1970-06-01

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, in the dozen countries which might be said to form the Asian and Australasian rim of the Pacific Basin, there live more than a billion persons-a billion persons with increasing expectations of a better life, a billion persons desiring to participate more fully in the economic advantages available to so many people elsewhere in the world. As a country on the eastern shore of the Pacific, Canada must be aware of the aspirations and interests of these people.
I am happy to report to the House, Mr. Speaker, that in the five countries of this group which I visited on my recent trip, the name of Canada is well respected. There is evident in those places a sincere friendship for Canada and Canadians of which we can all be proud.
I hope, as a result of visits such as this, that those bonds of friendship can be strengthened and that the community of interest shared by the Pacific nations can be increased. Canadian interest in the Pacific is not, of course, of recent origin. It is perhaps not widely enough known that Canada's mission in Tokyo was opened in 1929 at a time when we had missions in only three other countries: the United Kingdom, the United States and France. In 1970, however, when Canadian trade with Japan and Australia is assuming major proportions, at a time when our regional economic assistance programs are proving their value, and at a time when some at least of those countries are requesting Canada to continue its participation in peace observation activities, we must increase our awareness of this important area of the world.
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)

Canada's presence in Asia is well established this summer by means of the brilliant
Canadian participation at Expo '70. The Canadian pavilion and those of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia are outstanding successes and among the most popular there. Their emphasis on the youthful and dynamic character of Canadian society have drawn an enthusiastic response from the Japanese fair-goers. This presence, plus the less obvious but more widespread influence of Expo '67 which is reflected in the organization of the Osaka fair, are matters of deep pride to me and, I am sure, to all Canadians. The Japanese officials are very forthcoming in their praise of the benefits gained from our 1967 experience.
As many of my predecessors in this office have found, a trip to other countries permits a Prime Minister to demonstrate with some emphasis Canada's interests in the area visited and to probe in some depth the attitudes and preoccupations of government leaders in those places.
On this occasion I was able to speak with five different Prime Ministers and ask them of their views about the Indo-China war and the role, if any, which Canada might usefully play there; of their attitude towards China and the intentions of the Canadian government to recognize as de jure the government in Peking; of their suggestions for the most effective way to increase multilateral trade. In these respects we were told in both New Zealand and Australia of the active desire of those governments to engage in regular meetings of ministers and officials to discuss these and other matters. We were made aware by Prime Ministers Holyoake and Gorton of the sense of responsibility which they feel toward the countries of South East Asia, as evidenced by their aid programs, by the participation of New Zealand and Australian troops in Vietnam, and the presence of New Zealand and Australian ministers at the Jakarta conference.
In those two countries, as well as in Malaysia and Singapore, I was impressed with the deep belief which was held in the importance both of the United Nations and the Commonwealth. Without question, the common ground occupied by those states which are members of the Commonwealth permits almost automatically an exchange of views among their representatives which is at
7520	COMMONS
Prime Minister's Report on Asian Trip least as friendly and as frank, and in most cases more so, than is possible between any countries anywhere.
In Japan we were impressed with the throbbing economy; an economy in which actual productivity far outstrips the real growth in GNP in this country; an economy which has reached the point where restrictions on the import both of investment capital and a number of manufactured items are expected to be progressively relaxed in the period ahead.

The visits to the five countries offered an opportunity to discuss matters of special Canadian concern. We were able, for example, to explain in some detail the nature of Canada's Arctic legislation and the circumstances which led to its introduction. Because Australia will be receiving tenders later this month for the construction of a nuclear-powered steam-generating plant, there was an opportunity to present to the Australian cabinet the advantages of the Canadian natural fuel CANDU reactor. Agricultural problems occupied a considerable portion of the discussions in boh New Zealand and Australia where dairy products and wheat form important segments of the economy, while Canadian textile policies attracted keen and, I think, understanding, interest in Malaysia, Singapore and Japan. The implications for the trade of each of our countries of the possible entry of Britain into the European Common Market were also discussed, especially in Australia and New Zealand, and will no doubt be the subject of further discussions in the months ahead.
Mr. Speaker, it is difficult in the short term to measure with any accuracy the value of such a trip. Perhaps the only thing that can be said for certain is that Canada would lose opportunities for increased trade and influence were such trips not to take place on occasion. I sense, however, additional positive gains. For myself as Prime Minister I have had the invaluable experience of listening to the views of important world leaders both on their own regional problems as well as on their relations with Canada. This in turn has given the Canadian government the opportunity to make its views better known in matters of mutual concern. Several important agreements were signed and markets of great value, especially to western Canada, were explored.

DEBATES	June 1, 1970
But perhaps of more importance than either is the opportunity which has been given to hundreds of thousands of persons in the Pacific countries to learn something of Canada and Canadians through the publicity given in their homes on the occasion of this visit, and the opportunity given to Canadians to see something of their Pacific neighbours through the eyes of the newsmen who accompanied me on the tour and who were so painstaking in their coverage of all official activities. If nothing more were to be achieved than this educational experience, an experience which leads to tolerance and understanding, then the trip could be well regarded as worth while.
Before I sit down, perhaps hon. members will permit me to express in this place the pride which I know they all share with me in the outstanding performance of all those Canadians who are working at our offices in those countries, in aid programs and in many other capacities, as well as those who this year have made Canada's presence at Expo '70 such an overwhelming success. Canada is well represented abroad. I particularly wish to express my appreciation and admiration, and that of those who were with me, for the skill of the members of the Canadian Armed Forces who carried our party with safety and punctuality throughout a very demanding itinerary.
It is trite but true to say that we sometimes become so closely associated with the problems of our country that we lose the broad perspective. Canada, from abroad, is an attractive, exciting country. I return to Ottawa with increased pride in being a Canadian.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, we in the official opposition are very glad to see that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has returned to Ottawa safe and sound from what appears to have been, in some respects at least, a rather hazardous trip. I have sometimes seen on the little bit of television that I do watch an advertisement for a certain brand of eau de cologne called "Hai Karate", which portrays a user of this substance fighting off women who are coming at him from all directions, even from out of the jungle. This has given those of us who were not present on the trip some sort of picture of what the Prime Minister may possibly have had to face.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
June l, 1970	COMMONS


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I noted that at least until the Prime Minister reached Vancouver his encounters with the ladies were reasonably friendly, though we are given to understand that a little scuffling took place here and there. Perhaps by the time he got back to Canada the effects of the Prime Minister's magic were beginning to wear off a little without having totally vanished, which will explain why the ladies at Vancouver airport were disturbed without necessarily being attracted. I noted, too, that on one occasion, I believe while in Japan, the Prime Minister was thrown flat on his back by another practitioner of the art of judo. In all fairness, perhaps the Prime Minister might be kind enough to give me the name and address of this gentleman.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: In another report the Prime Minister was described by the newspapermen who accompanied him as having been in a state of "controlled frenzy" during a session at a discotheque. I hope he has been able to calm down somewhat, though perhaps some of the situations that he came home to face may tend to dissipate the control rather than the frenzy.
Seriously, Mr. Speaker, I do congratulate the Prime Minister on his trip. I am sure it has been exhausting, but I believe that he has represented this country very well indeed at various official functions in many places, especially, of course, at Expo '70 in Japan.
e (2:20 p.m.)
It is, of course, too early to assess the longterm effects, in terms of trade and other relationships, of the discussions the Prime Minister has held with other national leaders. We as Canadians hope and believe they were fruitful for this country, especially in view of the growing importance of the Pacific area to Canada. We in the Official Opposition will be looking forward with interest to the weeks and months ahead to seeing what happens. My hon. friend from Prince Edward-Hastings was asking me only this morning what I thought of the chances of the young lady in the negligee coming to Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Benson:: Too young for you, George.


An hon. Member:: Bring Yoko over.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I should like to say one or two things of a more serious nature. We all
DEBATES	7521
Prime Minister's Report on Asian Trip know that our posture in the Far East, or the new west, if one prefers to call it that, has not been exactly unambiguous in recent years. Perhaps the Prime Minister's trip will turn out to be an important step in the development of a specifically Canadian policy in that region.
I am thinking especially of the situation in Indo-China. I understand there was a certain amount of criticism in several of the countries which the Prime Minister visited concerning Canada's apparent lack of interest in what is happening in Cambodia and neighbouring countries. I think we should listen to this criticism. I think we should re-examine our policies to see whether we cannot do something more positive to bring peace to that part of the world. Perhaps we should stop using our membership in the almost defunct International Control Commission in a manner which appears to others as an excuse for doing nothing. Perhaps we should take steps to reactivate that body or, failing this, we should be actively searching for other measures to take.
Here at home, several things have been happening while the Prime Minister has been away. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, who is not in the House today, stuck his Anger in his mouth to wet it, held it up to see which way the wind was blowing, and, as a result, has been taking a completely new look at United States-Canadian relations. The Post Office situation has continued to deteriorate, and the Minister of Finance has obviously allowed himself and the affairs of his department to get out of control, if not actually in a frenzy; I shall have something more to say about that a little later.
Let me simply express now my regret that the first action taken by the government following the Prime Minister's return after a long and constructive voyage should have been to renege-I do not think that is too strong a word-on our agreement with the International Monetary Fund. There can be no question of this. It is a matter of regret. As I understand it, one major goal of the Prime Minister's journey was to stress the Canadian presence in an important part of the world and, in a sense, to intensify Canadian influence in that area. I doubt whether our behaviour in connection with the International Monetary Fund will strengthen the confidence which other members of the international community have in us. I can only hope that we are not witnessing the development of a pattern of disengagement from international
June 1, 1970

Prime Minister's Report on Asian Trip structures which have been erected very laboriously and with a lot of hard work.
Again, I welcome the Prime Minister back and I am sure he will be in good form for the debates to come.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues and myself I should like to welcome the Prime Minister back from his long and arduous trip across the Pacific. While we missed him, I can assure him we did not miss him nearly as much as did his colleagues. The signs of his absence were only too evident day after day in the House and in the conduct of government affairs.
I hope the Prime Minister really was not serious, if he was correctly quoted by Mark Gayn in the Toronto Star, in saying that he felt he had left no impact on Asia. I gather from the press reports that he left quite an impact. Apparently there is not an unkissed girl east of Suez. I have a suspicion that the custom of rubbing noses among the Maori people may easily be transferred to Canada. It certainly saves a great deal of trouble wiping off lipstick.
I am not one of those who think that trips like this by the head of the government are either a waste of time or a concealed holiday. I think they have very real and worth-while objectives. I believe they do two things. A trip such as the Prime Minister has made helps to establish the Canadian presence in many countries that may not know as much about Canada as they should know. It is true that we have overseas representatives in trade and in our embassies, but there can be no substitute for having the head of the government visit these countries and arouse public interest in Canada, in what Canada is doing and what Canada's role is in the world.
The second value of such trips is that they enable the Prime Minister of this country to meet face to face with the heads of other governments. There are always exchanges going on between embassies and the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs, who receive a great deal of information about the views of other countries in this way, but there can be no substitute for the heads of government sitting down behind closed doors and frankly exchanging points of view. I think the Prime Minister should have gathered a great deal of useful information as a result of his talks in the various countries he visited.

I want to touch briefly on three points. First, I am sure the Prime Minister is expressing the views of all members of the House when he says how proud he was of Canada's participation in Expo '70 at Osaka. Those of us who had the privilege of watching a part of it on television felt proud that Canada has made such a useful contribution. We were very proud of Canada Day. We were very pleased to see the RCMP musical ride, which there has been some talk of discontinuing. It is a uniquely Canadian entertainment feature, and the fact that it was so well received in Osaka seems to me a good argument for continuing it.
We are also glad that the Prime Minister received a good welcome in Japan because that country is rapidly becoming the economic giant of the Far East. Our trade relations with Japan will undoubtedly expand. I do not suppose the Prime Minister's reception there was helped very much by his comment at Singapore about the Japanese occupation not arousing very joyful memories. I suppose it can only be equalled by the action of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) in serving South African wine at a dinner called to oppose apartheid and to criticize South Africa. But in spite of that comment I think that the Prime Minister got a good reception in Japan and made a good impression there.
[DOT] (2:30 p.m.)
I must say to the Prime Minister that I was disappointed at the stance he took with respect to Southeast Asia, particularly his comment in Singapore to the effect that the United States offers a less frightening form of imperialism than the alternatives. I would have liked to see the representative of Canada say that we do not want imperialism in any form, whether it be American, Russian or Chinese, and that we want to use our moral, political and economic strength to help every country establish its own freedom and to work out its own destiny.
I am pleased to notice in the statement that the Prime Minister made today when he drew attention to the fact that both in Singapore and in Malaysia interest was expressed in the growing importance of the United Nations and of the Commonwealth. I would hope that the Canadian government, in particular the Prime Minister, would point out increasingly to many of the nations of Asia and Africa that the United Nations, which could become the means of establishing the rule of law in
June 1. 1970	COMMONS
the world, and that the Commonwealth, which is a free association of free peoples, can play much more important roles than they are now playing and that the Canadian government is prepared to help bring that about.
We are glad that the Prime Minister made this trip. We are pleased to see him back in his place. When he said, in the final words of his statement a few moments ago, that he came back with increased pride in being a Canadian, may I say that all members of the House hope that as a result of his journey we shall all have an increasing pride in Canada in the future.


Mr. Roland Godin (Porineuf):: Like hon. members who spoke before me, Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to welcome back the Prime Minister.
As all other Canadians, we of the Rallie-ment creditiste have tried these last few days, through newspapers and other media, to follow the Prime Minister in his trip and we have seen that he always knows the right formula which enables him to join pleasure and profit.
Now that the voyage has ended and that the Prime Minister has taken part in many discussions, it would be time for him to act. Unfortunately, we have some doubts about it because he promised a just society for all Canadians, but this project has yet to be drafted.
As for imports, I think that the government should do the utmost to find markets for our surpluses before importing anything whatsoever.



FINANCE


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to report to the House on our action yesterday relating to the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar. The government has decided that for the time being it will not maintain the exchange rate within the present margins.
The Canadian dollar has been extremely strong in the exchange market since the beginning of 1970. The over-all official reserve position rose during the past five months by more than U.S. $1,200 million, not including the allocation of special drawing rights. The reserves have been increasing at an accelerat-22375-581
DEBATES	7523
Exchange Rate of Canadian Dollar ing rate. In the first quarter they rose by U.S. $367 million, excluding the allocation of $124.3 million of special drawing rights on January 1, 1970. In April they rose by $225 million. In May the official reserves rose by $262 million and, in addition, as a result of swaps and forward transactions $360 million has been acquired for future delivery, for a total increase of $622 million in one month.
These reserve increases resulted from the strong current account surplus that developed in the early months of this year and from the continuing heavy inflow of funds arising from long-term borrowing by Canadians in foreign capital markets. Last year a large outflow of short-term capital sharply limited the increase in the official reserves. This trend has not continued in 1970 because certain important short-term interest rates abroad declined and some private balances abroad have been repatriated. The accumulation of reserves in 1970 has greatly increased the cash requirements of the Government of Canada. The government's cash balances have been substantially reduced, and an additional $250 million has been acquired by the sale of a special issue of treasury bills in order to provide additional resources to the exchange fund.
I want to emphasize that the rate of accumulation of reserves has been accelerating steadily throughout the year. If this trend had continued, Canada's official reserves would have risen rapidly to levels far in excess of Canada's needs. Large-scale speculative buying of Canadian dollars would have been encouraged, with disruptive effects upon the international payments system, and with large windfall profits for speculators. The government is not prepared to finance such potentially unlimited increases in the foreign exchange reserves. The decision to permit some appreciation of the market rate of exchange was required in order to prevent an unmanageable situation from developing.
We have informed the International Monetary Fund of this decision and of our intention to remain in consultation with the IMF and to resume the fulfilment of our obligations under the Articles of Agreement of the IMF as soon as circumstances permit.
The IMF has since issued a statement noting the current situation in Canada. It has emphasized the undertaking by members to collaborate with the fund to promote exchange stability and to maintain orderly exchange arrangements with other members. And it has welcomed the intention of Canadi-
June 1, 1970

Exchange Rate of Canadian Dollar an authorities to remain in close consultation with the fund with a view to the resumption of an effective par value at the earliest possible date.
To the extent that the Canadian dollar becomes more valuable in terms of other currencies, Canadians will be able to buy more abroad with the same amount of Canadian dollars. Lower prices in Canada for imported goods will be of assistance in moderating the upward trend of costs and prices. Any appreciation of the Canadian dollar for any extended period of time, without offsetting measures, would, however, tend to have a further restraining effect on the economy. This would not be appropriate in present circumstances. The exchange fund will therefore stand ready to maintain orderly conditions in the exchange market and to operate for the time being to moderate any appreciation of the Canadian dollar. This, in conjunction with general economic policy, will be consistent with the government's continuing economic objectives of a lower rate of price increase and the sustained achievement of rising levels of production and employment. The government is now reviewing its general economic and financial policies in these changed circumstances. In this connection, I noted with approval the announcement by the Bank of Canada of a reduction in the bank rate from 7J per cent to 7 per cent.
Hon. members will recall that in the budget which I brought down in the House on March 12 I pointed out that it was necessary to restrain total spending in the economy in order to slow down the inflationary spiral of costs and prices. The budget provided for a significant easing of the restraint on the economy from the government's over-all fiscal position. I estimated that on a national income accounts basis the surplus in the federal government would be reduced from $570 million in the last fiscal year to $130 million in the current fiscal year that began in April.
As a means of partially offsetting this added stimulus to the economy, I announced the government's intention of introducing legislation to control consumer credit by establishing certain minimum down payment and repayment provisions, which I anticipated would have a moderate effect in restraining the increase in consumer spending.
During the first quarter of this year the Canadian economy continued to grow. The rate of increase in prices began to slow down and in real terms the gross national product increased at a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.7

per cent over the level in the fourth quarter of 1969. As I indicated earlier in my statement today, however, any appreciation of the Canadian dollar for an extended period of time would tend to impose a further measure of restraint upon the economy, which would not be appropriate.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)
Because of this significant change in economic circumstances, the government has decided that it is no longer necessary or desirable to add to the existing restraint by proceeding with the measures proposed in the last budget to control consumer credit.
The government will also be reviewing other aspects of its general economic policies to consider whether further changes should be made to meet these changed economic conditions.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I think very few people realize the sacrifices that the Leader of the Opposition has to make.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I listened to the minister make the speech he has just made on television yesterday at five o'clock, because I take my duty seriously and because I thought something might be said. I heard him make the same speech on the programs W5 and Weekend and on the news. I heard him in the House again this afternoon, and I must say that his statement is no more convincing today than it was the first time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I hope, since I have had to listen to the speech four or five times already, that the minister will be good enough to listen to me for a little while this afternoon. I emphasize, first of all, that the decision to float the exchange rate of our dollar was not a deliberate choice made by the government.


Edgar John Benson: It certainly was.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: It resulted from the mess the government's policies had created, and the government was forced to make that decision.


Edgar John Benson: Not at all.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: The government has rejected the option of a floating exchange rate time after time. Therefore the present situation reflects incredibly bad forecasting on the part of the government.
June 1. 1970	COMMONS


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: An example of this is its announcement regarding the abandonment of the previously proposed consumer credit regulations, which had originally been based upon a totally different forecast.
I have been pressing the Minister of Finance for some time to review his economic policies in light of the changed economic outlook and growing unemployment. He said to me the other day that if I had read or listened to his budget speech I would have been aware of the fact that he had foreseen everything that has happened since.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: He said this to me at a time when the very step he has now taken must have been very much on his mind, thus showing a degree of arrogance toward the House that will not permit us to have any confidence in any statement that any minister may make about the future intentions of the government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I recognize that there are Canadians who favour a floating exchange rate, and they include my hon. friends to the left. But the government has not been among those. I recognize the argument that a floating exchange rate will allow Canada to be more flexible in pursuing its economic policy and that it will provide some possible protection against the importation of inflation. But the government has not accepted these arguments in the past. It has not accepted them as being of sufficient weight. It has dismissed them as doctrinaire and theoretical and suggested obvious disadvantages to Canada which would result from a floating exchange rate.
Thus, the decision was not made because the Minister of Finance favours a floating exchange rate for Canada; it was made, instead, because of difficulties which were the result of the policies he has been pursuing.
Obviously, as the value of our dollar goes up our exports will be discouraged. Obviously there will be a degree of uncertainty as to its level, and the minister has refused to say what the level of the Canadian dollar will be. He said he did not know, and that was one time I believed him. I am sure he does not know.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
DEBATES	7525
Exchange Rate of Canadian Dollar


Robert Lorne Stanfield: This is an entirely improvised policy. It will mean hardships for our exporting industries and increase the competition for some of our hard-pressed industries that operate in the domestic market because this policy will improve the competitive position of industries abroad that compete with our own. Our tourist industry in Canada will also be discouraged to the extent that the-value of the Canadian dollar goes up.
I think it is generally agreed that the fixed rate adopted in 1962 has been an important stimulus to the growth of the Canadian economy since that date. The minister is abandoning that stimulus, not intentionally, I think, but because he allowed himself to be forced into abandoning it. There is far too much unemployment in Canada today.
The returns to all our exporters-farmers, fishermen, people in the lumber business, in petroleum and potash

will be reduced to the extent that the value of the Canadian dollar goes up. Many of these industries are among the most hard-pressed in our economy today.
I do not accept for a moment the complacent attitude the Minister of Finance showed yesterday about the future strength of our export industries. There is no reason to believe that Canadian exports will be so strong that we can afford to discourage them. The minister does not seriously argue that we can; he is mainly seeking a solution to his immediate problems. He has not said a word in the House today about programs to help the exporting industries, whose difficulties he accentuated yesterday. Not a word! There was not a word about helping those hard-pressed manufacturers who will probably be competing from now on under more difficult conditions in a softer United States domestic market. The minister did not feel it necessary to say a word about this.
What is the government's policy, Mr. Speaker? What is the government proposing? What is its stance?


Mr. Muir (Cape Breion-The Sydneys):: More unemployment.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: What has the minister said? He has told us nothing about whether the government's policy will be expansionist, restrictive or the same as before. I say to him that in light of the dramatic step he took yesterday his address to the House this afternoon and the small amount of information he gave constitute an insult to this House and to the people of Canada.
June 1, 1970

Exchange Rate of Canadian Dollar


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: He ought to have outlined to the House the measures that the government proposes to take to accompany the freeing of the Canadian dollar. All that has been mentioned is that the Bank of Canada has reduced the bank rate by half a per cent, and the abandonment of something that should not have been considered in the first place, the proposals regarding consumer credit regulations. I can forgive the Minister of Finance as a man, because I do not think he knows what he is doing, as a man, but I cannot forgive him in his capacity as Minister of Finance. The country is entitled to know what his policies are. The minister's statement means a bleak outlook for Canada, with more unemployment, lower returns for our farmers and increasing difficulties for our export industries.
I do not want to trespass on your good nature, Mr. Speaker, but there is another very important matter to which I wish to refer-the violation of the agreement made with the International Monetary Fund. The Minister of Finance said yesterday that the country has the right to decide what the rate of exchange will be. Has Canada that right, sir, after it has entered into an agreement with the International Monetary Fund not to do it? I think the minister was exceedingly blase in violating an international agreement. Has an undertaking of this sort so little meaning to the government?
I do not think any country has more interest than Canada in developing strong, international structures to support international trade and international monetary relations. Certainly we have been concerned about the adequacy of these structures. Certainly we are concerned, within these structures, to provide for more flexible adjustment. I have said that. But it is a very different thing for Canada to unilaterally tear up an obligation. I doubt whether this will encourage other members of the organization to move toward support of a more flexible arrangement.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)
The minister talked about the self-reliance of this government. He said that when a former government needed help in 1962 it went cap in hand. What about 1968, Mr. Speaker, when, as the minister says, the reserves were down to $1,200 million and Canada and the government of which the


minister was a member needed help desperately? They got it. They got it from this very source.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I have never talked publicly about that period, but the minister has now referred to it. I knew what was going on because those in charge felt I ought to know.


An hon. Member:: That's questionable.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Someone says, that's questionable. I can tell Your Honour that the situation was very serious. The government lost a vote of confidence in the House. If the opposition had prolonged that debate, with continued uncertainty as to the life of the government, the Canadian dollar would have gone down out of sight. Without the help of the International Monetary Fund and the international authorities, this government was powerless to do anything to save the Canadian dollar as recently as 1968.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: The minister has pointed the finger with great complacency at the troubles of previous governments. I say that no Canadian government has been in more serious financial difficulties than the minister's government in 1968, and I know what I am talking about.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: This government or a future Canadian government may again need help- it can happen to any country-and the cavalier, arrogant, complacent, partisan attitude that the Minister of Finance displayed yesterday will be of little help.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Leader of the Opposition will not mind if I interrupt him at this time to remind him that his comments are subject to the terms of the Standing Order applicable to the circumstances. In any event, I understand he is bringing his remarks to a close.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say that I am sorry to see the government of Canada break its word.


An hon. Member:: Oh, come on!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Again I say I am sorry to see
the government of Canada break its word. There is no doubt that the government has broken its word.
June 1, 1970	COMMONS


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I deplore the unemployment the government has already created. I deplore the further unemployment the government is going to create. I deplore the obscurity of the government's stand today. I deplore the inadequacy of the Minister of Finance.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Resign!


