting to impress on the minister responsible for communications his obvious lack of regard for all the people of Canada in instituting changes in the Post Office Department for reasons which, it is quite evident, he alone feels will provide a better service and at the same time save money for the government.
To be more specific, I refer to those rural communities of Canada which in many cases are so isolated that one of their most important and vital forms of communication is the small post office. This action by the Postmaster General is another substantial reason for the feeling of disillusionment I find as a new member. I thought that after coming here I would see and experience the ultimate in organization and planning-the smartest minds in the country charged with responsibility for introducing or amending legislation for the common good of all Canadians.
Instead, Mr. Speaker, I find a group of ministers across the floor who may have a high standard of intellect in theory, who can spout and expound supposed words of wisdom regarding their dreams for the future of communications, who can write pages of fancy words of wisdom about ways in which to improve our country, but who certainly do not get their message to the intended receivers even when they put all those pages of words in an envelope and send it through the Post Office. I found instead, Mr. Speaker, a group of ministers vying with each other for popularity and power, in some cases1 by going around the country kissing teenagers. And in this case we have a minister who is kissing in another way, by playing post office.
Again, Mr. Speaker, we see evidence of intellectual studies and task forces. This time we have been told about an "inside task force". The department intended to make a study of the effect of closing post offices across the country under certain circumstances an on-the-spot survey to determine whether or not to close uneconomical post offices in communities where fewer than 30 families live or where revenue amounted to less than $1,000.
In my district alone, this would mean the closing of 60 out of 90 post offices. It would 
completely cut off the people from any form of communication, further isolate them, and deprive them of the only form of contact with the outside world. Many of these post offices serve not only one small community but five or six surrounding communities spread over a wide area. Things are inconvenient enough as they are now, and to deprive local people of this due public service is not only undemocratic but downright discriminatory.
I was interested to look back at one of the recent issues of Time magazine and read the Postmaster General's prediction that within six months of the changes in the Post Office Department being put into effect the esprit de corps of the postal employees would be the highest ever. Mr. Speaker, I do not have the time in which to discuss the esprit de corps of the many thousands of postal employees across the country, but I can tell the minister that the moral of citizens in some 70 per cent of the communities in Newfoundland which are threatened with losing a decent postal service was never lower. I can tell him, too, that the esprit de corps of the many postmasters who have given devoted service to the department for many years was never lower.
I did not find this out by sending in a task force, either an inside one or an outside one. I found out through a process of simple dialogue and discussion with the people concerned-people who do not have a union or anyone else to speak for them but who continue to serve the department and, what is more important, to serve their neighbours in their communities without concern for time or remuneration.
Let us consider for a moment the results of my contact with the hon. gentleman's employees. One postmaster, classified as a revenue postmaster group 16, in my riding is getting a salary of $2,700 a year. I was astounded to find that out of this salary he operates a government-owned post office in a government-owned building and pays the government $305 a year for rent. He also gets the magnificent sum of $32.33 for operating the C.N.T. office in the same building-but he has to pay $30 a month for janitor service.


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Mr. Marshall:: Just a minute. He gets an increment of 4 per cent of his annual salary for holiday pay, which amounts to $108, but in order to go on leave for two weeks he has to hire another postmaster for relief work at pay which amounts to $116.50.
May 15, 1969

Another postmaster, assisted by his wile, looks after a post office which serves five other settlements and the surrounding area. For this he receives $150 a month. This is $150 a month for two people covering rent and salary. Should we not get the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey) to work that one out in accordance with the minimum wage scale? When I discovered the low salaries paid to these government employees I wrote to each and every postmaster or postmistress in all rural communities in my district, and I established the following salaries out of 25 replies I received. The lowest salary is $11.50 a week for a female operating from Monday to Saturday in her home. Another postmistress is getting $16 a week after 30 years' service. One lady after 20 years' service is getting $22.20 per week. The lowest in the male category is $25.50 per week for operating both the post office and the C.N.T. office.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
The Postmaster General may tell me that their salaries are based on a few hours a day only but people who have to walk miles for their mail cannot come at certain hours in the day; and the only ones who seem to be aware of this fact are these people themselves. So these postal employees continue to serve the community, and not five days a week but in lots of cases six and seven days a week. So I ask the minister not to talk to me about treatment of employees or about the pride of employees.
Are these examples which I have outlined examples of the pledge of the government that every individual or group of individuals must have equality of opportunity regardless of the part of the country in which they live? Is this an example of the human rights which the government has pledged to the people of Canada? How are these people going to communicate, Mr. Speaker? How are they going to conduct a dialogue with the government? How are they going to get their complaints to the government's regional desks?
Where is the Postmaster General going to place his information centres that he advocates be located in post offices around the country in order to give the people of Canada a channel of communication to know what is going on in government? Probably he is going to locate his information centres in the mail boxes. Or perhaps he intends to send out this information by the new method of sending couriers around the rural districts with mail. Probably he is going to resurrect the town crier.
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There is a great deal of uncertainty right now among the people who man the 60 odd post offices in my riding and are potential candidates for the Postmaster General's axe. These 60 people represent some 60 Newfoundland families. They do not know where to turn. They do not know when or where the axe will fall. As one 85 year old pensioner wrote me, "I used to enjoy at the end of the month leaning against the post office, waiting for me check. But now I daren't do it, because that feller Keerings might haul her away!" This might sound funny to some hon. members, but to me it is very serious.
My whole point is this. This government seems to be embarked upon a program of "profit or else". To my way of thinking a government cannot operate in this manner. This is the way in which business and industry operates. But unlike business and industry,
I think it is essential that government have a much higher concern, a concern for human rights. Recently the minister in charge of housing resigned, and within one week after that resignation many measures were introduced to improve the housing situation in this country. The post office department is in an even worse mess. For the good of Canada may I humbly suggest that we might get a little action if the Postmaster General were to resign.
I feel that running the post office department in a country the size of Canada is a full time job, a full time job for a man with considerable talent. My humble suggestion would be for the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to appoint a full time postmaster general and allow the present incumbent to devote his full time to playing with his satellites.


Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, on March 4 the Minister of Communications (Mr. Kierans), the former postmaster general, declared to this house: "I am going to adopt a pretty skeptical and cynical approach". He has been true to his word. We have listened to him today talking in that vein. To the mounting criticism from every corner of the country his attitude, as recorded many times in Hansard and in numerous speeches, is one of cynicism and arrogance.
We have listened to this same kind of speech today. This attitude is one which causes concern and hurt for the patrons of the postal department from west to east and from sea to sea. In the years that I have been in this house, I have had very little complaint from the public about the postal service of this country. In fact, I have received ten

May 15, 1969
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times as much protest and complaint during the past three months as in the previous seven years.
It used to be that I could mail a letter to my home city of Red Deer, more than 2,300 miles away, in the afternoon and it would be delivered the following afternoon. It now takes at least four days, and sometimes a week. In fact, last Tuesday I received a letter through the mail which was postmarked Ottawa, May 5, 6 p.m. Should it require six days for the delivery of a letter that is posted here in Ottawa? If the postmaster general would like to have this letter I will pass it across to him. There are many more I could give him, as well as many copies of letters written to him about the matter, all verifying the same situation. Now, at the very best a letter that used to be delivered to Montreal from Toronto overnight takes three to four days.
What has gone wrong? It seems to me that the postmaster general is the only one who can answer that question. Yet he does not answer it, but rather pulls red herrings across the trail.
When the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) took office, he declared that his cabinet ministers would be permitted one blunder only. As the Oshawa Journal stated in its issue on March 19, the Postmaster General has made three. I think it might be well to place some of this article on the record:
His initial one was in trying to cut off rural mail delivery in Canada on Saturdays. He had to retract that edict through pressure from his own Liberal followers from the rural constituencies of the country.
Then he slapped prohibitive postal rates on newspapers and other publications. He doubled the rates, tripled them and in the case of the advertising portion of newspapers, he sextupled them-
The minister's third blunder, and perhaps the most glaring, was in his dealings with this own employees, the mail couriers who through good weather and bad carry the load for the postal department.
As a result, I believe that we have had a breakdown in morale, and certainly we have had a breakdown in service. This article continues:
One thing is clear. It's now Kierans who should walk off the job, and quickly. He should go by command of the Prime Minister who promised his ministers would be permitted only one gross blunder.
This newspaper claims the minister has made three. This expression from the press reveals one of the most sensitive areas
touched by the policies of the postmaster general.
Also what bothers me in this regard is the simple fact that the publishers in this country were denied the opportunity of coming before parliament, presenting their case and explaining their proposals. These people are conscientious and are rendering a service. They are doing their job just as well as government ministers or as we try to do ours. But the government refused to send Bill C-I16 to committee, as was suggested from this side of the house. We were overruled. Thus, no opportunity was given the publishing industry to put its case before the committee, as is the normal, democratic procedure.
I sympathize with the minister in his effort to minimize the deficits of the postal operations in this country. I am not accusing him of anything here; I think that his objective is a good one, though in this regard I wonder why the postal department should be singled out from, shall we say, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or other services rendered by government agencies, crown corporations or other government departments.
As far as my constituency is concerned, I have very little to complain about. During the last year five new post offices were built, and two major post offices reconstructed in order to meet expanding business. However, what is tragic is that in his sincerity and dedication to the job that he has been given to do, there is an inability to select sound policies from the deluge of advice that he has invited. The minister has failed to consult various communities across the country on how changes might best effect those, reforms that are necessary. It is not good enough for the minister to stand in his place this afternoon and to tell us we are against change. The minister invites trouble when he does not consult the various people who are affected in the country. I ask, how can he justify rate increases for weekly newspapers of between 400 and 700 per cent? Does he wish to destroy them? Already, since April 1, a number of weekly newspapers have had to cease publication. I know of at least seven such papers which have had to fold since January because of the extra cost of postal delivery. I can name at least twenty publications-they are trade, professional and farm publications- which have likewise folded. Worse than that, the minister has driven many such publications across the border. Those magazines being published on the other side of the border do not, pay excessive rates as second

