1969-03-10

[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare, and Social Affairs in French and in English-Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Hull).
[Editor's Note: Text of foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]

Mr. Marcel Lessard (Lac-Saint-Jean) moved: that the Seventh Report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture presented to the house on Friday, March 7, 1969, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington) moved: that the second report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts presented to the house on Thursday, March 6, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Jack Davis (Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the seal hunt, for two reasons: One is to announce that the hunt itself is to be postponed for the remainder of this week because of exceptional conditions on the ice; and the other is to allay certain fears which have been expressed as to the manner in which in recent days the hunt has been carried out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Having spent some time on the ice over the week end and having talked to a number of
veterinarians from western Europe, the United States and Canada, I am of the opinion that the seal hunt is being supervised in an effective manner. The Fisheries Department's regulations are being enforced and the suffering of the young seals is being kept to a minimum.
For most of us who were out on the ice over the weekend, the hunt itself was a gruesome sight. The killing process was undoubtedly effective. It was effective because it was carried out with dispatch and by men who had killed young seals before. But I could not help asking myself whether the hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was really necessary in the first place.
Some 6,000 Canadians depend, for at least part of their livelihood, on the seal hunt. However, they are not always the same people since the seals follow the ice and the ice may be west of Les lies de la Madeleine one year and north of Prince Edward Island the next.
One thing is predictable, however: It is the impressive sight of the great seal herd itself. If we could convert this unique happening into an annual tourist attraction it could also contribute materially to the economy of the Atlantic region. I think we must therefore explore the possibility of the Gulf of St. Lawrence being declared a sanctuary for seals, with the hunt itself being limited to international waters in the north Atlantic off Labrador and Newfoundland.
Ice conditions this year are exceptional. The ice itself is poor in quality and limited in area. Also the use of helicopters has tended to prevent the mother seals from pupping on the ice. There is a danger of many young seals being lost under these conditions, and I have therefore declared a moratorium on the hunt beginning at 6 p.m. tonight and continuing through until 6 a.m. Friday morning.
The situation south of Prince Edward Island, where the main seal herds are located, is of course being kept under review and other protective measures will be announced as required.


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I know all members on this side of the house listened with interest to the statement made today by the Minister of Fisheries

March 10, 1969
Questions
(Mr. Davis) with regard to the seal hunt. I ana sure all of us welcome his announcement that his personal investigation of this hunt showed there was no cruelty involved. I find it rather difficult however to picture a seal hunt as a tourist attraction, in view of the difficulties involved in getting to the area concerned. I doubt that this could ever become a possibility.
The minister has announced that the seal hunt is to be postponed for the remainder of this week because of exceptional conditions on the ice. I hope the number of days on which the hunt is restricted will be made available to the hunters by an extension of the hunting season. I also note the minister's comments regarding the hunt and the fact that he found it gruesome. Quite frankly, killing, whether it be in a vast outdoor abattoir like the sealhunt or whether it is conducted in a regular abattoir, is not a very pleasant sight. However the method used by the sealers is humane. As the minister stated, he found this to be the case. It is humane in that it stuns the seal.
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)
Since this industry makes an important contribution to the livelihood of some 6,000 people in the Atlantic provinces we on this side of the house hope that the industry will be maintained. The minister has suggested exploring the possibility of declaring the Gulf of St. Lawrence a sanctuary for seals, with the hunt being limited to international waters in the North Atlantic off Labrador and Newfoundland. This may have some merit from a conservation angle. I believe any move along this line should be thoroughly discussed with other countries concerned, in order that we do not find ourselves taking unilateral action to conserve our seal herds while other nations take an unlimited kill.
I welcome some of the minister's statements and I hope he will take my suggestions seriously and discuss them at the next international conference on the law of the sea, which he has indicated from time to time may soon be held.


Mr. Rod Thomson (Balileford-Kindersley):: Mr. Speaker, I attended the hunt on Friday and Saturday last with the minister and I found there were almost more newspaper reporters and inspectors than there were fishermen. I too felt that the extra aircraft activity and the people attending disturbed the seals somewhat.

As far as cruelty is concerned in respect of these animals, I do not believe there was any cruelty or inhumane treatment, if you consider the method in this case. I think it was done as mercifully as could be done and I would be critical of those who have reported otherwise.
I think this industry is important as a means of increasing income for the people in this area, and certainly they are people who could use an increase in income.
Finally I would suggest that any effort to conserve seal herds should be done by agreement with other countries. I do not think it is right, proper or fitting that Canada should attempt to look after an international resource as a result of which our people would suffer reductions to income, if other nations are not willing to go along in this respect.


Mr. Bernard Dumont (Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, once again', we learn that the laws of nature delay the seal hunt. We have even been told that over the weekend more than 2,000 young seals drowned since they cannot swim until they are 10 days old. Let us hope that next season the seal hunt will not enable only some American millionaires to make money, but on the contrary will enable some Canadians to earn a living for that period in that area of Canada.



BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Secretary of State)
asks for leave to introduce Bill C-179 entitled "An Act to establish the Canadian Educational Broadcasting Agency and to make certain consequential amendments to the Broadcasting Act".
(Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.)


Mr. Maite: 1.	Has the government resumed diplomatic relations with Gabon?
2.	Is it government policy that a country cannot issue direct invitations to the Government of Quebec?
March 10. 1969


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: 1. Following the events associated with the meeting of the Conference of Ministers of Education of Francophone states held in Libreville in 1968, the government of Canada decided to defer the presentation of credentials by its ambassador-designate to Gabon. It should thus be noted that the government of Canada did not break diplomatic relations with Gabon and that, in these circumstances, the question of resumption of diplomatic relations does not arise. The matter of their normalization remains under review.
2.	In conformity with universally recognized principles of international law and practice, any foreign state wishing to have dealings with a constituent part of a federation has a formal obligation to consult the government of the federation. These considerations apply fully to invitations addressed by foreign governments or intergovernmental bodies to the governments of Canadian provinces in respect of intergovernmental conferences, meetings or visits, unless there had been prior agreement between the Canadian government and the host country. The policy of the government in this regard was set out in the White Papers entitled "Federalism and In-
Prov.	1960	1961	1962	1963
Nfld.								
P.E.I.	-	-	-	N.S.	2	-	-	-N.B.	-	Que.	1	1	1	1Ont.	1	-	-	Man.	1	-	Sask.	-	-	-	Alta.	-	1	1	-B.C.	1	1	4	13Total	6	3	6	142.	(a) 4, one of whom has been transferred to a mental hospital; (b) 6.3.	(a) 79; (b) 24; (c) 24 (nine have been paroled, two of whom violated parole a second time); (d) 1960, 5; 1961, 8; 1962, 7; 1963, 2; 1964, 1; 1965, 3; 1966, 4; 1967, 19; 1968, 18. In addition, nine were re-paroled during this period: 1960, 0; 1961, 1; 1962, 1; 1963, 0; 1964, 0; 1965, 1; 1966, 1; 1967, 0; 1968, 5.4.	No; these cases are reviewed at least once in every year by the National Parole
Questions
ternational Relations" and "Federalism and International Conferences on Education".


SENTENCES UNDER HABITUAL CRIMINALS PROVISION
Mr. Orlikow: 1.	How many persons have been sentenced under the habitual criminal sections of the Criminal Code and sentenced to preventive detention in each province in each of the years 1960 to 1968?
2.	How many of these people are still in prison after (a) ten years (b) five years?
3.	How many of these people have (a) been paroled (b) violated their parole (c) returned to prison (d) received paroles in each of the years 1960 to 1968?
4.	Do the inmates serve their original sentence and then serve x-number of years before parole is considered?
5.	What special programs are made available to these inmates and in what prisons are these programs made available in British Columbia?
6.	How much time must be spent on these programs before parole is considered for these prisoners?


Hon. G. J. Mcllrailh (Solicitor General):: 1.
139 have been sentenced since the habitual Criminal Sections of the Criminal Code were
passed	in 1947,	84 of	whom	have been sen-	tenced	in years	1960-	1968 as	under:	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	Total-	=	1	1	2	2 81	-	-	-	-	2-	1	-	1	-	35	1	4	1218	11	3	5	1	5719	17	5	11	3	84
Board pursuant to the provision of Section 24(5) of the Parole Act and Section 666 of the Criminal Code.
5.	Individual and group therapy is carried out at the New Westminster Penitentiary and Matsqui Institution in British Columbia. This is in addition to the regular programme which includes educational, vocational, religious, recreational, social and trades training.
6.	Answered by 4.

March 10, 1969
Questions


AGES OF PENITENTIARIES INMATES
Mr. Beaudoin: 1.	How many prisoners in Canadian penitentiaries were (a) under 12 years of age (b) between the ages of 13 and 20 inclusive in each of the past five years?
2.	What steps have been taken by the Department of Justice to reduce the number of minors confined to penitentiaries?


George James McIlraith: 1.	(a) None; (b).
Age at Time Shown
13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	TOTALDecember	1968	0	0	2	16	37	145	236	297	733December	1967	0	0	4	15	62	127	241	339	788
Note: It is regretted that the statistical compilation system in force previous to 1967 did not provide the information as requested.
2.	The sentencing of minors to penitentiaries is the prerogative of the courts. Where inmates under 16 years of age are admitted to penitentiary, the Warden, in accordance with Section 21 of the Penitentiary Act, endeavours to obtain the co-operation of provincial authorities to transfer the inmate to a suitable provincial institution as soon as possible after his admission. Four medium security institutions have been constructed across Canada where young offenders are offered special training programmes which should assist in their rehabilitation as law-abiding citizens and thus reduce the number confined in the penitentiaries.
has already been outlined by Senator Robi-chaud. Speaking in Baton Rouge on December 3, 1968, of the endeavours being made to preserve and develop the French language and culture in Louisiana he said, in part: "the task that you have embarked upon- and I must stress the point-is your affair and the techniques you adopt will be those which in your best judgment will be the most appropriate and effective... I feel sure Canadians will be ready to share their experience with you in such worthy efforts ... We wish you well in your endeavours, which we will watch with interest and understanding". If a request for assistance were received it would be given sympathetic study by the government. In such matters Canada would of course insure that normal diplomatic practice was observed.


ACAD IANS IN LOUISIANA
Mr. Robinson: 1.	Is the federal government contemplating any support to the 800,000 Acadians in the State of Louisiana who are endeavouring to revive the French language and French heritage in that State and, if not, what is the federal government's policy toward the promotion of French language and French culture in countries outside Canada with a significant French speaking population?
2.	Has the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana asked the federal government for support in its project and, if so, what support is contemplated by the federal government?


Mitchell William Sharp: 1. and 2. In response to an invitation from the Governor of Louisiana, the Hon. John J. McKeithen, Senator Hedard J. Robichaud and Mr. Jules Leger, Under Secretary of State, represented the Prime Minister at the International Acadian Festival held in Louisiana in December 1968. Although no request for assistance has been received by the Government of Canada from the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, Canada's nosition in this regard


CHEMICAL FERTILIZER PRICES
Mr. Beaudoin: What were the prices of various categories of chemical fertilizers in each of the provinces in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968, respectively?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: The fertilizer industry in Canada produces a very wide range of chemical fertilizers and mixtures and the Departments of Industry and of Trade and Commerce are not aware of any attempt to publish fertilizer prices in Canada on a national or provincial basis. This information, therefore, is not readily available.
Pricing of fertilizers in some detail is complicated to the extent that prices are not always province-wide and can vary by region, locality and season. Prices also will depend upon formulae, quantity ordered, credit terms and whether sales are in packaged or in bulk form as well as upon a variety of other factors.
March 10, 1969


PICTURES IN &quot;INDIAN NEWS&quot;
Mr. Howard (Skeena): With respect to the persons shown in the pictures on pages six and seven of Volume Eleven, Number Three, of the Indian News dated October 1968, how many were employed by the Indian Affairs
When picture was taken
(a)	Permanent	9(b)	Casual or Part time	2(c)	Contract	4
Included in this issue of the Indian News were 10 Indian persons who were receiving in-service training in Ottawa when the picture was taken. At the time of publication 5 were still receiving training. None are receiving in-service training at the present time.


ST. PIERRE AND MIQUELON-ZONE NEGOTIATIONS
Mr. Fortin: 1.	What is the current stage of negotiations between France and Canada concerning the 12 mile zone with respect to St. Pierre and Miquelon Islands?
2.	What are the particulars of dispute between the two countries?
3.	What are the respective positions of the two countries?


Mitchell William Sharp: 1. It is understood that this question refers to the negotiations between Canada and France concerning their respective areas of jurisdiction over the mineral resources of the continental shelf south of Newfoundland in the region of the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. These negotiations have not yet been concluded.
2.	The particulars of the negotiations relate to the demarcation of their respective areas of jurisdiction over the continental shelf.
3.	Since the negotiations are confidential it would not be appropriate at this time to comment on the respective positions of the two countries.


RAW SEWAGE INTO BOW RIVER
Mr. Mahoney: 1.	Is raw sewage being permitted to escape into the Bow River from the Banff Municipal sewage system?
Questions
Branch in (a) permanent positions (b) casual or part time positions (c) under contract at (i) the time the pictures were taken (ii) the time of publication of the said issue of the Indian News, and (d) at the present time?


Hon. Jean Chrelien (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: At time of	As of Feb.
Publication	3, 1969
8	8
2	2
4	3
2. If so, does the government have any plans to rectify the situation?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: 1. Yes.
2. Yes. A sewage treatment plant for the Townsite of Banff is planned for the near future.


ELIMINATION OF LEVEL CROSSINGS
Mr. Robinson: 1.	What is the government program to eliminate level railway crossings in built up areas?
2.	How many level crossings are there in Metropolitan Toronto on the government program and what is the proposed date for the removal of each of them?
3.	What is the estimated cost for each of the level crossings presently on the government program that are to be removed?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of Transport):: March 10, 1969
Questions
Railway Transport Committee of the Commission had under consideration nine applications for construction of grade separations; five were approved during 1968 and one has subsequently been approved in 1969; the remaining three are under active investigation.
The time of completion of these projects depends on the fiscal planning of the road authority and on the time it takes the authority to complete the design and call for tenders, and the contractor to complete the construction.
3.	The estimated cost of the approved grade separations in the Metropolitan area is as follows: Keele Street, $784,800; Sheppard Ave. W., $595,214; West Mall Extension, $1,095,000; Midland Avenue, $1,250,000; Cummer Avenue, $701,721; Keele Street, $573,950.


SUBSIDY TO WESTERN GRAIN PRODUCERS
Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse): Does the government pay any subsidy to grain producers in Western provinces and, if so (a) on what basis is this subsidy calculated (b) what amounts were paid for the years 1966 and 1967?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Yes. (a) Subsidies are paid as follows: (i) Under the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act the government pays the storage and interest costs on Canadian Wheat Board stocks of wheat in commercial storage in excess of 178 million bushels basic stocks at the commencement of the crop year; (ii) Under the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, the government pays the interest on advances made to producers on threshed wheat, oats and barley stored on the farm, within the area of the Canadian Wheat Board's jurisdiction; (iii) Under the Interim Price Guarantee policy, the government undertook to pay the difference between the Canadian Wheat Board's selling price and the International Grains Arrangement minimums for the various grades of Canadian wheat on all sales made below the minimums in the eleven month period from August 1, 1967 when the pricing provisions of the International Wheat Agreement expired and the implementation of the International Grains Arrangement on July 1, 1968.
(b)
Fiscal Year
1966-	67
1967-	68
Temporary Wheat Reserves Act
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
Interim Price Guarantee
29,838,317	583,325	-31,418,119	743,459	2,649,236


OTTAWA-RENTAL OF SPACE IN CENTENNIAL TOWER
Mr. Schreyer: 1.	Has the Government of Canada leased any space In the Centennial Tower Building in the City of Ottawa?
2.	If so (a) what amount of space has been leased per floor and, what is the lease price (b) what is the period of the lease (c) as of what date have the leased premises actually been put to use by the Government of Canada?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Public Works):: 1. Yes.
2. (a)	No. of sq. ft.	Total rental	Total No.per floor	per annum	of sq. ft.Floors No. 8-15 inclusive	23,785	$713,550.00	190,280Floors No. 3-7 inclusive	23,857	447,318.75	119,285Floor No. 2 (partial)	10,948	41,055.00	10,948Ground Floor (partial)	4,374	21,870.00	4,374Basement (habitable storage)	6,428	12,856.00	6,428Basement (dead storage) 	27,850	13,925.00	27,850
March 10. 1969

(b)	Lease Number 1: Covering floors 8-15 inclusive, plus 6,428 square feet of habitable storage, plus 24,650 square feet of dead storage-term July 7, 1965 to July 31, 1975. Lease Number 2: Covering floors 5-7 inclusive, plus 1,000 square feet of dead storage-term August 1, 1965 to July 31, 1972. Lease Number 3: Covering 4th floor, part of 3rd floor, part of ground floor, plus 2,200 square feet of dead storage-term September 10, 1965 to September 30, 1975. Lease Number 4: Covering part of 2nd floor and part of 3rd floor- term December 13, 1965 to July 31, 1970.
(c)	Lease Number 1, July 7, 1965; Lease Number 2, August 1, 1965; Lease Number 3, September 10, 1965; Lease Number 4, December 13, 1965.


DIVERSION OF AIRCRAFT TO CUBA
Mr. Rodrigue: Were any Canadian aircraft, owned by Air Canada or Canadian Pacific Air Lines, diverted to Cuba in 1967 or 1968 and, if so (a) how many and on what dates (b) are special measures being taken with regard to this problem?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: No Air Canada or Canadian Pacific Air Lines aircraft diverted to Cuba in 1967 or 1968. (a) Nil; (b) All reasonable precaution is exercised.


PROGRAM &quot;SI JEUNESSE POUVAIT&quot;
Mr. Rodrigue: What did it cost to produce the program "SI JEUNESSE POUVAIT", broadcast on C.B.C. T.V. February 8 and 15, 1969?


Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Secretary of State):: I am informed by the C.B.C. that the total cost of each of these two programs was approximately $4,000.


CANADIAN STANDARDS COUNCIL
Mr. Fortin: 1.	Does the government intend to establish a Canadian Standards Council and, if so (a) on what date (b) what will be its functions?
2.	What part does Canada play in the International Organization for Standardization?


Jean-Luc Pepin: 1. Yes. (a) Following the completion of consultations with standards organizations, industry, trade and consumer
Questions
associations, legislation will be presented to parliament for approval; (b) See answer to question 635 on the Standards Council of Canada of November 1, 1968, tabled on January 15, 1969.
2. Of the 127 technical committees established by the International Organization for Standardization, Canada participates in 71, and maintains observer status in 26.

TEMISCAMINGUE, QUE., MINES SUBSIDIES Question No. 1,407'-Mr. Caouette:
1.	What amount of money has been paid out in subsidies of all kinds to mines operating in the federal constituency of Temiscamingue in the last five years?
2.	What amount did each of these mines receive during this period?
3.	On what grounds were these subsidies granted?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Acting Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: 1. $1,956,408.
2.	Peel Elder Limited, $320,832; Wasamac Mines Limited, $1,635,576.
3.	Financial assistance to gold mines has been provided under the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act to extend the operating life of the mines and thus permit the dependent communities to adjust gradually to diminishing economic support.


USE OF BOTH OFFICIAL LANGUAGES ON LABELS
Mr. Fortin: 1.	With what commercial associations were consultations held concerning the use of both official languages on labels?
2.	What is the state of those consultations?
3.	Will the regulations be amended so as to require labels to be bilingual, and, if so, when?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: 1. Informal consultations have been held with the Grocery Products Manufacturers of Canada, the Canadian Food Processors Association, the Canadian Paint Manufacturers Association and the Canadian Manufacturers of Chemical Specialties Association.
2.	These consultations are continuing.
3.	No decision has been reached on the issuance of regulations to require bilingual labels.

March 10, 1969
Questions


FRONTENAC, QUE., OIL DRILLING
Mr. Dumont: 1.	Was a permit granted to O-Katta Ltd. (Company) for oil drilling in Inverness Township, constituency of Frontenac?
2.	If so, on what date was the permit granted?
3.	Has the company published a report of its findings?
4.	Do other companies hold permits for drilling in the constituency of Frontenac?


Otto Emil Lang: 1. No federal permits have ever been issued for oil drilling in the constituency of Frontenac, Ontario.
2.	Not applicable.
3.	Not applicable.
4.	No.


REPAYMENT OF GUARANTEED LOAN TO EXPO 67
Mr. Hales: 1.	Was the 35 million dollar loan owed by the Expo 67 Corporation to five chartered banks and guaranteed by the Dominion of Canada and the Province of Quebec, pursuant to the provision of Section 12 of the Canadian Corporation for the 1967 World Exhibition Act, repaid in equal parts by the two governments?
2.	If so, on what date did the federal government pay its share?
3.	On what date did the Quebec Government pay its share?
4.	Was the loan paid in cash?


Hon. E. J. Benson (Minister of Finance):: 1.
Yes.
2 and 3. July 3, 1968.
4.	Yes.


R.C.M.P. CHAUFFEURS
Mr. Robinson: 1.	How many R.C.M.P. personnel are employed as chauffeurs, who do they chauffeur, where is each located and how many automobiles are used for this service?
2.	Do R.C.M.P. chauffeurs have any other specific duties and, if so, what are they and what are the requirements of R.C.M.P. personnel to provide this service?
3.	How many R.C.M.P. personnel are engaged in purely ceremonial matters in their training and employment?


George James McIlraith: 1.
The R.C.M. Police do not employ personnel exclusively as chauffeurs. There are 47 persons designated as civilian member chauffeurs who are employed on a variety of duties at

the locations shown. None are assigned to service any specific individual, and no automobiles are assigned to designated civilian member chauffeurs. Where applicable, the vehicles are pooled and utilized when required. "HQ" Division, Ottawa, Ontario, 9; 'A" Division, Ottawa, Ontario, 5; "B" Division, St. John's, Newfoundland, 1; "C" Division, Montreal, Quebec, 2; "D" Division, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 2; "E" Division, Victoria, British Columbia, 2; "E" Division, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2; "F" Division, Regina, Saskatchewan, 1; "DEPOT" Division, (Training), Regina, Sask., 5; "H" Division, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 3; "J" Division, Fredericton, New Brunswick, 1;	"K" Division, Edmonton,
Alberta, 5; "N" Division, (Training), Ottawa, Ontario, 4; "O" Division, Toronto, Ontario, 2; "P" Division, (Training), Mynarski Park Alberta, 3.
2.	Yes (a) Prisoner van drivers. A responsibility under terms of provincial policing agreements; (b) Transporting security material, mail and exhibits; (c) Transporting personnel on duty; (d) Other support duties when required.
3.	R.C.M. Police Band, 41 personnel; R.C.M. Police Musical Ride, 51 personnel; Total, 92 personnel.


LAMB IMPORTS
Mr. McQuaid: 1.	For the period January 1, 1968 to December 31, 1968, how many pounds of lamb were imported into Canada from (a) New Zealand, and (b) Australia?
2.	What was the average price per pound of lamb to the Canadian importer?
3.	How many pounds of this imported lamb were shipped into the Province of Prince Edward Island during the above period?
4.	What was the average price paid to the Canadian farmer during the above period for (a) live lamb (b) dressed lamb? ,
5.	What were the average prices paid to the farmers of Prince Edward Island?


Jean-Luc Pepin: The Dominion Bureau of Statistics reports that:	1. Number of
pounds of lamb imported into Canada for the period January 1, 1968 to December 31, 1968 from: (a) New Zealand, 24,920,300 lbs.; (b) Australia, 8,444,600 lbs.
2. The average price per pound of lamb imported during 1968, f.o.b. point of consignment in the foreign country of export, exclusive of freight, insurance and other charges was: New Zealand, $0.24; Australia, $0.31.
March 10, 1969

3. Statistics indicate that no imports of lamb were cleared through customs ports in Prince Edward Island during the year 1968.
4 and 5. A monthly DBS mail questionnaire survey of farmers across Canada indicated that the weighted average price of live lambs for the country as a whole amounted to $22.45 per cwt. for 1968. This estimate is based on an average monthly return of about 380 reports. For Prince Edward Island, the average for live lambs was about $20.70 per cwt. in 1968. This price was based on an average of about 5 reports per month. No information is available regarding farmers' average dressed prices.


YARMOUTH, N.S.-LANDING STAGE FOR YACHTS
Mr. Comeau: 1.	In any improvements that may be contemplated to the waterfront or harbour facilities at Yarmouth, N.S., has provision been made for a landing stage for use by yachts and other small craft and, if not, for what reason?
2.	If such provision has been made, has consideration been given to installing such facilities along the seawall adjacent to Water Street or some other equally convenient location?


Arthur Laing: 1. No consideration is being given to providing a landing stage for yachts and small craft at Yarmouth, N.S. at the present time, owing to the congestion in the harbour caused by the ferries and fishing fleet.
2. Not applicable.


INDIAN AFFAIRS PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTRACTS
Mr. Howard (Skeena): Since July 1, 1968, has any money been paid by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to any public relations companies and, if so, what is the name and address of each such company and the amounts of money so paid?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Eugene Steiner Public Relations Ltd., 1330 - 8th Street, S.W., Calgary 3, Alberta, $5,813.51; Berger, Tisdall, Clark and Lesley Ltd., Box 61, Toronto-Dominion Centre, Toronto, Ontario, $2,275; Crockett Writers, Public Relations Consultants, 295 Kensington Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, $1,015; Jacques Guay et
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associes inc., Conseillers en relations publi-ques, Suite 440, Edifice Dominion Square, 1010 ouest, Sainte-Catherine, Montreal 2, Quebec, $2,410; International Surveys Limited, 550 Sherbrooke St., West, Montreal 2, Quebec, $375; Williams and Wilson Ltd., Public Relations Counsel and Services, 1161 Melville Street, Vancouver 6, B.C., $15,208.31; Des-roches, Jasmin et associes inc., Conseillers en relations publiques, 640, rue Cathcart, Montreal 2, Quebec, $1,515.30.


NATIONAL HARBOURS BOARD PERSONNEL
Mr. Skoberg: 1.	Who are the administrative members and staff of the National Harbours Board?
2.	What position did each of them hold prior to being appointed to the National Harbours Board?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: 1. (1) Mr. H. A. Mann, Chairman;
(2)	Mr. L. R. Talbot, Eng., Vice-Chairman;
(3)	Mr. E. J. Alton, Member; (4) Mr. J. E. Lloyd, C.A., Member.
2. (1) Executive Manager, Maritimes Transportation Commission; (2) President, Rene Talbot Ltd., Quebec; (3) Executive, Buckers-fields Ltd., Vancouver; (4) Practicing Chartered Accountant, Halifax.


