1969-03-12

[Stage Direction]
First report of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development, in French and in English-Mr. Ian Watson (Laprairie).
[Editor's Note: Text of foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.']


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lolbiniere) moved: for leave to introduce bill No. C-180, to amend the Exchequer Court Act.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


André-Gilles Fortin: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to amend the present wording of the act which reads as follows:
The practice and procedure in suits, actions and matters in the Exchequer Court, shall, so far as they are applicable, and unless it is otherwise provided for by this Act, or by general rules made in pursuance of this Act, be regulated by the practice and procedure in similar suits, actions and matters in Her Majesty's High Court of Justice in England on the 1st day of January, 1928.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the bill I am now introducing, and which I ask the house to pass, has for sole object to amend the act so that procedural rules followed in the Exchequer Court are enacted by Canadians and for Canadians, and any reference to British acts is removed.


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

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

Mr. Fortin: 1.	Among the 120 persons earning $17,000 per year or more at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, are there any whose mother tongue is French and, if not, what does the Company intend to do to adjust the situation?
2.	What is the policy of the A.E.C.L. concerning (a) bilingualism (b) employment of French Canadians?
3.	What is the total amount of the A.E.C.L.'s capital assets (a) in Ontario (b) in Quebec?
4.	How many employees has the A.E.C.L. (a) in Ontario (b) in Quebec?
5.	Does the A.E.C.L. propose to establish research laboratories in Quebec and, if not, for what reason?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Acting Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited reports as follows: 1. None. The Company will continue to seek to employ first class Canadian scientists and engineers whose mother tongue is French.
2.	(a) and (b)-The same as that of the federal government.
3.	As at 30 November, 1968-(a) $274,117,111; (b) $30,616,359.
4.	(a) 4,038; (b) nine permanent; 50 provided under contract.
5.	No. No prospect of availability of funds to establish any new research laboratory.


THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER-REGIONAL DESKS
Mr. Lewis: 1.	(a) How many regional desks attached to the Prime Minister's office have been established (b) what is the total number of regional desks the government plans to establish?
2.	In which communities will each of the regional desks be located?
3.	What is the geographical area of responsibility of each of the regional desks?


Questions
4.	(a) How many personnel will each regional desk employ (b) what classifications and salary levels will be assigned to the personnel (c) what are the names, addresses and classifications of personnel now appointed?
5.	What terms of reference have been assigned to the regional desks (i.e. what are their duties, responsibilities and to whom do they report) ?
6.	By what means are regional desk personnel selected (a) by the Public Service Commission (b) by the Prime Minister's Special Assistant (Regional Advisor) in charge of regional desks (c) other and please specify?
7.	What access will individual Members of Parliament have to the facilities of the regional desks?
8.	Will the problems of citizens which come to the attention of the regional desks be referred to (a) the Prime Minister (b) the department concerned (c) the Member of Parliament for the area (d) other and please specify?
9.	Will the regional desks be located (a) in existing federal buildings (b) in rented accommodation (c) if (b), what is the estimated total annual cost for accommodation?
10 (a) How many volunteer advisers has the Prime Minister appointed and what are their names (b) what, if any, is their relationship to the regional desks (c) do the advisers report directly to the Prime Minister, or to a Committee or Committees of the Cabinet, or to a member or members of the Privy Council staff (d) how and from what source are the expenses of the advisers being or to be paid?


Mr. J. E. Walker (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister):: 1. (a) Three, (b) No final decision has been reached, but the total number of regional desks established will probably not exceed four.
2.	The regional desks are located in Ottawa.
3.	Of the three regional desks now established, one is responsible for the geographic area represented by the four Atlantic provinces, another is responsible for the geographic area represented by the four western provinces, the other is responsible for the geographic area represented by Quebec.
4.	(a) One regional desk officer with supporting clerical staff; (b) The classification and salary level assigned to each regional desk officer is a matter of negotiation upon appointment. The salary levels of the three regional desk officers already appointed are $15,000, $12,000 and $9,500 respectively; (c) Jean Hache, 1435 Morriset Street, Ottawa, Atlantic Desk Officer; David Thomson, 576 MacLaren Street, Ottawa, Western Desk Officer; Jean Prieur, 56 Les Erables, Laval-sur-le-Lac, Quebec, Quebec Desk Officer. Mr. Hache is classified as a Special Assistant; Mr. Thomson is classified as a Regional Officer; Mr. Prieur is classified as a Regional Officer.
5.	The duties of the Regional Desk Officers are to improve the liaison between the Prime

Minister and those voluntary organizations which concern themselves with issues and problems common to many Canadians; to act as an additional source of information and advice to the Prime Minister on matters upon which he has requested such information and advice; to be of assistance to Members of Parliament in their dealings with the Prime Minister and his office. These Desk Officers report to the Regional Adviser to the Prime Minister.
6.	Recommendations for appointment of regional desk personnel are made to the Prime Minister by his Principal Secretary after consultation with the Regional Adviser.
7.	See the answer to Part 5 above.
8.	Problems of citizens which come to the attention of the regional desks will be referred to the Prime Minister, a Member of Parliament for the area, a Governmental Department, or other appropriate Government agency as seems most appropriate, having regard to the nature of the problem.
9.	(a) Yes; (b) and (c) Not applicable.
10.	(a) None. Many interested citizens do, however, write to the Prime Minister from time to time to suggest new policies or to comment on particular Government initiatives. The comments and suggestions of these persons are analyzed by the regional desk officers; (b), (c) and (d) Not applicable.


SEXUAL OFFENDERS IN PENITENTIARIES
Mr. Orlikow: 1.	What Is the total number of persons in Canadian Penitentiaries that have been convicted and sentenced under the Dangerous Sexual Offenders Sections of the Criminal Code, and (a) how many of those so sentenced have received paroles (b) how many have violated their paroles (c) how many have been re-convicted while on parole and was the offence the same?
2.	What is the average stay before parole is considered?
3.	What programs are made available to these persons while they are incarcerated?
4.	Has the medical profession been consulted as to treatment being given, and (a) how many have received such treatment (b) how many failed to make progress (c) have any persons been denied such treatment if such treatment was recommended?
5.	Has the government taken any steps in this direction?
6.	Have the inmates a choice in case they wish to seek out such treatment and, if so, what provisions have been made?


Hon. G. J. Mcllrailh (Solicitor General):: 1.
73 persons have been convicted and sentenced under the Dangerous Sexual Offenders section of the Criminal: Code which was passed


Questions
in 1953: (a) 20; (b) 10; (c) 1, Offence was not Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture): the same.	In so far as the Department of Agriculture is
2.	Cases are considered as soon as possible concerned: The provisions of the Canada after admission, in any event within six Agricultural Products Standards Act, the months thereof, and the parole review date Canada Meat Inspection Act, the Destructive is fixed. Average stay before release to Insect and Pest Act and the Canada Grain Act parole has been 8.3 years (the range being govern standards for agricultural products from three years eight months to 15 years and processed agricultural products in inter-nine months).	provincial and export trade.
3.	A diagnosis of each case is made and includes an evaluation of the inmate's potential for treatment and training. An individualized program to meet his social needs is determined by the Inmate Training Board following reports from members of the professional staff. The findings and recommendation of the Board are discussed with the inmate, who is free to express his views. This program may provide for individual and group therapy in addition to the regular training activities which includes, educational, vocational, religious, recreational, social and trades training.
4.	Yes. (a) 73 have received the available treatment; (b) seven are parole violators: <c) No.
5.	Every inmate is free to consult with the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist interviews any inmate who wants to see him or for whom treatment has been recommended. He will attempt to assess his personality, make a diagnosis and provide appropriate therapy and make other recommendations.
6.	The treating psychiatrist decides upon the nature of the treatment which is felt best suited to meet the inmate's requirements, and if better facilities exist in neighboring outside psychiatric clinics or mental hospitals, the inmate is transferred to such institutions and will return to the Penitentiary when improved. If the Penitentiary Psychiatrist feels that he should have assistance in making important psychiatric decisions, he is free to call any psychiatric consultant he may wish to have.
For the past two years at the Penitentiary in New Westminster, research is being conducted by an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia. The purpose of the research is also to recommend suggestions as to better ways and methods of treatment.


GOVERNMENT STANDARDS ON EXPORTS
Mr. Beaudoin: What government standards permit or prohibit the exporting by individuals of articles of their own manufacture?


PROSECUTIONS OF FRAUDULENT INSURANCE CLAIMS
Mr. Schreyer: 1.	How many cases of fraudulent claims did the Unemployment Insurance Commission prosecute in 1967?
2.	How many cases of fraudulent claims are claimed to exist each year, in Canada, in the radio campaign financed by the Unemployment Insurance Commission, and directed at curbing Unemployment Insurance abuse (a) in percentage of total claims (b) in gross figures?
3.	How does the Unemployment Insurance Commission substantiate the figures presented in these broadcasts?
4.	Is there a discrepancy between the number of cases of fraudulent claims prosecuted, and the number of cases of fraudulent claims said to exist, on the radio campaign?
5.	If so, for what reason?
6.	What avenues of appeal are open to a claimant unjustly accused of fraud in his Unemployment Insurance claim?
7.	Has any department or agency of the Government of Canada initiated a similar radio or other form of publicity campaign to direct attention to fraudulent selling and advertising practices?
8.	If so, how many such cases were prosecuted and with what result?


Mr. Yves Forest (Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council):: I am
informed by the Unemployment Insurance Commission and several departments as follows: 1. Statistics of prosecutions entered in the criminal courts are maintained on a fiscal year basis. These were as follows for the 1967-1968 fiscal year:
Prosecutions
-pending 1 April, 1967	553
-commenced 1967/68	2642
	3015
Prosecutions	
-dealt with 1967/68	2331
-pending 31 March, 1968	684
2.	As stated in the radio campaign financed by the radio and TV stations of Canada as a public service at their expense, close to 20


Questions
per cent of claims, according to a consultants survey, have some element of suspected fraud which should be investigated. It would be impossible to establish the total number of outright cases of fraud unless every claim was investigated.
In this circumstance, no gross or percentage figures for the actual, rather than the projected, number of cases of outright fraud were given.
3.	The figures related to possible abuse and overpayment of benefits are estimated based on a pilot study made by a firm of management consultants on behalf of the Commission.
4.	The Unemployment Insurance Commission does not prosecute every case where it has been found that a claimant has made a fraudulent claim. For this reason there has been and always will be a discrepancy between the number of cases of fraudulent claims prosecuted and the number of cases of fraudulent claims that might exist or are uncovered. Those uncovered and not prosecuted in the criminal courts are disposed of by administrative sanction permitted by the Unemployment Insurance Act. The estimates in the radio campaign were based on a projection assuming the investigations of all claims.
5.	See reply to Question 4 above.
6.	A defendant, if prosecuted for unemployment insurance fraud, has the same rights to defend his case as any person who is tried in the criminal courts established under the Criminal Code. If a conviction is entered by the Court, the defendant has a right of appeal to the next higher Court within thirty days from the date the conviction or order of the Court was made, or the sentence imposed, as provided in the Criminal Code of Canada.
A claimant purported to have made false statements but not prosecuted, may at any time within thirty days from the day on which the decision of an insurance officer is communicated to him, or within such further time as the Commission may in any particular case for special reasons allow, appeal to the board of referees in the manner prescribed by Regulations of the Commission. In addition, an appeal lies to the Umpire in the manner prescribed by Regulations of the Commission from any decision of a board of referees at the instance of an association of workers of which the claimant is a member, in any case; or at the instance of the claimant, without leave in any case in which the

decision of the board of references is not unanimous, and with the leave of the chairman of the board of referees in any other case.
7.	No.
8.	Not applicable.


QUEBEC-WATER POLLUTION EXPENDITURES
Mr. Beaudoin: 1.	What amount has been spent by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources to fight pollution in waters in the Province of Quebec?
2.	Does the federal constituency of Richmond benefit by these expenditures?
3.	If so, where were such monies spent and how much was spent in each location in the federal constituency of Richmond?
4.	What are the future plans of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources for the federal constituency of Richmond?


Otto Emil Lang: 1. Water
pollution abatement is primarily a provincial responsibility. The federal government is directly involved where pollution affects international waters, fisheries or wildlife; and it also undertakes essential research and coordination of efforts towards water pollution abatement. The Canada Centre for Inland Waters, established by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, will be a focal point for water pollution abatement research; and it represents a major federal government investment largely for this purpose. The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources also operates a water quality sampling station on the St. Lawrence River at Levis, Quebec, at a cost of about $1,000 per year, including analytical work.
2.	The federal constituency of Richmond would not appear to benefit directly from this expenditure.
3.	Not applicable.
4.	None.


PHASING OUT OF ATLANTIC DEVELOPMENT BOARD
Mr. Coates: 1.	Is it the intention of the federal government to phase out the operations of the Atlantic Development Board?
2.	How many vacancies presently exist on this Board and if the government does not intend to phase out the operations, when will a new Chairman and other Board Members be appointed?
3.	How many requests for assistance are presently before the Board on which final decisions by the Board have not as yet been reached?


4.	Of the proposals presently before the Board on which final decisions have not been rendered, what future action will be taken?


Mr. Russell C. Honey (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Forestry and Rural Development):: 1. Legislation on this matter is before Parliament.
2.	Four.
3.	15.
4.	The Board will meet on March 17.
Questions
2.	The joint study is expected to be complete in the autumn of 1969.
3.	Yes. Aircraft pollution is being included as part of overall clean air legislation at present under consideration by the Government. Controls, if introduced, may take the form of emission limits.
4.	Yes. Fuel type restrictions may be used in conjunction with or as an alternative to emission limits.


JET AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS AT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS
Mr. Harding: 1 How many takeoffs and landings of jet aircraft were there at Toronto International Airport, Montreal International Airport and Vancouver International Airport in 1968?
2.	When is the joint study being done on jet airplane pollution by the federal and Ontario departments of health at Toronto International Airport expected to be available?
3.	Is the government considering introducing legislation controlling the amount of pollution an aircraft can legally emit?
4.	Is the government considering legislation on the type of jet fuel that can be used in order to combat jet pollution?


Yves Forest: I am
informed by the departments of Transport and of National Health and Welfare as follows: 1. Toronto International Airport, 65,225; Montreal International Airport, 58,722; Vancouver International Airport, 23,583.


STABILIZATION PAYMENTS TO POTATO PRODUCERS
Mr. Corbin: 1.	During the fiscal year 1967-1968, how many potato producers in (a) Canada (b) New Brunswick (c) Carleton, Victoria and Madawaska Counties, N.B. (d) Prince Edward Island, received payments under the Agricultural Stabilization Act and under what provincial and federal programmes?
2.	What was the amount of money paid in each of the above cases?
3.	How many claims have been rejected and for what amounts?
4.	How many claims have yet to be settled and for what amounts?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: 1.	Not available since the potato assistance programs in the fiscal year 1967-68 on the 1966 potato crop were administered and controlled entirely by the provincial governments. The federal government provided inspection services and reimbursed the provinces for its share of the cost of the programs.
2.	Federal contributions were as follows:
Starch Diversion program Live Stock Feeding program Provincial Disposal program
Canada $ 412,063 $1,003,374 $1,050,714


N.B. $388,627 $114,055 $902,407 P.E.I.
[Stage Direction]
Nil
[Stage Direction]
Nil
3.	Eligibility for payment was established by provincial authorities and no information regarding claims or rejected claims was provided to the federal government.
4.	See answer to No. 3.

Mr. Roberis: 1.	How many applications for the importation of Charolais cattle into Canada were received in 1968?
2.	How many permits for the importation of Charolais cattle into Canada were granted in 1968?
3.	How many applications for group importation of Charolais cattle were received during 1968?
4.	What are the names and addresses of those receiving group import permits for Charolais cattle during 1968 and, in each case, what size group was the permit for?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: 1.	Applications are not dealt with on basis of breed and import permits do not specify the breed of cattle to be imported. 316 applications were received in 1968 to import cattle from France and Switzerland.
2.	127 permits were issued.
3.	242 applications were for permits for more than one animal.
4.	37 of the 127 permits issued were for more than one animal. It is not the practice


Questions
of the Department to divulge the names of livestock owners during the period the animals are being dealt with through quarantine or other controls under the provisions of the Animal Contagious Diseases Act.


PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT IN PENITENTIARIES
Mr. Howard (Skeena): Have any plans been developed and initiated for the purpose of providing sufficient professional personnel to meet the psychiatric treatment requirements of inmates in penitentiaries and, if so, what are the details of such plans?


George James McIlraith: The Canadian Penitentiary Service is authorized to employ 13 psychiatrists and 84 psychiatric nurses on a full-time basis. There are on strength at present, five psychiatrists and 71 psychiatric nurses employed on a fulltime basis. In order to compensate for a shortage of eight full-time psychiatrists, the Penitentiary Service has obtained the services of five psychiatrists on a part-time basis and 15 psychiatrists on a contract basis. Because of the extreme shortage of male psychiatric nurses, the Service has been unable to enlist these specialists in sufficient number to meet its requirements.
The present plan consists of recruiting the services of any well-qualified psychiatrist who is available and prepared to provide professional service in a penal environment. In addition, the Service provides within its institutions, to medical students in psychiatry, summer employment in this specialty in the hope of encouraging such students to specialize in the field.
The Service is also in the process of training six selected custodial officers to become psychiatric nurses.
The long range plan provides for the training of psychiatrists in Forensic Psychiatry in the Regional Medical Centres which are being developed.


DAY CARE PAYMENTS UNDER ASSISTANCE PLAN
Mrs. Maclnnis: 1.	What is the total amount of Canada Assistance Plan payments made to the individual provinces since the inception of the Plan?
2.	What is the total amount of such payments made to each province in respect of claims for financing Day Care Centres throughout the provinces?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1. Payments as follows: total federal share of payments made to provinces under the Canada assistance plan since inception of the plan to January 31, 1969 (Figures to nearest $1,000)
Province
Newfoundland Prince Edward Island Nova Scotia New Brunswick Ontario ^Quebec Manitoba Saskatchewan Alberta
British Columbia
Amount

32.765.000 3,472,000
19.312.000
13.608.000 190,762,000
26.656.000
25.760.000
48.388.000
58.992.000


TOTAL 419,715,000
[Stage Direction]
*Note: Quebec receives its compensation in the form of tax abatements and adjustment payments under the Established Programs (Interim Arrangements) Act.
2.	Ontario and Alberta are the only provinces currently providing direct subsidies for the operation of day care centres. Total payments amounted to: Ontario, $103,766; Alberta, $26,490.
The Province of British Columbia identified payments made to recipients of day care services amounting to $18,315. Other provinces received assistance payments for the purchase of day care services but these are not identified separately in claims.

