1970-11-03

PRIVILEGE


Mr. Robert P. Kaplan (Don Valley):: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. Last Friday during the question period while I was absent from the House the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis) attributed to me a statement to the effect that ministers had given me information not available to the public about the reasons for the implementation of the War Measures Act. Over the weekend I spoke to the hon. member and he referred me to an article which appeared in one edition of the Toronto Telegram reporting on a public meeting at which I spoke in Toronto. The hon. member's comment was justified by the headline of the article. In fact I made no such statement. On the contrary, I said at least twice that I had no special knowledge that was not available to the public, and I was quoted to that effect in the body of the article. I might add that I made no reference to caucus that evening.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (for the Minister of Justice) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-182, to provide for the examination, publication and scrutiny of regulations and other statutory instruments.


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


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the
Prime Minister. Yesterday the Minister of Justice introduced a bill of a temporary nature of which I approve, as the right hon. gentleman is well aware. Can he inform the House what the intentions of the government are with regard to permanent legislation relating to emergencies of a somewhat different nature, perhaps, than that for which the War Measures Act would be appropriate? Can the right hon. gentleman inform the House whether the government intends to introduce a bill to change the permanent law of the country in this regard?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, it will be necessary to consider this question and settle it in due course. In the present circumstance, one in which tensions are not quite abated and one in which the recent events in Quebec have caused, shall I say, emotion and passion to come into the debate, the government has found it advisable to wait until this period is over, until in a moment of relative calm Parliament could look at longer term legislation which would be somewhat stronger than the Criminal Code and somewhat weaker than the War Measures Act.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Arising out of the right hon. gentleman's answer, could the Prime Minister or an appropriate minister make a statement tomorrow about the progress of efforts under the War Measures Act with regard to the situation in Quebec and the success of these measures? I may say that this question arises out of the right hon. gentleman's answer in which he indicated that a period of tranquility is required to enable a permanent measure to be introduced. Would the right hon. gentleman make a progress report tomorrow?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I understand the intention of the Leader of the Opposition. When the debate begins tomorrow on the legislation to replace the regulations we will, of course, explain the situation as we see it now. I am not quite sure what else the Leader of the Opposition wants.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Would the right hon. gentleman make a report or have a report made tomorrow on where matters stand, including what charges have been laid and the reason why more charges have not been laid? I think there is considerable apprehension on the part of the public arising out of the fact that some 400 people have been picked up and apparently very few charges have been laid. I ask the Prime Minister whether he will say something tomorrow to allay the general concern of the public in this regard, or have an appropriate minister do so?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I will take that into consideration, Mr. Speaker.

November 3, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry



WAR MEASURES ACT-COMPENSATION TO THOSE ARRESTED AND RELEASED

Hon. Martial Asselin (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister.
In view of the fact that the Quebec and federal governments have offered some $150,000 in rewards to informers on the criminals who kidnapped Mr. Cross and murdered Mr. Laporte, I would ask the Prime Minister whether the government is considering establishment of a fund to compensate those persons who have been arrested without cause under the War Measures Act, in order to vindicate their reputation with public opinion and with their employers.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I must admit that we have not considered such a step for the present. The hon. member knows that the subject of compensating persons arrested under any legislation has already been brought up in the House and elsewhere. I will just repeat that in most instances such compensation is a matter to be looked into by provincial governments responsible for the administration of justice and consequently for any errors which might be perpetrated, generally speaking.


Martial Asselin: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
Has the Prime Minister contacted the provincial authorities to find out whether, following errors made, they were ready to offer compensation to persons arrested and detained?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker. I did not contact any province in that regard nor about compensation which could have been paid following arrests made under the Criminal Code or any other legislation. I do not think this is a particular case. In any administration of justice, errors will happen and I think that some provinces or countries have provided compensation. But, I repeat, this does not come essentially under the federal government and I do not intend to take the matter in hand.


Martial Asselin: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary question.
Does the government intend to make a definite and explicit statement so that the people who have been arrested may clear their names and no longer suffer serious damage from certain Canadian citizens?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe that the hon. member is somewhat late in asking his question. The other day in reply to a question from the hon. member for Matane (Mr. De Bane) I gave a definite and concrete reply which I repeated on a televison broadcast over the week-end. Therefore I do not feel it is my duty to say any more for the moment.


Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker-


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


Gilbert F. Rondeau: No, Mr. Speaker.



REPORTED FLIGHT FROM COUNTRY OF THOSE SOUGHT FOR MURDER AND KIDNAPPING

Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Is the Prime Minister in a position to tell the House whether any or all of those for whom warrants have been issued for their arrest for murder and kidnapping have left the country, as was reported last evening by the British Broadcasting Corporation when it was stated that the Canadian government had communicated with all the 107 nations that are associated with Interpol? Can the Prime Minister give us some information on this point?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not have any such information. I take it that it is a normal police precaution, when they are looking for suspects of this kind, to communicate with Interpol just in case the suspects might have left Canada. I have no particular information to the effect that they have.



MURDER OF PIERRE LAPORTE AND KIDNAPPING OF JAMES CROSS-EFFICIENCY OF POLICE INVESTIGATIONS

Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister.
Considering the time it is taking our police forces to find the kidnappers of Mr. Cross and the murderers of Mr. Laporte, do the Ottawa and Quebec governments intend to call upon other police forces, such as Scotland Yard or the F.B.I.?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We have not considered such an action, Mr. Speaker.



APPREHENDED INSURRECTION-CRTC REQUEST TO OTTAWA PRIVATE RADIO STATIONS TO PROVIDE CERTAIN TAPES

Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is really for the Secretary of State who unfortunately is not here today. I would ask the Prime Minister to take it as notice or, if he knows now, to tell the House if there is any relationship at all with the telegrams from the CRTC to four private radio stations in Ottawa requesting them to deliver to the CRTC, within two weeks, 12 days of 24-hour tapes during the relevant period when this unfortunate crisis developed? If he does not know, could he find out whether the Secretary of State would make a statement tomorrow in view of this rather unusual request by telegram?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe it is the object of the CRTC to monitor the performance of radio and television in various parts of Canada on various events. It is possible that they have sent these telegrams. I will transmit the question to the Secretary of State and if he sees anything that can be answered I am sure he will.
November 3, 1970



QUEBEC-INFORMATION CONCERNING ALLEGED DISCUSSIONS ON ESTABLISHMENT OF PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

['Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have been told in quite a general way that my representations would be taken into consideration.']
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the right hon. Prime Minister. Yesterday the Prime Minister said that all last week members of the opposition had been spreading rumours-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: -with respect to the discussions regarding the establishment of a provisional government in the province of Quebec. Last night a number of members of the Press Gallery appearing on a television show said that rather than getting these rumours from the opposition they got them from persons highly placed in the government. In view of the serious nature of these rumours, is the Prime Minister prepared to have either an investigation by a committee of this House or an independent inquiry made into the source of these rumours in order that we may know who is actually responsible for disseminating them?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Listening attentively to the question, it would appear to me that last night the press began spreading some more rumours, and the hon. member is now repeating them.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact there is a growing suspicion that these rumours were disseminated in a clumsy attempt to explain the government's imposition of the War Measures Act, may I ask-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It seems to me that the hon. gentleman is now making a speech. I appreciate that he may have a supplementary question and I would invite him to put it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, in view of that may I ask the Prime Minister if he can assure the House that none of these statements have come from any of his colleagues in the cabinet?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the hon. member is asking me seriously to control everything which is said, not of a secret nature, by all my ministers, but that is not my way of proceeding.



Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, I should like to put my question to the Prime Minister.
Following Canada's decision announced yesterday in the House to no longer sell aircraft piston engines and spare parts to South Africa on account of its apartheid
Inquiries of the Ministry
policy, has the government considered the possibility of making representations to the British government to ensure that it will abide by the United Nations policy towards South Africa?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the House knows of course that I was in touch with the British government some months ago in respect of this matter.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
Could the Prime Minister tell us whether or not he has received any reply from Great Britain in this connection?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have been told in quite a general way that my representations would be taken into consideration.



IMMIGRATION


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. It has to do with a revolutionary by the name of Hewitt who describes himself as minister of education in the Black Panthers. He is to speak in Winnipeg later this week to a group within the University of Manitoba, and objection has been taken by various officials of the university to the admission into Canada of this person. In view of all the circumstances existing today, is the minister prepared to direct Hewitts' return when he arrives at the frontier instead of allowing him to come into Canada and stir up potential bloodshed by his advocacy of revolution?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, in reply to that question I think I should say two basic things besides saying that I am not sure that the events of these days should too much colour our judgment in regard to all of these matters. First, it would be one thing in any case to be sure how the minister could direct such a thing in terms of practical possibilities while at the same time welcoming the many American visitors who come to this country. Second, it has tended to be the policy of the department and the government not lightly to turn away people who are coming to this country at the invitation of a responsible body, which in this case I understand to be the Student Union of the University of Manitoba. On the basis of the information known to my officials I do not think it can be said that the gentleman in question is in a prohibited class.


John George Diefenbaker: This is one time that the minister speaks the language of the NDP. May I ask the minister whether it is a fact that the RCMP got in touch with the Department of Immigration with a view to having this man prevented from entering Canada?

November 3, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry


An hon. Member:: How did you find that out?


An hon. Member:: Never mind; he did.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I cannot confirm that as a fact. There may have been some contact by some police officer with the department, but I am not at all certain that it was the RCMP. I have checked and have been informed that there was no such request from the Attorney General of Manitoba.


An hon. Member:: The city police, then?


Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: As a supplementary question I should like to ask the minister if someone entering this country from another country, particularly from the United States, who fitted into the picture of the new crimes created by the War Measures Act would be treated any differently than a Canadian is treated today?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It seems to me the question is a question of principle-


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: It is a good question.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member suggests it is a good question and it probably is. However, the hon. member is asking a rhetorical question and in that sense it is not in order.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I wonder if I might rephrase it, Mr. Speaker, because I was not trying to put a rhetorical question, with the greatest respect. We have already had some of these people enter Canada so it really is a practical question. I am asking this simple question: Does the law apply to those people coming in who fit into the picture the same as it would apply to a Canadian who has been detained without right of counsel and without being charged?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, while the hon. member has tried, I think he has rephrased his question in another form of hypothesis. All I can say is that there is the law and there are the regulations and these are what we seek to apply.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for St. Boniface rising on a supplementary?


Mr. Joseph-Philippe Guay (St. Boniface):: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

I should like to ask the Minister of Immigration whether he has been in communication with the Attorney General of the province of Manitoba in regard to this Black Panther and whether the Manitoba minister approves the policy of the federal government to allow Ray "Masai" Hewitt into the province of Manitoba to speak on Friday?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, as far as I know there has been no communication to us from the government of Manitoba.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Did the government entertain a request from the Ryerson Press publishing house for assistance which would have prevented that company having to sell out to United States interests?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It seems to me that question was asked yesterday. If I am wrong, perhaps the minister can reply to it.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, with great respect, the question was not put in the same manner yesterday. My question is, was a request for assistance made to the government and why did the government not entertain such a request?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I can only say that such a request did not come to me. I will find out if other ministers received one.


James Aloysius McGrath: May I ask what stand the government is taking in view of the alarming number of takeovers by United States companies of Canadian publishing houses involved in the publication of Canadian textbooks?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member has asked the minister to make a statement of policy. I do not think he can do this at this time.


Mr. Baldwin:: He has no policy.



FOREIGN OWNERSHIP OF CANADIAN COMPANIES-AMENDMENTS TO COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT

Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Government House Leader. Can the President of the Privy Council indicate when the amendments to the Combines Investigation Act will be introduced in the House in order that we might give further consideration to steps to prevent the takeover of firms such as Ryerson Press by foreign concerns?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot indicate the time when that legislation will be brought forward.


Mr. J. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. In view of the great importance that school texts in particular have in the thinking of young Canadians, would the government give immediate consideration to putting the publishing industry in the same category as banking and broadcasting in terms of requiring Canadian ownership?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that banking and broadcasting are within federal jurisdiction and that therefore we have a particular responsibility toward the policies developed therein, but this is not the case, obviously, with publishing.

November 3, 1970



WITHDRAWAL OF TAX EXEMPTIONS GRANTED TO CHURCHES

Mr. David Anderson (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Finance. In light of this further example that Canadian churches operate according to normal commercial practices, may I ask the Minister of Finance whether he intends to withdraw the tax exemptions which organized religions enjoy in his country?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Hon. E. J. Benson (Minister of Finance):: No, Mr. Speaker.



NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Calgary Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Can the minister give the House any information as to the conclusions reached by the group of ministers and chiefs of staff of a number of NATO countries who met here last week to study the control and operation of nuclear weapons within the NATO alliance?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member will recall, although when he himself was Minister of National Defence the Nuclear Planning Group did not exist, it has not been the practice for security reasons to indicate the specific conclusions arrived at. There was, however, a discussion at that meeting of the political criteria which should apply to any decisions by Governments concerning possible defensive use of nuclear weapons. There was a further refining of these criteria and, in particular, there was a consideration of atomic demolition munitions, the point being clearly made that their use would be preceded only by a political decision.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Was any consensus arrived at as to a greater share in the control of the use of nuclear weapons by the alliance as a whole instead of having that control rest, as it does at the present time, almost entirely in the hands of United States?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, one of the
purposes of the Nuclear Planning Group is to exercise broader political control over these weapons. The basic terms of the agreements remain unchanged. However, this particular group provides the basis upon which general political criteria governing their possible use can be worked out.