TROIS-RIVIERES-AIR CANADA SERVICE
Mr. Forlin: 1.	Does Air Canada intend to discontinue its service to the airport at Trois-Rivieres?
2.	If so (a) for what reasons (b) has a study been made of the subject (c) will the results of the study be made known to the general public or interested parties (d) will the service presently being provided to Trois-Rivieres be continued by other companies?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: The Management of Air Canada advises as follows: 1. and 2. Traffic levels and service requirements at all points on the Air Canada system are kept under constant review so that appropriate changes in the nature and type of service may be made as required, old services discontinued and new services initiated. Initiation or abandonment of service requires application to and authorization from the Canadian Transport Commission which has the discretion to decide what procedures are followed with applications and what the requirements are for public service. It is not the practice of Air Canada to announce in advance plans for or the nature of applications

March 10, 1969
Questions
to the Commission involving changes in licensing and services under the Aeronautics Act.


* ASTHMA-USE OF AEROSOL INHALERS
Mr. Dinsdale: 1.	Are aerosol inhalers for the treatment of asthma on sale over the counter in drug stores in Canada?
2.	Are these inhalers considered dangerous by the Food and Drug Directorate when improperly used?
3.	Have any sudden deaths among asthmatic patients been recorded which might be attributable to the misuse of aerosol inhalers?


Mr. Rosaire Gendron (Parliamentary Secratary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1. There are a number of drug products in aerosol containers for the treatment of asthma that are for sale over-the-counter in Canada.
2.	These pharmaceutical products are potentially dangerous as are most drugs if used more frequently and in greater quantities than specified in directions for use on the label.
3.	The Poison Control Unit, Food and Drug Directorate, Department of National Health and Welfare, has no record of sudden deaths among asthmatic patients in Canada attributable to the misuse of aerosol inhalers.


INDIAN AFFAIRS PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTRACTS
Mr. Orlikow: 1.	Has the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development contracted with four public relations firms, named as follows, to do work for the Department (a) Williams and Wilson Limited in Vancouver, B.C. (b) Crockett Writers Company, Winnipeg, Manitoba (c) Berger, Tisdale, Lesly, Toronto, Ontario (d) Jacques Gay Incorporated, Quebec, P.Q.?
2.	If so, what work will these public relations firms be performing for the Department?
3.	What annual payments will be made to each of these companies?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: 1. Yes.
2. These public relations firms have been contracted to carry out publicity and information projects as required in their respective area of operation. They are to report on radio and television broadcasts relating to the

Indian people and the Department, to initiate reports from Indian communities having a bearing on programs operated by Band Councils or the Department, to encourage reporters to provide coverage on matters affecting the Indian community, to organize new information programs as required, to assist field staff in the day to day needs of the Department as it relates to information services and to liaise with editors and all news media on matters affecting the Department.
3. (a) Williams and Wilson Limited has an annual contract for $25,000; (b) Crockett Writers Company is currently under a four-month contract for $1,600 with out-of-pocket expenses not to exceed $700; (c) Berger, Tisdale, Clark and Lesley Ltd. is currently under a four-month contract for $4,000 with out-ofpocket expenses not to exceed $990; (d) Jacques Guay and Associates is currently under a six-month contract for $2,700 with out-ofpocket expenses not to exceed $1,800.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES-FRENCH LANGUAGE INSTRUCTORS
Mr. Crouse: 1.	How many French language instructors have been engaged in France by Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff?
2.	What is the amount of salary paid to these individual instructors by the Canadian government?
3.	What are the names of the Canadian Armed Forces bases to which these instructors are allocated?
4.	Are the Canadian Forces being taught from French military handbooks or Canadian military handbooks?
5.	What security check is made on all instructors prior to their employment on Canadian bases?


Mr. D. W. Groos (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence):: 1. None.
2 and 3. Not applicable.
4.	Where training in the Canadian Forces relates to practices and procedures unique to the Canadian Forces, handbooks for such training are of strictly Canadian origin, and no foreign military handbooks, French or otherwise, are utilized for this purpose. However, when equipment in service with the Canadian Forces is of French make, such as the Falcon passenger aircraft currently operated by Air Transport Command, then the manufacturer's handbooks, relating to the operation and maintenance of this equipment, are utilized for that specific training purpose.
5.	Not applicable.
March 10. 1969

Questions
OIL LOADING AT IRVING DOCK	POTENTIAL TIRE DEFECTS


Mr. Dumont: Has the National Harbours Board taken appropriate measures to prevent a major accident during the unloading or loading of oil at the Irving dock at Sillery?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: The Irving dock at Sillery is not under the administration of the National Harbours Board, but all vessels in the Harbour of Quebec are subject to NHB By-law A-l which in part regulates the handling of goods to or from a vessel in the harbour in so far as the handling of goods that are of a nature which may present a hazard to navigation.


REFUSAL TO FILE INCOME RETURNS
Mr. Beaudoin: 1.	How many Canadians have been directly asked to file an income tax return and, of these, how many refused to file such returns?
2.	How many persons in the Province of Quebec have been directly asked to file an income tax return and, how many refused to file such returns?
3 Does the federal government intend to take the necessary steps to ensure that such people file their income tax returns?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Cote (Minister of National Revenue):: 1. Demands to file 1967 income tax returns were forwarded to 46,278 residents of Canada. 7,117 were prosecuted for failure to comply with such demands.
2.	Demands to file 1967 income tax returns were forwarded to 13,401 residents of Quebec. 2,990 were prosecuted for failure to comply with such demands.
3.	Yes.


AIR CANADA EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
Mr. Coates: 1.	What is the salary of the Chairman of the Board of Air Canada, and on what date was that salary determined?
2.	What is the salary of the President of Air Canada, and on what date was that salary determined?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: The management of Air Canada advises as follows: 1. and 2. It has not been considered in the best interest of Air Canada to disclose data on employees' earnings, other than that which is readily available through the Dominion Bureau of Statistics.


Mr. Mather: Are tire manufacturers required by law to notify customers in Canada of potential tire defects?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: No.


REMISSION OF BUILDING MATERIALS TAX
Mr. Paproski: 1.	Have any payments of the 11% sales tax on building materials been remitted by order in council or any other means?
2.	If so, how many remissions of the tax have been allowed since October 22, 1968 and what is the total amount of such remissions?
Hon. Jean-Pierre Cote (Minister of National
Revenue): 1. Yes.
2.	Since October 22, 1968, there has been one remission of sales tax on building materials in the amount of $51,300.51.


PARASITOLOGY TESTS ON ASIAN AND AFRICAN EMIGRANTS
Mr. Ryan: Is the government considering the abolition of parasitology tests upon the persons of Asian and African applicants who seek to emigrate to Canada?


Rosaire Gendron: The routine requirement for a report of stool examination from persons undergoing medical examination for Canadian immigration purposes in all countries where parasitic infections of the gastrointestinal tract are common is currently under review. An early decision is expected.


MOBILE COMMAND RESERVE
Mr. Robinson: 1	What Is the role of the mobile command reserve?
2	What is the state of operational readiness of the mobile reserve?
3.	What are the names of the units, their strengths and estimated operational efficiency of the mobile command reserve?


Hon. Leo Cadieux (Minister of National Defence):: 1, 2 and 3. Attention is directed to Hansard dated 13 November 1968, page 2683, and the Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence No. 3, dated 12 March 1968, of the Standing Committee on National Defence dealing with the Reserve components of the Canadian Forces.

March 10, 1969
Questions


PILOTS IN CANADIAN FORCES
Mr. Robinson: 1.	Is it the government's intention to continue to pay pilots on the cessation ol hostilities in Vietnam?
2.	Is it government policy to give extra pay to pilots who are not on flying duty?
3.	How many pilots have been released from the Canadian Forces during each of the years 1960-68 inclusive, and, how many of them have joined United States airlines?
4.	Is the government contemplating any policy whereby pilots will contract with the Canadian Forces for a period of time and/or be available for pilot duties with Canadian airlines?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: 1. Hostilities in Viet Nam have nothing to do with the pay of pilots in the Canadian Forces.
2.	All pilots up to, and including, the rank of Colonel are entitled to pilots' pay because they are considered to be under continuous liability to fly. Pilots who are permanently grounded for medical or other reasons, and who remain in the Canadian Forces, do not receive pilots' pay but are paid the same salary as general service officers of similar rank.
3.	Release information on pilots in the sea element is not available prior to 1965 and no release information is available on land element pilots as their releases are identified by their Corps affiliation. 1960, 182; 1961, 193; 1962, 136; 1963, 196; 1964, 546; 1965, 304; 1966, 336; 1967, 231; 1968, 171. No information is held on the number of these pilots who have joined United States, or any other airlines.
4.	No.


PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY GAME BIRDS
Mr. Ritchie: 1. Has the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development received any reports that are wide-
(a)
spread in Western Canada that migratory game birds are not being protected in their winter feeding grounds such as Mexico resulting in depletion of our game birds?
2. What action does the Minister propose to take if these reports are substantiated?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: 1. The
Minister has not received any official reports of widespread or indiscriminate shooting of migratory game birds in Mexico. The Department is aware of the current rumour in Western Canada. Our information is that most reports of excessive shooting can be attributed to a limited number of non-Mexican "Sportsmen". Increased liaison between Mexican authorities and the Government of the United States has resulted in the apprehension of these "Sportsmen" when they have returned to the United States.
2. There is at present no treaty between Canada and Mexico relating to the protection of migratory birds. We have therefore informed appropriate officials in the United States government of the rumours, because of their treaty with Mexico.


FAR EASTERN FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS
Mr. Anderson: What are the names of the Foreign Service Officers of FSO 2 rank and above employed in the Far Eastern Division of External Affairs and how many days leave credit does each have in each of the following categories (a) home leave (b) annual leave (c) overtime (d) sick leave?


Mitchell William Sharp: The Foreign Service Officers Grade 2 and above listed hereunder are presently employed in the Far Eastern Division of the Department of External Affairs and their leave credits are as follows:
(b)	(c)	(d)
Overtime (Hours available as emergency
		sick leave)	Sick leave
8	days	NIL	53J days31i	days	NIL	182i days18J	days	19	146 days9i	days	NIL	187i days51	days	NIL	257J daysiii	days	NIL	16 days30	days	101	313J days
Home leave
Buchan, R.	J.	NILChistoff, O.	A.	14 daysDelworth, W. T.	NILFraser, J. M.	NILHarrington,	J.	M.	20 daysKristianson,	G.	L.	NILSeaborn, J.	B.	NIL
[Mr. Cadieux (Labelle).l
March 10. 1969


MR. WILLIAM HAMILTON-H.M.C. DOCKYARD
Mr. Anderson: 1.	Was Mr. William Hamilton, a former employee of HMC Dockyard in Esquimalt, British Columbia discharged from the Public Service and, if so, for what reason?
2.	Did Mr. Hamilton have an opportunity of presenting his grievance and, if not, for what reasons?
3.	May an employee who has been fired from HMC Dockyard appeal his dismissal and, if not, for what reason?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: 1. Mr. Hamilton was not discharged from the Public Service at H.M.C. Dockyard Esquimalt, he was laid off on May 29, 1968, because of lack of work.
2.	Yes. Mr. Hamilton presented his grievance and it was given consideration at all levels of the grievance procedure, and it was denied at each level.
3.	Yes. Mr. Hamilton submitted his grievance to an adjudicator who was appointed under the provisions of the Public Service Staff Relations Act. Adjudication proceedings were held in Victoria, B.C., on 17 January, 1969, and the award of the adjudicator has not yet been issued.


P.E.I.-ARDA EXPENDITURES
Mr. MacLean: 1. What was the amount spent under the ARDA Program in the Province of Prince Edward Island for each of the fiscal years from 1964-65 to 1968-69 inclusive?
2. What is the amount, if any, to be spent in that Province under the ARDA Program in the fiscal year 1969-70?


Mr. Russell C. Honey (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Forestry and Rural Development):: 1.	1964-65,	$82,797;	1965-66,
$137,076; 1966-67, $289,702; 1967-68, $333,125; 1968-69, $194,442 to date.
2. Total amount not yet known. Outstanding commitments total $430,000.


SASKATCHEWAN-AREA DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
Mr. Burton: For the fiscal year 1967-68, how many grants were made to plants in Saskatchewan under the Area Development Incentive Program (a) what is the name of each plant receiving a grant (b) what amount of grant was received by each plant?
Questions


Russell Clayton Honey: (a) Name	(b) Amount

Inter-Ocean Grain Co. Ltd.
(Moosomin)	21,418.00
Lloydminster and District Agricultural Co-operative Association Ltd. (Lloydminster)	41,923.84
Producers Feeds (Sask.) Co. Ltd.
(Melville)	15,330.95
P. A. Bottlers Ltd. (Prince Albert) 30,166.39 Canora Concrete Products (Canora) 10,933.36 Webber Homes Ltd. (Yorkton)	42,681.41
Shellbrook Chronicle (Shellbrook) 10,700.73 Total 7


CANADIANS IN TANZANIA
Mr. Muir (Cape Brelon-: The Sydneys):
1.	To the knowledge of the government how many Canadians are now in Tanzania?
2.	Of the total, how many are military personnel?
3.	Of Canadian civilians in Tanzania, how many are members of Canadian University Students' Overseas and what are their functions?


Mitchell William Sharp: 1. According to the latest available information, there are 640 Canadians now in Tanzania.
2.	Of these, 88 are military personnel.
3.	There are 108 members of Canadian
University Students' Overseas in Tanzania performing the following functions:	64
teachers; 10 agriculturalists; 5 health specialists; 4 engineers; 4 computer programmers; 3 librarians; 4 economists; 1 secretary; 1 lecturer; 1 publicity assistant; 1 accountant; 1 expert in adult education; 1 physiotherapist; 1 administrator; 3 foresters; 1 lawyer; 1 architect; 1 zoologist; 1 pilot.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. Coates: 1.	How many Cadillac motor vehicles are presently owned by the federal government and made available for use by Cabinet Ministers?
2.	Since June 25, 1968, how many Cabinet Ministers have made use of the Cadillacs in the car pool and of the Cabinet Ministers who have made use of these Cadillacs on how many instances in each case?
Return tabled.

March 10, 1969
Questions


KATES, PEAT AND MARWICK-STUDY FOR POST OFFICE
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	When was the consulting firm of Kates, Peat and Marwick engaged by the Post Office Department?
2.	What were the terms of reference of the study to be undertaken by this firm?
3	On January 1, 1969, how much had been paid in fees and expenses to the firm?
4.	When is it anticipated the report is to be completed?
5.	How much is it anticipated will be paid to the firm from January 1, 1969 to the time the report is complete?
Return tabled.


ARMED FORCES CHAPLAINS, WESTERN PROVINCES
Mr. Diefenbaker: 1.	How many Chaplains are there in the Armed Forces in the three Western Provinces?
2.	What are the names of such Chaplains with their respective addresses?


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege arising out of the fact that two starred questions of mine have been on the list for so long that there can be no justification for their not having been answered. Starred questions are supposed to be answered within three days. The following is starred question No. 1501 which I asked on February 19:
Will the Minister of Transport bring to the attention of the Canadian National Railways the suggestion that in the interest of safety for users of the highways which cross railway tracks that diesel locomotives shall have thereon flashing red lights similar to those now used on ambulances, police vehicles and the like?
There should be no difficulty whatsoever in answering that question. The second one might be more embarrassing for the government to answer, but none the less has to be answered. It is starred question No. 1538 which reads as follows:
1.	Are stars being used to designate the rank of officers of the Armed Forces?
2.	How are ranks designated by stars?
3.	Under what authority has this star system come into effect?
I point out that apparently starred questions receive less attention than those unstarred, if this be an example.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I too rise on a question of privilege. It relates to question No. 1008 in the name of the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis), which has been on the order paper since December 10. Both the hon. member and I have asked for an answer several times and we have been assured it would be forthcoming. Meantime we have been reading articles by newspaper reporters such as Carman Gumming and Anthony Westell, which seem to suggest that the information sought by this question is given outside the house, but we do not get it here. Today when I came down to the house I found on my desk the usual list of the questions that would be answered today. Question No. 1008 was included on the list but the parliamentary secretary did not read out the number.
I think it is an affront to parliament to delay answers to these questions concerning regional desks attached to the Prime Minister's office, particularly when information on the subject seems to be available to reporters outside the house.



MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S.O. 26 POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT ALLEGED FAILURE TO PREVENT DISRUPTION OF SERVICE-MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT UNDER STANDING ORDER 26

Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, seconded by the hon. member for Lambton-Kent (Mr. McCutcheon) I ask leave under the provisions of Standing Order 26 to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the disruption of mail service resulting from the explosive situation in the Post Office Department arising directly out of the government's failure to appoint an outside arbitrator, and the Postmaster General's ill considered threats of prosecution of striking employees, contributing to an emergency situation of great gravity affecting the delivery of mail from coast to coast.
The situation is one of great gravity and a genuine emergency-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I wonder
whether the hon. member can proceed further. He knows that according to the Standing Order he has to give notice, and I assume this is the notice to which he just referred. He can
March 10, 1969

argue the case only after a decision has been made by the Chair whether or not the motion is acceptable. There is a difficulty in this instance because the hon. gentleman filed two papers with the Speaker, as required by the Standing Order, one of which was the proposed motion and the other one which appeared to be an argument.
I certainly do not want to be difficult about the matter. I might say in a general way, however, that my interpretation of Standing Order 26 is that the only document which can be filed with the Chair is a statement of the question, not an argument. In this case, since the notice filed by the hon. member is not all that long, perhaps he might be allowed to make his statement.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Perhaps I might be permitted to comment briefly on what has just been said, because of the effect Your Honour's statement might have on our procedure. While it is true the hon. member did file with you a motion to be put to the house, if leave were given pursuant to the standing order, the document he is supposed to file is a written statement, and it is the written statement which my hon. friend proposes to read. The filing of the motion is possibly superfluous-it is in the nature of an act of courtesy, indicating to the Chair the kind of motion which would be made.
I agree with Your Honour that there are limits to the extent to which a statement of the kind referred to in the Standing Order should go. However with all due deference, if Your Honour insists on requiring only a statement, limited as that may be unless it is further supplemented, an obstacle might be placed in the path of the Chair when considering whether the motion should be allowed.
I agree entirely with Your Honour that the statement should not contain anything by way of argument. I am glad to have had an opportunity to make this submission in the house, in order that it may be before us, in the record.


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Thank you, Your Honour. I wanted to make the extra mile, and thought that in doing so I would not be out of order.
The situation is one of great gravity and genuine emergency because some 1100 workers have already walked out in a series of wildcat strikes from Hamilton to Saskatoon, and there are threats of further walk outs, which will have the effect of further impairing mail deliveries across Canada. It is
Post Office Department extremely urgent that the matter be dealt with in this house before there is any further deterioration in a situation described in this morning's press as explosive, and involving postal workers from coast to coast.
It is precisely the kind of matter which this provision was set up to deal with because it involves, first of all, a matter of urgency-


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (President of the Privy Council):: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have already indicated-and the hon. member for Peace River has agreed-that what is to be submitted in connection with the rule is a written statement of the matter to be discussed. I would refer specifically to Standing Order 26(3):
When requesting leave to propose such a motion, a member should rise in his place and present without argument the statement referred to in section (2) of this order.
I submit that the hon. member for Hillsborough is now getting into an argument in connection with this issue; he is arguing the question of urgency, and this specifically the kind of argument which those drafting the Standing Order sought to avoid.


Gerald William Baldwin: May I make a comment at this point? When Your Honour receives a copy of the motion to be made, it is up to the hon. member making the motion to bring himself squarely within the four corners of the rule, and to do this he must submit a written statement. He cannot argue the merits or go into the substance of the issue, but surely in making his statement he must convince Your Honour that the motion he is proposing is one which falls precisely within the rule-that it is urgent and, in short, within the description used in the phraseology.
Unless this is done, not in an argumentative way but purely in the form of a statement, how is Your Honour to judge whether or not the motion ought to be placed before the house? I submit that what my hon. friend has done so far is not out of order. Although he has come close to the edge, he has not yet gone over it.
[DOT] (2:30 p.m.)


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I would draw Your Honour's attention to the fact that we have had three or four examples of the use of Standing Order 26 since the new rule was drawn. I submit that in each case the mover of the proposed motion has included in his statement the reasons for his belief that the

March 10, 1969
Post Office Department matter should be allowed for debate. We had two on Friday, neither of which was just one sentence, each one being of some length and setting out the reasons. I submit that that is what the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie) is doing now.
The President of the Privy Council (Mr. Macdonald) suggests that the member should stay within the provisions of Standing Order 26 (3). Standing Order 26 (3) says that the member shall rise in his place and present without argument the statement referred to in section (2) of that order. The statement referred to in section (2) of the order is the statement that the member submitted to Your Honour at least an hour in advance of this sitting. I submit that, unless Your Honour advised the hon. member before he came into the house that he had submitted something to you that was improper, then the statement that he has submitted to you is one that he is allowed to read to the house at this time.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank hon. members for their advice and I am in agreement with all of them. However, I have the feeling that, as the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) indicated, the statement filed by the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie) was a little close to the line. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) has referred to the fact that a number of similar statements or motions have been filed during the last few days, but I also notice that they are getting progressively longer and more argumentative, and this is what the Chair is worried about. I would not want to reach the point where the Chair in lieu of notice would allow statements that might take 15 or 20 minutes for an hon. member to read, I am sure that this is not what the rule contemplated; the correct procedure is somewhere between the two extremes.
The suggestion made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre was that in cases of doubt the Speaker should consult the hon. member. This has been done in other instances. In view of the very special circumstances existing today it would have been difficult to get in touch with the hon. member for Hillsborough. That is why I felt, taking into account all of the circumstances, that I should allow the hon. member to proceed and to put to the house the statement which, as I have said, is not too long. I understand that he is just about nearing the end of his statement in any event.


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I am indeed nearing the end of the statement.
Fourthly, a matter arising directly out of a failure in government policy, namely the refusal of the Postmaster General to appoint an outside arbitrator to deal with allegations of breach of contract raised by the employees; and instead has threatened prosecution of those making the allegations.
It is a situation which has now reached a climax of emergency proportions demanding debate by this chamber before we experience another widespread disruption of mail services.


Mr. Speaker:: As I indicated a moment ago, I did receive the notice that is required by Standing Order 26. As hon. members know, subsection (5) of the relevant Standing Order refers to the factors that the Chair should take into account in determining whether such a motion should be allowed and put to the house. In particular, the subsection provides:
Mr. Speaker shall have regard to the extent to which it concerns the administrative responsibilities of the government or could come within the scope of ministerial action and he also shall have regard to the probability of the matter being brought before the house within reasonable time by other means.
My understanding is that the first item of business called for today is the government reorganization bill, which by special order is being considered in committee of the whole. When debate adjourned on this item of business on February 28, clause 7 of the bill was under consideration. In my view, the subject matter proposed for discussion by the hon. member for Hillsborough is quite relevant to clause 7 of the bill. Indeed, the hon. member himself has already initiated such a discussion in the course of his own intervention on clause 7, as reported at page 6087 of Hansard for February 28.
Since there is the probability that this legislation will be considered later today, it would seem illogical under standing order 26 to set aside the business of the house for the purpose of discussing the very same matter. In these circumstances, I do not think that the standing order allows the Chair to put the motion at this time. I should say however that this does not in any way preclude the possible submission of a similar motion at a later date.
March 10, 1969



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Postmaster General. In light of the emergency situation and the chaos and disruption that is threatening his department, would the Postmaster General consider asking the house to revert to motions so that he could make a statement to the house on what steps he proposes to take to ensure that the dissatisfaction existing among the workers of his department ends, and that mail service disruptions in important centres of this country come to a stop?


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Postmasier General):: As you have already outlined, Mr. Speaker, there will be an opportunity later today for all members of the house to participate in the debate on that part of the bill that deals with the new department of communications.
In direct reply to the question of the Leader of the Opposition, I should like to say that today we have finally completed arrangements with union leaders to reject the grievances that have been presented at the first stage and pass them immediately through to the fourth stage, so that the issues will be adjudicated upon by a third party, which is what we have been looking for, for months. These issues include the wash-up time, return for punching in at noon, and so on.
I would be very pleased indeed to have a third party judge these issues, and finally and once and for all to come to the conclusion that it is not the Postmaster General who is preventing the letter carrier from going home for lunch or from going to a restaurant for lunch or is insisting that he must return to the post office, but that it is in fact the union leaders who are doing all this.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. My understanding of the question was whether the minister would make a statement on motions.


Eric William Kierans: Well, I think that will do for a start, Mr. Speaker.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I should like to ask the Postmaster General a supplementary question. It continues to be quite easy to get answers to questions that you do not ask the minister, but very difficult to get answers to questions you do ask.
Inquiries of the Ministry
From what the minister has just said I take it he is prepared to resort to third party procedure in order to settle these disputes. Knowing how difficult it is to get answers from ministers even during the committee stages of bills. I should like to ask the minister whether he proposes to continue with his rather inflammatory and unacceptable threat to dismiss workers, or is he sticking to his original suggestion of using the regular grievance procedures to resolve outstanding points? Does the minister propose to continue with his threats of prosecution of workers who have gone out?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, for weeks we have been trying to process agreements to the point where a third party can judge the issues that are involved. This is not something that is new today; we have been forced into this and have been looking for it.
With respect to statements that I made on Friday night, we are today applying to the Public Service Staff Relations Board for a declaration that this strike is in fact illegal, and secondly for consent to prosecute those involved in the strike. I may say that this government is very proud of the contract that it signed with the letter carriers-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A supplementary question, to the Postmaster General, Mr. Speaker. Since the government has said that it goes along with the recommendation of the Freedman report which calls for negotiating changes in methods of work before those changes are put into effect, will the government suspend its walkthroughs and have the matter negotiated before it tries to bring about a tremendous change in the work patterns of the letter carriers?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, it is not a tremendous change in the work patterns of the letter carriers. As a matter of fact, the majority of them find that there is an improvement in their work patterns. The point is, did the Freedman report deal with the right of management, in public or private enterprise, to make managerial and administrative decisions? I do not think the report refuses the right to management to take those steps which, in this case, were deemed to be in the interests of the Canadian taxpayer by ensuring greater productivity and reduced costs.

March 10, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry


Stanley Howard Knowles: further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the dispute is over whether this is a minor or major change, and since the matter is serious to the entire country, I ask again: Will the government suspend the offensive practices it has been indulging in, until the third party has adjudicated with respect to this matter?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, the present practices are not offensive, and I refuse to accept that description of them. We have agreed that a third party will adjudicate, and we have been trying to have this done for at least three weeks.


Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hastings):: In view of the generous suggestion the Postmaster General made to the Minister of National Defence regarding alternative policies the latter minister could implement for the carrying out of his duties, has the Minister of National Defence assured the Postmaster General that he will lend him sufficient personnel to enable him to carry out his present duties.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence and I are not at cross purposes.


Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Has the Postmaster General applied to prosecute postal workers under the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act? If so, when was the application made, or when is it to be made?


Eric William Kierans: It is being made today, Mr. Speaker. To the best of my knowledge, it is going forward today.


Erik Nielsen: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I did not hear the first part of the minister's reply. Is the application being made under the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act?


Eric William Kierans: I am not sure. I think it is being made under the Public Service Staff Relations Act, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Andre Fortin (Loibiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question.
Is it not the opinion of the Postmaster General that instead of prosecuting the Post Office employees involved in litigation at the present time, it would be better to arrange

meetings across Canada so as to explain the new post office legislation and try to find a solution to this serious problem?


Mr. J. Edward Broadbenl (Oshawa-Whiiby):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Labour. Will that minister not agree that the Postmaster General has misinterpreted the Freedman report with reference to the prerogatives of management?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That question is argumentative.



EFFECT OF RATE CHANGES ON SECOND CLASS MATERIAL

Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: A supplementary question to the Postmaster General, Mr. Speaker. While he is considering any agreements to be entered into with the postal unions, will he also consider the protests of the publishers of many Canadian farm journals and periodicals who face extinction because of the increased cost of second class mail?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, I met with a group of publishers on Friday afternoon.



PUBLIC SERVICE


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. This morning I tried to get in touch with the Queen's Printer and was informed that that position has been abolished. Is this attempt, in removing the Queen's name, another attempt by this government to downgrade the monarchy in this country?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: No, Mr. Speaker. The Queen's Printer is being merged with the department of supply and services; but the title of Queen's Printer remains. It has not been abolished.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, my office was advised this morning that the title of Queen's Printer was no more and from now on we must communicate-I want to get the name correct, because it is a high sounding title-with the Director General of Printing and Publications. Will the Prime Minister restore the title of Queen's Printer?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I will be pleased to advise the right hon. gentleman's office that the
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
Queen's Printer has not been abolished and that it is included in the statute.


Gerald William Baldwin: Do not send the information through the post office; it will take too long.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet perhaps I might reassure the right hon. gentleman from Prince Albert who asked a question about the Queen's Printer. If he will refer to article 48 of the Government Reorganization bill now before the house, he will see the minister may appoint an officer of the department to be the Queen's Printer of Canada.


John George Diefenbaker: Just to make it perfectly clear, apparently this has not been done. I say it is a very serious matter that when you phone the Queen's Printer the answer is there is no such person; so the Prime Minister apparently has not done that which he was authorized to do.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Roy-al: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. Was the Secretary of State for External Affairs stating government policy on the weekend when he said that stronger relationships with Latin America could be achieved only within the framework of institutions, notably the Organization of American States?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I understand the Secretary of State for External Affairs said no such thing.


Mr. Fairweather:: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Before a decision is taken on the question of membership in the Organization of American States, which a distinguished parliamentarian in the other place has referred to as Canada's manifest destiny, will parliament have an opportunity to discuss the military and defence implications of any such arrangements?


Stanley Howard Knowles: We
know what his destiny was.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I expect this subject will be before the External Affairs Committee. We are looking forward to hearing the views of hon. members of the opposition on this matter.
DEBATES	6395
Inquiries of the Ministry


NATO-REQUEST FOR DEBATE BEFORE WASHINGTON TRIP
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Does the government intend to initiate a debate in the house on the subject of Canada's participation in NATO before the Prime Minister makes his trip to Washington, so that he may receive the benefit of the views of the representatives of the people from all parts of the country before he conducts these very important discussions with the United States president?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the hon. gentleman has not had the occasion to express his views on this matter before now. It has been before the External Affairs Committee for many months. They will report, I believe, within a few weeks.


George Harris Hees: My question was, Mr. Speaker, will there be a debate in this house. As a supplementary question, may I ask if the Prime Minister intends to bypass members of parliament, the members of this house, and continue to receive information on important matters through regional desks, as seems to be the case at present?


ARCTIC ARCHIPELAGO-REPRESENTATIONS TO U.S. RESPECTING SOVEREIGNTY
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question arising from the question having to do with the Prime Minister's trip to Washington. When meeting the President of the United States will the Prime Minister discuss, without any equivocation, the matter of our islands in the Arctic and point out that we have complete sovereignty over them?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware that the subject will be raised. I repeat what I said in the house last week. We have complete sovereignty over the islands in the Arctic and there is no equivocation about that.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Will the Prime Minister, then, initiate such discussions so that there is no doubt or ambiguity about our sovereignty over these Arctic islands?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not see why I should raise the question in order to cast some doubt on it. Our position on it is quite clear.

March 10- 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry
Righl Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):	A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. As I understood it, the other day the Prime Minister said that this was not a question of sovereignty over the Arctic islands but that there was difficulty over the question of the inland seas. I ask, is it not a fact that Canada's stand throughout has been in favour of the sector principle and that view was expressed by Canada at the Geneva Conference in 1958 and was not disputed by the United States or the U.S.S.R.? Does the Prime Minister accept the sector principle, and if he does, and if that is still the policy of the government of Canada, then waterways are in the same position as islands and other lands?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not have the same understanding of this as the right hon. gentleman. I believe the sector theory applies to the seabed and the shelf. It does not apply to the waters. The continental shelf is of course under Canadian sovereignty-this is the seabed, but not the waters over the shelf.


Mr. McGrath:: de Gaulle doesn't believe that.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: What's your query?


James Aloysius McGrath: de Gaulle doesn't believe that.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Then, talk to General de Gaulle.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have to remind hon. members that we will soon be running out of time and there are many hon. members who are anxious to ask questions. I realize this is an important matter, but we should not allow it to become a debate at this time.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, Mr. Speaker, I wasn't trying to make it a debate; I was trying to get information.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Ask your own members.


John George Diefenbaker: When the Prime Minister is in Washington seeing the President of the United States, will he give support to the sector principle, and will he make it very clear to the President that Canada claims the Arctic archipelago?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I keep repeating the same thing: The archipelago is under Canadian sovereignty; it is Canadian territory. My assertion of the sector theory would

apply to the seabed, not to the waters or ice-


John George Diefenbaker: That is where the minerals are.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The question of whether the waterways and the frozen ice are in the international high seas, in territorial waters or in inland waters is the question that is in dispute.


Mr. Speaker:: Again I am wondering whether the debate on this point might not be resumed tomorrow, but I note that other hon. members have supplementary questions.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, since the Prime Minister raised some doubt about the inland seas aspect on Friday, I would like to ask him whether the government would at an early date issue a white paper outlining in detail the position of the government of Canada and its claim to sovereignty in respect to islands, to the archipelago, to the inland seas and to the related natural resources, so that people of this country and other nations will know the position of Canada?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I told the house last week that I was consulting the various departments	involved-National	Defence,
Northern Affairs, External Affairs, and so on-with a view to establishing our policy on this matter which, over the years, has not been clarified by any government, so far as the status of these waters is concerned. I am of course anxious to ensure that we do clear up this matter. As soon as I am in a position to make a statement or publish a white paper I will be glad to do so.


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: As a supplementary question I would ask whether the Prime Minister proposes to defend this sovereignty by reverting to the Pearson gunboat philosophy, which failed in the case of the 12 mile limit?


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


FISHERIES
Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries. Having in mind the renewed representations by the fishermen of British Columbia for a hearing before the House of
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
Commons Fisheries Committee on the important issue of fisheries licence limitation, would the minister agree to such a hearing being held on this issue?


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, I would certainly agree to this. I hope such an opportunity does arise, but the proceedings of the committee are a matter for the committee itself to decide.


SEALS-DISCUSSION BY STANDING COMMITTEE OF HUNTING PROCEDURES
James Aloysius McGrath: As
a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, would the minister also give consideration to referring the subject of the seal hunt to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry before any decision is taken to abandon the hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as expressed in the statement issued today?


John (Jack) Davis: That sounds like a very good idea, Mr. Speaker.


SEALS-USE OF HELICOPTERS IN HUNT
Mr. John Lundrigan (Gander-Twillingale):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the Minister of Fisheries whether he has investigated reports that the helicopters being used by the Humane Society people are responsible for seals taking to the water prematurely resulting in a large number of them being drowned?


John (Jack) Davis: There is some evidence that that is a fact.


James Aloysius McGrath: As a further supplementary question, would the minister explain to the house why he left the hon. member for Gand-er-Twillingate behind on Friday?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Howard Lundrigan: As a further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister what action he plans to take on the matter I just raised, and whether he will make facilities available through his department whereby hon. members who were advertently or inadvertently left behind last week could make a similar trip at their convenience?


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member knows that the matter of recruitment of interested members was discussed with members of all parties on several occasions. I am sorry the hon. member was not able to 29180-4051
DEBATES	6397
Inquiries of the Ministry make it at one o'clock as scheduled on Friday, but I hope he can be with us next time, because we welcome his advice.


John Howard Lundrigan: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I am not going to get into a debate on the fact that I was left behind, and I won't accuse the minister of being a liar. I will just say his watch must have been a bit fast. I am more interested in the sealers than in what happened to the hon. member for Gander-Twillingate. But I repeat my question: At their convenience, later in the week will the minister make facilities available to interested members such as the hon. member for St. John's East and the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe to make a visit similar to the one he made?


John (Jack) Davis: First priority will always be given to members of the house over anyone else, including the press.


TELEVISION
Mr. Len Marchand (Kamloops-Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, I have an urgent question for the Secretary of State concerning Kamloops, which may also have national implications. Could the minister please advise the house, on behalf of the Canadian Radio Television Commission, whether they might hear applications to provide alternate television service for Kamloops and other areas which fit into the same category?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I would think this is the type of question which should be debated at the time of adjournment.


Len Marchand: Ten
o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture which has to do with a very sweet subject. In view of the fact that the month of March is National Honey Month, and since the minister just recently had the extraordinary honour of crowning the National Honey Queen, who happens to be a very sweet girl because she comes from the riding of Vegreville-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.

March 10, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry Mr. Mazankowski: -would the minister undertake to use his good offices to promote the sale and the utilization of honey and honey products both at home and abroad, particularly in view of the fact that the utilization of honey has been steadily declining in the past few years?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the Department of Agriculture has been party to a promotion campaign undertaken by the Honey Council of Canada to promote the sale of this product in Canada and outside it.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF HONEY QUEEN, MISS DEVRA DRYSDALE
Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, may I also be permitted to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in your gallery of Miss Devra Drys-dale, who was crowned the Honey Queen of Canada last Friday evening.
Sone hon. Members: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: The procedure may be somewhat irregular. The only thing I can say is Honi soit qui mal y pense.


Mr. J. E. Walker (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege I think it should be noted that the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister was also born in Vegreville.
Sone hon. Members: Hear, hear.


TELEVISION
Hon. G. W. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Secretary of State. When will the minister be announcing guidelines dealing with trends toward concentration of ownership and monopoly control of the electronic media in Canada, as he indicated he would be doing some time before Christmas?


Gérard Pelletier: As far as the ownership of the mass media, is concerned, Mr. Speaker, we hope to be able within the next two weeks to send out instructions to the C.R.T.C.

With regard to the matter of information monopolies, it will remain under consideration for a little longer.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, I presume the minister will be making an announcement to the house. In the meantime could he say what the guidelines are for the C.R.T.C. in respect of cablevision applications?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is asking the minister to make a statement which normally should be made on motions.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. With deference to Your Honour, I should like to say that at the moment the C.R.T.C. is engaged in deliberations requiring such guidelines. I ask the minister whether he will make a statement in that regard in sufficient time so that the C.R.T.C. will have adequate guidelines with which to deal with cablevision applications?


Gérard Pelletier: Mr. Speaker, I have been in touch today with the C.R.T.C. authorities and I questioned them about their plans in that respect. There is, in fact, a matter of urgency and they would even like to receive some instructions within a fortnight which we shall attempt to do.
However, for the time being we are in the process of reviewing the case. They are not considering new applications, however they are reviewing cases of community antennas already existing in the light of the Broadcasting Act.


INCOME TAX
Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the news today that businessmen can now take their wives on trips and deduct the expense from income tax, will the minister now consider allowing mothers who work outside their homes to deduct the expense of paying babysitters?


Mr. Speaker:: This is a question which might be debated at the time of adjournment.
March 10. 1969	COMMONS


EXCHEQUER COURT OF CANADA
André-Gilles Fortin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question to the Minister of Justice.
Could he tell us when the rules and general orders of the Exchequer Court will be published in French?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, the last time the hoe. member asked that question, I tried to convince the Chief Justice of the Exchequer Court of the urgency of the matter. But, in any case, I guess we shall have to wait another few weeks.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Lancasler):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Acting Minister of Transport, notice of which I gave him early this morning. Has the minister any information on the very serious bottleneck at the port of Saint John and can he tell us what the government, the railways and the Harbours Board are doing to fulfil their responsibility in this matter?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for his usual courtesy. The general cargo handlings at Saint John are abnormally high at the moment due to strikes on the eastern U.S. seaboard. All berths in the harbour are being fully utilized in the loading and unloading of general cargo ships. The problem is to find berths with sufficient grain handling facilities for the grain ships.
The focal point of the problem appears to be the labour supply which at the moment is insufficient to meet an abnormal situation such as the present one. The 42 to 45 gangs available are doing an excellent job by working 12 hours a day Monday to Friday and eight hours each on Saturday and Sunday, but they are unable to meet the abnormally high peak period.


Thomas Miller Bell: I should like to thank the minister for giving full information. Does he know that there would be agreement in this party if he would take over the ministry of transport so that we could have full information every day?
DEBATES	6399
Inquiries of the Ministry NATIONAL SECURITY


INQUIRY AS TO REPORT OF ROYAL COMMISSION
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether he can give any information as to when he hopes to table a report about which we have been seeking information for several months. I refer to the report of the royal commission relating to security. We have asked this question several times. Can the Prime Minister give the house any information concerning when we will receive the report or what the reason is for the delay?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: There is no firm day, Mr. Speaker.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, could the Prime Minister not give the question of the report his attention since this matter has been dragging on for several months? I for one find it difficult to understand the reason for the delay and why a report of this importance cannot be tabled in the house. This kind of delay, if I may say so, may very well lead to suspicion concerning the reasons for which the government is withholding the tabling of the report.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, because it is a royal commission on security the subject matter is a very delicate one. As I explained very early in the session, we were involved in the very delicate process of trying to render public certain sections of the report without making public other sections, the release of which would be harmful to the security of the country. It is this assessment in respect of which we are having difficulty reaching a conclusion. This is the reason for the delay.


Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breion-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, regarding this report may I ask the Prime Minister whether it will be or has been made available to the heads of previous administrations, any of the three former prime ministers who as Privy Councillors would have the right to see it, or to anyone outside the present cabinet?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Mr. Speaker, as to whom the report will be made available, if

March 10, 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry we table it in the house in the abridged version it will be made public; there is no problem there. Ini respect of the question concerning to whom it has been made available: It has been made available to the cabinet ministers and certain civil servants who are concerned with security matters.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Could the minister say whether a decision has been reached in relation to the two matters brought forward to him by the chief of the Indian band at The Pas, Manitoba?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Yes. We indicated that the woman in question who was involved in the complaint was being actively considered for transfer. So far as the other matter, with regard to the community health service being responsible to the Indian band is concerned, we are quite agreeable to that.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. G. H. Aikin (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct this question to the Solicitor General. It relates to an interview by the R.C.M.P. with an Ottawa man who visited the office of the Minister of National Health and Welfare a week ago today. Have any charges been laid against this man or are any contemplated?


George James McIlraith: Mr. Speaker, no charges have been laid in this case, and so far as I know none are contemplated.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Is the investigation considered to be at an end so far as the R.C.M.P. are concerned?


George James McIlraith: So far as this particular incident is concerned, I believe so.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Solicitor General. In the answer to the last question I asked him he used the words "so far as this particular incident is

concerned." I hope the minister is not leaving an inference that there are other incidents being investigated involving this particular person. Would the Solicitor General advise whether that is what he meant?


George James McIlraith: No; I do not accept the hon. member's interpretation of my answer. I do suggest, however, there have been other incidents and an indication that there may be several other incidents. This is the nature of the information we have obtained.


COMBINES
Mr. Ed Schreyer (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, notice of which I have given him. Is his department investigating the recent take-over of the Computer Corporation of Canada by Canadian National Telecommunications in order to see whether there has been a contravention of trade practices?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, this matter has been referred to the Director of Investigation and Research under the Combines Investigation Act.


Edward Richard Schreyer: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the new minister of communications whether his department is considering a review of this recent take-over to see whether it is in line with government policy?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, we are assessing the implications of the take-over.


GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES
Bernard Dumont: I would like to ask the Prime Minister a question.
Since he is having studies made on the marine boundaries to be set in the North, could he tell the house if a marine border is to be established between Quebec and Ottawa by using the water branching median line formula?
Righl Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):
I am afraid I did not get the question, Mr. Speaker. Which dividing line does the hon. member refer to?
March 10. 1969


Bernard Dumont: To the watershed line, Mr. Speaker. Will the border be set according to line?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member asks the right hon. Prime Minister to consider his proposal. He will probably take it for granted that he will do so.


Bernard Dumont: Ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker. [English]


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Robert P. Kaplan (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour arising out of a recent decision he made to move the Unemployment Insurance Commission from 25 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto, to Belleville. This will result in a number of public servants losing their present jobs in Toronto. In view of the fact that none of these employees are covered by unemployment insurance, I should like to ask what measures the government will take to ensure that those who cannot move will not be laid off?


Mr. Speaker:: I am not sure whether this question involves a matter of urgency. Perhaps the hon. member might consider the possibility of having the matter discussed at the time of adjournment. I have some doubt whether the question qualifies for consideration at this time.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The minister's decision was announced very recently and a large number of public servants in Toronto are affected.


Hon. Bryce S. Mackasey (Minister of Labor):: Mr. Speaker, this was not a decision by the Minister of Labour; it was a decision on the part of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. There are 180 employees affected, of whom 117 have accepted transfer to Belleville; 23 others have accepted work in the Toronto area office and work will be found for the remaining 40, or severance pay will be granted for a period up to six months notice depending on service.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Labour whether he has yet found a way to avoid the lay-off of some 20 or 30
Inquiries of the Ministry employees of the Unemployment Insurance Commission at Winnipeg?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: As I have pointed out on many occasions in the house, the original number was 800. The fact that we have cut it down to 20 or 30 indicates the foresight of the commission. We anticipate we will be able to look after the remainder. In any event, mo one in the Unemployment Insurance Commission will be dismissed with less than six months' notice.


ESTABLISHMENT OF OFFICE OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER
Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact the Prime Minister stated in reply to a question I asked last October that the Minister of Justice is considering the possibility of appointing an ombudsman, can he inform the house what steps he has taken toward establishing such an officer of parliament to serve the Canadian public and parliament?


Mr. Speaker:: The question raised by the hon. member is one of a very general nature. I appreciate that it is also of importance but I wonder whether the hon. member would not agree that this question should be answered by a statement on motions.


Robert Norman Thompson: I think he has the answer ready.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. H. W. Danforth (Kent-Essex):: Mr. Speaker, because of the urgent nature of this matter I should like to direct my question to the Prime Minister. Can he indicate whether there are intentional exclusions from his participatory society, or is there some other major reason for the delay of months in granting the request of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture to present its brief to the Prime Minister and members of the cabinet in accordance with the courtesy extended annually for many years?


Mr. Speaker:: While the matter is being checked, perhaps the hon. member for Mackenzie could be allowed to ask his question.

March 10. 1969
Inquiries of the Ministry SOYBEANS-DECISION FOLLOWING REPRESENTATIONS BY MARKETING ORGANIZATION


Mr. Mac T. McCulcheon (Lambion-Keni):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: Before the hon. member does so I should bring to the attention of hon. members that we have gone beyond the time allocated by a few minutes. I know that he and other hon. members would like to ask questions. If the hon. member's question relates to a matter which might wait until tomorrow I will undertake to make a special effort to allow his questions to be asked at an early moment. If the hon. member has a point of order I will hear him.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: My point of order is merely that the question I wish to ask the Minister of Agriculture is strictly urgent.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member might have leave, and unanimous agreement of the house, to ask this last question.


Maclyn (Mac) Thomas McCutcheon: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question to the Minister of Agriculture is: Can he report to the house whether a decision has been arrived at by the government regarding a request recently presented to the minister by the Ontario Soybean Marketing Board and, if not, when can we expect a decision? I ask this question at this time because of the urgency of making this information available, since growers meetings are scheduled all over Ontario next week.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, we had a very useful meeting with representatives of the Ontario Soybean Marketing Board on Friday morning. We agreed however that some of the statistics and information respecting the price paid to producers in Canada, which are also related to the cost of imported soybeans, warranted further investigation. That investigation is going forward now.


FARM IMPROVEMENT LOANS ACT
Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, because of the financial difficulties now facing many farmers which are resulting in the repossession of machinery, has the government given any consideration to imposing a moratorium or payments due under the
[Mr. Speaker.)
Farm Improvement Loans Act or, in view of the extended time permissible on new loans under the amended act, to permitting renewals particularly in respect of those farmers who have had successive crop failures?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member well knows, the administration and in fact the credit used under the Farm Improvement Loans Act are matters for the bank. As I have said on a number of occasions in the house, where an individual application is made to the Farm Credit Corporation, for example, and it is substantiated by the fact that it is difficult or impossible to make payments, all these factors will be taken into account. There have been some postponements. I do not think a general moratorium would be good practice in this respect because it would also include a lot of people who can and should in fact make their payments on time.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact there is some difficulty about the black foreign students in Montreal in relation to the Sir George Williams incident and in view of the request made on Friday I am wondering whether the government will send a federal representative to Montreal to be present during the court proceedings in order to deal particularly with matters concerning external affairs and immigration?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I had
anticipated that this question would be asked concerning the Department of External Affairs. Perhaps I might be permitted to answer.
It is not the usual function of the federal government to observe the machinery or the administration of Canadian justice. However, as the hon. member knows, the Department of External Affairs has had an officer from its legal division attending in Montreal during the course of the preliminary inquiry now under way. This officer has acted in a liaison capacity between the diplomatic representatives of the relevant Commonwealth Caribbean countries, the police and the judicial authorities of Montreal involved in the cases.
March 10. 1969



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, February 28, consideration ini committee of Bill C-173, respecting the organization of the government of Canada and matters relating or incidental thereto-Mr. Trudeau-Mr. Bechard in the chair.
The Deputy Chairman:: When the committee rose on Friday, February 28, clause 7 of the bill was under consideration.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
On clause 7-Department established.


Mr. Deachman:: Mr. Chairman, when we left the subject of the bill on February 28 we were dealing with the changes that are to take place in the Post Office Department and other departments of government in order to form the new Department of Communications. I realize there are some hon. members who want to speak on a matter of considerable urgency with which we dealt during the course of the question period, but I want this afternoon to deal with two or three points not related particularly to postal services but which came to my mind and are important so far as communications are concerned.
The first point I want to deal with particularly is the title of the new department. It is to be known as the Department of Communications, although in the bill it is stated that the minister is also to be known as the Postmaster General. I presume that he is to be known as the Postmaster General rather in the way that the Minister of Finance is also known as the Receiver General, a title which is used officially or for purposes of departmental administration, and is in the act but is not really used publicly in the minister's title.
I wish to refer to a debate which took place in the house during the last parliament in connection with the establishment of the title of Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Hon. members will remember that at that time it was first thought that the minister's title should be Minister of Manpower and that the word "Immigration" should be dropped. I think hon. members opposite raised the point that the word "Immigration" is so firmly fixed in the public mind, so well
Government Organization understood, indeed, that it should be associated with the title of the minister. This was agreed, an amendment was made in the house and the title of the minister was finally decided upon as being Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
The suggestion I make this afternoon is simply that we should not abolish the words "postal services" and the title "Postmaster General" but should make an attempt to retain a title so well known throughout Canada and the world in mail or postal services. My suggestion is that the title should not be abridged to that of Minister of Communications, or Department of Communications but that the department should be known as the Department of Communications and Postal Services.
When someone in the country wants to complain about the mail service the department he requires should be listed clearly in the telephone directory. He should not be put off his stride by hunting through the telephone book and not finding old and familiar words. Therefore I plead for the retention in the title of the words "Postal Services", and for the department to be called the Department of Communications and Postal Services.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Procrastination.


Grant Deachman: I will let the hon. member make his own speech.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: He will, too.