May 15, 1969

class mail. Thus the minister further damages the sovereignty of Canadian enterprises.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
It seems to me that if the Postmaster General had really wanted to curb the many errors and weaknesses in the administration of the department he would have given the publishers of newspapers, journals and periodicals an opportunity to come before the department and state their case.
Perhaps the most vital part of the entire inquiry relating to the newspaper and publishing industry is that part relating to farm publications. More than a few of these publications have their backs to the wall because of increased postage costs. I am convinced that the Minister's explanation of Post Office departmental costs does not accurately reflect the real costs of handling second class newspapers. If all such publications were to cease publishing and if the Post Office Department were no longer to handle such publications, what saving would be effected? Not one major delivery system would be changed. Trucks would continue to deliver from farm to farm or from point to point and the same rail cars would be used. The only difference would be that revenues would fall while expenses would continue as they are. I believe that the picture presented by the minister with respect to rural and farm publications, which are so vital to the rural communities of Canada, is wrong. When the minister says the delivery of such publications is loaded with unjustified and unjustifiable costs, I submit he is wrong. Perhaps we could consider publications other than farm newspapers. The minister talks about subsidizing business. In that connection may I read from notes prepared by the Graphic Arts Industries Association for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin), dated March 20, 1969. They say:
The magnitude of postage rate increases instituted Nov. 1, 1968 and April 1, 1969, and the abruptness with which these have been made effective in their totality, will have the most adverse effects upon the Canadian printing and allied industries of any setback experienced since the depression of the 1930's. The paper and allied industries will share the consequences-
Directly or indirectly, virtually all Canadian businesses and industries will be retarded. Communications within countless national and regional organizations, representing nearly every sector of Canadian society, will be sharply restricted. Federal and provincial revenues from corporate and personal income taxation, and especially from sales taxes, will be significantly reduced. These effects are self-evident.
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A number of publications have already been killed, and more will die, without hope of being resurrected. Unemployment has already been caused across the country, and more will follow. Opportunities for expanded employment in many companies from coast to coast have been destroyed.
There is more than one side to the case for condemning the increase in postal charges for publications. The Canadian Welfare Council, in a communique dated May 15, 1969, had the following to say:
New postal rates have gone into effect, bearing down hard on all the newsletters and journals that have enjoyed second class mailing privileges: a destructive measure that weakens the flow of ideas in Canada and should be challenged.
The action is justified by the government on the grounds that the Post Office should "pay its way"; it is a "business"; mail should not be "subsidized". The Post Office has not only clashed headlong with its employees through get-tough policies; it has also rescinded the idea of public service in a vital area.
Service is the only commodity the Post Office has to offer. Why does the Post Master General insist on lowering the traditional service of his department?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member's time has expired.



PRIVILEGE


Mr. Speaker:: In the two minutes or so left before six o'clock may I, with the consent of hon. members, give a ruling in connection with an important point raised by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) earlier today.
During routine proceedings today the hon. member raised a question of privilege concerning the tabling in the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs of a certain document. The hon. member went on to give certain details of events which had occurred in the committee and referred to a statement made in the house on April 23 by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council. I suggested at the time that I wanted to look into the matter because it appeared to be very complex. It related to matters that had occurred in committee and I was of the opinion that it would be very difficult to give a judgment then and there with fairness without having had an opportunity to

May 15, 1969
Privilege
look into the matters brought to the attention of the house by the bon. member for Oshawa-Whitby.
I should say at this point it is my understanding that the document which was the subject of discussion in the committee is the same as the document presented as a return to a Notice of Motion for the production of papers in this house on Wednesday, April 23, registered as Sessional Paper No. 22-B and laid upon the table on May 8.
It seems to me, having considered the available records both of the committee and of this house, that the matter raised by the hon. member is more properly one to be considered in relation to events as they occurred in the house rather than in a committee, in that the document in question, as I understand it, is the same in both cases. Therefore, it seems to me, the matter is one concerning the description of the document. It is a question of interpreting whether the document tabled is the paper the production of which the hon. member had sought by his Notice of Motion. I suggest that the matter raised does not constitute a question of privilege.
If the document sought by the hon. member has not been provided for him, in my view his remedy would be to place on the order paper a notice of motion in explicit terms asking perhaps-and I use his own words- for "a cost-benefit study as prescribed by Treasury Board Manual Planning Programming Budgeting Guide." This, presumably, will either be supplied or it will not be. If it is not, it is open for the hon. member to ask for the motion to be transferred for debate and the matter can be discussed and voted upon.
The Chair should say that on the evidence available it is impossible to make a determination as to whether the document presented is in fact the document sought by the hon. member. Hon. members know that the Chair has to rule primarily on whether there is a prima facie case of privilege. In view of the facts as I have been able to ascertain them, I must reach the conclusion that there is no prima facie case of privilege. I, therefore, suggest to the hon. member that he might consider the possibility of following the procedure I have just outlined.
The time being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
ALLOTTED DAY, STANDING ORDER 5&-NON-
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion Mr. Macquarrie and the amendment thereto of Mr. Benjamin.
Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I was astounded at the heat with which the Postmaster General replied to the three opposition parties this afternoon. I know he is a virtuoso at setting up strawman arguments and then sending them crashing to the ground, but I believe he failed miserably in answering any of the basic questions raised by members of the opposition.
The minister stood with all his defence mechanisms working overtime, shouting irrelevancies in a strained and harassed voice, producing much heat but very little light on the real problems facing the users of the Canadian postal service. What infuriated me even more was the attack he launched against "an hon. member" for maligning the local Postmaster in Prince Rupert from the member's position of privilege. To use the words of the Postmaster General, it was a "deplorable position" to take since the civil servant had no opportunity to defend himself.
I am certain the Postmaster General will recall that before the "hon. member" took any position in this matter, he discussed it with the minister in this house on Monday night. The minister himself suggested, and both agreed, that two questions might be asked the following day during the oral question period. Accordingly, on Tuesday morning I sent a copy of two questions to the minister's office as notice, along with a covering letter. I sent these documents by messenger marked urgent. Incidentally, the envelope also contained all the pertinent documents which I had in my possession, and which I used to support my case on Tuesday evening.
I would like to quote from the letter and also read the questions, Mr. Speaker. The letter, signed by myself, is dated May 13, 1969. I quote:
Dear Mr. Kierans:
As a result of our conversation last evening please find enclosed the documents you requested along
May 15. 1969