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmoulh-Halifax East):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the minister whether there was a reaffirmation of the general principle that the seabed will not be used for the proliferation of nuclear instruments of any sort?
Inquiries of the Ministry


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, as to whether that particular question was discussed or not I do not think I can say, because of the generally accepted principle of not discussing individual items.


Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. During the meetings, was there any discussion concerning the use of the surplus CF-5 aircraft? If so, what decision was reached?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I might remind the hon. member that the name of the group is the Nuclear Planning Group, which of course would not deal with aircraft with conventional support capabilities such as the CF-5.



SUBMISSION OF PRODUCTION AND RECEIPTS POLICY TO AGRICULTURAL CONGRESS-REFERENCE TO COMMITTEE

Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskaloon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the minister in charge of the Wheat Board. In view of the fact that the second agricultural congress is scheduled to meet in Ottawa, later in November, and in view of the fact that the proposals for a grain production and receipts policy for the western grains industry in some ways conflict with and in some ways complement the proposals of the task force, is it the intention of the minister to put this policy before the congress at that time?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the congress is essentially within the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture. However, I understand that the proposals which I laid before the House several days ago are likely to come before the congress in one form or another. I will certainly welcome discussion of them on that occasion.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: In view of the wide implications of these proposals, is the minister prepared to refer them to the Standing Committee on Agriculture so that farm organizations and other interested parties can appear before the committee to discuss these proposals in advance of their implementation?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, we will certainly welcome extremely wide discussion of these proposals. It is our hope that before very long they will be presented to this House in the form of legislation. At that time there will be an opportunity for detailed examination before the committee.


Mr. A. B. Douglas (Assiniboia):: My supplementary question is in connection with the timing of such legislation. Can the minister give a date when such legislation, based on the announcement made the other day, will be introduced in the House?


Otto Emil Lang: No, Mr. Speaker. We do not have a specific schedule in mind, although the matter is of some urgency if the proposals are to be in the form of concrete legislation and in effect for this crop year.

November 3, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry



PRODUCTION AND RECEIPTS POLICY-PAYMENT OF STORAGE DURING CURRENT CROP YEAR

Mr. John L. Skoberg (Moose Jaw):: In view of the proposals the minister tabled in the House, is it the intention of the government to continue to pay storage on grain during the current crop year as provided under the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the proposals indicate an intention to eliminate the payments being made under the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act. The exact form of elimination will appear in the legislation when it is brought forward.



AGRICULTURE


Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture.
Following the announcement made by the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board that effective August 1, 1970, the government would propose a stabilization program through which producers would be paid the difference between their eligible returns and the average eligible returns for the five previous years-the equivalent of providing western producers with a guaranteed income-is the minister in a position to state before this House whether the government intends to set up a similar program for stabilizing the returns of dairy producers of Eastern Canada?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: Not in
exactly the same terms, Mr. Speaker, although I am sure the hon. member will agree that the $115 million that we now provide to the dairy industry promotes the same cause in many respects.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Agriculture.
Since the amount mentioned by the minister concerning the grant made to the Canadian Dairy Commission is insufficient at present, does the minister intend to reexamine that question in order to give a stable income to milk producers as he did for western farmers?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, there is a great deal of consideration and review now going on with respect to the future types of dairy policy which will be most useful to the dairy farmers. I am sure these are well known to the hon. member.



DAIRYING-REVISION OF POLICY RESPECTING GRANTS

Mr. Andre Fortin (Lolbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a supplementary question of the Minister of Agriculture.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Lotbiniere wants to ask a supplementary question. Is it about the previous question?


André-Gilles Fortin: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I want to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Agriculture.
Since the minister stated recently in this House that the balance is established between production and consumption of dairy products and that he intended to carry on studies in order to review this policy, could he say whether he expects a real change in this policy in the near future?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I do not recall saying that a normal balance has now been established. What I did say was that the policies or amendments to the policy that was introduced on April 1 of this year had been helpful in restoring the balance, in other words, decreasing overproduction. There is a great deal more that needs to be done with the co-operation of the provinces so that the over-all production of both manufactured and fluid milk will be in balance with domestic consumption.



FINANCE


Mr. R. N. Thompson (Red Deer):: I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Can the minister inform the House what portion of the current issue of Canada Savings Bonds is being or has been purchased by the Bank of Canada?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada does not purchase Canada Savings Bonds.


Robert Norman Thompson: Will the minister explain to the House why in advertisements which have been appearing in recent weeks in the newspapers it is indicated that a certain percentage of these savings bonds have been reserved for the Bank of Canada?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I would like my hon. friend
to show me the advertisements to which he is referring. When Canada Savings Bonds go through the Bank of Canada, it is a redemption of bonds coming back to the treasury.


Robert Norman Thompson: Can the minister inform the House how soon he expects to reduce the current interest rates charged by the Bank of Canada?


An hon. Member:: After the next election.


Edgar John Benson: I presume the hon. member is referring to the bank rate which has been reduced three times in the last four or five months. The decision as to the reduction of the bank rate lies with the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

November 3, 1970



POLLUTION


Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Transport.
Has he been advised that the tanker Esso Kobe is now experiencing some difficulties at the Mont-Louis wharf in the Gaspe area, after striking a reef, and that oil is escaping from one of its compartments? If so, are the officials of the Department of Transport supervising pollution control operations?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, a preliminary inquiry began yesterday into this particular oil spill. The evidence so far indicates that some oil leaked from the vessel while it was being unloaded. Divers discovered that there was a rupture in one of the tanks. That tank was emptied. The oil that actually seeped on to the surface was destroyed by chemicals.



CANADA SHIPPING ACT


James Aloysius McGrath: May I ask the
Minister of Transport what success he has had in connection with the undertaking he gave to the House to have Bill C-2, amendments to the Canada Shipping Act dealing with pollution, referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications instead of the Special Committee on Environmental Pollution as it now stands?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: think this is a matter for the House or House Leaders to discuss. I have not been personally involved. I indicated that I am quite prepared to have it go to either committee.



NAVIGATION


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. In view of the newly discovered outcroppings from the seabed which extend to within 50 feet of the surface in the Northwest Passage, will any steps be taken to limit navigation in these waters until some new type of suitable navigation marker is installed?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: At
the moment there is no indication of any sizeable increase in the amount of traffic through the Northwest Passage. I agree that this has created an additional
Inquiries of the Ministry
hazard. The officials are examining it. Obviously that portion of the passage will now be marked, but there is a necessity for a much more comprehensive hydrographic survey of that region in order that these unknown obstacles will be identified if and when the passage is used on a regular basis.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


J. Michael Forrestall: I have a question for the Minister of National Defence. I welcome him back to the House. I hope he had a good trip west. Has the minister either directly or indirectly requested the government to release the current freeze on the budget of the Department of National Defence?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for his kind remarks. I want to say how much those of us who attended the Nuclear Planning Group appreciated the hospitality we received in the west, which I am sure would have been matched in the east. As to the hon. member's question, the answer is no.


J. Michael Forrestall: I have a supplementary which is of some consequence, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister is apparently not in a position to tell us the result of the review of the DDH-280 program, would he indicate how in God's name he will be able to pay for it unless he gets some more money?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. To the Chair, at least, that sounds like an argument-the initiation of a debate.


J. Michael Forrestall: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to this important matter the minister has my full support. I want him to have more money.



FINANCE


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Having regard to the delay which is being experienced in bringing in over-all income tax changes, is the government giving consideration to an interim measure which would remove some of the anomalies and unfairnesses faced by persons whose only income is their pensions?


Edgar John Benson: If there are to be changes in taxation they would, of course, be the subject of a budgetary statement in the House. If there are to be changes in other measures affecting older people, they would be announced in the House in due course.

November 3, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry HOUSE OF COMMONS



ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS AND REGULATIONS

Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Privy Council. In giving credit to the government for bringing in legislation dealing with the scrutiny of regulations and statutory instruments, I should like to ask whether it is the intention shortly to introduce a proposal making effective the committee's companion suggestion to set up a scrutiny committee of the House to examine regulations?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: This matter is alluded to in the bill mentioned by the hon. member and presumably we shall act on it further.


Gerald William Baldwin: In view of the fact that the objectivity of such a committee might be enhanced if its chairman were not from the government side of the House, and in view of the obvious fondness of the government for governing by Order in Council, will the government consider appointing an opposition member as chairman of such a committee or, at least, recommending that an opposition member be appointed?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: If it were possible to find an objective opposition member.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Wellington rising on a question of privilege?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!



INDUSTRY


Alfred Dryden Hales: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In this period of adjustment of the prices charged by car manufacturers for 1971 models, can he assure the House that Canadians will be able to buy Canadian made cars at the same prices as Americans buy these cars?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I would hope it would be a lower price, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: When is Christmas?


Alfred Dryden Hales: Is the minister assuring us by his answer that Canadians will be able to buy these Canadian made cars at the same prices as Americans?


Jean-Luc Pepin: On a number of occasions, in answer to questions, I have spoken about the reduction of the gap which exists between American and Canadian manufacturers' prices. I have drawn attention to the fact that this

gap was slowly decreasing. I also recall saying that expectations that it will disappear altogether are not in existence at the present time because, apparently, there are costs in Canada which are special to our situation here.


Mr. Speaker:: We are running short of time; perhaps the Chair might recognize the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, and then we could go on to another subject.


John Edward Broadbent: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To go beyond the frivolity of the answers we have been getting from the minister for the past two years-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I mentioned a moment ago that we were running out of time. The hon. member has taken more than his share already.


John Edward Broadbent: I will come right to the point, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister inform the House whether he has held discussions with the automobile industry within the last two months on this question?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I would have to check before I could give the hon. member the date of the last occasion on which I met with representatives of the industry to see if it is a little more or a little less than two months. But it is well known that I meet with the industry regularly to discuss this and other matters.



NATIONAL PARKS


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonion Wesl):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
A month ago the minister promised to make a statement on motions regarding the policy on leases in national parks. He then asked for a 15-day delay. As we have been waiting for a month, could the minister tell us if he will make it this week?


Hon. Jean Chreiien (Minisier of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I hope to make a statement on leases in national parks this week.



NATIONAL REVENUE


Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breion-The Sydneys):: My question is for the Acting Minister of National Revenue; I hesitate to raise this type of question now, but I do so because there is an urgency attached to it which may not be obvious to Your Honour. Can the minister advise us whether his department plans to close the national revenue taxation office at Sydney?


Mr. Speaker:: Obviously the hon. member can well understand that the urgency of the matter is not apparent to the Chair. However, the question having been asked, perhaps the minister might reply quickly.
November 3, 1970


Hon. Eric W. Kierans (Acting Minister of National Revenue):: I should like to point out that the Minister of National Revenue will be in the House tomorrow.



SKAGIT RIVER-ACTION TO PREVENT FLOODING OF VALLEY

Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West):: My question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Is he or some other minister planning to announce any government action in the near future relating to the flooding of the Skagit Valley in British Columbia?


Hon. J. J. Greene (Minister of Energy. Mines and Resources):: The matter is under consideration by the government but no announcement is planned for today. If an announcement is to be made it will be made in the House in the normal and proper fashion.


Mark Willson Rose: Since west coast news sources indicate that a judicial inquiry is imminent, can the minister tell us whether such an inquiry is, in fact, contemplated?


John James Greene: The entire matter is under review, including any aspects in which the federal government has a proper constitutional role which it might or should take under consideration. If any action is contemplated, it will be announced in the proper manner.



FINANCE


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Lancasier):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Treasury Board. In light of the announcement yesterday that Information Canada will be taking over the organizing and developing of each individual public relations program in the various government departments, can the minister tell us whether he expects there will be a reduction in the individual budgets of each department accordingly?


Stanley Howard Knowles: What do you think?


Hon. C. M. Drury (President of the Treasury Board):: As
a consequence of setting up Information Canada it would be expected that economies would be achieved in the operation of individual departmental information units.


An hon. Member:: You are not serious.