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, we are glad to hear that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) has at last accepted the New Democratic Party proposals to move to a floating exchange rate. We would have been happier had the minister accepted this policy on the basis of our persuasive arguments rather than on the basis of the impending crisis created by this government and its policies.
The Minister of Finance must face the fact that his economic policy and his budget of last March 12 are now in a shambles. Only two new measures were provided for in that budget in addition to his standpat policy- consumer credit controls and the money necessary for Operation Lift. Consumer credit controls have now been abandoned and Operation Lift is a disaster. It is totally unacceptable to western Canada. I predict that the government will soon announce the abandonment of that program.
The New Democratic Party has called for a floating exchange rate for some years. During the current session the hon. member for Waterloo (Mr. Saltsman) and myself on behalf of the New Democratic Party members issued a minority report after the question of interest rates and inflation had been studied by the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs. Our report recommended:
To give us more freedom of action until such time as the world monetary system becomes more flexible, we propose that Canada Immediately move to a floating exchange rate.
It is regrettable that the government saw fit to act only after it became clear that government actions to protect the Canadian dollar at its present fixed peg were futile and the government had wasted considerable resources in the effort. An important consideration now, particularly in light of the minister's comments, is for the government to give an assurance that Canada will maintain a floating
DEBATES	7527
Exchange Rate of Canadian Dollar exchange rate in the future and will not abandon its new policy within a very short time.
The new policy, if effectively administered, will enable Canada to stabilize its external monetary relations more adequately and allow Canadian economic policy to serve domestic needs. The critical point for the Canadian people is to learn what the Canadian government is going to do in order to end the present internal economic mess in Canada. The newly announced policy of the government will be effective for the people of Canada only if it is accompanied by appropriate fiscal and monetary policies, an investment policy and an incomes policy, all of which must be designed and integrated to meet the needs of the Canadian people.
The government must direct investment in Canada and ensure that critical areas, and I make particular reference to housing, receive an adequate allocation of money. There must be an over-all increase in public investment.
It is essential that the Bank of Canada direct the chartered banks to lower their interest rates immediately as a result of the change in the bank rate. I trust that we will hear announcements from the chartered banks to this effect later this week as a result of the minister's comments.
It is equally important that immediate steps be taken to rationalize Canadian industry in order to make Canadian goods more competitive in world markets and to rid ourselves of our present inefficient branch-plant industrial structure. The government should be prepared to take the necessary steps to counteract any unfavourable effects of its new policy on Canada's export industries. Steps must be taken to ensure that the benefits of cheaper imports are passed on to the Canadian people. Of course, we will be expecting to hear from the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford) regarding the steps he will be introducing to ensure that the benefits of cheaper imports are passed on to the Canadian people.
It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that the policies announced by the government today by themselves will have little meaning for the 544,000 people in Canada who are now unemployed and the thousands of students who are looking for summer employment. We will be watching for the further policies mentioned by the Minister of Finance to stimulate employment, particularly those that will help the regionally depressed areas of Canada. The
June 1, 1970

Exchange Rate of Canadian Dollar continuation of present trends would mean a seasonally adjusted level of unemployment next winter of between 6 per cent to 7 per cent and an actual unemployment level of 8 per cent to 9 per cent.
One effect of the move to a floating exchange rate is that it will give the government a new opportunity to adopt effective policies to build an independent Canadian economy and an economy less dependent on events in the United States. We will be watching for the minister's statements and announcements.
e (3:00 p.m.)
The abandonment of the government's proposed consumer credit control program underline's the fact that the original proposal was hastily developed and ill-conceived. It illustrates the fact that the government has lost touch with new developments in the Canadian economy which make it impossible to apply the same type of program as was applied in the early 1950's. The necessity for the abandonment of this program demonstrates the ineptness of the government in managing Canada's economic affairs.
Finally, it must be noted that there are serious problems of world liquidity which complicate international monetary affairs. International discussions are now taking place to determine what adjustments should be made in the international monetary structure in an effort to bring about a greater degree of flexibility. We urge the government to cooperate fully in further talks designed to create a greater degree of stability and flexibility in world monetary affairs. It has now been demonstrated that the approach taken by the Minister of Finance has not worked. His budget is in a shambles. This situation, together with the inept management of the Canadian economy by the Liberal government, can, I suggest, mean only one thing for the Minister of Finance: the sooner he resigns, the better for Canada.


Mr.   C.-A. Gauthier@Roberval: Mr. Speaker, we were surprised to hear the statement of the Minister of Finance. In fact, we can conclude that the most important consequences of the decision of the government to let the exchange rate go up a little, with regard to the American dollar, will be to make imports easier and exportations even more difficult.
The minister did not say it in so many words, but it is obvious that the measure he announced is one of the means the government is taking to control inflation. We do not agree with the means announced by the minister and a few days ago, we told the government what specific measures to adopt in order to reduce prices for the benefit of Canadian consumers. But, instead, the Canadian government relies on orthodox financial advisers who hold that money and exchange rates can be manipulated, notwithstanding increased hardship and difficulties for a great many Canadians, if not all of them.
However, we can see what the minister is aiming at. Realising that voluntary restrictions are not enough to control increasing prices, he is taking a drastic step to bring them down. Under the announced measure, foreign products will enter the country more freely, and Canadian prices will have to come down to foreign price levels, whatever the costs included in Canadian prices.
The Ralliement creditiste feels that this is a catastrophic measure since the manufacturers, while trying to reduce their prices to foreign price levels to sustain competition, will resist union demands even more strongly, which will result in disastrous struggles between employers and unions, when salaries can never keep up with prices. The Canadian government's decision will further disturb the social climate of the country.
Since the government is failing through reasoning and confidence to impress its views upon unions, it places them before a fait accompli. Workers will therefore have to accept a salary decrease or a wage freeze. In my opinion, this is the meaning of the policy which the minister has just announced.



QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER

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

Mr. Rose: 1	Is Mr. John C. Parkin the Chairman of the federal National Design Council and did he present a paper to an Ontario provincial Liberal conference in August?
2.	Is Mr. Leonard Shifrin a director of the federal National Council of Welfare and did he present a paper to an Ontario provincial Liberal conference in August?
3.	What is the policy of the federal government regarding the participation of government ap-

June 1, 1970

pointed members of national councils in political conferences?
Mr. Yves Fores! (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council): 1. Yes. Mr. John C. Parkin is the Chairman of the federal National Design Council and did present a paper to an Ontario provincial Liberal conference in August.
2.	Yes. Mr. Leonard Shifrin is director of the National Council of Welfare.
He did not present a paper to an Ontario provincial Liberal conference in August. However, a paper prepared by Mr. Shifrin and published elsewhere was distributed to persons attending the conference as background material.
3.	With respect to the participation of government appointed members of national councils in political conferences, it is the policy of this government, as it appears to have been of previous governments, to consider that where these individuals are not remunerated and thus provide, as in Mr. Parkin's case, a voluntary public service, they are under no obligation to forego any rights with respect to participation in political conferences. They are not, however, entitled to make public, information that comes to them in the course of such service and which may be of a confidential nature.
The government considers that in instances where similar service is provided by government appointed members on a remunerated basis or in those cases where no government appointment is involved but the service is contracted for, as in the case of Mr. Shifrin, the individuals should not participate in a partisan way in meetings of political associations. However, with the permission of the Minister or the Deputy Minister concerned, they may present to such associations papers which are purely informative, provided that they do not disclose information which is of a confidential nature which comes to them in the course of their work.


DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE-PURCHASE OF LONG-RANGE JET TRANSPORTS
Mr. Skoberg: 1.	Did the federal government issue a competitive tender for the purchase of long-range jet transports for the Department of National Defence and, if so, on what date was the tender issued?
2.	What bids were received by the Department of National Defence from various manufacturers and, in each case, what was the respective bid?
Questions


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of Supply and Services):: 1. Two companies, Douglas Aircraft Co. and the Boeing Company were requested on December 29, 1969 to submit proposals on the price and availability of the type of aircraft required by DND.
2.	The Boeing Company offered four 707394 C Aircraft for delivery in March 1970 at a basic price of $8,775,000 (U.S.) per aircraft, not including the cost of spare engines, supporting spares, ground landing equipment and a provision for engineering charges and maintenance by contract for the first year of operation. The Douglas Aircraft Company offered four DC 8-63 CF stretched aircraft for delivery between March and June 1970 at a unit price of $11,356,000, or four of the same type of aircraft for delivery between March and June 1971 at a unit price of $10,500,000, or four standard DC 8-62 CF aircraft for delivery during 1971 at a unit price of $10,070,000. These prices did not include the cost of spare engines, supporting spares, ground landing equipment or provision for engineering charges and maintenance by contract for the first year of operation.


ELIMINATION OF AUTOMOBILES FROM DOWNTOWN OTTAWA
Mr. Skoberg: Is the Government of Canada, through the National Capital Commission, giving favorable consideration to the development of a plan which would eliminate automobiles from the down-town area of Ottawa?


Mr. Marlin P. O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: At present, no plan exists for the elimination of automobiles from downtown Ottawa.


FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO CHRISTOPHER MILLS
Mr. Burton: Has any direct or indirect financial assistance been provided through Regional Development programs, other programs of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, or programs of the Departments of Industry or Industry, Trade and Commerce, to Christopher Mills of Glencoe, New Brunswick and, if so, what is the amount and nature of assistance provided?


Mr. Yves Forest (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Yes,

June 1, 1970
Questions
$37,841 as a first payment on a development grant under the Area Development Incentives Act of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion.


HOUSING-DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN CMHC AND POLYMER CORPORATION
Mr. Gilbert: 1.	What specific discussions have been held between CMHC and Polymer Corporation regarding housing construction in Canada?
2.	When did these discussions take place and which officials of both agencies participated?
3.	What were the results of these discussions?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister without Portfolio):: The below listed answer applies in so far as Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is concerned. 1. One meeting has been held between officials of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Polymer Corporation, to discuss the system of housing construction acquired by the latter.
2.	This meeting was held on February 11th, 1970 and was attended by the following officials: Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation: Mr. H. W. Hignett, President-Chairman; Mr. J. Lupien, Vice-President; Mr. D. E. Crinion; Mr. F. F. Field; Mr. S. A. Git-terman; Mr. G. J. Hunt; Mr. J. C. Kerr; Mr. L. Loshak; Mr. G. Seaden; Mr. R. E. Sheppard; Mr. H. T. Work.
Polymer Corporation: Mr. R. E. Hatch, Executive Vice-President for Development; Mr. G. Bracewell, Vice-President; Mr. P. Cochrane; Mr. P. B. Lumb, Manager of Technology Corporate Development.
National Research Council Division of Building Research: Mr. J. L. Hall.
Department of Industry: Mr. J. Dawson-Mr. G. Marchand.
3.	It was agreed that the officials of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Division of Building Research in the National Research Council, and the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, should assist Polymer Corporation as much as possible in the development of their product.


HOUSING-COST OF TASK FORCE
Mr. Coates: 1.	What was the final cost of the task force on housing established by the then Minister of Transport, the Honourable Paul Hellyer?
2.	(a) What were the names, addresses and occupations of the members of this task force (b)

were all of the members Canadian citizens and, if not, for what reason?
3.	What was the cost of travel and what cities were visited by the task force?
4.	What did each member of the task force receive in salary and expenses?
5.	Did any of the members of the task force on housing serve on any other government commissions or task forces either before or since and, if so (a) what are the names of those individuals (b) have any of the members of the task force since entered the Public Service of Canada and, if so, in what positions?


Robert Knight Andras: 1. The final cost of the Task Force on Housing established by the then Minister of Transport, the Honourable Paul Hellyer, was $210,684.57.
2.	(a) The names, addresses and occupations of the members of this task force are: (1) Dr. Doris Boyle, 12 Tain Street, Sydney, Nova Scotia. Occupation: Economist, Sociologist, Xavier College. (2) Professor Pierre Dansereau, 76 Maplewood, Outremont 153, Quebec. Occupation: Ecologist, University of Montreal, Institute of Urbanism. (3) Mr. W. Peter Carter, 159 Dexhill Drive, Beaconsfield, Quebec. Occupation: Mortgage Controller, Royal Bank of Canada, Montreal, Quebec. (4) Mr. Robert Campeau, Campeau Corporation Limited, Box 450, Terminal "A", Ottawa, Ontario. Occupation: Builder-Developer, President of Campeau Corporation, Ottawa, Ontario. (5) Dr. James Gillies, 73 Fairway Heights Road, Thornhill, Ontario. Occupation:	Land Economist and Dean,
Faculty of Administrative Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario. (6) Mr. C. E. Pratt, 430 Stevens Drive, West Vancouver, B.C. Occupation: Senior Partner, Thompson, Berwick, Pratt and Partners, Architects, Vancouver, B.C.
2.	(b) It is not known if all members of the task force were Canadian citizens.
3.	The travel costs of the task force were $62,560. The cities visited by the task force were: St. John's; Charlottetown; Halifax; Campbellton, Chatham, Fredericton, Saint John; Chicoutimi, Hull, Matane, Mont Joli, Montreal, Quebec; Fort William-Port Arthur, Hamilton, Ottawa, St. Catharines, Sudbury, Toronto; Thompson, Winnipeg, Esterhazy; Regina, Saskatoon; Calgary, Edmonton; Vancouver, Victoria; Whitehorse, Yellowknife.
June 1, 1970

4.	The honoraria and expenses received by each member of the task force follow:
		$	$
Dr. Doris	Boyle	8,850.00	5,427.46
Prof. Pierre Dansereau 7,800.00			1,953.67
Mr. Peter	Carter	10,350.00	3,844.02Mr. Robert Campeau	7,950.00	1,973.08Dr. Jtimes	Gillies	5,400.00	2,014.36Mr. C. E.	Pratt	7,650.00	7,821.04TOTAL	48,000.00	23,033.635.	(a) Dr. Pierre Dansereau is a part-time member of the Canadian Radio-Television Commission, (b) It is not known if any members of the task force have since entered the Public Service of Canada.


FEES PAID ARISING OUT OF REPORTS TO NARCOTICS CONTROL ACT
[Stage Direction]
Question No. 1,551
Mr. Ritchie:: 1.	Since January 1, 1967, have any fees or remuneration been paid to legal counsel and/or other persons for opinions and/or action arising out of reports of the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission or for other activities relating to the Narcotics Control Act and, if so, what are the names of (a) the counsel (b) other persons?
2.	What amount was paid to each and for what services in connection with what case, in each instance?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1 and 2. This information is available in the answer provided to question 1,343 by Mr. Howard (Skeena) and tabled in the House of Commons on May 11, 1970. Only payments in excess of $2,000 are reported, as the provision of more detailed information would require at least 45 days of work and the manual searching of thousands of records.


GRANTS TO E. B. EDDY COMPANY
Mr. Brcadbent: In each of the past five years, what federal government grants, loans and incentives have been given to the E. B. Eddy Company of Canada?


Yves Forest: In each of the past five years, the federal government
Questions
did not give grants, loans and incentives to the E. B. Eddy Company of Canada.


CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION-EXPROPRIATION OPERATIONS
Mr. Fortin: 1.	Have the expropriation operations of the Cape Breton Development Corporation been completed, if not, what stage have they reached?
2.	Has CBDC bought shares or assets of private enterprises?


Abram Ernest Epp: 1. Cape Breton Development Corporation has authorized the Department of Justice to file an Information in the Exchequer Court of Canada to have determined the compensation payable for the assets expropriated.
2.	C.B.D.C. expropriated assets of five of the six companies mentioned in Section 2(d) of the Cape Breton Development Corporation Act.


PUBLIC WORKS-FEDERAL EXPENDITURES IN QUEBEC AND ONTARIO 1968-69
Mr. Lambert (Belle-chasse): What was the total amount of money spent by the federal government on public works of all kinds during the fiscal year 1968-69 in (a) Quebec (b) Ontario?


Yves Forest: (a)
$84,718,722; (b) $156,804,180.


PUBLIC SERVICE-UNION MEMBERSHIP
Mr. McKinley: With respect to compulsory union membership in the Public Service (a) how is "Management Exclusion" determined and by whom (b) what is the Rand Formula and is it applicable to the Public Service and, if so, in what regard (c) is the payment of union dues compulsory and, if not, in what respect (d) can a member of the Public Service request exclusion from union membership and, if so, in what manner and to whom?


Hon. C. M. Drury (President of the Treasury Board):: (a) ''Management Exclusions" are designated by the employer. The unions then

June 1, 1970
Questions
have an opportunity to challenge those designated in accordance with the Public Service Staff Relations Act, Section 2u (iii) to (vii) inclusive. Where a managerial exclusion has been challenged by a union the decision then rests with the Public Service Staff Relations Board, (b) The Rand formula is a union security plan developed by the late Judge Ivan Rand which provides for the employer to deduct union dues by check-off from the pay of all employees in the bargaining unit and remit the amounts to the union. This formula with slight modifications is applicable to the majority of bargaining units in the Public Service, (c) Yes, when the Rand formula has been negotiated and included in a collective agreement, (d) The collective agreements do not require the employee to be a member of the union although they may require the employee to pay dues. Most collective agreements contain a clause which permits an employee to request exclusion from paying dues when he satisfies the employer to the extent that he declares in an affidavit that he is a member of a religious organization whose doctrine prevents him as a matter of conscience from making financial contributions to an employee organization and that we will make contributions to a charitable organization equal to dues.


PRAIRIE PROVINCES-DRAINAGE OF LAND
Mr. Stewart (Marquette): 1.	What acreage of potholes and other wetlands has been drained in the Prairie and Parkland zones of each of the three Prairie Provinces during the 10-year period ended March 31, 1969?
2.	What acreage of new land resulting from the drainage is now devoted to production of cereal crops, and what effect has the production had on increasing the surplus stocks of wheat now on hand?


Abram Ernest Epp: 1. Under P.F.R.A.:	Manitoba,
1,260 acres; Saskatchewan, 7,560 acres; Alberta, 3,780 acres.
2. 80 per cent of the area drained by P.F.R.A. has been used for forage crops. Any production of cereal crops on the remaining area cannot have had an appreciable effect on the stocks of wheat now on hand.



Mr. Stewart (Marquette): 1.	How many potholes and other wetlands remain in the Prairie and Parkland zones of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba?
2	What is the total acreage, by Province and zone, of these remaining potholes and wetlands?


Abram Ernest Epp: There are no records available which would provide an answer to this question.


INDIAN AFFAIRS POLICY PROPOSALS
Mr. Orlikow: 1.	Has the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development employed or contracted with any person or persons or companies whose task for the Department was to persuade or discuss with Indian Bands, or other Indian organizations the merits of the Department's Indian Policy proposals and, if so, who are the persons or companies with whom such contracts were negotiated?
2.	How much has been paid or will be paid to such people for their work?
3.	Is the government supporting financially or otherwise the National Indian Council and, if so, what support is being given?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: 1. The
Department has entered into contract with the following persons for consultation and/or liaison services. Mr. Gus Debassige; Mr. Roy Gould; Mr. Andrew Bear Robe; Mr. W. I. C. Wuttunee.
2.	Payments: Mr. Gus Debassige, $3,850; Mr. Roy Gould, $4,427; Mr. Andrew Bear Robe, $4,714; Mr. W. I. C. Wuttunee, $600. Plus accountable travelling expenses.
3.	The Government is not supporting financially a National Indian Council. However, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has supported the various Provincial Indian Associations and the National Indian Brotherhood to enable them to discuss the Indian policy proposals with the various Indian bands which they represent. Financial assistance has been provided through per capita grants to the Associations and through accountable funds made available to the Associations for the holding of meetings with the Department, for all Chiefs Meetings in the various provinces, and for meetings between Associations and band members.
June 1, 1970

Questions
The amounts provided during the 1969-70 fiscal year were as follows:
Per Capita Grants
National Indian Brotherhood	$ 61,000
Union of Nova Scotia Indians	4,452
Union of New Brunswick Indians	4,156
Lennox Island Band, P.E.I.	418
Indians of Quebec Association	25,376
River Desert Band, P,Q.	926
Union of Ontario Indians	42,981
Iroquois and Allied Tribes	10,000
Manitoba Indian Brotherhood	33,358
Federation of Saskatchewan Indians	33,852
Indian Association of Alberta	27,322
Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs	46,046
Yukon Native Brotherhood	2,562
Indian Brotherhood of the N.W.T.	6,082

Meetings	Assns. & Dept.	All Chiefs	Assns. & Bands	Provincial TotalsNova Scotia	.... 2,685	4,444	13,162	20,291New Brunswick	.... 5,612	2,700	9,650	17,962Quebec	.... 11,466	58,113	-	69,679Ontario	.... 251	-	30,975	31,226Manitoba	.... 460	15,825	1,327	17,612Saskatchewan	.... 398	34,366	-	34,764Alberta	.... 80	22,902	28,000	50,982B.C	
4,528	54,342	7,950	66,820N.W.T	
1,920	13,709	1,176	16,805Y ukon	
773	5,651	4,053	10,477N.I.B	
903	89,563	-	90,46629,076	301,615	96,293	426,984
Total Payments

725,515* *
Funds in the amount of $1,500,000 are included in the Estimates for 1970/71 for this purpose.
'These figures are accurate as of the date of submitting the Answer. There may be minor changes when the books are closed.


POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT-DELIVERY OF BROCHURES
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	Did the Board of Control of York, Ontario, protest recently about the non-delivery of brochures to residents of the Borough?
2.	Did the Post Office Department investigate this complaint and, if so, with what result?
3.	How many brochures were (a) delivered (b) not delivered?
4.	How many residents were delivered more than one brochure?
5.	Did the Board of Control advise that future issues of the brochure would be delivered by a private delivery firm and, if so, what reasons were given for deciding to remove this business from the Post Office Department?


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Postmaster General and Minister of Communications):: 1. Yes.
2.	Yes. However, investigation was hampered because of size of mailing 45,000 pieces; type of mailing, 'a householder'; and time lapse between mailing and commencement of enquiry.
3.	Information not available.
4.	No specific instances were brought to light.
5.	Yes, because of results of a survey they conducted.


*CBC EMPLOYEES HANDBOOK
Mr. Lewis: 1.	Did the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation publish a booklet entitled CBC Employee's Handbook and, if so, on what date?

June 1, 1970
Questions
2.	Has this handbook been distributed to each of the Corporation's employees in all centres?
3	What was the total cost of the publication of this booklet?


Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Secretary of Stale):: I am informed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as follows: 1. Yes. A CBC Employee's Handbook was issued by the Training Office in Toronto on January 16, 1970.
2.	The handbook was distributed to all CBC staff in Toronto and will subsequently be issued to all English Services employees across Canada as an orientation manual to the various services and departments of the CBC. Its format is such that it can be adapted economically for regional use.
3.	Total cost for first printing was approximately $4,400.


OTTAWA-COST OF NEW NATIONAL DEFENCE BUILDING
Mr. Coates: 1.	What is the present estimated cost of constructing the new National Defence Headquarters?
2.	Have all contracts been awarded for the construction of the Headquarters and, if so, what are the names of the firm or firms carrying out such construction and in each instance, the amount of the contract?
3.	(a) What is the estimated date of completion of the National Defence Headquarters (b) are there specific time limits contained in the contracts for construction of the headquarters (c) are there penalties specified in the contracts if the time specifications are not complied with and, if so, what are the penalties?
Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Public
Works): 1. The total estimated cost is $32,339,000 including land costs and consultants' fees.
2.	All construction is to be carried out under one contract. This contract in the amount of $27,127,000 was awarded to Louis Donolo Inc. of Montreal, Que. on November 4, 1969.
3.	(a) The contractor plans on completing the work by May 30, 1972. (b) Under the contract all work is to be completed in 36 months from time of contract award. The contract completion date therefore is November 4, 1972. (c) The contract provides the Department with the right to assess the contractor for extra costs incurred which can be attributed to noncompletion by the contract completion date. This is covered in the standard General Conditions for Federal Government contracts.


OTTAWA-GOST OF JACKSON BUILDING RENOVATIONS
Mr. Coates: 1.	What was the cost of renovating the Jackson Building at the corner of Bank and Slater Streets and was this the amount of the original contract or was additional cost involved in completing the renovations?
2.	What was the total amount of the original contract and the name of the firm carrying out the work?
3.	If there were additional costs, what was the name of the firm or firms carrying out the work and were tenders called for this additional work?
4.	Does the contractor or contractors meet the specifications on time limits specified in the original contracts?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Public Works):: 1. The actual cost will not be known until all work has been completed. The total estimated cost of renovations is $3,272,000 including consultants' fees.
2.	The original contract in the amount of $2,575,000 was awarded to Cambrian Construction Limited of Montreal, Que.
3.	Additional work is being carried out by the original contractor, Cambrian Construction Limited, because it is closely associated with the original contract. Therefore it was not practical to have it carried out on any basis other than as an extension to the original contract.
4.	The original contract completion date was February 28, 1970. It is now estimated that all work will be completed by about September 1, 1970. The delay was due to the fact that complete plans of the old structure were not available and the detailed condition was not known until the old walls were removed.


PUBLIC SERVICE-EMPLOYMENT OF RETARDATES
Mr. Saltsman: 1.	What is the policy of the government with respect to the employment of retardates?
2.	How many retardates are being employed in the public service of Canada at the present time?
3.	In what types of employment?
4.	In what ways, if any, are conditions of employment different from those of other employees in the public service?


Gérard Pelletier: I am informed by the Public Service Commission as follows: 1. The Public Service
June 1, 1970

Commission recognizes the need to provide a favourable climate in the Public Service for handicapped persons. With respect to the mentally retarded the Commission has obtained the approval of the governor in council for the exclusion from the competitive process for the initial appointment of persons who, because of mental retardation, cannot participate in a competitive situation on an equitable basis with persons not so handicapped.
2.	The Public Service Commission, in December 1967, announced a special program for the employment of mentally retarded persons. From its inception, the program has been operated on a pilot project basis in the Ottawa-Hull area, but it is the intent to extend it throughout Canada. Up to the present, the Public Service Commission has appointed nine (9) such persons to six (6) departments.
3.	Office equipment operators, clerical and cleaning servicemen.
4.	Conditions of employment are not different from those of other employees.


NATIONAL FILM BOARD
Mr. Skoberg: Are there any members on the National Film Board appointed from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia and, if so, who are they?


Gérard Pelletier: Mr. Peter John Lazarowich, Q.C., of Edmonton, Alberta, is the Board member representing the Prairie Provinces. Mr. W. K. Jack of Hatzic, British Columbia, is the Board member representing British Columbia.