Grant Deachman: In his speech of February 28 the minister said:
The Post Office payroll is 48,000, easily the largest of all civilian departments. In a sense it is the most "national" of all departments: There is a post office in every sizeable community in the country, more than 8,000 in all which is more, I might point out, than all the branches of our nine chartered banks combined.
The minister then described the rest of his department and said:
The Communications Research Centre ... is being formed from the existing defence research telecommunications establishment, a branch of the Defence Research Board. Its staff currently numbers 520 and is composed of five principal laboratories-
He continued:
-some 630 ... have moved over from what was formerly the Telecommunications Policy and Administration Bureau of the Department of Transport. They will continue to administer the Radio Act, that is the technical regulation of radio frequencies and the licensing of users, whether these be for taxi radios, microwave relays, telephone systems or television broadcasting transmitters.
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Government Organization
So there it is. He has 48,000 employees and 8,000 branches in the Post Office Department, and he wants to eliminate the words "Postal Services" or "Post Office" from the title of the department.
I want to deal more specifically this afternoon with a different topic. I refer to the subject of communications in its new role as the minister explained it and apart from the Post Office. In his speech the minister said:
Combined and rationalized under a single minister are all of the government's activities in the field of communications, that is both communications in its modern, electronic sense, and communications in its traditional sense of the Post Office.
A little later he said:
-the object of this legislation is to make a single minister responsible for all government activities in the field of communications.
Then he said:
-the Minister of Communications is responsible for two departments, each headed by a deputy minister, and also for a number of government agencies. The departments are, of course, the Department of Communications itself and the Post Office. The agencies which will now report to parliament through the Minister of Communications are the C.O.T.C., the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation; the Canadian Transport Commission, but specifically only that segment of the C.T.C. concerned with the regulation of telecommunication rates, and, once it is established by legislation, the domestic satellite corporation.
These are functions now carried on by the air services division of the Department of Transport and by its telecommunications and electronics branch. I want to refer you, Mr. Chairman, to a part of the description of that branch as set out in "Organization of the Government of Canada", the official volume describing the functions of departments and branches of the government. It says:
The functions of the telecommunications and electronics branch include: the ... use of radio for safety of life in the air and on the seas; construction, maintenance and operation of aeronautical, marine and meteorological radio-communication stations and of radio and electronic aids to navigation associated with airports and domestic and international airways, and with marine navigation along the sea coasts of Canada and on the Great Lakes-
The reason I have given these quotations and this background in some detail is in order to ask some questions to which clear answers should be given before we give final approval to the bill. Does the bill mean that the communication functions of airports and air and marine navigation are now to come under the new ministry? Are there to be two

DEBATES	March 10, 1969
ministers in the airport tower? Have the functions of air navigation, air safety and air control now been split between two departments as a result of the bill which we are about to pass? Is the team on which we rely every time we take off or land at an airport to be directed in future by two bosses? If this is not so, we should be told, for the bill as it now stands is ambiguous on these points.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
If we look at schedule B of the bill we see that it amends the Radio Act to bring it under the new minister. This is a very important act controlling the licensing of every kind of radio transmitter in Canada, stationary or mobile, and every operator of a set. Here is the way in which the Radio Act will be amended according to schedule B of the new bill. Hon. members will find this at page 63 of the bill which they have before them. The operative words in the amendments are the following:
-no person shall
(a)	establish a radio station, or
(b)	instal, operate or have in his possession a radio apparatus
at any place in Canada or on board any-
(d) aircraft registered in Canada, or- except under and in accordance with a licence and, to the extent that it is a broadcasting undertaking, except under and in accordance with a technical construction and operating certificate, issued by the Minister under this Act.
To me this simply means that the Postmaster General as we know him today is not only to be in the D.O.T. tower at the airport but that he has climbed aboard every aircraft in the land and also every ship. I am not prepared at this time to condemn this arrangement, but I want to know if this is so. If it is so, why is it better, safer, simpler and cheaper than it was under the air services division and the former ministry?
The Department of Transport was put together in 1936 by the late C. D. Howe when he amalgamated the old department of railways and canals, the department of marine, and the civil aviation branch of the Department of National Defence. It became such a large empire that every prime minister and minister since that time has thought of splitting it up. On September 17, 1964, Mr. Balcer, a former minister of transport, said the following in the House of Commons:
-I believe that it would make sense to take the management of the civil aviation division away from the Department of Transport.
March 10, 1969

That is found at page 8120 of Hansard of September 17, 1964. Mr. Glassco suggested the idea in volume 5 of his report when he said at page 44:
-would the public interest be better served by the creation of a separate ministry to give more single-minded attention to the problems of civil aviation, or by maintaining the present organization as a more suitable context within which to attack the broader problems of transportation policy?
Of all the suggestions for carving up the Department of Transport, the one that consistently has made the most sense to us over' the years has been the establishment of a ministry for air. Canada has a long and outstanding history in air transportation. Most modem nations have long since established separate air ministries. Communication is such an integral part of the operation of air services that one would have thought it more logical to establish an air ministry and let it be the agency for communication services which are now to be lumped with the Post Office.
Let me turn again to Mr. Glassco for an opinion. In volume 2 of his report, page 251, he says this in discussing telecommunications:
-there is no case for unified management of government telecommunications. But there is need for central policy and authority to ensure that a cohesive and economic pattern will evolve.
Telecommunications must be recognized to be, first and foremost, a supporting service essential to the conduct of operations. Consequently, the individual departments and agencies, as the active operating organizations of government, must bear the primary responsibility for determining what telecommunications are necessary to the success of their programs, and for ensuring the effectiveness of those services. In these respects, the management of telecommunications differs in no way from that of other supporting services.
The question then arises: To what extent is the new department to be simply a policymaking department, and to what extent is it to take over operating functions?
In summary, my main questions to the minister as he takes up his new duties are these: First, are we emasculating the air services division in such a way that it can no longer hope to be an effective single component capable of one day becoming a ministry for air? I think that is a very important problem for members to consider today in this chamber as we discuss this bill. Second, are we centralizing the operation of communications, taking it away from departments as a supporting service, and moving in the opposite direction to the one recommended by Mr. Glassco? If so, what have we found in the interval since the Glassco report that has

Government Organization brought about the decision to head off in a direction counter to that taken by him in his recommendations? Are we putting two ministers in charge of air control where now there is one minister and one team?
This is a matter that deserves thoughtful consideration by the house for it has to do with air navigation, sea navigation and the safety of people travelling by air and on sea. Have we made the right decision in giving telecommunications to a department which has heretofore been unassociated with it, or should it have been left with air services where there are operators as well as inspectors and licensers with many years of experience in the Department of Transport, the principal user of communications in the country?
I think these are pertinent questions. I am not a technician in the field, I am not highly skilled in it, and I am not competent to answer these questions. But they are certainly questions which come to my mind when I read the bill and ones to which I think the minister should address himself when he tells us how the decisions were reached in regard to the organization of the new Department of Communications. I will listen to him with great interest when the opportunity comes for him to explain these points.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege to speak today in the Committee of the Whole. Under the new rules we do not get this opportunity very often because this part of our procedure has largely been abolished.
I would like, first, to put this debate in proper perspective by quoting a statement made by the minister at the start of the debate on February 28. This may be a breach of the rules but I would like to quote him now. He said:
One possible change under study is that of the desirability and feasibility of recreating the Post Office as a Crown corporation. In the meantime, no matter what may or may not happen in the future, the mail must still be delivered.
I think that is a powerful sentence, particularly today. If I had remained silent in this debate 1 might have appeared to the minister to be consenting to the birth of another taxpayers' monster, which is what will happen when we have a Crown corporation to do the work of the Post Office. We have heard much talk about communications, about how communications are being developed in outer space and what this will mean. However, mail delivery in this nation has now reached
29180-406J
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Government Organization the point, not because of strikes-the difficulty developed long before that-where it would be quicker to deliver the mail by stage coach than by the methods used today. It took two weeks for a book to be returned from my home in Calgary to the library here in Ottawa. I mailed a postcard on a Thursday and it took a week to get here. That is the kind of service we are getting.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
Now it is proposed to establish another monster over which parliament will have no control. I think of a number of these Crown corporations which are costing the taxpayers many millions of dollars each year and over which parliament has no effective control whatsoever. I do not want to see the minister lose control of the Post Office. I think that over the years Canada can be proud of its postal services; some fine personnel have served in the department. Surely the minister could get together three or four men from the postal service and have them cross the nation to find out why the public is not better served. He told us the mail must be delivered. Well, the mail is not being delivered. This may be due in part to the ending of Saturday deliveries, but I do not know why it should take from Wednesday to the following Tuesday for a letter posted in Toronto to be delivered in Ottawa. I believe the minister should take a team from the Post Office and have a thorough investigation made. I do not wish to appear, by being silent, to endorse what is going on.
My hon. friend from Hillsborough complimented the Postmaster General on some of his new ideas. But the minister has aggravated the present situation by threatening postal workers with prosecution if they do not behave. I, personally, do not believe that the old innstrument of strikes ought to be used by people in the public service of Canada. I do not think it works out very well. This is my own view; I have not discussed it with my party. Surely in this modem age, given the capabilities and the knowledge of management and labour, these problems could be worked out without disrupting essential services such as the railroads and the mail. Remember, though, it was a Liberal government which gave those engaged ini the public service the right to strike. It was they who brought in- the necessary act of parliament to this effect, and responsibility for so doing rests on their shoulders.

DEBATES	March 10, 1969
Again, instead of acting in a logical way by appointing someone to arbitrate the issue now in dispute, the Postmaster General says he intends to prosecute those concerned. Mr. Chairman, he cannot make anyone in Canada believe he intends to prosecute all the mailmen, because there are not enough jails to hold them all.
We on this side of the house opposed certain moves to increase postal rates. We said the increase would kill off the weekly newspapers, the farm papers and the periodicals. As we predicted, they are gradually going broke. Even Maclean's has been reduced in size: it is now a little magazine. Farm papers have gone broke, Weekly newspapers have gone broke. At the same time this government, for some reason, still subsidizes Time magazine and Reader's Digest to the extent of about $1,500,000 each year. Canadian papers do not enjoy this advantage. I do not know whether the government has such a monopoly on good news in Time that they hate to destroy it. Perhaps they ought to take the news across the nations using Time magazine, but it seems to me they are discriminating against Canadian periodicals.
I intend now to make a serious charge against the Post Office Department, and I am not imputing any blame to the minister in this regard. While he is making a check on the working of the Post Office I think he should look into it. Arrangements exist under which, on payment of so much per pound, mail is delivered to householders throughout a city. During election campaigns candidates of all parties use this method of getting their literature into homes of constituents. It is also widely used by business houses. In Calgary North there are 26,436 houses, 2,874 apartments and 1,191 businesses. I believe it costs from $400 to $600 to have mail delivered to householders in Calgary. What happened? Bundles of advertising put out by various department stores in Calgary as well as election pamphlets of mine were found out in a ditch two or three miles north of Calgary in- a place called Airdrie. The Post Office was contacted immediately. Investigators went there and took photographs. They found the undelivered mail there in bundles. Since then f have written frequently to the department asking for an explanation. Apart from anything else, I feel that if mail is not delivered the least the department can do is to refund the money which has been paid. But nothing has been done in this regard. I am reading from a letter dated November 14, 1968-
March 10, 1969	COMMONS


Stanley Howard Knowles: Maybe that is why the hon. member was elected.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: It could be. I might have been fortunate. And perhaps it is why sales have been going up in the department stores. Anyway, I was advised finally that one or two postmen had resigned. I say that if citizens and corporations of this nation place mail in the hands of the Post Office they are entitled to expect it to be delivered, and that in cases where it is not delivered and is found in conditions such as I have described there ought to be an investigation by the R.C.M.P. I have asked the Post Office to take action along these lines but it has never been done. I say, too, that if the department knows who is responsible-and in this case the walk numbers were still on the parcels so it was easy to find out-the people concerned should have been prosecuted. After all, in the Post Office as a whole we have been served by the finest kind of public servants any nation could ask for, and one or two bad apples could turn the whole box bad by giving the entire department a bad name.
I ask the minister to look info this incident. The same thing is going on in other cities as well. Rates today for delivery to householders are expensive enough; yet the material is being dumped in garbage cans, I am told. I believe we are entitled to an explanation.
The minister talks about reorganization. He should make arrangements to investigate the causes of poor mail service. At present, it is a disgrace. I feel sorry for the hon. gentleman. No doubt he inherited part of the problem, but it appears to be getting worse. Has he failed to arouse any initiative among the officials with whom he comes into contact? A question was asked by my right hon. friend from Prince Albert with reference to the time taken for a letter to be delivered from Calgary. What did the minister say in his reply? He told the house arrogantly that it must have been a tremendously important letter. Mr. Chairman, it does not matter how important the letter was. It is the quality of the service that should concern him. Why did he not begin an inquiry immediately to see whether he could not get some service back into the Post Office, especially at a time of increased rates?
This afternoon parliament is being asked to give birth to another monster. Once a Crown corporation has been created, I know what the minister will say in reply to questions and
DEBATES	6407
Government Organization complaints. He will say: I have no jurisdiction over a Crown corporation in such matters it is an independent body. What is the purpose behind all this? Behind the allegory which is being used, the word "Royal" will be removed from its connection with the mail and with the Post Office. That is the purpose of the change which is proposed. I have never used this argument before. Surely it is not intended to destroy the whole apparatus of the Post Office to satisfy the desire of this government to do away with the tradition to which I have referred. Yet, as I see it, this is the motive behind the present proposal. Behind the allegory of a new corporation and concern with satellite communications, this is what they have in mind.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
I want to raise a sincere objection to the formation of any Crown corporation which will cost the taxpayer a lot of money without parliament having control over the way in which that money is spent. I cannot believe that the minister is really serious in this regard and I should like to hear him further on this point. I should like to hear him assure the committee that he will hold an investigation and get the mail going again, that he will take a look at all the periodicals, farm papers and weekly papers that are now going bankrupt, as we said they would, under the new rates that have been established while United States periodicals enjoy a bonus from the taxpayer of $1.5 million.
I had always thought that the minister was a pretty able man, but he is not showing that kind of initiative in the Post Office Department at the present time. I am not going to take any more time. I have set out my position so far as the Post Office is concerned. I would have been negligent in my duty and responsibility as a member of parliament if I had not brought to the attention of the minister and the committee the fact that everybody in Canada is crying about the terrible service of the Post Office. What has happened?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a word of sympathy for the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra respecting the point he raised to the effect that the words "Post Office Department" should not disappear from telephone directories and other such places. However, I submit, having read the various clauses in the bill, that this is not likely to happen. The department over which the present minister
March 10, 1969

Government Organization will preside will be known mainly as the Department of Communications and the minister will be addressed as the Minister of Communications. However, according to my reading of clause 12 of the bill there is to be continued a department in the government of Canada which will be called the Post Office Department and the presiding minister is to be the Postmaster General.
Clause 12 also makes it clear that the Minister of Communications will be the Postmaster General. In other words, whoever heads up this phase of governmental activity will wear two hats. I suspect that as far as the general public is concerned the main interest for a long time will be in the Post Office Department, and the Post Office Department will certainly be listed in the telephone directory and be there for people to consult and deal with.
I rise this afternoon mainly to make an earnest plea to the minister to establish proper employer-employee relations in the Post Office Department, and to get at this with speed.
We have had a good deal to say during the course of this session about changes with respect to the Post Office Department that we do not like. We do not like the higher charges and the reduced service. We do not like the five-day delivery schedule. We do not like all of the things that have been complained about under these various headings. I think that the minister is being callous in his failure to be concerned about non-profit publications and so on. But I submit that the element that can do the most damage to the service of the Post Office Department is the development of a tradition of bad employer-employee relations.
I know that the minister has been running around to the various post offices in Canada, visiting the workers, eating lunches in their cafeterias and so on, and that he prides himself on being a person who is interested in good employer-employee relations. But, with respect, I would submit to him that on the issue that is causing trouble in many cities in Canada today he is completely off base.
In his reply to a question or two on orders of the day this afternoon, the minister said that he saw no relationship between this matter and the Freedman report. I submit that there is a very close relationship between the recommendations of the Freedman report and what some of us are asking in connection with the present situation. As a matter of fact, I submit that there is close proximity between
tMr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre).]

the problem that initiated the Freedman inquiry and the problem here.
The Freedman report came about because of run-throughs that were established by the Canadian National Railways which the employees of that company felt were unfair. The mess the Post Office is in today is the result of the walk-throughs that the Post Office Department has implemented and that it requires its workers to carry out. The minister might quarrel with that expression, but I am referring to the new arrangement under which there is only one sortation of mail per day by the letter carriers, following which they go out on their walks and are not permitted to return to their post offices at noon. So I submit that in effect it is a walkthrough that has been instituted.
The Postmaster General was quite correct in his statement on orders of the day this afternoon that the Freedman report recognizes that management has certain rights and that there are certain things that management can change. But the Freedman report also says that where there are essential or extensive changes in work patterns, changes that are made after a collective agreement has been signed with the employees should be subject to negotiation before they are put into effect. I readily recognize that there can be an argument over whether a certain change is minor or extensive, but surely the annoyance that has been felt by letter carriers across Canada over the change that has been put into effect is because, at least in their minds, they feel this is not a minor change but is in fact extensive change in their work pattern.
I submit that if the government has any respect at all for the Freedman report, this is a matter that ought to have been negotiated before the change was put into effect. But what have the Postmaster General and the Post Office Department done about the matter? The change has been put into effect without negotiation. A set of rules has been laid down that the workers must carry out. When the workers start to resist because they think these rules are grossly unfair and are really a violation of their contract, the Postmaster General takes the case to the Public Service Staff Relations Board to apply for permission to prosecute. It is now reported to us that these men may individually be subject to fines of $100 each for each day they are out, and that the unions themselves may be subject to fines of $500 a day. When the situation gets even worse and the response to these threats is for even more men to walk out and
March 10, 1969

refuse to deliver mail under duress, under these conditions, the minister says that it has now been agreed to skip two or three stages of the grievance procedure and have the issue adjudicated by a third party.
I suggest to the Postmaster General that this is precisely the wrong way to go about this matter. In the first place, you should not impose a change by arbitrary fiat, hand out threats, and then while insisting that the rules still be carried out have a so-called third party adjudication. I submit that if this matter is to be dealt with satisfactorily in terms of achieving good employer-employee relations, the Post Office Department ought right away to suspend these walk-throughs until there has been a chance for the employer and the employees to negotiate them, determine whether they are an acceptable pattern of work, whether they fit in with the machinery of the Post Office and whether they form lines of work that are reasonable for the men to carry out.
* (4:00 p.m.)
There is a good deal to be said for the challenge postal workers have held out to the Postmaster General in which they asked him to report for work at some specified place and go through the kind of day that has been proposed for them. Arbitrary rules are imposed on our workers. The department says that its actions will save the country $3 million and therefore the workers ought to like it. The net result is a worsening in employer-employee relations. Nothing can do more damage to our postal service than this kind of situation.
Even if the Postmaster General alleges that progress has been made in straightening out some situations in the postal service since he took over the department, he must admit that the present situation is not good and that the machinery within the department is moving slowly. Even though the department may be moving slowly, it is not moving in the right direction. The five-day delivery schedule is proving to be a failure, and service to the public is becoming worse. Various factors, such as higher costs and other changes the Postmaster General and his officials have tried to make, have contributed to that situation. But the basic, crucial factor we ought to consider is the matter of employer-employee relations.
In my view, the Postmaster General is going about his business in this area in the wrong way. Only this afternoon could he tell
Government Organization us about the third party adjudication which might take place. We do not know the terms and conditions under which this adjudication will be put into effect. I submit that for the government to keep to its walk-through rules while the matter is being adjudicated is not conducive to producing a good rapport between employer and employees in this important and vital service. Before the situation gets worse, I ask the Postmaster General to apply common sense to the matter of achieving good employer-employee relations in his department. The time to do this is now.


Mr, Ritchie:: Mr. Chairman, in speaking on the bill to reorganize the government and among other things, set up a new communications department I must say that while we are providing for a great deal of new communication from the sky we are seriously neglecting the communications that may be delivered through small, rural post offices in the many small communities scattered across the country. The Post Office Department has set about with a vengeance to close many small, rural post offices and, in effect, to reduce service to rural people. I do not say that all rural post offices ought to be left open indefinitely. From time to time many of them will have to be closed. As a result of reorganization within the department many rural post offices will close. On the other hand, the closing of some of these post offices will bring little saving to the department. In such cases there will be reduced service to the patrons of the post office and, consequently, a reduction in service to the community as a whole.
I do not feel that the method of closing our rural post offices is fair. A decision to close a post office is taken only after there has been an investigation of the amount of stamps and money orders sold by that post office. The fact is that the stamps sold are used on only a small portion of the mail that passes through the post office. After all, the patrons of small post offices receive much more mail than they send and it seems only fair that the revenue from a portion of the mail received should be credited to that post office. Indeed, if the small rural post office is fortunate enough to be patronized by a business it has justification for remaining open notwithstanding the fact that the business in question could well use the post office of a larger centre.
Many patrons are being provided with a rural route service which costs between $18 and $20 for each patron. As labour costs rise, so will the cost of this service. Generally, once a post office has been established in an area,
March 10, 1969

Government Organization patrons prefer its services to those supplied under the rural route system. The Postmaster General ought to take a second look at revenue considerations under which the department decides whether a post office shall be closed. Also, rural post offices should be closed more gradually. A definite formula for their closing ought to be established and the postmasters and people of the communities concerned ought to be given ample warning that this vital service is to be closed down.
So far officials of the department do not seem to have visited local post offices serving reduced numbers of patrons. There has been no suggestion to postmasters concerned that they should carry on in a lower category, so to speak, so that the remuneration received by the post office will be more in line with the service it provides.
Having made these comments, I suggest that drastic and sudden reorganizations at the local level have caused serious unrest. Many rural people feel the post office has written them off because they use it too little. After all, it is little use having the Post Office Department make substantial savings at the cost of not giving our people service. It also seems that the Post Office is making it difficult for rural people to receive magazines and farm periodicals. The increases in postage rates for these publications will cause severe hardships. Increases ranging between seven cents and twenty cents are the order of the day and, if continued, will dislocate the dissemination of the written word throughout these communities. True, increased postage rates for publications were overdue. Nevertheless, the department's sudden attempt to wipe out its deficit in this field can result only in serious dislocation to the detriment of the farming community.
Fewer periodicals will be published. The reduced volume of mail may increase the department's deficit beyond what has been projected. Mailing rates which have been severely and extensively increased will bring about drastic and sudden readjustments in all our industries. The government has relied on farm newspapers to disseminate much information to the farming community. Although it may be said that the government departments concerned should pay to have information disseminated to the farming community, such a step will take time. The net result of the postage increases may be a catastrophic decrease in the circulation of the printed word. We may lose more than we gain.
[Mr. Kitchie.i
The attitude of the Post Office to its workers leaves much to be desired. The Postmaster General's attitude, that he will prosecute the workers and unions, seems severe and inflexible. The working conditions of letter carriers have been drastically altered and more time is needed to iron out the problems of the five-day week.
Often the Post Office Department forgets that people are human, with personal needs that must be met. It seems that the department ought to adopt a more rational approach to the question of straight-through delivery. The department appears to be belligerent toward the workers and has not been willing to accept suggestions from the workers as to how these problems ought to be worked out. Straight-through delivery is a great change from what the carrier has been used to, and it will take the carrier time to become adjusted to this change. In many cases where washrooms facilities are not readily available the change may be impossible to effect. The unions' position is that straight-through delivery is a change in the terms of the labour contract. I think this is a reasonable attitude and one that calls for adjudication by third parties. I ask the minister to accept third-party adjudication as the best solution to the problem.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
The minister's attitude seems to be very stiffnecked and uncompromising. It is the same attitude that he has displayed with reference to rural post offices and periodicals. Complete reorganization of the Post Office Department will take time. The minister should know that Rome was not built in a day. A more conciliatory and sympathetic attitude to the problems of the workers would stand the minister in good stead. I urge him to re-examine his whole approach to the problems of the Post Office Department.
The people of Canada would not fault the minister in any way if he took more time to make his changes in the postal services, many of which are good and necessary, but I point out that severe changes can cause dislocation even when they are right and proper. I would ask the minister to proceed more slowly. I believe the result would be much better. The people of Canada will not thank the minister for suddenly making the Post Office pay if the service they get is poor and inadequate. Both goals can be achieved gradually if the minister is reasonable in his approach to the problem.
March 10. 1969


Alfred Dryden Hales: Mr. Chairman, I take this opportunity to make use of the suggestion Mr. Speaker made to us earlier today, when we asked for adjournment of the house to debate the important issue of the threatened postal strike, that we would have an opportunity when this bill came before us. We are facing a very serious situation. We might be in for another postal strike. I sincerely hope the minister is dealing with the matter in the serious way that it requires.
I am surprised the Postmaster General did not realize what lay before him in the reorganization of the Post Office Department. I and many other members of the house do not understand why he did not sit down with the postal officials and say: Gentlemen, we are going to change the sorting arrangements. The postmen will sort all their mail in the morning and then deliver the whole day's mail. They will no longer return to the post office after lunch as they did previously and sort the afternoon mail. He should have asked his legal authorities this question: Is this in violation of the existing contract? Had he done so we would not be in the serious situation of being threatened with another postal strike.
The department's public relations have been poor. If the Postmaster General had given his full attention to these proposed changes rather than going about the country talking about NATO, about satellites and about new communications systems it would have been better, at least until his reorganization was working smoothly.
The people of Canada have been asked to pay higher postage rates. For this they expect better service. But instead they are getting worse service. Canada is the first country I know of that has endeavoured to deliver a week's mail in five days. The minister has tried to bulldoze this change through without the proper public relations and without the proper prior thought and study. Many warnings were given to the minister, but instead of allowing the issue to cool off he heats up the situation by making public threats to the staff. I hope he realizes how serious the situation is.
I am receiving many complaints about poor postal service, particularly from persons in the retail trade and more particularly from storekeepers in areas where stores are closed on Mondays. If a storekeeper gets a letter on Friday morning he cannot reply to it until the following Tuesday.
Government Organization
As an example I cite a jeweller who sends watches away to be repaired. If he does not get a watch back by mail on Friday he will have to wait until the following Tuesday. I maintain that the retail sections of our communities are entitled to six-day service. In many cases their very livelihood depends on the mail. Now they are told to rent postal boxes in the local post offices in order to get six-day service. If this continues many post offices will not be large enough to hold all the rented boxes. I beg the minister to give consideration to the retail outlets and business offices and provide them with better service.
I have also received many complaints about counter service in post offices. By counter service I mean the service given at the main counter on the main floor of a post office where there is the stamp wicket, the registration wicket, the C.O.D. parcels wicket, and all the rest down the line. What happens at this counter now on Saturdays? There are two workers in our post office on Saturday mornings and they have been given instructions not to do any business. They are there to hand out registered letters and parcels on receipt of cards left by the local postman on his rounds. But they cannot sell a stamp, they cannot weigh a letter or do other business of any kind. I say to the Postmaster General, either do business on the main floor with complete counter service, or close the place up. Let there be no half measure about it. If a post office is open let it do business at all wickets and not just one or two.
There is no reason in the world that we should not be getting next day delivery across the country. We get next day delivery from Europe and many other countries. But it takes two days, three days and sometimes four days for letters posted in Toronto to reach their destinations at London, Guelph and other places no more than 80 miles away. As I said previously when speaking on the estimates of the Post Office Department, we had better mail delivery in the days of the stage coach than we have today. There is something radically wrong, and I take this opportunity of bringing it to the minister's attention once again.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
I shall not take any more of the time of the house. I regret that the Postmaster General did not sit down with these men and with the heads of his department to see whether there was any possibility that the existing contract may have been violated. If this had been
6412	COMMONS DEBATES	March 10. 1969
Government Organization done thoroughly I do not think the Post Office would be involved in the mumbo-jumbo it seems to be involved in today. With these few words I shall sit down in the hope that the Postmaster General will be successful in smoothing out the problems with his staff so that better public relations will exist in the future. Then we'll have better service.