Thomas Miller Bell: Will the minister check? Will he make certain that he gives us the size of the reduction within each department, because everybody in the Press Gallery who wants a job in the government is now getting one?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
Farm. Products Marketing Agencies Bill



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, November 2, consideration of the motion of Mr. Olson that Bill C-176, to establish the National Farm Products Marketing Council and to authorize the establishment of national marketing agencies for farm products, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned yesterday I was commenting on some of the amendments which the minister suggested might go forward in connection with this bill. One of the most important suggestions was that the bill might be amended so that any possibility of marketing beef cattle or calves under this legislation would be removed. It seems to me rather strange that the minister would indicate he is in favour of emasculating the bill by removing from it the potential to achieve the very objectives which he has repeatedly said in the committee and in this House are the objectives of the legislation.
[DOT] (2:50 p.m.)
On being questioned in the committee, the minister stated that one of the objectives of this bill is to correct the present balkanization which is taking place and has taken place in agricultural trade in this country. He said it is designed to correct the situation where one province can say to another: You cannot bring this product into the province. When he was asked about taking this problem to the Supreme Court for decision, he said he did not propose to go to the Supreme Court to correct the situation.
The minister has deliberately brought in a piece of legislation which eliminates one of our main agricultural products, and informs the House that he has the answer to the situation which exists. How do we know whether a year or two years from now one of the provinces of Canada will not decide that it does not choose to allow the sale of beef cattle or calves from other parts of Canada in that province? Should that occur, there would be no possibility of dealing with the situation under this act if the proposed amendments are made. These are the clear implications of this amendment.
I refer to a copy of the proceedings of a press conference in which the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) stated the policy of this government in reference to the possibility of solving the present problems of marketing agricultural farm products between provinces. The prime minister said:
I don't have the reference to what Mr. Olson said, but the federal position is that of course we have no objection to a reference to the Supreme Court as a matter of principle, but we don't think it would be the right solution in practice, because the reference would take a lot of time and if the bill on marketing legislation which is now before the federal parliament, and which was prevented from passing by some opposition members before the summer adjournment, if we can get it through when parliament reconvenes, it will be much better than going through the Supreme Court-
November 3, 1970

Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill
This is an awkward alternative presented not only by the minister but by the Prime Minister and the government. The government expects the opposition, which it has condemned in this statement and charged with obstructing the bill, to seriously consider this bill in committee if and when it is referred, although the government has emasculated and hampered it and will have made it partially inoperative before it even receives the sanction of this House. The government expects us to seriously consider its honest intent to bring the marketing of farm products in Canada under the control of marketing agencies in order to enable producers to do an effective job of marketing. I wonder who is being kidded. Anyone who is aware of the implications and interactions in respect of the marketing of farm products knows the various exchanges and the competition that exists between the producers and the consumers in the marketplace.
Following a constitutional conference there was a communique which indicated there was a consensus among the provinces that beef cattle and calves would be excluded. Yet following that communique the minister of agriculture for the province of Manitoba appeared before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and stated clearly and without equivocation that his government was opposed to the exclusion of beef cattle and calves under this legislation. The minister also said as follows:
It is our understanding that in the opinion of the government of Canada the current frictions between provinces over interprovincial trade in agricultural products will be more speedily resolved through speedy passage of Bill C-197 than by reference to the Supreme Court of Canada. In our opinion the act will only achieve that goal if the proposed legislation is amended to clarify and reaffirm the principles which shall govern interprovincial trade in Canada.
The brief goes on to say that they are in favour of a system of orderly marketing of farm products and are in agreement with the intent of the legislation proposed in Bill C-197. The brief states:
We are concerned, however, about recent statements that amendments to the act are being considered to exclude cattle from the jurisdiction of the proposed National Farm Products Marketing Council. The fact that the chaotic conditions prevailing in the marketing of some farm products are not present in the marketing of cattle is not sufficient reason for explicitly excluding cattle from a national marketing act which is, after all, enabling or umbrella legislation. Beef is an important farm product which is produced, marketed, and consumed in competition with other farm products; it cannot be said that there are no problems in the marketing of cattle which, at some future date, producers may want to tackle through action under a national marketing act. It is fairly well agreed that as long as producers do not express the need for a national marketing agency for cattle, no such agency will be established under the act.
That is fair enough, but the decision as to what products will come under the act will, hopefully, be made by the producers of those products. Let us hope this will be a decision of the producers rather than of provincial governments. This act is designed so that the producers, in co-operation and co-ordination with governments, can make the decisions. If this act becomes nothing more than a sort of convenience for provincial governments to solve internal differences in marketing between provinces
by setting up quotas and regional areas within which they shall function, it will not accomplish very much.
The minister, speaking last May to the Canadian Food Processors Association, as reported in the Globe and Mail for May 14, said:
-without "some form of intervention in the marketplace, the farmer does not have fair and adequate power."
[DOT] (3:00 p.m.)
Now, does this apply to all products except beef? Is the minister, by virtue of excluding it, saying we need not be concerned. The packing companies now have substantial feed lots which they can use effectively in two ways. The packing companies can go on the market and purchase feeders and then, when those cattle are in condition, they can be brought back on the market in periods in which it would be advantageous to do so, thus enabling the companies to stay off the public market? Is the minister not aware that this is part of the picture? He apparently is aware that the situation exists because he so stated in May when he was speaking to the Canadian food processors. But is he saying to this House that this situation does not exist in this particular part of the farm industry and will not exist. That is what he is saying because he wants to rule out even the possibility of the producers of beef products coming under this legislation. He wants to place them in the position where, if they do have difficulties, they will have to come to whoever happens to be the minister at that time and ask him to open up the act and go through the exercise all over again.
I tell the minister that it is altogether unacceptable to our party that a measure as important to the farmers as this is should be dealt with in this shabby manner. Speaking at that same meeting the minister said:
Thus, while many food processors have objected to marketing agencies and their powers, they themselves have in effect adopted different techniques to much the same ends.
The minister says that this situation exists. Then he says, let us go ahead, but let us not make it possible for one of the major sectors of the agricultural industry to participate in this marketing agency. I think the minister, and possibly his government, are aware that there are presently rapid changes going on in the farm industry; that is, we are accelerating the trend toward larger units. The trend toward integration is also being accelerated and a situation where the processor integrates with the producer, where controls are exercised over the market place and where the ordinary free marketing system can not effectively operate. So long as a free marketing system operates effectively, the farmer then is in a position to obtain the price the demand creates and to get what may be termed a fair market price. But once certain interests are powerful enough to influence that market, to control the rate at which the product goes to that market as well as how it goes to the consumer, then we are in imminent danger of both the producer and the consumer getting a pretty raw deal.
When this bill reaches the committee, Mr. Speaker, I assure the minister we will require answers to the questions I have posed. If the minister can assure the committee there is no possibility of a need for cattle and calves
[Mr. Gleave.j
November 3, 1970

coming under this bill, then of course we will be satisfied. However, I should like the minister or officials of his department to appear before the committee and tell us what percentage of that product now goes through the public yards, what percentage of that product comes under the auctioneer's hammer and what percentage of that product goes direct to the packing houses and bypasses the public yards altogether.
I am concerned when a broker at the public yards in Saskatoon, the third largest market in western Canada, informs me that the volume of product coming into those yards is becoming less every year. It is not impossible that we may see a time when those yards will not be able to effectively establish a price and where the percentage of livestock going around the yard is a bigger factor in establishing price than the amount going through the public auction. These are the situations with which we need to be concerned. We do not consider the passage of a bill here as an exercise. This bill, if and when it comes into force as an act, is supposed to be able to do a job for the farmer. It is supposed to permit the farmer, rancher or producer to do a job for himself. It is the responsibility of the committee and this House to see that when the act is finally passed it is adequate to do this job. If it should be merely a fagade, a structure which does not permit the effective intervention of the producer into the market so that he can act effectively on his own behalf, then this bill and the act which will follow it will be a failure and we will have wasted our time.
I do not wish to carry on any further, Mr. Speaker. I have made the points which I think are important in this House. The further discussion of these points can take place during the meetings of the Standing Committee on Agriculture.


Mr. Roland Godin (Porineuf):: Mr. Speaker, I pointed out a number of times the anxiety existing among farm people, especially in Quebec. And at the present time, this feeling not only remains but increases on account of the dangerously deteriorating situation.
In fact, almost 6 per cent of the Quebec workers, namely the farmers, get only 2 per cent of the Quebec income, which is much below the essential minimum. Moreover, this very small income is very badly divided, which explains why many farmers survive only through chronic debts and social welfare allowances.
A detailed analysis of the many reasons for the gap between the farm workers' income and that of urban people would be difficult. Let us point out only that it was far too long considered as the result of a low level of education. Yet, within 20 years, that so-called inferiority did not prevent the Quebec farm workers from increasing their production capacity by 300 per cent.
The level of education does not give the reason for the level of income and schooling is not everything, I believe, especially in the agricultural field. Knowledge and knowhow can often be learned more rapidly through other means when people are open to progress, even when such progress does not provide them with an adequate compensation.
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill
The statistics of the governments of Ottawa and Quebec, as well as the Economic Council of Canada data, which set at $4,000 the income required not to live in squalor, make us realize that only 13,000 of our 80,000 farms allow farmers to avoid poverty and enjoy an income comparable to that of other workers.
From 1951 to 1956, in Eastern Canada, 31,000 family farms were abandoned or sold for ridiculously low prices, which barely allowed second, third or fourth generation farmers to pay off their debts.
From 1956, the phenomenon was accelerated, the seriousness of which goes far beyond the tragedy it represents for the farmer who is forced to abandon his forefathers' farm. Those people who knew only one way of life, that of their own village, have no trade and cannot provide for the needs of a large family. However, they are nonetheless good workers, honest and respectable, and without a doubt mainstays of our social economy.
Agricultural conditions, because of the present system, force them to move to the poorer city neighbourhoods, and therefore to add, though they want to be useful, to the number of unemployed and ill-paid labourers, with all the social implications the situation entails, especially when it is not deserved.
It is unfortunate to see the farmers, who as a group fulfilled their role well and fed humanity, being relegated to the rank of herds sent from one pasture to another, increased or decreased, according to the whims of certain financial controllers.
Today, by introducing Bill C-176, the government is seeking the authorization to establish a National Farm Products Marketing Council which, in my opinion, will do nothing but add to the list of the Canadian government agencies, which are costly, heavy, cumbersome, and which take away the time, the energy and, especially, the freedom of citizens.
Under the flood of laws, boards, commissions, councils, the free enterprise system goes under. Referring to page 13 of the bill, one can read, and I quote:
The objects of an agency are to promote a strong, efficient and competitive production and marketing industry for the regulated product or products in relation to which it may exercise its powers, having due regard to the interests of consumers of the regulated product or products.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that to promote competitive production, privileges will be granted to those more clever in securing certain grants, namely big businessmen, those who can offer a return to certain political organizers. Thus, the weaker will fall and will have to leave their land.
The bill makes no mention at all of compensation in these cases and one knows that the government has no appropriate employment to offer at the present time.
I come to that premature conclusion because other agencies of the government give us that proof at this time.
[DOT] (3:10p.m.)
And the best example of this is provided by the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, which

November 3, 1970
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill gives peanuts to small firms and preferential grants to large companies which could easily do without them.
The same applies to the field of housing. The Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which had been created with the best of intentions, now practices discrimination by charging high rates to people who want to build homes for themselves and reduced rates to people who build apartment blocks.
Clause 23 of the present bill, under "Objects and Powers", reads as follows:
Subject to the proclamation by which it is established and to any subsequent proclamation altering its powers, an agency may
(a) purchase any farm product, wherever grown or produced that is of the same kind as the regulated product in relation to which it may exercise its powers, and package, process, store, ship, insure, export or sell or otherwise dispose of any such product purchased by it;
Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of this clause, the government has become a merchant and these are alarming powers since it does not amount to an experiment or to the expectancies before an experiment but merely to the implementation of a method which is in force in Communist countries.
As I said, the government has become a merchant. We know what were the results of such measures in other countries. I have visited Poland, other members have seen Egypt and others Russia. We all know that governments make the worst kind of merchants for they replace the efficiency which stems from work and private initiative with the carelessness and hesitations of civil servants.
We can see further on in Clause 28 a provision which is no less disturbing and reads as follows:
The Minister of Finance may, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, on the requisition of the Minister, make grants to an agency not exceeding in the aggregate one hundred thousand dollars to enable the agency to meet initial operating and establishment expenses.
Then the farmers will have to foot the bill, meaning that once the one hundred thousand dollars have been spent to allow the establishment of the agency, farmers will have to pay levies on their products for the upkeep of the bad tradesmen who will have been selected by the state.
This may not be 100 per cent totalitarian, Mr. Speaker, but I feel this is just short of it. It may happen that incompetent purchasers put in bad orders which will require changes at the producers who will automatically be squeezed between order requirements and the obligation to obtain expensive new farm equipment. And the more so because for the majority of them the changes required will be practically impossible to make since their present equipment is not yet all paid for.
Another matter that we should not overlook, Mr. Speaker, is importation. Unless a revision is effected in this sector, the few results expected from this bill will simply be obliterated. If the government absolutely wishes to impose a control, it should not start by planning production but by controlling imports.
At this stage may I quote a few excerpts from a brief submitted to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and printed in Minutes of Proceedings No. 50 of September 30 last-by representatives of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Catholic Farmers Union and the Agricultural Federation of Ontario.
On that occasion the executive secretary of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture stated as follows:
The point that Mr. McMaster and Mr. Harris made to us over and over again was that legal experience with these acts which are regulatory acts is that the courts will not presume intent. They will not regulate unless it is laid down exactly what the act is intended to do, with a considerable amount of precision, and that is really the thing that we are after. It is not to change the intent of the proposed act. I think that the wording of the proposed act... makes it clear that the intent is to regulate, but we are worried that we will be able to do what the proposed act intends.
I continue with my quotation:
We are not trying, however, to define rigidly the exact representational system to be set out in the proposed Act. We think that, in fact, with commodity questions and the kind of institution you are setting up, and the purposes which it is to serve, which I will come to, can vary, it is very important not to have inadequate flexibility in approach under this proposed Act.
The view of our organization is that it would be better to leave the authority to appoint agencies and council members with the Governor in Council, but with the requirement that the rules and procedures for this be officially set out, and that there be a legal legislative requirement that these be developed in consultation with producers, so that the thing is dealt with in an orderly way and the methods by which membership is achieved in these agencies and in the Council are set out in a public way.
Let us now refer to page 5 of this brief for a more accurate study. A rather short article can be found here on the purpose of the bill. It is outlined that paragraph 17 of the proposed bill is absolutely essential. This quite accurate article describes the aim of the bill within the framework of the provisions relating to the regulations and further on Mr. David Kirk, the executive secretary, says:
This is regulatory legislation in most of its purposes, and we are advised that there should be, in fact, a place that says:
The purpose and intent of this Act is to provide for the promotion, control and regulation in any or all respects of the transportation, storage and marketing of farm products in interprovincial and export trade including the prohibition of such transportation, packing, storage and marketing in whole or in part.
We think it is very important that this fundamental section go in and I should make the general statement so I will not have to repeat it over and over again, that a great many of these recommendations really have more to do with the precise definition of the powers.
Further on he adds, and I quote:
With respect to the powers of the agency under Clause 23 (1) (d), where there is the power to:
(d) undertake and assist in the promotion of the consumption and use of any regulated product... the improvement of the quality and variety-
We are all in favour of this, but we think it should be promotion of the "production, marketing and consumption". We think it very possible that in some commodities there will be a place for an agency that does not market the product and does not regulate the product, but serves as a very good means of carry-