RETURNING OFFICERS RESIGNATIONS- CARDIGAN AND EGMONT
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	On what dates were the resignations of the Returning Officers of the constituencies of Cardigan and Egmont received?
2.	Who are now the Returning Officers in these constituencies ?
3.	What are the dates of their appointments?


Hon. Robert Stanbury (Minister without Portfolio):: I am informed by the Chief Electoral Officer that the answer is as follows
Questions
1. Cardigan, April 1, 1970; Egmont, April 21, 1970.
2.	Both positions are still vacant.
3.	Not applicable.


HISTORIC SITES-SIR ROBERT BORDEN RESIDENCE
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	Was the former residence of Sir Robert Borden, 201 Wurtemberg St., Ottawa designated by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development as being of National historic significance and, if so, on what date?
2.	Did the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recommend such designation and, if so, on what date?
3.	Was a plaque prepared in reference to such designation and, if so, what was the inscription thereon?
4.	Was such a plaque placed at or on the residence?
5.	Did the Minister or anyone on his behalf inquire as to the cost of purchasing the residence and, if so, on what date?
6.	From whom was the figure $500,000 (referred to on page 6093 of Hansard) obtained?
7.	Were any representations made to delay or forestall the demolition of this residence?
8.	From what groups or individuals were representations received respecting the preservation of this residence?
9.	What former residences of Canadian Prime Ministers are now the property of the Nation?


Mr. Russell C. Honey (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: 1. Yes, on November 26, 1962.
2.	Yes, on May 18, 1962.
3.	No.
4.	N/A.
5.	No.
6.	The Ottawa Citizen, September 5, 1969.
7.	No.
8.	One written representation was received from Mr. Macquarrie dated April 8, 1970. There has been several telephone inquiries from the press and private individuals.
9.	(a) Bellevue House, Kingston, Sir John A. MacDonald; (b) St. Lin, St. Lin de Lauren-tide, Quebec, Sir Wilfrid Laurier; (c) Laurier House, Ottawa, Sir Wilfrid Laurier; (d) Wood-side, Kitchener, Ontario, W. L. Mackenzie King; (e) Kingsmere, Kingsmere Lake, W. L. Mackenzie King.

June 1, 1970
Questions


GRANT TO MADAWASKA FOREST PRODUCTS MARKETING BOARD
Mr. Corbin: Has the Department of Regional Economic Expansion made a $15,000 grant to the Madawaska Forest Products Marketing Board of Edmunston, New Brunswick and, if so, for what reason?


Abram Ernest Epp: The federal share in this grant, under a 1968-69 ARDA project, was $7,500. The purpose was to develop more efficient methods of woodlot operation and marketing of forest products.


SALARIES OF COMMITTEE ON PARLIAMENTARY SALARIES AND EXPENSES
Mr. Mather: What is the salary and expenses of the Commission on MP salaries and expenses?


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: The Chairman and Members of the Advisory Committee on Parliamentary Salaries and Expenses receive an honorarium of $150 a day for each day of Committee work. They also receive necessary travelling and living expenses in accordance with the Treasury Board Travel Directive for each day they are absent from their normal place of residence on Committee business.


REPORT TO PARLIAMENT ON CONSEQUENCES OF SMOKING
Mr. Mather: Is consideration being given to requiring the Department of National Health and Welfare to report to Parliament annually concerning (a) current information on the health consequences of smoking (b) such recommendations for legislation as it deems appropriate?


John Carr Munro: (a) No; (b) No.


NEWFOUNDLAND-RESETTLEMENT AGREEMENT
Mr. Lundrigan: What are the details of the new Resettlement Agreement between the Province of Newfoundland and the Department of Regional Economic Expansion?


Abram Ernest Epp: The agreement will be tabled after it has been signed.


Mr. Caouetie: 1.	Since 1959, how many parcels of land has the National Capital Commission bought or expropriated on the road from the Village of Templeton to the Village of Perkins, commonly called the Perkins Road and for what purposes?
2.	In each case who was the owner, what was the size of the property and what was the cost?
3.	Is it the intention of the National Capital Commission to expropriate the summer cottages at Lake MacGregor in order to establish a park similar to the one at Lac Philippe?


Abram Ernest Epp: 1. Since 1959, one parcel of land, abutting Commission lands, was purchased by the National Capital Commission on the road from the Village of Templeton to the Village of Perkins, commonly called the Perkins Road, for the purpose of preserving river frontages as parklands for public uses.
2.	Name of owner, Leo Beauchamp; Size of property, 7 acres; cost, $2,400.
3.	No such plan exists at present.


QUEBEC-PREMIUMS PAID TO CHEESE PRODUCERS
Mr. Gauthier: What was the total amount of premiums paid on cheese to Quebec producers for each year 1967, 1968 and 1969?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: Fiscal Year	Amount
1966-	67
1967-	68
1968-	69
1969-	70


$712,793 695,750 61,590 QUEBEC-PREMIUMS PAID TO HOG PRODUCERS
Mr. Gauthier: What was the total amount of premiums paid on hogs to Quebec producers for each year 1967, 1968 and 1969?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Fiscal Year
1966-	67
1967-	68
1968-	69
1969-	70
Amount

June 1, 1970


IMMIGRATION OF UNITED STATES CITIZENS
Mr. Diefenbaker: How many United States citizens of the ages respectively of (a) 19 years (b) 20 years (c) 21 years (d) 22 years, have entered Canada month-bymonth since the first day of January, 1969?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Except in the case of those persons granted landed immigrant status, citizens of the United States are not generally documented when admitted to Canada. Consequently it is only in respect
Questions
of immigrants that any figures are maintained by the Department of Manpower and Immigration. During the calendar year 1969, the latest period for which statistics are available, total immigration of United States citizens of the specified ages were as follows (a) 284, (b) 387, (c) 635 and (d) 740.
I would also like to put on the record a more detailed monthly breakdown that will add to the information provided above.
[Editor's Note: The table referred to above follows:]
*. MacEachen.]
United States Citizens Granted Landed Immigrant Status by Specified Ages on Arrival During
Month	Age 19	Age 20	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female	TotalJanuary	4	8	12	9	10	19February	2	6	8	2	13	15March	5	13	7	10	17April	8	4	12	4	18	22May	2	8	7	16	23June	13	27	9	28	37July	16	34	12	19	31August	16	15	31	13	18	31September	15	10	25	11	32	43October	17	30	47	25	37	62November	11	21	32	18	29	47December	14	21	35	13	25	40-	- -	-	.	-TOTALS	.. 133	151	284	132	255	387Age 21	Age 22	TotalsMale	F emale	Total	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female	Total5	19	24	12	20	32	30	57	877	15	22	11	24	35	22	58	805	20	25	13	24	37	33	59	9210	20	30	12	19	31	34	61	9512	21	33	20	36	56	45	75	12018	23	41	22	32	54	63	96	15921	30	51	21	38	59	72	103	17540	44	84	35	37	72	104	114	21833	43	76	30	47	77	89	132	22144	52	96	47	58	105	133	177	31024	37	61	46	47	93	99	134	23331	61	92	35	54	89	95	161	256-	*-	-	-	-	-	.	250	385	635	304	436	740	819	1227	2046COMMONS DEBATES	June 1, 1970
Questions
June 1. 1970



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	How many civil servants or employees of Crown corporations or government agencies have been dismissed or have been given notice of termination of employment?
2.	Of these employees, how many in each department, agency, etc., have been employed by the government for (a) up to ten years (b) ten to fifteen years (c) fifteen to twenty years (d) more than twenty years?
3.	Of those employees dismissed or who have been given notice of dismissal, how many are (a) forty to forty-five years of age (b) forty-five to fifty years of age (c) more than fifty years of age?
Return tabled.


PRAIRIE REGIONS-CLEARING LAND ON COMMUNITY PASTURES
Mr. Korchinski: 1.	In the Prairie Regions, what tenders have been called for in the fiscal year 1969-70 for the purpose of clearing community pastures?
2.	In each case, what was the location, the cost where known and, the number of acres involved?
3.	In what other areas is it intended to clear land on community pastures in the year 1970?
Return tabled.


Mr. Diefenbaker:: Mr. Speaker, if I may rise on a point of order, I must say that the information that has been given in reply to question No. 1902 is very uncertain because it entirely disregards the numbers coming into Canada from the United States to evade the draft or other laws of that nation. Whatever figures have been given have no relationship to the facts.
[DOT] (3:10 p.m.)


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether he would tell the House when he will have completed the review of the government's economic policies which he considers to be appropriate to be associated with the measure that he
Inquiries of the Ministry announced yesterday? When may we expect a statement on these policies?


Edgar John Benson: I would think, Mr. Speaker, in the very near future. I should not like to forecast within a day or a week, but it will be in the near future.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question. Are we to wait until the Canadian dollar finds a level that the minister considers satisfactory and, following that, for an examination by the minister of appropriate policies in that context before we hear what these policies are?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, the policies that would be appropriate in the circumstances with respect to the change in value of the Canadian dollar depend on the level to which the Canadian dollar rises. I should also like to say to the hon. member that I listened to his speech on television last night and it was no more convincing than his speech here today.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I would not have deprived the minister of that remark for anything; I am sure he feels much better. He needs whatever comfort he can get, from whatever source. For purposes of clarification, I take it that we will not receive a statement on government policies until the dollar finds some level and the position is re-examined at a later date. In the meantime, the people of Canada will have to work in confusion as best they can.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I have said nothing from which the hon. member could draw that conclusion.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-INTERVENTION BY GOVERNMENT OR BANK OF CANADA IN MONEY MARKETS

Hon. D. S. Harkness (Calgary Centre):: May
I ask a supplementary question of the Minister of Finance. Did the government or the Bank of Canada intervene today in the money markets in order either to accelerate or to put a brake on the change in the exchange rate?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I believe it is not in the interest of Canada to disclose that information.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE- MEASURES TO CUSHION EFFECTS ON EXPORT INDUSTRIES AND EMPLOYMENT

Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. While

June 1, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry agreeing with his belated decision to unpeg the Canadian dollar, having due regard to the fact that such action is usually accompanied by offsetting or countervailing measures, may I ask the minister what measures he proposes in order to cushion the effects on the exporting industries, particularly the farmers and fishermen who will be affected by this sudden decision?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I am rather astounded that the members of the New Democratic Party, who were very much in favour of the policy of a floating exchange rate, asked for my resignation. I should like to inform them that two actions have already been taken. There has been a reduction in the bank rate from 7J to 7 per cent; there has also been the decision of the government not to proceed with the consumer credit measures. I have indicated that our other economic policies, fiscal and monetary, are being reviewed and I will be making an announcement in due course.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that one would have expected the supplementary offsetting measures to be ready at the same time that the government announced its policy with regard to unpegging the dollar, may I ask the Minister of Finance what measures he has in mind to cope with the increased level of unemployment which will undoubtedly result from this sudden decision that the government has made, and in the absence of any countervailing measures?


Mr. Hees:: You cannot have it both ways.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I am very
pleased to hear my hon. friend wants it both ways. I would simply like to say to him that we believe that the government should take measures to offset the economic effects on employment in Canada due to the variation in the exchange rate. The extent of these measures, of course, depends on the variation in the exchange rate. We are presently reviewing the situation, along with our general economic policies, and I shall be making a statement in due course.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. I am concerned over the division here between the socialists and the pseudosocialists. Would the minister explain whether he borrowed part of the ideas of the New Democratic Party but that because the rest will create unemployment, lose markets and the like they will not be accepted?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that the thing that astounds me is that the Tories do not agree with the socialists. They usually do.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-CONSULTATION WITH INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND

Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Yesterday the minister was at pains to indicate the degree of consultation there had been with the authorities of the International Monetary Fund. Would he now spell out for the House what consultation there was, or did he treat them in the same way as the United States when he advised that government?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, we have a permanent director, on the IMF who kept the IMF informed as our thinking moved along.


Mr. Dinsdale:: What thinking?


Edgar John Benson: The great difference between Tories and Liberals is that Liberals do think. We kept the IMF constantly informed of what was going on, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada was in touch with the head of the IMF before the decision was made.


George Harris Hees: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the Minister of Finance advised the House, in reply to a question last Wednesday from the hon. member for Dauphin as reported at page 7384 of Hansard, that the government had no intention of putting the Canadian dollar on a floating rate, would the minister inform the House what it was that panicked the government into taking this action so quickly?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary Norih):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance arising out of his statement that he informed the IMF prior to Canada taking the decision to set the dollar free. What was their reaction, and what was their reply to the information that the minister supplied?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend has listened to my statement, he would know I stated what their attitude was.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Did they say they hoped Canada would go back to a pegged dollar?
June 1, 1970


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, if it is necessary in order to inform the hon. member, 1 will re-read what I said in the House just a few minutes ago.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Just answer the question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-REDUCTION IN BANK LOAN INTEREST RATES

Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. When can we expect the interest rate on bank loans to drop in view of the reduction in the Bank of Canada interest rate announced by the minister? I ask this in view of the immediate increases made by the banks when it was announced that the rate would go up.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I am informed that the bond market was very strong this morning. The banks have reduced the certificate of deposit rate from 7i to 7 per cent, and I am sure they are considering their lending rates as well.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-EFFECT ON EXPORT OF AUTOMOBILES TO UNITED STATES

Mr. J. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Could the Minister of Finance inform the House of the anticipated effect of the unpegging of the dollar on the export of automobiles to the United States? Is he anticipating a positive or negative effect on the export figures?


George Harris Hees: The same as everything else- exports are going to be badly hit.


Edgar John Benson: This is very hard to forecast, Mr. Speaker. Contracts for the export of products are usually made well in advance, so it will not have an immediate effect. If the Canadian dollar floats up to a high level it means that our exports will be more expensive, provided that is not offset by an increase in price in other countries. It is a very difficult matter.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-MEASURES TO PROTECT EXPORTS OF FROZEN GROUNDFISH

Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. What steps is the government taking to protect our exports of frozen
Inquiries of the Ministry groundfish products, 80 per cent of which are sold in the United States market? The results of the minister's policy will have an immediate effect on our sales of frozen groundfish in the United States.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, they want our groundfish so badly that I imagine they will be pleased to pay more for it. Newfoundland fish is always worth it.


James Aloysius McGrath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the minister has shown once again that he does not know what he is talking about.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-SUPPLEMENTARY ACTION BY MINISTER OF CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS

John Stratford Burton: I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister considering introducing any legislation or taking any other actions supplementary to the announcement by the Minister of Finance within the past day?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has not stated legislation for what purpose so I cannot answer the question.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Gander-Twillingate. Is the hon. member for Regina East rising on a point of order?


John Stratford Burton: Yes, Mr. Speaker. If the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs had been here for the statement on motions and the replies he would have received ample information to enable him-


Mr. Speaker:: Order,	please.	The	hon.
member for Gander-Twillingate.


Stanley Ronald Basford: I listened to the hon. member's statement.


Mr. Speaker:: Order,	please.	The	hon.
member for Gander-Twillingate.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-INCENTIVE GRANTS FOR FISH PROCESSING

Mr. John Lundrigan (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion whether the government or his department is planning to revise its industrial incentives grants in order to include fish processing under the incentives

June 1, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry program to an extent that will offset the 8 per cent decrease they will suffer in export prices for their fish if the Canadian dollar reaches par with the American dollar?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: No, I do not-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Is the right hon. member rising on a supplementary?


John George Diefenbaker: No, Mr. Speaker.


John Howard Lundrigan: On a point of order, this is an urgent matter, Mr. Speaker. The questions which have been asked of the two ministers regarding the fish industry are urgent. I am sorry but I do not think the House understood the response of the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion to the question on incentives. I think for the record it should be clear, because the industry on the east coast is in a panic situation right now. I should like the minister to clarify his answer, as I did not hear it and I doubt whether the House did.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I was asked if the government was considering amending the Industrial Incentives Act. There is no need to amend the legislation itself and no thought of doing so, but it is possible to change the rate of subsidies. Furthermore, as regards fish processing plants, they come at the present time under this legislation and I fail to see why the hon. member should want us to amend it.


John Howard Lundrigan: On the basis of that answer, Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question. Is the Minister of Finance or his department planning to offer any special incentives to the extractive industry of the east and west coasts of Canada, primarily the fishing industry, in order to offset the decrease in income which will result from their increased competitive position in the American market?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I do not understand how you 
can get a decrease in income because of an increased competitive position. I think my hon. friend must admit that practically the opposite-


Some hon. Members:: Come off it!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I will recognize the hon. member for Gander-Twillingate who I gather has a supplementary question, but there should not be a debate between the minister and the hon. member.


John Howard Lundrigan: With your permission I should like to rephrase my question so it can be understood by the minister, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that 80 per cent of Canada's east coast fish exports go to the United States, and in view of the fact that its chief competitors will be able to sell at about 8 per cent less if Canada's dollar reaches par with the American dollar, can the minister state whether the very devastating effect on that industry will be offset by incentives to make up the 8 per cent loss to the industry on the east coast of Canada?


Edgar John Benson: This is purely hypothetical, Mr. Speaker. How does one arrive at the assumption that the Canadian dollar will go up 8 per cent? One has to take a look at the actual changes that take place when the Canadian dollar is moving, and then decide on the action that will be taken at that point.



CONSUMER AFFAIRS


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Has he received a telegram from Duncan and Victoria, British Columbia, regarding the fact that the Bamerton Cement Works is exporting cement but refusing to sell it to the residents of British Columbia, including the residents of Vancouver Island? Has the minister received any complaints regarding this? Is he taking any action and, if so, what?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, apparently I received the same wire that the hon. member did this morning, and I am having the matter investigated.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister asking the Restrictive Trade
June 1. 1970

Practices Commission to look into this situation under the combines investigation legislation?


Stanley Ronald Basford: I am asking the officers of my department to find out exactly what the complaints are and what the situation is, Mr. Speaker.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. It concerns the question I asked the other day regarding government policy in respect of an interim increase in war disability pensions and war veterans allowances. This morning the minister mentioned what a white paper is, and I quote his words; "A white paper is a statement of government policy or philosophy." Will the minister now say whether the veterans of Canada and their dependants will be required to wait for months and months before any action is taken or will the government, before this session ends in June, bring in interim increases so that the suffering that is today being felt by veterans and their dependants will be ended?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The right hon. gentleman will recognize that this question was asked on a number of occasions last week. In view of the importance of the matter, however, the minister might like to reply to the question at this time.


Hon. Jean-Eudes Dube (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have
answered the question many times in the past few weeks but I should like to take this opportunity to say that I did have the honour and privilege of addressing this very distinguished group this morning, the Royal Canadian Legion. They understood my remarks very well and gave me a very warm and cordial reception.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, if that was warm and cordial, I have to say the minister does not know what frigidity is. I ask him now to answer the question. Why does he not answer the veterans of this country instead of playing around with their just claims?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
Inquiries of the Ministry

Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-Sl. George's-Sl.
Barbe): My question is supplementary to the one asked by the right hon. member for Prince Albert directed to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. I am glad to hear he received a warm reception this morning from the Royal Canadian Legion. My question is directed to the Prime Minister.
In view of the various expressions of dedication in recent weeks to the war veterans of this country, and notably the example of dedication to Canada's unity as portrayed in the opening ceremonies of the Royal Canadian Legion's convention last night, would the Prime Minister show Canada's appreciation of their sacrifice by introducing emergency legislation immediately to implement the Woods Committee proposals and also increases in disability pensions and war veterans allowances?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member's question puts in the form of a submission or representation the question asked previously by the right hon. member for Prince Albert.



PRIVILEGE


Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege which affects every member of this House. It pertains to the belief I have had that ministers are obligated to give truthful answers to questions put during the question period. This matter was mentioned previously by a member who indicated that on Wednesday last, as reported at page 7384 of Hansard, this question was put to the Minister of Finance:
*-is the government considering the adoption of any further means, such as the institution of a floating exchange rate, to combat this trend?
The minister replied "No". Now, three days after this answer in the House of Commons, the minister announces a floating exchange rate. I think this deserves an explanation because if the question period is to mean anything at all to the House of Commons or to this country, then we must have confidence that the answers given are given with honesty and are truthful.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: The Prime Minister is laughing his heart out.

June 1, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry Mr. Speaker: The minister may give a brief reply to the question of privilege.


Edgar John Benson: On
the question of privilege, I should indicate that at that point the government was not considering a change. Furthermore, I think there is often a great deal of irresponsibility in the questions asked in the House whereby members rise and ask questions in the House to which they expect answers on orders of the day on the basis of which speculators could make millions of dollars.


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest we should now return to the question period.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kings-way):: I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the demand by his former cabinet colleague, the hon. member for Trinity, for firmer controls on the cost-price spiral, and in view of the very obvious fact that the voluntary controls are not working, is the minister now considering mandatory controls to stop the rising cost of living?


Stanley Ronald Basford: May I say, following the remarks of the Minister of Finance, that if that were to be announced it would not be announced in the question period.



EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT ANTI-INFLATION POLICY

George Harris Hees: I have a question for the right hon. Prime Minister as I would not want him to feel lonely and left out of affairs today. I should like to welcome him back and to tell him that the hunt lost something of its savour in his absence.
When he was interviewed by the press in Vancouver on Friday, in answer to a question he said:
Unemployment is an undesirable effect of the government's anti-inflation policy, but the desirable effects more than balance this disadvantage.
Was he referring to the advantage of the increase in the cost of living that took place in the last month, which was at the rate of 7.2 per cent a year, one-third higher than the rate of increase in the last ten months?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest that the question as asked is in the form of an argument, and in those terms it is not acceptable.


George Harris Hees: May I rephrase it, Mr. Speaker, because we would like to know to what the Prime Minister was referring and what advantage he thinks there might be in his anti-inflationary policy. Could we have an answer? The Prime Minister says no, he has no answer. Obviously, he does not want to answer because he has none.



LABOUR RELATIONS


Mr. Thomas S. Barnett (Comox-Alberni):: My question is addressed to the Minister of Labour. Can he report to the House on any developments that may have taken place over the weekend leading to a settlement of the westcoast towboat strike?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Minister of Labour):: I can add very little to what I said at the end of last week, other than that both parties are meeting again today and will be bringing their final proposals to the bargaining table which is presided over by Mr. Kelly of the conciliation branch. Eased on whether both sides are reasonable, an early settlement could be reached. However, if one or the other side proves to be unreasonable and inflexible, I will have no choice later this week but to make a fuller statement in the House and place the blame on the party that refuses to co-operate in settling what I think is an unnecessary strike.



CONSUMER AFFAIRS


Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey):: My question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Having in mind the increase in the price of milk being announced at this time by some major companies, is the minister's department looking into the situation?


Stanley Ronald Basford: I am not sure to which price increases the hon. member is referring. The Prices and Incomes Commission is examining some increases in milk prices, and so has the combines investigation branch. If the hon. member would indicate to me the particular increase about which he is concerned I could be more definitive.
June 1, 1970



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


Mr. Randolph Harding (Kooienay West):: have a question for the Minister of Public Works. In view of the need for our handicapped citizens, especially those confined to wheelchairs, to have proper access both to all our public buildings and to their facilities, will all federal public buildings' specifications include those standards which have been approved in the national building code, supplement No. 7, entitled "Building Standards for the Handicapped".


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's question might well be placed on the Order Paper.


Randolph Harding: Ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskatoon-Biggar):: In
view of the absence from the House of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, may I direct my question to the Prime Minister. In light of reports that some 200,000 people are starving in a state of Brazil, has the government offered any food aid to this unfortunate country or is it its intention to offer any food aid to help in this very serious situation?


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me that the hon. member's question was asked a few days ago, possibly last Thursday or Friday.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: My
question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the critical importance of the role of labour in the government's program of price restraints, is the minister having continuing talks with labour leaders on these matters?


Stanley Ronald Basford: No, Mr. Speaker.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Has the minister delegated this responsibility to his colleague, the Minister of Labour?


Stanley Ronald Basford: No, Mr. Speaker. The Prices and Incomes Commission endeavoured to obtain from labour some form of agreement
Inquiries of the Ministry on a restraint program to supplement the program that is working with regard to prices. So far that effort has been unsuccessful.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-EFFECT ON PENDING GRAIN SALES

Mr. Jack McIntosh (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: My question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Will his announcement of the unpegging of the Canadian dollar, so far as the minister has knowledge, have an adverse effect on any pending sales of grain?


Edgar John Benson: Not to my knowledge, Mr. Speaker. I will have to inquire from my colleague, the minister in charge of the Wheat Board.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-MEASURES TO OFFSET EFFECT ON WESTERN FARMERS

Alfred Pullen Gleave: In
view of the fact that the International Grains Arrangement created some difficulty for western farmers and as the freeing of the dollar is likely to have the same effect, can the minister tell the House if it is the intention of the government to put a floor price on Canadian wheat or to counterbalance in any way the effect on the western farmer of the introduction of a floating exchange rate?


Edgar John Benson: will have to take this matter up with my colleague who reports for the Wheat Board. What this means is that Canadians will get more for their products that are sold abroad, including wheat.



FREEING OF DOLLAR EXCHANGE RATE-EFFECT ON EXPORT FISH PRICES

James Aloysius McGrath: have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. Would the minister be kind enough to give the House the same undertaking that he gave the previous speaker and take this matter up with the Minister of Fisheries and Forestry because as of today fish prices have gone up in the United States?


Edgar John Benson: am not familiar with what happened to fish prices in the United States.


James Aloysius McGrath: They are 5 per cent higher than they were on Friday.


Edgar John Benson: So Canadians will get more money for their fish.

June 1. 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION



PROPOSALS TO GOVERNMENT OP NOVA SCOTIA RESPECTING REOPENING OF FAIREY AVIATION PLANT

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. In view of the breakdown in the negotiations concerning the acquiring of Fairey Aviation of Canada in the province of Nova Scotia, which was indicated in the House on Friday, is the minister making any representations or offers or proposals to the government of Nova Scotia in the hope that this plant could be put back into operation, and the 400 unemployed people put back to work?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I regret immensely that the Bell Company of the United States has at the last minute refused to sign the agreement covering the reopening of the Fairey Aviation plant.
We are at the present time trying to find a new purchaser and, in any case, to have the work previously done in that factory performed in Nova Scotia.