Mr. Robinson: 1.	What is the basic salary paid an RCMP constable?
2.	What increments are available and on what basis are they paid?
3.	How many years service are required for RCMP to be pensionable?
4.	What is the minimum pension payable and what is the maximum payable at the present time for RCMP constables?


George James McIlraith: 1.	$5,665 per annum.
2.	Six annual increments to a maximum of $8,180 per annum depending upon satisfactory service.
3.	R.C.M. Police Pension Continuation Act: Officers, minimum without penalty reduction, 35 years; Other ranks, minimum (Applies to


only 404 members still under this Act as of February 17, 1969), 20 years. R.C.M. Police Superannuation Act: Minimum without penalty reduction, Officers, 35 years; Other ranks, 25 years.
4.	R.C.M. Police Pension Continuation Act: Minimum, $3,129.97 per annum; Maximum, $5,409.51 per annum. R.C.M. Police Superannuation Act: Minimum, with penalty reduction, 20 years, $1,884.57 per annum; without penalty reduction, 25 years, $3,187.62 per annum; Maximum, 35 years, $4,478.99 per annum.


WYNYARD, SASK., PROPOSED EXPENDITURE
Mr. Burton: 1.	What is the purpose of the proposed expenditure of $280,000 in Wynyard as shown on page 318 of the Estimates for 1969-70?
2.	What departments will make use of the facilities to be provided through this expenditure?
3.	What plans have been prepared for any construction contemplated by this expenditure?
4.	Has property been purchased in Wynyard in connection with this proposed expenditure and, if so, what is the location of the property?
5.	What amount of money has already been spent on this project and for what purpose was the money spent?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Public Works):: 1. To construct a new federal building.
2.	Post Office, Farm Credit Corporation, Agriculture.
3.	Preliminary plans have been completed.
4.	Yes. Directly adjacent to existing federal building.
5.	$10,436. to acquire the property.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS PRESS RELEASES
Mr. Howard (Skeena): 1.	Does the Department of External Affairs issue documents which are of the nature of press releases, press communiques, news releases or the like and, if so, how many such documents have been issued since July 1, 1968?
2.	What has been the cost of (a) printing headings or cover sheets (b) typing the stencils (c) mimeographing or other form of duplicating (d) collating and stapling (e) addressing and mailing the said documents?
3.	With respect to the paper used for the said documents, what is (a) its quality (b) the quantity used and the cost thereof?
4.	What is the estimate of the number of manhours consumed in the preparation, production and distribution of such documents?
Questions


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of Stale for External Affairs):: 1. Yes. 68.
2.	(a) None; (b) None; (c) $860; (d) $290; (e) $1,319.20.
3.	(a) Number 7 Bond; (b) 60,700 sheets; cost approximately $122.
4.	193 hours.


Mr. Diefenbaker: 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?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the answer to this question is yes, I would be glad to bring the suggestion of the right hon. gentleman to the attention of Canadian National Railways. However, the right hon. gentleman might be interested to know that the suggestion embodied in his question was acted upon some time ago, and at the request of the Canadian Transport Commission and Canadian National Railways, the National Research Council developed a rotating, flashing white light for test installation on diesel locomotives. Twelve of these units are installed on locomotives operating over trackage between Montreal, Toronto and Windsor. It is proposed to continue these tests for approximately one year to determine reliability and effectiveness.


Mr. Dumont: 1.	How many bushels of feed grain remained in storage at the end of the 1968 navigation season (a) at Montreal (b) at Trois-Rivieres (c) at Quebec City?
2.	What quantities at each of these locations were used during the winter months prior to the opening of the navigation season?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: 1.	Stocks of feed grains in store as at December 31, 1968 were: (a) Montreal, 8,949,000 bushels; (b) Trois Rivieres, 2,699,000 bushels; (c) Quebec City, 6,009,000 bushels. In addition to the above, 2,210,000 bushels of feed grains were stored in winter storage vessels at the St. Lawrence ports.
2.	During the period November 30, 1968 to April 17, 1969, a total of 17,343,000 bushels of


Questions
feed grains were delivered from the St. Lawrence ports. It is not in the public interest to advise the breakdown of deliveries by individual elevators.


Mr. Yewchuk: Will the Great Slave Lake area, now or in the foreseeable future, qualify as a designated area?


Russell Clayton Honey: Not now. New legislation on the area development program is being prepared.


Mr. Diefenbaker: 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?


Hon. Leo Cadieux (Minister of National Defence):: The answer to parts 1 and 3 is as follows:
Yes, from the time Canada established her own navy and her own army stars have been and are being worn by officers of the sea and land elements of the Canadian forces as rank designation. This was the direct result of adopting British dress.
The answer to part 2 is as follows:
Officers of the rank of rear admiral and above in the sea element and officer cadets to generals in the land element wear stars of various forms. Rear admirals and above wear an eight point star in silver bullion embroidery-three for an admiral, two for a vice admiral and one for a rear admiral below the crown and crossed sword and baton.


Mr. Baldwin:: What does the Postmaster General get?


Mr. Hees:: He has NATO stars.


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: I am trying to answer the questions.


George Harris Hees: We are trying to help you. You were not doing too well.


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: The Star of the Order of the Bath is worn in most instances by officers of the land element as follows:
General: One star below the crown and above the crossed sword and baton.

Major-General: One star above the crossed sword and baton.
Brigadier-General: Three stars below the crown.
Colonel: Two stars below the crown.
Lieutenant-Colonel: One star below the crown.
Captain: Three stars.
Lieutenant: Two stars.
Second-Lieutenant and Officer Cadet: One star.
Depending on regimental affiliation, stars may represent one of the other three senior orders of knighthood-i.e. the Garter, Thistle or St. Patrick. An example would be the Garter Star, which is worn by the British Coldstream, Grenadier and Welsh Guards and their Canadian counterparts, the Governor General's Foot Guards and Canadian Grenadier Guards.


Mr. Diefenbaker:: What other constellations have you?


Mr. Schreyer: 1.	Have any negotiations been entered into between the Department of Public Works and Campeau Construction for space in the building being erected between Queen and Sparks Street in Ottawa?
2.	Have any other government departments or agencies approached the Department of Public Works with a view to obtaining space in the said building?
3.	Is the government committed in any way to take space in this building and, if so, when was first contact made between Campeau Construction and the government and when was the commitment finalized?
4.	If there is an arrangement, how many square feet of space will be occupied, at what rent and which departments will occupy it?


Arthur Laing: 1. No.
2.	No.
3.	No.
4.	Not applicable.


Mrs. Maclnnis: 1.	For what programmes has the government of British Columbia applied under the Canada Assistance Plan since its inception?
2.	What amounts of money have been paid to the British Columbia Government in respect of each of these programmes?


3.	What were the financial claims submitted by the Government of British Columbia in respect of each of these programmes?


John Carr Munro: Federal share of payments made to and claims submitted by the province of British Columbia under the Canada Assistance Plan April 1, 1966 to February 28, 1969 (figures to nearest $1,000)
(1)	(2)	(3)
	Amount	Amount
	Paid	Claimed
Program	(000's)	(000's)Social Allowances	$43,165	$43,209Supplementary Social Allowances	2,985	2,985Child Welfare	8,940	8,940Health Care	6,552	7,183Welfare Services	844	844Total	$62,486	$63,161


Mr. Robinson: What are the procedures and/or rules and/or criteria for the promotion of officers in the Canadian Forces from the rank of Major to Lieutenant-Colonel and from Lieutenant-Colonel to Colonel and Colonel to Brigadier-General?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: The promotion of an officer is governed by the following conditions:	(1)
that there is an appropriate vacancy in the establishment; (2) that he is recommended by the appropriate authority; and (3) that he meets promotion standards as prescribed by the Chief of Defence Staff.
Promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel and Brigadier General is by selection, based on recognition of those officers who are best qualified for service in higher rank. There are many candidates of high calibre competing for comparatively few positions and only those possessing a very high order of effectiveness are promoted. Promotion Boards are held annually to examine every relevant factor in an attempt to evaluate a candidate's fitness for promotion in comparison with all other candidates. Promotion Boards are composed of senior officers whose qualifications and experience provide a complete cross-section of appropriate background and specialist knowledge of the officers being considered. Board members are at least one rank higher than the rank for which selections are being considered, and the Chairman is two ranks higher.
Questions


Mr. Anderson: Is it the intention of the Department of National Defence to continue employing civilian teachers at HMCS Naden for the year 1969-70 and, if any are to be released (a) what are their names and what are their teaching positions (b) what steps have been taken to find these people alternate employment within the Public Service?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: After reviewing the rationale behind the Junior Matriculation Course, which is of two years' duration, the Canadian Forces decided to phase out this program at the end of the 1968-69 academic year with only the first year graduates continuing in 1969-70 to complete the course. As a result five civilian teachers will continue to be employed in the Fleet School, Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, until July 1969; four until July 1970 and one beyond July 1970. (a) Mr. Bernard S. Lake, Mathematics and Physics Instructor is being released in July 1969, (b) Not applicable, as the Department of Education, Province of British Columbia, is their legal employer.


Mr. Anderson: 1.	When will the Dillon Report, concerning retail outlets on Canadian Armed Forces Bases be made public?
2.	Is this report classified at the present time and, if so, for what reasons?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: 1. and 2. The Non-Public Fund Study Team (Dillon) Report was a study carried out by a group of serving officers of the Canadian Forces, with a view to recommending a common system of non-public fund operations in the Canadian Forces subsequent to unification. It is not intended to make this study public as it is considered to be an internal document which was prepared to assist the Minister of National Defence in arriving at a decision concerning nonpublic fund activities.


Mr. MacLean: 1.	What amount was spent by the federal Government, through the Atlantic Development Board, 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 by the federal Government through the Atlantic Development Board in the Province of Prince Edward Island in the fiscal year 1969-70?


Questions


Russell Clayton Honey: 1. 1964-65, $86,770; 1965-66, $1,399,700;	1966-67,	$1,013,099;	1967-68,
$2,437,821; 1968-69, $3,090,000 (estimated).
2. The estimates oi the Department of Regional Economic Expansion include provision for expenditures of approximately $25 millions.


Mr. Dumont: 1.	Who is the President of the Eldorado Nuclear Company Limited?
2.	What are the names of the directors?


Otto Emil Lang: Eldorado Nuclear Limited reports as follows: 1. W. M. Gilchrist.
2. Marcel Belanger, W. J. Bennett, Dr. Roger A. Blais, W. M. Gilchrist, Dr. W. F. James, W. S. Kirkpatrick, Gordon Lawson.


Mr. Diefenbaker: 1.	Has the Lions Track Club of Regina, whose objectives are to assist in the development, improvement and promotion of track and field in the Province of Saskatchewan, had during the past the privilege of using the Regina Armouries for practice sessions four days a week during the winter season?
2.	Was a request received prior to the beginning of the 1968-69 season for a 10' X 10' storage space for track equipment in the armouries?
3.	Was this request granted and, if not, by whom and for what reasons was it refused?
4.	Is there a large storage room in the north end of the building, normally containing chairs and tables, which, if the contents were re-arranged would be suitable for the Track Club purposes without interfering with the operations of the Armouries?
5.	Will the Minister of National Defence give immediate sympathetic consideration to making available the space referred to in Part 4 to the Lions Track Club so that its estimable voluntary public service can be continued in an effective manner?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: The answer to part 1 of the question is as follows: Both the Lions Track Club and the Canadian Legion Track Club were granted permission by the officer in charge of the Regina armoury to use the armoury from Monday to Thursday each week from 5 p.m.

to 6.30 p.m. throughout the period from November 1, 1968 to April 30, 1969, subject to the armoury being free from other priority commitments.
The answer to part 2 is, yes.
The answer to part 3 is as follows: No, this request was refused initially by the officer in charge of the armoury because storage space could not be made available without prejudice to its use by militia units, cadet squadrons or regular force elements located in the armoury. Subsequently, this matter was reconsidered, and the senior staff officer of the Saskatchewan district personally visited the armoury to assess the situation. He confirmed the findings of the officer in charge and recommended that the request be refused. His recommendation was concurred in by prairie region headquarters and by Canadian forces headquarters.
The answer to the fourth part is, no. A storage room 21 feet by 23 feet, disrupted by structural support columns and double entrance doors which open inwards, does exist but it is filled with government stores and its contents cannot be rearranged without interfering with the operation of the armouries.
The answer to the fifth part is that this matter has had sympathetic consideration and it is regretted the decision to refuse storage space must stand.


Mr. Robinson: What is the reason for the cost of providing police and/or security service for embassies and consulates of foreign countries in 1967 and 1968 when there was no cost whatsoever before that date?


Mitchell William Sharp: From 1960 through 1966 the protection of embassies and consulates was accomplished by the normal vigilance of local police forces. Only in 1967 were requests received for a form of protection more intensive than local police forces could provide.


Mr. McGrath: Will the new thermal radar beam, developed by the National Research Council as a possible solution to the hazard of birds on airport runways which is to be tested at Uplands, Ontario this Spring also be tested by the Defence Research Board or other defence agencies as a potential weapon and, if so, has information about it been passed on to the United States authorities?


Léo Alphonse Joseph Cadieux: The answer to this question is, no.


Mr. Nielsen:: You are the star today.


Mr. Fortin: 1.	Has a Prices and Income Board been established and, if so (a) when was it established (b) what are the terms of reference of the Board (c) who are the members of the Board (d) what are their salaries?
2.	If such a Board has not yet been established, is it the government's intention to do so and, if so, on what date?
3.	Does the government intend to refer the matter of price, income and employment stability to a Senate committee and, if so, when?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: 1. The Price and Incomes Commission, proposed in the White Paper on Policies for Price Stability which was tabled in Parliament on December 20, has not yet been established.
2.	As indicated in the House of Commons on February 27, in answer to a question by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis), it is hoped that the Commission can be established this month.
3.	The White Paper proposed a Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons to receive the reports of the Commission and review them. The Government intends to move for the creation of the Parliamentary Committee once the Commission has been established and has begun its work.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. Coates: 1.	How many studies have been carried out by the federal government into economic conditions in the Maritime Provinces since Confederation?
2.	How many studies have been carried out by the federal government in co-operation with one or all of the Maritime Provinces into economic conditions since Confederation?
3.	In reply to parts 1 and 2, what were the names, dates and objectives of each of the studies?
Return tabled.


NUMBER OF BILINGUAL PENITENTIARY GUARDS
Mr. Caoueiie: 1. What was the number of guards employed by the Department of Justice in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966,
Motions for Papers
1967 and 1968 in each of the penitentiaries in Canada?
2. Of this number and for each of the penitentiaries in Canada, how many (a) whose mother tongue is English (i) speak French (ii) speak English (iii) are bilingual (b) whose mother tongue is French (i) speak English (ii) speak French (iii) are bilingual?
Return tabled.


NUMBER OF TRADESMEN LEAVING ARMED FORCES
Mr. Harkness: How many tradesmen, by trade groups, have left the Armed Forces in each of the months from August, 1968 to January, 1969 inclusive?
Return tabled.



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS

Yves Forest: Mr. Speaker, notices of motions Nos. 55, 56 and 89 for production of papers are acceptable to the government.



LEASE WITH CAMPEAU CONSTRUCTION, OTTAWA

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 55-Mr. Coates:
That an Order of the House do issue for a copy of the lease entered into by the federal government for the Department of Trade and Commerce with Campeau Construction Company, 2932 Base Line Road, Ottawa, on September 12, 1967.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 56-Mr. Coates:
That an Order of the House do issue for a copy of the lease entered into by the federal government with Two Seven Five Realty Limited, 141 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, for the rental of approximately 187,264 sq. ft. of space located in the Congill Building, 275 Slater Street, Ottawa.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 89-Mr. Burton:
That an Order of the House do issue for a copy of any collective bargaining agreement now in force between Polymer Corporation and any of its employees.
Motion agreed to.
[Stage Direction]

Inquiries of the Ministry [Translation]
Yves Forest: Mr. Speaker, would you kindly call notice of motion Noj 69?
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining notices of motions be allowed to stand.



EXCHANGE OF TELEGRAMS BETWEEN PRIME MINISTER AND PREMIERS

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 69-Mr. Coates:
That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House a copy of the telegrams received by the Prime Minister from the Premiers of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, on February 3, 1969, and a copy of the replies forwarded to the Premiers by the Prime Minister.
Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (President of the Privy Council):: I am informed that the documents requested in this notice of motion were tabled by the Prime Minister on February 7 as recorded at page 5263 of Hansard. Perhaps in the circumstances it might be agreed that the motion be withdrawn.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is not in his seat at the moment. Is it agreed that the motion be withdrawn?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of fhe Opposition):: I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister in the absence of the Postmaster General, who I do not expect to be in the house today. In view of the fact that a strike vote is taking place among members of the Letter Carriers Union in Montreal today, with the possibility of paralysis of the mail service spreading tomorrow, may I ask the Prime Minister whether the government is taking any special measures, or placing itself in a position to explain what new initiatives might be considered, or are being considered, with a view to heading off a situation which may very well result in serious difficulty for the people of the area concerned?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: I can only repeat what the Postmaster General said in the house yesterday, that both parties, that is, the Post Office and the union,
[Mr. Burton.l
have agreed to refer all outstanding issues to arbitration and that both sides have facilitated the waiver of delay, so that these questions can go to adjudication as soon as possible. The Public Service Staff Relations Board will appoint an adjudicator as soon as possible, and this is the only fair and legal way we see of solving these difficulties.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I apologize, Mr. Speaker, if my question is not exactly au fait; I was not able to be in the house for very long yesterday. Is it correct that all grievances are being referred to arbitration by agreement, or is it simply the issue of paid travelling time for washing up? There are other grievances which are potentially explosive, such as the difficulty of walk evaluation and the maximum number of hours over which the working day is spread. Is the Prime Minister assuring me that all these matters are now being referred to arbitration by agreement between the Postmaster General and the unions concerned?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The agreement was to refer the outstanding issues, including of course the special one about the lunch arrangements. But the term "outstanding issues" is not restricted, and it would, I suppose include all the issues which are raised by either side.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Can the Prime Minister assure the house that agreement has been reached with regard to referring all these issues, so that all the difficulties can be dealt with, and the people of Canada assured that everything is being done by agreement to avoid a stoppage in this essential service?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: In the collective agreement there is contained a grievance procedure. We cannot, obviously, make grievances on behalf of the unions. But they have raised certain grievances and these are the issues to which the Postmaster General has referred as being outstanding issues. We are in this sense the passive party; we are the object of grievances, and we shall see what is referred by the unions. But of course I cannot make any guarantee on their behalf.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: In
view of the fact that one of the major points of contention is the issue of the straight-through walks, and in view of the fact that the Postmaster General is taking the position that management has a right to implement this new arrangement, will the Prime Minister urge the Postmaster General to permit the submission of this question to arbitration,


since it is one of the major causes of contention?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This is the particular aspect of the lunch break, and transportation between the walk and the post office. The new system is a system of single mail processing. Under this new system provision has been made for transportation, and provision made for lunch.
Again I repeat that we are in the hands of the unions as to what they want to make grievances about, but it is my understanding that the employees are all back at work today and there is no longer any cessation of work. Therefore these questions may be purely academic.