November 3, 1970

ing on fundamental industry programs of promotion, development, improvement, market development, and we want this Clause 23 (1) (d) broadened to be sure that things that are useful for the industry can be done by an agency outside the regulatory field.
All these statements referred to the bill tabled last year.
And the secretary of the Federation goes on to say:
Paragraph 40, page 21-there must be a power, we are advised, that specifically says that an agency may make regulations and orders-may make them; you have to actually say that. That is what we are advised, and it is not precisely said in the act.
Mr. Speaker, on the whole, the farmers, through their officials in various organizations, are informing us of their wishes. This legislation interests them but they request more details. The bill now before the House is a two-edged device. In order to avoid any misunderstanding and dangerous application of this legislation, I hope that the people who drafted it will take into consideration the remarks that were made before the Standing Committee on Agriculture, which will be re-examining this bill.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)


Mr. Speaker:: If the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) speaks now, he will close the debate.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I wish to deal only briefly with some of the matters raised by hon. members who spoke in the debate on this bill. One of the concerns expressed by the hon. member for Kent-Essex (Mr. Danforth) was that there would be a great deal of difficulty in attempting to regulate the supply of any particular agricultural commodity with respect to domestic producers unless we were to provide authority in the bill for a marketing agency to impose equal or perhaps even more severe regulation on importations into Canada of the same commodity.
In my view it is not a proper function of this Parliament or of the government to transfer automatically to any board that may be set up the right to impose duties or in fact erect non-tariff barriers with respect to international trade. There are a number of reasons for that. Of course one reason is that there are some international agreements to which Canada is party, which the government has an obligation to respect, and in doing so we have made certain commitments. One is that we will not impose restrictions, for the kind of purposes outlined in this bill, on imported goods if we do not apply the same restrictions on our domestic production. I am sure the hon. member for Kent-Essex is well aware of this principle.
I can also advise the hon. member, and I am sure this will relieve some of his anxiety with respect to the matter, that under these international agreements as I understand them, although there is some complexity about this, we can impose the same kind of supply management provisions on imports as are in fact applied to our domestic producers. That is the case with respect to some
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill of the international agreements. It seems to me that here is a balance which allows us, first of all, to take into account the interests of our domestic producers and also allows us to respect the international agreements we have made.
I am not suggesting that it will be easy to do this in all cases, because of course different points of view are taken from time to time depending on a country's own interests. However, I would like the hon. member to understand why it would not be possible to transfer automatically to a marketing agency, set up under this bill, the authority to deal with imports. It must remain the responsibility and prerogative of the government to change tariffs, or to change the impediments if you wish to call them that, to trade coming into Canada. I suggest that one can be made compatible with the other.
I was very interested in the remarks made by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Gleave), even though he expressed a great deal of dissatisfaction with the remarks I made last night respecting the exclusion of beef, calves and beef products from this bill. I must say to him that as far as I can tell, although there is provision in existing provincial statutes to set up beef marketing boards, there are no beef marketing boards in existence and there is no agitation anywhere in the country to set up beef marketing boards.
What the hon. member says is true, that if the majority of beef producers in the country indicate to us, or to the council that will be set up under this legislation, that they wish to have a national beef marketing board or agency established, then the legislation would have to be amended. He is correct in that assumption, but I think he will respect the assertion I made that the exclusion of beef from the provisions of this bill at this time does not really do any damage to the immediate purposes we have in mind. When I say "immediate" this could mean extending over two, three, five years or more, because until and unless such time arrives as there are beef marketing agencies set up under provincial legislation then this enabling legislation, to co-ordinate the operation of those agencies, would not become operative.
I can understand the problem. I can tell the hon. member that in the province where I am producing beef, the producers some years ago demanded to be excluded from the statutory provisions under provincial law because they did not want any beef marketing board. But when they wanted a beef marketing commission so that they could make some levies for the purpose of promoting the sale of beef and that sort of thing, they went back to the provincial government of Alberta and asked to be included in the legislation so that they could do that.
It is valid to suggest that beef producers would want that kind of marketing commission all across the country, but there is no authority given under this bill to co-ordinate the activities of such commissions set up under provincial legislation, and to that extent the bill is a deterrent to having them set up on a national basis. But if this were desired by beef producers, they could seek a simple amendment to the act after it has been passed.
832

November 3, 1970
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill
To bring my remarks to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would advise the hon. member for Portneuf (Mr. Godin) that there is provision in the bill for only $100,000 for each commodity agency that would be set up, or $1 million in total. That means that there could be ten different commodity agencies established. It has been very clearly stated, at least in the remarks I have made before the committee and before the House, that this is for the purpose of establishing the marketing agencies and from there on their activities will be financed by their own operations. If Parliament and the government decide or suggest further subsidies, that would be another decision separate and distinct from the decision we would be making in passing this bill. He called for a flexible attitude with reference to the members of the agencies. Certainly, producers and other groups will be consulted with respect to nominations to the agencies. I agree with him that flexibility is needed, at least in the initial stages of setting up a marketing agency, so that we can, without legal impediment, seek out and appoint to these boards people with the competence to do a good job on behalf of the industry all the way from the producers through retailing and to the consumer as well.
[DOT] (3:30 n.m.)
I was pleased to hear him speak of the need for consultation and also the need for the promotion of markets and that sort of thing. This is provided for in some of the clauses of this bill. It is my hope that such will be a major function of some of the agencies that are set up-in fact a far superior function to that of imposing some of the mandatory quotas that are objectionable to some producers. I hope that we can now send this bill to the committee and deal with the amendments that I suggested which were considered very favourably in committee.
In conclusion I wonder, inasmuch as there was support from the other members who have spoken, whether I could ask to have the evidence taken in the last session with respect to Bill C-197 before the Standing Committee on Agriculture, taken under advisement or reinstated for the purpose of considering Bill C-176.


Gerald William Baldwin: We would be quite agreeable to that, Mr. Speaker. I can see no good reason why all the time and money thrown away in connection with proceedings in the committee should be repeated. However, I think the order should be made without prejudice to the rights of members of the committee to pursue any examination of witnesses or briefs that were presented. This might not be necessary, but in an attempt to facilitate the passage of that bill in order that it could be brought back in the dying days of the last session, we did hurry through some of our examinations. If the order is without prejudice, we are perfectly willing that this should be done.


Mr. Speaker:: It is my understanding that these are the terms of the order proposed by the hon. Minister of Agriculture. The order would be to the effect that the evidence already presented to the committee would be reinstated, without prejudice to the right of the committee to call further witnesses either with respect to new matters or matters already covered by the evidence which will then be before the committee as a result of this order. Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.


[Stage Direction]
On the Order:
Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Agriculture of Bill C-175, an Act respecting grain-The Minister of Agriculture.
Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, may I first give notice that I am going to raise a point of order with respect to this bill being proceeded with at this time because of certain technical objections. However, before doing so, and on a general point of order, I think I should be entitled to say on behalf of members of our party-and I say this without in any way disparaging the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) who is discharging his obligations as Government House Leader most effectively-that it was indicated last night we would be proceeding with another bill. For reasons which are quite obvious, that bill was not circulated so that hon. members could not proceed with it at this time.
We have indicated our willingness to proceed with this bill, but because of the change in plan some of our members who are interested in this subject are not here today. I am not blaming the President of the Privy Council; he is just unfortunate in his choice of colleagues. However, if we are to discharge our responsibilities in processing the business of the house and the government, then the government will have to learn to bring in at an earlier stage in any session all the bills it should have ready, so that when second reading is called we will have had an opportunity to evaluate the legislation and to decide upon our position. After all, the period of gestation has been quite lengthy and the government have had ample time to draft the bill. There really is no valid excuse for this state of affairs today.
Having said that, we are ready to proceed, but I thought I should make that statement. I repeat, I am not putting any blame upon the minister. Indeed, I shall probably have other opportunities during the session to blame him more effectively for matters for which he is responsible. I hope that he will persuade his colleagues to bring in bills well before the date when this House proposes to deal with them so that we can make arrangements to proceed.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: that Bill C-175 respecting grain, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.

November 3, 1970


Gerald William Baldwin: Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order which is related to, and directed at, this particular bill. With great regret, I am compelled to point out to Your Honour that I doubt very much if this bill should be proceeded with at the present time because it fails to comply with Standing Order 62, which is related to section 54 of the British North America Act.
Your Honour has had some occasion in recent weeks to consider this point. My distinguished and learned colleague, the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert), on two occasions recently called to Your Honour's attention this predilection of the government to include in the recommendation from the Governor in Council, which is required by Standing Order 62, a number of details with regard to what should be the financial aspects of a bill. With the great perspicacity which usually marks your judgments, Your Honour pointed out to all and sundry, but particularly directed your remarks at the government, that it would be much simpler and safer to have simple recommendation with regard to all aspects of the bill.
Having laid the groundwork, I would refer Your Honour to the recommendation which appears on the flyleaf of the bill and which reads:
His Excellency the Governor General has recommended to the House of Commons the present measure respecting grain; to provide for the constitution of the Canadian Grain Commission, for salaries and expenses and accountable advances to the commission; for the objects and powers of the commission; for the establishment of grades of western and eastern grain; for grain standards committees, for the grading and inspection of grain; for the constitution of grain appeal tribunals; for licences and licensees and for charges by licensees; for elevators and grain dealers and the handling of grain licensees and other persons and the carriage of grain; and to make also further provisions in connection with the administration of the act.
When the government has seen fit to itemize a number of instances with regard to which financial aspects prevail, then I think they must cover all of them.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, if you would turn your attention to clause 108 of the bill you will find that it purports to repeal section 11 of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. Clause 108 of the bill provides for a levy of 1 per cent to be deducted from the purchase price of grain purchased from elevators. It then provides for that money to be paid into what is known as the Prairie Farm Emergency Fund. From that fund certain other payments shall be made. In addition, that same clause provides that certain licensees who fail to comply with certain subsections of the bill may have to pay a penalty of one-thirtieth of one per cent. That money goes into the same fund, and provision is made for appropriations out of that fund by the commission that is to be established by the bill.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
I point out, Mr. Speaker, that this is an appropriation of public moneys for certain purposes, and the Governor General's recommendation simply does not cover it at all. This matter was dealt with, although not in the same sense, when this bill was before the standing committee
Canada Grain Bill
in the previous session. The hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) proposed an amendment to clause 15 of the bill. The amendment read as follows:
.. .Where by reason of an order made under this section a person suffers financial loss, the Commission shall compensate that person in the amount of his loss; the Federal Court shall have original jurisdiction to determine the liability to compensate and the amount of compensation, if any.
At that time, the vice-chairman who was presiding over the committee, acting upon an opinion given by the law clerk and parliamentary counsel, ruled the proposed amendment out of order. I am not suggesting that those opinions are binding on Your Honour. I am simply citing them to show that my point has validity, because it relates to a set of circumstances that are precisely similar. The vice-chairman ruled the amendment out of order because the amendment proposed that compensation, or an award, should be paid to a grain producer. That is precisely the same as the proposal contained in new clause 108. Where the producer has suffered loss, there is to be a financial appropriation and, therefore, I submit, it is out of order.
May I read what the law clerk and parliamentary counsel had to say about that matter, as recorded at page 66 of the proceedings:
.. .1 do not think a private member could do it. I will go further than that. I would say that a Minister of the Crown could not do it in this Committee. If he wanted to do it, he would have to do it at the report stage in the House by moving an amendment there, and to that amendment the recommendation of the Crown would have to be annexed.
I say this is a valid opinion. I approve it. I cite it to Your Honour, not because it is binding on you but because it is on all fours with the situation to which I am referring. The government, having brought down a recommendation from the Governor General setting out in detail various aspects of the bill which are subject to financial considerations, has included in its legislation a provision that a 1 per cent levy shall be paid into a fund, and from that fund the commission which is to be established will be authorized to make certain awards. What can that be except an appropriation of public funds?
Then, of course, there is the additional aspect of the fine of one-thirtieth of one per cent, which goes into the same special fund out of which awards can be made. Consequently, if you examine the bill in its entirety, you will find that there is no provision in His Excellency's recommendations to the effect that this special financial provision is authorized. I am sure that was not in there. I am also sure that if I were to move an amendment to this effect, as the hon. member for Crowfoot did before the committee, Your Honour would have no hesitation in ruling that I could not do so, or that a minister of the Crown could not do it either unless he had come to this House with an amendment to the recommendation approved by the Governor General.
I do not need to say anything more. Your Honour is well aware of the nature of this type of objection. You have pointed out the dangers which are inherent in the government's proceeding in this way. I point out that, under these circumstances, the bill is defective and, until

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Canada Grain Bill
the government can produce the required amendment to the recommendation, the bill can hardly be proceeded with in its present form.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) has raised a very interesting procedural point with respect to clause 108 of this bill, claiming that its provisions are not covered by the recommendation. I am afraid I could not fully understand his argument. Certainly, there is a continuation of the activities that were carried on by the Board of Grain Commissioners, and there is a continuation of the responsibilities which were given to them under another act, in this case the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. Clause 108 of the bill repeals section 11 of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. That clause was included so that there would be a mechanism, the Board of Grain Commissioners, that would collect a levy that this Parliament decided ought to be collected, and those moneys are to be disbursed under other sections of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. I, therefore, suggest to Your Honour that the provisions for the disbursement of the fund collected for the purposes of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act are already included in that act.