COMMUNICATIONS


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Communications. In view of reports that the costs of building Canada's domestic satellite are very substantially higher than originally estimated, and since these increased costs may jeopardize the whole project and will certainly affect the private investment involvement in it, would the minister give consideration to making an early statement on the subject, including whether the government is giving consideration to establishing Telesat Canada as a Crown corporation instead of a mixed public-private company?


Mr. Speaker:: The question would be in order only to the extent of inquiring whether the minister is willing to make a statement or not.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, I am expecting a recommendation from Telesat Canada as to a possible supplier for the satellite. I have not yet received this, but at that time I would expect to be making a statement.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


John Stratford Burton: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Is it the intention of the government, taking into account his announcements within the past 24 hours, to introduce any measures or take any steps with respect to allocation of credit in the economy, or to introduce any form of investment controls in order to channel the economy's efforts into the most useful and productive ends?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, that is a very broad question which would involve a statement of government policy much longer than we can make during the question period.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre rising on a point of order?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, Mr. Speaker. My rising is with respect to the time to be allotted to speeches in the debate that will take place today. There have been some discussions and, if I may quote the words that usually succeed, I believe you will find there is general agreement that the principal speaker for each party should have 20 minutes and all the other speakers today might be limited to 15 minutes. Perhaps Your Honour could ascertain if that is the will of the House?


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.
June 1, 1970	COMMONS



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


John Edward Broadbent: That this House condemns the government for its failure to establish an urban policy for Canada.
He said:	Mr. Speaker, contemporary
Canadian politics present a very curious paradox. As a people in 1968 we elected the most urbane Prime Minister in our history. Yet he, in turn, has done nothing to suggest he recognizes or even cares about our urban society. As in almost every other area of policy our erudite and reflective Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has stood apart in bemused Olympian aloofness while a transformed nation drifts aimlessly towards a major urban crisis.


An hon. Member:: That is good stuff.
Author?


John Edward Broadbent: I write my own stuff. I don't speak from the government side. Nothing moves him; nothing stirs him to action. He has failed completely to lead in this as in other matters. He has turned his back on the very urban people who, in the main, elected him to his high office.
Canada is no longer a rural nation which happens to include a few cities. Rather, it is an urban society in which the vast majority of our people live in a dozen or so cities, and in which all its members, wherever they reside, increasingly live an urban life. Not only do most of our people live in the cities but, equally significant, even those remaining in the country are no longer rural in their outlook. Mini skirts, television news flashes from around the world, station wagons, the records of Joan Baez and the Beatles-all these and more are experienced by town and country dweller alike. The transistor radio does not discriminate between a teenager in Haliburton and one in Toronto. In short, the once meaningful distinction between city slicker and country bumpkin is no longer tenable. Rural Canadian culture is now part of our history.
Having said this, however, it remains true that the major problems associated with an urban society are essentially still those found in significant degree in their intensity in our cities. Most of the problems we face as a
22375-59J
DEBATES	7547
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy nation are those directly or primarily experienced by those living in our cities

air and noise pollution, congested and high cost, housing, expressways which destroy neighbourhoods, the lack of parks, the impossibility of access to the arts for the average man, the destitution of men and women living on inadequate old age pensions, the soul-destroying existence of thousands of unemployed,, and the grim poverty of the families of nonunionized workers living on subsistence-wages.
Already 75 per cent of our people live in cities, and by 1980 the figure will be 80 per cent. By the turn of this century approximately 5 per cent will remain living in our rural areas. Although our urban crisis is less severe at this point than that of our American neighbours, it is unquestionably clear that unless we act soon we can fully expect developments in our country very similar in kind and intensity to those that are occurring among our friends to the south.
It is well known, Mr. Speaker, that the financial resources of our cities are completely inadequate to deal with these problems. The property tax simply cannot provide the revenue which is required to meet the responsibilities which municipalities must currently assume. This point has been made by virtually every mayor from St. John's to Vancouver, and needs no elaboration by me.
What about federal responsibility, Mr. Speaker? It is true the provincial governments must receive criticism for not providing the financial and planning assistance required by the cities. However, it is equally true that the federal government must be condemned for its failure to live up to its constitutional responsibilities and provide leadership in what is now a national concern. The Prime Minister callously told the cities that they must take their problems to their provincial premiers where, he asserts, they constitutionally belong. At the same time he scrapped future urban renewal plans, and in this process of course acknowledged a most important area of federal constitutional involvement.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
What are the specific areas of direct federal constitutional responsibility so casually dismissed by the Prime Minister? I will list a few of them. First is communications including television, radio and telephone. The second is National Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which gives the federal govern-
7548	COMMONS
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy ment a leading role in housing matters. The third is transportation, including air services, harbours, railways and interprovincial roads. The fourth is postal services; the fifth is pollution; the sixth is the arts and the seventh is national parks. Each of these areas provides access for any federal government concerned about the well-being of our city dwellers. Instead of seeing them as opportunities to create an exciting, decent and democratic human environment for the people living in our cities, the Prime Minister has completely abandoned federal responsibilities. Contrary to the public impression, Mr. Speaker, our Prime Minister is not really a man of action in the political field. Bather, he is evasive, cautious and conservative. He is really a Mackenzie King who likes to dance with Bunny Girl-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: That was good.


John Edward Broadbent: He is a man who callously passes his responsibilities on to others-and I say that seriously, and not with any degree of pleasure or haste-disregarding in the process some very real human problems.
Besides the specific and well understood federal constitutional responsibilities, there are other federal obligations which directly affect the life of the people living in our cities. But these are not normally seen specifically in the context of city life. Let me illustrate. It is the federal government which has brought in thousands of immigrants but has left the cities to cope with the problems of the consequent congestion. It is the federal government which provides poverty level pensions to our elderly. It is the federal government which imposes on us a deflationary program designed to create urban unemployment. It is the federal government which has spent millions of dollars in building and subsidizing an Arts Centre in Ottawa, an Arts Centre which sells tickets at prices that only the rich in this city can afford. It is this federal government which presented a white paper on taxation. Under its proposals, those living below the poverty level in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver would still be taxed. It is this federal government which refuses to bring in a guaranteed minimum income which could make life more meaningful for those living in the hearts of our cities.
It is this government's tight money policy which has forced the mayors in virtually all our cities to cut back on needed municipal,

DEBATES	June 1. 1970
programs. Finally, Mr. Speaker, it is this federal government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, which refuses to provide leadership for an urban Canada. Such leadership would be shared of course with our provincial premiers and mayors, and it is strongly desired by Canadians from one coast to the other.
We were all captivated a few years ago by the exciting, urbane and decent opportunities suggested by Expo 67. What we now require are imaginative federal proposals which could cut through jurisdictional hindrances and enable Canadians to create desirable urban communities which have parks, entertainment centres, spaces devoid of automobiles, arts centres equally available to all Canadians whether rich or poor, and communities which foster an enduring development in people of a sense of belonging and fellowship. Later in this debate some of my colleagues will make specific suggestions as to what is required of the federal government in the fields of transportation, housing and pollution, all areas which affect our urban life.
I should like at this time to make some proposals which have a more general application. First, to repeat a point I have already made, the Prime Minister must at last begin to show an interest in what happens in urban Canada. Second, there must be created a department of urban affairs, the prime function of which would be dealing with the prospects and problems of our cities. Its other function would be serving as a catalyst or a stimulant in the much broader field of urbanism in general. In its work, the new department of urban affairs would co-ordinate the work of the relevant federal departments and, together with provincial and municipal governments, seek to create an exciting, interesting and desirable urban Canada. Third, we must grant to cities the right to tax all federal and provincial properties. This is long overdue.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Edward Broadbent: Fourth, there must be the holding of a federal, provincial and municipal conference to which all participants would come as equals. It is time we recognized the cities for what they are; major centres of power, people and problems. A constitutional conference at which all parties are recognized as equals would be an important beginning in this direction.
In addition, I should like to see such conference give serious consideration, and I stress
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
"consideration", to two other possibilities: first, the taking over by the provincial governments from the cities of all education and welfare costs currently being assumed by them; second, the possibility of establishing in Canada a number of regional governments based on a minimum population of approximately 100,000 people, say, and giving to these regional governments the right of levying their own income tax. Only by giving them greater control over their own economic fate can we enable the metropolitan regions to create the kinds of cities that most of us think are desirable. I think, therefore, that it is time we worked towards some change in how our taxation responsibilities are shared. We must enable the larger urban regions to levy their own income tax.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I urge this House to support the motion before it. The wording of it was carefully considered, and I think it is just. By condemning this government for its failure to develop an urban policy for Canada we shall be giving a voice to thousands of dissatisfied Canadians who want, expect, and deserve to have national leadership in this very, very important matter.


Mr. Lincoln Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to take part in this debate, because it seems to me that we are at the crossroads in the lives of our cities. Our party, I think it is worth noting, has increasingly shown an interest in the problem of urban growth and has consistently and emphatically advised this government that the action is in the cities.
I think we first brought this matter to the attention of not only the government but many Canadians across the land on December 8, 1969, when the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) proposed the following motion contained in the special edition of the P C Communique. The Communique speaks at great length about the problem of urban development. It reads as follows:
e (4:00 p.m.)
"In the opinion of this House, the government by failing to establish a parliamentary committee to concern itself with the problems of urban people of Canada has neglected an important means of coming to grips with those problems and this House urges that such a committee be established forthwith."
On December 8, 1969, if I am incorrect the date can be checked, the Leader of the Oppo-
DEBATES	7549
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy sition indicated most emphatically and emotionally, and I quote:
This motion should have the support of all members of the House. Certainly, it is inconceivable that any member from a large city riding could possibly vote against it. In a moderate and constructive way, this motion represents one step to halt the growing alienation of city dwellers. There is a crisis of confidence in the cities. People are quickly losing confidence not just in the present government, although that is certainly true, but in the capacity of governmental institutions generally to cope effectively with their problems. There is disillusionment and frustration in the cities. It is very serious, and must be taken seriously by Parliament.
Without pointing a finger at any particular urban member, the amazing thing about the motion is that it received no support from any government member representing a city riding. To say the least, this was most discouraging.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: In order to save face, some hon. members indicated that they would have become involved in that motion except that they could not possibly condemn the government? I say that when it is time to condemn this government a man should condemn it if he is representing his constituency as he should. We are in the midst of a problem area that must certainly be realistically faced, failing which, as the hon. member to my left stated, this country will be in a terrible state. As I said on several occasions, we do not have to look too far to find examples of what I am attempting to point out this afternoon.
I was pleased to hear the statement by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) this afternoon following his return from what I consider to be an extremely important trip during which he, representing Canada, projected an image that is sorely needed, one of responsibility, concern and interest. I remind the Prime Minister that, while he was talking about five countries in which one billion people are demanding of their respective countries a legitimate part in the mainstream of life, there are four or five million of the 21 million Canadians who are looking to this government for improvement in the quality of their lives, that is improvement in the quality of the life of the urban dweller. As I said, this is extremely important as we enter the age of Aquarius.
The current urban crisis, with all its implications and ramifications, is becoming more widely recognized by both laymen and specialists alike, both of whom are demanding

June 1, 1970
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy governmental leadership toward finding solutions. The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Andras) in charge of housing is here this afternoon. I wondered who was going to speak for the government with regard to urban affairs because we do not have a minister involved in the development of our urban constituencies. Possibly this is also the function of the Minister without Portfolio in charge of housing. Since he is here this afternoon, I suppose he will participate in this debate, but not as the head of an administrative body involved in urban development. I will wait to see in what capacity he speaks.
Urban dwellers sense that, despite growing affluence, the quality of their lives is deteriorating. Many feel hopelessly stranded outside the mainstream of Canadian life. They are becoming angry and frustrated. They are becoming less patient. And why not when one considers the conditions which confront them; inadequate urban housing, dirty and polluted beaches, sprawling freeways and expressways which congest traffic, too many slums, too few parks and lack of privacy yet personal isolation. Here is the rub. These urban dwellers are becoming aggravated as a result of the complacency and apathy of this government.
It is little wonder that on December 10, 1969, the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, which was created by President Johnson, strikingly pointed out in its final report:
Some ordinary citizens feel they can do nothing to influence the direction and destiny of their nation. But more and more Americans are proving this to he a myth. A growing number of our citizens have found that they need not stand idle while our cities rot, people live in fear, householders build individual fortresses and human and financial resources flow to less urgent endeavours. A new generation of Americans is emerging with the energy and the talent and determination to fulfil the promise of the nation. As it ever was the young-idealistic but earnest, inexperienced but dedicated-are the spearheads of the drive towards change and increasing numbers of adult Americans are joining their ranks.
In Canada also a new generation of Canadians is emerging with the energy, talent and determination to fulfil the promise of the nation. A national study of 19 major cities, released in March of this year, has revealed the existence of 215 citizens' groups, primarily comprising citizens with low incomes with almost no previous experience or involvement in committees or organizations. Politicians at all levels are becoming more aware of the importance, effectiveness and impact of such groups. To their embarrassment, they note

these groups are demonstrating leadership in finding solutions to urban problems. In short, the required motivation is coming from the grass roots as a result of federal, provincial and municipal governmental buck-passing, aggravated by the so-called constitutional hang-up about which the man on the street knows little and cares less.
Notwithstanding the federal government's reluctance to be involved in urban affairs in a direct manner, it is interesting to note that the Minister without Portfolio in charge of housing has once again made the government's presence felt when he indicated in his statement on public housing:
Duly constituted public housing tenant associations will be assisted with grants. As these groups develop, it is apparent that, for the most part, they are reasonable, articulate and informed. This kind of self help activity deserves to be encouraged.
As a result of that move, it is now apparent that the federal government is listening to the official opposition when it states that there is no visible shield keeping the federal government out of the cities. It is very much involved in charting the direction in which our cities are going.
I wish to give some illustrations of this involvement. The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) indicated, and I have said this 100 times since I was elected, that much of the activity within our cities, including many of the vital determinents of urban growth, fall within the legitimate sphere of federal power. There is a long-standing tradition of federal involvement in such areas as housing, urban renewal, public housing, assistance for sewage systems, air and rail transit, health and welfare grants, and programs which influence industrial locations and labour supply, pollution and a vast array of public works. I could go on and on. What do we hear? We hear about constitutional hang-ups. Ottawa must begin coordinating its activities with those of the other levels of government, otherwise it might do more harm than good. Federal and municipal programmes are fragmented and their value is often lost or dissipated through lack of cooperation, buck-passing and sheer ignorance of what other levels of government are doing. The government now believes it is necessary to recognize the value of tenants associations. Surely, it is time to realize that the growth and the demands of cities to the extent obvious today were never envisaged in 1867?
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
We have been urging for a long time that the department, acting in consort and consultation with the provinces, should see to it that representatives of our urban centres are integrated among those taking an active part in future constitutional conferences. We have been talking about this for some time. We have tried, and I say this with respect, to be constructive and to suggest alternative courses which the government could take- means by which its actions as they concern the urban environment could become more credible. We have urged a tri-level conference at which the various representatives could sit together and ascertain where their responsibilities lay, and how best each could serve. At such a conference, the people who are concerned about the ultimate destiny of this country would be able, as reasonable men, to consider and adopt viable solutions.
It is time, also, to understand that the coordination of all federal activities which vitally affect the direction and nature of urban growth calls for the appointment of a full minister of housing and urban affairs. I referred earlier to the desirability of a standing committee on urban affairs. The setting up of such a committee would give us an opportunity to hear directly from those who are deeply concerned about these matters. How can the minister possibly give money to a tenants association without involving himself to the extent of giving the association a pipeline through which advice and information can be passed? How can he grant money on one hand and say to them on the other: "Leave me alone."?
It is reported that Canada has experienced the fastest rate of urban growth among the industrially advanded countries. The Economic Council has stated that in 1980 out of a total population of about 25 million, 80 per cent will live in cities and 15 million in 27 major cities each of which will have a bigger budget and a larger population than one or more of our present provinces. It has also been forecast that by the year 2,000 over half of the population will live in five megalopolises. The immediate concern of this government should, in these circumstances, be to cut through the constitutional camouflage and integrate the vast array of federal powers and responsibilities into a coherent federal policy towards the cities. Unfortunately, the government appears to have no policy on this issue. I ask the minister: how can this government pretend to take an interest in urban renewal
DEBATES	7551
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy and the problems of urban growth when, almost unilaterally, it has ended its involvement in the work of urban renewal? Let me read something for the record. I have here a cutting from the Globe and Mail. This will indicate that such a decision challenges belief.
One day this week, Robert Andras, minister without portfolio responsible for housing, announced that the federal government would spend no more than $4 millions on urban renewal projects in Toronto in the next five years.
He made that decision even before the study of the problems of the cities had been well launched.
It is a shocking decision for the people who live in the decaying areas of the city, who know that if the rot is not stopped soon it will be beyond stopping. It is a shocking decision for the municipal and provincial specialists who are halted in their tracks-and for five years. Such a delay leaves this burgeoning city in a state of ill-health from which it may never recover.
As I have told my constituents in Hamilton, Ontario, which seems to have been continually shafted by this government, such an attitude has led me to suggest that our larger cities should join the United Nations and apply for foreign aid. If ever they were to do that, the government might come up with the necessary funds from behind the table in time to bring salvation to our cities.
I am disturbed by what the minister has said about housing-disturbed by the implication of his statement that he stands behind the government's anti-inflationary policies which have resulted in unprecedented unemployment and an alarming decrease in housing starts. He has indicated that starts will reach approximately 180,000 this year; the Economic Council has stated that at least 250,000 starts are needed.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) does not like the expression "Building Societies". The Minister without Portfolio in charge of housing recently returned from an informative trip to Europe. He is now impressed with the possibilities which building societies present. I asked a minister a question on this subject the other day in the committee on National Health and Welfare. To be fair, I do not remember whether the hon. gentleman replied. I ask him whether, since "Thirty buck Benson" is not interested in it because of the tax concessions, whatever that might mean, the minister would now approach his colleague the Minister of Finance and put this program to him so that moneys might be made available for housing since, apparently, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation will not lend any more money and we have not been able to persuade the provinces,
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy Which share the capital created through the pension plans, to give up more of these funds for the purpose? This is why we ought to look closely into the increased utilization of building societies.
I have respect for the Minister without housing-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Yes, the minister without housing. I meant to say, the Minister without Portfolio.


David Orlikow: You were right the first time.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: The minister knows I respect what he is doing but that I do not like the way in which he is going about it. He must realize by now that he will not get 200,000 starts this year. He won't make it. Those who possess much more expertise than I do on this subject say he cannot do so. Then again, he really needs not 200,000 starts but 250,000. I respectfully say to the minister: Quit pussyfooting around and get to the issues. As we talk about housing, the cities are becoming more and more frustrated. Housing is an essential part of urban renewal. When the mayors say they want urban renewal now, they mean it. It is they who, in the long run, will determine through their efforts what Canada is to become.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but he may continue beyond his allotted time with the unanimous consent of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: I thank hon. members; I shall not be much longer. In conclusion, Canada is a vast and empty nation where almost three-quarters of the people live in an area less than one-hundredth of the country's total land area. We still have the opportunity to make our cities more liveable; we still have the opportunity to improve the quality of life in our cities.


Mr. Benjamin:: Let us send the people back to the farms.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Someone says, send them back to the farms! As a result of the government's farm policies, people have been leaving the farms and moving to the cities, thus aggravating a situation that is already bad. Our cities can either be regarded as disaster areas that are beyond saving, or as an oppor-

tunity to learn more about man and his relationship to the environment. I have absolutely no hesitation or reservation in standing in support of this motion moved by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, which reads:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to establish an urban policy for Canada.
I will support that motion.
Mr. Warren Allmand (Noire-Dame-de-
Grace): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter this debate as a representative from metropolitan Montreal, the Canadian metropolis, a city which has confronting it practically every urban problem imaginable. In some cases these problems have been handled well, and in other cases not so well. It is from studying the urban problems of a city like Montreal that we can appreciate the difficulties to be faced in formulating an urban policy for Canada. The weakness of the motion before us, and of the speeches thus far in support of it, is that no solution has been put forward to meet the problems in the cities. Both the motion and the speeches are extremely vague and too general.
It is true that there has been a listing of the problems in our cities. We have had a litany of those problems-pollution, urban transportation, urban renewal, housing and so on. But I have heard the problems enunciated before with much better effectiveness by the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Andras) who is here today, by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand), the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson), and other members on this side of the House.
What is the urban policy that the opposition would like to see adopted? In his speech, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) referred to policies for arts, policies for parks, policies for pensions, policies for welfare. I got the impression that he means by an urban policy a comprehensive policy to cover all areas of government concern. I was a little discouraged by his presentation, because I felt he was not dealing with those problems that are usually considered as urban problems as such.
How would the opposition solve the problem of implementing an urban policy for Canada? For example, the region of greater Montreal this is composed of 28 independent municipalities on the island of Montreal; one municipality on the island of Laval which, incidentally, originally included many municipalities that have been amalgamated during recent years; and 14 other indepen-
June 1. 1970	COMMONS
dent municipalities on the south shore of Montreal. This makes a grand total of 43 independent municipalities in the metropolitan region of Montreal. I do not include the municipalities in the Hudson-Vaudreuil area serving Montreal, lie Perrot, Repentigny in the east end of the city, and those north of lie Jesus, which also serve the city. Fortunately this year the government of Quebec has set up the Montreal Urban Community and amalgamated some of these municipalities for some purposes but not for all purposes. Despite this, however, Montreal still consists of a jungle of municipalities. I would have liked to hear how the opposition would deal with the implementation of national urban policies in an area like Montreal.


David Orlikow: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Mr. Alimand:: I have only 15 minutes and I must use it aU.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: How would you do it?


William Warren Allmand: I will come to that later. How would the opposition deal with a province like Quebec, which has jealously guarded the jurisdiction given to municipalities under section 92 of the constitution? When I say "jealously", I will admit that I have been very frustrated by remarks I have heard over the years made by provincial governments in this respect. However, I am a little heartened by statements made in recent weeks by the new government in my province, and I hope that we will be able to work much more closely with the provincial government to solve many municipal problems in the Montreal area.
By a national urban policy, does the opposition mean a uniform policy for municipalities in Canada? Do they mean by a national urban policy what they have been talking about when discussing the new water act, under which a system of regional boards to deal with water bodies in Canada is to be established? The opposition have criticized this plan and suggested imposing uniform standards applicable to all water bodies, no matter where located in Canada, no matter the level of pollution or the kind of industry situated in the area. Is this the sort of approach they want the government to take to municipal problems? If so, they should say so. Do the opposition want such a uniform approach?
Do they want a purely federal approach as opposed to a national approach, which includes the participation of the federal, pro-22375-60
DEBATES	7553
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy vincial and municipal governments? I suggest that they must make clear whether or not they are suggesting that approach. Again, how do they suggest this national urban policy be implemented or structured? Some have suggested that this be done through the creation of a department of housing and urban affairs, and this is a possible option. Nevertheless, it could be said that this proposal is based more on form than on substance, and that in talking about a department of urban affairs we would mislead the people of Canada into believing that such a department would automatically solve these problems irrespective of its constitutional basis, its programs, and the power that it had to implement programs. As I say, this may be a proposal based more on form than on substance. Nevertheless, it is still worth considering.
At the present time, there are 26 federal departments and agencies that have policies directly affecting our cities; and the policies and programs of every other department affect people in our cities. It is true that we need co-ordination, but how do we get it? Is this co-ordinating done by the one department, and should this one department have the power to see that other departments carry out the programs in the cities? Should a committee of cabinet be set up devoted to dealing with the problems of the cities, which committee would co-ordinate the programs of the different ministers which more directly affect the cities? Or should this be done, as suggested by the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander), by a committee of this parliament? Again, should there be a permanent federal-provincial commission to co-ordinate policies that affect the cities?
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
All of these proposals involve a decision as to whether these bodies will be merely consultative or policy-making. Just how much juridiction can they be given under the constitution as presently framed? It is true that our constitution does not prevent action with respect to the cities and has never done so. There are many of our programs and many departments that have had a great effect and have been of great benefit to people living in the cities. In my city I could mention the Department of National Health and Welfare, the Department of Transport, the Department of Public Works, etc. The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion has recently put forward a tremendous program respecting cities
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy in the Maritimes and Newfoundland. So there are many programs and many departments, Mr. Speaker, affecting people living in the cities.
But there is that problem of the constitution and we cannot ignore it. If we are going to put forward a more comprehensive urban policy we will have to do it in co-ordination with the provinces, many of which I submit, have a rural bias. In both Quebec and Ontario, the legislatures are governed by electoral systems which favor rural people and do not give enough representation to urban people. Consequently, the federal government has to deal with the cities under a constitution which does not recognize the problems of the cities as they should be recognized.
In recent months I have been encouraged by some of the things the federal government has been doing in respect of co-ordinating policies for the city. I have been pleased by the approach taken in Montreal with respect to the Ste. Scholastique airport. There seems to have been good co-ordination recently between the provincial and municipal governments with respect to roads, noise control pollution, rapid transport and so on. There is good co-ordination planned in respect of the Place Desjardins project in Montreal, a massive building program in the east end which will renew the core of the east end of the city. This program, which will be undertaken by the federal and municipal governments, will be located on the metro system and there will be very little displacement of familes. This is a good approach to urban renewal and urban planning.
There are several other things which give me encouragement, such as some remarks appearing in the Montreal Star of May 29 under the byline of Boyce Richardson, associate editor. This article reads:
"There is already a distinctive difference in the quality of urban life between Canada and the United States," wrote U.S. geographer Dr. Edward Higbee recently in a letter to Star Associate Editor Boyce Richardson. Since most of what is written about urban life in Canada is depressing and negative, Richardson decided to fly to Wakefield, Rhode Island, where Dr. Higbee is Professor of Land Utilization at Rhode Island University, to investigate in more detail his hopeful analysis.
He found that the American expert sets great store on many aspects of Canadian attitudes which Canadians themselves either take for granted or usually apologize for.
Dr. Higbee, author of several books on U.S. urban problems, is an agronomer, anthropologist and geographer who has taken part in more than 200 seminars across the length and breadth of the continent, and who knows the major Canadian cities well.