David Orlikow: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that Mr. Justice Montpetit at the time of the 1966 work stoppage recommended that the straight-through walk be eliminated, would the Prime Minister urge the Postmaster General to suspend the straight-through walk pending this arbitration?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the opposition are urging that we reopen the collective agreement. If they are, then I <do not see that we could agree with them. There has been a collective agreement arrived at. We are sticking to it and abiding by it as we see it.. That is the question and that is why we have agreed to appoint an [DOT]adjudicator. Surely the hon. member is not urging me to ask the Postmaster General to reopen the agreement on some point that was covered by Mr. Justice Montpetit.


David Orlikow: A further supplementary
[DOT]question. I am asking the Prime Minister to urge the Postmaster General to live up to the [DOT]collective agreement, which did not provide for walk throughs, and to follow the procedures recommended by Judge Montpetit.


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question which I will address to the Minister of Labour. Does the minister consider these tie-ups as wildcat strikes?


Hon. Bryce S. Mackasey (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons the public service act was so designed was to make it unnecessary for the Minister of Labour to pass judgment on disputes between [DOT]employees of the government and the government itself. In this way it ensured his neutrality as far as employer and employees
Inquiries of the Ministry were concerned, and I should like to respect that particular philosophy.


Donald MacInnis: A further supplementary question. I would then ask the Minister of Labour-and certainly this falls within the category where I can receive a straight answer-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Put your question.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, between the interjections to my right and the panic that seems to be striking the Prime Minister, it is very difficult to get anything across.


An hon. Member:: Get on with it.


Donald MacInnis: I will have to take to quoting the Prime Minister when he spoke the other day, if these bums and idiots-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Donald MacInnis: On a question of privilege-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member can state his question of privilege after I have reminded him that he should ask his question. There is no point in waiting unduly. I assure him that I can hear his question and I would urge him to ask it as soon as possible.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Donald MacInnis: "As soon as possible" means when I get the proper attention and do not have all these interjections from this group on my right. I might say here and now to the Prime Minister and others that I can include them in the bums because-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


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


Donald MacInnis: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must bring to the attention of the hon. member that supplementary questions are the entire and exclusive responsibility of the Chair. Previous to the hon. member's rising I had recognized the hon. member for Yukon.


Erik Nielsen: May I direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. As the postal workers are back at work, has the inquiry into the legality


Inquiries of the Ministry of the strike been abandoned? Have the government and the Postmaster General abandoned the intention to prosecute any of the workers?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, on the first question, to my knowledge the matter has not been abandoned. On the second question, the Postmaster General said this was an option open to him, and if the strike is declared illegal this course will be left open to him. That does not mean he will exercise his option; but the provisions of the law remain open to him.


George Harris Hees: A supplementary question, Mr Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I remind hon. members that we should allow as many hon. members as possible to participate in the question period and we should not, as has been happening during this last week, spend too much time of our 40 minute period on one or two subjects. Dissatisfaction with this has been expressed by hon. members of all parties, who are anxious to ask questions they consider important. I think we might proceed to another subject. I will not forget that the hon. member wished to ask a supplementary question. Perhaps we shall have time later in which he may ask it.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister about the dispute going on between the C.B.C. and the Association of Radio and Television Employees of Canada. As the report of the conciliation board stated that C.B.C. representatives were adamant in insisting they could not break the so called guidelines for public service employees, may I ask if guidelines have been established for public service employees. If so, will the Prime Minister be prepared to table the directives and correspondence sent to Crown agencies like the C.B.C.?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, there are no such guidelines compelling any public body to follow certain specific economic figures or percentages. Last summer we indicated that there was a danger of adding to inflationary pressure by excessive increases in any field, but except in that very general sense there are no guidelines.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. If the Prime Minister is now saying there are no salary or wage guidelines with respect to any percentage increase which may be granted to public service employees, are we to take it that the representatives of the C.B.C. who appeared before the conciliation board were not making statements in accordance with the facts, and were hiding behind some assumed guidelines which do not really exist?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not know exactly what the representatives said. We, of course, cannot dictate to the Crown corporation what its terms of settlement are to be. But when the Crown corporation comes to the government for money, it will be met with certain demands and certain exigencies on the part of the government to prevent inflationary increases. Perhaps in this sense the Crown corporations are guiding themselves on what they think is plausible and acceptable. But there is no specific recommendation here on our part.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, may I ask another supplementary question. With regard to the percentage of increases in the total wage bill this Crown corporation may have at its disposal, have no salary guidelines been set by the government, or Treasury Board on behalf of the government?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Mr. Speaker, there have been no specific guidelines as to specific salary increases. Of course the over-all budget of the Crown corporation is determined in government estimates; and in this sense I suppose there are very general guidelines. But there is no specific guideline attached to salary increases.



EXHIBITIONS


Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance.
Can the minister tell us whether the negotiations with the Quebec government on the financing of "Man and His World" are now over and, if so, what are the most recent concrete proposals of the federal government in the matter?


Hon. E. J. Benson (Minister of Finance):: There have been discussions and they are continuing, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the winding up of Expo and the postponement of debt which was requested by the government of the province of Quebec. These are continuing and I hope they will be settled in the near future. It is not a matter of principle. It is a matter of detail that is involved and the detail has to be worked out. We are anxious to have the Expo Corporation wound up, and the added security for the government of Canada for the debt which is receivable from the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member for Sainte-Marie wish to ask a supplementary question?


Mr. Georges Valade (Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order concerning the press release issued by the Minister of Transport and entitled: "New policy considered for landing rights in Toronto".
I would like to ask the Minister of Transport whether the government has now taken up the practice of announcing its new policies through the press rather than making a statement in the house, which would enable hon. members to discuss the matter and to ask the minister for details?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I do not think this is a justifiable point of order, Mr. Speaker. The information which was released is really not new, in the sense that it has been talked about for weeks or months and has been a matter of controversy in the city of Toronto even longer than that.
A number of airlines have indicated they would like to have landing rights in Toronto as well as in Montreal. They asked in effect if the government of Canada would be willing to open negotiations with other countries to that end. The government of Canada has decided that we would be glad to negotiate with them, talk to them and if they have anything to offer Canada which is of equal value to landing rights in Toronto, then the bilaterals could be changed accordingly.
Inquiries of the Ministry
I think this is a routine matter, Mr. Speaker, and I am glad my hon. friend shows interest in it. I think it is recognized that Toronto, too, is an important city and there should be more than ample air traffic in the years ahead to provide all the business that both Montreal and Toronto can cope with.


Georges-J. Valade: I would like to ask a supplementary question. I ask the minister if landing permits are actually being considered for foreign airlines using the airport at Toronto?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: As the release indicated, Mr. Speaker, all that can happen now is for negotiations to take place between any country interested in landing rights and the government of Canada to see whether there is a quid pro quo which would be of equivalent value. This does not guarantee that anyone will have that kind of value to offer, and it is a policy of entering negotiations. I hope there will be some fruitful conclusions. I am optimistic there will be, but certainly nothing is guaranteed until negotiations have taken place.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, arising from the press release put out by the minister's department yesterday concerning extended rights for the Toronto airport as an international gateway. May I ask the minister whether the government will pursue with greater vigour its efforts to get Winnipeg to the initial stage of being recognized as an international gateway?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: We are exercising greater vigour in this direction. In particular, the Minister without Portfolio who is from Winnipeg, has shown a keen interest, as have other western members.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Can
the Minister without Portfolio indicate what progress he is making?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Georges-J. Valade: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister.
From now on, does he intend to allow ministers to make statements about their administrative decisions to the press rather than in the House? Is it a new policy or must we expect that statements of his-
6522	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry



HEALTH AND WELFARE


Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: I should like to address a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Is the minister prepared to make a statement to the house on the outcome of his meeting last week with the Minister of Health of the province of Ontario? If he is not prepared today, would he make it on motions tomorrow?


John Carr Munro: I do not think a formal statement is required, Mr. Speaker. The meeting with the Minister of Health for Ontario dealt with certain administrative problems that Ontario would experience if indeed they did decide to enter the medicare plan. It was agreed that officials at the federal level would meet with officials at the provincial level to see what could be done about these problems.


George Harris Hees: Was the question of operating medical schools during the summer semester discussed at the meeting?


John Carr Munro: I noticed, Mr. Speaker, that the health minister for Ontario made this suggestion. I asked him what progress was being made, and he indicated it was still under consideration.



TRANSPORT


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: My question is for the Minister of Defence Production in his capacity as minister designate for the department of supply and service. Has the government withdrawn its recently introduced policy of rotating government moving and storage business among those van lines which offer competitive rates and service?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Defence Production):: No, Mr. Speaker, it is not.


John Stratford Burton: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister taking action on complaints received from Regina trucking firms protesting preferred treatment given to one van line?


Mr. Speaker:: The supplementary can be placed on the order paper.
[Mr. Valade.l
DEBATES	March 12. 1969



FISHERIES


John George Diefenbaker: My question, Mr. Speaker, is directed to the Minister of Fisheries. In view of the international approval of the humanitarian attitude already displayed by the Minister of Fisheries in connection with baby sealing, would he give consideration to continuing the interim closure of the seal killing season this year, and terminate it so that it will not be re-opened until a full and complete investigation has been made into the alleged cruelties which are being perpetrated? The kill is detrimental to Canada's international image.


Hon. Jack Davis (Minister of Fisheries):: There are a number of reasons why the closure might be continued, Mr. Speaker, but I cannot assure the right hon. member at this time that it will be continued beyond Friday.



SEALS-REPORT ALLEGING FRAUDULENT FILM PRESENTATION OF KILLING METHODS

Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Could the minister indicate whether the fraudulent film made by Artek Films Limited of Montreal in March of 1964 is still being circulated and shown in recent weeks in Europe and in the United States?


John (Jack) Davis: have heard claims to this effect, Mr. Speaker, but I have not personally verified that they are true.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Would the minister check on this matter, since it is detrimental to Canada's image in the United States and overseas? It would be helpful if the showing of this film were stopped.


John (Jack) Davis: I agree.


Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: further supplementary question to the minister regarding the document to which I referred yesterday. Would the minister now agree, in the interest of Canada's reputation, which has been badly maligned because of this fraudulent film, to tabling the document to which I referred yesterday, a copy of which he has already read?


John (Jack) Davis: The hon. member for St. John's East sent over a paper which he said was a copy of a memorandum originating in one of our government departments, and which dealt with seals and the hunt in 1964. The document in question was addressed to a
March 12, 1969	COMMONS DEBATES	6523
Inquiries of the Ministry
cabinet minister, but not by name. There was Mr. Benson: On a question of privilege- no reference to a department and it was
unsigned. In form it is similar to part of a .^r" Speaker: Order. I am sure if the memorandum on file in the Department of m^n^er ^as usec* that word he will be the Fisheries.	first one to withdraw it.
Since the original document on file was prepared by an official of the Department of Fisheries for the information of the minister, it is by nature a confidential document and privileged. It would not therefore be proper for me to seek leave to table a memorandum of this kind, as sought by the hon. member for St. John's East.
I may add that my predecessor, Mr. Robi-chaud, made several statements on matters relating to the seal hunt and the film in question. For further information hon. members might wish to refer to page 2702 of Hansard for March 15, 1966, and page 10921 of Hansard for December 9, 1966.


James Aloysius McGrath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, since the document has already been referred to by myself in the house and by the minister, and because of the importance of the subject, and because it affects Canada's reputation abroad, and because it affects a very important industry in Atlantic Canada, would the house agree to give me unanimous consent to table the document?


Edgar John Benson: Did you steal it?


Mr. Speaker:: There obviously would not be unanimous consent, since the minister said he was opposed to tabling it.


James Aloysius McGrath: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Finance has made an interjection to the effect, did I steal the document, and I would ask him to withdraw that statement.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I would be
pleased to withdraw it, and I would simply ask the hon. member where he got it.


Donald MacInnis: On the same question of privilege, Mr. Speaker: There is no question of doubt-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald MacInnis: I am prepared to stake my seat on this, that the Minister of Finance said, "Did you steal the document"-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Donald MacInnis: -and he has been asked to withdraw that statement.


Edgar John Benson: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I did withdraw that statement, and I simply ask the hon. member where he got the confidential document?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This is the question period during which members ask questions of ministers and not ministers of members. I suggest we go on to another question. The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway.



SEALS-ALTERNATIVE EMPLOYMENT FOR HUNTERS

Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kingsway):: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the minister's remarks the other day in regard to the seal hunt, may I inquire if he has given consideration to alternative sources of employment and income for the seal hunters?


John (Jack) Davis: The answer is definitely yes, Mr. Speaker.


James Aloysius McGrath: As
a further supplementary question, would that answer indicate that the minister has already taken a decision to abolish this industry, which is so important in supplementing the very meagre incomes of the Newfoundland and Magdalene Islands fishermen?


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, this is a matter which concerns a number of ministers as well as a large number of people in the fishing industry in the Atlantic provinces, so this is a decision which must be taken by the government and not by a single minister.


James Aloysius McGrath: I direct a further supplementary question to the Minister of Justice. Has he given any consideration to abolishing the slaughter of cattle in Canada, including beef animals?



WATER RESOURCES


Mr. J. Edward Broadbeni (Oshawa-Whilby):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries. Is the minister aware that the Steel Company of Canada dumped 150,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid into the waters of Lake Ontario over the
6524


Inquiries of the Ministry week end of February 14 and, if so, what has he done about the matter, or what does he intend to do about it?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest that this is a question which could well be debated at the time of adjournment.



DEFENCE PRODUCTION


Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Defence Production. It concerns the proposed sale of the 26 Sabre Jet planes known as F-86's. Have they been declared surplus, and does his department intend to sell the frames and the engines separately?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, subsequent to our previous exchange on this I have issued instructions to C.A.D.C. that these be withdrawn from sale until we have a policy decision on the matter. This is now under review, and because there is no policy at the moment they are being withdrawn from sale.



ROYAL COMMISSION TO INQUIRE INTO DECLINING MARKET

Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is not in his seat I will direct this question to the Prime Minister. In view of the statement by Mr. Dickie, a member of the legislature of Alberta, that the government is considering setting up a royal commission to look into the deterioration of our oil markets in western Canada, may I ask whether the government has made such a decision in that regard?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No,


Mr.   Speaker.Mr. Woolliams@: In view of the fact that the federal government is in partnership with certain corporations in the development of oil and petroleum resources in the northern islands, may I ask whether the Prime Minister would discuss with either the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce or the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources the possibility that western oil markets are suffering because of that conflict of interest?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I will be glad to ask the ministers to consider this aspect of it, Mr. Speaker.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Henry Lalulippe (Compton):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport.
Could he tell the house whether the matter of a new airport in Quebec involves economic, aeronautical or merely political considerations which prevent the government from taking the final decision?


Mr. Speaker:: I believe the question as asked is much too general. The hon. member could put it on the order paper.



LABOUR RELATIONS


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I have a question I would like to address to the Prime Minister. Can he advise the house of the reason for the government's abrupt switch from its original policy of dealing directly with a union engaged in a wildcat strike and awarding the members of that union a 30 per cent wage increase, as was the case in the Montreal dock strike, to its current threat to prosecute its own employees in the Post Office?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's question is argumentative, and in those terms it is not in order.


George Harris Hees: May I rephrase it differently?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member can do that very easily.


George Harris Hees: Could the Prime Minister advise the house why there has been this abrupt change in the government's position in dealing with labour unions, as outlined in my former question?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: I would think the second effort is not much more meritorious than the first.



PENITENTIARIES


Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Solicitor General. In view of the fact that the Ontario government is introducing a new system of


graded incentive allowances for inmates of Ontario reformatories, is it the intention of the government to introduce a similar program for inmates of federal penitentiaries?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is asking for a statement of policy. I would think the question should be put on the order paper or the hon. member should invite the minister to make a statement on motions.


John Gilbert: As a supplementary question-


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member might ask a different question.


John Gilbert: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Solicitor General whether the government has considered the introduction of legislation to introduce or upgrade incentive allowances for inmates in federal penitentiaries?


George James McIlraith: Mr. Speaker, some consideration has been given to this. No decision has been taken by the government with respect to it.



BARLEY-ACTION TO DISPOSE OF SURPLUS

Mr. George Muir (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I have an urgent question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, but because of his absence for the last couple of days I would direct it to the Prime Minister. In light of the decline in barley sales of some 11 million bushels so far this year as compared with the same period last year, is the government giving consideration to sending a trade delegation to visit our traditional barley markets with a view to accelerating the disposal of some 200 million bushels in storage in Canada?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am advised by the minister that, after his talks yesterday, he intends to make a statement in the house tomorrow on the subject of grains.



TELEVISION INTERVIEWS IN AREA ADJACENT TO CHAMBER

Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister concerning a subject which I think the house can no longer ignore, namely the extension immediately outside the precincts of the house of its proceedings, through the use of electronic media. Would the Prime Minister and his colleagues consider this 29180-4131

Inquiries of the Ministry issue, and possibly through the house leader indicate some way by which the house could itself debate the matter and possibly come to a decision on it?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure how much it is under the authority of the government or of Mr. Speaker, but I will look into the matter. I do not believe it is so much a question of reaching a decision-because the decision is that we have no television in the house-as it is whether we should change the present situation, and that is something we will consider in due course.