Gerald William Baldwin: In the Prairie Farm Assistance Act?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: In the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.


Gerald William Baldwin: Which the government is repealing.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: The hon. member is saying that when we re-write and modernize the whole of the Canada Grain Act, an act that has not been revised in a substantial way since 1930, and when we adopt some amendments regarding the responsibilities which have been laid on the Board of Grain Commissioners under the Canada Grain Act, we are acting improperly. I suggest it is well known in this country that the activities of the Board of Grain Commissioners, which will now be called the Canadian Grain Commission, in matters such as collecting the 1 per cent levy and disbursing the money through other provisions of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act constitute a long established practice. It is a practice that was established in 1939, if my memory serves me correctly. Clause 108 of the bill attempts, very simply, to put onto the shoulders of the Canadian Grain Commission under the Canada Grain Act all the responsibilities which formerly rested on the shoulders of the Board of Grain Commissioners.
I know that it is difficult on many occasions for the recommendation of His Excellency, the Governor General, to spell out in detail all the authority that may be vested in the application of this act. This is not something new, that every single detail of expenditure is not indicated in the recommendation. But, I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, with great deference, that it has been a long established practice for the Board of Grain Commissioners, which will now become the Canadian Grain Commission, to collect a 1 per cent levy for the purposes of funding the PFAA fund. The hon. member knows that. He also knows that, by a long established practice, it is one of the administrative functions of the Board of Grain Commissioners to collect that levy and turn it over to the
Prairie Farm Assistance Act administration or indeed to collect it on behalf of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada. It is from that fund the PFAA payments are made from time to time.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
I find it rather difficult to understand why the hon. member is trying to hang a procedural point on something that has been practised in Canada for at least 30 years, notwithstanding the fact that authority for the Board of Grain Commissioners to collect that levy is now going to be contained in the Canada Grain Act rather than the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
The other point relates to the amendment with respect to paying compensation to grain companies which was moved in committee by the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner). This, in fact, was a new departure. It was not envisaged when this bill was drafted.


Gerald William Baldwin: It was not in the recommendation.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: It was not in the recommendation. In my view, the legal adviser to the committee quite properly ruled that it was beyond the recommendation and therefore out of order. I suggest that the hon. member is objecting to a long established practice. To base his argument on the fact that a member was prevented from introducing a new departure in expenditure under the authority of this bill because no provision for it was contained in the recommendation is not making a valid comparison.


Gerald William Baldwin: Will the minister permit a question? Even if the minister is correct in his assumption that the financial authority granted to the Board of Grain Commissioners under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act carries over automatically to the new Canada Grain Commission-and I do not accept that with respect to the 1 per cent levy-does he not agree that according to clause 108, in addition to the 1 per cent levy, there is a further financial provision to take care of one-thirtieth of one per cent of a certain licence fee which is set aside as a penalty, the benefits of which are payable from the fund in respect of certain awards. Is it not true that particular provision was never in the Prairie Farm Assistance Act? It is a new financial provision which was never contemplated, discussed or apparent in the other legislation.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I cannot answer that question without a bit of research and perhaps some advice. I am sure the hon. member realizes that while there may not have been a penalty provided for failure to collect a 1 per cent levy, there was a legal obligation on all of the grain companies to collect the levy and turn it over to the Board of Grain Commissioners for and on behalf of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Canada.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, when one gets into a procedural debate, he usually has a point he wants to make. He usually knows where he wants to come down at the end of his remarks. Since I was called on short notice to take part in this

November 3, 1970

debate, I hope Your Honour will forgive me for doing a little thinking out loud. Maybe I will come down some place before I am through.


Gerald William Baldwin: That is more than the minister did. He is still up there.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am extremely sympathetic to the concern of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) that the government not get away with anything. We have both been here long enough to know that we have to be on guard against that kind of practice.
However, I wonder whether we have really sorted out what is supposed to be involved in the recommendation of the Governor General with respect to a money bill. In the few minutes since the hon. member for Peace River raised this point, I have been attempting to collect a few musty volumes to check some matters. I have also been wracking my memory.
Years ago there had to be a resolution preceding a money bill. When that resolution was first called in the House of Commons, a cabinet minister rose and stated "The Governor General having been made aware of the terms of this resolution recommends it to the consideration of the House". That is all there was to the recommendation at that time. The minister did not say, "On behalf of the Governor General the following are the details", when making a recommendation. He just said, "His Nibs has seen the bill and he says it's okay". I hope it is not sacrilegious to use that language in this place. We then had the debate on the resolution and proceeded from there.
There is a reference to the terms of a resolution at page 216 of Beauchesne's Fourth Edition. This reference reads:
-care must be taken that the terms used are sufficiently wide to cover the whole of the Bill which will be subsequently introduced. I
I could read the whole of that citation, Mr. Speaker, but it is not necessary to do so. It is clear that the reference is to what we then called the resolution.
I can recall occasions when we complained because the resolution did not go far enough. I also, recall when the Hon. Paul Martin introduced a resolution to increase the amount of the old age pension. 1 believe that was in 1948. He did not put the amount of the increase in the resolution. Because there was a resolution with the approval of the Governor General which did not name an amount, we were permitted to move amendments involving a larger amount than Mr. Martin proposed. I am reminiscing more than I should, but the point is there is certain jurisprudence and there are certain rules which governed a resolution preceding a money bill. The rules were very clear that the resolution had to be wide enough to cover everything.
In December of 1968, a report was presented to alter the rules. I am now looking at page 432 of Journals for 1968-69. We recommend that the resolution stage be abolished. Nothing was said in that recommendation regard-
Canada Grain Bill
ing the recommendation of the Governor General. In that report, spelled out in long paragraphs, we just said, "Let's do away with the resolution and the debate thereon." Then, since the Governor General's recommendation had been attached to the resolution, we were, of course, leaving a gap. So, as reported on page 458 of the Journals for 1968-69, we recommended that what was then Standing Order 61 be amended. It is now Standing Order 62. I shall not read it out, but I have compared the two versions. The previous one was a rule which required a resolution to precede a money bill. Since we were doing away with the resolution, we thought we ought to do something about the Governor General's recommendation. So, we wrote a new Standing Order No. 62, which says there must be a recommendation from the Governor General.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
The point I am arguing out loud must be obvious by now. Is there not some danger we are confusing two things? We have done away with the resolution and the debate thereon; that is clear. But we have kept the requirement for a recommendation-we are bound to do so because it is required under the British North America Act. Under the old regime, the solution had to cover all the details of the bill. But there was nothing which said that the recommendation had to contain the same kind of detail. Perhaps we are getting into this trouble because we are now asking the Governor General to give us a recommendation the terms of which are a substitute for what used to be the resolution.
It seems to me the ruling which Your Honour has been called upon to make is an important one and possibly it should not be made on short notice, even though Your Honour has had the point before you for consideration on a number of occasions. Maybe we should discuss the matter in the Committee on Procedure and Organization. I might say in passing that the committee made a start on its work this morning. As I was saying, I wonder whether we are not confusing two things. The old resolution had to be very complete, but the recommendation of the Governor General, in those days, was contained in a simple sentence. It said he was aware of the bill and that it was in order for us to consider it.
I do not detract for one moment from the argument that it is necessary to watch the government, to see it does not get away with things. But I am also very conscious of the fact that we decide things here, and that the role played by the Governor General is a ceremonial one as distinct from that played by the government in this actual forum of legislation. I think we should be going too far if we wanted too much handled outside of this House.
The purpose of the so-called Royal recommendation is to make sure that it is only Ministers of the Crown, the cabinet, who can bring in a money bill. These, at any rate, are my views, Mr. Speaker. The question is one for you to decide. What I really wanted to do, I have done, namely, to draw attention to the possibility of there being confusion between the old resolution, which had to be very wide and precise in its scope, and the old recom-

November 3, 1970
Canada Grain Bill
mendation, which was a simple statement. Perhaps we ought to do away with the recommendation altogether. Then, of course, the Governor General could not make mistakes and leave out things which should be in the recommendation. But if we want a recommendation which takes the place of a resolution, I think we should say no. We do not say so at the present time in Standing Order 62. Its terms have not been read today, but presumably someone will do so before this debate is over.
It is clear that a bill involving the expenditure of money cannot be proceeded with unless it has been recommended to the House in a message from the Governor General. Nothing more is required. This carries out the provision of Section 54 of the British North America Act. The Act does not say that the recommendation has to go into the details. Thinking about this matter, I wondered whether we might have said something on the subject in our lengthy report tabled back in December, 1968, but I have gone through it, and we do not seem to have dealt with it there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for listening to me. The decision is up to you.


Mr. Speaker:: I see that the Minister of Agriculture wishes to contribute further to the debate on the point of order. He can do so only with the consent of the House. Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I simply wished to reply to the question which was raised by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin). I have been advised that section 11(4) does, in fact, deal with levies. The hon. member asked whether or not this one-thirtieth of one per cent per day was provided for in the old act. The provision reads as follows:
All licencees shall pay to the Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada for the credit of the Receiver General, monthly, as provided by regulation, all moneys collected hereunder, and any licencee who fails to comply with the regulations is subject to a penalty of l/30th of 1 per cent of the amount due for each day that such payment is in default.
May I clear this up by adding that as far as I am aware the provision with which the hon. member is concerned contains nothing new. There is perhaps some updating of the wording and a renumbering of the subsections, but section 108 is almost identical with section 11 and the ten subsections contained in the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.


Gerald William Baldwin: That applies to most government
legislation.