with a copy of the two questions which we agreed would be asked during today's oral question period. If I can manage to get the eye of the Speaker I shall put these questions to you.
I trust that your office will be able to resolve this problem in Prince Rupert.
The Postmaster General had almost four hours between the time I gave him notice of my question and the time I asked it during the oral question period. If he did not have time to investigate the matters relevant to our discussion the previous evening, he could have sent me a note and I would have delayed raising the issue on Tuesday, but he did not do that.
During the question period I rose and asked question No. 2. When quoting the letter I failed to read the questions I referred to earlier. I will do so at this time. Question No. 1 is as follows: Does the Postmaster General have any evidence of racial discrimination directed against the President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in Prince Rupert, British Columbia? Question No. 2, which is the only one I asked, since I was ruled out of order, is as follows:
Did the Postmaster General or any of his officials authorize the telephone calls in the Prince Rupert post office to be monitored with an automatic tape recorder?
Since Your Honour ruled this question out of order, I posted the question for debate on Tuesday during the late show. I again remind the house the minister had at least five and a half hours in which to either complete his investigation or alternatively request that I postpone my debate, something I have done for other ministers and would have done again. I heard nothing from the minister or anyone in his office, so I proceeded.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that every step of this procedure was designed to avoid making the minister or the Prince Rupert postmaster the victims of a legislative ambush. I feel I was the one ambushed. I felt that I was operating in such a way as to ameliorate a difficult local situation and prevent a possible walk-out. Naturally, I was shocked when in reply to my speech the minister accused me of attacking a defenceless man and stated that he had not been given an opportunity to investigate the case. The minister at no time requested postponement on the grounds that his investigation was incomplete.
The minister's reply to me can be read. He did investigate some of my allegations because, as reported at page 8675 of Hansard, he lamely explained the reason for the presence of a recording device that had been
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attached to the receiver of the only telephone in the building. On our way out of the chamber I voiced my protest to the minister about the way he handled the whole matter and about the fact I had been accused of "taking a deplorable position", in spite of my efforts to avoid this position, while he, on the other hand, came out of this exchange as "Mr. Kleen", the staunch defender of personal freedom. At that time also I 'told the minister that if because of some misunderstanding between us, the minister and I, I had destroyed a defenceless man, I would publicly apologize. That offer still holds. The minister, in his anger, then replied that enough damage had been caused and that any more words on the subject would only make things worse. Therefore, I said no more.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
But who raised this issue again today, Mr. Speaker? Who was it in an emotional diatribe this afternoon raised this matter once again in his infantile struggle to extricate himself from any blame for rotten postal service? It was none other than that great public defender, that Perry Mason of the postal service, the minister himself.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I cannot produce documentation of private discussions that took place prior to and throughout this issue between the minister and myself. It is his word against mine, and he usually has the last word. I know that some of my speeches in the past have harassed the minister, but I believed him to be an honourable man, even if I did not show equal confidence in- his policies or administration.
I told the minister privately I would apologize if anything I said was unfair, and I do so again publicly. I am pleased that his office is continuing the investigation, as I understand the postmaster in question is in Vancouver today discussing the problem with some senior departmental officials. Incidentally, these departmental officials were not moved to such rapidity until this whole issue was raised.
But, Mr. Speaker, I have learned one thing from this whole exchange. This is the first and the last time I will ever share any confidences with the said minister or make any effort to seek a resolution to postal problems in a quiet, dignified, and what I consider to be an honourable way.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. C>n Monday night at about a quarter to ten, it may have been twenty to ten in this house, the hon. member

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came to me with copies of some correspondence relating to


Stanley Howard Knowles: On
what does the Postmaster General rise, Mr. Speaker?


Eric William Kierans: On a question of privilege. He came to me with some correspondence from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and also with a series of telegrams and excerpts from letters to the editor in a British Columbia paper. He said, "I want to raise a question with you which I would not like to raise in the house." I looked at what he had and I agreed with him. I said, "Give me some time to check into this and I will see what truth there is in the material you have brought."
The next afternoon-and this was my understanding-I came into the house not having received the letter that the hon. member referred to, but I saw it right after the question period. In that letter, as he has already said,, he wrote:
As a result of our conversation last evening please find enclosed the documents you requested along with a copy of the two questions which we agreed-
And, I have a question mark here.
-would be asked during today's oral question period.
We did not agree on this, and this certainly was not my impression. My impression was clearly that the hon. member was giving me time to call Prince Rupert and check into the facts.
Also, the material which the hon. member had shown me the night before contained no evidence whatever to form the basis for this question:
Does the Postmaster General have any evidence of racial discrimination against the President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in Prince Rupert, British Columbia?
In the material which he sent over to me next day-


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


James Aloysius McGrath: The minister has made his speech.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. I want to remind the minister of Standing Order 37 which reads:
No member may speak twice to a question except in explanation of a material part of his speech which may have been misquoted or misunderstood-


Eric William Kierans: Again on a question of privilege-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: I want to know the question of privilege.


Eric William Kierans: My question of privilege as Postmaster General is that the hon. member for Fraser Valley West (Mr. Rose) has openly said in this house that unproven allegations of racial discrimination have been whispered about, and I would like to say he has no evidence whatever of who the "allegator" is, and he has no evidence whatever of any racial discrimination.


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


Eric William Kierans: Let him produce his evidence, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. The hon. member for Fraser Valley West.


Mark Willson Rose: On a point of privilege, I would be very pleased if the Postmaster General would confine his remarks to the relevancy of what has been said today and not rehash an argument which he has raised twice on previous occasions.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: The
hon. member for Fraser Valley West has the floor.


Mark Willson Rose: I have concluded my remarks, Mr. Speaker.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I hope that before the debate is over for the sake of the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) we finally establish who in fact the "allegators" really are. Mr. Speaker, I suspect the Post Office is plagued with "allegators". As somebody said, Mr. Speaker, the Postmaster General sheds too many crocodile tears-"allegator" tears.


Mr. Catik:: Let us hear something
worthwhile.


James Aloysius McGrath: I presume the hon. member is going to participate in the debate and not make his usual contribution from his seat.
Notwithstanding the usual eloquent contribution of the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie), who would make a first class Postmaster General and restore the postal service in this country to what is was and what it should be, one gets the feeling on
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speaking in this debate and listening to other debates that have taken place in this house since the minister assumed this portfolio, that it is somewhat of an exercise in frustration.
One has the uneasy feeling that the Minister of Communications, as he is now known, does not really care about the postal service of this country. That is about the only way you can rationalize his behavior, his conduct, his reaction to the repeated criticisms, valid criticisms that have been made by all sides of the house regarding the way in which the postal service has deteriorated.
I was interested in an article which appeared the other day in the Monetary Times which referred to the minister's new department and his plans for it. The emphasis now is on communications, and I suspect the article was probably written by the minister's executive assistant, Mr. Richard Gwyn. At any event amongst numerous other assertions it said the minister "sees his department's role as that of a 'midwife'-helping in the birth of new projects and ideas, then turning them over to someone else to run." That may be so. Perhaps the minister is a midwife in launching the new satellite era, the new Department of Communications, but one also gets the uneasy feeling that he has been guilty of an illegal abortion on the postal service of this country.
It is about time that the minister and his colleagues in the government started to pay a little attention to what is being said in and outside this house, all across the country, regarding the very serious deterioration in the postal service. And, Mr. Speaker, I understand it is being said elsewhere. I am sure the backbenchers in the Liberal party are equally disturbed about the serious decline in postal services, and I am sure they must have made this known to the minister in caucus.
It seems to me that the job, perhaps to the minister the mundane job, of delivering the country's mail, has been relegated by him to a second class position in his list of priorities. Canadians in many parts of the country, and many in my own city have to suffer by going 72 hours without mail deliveries. As the hon. member for Hillsborough so eloquently said, we now have a five-day delivery and a six [DOT]cent postal rate. That the postal service has deteriorated to a point where it is a question [DOT]of national concern and alarm is, in my view, .an undisputed fact.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)
We find ourselves in the rather anomalous position in this country today where the cost of the postal services is increasing and the postal services themselves are declining. It is no wonder, then, that there are those who would seriously call for the minister's resignation. I should like to quote briefly from a recent issue of the Financial Post, the edition of May 3:
The taxpaying public would rather get its money's worth from existing postal services than pay for its rampant spread into new and fancy fields of endeavour.
I go on to quote again from this same article. I am quoting now from statements allegedly attributed to the Postmaster General:
There is one clear message: we have until 1975 to put our house in order. That is when we can expect the big breakthrough in many technical advances now on the drawing boards.
I say that the country cannot wait until 1975 for the minister to put the house in order. The country wants the postal services put in order right now. We cannot afford to wait. The mails are late enough as it is, as my colleague has interjected. Last year, before the present minister became so involved in satellites and holographs, I would have been very much opposed to the idea of making the Post Office Department a Crown corporation. Now, however, I am convinced, especially since the passage of Bill C-173, the government reorganization bill, that this is about the only way we can have an efficient postal service restored in this country. I say "restored" because in my view we did have a good postal service in Canada before this minister and the government started tinkering around with it.
What is alarming to me today as a member of parliament, as I am sure it is to many members of parliament, is the fact that the postal employees, the 48,000 Canadians for whom the minister is responsible in this house, are demoralized. They are demoralized to the point that they are unsure of their future. Paradoxically, the new Minister of Communications does not seem to be able to communicate effectively with the people in the Post Office Department who are responsible for maintaining the postal service in this country. We saw evidence of that last February during the dispute with the letter carriers. We found ourselves watching the spectacle of the Postmaster General having to communicate with his employees in the Post Office Department by press release.