Here are some of the things Dr. Higbee says about our Canadian cities:
Dr. Higbee often compares Boston with Montreal, and Seattle with Vancouver, in both cases to the benefit of the Canadian city. Montreal, he feels has been innovative in the way it has developed downtown. Though it has built super-highways into the city, it has so far managed to do that without carving the downtown area to pieces. The new subway, and the care to provide mass transit is in striking contrast to the antiquated Boston subway.
The articles goes on:
"He finds no slum areas in Montreal comparable with those that have developed in Boston".


David Orlikow: You could tell him better about that, couldn't you?


William Warren Allmand: No, I could not. I have been to Boston and I have lived in Montreal and I agree with Dr. Higbee.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: You know what happened in Boston a few years ago.


William Warren Allmand: The article continues:
A fundamental difference, perhaps best illustrated in Vancouver, is the extent to which the Canadian middle class has chosen to stay in the city centre. Montreal and Toronto, he claims, have more vigorous nightlife than comparable cities in the United States, reflecting the presence of middle class people who wish to enjoy the cities.
The comparison in Canada's favor is perhaps most striking in Seattle which has been most "bestialized" by the road builders.
He goes on to compare the provision for recreation and park areas in Canada and the United States:
"Canada has made her wilderness more accessible to more people than have most places in the United States", he says. ...Within and around the cities, too, Dr. Higbee finds Canadian management of recreation space better than in the U.S. He finds much more space devoted to recreation for children -especially in winter, when hockey rinks proliferate around Canadian cities. "As you cross from Buffalo to Toronto, the playing fields around Toronto are one of the first things you notice."
He then discusses the greenbelts in Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto. As I said, Mr. Speaker, he feels that Canada has had a more humane and more forward-looking attitude towards planning in the city.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


William Warren Allmand: This is not to say there is not a lot to be done, Mr. Speaker; we must forge ahead and look to the future. If we do that perhaps we will not be faced with many of the things taking place in the United States. I hope that in approaching these problems we will not look for simplistic answers that
June 1. 1970

would settle all our problems easily. Perhaps that was done in the past when people were quick to take up supposedly new programs of urban renewal, public housing and expressways, only to find out later that these supposed solutions led to urban problems much worse than those that existed in the first place. The cure turned out to be worse than the disease.


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


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, in the 1968 election I don't suppose there was a more poignant appeal to the Canadian public than the slogan coined by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) calling for one Canada. The "one Canada" slogan encompassed everything. It encompassed solving the English-French problem, the Quebec versus the other provinces problem, the problems of the cities and everything else. It is just two years since the election and the people have found to their regret that the Prime Minister's constitutional views, his belief that we can and should draw a sharp line between the responsibilities of the federal government and the responsibilities of the provinces, have made trouble for the people of Canada.
Despite these policies, Mr. Speaker, differentiation between the responsibilities of the federal government and the provinces, begun at the suggestion of the present Prime Minister in the regime of the former Prime Minister, has been expanded. For example, the Prime Minister believes that education is, and must be, a provincial responsibility. This government unilaterally opted out of agreements with the provinces for sharing the cost of university education and technical-vocational training, with disastrous effects on those problems.
The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand), who just spoke, said that we on this side of the House disagreed with the present system but did not have anything else to offer. I suggest that he listen to the speeches made, outside this House regretfully, by his colleague the hon. member for York West (Mr. Givens) a former mayor of Toronto. He knows the problems of the cities, and he knows that only the federal government has the financial and other resources to help solve them. He has repeatedly criticized the failure of this government to deal with the problems of the rapidly increasing urbaniza-22375-60a
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy tion of Canada. The hon. member who just spoke referred to what was being done in Montreal. I want to say to him that if we had a federal government, Liberal or otherwise, which was thinking about urban problems and which had created a ministry of housing and urban affairs, I do not believe it would have spent $200 million on Expo, which I enjoyed but which was a circus. I do not believe that any such federal government would contribute to the 1976 Olympics. I do not know how much it is going to cost but I am told that Germany is spending over $200 million on the 1972 Olympics. 1 would be glad to hear the hon. member tell us that the city of Montreal can finance the 1976 Olympics by itself, but I do not believe it. I think the city will come to Ottawa for help. I think it is a disgrace that we spent $200 million for Expo and will spend $100 million or more on the Olympics, yet we permit a city of two and a half million people to dump its entire raw, untreated sewage into the St. Lawrence Biver. So, if the hon. member wants to know what the federal government could do, let me tell him that this is precisely what the federal government could do.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
The hon. member talks about the slums of Montreal not being as bad as those in Boston. That may be true. He lives in Montreal, I do not. I will come to Montreal and take a walk through the areas in that city below Ste. Catherine, between Ste. Catherine and the St. Lawrence River, through Point St. Charles and the other areas, and if the hon. member will then say that Montreal does not have slums which are a disgrace, I will be amazed. The fact is that they do have slums, as we do in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. What is being done about them? Virtually nothing. The fact is that by 1980, 80 per cent of Canada's people will be living in the cities and yet this government refuses to co-operate with the provinces and the cities in meeting these problems. What are these problems? The hon. member says we have not been very specific.


William Warren Allmand: You have been specific on the problems but not the solutions.


David Orlikow: If the hon. member wants to know what the solutions are I suggest he look at the brief to the government of Canada submitted on April 20, 1970 by the president of the Canadian Federation of Mayors and Municipalities.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Read it; it is all in there.
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy Mr. Orlikow: One would not call that a very radical organization. To my knowledge there are no more than half a dozen mayors who belong to the NDP in all the big cities of Canada, and that is probably more than there should be. So, when that organization makes a submission to the federal government it does not do so on the basis of politics but rather on the basis of the facts. Let me quote a couple of paragraphs on the problems as they see them. May I direct the attention of the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace CMr. Allmand) to this because he seems completely unaware of the view of the cities of this country.


William Warren Allmand: You know that Montreal does not belong to that organization.


David Orlikow: The fact that Montreal does not belong to the organization is the result of its own decision and not that of anyone else. When they did belong, they went along with the views expressed in this submission, and I suggest to the hon. member that they would agree with this submission even though they do not belong. Here is what the organization says, and the hon. member can find it on page 4 of the submission if he wants to read it or if he can read, which I sometimes doubt:
It is imperative that, when three levels of government are involved, through a common concern, in community planning and community building- as in many cases they must be-they should reside, work together and negotiate under the same roof. This can only be done satisfactorily at the community level. Only at that level can the data-gathering, research, planning and debate be undertaken with due thoroughness. Only by such means can the Canadian people spare themselves the paralysing delays and the mental confusion that result from arm's-length or long range negotiations between three levels of government.
Among the problems with which they say- they say, not I-only the federal government can help are urban rapid transit, pollution and housing. With regard to the second, I suggest that no member of the House should be more interested in getting federal government cooperation to finance the solving of pollution problems than the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace in the light of the record of the city of Montreal.
It is about housing that I want to speak because the situation with regard to housing is getting worse rather than better. I do not know when there was a minister who had worse luck than the present Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Andras) in charge of housing. They gave him the same job in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Develop-
June 1, 1970
ment, but when he developed good ideas which were not in agreement with those of the minister in charge he was pushed out. Now, they have given him the responsibility for housing at a time when the government's economic policies and social philosophy have led to a virtual cessation of the important task of rebuilding the housing stock in Canadian cities.
The Canadian Welfare Council's housing committee made a submission on the current housing situation in Canada in April of this year, a submission which ought to make the minister in charge of housing and every member of parliament hang their heads in shame". What the Welfare Council documents so clearly is that the situation is getting worse rather than better. They point out that the vacancy rates in cities such as Edmonton, Ottawa and Vancouver have dropped since 1968, that the only city in Canada considered to have anything approaching a reasonable vacancy rate is Montreal. I do not think the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace would be happy with that because he knows the reasons for it probably better than I do. The Welfare Council points out that the rate at which housing starts is going ahead for the first quarter of 1970, means that we will have an annual rate of only 160,000 housing starts, and this at a time when the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation has estimated that we need 250,000 units a year. Housing starts are dropping at a disastrous rate. At the same time, the cost of housing has gone up to such an extent that the problem is no longer one simply for the people in the low income brackets or on welfare but for all the people.
I have in front of me a news report which appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail issue of May 23, 1970. These statements could be true of any city in Canada. The headline is: "How the $92.47 Chapel Glen Home Cost Grew to $167.50 in 3 Years". I do not have time to even summarize this news story, but let me quote the last paragraph Mr. Suters, the representative of the Ontario Housing Corporation, said the following:
-since 1967 the average sale price of a house in metro has risen to $42,805 from $29,666. "This is the market we are working in," he said.
"In January 1967, 29.9 per cent of the new homes on the market were in the $16,000 to $22,000 price range, which we are still in," he said. "Today the figure is only 0.8 per cent."
e (4:50 p.m.)
So, Mr. Speaker, the result of the increase in the cost of land, and of the increase in

June 1, 1970

interest rates from 7f per cent to about 11 per cent, will be that a person who would have paid $92.47 in 1967 for a three or four bedroom house, which he could have managed, will this year be paying $167.30 a month. I suggest there are very few people who can afford to pay that kind of money. The result is that we have an increasing percentage of our people living in high rise apartments, which is something they do not want, and paying substantially more money than they can afford.
While we have increased the percentage of homes being built under the public housing formulae, the percentage is still far too low and the numbers far from meeting the needs of the people. We are proceeding, albeit very slowly, with proposals for urban renewal but, despite all the protestations of the minister, too often we are continuing with programs which call for the bulldozing of entire blocks of city homes and their replacement with high rise rental units.
We believe we ought to move toward a system where urban renewal will require participation by local neighbourhood associations in the planning of projects. Members of the NDP caucus were in Hamilton last week end. We saw some exciting plans put forward by a local community with respect to the rehabilitation of their area, rehabilitation without knocking everything down and without wiping out the local community stores which serve the neighbourhood so well. What they are calling for is rehabilitation rather than destruction. They are calling for the kind of participatory democracy about which the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) speaks so eloquently when he talks theory, but which he ignores completely in practice.


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



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: It is my
duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis)-Health and Welfare-Policy on birth control and family plan-
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy ning; the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie)-Post Office-Montreal-Number of trucks purchased by department; the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Harding)- Public Buildings-Access for handicapped persons-Meeting of approved standards.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Broadbent:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to establish an urban policy for Canada.
Mr. P. M. Mahoney (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether the fact that members of this House other than the supporters of the party proposing today's supply motion were made aware of its subject matter in the middle of last week was a mistake or deliberate, but whichever it was I would like to express my appreciation of it. Many of the games we play on Parliament Hill are of very little relevance or interest to Canada and Canadians in the year of our Lord 1970. Surely, what the public have every right to expect of us is informed debate and reasoned decisions. This is not easy to achieve in this complex, busy world at the best of times. It is almost impossible, except in the rare case where the subject matter of debate happens to fall within the area of an individual member's expertise, to achieve within the notice period customary for opposition days.
The 24-hour notice period provided in Standing Order 58(4) for opposition motions on allotted days is, I think, necessary to preserve a proper opportunity to deal with sudden important developments. I would not suggest that it be increased. However, its use as a tactical device to create advantages in debate is no more justified than would be similarly motivated revisions of the weekly order of business as announced in advance every Thursday by the government house leader. We should note that not only government members but equally supporters of the other opposition parties will be better able to do their jobs if the practice established in this case is continued, and the subject matter of opposition motions is indicated well in advance with, of course, full right reserved to change the subject matter in an emergency.
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy
Last Wednesday or Thursday when I learned of the subject of today's motion, I thought that it might be the first tangible evidence of the positive approach to Parliament which the Chairman of the Progressive Conservative caucus had announced the previous weekend following their think-in. That impression was destroyed when I found that this was not to be their day or their motion. It is nevertheless a precedent which I would commend to the Official Opposition as a solid example of positivism. There have been no others to date, but we await developments with interest if not optimism. I include today's question period and the responses to the statements on motions.
Substance is something else. However much *one may appreciate the positive approach taken procedurally in the presentation of this motion, its primitive simplicity leads one to conclude that nothing else important has occurred. The NDP are still dealing with a Canada that doesn't exist, a Canada that they either wish or imagine, a simple, homogeneous, unitary state of the geographic proportions of Lichtenstein; the social, cultural, economic and ideological homogeneity of the Holy See, and the political tranquility of the Garden of Eden-before the serpent. This simplistic, unreal Canada exists only in the minds of the socialists.
It came through loud and clear in our dealings with the Canada Water Act, both in the resources committee and in the House. Their position is that water of pristine purity can be achieved by legislative action of the Parliament of Canada every place in Canada, right now, without regard to the provinces, without regard to industry, without regard to people dependent on industry for goods or for jobs. We just pass a law, without regard to whether it is constitutional, whether the factories close or whether the workers are unemployed. Those will be next week's problems and priorities. This week's problem is water and this week's priority is to legislate, instant, absolute purity. Next week's problem will be industrial atrophy and next week's priority will be to legislate jobs.
My purpose today is not to demonstrate the advantages of federalism, but surely it is not unreasonable to expect that political parties and members of Parliament at least recognize the fact of Canadian federalism and the fact that in this federation most areas of particular and specific application to urban Canada are today within the legislative competence of the provincial, not the national, government.

Recognition of the fact is not an admission that it is right or appropriate, or an assertion that the fact ought not to be changed. Recognition of the fact is, however, a condition precedent to practical policies as opposed to the Alice in Wonderland approach displayed by members opposite so far.
The evolution of Canada from a rural to urban nation has been noted by previous speakers, and the fact remains that we are confronted by the necessity to cope with the already heavy and ever-growing problems of our cities in the context of a rural constitution. The federal government cannot deal directly with the cities of Canada on urban problems over provincial objections. Surely, the essence of democracy is that government, like the citizen, must be bound by the law. In a federal democracy, the different levels of government must be bound by law in dealings between themselves as well as between government and citizen. If you are prepared to sacrifice the essence of democracy in this, that, or the other given crisis, you will end up with something other than a democracy.
There is no general agreement on the definition of "the city." Some would say that a city is not a physical thing at all but rather an attitude, a state of mind, an image of the heart. Others regard it as a giant physical organism, an image easy to appreciate when you approach a great city by air on a clear night. Every day huge quantities of water, food, fuel and other materials are brought into it and consumed by it producing wastes that pollute its air, its water and its land as well as the air, water and land around it. Still others see the political definition of the city as increasingly meaningless, its geographic boundaries irrelevant. The meaningful definitions of the city are its conceptual boundaries such as its commercial life, its educational effort, its cultural milieu. It is not just hardware like telephone systems, roads, sewers or school buildings; it is software like banking systems, emergency medical care, and the theatre.
Whatever the definition of the city, we can agree that the physical features, the hardware, have a profound influence on the shape and direction of the other, inherently more important, but largely dependent, dimensions or functions. Initially at least, probably forever, it is within the field of urban hardware that government can best operate to establish the physical environment within which people,-private enterprise, individual inspira-
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
tion, creativity and effort-can evolve the more important software, commercial, cultural and social.
Our modern cities have been shaped by inventions which occurred almost a century ago, such as the telephone in 1877, the skyscraper in 1880, the electric light in 1880, the electric trolley in 1885, the electric powered subway in 1886, the internal combustion engine in 1889, and the electric elevator, in 1889. Until contagious disease was brought under control, largely as a result of the invention of indoor plumbing, the development of high density population centres was out of the question; but it was the subsequent inventions of the 12 years, 1877-1889, that made the modern city a physical possibility. With the application of electricity, the ways of using a city and managing its intricate web of activities changed dramatically. The telephone made instant communication within the city possible, regardless of size. The electric light reduced fire hazards and provided greater safety on the city's streets at night. Developments of structural steel, large scale mechanical equipment to convert fuel to heat and the elevator, made high rise buildings possible. The streetcar and subway made possible rapid, cheap intra-urban transportation. Of all the inventions, however, the internal combustion engine and its application to the automobile has probably had the most profound effect of all on the city in the past quarter century. It is odd that even though the automobile was invented in the same dozen years as the other inventions that made the modern city physically possible, it is the automobile that is now largely responsible for rendering the modern city humanly impossible.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
Perhaps we have arrived at a point where our cities must, in the physical sense, be founded upon something more contemporary than the concepts evolved from the inventive heyday of Alexander .Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Gottlieb Daimler and the Otis brothers. It is within the competence of the federal government, in the exercise of its spending power, to influence research, invention and development to achieve a more acceptable urban environment. I would like to enumerate areas where I think this might be undertaken. Some areas, I know, are already the subject of extensive activity, others less so, and others not at all; but I fear that whatever the intensity of activity, meeting the urban chal-
DEBATES	7559
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy lenge is not now the subject of a co-ordinated approach and it must be if we are to succeed.
The four general areas I will enumerate require as much co-ordination among themselves as they do within themselves. In other words, that co-ordination is as important between the transportation and enclosure systems as it is between the various parts of each system. The initiation of an over-all, co-ordinated approach also seems to me to be much more amenable to success at the federal level than at the municipal level where the individual city will likely be so preoccupied with the priorities of existing problems that a global look at the urban fact, even in its own case, is almost impossible.
Finally, greater economy as well as objectivity can be achieved at the federal level in matters that concern all cities. The federal government can and should offer leadership. Most cities will welcome it. But the provinces must accept that leadership.
The first area for research, invention and development is the system by which a city ingests, each day, huge quantities of food, water, fuel and supplies and consequently produces huge quantities of waste in the form of sewage, garbage, trash and air pollutants. I suggest that it is futile to work on pollution alone while ignoring the input and processing that result in the pollution problem. A convenient and familiar example is presented by the non-returnable bottle. Is it really a pollution or a supply problem?
A second area is the transportation system, the means by which people and goods move in the city, both horizontally and vertically. The objects and the people along these paths of movement, highways, elevators and so on, are dynamic, but the paths themselves are too often static with little or no capacity to adapt to changing demands. A busy street necessarily blocked by a delivery truck awaiting an inadequate freight elevator is a commonplace example.
Then, there is the city's information communications network which makes it possible for the many parts of a great city to keep in touch with each other and which, in theory, should permit the city to operate as an entity and for signals to go out at the proper time to keep the other systems under control. Individual components of this network-telephone, electric distribution, traffic lights and so on-seem to work very well, but are they co-ordinated and do they serve the other systems? If they do not, should they not? For example, should it not be possible for a tele-
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy phone call to trigger an adjustment in traffic lights to better accommodate a change in demand?
Finally, there is the enclosure system, although "system" may over-dignify the concept. Nevertheless, it too, like federalism, is a fact. My concept here is the various structures which we erect in our cities to surround the places where life goes on. Climate has imposed the necessity of enclosing our activity centres, but our response has been mostly individual structures-houses, apartments, hotels, schools, churches, offices, playgrounds, arenas, stadiums and so on. Generally, they are individual entities designed and installed to answer individual needs. I believe that a great deal would be gained, both economically, in getting better value for resources used and, even more important, in achieving a better means to improve the quality of urban life, if we could deal with these enclosures as a total urban system in each city-as an organic whole, not just a collection of lonely architectural entities.
It is all very well to urge research, invention and development upon the federal government, and I am satisfied that there are enough knowledgeable people deeply concerned about our cities to make these activities productive and worth while. But what about the practical application of that urban research, invention and development? I think that if the federal government were to take this global approach to the urban fact and its solution, it would be found that provincial governments exist which are equally concerned and would happily co-operate in practical demonstrations of the benefits of the approach.
Let us envisage a model city of, say, 250,000 people. It is not a model which is simply a collection of buildings; rather it is an enclosure system which integrates all the other systems I have been talking about: input, processing and disposal, transportation, information and communications. It will be readily appreciated that such a model could not be created piecemeal. It must a total model with every system and sub-system fully integrated with the others. It is a big approach to a big problem and one which certainly would require considerably more public control and, hence, less individual choice than has heretofore been acceptable to many of us. It is a suggestion which I advance only with considerable hesitation; but on balance I fail to see why we should not muster the same techniques to meet this large problem as we do to

meet others less large. Because of the emphasis on over-all planning and the downgrading of individual choice, existing building codes would have little application. The entire model would have to take into account the requirements of its users and reject existing regulations which arbitrarily require this, that or the other building material, number of duplex receptacles per lineal foot of baseboard; Y number of yards between curb cuts. The preoccupation of existing building codes with picayune detail to the exclusion of an overview of the end result has been a contributing factor to many of our urban failures to date. Another, perhaps less ideal, opportunity for a demonstration of the concept could be to offer it to existing cities for the total redevelopment of an existing area. To be meaningful, this approach would require both a large area and large population-an area within which say 50 or 100,000 work and live.
The suggestion implicit in the motion before us that the federal government has no urban policy is arrant nonsense. Ironically, the mover of the motion read a litany of federal policies having primary urban impact, thus giving the lie to the premise of his motion. This government does indeed have an urban policy. It is not nearly as simplistic as the proposer of this motion would like it, but then Canada isn't as simple as he thinks it is either. It is perhaps better identified as a collection of policies in various functional areas, all of which have added up over the years and still add up to increasing urban population, prosperity and opportunity. It may very well be that the time has arrived for the government to mark the growing importance of our cities by establishing a department of urban affairs. I incline to that view.


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


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Patrick Morgan Mahoney: Thank you. This concept need not involve a constitutional problem. The federal government will have to continue to deal with the urban fact as well as the constitutional fact. The government's ability to deal with the urban fact could very well be made more effective by delegating to a single
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
minister all responsibility for urban research, innovation and development, as well as the commission to deal with the provinces in areas where co-operation on urban matters is established. The federal government must be ready to co-operate with the provinces on urban affairs. The urban fact will not stand still pending renegotiation of the constitution. The federal government must equally be organized to co-operate most effectively. I, for one, certainly hope that the importance of his responsibility, as well as the manner in which the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Andras) has carried out that responsibility, will be appropriately recognized by the creation of a portfolio.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: The hon. member has
echoed my words, and has done a better job than I did in this regard.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this debate because it is a subject about which I am greatly concerned and interested. The motion states:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to establish an urban policy for Canada.
In those terms, I think a fairly wide leeway might be given in interpreting what is meant. I think that my concern falls within the ambit of the motion. I refer to the type of the development that is taking place in Canada. I am concerned that virtually all of our growth is taking place in a few large urban centres. Generally speaking, the larger the urban centre the faster its growth.
Economists and others cite graphs and extrapolate. They point out that at the rate things are happening, in X number of years, depending on how far one looks into the future, 90 per cent or 95 per cent of the Canadian people will be living in urban centres. They accept this as some inevitable fact over which we have no control. I am not a fatalist to that extent. I think if the Canadian people feel that this is not a beneficial trend as far as our nation is concerned, they will be prepared to change or modify it to some degree.
Although I have lived most of my life in the country, I have also lived for periods of time in fairly large cities, including Ottawa and Brussels. I deeply regret the fact that many Canadians born in our cities are condemned in many cases to live their lives in large cities because this limits their oppor-
DEBATES	7561
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy tunity for self-realization. While it is true that a certain percentage of our population in our large cities can live a bountiful and even luxurious type of life, a larger percentage of the people in the cities cannot look forward to appreciably bettering the conditions into which they were bom. I deplore the realities of life in our modern cities as compared to the expectations of young people for their future. Life in the average modern city produces frustrations based on the very nature of the city.
A person may work hard for X number of years, looking forward to the future when he can afford an automobile or a better house. In the meantime, his cost of living increases at such a rate that he finds he is on a treadmill, making no progress whatsoever. As his income increases, his cost of getting to work increases. The municipal taxes increase rapidly. Costs rise at a much greater rate than the individual's capability to cope with these increases. When this person eventually can afford a car, usually there is nowhere he can park it. He spends an hour in a traffic snarl getting to work and back. When more auto routes are built to relieve this situation, the taxes increase. These new auto routes are immediately clogged and the situation is no better than before. There is increasing pollution of air and water. A dweller in a modern metropolitan area is subjected to an ever increasing barrage of noise. This increases at the rate of a decibel each year. He finds himself in a frustrating and unnatural environment. This is something we know too little about.
It is assumed, I believe with false premise, that the good life may be achieved in a large city. We have an automatic worship of bigness. Bigness is equated with quality. This is applied to our large cities. There are people who are proud of the fact that they come from the largest city in the county, the country or the world. In my judgment, this is an ill-founded approach. We worship bigness, but bigness is not a virtue. If it were, the dinosaurs would probably still be around.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Some are.