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me there are two points which the Chair should consider at this time. The first is the relatively narrow point raised by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) to which the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) has replied, namely, whether a new charge is created by section 108 of the Canada Grain Act.
The hon. minister argues that in fact there is no new charge on the treasury because we are simply re-enacting

a provision of a former statute, the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. The minister assures the Chair, that a similar provision was included in the previous statute. I am not too sure of the argument of the hon. member for Peace River that there is a new charge being created at this time which might require an alteration of the recommendation of His Excellency. That should be my ruling for the time being. I have to take into account, also, and I do take into account, that it would not be a matter of great moment to have the recommendation changed if the Chair considered a change should be made. I recall that when a similar matter was brought to my attention some days ago I agreed with the hon. member who had raised the point that the recommendation ought to be changed, and as a result of a sudden and speedy action on the part of the minister responsible for the bill then before the House, a new recommendation was obtained and accepted by hon. members.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) has raised a much wider question which is one of greater interest. He may remember, if he was in the House, that when a similar point of order was raised by the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert), I did say-unfortunately, I do not have the text of my statement here-I had often thought that the only thing which might be required as far as the recommendation was concerned was a general statement from His Excellency to the effect that His Excellency had looked at a bill, and recommended it to the attention of the House. Substantially, it seems to me this was the form of the recommendation which was received by the House as part of our practice before the change in our rules.
I have an example before me dating from some years back; the minister introducing a bill simply said that His Excellency the Governor General having been made aware of the subject matter of the resolution, recommended it for the consideration of the House. This may be all that is really required from a constitutional standpoint. The Crown must retain the financial initiative and this is done through a recommendation from His Excellency. It may be that His Excellency having looked at the bill and having noticed that there were financial implications, might recommend the proposed measure to the House.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) has very clearly said-and I am very strongly inclined to go along with his reasoning-we appear to be confusing the resolution stage of the bill, which has now been discontinued, and the recommendation. It may be that before we changed the rules these were two separate matters, the recommendation made in the terms I have just indicated, and then a resolution which delineated the four corners of the bill which would come before the House but which was not then known to hon. members and, indeed, not known to His Excellency as his recommendation was directed to the resolution. It may be that His Excellency should see the bill and then recommend it to the House. It may well be that this is all that should be required to allow hon. members to proceed with con-
November 3, 1970

sideration of a measure advanced for study by the Government. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has suggested this might be a point which could be considered by the Committee on Procedure and Organization. I agree with that. If I were asked to make a ruling now, I would tend to make a ruling that all that is required under our rules and Standing Order 62 is to have a recommendation come forward: it might not be necessary to have it in detail but, the regulations and our Standing Orders, in particular Standing Order 62(1) and 62(2) might be entirely satisfied by a recommendation in general terms as submitted to the House.
This would be obiter dictum at the present time because I have not ruled that, and in my view it may be that the explanation given by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) is sufficient and that the recommendation as it stands, if it were required to be in detailed form, is sufficient.
If the matter were raised again it may be at that point a decision would have to be made by the Chair as to whether a detailed recommendation covering all aspects of the bill should be necessary, but this would be a matter which could be considered at that time. Hon. members are now on notice, in any event, that this is a matter of importance and of interest, I am sure, to the whole House. If the point of order is raised again, I would expect to hear further from the hon. members who have taken part in this debate today and, I am sure, from other hon. members who have been placed on notice, as a result of which they will give this matter serious thought. For the moment, I would suggest that we proceed with the consideration of the bill.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, a great deal of public discussion throughout the grain growing areas of this country and, indeed, in this House has taken place in respect of the provisions now envisaged in Bill C-175. There have been several days of debate in this House, which I considered to be useful debate, as well as a great deal of discussion in the Standing Committee on Agriculture when the predecessor to this bill, that is Bill C-196, was under consideration by that committee.
If my memory serves me correctly, there were 26 amendments made to Bill C-196 by the committee on agriculture. I suggest this was a very useful exercise because there is no doubt that when a government proposes to introduce a bill of the size of the one that is before us, which is really a re-writing of the whole of the Canada Grain Act, and this is done after a period of nearly 40 years, it is perfectly understandable and indeed desirable that there be a great deal of debate, that there be far-ranging discussions in the industry from the producers all the way through, and that all of these discussions should be taken into account. I suggest this has been done.
There were many people from producer organizations who appeared before the committee. There were a large number of trade associations as well as individual companies which made their views known to us in respect of
Canada Grain Bill
a number of proposals in Bill C-196. In addition to that, a new dimension has been added to the consideration of the Canada Grain Act since the last time it was revised, that is the organization known as the Canada Grains Council. As you know, this council is made up of producer organizations involved in co-operative wheat pools, other grain companies, the railways, the terminals and everyone else involved in the business. The council undertook the responsibility of examining the details of Bill C-196 and then presented its recommendations to various people involved in a series of different procedures.
First, there were a great number of discussions carried on between the Board of Grain Commissioners and the people involved in the trade. Then, there were discussions certainly with Members of Parliament and other people respecting revisions to the Canada Grain Act. Of course, to highlight and perhaps summarize all of these previous discussions, the Canada Grains Council did in fact appear before the Standing Committee on Agriculture giving their considered opinion in a very detailed way as to what was desirable and perhaps what ought to be changed slightly in the proposal that was before the committee at that time, namely Bill C-196.
I can never claim that a bill is perfect. I suggest there may be some minor amendments, perhaps even some major ones, that will need to be taken under consideration when Bill C-175 gets to the committee. In fact, there never was any doubt in my mind that when we undertook to completely re-write the Canada Grain Act, which contains in its new form some 116 clauses as well as the schedules and the annexes that are added thereto, it would be a miracle if that were written in perfect terms the first time.
What has happened has been that the bill before us now is the result of the best efforts of the Board of Grain Commissioners, in consultation with their advisers, both legal and experts in the trade. These drafting instructions were presented to this House and the standing committee. I believe the number of amendments made by the committee was 26. There were more proposed but there were in fact 26 amendments made. There may be more needed. In fact, I am prepared to consider favourably some amendments which may be considered technical by some, or matters of substance by others. For example, I have been advised that there was a provision in the old Canada Grains Act which dealt with matters respecting insurance, and that the companies indicated that "acts of God" or the "Queen's enemies", which are not provided for in this bill, ought to be put in because there could be a substantial difference in the insurance premiums to be paid if these two exemptions were not made. It seems to me this, in fact, could be done when we reach the committee stage or even at the report stage. I would be happy if we should be able to have this bill moved along to the point at which it was at the last session.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
I understand there is also a small problem related to special bin grain that has been drawn to our attention. I am advised that, in the opinion of a number of grain

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Canada Grain Bill
companies, Bill C-175 does not properly identify this. In the new bill the implication is that the terminal owns the grain and that the terminal, under all circumstances, must be able to deliver this against a warehouse receipt. There is confusion concerning whether or not a warehouse receipt is indeed exactly the same thing as the kind of ticket one receives for special bin grain, special bin grain being grain that is kept separate from other grain. If one receives a warehouse receipt designating a certain grade and quality of grain, the terminal is not obliged to deliver the same grain but can deliver grain equal to the grade indicated on the warehouse receipt that any individual or company may hold.
We are prepared to consider some changes in these items, but I advise the House there may be more. I do not deny that there could be other changes that would be necessary from time to time. I would hope, however, the House would be disposed to move on with the passage of this bill, the rewriting of the Canada Grain Act, even though we may not find every one of the flaws in it in the first instance. There are some principles involved in the grain handling business that ought to be changed. Indeed, in my view there has been too much delay now, but that is only my own personal opinion. I refer to such things as the statutory grades, including a protein factor, in setting out the schedule for certain grades and other mechanisms in respect of the grain handling system. These should be modernized for the benefit of everybody involved. So, I would hope, with the assurance I am prepared to give the House and the committee, that after the application of this new bill for any specified length of time, be it one year, two years or however long, we will be prepared to consider amendments based on the experience we gain in attempting to apply this act-


An hon. Member:: I hope you will not still be the government.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Some members opposite hope we will not be the government. They do not need to advise me of that because I am aware of that every day of the week, but the people of Canada do not agree with them and so long as it is that way it is fine with me. Whether I or somebody else occupies this position, I am sure he will be prepared to reconsider any defects that arise as a result of applying this new act to the grain trade and will come to this House seeking amendments to improve it on the basis of that experience. But what I cannot accept is the holding up of anything of a major nature because we might not have thought of all the details. I can guarantee to hon. members in this House that no matter how well we examine this bill and try to anticipate every difficulty, since the grain trade today is changing there will be other changes we will have to deal with even four or five years from now. Hopefully even then, much to the chagrin of hon. members opposite, we will still be administering this country at the very high level at which it is being administered today. I
I wish to conclude my remarks, Mr. Speaker, by saying to hon. members opposite I hope they will give favourable consideration to a suggestion I wish to make that this 
bill be reinstated in the same position-that is at the report stage-in which it was when the last session was prorogued. I might say that while there has been discussion there has been no commitment by members opposite that we do this. I plead with them now, for the sake of the producers, to agree to this proposal so that we can get on with bringing in what everybody agrees is a useful structure. If they fail to agree to that, then I hope they will send this bill to the committee bearing in mind it is a bill which has been given a great deal of consideration by the whole of the industry and indeed by the members of this House who are members of the Standing Committee. As I said there have already been 26 amendments since the original version was introduced in this House.
There may be a possibility that some discussion could reduce the number of amendments before this House. So far as I am concerned, however, I am not worried about that. What I am very concerned about is that the members of this House and of the committee, after having heard the amendments and arguments in support of them at least once or twice, will allow a vote to be held so that no further time will be lost. I think every member of this House and every member of the committee ought to be able to move the amendments they wish to move. However, I believe it is also a basic right of the members of the committee, after the argument has been heard once or twice, to have a decision made as to whether or not the amendments are in fact acceptable. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that if we approach the procedural requirements involved in getting this bill from a bill into the law of this land in that spirit, we would be doing the farmers and the rest of the grain industry in Canada a great service.


Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture, in his best tone of voice, has tried to leave the impression that the bill that is being presented here is an amended version of the bill presented last session and that those of us in the opposition who have had some doubt about its original intention should drastically change our minds. We should simply go along with him and, because of the lapse of time, should find ourselves in a position where we can revise our thinking simply in order to accommodate him. I am not prepared at this time to give him such an assurance because I had some reservations about the original bill and I still have some reservations about the bill before us now. May I point out first that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) plays second fiddle to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Lang), who is also responsible for the Wheat Board. Unfortunately, the Minister of Agriculture has not been able to convince either his colleague or the rest of the cabinet that this bill is in the best interests of Canadian agriculture. Six months ago the Minister of Agriculture rose in the House and said: "We cannot sell any wheat because we cannot give an assurance to our customers that we can produce wheat of a certain protein quality". A few months ago we found ourselves in an entirely different situation. Is there a credibility gap? Where has this statement come from? It came right from the minister.
November 3, 1970

[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
The Minister of Agriculture does not know what he is talking about. He was trying to sell us a bill of goods, and we, as members of the opposition, are expected to swallow that. I have asked the farmers to whom I have talked on street corners, in little grocery stores and everywhere else, and I find they know better because the situation is different today compared with three or four months ago when the minister first introduced this bill. If we had allowed ourselves to be sucked in by this minister, then the original bill would have been passed. Is protein grading selling our wheat or is it something else? I see the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Douglas) sitting opposite. I want to give him all the recognition that he deserves. He gets a lot of press recognition from the pool. All of a sudden he seems to have advance notice of what is going to happen. Six months ago he said that another statement would be made. We all read the newspapers and the pool reports, but all of a sudden the pools are to be used by this government.
I am not asking for a fight, but if that is what is going to happen I am quite ready to accept a fight. The pools are going to be used by this government, and all of a sudden that has become necessary. I say to the country and I say to the pools that it is certainly not necessary for us. The minister who introduced this bill is being ridden by the other minister who is obviously a step closer to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), because he can tell the Prime Minister that he needs to introduce the bill. He made a statement the other day, and it is very interesting that everyone has fallen for it all of a sudden. As a result of his statement what happened? We lost something. This is typical of the Liberal government. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) throws out a big proposal. Then, everyone bucks against it, and the leader of the Liberal party in Manitoba objects to the whole thing. Everyone in the country is objecting.
Of course, the government will withdraw certain proposals but we will not have gained anything. The farmers in my area are in a difficult position. I will not say anything more about it because I spoke on the subject when the bill was first introduced several months ago. We are going to sell only low grade wheat because we are told that we are in a low grade wheat area. The minister tells us that this measure is advantageous to us. How can it be advantageous when the storage has been reduced. What have we? All we have is low grade wheat. Instead of introducing the bill to the House, the minister should have held discussions with the minister from Saskatchewan. I know that my farmers are going to count their pennies. Until the minister from Saskatchewan made the announcement, we were under the impression that even though the initial payment was to be dropped we would receive a final payment. What will our final payment be now? We will not get it and we do not expect it from this government because when they disguised this whole thing as an equalization payment they left the impression that they were doing something for us.
The minister smokes behind the curtains and grins, because that is all he has left to do. He does not know
Canada Grain Bill
how much longer he will stay in the cabinet unless he puts these bills through the House. He will not stay in the cabinet long because the Prime Minister does not have much use for western farmers.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: That statement is wrong.


Stanley James Korchinski: He told us that himself when he was out west. What did he tell us when he went to Regina? Why are they piling up all that wheat in Saskatoon? Why did the hon. member for Assiniboia have to take him into his own back yard to hide him from the rest of the people?


Some hon. Members:: Ha, ha.


Stanley James Korchinski: That is right, ha, ha. I want to relate my remarks to the statement of the minister from Saskatchewan, because he wants to get rid of the elevators. We have had evidence to the effect that there is no better system of handling grain than through the existing elevators, yet this minister wants to get rid of them. The Minister of Agriculture smiles and laughs. I want that to be on the record.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I am laughing at the foolish statement.