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The postal service in this country is in a serious mess. The situation is alarming and is of alarming proportions. This does not seem to mean anything to the Postmaster General. All the criticisms and charges made during this debate and during the course of the debate on the government reorganization bill, seem to have fallen on deaf ears. In my own part of the country, in the city of St. John's for example, the population has more than doubled in the last 20 years; yet our people today still have to put up with the same postal service they had 20 years ago when the city was only half the size it is today. To my mind, in this day and age, this is not good enough. To the credit of the minister and the government, I note that they have already announced plans to build a new postal station in the northwest area of my city. That, however, will not be sufficient to fulfil the very serious needs of our people for postal service in my city. These can only be remedied by the building of another postal station to service the northeast area of my city which is one of the fastest growing sections in population and area.
The Canadian Postmasters Association has expressed concern to me, as I know it has to many members of parliament. The postmasters are demoralized. They are concerned about their future. They are concerned over the announcement by the minister of the government's intention to close down approximately 3,500 postal stations across the country. According to the Newfoundland branch of the Postmasters Association this will probably mean the closing down of some 300 postal stations. Until some definitive action is taken in this regard the postmasters who have been working for years for a mere pittance, but who have neverthelss provided the service, find their careers now in jeopardy; they find themselves without a future. How are the little people who have been served by these post offices to be provided service? It will be many years before the service by satellite ever reaches many parts of the country, particularly many parts of rural Newfoundland.
I say it is about time the Postmaster General or the Minister of Communications as he is now known should take seriously his responsibilities as Postmaster General. There is still a very serious need to deliver the mail efficiently and effectively in this country. If the minister does not want to take our word for it I suggest that he speak to the people across the country and check with members

of parliament on all sides of the house who receive complaints from all over the country.
The Aciing Speaker (Mr. Bechard): Order, please. I must advise the hon. member that his time has expired.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I can complete my remarks in one or two minutes.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


James Aloysius McGrath: In closing may I say that the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquar-rie) is progressive enough to be very familiar with the need to engage in the satellite and telecommunications activity, but is also conservative enough to recognize the need to maintain a good postal service in this country.


Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few remarks concerning the deplorable manner in which the Post Office Department of this country is being administered. In the short period of 10J months since the Postmaster General assumed the portfolio, there has been a continuing deterioration and erosion of postal services in the entire country. He has stated all along it is his intention to modernize the Post Office Department, to make it more efficient. He stated that he intended to apply certain business management principles to the administration of the Post Office Department. This he stated, would enable it to serve the public better. Yet, if the changes of the past few months are any indication of how the Post Office Department intends to better serve the public, I predict that before the next election the Pony Express will be handling the mails again.
We heard 30 minutes of whining from the Postmaster General and sneering at the opposition. He blamed the previous Conservative government for all the problems he has today. It would seem to be a habit of ministers to blame the opposition for the various problems they face. The Postmaster General is blaming the previous Conservative government for the gross inefficiency in the Post Office Department today. A month or two ago, before the standing committee on housing, the exminister of transport blamed the opposition for his inability to remove the 11 per cent sales tax on building materials. That was a little ridiculous. We have a government with a clear majority in the house trying to blame
May 15, 1909

the opposition for all the problems which result from its inefficiency and bungling. About two months ago the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) blamed the opposition for his inability to sell wheat and for the lack of grain to load ships at Vancouver. That again was said to be the fault of the opposition.
I think such comments by ministers perhaps indicate they are attempting to throw out a smokescreen of confusion. The Postmaster General criticized a previous Conservative government for not having a training program for the postal employees. He bragged that he has a beautiful program which will cost thousands upon thousands of dollars.
I have in my hand a speech made by the Postmaster General in January which indicates the extent to which mail delivery is delayed between Montreal and Ottawa. He said that this unfortunate situation could be attributed in the main to an unanticipated and unforeseen increase in mail volume which has exceeded plant and trained staff capacity. If he has such a good training program, why then is there a shortage of trained staff?
Before that, the minister attempted to confuse the country and the house by remarks intended to take the heat off his department. I suppose that I might be considered as making an allegation, particularly by the minister. This would make me an "allegator". Being an "allegator" I suppose I must substantiate what I have suggested.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
I have in my hand another one of the minister's speeches. This one was delivered on January 22. At that time he said in reference to the closing of small post offices:
To give you an idea of the dimensions of this problem I might mention that one-quarter of our 10,000 post offices earn less than $450 a year-
One week later, on January 29 of the same year he made a speech in which he said:
-I might mention that one-quarter of our 8,000 post offices earn less than $50 a year-*
There appears to be some discrepancy in the minister's remarks. I am wondering how much attention we should pay to what he says. I have copies of both these speeches from which I have read directly.
The Postmaster General tries to blame the former Conservative government for the situation in which he finds himself. This Liberal government has been in power since 1963. Why has it not solved this problem in
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the past six years, and why is it only suddenly this year that all these problems have developed?
In January of 1969 the Postmaster General made another statement in respect of the inefficiency of the post office. He said:
-in one post office which came to my attention the sole customers were the postmaster and his family.
If this sort of thing is going on, it must have been going on for six years under the Liberal government. I do not suppose this is a particularly good example of efficiency; that is, keeping a post office open at a cost of $1,000 or more to serve a man, his wife and family, then blaming the Conservatives for it.
The Postmaster General concluded his remarks on that occasion by stating an old cliche we often hear from government ministers. He suggested that the Conservative party is simply resisting change. He said that we resist changes, and that is the only thing we do. That is kind of ridiculous.


An hon. Member:: How true.


Paul Yewchuk: It is true that it is ridiculous. The minister must admit that change does not necessarily mean progress. Progress should not be confused with change or associated with it, because sometimes change brings about a worse situation. I think that is what the changes in the Post Office department in the past ten months have accomplished. There has been no indication of progress. If there has been progress, I have not been able to see it. Before the minister suggests that we are resistant to change and before he brings about any change, he should make sure that the situation will be better as a result.
We have all heard many valid criticisms of the Post Office department. I do not think I need mention all of them as they have been mentioned before by other hon. members. I should perhaps refer to deterioration of the situation faced by post office employees, to say nothing of the situation which now exists between officials of the department and the postal unions. Many of the changes made allegedly have been to increase efficiency. Many speakers have referred to this situation. I wish to refer to what has been called the post office reorganization. The matter of immediate concern is what I refer to as the arbitrary decision of the Postmaster General to close down many small post offices in Canada. Apparently this has been done with little or no concern whatsoever in respect of

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the provision of alternative employment for the employees of these small offices. The minister appears to take this whole matter quite lightly, but this matter is not taken lightly by those individuals who have lost their jobs. The loss of a part or the whole of one's income is a serious matter.
This situation is even more important because this action has been taken in areas where it is difficult for individuals to find alternative employment. The post office department has outlined certain criteria for the closing of post offices. The first is that a post office must not serve less than 30 families. If it serves less than 30 families it is not worth keeping open. That is a questionable criterion. Officials of the post office department fail to realize that these small communities are dependant to a great degree on post office services. These services are essential to these isolated areas. Transportation and communication in these areas are limited because of geographical location. The closing of a post office means increased isolation for these points.
Another criterion followed by the post office department is that if an office has an income of under $1,000 per year it should be closed. This is nothing short of an absurdity. Post office services should be provided to serve Canadians. That is the only function of a post office. This department has never had any other function than to serve the people of Canada who pay for this service through taxation. It is ridiculous to suggest that a post office should make money. If this were the policy adopted by the government in all areas, no doubt the first thing the government would do-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired. Does the house give its unanimous consent to the hon. member to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Paul Yewchuk: Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members of the house for their kindness. I have only one or two more points to make. The post office service has for years supplied Canadians a means for communication. This service is being taken away in many instances with a complete disregard for the people in these communities and those employed by the department. I strongly protest against this policy on the basis of numerous representations made to me by individual employees concerned and other interested parties. The

government seems to forget that there is more to Canada than the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. I strongly urge the minister to reverse this policy decision which is, I might say, not only unfair but at times highly discriminatory.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)