John Angus MacLean: You are not talking about the actual ones, but the figurative ones. It can even be argued that civilizations collapse when they become over-urbanized. I am not going to pursue that line of thought. There are people who argue that point. In many cases that can be cited, the two things went
June 1, 1970


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I propose to participate very briefly in the debate this afternoon. I think the issue we are confronting is a most important one. Many hon. members have described the nature of the difficulties faced by urban centres across Canada and, indeed, in most countries, and some have offered solutions to them. I should like to consider the question from a different perspective, that is, as being an inter-governmental responsibility. Approaching it from this point of view I should like to speak in general terms about some major trends which are taking place, trends which, if we accept their bearing on this issue, open up opportunities for an inter-governmental approach which affords some prospect of resolving certain of the major problems affecting our urban centres.
Some of these trends may appear to be distant from the particular issue we are discussing, but I suggest they do have a bearing on the situation. The first to which I draw attention is the realignment now being attempted by the federal government, in conjunction with provincial governments, with respect to social security matters.
Twenty-five years of federal initiative in the social security field put heavy strains on the provinces, both with respect to their pri-

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy orities and to their finances. It seems to me the proposal to de-emphasize the federal role in social security matters, to withdraw that heavy pressure on the provinces by passing to them the continuing responsibility, together with fiscal capacity to deal with it, releases the federal government to undertake new initiatives, principally in the urban field. There will be some filling in to be accomplished and new arrangements in social security to be worked out with a continuing federal participation, but the weight of the leading federal role can be lifted. I suggest this trend opens a door to new initiatives here without imposing unduly on provincial prerogatives. Second, it seems to me that the tendency to resist fiscal transfers from the federal to the provincial governments associated with a real effort to bring about amendments to the constitution is a trend favourable to new federal initiatives affecting urban affairs.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
There is no point at all in devolving additional revenues upon systems that are not in a position to utilize them effectively. There is no point in doing more of the same. It seems to me that resistance to these transfers while seeking constitutional change is a healthy development and may be turned to use in the urban context. One would also hope that by entrenching certain rights in the constitution, particularly those relating to language and education, the constitution would be rendered so much more flexible that with guarantees given in those fields by the expressed will of all Canadians the provinces would see some virtue in amendments being made in other areas of the constitution, particularly in areas where the federal government could assume concurrent or shared powers to give it a more legitimate role in urban affairs rather than trying to come in through the back door.
The final trend to which I would draw attention is of a general nature, namely, the accelerating trend toward regional government, about which I will say more in a moment. This latter trend is sponsored by the provinces. What must be the main conditions for a better, intergovernmental approach to urban problems? First, I think the approach must be through urban regions rather than directed toward cities themselves. I suggest that if the concept of an urban centre is that of a city standing free, separated from its environment, separated from the rural areas, the notion is obsolete. It is quite impossible to
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy solve urban problems if they sire not regarded as problems arising within urbanizing regions.
The problems of urban centres arise in the regions around them, for example, problems of urban transportation and housing. To illustrate this point, let me refer to metropolitan Toronto where land costs alone for housing purposes are so high and land is so scarce that people of moderate means, let alone those on low incomes, find it almost impossible to own a house of their own. The answer to some of Toronto's housing problems is in the townships of Pickering, Vaughan and Markham, that is, in the surrounding regions. It is impossible to solve such problems unless there is some jurisdiction encompassing them. The municipalities are too fragmented to resolve these issues. I suggest that only the province is in a position to rearrange municipalities in regional structures where such issues as housing, pollution and transportation may be resolved.
I think one condition of resolving these problems is the adoption of a systems approach, that is to say, a comprehensive planning and implementation approach. It is no longer acceptable that housing be regarded as a single problem. Housing requires pollution control and transportation systems. Transportation embraces other issues. Housing draws us into the field of schooling and recreation. We have to consider all these urban problems in the round. We have to consider them in the context of a systems approach, a comprehensive approach. Once again it seems to me that only if the provinces play their role by putting the municipalities into a regional setting and by drawing the federal government into the resolution of those issues on the basis of comprehensive planning are we likely to make any real headway. In other words, this is an intergovernmental problem.
Another condition of success, I suggest, is that we must take a long-term perspective; that is to say, we should be looking at the year 2000, not at this year or next year, since we are seeking to create an urban environment of a decent kind, a human environment that we will be living with for decades to come. If I might digress for a moment, it seems to me that this need for a long-term approach in itself justifies the entrance of political parties into major urban centres. Only through urban politics of this kind can long-term policies be developed within urban centres and around which groups of people can adhere for long periods of time.

The approach to a resolution of the major urban problems to which many others have pointed, and which I accept as the basic issues without touching on them myself, is that we develop some intergovernmental machinery. I do not think that in speaking of the role of the federal government it would be enough simply to find new ways of co-ordinating all of its presences, its inputs, in urban centres. It is doing this now under the guidance of the minister responsible for housing and urban affairs, but it will not be enough simply to have better co-ordination of the federal functions, the federal presence at airports, harbours, and so on.
Nor would it be enough if the provinces, or even the municipalities, better co-ordinated their functions for resolving urban problems. There has to be intergovernmental machinery created for purposes of consultation, planning on a regional base, and indeed for implementing the programs which come out of that planning. I suggest that in the Department of Regional Economic Expansion some models for three-way intergovernmental planning and implementation are already being worked out. Necessarily, these models are being worked out in the slow-growth regions. However, as I think all members realize, the programs of the department are urban programs; they are focused upon urban growth centres and bring the federal government deeply into the urban field with programs that are jointly arranged with the provinces and provide for municipal collaboration. These are programs for urban development which bring the federal government for the first time into infrastructures, into schools, into roads, water and sewer systems which are normally within the jurisdiction of other governments. There is no need to disturb the constitution in this respect. The constitution is no obstacle to the resolution of major urban problems.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. O'Connell:: The problem lies with
policy, not with the constitution. It is up to us, the provinces and the municipalities which have not fought the fight with their own provinces to bring about the kind of intergovernmental approaches that are now being developed in slow-growth regions and that are surely extendable to rapid-growth regions such as the major urban centres of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and so on. If time permitted I would illustrate these themes with what I would say are dramatic innovations recently
June 1. 1970	COMMONS
introduced in the province of Ontario. I have no reason to give any credit to the government of the province of Ontario but I think we all should recognize that the basic innovation which will bring this federal government into urban policies is being developed within that province.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
I suggest, since my time is short, that members consult the recently published "Design for Development" put out by the government of Ontario and dealing with the Toronto-centred region. This is the first of a series of regional development plans that will cover the entire province. This is a fundamental change in the conditions for a new federal approach to urban problems. It is fundamental because that province is committed to establishing regional governments without which we shall founder in trying to create a proper urban environment for the future- fundamental, not only in creating urban governments, but in their first report on the Toronto-centred region, by laying out a basic concept of development. This development concept takes as its context an urbanizing region within which lie urban centres such as the metro core, the Oshawa area, the Hamilton area, and others-urban centres in a linear pattern; looks also at another zone which is the commuter zone, and looks beyond that to another zone for urban and regional development known as the peripheral area. This is a concept of development to take us to the year 2000, and it shows that this provincial government is at last taking its responsibility to lay out the framework into which the municipalities and the federal government can usefully fit. It will require us to participate in comprehensive development plans based on that fundamental concept.
I think we cannot escape the conclusion that unless the provinces take these kinds of initiatives we shall not succeed. It is not appropriate now for the municipalities to run to Ottawa with some kind of romantic notion that solutions lie here because finances lie here. It is not appropriate to disperse federal funds to local units of administration that cannot resolve the issue. Only the provinces can create effective regional units within which new federal policies and programs can apply.
This is the concept in the province of Ontario. It finds that the major trends now taking place in the metropolitan region are leading to perverse results with bad housing,
DEBATES	7565
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy congestion, alienation and social problems of all kinds. The province undertakes to reverse or modify these trends with the plan which is laid out in this recent booklet "Design for Development".
With that I shall conclude my remarks, Mr. Speaker. My point in making any comment at all was to stress that it is an intergovernmental policy which we are seeking; not just a federal policy. The key element in getting an intergovernmental policy is the province, and the provinces are just beginning to play that role. By reorganizing and restructuring the municipalities they also will have to be a reorganization of the finances between the provinces and municipalities. Into that pattern can be fitted all those federal roles of an intergovernmental or consultative kind such as where the next airport will go in that region. Decisions of this type will be integrated into the fundamental plan which the province lays out.
This plan covers half the people of Ontario, and it would be important if only for that reason. It covers one out of five Canadians, and it would be important if only for that reason. However, its importance goes far beyond that because it lays the basis for the intergovernmental machinery which has to follow to develop the plans into which this federal government can fit in entirely new ways.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, before the hon. member concludes his excellent speech, would he permit a question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Parliamentary Secretary resumed his seat at the moment his time expired. Is there agreement to allow the Parliamentary Secretary more time?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Edward Broadbent: I wonder if the hon.
member would agree that there is nothing incompatible in what he had to say in, I repeat, his excellent speech, with what I was suggesting in my speech.


Martin Patrick O'Connell: Mr. Speaker, I would have to review the remarks of the hon. member; but I think there is nothing incompatible with the point he was stressing, that we need a new urban policy at the federal government level. It cannot be created and made to function, as I was seeking to point out, until there is a new urban policy in the provinces and a
7566	COMMONS
Suggested Lack, of Urban Policy new urban policy in many of the municipalities. I find myself at variance with some of the solutions he proposed, but perhaps on the fundamental question I agree with him.


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: 
[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Barry Mather: Mr. Speaker, in taking part in the discussion of urban affairs and regional affairs tonight, and in supporting the motion of the New Democratic Party which criticizes the federal government's lack of action in meeting the problems of urban Canada, I shall emphasize that part of the urban problem which is pollution-pollution of air, water and sound. As has often recently been said, Mr. Speaker, we live in a new world. Science and technology have revolutionized our way of life. We live in a new Canada, in a Canada of great cities, of great metropolitan and regional areas. For good or ill we have departed from the rural Canada, the old Canada of 40, 30 or even 25 years ago, the countryside Canada.
Today there are 17 metropolitan areas in Canada with populations greater than that of the province of Prince Edward Island. Our
[Mr. Brewin.l
DEBATES	June 1. 1970
three largest metropolitan areas are each larger in population than any one of the four Atlantic provinces. Of our ten provinces only Quebec and Ontario have populations exceeding those of Montreal and Toronto. In this new, urbanized Canada we are forced to live and work close together. It follows that we must plan and act together so we may together meet the problems which confront us all.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
May I touch on the several areas of pollution that trouble most Canadians, since three-quarters of all Canadians now live in urban centres. I submit that the government should be more active in controlling water pollution than it has been to date. The NDP attack on the government's bill dealing with water pollution focused attention on four critical weaknesses in that legislation. First, there is the lack of national water quality standards; second, the bill will fail to stop polluters from polluting water because pollution is not to be included as a criminal oifence under the Criminal Code; third, it neglects to provide for the massive funds needed to clean up water pollution; fourth, it has failed to establish workable federal, provincial and municipal machinery to co-ordinate the fight across the country against water pollution.
While almost every Liberal member on the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works last year voted in favour of national water standards, the Liberal party now has endorsed a plan which will create pollution havens from one end of the country to the other. Under what is proposed, province will be set against province and area against area in the competition for industry and the provisions of jobs, and this will be brought about as a result of reducing control with respect to water pollution. The pollution control system planned now by Ottawa under the Canada water act throws another ten federal-provincial consultative committees and a host of local water quality management boards into the water pollution control jungle. Already there are involved in this general area of discussion and control ten different federal departments, nine agencies, four commissions, three international boards, 30 subboards and 40 acts of Parliament, plus agencies responsible for water in the provinces. The problem is real and growing, and the remedy is weak and diffuse.
I shall now say a word about air pollution. Statistics in the United States show that motor vehicles are responsible for 60 per cent
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
of the nation's air pollution, 30 per cent being attributable to industry. Most people in Canada are becoming concerned about the fumes and the thick smoke and smog shrouding our cities. What we do not too often realize is that between 85 per cent and 90 per cent of air pollution consists of largely invisible and odourless yet potentially deadly gases. The car is a major culprit in air pollution. Some steps towards easing this problem have been taken in the United States, although very belatedly. Little or nothing has been done in this country.
I think it is important, for example, that the shortly-to-be proclaimed 29 motor vehicle safety standards should include realistic antipollution regulations with regard to motor vehicles. This ought to be an immediate step that we should take. However, we probably ought to go much farther than that if we are to cope with the causes of this disease-spreader. For example, should we stop building more highways between municipalities and try to revive our passenger train services? Should we spend our transportation funds in the cities for better public transportation, instead of for super highways right up to the cities which leave to the cities the problem of building approach and service roads, in that way forcing them to spend the money they might have spent on public transportation? I also believe that industry is a culprit in air pollution. I believe that before an industrial site is established, the industry concerned should be required to provide evidence that it will not contribute to air, water or sound pollution.
May I now say a word about sound pollution. As I said, statistics in the United States show that motor vehicles are responsible for 80 per cent of that nation's air pollution, while industry contributes another 30 per cent. Statistics in that country also show that motor vehicles are responsible for a great deal of the sound pollution which affects the residents of urban centres. This is true of this country also. I think statistics indicate that noise from motor vehicles, drills and other sources in the city contributes to a great extent to one of the most prevalent non-fatal disease factors in North America. With the tensions that have been built up from constant noise in our urban areas, I find it rather curious that we do not have an even higher incidence of crime than we have at present.
A loudness of 80 decibels is about as high a noise level as most people can stand without being uncomfortable. Noise levels higher than
DEBATES	7569
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy that produce physiological effects. Also, exposure to more than 100 decibels may cause permanent impairment of one's hearing. One suffers physical pain at a level of 140 decibels and more. I will give some examples of noise levels. Ordinary conversation is at about 60 decibels. A cocktail party produces about 90 decibels, a riveting-gun about 130 decibels, and a jet aircraft at close range, 180 decibels.
The bill I have sponsored with regard to sound pollution aims at making a modest start toward the solution of the problem. It has been brought forward with that view in mind rather than with the thought that it will effect any cure of the major problems of sound pollution. It would provide that any business concern dealing with the federal government must not produce within its establishment sound levels of over 80 decibels. I think if this bill were adopted we would set an example to private and provin-cially-controlled industry across the country and the federal government would give leadership in the fight against noise pollution.
As our urban areas grow, they produce more and more pollution. Our urban regions contain millions of people who live, work, plan and act together. I feel that the federal government ought to do a great deal more than it has done in giving leadership in the setting of standards relating to the control of water, air and noise pollution to help the people in those regions. Whether we like it or not, Canada's growing problems in its growing urban areas mean that there is a need for better planning to protect the public against the forms of pollution I have outlined. We must protect the people against the effects of pollution. My party has always felt this way. I therefore urge the government to do more than it has done thus far in combating these problems.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)


Mr. Ray Perrault (Burnaby-Seymour):: Mr. Speaker, for the most part this has been a constructive and useful debate. Most of the speeches have contained proposals to improve the condition and the status of the urban centres of Canada. Some speakers have stated the obvious-the need for Canada to act before an urban crisis of overpowering proportions develops. In their ocean of words other speakers have not indicated an island or even a lonely atoll of hope. They have condemned the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Andras), in charge of housing, quite irresponsibly and without basis. Even these mem-
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy bers-and happily they are a minority-know that the resolution of the urban challenge lies with no one minister, the cabinet or even the House of Commons. It goes beyond this House to the Provinces and the municipalities. Indeed, the question is now extended throughout the world.
During the last session of the United Nations a special report was issued regarding the deteriorating conditions of urban centres throughout the world. Significantly, as yet no one has produced the kind of solutions which are demanded of the minister in this debate in the House today. If our urban centres are to be decent places in which to live, a vast co-operative effort involving all levels of government and all segments of the community will be required. As we known, the municipalities in the first instance are the creatures of the provincial governments.
It is significant that many provincial governments, including the home province of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), have boasted for the past number of years of either a break-even budget or a surplus. In most cases the same cannot be said about the municipal governments or the federal government. There is an indication that in the case of some provincial governments there could be a greater degree of generosity extended to their municipal governments. Before the opposition members lecture the federal government about its responsibility to unilaterally solve the urban problem, they should turn as well to their provincial governments.
We are told that the cities of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa and Hamilton are in trouble and that the trouble is deepening. Kenneth Galbraith said:
"The great cities in western industrial society have long been in trouble."
This "trouble" will not be solved alone by the simplistic solutions advanced by the mover of this motion, who calls among other actions for the application of a regional district income tax superimposed presumably on existing levies. The problem will not be solved by any ingenious cost-sharing formula and the proclamation of a new department of urban affairs. The latter idea was first advanced three or four years ago by a number of Liberal members in convention. While the idea has merit, it represents yet only another partial solution.
The mover of this resolution has accused the government of failing to demonstrate an interest in the problem of urban growth. In

this regard, I note with interest the news release of the New Democratic Party. I quote paragraph 4 of that release:
We do not need more funds put Into our present piecemeal programs such as urban renewal, transportation and pollution control-it is those very programs which are destroying our cities.
I hope at some point, Mr. Speaker, that the members of the New Democratic Party will tell this to the 17,690 people of British Columbia who benefited from housing starts initiated by this minister in 1969. I hope they will bear their great message of hope that we should not spend any more money on NHA loans to the thousands of people in metropolitan Vancouver who live in the 2,935 NHA dwelling units built last year despite the supposed inaction of this minister. I hope they will bear the great progressive message of "hold the line" to those people benefitting from low rental housing in the greater Vancouver area. In 1969 $1,681,000 was approved, to provide 1,300 units and 265 beds. I trust that the great message from the New Democratic Party tonight, namely, that we do not need more funds put into our present allegedly piecemeal program, will be taken to heart by the people living in those 1,300 units and the 265 bedroom units made possible by federal loans. And what of those in 3,116 units and 864 hostel beds made possible through federal loan assistance totalling $20,264,000 in 1969 in the lower mainland area of greater Vancouver? Does this represent inaction?
This is hardly the record of a government which is dedicated to inaction and convinced that nothing should be done. The mover of the resolution wants to grant local governments the power to levy as income tax, presumably in addition to the burdens now being carried. Surely Canadian tax reform should stop at nothing less than a complete review of taxes borne by all sections of the community, the incidence and the justice of those taxes and a redistribution of revenues and responsibilities among all levels of government.
I find it incomprehensible that in today's highly mobile Canadian society local governments still bear such a deadweight burden of welfare costs. In the province of British Columbia this amounts to 43 per cent. I find it incomprehensible to support the injustice of our present system of financing education in most provinces. What God-given ability is possessed by those who happen to live in a family home or on a family farm to support most of the education in Canada? The concept
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
is not only outmoded but it is primeval, wrong and unjust. There is no possible justification for the family home and family farm, to bear such a heavy education tax burden.
I do not think it is good enough to say that these are matters which must be sorted out between the provincial governments and municipal governments. I am sure the minister will be the first to agree that no one should hide behind the British North America Act, as was suggested this afternoon. There must be a totally new redistribution of responsibilities and revenues among the various levels of government. One of the first reforms should be to finance our system of education basically and almost entirely on an ability to pay basis. On one hand we are inclined to tell the people of Canada that education is one of the greatest resources available and that we will have to develop as many educated Canadians as possible.
This is a sound concept. As well, we tell them that one of the most important programs is that of retraining people in new skills and making available to them the opportunity to travel to areas where those skills are required. Yet little has been done to improve the ability of local government to help finance these programs and the problems and challenges which ensue.
The local people of Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Quebec City educate young people who may proceed to move to Toronto, or to other parts of Canada. Unlike previous times, the local community may never benefit from the basic investment in education which its taxpayers have invested in those people. We have to make changes.
Since the industrial revolution the cities of the world have become the handmaiden of industrial development. Land use over the years has tended to be less of a subordinate of over-all planning and more of a servant of economic efficiency. It has been assumed that the owner would use the land so as to obtain the highest return. It has been said that the aesthetic consequences of this conception of the city have been uniformly disastrous. It has sometimes been argued that out of the unregulated pursuit of individual advantage would come a pattern of urban development which would have an unplanned but functional duty. Today we know that this is complete nonsense. The results of uncontrolled pursuit of economic advantage in the use of urban land space is no more likely to be beautiful and harmonious than that of uncontrolled
DEBATES	7571
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy digging for minerals or coal in the countryside. A recent United Nations report states as follows:
For the first time in the history of mankind, there is arising a crisis of worldwide proportions involving developed and developing countries alike -the crisis of human environment.
Portents of this crisis have long been apparent in the explosive growth of human population, in the poor integration of a powerful and efficient technology with environmental requirements, in the deterioration of agricultural lands, in the unplanned extension of urban areas, in the decrease of available space and the growing danger of extinction of many forms of animal and plant life.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
As has been stated so eloquently today by spokesmen from all parties, urban growth is one aspect of this formidable catalogue of challenges. We find it here in Canada. Fortunately, we may be in time to deal with it. A group of hon. members from all parties decided some time ago to study the problems of urban environmental growth in the megalopolis of New York. Some of my hon. friends will remember that visit to the New York department of health and sanitation. It was disturbing to review a situation which is virtually out of control. We were shown a vast map in the office of the organization; there were red flags on it and there were blue flags. "What are the red flags for?" we asked.


An hon. Member:: They are the Liberals.


Raymond J. Perrault: We were told that the red flags represented areas where rat-bites had been severe in recent weeks. Every one of those flags represented areas afflicted by poverty, disease and a low standard of living. The blue flags represented areas where youngsters in tenement districts had eaten lead paint from the walls because their diet was insufficient. The officials who explained this added, "We are supposed to be the richest city in the entire world. If we were faced with a situation of the kind which exists in Toronto or Montreal, we would do things differently because there would be time." So there may yet be time in Canada for enlightened urban development.
In this regard, surely the opposition does not expect the minister responsible for housing and urban affairs to leap to his feet with words of instant wisdom of a kind which has eluded others in the world who are just now coming to grips with the urban problem. It
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy has been stated, incorrectly, that the government has invoked the constitution in an effort to escape its share of responsibility for the development and re-creation of our urban areas.
The resolution before us is unfair. Implicit in its intemperate wording is an accusation of disinterest and indecision directed toward the government and the minister. They can be acquitted on both counts for they are now grappling with a concept which besets the entire world, the new concept of the city, once again as an entity and as the projection of a guiding authority; the city, less a playing field for the exercise of economic talent and, more, a household with concern for the wellbeing of all its members. In the process of determining what the concept of Canada's urban areas must be, we must decide how our resources are to be distributed, how much money is to be allocated to competing needs, how the threats to mankind's physical and mental well-being are to be met. I say this because there are psychological conditions among those who live in our cities which are not apparent in those who live in the rural areas.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Environmental malaise.


Raymond J. Perrault: I am confident that the coming months will see some dramatic and exciting chapters in urban policy unfolded in this House-


An hon. Member:: Oh boy!


Raymond J. Perrault: -chapters which I suggest will make the terms of this resolution even more redundant, unfair and baseless than they appear to those who are called upon to debate them at this time.


Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I want to express a few ideas concerning urban policy and the related question of environment. We have heard a good deal of debate in the last few weeks on the subject of urban affairs and pollution. Our discussions appear to cover the same ground many times. Hon. members make proposals and the government responds in one way or another, often in a negative way but sometimes by proposing legislation which at least recognizes the need for an environmental program.
I ask myself continually whether we are making any progress by debating subjects which have been discussed so many times before. Are we getting anywhere? Are the ideas which are being presented finding

acceptance? Are they getting to the public, and is public pressure resulting in legislation or administrative action? I am afraid we are wasting our time in a considerable area of effort. It seems to me that some protest groups are displaying nothing but folly when they march around proposing changes in the law but never follow up their proposals by examining what is actually being done in Parliament.
There are many places outside Parliament where these subjects have been discussed time and time again. But never do these people know what happens here; never do they know what representations have been made during the debates, what points of view we put forward and whether or not their ideas are gaining acceptance. It would seem that not many of the groups which are so concerned about our environment realize that it is in Parliament that decisions are made at the federal level. They are not made on street corners, in meeting-halls or at conferences. They are made nowhere but here.
In every case the action has to begin outside Parliament, of course, and I believe that a good start has been made in recent months by many groups which are concerned about the environment, about the conditions in which we live in the cities and about pollution generally. But these groups never seem to follow up their efforts by seeking to learn what happens, what action has been decided upon. Any fermentation which takes place on the streets must find its expression here, otherwise time has been wasted. Enthusiastic support of pollution control ideas, the ability to stir up the people, to demand new lines of government action are all extremely important. In the end, though, all that really matters is whether or not laws are passed.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
I intend to be somewhat critical of the press, though not of the press gallery because I think it covers pretty broadly and well the proceedings of Parliament. When individual members of the press gallery do not get their stories, Canadian Press generally covers the subject. However, I am concerned that the newspapers do not print the important parts of our parliamentary debates and procedures. Time and again I have seen ideas expressed and bills presented and passed with hardly any mention in the press, presumably because they do not seem to be exciting enough. Sometimes bills making fundamental changes go through this House with never a mention.
June 1. 1970	COMMONS
In this session the government has paid a certain amount of attention to pollution problems. I have said time and again that there are many shortcomings in the action taken by the government, that there is no co-ordination of effort, that there is no money provided to do what requires to be done. I have criticized the legislation brought forth by the government both in principle and in detail, and so have many other members. Some very broad amendments have been made to the Fisheries Act, but again I noted very little attention given to them in the press, particularly from the pollution angle. This House has also been debating the Canada water act, another fundamental measure, one which I think is badly misunderstood by the public. The public does not realize what is the intent of the act or what its effect will be.
I think the newspapers pay more attention to what I would call the fermentation of ideas rather than their fruition. All one has to do to get attention is to protest on the street by waving banners around; in this way people are told what you are trying to do. Lots of attention can be had by participating in marches, making street corner speeches, by holding conferences, conventions and seminars. The subject of pollution has been covered so many times in so many places, by so many people and has received so much attention that it has now become, as many have said, the "in" thing. Some have commented that this is the bandwagon on which a lot of politicians are climbing, and this may be true. Perhaps I myself have been guilty of this, along with others, though I have been on this bandwagon for some years.
But to parliamentary debates, this public fermentation of ideas, very little attention is paid. In cases where people have already won their point and legislation has been introduced to deal with the problem, they continue to protest simply because they do not realize that such measures have been passed into law. On the other hand, in other cases, particularly in the case of the Canada water act, people feel they have won their point whereas in fact it has hardly been dealt with at all.
This is the cry that I am making this evening and I want to register my concern because it is here where the action is. It is not a very exciting place. I often stand up and make a speech and then wonder whether there will be any result. I can give a good example of what I mean by something that happened today. The sponsor of this motion dealing
DEBATES	7573
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy with urban affairs, having made his speech found it necessary to issue a press release. I find that this sort of thing is happening more and more: you do not receive any attention unless you issue a press release. I do not know why this is. I think that the speeches made here should be sufficient in themselves to attract attention.