Stanley James Korchinski: The minister can laugh all he wants, but it was the minister from Saskatchewan who made the foolish statement when he said we could handle our grain with 40 elevators in the west. That is how foolish he was. I am challenging the Minister of Agriculture, and the minister in charge of the Wheat Board, to contradict me right now. The Minister of Agriculture will not do this. I say to the House and to the country that that is what the government wants to do through their system of elimination.
As soon as they remove the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act, every farmer in the country will cry to high heaven because it will cost him money. The farmers will say that the elevator companies will receive all the money, and that is exactly what these fellows want. Let us not be fooled by that suggestion. At one time farmers were getting $2.12 per bushel for their wheat. What are they getting now? I asked the question the other day. I said to the minister, "The price is 50 cents lower than we were getting a few years ago." Sure, there will be a period when you will pay in, but then all of a sudden it is finished; it is gone forever.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
On top of that, every farmer is to be responsible for every storage payment that is going to be made to every elevator. This provision is in this bill, because that is exactly what the government suggested. Evidence was presented by all the elevator companies that they could handle that grain cheaper than any other method that has been conceived of until now.
840

November 3, 1970
Canada Grain Bill
Then, this minister comes in here. He is a kind of second-rate minister anyway. He comes in only at the behest of the minister from Saskatchewan, in order to maintain his status as a minister, and he says, "I have got to get this bill through." Why are we raising these objections? It is because it is going to cost us money. Some $70 million that was paid into the grain storage business is not going to be paid any more, and this bill indicates we are going to get rid of the elevators.
I used to deliver a little bit of grain in my day. When I first started trucking, a half cent a bushel per mile was what I charged. I don't know if that is the normal rate now. I am not in that business any more and perhaps I am behind the times in that regard. This was the normal rate we charged years ago, and I imagine some of the truckers today charge something like that, or probably a progressively bigger rate. But a farmer may have to deliver 25 or 30 miles because you must remember that this bill gives authority to get rid of the elevators all the way down the line. That is just one step. The next step is the elimination of the railways, which means the elimination of communities.
This minister asks us to go along with this omnibus bill. There are pages and pages of it. I am not ready at this particular stage to tell the minister that we in the opposition are going to destroy all these communities that he would like to destroy. He has a master plan, or perhaps it is the other minister who obviously has much more power than he has. Mr. Speaker, sometimes there are frictions within cabinet that are not too obvious to many people. But this minister is on the way out. This minister slid in quietly, and the Liberals accepted him. We wished him luck. We thought he was really going to do things for us. But I tell you, Mr. Speaker, this minister is quickly slipping out because he has not got a path into the Prime Minister's office. He has no way by which he can convince the Prime Minister that this bill is what he wants because he does not want it himself. How can he convince the Prime Minister when he is told by the other minister that this is what is necessary? It is the other minister who is making the speeches on the subject.
I have watched the performance

I have had to because this is my business-as I think most of the other members of the House have. Whatever regard we had for him as an individual, we are seeing the erosion of his power by the other minister who is gradually working himself up because the other minister does as the Prime Minister tells him.
Of course, what does the Prime Minister tell him? He told him, quite simply, "Why should I sell your wheat"? Put it in terms like that and anything can happen from there on in. He is not going to sell your wheat because he is not going to give you any more money for the production of that wheat. If in the process we were led to believe that this bill was in our interests, then we would be the first to be accused.
The other day I voted for the invocation of the War Measures Act. I believed this was necessary government action, but after a few days the Prime Minister pointed an accusing finger at the opposition and said, "You voted
with us, so what do you want"? I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I have to be very critical. In fact this is my job as an opposition member, particularly when I see other flaws in this bill. I will vote with the government if I think that is necessary, but the other day the Prime Minister tried to humiliate me for voting with the government. Whenever I think the government is not adopting the right approach, I am going to speak out against it at every opportunity.
What about our rapeseed position? This is a grain that is gradually being accepted in the world market. We are not being told how the government is going to deal with it under this bill, whether storage will be provided or anything like that. The minister has indicated that he is ready to accept certain amendments, but he told us last spring that we were doing a disservice to the country because we objected to the predecessor of this bill. He told us they could not sell any wheat if this legislation was not passed. Protein grading was emphasized. We now find that this is not the story at all.
At that time, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) rose in the House and asked, "Would you be prepared to accept a proposal whereby we agree to introduce protein grading into the existing bill, and from there on in we will argue the difference"? The minister was the first to object to that, because there was more to the legislation than appeared on the surface. His big argument was protein grading, and now all of a sudden we have to swallow this whole bill.
I tell you, Mr. Speaker, the farmers are not as stupid as the minister thinks they are. They know that the minister could have introduced a short bill without any debate in this House, and if that was what they needed that was what they could have had. I give him my word right now that I have the assurance of every one of my colleagues that they would agree to that, and I am sure the other members of the opposition would see the wisdom of that course. But we are not going to sell all these towns down the drain, which is exactly what is intended.
I know how these elevator agents work. I have talked with them. I am sure the minister has occasionally stopped in at elevators and watched some of their operations. Small towns collect perhaps half their taxes from elevators, and if these elevators were eliminated that would mean the end of such towns. In an area such as that which I represent, which depends wholely and solely on such establishments, this bill will write finis to whole communities. Surely, the minister does not want nor expect that. If he wants protein grading, then let him say so and we can argue the other point. But he wants more, and I am not willing to give him more. When the minister from Saskatchewan says he can sell 700 million bushels of grain, good luck to him and to the rest of the farmers. I hope they sell a billion bushels. This would be the greatest thing that ever happened, for the economy though it would mean defeat to some of us. But we must be very careful that this country does not fall headlong because of a one shot deal. Though we sell a billion bushels of grain, we must not lose whole communities in

November 3, 1970

the process and it looks as if this is what the minister is trying to do here.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
In submissions made earlier this year, the elevator companies indicated that they could handle that grain about as cheaply as is possible and as quickly as possible. Though I have reservations myself, the block system has demonstrated to some people that it will work in getting out certain grades of grain. This system is still in its growing stages, but I am willing to give it a try.
I think the minister will agree that the elevator companies must fully co-operate with him. If you are not going to pay the elevator companies, then who are you going to pay? Maybe the treasury of Canada will save $71 million or $72 million if the government is not going to pay these charges in another year. If the system which was recently announced is introduced, it will mean this amount will have to be taken out of the total income of farmers. The hon. member for Assiniboia had better start asking for farm storage payments for grain stored on his own farm because he will have to keep it there. If he does not want to keep it in elevators he is going to have to store it on the farm.
Although there were good and fruitful discussions in committee, Mr. Speaker, because of the ramifications of this measure, I think we must ask the minister to remember that whole communities will be affected. Much as I am unhappy with things that have happened in the past, I am not ready to sell these towns "down the river", if you wish.


An hon. Member:: If you wish.


Stanley James Korchinski: No, your town too, along with mine. It has been going down very rapidly through no fault of ours. I say it is all wrong to set up a central terminal system of elevators under this bill and somebody is going to be hurt in the process. This is a disruption which we cannot allow at this particular time.
I am not happy with what has been happening. If the recent announcement made by the minister from Saskatchewan was his own work, then he should have been handling this bill because it goes along with his line of thought. I am sure our present Minister of Agriculture does not agree with him, but apparently he does not have very much to say about it. He is doing the chores because the Prime Minister says he will either do them or get out of the cabinet. He has to push this bill through or get out, though he disagrees with what is happening. I am sure he does because I can remember a time when he sat three seats away from me here on the opposition side. He was a Social Credit member and when we discussed these things we were in agreement on a lot of them. What has happened to him since then?


Mr. McCleave:: Money.


Stanley James Korchinski: Just for a handful of silver he left us. It is a sad day, Mr. Speaker, when a minister finds
Maternity Leave Act
himself in the position where he does not want to introduce a bill, knowing the consequences of it, but in order to stay in the ministry he has to go along with what has been directed from above.
I call it five o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: It being five o'clock the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, public bills, private bills and notices of motion.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BILLS


[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration of Bill C-6, an act respecting the employment of women in federal jurisdiction before and after childbirth. (As reprinted by order of the House Friday, October 30, 1970)-Mrs. Maclnnis.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: The House is surely aware of the fact that Bill C-6, was reprinted as the result of on an order of this House passed with unanimous consent on October 30. It is the feeling of the Chair that the motion should be put again which shall be done immediately.


Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kingsway) moved: that Bill C-6, respecting the employment of women in federal jurisdiction before and after childbirth be read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
She said: Mr. Speaker, this is the third session in which I have endeavoured to bring this matter to the attention of the House. In previous sessions it has been too far down the list, but this time by the luck of the draw it was more fortunate. Now, thanks to the co-operation of members on both sides of the House it has been possible for the bill to be altered so that I could bring it here for debate this afternoon. I should like to thank all members for their courtesy.
This is a very important issue. The principle of maternity leave has been supported by women's organizations across Canada in growing numbers, and by women who recognize its far-reaching significance. The bill is not as broad as I could wish but under the rules of the House it must be limited to women in employment under federal jurisdiction, that is federal undertakings of various kinds as well as employment covered by the Public Service Employment Act. This matter of providing protection for women through maternity leave is a test of our sincerity. If we are sincere when we proclaim our belief in equality for women in employment, we must do more than concern ourselves merely with equality in wages, hours, working conditions and promotion, important and neces-

November 3, 1970
Maternity Leave Act
sary as these may be. Rather, we must take legislative steps to provide equality of employment where pregnancy is concerned. This is not merely a women's problem. She certainly did not create it by herself. This is not merely an individual's problem. It is a family problem and a community problem, and must be met as such.
[DOT] (5:00p.m.)
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey) is to be congratulated for having recognized this social responsibility by including provisions to deal with the problem of pregnancy in the new white paper on unemployment insurance. I wish to offer him warm congratulations for it as far as it goes, but I would point out that its proposals fall far short of providing complete maternity leave protection. I will return to that a little later. I surely hope the white paper will come through the labour committee unscathed; we have seen what has happened to other white papers in committees, notably to the white paper of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson). We can only hope. This one is running into heavy weather from a number of powerful employer organizations which all believe that motherhood is a very good idea, but not at the expense of the unemployment insurance fund.
In providing protection for women in employment where pregnancy is concerned, we are up against years of basic social organization and assumptions which have built a barrier of discrimination against women in the labour force. According to these traditions, woman's main permanent responsibility is marriage, a family, and taking care of the home. When a woman seeks employment, she is expected at the same time to fulfil her primary responsibilities of home making. Ideally, a woman starting a family has the protection and income of a man to support her during pregnancy, childbirth and early child care. Men are supposed to support their wives and children. Women are supposed to provide care.
Of course, today's facts do not support these suppositions; but myths die slowly-and painfully for women, I may add. Many women today have turned to gainful employment outside the home because their husband's paycheque is insufficient to provide a modern standard of living. Many others are the sole support of their families. It is instructive to note that of all female employees under the Public Service Employment Act, 57.4 per cent have children and 46.3 per cent of these are the sole support of their children. Yet, in spite of these facts, women are treated as though they were temporary accidents in the labour force, and as though, if conditions were sufficiently uncomfortable, they might go away. They are employed in the temporary and lower paid, less skilled positions and are viewed as supplementary employees both by their employers and, I might add, by themselves. Nowhere is this more evident than in the matter of maternity leave in both public and private industry and occupation.
Fortunately, more and more people are coming to realize that women have the right to continue to keep their employment, in the same way as men have that right. The purpose of maternity leave, the purpose of this bill, is to make this right more secure.
Some people argue that providing maternity leave legislation discriminates against some employees in favour of others. Such people, perhaps, do not realize that the Public Service Employment Act now provides special benefits for some of its employees, benefits which are not extended to all. These include: special leave, with full pay for an employee who has a death in the family, a serious illness in the family or a family or household emergency; leave with full pay for military reserve force training, attendance at court, veterans' medical treatment or examination, marriage and paternity leave for the father. Surely, no one could claim that such provisions discriminate against those who do not encounter any one of these emergencies. Why, then, should maternity leave be regarded as any more discriminatory than paternity leave?
The provisions of my bill, Mr. Speaker, are quite simple. They provide for seven weeks leave of absence for a woman before the probable date of her confinement. Should the certificate of her doctor recommend more time than that, it can be given. The same length of time can be granted after her confinement but there is nothing to stop the woman from returning to her employment earlier than that should she desire to do so.
These periods before and after the birth of her child are more flexible than those proposed in the white paper, which gives a straight nine weeks before confinement and six weeks after, a total of 15 weeks. My bill would provide greater attention to the needs of the individual woman concerned. My bill states categorically that an employer shall not dismiss an employee for any reason arising out of her maternity leave absence until, and unless, she has been absent for a period of 16 weeks. There is nothing, of course, in the white paper on unemployment insurance to prevent her dismissal for reasons arising from her pregnancy.
The great value of the unemployment insurance proposals is the fact that during her 15 weeks of absence due to pregnancy the woman will receive two-thirds of her previous earnings. I should very much like to have been able to bring in a similar proposal in this bill, but the rules did not permit me to do so. However, I shall content myself with congratulating the minister and supporting his proposal fully.
My bill has two other very important provisions. The first is that the employee's job shall be held open for her should she wish to return to it after the birth of her child at the end of her maternity leave period. The second is that she shall suffer no loss of her seniority rights because of her absence during the maternity leave period.
These are the terms of my bill, which is in line with the International Labour Organization Convention that was passed in 1919 and revised in 1952. That is a convention which, I should point out, we have been unable to sign in Canada because of our peculiar constitutional set-up and because all our provinces are not yet ready to accept it. It is my hope that the federal government, as the largest single employer of labour in this country, will adopt this bill, or at the very least, send its subject matter to the
[Mrs. Maclnnis.l
November 3, 1970