Mr. Roland Godin (Porineuf):: Mr. Speaker, even if I am a member of the opposition, I would like to say that the service of the Canadian Post Office is one of the best in the world, and that even ten months of mismanagement will not have been sufficient to make it as bad as the previous members have just said.
It is true that the service is, at this time, rather slow, but, in my opinion, that slowness is mostly due to the Air Canada strike. Before that happened, I had the opportunity to get to Vancouver. There, I posted a letter on a Sunday afternoon and it was delivered in Quebec City the following afternoon, or 24 hours later. It is simply wonderful.
It is obvious that we enjoy an excellent service. In big cities the mail is sorted rather well, and for a long time now the mail carriers have shown their honesty and their cooperation. In good or bad weather, those rural mail carriers deliver the mail and they never even get a holiday. In any case, they are generally so poorly paid that they do not even think of it.
As our time is restricted to 10 minutes, Mr. Speaker, I am unable to deal with some specific cases. However, I feel duty bound to pay tribute to those rural mail carriers who are awarded their contracts through out-of-date procedures. We must realize that the situation is not the present minister's doing, but is due to obsolete methods for the awarding of rural mail delivery contracts.
In view of increased responsibilities, the high cost of gasoline, insurance, car maintenance and the cost of living in general, I think the minister should conduct survey on this matter.
I now want to mention the closing of numerous post offices, something which should make us stop and think. Indeed, I believe the minister would close all the post offices of the country, if he could. I may exaggerate a bit, for I think he would spare a post office per capital, which is the least h,e could do.
We recall a statement of last winter to the effect that some post offices would be closed. I will repeat what the previous speaker said, it
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must have been post offices which did not sell a thousand dollars worth of stamps a year and which served less than thirty families.
In Portneuf, for example, every effort is made to close down a post office which happens to serve sixty families, as well as two companies employing 150 people. One wonders what the minister goes by to take the action he does.
The minister may not be responsible for that situation, because he did not have time to consider every case throughout the country. He is now assisted by a greenhorn from Toronto, who has never seen nor heard anything. I feel that if the minister relies on him, mistakes are bound to occur. That is why I take this opportunity to outline the case of Portneuf.
With regard to the post office in Chute-Panet, which the minister wants to close down, the present system provides for clearing of mail twice a day. Now the minister's assistant tells me: Mind you, that is not a problem; your fellow-citizens will all agree, because we will improve the rural service. But the service offered them is a daily delivery, 24 hours late in winter. It is no secret that in winter, Monday's mail is delivered on Tuesday only. If this is what is called improved service, I think it is already too late to speak about it, and the day which has been allotted to us comes too late.
This is why I am asking myself questions.
However, there is even worse than that since a parish of 90 families is threatened with the loss of its post office. This is a parish which has been in existence for 100 years, with its church, its pastor, its municipal council, its school board, its industries. Nevertheless, the authorities have been advised that the post office will close shortly.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether it is necessary to close so many post offices, in order to be able to pay fabulous salaries to a few civil servants hired recently. Would it not be possible to find elsewhere the money necessary to pay lavish salaries to those peoples?
They talk to us about savings. There are several ways of saving money. If the minister would resign, that, in itself, would constitute quite a saving. If the post offices were kept open only to sell stamps and if, instead of giving the mail to a truck driver, the postmaster would burn it, that would be even more economical than moving it from one post office to the next.
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Those are the suggestions I wish to make to the minister, because I feel that one or two department officials alone are upsetting the postal system throughout the country.
Mr. Speaker, the minister told us that the post offices which serve less than 30 families would be closed. At the time, the measure seemed normal. We accepted the implementation of such a policy.
However, as concerns the Chute-Panet post office, which, again, serves 60 families and two companies, that is twice the minimum of users required, and the post office located in the parish of Sainte-Christine-de-Portneuf, where 90 families live, and which, therefore, serves thrice as many users as the required minimum, the minister made a statement in the house last winter. I repeat that we should be concerned, for the minister really made the statement. In that respect, hon. members can refer to the official report of the House of Commons debates. In my opinion, the minister is still much too young to allow himself to forget what he said.
It is not the officials but the minister who should be blamed. If the latter is irresponsible or incompetent, I have the duty to inform those capable officers that they have our support and that we rely very much on them for the restoration of a normal service.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few observations in this debate. First, I think the Postmaster General, now called the Minister of Communication et al, should be given a "for ever" because without any shadow of doubt he has done his best and is trying very hard to make a success of his new portfolio. After all, why wouldn't he? Any one taking on these onerous duties would naturally try to do the best he or she could. The trouble is that the minister might very well be typified as a prime example of the old saying that the road to Hades is paved with good intentions. That certainly seems to be the result of his efforts. Perhaps Hades also has a five day a week letter delivery service.
The minister suggested to the house that any individual member having complaints about delays in the postal service should submit those complaints to him in writing. I think that was a very good suggestion by the hon. gentleman. 1 only hope he has enough staff to cope with the correspondence he is likely to receive. In the event that the minister's staff may not be able to cope with the

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complaints received, there are one or two matters which, by way of example, I should like to bring to his attention. I received a letter yesterday which exemplifies the problem inherent in the five day letter delivery system; it took five days for a letter to go 100 miles from the town of Tillsonburg in southwestern Ontario to Toronto.
This afternoon I received an even more interesting letter from a lady travelling overseas in the Empress of England, one of the Canadian Pacific ships. She was without a passport. Heaven knows, we have had enough trouble in that department. This lady was told that her passport would be waiting at the dock when the ship left Canada. It was not there. She is now on the high seas, and I understand the passport is en route by air. I checked on this matter and ascertained that it takes six days to obtain a passport. The poor lady was lucky to get anything from the passport office, but it seems that the system fell down when it came to sending the passport from Ottawa to Montreal. There are limits to everything. I am sure the minister has good intentions, and I hope his staff will give him a little more support in this regard.
Early last December I had occasion to write to the minister about the non-delivery of a package to a foreign country. The package was consigned to the Falkland Islands, South America, to be exact. I received a very nice, prompt reply from the minister who said that the package was being traced and in due course he would let me know the results of the investigation. That letter of December 10 was the last I heard about the matter. I realize that it sometimes takes time to check these things, but I am sure matters could be speeded up a little.
There are two matters in particular which I should like to bring to the minister's attention. I shall be brief because of the time at my disposal. I know these problems have been brought to the attention of the minister, but sometimes repetition has a salutary effect. The first is the new postal rates and their effect on farm, trade and Canadian magazines generally. I do not think I need emphasize these problems because they have been brought to the minister's attention so often that he must dream about them. However, I should like to refer in particular to the magazine of the Royal Canadian Legion. The minister was questioned about the committee some time ago about this matter. He said he did not see why the government should subsidize magazines put out by the Liberal party,

the Conservative party, the Royal Bank or anyone else. I would agree with him, but it has always been customary in this country since the first world war to provide a little assistance to those who were associated with the defence of this country. After all, those who took on the burden of public service during the first and second world wars did take on some risk, unlike a good many others I could think of who were very anxious for public service at a later date when no risk was involved.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
Incidentally, I am not in any way referring to the minister in this connection, because his record in this regard is very good. It has always been our policy to give a little help to veterans in any way we could and I do not see why a magazine put out by the Legion should have been dealt with by the department in such a summary way. I believe a little consideration might have been shown.
This leads to a final observation on the minister's views concerning the way in which we should pay for the postal service. It is apparently some sort of fetish with the minister, and presumably with the cabinet that the post office must pay its way. On the face of it, this sounds a good idea. There is only one thing odd about it, and that is that none of the other forms of communication operated by the government do so or are intended to do so. Look at the C.B.C. We pay $150 million a year sending messages to the Eskimoes. A good idea, and I am all for it. But why should the Post Office Department, which deals with communications between one person and another, be singled out for this kind of discrimination? The Post Office must pay its way but the C.B.C. gets a blank cheque for putting out a daily dose of communist propaganda-that is about what we get from them. And it is done at the public expense. There is no rationale to this. If all kinds of communications in Canada operated by the government must pay their way, then let the C.B.C. pay its way. That would really be a dandy! I should like to see it happen. On the other hand, if there are to be subsidies in Canada-and we have all accepted that principle-because some parts of our country are handicapped because of sparseness of population, and so on, why single out the postal service?
What has happened is this: rates have gone up but the quality of service has gone down to just about rock bottom. Last November one could post a letter in this building at seven in the evening and it would be delivered in my
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city, some 350 miles away, by the following morning. Since last November it has taken up to three days for such letters to be delivered.
I do not know what has gone on in the department. The minister has made a number of fatuous statements in the house but no one has given any explanation. I do not know what the answer can be, but some time after last November the service was just cut off. What has happened in the rest of Canada I do not know, but I gather it is the same story.
I hope the minister's good intentions continue and that he will even more ardently pursue them. I trust that even if he cannot reduce the rates, even if he insists on making the Post Office pay for itself when nothing else does, he will at least make it a little more efficient.