Mr. Skoberg:: Mr. Chairman, in 1912 Sir Richard Cartwright said that no man and no party can be safely entrusted with uncontrolled power. I would hope that this is is not the reason we have received the answers we have received in the last while whenever a question has been asked concerning postal service. Some of the questions which were asked today were very sincere and sincere answers should have been given. Unfortunately one cannot help but be disappointed that the Postmaster General would use threatening language when dealing with a labour dispute and tell civil servants how they must bargain. Surely the federal government should lead the way in respect of collective bargaining in this country. I belieVe the Freedman report set the stage for this. I am very disappointed that the minister would stand up and suggest he is not prepared to allow freedom of collective bargaining to these people as it is recognized by the public service.
I am completely in favour of the bill passed by this house which allowed public servants to strike. I believe this is a human right of every individual and I believe they should be given this prerogative. With regard to changes in the working conditions of any employee, I do not agree that the federal government or management generally should take unto themselves the right to implement changes without first negotiating them. I ask the minister to give serious consideration to the remarks which have been made in this debate. I say that every individual has the right to free collective bargaining and that no new rule changes should be enforced until the persons concerned have had an opportunity to sit down at the bargaining table and take a look at the proposed changes.
I read in a newspaper that a private mail delivery service is to start in British Columbia and will move east. An editorial in the Globe and Mail for Tuesday, March 4, 1969, states:
I believe that in four or five years it will be inevitable that private enterprise will take over the business of the post.

I should like to ask the minister whether or not it is the intention of the government to turn over our postal service to private enterprise. I think there is every indication that a predominantly United States owned company which has been handling third class mail is moving into British Columbia and also moving east to provide the service which apparently we cannot provide. It is very unfortunate, after having built up the kind of postal service we have across this country, that we should be confronted now with a situation where we must consider a private mail delivery service. Considering the service we have had in the past I know that the public would not like to see this happen. I am sure also that the minister would not like to see it happen. Therefore I believe we should have an explanation in this regard.
I was also bothered by a report I read in a newspaper concerning the committee that dealt with the rate increases. The minister, who was present before the committee, is reported to have said that if publications are valued by their subscribers they will be able to raise their subscription rates. Then he said that though he was sorry to put it so ruthlessly he was prepared to see them cease publication. We are now dealing with the new Department of Communications. I suggest that what the minister said about the increase in postal rates being borne by the people who wish to have the publications is not in keeping with what is sought to be accomplished under this bill.
Dealing directly with the Department of Communications I should like first of all to congratulate the minister on the appointment of those who are to be responsible for planning, operation, regulation and research and development in the new department. I am sure, as he indicated in his speech of February 28, that these people are worthy of our support. I am sure also that every Canadian can be proud that we have people in this country who will devote their time and energy to ensuring that we will have something of which we can be proud in respect of satellite communications. There are a number of questions which come to mind which no doubt the minister will answer when he has an opportunity.
When he introduced his new department the minister indicated that it will be a small one which will reflect the growing importance of communications and the government's increasing involvement in this area, I am sure
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
all of us can appreciate the fact that the respective areas of the department can work very closely, but the prime objective of the department is to establish a national communications policy and program that will tie together all the disparate parts of Canada.
I am sure everyone in Canada would agree that all parts of Canada should be tied together as closely as possible. Of course, if we use the analogy of the postal department we realize what was accomplished there is now being downgraded to the extent that one may wonder whether there is any sincerity in setting up another department and in the same breath suggesting that the disparate parts of Canada are going to be tied very closely together.
Part of the program of the new department will be a review of current telecommunications legislation. The Postmaster General has publicly admitted that our current telecommunications legislation is completely out of date and inadequate to meet changing needs. He stated in the house that not sufficient information is available to the public and especially to his new department from companies such as the Bell Telephone Company of Canada. One of my colleagues will have something to say about the Bell Telephone Company of Canada very shortly.
When we look at the various clauses of this part of the bill we see that the objective of the department is a good one. The idea of a Department of Communications is a good one. However, additional government reorganization is certainly necessary to make the new department really responsible for the growing importance of communications in the country. The present role is a very limited one. For example, most of the responsibility for present communications systems in Canada comes under regulatory agencies such as the Canadian Transport Commission and the Canadian Radio-Television Commission.
Under the satellite program the government commissioned Dr. P. M. McIntosh, general manager of the Bank of Nova Scotia, to submit a report advising the government concerning a plan for the corporate, financial and senior management structure of the domestic satellite communications corporation. Dr. McIntosh has handed down his report, but I understand it has not yet been released. I think it should be recognized that Dr. McIntosh has a background in private industry. I believe his recommendations regarding the new satellite corporation will permit extensive private industrial participation without
DEBATES	6413
Government Organization sufficient public control. When I looked at the white paper issued some time ago it was my belief that there must be sufficient public control. It is up to the minister to ensure that the people of Canada really know what is going to happen in this field.
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
If we look at the pros and cons of the establishment at a satellite communication system in Canada we will see they are still quite complex and that there are many conflicting statements by government spokesmen in this regard. It may be useful to have a satellite communication system in Canada, but I personally consider that it is our obligation to see that Canada has control of this system. I am not prepared to agree with the proposal that we make use of the satellite projects of other countries and rent space. I believe we have the wherewithal and the technical knowledge to put a satellite in orbit for use by the entire nation.
We have to ask the minister certain questions and we will have to receive specific answers. We must have a direct comparison of the costs of a satellite system and a terrestrial microwave relay system. This is something we should know about. I realize that the minister said to my colleague, the hon. member for Selkirk, that such a comparison was increasingly difficult to make at this time, but in general the cost of a terrestrial microwave system is proportional to distance whereas satellite system costs are independent of the distance between earth stations. In any event the difference in price is something the minister should be prepared to estimate and inform us about at this time.
Let me return to the social aspect of our communications systems under the new Department of Communications. We realize that the minister indicated before the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications that the satellite system would be devoted to Canadian aims and objectives and would be programmed in a way acceptable to the Canadian people, their cultural requirements and needs. I suggest that with the present postal situation this social aspect may be a little hard to sell. Over the weekend I was in an area of central Saskatchewan where the post offices are to be closed on Saturday afternoons. I have drawn this matter to the attention of the Postmaster General, but it seems to me that somewhere along the line we have lost our understanding of the fact that in rural areas the people do get
March 10, 1969

Government Organization together on Saturday afternoons. In central Canada Saturday afternoons perhaps do not mean too much. If you live in the west in some of these small areas you will realize that the people do mix socially on Saturday.
It is true that communication, in addition to that provided by the Post Office, helps to maintain communities such as we have in rural areas of western Canada, and we must have these communities if we are to retain this nation as we know it. I ask the minister to give serious consideration to the need to keep post office wickets open on Saturday afternoons in rural areas. This may seem to be a trivial matter but I assure the minister it is not trivial so far as the rural people are concerned.
It has been stated that a satellite television system would be able to blanket the rural and northern areas of Canada and thus attain greater unification of the country. Let me add to what I have said about communication in this country that it will remain united if the minister will give further consideration to the subject I mentioned previously. I realize that the trend now is for some of the people in rural areas to move to urban centres. Out in the west at this time the trend now is to move back to the rural areas. This was not evident ten years ago. You can travel throughout some rural areas at this time and see new homes, buildings and the like. I believe the social consequences have to be taken into consideration if we are concerned in this House of Commons about communication.
Another point which I think has been rightly referred to in the white paper concerns the limited space we have available in so far as the location of a satellite is concerned. This matter has to be dealt with on an international basis rather than in a hodgepodge way with each country going out as it likes into outer space. I hope the minister is successful in his efforts in this regard. I am sure he will agree that this should be an international arena in which every country would co-operate in respect of space and the location of satellites.
It has been said that with the construction of a satellite system there would be some spin-off benefits to the country involving the development of future markets. We must look very closely at what we are considering in this particular area. It is worthy to note that both of the firms which submitted design programs for the contractors included in their bids participation by foreign firms.
[Mr. Skoberg.3
For example, the bid by Northern Electric, which is a Canadian subsidiary of Bell Telephone, further complicates the question of responsibility and control and includes substantial assistance for Canadair Limited, an American subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft Company of California. The bid by R.C.A. Victor, an American subsidiary, includes additional assistance from Spar Arrow Space Products Limited of Toronto, a systems group of T.R.W. and Company of California. Northern Electric has stated that its proposal will achieve a 64.5 per cent Canadian content under the program. R.C.A. Victor has declared that its proposal will promote the participation of Canadian companies to the maximum degree feasible. In view of these statements I think we should pay particular attention to ensuring maximum participation of Canadian companies in the development of our satellite. The proposals are inadequate for two main reasons, one relating to foreign ownership and the other relating to private development and participation.
Considerable time and money have been spent in this country to determine what foreign ownership is really aE about. We have had in Canada too many experiences in developing private industry expertise. It is only fair to state what I am referring to in this regard. We have had the experience of developing private industry expertise in the Canadian atomic reactor program under Canadian General Electric while at the same time Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, a public corporation, was involved in similar development.
A recent decision by the United States parent of Canadian General Electric has forced the cancellation of the atomic reactor program. Of course, the implications with regard to R.C.A. Victor and its development of a Canadian satellite system are especially important. It is worthy of note that aU patents developed in Canada by Canadian R.C.A. are taken out only by the United States parent. I am sure the minister realizes the situation but I want to draw it to his attention. We should really look at the situation to see whether there is specific justification for government departments and agencies, such as the research and development branch of the minister's department and Crown agencies such as the National Research Council, Atomic Energy of Canada, and the Defence Research Board, to be involved in the construction of a Canadian sateUite.
March 10, 1969

I am a great believer in the idea that we should use the facilities and the people we do have for development in this particular area, particularly for the Canadian satellite. I urge the minister to ensure that these various boards, committees and research councils will be used to their utmost in complete correlation on various programs. I ask the minister to pay particular attention to this.
Some of the research programs we have had in the past have actually been cancelled. This is why I believe there should be some question raised here as to what real development there has been and what exploratory talks have been carried out in respect of a communications satellite. Why have some of our other programs been cancelled in the past? Why was the intense neutron generator program cancelled last fall? Why has the government expended its oceanographic research program under the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources? Why was the Queen Elizabeth telescope project in British Columbia cancelled after millions of dollars had been spent? It was completely wiped out by the stroke of a pen. I think the minister should explain these moves very thoroughly when he answers the questions put to him.
Which department is responsible for industrial research and development programs? Once again we are getting into a situation where we have to ensure that there is complete responsibility in a particular department. We have seen too many varied programs being carried out without parliament knowing whether a department has complete authority in a specific area. I suggest that the minister give us some answer in respect of this particular phase. It is in this area that government scientific research is quite literally chaotic. I say this with all sincerity because, as the secretary of the Treasury Board said some time ago, the national science policy is determined by accident. I am sure that no one in the house would like to see a new department set up that would determine policy by accident.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I again urge the minister to realize that in the communications field the Post Office and the satellite communications system about which we are talking will have to work together to be of the utmost benefit to the people of this country. It is fine to say that we are going to cover the north to the south and the east to the west with a satellite communications system, it is
Government Organization fine to say that we will have tracking stations and the wherewithal with which to provide television coverage and all the other types of coverage necessary for an effective communications system, but we must not allow our main method of communications to deteriorate.
I refer, of course, to the postal service. In his speech of February 28 the minister referred to bulletin boards in post offices and said that while communication unites people it can also isolate them. I agree completely. The minister then said:
It was in this context that I recently threw out the idea of using our nation-wide complex of post offices as locations for communication centres, perhaps by bulletin boards, perhaps by a system of hot-line telephones by which individual members of the public could communicate directly with their government.
I hope that the few post offices left in the rural communities will not have bulletin boards installed where an attempt will be made to post bulletins from hot-line telephones and our new communications satellite. The people in the country using post offices now want to see the written word and are not prepared to see inaugurated a system which would mean they could communicate only by picking up a hot-line telephone. I am sure we are many years away from such a system. I am also certain we are still in the era where we must have an efficient postal service. I subscribe to the new department; I subscribe to the new communications system and commend the minister for the appointments he has made in this field. I wish him well in this area. But unless he changes his tune in so far as the Post Office Department is concerned, I am sure he will not have the support of the house for the new department.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Chairman, part II of this bill affords hon. members an opportunity to discuss what some of us consider to be a matter of urgent public importance. My colleague, the hon. member for Hillsborough, very clearly and succinctly outlined in his remarks today on his motion to adjourn the house under Standing Order 26 why it is a matter of urgent public importance. It is one of urgent public importance because what is happening poses a serious threat to a vital public service in this country, that of the delivery of the mails.
In my view this threat stems from the minister's intransigence and stubbornness in handling this matter. Because of the minister's attitude and the stand he has taken the Post Office Department, which has afforded
March 10, 1969

Government Organization good service in this country for the last 100 years, is in turmoil. It is in turmoil because we have a Postmaster General who does not seem to understand the fundamentals of good labour relations. The minister cannot say that he was not warned about this situation. The hon. member for Hillsborough, hon. members of the N.D.P. and other members of the opposition have raised this matter day after day in the house. Indeed, on February 28 the Council of Postal Unions issued a press release which was circulated to all members of the house, again warning the minister. I will read briefly from that press release which is over the signatures of the co-chairmen of the Letter Carriers Union of Canada:
The Postmaster General has made public statements that morale is high in the Post Office. He insinuates that there is good dialogue between the union and management. He states at times we are in agreement. However, on the most important issue regarding the new system of delivery he fails to inform the public that the situation is explosive.
That warning from the postal unions came on February 28. It might be worth while if I continued quoting from this release:
Mail service in the meantime is deteriorating. Inefficiency is fast becoming the new guide to operation.
I quote another part of the press release:
We have no objection to a five-day delivery week. Our dispute is with management's interpretation of the collective agreement. The action we have directed our members to take is in our opinion, and in the opinion of our legal counsel, in accordance with the contract.
It is obvious that a crisis situation has developed in this very important and essential public service. We have already experienced the drastic consequences of one strike in the Post Office and we know the suffering it imposed on the Canadian people. We are now perhaps on the threshold of another strike because of the minister's stubbornness in dealing with this matter, because of his refusal, I submit, to consult his colleague the Minister of Labour who has had such success in these matters. I can only assume that he has not consulted the Minister of Labour because I cannot for the life of me believe that the Minister of Labour would have consented to the provocative and threatening statements made by the Postmaster General, which are causing a threat to the mail service of our country and have already caused a most serious crisis in this very essential service.
Instead of trying to cool the situation, in stead of trying to talk calmly to the people 
involved, the minister takes to the public press and threatens the unions. I ask the Minister of Labour, how successful would he be if he adopted this, attitude? How successful would he have been in settling some of the very serious threats to public services which he has successfully handled if he had resorted to threats of prosecution in the public press? The Minister of Labour knows that this is not the way to settle labour disputes. He knows this is not the way to bring the parties together in order to reach agreement.
If there is a curtailment in this essential service, if the service does cease, we can blame only the Postmaster General for the attitude he has taken throughout; the consequences will rest on his shoulders. I am sure the minister realizes the consequences of a disruption in the mail service. The old age pensioner suffers, the disabled suffer and our veterans suffer because they do not receive their pension cheques. The average working man and woman of this country suffer because they lose a service which is essential to the running of the country, a service which I submit has been carried out effectively and efficiently for the past 100 years.
Perhaps the reason for the difficulties in the Post Office today stems from the fact that we have a Postmaster General who has his head in the clouds. He seems to be more concerned with satellites than with mail delivery.


Gerald William Baldwin: And with NATO.


James Aloysius McGrath: And, as my colleague interjected, with NATO and trying to do the job which the Minister of National Defence is being paid by the Canadian people to do. I suggest to the Postmaster General that he leave NATO to the Minister of National Defence and that he pay more attention to the essential postal services before he gets too far in the clouds with satellites and communications. As I say, the consequences of a disruption in the postal services are serious because they inflict a hardship on the Canadian people, on old age pensioners, on our war veterans, on those receiving disability pensions, and on the working men and women of this country.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
There are problems in the Post Office which would not provoke the type of statement that the Letter Carriers Union was obliged to make on February 28. There are areas in this country where the postal service has not been improved in the past 50 years. In my own
March 10, 1969

city of St. John's which has more than doubled in population in the last 20 years, we still have the same postal services to serve a population of 100,000 that we had to serve 50,000. These are some of the serious problems with which the minister could come to grips instead of issuing threats to the unions. He should be consulting with his colleague, the Minister of Labour, and he should in fact be sitting down at the negotiating table and taking some tips from his colleague to try to smooth out the situation because this is the only way it can be done.
The minister referred to calling on a third party to deal with the dispute. I hope he will elaborate on this point and let us know exactly who the third party will be who will participate in this regard.
This matter is so serious that we feel obliged to bring it to the attention of the house. We believe that the postal services are essential to the people of Canada, and if there is a disruption in the services I submit it will be because of the intransigence and the provocation of the Postmaster General.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for the Postmaster General who was my predecessor as president of the Montreal Stock Exchange and did an excellent job there.


Gerald William Baldwin: He should have stayed there.


George Harris Hees: He has many admirable abilities, one of which, however, is not the ability to handle labour relations. This is no fault of his because, like the previous minister of labour, Mr. Nicholson, the Postmaster General has had no training in the ranks of labour. Rather he has been trained in the classroom and the boardroom, and if one is brought up with that type of thinking one is not in a position to understand the needs and aspirations of labour, the way labouring men think and the things to which they aspire. A man who has not been brought up in the labour movement does not know how to do the most important thing in labour negotiations, that is, to sit down with the workers concerned on an equal and friendly basis and be considered by them as a friend and not as somebody who comes from another stratum of society. He should be able to be trusted by the working man because he has always been on the same side of the fence. I say to the minister that in my view he is not in a position through no fault of his own to handle the present labour negotiations.
Government Organization
In the past few years we have had good ministers of labour such as my former colleague, the Hon. Michael Starr, and the present labour minister. Why have they been good labour ministers? Because they came up through the labour ranks, they understand labour's point of view, they know how to talk to working men, and they are trusted by them. In the early days they were in the rank and file of labour. That is why Michael Starr was a successful labour minister, and the same is true of the present Minister of Labour who is doing a good job. I am glad to be able to say this about him.
I say that in order to work out differences like the present one in the Post Office we must have somebody who has the confidence of postal workers, who can sit down and talk to them as an equal and talk to them in their own language. I believe that if the Postmaster General continues to conduct these negotiations in the present manner because of his lack of knowledge of any other approach through no fault of his own, which I can only describe as a bull in a china shop approach, we are going to have a very serious and lengthy strike of the postal workers of this country.
I urge the minister to take action in the interests of bringing to a close what I believe is a serious labour dispute that will have grave effects on the country for a long time in the future if it is not brought to a sensible conclusion as soon as possible. I urge him to hand over these difficult negotiations with the postal workers to the Minister of Labour who, I believe, has the ability to bring this matter to a quick and sensible solution which will be fair, equitable and satisfactory to both the government and the postal workers. In this way our postal communications can continue in a regular, satisfactory and uninterrupted manner.


The Chairman:: So that the house may proceed to the consideration of private members' business I do now leave the chair.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the house that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. March 10, 1969
6418	COMMONS
Northwestern Saskatchewan Economic Changes
Cadieu)-Power-Uranium	City-Electrical
service supplied by utility company; the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow)- Science Services-Ministerial responsibility for policy the hon. member for Surrey (Mr. Mather

Post Office Department-effect of rate changes on non-profit publications.
It being five o'clock the house will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, notices of motions, public bills.



NOTICES OF MOTIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Mr. Hales-That in the opinion of this House, the government should give consideration to the advisability of establishing a form of internship program in the House of Commons; the purpose of said program being to better equip outstanding young political scientists, journalists and law school faculty members, with a better understanding of the national legislative process; the participants to be brought to Ottawa for six to nine months of full-time work as assistants to members of the House of Commons and to be paid a minimum stipend financed by the government and an established grant, competition for the fellowship to be made each year, announced to coincide with the opening of a session.
Alfred Dryden Hales: Mr. Speaker, I rise at this time to ask for the unanimous consent of the house so that my resolution concerning internships, appearing on the order paper today as No. 40, may be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization without debate.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Mr. Forest:: I believe there is unanimous consent to the following motion and I would like to move, seconded by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin):
That the said proposed motion be deemed to have been withdrawn and that the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization of the House be empowered to consider and report upon the provisions thereof.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, it is a delight to find a government motion to which I can give my name as seconder.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, it is unanimous.
[Mr. Deputy Speaker.)


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I take it the motion is agreed to.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
Yves Forest: I believe there would be
unanimous consent to stand in their places notices of motions Nos. 28, 29 and 30 and to proceed today with notice of motion No. 31.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Mr. A. C. Cadieu (Meadow Lake) moved:: 
Mr. A. B. Douglas (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have this opportunity of speaking on the motion proposed by the hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Cadieu). Commenting briefly first about the suggestion that a highway or road should be built from La Loche to the Lake Athabasca area, I would like to confirm the statement that this route has been pioneered on a winter basis by businessmen of the Meadow Lake area. They have proven that the route is feasible. My understanding is that this pioneering began during the time of the previous Conservative government, which for some reason chose to develop the much more expensive and roundabout route that has been partly constructed some distance east of the route proposed by the hon. member. It is perhaps not too late to correct the mistake made some years ago. In fact, I have been told that the Saskatchewan government is seriously considering making a start on this road north of Meadow Lake. I would hope that the federal government would agree to share in the planning and costs of this project.
I also believe that the proposition that a rail line be built to connect Frenchman Butte, Saskatchewan, with Heinsburg, Alberta, is worthy of serious consideration. The hon. member for Meadow Lake is also pleading for
March 10, 1969

adequate T.V. service to the remote communities of this district. The Postmaster General <Mr. Kierans) is planning a communications satellite which I am confident will make it practical to extend T.V. service to all areas of Canada. In fact, this is one of the main purposes and benefits of this imaginative project.
Some derogatory comments were made in the house this afternoon with regard to the Postmaster General's concern about the satellite program. I am sure the people of these areas who cannot share in some of the amenities enjoyed in the more populous areas of this country are very interested in the early operation of the communications satellite so they may feel that they are equal partners in this Canadian nation.
In further commenting on the motion of the hon. member for Meadow Lake I would like to emphasize that the present government recognizes the urgent need to take a comprehensive look at the problems and potential of various regions of Canada and, in close cooperation with the provincial governments, to assist the people in these regions to develop their resources and raise their incomes to levels comparable with those of other Canadians. It is for this reason that the government is forming a new Department of Regional Economic Expansion to be responsible for regional development. This new department will provide the organization at the federal level necessary to the mounting of a coordinated effort to solve the problems of the underdeveloped regions and areas of Canada.
In the case of northwestern Saskatchewan it has been recognized for some time that the economic returns to people in this area have generally been poor. There has been some agricultural development as far north as Green Lake but this has been characterized as a marginal production area because of a combination of low fertility and poorly constructed soils, adverse climatic conditions, high development costs and limited credit. The lumbering and fishing industries, although significant to a few people, have generally been ineffective in providing substantial levels of income to the majority of the people.
Many different types of programs have already been undertaken to assist in the social and economic development of the area. While much remains to be done, I think it might be useful to comment briefly on some of the activities now under way. For the purposes of my comments I will be referring to the Meadow Lake district, local improvement
DEBATES	6421
Northwestern Saskatchewan Economic Changes
districts 974, 980, 983, 986 and 989, and the area along the line from Green Lake to La Loche. These districts are in the southern portion of the general area described in the hon. member's motion.
The soil resources of this area are rated poor to good from an agricultural production point of view. Early settlement in the area tended to locate in lighter soil areas which more recently have proved unsuitable for cereal production. There is now, therefore, some removal to uses such as pasture and forestry. Crop records show a return of approximately 18 bushels per acre, but this yield should show a gradual improvement as lower quality land is removed from cereal production and better quality land is brought into production.
In an effort to utilize such better quality land, the province of Saskatchewan, with federal assistance under the Agricultural and Rural Development Act, implemented a few years ago an incentive program which made grants of $3.50 per acre available for land clearing. From 1966 to the present time, 216 farmers have cleared a total of 7,023 acres of land for agricultural production in local improvement districts 980, 983 and 989.
Some good quality soil is located in low lying wet areas and some effort is being made in small areas to help farmers protect their lands from periodic flooding. One example of this is in the Rollo Park area where works have been constructed with ARDA support to assist some 60 farmers and to protect 9,700 acres of land. This land is primarily used for fodder production which, along with blueberry pasture, forms a substantial base for livestock production in the area.
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
As I mentioned earlier, some low productivity land is being removed from cereal production and is primarily being used for forage production. Under the ARDA program some 9,600 acres of farm land has been combined with 31,400 acres of Crown land for pasture development. Seven pastures have been organized or expanded and 20,860 acres have been seeded to grass, with a potential carrying capacity for 10,450 head of cattle. In addition to these pastures, two hay production projects have been established utilizing 1,440 acres of farm land and 3,380 acres of Crown land on which some 6,400 tons of hay can be produced annually.
The area which I have been discussing, however, is only a small part of a large problem area. To illustrate the magnitude of the
6422	COMMONS
Northwestern Saskatchewan Economic Changes
problem I might use the example of the alternative land use program, also supported by ARDA, in the area south of Meadow Lake stretching to the North Saskatchewan River and, in the east, to the Prince Albert National Park. Twenty pastures have been developed in the area utilizing 81,942 acres of Crown land and 36,980 acres of farm land purchased because it had low cereal production capability. The pastures have been fenced; 51,769 acres have been developed and seeded to grass and it is expected that some 22,690 head of cattle can be grazed each year.
I might also mention that the farm people are attempting to make their lives somewhat more pleasant in the Meadow Lake area. Some 117 farm homes have been provided with water under the Saskatchewan family farm improvement branch program which provides technical service, materials at cost and incentive grants under the farmstead water and sewage program. This has also been an ARDA supported program.
As I have indicated, however, the use of land for agriculture is limited; the full dimension will be more clearly identified when the Canada land inventory maps of soil capability for agriculture are completed and published. The same can be said for forestry, recreation and wildlife development in the area, although it is recognized that there is a tremendous potential for these enterprises because of the vast forests and numerous rivers and lakes in the area. Until the capacity is clearly identified, it is difficult to discuss or to plan the type of communication system most suitable, particularly the road system. However, new roads are being developed and resources development is progressing, particularly in the field of recreation. This development is taking place in accessible areas and in areas where the demand for facilities is increasing for the tourist and hunter.
ARDA has participated in the cost of developing facilities for camp grounds and picnic sites in such places as Meadow Lake Provincial Park, Kimball Lake, Pierce Lake, Greig Lake, Jumbo Lake, Makwa Lake, Chitek Lake, Loon Lake, Green Lake, Canoe Lake, Brightsand, Dore Lake, Little Birch, Ile-a-la-Crosse, La Plonge, Little Amyot Lake, McKay Point, La Loche and Little Peter Pond.
To attempt to plan a program of development for the social and economic betterment of the people in the area of Green Lake and north is a complex undertaking. The potential for development in the traditional use of the

DEBATES	March 10, 1969
natural and renewable resources is somewhat limited and knowledge of these resources is inadequate. The Canada land inventory will be of some help but further specific study is required.
It is known, however, that the capability of the people of the area to take on new activities is in need of development. They have limited experience in work other than hunting, fishing and some lumbering, and the educational level is, generally speaking, quite low among the adult population. An attempt is being made to stimulate and assist people to acquire academic skill and vocational training. Some of the agencies involved in this effort are the Saskatchewan Department of Education, Saskatchewan Department of Natural Resources, Saskatchewan Department of Agriculture, Canada Department of Manpower and Immigration, and the Department of Forestry and Rural Development, the name of which is to be changed.
During the winter of 1968-69 four courses under the occupational training for adults program have been scheduled for Meadow Lake, with a capacity of a total of 144 students. The Saskatchewan department of education is sponsoring six courses of educational upgrading for Canoe Narrows, Meadow Lake, Loon Lake and Big River, with a capacity of 100 students. Under the vocational rehabilitation of disabled persons program, nine courses with a capacity of 135 students have been scheduled for Green Lake, Beauval, Buffalo Narrows, Ile-a-la-Crosse, La Loche, Pinehouse and Uranium City.
One particular project under way in the area which is of particular interest is a study of the feasibility of growing wild rice, which could provide a new economic opportunity for people of Indian ancestry in the north. In 1962 a project was designed to do research into the characteristics and growth habits of wild rice in northern Saskatchewan. Interest had been stimulated by the fact that wild rice was growing at Limestone Lake, Potato Lake and Nemeiben Lake, presumably from 1935 plantings, that there was a good demand for the product, that the product was returning significant economic returns to people in Manitoba, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and that wild rice was a muskrat and duck feed and indirectly could affect incomes by stimulating increased muskrat and waterfowl populations. The research or study included an investigation of areas where wild rice is growing, a survey of the area between the southern boundary of the forest and the Churchill River to identify areas which have characteristics
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
similar to areas growing wild rice, a study of the methods of propagation, and a study of a marketing system.
The implementation of this project has been a co-operative effort between the Saskatchewan department of agriculture and the Saskatchewan department of natural resources with, since 1964, cost sharing assistance from ARDA. Since the program started, seedings have been made in a great number of locations such as La Loche, Buffalo Narrows, Pinehouse, Nemeiben Lake, Stanley Mission, Limestone Lake, Cumberland House, Deschambault and La Ronge. It is too early to tell the extent of the success, but production records show a steady annual increase.
To date Indian people have been hired for seeding and harvesting, and for the harvesting they receive from 30 cents to 50 cents per pound. The next four to five years should provide useful information as to the future possibility of this crop and its significance as a source of income for the people.
I have been describing some of the programs and projects that are under way at present in northwestern Saskatchewan. These projects are contributing to the social and economic development of the people and resources in the region. Moreover, it will now be possible under the program of the new department to take a much more comprehensive and co-ordinated approach to the development of this and other regions so that all of the people can realize their full potential and take an active part in the full development of the resources of the region.
May I conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying I am fully in agreement with the principle involved in this motion, which is to press on with the development of the tremendous resources of our great northern areas.