FINANCE


Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Has his attention been drawn to a statement made by an executive of the Bank of Nova Scotia to the effect that the financial institutions have deliberately attracted savings to themselves to keep the government from having access to Canadian savings? If so, does the minister intend to make an investigation into these attempts to control the Canadian capital market?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, this is a very general question and I would prefer to look at the particular article in question before commenting on it. I should say that the government of Canada has not had any general difficulty in borrowing funds. This has not been a great problem. The problem has related to the interest that all borrowers in this country and in the world must pay.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the government is going to have to go to the market in respect of a bond issue, will the minister look into the situation, in case this attempt goes against the government bond issue?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



INQUIRY OF THE MINISTRY

Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
In view of the statement he made recently in Toronto, to the effect that the government is facing great difficulties in keeping the public well informed about its activities, would


Inquiries of the Ministry he have any proposals to introduce in this house with a view to improving the situation and giving the population a better chance to participate in the formulation of such legislation?


Mr. Speaker:: I must advise the hon. member that this is not the right time to make such a statement, and that he might put his question on the order paper.



INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Waller Deakon (High Park) Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour. Is the government considering the provision of protection for workers against outright arbitrary decisions by companies, whereby a few dollars savings in costs is sufficient justification for transferring company locations, thereby wrecking the lives of workers who have rendered long and faithful service?
Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. In a way the hon. member's question is very academic. I should think it might be debated at the time of adjournment.


George Harris Hees: I have a supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will also have to ask his question at the time of adjournment.



CANADIAN CULTURE


Mr. Sian Schumacher (Palliser):: Mr. Speaker, in a recent speech at Lethbridge, Alberta, the Secretary of State professed to have discovered in Canada various cultural wastelands. Will the minister now publicly pinpoint these areas of cultural backwardness and thus remove the stigma that rests unjustly on Canadians in all parts of the country as a result of the vagueness of his remarks?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member knows he cannot ask a question in this form, when it has reference to a speech made outside this house by a minister.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskaloon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of

Agriculture I should like to direct my question to the right hon. Prime Minister. In view of the statement by the Director General of the economic branch of the federal Department of Agriculture in Edmonton on March 11, that half the farmers in Canada will probably be out of business in ten years, I should like to know whether any studies have been undertaken by the government which support this statement and, if so, are there any programs contemplated to deal with this situation?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question is not in order. The rules do not allow an hon. member to ask a question related to a statement by an official outside the Plouse of Commons.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, my question has to do with the critical unemployment situation, and recent reports to the government by the Canadian Federation of Mayors and Municipalities. Has the government any alternatives to recommend in respect of the unilateral cancellation of winter works projects in order to assist municipalities in the area of water utility pollution control and housing projects?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is asking a general question which can only be answered by a statement on motions.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the Canadian National Railways last night announced it was going to continue the operation of the Bullet at the present time, and will he now accept our invitation to experience the thrill of a ride across Newfoundland in the Bullet? This is a ride of a lifetime, Mr. Speaker.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I am not aware of any such announcement, Mr. Speaker, I still want to make an early visit with my hon. friend in order to be sure of a reservation.



LABOUR RELATIONS


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Defence Production if he is now in a position to say anything further by way of an answer to my question of last Friday concerning lay-off notices given to 150 employees of Canadian Aviation Electronics at Winnipeg?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, two meetings have been held in respect of this problem, one with representatives of the province of Manitoba and the other with representatives of the company concerned. As a result of representations this matter is now being considered by the officials of my department and myself. I hope to be in a position to give a more complete answer by the end of this week.



RESEARCH


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the President of the Treasury Board. Has the government considered or is it considering a Canadian contribution to the National Accelerator Laboratory which is a United States research project, as suggested by the Canadian Association of Physicists, which in turn is financed by the National Research Council?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This question should be placed on the order paper.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Minister of Transport.
Could the minister tell the house whether a meeting with the representatives of the province of Quebec is to be held soon with respect to the international airport and when he will announce what site has been chosen for the new airport?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, I am still full of hope. The government is urgently attending to this matter and I expect to have further communication with the government of Quebec within a very few days. I hope an answer can be given very shortly thereafter.

Government Organization



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, March 11, consideration in 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 Depuiy Chairman: When the committee rose on Tuesday, March 11 clause 13 of the bill was under consideration.
On clause 13-Department established [Translation]
Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to take part in the debate on Bill C-173 which provides for the merger of two departments.
But first of all, I should like to express to the minister my feeling of admiration. I shall point out to him all that is worthwhile, from our point of view, in clause 13.
I shall tell him shortly that there are a lot of good things in his new department, but all is not well, nor in the best interest of the nation. There are some points to be considered and to be stressed in the field of industry, for instance.
I think that in his remarks the minister has dealt mostly with production, productivity in the industry and exports.
I should like to point out to him right now that there is no production problem, but there are many problems in respect of purchases, because price figures do not correspond to money figures. For a viable economy, there must be corresponding money figures and price figures, but the minister has failed to mention that in his statement. He said that all kinds of means should be found to increase productivity. Production is equivalent to consumption, but in order to ensure consumption he suggests to resort to exportation.
It is all very well to say that we can produce and export. However, Mr. Chairman, it is rather difficult to export when the cost of production is too high, when that cost is being increased by taxes and the extravagant interest rate the government is imposing. The minister did not say a single word in this


Government Organization respect and he did not open any new horizons in spite of the fact that a great many should be open in the held of industry which is after agriculture the very basis of the Canadian economy. If we manage to make a profitable industry out of agriculture we will find there the consumers we need. If we manage to finance consumption as well as production, we will find there a domestic market which would allow a great many of our industries to live. As I said earlier, if the minister were willing to deal with the taxes and the interest rates, we would have a prosperous industry.
At this stage, I would like to support the cause of the small industries. There are three kinds of industries in Canada: big, medium and small industries. The latter have the right to survive, just like the big ones, but I would like to point out to the minister that they do not have the same advantages as the big ones.
Actually big industries benefit from the advantage they get from their capital stock, which they do not have to pay back. They operate with millions and can get the capital necessary for their operations from the stock market or from various institutions which buy part of the capital stock of large companies.
But small industries are unable to venture into the stock market because conditions are too stiff and too precarious. Thus it is impossible for them to get capital from it. Small industries try to get capital through other means. They get incorporated as companies that float bonds on the market or attempt to sell stock to friends. They try to sell part of their capital stock but people are not willing to buy it.
One wants to see the small industries expand but no one will buy their stock because everyone is afraid to lose money. Moreover, since the government grabs all the unused capital including that of Crown corporations or government agencies, the thrifty buy bonds issued by different governments, municipalities or school boards, and there is no money left for the small industries. Thus, the small industries have a problem with regard to capital, because taxes are too high and two numerous.
Even if it is making profits, the small enterprise cannot survive because it does not have enough capital to get organized in such a way as to become a paying concern. Therefore, it must borrow money from the government, from the Industrial Development Bank whose present rate of interest is 10 per cent and perhaps more. Because of this high rate,
[Mr. Latulippe.l
the small enterprise has to make money in order to pay back some capital each year. It must also pay interest on capital and taxes on the capital paid back and the depreciation funds. It is therefore in an unbalanced position. As a matter of fact, the small enterprise cannot develop at the same rate as the economy and in accordance with present-day scientific standards, because it cannot correct all such deficiencies.
Also, all levels of government levy taxes. In the area of transportation, for example, the small enterprise, which is located far from the larger centres, is in need of transport and has to pay very high taxes on gas, on truck parts, on just about everything. It incurs a lot of expenses of which the large enterprise is free. As the small enterprise must pay taxes, reimburse capital and pay exceedingly high interest rates, would the minister tell us how he intends to help the small industry? By what means does his department propose to promote the growth of underdeveloped areas?
Small industries are to be found mostly in underdeveloped areas. Then, if we want to assist those areas, we must obviously help the small and medium-sized industries because the big ones, that run on millions and millions of dollars, are not established in those areas.
[DOT] (3:10 p.m.)
In case we want to reorganize or balance our economy again, so that the deprived areas may become normal ones, where production might be possible and more jobs available to the labour force, the minister will certainly have to suggest solutions other than the one contained in this bill.
In his bill the minister speaks about promoting tourism and creating external markets. Now, to create domestic industries able to compete on external markets, we must see to it not only that they pay taxes but also that they are in a position to expand to a greater extent.
Mr. Chairman, one of the main points in the minister's bill is industrial expansion, to help underdeveloped areas. In my opinion, the minister insisted mainly upon regional disparities as regards the areas he wishes to promote, and I believe that we cannot promote such areas by creating more jobs, because if we want to increase productivity, by all means we will have to draw on modern scientific and technical progress. Now, if we apply the new technical and scientific methods, instead of increasing the number of employees, we will have to reduce it, for
March 12. 1969	COMMONS
industry cannot pay the workers wages high enough to ensure the consumption of its products.
The external market cannot by itself absorb the whole Canadian production, since while selling abroad, our country in turn has to import, and this hardly puts out of balance our national production.
The purpose of developing industry is to make more jobs available. This is at least what I understood from the minister's speech. However, we cannot certainly do so through industry, because, when a new industry employing fifty or so people is established, two or three others might have to close down, thus laying off hundreds of workers.
If, for instance, an average industry manufactures $20,000 worth of raw materials every week and if its payroll comes up to $1,500, I ask the minister whether the $1,500 paid in wages can possibly buy $20,000 worth of products. I think there lies the crux of the problem and the minister did not give this matter any consideration. He did not indicate any solution to that serious problem of modernization.
We are in favour of it, but people have a right to live. And because high salaries are paid and techniques are kept up to date, no industry can spend enough on salaries to provide jobs for all workers so they may be able to earn a decent living.
Even if we find new openings abroad, there will always be some unemployment in Canada, which is due precisely to science, progress and technology.
The minister and his department should intervene in that field and undertake concrete studies in order to find solutions to the problem. The minister will say that his job is to look after industry, manpower, the unemployed and that all the rest concerns other people. Yet it is his business as well as other people's. In fact, it concerns us all since we are here to govern humanely and to serve individuals. Canadians have fundamental rights on production, conservation and consumption.
Mr. Chairman, unless we take this problem in hand, we will never be able to operate industry and distribute all the money families need to live properly in a country like Canada where science is so advanced that industries hardly hire workers now.
In view of our economic conditions, industries must absolutely become automated, they must use more advanced methods because manpower, besides being costly, has all kinds
DEBATES	6529
Government Organization of requirements that the machine does not have. In order to survive, industry must at all costs have recourse to scientific means and lay off people who on account of new technology will have no place there.
I think that the minister should take note of these suggestions and use his powerful brain in order to find solutions to the various economic, industrial and technical problems which we have to face.
After all, we must enable our citizens to live. Exports will not solve the Canadian problem, because it will enable other countries to become industrialized and as soon as they are, we will no longer have markets abroad. As soon as peace will be restored in the world, when, for example, the Americans will no longer be at war, our markets in the United States will practically be eliminated. We have a steady market there, because Americans are at war and thousands of men are destructive to enable others to build.
I will point out to the minister that we have no production problem and we were aware of that fact during the last World War. We allowed our machinery to become rusty and our labour force to be deprived of everything during 20 years and then suddenly, the problem is settled, because we have found some destructors and consumers.
The minister should realize there is an enormous surplus in all industrial sectors. In fact, some Canadian industries operate only five, six or seven months a year. They must close the rest of the year because they are unable to sell their products, or their warehouses are full. Those products are financed at 9 and 10 per cent interest rates. It is impossible to lower their price in order to sell them. Indeed, to sell the stored goods, prices must be increased. The unemployed and those who do not have sufficient revenue to buy those products have no purchasing power because of the general increase in the cost of living that our wonderful economic system has brought about.
The fault is not with the production. Let us do as we did during the war; let us arrange for consumption and production will look after itself. Industry will get organized; it will have no use for the great government experts and for all its agencies. Industry used to thrive and it still can. But when industry faces an economic problem like overproduction, new departments are established, two are combined in an effort to solve the problem. Some people say: Industrialists do not know what to produce. They have inadequate
6530	COMMONS DEBATES	March 12. 1969
Government Organization technical knowledge and they do not have the financial means. They will be granted loans at 10 per cent, which will increase the cost of production even more. Something should be done to enable them to sell their production on the domestic market, but nothing is done.
The hon. minister, through his department, should intervene to settle the problem.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member in the midst of his interesting remarks, but his time has expired. Unless he gets the unanimous consent of the committee, he will not be able to go on with his remarks.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Albert Béchard: I see that unanimous consent has been withheld.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Chairman, I want to make two very serious criticisms of the government's research and development programs. The first is that they are contributing to the establishment in Canada of a permanent industry based on warfare or defence, something entirely new in Canadian history as a permanent establishment. Second, I want to suggest that the government's research and development programs for the civilian sector constitute an unco-ordinated mess and have not produced any significant results.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)
I first made the charge that the government was promoting a military-industrial elite in this country, inadvertently, perhaps, by means of its research and development programs, in my speech on the estimates of the Department of Industry on December 2. At that time I charged the government with being responsible for this development through the use of its research and development financial assistance programs. These programs, I asserted, provided greater financial assistance to military research than they did to research in the non-military sector. The minister replied that my contention was unfounded. He asserted that the benefits available to research and development for non-military purposes were equal to those available for military purposes. On December 4, I rose on a question of privilege, contending that the minister had misled the house. The minister had argued that a combination

of assistance under the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Act and PAIT, the program for the advance of industrial technology, would give an industrialist as much as he would get in connection with a defence project.
What the minister failed to tell us was that a defence industry might also receive funds from the IRDIA program. This fact is of decisive importance in the dispute. An appropriate comparison between the benefits available to .military and non-military research and development can be made only by considering all the programs available-and available at the same time-to each of the sectors. Thus, the appropriate comparison is obtained by weighing the benefits provided to the civilian sector by IRDIA and PAIT against those provided to military research and development by IRDIA and the defence development sharing program, or DDSP. Such a comparison confirms, as I indicated, that the Canadian government now provides more money for research and development in the military area than it does for civilian work.
However, the minister still continued to deny what seems to me to be the truth of the matter. On December 6, 1968, he said the issue was a rather technical matter-some euphemism!-and that he stood by his original contention. I subsequently challenged the hon. gentleman to take part in a public debate on the question but, of course, he refused. Once again I challenge the minister to make a statement on this very serious matter. I ask him to deal specifically with the answers he provided to a series of questions which I placed on the order paper.
We, in Canada, should not be using public funds to finance research and development in connection with military matters, at least not on the present scale. When military equipment is needed, we should purchase it from others. We, in Canada, should concentrate our research money on civilian projects; we should not have committed ourselves to a policy of developing a military technology to be used to increase our armament exports. Yet, it is exactly this kind of policy which the government is pursuing.
It is important to note that the government itself has undermined its own program for research and development in the civilian sector by giving greater benefits for military research and development. At present the government will provide approximately 50 per cent of the capital costs of military research and development. But in the civilian

sector all financial assistance, plus interest on the money advanced, must be repaid if projects prove commercially viable. Is it any wonder that there have been major advances in the military sector but almost none in the civilian sector? Is it any wonder that as N. H. Lithwick noted in a recent article in the Journal of Canadian Studies, over 50 per cent of federal funds going into research and development are used for military purposes? If profits from war industries are greater than those derived from production for peace, are industrialists likely to choose the latter?
In an answer to a question raised by me, the Minister of Defence Production stated that the value of sales of weapon components by Canada increased from $171 million in 1965 to $275 million in 1967, about 60 per cent. In an answer to another question, this time directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, the following was revealed: In the fiscal year 1964-65 $474,000 was provided under the Industry Modernization for Defence Exports Program to cover 19 projects. By the fiscal year 1967-68, this had increased to $10.6 million covering 95 projects. A similar expansion in spending, though one not quite as great, can be found if one examines the expenditures in connection with the defence industrial research program of the Defence Research Board between the fiscal years 1962-63 and 1967-68.
Most alarming of all are the figures relating to the defence development sharing program. In the fiscal year 1961-62, the government was spending $4.4 million on 33 projects. By last year this had increased to $23 million and 53 projects.
I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that if the Canadian people knew of this expanding involvement in the armaments industry they would repudiate the Liberal government and demand that we cease providing this financial support to those who have properly been called merchants of death. The government is quite consciously trying to cash in on the increased market for armaments. They are deliberately making a growing portion of our population dependent for their livelihood on the perpetuation of international conflict.


An hon. Member:: Nonsense.