Mr. Jack McIntosh (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: I have a couple of questions to ask the Postmaster General, Mr. Speaker. He is not sitting in the house but he can stay behind the curtains and enjoy his coffee since he can hear me from there.
My first question has to do with the policy of the Post Office Department, maybe it was not the minister's policy in the first place, with regard to rural post offices. I believe I am not the only member who has written to the hon. gentleman in this connection. My objection is: this: the department is following a blanket policy which is applicable not only to the suburbs of urban areas but to the rural parts of Canada. I suggest that the situation in the rural areas is a special one and that the same policy should therefore not be applied.
As- I understand it, under the formula presently favoured, post offices are to be closed where there are less than 30 patrons. To hon. members representing urban centres, 30 patrons may not seem very many, but in areas such as I represent, areas devoted to ranching and farming, it is not unusual to find no more than 30 patrons within a radius of 50 miles. It is possible the Postmaster General does not realise that in areas such as these a rural post office is essential, particularly when we bear in mind the difficulty experienced in keeping young people on the farms and ranches in the face of the attraction of the urban centres. It is hard to keep young people on the farms out west at the present time. One of the considerations which hasten the movement to the cities is the lack of an adequate postal service.
On a previous occasion I had an opportunity to prove that information received by the Postmaster General from his officials was 29180-5551
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entirely wrong. The information related to two post offices in my area, offices whose future was in doubt. The officials wanted to close one of them because, they said, people residing in that particular area went to the other area to carry out all the rest of their business. I wrote to the Postmaster General of that day pointing out that in each case the post office was located in a ranch home, and that the information supplied by his officials to the effect that the people went to one particular place to buy groceries and so on was erroneous. I believe this situation was dealt with.
We are now receiving protests and petitions from our constituents in areas which may lose the services of their local post offices. I could explain to the Postmaster General at great length why it is necessary to keep many of these post offices open, even if they do fall within the terms of his formula. I have written to the hon. gentleman on a couple of occasions in this' regard and I must say these representations have met with partial success. But I suggest to the minister that he review this formula and even if he makes it applicable to some areas, it should not be made to apply to certain rural areas which some of his officials have, quite possibly, never seen and never lived in.
I agree with those of my hon. friends who have referred to the Post Office as a service department rather than a revenue producing department. If it had been regarded as a revenue producing department, I suggest the west might never have been built up. I point out to him that regardless of the places where people buy their money orders and their stamps, the revenue will still flow to his department. I ask him again to recognize the special conditions which exist in the farming areas.
The second point I wish to raise flows from a question I asked the Postmaster General the other day. I had intended to ask a supplementary question but I did not press it after Mr. Speaker pointed out there would be an opportunity to go into the matter later on. I asked the Postmaster General why the department had removed second class mail privileges from the Canadian Legion magazine. He said it was because the magazine represented a particular group.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
Then, I asked this supplementary question:
Can the minister explain why his department, while lifting second class privileges from legitimate

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labour union publications, has granted such privileges to a whole string of communist and subversive publications, such as Canadian Tribune, Communist Viewpoint, Combat, American Exile in Canada?
The other day I had forwarded to me an article which appeared in a United States newspaper regarding the situation now existing in Canada in relation to our mail service. This article was clipped from one of the Denver, Colorado, papers, and although I do not want to read it all it does make a couple of very interesting points to which I hope the minister will have answers. The article refers to the new postal policy of the Canadian government and reads in part:
The government has declared that all periodicals "under the auspices of a fraternal, trade, professional or other association, or a trade union, credit union, co-operative or local church organization'' are not to be allowed second class mailing privileges. Commercial, profit-making publications will continue to enjoy the second class rates, which are quite low compared to other postal charges.
This means that labour papers will have postage increases of up to 2,000 per cent in Canada. Annual mailing costs of Canadian Transport will rise from $1,057 to $29,696, for example.
The other day the minister was asked a question concerning the postal rates, and his reply was: "Well, let them raise their rates". Since all other ministers seem to be talking about the ills of the country and are worried about inflationary trends at the present time I am wondering why the Postmaster General is suggesting some of these publications should pay 2,000 per cent more than they were paying in postal rates. This would not seem to me to curtail inflation in Canada, but is just one more cost that is passed on to the public.
This article then goes on to raise what I think is one of the crucial issues we will have to face:
The increased postal rates, applied to non-profit but not to profit-making papers, will no doubt put some labour papers out of business.
Ironically, the new ruling will cost some Canadian printers their jobs because some printing previously done in Canada will be moved to the U.S.
Then, a little further on the article reads:
But now those internationals likely will quit printing in Canada and print in the U.S. for Canadian members, thus taking work away from Canadian printing craftsmen.
The postage rate for these papers printed in the U.S. and mailed to Canada is established by an international treaty, and does not change because of the new Canadian government action.
According to Canadian Labour Congress, the driving of this mailing back to the U.S. will cost the Canadian post office money, because the U.S.

gets the postage paid in the U.S. on mail going to Canada.
It would appear that the Canadian government is cutting off its own nose to spite its face.
Perhaps the whole of this article may not be true, but I should like the Postmaster General to explain the wisdom of a move that causes publishers of periodicals that were recently printed in Canada to cease operation here and go to the United States. These periodicals will then be printed by United States craftsmen and the postal revenue from them will accrue to the U.S. treasury instead of the Canadian treasury. If this be the case- and the minister has not refuted it-Canada is losing revenue. The minister is not only contributing to inflation, as I said before, but he is also contributing by his action to a depletion of treasury funds. I should like to know what value such an action has.
The minister also has another formula under which profit-making magazines are allowed second class privileges whereas nonprofit magazines are not. In the case of the Canadian Legion publication, the minister says this concession is denied because the magazine serves the interests of a particular group. I suggest that the communist and subversive publications to which I have referred in the past are also serving a particular group.
The Aciing Speaker (Mr. Bechard): Order, please.


Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to participate in this debate I should like to repeat the motion that is before the house today. It reads:
This house regrets that this government's mismanagement of the postal service imposes on the country a steadily deteriorating service at higher cost to the public and contributes to a declining morale among the postal workers.
It is with real sadness in my heart that I speak this evening. The affable, humane and personable Minister of Communications (Mr. Kierans) has been sitting across the way all day in lonely solitude, and he is not even on the roster. He has had to come here and present a case in an attempt to deflect some of the constructive suggestions that have come from those on this side. It has struck me as passing strange that instead of listening to the multitude of members who could have risen and given some solace to this hard pressed, well intentioned minister, we have had silence. Perhaps these hon. members have not yet received the letter the minister
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may have written to them informing them that this motion was coming on today, since he only had 24 hours' notice. As we have already heard, mail dropped down the chute here today does not even get around these offices, let alone other government offices, within 24 hours, so perhaps it is understandable that no government member has spoken in support of the minister.


Norman Augustine Cafik: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: When the notice went to the whip's office-
The Aciing Speaker (Mr. Bechard): Order. The hon. member for Ontario is raising a point of order.


Norman Augustine Cafik: Mr. Speaker, I think it is rather important that I indicate that I do intend to speak. I rose in my place to be recognized, but there seems to be a deferential attitude taken to the opposition side of the house.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order. That is not a point of order. The hon. member will have an opportunity to make a speech.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I am glad we have finally stimulated some interest on the other side in helping the minister.
I am not going to repeat what has been said here today about the 100 per cent increase in box rentals, the reduced service and the elimination of rural post offices, something that has affected my riding. Let me just put the subject of this debate into a national perspective. The people in my hometown, which is a pretty well populated and developed area of Nova Scotia, are articulate and like to write letters. It has been brought to the minister's attention that it took five days for a first class business letter containing payment cheques to contractors in Halifax to be transmitted 60 miles from Wolfville to Halifax. It also took seven days to send a letter from Wolfville to Ottawa.
If I thought we were being discriminated against in this respect I would read this letter, but I also received a letter from a very good friend of mine who is a member of a leading law firm in Vancouver. He wrote me complaining that one letter, took seven days to go from Victoria to Vancouver, and this in the merry month of May. I have not yet had a chance to give the minister details of this particular incident, so perhaps there is an answer to it.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
I do not rise this evening for the purpose of complaining about individual cases of deteriorating service and increasing costs, but really to bring a philosophical touch if possible to this debate. I suggest there is a sincere sense of sadness in Canada today at the slow service and increased cost of our postal facilities as well as a disappointment with the minister himself. One year and six months ago there was great expectation when this man rode out of Quebec on his white charger and injected great excitement and clarity into the Liberal sweepstake race. Canadians were entranced and many of them, I know, sympathized with him-perhaps not with their ballots-and with his stand. They took notice of the questions he said Canadians should answer. He carried on a most constructive leadership campaign and Canadians seeing him on T.V. saw all the best qualities of a good Irishman. After all, he came from a proven administration in the provincial field. Unfortunately, for a multitude of reasons, his performance in the post office and communications field has been to say the least-and I use an understatement

disappointing. The irony and paradox of the matter is that the Minister of Communications has failed to communicate with hon. members here, including the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Cafik).