James Aloysius McGrath: But no one listens.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I did not realize until a few moments ago that this had occurred in this case, but I understand the reason for it. I think many other hon. members have encountered the same problem. However, perhaps we should not cry about it. I hope eventually it will become evident to people really concerned about pollution matters and our environment that the decisions that are made, are made here. As far as I can gather, in large measure the public does not know that these decisions are made here.
I should like to make a few remarks about co-ordination and jurisdiction. These are two words that make me weep. Co-ordination should be the means by which the federal government gets under way its program to control pollution. There should be co-ordination and the co-ordination should be here, but it is not. The problems of urban affairs, water pollution, air pollution, soil pollution and so on are fragmented to the extent that no one really knows with whom in the federal government they ought to deal. People write and ask me who in the government they should contact about pollution. I have to reply that I do not know; that it depends on the sort of pollution they are talking about and in what context. I tell them that if they give me a whole page on their particular problem I might be able to figure out to which minister to refer the matter. This is why we need co-ordination. We need leadership at the federal level, and this we are not getting.
The other matter I wish to raise relates to jurisdiction. It is my belief that at the time of confederation the powers of the federal government and of the provinces were divided in such a way that there could be a co-ordination of effort in this country to deal with almost any subject that arose. Although some tried their best to say it was better for the provinces to deal with one subject and for the federal government to deal with another, it was greatly hoped that the constitution would be the means of achieving results rather than
7574	COMMONS
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy stalemating so much of our legislation. But time and again we run into problems about jurisdiction.
We should not really have to meet this problem because between the federal Parliament and the provincial legislatures there exists total legislative jurisdiction for the whole of Canada. All that is required is cooperation between the federal government and the provinces. This co-operation has been given many times in the past. When problems arose about jurisdiction, the federal Parliament and the provinces felt the need to get together to deal with them. Every jurisdiction in Canada is involved in the fight against pollution and in dealing with urban questions, but despite this division of power between the federal and provincial governments no action is taken to deal with the matter. Everybody wants action. Everyone is concerned about pollution. We have all the jurisdiction that is needed. Yet nothing is done. Perhaps I should not say nothing is done. I recognize that hon. gentlemen opposite are just as concerned as we are. But concern is not enough; action must be taken. In cases of divided jurisdiction I believe it is the federal government that must show leadership. No one province can or will take action because it does not feel that it can show leadership to the whole country.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
We have seen, particularly in the last two years, I am sorry to say, the constitutional expert, the person who made much of having the constitution work for the benefit of Canada-that is, the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau)-instead of using the constitution to develop the country, use it as an excuse for inaction in so many places. This is a real tragedy to my mind.
So many things should be done in the cities right now. The great problem is heavy traffic. There should be plans for rapid transit systems throughout the urban areas of Canada. Those plans should be developed here. We have the National Research Council, we have various departmental research units and many departments involved, so this is where it should be developed and published as a code, as should many of the ideas concerning pollution.
Rapid transit systems could accomplish two things. First, they could reduce the number of vehicles within the cities and thus reduce the pollution problem. Second, they could move traffic better and make life easier for those in
DEBATES	June 1. 1970
the cities by reducing sound and noise. So many things could be done. We should be working on the question of pollution-free engines for cars, lead-free gasolines for motor vehicles, sulphur-free fuels from oil and coal particularly. Car equipment is also very important as far as pollution is concerned.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but I am afraid his time has expired. Is there unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: I have just one more thought, and I thank the House for giving me extra time. There are so many things that ought to be done and so many things that are under combined jurisdiction. The total problems of recycling our whole production are there and are important. Recycling is the key to most of the problems we have been talking about today, certainly in the city environment- recycling industrial effort, recycling water, recycling effluent-so that this planet would be like the satellites which went around the earth and subsequently to the moon and back containing within themselves the ability to recycle and continue to live on a permanent basis. Surely if we can do that on the way to outer space, the same development could take place on the planet earth which has also been described as the space ship earth.
If we in this country made the effort to combine federal and provincial jurisdiction and said, "We will do this in the federal field if you will do that in the provincial field," I think we could find the answers and in time make a better life for the next generation.


Mr. Lloyd Francis (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, like many other members in the House I welcome this motion which gives us an opportunity to debate urban affairs. I confess, however, that I was very disappointed, after listening to the speeches from the group that proposed this motion, at what they had to say. I looked for some new ideas, I looked for a little imagination and I looked for something a little different. The members of that group remind me of the Irishman who allegedly got on his horse and galloped off madly in all directions. One of the directions they want to go is housing, another is transportation. The horse they want to move is a department of urban affairs. Somehow this is to be a department that does not need any more federal money; it just has to co-ordinate

June 1, 1970	COMMONS
and somehow arrange for a separate income tax to go to the cities. This is the package that I got from listening to the initial speakers on that side of the House.
I suggest that this is the purpose which has to guide a government and all of us-to seek goals and to define our goals. What is the goal with regard to an urban policy? The goal is to create the kind of cities in which we want to live. In order to do this we must do a great deal more than was outlined in the initial presentation of the members of that group. The first problem is to co-ordinate the physical services in the cities: the infrastructure, the services that go below the ground, decide how deep the hydro transformers must be, when the electrical services are to be put underground, how big the sanitary sewers must be, how big the water mains must be. In order to do this it must be possible to anticipate the density pattern of the city not just for five or ten years but for the life of those services. A number of things have to be measured that are not measurable, and things have to be anticipated that cannot be anticipated in quantitative terms. In addition to the services below ground, somehow the services that go on it and above it have to be planned, so have the traffic arteries and an immense range of things to ensure the provision of services without which life in our cities is not possible.
The task of the urban planner is a very great one, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps in this city of Ottawa we have as good an example as any urban community on this continent of the difficulties of trying to bring into effect the physical planning of our cities and our urban structure. As far back as 1911 we had the Holt report, which would have put a whole cluster of government buildings on both sides of the canal. The greatest thing that happened to Ottawa was that no one had the opportunity to implement the Holt report. It would have been a traffic disaster and would have created situations before the automobile came into its own with which succeeding generations would not have been able to live.
We not only have to think of the physical services that go to the cities, Mr. Speaker- and Lord knows the complexities of anticipating needs are great enough and will be a challenge to the very best instruments which a computer age can devise-but we have to think of the quality of life in the cities themselves. I like to think of cities in terms of two basic characteristics: they are dynamic and I hope they are democratic. The cities are the
DEBATES	7575
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy source of technical innovation in our society. They are the areas that create the demand for new services, greater services and higher levels of services. It is the cities that want better schools and new options in the schools, better student-teacher ratios. They are never satisfied with what they have. The cities are the source of demand for the higher and better standards of life which the twentieth century is coming to know.
It is not easy to say what the essential elements of the quality of life must be, Mr. Speaker. In many ways we live in terms of a cultural hangover of an idealist rural past. By the turn of the twentieth century well over 50 per cent of our labour force was engaged in agriculture; today fewer than 10 per cent of those in the labour force not only produce enough food for all of us but huge surpluses which are creating a serious problem in terms of disposal. I remember a writer who said that the cultural values of a previous generation were those of the Horatio Alger novel- the boy who grew up in the country, who resisted temptation in the city, who worked hard, who was thrifty, who was well motivated, who lived a good, clean life and who prospered. The same writer said the twentieth century Horatio Alger pattern should be something like this-the city boy who has the opportunity of better schooling, better health, better education, who grows up and takes land that is not being efficiently utilized in the country and does very well by selling his surplus for disposal under government subsidy programs.
Somehow the pattern has reversed itself. There is no question that within our urban environment we have to set the standard for the quality of life that we want to achieve. The democratic administration of the services which must be provided to urban centres is one of the absolutely essential features of the kind of city I want to see. A democratic city to me is not segregated by public housing or other ghettos. It is a city in which there is equal access to education and to health services. It is a city in which all those things that are part of what we call the good life are provided in an effective way. It is a city in which the people who are governed have a say in the way in which they are governed.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
This is a very simple proposition. It is a basic axiom that I am sure very few would dispute, but in working out the mechanics in a city there are innumerable difficulties. The
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy hospital region is not of the same size as the sewage disposal region, or of the same size as the garbage collection region. It is not of the same size as the region for the distribution of hydro electricity or for the administration of assessment services. The difficulty with the services that must be provided in the city is that the optimum levels and size of an administration unit vary greatly from one service to another.
Provinces have attempted to grapple with this problem by devising several levels of government at the local level, at the larger urban agglomeration level and at the regional level. They have by no means found a uniform pattern, because every city is different. It is different through the physical environment in which it was born and in which it grows. It is different in terms of the people who live in it and in terms of what they want. It is different in terms of the social and cultural values on which the people in that city insist as part of the standard of living. The solution to the problem of urban growth is not the simple creation by the federal government of a department of urban affairs, although I think such a step will come. One of the things that has impressed me about the present minister is the way in which he has attempted to set his goals and priorities and to understand them before he moves.
There is no question that basic, fundamental research in urban problems is very much lacking. Until we have some concept of the kind of cities we want, whether they be vertical or horizontal, cities of low density scattered through rural areas-the type of city which was talked about in the last century -or high density cities with fringe green belts around them, research will continue to be necessary. We will want to know what kind of city we want to live in, whether it will be above or below ground, whether it will have large or small buildings or have a high or low density of population.
There is an astonishing amount of disagreement, in terms of these very basic goals, among those who make it their lifework to study the cities. Our friends would say that the federal government moves, it creates a department and other things will flow from it. I am one who believes that the problems are infinitely more complex and that the city planners will have to be much more imaginative.
The hon. member for Scarborough East (Mr. O'Connell) said it is an intergovernmental problem. I could not agree more. The dif-

Acuity is that the provincial legislatures, which according to the BNA Act have the power of life and death over the charters under which municipalities act, are still largely rural dominated. No more striking example of this could be found than my own province of Ontario. The province of Ontario lives in a state of fear of the great city state of Toronto. It does not know what to do with it and what to do about it. It lives in the fear that somehow this great city state will displace the province itself in future years of this confederation. It lives in the fear-and it is not the only provincial government that lives in this kind of fear-that perhaps the constitution of Canada for the next 100 years must be a constitution that builds together in a type of federated action perhaps four, five or ten city states, major urban agglomerations which represent the centres of dynamism, growth and the good life.


Mr. D. Gordon Blair (Ollawa-Carleion):: Mr. Speaker, like my friend, the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis), I welcome the posing of this problem to the House because in my opinion it is perhaps the most serious issue of our times. When we approach the question of urban growth we have to admit that to a very large extent we are prisoners of past attitudes and past habits. I think these attitudes and habits are common to all parties and to all people in this country.
Throughout the history of Canada, and indeed of the western world, there has been a movement from the country and from smaller centres to the cities. We all know that the great aim of our society has been growth. The importance of communities has always been pictured in terms of the number of their people, the number of their industries, the number of their educational institutions and all the other services and facilities which we relate in our minds to large centres and to large cities.
As I approach this question tonight I would suggest that perhaps there are three problems which we face. The first, and indeed the most urgent, is how to cope in Canada with present-day problems of urbanism. The creation of great cities carries with it the creation of substantial problems. Industry, wealth and many other things which in our society we consider important congregate in cities. But the mere congestion of people and of institutions carries with it tremendous social problems of housing, of maintaining decent living standards, of crime and even of violence.
June 1. 1970

I do not intend tonight to comment on how we should meet the urgent and immediate problems of large centres, although others have spoken about them. We face the problems of how we should ensure that people who live in large cities are properly housed, how we should ensure adequacy of transportation systems so that life is more than misery in a large city, how we should deal with questions of pollution on a large scale and how we should deal with many social problems which arise in these huge, urban agglomerations.
The mere suggestion of these problems brings me to the next major issue, which is the question of jurisdiction in this country. Unfortunately for us, there is no authority which can make laws which govern every situation. I do not quarrel with the suggestion that has been made, that the federal government should involve itself more substantially in urban affairs. Indeed, I think that every fair-minded person in the House would admit that through the vehicle of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and other federal agencies there has been a substantial contribution to the development of knowledge of urban affairs and to the solution of some of the graver urban problems we face.
We who live in Ottawa have recently seen how difficult it is to mesh all the various jurisdictions-municipal, regional, provincial, and in the case of this community, even federal-in order to make a sensible, coherent and positive attack on the problems of urban living. These problems do not disappear out of sight merely by someone suggesting that they should not be there; merely by someone suggesting they can be eliminated by creating a new department in the federal structure. We must realize that the total solution of urban problems in this country will require the co-operation of all the agencies of government and indeed of all the people of Canada. That leads me to my third comment, which perhaps it is presumptuous for a person like myself to make but it relates to the view we have of this country and the view we have of urban problems in general.
[DOT] (9:10 p.m.)
As I said at the beginning, we are locked in a view which we have had of our life and living for as long as all of us can remember, of this inevitable, inexorable progression into bigger urban units and into bigger cities. Some of the projections which we now hear are enough to instil stark terror into the 22375-61

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy hearts of all of us. For example, we are told that perhaps in ten or 15 years' time more than 80 per cent of the people of Canada will live in 10 or 12 large urban units. We are told that by the end of the century 90 per cent of the population of this country may occupy only 1 per cent of its land mass.
I suggest, therefore, that when we discuss the question of urbanism and urban living we should lift our sights if we can-and I know it is difficult-beyond the problems we see at the present time. We should ask ourselves the serious question of how we can avoid these problems by better planning, by greater thinking in the future. This year there was published a report entitled, "The Sixth Annual Review. A Commentary by B. W. Wilkinson," on the sixth report of the Economic Council of Canada. He is a professor at the University of Alberta. Among other things he deals with the question of urban development and urban growth. I quote from page 31 of Professor Wilkinson's pamphlet, as follows:
Urban development is another area which, according to the Review, is to capture a major portion of government outlays in the future. The council's projections are based on its belief, developed more fully in the Fourth Review, that an ever-growing percentage of our population is going to be concentrated in larger and larger cities. The council calls for expenditures to prevent the quality of life in the cities from deteriorating because of the many problems that mere size creates.
In the Fourth Review, the council dismissed in one short paragraph the possibility that a reasonable economic and social alternative to the greatly enlarged outlays required for coping with the tremendous economic and social diseconomies arising from giant metropolises is to limit the size of cities. The core of the council's argument was that we do not know why cities grow and therefore cannot take steps to regulate or control their growth. Is it better to undertake the research and the tremendous costs necessary to make cities liveable than to research the alternative of controlling city size? I cannot accept this conclusion.
I suggest that as a nation we face this rather mind-shattering problem of trying to determine why cities grow, of trying to find out how we can limit their growth and how we can direct their growth in a way which will make this country in the future a much better place for our children and our children's children. If we keep on going as we are today we are not faced with the creation of cities of the size of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or even Ottawa, but we are staring in the face the creation of great metropolises like New York and Chicago and the other large centres in the United States whose problems are well known to us all.

June 1, 1970
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy
Faced with this kind of problem, I think Canadians should look for alternatives, and in doing so we should proceed with humility and with the acknowledgement that actually the great minds of our time have not grappled with this problem. Very little research has been done. Very little thinking has occurred on this basic question of what should be the shape of Canada in the future. In the short time I have at my disposal there is very little I can say by way of practical suggestion as to what we might do in face of this great problem. First of all, and most obviously, it is something which requires research, study and thinking. There are signs that this kind of basic thinking is indeed taking place in our country. For example, the Canadian Council on Urban and Regional Research has undertaken at least the formulation of the questions which have to be answered. There is a centre for urban and community studies at the University of Toronto.
As the result of a speech I made in this city a few months ago, I found that there are a number of very concerned citizens across Canada interested in this basic problem- architects, town planners and economists. I found there are little groups of people meeting in various parts of the country, without any so-called expert guidance, simply to talk about this problem which challenges the minds of all Canadians. I make the suggestion, Mr. Speaker, that we must reverse a lot of the traditional thinking that has exercised us in the past. We have to decide that it is no longer something to be desired to create the largest city in North America. We have to be prepared not only to create incentives for necessary types of industrial and social development, but I suggest in many cases to create disincentives so that we will not face the continual piling up of population, industry and commerce in the large centres of Canada.
We have to undertake research on the motivation of people and on the motivation of industries. Why is it that new industries, new enterprises always gravitate to the large centres of the country? Is it really the fact that there is so much of an economic and social advantage for them to go there, or is it simply the inertia of past history? What can we do to uplift this country by giving hope to many small towns which in themselves are excellent communities? Why is it necessary to pile population into large centres when throughout many parts of our country we have lovely towns which are well equipped in many ways to accept new people, to provide a

foundation for new industry, and moreover to give the people who go to those communities an opportunity to live a decent life?
There are many other things which undoubtedly hon. members have said and could say about this problem. I make the suggestion as forcibly as I can that we will fail in our duty to the people and we will fail in our duty to posterity if we look, as it were, just down the tunnel at all the urgent social problems which now exist and if we do not take advantage of the opportunity we have, as legislators and leaders of opinion, to try to lift the sights of the Canadian people. We must try to give them the vision of a country which need not be one large, solid, urban mass but which with proper planning, proper direction and right thinking can become a happier country for all of us to live in.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)


Mr. Doug Rowland (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more completely with the concluding remarks of the hon. member who has just finished speaking. I can only say to him that it is exactly the lack of that kind of planning in developing policy that this motion condemns. I should like to draw the attention of the House once again to the wording of the motion before us. It reads as follows:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to establish an urban policy for Canada.
The motion does not say that the government stands condemned for its failure to solve all the problems of the cities. It does not suggest that there are simple solutions to those problems. It does not even suggest that through the intelligent application of the resources available to us, all our urban problems are solvable. Yet that is the straw man which the Liberal members representing urban ridings have set up and set about attacking.
The motion is simply not the puerile, simplistic Utopianism that the Liberals would have the people of Canada believe. It condemns the lack of a policy. It condemns the total absence of the kind of policy to which the hon. member who just spoke referred. It condemns the lack of any well-defined, coherent and rational approach to the problems which have resulted from the social revolution which has gripped Canada; the same social revolution that is shaking the foundations of virtually every nation of the world and most especially of the industrialized na-
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
tions of Europe and North America. That social revolution is the increasing trend away from a rural society and toward an urban society. The motion does not condemn the government for trying and failing; we only wish that we had seen that much action. Rather, it condemns the government for doing nothing in the face of impending disaster.
Politicians have traditionally employed hyperbole to make their points. Accordingly, there may be an inclination on the part of some to see in my use of the term "impending disaster" merely another exercise in exaggeration. But it is not, Mr. Speaker. I submit that the words are well considered and that they accurately describe the developing situation in Canada.
What kind of society will be produced if the present unplanned, unregulated expansion of our cities goes on unchecked? What kind of citizen will emerge from the pollution-shrouded, traffic-choked, noise-battered concrete mazes of frenetic activity we are pleased to call cities? How long can men remain sane when they can never escape from their neighbours, when they never know silence and when any attempt at recreation must necessarily be preceded and followed by a nerve-jangling journey on inadequate traffic arteries? What kind of Canadians are we going to produce?
Well, we know that if the current rate of increase of noise levels in urban areas continues unchecked, most of the children born today will suffer severe hearing disabilities by the time they are 25. We know that one in every ten children born in Canada today will suffer emotional disturbance of sufficient seriousness to demand treatment. We know that one in every two physical ailments of present-day Canadians is the result of, or related to, psychological factors. We have seen the cities of our neighbour to the south convulsed with riots and criminal violence, and we can see signs of similar developments in Canada's urban centres.
In the face of this kind of evidence I simply cannot understand why the government does not act; nor, it is becoming increasingly obvious, can many of the government members much longer tolerate the current inaction without feeling the anger of the electorate. One minister has resigned and another member has left the Liberal caucus over matters related to this topic. I would suggest that more urban Liberal members devote some 22375-61J
DEBATES	7579
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy thought to similar action if they hope to see this chamber again after the next general election.
What we in the New Democratic Party are calling for is an over-all program of development for this country which will take into account current demographic trends toward the concentration of larger and larger numbers of people into already crowded urban centres. We are saying that we need a policy decision on whether we shall continue to concentrate our industry and our population or whether we shall employ the means that modern technology has placed at our disposal to encourage the decentralization of population and the consequent re-creation of communities of human scale.
We are demanding intelligent and comprehensive policies for land use that will, for example, stop the gobbling up of irreplaceable arable land for factory sites and suburban sprawl. We are asking, for example, that the government examine the potentialities of developing areas in and around our cities for agricultural commodities requiring intensive cultivation, thereby providing our cities with ready supplies of locally produced foodstuffs and at the same time creating green belts which will provide some beauty for city dwellers and also break up the industrial concentration which contributes so markedly to our pollution problems. We are, by inference, in this resolution asking why a government which saw the need for creating green belts and recreation areas, the need for devoting attention to the human requirement for beauty, peace and surroundings of human dimensions at a world's fair, Expo '67, where people spent only portions of their day, cannot see the need for similar amenities in the cities where most of our people spend all their lives.
In his remarks earlier, the hon. member for Burnaby-Seymour (Mr. Perrault) as usual missed the point. I might say that on that basis alone he should qualify for a cabinet post in this government. He has charged that the NDP wants less money spent on our cities, less attention devoted to their problems. Rather, the passage which he quoted demands an end to the panicky patching-up of crisis situations which characterizes the present government. It demands the development of a rational, coherent approach to the problems associated with urbanization. It is the absence of such an approach which the motion before us condemns.
7580	COMMONS
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, as the minister
responsible for housing I have been very interested in hearing the comments made today because, as all members know-I think many participants in the debate recognize this-many of the issues which must be faced in housing are embedded in a much broader matrix of economic, social and political questions that are usually referred to as urban affairs.
Moreover, this government, as we have indicated before, has been seized with the importance of this question for some time. I believe that when last I spoke in the House on this question, I indicated that a broad series of studies was under way in the light of which the government would in due course have something to say about the policy which it would follow in regard to the problems of the cities. I am sure that no hon. member will find it surprising that the government does not choose the occasion of this particular debate to announce its intention in any great detail. The studies to which I referred earlier have, of course, progressed a good deal further and we are now considering the implication of their findings in regard to policy.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)
I say with respect and in some form of congratulation to the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Rowland) that while I did not make precise notes of his comments, to the best of my memory every point that he raised in the description of the depth to which this urban policy should be addressed is the subject individually and collectively of our analyses. These studies have not illuminated all the ramifications of the urban question. They have not removed all the mysteries of urbanization and have not pointed to a complete and precise course of action for this government. However, the fact is-and I make no apology for admitting this-that we are faced with questions here that are not quite as straightforward or one-dimensional as some of today's appear to indicate.
Perhaps I can describe what I mean by dwelling for a moment on some aspects of the problem and at least one suggestion which has been made by several speakers. There has never been the slightest reservation by this government about the importance and the relevance of the urban question. There has never been any doubt about this matter in the mind of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). There has never been any doubt about

DEBATES	June 1, 1970
the need to articulate a more coherent federal position with regard to the urban problems of this country.
We are certainly aware that there is scarcely a federal department or agency that is not involved directly or indirectly in the cities of Canada. It is precisely because of the breadth of the physical presence of the federal government in cities, and its manifold less direct influences on them, that the formulation of a single strategy to guide all federal interventions in the urban scene is so difficult.
Reference has been made to the press release that accompanied the decision of the NDP to use today's opposition day to debate the subject of urban affairs, an opportunity which I appreciate. In drawing attention to the wording of this news release, I am not knocking what is contained in it. I think it is very significant. I am not going to read it all. I refer to the fourth and fifth paragraphs, which read as follows:
We do not need more funds put into our present piecemeal programs such as urban renewal,-
I do not know how that comment would sit with the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander).
-transportation and pollution control-it is those very programs which are destroying our cities.
We do need a completely new approach which will recognize that cities can and should be desirable places in which to live.
I say "amen" to that. Having said that, I wish to direct the attention of hon. members to the depth, care and wisdom that will be required to achieve that end. Even if we in our wisdom at the federal level can come up with the most enlightened approach possible, I think it is only realistic and quite proper that we recognize there are other partners in this affair. There has been a suggestion that we form a department of urban affairs. It has been my feeling for some time that at the organizational level the problem is far too subtle and pervasive to be solved merely by naming some federal entity or group of entities a department of urban affairs. Rightly or wrongly, it has been my position that machinery is not a substitute for objectives, policy or strategy. It is a necessary adjunct to them. However, it surely should follow from them.
Beyond the problem of developing a state-gy, a base of knowledge and an organizational arrangement through which to inform and guide the federal impact on our cities there is the equally difficult and even more important task of intergovernmental consultation and
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
co-ordination in this field. I have said on a number of occasions in the past that we require a national and, as the hon. member for Selkirk stated, rational urban policy in this country, rather than a federal one. I am convinced that national policy will emerge only as a joint project of the three levels of government and numerous other interested and affected groups in our society.
This government believes that a federal perspective and position is necessary to the successful conduct of intergovernmental discussion and negotiation regarding urban affairs. We certainly are addressing ourselves to that very important matter. As I suggested earlier, our studies have proceeded to an advanced stage. The position of the federal government is under intense and active discussion and deliberation amongst my colleagues. In that sense the debate today is premature.
I want to be brief this evening. I wish to comment on some of the remarks that have been made regarding housing. In the Throne speech last fall this government made a commitment of one million new home starts in the five-year period 1970-74. We stated there would be special emphasis given to the provision of homes for people on low incomes. A Standing Committee studies estimates on housing and urban matters. Incidentally, if it was the wish of the committee it could hear representations by citizens and groups. Although it does not have the name "urban affairs", it could be quite useful for that purpose. There is nothing in the rules of this House that would prevent this.
I indicated to the Standing Committee the other evening that the present rate of housing starts augmented by a recent contact with the lending institutions indicated that we are heading for 180,000 to 185,000 units. I would like to see a great many more than that. To the best of my ability and the ability of the government, we are addressing ourselves to the commitment to provide low-income housing to a greater degree than ever before.
Last year, under section 35 of the public housing an low income program and under section 16, commonly known as limited dividend, non-profit, etc., we made loan commitments for 27,500 units. This year under those two programs we will make loan commitments on at least 35,000 units. This combination in 1969 and 1970 adds up to approximately 62,000 units. In the previous history of the National Housing Act, some 20 years, there had been 82,000 units under those two
DEBATES	7581
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy programs. This totalled a 75 per cent commitment performance in two years compared with the previous 20-plus years.