John Edward Broadbent: Well, stand up and debate it.
This, in turn, creates more and more people with a vested interest in military-oriented industry. I am not referring now only to the 29180-4M
Government Organization military and to owners of factories. I am referring also to the ordinary men and women across Canada who obtain jobs in these industries. Understandably, they wish to preserve their source of work; they must provide for themselves and their families. Can they be blamed if at some future date they oppose the closing of an aircraft factory or of a chemical plant concerned with biological warfare? Is this the kind of Canada we should be creating? Of course not. And this government should be condemned from one coast to the other for promoting such a development through its research and development program.
Before I leave this point, I should like to draw attention to the fact that President Kennedy made a point of asking Secretary of State McNamara to devise a program which would, over an eight-year period, reverse precisely the kind of policy I have been describing, that is one which was directing so much of the research and development and, consequently, so much of the economy, into areas dependent on production connected with warfare. The question I raise this afternoon is whether, in the light of the experience in the United States, we in Canada should be embarking on the same kind of foolish developments.
It is clear that the Department of Industry has decided to promote defence industries on the ground that to do so is politically expedient. In its program review for 1969-70 the department concluded that independent Canadian production of all our defence needs would be uneconomic. It then proceeded to reject the logical conclusion that we should purchase our defence equipment abroad. It did so by arguing that to buy on the basis of the lowest rates in world markets would, and I quote, "deprive Canadian industry of a vital source of advancement, not to mention annual exports currently of the order of half a billion dollars."
It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the government has sacrificed the public interest to that of the defence industries. I am certain, Mr. Chairman, that if Canadians were fully aware of these facts they would insist that we stop subsidizing defence industries and shift all the money we have available for research and development to the civilian sector. We must encourage the development of sophisticated technology in the nonmilitary sector. We must employ our scientists and technicians in projects intended for the full, peaceful utilization of our abundant supply of natural resources. This means that

Government Organization we must be selective in the allocation of public funds. We must assess both the international market and our available resources, and then decide in which areas we would most likely be successful in terms of developing and selling commercial, not military products.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
In the civilian sector we must find out why Canadian industry has not been very responsive to the government's research and development financial assistance programs. PAIT, the program for the advancement of industrial technology, was established in 1965. The Department of Industry clearly expected to get better results than it has. For the past two fiscal years the department estimated that it would provide $23 million for research and development under PAIT. In fact, it spent less than 50 per cent of this amount. We must find out why this is so. I have already suggested one reason, namely that the financial benefits of research and development in the military sector are better.
However, there must be other reasons and I suggest it is up to the government to find out what these are. Has the government consulted private industry? Perhaps the PAIT program should be dropped completely, or perhaps its requirements simply need modification. In either case, it should not be undermined by programs designed to finance the defence industry.
The same point is equally applicable to IRDIA, the Industrial Research and! Development Incentives Act. There is no evidence which indicates that this program, established two years ago, has led to an increase in research and development in the civilian sector. In fact, what seems likely is that the government has merely subsidized private industry in doing what it would likely have done anyway without IRDIA. Again, if the government can produce evidence that suggests the contrary, I am sure most hon. members of this house would like to hear what it is. Once again the remedy would be to stop making research and development grants available to all applicants on the basis of broad general criteria, and concentrate instead on projects selected on the basis of their commercial viability in the international market.
We Canadians, Mr. Chairman, are living in an age in which research and development play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of an industrial economy. We Canadians have just recently begun to see the

importance of this fact by at long last devoting public funds to this area. However, instead of launching a cohesive, vigorous program in the civilian sector, the federal government has started us down the military path. We must put an end to this immediately. We must shift our effort in the direction of civilian research. We have great resources. We have talented people. We must combine the two for humanitarian purposes.


Mr. Perrauli:: Mr. Chairman, the last two speakers in this particular debate were from the socialist party of Canada. I listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Waterloo-


John Edward Broadbent: On a point of privilege, Mr. Chairman.


Albert Béchard: Order. The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby is rising on a question of privilege.


John Edward Broadbent: I should like to point out to the hon. member that only one of these speakers to whom he refers would be proud to call himself a socialist, I suspect.


Raymond J. Perrault: Don't tell me there is an ideological split in that party.


John Edward Broadbent: There are two parties down here.


Raymond J. Perrault: It interested me that yesterday the villain was the United States; today it is the military clique. We have not heard much constructive criticism about how to make the Canadian economy grow, how to provide jobs for our working men and to expand trade. It amuses me to hear this assault on United States investment capital. Hon. members may be interested! to know that one difficulty confronting the present government of the province of Saskatchewan is that during those socialist years in Saskatchewan almost all of the borrowings on behalf of Saskatchewan were effected in the canyons of Wall Street.
In fact, the provincial secretary spent so much time in the United States borrowing United States money that he is now a permanent resident of the United States. He became so enamoured of the country to the south of us that he decided to settle there. Despite the warnings of the Liberal party when it was in opposition that we were putting too many borrowing eggs in one United States Wall Street basket, the Saskatchewan government continued the practice. Now, the debt has to


be repaid with the 8 per cent differential, and this is causing a great deal of difficulty to the government.
1 have heard no reference to the quality of United States investment in Canada that was made during those socialist years in the province of Saskatchewan. I have found no expression of opinion in this debate thus far on the substantial grant that the United Autoworkers made to the New Democratic party in the last election campaign. Apparently, there is a difference in the quality of the types of United States investment that are welcomed in Canada as far as our friends to the left are concerned.
It is not for me to review the past history of our friends to the left in this area of investment capital, but perhaps I could mention that one Texas entrepreneur who came to Saskatchewan to found a cement plant and a steel plant during the socialist government's heyday, the bonds of those companies being guaranteed by the honest taxpayers of Saskatchewan, became a millionaire overnight. Clarence Fines, in a notable quotation, stated: "We in the N.D.P./C.C.F. of Saskatchewan like to make millionaires of this kind".
I am greatly interested in the true philosophy of this party in the area of expanded job opportunities for Canadian workers. I speak for many people of all parties in western Canada when I express the hope that a reorganized department will usher in a new and unparalleled program for growth in this country, and that we will develop new markets for Canadian goods not only on this continent, including the United States, but also abroad. This will take a degree of integration. Nations of the world today that have a narrow, introverted outlook really have no future in the international trading community. Today, the world is much smaller than it was in terms of communication and we will require to have closer links with Europe and the Pacific rim nations as well as with the United States of America.
This is inevitable if we are to maintain any kind of standard of living in Canada. Surely, there is a growing realization on the part of members of all parties that a just society cannot be financed on the basis of continuing inflation, and it cannot be nurtured solely on vague feelings of brotherhood and humanitarianism. It is an obvious truism that the just society must be the product of greater efficiency and productivity here at home and better effort abroad in order to develop new markets for Canadian goods.
29180-414J
Government Organization
I am not suggesting that our trade figures are not impressive. We have done very well during recent months. I am very enthusiastic about the appointment of this minister to his new, key post. I think the outlook is promising and I suggest that we continue to be expansive both in our outlook and in our trade philosophy.
In order to enjoy increasing trade, it is obvious that we must consider the purchase of more goods from abroad. It has become a cliche to say that trade is a two-way street. Those of us in western Canada, the 1,526,000 Albertans, the nearly two million British Columbians and the large populations in our sister provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, realize that trade is a two-way street. Some of these imports will affect Canadian industry. Some of our own industries may suffer adversely for a period of time as a result of the impact of imports from abroad. Yet, it is to be hoped that in the face of competition from abroad we are not going to retreat into the narrow doctrine of protectionism which is rearing its head in all parts of the world today.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
The President of the Chase Manhatten Bank of New York, David Rockefeller, addressed the bank's annual forum in Toronto. He said, as reported in the Globe and Mail for November 21 last:
-western countries have made a full turn-back toward restrictionism in trade matters. And the final outcome of this resurgence-if it is not beaten back-is likely to be a calamitous decline in world trade.
He said the history of the 1930s provides a grim and unmistakable warning of what can happen when protectionist forces gain the ascendancy.
He said protectionist forces are gaining ascendancy. Protectionism is not restricted to the United States. Even within the common market, tariffs are still charged on a wide range of goods. Then, he goes on to point out how modern protectionism is rearing its head in the form of subsidies, barter deals and other ways. He concluded by saying:
Despite the revival of protectionism in some quarters, the preponderant view in industrial nations favors continuing efforts to reduce both tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade in industrial products. One approach that has great merit, in my opinion, would be to develop a broad free trade area among nations that would agree to phase out industrial tariffs over a period of years.
While such a free trade area might start with a small nucleus such as the United States, Britain and Canada, I would hope that it would be completely open-minded ... In all of this, we must not


Government Organization shrink from the appearance of some loss of national sovereignty. Interdependence is a fact of life, and co-operation in the essence of progress.
It may be impractical at the moment to bring about a free trade area of this kind. There may be impediments of all kinds; but at least let us have an outgoing approach to free trade. Let us investigate the feasibility and possibility of lowering tariffs. I have been encouraged by the speeches our ministers have made on the subject. Speaking about the possibilities of free trade, the Secretary of State for External Affairs said in New York on November 14, in part:
One broad sector for which there is obvious scope for a greater international divison of labour is forest products-lumber, wood products, pulp and paper. But the great expansion of markets for these products will not be confined to North America. Much of it will be in Europe and Japan. A purely bilateral trade arrangement between Canada and the United States in this sector would be second best to a tariff arrangement involving all the industrial countries of the free world. Canada and the United States would both gain much more from a multilateral than from a bilateral arrangement.
We ought to move in the direction of freer trade and lower tariffs. If there is a danger that Canadian industry may suffer from competition arising from freer trade, let us extend our adjustment assistance programs to secondary industry to make sure we do not suffer economic losses in this country and that our workers keep their jobs and incomes. If Canadian industry suffers as a result of competition then, by all means, let us determine whether any particular industry is suffering unfairly or whether the blame can be attributed to lack of productivity, lack of technological innovation or lack of managerial skill or enterprise. In the long run, further protectionism will do little to defer the demise of an inefficient industry which is unwilling or unable to keep pace with change and competitive forces.
Yesterday, the hon. member for Waterloo read, I believe, from the Fourth Annual Review of the Economic Council of Canada. Significantly, he did not read from the Fifth Annual Review entitled, "The Challenge of Growth and Change", published in September, 1968. The Economic Council says, in part, at page 154 of its Fifth Annual Review:
Of all the major instruments of national economic development, perhaps none has proved to be a more potent source of interregional tension than the system of protective tariffs and related commercial policy devices. It is a time-honoured and enduring ritual at federal-provincial conferences on fiscal and economic problems for Ontario to remind the country that it provides about 45 per

cent of the total direct tax revenues flowdng into the national treasury, and for the Atlantic and western provinces to rejoin that, among the various burdens they carry, the tariff provides Ontario with its sheltered market while most of their own producers must sell abroad at competitive world prices. Over the years regional unevenness of the cost of the protective tariff has been regularly used to support arguments for providing an elaborate structure of regional and national transportation subsidies, special assistance to primary producers in agriculture, fisheries and mining, tax concessions of particular regional interest, and revenue equalization payments to the lower-income provinces.
As we have already indicated, the initial purpose and effect of the protective tariff, together with a national transportation system, was to establish an east-west trading relationship, involving a considerable degree of regional economic specialization. The manufacturing and industrial core of the country developed in Ontario and Quebec, with a strong primary resource orientation in the other regions. The expectations of the Atlantic Provinces that they would also perform an important national manufacturing and service function were frustrated both by changing technology and by the westward shift of North American population and activity-
The broad structure of the tariff and the traditional view of its national and regional impact are generally familiar. One of the main effects of tariffs is that purchasers of goods pay higher prices for certain commodities than they would pay for the same goods at duty-free import prices. The amount involved is what has been called the "cash cost" of the tariff. Earlier studies suggested that this "cash cost" of the Canadian tariff is substantial. Not only do Canadian consumers pay substantially more for many finished products as a result of the tariff, but most Canadian producers pay more for a wide variety of materials, machinery and components as a result of the tariffs on these items: and these higher costs of production are reflected in the prices of goods produced in Canada. All Canadian consumers and producers share in the cash cost of the tariff to the extent that tariffs affect the price of the goods they buy. But the impediments that tariffs impose to access to some cheaper sources of supply in adjacent areas of the United States tend to result in a somewhat larger cash cost in the Atlantic Region and the western provinces than in Central Canada.
The hon. member for Waterloo talked about the productivity of Canadian workers, and the Economic Council had this to say about them:
But a far more important effect of tariffs is that they tend to depress the levels of output per employed person in Canada.
In other words, the Canadian worker, one of the most efficient workers in the world, is hampered by having to work for too small a market. We should, therefore, try to increase his productivity by enlarging his market.


Max Saltsman: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I know the hon. member does not wish to be unfair. I wish to make it clear that


in my remarks last night I said I hoped to see Canadian workers become more productive. I spoke of the rationalization of industry and removal of tariffs. We recognize that what the Fifth Annual Report says is true. We ought to be moving towards free trade. Our party accepts that, but thinks that we can only have it when our industry is sufficiently competitive to exist in a free trade atmosphere.


Raymond J. Perrault: I must confess that is not the impression I obtained after reading the hon. member's remarks in Hansard, which seemed to be confusing. I did not think he said anything about reducing tariffs or free trade.


Max Saltsman: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Raymond J. Perrault: Could I answer in a few minutes. I wish to finish reading from the report of the Economic Council. I continue reading from page 156 of the report:
Recent studies have concluded that this "production effect" of the tariff (both Canadian and U.S.) may be very substantial-indeed that the economic costs to Canada may be significantly higher than the "cash cost" of the Canadian tariff-and that these combined economic costs may constitute a very significant element in the large and persistent gap in productivity levels and in the average levels of real standards of living between Canada and the United States.
I apologize to the committee for quoting so extensively from the report. I have great respect for the Economic Council as other hon. members have.
Some are concerned about competition from the Pacific rim countries. I point out that Canada sold $605 million worth of goods to Japan in 1968. That was an improvement of between 5 per cent and 6 per cent over the 1967 figures. Of that amount, almost $300 million worth of goods came from my home province, British Columbia. The trade provided thousands of jobs, and incomes for our productive work force in British Columbia, and, in turn, millions of dollars for the federal treasury. I submit it is wrong to say that trade with Japan and other Pacific nations conferred some sort of special benefit upon British Columbia alone. Ontario sold Japan lumber, agricultural products, copper, scrap iron, minerals, chemicals, machinery and other products covering a wide range in 1968. No wonder an Ontario trade mission headquarters will be opened in Tokyo and no wonder the minister's department has been so dramatically improved and expanded over the past two or three years.
Government Organization [DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
The province of Quebec sold over $65 million worth of goods to Japan in 1967. The figure was up in 1968. The Atlantic provinces sold farm products, lumber, copper and other minerals to name a few of their exports to the Pacific area. Our friends on the prairie sold millions of dollars worth of wheat and grain, almost $77 million worth of wheat and grain from Saskatchewan alone in 1967, oil seeds, chemical fertilizers, flax, rapeseed and propane gas.
Recently, we sent a trade mission to South America. My perspective may be different, Mr. Speaker, but it seems to me that our order of priorities should have placed a mission to the Pacific rim nations before the South American junket. As an illustration of the fantastic potential of the Pacific, the statistics show that through western ports Canada exported goods to the value of $505.9 million to Japan; almost $60 million to Australia; $750,000 to little Fiji; over $10 million to New Zealand and over $1J million to other Pacific Islands including French Oceania, British Oceania and other destinations. Exports to other Asiatic Countries amounted to $160.5 million to Mainland China; $35 million to India; $9.4 million to Hong Kong; $8.5 million to South Korea; almost $10 million to the Philippines and almost $15.2 million to Taiwan.
I hope I may be forgiven for quoting from the weekly journal Truth, dated September 1, 1881, London, England:
British Columbia is a barren, cold, mountain country, that is not worth keeping.
Through the ports of the province of British Columbia, whose potential was dismissed so airily in 1881, there were $2,249,343,296 worth of goods exported to the world in 1968. Of that total $821 million worth of goods was produced in British Columbia, a 10 per cent increase over 1967. I suggest to the minister and to this house that the potential of western Canada should not be underestimated and I refer to all the provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Western Canada holds the key to much of Canada's future prosperity. Through the ports of western Canada, Canadian trade can achieve potentials unheard of if we will but invest time, trouble and opportunity.
Let the minister in this parliament announce a trade mission to the Pacific. Let us seek co-operation with the four provincial premiers; let us not be working at cross purposes. Let the provinces be given the right
6536	COMMONS
Government Organization and the power to appoint a number of representatives to this working trade mission. We should establish a two way dialogue between Canadians and our trading partners, as well as our potential partners. If we listen to their problems they may be inclined to listen to some of ours. This mission should be broadly representative of western Canada. One-half of the delegates should be appointed by the four western provinces and the other half appointed by the federal government. There should be a serious, working, factfinding mission which would report back to the various governments in Canada their recommendations for future action.
As far as our continental situation is concerned, Mr. Chairman, our natural trade patterns are north and south. One fact was made clear to me as a member of the Transport Committee of the House of Commons. It is that the future of the great maritime section of Canada surely cannot lie merely in paying increasing subsidies to those provinces. There has to be basic economic assistance to the maritimes in order for them to share in the prosperity of this country. The natural markets for the maritime provinces are in the Atlantic states of the United States. It is ridiculous for them to be forced to sell their goods continuously in central Canada. If the future of the maritimes is going to hinge upon the benevolence of governments in Ottawa, Liberal or Conservative, to extend tariffs, I do not think the outlook for the maritime provinces'-


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


Raymond J. Perrault: I could finish my speech in two minutes.