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, since there is a bill before the house dealing with reorganization of government departments I think the subject matter of the motion in question is most timely. It deals with regional development and regional economic expansion. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat drew the attention of the house to his own constituency, pointing out that that was an area to which regional development and economic expansion programs might be applied. The examples cited by the hon. member show that there are many areas in this country where our people could benefit from an application of the principle of regional development. The existence of many of these areas fully illustrates the folly of those who think only in terms of the
DEBATES	6423
Northwestern Saskatchewan Economic Changes
development of areas containing large centres of population.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
Briefly, I would like to examine some of the ingredients necessary to an adequate development program, particularly a program applying to this particular area of Saskatchewan with which I have some acquaintance. As the hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Cadieu) pointed out, much of the economy of this part of the province is agricultural. Some areas have a good agricultural potential. Parts are developed, but further development remains to take place. Other areas are submarginal in terms of their agricultural capacity and development potential.
Parts of this constituency have been settled by people who in years gone by were driven north by the dry spells in southern Saskatchewan. These people settled on small tracts of land, and many of them have been trapped there. Of course some succeeded in getting out through employment in war industries during the war years, while others have joined the urban migration that has taken place since that time. However, many still live there under submarginal conditions, and up to the present governments have made limited progress in providing them with an adequate opportunity to earn a decent standard of living.
In 1964 the then provincial government passed an act, the Agricultural Development and Adjustment Act, designed to help these people take full advantage of the federal ARDA legislation, by having the provincial government work closely with federal authorities in carrying out a full scale development and rehabilitation program. But the subsequent change of government in Saskatchewan resulted in little use being made of the provincial act. One rural development program had been initiated by the people in the area and it was making progress. However, it never really developed to its full potential because of the inertia of the provincial government since 1964.
As the hon. member for Meadow Lake also pointed out, there is a large population of Indian and Metis ancestry in the constituency. Some progress has been made in providing better public facilities for these people, and some of them are making good progress in terms of economic and social standards. At the same time, we need to measure whether such programs are adequate. We must also guard against certain types of inflammatory statements that are made on occasion, but
March 10, 1969
6424	COMMONS DEBATES
Northwestern Saskatchewan Economic Changes
certainly not by the hon. member for Meadow Lake today, statements that can lead only to misunderstanding of the true nature of the situation that exists.
Attention must also be paid to the development of adequate local government facilities, in Saskatchewan, the form of rural local government is antiquated, with one notable exception. I am thinking of a local government established under unique circumstances, but developed in a very rational and adequate manner to meet the needs of the community. I refer to the local government established in Uranium City, a new mining community developed as a result of uranium discoveries during the 1950's. The provincial government of that time assisted in establishing a fully integrated form of local government to meet the needs of the people of that area.
Reference has been made to transportation problems. The hon. member mentioned road problems, and of course there is a need for further roads leading into the north. When the roads to resources program was initiated it was suggested that the main road to northern Saskatchewam should be routed through some of the area referred to by the hon. member. However, as a result of the consensus of all government authorities of the day, it was agreed that in consideration of the geographic and economic situation of northern Saskatchewan, the main road to the north should follow a route further to the east. This poses problems for the area in which the hon. member is interested.
Road facilities have been established as far as the community of La Loche, providing valuable service to the local people. Reference was made also to the need for a railway into the north. I must express considerable sympathy with this suggestion, but I caution against referring specifically to locations along the proposed railway route. However, it is necessary to stress that economic development requires railway development.
It is essential for the future economic welfare of Saskatchewan and its north that a railway be constructed into the north to enable Saskatchewan to gain full advantage of mining developments that will undoubtedly come in the future.
The hon. member for Meadow Lake also mentioned local grievances with respect to railways. People in this part of the province have suffered as a result of things done in past years. Railways were started, partly constructed, and then construction stopped. Rail spurs have been left almost in the middle of nowhere rather than being extended to areas

where people have been living under poor conditions far removed from transportation facilities. This is an example of people being made the victims of unplanned development. This and other areas of the country illustrate the need for adequate planning in our development policies, and adequate preparation to put programs into implementation.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to lend my approval to this motion moved by the hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Cadieu) who, over the years, has been a consistent and hard working advocate for the proposals contained in his motion. I am quite confident when, through the modified 1969 pony express now being operated by the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans), word of this motion gets back to his constituents he will have the support and approval he truly deserves. I believe I am entitled to say something in this regard as a member of parliament from the adjoining province, Alberta, and as one who has lived in the north and has experienced similar conditions. I assure hon. members that I will finish before six o'clock so that the support which I know the hon. member's advocacy has generated in this house will lead to the adoption of the motion. Then the next steps will have to be taken by the government.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
I also lived in Vegreville, and the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski), a member of this party, has been a proponent of these proposals. He has spoken very vigorously in committee of the desirability of achieving what the hon. member is asking. I know a good deal about this in principle, because it is the sort of thing that brought me to this house. In 1956, at a convention of this party which selected the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) as leader of this party, I remember that we discussed very extensively the question of northern development and the road to resources program. At that time I was successful in moving from the floor an amendment. Our party is one which allows a degree of change at its conventions. Our platform is not dictated from the top, and we even encourage members to suggest changes in policy.
In respect of the road to resources program, since I came from a district which had for 35 years been promised the type of rail expansion which is referred to in the proposal of the hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Cadieu), I moved an amendment which was adopted and ultimately became the subject of discussion in this house. One of the first suggestions made in 1958 dealt with the question of the extension of services into the
March 10, 1969

northern part of Alberta and the territories. I am glad to see the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Laing) here. I give him full marks. During his tenure of office as a minister of the Crown with a responsibility in respect of the north, he was very interested and went up there on many occasions. I believe he should be paid a tribute. Consequently, when I see an hon. member such as the hon. member for Meadow Lake pleading his case before the house I cannot help but concur with him. There is a problem in this country. The hon. member for Meadow Lake and other hon. members have touched on it.
We are now seeing a movement in the central part of this country at an unprecedented scale. We have always had this movement before, but it has been aggravated by the growth of the large metropolitan areas. We had a debate the other day in respect of housing. Housing, sanitation, water and air pollution are all matters which affect the large metropolitan districts. This trend towards urbanization is creating great difficulty for us. I am not suggesting that we should reverse the trend and empty the large cities by sending people up into the northern areas; but I do think we should look at the problem from a long range viewpoint. Across the Pacific from our west coast lie the people of China, Indonesia, Korea, Viet Nam and Japan who inside of 35 years will number four billion. We cannot long continue to hold our northern areas as trustees-and that is all we are; we are trustees primarily for the people of Canada but ultimately for the people of the world-unless we settle them.
When we speak of settling and occupying these areas, we must think of such things as transportation and so on which have been spoken of by the hon. member for Meadow Lake. The north does not just begin at the 60th parallel of north latitude. It commences at various points in different provinces. In the province of Saskatchewan, as in the province of Alberta, one might say that it commences about the 53rd or 54th parallel. The boundaries of our country between the Northwest Territories and the remainder of Canada were laid down by man when he moved about the north, They are neither natural nor economic boundaries. Consequently, it is essential that the federal government participate in programs of this kind.
I shall not recount the various steps in respect of the triumph with regard to the Pine Point railway. It might mention that, because of the calibre of the government and its program of northern development, despite the objection of the then members of the opposi-
DEBATES	6425
Northwestern Saskatchewan Economic Changes
tion who talked scathingly about building roads from igloo to igloo, I put forward an amendment and the program at Pine Point became a reality. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars of new wealth have been created and the gross national product has been increased. The people in northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories have been able to participate in a shining, new development. This is precisely what my good friend the hon. member for Meadow Lake is suggesting. He is suggesting that the present government should consider programs of fiscal and financial incentives; the provision of credit; the construction of railways; the construction of highways and the provision of television and other facilities so that the people would really feel a part of the society in which they live.
Through these means, we could obtain for areas such as northern Saskatchewan, northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories, the population which we must have if we are to hold these areas against the demands of the people in other parts of the world. We dare not delay until a time when the world might need the resources which can be developed in these regions of northern Canada. I suggest to members of the house that measures such as this must be considered not only in the light of the parochial interest of which the hon. member for Meadow Lake has spoken, but on a greater regional and national basis. I think that is the way we should look at this situation if we are to discharge our responsibilities as members of this house.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
I know the Minister of Public Works will agree with me when I say it was a pleasure to be on hand when the Great Slave Lake railway came across the boundary of Alberta into the Northwest Territories. At that time we were looking forward to what we thought would happen, and it has in fact happened. Lumber development in that area ran at a rate of about 10 million board feet per year. With this railroad service out of that part of northern Canada this has now reached a maximum of some 60 million to 70 million board feet per year. The fisheries of Great Slave Lake have also benefited as has mineral production from the Pine Point mine.
In addition to all this, the establishment of the system has permitted people to occupy part of this land where there is an opportunity for them to carve out careers and take an interest in participating in the development of the north. This is their part of their country, and their part of Canada.
6426	COMMONS
Northwestern Saskatchewan Economic Changes
May I suggest, therefore, that we who are here considering this motion by the hon. member for Meadow Lake, should look at it in the broader sense of what it will accomplish for the country rather than what it will do for the particular area in question. Certainly, the people there are entitled to that which the hon. member is proposing. 1 suggest we could build upon that, stage by stage, that measure of development in the north which this country has so greatly lacked in the past.
Although the topography and geography is a little different in Russia-we have the benefit of several large rivers where natural development is taking place-Russia has cities of 500,000 or a million people lying far north of the 60th parallel. Their development is now progressing. The Russians have instituted a scheme of settlement in the North under which incentives are made available to young people. If this can be done in a communist country, there is little we can say to them unless we are prepared to provide incentives for people to go into the northern part of Canada, such as transportation facilities and the other amenities of life.
For these reasons, and for many others about which I could speak at great length if I had the opportunity, I must support the motion of the hon. member in the hope that the house will see fit to approve it at this time.


Russell Clayton Honey: Mr. Speaker, as several of the speakers who preceded me have indicated, this motion by the hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Cadieu) is a timely one, particularly in view of the legislation that is under consideration by the house at this time. This legislation will establish, among other things, when passed by parliament, the new Department of Regional Economic Expansion.
At this time I think it would be appropriate for me to take a few minutes to deal with some of the broader aspects of regional economic expansion. Speakers who have preceded me dealt quite appropriately with the great importance of local situations, although the hon. member's motion is not confined to that because the opening part deals with giving consideration to all means of developing areas of great potential value to the national economy.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), and this certainly was not necessary, felt that he should qualify himself as a

DEBATES	March 10, 1969
speaker on this motion by reference to the fact that he represents a riding in the adjoining province of Alberta. I thought I might say 1 wanted to speak because of the obvious relationship to the department for which I have some responsibility, and also because the motion deals with my native province where I was born and spent the first part of my life, an area with which I am not unfamiliar.
The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Douglas) made a very valuable contribution to the debate when he dealt very capably with various projects in this area that have been sponsored by the provinces and the ARDA administration jointly. I will not review those but the fact that these various programs have taken place in the area point up the fact that it is necessary to do some planning and preliminary work. This is the purpose, of course, of the new department.
The hon. member for Regina East (Mr. Burton) mentioned the development of railways, the inference being that they have not been adequately planned as part of an overall and comprehensive project because spur lines were started and stopped in the middle of nowhere. With the establishment of the new department, and with the stated intention of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the minister who will be responsible for the new department, the Hon. Jean Marchand, we will have in this country an energetic, reasonable and intelligent approach to the problems of regional economic disparity. This is the sort of thing and the sort of area in respect of which programs under the new department can be of benefit. The fact that we have been proceeding under the authority of ARDA and federal-provincial programs would indicate the necessity of comprehensive planning in order to move ahead, not only in this area but in other areas of Canada where there are regional economic disparities.
I have a considerable amount of sympathy and support for the objectives of the motion as set out by the hon. member for Meadow Lake. Let me close on this note. It is hoped that with the establishment of the new department this and other areas of Canada may receive the type of action which will correct some of the problems in respect of which the hon. member who sponsored the motion very properly directed our attention.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business has now expired. The house will now resume in committee of the whole.
March 10, 1969



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration in committee of Bill C-173, respecting the organization of the government of Canada and matters relating or incidental thereto-Mr. Trudeau

Mr. Faulkner in the Chair.
James Hugh Faulkner: It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Mr. Gilbert:: Mr. Chairman, part II of Bill C-173 deals with the new Department of Communications. The New Democratic party member for Moose Jaw has dealt with the bill in general. This evening I want to deal with the bill in particular as it applies to the Bell Telephone Company of Canada. Subsequent to the application by Bell Telephone Company of Canada, I asked the minister whether the federal government would take a position opposing the application for an increase in the level of its earnings and for a 10 per cent increase in telephone rates. His answer in general was this: he expressed concern with regard to this particular company, indicated that he is reviewing telecommunications legislation and that much of our existing legislation is out of date or inadequate to meet changing needs. In addition, the minister indicated that not sufficient information is available to the public, especially in his new department, from communications companies such as Bell Telephone Company of Canada.
Bell Telephone Company has made application to the Canadian Transport Commission to raise its permissible level of earnings from 6.6 per cent to 8 per cent and for authority to increase basic telephone rates by approximately 10 per cent. It is rather significant that not since 1926, under the Ontario Conservative government of Howard Ferguson, has any government intervened on behalf of telephone users against Bell's periodic applications for rate increases. As a result, Bell's increases have either been granted or, at best, temporarily postponed.
Government Organization
In the absence of any competition, public utility monopolies have traditionally been subject to the regulation of the Board of Transport Commissioners, now reconstituted as the Canadian Transport Commission. It is the function of this body to protect telephone users against exorbitant profits which might be extracted because of Bell's monopoly position. But unlike comparable American regulatory bodies, which vigorously dig out the facts regarding the financial position of public utilities, the Canadian body has played a passive role of merely assessing the information which is submitted to it in its hearings. The result has been a most uneven contest, with organizations like the Canadian Association of Mayors and Reeves passing the hat to collect a few tens of thousands of dollars from their already strapped budgets to try to counter the hundreds of thousands of dollars which Bell is ready and able to spend in presenting its case.
It is very much like trying to kill an elephant with a fly-swatter. In short, the Canadian regulatory body has been little more than a sleeping watch-dog. Unless and until some powerful and influential agency such as the federal government is willing to act on behalf of the people in the hearings before the Canadian Transport Commission, protection of the consumers' interests will go by default. It should be acknowledged that following the reconstitution of the old Board of Transport Commissioners into the new Canadian Transport Commission, the Canadian Transport Commission was empowered to dig out the facts in the manner traditionally followed by American regulatory bodies. But so far the Canadian Transport Commission has given no convincing proof that it is going to operate in an active, rather than the traditionally passive, role. All the more reason, therefore, why the government of Canada must play a part to make certain that the interests of users of telephones are protected. This is why I look to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to protect the interests of telephone users and to present briefs to the C.T.C. for the protection of consumers in this field.
In assessing the validity of Bell's request for a rate increase, the public should bear in mind certain features of this corporation's operations over the past decade. Bell stresses that it has not had an increase in its basic rates over the past ten years. It should be noted, however, that in 1958 its permissible level of earnings was fixed at $2.43 per share,
March 10, 1969

Government Organization or the equivalent of 5.9 per cent on over-all capital earnings. In every year following that board ruling, Bell exceeded the permissible level of earnings, and the federal regulatory body did nothing about it. Throughout the period of 1958 to the mid-1960's, Bell's excess profits, extracted illegally in violation of the board's ruling, amounted to some $37 million. Since this amount remained after paying approximately 50 per cent corporation tax, it simply means that Bell illegally extracted some $75 million from telephone users during that period. In 1964, the situation was reviewed by the federal board. But strange as it may seem, hearings were not focussed on Bell's excess profits over the years but rather on Bell's request to have its permissible level of profits raised so as to legalize its excess earnings.
Even stranger, when the board finally ruled in 1966, it raised Bell's permissible level of earnings to a maximum of 6.6 per cent which, by coincidence, simply legalized the profit levels current at that time. But Bell's defiance of the regulatory authority of the C.T.C. persisted. In its first full year of earnings after the 1966 ruling, its profit levels were in the range of 6.7 per cent or 6.8 per cent. At that point the C.T.C. stirred itself and asked Bell what proposals for rate decreases it had, in view of its excess earnings. In 1968 the return on capital of Bell Telephone's operations amounted to 6.9 per cent. Bell argued that because of the sharp rise in interest rates and construction costs, their excess profits were justified. Patsy-like, the C.T.C. accepted this explanation and agreed to tolerate profit levels in excess of the maximum which they had fixed a year earlier. With that encouragement, Bell is now back asking for a new permissive level of earnings at 8 per cent and rate increases to bring profits up to that level. When Bell argues that for the past ten years it has absorbed rising costs within the same basic rate structure and therefore is now entitled to increased rates, there is an important fact which should be noted. Bell is now reaping unprecedented profits from its expansion over the past years combined with technological progress. The over-all result in the company's financial position was revealed during the hearings of 1964-65.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)


Albert Béchard: Order, please. The Postmaster General wishes to speak on a point of order.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Chairman, we are now
considering that part of the government reorganization bill that deals with the Department of Communications. The hon. member is devoting himself entirely to such advantages or privileges as are granted to a corporation by a private bill. He is using terms that are emotional but are not exact. Profits may, from his point of view, be excessive at all times, but this has nothing to do with the bill that is now before us.


Albert Béchard: I thank the minister for his remarks, and I may point out that I myself, had some doubts about the relevancy of the hon. member's remarks. I will ask him to confine his comments to the bill before the committee.


John Gilbert: The bill before us is Bill C-173 and we are dealing with the part which would set up the new Department of Communications of which, in all probability, the minister will be in charge. The Bell Telephone Company of Canada will be within his jurisdiction. That company has now made an application for increased rates, and I think that my remarks are in order.


Albert Béchard: I wonder if the hon. member could assist the Chair by telling us under which clause the new department will be responsible for the Bell Telephone Company.


John Gilbert: I will be happy to assist the Chair. This responsibility comes under part II of the bill headed, "Communications". Clause 7 (1) reads:
There shall be a department of the Government of Canada called the Department of Communications over which the Minister of Communications appointed by commission under the Great Seal of Canada shall preside.
The following clauses in part II set out some of the duties of the minister. Clause 9
reads:
The duties, powers and functions of the Minister of Communications extend to and include all matters over which the Parliament of Canada has jurisdiction, not by law assigned to any other department, branch or agency of the Government of Canada, relating to
(a)	telecommunications; and
(b)	the development and utilization generally of communication undertakings, facilities, systems and services for Canada.
I think that in the circumstances my remarks are in order.


Eric William Kierans: Speaking to the point you raised, Mr. Chairman, I should like to point
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
out that so far as the rate-making capacity of the Bell Telephone Company is concerned, which is the entire theme of the member's address tonight, that comes under an agency of the Government of Canada which is the C.T.C.


John Gilbert: I am surprised at the minister's suggestion that the burden of my remarks is with regard to the rates. In fact, it is with regard to the attitude of the Government of Canada concerning this field and it is an attempt to persuade the Postmaster General and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to take a very active part in the representations made by a particular company before the Canadian Transport Commission.
So, when the Bell company argues that for the past ten years it has absorbed rising costs within the same basic rate structure and therefore is now entitled to increase the rates, there is an important fact that should be noted.
Bell is now reaping unprecedented profits from its expansion over the past years, combined with technological progress. The overall result in Bell company's financial position was revealed during the hearings of 1964-65 preceding the 1966 ruling. Operating revenues per telephone rose from $116.63 in 1959, to $129.46 in 1964. Operating expenses per telephone during the same period rose relatively little, from $79.35 to $81.90. Thus, the net operating revenue per telephone rose from $37.28 in 1959 to $47.56 in 1964, an increase of $10 per telephone.
When Bell points out, as it did in its brief to the C.T.C., that it has installed 2,309,151 telephones in the period from 1958-68, it fails to reveal that because of technological progress its net operating revenue from every telephone, old as well as new, has increased by $10 or more.
Therefore, when the company argues that it has absorbed all cost increases without rate increases for ten years, it simply means that it has passed on to the telephone users only a portion of the savings accruing from technological progress-


Mr. Deputy  Chairman@: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member so often, but what he is saying is not relevant to the debate on part II of Bill C-173. A while ago the minister told the committee that the Bell Telephone Company does not come under his jurisdiction. I know that that company is a great means of communications, but it does not fall 29180-4071
DEBATES	6429
Government Organization under the jurisdiction of the Postmaster General.


John Gilbert: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Having set forth the profits of this company, it falls upon me to ask the minister to take full control of this particular department and to ensure that the department takes an active rather than a passive role in this important field. We in the New Democratic Party feel that telephone communications should be under public ownership.
The Depuiy Chairman: Order. I think the committee agrees that this subject is of great importance to the hon. member and to his party, but I must point out again that his remarks are not relevant to the subject under discussion at present. I therefore, ask the hon, member for the fourth time to confine his remarks to the bill before us.


John Gilbert: Mr. Chairman, I must object to your ruling because the subject matter under discussion at present is telecommunications, which falls squarely under the jurisdiction of the minister. I ask the minister to take an active role in administering this regulatory body, rather than the passive role the government has played in the past.
I also ask the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to play a very active role.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Obey the rules.


John Gilbert: The minister just shouted that it is too late.


Stanley Ronald Basford: No, I said "obey the rules".