James Aloysius McGrath: 
Robert Knight Andras: Nothing would delight
me more, but the simple answer, as the hon. member knows, is that to do so would probably mean that all the financial resources of the government would have to be directed to that one measure alone. I regret we cannot solve all the housing problems of this country, particularly in the low-income sector, in one year.
Reference has been made in the debate to another figure, 250,000 new homes a year. I should like to see this figure realized, too. We could even justify, I suppose, a target of 300,000 homes a year; the more houses we build in the next ten years, the sooner we shall have the perfect answer to housing needs. I had the advantage last month of visiting a number of western European countries. I was in Finland, a great country with a great people; I was in Sweden and Austria, Italy and England. I talked with housing authorities and urban planning experts in each of those countries. Sweden, it seemed to me, had some very interesting approaches to its urban problems. On the basis of 180,000 to 185,000 starts, Sweden is the only western nation which has done better than we have in starts per thousand of the population or in starts per thousand population increase.
In Britain, under a Labour government, the objective is something like 550,000 starts, as it has been over the past several years. But the best they have done is 400,000 units. In the United States they have an objective of 2,600,000 housing starts a year. This year they will accomplish 1,400,000. So when we loosely bandy about figures of this kind, we must deal both with those whose achievement is desirable, as an approach to perfection, and with those which are in line with our financial capacity bearing in mind all the other objectives which the government is attempting to realize. So it is all the more important to address ourselves to the question of the correct distribution of the housing units which are being built.
June 1, 1970

Suggested Lack of Urban Policy
I am glad to say the government is committed to making sure that particularly favourable consideration is given to the low-income sector, because I honestly believe that if a serious crisis exists in this country it is in the low-income sector. We are doing our best to speed up the provision of this kind of housing. We could probably build more units in this country with the funds available now if we are prepared to accept the standards which find acceptance in some of the countries toward which we look as being enlightened in terms of housing policy.
I believe the Swedish approach could teach us many things, particularly in the areas of urban planning, land use, rapid transit and the like. But with great respect for the government and people of Sweden, I say quite frankly-and those who disagree with me should go there-that I doubt very much whether Canadians would accept in terms of size and amenities the housing units which the Swedish people have been prepared to accept even in the great city of Stockholm. I do not think we should be to quick to judge.
I will be happy, as soon as our anti-inflation objectives have been reached, to do whatever can be done to increase the effort which is being made as far as housing starts are concerned. I do not doubt, when that point has been reached, that housing will be among the first concerns of the government and that it will receive even greater attention than it is getting now.
In a way, this debate has been somewhat premature but as far as I am concerned it has served a useful purpose. We are not so omniscient on this side that we can afford to forego any opportunity to profit from honest advice or helpful suggestions emanating from the opposition. There have in fact been some very interesting comments; in many cases I was in full agreement with them. I noted one observation in the opening speech made by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broad-bent). He said the Prime Minister should take more interest in these matters.
I can assure him that the Prime Minister is taking a tremendous amount of interest in them and that the kind of interest he is taking would totally conform to the line set out by the hon. member as indicated in the press release, that is to say, a new approach is needed, not a fragmented, half-baked start on these things. The Prime Minister is insisting that the recommendations be in depth.

As to the proposed department of urban affairs, I agree that this is a possible option but I would be happier if we were to address ourselves first of all to the formulation of objectives. The implementation would then be a logical consequence of that process. To my mind this is preferable to putting bureaucracy in motion and then finding objectives to justify its existence. In passing, I note there was a suggestion that the federal government should pay the municipalities the equivalent of municipal taxes. In order that the record may be clear, let me say that the federal government does pay to the municipalities grants in lieu of taxes. Municipalities are compensated for the services which they provide, and where grants are lower than full taxes, it is because the federal government is providing services itself which ordinarily would be furnished by the municipalities. If any hon. members are aware of any deviations, I would appreciate it if they would inform me.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must interrupt the minister because his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the House agree that the minister may continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Robert Knight Andras: I appreciate the courtesy of hon. members, Mr. Speaker. I have listened with much interest and advantage to the discussion which has gone forward here today. We shall be discussing this subject again in the House in the fall, and I have no doubt that the government will be telling hon. members about the course of action it proposes to follow.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Mr. Speaker, could I ask the minister a question? It has to do with the last statement he made, that we would be dealing with this matter some time in the fall.
I hoped we would have some answers before that time to several of the questions which have been raised. Can the minister elaborate on what he meant when he said he would be dealing with this matter in the fall? I hope some direction or leadership will be forthcoming from the minister in this regard.


Robert Knight Andras: I feel that rather than asking me to elaborate or give an explanation, the hon. gentleman is simply asking me to repeat what I have said. I would ask him to let it stand on the record as is. It will be there in Hansard tomorrow for his perusal.
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)


Mr. John L. Skoberg (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, in winding up this debate tonight I have no hesitation in stating my support for the motion put forward by this party that the House condemns the government for its failure to establish an urban policy for Canada. As the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) suggested and as the minister agreed, this discussion will be the subject of debate probably this fall. I am wondering whether those people in Canada who have been unable to raise sufficient money to take part in the government's housing program are prepared to wait until fall to obtain suitable housing accommodation.
The piecemeal approach to which members have referred today is not one that Canada as a whole can bear for long. The minister has stated that he has been seized with the importance of this question for some time, and I am amazed that this being the case the government has not provided the appropriate programs by now. The minister suggested we will have to wait until fall before we know what they are all about.
The minister stated that many studies of the problem have been carried out for many years, and I am sure that this is so. I am also certain that those studies are not enough to meet the present demand for housing. The minister referred to the number of housing starts in Canada, but I am sure he will agree that only 7 per cent of the number he quoted are houses for people on low incomes. This is the area we are concerned about when we talk of a national housing policy to meet the needs of all citizens in Canada, not just the affluent few.
The press release which our party put out in connection with this debate spells out that we are not in favour of a piecemeal approach to this problem. It is not the intention of any member of this party to suggest a cutback in any program, but rather that we co-ordinate our efforts to achieve a national policy. The minister himself gave support to that principle in his speech tonight when he suggested to the House that he has always believed there should be a national policy.
A perusal of the number of studies made in Canada even of very small urban centres shows that such sociological studies are of the utmost importance-I suggest the most important of all studies of the housing question. Unfortunately, some economists fail to look at those areas of our social
DEBATES	7583
Suggested Lack of Urban Policy environment which reflect the people who are in need. I suggest to the minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, that we must get our professors, teachers and students of sociology to examine the needs of urban centres and to ascertain whether or not as a result of the piecemeal approach of the government our whole society is crumbling.
Many interested groups in society have produced films illustrating this piecemeal approach of the government. For example, in cases of urban renewal the people who are displaced are often not taken into the confidence of the government or of those responsible for making studies relating to urban renewal. There have been instances where the federal, provincial and municipal governments have combined together to displace people from neighbourhoods in which they have lived all their lives, regardless whether these people wished to be displaced or whether they could afford to be displaced from their existing accommodation. This has happened all across the country and it is something of which we as Canadians should not be proud.
Many things have been said about the amount of assistance given by the federal government to municipal and provincial governments. Members from all parts of Canada realize that even the small urban centres are in a bind today in the matter of cash inflow and cash input. When we realize the tremendous load shouldered by municipalities in the matter of education costs alone, there is little doubt that they cannot afford urban renewal or housing projects that will provide shelter for people in need. As the minister stated, the federal government makes grants in lieu of taxes in many areas, and to some extent this is correct. At the same time, no municipal government is in a position to put its resources behind projects of urban renewal in order to provide the type of environment in which our children should grow up. People on fixed incomes have no chance of owning a house in many centres of urban renewal across Canada if their present accommodation is taken from them. This fact makes me wonder whether we are an affluent society as well as a just society in any meaning of that term.
I am sure the government realizes that a discussion of housing needs is not premature. There is a need for housing today. Before the House rises I ask the minister to tell the House what are his plans, so that the people of this nation can be proud to call themselves Canadians and so they will know the govern-
7584	COMMONS DEBATES	June 1. 1970
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion ment is doing something to meet our housing needs. It is not good enough for the minister to say there will be intergovernmental coordination in the field of urban policy, without being prepared to lead the way. Only one government in Canada can lead the way, and that is the federal government. I hope the minister will bear this in mind and will lead Canada to a national urban renewal policy which is so necessary.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Pursuant to section 11 of Standing Order 58, the proceedings on the motion before the House are deemed to have expired.


[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been moved.
Winona Grace MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, it is now several months since we learned that the Canadian government was jeopardizing the United Nations' program for family planning and birth control by withholding this country's promised financial support. Six nations were involved, and the entire sum was only $15 million. At the same time we learned that the reason for this hold-up was that the Canadian cabinet was split on the matter, some members being favourable to the program of family planning and birth control, others being opposed to it.
I questioned the minister of external affairs in regard to when we could expect this conflict to be resolved and when Canada would come up with a policy of support for the program. In his reply the minister made it clear that until a domestic policy was reached there would be no consensus on an international policy. Again we have an example of what we heard today-further studies in depth, intense consideration,-deep cogitation, all of which adds up to complete inaction and stalemate.
As far as we know, the cabinet is still deadlocked in indecision. Frankly, I can see no good reason for this indecision. The Canadian people have pronounced themselves ready for a firm policy on birth control and family planning. A Gallup poll published just four days ago revealed that 67 per cent of the

Canadian people, a solid two-thirds of the population, believe the ideal family size today is only two or at most three children. When two-thirds of the Canadian people agree on this issue, the government knows perfectly well that it is safe to go ahead with a policy of this kind. In my opinion, lack of action in face of such a majority decision is inexcusable.
The family Planning Federation of Canada has been trying unsuccessfully so far, to impress upon the government the need for leadership in this matter. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that as in so many other things the government is gracefully bowing away from this responsibility. In a recent brief to the Senate committee on poverty the Family Planning Federation of Canada pointed out the close and tragic connection between poverty and large families. As an example they cited a study of Vancouver multi-problem, poor families where such families were found to be larger than the Canadian average and where one-third of them had one child or more over 15 years of age living apart from the family for reasons of adoption, placement, emotional treatment or delinquency. In other words, in those large multi-problem, poor families the large family was also the one that incurred break-up and led to the community being saddled with extra expenses. Of course, the family itself was broken and scattered. The federation comments:
[DOT] (10:00 p.m.)
We know that the practice of family planning declines rapidly from the top to the bottom of Canada's socio-economic ladder. The poor are still having the babies, many of them unwanted babies.
Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, while some people may consider abortion a crime, the real crime is the problem of the birth of unwanted children-children who from the very moment of their birth are unwanted and condemned to wander in the world alone, uncared for and completely derelict from the beginning. What we need is more democracy in such matters; that is, the right for people on low incomes to have the knowledge and the means to plan and limit their families in the same way as those on higher incomes. Ottawa must take its part in providing funds for the establishment and maintenance of family planning clinics where they are needed across Canada.
If the government fails to act in this matter, if birth control is not made available to the people who need it, we shall see an increase in the already far too high incidence
June 1. 1970	COMMONS
of abortion in Canada. For that growing incidence of abortion in Canada this government will have been responsible because of its lack of leadership in making birth control and birth control knowledge available to people across Canada. Lack of birth control means illegal abortion with all the misery, mutilation and death that come with this failure to face the facts of 1970. All the shibboleth, theology and mythology that can be uttered will not get us away from that fact.
The same situation exists in regard to family planning and birth control abroad. We live in a world which will have four billion people by 1975 and 14 billion people by the year 2035 if nothing is done to stop it. Canada should and could take part in helping overpopulated countries of the world reduce their birth rate while there is yet time. Should we fail to act, and soon, the poverty that now keeps two-thirds of the world's people continuously hungry will become intensified.
Intense poverty will feed on diminishing resources, and people will fight for survival. Panic and fear will breed famine, disease and war, with the spectre of the hungry two-thirds of the world turning on those who have denied them the means to develop in peace and prosperity. Along with that, Mr. Speaker, will be the spectre of our vanishing and ravaged ecology. No amount of talk on pollution on this side of the world is going to prevent people in hunger from tearing up and destroying their already lessening resources in order to keep alive. Mr. Speaker, it is for these reasons that I once again urge the government of Canada-


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


Mr. Stanley Haidasz (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the need for a policy for family planning both in Canada and abroad is recognized by the government as being expedient both internally, for the administration of health and welfare programs, and internationally for representation at international organizations, health and welfare conferences.
The United Nations organizations which Canada supports are becoming increasingly engaged in various aspects of family planning. UNICEF, for example, is responding to requests by countries for aid in family planning programs. At its last annual meeting the executive board of UNICEF broadened its policy to include the supply of contraceptives,
DEBATES	7585
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion not previously made available. The World Health Organization is also playing a major role in the population policy implementation. Similarly, the United Nations development program, which is Canada's major contribution to the United Nations, has established a population fund in the interest of family planning programs.
The government recognizes the need to support both national and international family planning programs, and it would be inconsistent for Canada to speak at international meetings in the absence of an established domestic policy in respect of family planning. The lack of a family planning policy affects not only the administration of the Department of National Health and Welfare but also the Department of External Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency.
In conclusion, may I say that the need for a national and international policy on family planning is recognized by the government and I am pleased to inform the House that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro) has a proposed family planning policy under active review. After he has discussed this matter with his cabinet colleagues, I expect the minister wall make a statement on this matter in this place.


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, the other day I asked the Acting Prime Minister if he was to have an inquiry into or investigation of the costs to the Canadian government and people of the mail delivery service in Montreal resulting from the Lapalme episode. I had in mind a governmental inquiry of the departmental fiasco. I see that the then Acting Prime Minister is not here and I do not know who will be answering on his behalf.
My concern in this connection stems from the information about the costs already revealed. I am even more concerned about the costs which have not yet been announced. It was obvious that with the sustained bungling of the Postmaster General (Mr. Kierans) a very heavy bill was being chalked up through dilatory inefficiency. I must in candour admit that in this fiasco the Postmaster General had considerable help from some of his cabinet colleagues. From the reply to my question No. 1709 the House learned that the expenditure for the extra help and security guards amounted to $657,204.45 for truck drivers and helpers
7586	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion from February 3 to May 4. For security guards-which involved a car and two guards in a single unit-the cost up to April 30 was $397,090.80. This gives us a total cost, in this particular aspect of the case, of over $1 million.
The same reply indicated that over $1 million had been spent for trucks purchased by the government since February 3. The number purchased is most interesting. It is 439. The number of trucks involved in mail delivery before February 3 was only 310. This was in the days when mail was being delivered. So whatever else is missing from this picture, such as efficiency, foresight and careful planning, there is apparently no shortage of trucks. The number of trucks bought by the government at a cost of over $1 million was 439. This is an impressive advance toward putting the Post Office into the black.
How many rural post offices could have been kept in operation for the sum of over $2 million which has already been revealed as having been expended in Montreal delivery fiascos? The costs are not all in yet, nor can we measure in money the price which the people of Montreal paid week after week for inferior service, which is what they received, and sometimes no service.
The irony of the story is that the responsible minister, when he is not blaming his department's problems on his predecessors is talking about efficiency and economy. One of his most recent contributions to this end, insofar as discussing it is concerned, was on the program "Encounter" on May 23, just a day or so before he gave the interesting answer to question 1709 in the House. I quote:
[DOT] (10:10 p.m.)


Eric William Kierans: Well no, let's say the Lapalme situation really boils down to something-you had 459 chauffeurs doing the work. When you took a look at what was needed to be done in Montreal, you needed 257.
Then the question was asked:
But it wasn't his fault though that that had grown up, was it?


Eric William Kierans: Oh yes. In the last year they had featherbedded that operation down there by the extent of about another 90 bodies. And I warned them a year ago, when I offered to take them all in, that you didn't need more than about 330, and at that time there were 397, but I still offered to take all in on the understanding that we're going to slim down.
So the great rationalizer was becoming the great reducer for the moment. I continue the quotation:
I mean this just doesn't make any sense, and if you're a trustee or an administrator of public

DEBATES	June 1, 1970
funds you're not going to stand for it. Well, nobody ever did anything about this thing before.
"No one ever did anything about this thing before." Perhaps nobody ever did anything quite like this before. What an innovation! The only problem is that it is difficult to think of any of this minister's innovations which have not also been blunders and often disasters. Even before we get the full accounting of the Montreal affair we know how high was the price of inefficiency. Now we have a surplus of trucks, doubtless some of them battle-scarred veterans. The understanding, I now hear, is that some of these trucks will be made available to the Vancouver area. I hope that we have some more precise data on the vintage of these vehicles, sales tax, and so on.
We will also be interested in knowing the full extent of the compensation paid the contractors who in the on-again off-again episode found their services not required, and the virtues of splitting up the contract among several operators disrupted by the reaction to the Goldenberg report. In one of the contracts one finds an interesting clause as follows:
The Postmaster General may, subject to subsection (3) of this section terminate this contract three months after the delivery of a notice in writing to that effect to the contractor.
Where a Notice to Terminate has been served pursuant to subsection (1) of this section and the Postmaster General is of the opinion that the contractor should no longer perform the work required of him pursuant to this contract, the Postmaster General may give notice to the contractor of his decision in this respect and the contractor shall be compensated at the rate of 50 per cent of the amount that he would normally have been paid pursuant to this contract for the unexpired portion of the said three-month period.
Since the contractors never did put a truck on the job in Montreal, and since many trucks were bought by the government, we would like to know how many of these 50 per cent payments were made. Further, what would be the expenses of the contractor if he had never provided the service and if the trucks had been purchased? I think there is reason enough here for further inquiry and investigation. All this shifting ground on the question of contracting out as against departmental operation seems to have been a costly exercise in ministerial mismanagement and governmental indecision. I do not think the country can afford a repetition of this situation and it is for this reason that I sought and still recommend a thorough investigation of just what did go on and at what cost to the long-suffering Canadian people. Blaming it on
June 1, 1970	COMMONS
the late Sir William Mulock or some other of the minister's predecessors may be fun, but it is hardly an explanation of this very serious and expensive problem.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, it is very refreshing indeed to hear the hon. member say that he would like to really know what the facts are, what has been going on, and that he would like an inquiry. Having made so many speeches over the course of the last few months, I thought he knew all the facts of this matter, or what else could he have been talking about? Since he seems to have made me his pet hobby, even to following my appearance on television, I think the hon. member will realize that I do acknowledge his sincerity and his interest by always making myself available to reply to his demands for information.
With respect to the trucks, Mr. Speaker, they were bought for two reasons. First, the Goldenberg report required that we cancel, without cause, the contracts that had been given to the independent contractors. Obviously, when it was done "without cause" we had an obligation to them unless we wanted them to take us to court and suffer that particular kind of humiliation. So we carried out that aspect of the Goldenberg report and purchased the vehicles, 138 of them brand new. We paid for them a total of $514,688.
May I now speak with respect to Lapalme. We gave them a one-year contract, on the basis that it would be for one year only. Therefore, we had to assume one of two possible courses of action. We had either to strike off the charge for the trucks entirely in the course of that one-year's operation, or we could undertake to buy them back at Lapalme's invoice cost, less 30 per cent depreciation which we had permitted him to charge for the year. The balance would accrue to us. As of today there were 441 vehicles, not 439, disposed of or accounted for. Our information is more complete now. Of these, 206 are in Montreal, 81 have been sent to Vancouver, one has been sent to Pickering, Ontario, 48 Lapalme vehicles-which are probably the scruffiest of the lot-have been declared surplus at a cost of some $10,000, and there will be some recovery there. Another 17 are not needed and will be resold, and 88 will be available for national fleet requirements.
In addition, Montreal will need 32, Vancouver 12, Windsor 3, Quebec City 1, Saint 22375-62J
DEBATES	7587
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion John, New Brunswick, 1, Missisauga 5, Pointe Claire 10 and Lachine 7. We are saving on the operation an annual cost of $2 million a year.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Randolph Harding: Mr. Speaker, earlier today I asked the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Laing) the following question: "In view of the need of our handicapped citizens, especially those confined to wheelchairs, to have proper access both to all our public buildings and to their facilities, I would ask if all federal public buildings specifications could include those standards which have been approved in the National Building Code under their supplement No. 7 entitled 'Building Standards for the Handicapped' ". In view of the need for our handicapped citizens, especially those confined to wheelchairs, to have easy access to all federal public buildings and their facilities, I would ask the minister if the building specifications for federal public buildings include the recommendations outlined in the National Building Code-Supplement No. 7 entitled, "Building Standards for the Handicapped".
I welcome this opportunity to expand briefly on the need for standards for public buildings of the future to make them accessible to handicapped people. At present many of our public buildings in the federal, provincial, municipal and private fields make absolutely no provision for easy and adequate access to our handicapped citizens; nor are any of the facilities within these structures designed to accommodate the needs of handicapped people. It is a fact that many of our handicapped citizens are fully self-supporting. Many more have the skills and the determination to live a fuller and more productive life but find that a number of society-made obstacles, which could easily be prevented, often stand in their way. It is for this reason that I have asked if the building specifications for all federal public buildings could insist on certain mandatory regulations which would give our handicapped citizens the proper access to and the use of the facilities of our public buildings, to which use they are fully entitled.
The State of Pennsylvania, for example, prohibits the construction of public buildings without provision for easy access by disabled people. Our federal government should pass similar legislation and should urge the ten
7588	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion Canadian provinces and the municipalities to include this provision in all their building codes. I point out that we have a National Building Code of Canada. It does not contain those provisions which would provide the needed access and facilities so urgently required by our handicapped citizens.
There is Supplement No. 7 to the National Building Code called "Building Standards for the Handicapped". However, to date I understand that the federal government has not made these building standards mandatory even in the construction of federal public buildings. In my opinion, this is something that the minister and the government should look into without delay. Our federal government should give leadership in this field by prohibiting the construction of its own public buildings unless there is provision for easy access by disabled people. I am certain that if the provisions were strictly adhered to on a federal basis, it would not be long before other jurisdictions accepted similar changes to their legislation.
The lack of proper facilities in all parts of the country has caused great frustration to the handicapped people in their efforts to lead useful and active lives. As a result, several years ago representations were made to government authorities by the various handicapped groups across Canada. It resulted in the development of Supplement No. 7, "Building Standards for the Handicapped." But again I must stress that it was not made mandatory. It is merely a written guide for those interested in the design and construction of buildings, with provisions for making them usable by the physically handicapped.
[DOT] (10:20 p.m.)
Society and government should be concerned about this problem. The changes required in substance could easily be incorporated into any architectural plans. These special provisions would in no way detract from the normal use of the building or facilities by those who are not handicapped. In fact, it has been pointed out that many buildings would be more accessible and would be safer for all who use them, particularly for the handicapped and the aged. In addition, such freedom of access would allow a fuller and more productive life for this particular group of citizens.
It would be a simple task to incorporate the changes required in almost any public building. At least one primary entrance to each building should be usable by persons in

DEBATES	June 1, 1970
wheelchairs. Walks should have non-slip surfaces. Doors and doorways should be wide enough for easy passage and should be simple to operate with a minimum of effort. A slow-closing gadget would allow uninterrupted passage of a wheelchair. Even a slight change in some of the lavatories would make them easily available to occupants of wheelchairs. There are many small changes that would make a world of difference to our handicapped citizens, but time does not permit me to list them.
There is no doubt that governments generally have overlooked this grave social problem. I trust that we will do much more to try and solve the many problems faced by our handicapped citizens. It is my intention to do what I can to keep this problem before the government and to work toward a solution. It is the duty of every member to speak on these problems and to help bring about a solution. I trust that some changes in our federal building program will be the start of a new era for our many handicapped citizens.


Arthur Laing: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that hon. members will be gratified by the action of the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Harding) in bringing to the attention of the House the need for providing for handicapped persons proper facilities in our public buildings, particularly those in wheelchairs. However, I am going to come into some conflict with the hon. member. I have here a copy of Supplement No. 7 of the National Building Code of Canada. It states:
The following mandatory requirements constitute the minimum standards for projects for the Department of Public Works:-
The hon. member is saying that this is not mandatory. The information I have received is that it is mandatory. The provisions with respect to entrances are:
Provide one primary entrance to each building usable by persons in wheelchairs. Where elevators are provided, locate this entrance on a level served by the elevator.
Another provision is as follows:
Doors and Doorways: Provide doorways with a clear opening of at least 2'6" (including hardware) when open.
There are also provisions for vestibules, ramps, handrails, elevators, floors and washrooms. I have attended a number of openings of public buildings in the last several months. In all instances there are provisions along the
June 1, 1970

lines indicated in Supplement No. 7. I am not prepared to say whether this is a recent practice.
I am a citizen of Vancouver. If I were asked where the entrance for people in wheelchairs is at the Winch Building or the old Post Office building, I could not tell you. This is only because I have never entered those buildings in a wheelchair. However, in some of our older buildings and in some public buildings in smaller towns, there are probably no provisions.
This is a costly provision, as the hon. member will understand, in respect of rent
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion and in respect of requirements in the various parts of the buildings. There may well be, in some of these smaller towns, no need for this type of provision. If this were known, it would not be included in the requirements for such a building. I want to reassure the hon. member that at the present time I am informed by my people that the requirements here, a copy of which I will give to him afterward, are mandatory within the contracts granted by the Department of Public Works.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.29 p.m.

Tuesday, June 2, 1970