Albert Béchard: Does the committee give unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Raymond J. Perrault: I appeal to the minister and the government to be courageous and attempt to negotiate with the United States, industry by industry. There should be free trade to provide meaningful assistance, not only to the maritimes but also to western Canada. If the automotive agreement is good for central Canada, other agreements can be achieved which will equally benefit the maritimes as well as the provinces of western Canada.
One of the difficulties facing the people in western Canada is the fact that it costs

DEBATES	March 12, 1969
immeasurably more for a company to manufacture a product in British Columbia and sell it in Toronto than it does for a company in Toronto to manufacture in that city and ship to the western part of Canada. Because of this cost British Columbia must look to the state of California, a state with 20 million people. We can boast of half a dozen profitable furniture manufacturing companies who sell most of their products in central Canada. Why can't there be greater access to the ready markets to the south of us? This could be done without endangering our national sovereignty one iota. It is time to get moving in this direction.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: I would like to make a few comments regarding this reorganization, Mr. Chairman, and mention some ways in which these departments have affected agriculture in particular, as well as some of the effects they will have as time goes on. I do not want the previous speaker to feel badly about what someone said with regard to British Columbia back in the year 1881. Some time he should read what Captain Palliser said about the prairies. I am sure it was just as bad.
We as Canadians are concerned with making the best we can from the very rich inheritance which we have, to bring the benefits of this productivity to Canadians and to expand that well being to the best of our ability. The Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce must be very concerned about how well this is being done, although I have misgivings in some areas. Let me cite one instance.
I asked the minister a question on January 24, with regard to a study of the dairy industry undertaken by the Department of Industry. You can see a reference to the study in the 1966 report where it is stated:
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
With the co-operation of the dairy industry, dairy plant operations in Canada have been studied in depth on a regional basis and by size and product mix. The study has indicated an urgent need for dairy plant modernization in Canada. A program designed to encourage the modernization of dairy processing and manufacturing plants is now being developed.
Apparently this information cannot be made public. At least I have looked in the same review for 1967, but found only a small reference to cheese. I did not see any further reference to this very important study of the industry. One wonders whether it was dropped or shelved. Were the facts that were deduced too horrible to bear the light of day? If they were revealed, and if they were put to
March 12, 1969	COMMONS
work would they assist the dairy industry? Would they assist the farmer? Would they assist to cut down the $138 million subsidy to the dairy industry?
I have no doubt we have people in the department able to make these kinds of studies, but if we are going to make these investigations in depth we should know what they reveal. We should know what an investigation of the dairy industry reveals, because you do not divorce the processing industry from the farmer. It is part and parcel of the whole business.
I am concerned about what is proposed and what is going to happen on the grain side of the agricultural industry. From what is said from the other side of the house I understand that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce jointly with the Department of Agriculture has set up a Grains Council, not by act of Parliament but by letters patent. Will this Grains Council make all the results of its studies public? If it does research, if it investigates aspects of the marketing of grain, of the production of grain, of the transporting and the handling of grain will it report its findings? Will its reports be made public? Are we, as farmers, going to know what this council has to say about our welfare? As yet, no assurance has been given that this will be so. The Grains Council will report to the government. Will the government tell those whose livelihood is involved, whose well being is involved, what private discussions are being held behind doors, and what facts have been discovered?
The old Department of Trade and Commerce, now the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, traditionally played an important part in the welfare of the prairie farmers. It is necessary that those farmers have confidence in the department. I would say that, through the Canadian Wheat Board, farmers have displayed a fair amount of confidence in that department, in its honesty and in its fairness. Sometimes there have been some rather exaggerated wheat sale forecasts, but we take these with a grain of salt. We have lived a long time with them. But let me tell the minister that if the day comes when the farmer thinks he is being dealt with on a basis of less than complete frankness, much of that trust will disappear.
We have just come through a series of GATT negotiations, and I could not help but think that the Canadian farmer came out of them with very little. Recently, I read that a task force on agriculture is going to report at
DEBATES	6537
Government Organization the end of this month, and that it is going to recommend that wheat acreage be cut 30 per cent. That simply reinforces my previous judgment. A wheat acreage reduction of 30 per cent is a staggering proposition for the farmers of western Canada to accept.
Dr. Parnell of the Department of Agriculture is reported as saying that half of the farmers of Canada will be out of business by 1980. This staggers the imagination. We are going to have to make this kind of adjustment because our export markets have shrunk. That is the reason for it.
Out of the GATT negotiations came a reduction of the tariff on soybean oil going to Japan. There was no reduction on rapeseed, and so we are at a disadvantage. Recently, I asked the minister why there was an increase in the tariff on refined oil going into the Australian market but no increase in the tariff on the soybean product. Why are we being discriminated against in this fashion? Are we less able to carry our part in the tough negotiations that take place?


Mr. Pepin:: It takes two to tango.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: The minister says it takes two to tango. I agree, but why do we come out with this disadvantage? If we are going to operate with this disadvantage in the export markets of the world, the forecasts that have been made will become an unfortunate and desperate reality. The wiping out of capital investment on the prairies will have to be seen to be believed. There will be a drop in the standard of living of the people involved until such time as they can leave the prairies and relocate elsewhere.
If you want to see the Golden triangle area grow in Ontario, just continue with this trend. We helped it grow during the depression years, after sending our sons and daughters to the war. They stayed in this area as a result of the terrific wiping out of capital which occurred on the prairies from 1929 until the early forties. This is what we remember. I am sure that the real magnitude of this situation is understood and that is the only reason I rose to speak to members of this committee this afternoon.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
We hear a lot of talk, and plenty of advice from the press, to the effect that the thing for us to do today is get into feed grain production. They refer rather glibly to 400 million bushels of feed grain to be exported some place overseas. If we were unable under


Government Organization GATT negotiations to extend our wheat market, and if our actual exports of barley as a feed grain have dropped,-it has and you can check the figures in the Wheat Board report-how in the name of common sense can these people suggest we are going to put 400 million bushels of feed grain into the export market?
Perhaps we should drop the price of our feed grain, and we have done this. Anyone can read the Richardson weekly report of March 8 and see that we dropped the price of barley to $1.02. What happened immediately afterward? France undersold us, that's what happened. If there is anyone left, and apparently there are still some in Canada though not many in western Canada, who thinks we can grab the markets of the world by introducing fire sale prices he had better disabuse himself of that idea before it is too late. If we intend to launch ourselves on a program of this kind we had better think twice.
The Wheat Board has quoted a price of $1.02 per bushel for feed barley. This is 15 per cent to 20 per cent lower than it was a short time ago. How can we expect to sell this grain at a lower price? If we intend to do so, then this government will have to do the same as other governments overseas have done. It will have to say to the farmer, go ahead and produce barley; we will put it on the market and sell it for whatever we can get but we will guarantee a price level. That is the only way it can be done.
There is a minimum price or cost at which the farmer can actually produce barley. There is no magic formula any more. I grew up during the time when you could use hay-wire to fix farm machinery, and when people used to have a number of horses. We used to get up in the morning and round up saddle horses to do the work. This did not take much money. We cannot round up saddle horses any more to do farm work. Now, we fire up the tractors. We pay 25 cents per gallon to put fuel in the tank and $2 per gallon of oil. Either you ride the tractor yourself or you pay $1.50 or $1.75 per hour to someone to ride it for you.
That story is not much different from the one which applies generally to industry today. I do not mind repeating myself. We cannot save the grain industry of western Canada by putting on fire sale prices, and people who think we can had better disabuse themselves of that idea. I do not think the minister is one of those individuals. I suggest this in all sincerity, and with the hope that the minister 
will not accept this argument advanced by those people who hold this point of view.
If anyone wants statistics about the grain situation, let me quote a few. I should like to quote from statistics contained in the 1966-67 annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board. During the five year period from 1947-48 to 1951-52 we sold up to 73,458,000 bushels of barley, and in one crop year, 1956-57, we managed to sell 122,077,000 bushels of barley. In the crop year 1956-57 we sold almost 82 million bushels of barley. During approximately a ten year period, we managed to maintain this range of volume. In the crop year 1961-62, we dropped to approximately 42 million bushels. During the period from 196263 to 1966-67 we did not recover. We dropped as low as 15 million bushels which is a mere fraction of the 80 million bushel figure we ended up with in 1956-57. In 1966-67, we sold approximately 58 million bushels of barley. Surely, this is some indication to those who suggest we should cut the price that they should have second thoughts. This is a concrete example of what has taken place.
Our approach to this whole matter should be determined at the bargaining table. As the minister has suggested, it takes two to tango. We should learn some new steps. We hear two different stories about the agricultural situation. When the GATT negotiations were completed, it was announced that we hoped to export $1.5 billion a year in manufactured goods.


The Chairman:: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


James Hugh Faulkner: Is there general agreement that the hon. member carry on?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Change to the rhumba.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Chairman, I think I have said most of what I want to say to the members of this committee. I hope the new department will be seized of the importance of the task we must undertake. I hope it will not accept the unsubstantiated assumption that we must put one third of our wheat land out of active production. I hope the new department will not accept the assumption that half of the farmers in Canada are going to be out of business by 1980. If this new department or this government accepts this assumption, this country is headed for some real disasters,


just as are the people in the constituency of Saskatoon-Biggar.


Mr. Ricard:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a few remarks on the measure now before the house.
First of all, I wish to congratulate my colleague for Drummond (Mr. Pepin) to whom the destiny of the new department will be entrusted. He is undertaking a tremendous task and my best wishes go with him. This task will require his services, his devotion every day. It also requires talent, a lot of work, some boldness, firmness and also, alertness. And I know the minister has those qualities, the qualifications which will enable him to succeed and from which the Canadian industry will benefit.
Mr. Chairman, this leads me to say that the department the minister will head in the years to come is most important to the working people in my riding. The two fields in which the workers in my riding can expect improvement, provided the minister will turn his attention to them, are the footwear and the textile industries. This is not the first time I make it a point to discuss those two particular topics. But those two industries are so important to our people that I owe it to my electors to protect their interest every time the opportunity presents itself.
Not very long ago, specifically last February 18, I received a letter from the Quebec leader of the United Textile Workers of America, Mr. Bert Demers. When reading the letter, it is easy to see that the textile workers of my province are quite worried. I take a few minutes to discuss the matter again this afternoon to urge the minister to even greater haste. Here is an excerpt from the letter addressed to me by Mr. Bert Demers, and I quote:
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
The closing down of factories In five so-called textile areas-due to a great extent to the abundance of textiles coming from countries where production costs are low-is certainly alarming to those who still have the good fortune of operating in this field.
In a brief accompanying the letter from Mr. Demers, one can read, for instance, that in 1954, imports under the heading "Textiles and ready-made clothing" amounted to 5 per cent of the consumption whereas in 1959, the imports had increased to 25 per cent, and in 1967 to 43 per cent. Needless to say, this hampers Canadian production and reduces employment.

Government Organization
In fact, this is what the brief says and I quote:
In other words, from 6 million lbs. in 1954, the level of imports so-called "cheap" in view of their origin, skyrocketted to 46 million lbs. in 1959, 74 million lbs. in 1964 and 118 million lbs. in 1967.
While this situation was developing here, elsewhere in Europe and in the United States, for instance, a rational policy was being implemented in order to restrict the ill-effects of such penetration of the world markets into their economies.
If our Canadian parliament allows imports from developing countries increase little or no restrictions-our manpower requirements in the textile industry will decrease year after year.
This is a warning which the minister will certainly want to take into account. He will want also to ponder upon another part of the brief which reads as follows, and I quote:
The problem is more than serious and it is time for concern. We cannot repeat it enough. Hundreds of workers in the textile industry, in Drummond-ville, Cowansville, Montmorency, Magog and several other regions, are being laid off. Some of them have been out of work for fifteen months. Some workers in Coaticook, Saint-Jean, St. Hyacinthe and Valleyfield are hit even more severely; what was their livelihood for many years, is disappearing.
The minister who has spent part of his life among working people and textile workers especially, knows fully well that when a worker has spent several years of his life in a textile mill, it is difficult for him to find work outside, in another factory. If these daring policies must be implemented, the workers, the present taxpayers deserve every attention.
I was talking during the last week-end with a worker who has been employed in a shirt factory in Saint-Hyacinthe for about 40 years. He is threatened to lose his job sooner or later if the present conditions persist. He provided me with data which he says are official and which give us an idea of imports from countries where the manufacturing cost is much inferior to ours. For example, during 1968 we have received from Taiwan 100,048 dozens of shirts, 58,720 from Malaysia, 18,000 from Singapore, 365,100 dozens from Japan, 57,000 dozens from Korea, and 217,000 from Hong Kong.
Mr. Chairman, those are the enormous quantities of shirts that enter the Canadian market. They create competition, which affects the Canadian workers.
I know that the minister must think a lot and work a lot. I know that the question of imports is giving him some trouble, but I know also that he means well. I am quite certain that he will do everything possible to


Mr. Mongrain:: Mr. Chairman, as I rise to speak, I feel somewhat reluctant and I will tell you a story to explain that feeling.
During the last electoral campaign, I had the pleasure to speak in the riding of the hon. member who was to become the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, and I recall that at one moment-he was to speak after me-he got up. I admit that I had spoken too long and that I did not have to talk so long to convince the audience to vote for the Minister, as they already had so decided. Then, he said to the audience: Ladies and Gentlemen, when the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres gets on his feet in the Commons, he always, or most of the time indicates that he did not plan to take part in the debate, but will try to be brief; then he uses up all the time allocated to him, if not more.
Of course, I remembered when I prepared my comments. Besides, the minister at the end of his speech last night, said this:
Personally, I hope that the debate will be shorter than the one on the establishment of the Department of Communications.
Naturally, such a remark is likely to intimidate someone as shy as I am. Mr. Chairman, I want to assure the minister that I shall be brief.
However, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe (Mr. Ricard), with his usual good nature and politeness, has challenged me in a way and I must reply, only for his information or that of his colleagues who may not know what is going on.
I wish to say to the member for Trois-Rivieres-I beg your pardon, I meant the member for Saint-Hyacinthe (Mr. Ricard) to whom I would never give up my riding-that several months ago, government members formed a kind of task force which looked into the problems experienced by the shoe industry and particularly textiles. The group was made up mainly of members in whose ridings there are textile industries. At the beginning, the group was worked on provincial basis. Today it is national, there are representatives of every province with a textile industry. We wanted to study the problem in depth, not only to rise in the house and tell the minister: There are too many imports, and this must
March 12. 1969	COMMONS
stop, because our textile industry is not doing too well. We tried to survey the industry to find out what is wrong and and to seek solutions.
In that regard, we have met experts of the departments concerned, and in particular the minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) in order to discuss all the aspects of the matter-because there are many of them-and we are continuing to consider them.
We have been particularly pleased to discover, while doing that work, that officials of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and of the Department of Finance have been carrying for several months an exhaustive, thorough and realistic study which will take into account every aspect of the problem.
I would like, for example, to ask the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe (Mr. Ricard) if among spinning factories and footwear manufactures which seems to be in jeopardy, there would not be a large number of them which are in a bad way due to weaknesses in their administration, because they have forgotten, for example, to follow the present business trend and make necessary investments to keep up-to-date.
I can quote, for example, a rather large textile plant of my area called the Wabasso Cotton which has some 2,200 or 2,300 regular employees in the Trois-Rivieres area. It manufactures high-quality products, such as those sheets and pillow-cases which are so popular and are made in our district. It also manufactured material for dresses and several other purposes. This is an industry which had foreseen new business trends. For instance, synthetic products appeared on the market and consequently cotton was of course less and less in demand. That industry realized that exchanges are nevertheless necessary between Canada and other countries if we are to maintain our external trade. We must sacrifice a few things and avoid excessive protectionism. We must rather head toward freer trade if we truly want to encourage the development of our trade.
A few years ago, the Wabasso Cotton Company saw that this was in the offing. The directors of the company invested considerable amounts of money to renovate their plant and then started manufacturing new products. For instance, you can now find on the market an excellent synthetic product that really sells. Research has come up with no-iron sheets
DEBATES	6541
Government Organization and pillow-cases, not to mention wash-and-wear shirts. Those people engage in all kinds of research.
Instead of experiencing the financial difficulties of others, that spinning mill now employs a great number of people and is blossoming forth. Of course, like everybody else, they could do without imported shirts from Hong Kong, Korea or elsewhere. It is obvious this may be an ideal situation in theory, but, from a practical standpoint, if you want to sell things to those countries, you have necessarily to buy things from them.
I was saying that a thorough study was carried on which the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, and the Department of Finance, in an attempt to set up reasonable quotas, not through coercion, but as a result of agreements, negotiations and discussions with those countries. According to the information at hand, and I can pass it on to my hon. friend on the other side of the house, because he must know-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Speaker, I can say to the hon. member that up to now he has not tell me anything new.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: I shall then go on in that connection-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I know all that, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member does not have to repeat it.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member knows it, he does not seem to understand, since every time he rises, he blames the minister.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I was not blaming him; I was asking him to co-operate.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: It will then have to be repeated three times.
Moreover, these departments are attempting to find means to streamline only those undertakings which are unable by themselves to survive for all kinds of reasons. They have already found for some of them outlets not previously available. It is good to divulge such things so that the rest of Canada does not think that the government is not concerned with that problem and that it would be quite simple to say: Tomorrow morning we will put a stop to the importation of shirts and textile products, thus permitting our industries to flourish.
There is another problem which the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe could consider once in a while since, if I am right, he is


Government Organization himself a union leader. Maybe he could support the request I have been making for three years now to the labour unions of the country. I am asking for a truce or a kind of moratory which would enable the government to stabilize prices. The worker and the wage-earner would be the first to benefit. In fact, union members are now asking their leaders to do more, because some of them seem to have lost all sense of responsibility. This does not help solve problems such as the one under discussion.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
I have summed up what is going for the benefit of the hon. member for Saint-Hyacin-the, because he told me he knew-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, I have not learned anything from the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres that I did not know before.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, we shall have to tell him again probably for the fourth time, so that he will stop-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: May I ask a question to the hon. member?


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: I shall be pleased to hear the hon. member's question.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres kindly explain to us why imports are ever increasing while our production keeps decreasing?


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, as concerns the question of the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe, I know that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is getting ready to answer it. He will surely put forward many more arguments, statistics and facts than I could provide myself during the few remaining minutes at my disposal.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: That is exactly what I asked him to do.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: The only difference between the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the hon. member for Saint-Hyacin-the is that the minister does not talk through his hat but waits until he has gathered all necessary information. He will have it presently. I am not enough in the government's confidence to set a date but I know that he will act soon. Then, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe will obtain more statistics, facts and arguments than he wants.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Would the hon. member question the figures I have just given and which were given to me by the Textile Workers Union of America? Is this what the hon. member wants?


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, I find that my hon. friend has not understood anything. I have spoken during 20 minutes and he has not understood me. He wants me to question some figures when I told him that we know there are imports. We also know there are many other related problems and that the solution is not as simple as the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe imagines.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, I have not suggested any solution, I merely asked for the co-operation of the minister.


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: 
Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Chairman, I should also like to say a few words on the third part of the bill before us, which deals with industry, which obviously comes under the new department of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
However, before I begin, Mr. Chairman, I should like to draw the attention of the house on a rather unpleasant experience for our party this afternoon. The hon. member for Compton (Mr. Latulippe) was speaking, and when he asked for two extra minutes to conclude his speech, some government members refused. I thought it was ill-mannered of them and was inclined to give them tit for tat, but I controlled myself, and we willingly granted extra time to those who needed a minute or two to conclude their speech. I shall say no more, because I know you could call me to order on that point, and it would not be the first time it was done at the expense of our party, Mr. Chairman.
I want to congratulate the minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Pepin), who will be recognized as the minister responsible for that Department, and I extend to him my best wishes for success at the head of that Department.
We say, that this is a new Department, but we do not have to go back very far to find reservations. In fact, the minister himself said, and I quote:
The amalgamation of the Departments of Trade and Commerce and of Industry plays a very important role in the present reorganization of the federal government, the third since 1963-
I do not consider this department as something new, but rather as a step backward, because there already has been such a department.
I think it was the Right Hon. Lester B. Pearson who divided this department, and no doubt it was realized that it was a mistake. I always wondered why this was done. Industry and Commerce are two complementary


Government Organization sectors which must necessarily be integrated to form a whole. This has been demonstrated many times, when for instance we had discussions with industrialists about marketing their production and we had to run from one department to another.
I think that this department will be a bonanza for all producers, and businessmen as well as for the whole population.
Even if we are in favour of establishing this department, there are some points I want to bring to the minister's attention.
The minister made this statement and I quote from Hansard, page 6492:
I feel honoured and challenged by the mandate glven. ,me to bring together the qualities and capabilities of the present Departments of Industry and Trade and Commerce and to forge for the future the kind of strong, forward-looking ministry.
I second the minister in that institution but I wonder about the gifted and competent people he will have to bring together. I am trying to find out who will run to show in that department, and I see on page 6493 of Hansard that his first assistant deputy minister is Mr. Kniewasser, the second Mr. Head, the third Mr. Mundy, the fourth Mr. Schwarz-mann, and the fifth Mr. Warren. The minister went on to say:
Mr. Chairman, I could go on enumerating... responsibilities but I will refrain from it.
I should have liked him to tell us when there might be a French Canadian in a key position.