John Gilbert: I am sorry, I misheard him. However, I would like to persuade him to take an active role and to do some of the digging that the United States regulatory body does with regard to this important field. It is time that Canadians considered putting telecommunications under public ownership. However, without the help of the Postmaster General and the Minister for Consumer and Corporate Affairs, it is very difficult to protect telephone users across Canada when one company considers profits to be its foremost objective, with the resulting abuses which I tried to set forth.
e (8:20 p.m.)
Having dealt with that subject rather lightly, and when the subject comes up again I will deal with it in greater detail, I should like to pass on to the second area which is cable television. I think the minister has been
March 10, 1969

Government Organization apprised of the problems with regard to cable television in the Toronto area. The Toronto Daily Star indicated in an article dated February 7 that small cable television firms tried vainly to get a share of the lucrative Metro market while the Bell Telephone Company of Canada made deals involving over $5 million with five big operators. The suggestion is that these big companies intend to operate in collusion with each other.
When one considers the actions of some of the large companies and the problems experienced in connection with monopolistic practices in a single field such as communications; when one realizes the problems raised by foreign ownership-because some of these companies are foreign owned-I am sure you will agree with me, Mr. Chairman, that we do well to ask the minister to look into the practices of the Bell Telephone Company and some of the other major companies in the field of television. I hope he will do so, again with the aid and assistance of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I recall that the minister of consumer affairs became a little touchy when I called him the shadow boxing champion of Canada. I accused him of shadow boxing in connection with prices paid by consumers, of shadow boxing with regard to monopolistic control of hockey, and so on.
I say to him in all sincerity that I hope he will stop shadow boxing in connection with cable television and the exhorbitant profits the Bell Telephone Company has made in Connection with television.
I would ask that he get the research men, economists and lawyers in his department, to make a full study of the feasibility of public ownership in this important field, and report to the government on his activities. Then, and only then, can we say he is not a shadow boxing champion, because he would not only be dealing with the problem of monopolistic control of the television field, but he would have assisted the new minister of telecommunications.
I am sure that after these persuasive remarks the minister of consumer affairs, along with the minister responsible for telecommunications, will protect the rights of all Canadians, not merely the rights of the relatively few shareholders in Bell Telephone.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I wish to seize the opportunity provided by this debate on Bill C-173 to discuss certain problems with respect to the current operations of the Post Office Department. I began this particular discussion last


fall when the Postmaster General's reorganization bill was before the house. At that time, I made a point that what was happening to the Post Office Department represented the reversal of a policy which had been recognized in Canada for the past one hundred years. We have since had an opportunity to discuss this subject in a parliamentary committee but we have made no impact whatever on the minister. I notice that the reorganization bill, in the clause dealing with communications, merely endorses some of the features to which we have been calling attention, inasmuch as clause 12 repeals the Post Office Act, and clause 3 states there shall be a department of the Government of Canada called the Post Office Department over which the Postmaster General shall preside. Clause 3(2) says the minister responsible for communications is to be the Postmaster General, so I would think the remarks I intend to make tonight are quite in order.
I say that the government and the Postmaster General have reversed a policy which is as old as Canada itself. It has always been fundamental and vital to the development of a sense of nationhood in Canada for the government to support communications media of all kinds. There is no need for me to go into a lengthy recital of the manner in which this policy has been carried out over the years. Instead, I shall refer to each of the areas in which support has been given by the government, generously in many instances, for the sake of Canadian nationhood and also for the sake of assisting in the achievement of that very elusive quality in Canada, national unity.
It has become a cliche to say it is almost a miracle that Canada was ever brought together from sea to sea. I do not think it was so much by a miracle as by good, practical common sense on the part of the Fathers of Confederation and those who have since followed in their footsteps. These people recognized that communications is the cement of national unity in this country.
The Government of Canada supported the construction of transcontinental railways. The trans-Canada highway system has been- heavily subsidized, as has the national broadcasting system, first radio and then television, in the interest of national unity. By way of an aside, Mr. Chairman, I think there is good reason to question how valuable the huge subsidies to broadcasting have been in achieving national unity. The current subsidy is about $160 million and it would be possible
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
to argue that at the present stage of the development and utilization of the mass media we have not yet struck a formula which contributes to a sense of nationhood and national unity in this country.
The Postmaster General, as minister responsible for communications, talks in exultant and enthusiastic terms about the huge sums of money which will be invested in the next few years in the development of a satellite communication system. This is all very necessary in achieving national unity, but in the face of all the evidence we have heard, in the face of all the statements which have been made in this house, the minister, with all the stubbornness of his Irish nature, refuses to accept the viewpoints and the arguments presented by many members on this side of the house.
In his administration of the post office, as we are endeavouring to point out, he is turning back the clock one hundred years because he is insisting that this basic means of communication by the printed word and the written word has to be placed on a foundation of financial solvency. This, I suggest, represents the reversal of a long established policy not only in Canada but in all democratic countries, and constitutes rank discrimination against one type of communication important in rural areas of Canada and favours, particularly sections of Canada where urban areas predominate. For example, one could refer to the Golden Triangle along the St. Lawrence, including Toronto, Hamilton and Montreal. I do not have to repeat these arguments because they have been placed before the minister on the occasions to which I have already referred.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
The minister's argument goes that it has been necessary to increase postal rates and diminish service. The result is that Canada is the one country that does not provide six days a week delivery service. All the other advanced nations provide six days a week delivery service because of the vital importance of mail distribution.
Coming back to the argument that increases in postal rates were necessary because none had been made for a long period of time, this is quite true. The complaint is that the increases have been exorbitant. In the case of certain periodicals, there has been a sudden increase of up to 2,000 per cent. That in itself is bad enough, but these increases are going to be applied on April 1 without giving the
DEBATES	6431
Government Organization publications and periodicals affected any opportunity to adjust gradually to the exorbitant, drastic and abrupt increase in financial expenditure involved in their distribution. I am sure that this situation has resulted because the minister did not even extend the courtesy of referring his reorganization bill to a parliamentary committee after second reading: this has now become part of our procedure.
Actually, when I spoke on the reorganization bill last October, the one point that I made was that if we were going to bring about a reorganization in the Post Office Department that made sense in terms of the special needs of various parts of this country, we should refer the bill to a parliamentary committee where we could hear representations from the people who would be affected. It was obvious that the minister did not have a clue as to what the special circumstances of the Canadian body politic beyond the Golden Triangle were in the field of communications. Now, the minister is saying that he is receiving these representations, but it is rather like locking the barn after the horse is stolen. These people and briefs should have been heard when the bill was actually going through the house. This is the way we handle the matter now, and the way we suggested it should have been handled as recently as last October.
Now, what is the result? I am not going to refer to the letter rate increases because these are reasonable and non-exorbitant, but what has been the result of some of the more unreasonable aspects of the postal rate increases as they apply to newspapers and periodicals. Already, Canadian publications are finding it necessary to cease operation. Farm publications in particular are feeling the effects. This, we told the minister, would be the case. Farm journals operate on a very slim financial margin and meet a highly specialized need in Canada.
I am glad to see the Minister of Agriculture here tonight and I hope he will lend his voice to this petition because he knows what will happen if these very important farm publications that serve people in the rural communities of Canada and provide information about new farm techniques and so forth, all free and at no expense to the government, are forced to go out of business. Already the Country Guide and the Farmers Advocate have gone out of business as the result of exorbitant increases in the distribution cost of periodicals and publications of this nature.
March 10, 1969

Government Organization This is going to mean that our farmers will have to depend upon the subsidized government propaganda journals which do not pay any postal rates at all. The farmers are going to be at the mercy of the Minister of Agriculture and the government and deprived of that broad range of information that has been provided by these outstanding farm journals.
I am not exaggerating, because this is precisely what has been happening. It is further discrimination against the west and the extremities of Canada, and as I say I hope the Minister of Agriculture will lend his voice to the protests that are arising from all parts of Canada.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I hope the hon. member realizes that, as usual, he is completely misrepresenting the case.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I did not hear what the minister said; he mumbled something.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Would the hon. member like me to repeat it?


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: He did not speak in those terms when he was on this side of the house. It is really amazing what a change in geographic location in this house can do to one's perspective.
If hon. members think that I am exaggerating I would ask them to read the current issue of the Legion magazine. It carries an editorial to the effect that that journal is faced with the prospect of going out of business because mailing costs have increased to the tune of $19,000 per month, which is greater than the actual printing cost of the magazine.
Surely, the government is not going to discriminate against the veterans of this country. In order to meet the crisis the Legion magazine has reduced its size in terms of weight by one half in order to enable it to come in under the weight category. This reduction would make it possible for the magazine to avoid this pernicious two cents per copy rate which has been arbitrarily applied by the minister, who would not listen to the advice of the members who represent various parts of the country or allow the bill to go to a parliamentary committee.
Even greater discrimination against a group that can ill afford this sort of discrimination is the impact of these increased rates upon the ethnic press. Again, if the minister had listened to representations he would have found this out before the damage was done. 
The ethnic press serves a numerically small constituency. Each of the major ethnic groups which make up the Canadian mosaic-and again western Canada is particularly affected in this regard-publishes a journal in its own language as a source of information to assist newcomers to adjust to the Canadian way of life as well as to provide some cultural and Unguis tic inspiration to its members. A brief that has been sent to me contains an agonizing appeal from members of the ethnic press to the minister to reconsider this discriminatory action and to allow this important medium of communication to continue publication.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
Here is a citizenship service that conceivably could cost the Government of Canada substantial sums of money but does not because it is undertaken as a voluntary service by the various ethnic groups themselves. Many of the newspapers are distributed free of charge. Had I time tonight I would read extensively from the brief presented to the minister. These people point out that costs of distributing some of these papers have increased by up to 2,000 per cent. One newspaper which formerly cost 5 cents a copy to distribute now costs $1.04 per copy. Many of those writing for these journals do so without remuneration. They work on a voluntary basis, because they realize that they are fulfilling a real need in their segment of the Canadian body politic. The government's policy constitutes crass discrimination. A government which professes to promote the just society is practising linguistic and cultural discrimination at a time when it is emphasizing the linguistic rights of our French Canadian group and expending substantial sums of money to ensure that this minority group will have its rights and privileges respected.
I ask, why in the name of common sense discriminate against ethnic groups by removing a small subsidy that does not amount to peanuts? The loss of our ethnic citizens, if the ethnic press has to be discontinued as a result of government policy, will be much larger than any saving in terms of dollars or cents that might accrue to the government. Let us be fair, just and reasonable. It is fine to have your eyes on the stars and satellites, but let us deal with the practical realities of everyday politics and public services. In reaching for the stars, let us not bring about a state of inequity and inequality for some of our people.
I have made the point that the government's policy is urban oriented. Why do I say
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
that, Mr. Chairman? I say it because country folk have had the cost of their post boxes doubled. And why does the post office do this? It says that this is a special service to the people of the small towns and rural communities. Yet our city folk have their mail distributed to their door at no extra cost. Why, then, discriminate against the rural people of Canada? The reasons for this discrimination are beyond my understanding. Under this reorganization, although city people will continue to receive their mail door to door free, the cost of postboxes is increased.
Farm journals are the cheapest form of post for the government to distribute. They are delivered to post offices in bulk and most of the customers, the farmers and residents of small communities, pick them up at the post office. There is no door to door street delivery here. The journals are merely processed in the local post office. Yet, they have to bear these exorbitant rate increases. The minister also said he is saving the taxpayers of Canada enormous sums of money by closing rural post offices. In committee the other day we discovered that by closing 499 rural post offices-the minister had his eye on many more but could not close them because of protest-the government will save the magnificent sum of $292,000. That will really balance Canada's budget, I am sure. By closing 499 rural post offices we are to save $292,000 at a time when the C.B.C. is being subsidized to the tune of many millions and when the Centre for the Performing Arts-


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


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Mr. Chairman, I shall be finished in a couple of minutes.


Albert Béchard: Does the committee give the hon. member unanimous consent to continue?


An hon. Member:: No.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Thank you for the courtesy.


Albert Béchard: The hon. member for Surrey.


Barry Mather: Mr. Chairman, so far as I am concerned, I should be glad to extend consent to the hon. member and have him complete his remarks.
DEBATES	6433
Government Organization


Donald MacInnis: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I point out to hon. members that when Your Honour asked for unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to complete his remarks, the Postmaster General himself denied him that privilege.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Eric William Kierans: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. What we have heard this evening from the hon. member is a repetition of what we heard last week in committee. I would not like to waste the time of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: The minister refuses to
listen.


Mr. Perrault:: Others are being given a chance to be heard.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Thank you for the courtesy.


Albert Béchard: The hon. member for Surrey has the floor.


Barry Mather: Mr. Chairman, the question of communications is very broad, embracing almost every element of which we have knowledge. It is said, for instance, that while two countries of our earth can almost communicate with other planets, 40 per cent of our world's population cannot communicate with each other, being illiterate. The rest of us who are literate also have trouble in communicating. We have a good deal of trouble in making ourselves understood. For example, examine what goes on in this house, Mr. Chairman.
My intervention in this discussion will be confined-because the question is most immediately urgent-to the old tried and, until recently, true method of communication, the postal service. I speak as a member of this house, and as a member of the N.D.P. who is proud of the record of the post office of Canada as a public enterprise. It has handled billions of pieces of mail a year almost without error and, until a short time ago, with speed and efficiency. I also speak as a former employee of the post office. I was a mail carrier and learned something about the business of mail delivery.
During the last eight or nine years, six or seven different men have occupied the position of Postmaster General. In fact, I have lost count of how many ministers in that portfolio we have had. Last fall the minister announced a program of postal reform for
March 10, 1963

Government Organization Canada. In some respects my party thought it a commendable program which was long overdue. In other respects we felt that suggestions would not be amiss. I put forward some suggestions when I spoke in the house on October 21, 1968, as reported at page 1614 of Hansard for that date. I said, in part:
-we wish the proposed post office legislation referred to a standing committee of this house for detailed study and report.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
I also said:
-we welcome the move to increase the second class rates on publications published for a profit as being generally in the right direction, but here again we wish a committee study to be made to ensure that the proposed rate increases are sufficient and are borne by those by whom they should be and do not fall upon publications which are not published for commercial profit but rather for the service of some particular educational, health or co-operative association or union.
Generally speaking, Mr. Chairman, I still believe that was a wise course for us to advance, and it might have been a wiser course for the government to accept.
We in the New Democratic party, and the C.C.F. before us, urged for years and years that the business mail, that the ordinary first class consumer mail pay its own way, but even with the increased rates the business mail of Canada is not paying its own way. Very briefly, I would like to put the following points forward: In relation to today's lamentable situation involving strikes and rumours of strikes in the postal service of Canada, which I feel has come about partly as a result of the lack of communication between the minister and the Post Office operation, the minister at this late hour has come forward with the announcement that the disputed work condition issue is being referred to a third party for a second look. If, as is now said by the minister, the issue is of such substance as to warrant it being looked at impartially by a third party, surely there should be no implementation of the disputed points which have now been referred to others for judgment until the second look has been taken. To do otherwise is to suggest that the second look is automatically going to be in favour of one of the parties involved, in this case the government. To that extent, it will prejudge the issue in the minds of a good many of the postal workers. I think I am right in suggesting to the minister that this will create a further lack of faith on the part of postal employees, just at a time when a greater

degree of communication and confidence is very much to be desired.
I am sure there are members on both sides of the house who would like to see the minister doing what others have also suggested, namely, let us have an all-party pause in the attacks on the postal system and on the minister while the third party, of whom, he has spoken, takes this second look at the immediate question of working conditions in the post office. Until this third party reports, let us also have a pause in the implementation of the disputed conditions.
It seems to me that in the last few months the government has attempted a very strange thing. The government, and in particular this minister, have sought to perform, after many years of delay on the part of both the old parties, what amounts to three simultaneous surgical operations, a risky effort for all concerned.
The postal service of Canada, once one of the finest in the world in one of the most affluent countries in the world, has been diluted, reduced, impaired and cut from a six-day a week to a five-day a week delivery, and I think unnecessarily so. At the same time the price to the ordinary consumer, the first class letter writer and bill payer has had to shoulder a 20 per cent increase in letter rate. Certainly, the business people such as the hydro, the oil companies, the phone companies and so on will pass on their part of the new impost to the consumer.
Now, beyond this, the government finds itself involved with the postal service employees in another dispute, employees whose efficiency and service over many years of substandard working and wage conditions have been a subject of comment in Canada. Here, I think I speak fairly and honestly as a former member of that group. I have already suggested a way of dealing with this particular situation involving the postal employees.
If I may add one more expression of concern at the conduct of the minister and the government in this area it is that hundreds of newspapers, co-operative papers, farm papers, union papers, church papers, association papers and scientific papers, certainly none of them profit making publications, are being faced with such an immense increase in postal rates as to make a number of them cease publication. Perhaps more will have to stop publication in the future. In some cases these rate increases amount to 2,000 per cent.
March 10, 1969

Replying to a question of mine on this same point three or four days ago, the minister suggested that those non-profit publications that were being so hard hit might apply to the departments of government concerned with their area of publication or interest for a subsidy. Surely, this is a curious suggestion, particularly coming from the Postmaster General who, until recently at least, I had always thought was a man of a great deal of common sense. I found it a curious idea that he would suggest that the various Canadian publications that are going out of business because of increased postal rates might ask a department of government for a handout.
I wonder should the farmers of Canada, through their associations such as the Farmers' Union and the Federation of Agriculture, which from time to time are critical of the Department of Agriculture, and of the Minister of Agriculture, and rightly so, ask for a subsidy from the Department of Agriculture? Should a publication like Canadian Geographic, an excellent magazine that will probably never make a profit, ask the Minister of Public Works for a subsidy or handout, when it may not always want to publish material exactly coinciding with what the government thinks is right and proper? Should the trade unions apply to the Minister of Labour to see if they can get the same kind of relief from the heavy imposts of the Postmaster General? Canadians labour papers, I think very correctly, are not exactly in tune at all times with the Minister of Labour and the government. If I understood the minister correctly, then his was a very strange suggestion to make in this day an age in Canada. I hope I misunderstood him.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, just as the issue with regard to the postal workers is going to be referred to a third party for a second look, I think that the matter of the fantastically heavy mail rate increases for non-profit publications should also be referred to some impartial agency, as we suggested some months ago, for further consideration.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)


Mr. Orlikow:: Mr. Chairman, in rising to say something in this debate, I should like to begin by saying to the minister that if he wants to get this bill through he should not display the kind of arrogance he used when he refused unanimous consent to the hon. member for Brandon-Souris to complete his remarks. The minister ought to know, 29180-408
Government Organization although he and the Prime Minister may wish it, that we do not have the system they have in France where President de Gaulle speaks and everybody toes the line. The minister may think members on this side are wasting time, but the members on this side of the house were elected by their voters in the same way the minister was. If the hon. member for Brandon-Souris wants to speak tonight, tomorrow or the next day about something that has been discussed before, simply because the minister does not agree does not mean he cannot do it. I wish to tell the minister that if he wants to get the legislation through he should not act the way he did, because if he is going to talk that way the members on this side will show him that it can take longer to get the bill through.


Raymond J. Perrault: You are wasting time. Get on with it.


David Orlikow: The minister's handling of the Post Office Department is such that he should resign right now. I have been looking through the records of Hansard and I notice that almost every day members on this side of the house have been asking questions of the minister. They have asked about what was happening in respect of the negotiations with the employees. They have inquired whether there will be another strike or stoppage such as we have had. Questions have been asked in respect of whether the Canadian people will have to face the same inconvenience they have faced on two or more occasions. On each occasion, the minister has been very clear. He has stated that there is not the slightest possibility there will be a work stoppage. He has said that negotiations are proceeding very well, that there is no trouble at all and that he has been having discussions with the officials of the union. It is obvious now that the kind of discussions in which the Postmaster General believes are the same kind in which the Prime Minister seems to believe. In other words, he does the talking and the other people must listen, or be pushed around in some way.
Let us look at the record. I shall not quote it all today because it would take not 20 minutes but probably 20 times 20 minutes to go through the minister's sad, sad misconceptions about the postal employees; what they are thinking and what the situation is in respect of their morale. Here it is March 10. Just six days ago, on March 4, the Leader of the Official Opposition asked the minister how the discussions were progressing and what
6436	COMMONS
Government Organization the possibility was of a stoppage. The minister said, "Oh, we are doing fine". The Leader of the Opposition then asked about outside adjudication. Let me quote exactly what the minister said as recorded at page 6173 of Hansard:
In direct reply to the question asked by the Leader of the Opposition, I would like to say there is no necessity for third party adjudication when explosive situations do not exist.
Well, Mr. Chairman, although explosive situations did not exist and there was not a chance of a strike, today we have a strike in many of the cities of Canada. I have information which the minister could obtain if he wanted to listen to any people other than those around him who have messed up all the labour relations between the employees and the department. My information is that the only reason there is not a strike in Toronto and Montreal is that the system of delivery without going back to the post office has not been completely implemented. I am informed that if it had been there would be a strike in those places.
On January 14 the minister made a statement about the changes he intended to make and said that nobody would be affected. I was asked by our party to speak in respect of the minister's statement. I do not remember ever having done this before, but I wish to point out to members of the committee and the minister what I said on that occasion on the basis of the information which I and which any other member of the committee could have had if he had taken the trouble to ask questions of the employees. I said the following as recorded at page 4244 of Hansard for January 14:
We have a new Postmaster General but we have the same old gang in the top positions in the department. Unless the minister comes up with a new plan, the workers are not going to accept the idea that a substantial number of them will have to eat their lunches outdoors in very cold and wet weather simply because there are no provisions for transportation and thus no opportunity for them to have their lunch break.
I say to the minister, and this is not a threat, that I think I know how the postal workers in many cities feel, and unless the department meets these legitimate complaints there will be another stoppage very shortly.
That was on January 14, almost two months ago. Of course, the minister did not take me very seriously, nor has he taken anybody else very seriously. This minister, who came to this house with such a reputation for being a brilliant and intelligent man attuned to the feelings of the ordinary citizen, has displayed a lamentable lack of interest. That is all I can

DEBATES	March 10, 1963
say. He has displayed a lamentable lack of interest in the problems of the employees of the department of which he is the minister. He is laughing. I suppose everything I say is a joke. It will be a joke until the employees stay out long enough for this minister to pay attention to them.
The minister has refused to listen to the members of this house. He has ignored the clear reports which have been carried in the newspapers in every part of Canada. If the minister has the time to read, I should like to refer him to reports which appeared in the Globe and Mail back in January. There was a news report on January 13 which read as follows:
Representatives of Canada's letter carriers have threatened to work to rule or even strike if the post office carries through plans to cancel Saturday deliveries and implement a straight-through mail delivery system.
The Letter Carriers Union of Canada claims the planned changes will violate its contract with the Treasury Board and said in a statement yesterday:	"If the contract is continuously
broken . . . We reserve the right to take industrial action."
A few days later, on January 19, the Globe and Mail reported as follows:
A switch in mail deliveries will mean a longer working day for postmen, already angry over delays in implementing the new pay scale they won in the 22-day strike last summer.
Later, the same report states:
Under straight-through delivery, the postmen would sort the whole day's deliveries in the morning, then spend the rest of the day on their routes.
They would have half an hour off for lunch and the Post Office would pay for transportation from their routes to wherever they eat, and back again. Time spent travelling would not count as part of the half hour, but they would not be paid for any of it.
The postal employees felt this was a violation of their contract. As a matter of fact, they exercised the right which the minister keeps on saying they have. They took a case to adjudication. This was a case having to do with wash-up time. The adjudicator said that under the contract the employees had the right to five minute wash-up time before and after lunch. This minister says, of course, you can have the time. Perhaps that is not what he said, but that is what his action means. You can have the time off out ini no man's land, or on the prairies or wherever you happen to be at lunch time. This does not mean you have the traditional right to come back to the post office at lunch time. If you do, you will do so on your own time. The postmen did not have
March 10, 1969

to do this before. What the minister is doing is cutting down the pay of every postal employee by one hour every day because he is forcing them to go back to the post office on their own time.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
The minister was asked repeatedly during question period by members from all parties on this side of the house to sit down with the employees and negotiate because an agreement could not be reached. An agreement will not be reached if the minister acts as God in deciding this is what the contract says because he says so, and that he does not have to discuss this with anyone. Surely, collective bargaining means negotiation, and if you do not reach an agreement you get somebody outside to arbitrate. The minister refused to do that until today when he was faced with the disastrous effects of his policy and the fact that all the promises and statements he has made meant nothing. He said that morale was good, that the differences would be settled and there would not be a stoppage. Now that the minister is faced with a stoppage that is getting bigger rather than smaller, he is back tracking. The minister has been wrong in every step. This is the minister who has precipitated the third work stoppage, but he now agrees to outside adjudication. This is typical of this government.
We have a Minister of Labour who receives fulsome praise. Perhaps it is on the basis of the speeches he makes on behalf of the trade unions. He has spoken out in favour of the Freedman Commission report to the effect that there should be conciliation and discussion. He has spoken about the fact that no employer should make important changes in the working conditions of their employees without discussion and negotiation. I think the minister made that speech when the estimates of his department were before the house or during the Throne Speech debate. Here we have a minister who has ignored the Freedman Commission report, and I refer to the Postmaster General. Of course the Minister of Labour can go out and lecture employers about the fact that they ought to live up to the spirit of the Freedman Commission report while the Postmaster General ignores that report completely.
For the record and for the information of the Postmaster General in the event he has not looked at this report until now, and I commend the idea to him that he should do so, let me read from the official press release
29180-408J
Government Organization put out by the Department of Labour summarizing the findings of Mr. Justice Freedman in the dispute between the C.N.R. and its employees. I suggest to the minister that what Mr. Justice Freedman said to the C.N.R. applies even more to the government of Canada. Let me read a couple of sentences from this official press release:
The present situation which permits management to make unilateral changes in working conditions during the contract period is a manifest inequity which clamours for attention and correction.
Was there ever a greater change in working conditions by any employer than those the Postmaster General and his lackeys in the department tried to push down the throats of a group of employees? Mr. Justice Freedman also said:
Since run-throughs are not all equal in their effects, the commission recommends-


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. When the hon. member cites Mr. Justice Freedman I would like him to cite the page number. I have the report here.


David Orlikow: I wish the minister would listen. I said I was quoting from the official press release issued by the Department of Labour summarizing Mr. Justice Freedman's report.


Eric William Kierans: All I am asking for is the source of the citation, as it appears in the report itself.


David Orlikow: If I cannot take the official summary of the report by Mr. Justice Freedman as issued by the Department of Labour as being correct-the Minister of Labour at the time was Mr. Allan J. MacEachen-I do not know what else the minister would like.


Eric William Kierans: I am quite prepared to admit that the summary is official and correct. On the other hand I think I am showing a disposition to go much closer to the source of the quotation than is the hon. member who has cited it. If he wants to cite Freedman why doesn't he cite Freedman?


David Orlikow: The minister has already complained in what I thought was a very capricious and arbitrary way about the fact that the hon. member for Brandon-Souris was wasting time, or taking up too much time. I am trying to save the time of the committee and not bore the minister with matters which he considers are unimportant by quoting from the official summary. I think it is accurate enough. If the minister does not think it is

March 10, 1969
Government Organization accurate I suggest he argue that matter with the former Minister of Labour and those officials of the department who prepared the report. I am prepared to accept the word of the former Minister of Labour that he has given an honest summary of the Freedman report. If the Postmaster General does not want to take it as being an honest summary, that is his business.


Eric William Kierans: On the point of order, Mr. Chairman, I do accept it as being an honest summary. I am simply raising the point that while I have read the Freedman report, I am not sure the hon. member has.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


David Orlikow: We now hear those trained seals banging their desks over there. At the rate we are going, we obviously will not finish this discussion tonight. Since the minister has not had time to read the Freedman report and will not listen to the former Minister of Labour-obviously he has not listened to the present one either-I promise the Postmaster General that tomorrow afternoon I will give him the exact quotation from the official text of the Freedman report. I wonder if I can continue now without the interruptions of the jumping-jack Postmaster General.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That was Pickersgill.


David Orlikow: This is the new Pickersgill.
On page 2 of this summary, Mr. Justice Freedman states:
Since run-throughs are not all equal in their effects, the commission recommends that either party should have the right to refer to an arbitrator the question whether a proposed run-through would or would not have the effect of causing a material change in working conditions.
For weeks the postal workers unions have been asking for precisely this, but what has the minister and his experts in the department-those great labour negotiators who have led us into three work stoppages in a couple of years-done to alleviate the situation? All they have said has been that we cannot have outside arbitration. They have suggested to the postal employees that they file not one grievance but 20 grievances or 50 grievances. The employees are going to be required to hire some high priced lawyers and this will drain the union treasury. I am sure that would suit the Postmaster General because obviously the unions would then not be able to continue the battle for what they

consider to be justice. The Postmaster General does not believe in this because his great Pooh-bahs have decided they have treated the employees fairly.
e (9:20 p.m.)
The official summary, at page 3 reads:
Assuming voluntary agreement between the parties is not possible for the purpose of giving effect to the Commission's recommendation, legislation would be required. Either the Railway Act or the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act could be employed. If the latter were used it would be possible to provide, by an appropriate amendment, that any technological innovation, development, or change proposed by the employer which would materially and adversely affect the working conditions of the employees should either be deferred for negotiation at the next open period or be dealt with in the same way as if it were a provision falling within the scope of subsection (2) of section 22 of the act.
The former minister of labour, the Hon. Jack Nicholson, used to argue, he thought pretty persuasively, that he did not need to implement Mr. Justice Freedman's recommendation. He felt we did not need legislation because, after all, all good employees should be willing to do this voluntarily. You can see how wrong he was. We are not even talking about private employers; here is the government of Canada, here is the Postmaster General ignoring the basic concept of the Freedman report.