An hon. Member:: That's Irish irony.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Yes, that is Irish irony, to say the least. He has failed to communicate with the public. Our people are accustomed to television and may become accustomed to "telstar" communications. They are prepared to accept a message when it is well put and convincing. But the minister did not communicate with the public. When he dropped the ax, raised postage rates and failed to communicate with his own workers, the trouble began.
The first real mistake the minister made was in not following suggestions made by hon. members on this side of the house that his bill go to committee to be discussed. In this way there could have been communication, a little education, a little change and, perhaps, some constructive criticism. One can only be amazed at the poor performance of the minister when one considers his background. In fact, when you come down to it, we are all disappointed with the performance of the government and with the man who rode in on the white charger to stimulate Canadians to the point where he won the

May 15, 1969
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leadership contest of his party and was elected Prime Minister. His performance these past two years has been disappointing. Although Spring has come and the flowers are blooming in Ottawa, I say that Canadians are not prepared to go on sniffing flowers. Long ago someone said that the people should eat cake when bread was scarce. Here we are in economic difficulties and the government is still sniffing flowers. School children may continue singing their hosannas, but Canadians are beginning to sing the blues because of the economic problems confronting the country.
Canadians have become apprehensive on seeing the deterioration from coast to coast of a previously good postal service. The Post Office performance was good in B.C. before E.K. You could speak about B.C. in times that were B.K. No matter how you fool around with the initials, Post Office performance has slipped and the Canadian public has become apprehensive about the administration of the department. Although the minister is interested in other areas of endeavour I am confining my remarks to the Post Office Department. At one time the phrase "post haste" meant something. It means little now when Post Office performance has been slipping.
Since I can only speak for ten minutes- and the time limit is somewhat restrictive-I wish to point out that we also have problems in the area of passports. Canadians legitimately are concerned about government inadequacies in Post Office administration and in matters relating to passports. Our people have become understandably concerned about government defence reviews, social welfare programs and a host of other matters coming under the purview of government policy. Where can the government employ this minister? If one examines the list of ministers one will see that they are reasonably secure in their slots. I, therefore, say that this minister will have to go.


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


Norman Augustine Cafik: Mr. Speaker, 1 was prompted to rise in this debate because of the remarks of the hon. member for Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt). I see that he has returned to the house. First, I apologize for not being here for the entire debate, since I had to serve this afternoon on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I wish to make a few brief comments about some of the matters raised this evening. On an earlier occasion when the government sought to

bring forward legislation to increase postage rates, hon. members of the opposition indicated they were opposed to those increases. I merely wish to point out that in the Public Accounts Committees of previous parliaments, the views expressed by hon. members of the opposition were not the views they expressed publicly here in the House of Commons. To illustrate this point may I refer to the follow-up report of the Auditor-General to the Public Accounts Committee dated October 31, 1968. This document refers to the 4th report of the Public Accounts Committee for the year 1963 presented to the House of Commons on December 19 of that year. The document reads in part:
The Committee expressed its belief that Early consideration should be given by Parliament to ways and means of covering the loss of the Post Office Department in handling second class mail and requested the Auditor General to keep the matter before Parliament in his annual Reports in order that subsequent committees may give consideration to it.
In its Fourth Report of 1966-67, the Committee stated in part:
-that it feels that there is something wrong when no action has been taken with respect to, and apparently very little consideration given to, its recommendation on this matter. The Committee first drew the matter to the attention of the House in its Third Report 1958 and, while minor changes have been made, the annual loss has continued to increase and the Committee is of the opinion that sufficient consideration has not been given to the solution of this problem. It considers it essential that the Post Office Department or Parliament immediately find ways and means of covering the loss of the Post Office Department in handling second class mail without this being done at the expense of other classes of mail, keeping in mind, however, the need of assistance to small independently-owned newspapers circulating in rural areas.
The latter recommendations I believe were put forward by an all party committee of the House of Commons. In the first meeting of that committee in the twenty-eighth parliament-and I am a committee member- arguments arose as to whether those recommendations had been implemented. At that time the Auditor General indicated that some slow progress was being made towards achieving implementation of these recommendations. We all know that the twenty-eighth parliament has passed a bill to increase postal rates, particularly second class mailing rates. Hon. members opposite have argued that this was an unpopular and improper action to take. According to the information I have the opposite conviction was expressed by those same hon. members in the Public Accounts
May 15, 1969

Committee when they made their recommendations.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)


Norman Augustine Cafik: I do not believe it is fair to the Canadian people or this institution for members to talk one way in committee and another in the House of Commons.


John (Jack) McIntosh: The hon. member says that because he has not been here long enough.


Norman Augustine Cafik: The postal rates which have been talked about today are fair and reasonable. Frankly, I do not believe it is in the interest of the taxpayers of this country to subsidize to a greater extent than we are presently doing those people using second class mail privileges. I think most Canadians would subscribe to this principle.
The next point is with respect to services in the Post Office Department. We must bear in mind one other step the department has taken, that is not only to increase revenues which will reduce deficits to the taxpayers but also to decrease operating costs. To some extent this move has contributed to the present upset in the postal service in Canada.
The decision to close certain rural post offices because they are not paying their own way has disturbed some postal workers. The move to a five-day week has certainly upset other people. These two decisions, plus necessary changes in procedure and training, were necessitated by increases in the volume of mail. As Canadians we must face the challenge and realize we are moving into a new kind of postal era. We must be willing to face the temporary problems that these necessary changes inflict upon the people of Canada. We must be patient. I honestly believe the Postmaster General is a man with the courage and capability of seeing this problem through and that in the long run we will have less costly and better service in the Canadian post office.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Until the last speaker rose, I was wondering whether any backbenchers in the Liberal Party would participate in this debate. I was glad to see one member had the courage to speak in support of the Post Office Department. As the Postmaster General was not receiving unanimous support from his own party, I was sure he would be the candidate for the next Senate appointment for the province of Quebec.
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I concur 100 per cent with the mover of the amendment, the hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin) and other members who have spoken, such as the hon. member for Surrey (Mr. Mather). They express the concern of the average citizen of this country as to what is happening in the Post Office Department today. I will not waste time by repeating arguments put forth by other hon. members.
I would like to mention one or two fundamental principles that have been violated by the Post Office legislation. First and foremost, there are minorities who have been throttled because of the increased rates in postage. I am speaking of some ethnic groups and church groups. Secondly, aspects of the postal legislation are contributing to the selling out of Canada, in particular to the United States.
I refer, of course, to subsidies granted to Time Magazine, Reader's Digest and to other aspects of the bill. Even more important, the postal legislation is following the way of many other items in the government. What is happening in the government is summed up in an article, written by Steven Clarkson of the University of Toronto, which appeared in a Toronto newspaper. He said that the concept of participatory democracy has been changed by this government to that of participatory autocracy.
The decisions are made by fewer and fewer people every day in many fields of jurisdiction. As time goes on more and more people are expendable. Fewer and fewer people are making the decisions which count in this country. I agree many reforms have to be made in the Post Office Department. Many groups and organizations being subsidized were basically freeloaders. When making changes and reforms, we must be careful where the changes are going to be made and who they will affect. The financial burdens of some minorities should not be increased.
What is efficient is not always the most effective for all people.
Some of the most efficient organizations in the world are not effective for most of the people which they are supposed to serve. The basic priority of the Post Office Department is that it should be a service to the people regardless of the economic and social background of those people. The hardest hit were church groups, labour groups, farmers, cooperatives, the ethnic press, political journals and magazines. Many of these minorities do not have a voice in the big daily presses of Canada.