Jean-Luc Pepin: It would have been the next name: Mr. Senecal.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: The next one? I am glad to hear it, because that had me a bit worried. I could not believe that the minister could make such a mistake.
In fact, we should not have forgiven him for it. We are always happy to see a French Canadian filling a ministerial post. The same thing applies when French Canadian people become top officials. It is so much pleasanter for us to be able to speak our own language in official dealings.
Unfortunately, there are still some offices where we find it very difficult to do so; sometimes a young secretary has to act as an interpreter. And they say that bilingualism is extolled in the civil service. It is a strange kind of bilingualism indeed, and I want to draw the minister's attention to that point. I know he is capable of keeping an eye on that aspect of things. I wish all ministers would do

the same, so that the government might really become bilingual. First senior officials should become bilingual, to enable all members to contact them in their mother tongue.
English speaking people like to be able to express themselves in their own language in any department. That is all we want; we do not ask for special privileges; give us what they have and no more. We want to be able to speak French in every department. Although we get by in English French is our tongue and this is a fact which is recognized today by the government. The point is that it must not be forgotten in the books, we must not let this legislation gather dust and the French language and bilingualism ought to be promoted. I know that senior officials are qualified to hold such and such position. However another condition is required: they must also be bilingual. Let them learn French. We had to learn it. To come to Canada, people had to learn English. If they are in the public service, let them learn French because they will have to deal with French Canadian people who also like to preserve and to speak their own tongue.
I just wanted to call the minister's attention on that point.
I heard the hon. member for Saint-Hyacin-the (Mr. Ricard) put earlier a question to the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres (Mr. Mongrain. This is what he said: How come production is decreasing? Production decreases while imports increase in Canada. Why? The answer is simple. I still wonder why the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe asked that question and why the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres was unable to give him an answer. It is because the industries do not get the assistance which they need; there is always-


Joseph-Alfred Mongrain: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a question of privilege.
As a rule, my hon. friend has regard for the facts. In this case, he says that the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres was unable to answer. This is not correct. The hon. member for Trois-Rivieres decided to mind his own business; he said that the minister was in the process of setting up a study and that the answer would come from him.
I could have given it, Mr. Chairman, but I would have committed an indiscretion.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: I was just going to say it, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member always puts the blame on somebody else. What do we find today? We find that essential assistance-I am


not referring to loans, but to financial assistance-goes to the big industry; everything is sacrified to it. It is exempted from billions of dollars in tax for so-called investments, that are not always adequately made in the small industry. The latter is being taxed, and prevented from surviving.
Small industries are in jeopardy nowadays. Many of them go bankrupt. Why? Because they do not get enough assistance. I wish to draw more especially the minister's attention to this. I know he is aware of this problem but I believe he does not know about the difficulties the small industry in our area must face every day.
I am not saying that in order to launch a war, but merely to draw the attention of the minister, because it is awful to see our small and average industries collapse when they could be viable. Why? Because they did not get the necessary assistance from the government. We can see the proof of that every day.
I am not against big industry, no, I am very happy that it should get benefits, but let us give the same benefits to the small industry. Do the hon. members know the estimated value of the Alcan plant in Arvida? That firm just reinvested $14,400,000. I am very happy about that for the people in our area. That industry will get a fine gift of $1,500,000 because they are investing there. Why should we not make similar gifts to the small industries who are investing also? But no. They even have trouble getting loans.
Here is an example. A small industry with a $250,000 asset succeeded in getting a small loan from the Industrial Development Bank after having applied to all chartered banks. It needed a little money, since it had accumulated too much stock. The Industrial Development Bank lent him $25,000-10 per cent of his capitalization-at 9 per cent interest. Is this the way to help a man?
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
I shall not name all those who would have needed loans in underdeveloped areas since they did not get anything. Our area was a designated one. Our most common industry is lumber. I could mention some industrialists who have tried to get loans similar to those granted to the big industries in underdeveloped areas, but they did not succeed. I could mention one who managed by himself and with the help of his friends and by accumulating small amounts. But how long can that last? Perhaps within two, three or four years, he will have to give up everything

Government Organization because he does not get any help. We direct all our capital towards the big industries which really do not need it and are strong enough to be self-sufficient, while it is the small industries that really employ the most people. If we came to the assistance of these small industries, if we enabled them to live and to produce something, we would stop importing.
In my area, we do not get in 40 per cent of the garden products we need. Why? Because farmers get no assistance whatsoever. I am very glad that these two departments are being joined together, because whenever surpluses had to be disposed of we were always sent from the Department of Industry to the Department of Trade and vice versa. From now on, we will deal with the same minister. We will then be able to have him sit down and to tell him: Hold on, we are going to try and solve our problem.
In my area, for instance, we used to have to wait almost a year before the surpluses of milk powder were marketed, and the manufacturer had no more space to store his product, while the Minister of Trade and Commerce was travelling across the country in order to sell wheat. I am not against selling wheat. In fact, I used to say to the former minister (Mr. Winters): Just go on a ten-day trip, once a year, and try to sell dairy products. You go around 365 days a year trying to sell wheat. I do agree that selling wheat is a must but he should also have concerned himself with our surpluses. That is the point on which I want to draw the present minister's attention. It is all very well to produce but what about selling the product? If we do not manage that turnover, we cannot increase production. It is simply impossible. The minister should bear this in mind, from the very start.
If the minister could make up his mind today that he is going to give priority to the average-size industry, he may be sure that his department would work like a charm, in the province of Quebec and across Canada as well.
If we go on forgetting about the small industry, we shall have a smaller number of rich people and a greater number of poor ones. Whether you be a businessman, a worker, or a consumer, the best answer to unemployment is to boost the small industry, instead of driving our farmers away from the land, as inspectors are doing now with their farm loans. They say: Leave the farm, you


Government Organization will enjoy a better life in town. No sir! Today they are leaving for the city but within five or six years, willy nilly they will come back to the land as it happened in the 30's. Nobody seems to realize this. Apparently, the officials are taking it easy and never go and see for themselves in those areas.
May I suggest to the minister to do as they do in China and send his officials, in turn, on some farm for a while to learn the ropes. He will see how much that experience will teach them. Let him send some to our logging camps for a whole winter; let them work like the others. You will see that when they come back to the office they will pull up their sleeves and say: No more Pepsi; let's get to work.
Mr. Chairman, those are the main remarks I wanted to make for the benefit of the minister. I am sure that at long last we have a minister from the East heading the Department of Agriculture. We are no longer to be pitied. Indeed, it is 61 years since we have had a French Canadian from the East as Minister of Agriculture. Now, we have one and we will go to him for help and urge him on too. I am very happy because he is a good worker-no mental reservation here-and if we go up to him with plans, if he is given a job to do, he will apply himself to make a success of them. If the bureaucrats refuse to go along, I know he will take the whip to them, and get them back on the job.


Mr. Souiham:: Mr. Chairman, this afternoon we have been discussing item 57 on the order paper, committee of the whole on Bill C-173, an act respecting the organization of the government of Canada and matters relating or incidental thereto. I have been waiting for a considerable time to place my views on the record about the serious situation in western Canada today, the causes of it and how it affects the marketing of our wheat. Although land is urgently wanted everywhere, in western Canada we have plenty of land for farming. You might say we have "wanted land" in plenty. That is a strange paradox but nevertheless is true. I have done some research to try and find the cause of this situation in order to place the facts on record. At the risk of repeating, I would remind this house of the seriousness of the situation which exists.
	;
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
Canadian wheat producers wonder if this government has any conception of how serious the situation is, or how to go about solving the problem of marketing Canada's huge stocks of grain. The facts of the matter, as I understand them, are that the tremendous upheaval in the international wheat market produced by events of the past two years has changed things to the point where only a radical change in Canada's whole approach to wheat pricing and marketing will be adequate to meet the new circumstances.
In the period between the death of the old international wheat agreement on July 31, 1967 and the coming into force of the new international grain arrangement on July 1 of last year there was, for the first time in years, a free world market in wheat. This free market not only opened the door to dumping, price-cutting and cut-throat competition, but it disrupted the established pattern of exporting and importing and spurred importing nations to take fresh stock of their position. The result was that when the new international agreement came into force last summer, the old trading pattern to which it was to apply had been drastically altered. In addition, thanks to circumstances with which I intend to deal shortly, the new international arrangement was an imperfect instrument even in the old context.
The new world wheat picture includes traditional Canadian markets that are either gone or greatly diminished and others that are open to stiff competition from newcomers. Technological advances and changes in national tastes have completely altered the buying pattern of many importing nations. They no longer seek the same quantitites or grades of wheat as they did two years ago.
Most importing nations have made great strides in developing their own agricultural industry to supply more of their grain needs. India has already stated she intends to be self-sufficient so far as wheat is concerned in three years. Many European countries have drastically altered their requirements. Some exporting nations have already adopted more flexible methods of marketing and pricing to meet the demands of the changed world market. Canada, so far, has stood firm on the basis of her high quality wheat and, as far as the importers are concerned, on the high minimums set under the new international arrangement. The result has been lost sales, exports reduced to a trickle and a bleak outlook for the immediate future.
March 12, 1969	COMMONS
To meet this crisis in Canadian agriculture, the best this government has been able to suggest has been a vague promise to study wheat marketing some time in the future and to set up a national grains council. That council has alread been set up. We, in western Canada, hope this council will find new approaches to this problem. I do not like to be pessimistic. I like to look at the positive side. We are looking forward to some action which may solve some problems which face us. Both ideas are sound enough but totally inadequate to meet the pressing situation. They are long term measures to meet an Immediate crisis.
On September 23, the London Free Press carried a report of wheat and flour exports for the first 11 months of the crop year ending July 31. According to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, these were down a staggering 40 per cent! This is 16 per cent below the Canadian 10 year average for wheat and flour exports of 346,100,000 bushels. The 196667 exports totalled 479,300,000 bushels. This year the figure is 291,800,000 bushels. That is a dramatic example of what one year of a free world market in wheat could do to Canada's wheat export trade.
The Canadian government naively believed the old scale of minimum prices set out under the defunct international wheat agreement of 1962 would be observed by exporting and importing nations. It was not written down. No one had signed anything. But it was "understood" according to the former Minister of Trade and Commerce, who is no longer a member of this house. He called it "a gentleman's agreement" but the trouble was some nations did not subscribe to the gentleman's code. We are now back under an international agreement and not doing much better.
The October issue of Union Farmer described the new agreement as "shaky". The Winnipeg Free Press stated "how effective it will be remains to be seen". The faltering operations were discussed several months ago by five of the leading exporting nations at Canberra. On October 7, the 16 nation price review committee, including both exporting and importing nations, met in London to try to patch up weaknesses in the agreement and restore some stability to the international wheat market.
Two of the chief failings of the new international grains arrangement are that, while it set higher minimum prices for some grades, it left other grades outside the price schedule and left the door open to price cutting through the use of freight rates and other
DEBATES	6547
Government Organization shipping costs as concessions. It was a poor agreement and could not be put in the same category as the one it replaced.
The main point I wish to discuss, Mr. Chairman, is the manner in which Canada got sucked in during negotiations of the new grain agreement as a part of the Kennedy round tariff agreements reached at Geneva. Briefly, I believe it was the failure of our negotiators to correctly assess the situation at Geneva, and Canada's relationship to other signatories to the international wheat agreement, that led us part way toward our present situation. Further, I believe it was the emphasis placed on international tariff concessions which would benefit the commercial and industrial sector of the Canadian economy that led to Canadian agriculture being victimized. It is now obvious the former Minister of Trade and Commerce went, or sent his spokesmen, to Geneva primarily in the interests of eastern industry. The Canadian wheat producer was regarded as expendable. Let us look at the background.
The old international wheat agreement, the fifth such agreement, was in effect from 1962 until July 31, 1967. Under that agreement exports were priced between $1,625 and $2,025, United States funds, and imports were allotted and subscribed to. In late 1966, a crusade headed by the former minister of trade and commerce was started in order to gain a higher minimum price under a new and revitalized international agreement. Meanwhile, however, the so-called Kennedy round of tariff negotiations got under way at Geneva.


Jean-Luc Pepin: This is old, talk about today.


Richard Russell Southam: Canada was "conned" or manoeuvred into accepting the idea of a general cereals agreement under the umbrella of the Kennedy round instead of a separate international wheat agreement. I believe the minister went along with the aim of a cereals agreement, not to help the grain producer, but in the hope that he would get industrial tariff concessions if he were agreeable.
It has since become abundantly clear that some countries, including formerly close allies among the other exporting nations, wanted access for their feed grains to the European Common Market more than they wanted a higher and stable world price for wheat. Hence, they wanted the general cereals agreement instead of a new international wheat agreement. The result was that Canada voted with the bare majority within the International Wheat Council in April of 1967 that


Government Organization scrapped the old I.W.A. in favour of a new instrument to be agreed upon later.
e (5:20 p.m.)
Nations who were signatories to the old I.W.A. were morally bound to observe its old price structure until such time as a new international agreement came into force. This meant that Canada, among other exporting nations, was going to be floating around in the first free market in wheat for 20 years, until such an agreement was concluded. The signatories to the old agreement were protected only by the moral obligation to observe the old pricing system, but no legal protection was available. At Geneva agreement was not reached on a general cereals arrangement. The best that could be done was a grain agreement to come into force on July 1, 1968, under which a minimum price for wheat would be set at $1.75 per bushel, U.S. hard winter wheat at Gulf of Mexico ports. This was equivalent to $1.95 No. 1 Northern at the Lakehead. The maximum price was to be $2.38J on the same basis. The finally agreed price just happened to be a full 11 cents below Canada's bargaining price at Geneva.
It was understood that the exporting and importing nations would meet to decide the details of the new agreement. Some 52 nations met at Rome on July 12, 1967, to discuss a draft agreement along the fines of the decisions taken at Geneva. They met in the belief that the prices set out under the old I.W.A. would prevail by "gentleman's agreement" in the interim. But on July 13, the day after the conference opened, United States exporters broke through the old floor price with sales abroad. This effectively killed the myth of a gentleman's agreement as protection for the Canadian wheat producer.
There can be little doubt that Canada's negotiators were willing to sacrifice the tried and true pattern of the old international wheat agreements for a new system, and to leave Canadian wheat producers exposed to the perils of a free world market for a year in order to try to get more highly prized benefits for industry in other areas of the Kennedy round negotiations. It was claimed that there was nothing to fear from a period of free market-the world market was a seller's market, the old prices would remain in force under a gentleman's agreement, and Canada would reap great benefits in other areas of the economy. In fact the gentleman's agreement was no protection and the supposed seller's market quickly transformed
[Mr. SouthamJ
itself into a buyer's market, a condition in which it has remained ever since.
Whatever benefits were wrung from the Kennedy round negotiations for Canadian industry were dearly paid for by Canadian wheat producers. Before the new agreement was even formulated the law of the jungle had returned to the world wheat market. Within five months, Canadian wheat was being sold 22 cents below the old prevailing price, resulting in a subsidy having to be paid by the taxpayers of Canada.
Last year the United States Secretary of Agriculture announced a target for wheat exports of 750 million bushels. He has recently announced the same or a higher target for this year. Last year's United States sales were the result of substantial price reductions. If the same amount is to be sold abroad this year, a year of glut and surplus, some way will have to be found effectively to reduce costs to the importer.
We all know that the disastrous plunge into a free market cost the Canadian taxpayer millions of dollars in subsidies necessary to protect a minimum price that was already supposed to be protected by a gentleman's agreement. It was the minister's only way out at the time. Before he introduced the subsidy, made necessary by his own blundering in tariff negotiations, he went to Washington to plead the gentleman's agreement. The Globe and Mail of September 16, 1967, summed up the success of this mission in an editorial headed "No Gentlemen Present."
Back last January the International Wheat Council predicted that wheat exports would again decline and that Canada would be the hardest hit of all exporting nations, a statement borne out by the latest D.B.S. export figures. But from the first days of the free world market in wheat right up to the present day when storage facilities are bulging with unsold wheat, old markets have gone and the picture is at its blackest and most confused. This government, in effect the same one as was in office previously, has not done one, single constructive thing to relieve the situation. We have had a succession of ministers of agriculture and of trade and commerce, but no action. The present picture is one of lower prices, tougher competition, lost markets, reduced exports and general uncertainty.
How did Canada get into this spot? What was our failure? Where did we go wrong? To answer those questions I believe we have to look at Canada's attitude at Geneva, at London and at Rome in 1966 and 1967. It is my
March 12, 1969	COMMONS
belief that Canada went wrong right from the start in London when, at meetings of the Wheat Council she agreed, indeed voted for abandoning the old 5th World Wheat Agreement. At that time Canada should have insisted on the old agreement remaining in force until a new one was signed and operative or, failing that, should have pressed for conclusion of a 6th World Wheat Agreement, separate and1 distinct from any part of the Kennedy round agreements.
One of the best and most revealing pieces of reporting on the whole affair was done by Andrew Knight of London's authoritative Economist writing in Executive magazine of July, 1967. He accused the Canadian delegation of playing at brinkmanship in the wrong way and at the wrong time. He quoted a British spokesman at Geneva as saying "The 'Cans' are away playing brinkmen" as an explanation of the absence of the Canadian team at an important meeting.
Summing up the Kennedy round, Knight wrote:
-it was an achievement founded on sacrificing some of the grandest aims originally envisaged in the early days of the Kennedy round. The largest of these was the loss of a comprehensive cereals agreement.
This comprehensive cereals agreement was the card upon which Canada's negotiators had staked everything. Mr. Knight continued:
Over its head. Canada therefore found its main single reason for being at Geneva at all, whisked away. The six European Common Market countries and Britain fell in with America, and the Canadians were left high and dry.
I do not expect the present government, or the old or new ministers, to agree with Mr. Knight's assessment. But he was there simply as an unbiased and objective reporter. Just listen to one more observation that he made:
The plain facts seem to show that the Canadian delegation at Geneva played its cards badly in an extremely expensive game of poker. In the eyes of the urbane negotiators of the major grain importing countries-the Six, Britain, Japan-Canadian brinkmanship simply was not relevant to the crowd of technical disagreements to be cleared up if a comprehensive world cereals agreement was to survive.
And later:
-this was one sector of the Kennedy Round not suitable to poker tactics.
Mr. Knight wrote of the "intransigence," "brinkmanship" and "unreal claims" of Australia and Canada that had an unhappy effect in Geneva and forced both to give way in the end. He referred to the "fatal split of opinion" between the United States on the one
DEBATES	6549
Government Organization hand and Canada, Australia and Argentina on the other. The United States, he claimed, was more interested in feed grain sales to the Common Market and bulk sales than in higher prices. This fatal split was soon exploited by the importers, Britain, Japan and the Six. From all evidence it is still being exploited today to the importers' advantage and the detriment of Canada.
Mr. Knight's view is not an isolated one or simply that of a European. The Winnipeg Tribune of January 17, 1968, noted:
It is unfortunately becoming clear that Canadian negotiators at Geneva last year, who professed not to be disturbed by the termination of the International Wheat Agreement, were badly misled.
The newspaper also noted that "there is little use in bemoaning the facts of life." With this I am in entire agreement. We must face the facts of life as they are today, the facts of life as they are in the world wheat market of today, not as they were or might have been.
What are the facts? Let us look only at one or two recent reports on wheat as they appear each Saturday in the Winnipeg Free Press under the heading, "Grain in Review." On September 28 last, the opening paragraph of the report read:
New export sales of wheat this week were again non-existent and some of our major customers of the past simply think that our prices are too high.
On October 5 last, the opening paragraph read:
This has been another disappointing week as far as export sales of wheat are concerned as importers are showing little interest currently in entering into commitments.
What about supplies? What about the crop? Despite adverse weather conditions and other factors, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics on September 15 last estimated the 1968 crop would be 627,927,000 bushels, 6 per cent above the previous year and 16 per cent above the ten year average. Of course in the interval we have had the problems of wet grain and of the movement of grain. I am not going to mention them now because I am sure the minister has heard enough about them, but in the last several months these problems can be said to have had their effect on the general economy of the country.
The United States Department of Agriculture recently estimated that world supplies of wheat would be about double the probable sales. These figures give us some conception of the magnitude of our problem. We are long on wheat and short on customers. This situation cannot await long and cumbersome discussions relating to the setting up of yet