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


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


David Orlikow: Could I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? In calculating my time, did you take account of the rude interruptions of the minister?


James Hugh Faulkner: Order, please. Is it the wish of the committee that the hon. member continue? There has to be unanimous consent for the hon. member to continue.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Raymond J. Perrault: He doesn't deserve it.


David Orlikow: We get the same comment, Mr. Chairman, from the hon. member. Like the Prime Minister, I cannot remember his constituency. Page 3 of the summary of Mr. Justice Freedman's report reads:
Amendment through the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigaion Act would have the advantage of closing a gap in the statute which technological advance has revealed.
March 10, 1969

We have a stoppage. It is the third stoppage the public has had to suffer. As of last week the minister denied that there was any possibility the stoppage would take place. It is a stoppage caused by the failure of the minister to bring into the department people who have the slightest concept of what collective bargaining means, to bring into the department the kind of people who realize that the feudal system which has existed for almost 100 years in the postal department has now ended. Under that system the minister, the deputy minister and a couple of other key people could decide, and everybody else had to go along with their decision. That type of thing has vanished and we are now in a period when-I cannot say this as eloquently as the Minister of Labour, I am sure employers have to sit down in good faith, negotiate and try to settle matters' in dispute with their employees.
The minister has failed for the second time to do this. We had a strike a little while ago when the minister headed the post office. We have a stoppage today. I suggest in all seriousness that this minister, having failed so miserably to understand the most elementary facts about labour-management relationships, in a department which is of such vital concern to the people of Canada and their everyday living, ought to resign. He ought to make way for a minister who will put people first and let matters which are important be settled by negotiation and conciliation, rather than by work stoppages.


Mr. McCleave:: Mr. Chairman, I think most of us regret that the department which is closest to Canadians in their day-to-day life should also be the subject of most controversy in Canada today. The difficulties in the Post Office far outweigh those in any other department of government; and believe you me, with this government that takes some doing. Yet this is precisely the state in the Post Office Department at the present time.
I ask the minister this question: Did he have any warning that his difficulties were going to be compounded at this time or did they come like a bolt from the blue? I suggest that the Postmaster General had ample warning.. I suggest that the difficulties of the previous postmaster general gave him a warning. But in addition there has been the Montpetit report, that fat volume put out by the commission outlining the grievances found by that judge of the Quebec Superior Court. He

Government Organization felt those grievances should be remedied. Some of them have been remedied.
In addition, there was the new, collective bargaining legislation which we in this house passed in good faith a few years ago. Combining the factors of Montpetit and collective bargaining, the result was that people who had been content to put up with certain conditions over a long period of time were suddenly faced with the fact that they had a responsibility to themselves to do something to better their conditions, I think everybody in the house will agree with that philosophy. I know I preached it myself when I addressed dinners of postal unions at that time. I said: If you have these working conditions of which you complain, do not sit around and take them any more; get out and take them up with your management. Deal at arm's length with each other, and do your best to remedy them.
That spirit is now abroad in the Post Office of Canada. The Postmaster General takes time out with amateurish dabblings in another minister's department, telling us how NATO should or should not operate. Then, he turns to the Post Office and delivers his offhand pronunciamento. No wonder half the country has postal difficulties. I say those warnings were there before the Postmaster General was elected and, subsequently last fall, became a member of the ministry. He has nobody to blame but himself for what is happening in Canada at the present time.
The minister should have had warning from the events of last year when the increases were brought about which have caused consternation. The difficulties, which still have not been fully assessed in the newspaper field, are very much with us in the magazine field. For example, the March, 1969, issue of the Legion contains an article headed "We Face a Crisis". It was written by the dominion president, Mr. Robert Kohaly, who is also chairman of the national magazine executive committee.i The Legion publication had enjoyed its second class mailing rates for more than 40 years. It was aware that increases were coming. This editorial says:
The Legion had prepared for the increase in second-class rates, roughly from half-a-cent a copy to two cents a copy, and had adjusted its 1969 budget to meet a monthly increase in mailing costs of from $1,300 to $5,000.
Then came the mighty hand of the Postmaster General, and this is the result:
-the cost of mailing (the Legion magazine) after April 1 will be seven cents a copy or a monthly mailing expenditure of more than $19,000 or $228,000 a year!
March 10, 1969

Government Organization
This is a group that expected its postal bills would increase from, say, $15,000 to $60,000 Their postal bills went all the way up to $228,000 a year. Says the Legion editorial:
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)
These new rates will put many fraternal and trade publications out of business.
If this is good management of a government department by a minister, then I would hate to see an example of poor management. This policy, which must have been studied by someone in the department, is wreaking havoc in an important part of our communications life.
In addition to these outrageous increases, there is the problem of slow mail delivery. In a November issue, the Register put it as well as anybody could. The Register is published in Kingston but it has offices in Toronto. This editorial reads:
The Toronto papers reach that city by 2 a.m. Thursday morning. Yet in some cases, those papers do not reach Toronto parishes before the following Wednesday.
By that time the news in them is about as up to date as the Old Testament. The editorial goes on to say:
Occasionally, papers addressed to the Register's Toronto office, which is within walking distance of the main Toronto post office, will not be delivered until the following Monday.
Again, I say that the duty of the Postmaster General was not to dabble and meddle in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but rather to concern himself with the proper functioning of the Canadian mailing system. I say that in this he has failed Canadians and this parliament abysmally. It is strange that a man who is supposed to communicate has employed a method of communication that has been less than satisfactory and has become embroiled in labour difficulties that have been noted in the debate today.
Finally, I should like to draw to the attention of the committee a curious provision. The section which we are now considering, dealing with the establishment of a Department of Communications, deletes the requirement of the former legislation that the headquarters of the Post Office be established in Ottawa. I notice that this requirement has gone by the board with the establishment of the Department of Communications. I hope to have an explanation of this change before this part of the bill is passed.
IMr. McCleave.]


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: 
Raymond J. Perrault: I had not intended to take part in this debate but since reference has been made in the house to the position I am supposed to have taken I think I should stand up and make my position clear. I was not a member of this rumoured group of 35 but I do know, as I believe most members of this house know, just how difficult a task is facing the minister responsible for the post office.
There was a ludicrous situation-we discovered this in meetings of the committee- which saw no change in postal rates for publications since 1957. And before that there was another 20-year period in which the rates were left unaltered. As far as the Canadian taxpayer is concerned, the situation would assume disastrous proportions unless a minister had the courage to initiate the kind of program my hon. friend is attempting to pilot through the House of Commons.
Members who have spoken in this debate have been careful not to refer at any time to the economic impact on Canadian taxpayers of continuing deficits in the Post Office Department, deficits which would have reached enormous proportions in a few years had not major surgery been undertaken by the present minister. Not one statistic has been produced to buttress the arguments which have been advanced, mainly for political purposes, in this debate. No mention has been made of the $134 million deficit which would have arisen in the forthcoming fiscal year had not decisive action been taken.
I have listened in vain tonight for the views of opposition parties with respect to this new department of communications, this vital area which involves other media as well
March 10, 1969

Government Organization as the postal services. Scarcely a word has been spoken about the communication satellite. Scarcely a word has been said about the future of educational television, even in its technical aspects. Not a word has been said about the fact that in the bill before us there is the possibility of the emergence of one of the greatest government departments in our history.
There has been no discussion of methods by which we can improve communications to the northland beyond the use of the postal services. Opposition members have been content to rake over the cold embers of political acrimony. One really suspects they would like to append a footnote to each of their speeches: Local papers, please copy. Their speeches have been designed for maximum publicity on the home front, not really as a constructive contribution to the dialogue.


Donald MacInnis: A point of order, Mr. Chairman, arises from the remarks made by the hon. member for Bumaby-Seymour which, beyond any question or doubt impute motives to others who have participated in the debate.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Don't be so sensitive.


Raymond J. Perrault: These are comments from an hon. member who has never shown any sensitivity for the feelings of others in this house.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Chairman, when a member of this house raises a point of order it follows that the Chair should rule whether or not the point of order raised is a legitimate one.
I shall be satisfied with the judgment of the Chair, if I am told that my point of order is not a legitimate one. And I will be further satisfied if the minister would have the intestinal fortitude to get up and take part in the debate-


Albert Béchard: I do not think there is any point of order.


Donald MacInnis: I rise once again on a point of order. It arises, now, from the ruling the Chair has just made. I shall raise the matter tomorrow, when Mr. Speaker is in the chair, as a question of privilege.


Raymond J. Perrault: I do not wish to continue much longer because I want to give others in this chamber an opportunity to take part in the debate. So many of those who have risen today to say that their freedom of speech is being restricted have taken 12 minutes of a 20

minute speech in which to make their point. Once again, one wonders how interested members of the opposition really are in speaking constructively about this new government department.
I want to say that it takes courage to advance legislation of this kind. It is always unpopular to do the difficult things in government but we have a minister here at last who has the courage to look closely at the operations of the post office, something which was not done with courage by some of the previous administrations in this country, including the administration formed by the party to my left. The minister saw this was an intolerable situation and one which could not continue. He said: It will be necessary to make tough decisions and certain jobs will be affected, but we will try to be fair about it. I say to members on the opposition side: Let them be fair in the comments they make on the subject before us.


David Orlikow: Would the hon. member tell this committee whether he thinks it is fair that the people of Canada who, he says, cannot afford to subsidize the various Canadian newspapers and magazines, should continue to subsidize Time and Readers' Digest under the new rates to the tune of $1,500,000 a year?


Raymond J. Perrault: If the hon. member had done any research on the subject of postal rates, and obviously he has not, he would know that even with the change contemplated an enormous deficit will still have to be borne by the Canadian taxpayer in connection with the operations of the post office. There is no chance whatever that in the forthcoming fiscal year or two there will be a breakthrough. This is a holding operation. Costs were getting out of line and I would think that a party which is so interested in programs for spending the taxpayers' money would at least show a degree of responsibility in helping to hold the line.


David Orlikow: The hon. member for Burn-aby-Seymour does not want to answer my question and, of course, he is not bound to do so. I asked him a simple question. The figures will show-


Albert Béchard: I would ask the committee to come back to the bill.


David Orlikow: Surely, Mr. Chairman, we are discussing the bill-the question of communications. The hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour has criticized us-
March 10, 1969	COMMONS


Raymond J. Perrault: I will answer your question. The suggestion is, I believe, that there should be no subsidy whatever. I then suggested that there would be a continuing subsidy, something like $40 million in the next fiscal year. That answered the hon. member's question, and he should have been listening. Of course,
I support the measure-
* (9:50 p.m.)


Albert Béchard: Order.


Raymond J. Perrault: -but not unlimited deficits,-


Albert Béchard: Order, please.


Raymond J. Perrault: -for the taxpayers of Canada.


Albert Béchard: Order. We are discussing the establishment of a new department, not policy of the department or the cost of handling mail.


David Orlikow: Mr. Chairman, with all due deference to you, I know the minister has flights of imagination in connection with satellites and so on, but whether the minister likes it or not this department of communications will have to administer that old warhorse, the post office.
The Post Office Department has set rates for various types of mail that it delivers. We have listened to a lecture from the No. 1 defender of this government, the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour, who believes in constructive criticism. However, since he has been in this chamber I have never heard, and I venture to guess that I never will hear in the few years that he will be here, any criticism voiced by any member of the opposition that the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour considered to be constructive.


Raymond J. Perrault: You are absent from the house too much and do not hear these things.


David Orlikow: As far as absence from the house is concerned, I will stake my record against yours.


Albert Béchard: Order, please. The hon. member should be given the opportunity to make his remarks. I ask the hon. member to come back to the part of the bill we are discussing, namely clause 7, the establishment of the new department. If the hon. member can relate his remarks to clause 7, I should be very pleased to hear him do so.
DEBATES	6443
Government Organization


David Orlikow: Mr. Chairman, first of all, clause 12 of the bill, on page 4, deals with the Post Office Department.


Albert Béchard: Order. I would bring to the attention of the hon. member that the committee is discussing clause 7, on page 2 of the bill.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, it was agreed when we started debating this bill that on each of the several parts of the bill we would on the first clause again have a general discussion of the whole part. I submit that we are now on the part dealing with the communications department, which does include the Post Office Department.


Albert Béchard: Order. I understand the hon. member and I thank him for his advice. Clause 12, to which the hon. member for Winnipeg North referred, reads as follows:
Section 3 of the Post Office Act is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"3.	(1) There shall be a department of the
Government of Canada called the Post Office Department over which the Postmaster General shall preside.
(2) The Minister of Communications is the Postmaster General and has the management and direction of the Post Office Department."


David Orlikow: Mr. Chairman, that is precisely what we are discussing. I am not asking for any special consideration. The hon. member for Brandon-Souris made two speeches on this clause dealing with the effects on Canadian publications of increases in the postal rates, and you permitted him to speak. Then, the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour started to berate the hon. member for Brandon-Souris and other members for not being constructive. "Of course there have to be increases in postal rates", says the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour. Then I asked the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour, if there did have to be increases in postal rates, whether the government would continue to subsidize farm publications that are going out of business, the ethnic press which is going out of business and labour union publications, such as the C.N.T.U. magazine of which the minister of economic expansion was president for so long, and which has suspended publication.
If the government cannot then does the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour think it fair that the Canadian taxpayer should subsidize Time and Reader's Digest to the tune of
March 10, 1989

Proceedings on adjournment Motion
$1.5 million a year? The hon. member for PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT
Burnaby-Seymour-	MOTION


Albert Béchard: Order, please. I would ask the hon. member to kindly confine his remarks to the bill, not to the remarks made by the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour.


David Orlikow: I am just finishing. I think the record will indicate to anybody who wants to read it that the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour refuses to answer that very simple question. Of course he will always defend interests such as Time and Readers Digest. Why not, they are Liberal organs?


Raymond J. Perrault: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, I have answered the hon. member three times. There is now an attempt to gain political mileage on the part of the hon. member from Winnipeg North, and I do not think this is worthy of him as a member of the House of Commons.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to take part in this part of the debate, and I would not think of letting the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour take me off on that particular track. The part of the bill that interests me concerns the post office. I am one of those who has had some experience over the years watching the operations of the post office, and I have always felt that the Postmaster General of Canada did not have much to do. However, looking back over those years, I can say now that the post office was run very well.
In my area, and I think the same is true in others, people are writing me daily telling me that the postal service has gone back 40 years. We do not live far from Toronto, which is our major business centre. Previously we were able to put mail on the train at night that would be in business offices in Toronto the following morning. Letters mailed from business offices in Toronto were distributed to every community in my area the next morning, usually by ten or eleven o'clock. If this mail missed the five o'clock collection out of Toronto it was delivered in the afternoon. This includes deliveries to the rural routes. Today, a letter may take five days to come from Toronto I have documented evidence that certain classes of mail-


Albert Béchard: Order, please. It being ten o'clock it is my duty to rise, report progress, and request leave to sit again at the next sitting of the house.
Progress reported.

A motion to adjourn the house under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been moved.



POWER-URANIUM CITY-ELECTRICAL, SERVICE SUPPLIED BY UTILITY COMPANY

Albert C. (Bert) Cadieu: Mr. Speaker, I was prompted to raise a question the other day by requests I received from Uranium City and Eldorado, mostly from Uranium City. The question was:
[DOT] (10:00 p.m.)
-in view of the widespread dissatisfaction with the high cost and poor quality of the service offered residents of Uranium City by the private utility company presently supplying electricity to the area, can the Acting Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources say whether Eldorado Nuclear Limited, the Crown corporation primarily concerned with the development of the community, has considered taking over this service directly, itself, or alternatively, using its considerable local influence to get the service improved?
I have raised this matter, Mr. Speaker, because I received a petition signed by 386 persons in Uranium City, together with a copy of Northland News in which the situation is set out. The petition reads:
We, the people of Uranium City, strongly protest the high cost of our electrical power.
We do not understand why Northland Utilities has not revised and lowered power costs long ago.
We are very much aware of electrical appliance damage and lamp burnouts caused by the utility's wide voltage swings.
We are also apprehensive over the fact that the utility does not provide some form of stand-by plant as protection against line failure, such a failure in 40 below temperatures could result in catastrophe for our families, apart from damage to our homes and property.
Our opinion is that Northland Utilities power rates are ridiculously high,

I was under the impression that the power lines were installed by a Crown corporation some time ago. Eldorado Nuclear Limited is the Crown corporation in question. How a privately owned company known 'as Northland Utility can be allowed to make a mark up of almost 100 per cent at the expense of people living in the area, escapes me. We know that those people are living far from large centres in a mining area. All the same, they cannot see why their electric power rates should be so high. Northland News of
March 10, 1969

January 23, 1969, had this to say, in part, about the matter:
Northland Utilities came under fire Monday night when Town Council questioned power officials about low voltage complaints, customer servicing, the inability to contact company officials based here, and the high cost of power to the consumers.
As I say, this is a mining town, and its people cannot see the need for the very high power rates. I think my remarks have pretty well covered the case. I have a copy of the petition, and I could give it to the minister, together with any pertinent material I have in my possession.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, Eldorado Nuclear Limited has not considered taking over the services directly, itself. So far as the rates are concerned, these have been under consideration for some time and representations have been made by Eldorado Nuclear Limited. It is hoped that there will be a reduction of rates. Since there have been no direct representations to Eldorado Nuclear Limited about the quality of service, Eldorado Nuclear Limited has not considered using its influence with a view to having the service improved.



SCIENCE SERVICES-MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR POLICY

David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, some days ago at a winter conference sponsored by the Canadian Institute on Public Affairs and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation the chairman of the Science Council, Dr. Solandt, made a speech in which he repeated statements which he had made on other occasions to the effect that improvements are needed in the federal government's science policy machinery, and advising the appointment of a minister for science policy.
On March 5, I asked the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) if the government was considering making such an appointment and I was told by the Prime Minister that the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) was in fact that minister. On another occasion when asked a similar question by my colleague, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broad-bent), the Prime Minister pointed to the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Lang), the hon. member from Saskatoon-Humboldt, as being that minister. On a third occasion when asked the same question he referred to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) as the minister responsible for science policy.
Proceedings on adjournment Motion
This is an extremely important matter, Mr. Speaker. The Secretary of the Treasury Board, Mr. Reiseman, testifying before the Senate committee which is investigating science policy said that the decisions of the government with regard to science policy were largely accidental. When one recognizes the fact that in the last several years government commitments to proceed with three very important scientific research programs have been scuttled, so far as one can see without very serious discussions with the scientific community, one realizes the importance of having a government minister responsible for making decisions in this field.
The Queen Elizabeth Observatory, which was to be built in British Columbia, has been cancelled. The HARP project being conducted by the physics department at McGill University has been scuttled and is now operating out of the United States with scientists in charge who were formerly on the staff of McGill University. Tne ING project which was being pushed very hard by the physicists of Canada has also been scuttled.
I am not an expert on science policy, and I suppose no member of this house is an expert on it. I hold no particular brief for these projects. I am not an expert on them any more than I am expert about the money we spend on medical research, or on agricultural research, or on defence research,-most of which seems to have been a failure-but I would like to think that with respect to the hundreds of millions of dollars that we spend the people and the government of Canada are getting some solid advice from the people who know best. Yet, Mr. Speaker, that does not seem to be the case.
An article which appeared in Science Forum in November 1968, written by Dr. Martin W. Johns, a physicist at McMaster University, said in part:
What science policy there may be seems to be directed by persons who neither understand the legitimate goals of science nor have direct communication with scientists-within or without the government service.
Similarly, Dr. L. E. Howlett, writing in Science Forum in the October 1968 issue said:
Too often the argument in favour of a costly project with heavy continuing commitments is that it is good science and excites the imagination. Too rarely is there a good case to support its direct relevance to Canada's future needs and a realistic appraisal of its probable value to the country as compared with the same money spent on other projects.
Dr. Howlett is a former National Research Council scientist. I could go on. Professor
March 10, 1969

Proceedings on adjournment Motion N. H. Lithwick, writing in the Journal of Canadian Studies in August of 1968, in an article entitled "Science policy in Canada" says the following about our so-called science policy:
[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)
After an examination of the conduct and financing of such activity by government in Canada, it is safe to conclude that there is no science policy, except perhaps the conviction that science is a good thing. This in turn stems from an absence of social policy as a whole, so that scientists have been free to develop their art as it pleases them.
Later, he says:
Indeed, the government has clearly chosen to leave future decisions on science policy in the hands of the scientists.
He concludes his article by saying:
How these priorities will be allocated by a body made up largely of scientists in the absence of a set of articulated public objectives raises our most fundamental fears-fears not at all alleviated by reassurances of the chairman that the Council will co-operate wih social and behavioural scientists.
The point I am trying to make simply is that in my opinion it is the duty and responsibility of the government of Canada to establish a system of priorities so that the money which the government decides Canada can afford to spend in the field of scientific research shall be spent to the best advantage of the people of Canada as a whole. That, in my opinion, requires a minister responsible for science policy who can make reasonably sound decisions in respect of what this country needs after consultation with the scientific community in the government, in the science council, in the universities and in industry, on the one hand and the members of the cabinet on the other hand who know the total needs and commitments of the Canadian people. I submit that despite our science secretariat or council the government does not have such a policy.


James Edgar Walker: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) I should like to say that I answered part of a question on this subject on February 20 this year as recorded at page 6790 of Hansard when I replied to a similar question asked by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whit-by (Mr. Broadbent). The only other thing that might be added at this time is that if there is any statement to be made by the Prime Minister on this subject it would be made on motions, which is the time when government policies are announced.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT-EFFECT OF RATE CHANGES IN NON-PROFIT PUBLICATIONS

Barry Mather: Mr. Speaker, like a number of other members of the house I have tried at one time or another on orders of the day and at other times to raise a question concerning the inordinate increase in postal rates on what I term non-profit publications in Canada. I do so again tonight, particularly following what I thought was a rather curious reply made to me by the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) last week when I asked a question of that nature. If I understood him correctly he said at that time that instead of the non-profit publications seeking to have redress through a lower rate of postage, their associations might consider applying to a department of government for some type of subsidy. Therefore, I take this opportunity to raise the question again tonight.
If I understood the minister correctly, his suggestion was that there might be a subsidy for non-profit publications such as scientific reviews, church papers, trade union papers and so on which in some cases have been put out of business or curtailed in respect of their publication because' of the new heavy increases in rates. I think what I should like to do, in backing up my question, is to quote from the position my party expressed last October, as recorded at page 1614 of Hansard:
*-we wish a committee study to be made to ensure that the proposed rate increases are sufficient and are borne by those by whom they should be and do not fall upon publications which are not published for commercial profit but rather for the service of some particular educational, health or co-operative association or union.
Had something like that been done at the time, we would not be in the situation many of us feel we are in today in respect of the curtailment of these publications which are not able, from other financial resources, to meet their costs of publication. I refer to those publications I have mentioned before relating to unions, churches, scientific associations and other such small publications. In my view what the government is doing is actually curtailing communications in these fields.
I am one of those who favour proper and heavy increases in the rates on business publications, and business mail generally. They have been subsidized for many years by the ordinary consumers in Canada who have paid the first class rate. However, this is a very different situation to that which we find described in the Ottawa Citizen which made a
March 10, 1969	COMMONS
review of non-profit publications six or seven weeks ago. On January 29, the Ottawa Citizen in an article had this to say:
Among the hardest hit are the independent Canadian union papers which have lost second class mailing privileges and have been assured by a Post Office official that they have no chance of regaining them. Here are some samples of the postal cost increases these papers face, as of April 1:
From $1,057 per annum to $29,696 per annum- From $9,024 to $84,756-
From $18,000 to $72,000-
This list goes on. I feel that this situation was outlined by another one of these nonprofit publication's put out by the Association of Canadian Welfare Councils. I urge the minister to take a second look at the situation. The Canadian Welfare Council says:
If Canada were to suddenly be without such regular periodicals as Canadian Geographic, Community Planning Review, Canadian Consumer, The Canadian Author and Bookman, The Observer, The Canadian Nurse, and a host of other journals published by professional, ethnic or cultural groups across the country, it would be as though half the lights in a house had suddenly been put out.
As one who has long urged and complimented the minister on his energy and common sense in increasing rates in respect of private mail, I urge him again to take another look at what is happening. Perhaps he will then reconsider the application of such legislation to non-profit papers in Canada. This was perhaps less than well thought out legislation. I hope he will take a second look, just *as he has announced today he is doing in respect of the postal workers' conditions. He should have an impartial second look at this situation.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, we have dealt with this question extensively during the debate on postal rates and the postal bill itself. We have attempted to answer the questions as fairly and as objectively as possible during various question periods in the last four or five months. I
DEBATES	6447
Proceedings on adjournment Motion feel I am almost repeating myself when I attempt to answer the submissions put forward by the hon. member.
[DOT] (10:20 o.m.)
We are faced with a situation in which we are handling 17 newspaper or journal publications for 1J cents. There is no possible way in which the government could recover other than the smallest fraction of its costs in this regard. When a non-profit organization sets itself up in business, it expects to pay the people who work for it. It expects to pay for its paper, ink, printing, legal fees, auditing fees and all the other costs that go into the operations. Why should it not expect to pay the postage rate? Why should it expect to get stamps free or at a cut rate? The exaggeration that has gone on in this area is virtually impossible to believe. For example, a great deal of to-do has been made about the fantastic increases faced by the Queen's Quarterly, a journal that many of us agree is a definite asset to the quality of Canadian life. It is said that publication cannot bear the increases. Subscribers to the Queen's Quarterly will have to pay exactly four cents more a year.
I have dealt with the non-profit publications and editors of the unions and have been able to point out that in most cases, for example, the United Automobile Workers, the increase in postal rates would mean an increased charge to their members of 35 cents a year. A farm and country newspaper, which is indicative and a real example of all the farm newspapers, which has a nominal subscription rate of $1.50 but which in effect charges 98 per cent of its subscribers only 25 cents a year, will now have to charge 35 cents a year.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order,
please.
Motion agreed to and the house 'adjourned at 10.24 p.m.

Tuesday March 11, 1969



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare, and Social Affairs in French and in English-Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Hull).
[Editor's Note: Text of foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]