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Many small journals and periodicals are no longer able to get their point of view across. Some have ceased to exist. Those that do exist have had to cut down content and reduce frequency of publication. This means that essentially the power of the press is being concentrated in fewer hands in Canada. Consequently, there are fewer dissenting voices in the communication industry today than even four or five months ago, so, public participation and involvement in many of the issues important to us has also been reduced. This is happening at a time when the opposite trend should be encouraged and pursued in this country.
One of the essential factors in democracy is to have people participating and involving themselves in all levels of society. People should be encourage to criticize institutions. The basic right of dissent should be protected. We must fight for the voices of the minorities. It is even more important now; in an age that is affected by automation and technology because in this automated world people are often dehumanized and depersonalized. Cities are often concrete jungles with the result that many people are frustrated and alienated. People want a purpose. They want some part in the decisions which affect their lives. They want equality of effort and a purpose for their life. They will not tolerate a denial of their rights. If they are denied participation and equality of effort, they are going to criticize. This is a natural psychological phenomena.
It is only about 14 months ago that I was a university student, and watched the Liberal leadership campaign with some interest. All of us interested in political and current affairs on the university campus were quite in agreement that the present Postmaster General was one of the more progressive people in the leadership campaign. He seemed to have a social insight and understood some of the basic problems confronting us. He has been a big disappointment to me, for now he is one of the most conservative people in the government. In fact I think the Leader of the Conservative party (Mr. Stanfield) would agree with me on that. I often wonder whether the minister is not just a Joe boy to the system, because this is what we have all around us. Today power is controlled by fewer and fewer people. It does not matter what field of jurisdiction is involved. In foreign affairs you see a government that does not want to become involved-

[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but we would like to see him come back to the Post Office.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The point I was making was that what is happening in the Post Office today is not isolated from what is happening in other aspects of government. You see this refusal to get involved on behalf of people in almost every field. I have mentioned foreign affairs. Those of us who come from the west know it is happening in agriculture. We heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) say, "Why should I sell wheat." This is just one example of what is happening, and where the government refuses to involve itself.
Now, returning to one of the basic issues that are important in this debate, the denial to minorities of the voice that they should have, I point out that the increase in postal rates is more than 2,000 per cent in some cases. These increases have caused many journals to fold up. Others have had to cut down on frequency of publication and others on content. In this connection I should like to quote from the Canadian Railwayman of April 12, 1969 an article headed "Labour Papers Hard Hit by New Postal Increases."
The increase has forced the Labour Statesman, official organ of the B.C. Federation of Labour, to cease publication on a regular basis after 45 years. It now will be published periodically on special occasions.
Canadian Transport, official journal of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and General Workers, which formerly was issued twice monthly, now will appear only once during June, July and August... the official publication of the Quebec Federation of Labour is to appear only six times a year instead of monthly.
We deplore the philosophy behind the legislation: profit-making periodicals such as Reader's Digest-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. The hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria.


Mr. Eymard Corbin (Madawaska-Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I shall be brief so as to give the hon. member opposite the opportunity to take the floor in a few minutes.
However, I should like to state quite simply that I have every reason in the world to believe that the new policy of the Department of Communications is the best one ever insofar as it meets today's needs of the Canadian Post Office.
May 15, 1969

I fully trust in the minister's and the government's skills to take the bull by the horns and to bring it to reason. My remarks are not directed here to Post Office employees in my area, because they are good public servants, and I am proud to underline their efforts towards a better Canada by going their humble way rain or shine.
However, there are things which I find difficult to understand sometimes, and I want to deal particularly with the city of Edmund-ston, where I settled two years ago. This is not some sort of destructive criticism of the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans). I simply want reasonable explanations, and I feel that between reasonable people, it is possible to come to terms.
Some time ago, I asked the Postmaster General to consider opening two sub-offices in the city of Edmundston. After an inquiry by his officials, the minister granted my request, for which I thank him.
However, as a consequence, it was decided to close on Saturdays the main post office located in Edmundston-Center, and the suboffices, located in Edmundston West and in Edmundston East remain open.
Now, on Saturday, the post office in Edmundston Centre being closed, people are told to purchase their stamps at the post offices' in Edmundston East or Edmundston West. Of course, people do not accept that.


David Réal Caouette: It is not a good system.


Eymard G. Corbin: As reasonable people, we should be able to come to an understanding.
There must be a reason for that. If the Minister of Communications would give us an explanation, I would accept it, and I can give you my word that my fellow-citizens would accept it also.
Maybe I am a little pessimistic, but sometimes I have the impression that the Minister of Communications is being brainwashed by some officials. I cannot prove it, but I have serious doubts about this.


David Réal Caouette: How true!


Eymard G. Corbin: I have serious doubts, and this not only as far as the Post Office Department is concerned but in the case of other federal government departments.
Once more, I am glad to emphasize the fact that the government is looking into those matters and that it is making an inquiry regarding all the complaints received in this respect.
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David Réal Caouette: The same situation prevails in the constituency of Bonaventure.


Eymard G. Corbin: It is quite possible but, for the information of Mr. Caouette, I do not live there.
As a proof that the Liberal government has turned its attention to the postal service in Canada and particularly in my area, Mr. Speaker, I submit that since 1964, more than 14 regional rural post offices have been established to serve a total population of 55,000.
As I said a moment ago, this proves two things. Firstly, that the Liberal government has met the Canadian citizens' needs; secondly, that it has made up for the harmful effects caused by the previous government's inaction. And for that, I wish to congratulate it warmly.
The postal service has been greatly improved and as far as my own riding is concerned, there remains only a little polishing up to do over 'the service, as a whole.
We are going through difficult times, from an economic point of view. My fellow-citizens are ready to tighten their belts-


An hon. Member:: It is not true.


Eymard G. Corbin: It is quite true. They have done it in the past and 'they are ready to do it again in the future.
Mr. Speaker, through you, I wish to assure the Minister of Communications of my constituents' admiration and I want to tell him that I shall vote against the motion under consideration.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)


Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to have a few moments to speak on this non-confidence motion concerning the government's mismanagement of the postal service. I congratulate the two members of the Liberal party the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Cafik) and the hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria (Mr. Corbin) for rising and trying to defend their minister. It is the first time since I became a member of this house that so few speakers have risen to protect a minister of any department.
I wish to congratulate especially the hon. member for Ontario who is also a member of the Public Accounts Committee which it is my honour to chair. He is quite right when he says we did report to the house that there should be ways and means found to cover the loss on second class mail. However at no

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time did the committee feel we were going to get less service following an increase in rates. This is the problem today. I do not think there is any member of this house or any person in all of Canada who goes to the post office to buy a stamp who does not realize he is paying more and getting less service.
Last fall when the Post Office bill, Bill C-116 was before this house we in the opposition begged and pleaded with the minister- and even moved an amendment-to refer the bill to a committee so that organizations, companies, newspapers and individuals who were going to be affected could appear before the committee. But the minister would not listen. He said, "no; I have given you a white paper. We will ram this through." He rammed it through and now where does he find himself? He begged for the bill to go to the committee. What do we find now? Newspapers are dying by the week. Many have gone out of business. They were denied a hearing before the committee, and this has happened. I believe much of this distress could have been avoided had the minister allowed the bill to go to a committee where hearings could have been held. Then there were the surveys which the minister has had. Some of the information contained in these survey reports was not according to the facts. The Postmaster General was told in the case of one newspaper that the papers had to be sorted and carted here and there. Now we find this is not the case. The newspapers are delivered in bags which are already addressed.
The minister mentioned the training of personnel and what little the Conservatives did about this. I do not wish to become involved in politics in respect of this matter. I may say, however, that with the untrained men we apparently had then better service was given than is given today. With untrained men, we had excellent delivery. We did not have a situation like this: a letter from my home city of Guelph was posted Monday night at six o'clock. It went through the stamping machine at eleven o'clock on Monday night and arrived on my desk this afternoon, Thursday. This is five day delivery and we used to have next day delivery.
Before you rise, Mr. Speaker, to advise me that my time has expired I should like to ask what the answer is. I know the Postmaster General wants to get out of this mumbo-jumbo in which he finds himself in respect of the Post Office Department. I think the only

answer is to return to the six day a week delivery.
There is not another country in the world which attempts to deliver a week's mail in five days. It is not done in the United States. We in Canada, however, think we can deliver a week's mail in five days. It has been proven now that we cannot do it and at the same time give service. We are paying more for less. If the people were dealing with something else they could go to another store and obtain better service, but in this case they do not have that opportunity. It is up to the government and parliament to provide the people of Canada with more service for the amount of money they are paying.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. It being 9.45 p.m. it is my duty, pursuant to section (9) of Standing Order 58 to interrupt these proceedings and forthwith put every question in respect of the proceedings now before the house.
The question is on the amendment to the main motion. All those in favour of the amendment please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Those opposed please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: In my
opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Call in the members.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment lost. The question is now on the main motion.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES	
MOTION TO	REFER BILL TO SPECIAL COMMITTEE


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I wonder whether I could be permitted to revert to motions for the purpose of making a motion that has been	
discussed with the house leaders of other parties.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The purpose of the motion is to provide that Bill C-120, the official languages bill, be sent to a special committee rather than the committee on justice and legal affairs. Therefore, with the unanimous consent of the house I move, seconded by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand):
That a special committee be appointed to consider Bill C-120, An Act respecting the status of the official languages of Canada, with power to send for persons, papers and records, to print from day to day its evidence and proceedings, to sit while the House is sitting, and to report from time to time;
That the said committee consist of 12 Members to be designated at a later date; and that Government Order Number 4 on the Order Paper be amended to reflect the proposed change in the committee to which the bill will be referred.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: It being after ten o'clock, this house stands adjourned until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.
At 10.18 p.m. the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.

Friday, May 16, 1989