Government Organization another governmental body to be charged with solving the wheat problem. We are in no position, and the hard pressed Canadian wheat producer is in no position either, to await more long range studies, reports from task forces and all the other clap-trap of modern Liberal governments. We need action quickly. We need action now. Let's not talk about fiddling while Rome burns, let us look at this government.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
Japan is a traditional Canadian market for wheat. Last year Japan replaced Great Britain as the biggest commercial importer of wheat in the world.


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


Richard Russell Southam: I have only a few more remarks.


Albert Béchard: Does the hon, member have the unanimous consent of the committee to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Richard Russell Southam: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
Last year Japan replaced Great Britain as the biggest commercial importer of wheat in the world. As of last March 31 Japan had bought abroad 4.2 million tons of wheat. Last year Canada enjoyed 30.4 per cent of that huge market. The United States had 55.8 per cent and Australia had 13.8 per cent. But today both France and Argentina have cut themselves a big slice of the Japanese market. There are now five sellers where there used to be three. They used to be frozen out, but now they are in strong. It is plain they did this by price cutting, but the fact remains that they did it. They made sales and we did not.
It looks as though the two newcomers are in the Japanese wheat market to stay. The Japanese want it that way. They have adopted a national policy of acquiring a diversity of overseas suppliers, not only in respect of wheat but in respect of other products such as minerals and other raw materials. The Japanese have learned in recent years that they can get the best wheat for the best price if they shop for it. Canada's old, steady and easy markets are gone forever. That is the single most important fact of today's world of wheat.
We are living in a world that has changed from 1966. The market has changed; tastes abroad have changed and the demands of old customers have changed. Unless we get with this change we will be left at the post. My suggestion to the Prime Minister and to the Ministers of Agriculture and Industry, Trade and Commerce is to treat this as an emergency. They should convene a special meeting to consider appropriate measures, whether they be subsidies, price-cutting, more generous credit terms or a combination of all these possible expedients. The vital thing is fast and decisive action.
I have no doubt from the way the minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce spoke a few weeks ago that he hopes to dazzle the house one day soon with an announcement of foreign sales of wheat. The Canadian wheat producer is not interested in any flash in the pan sale but in an assurance that major hurdles to marketing have been overcome.
Reference has been made recently to the fact that the task force has suggested, as one alternative to the overproduction of grain, that we eliminate 33J per cent or about 4 of our wheat acreage in western Canada. This would amount to something like 10 million acres. I do not have to ask many questions or make many remarks to precipitate in the minds of hon. members the question as to what will be the alternative income of farmers in western Canada if we eliminate 10 million acres of wheat producing land in western Canada. I hope this is not going to be the policy of the government.
The other alternative suggested is that farmers get into feed grain production. We have a surplus of feed grain at the present time. If everyone got into the production of feed grain I wonder what would happen to that market. The wheat producers want assurance of massive and continuing sales in order that they will have some measure of stability and prosperity. If there is not some evidence that Canada has modernized her wheat marketing techniques, the Canadian wheat producer will be driven from the field and a large and valuable part of the Canadian economy will have been irretrievably damaged. Let us have more action and fewer promises from the government.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Chairman, unfortunately I shall speak for only a few minutes because I am told that the house would like to pass this evening that section of the bill that deals with

March 12, 1969	COMMONS
the establishment of a Department of Supply
and Services.
I shall therefore comment briefly on some of the remarks made by my hon. colleagues. First of all, the members from Prince Edward-Hastings and Waterloo (Messrs. Hees and Saltsman) seem to hold diametrically opposed stands. The hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings claims that the Department of Industry should never have existed, that it represented a total loss of $50 million.
On the other hand, the hon. member for Waterloo tells us that the Department of Industry should continue to exist as an independent department, because as separate from the Department of Trade and Commerce it is in a better position to contribute to industrial development. Contrary to the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings, he blames us for not having spent enough in that field.
The two members therefore give the impression of being diametrically opposed to each other, but they are not, for they both ignore the same things. They ignore what the Department of Industry did since 1963-and this applies particularly to the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings-and what it will continue to do. This applies also to the hon. member for Waterloo. It will do more, and better, because of the fact of its coexistence, of its amalgamation with the Department of Trade and Commerce.
Therefore, although seemingly opposed, in fact the two hon. members have a point in common in that they ignore the same things.
I wish I had more time to point out today once more what the Department of Agriculture has done since 1963, recall the programs it enacted, and their carrying into effect but obviously my time is running short. However, I want to point out two factors, two things that the Department of Industry has accomplished: First, that Department has acquired an excellent knowledge of the existing Canadian industry, and has compiled data on each industrial sector.
Studies were made-some were mentioned earlier-on the chemical industry, the dairy industry, and so forth, and these studies are now the extremely useful source of data for government policy making.
I would also like to say a few words about the importance of co-operation between federal departments and industry, and in this respect also the Department of Industry has done a great deal, as I said yesterday, to
DEBATES	6551
Government Organization strengthen co-operation between the government and industrial sectors.
There are for example, in various fields such as textiles, footwear, chemicals, plastics, etc., advisory committees which meet regularly and analyse the different situations. Once again, they represent an excellent source of information for the government.
I took part in a certain number of these meetings. One could gain some fringe benefits from those meetings. Very often, representatives of the private sector who attended the meetings had the chance of meeting one another, an opportunity which apparently they seldom had.
And very often, at a meeting with representatives of the government, the industrialists themselves would profit from these meetings. I could also talk of the new advisory committee which met recently. I could talk of the export committees, about sixty in number, which exist today. My objective would be to show the contribution the Department of Industry in bringing closer together the government and industrial sectors, one of its greatest achievements.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)

The hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour gave us a few items of his good philosophy. He told us about the tremendous potentiality of the west. I am aware of that potentiality having been the minister responsible for things like oil, gas, coal and water in my previous capacity, and as the minister now responsible for wheat I am very much aware of the tremendous importance of the western economy in our national economy. He told us about the need for freer trade with the United States in particular. I would like the hon. member to read tomorrow the following quotation from my notes: "The United States agreed-this is under the Kennedy round-to significantly reduce tariffs on more than $2 billion of Canadian exports in 1966 terms. The bulk of Canadian exports of foodstuffs and industrial materials to the United States will face very low tariffs or free entry. When the final reductions are made, over 60 per cent of our total current sales to the United States will be duty free."
That will be of comfort to the hon. member.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean-Luc Pepin: This tremendous B.C. aggressiveness and intelligence will have ample occasion to demonstrate itself on U.S. markets,


Government Organization California included. The hon. member also made the suggestion that we should very soon send a mission to the Pacific rim. I am looking into that. But as a "cash advance payment" I might use this occasion to say that I will be going to some countries of the Pacific after the Japan-Canada ministerial meeting in April. I suppose that a two-man mission, my deputy minister is also coming, is not as good as the kind of mission the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour had in mind, but this should be an indication of our interest in the Pacific as a trading area.
I had some intelligent comment to make at this point on the fact that it is very difficult for the Canadian government, in answering the numerous requests that are made on it, to establish priorities in trade matters. The moment somebody says that Latin-America is very important and the government agrees that a mission be sent there, somebody else mentions the tremendous importance of the Pacific rim and we all agree that we could send a mission there too. Somebody the other day was telling me that Germany is so tremendously rich that obviously we should have a mission there. The West Indies are very important also for us, and we should not neglect Europe or the United Kingdom which is still a very important market. And eastern Europe is also very, very important. China, obviously, is extremely important, and Russia should not be neglected either. Consequently, where do we go first? I think the conclusion might now be drawn that Canada is one of those countries which has an interest all over the world and consequently should be present everywhere. This does not solve the question of establishing priorities.

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe (Mr. Ricard) and the hon. member for Trois-Rivieres (Mr. Mongrain) said most interesting things about the textile industry. I can confirm that the study referred to is going on at present. It is an attempt to identify the sectors of the textile industry that are profitable, quite so, in order to promote their further growth and make them even more profitable. The study is also designed, unfortunately, to identify a number of sectors that are less profitable, and then, this is the problem: what are we to do with those sectors?
As far as I am concerned, I find the industrial readjustment principle contained in the automobile agreement and contained as well in the Kennedy Round agreements extremely sensible and human. The purpose of that

study is precisely to determine whether it is possible to think in those terms also with regard to the less profitable sectors of the textile industry.
I hesitate to deal with those matters, because there are so many things to be said. The hon. member for Trois-Rivieres mentioned a number of them in reply to the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe who had assumed that I knew all about it. One of the things that should be said is that even though governments are quite willing to take a human attitude toward the problems of industries, it might be detrimental to them to maintain plants and industries unable to survive and to prosper. Very often, it is a bad service to render an unsound industry to give it millions of dollars in order to deteriorate further or more decently, when we know full well that any day, it will have to close down and that other factors than imports play a very important role in the plight of some industries. I took the member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot (Mr. Ricard), to task earlier, because he did not emphasize enough the fact that imports are not the only factor responsible for the plight of a number of plants but that in many cases, those plants have not been modernized, do not have the kind of management they should have, because if they were well managed, they would not be in such a predicament.
As I said earlier. I would need much more time to look into every aspect of those problems.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, I should like to mention to the minister that I have nothing against the word "Bagot", but my constituency is called Saint-Hyacinthe.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, there were changes everywhere, which only proves that progress is with us.
I would have a few words to say also to the member for Compton (Mr. Latulippe) who spoke in defence of the small industry. While listening to him, I happened to think that the kind of help he wanted us to give industry was likely to turn it into big industry. And then, of course, he would be the first to think that we are helping too much that big industry. This type of remarks is due perhaps to my somewhat strange character.
My department makes all its services available to the small industry and I could give a list of several things we can do for it. But there is no doubt that it is largely the big
March 12. 1969	COMMONS
industry which takes advantage of my department's services.
As the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Latulippe) said, small industries are often located in underdeveloped areas. There is no doubt that the Department of Regional Economic Expansion will apply itself more directly than mine to the problems of at least some of those small businesses.
I might even say that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is especially-I do not say exclusively-responsible for the big industry, so that the government can get, through taxation, the money necessary to deal with underdeveloped areas.
The hon. member also mentioned the dangers or the negative effects of modernization. What I said earlier about the need for industrial rehabilitation applies. As there is retraining for individuals, there should also be some kind of retraining for industries.
The hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) is very concerned about the bilingual character of my department. I can assure him that most people mentioned: Messrs. Warren, Kniewasser, Scharzmann, Senecal and Mundy, are all bilingual. In fact, I am proud to have a department that can work, at least at the upper level in both languages. Therefore, I can reassure the hon. member and all other French-speaking members in the house that if they have to deal with those senior officials, they can start the conversation in French and carry on in French.
The hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Gleave) has raised a question which I find most interesting, to wit the confidential nature of certain government papers. That is, I believe, a controversial matter in the sense that certain papers may readily be made public while the same is not true of others.
I have here a list of the studies done by the department. Some have been made known to the organizations with which they had been undertaken, while others, for obvious reasons, were not distributed. Some interests are involved and even if we are democratically minded, such interest must be protected when, for example, publication of a document may cause economic disturbances which would not be in the best interests of the country.
I suggest that we must be practical, that we must distinguish between the two kinds and that we must act accordingly.
The hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Southam) has given us the background of the wheat situation. I simply
DEBATES	6553
Government Organization envy him for having been able to prepare a historical outline as complete as the one he has offered us this afternoon. I would have preferred him to tell me what to do tomorrow. In any event, there will certainly be an opportunity for me tomorrow to tell what I intend to do.
I would like to take perhaps three minutes to answer the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) who brought up a discussion which we had started a few months ago and which, so far as I am concerned, interests me, and even grips my heart.

We could argue the case on financial grounds. We can ask whether one company can get more from civilian programs than from the defence programs of the department. What I said a few months ago in the house, and I quote it, is that "the Canadian industrialists who avail themselves of our programs might get as much from a civilian project as from a defence project". I still maintain that this is possible, and we will have an opportunity, when we study my estimates in the committee, to get down to details and to show that this is true.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
However, I do not think that this is the essential difference between the point of view of the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby and my own. The real difference is on general ideas. I sympathize with parts of his philosophy, as I have said before. I am in favour also of a shift from the defence aspect to the civilian aspect, inasmuch as this is possible and this is done, too. I am as peaceful as he is, and sometimes perhaps more peaceful than he, at least in my approach to political matters. However, the difference between us is really more basic than that and I wish I had time to go into it. The basic difference is probably in our approach to defence and to foreign affairs. The real debate would consist in asking what form and what degree of involvement Canada should have in world affairs. We would have to start with this basic question in order to come to some kind of conclusion. Then, I would have to say many things about the purpose of the defence programs in my department. May I mention a few, en passant. The first is that the defence program is designed to give the best value for the Canadian defence dollar. However, if my hon. friend does not want Canada to spend any money on defence, that brings about an altogether different debate, as I have said. I


Government Organization assume in my argumentation that there is a need for Canadian defence equipment and that we should not have to buy all our defence material outside of Canada, most probably in the United States, and in this way emphasize our dependence, if it can be called that, on the United States.
The moment you say that Canada must have a defence program, you are confronted with a choice: Will you buy all the military equipment from outside Canada, will you make it here or will you do some of both. If you are going to have a defence program it would be silly not to take advantage of our own industrial capacity. The hon. member can see how basic the debate between us would be if we had time to go into it.


John Edward Broadbent: May I assume the minister would permit me to ask him a question? I was not sure whether he was implying that I was suggesting we had no defence need and therefore should scrap all our military purchases. I did not say that. I assume we have a defence requirement. Would the minister also agree that a study was done by his department which reached the conclusion that strictly on economic terms it would be advantageous for us to purchase the major part of our military equipment abroad in the competitive market?


Jean-Luc Pepin: The matter is still more basic than that. I am thinking of the industrial development and of the advantages of a defence industry program.
I would like to say one more word on this subject. What can be classed as offensive equipment which Canada sells abroad? My officials say that it can be brought down to 10 per cent. A plane can be used for civilian purposes as well as military purposes. Are you going to exclude everything that could have a military implication? If so, I say you are in trouble. Already we have 15,000 Canadians working in this industry, and if you want to be categorical about these things, you will be in great trouble. I am sure the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby would be the last one to say that we should not export materials, minerals, or anything else that would have a military application. There is no end to the potential list. We then come to the question of who is the aggressor and who is not the aggressor, how do you define aggression,
what is a defensive instrument, and what is an offensive weapon. These are philosophical debates which were very popular in the middle ages but I was hoping we would not get involved in them here tonight.
However, I love a challenge, and if the hon. member would like to debate these matters, I am ready to accept his invitation. I am afraid I do not have the time to find a platform; I leave that to him.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Mr. Aiken:: Mr. Chairman, I was hoping we could get on to the Department of Supply and Services. There would be no objection to doing so on our side.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We
are satisfied to pass the clauses that make up part III of the bill.
Clauses 14 to 18 inclusive agreed to.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: Mr. Chairman, just a moment please. I do not even know what we are passing. Let me take a look.


James Hugh Faulkner: We are dealing with the clauses in part III of the bill dealing with the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
Clause 19 agreed to.


James Hugh Faulkner: Is there agreement that clauses 20 to 40 should stand and that the committee turn to page 14, part V, namely the Department of Supply and Services.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
On clause 41-"Minister".


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Chairman, I think the appropriate thing to do would be to call it six o'clock.


James Hugh Faulkner: It being six o'clock, shall I rise, report progress and request leave to sit again at the next sitting of the house?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.


Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock, the house stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.
At 6.03 p.m. the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.

Thursday, March 13, 1969



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
First report of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development, in French and in English-Mr. Ian Watson (Laprairie).
[Editor's Note: Text of foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.']