Standing Committee on National Health and Welfare for study. I hope that this bill will not be sent to the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. I think the Standing Committee on National Health and Welfare could more appropriately deal with it. I really feel that the time is right for this bill to be sent to that committee.
The federal government should, in my opinion, act as a model for other employers in this regard. Up to this point, only two provinces, British Columbia and New Brunswick, have maternity leave legislation of any kind on their statute books. In private industry only a small fraction of employees are covered by any sort of maternity leave legislation. Of course, when I say that, it will be obvious that Canada lags far behind many countries in this regard. A survey carried out by the federal Department of Labour in 1967 mentioned such countries as France, Britain, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand.
The proposals of this bill represent a considerable advance from the situation now existing in federal government legislation. I should like to reiterate that the bill does not propose merely to cover employees under the Public Service Employment Act. This is a broader proposal than that. It proposes to cover women whose employment comes under federal jurisdiction which means, of course, that the employment need not only be under the Public Service Employment Act; it may also be connected with all forms of federal works, undertakings or enterprises such as transportation, communications, banking, etc. Therefore, it is a much broader bill than the present legislation, and covers more. As I say, the proposals of this bill represent a considerable advance from the situation now existing in federal government legislation. Employees covered by the Public Service Employment Act are allowed to take time off for pregnancy, but they receive no pay during their period of absence. This may be an improvement over being fired outright when they become pregnant, but this unjust condition still exists in many areas of Canadian employment. For example, there was the recent case in Ottawa where the Public Library fired a woman for pregnancy. Being forced to take time off without pay is really being punished for being a woman; it is being punished for becoming pregnant. I cannot see it in any other light. At the very time when the economic needs of a woman are increasing, she is forced to leave her job.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
The present situation in the federal service is that an employee must resign at least two months before the birth of her child unless a medical certificate is provided or the agreement of the department concerned is obtained to permit the woman to continue working. The employee must return to work within six months of the birth of her child. This leave is granted without pay. During this time the woman is required to pay both her own share and that of the government toward her superannuation and medical insurance plans. It is hard to believe that this situation exists in our Public Service Employment Act. It is manifestly unjust at the time a woman is laid off that she should have to continue to pay
Maternity Leave Act
both her share and that of the government toward both superannuation and medical insurance plans.
My bill is necessarily limited to cover women whose employment comes under federal jurisdiction. Of all persons under federal jurisdiction 26.5 per cent are women. It is estimated that 36 per cent of these women are between the ages of 20 and 34, which can be roughly classified as the child-bearing years. As far as I can understand this is how they are classified by the Women's Bureau.
In the general work force the participation of women of child-bearing age is increasing. This was shown by a report issued in the last day or two. It is, therefore, entirely likely that such is also the case in those positions under federal jurisdiction.
Thousands of women today have to face the double job of looking after a family and holding a position outside of the home. It might be better if such were not the case. I have no doubt that if they could find alternative sources of income such as a husband, some kind of family allowance or a guaranteed income, many of these women would not be in the labour market. Those who are forced to be there are having a difficult time making their way against customs and social organization which no longer fit in with today's needs and realities.
We, as Members of Parliament, should be doing all that we can to place these women in a position of greater equality to enable them to carry their double burden. After all, it is not their burden alone, but the burden of society. I urge the government to look carefully at these proposals with a view to adopting them or similar proposals to provide adequate maternity leave protection for women employed under federal jurisdiction. If the government is not prepared to do this, then, the least it should do is to have a committee thoroughly study and make recommendations on maternity leave. The time is now ripe, particularly in view of the fact that pregnancy is covered under the Unemployment Insurance Act. The very least we can do is to refer the subject of this bill to the Standing Committee on National Health and Welfare for study and report.


Mr. Jack Cullen (Sarnia-Lamblon):: Mr. Speaker, it is incumbent upon me to congratulate the hon. member on presenting this bill. I think the male members of this House can also take a pat on the back because we saw fit to leave this bill in its place of priority, notwithstanding the offending section, and allowed the hon. member to delete this section so that the matter could be debated this afternoon.
The attitude concerning women in the work force has undergone considerable change, particularly in the past 10 or 20 years. May I be so bold as to suggest that this change in attitude has been healthy? It is interesting to note that we have moved from ridiculing the suffragette to the present position where a royal commission has been appointed to study the status of women. It is, therefore not surprising that a Member of Parliament should be introducing or suggesting the kind of legislation we are debating today.

November 3, 1970
Maternity Leave Act
We were not taken completely by surprise when the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey) in his white paper entitled, "Unemployment insurance in the 70's" saw fit to suggest that payments be made to those whose income has been interrupted due to sickness or pregnancy. Although it is not surprising that such a provision is contained in the white paper of the Department of Labour, those of us who sit as members of the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration have found that there is a considerable amount of opposition to have included in the unemployment insurance plan such a benefit for pregnant women. The mover of this bill indicated that she is concerned about what is going on and made reference to other white papers. I suggest with respect that she should also consider the white paper on veterans' legislation that was studied by the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs to see how much stronger that particular white paper was when the committee was finished their study of it. I do not think very many members of that committee were sidetracked from this very good recommended legislation. Paragraph 4 on page 10 of the White Paper "Unemployment insurance in the 70's" reads:
In order to fill the gaps in the present system, payments will be made to those whose income has been interrupted due to sickness or pregnancy. In both cases benefits will cover a fifteen week period and will be available to anyone whose earnings cease due to pregnancy or sickness and who has been in the labour force twenty weeks or more during the previous 52 weeks.
As all members are aware, under the present act pregnant women are presently disqualified for benefits six weeks prior and after confinement. The plan to cover income lost due to pregnancy recognizes the particular status of women in the labour force. It is a step toward eliminating some of the hardships they experience, as outlined by the mover of this bill.
I believe it was two days ago when all members received a copy of the news bulletin from the Canada Department of Labour. The bulletin indicates that the Women's Bureau of the Canada Department of Labour has released a new publication entitled, "Facts and Figures: Women in the Labour Force 1969". It then states:
Data contained in the publication shows that 35.2 per cent of Canadian women were in the labour force in 1969 compared with 26.7 per cent in 1959. During 1969, of the total labour force, 32.2 per cent consisted of women, compared with 25.7 per cent in 1959.
It is also stressed in the white paper on unemployment insurance that in the case of both pregnancy and sickness the proposed scheme will not replace existing public or private programs in this field, but will complement them within specific limits. I mentioned to the Minister of Labour this morning that if we cannot have an over-all guaranteed income for the most significant portion of the Canadian population, the work force, that maybe here at least we can look toward a guaranteed annual income. We must walk before we run. I think this is a move in the right direction.
The government has of course recognized that there are many women who are covered under private and public programs and in fact are probably well covered,
but I venture to say that the vast majority of women in the work force who become pregnant are not covered under any present federal legislation. This is certainly true of the over-all work force. I suggest it is particularly true of women in the work force.
As the hon. member indicated, steps along this line have been taken by various provinces. Unfortunately, time does not permit me to go into the statutes of each province, but I have noted that under the Minimum Employment Standards Act of New Brunswick there is a clause which reads:
An employer shall not employ or keep in employ a female employee during a period of six weeks from the time of being delivered of a child or a longer period on production of a medical certificate.
Section 12 reads:
An employer shall permit a pregnant female employee to be absent from her work for a period of up to six weeks before her time of delivery on production of a medical certificate stating her delivery will probably take place within six weeks.
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
And in clause 13, it is provided that-
Where a female is absent from her work in accordance with sections 11 and 12, her employer shall not give notice of dismissal for reasons arising from her absence until the employee has been absent for a maximum period of 16 weeks.
The enlightened province of British Columbia has passed a bill entitled "An Act Respecting the Employment of Women before and after Childbirth". This bill became law on April 1, 1966. The wording of the British Columbia statute is very close to the wording used in Bill C-6, and no doubt the hon. member has used these forms as her precedent. In my own province, the Province of Ontario, there exists an act entitled "An Act to Prevent Discrimination in Employment because of Sex or Marital Status". Although the bill received Royal Assent on June 26, 1970 it is not yet in force, although it will be in force on the day proclaimed by the Lieutenant Governor. This statute, in section 9, advises that:
An employer shall not terminate the employment of an employee because of her pregnancy but the employer, before or after the commencement of the period referred to in subsection 2, may require the employee to commence a leave of absence at such time as the duties of her position cannot reasonably be performed by a pregnant woman or the performance of the employee's work is materially affected by the pregnancy.
I would hate to be the civil servant who had to make that particular determination.
The statute of the Province of Ontario has one further section to give some protection to the employer in that it advises that the section does not apply in respect of an employer unless he employs 25 or more employees. To this extent, it seems to me there is a measure of discrimination involved.
Hon. members may wonder why I am interested in this particular area. First, I would say my interest was aroused by the government's white paper entitled "Unemployment Insurance in the 70's." I noted that it is the intention of this government that since under the

November 3, 1970

present act pregnant women are generally disqualified for benefits six weeks before and after confinement, the unemployment insurance scheme for the 'seventies should fill that gap and authorize payment to those whose income had been interrupted due to sickness and/or pregnancy. Realizing that the government had this intention, I examined the statute, together with the bill presented earlier by the hon. member, Bill C-160, I believe, in the second session of the 28th Parliament. I also read a booklet prepared by the Canadian Department of Labour, entitled "Maternity Leave Policies". The book states, on page one:
Maternity leave linked with security of employment is a relatively new addition in most provinces to the expanding list of employment benefits in Canada.
As yet, as I have indicated, it is the subject of legislation in only two provinces-British Columbia, where the original Maternity Protection Act dates from 1921, and New Brunswick which added legislation on this subject to provincial labour standards requirements in 1964. Its growing acceptance is no doubt related to the steady increase in the participation of married women in the work force which we have experienced particularly in the last decade. Although much of this increase is due to the return of married women to employment when their children reach school age, between 1957 and 1967 the participation rate of women of childbearing age rose from 47 per cent to 57 per cent in the 20-24 age group and from 26 per cent to 34 per cent in the 25-34 age group. The report makes it clear that an attempt was being made to give a descriptive summary of the results without attempting to draw conclusions, and concedes that a number of areas which might warrant more probing in depth had been revealed. In my view, the bill now before us is indicative that the conclusion is warranted by the statistics presented in this booklet. I
I was interested to note that although, according to the report, "The most important provision required as a condition of eligibility for maternity leave is length of service with the employer", the hon. member's bill is silent on this aspect. The government's proposition is that in a pregnancy situation benefits will cover a 15 week period and will be available to anyone whose earnings cease through pregnancy or sickness, and who has been in the labour force for 20 weeks or more during the previous 52 weeks. If this bill were to be voted on today, I submit the hon. member might wish to give it more credibility by placing some similar requirement in her own bill. It is perhaps understandable that the hon. member should not include such a clause in her bill, because the report by the Department of Labour states, and I quote:
The length of service required for eligibility varies not only between industry groups but within the industry group and between office and non-office employees, so that no clear pattern emerges. A majority of office employees in ten industry groups are required to have three to six months prior service, and in seven industry groups from seven to twelve months service. For non-office employees the period required tends to be shorter. In all but three industry groups a majority of non-office employees must have six months service or less and in half of these the requirement is three months. There does not appear to be any relationship between the length of service required and the size
Maternity Leave Act
of the reporting unit or the presence or absence of a collective agreement.
Mr. Speaker, I think I have covered the points I wish to examine. I wish to congratulate the hon. member for having brought this bill forward. I would have welcomed a few more statistics as to the number of women likely to be covered by legislation of this kind, but no doubt other speakers will deal with this aspect.


Robert Jardine McCleave: First of all,
I should like to support the principle of this bill. Second,
I should like to assure the hon. sponsor that I do not do so from any Victorian attitude. I suspect the hon. member who preceded me did, because it seemed me there lurked within the framework of his speech the awful notion that somewhere, somehow, a dewy-eyed young lady would present herself for work and, having duly registered for employment, would declare her pregnancy to the company doctor. This seemed to be a possibility which in itself was enough to cause grave doubts as to the virtue of the bill.
I see no problem about this at all. The woman is very much a part of the working force today, and the woman carries with her the possibility of pregnancy. So, may I say to the hon. lady who is sponsoring this bill that when she looks down her nose at the possibility that it might wind up before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee she might be far better off in my tender embraces than she would in the embraces of some hon. members opposite who help constitute the Committee on Manpower and Immigration. I think the justice committee, especially the Tory members thereof, could do her a great deal more justice.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
Mr. Speaker, we should never fall into the school of thought that the last speaker mentioned where, as in New Brunswick, you can do one of two things to obtain your desserts under the legislation. As I understood his reading of the act, you can produce a child or you can produce a medical certificate. I would suggest to our colleague that she should bring her measure before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, where we would clearly have that matter straightened out.


Winona Grace MacInnis: Hear, hear!


Robert Jardine McCleave: I am glad to hear that she agrees with me. I do not know why we should have this God-awful emphasis placed upon statistics in respect of this problem. Whether it happens to 1 per cent of the female working population, or 99 per cent, surely is not the reason for this Parliament to take action: the fact that it happens at all-and this is one of the very natural things that will happen to a woman employee-should be sufficient reason for it to engage our attention. It is not the extent of the problem as it affects womenkind as a group that is important. The effect this has upon any woman who is working and finds herself in this position should

November 3, 1970
Maternity Leave Act
define the direction in which our hearts and heads should lead us.
Perhaps it is strange that I, as a mere male, am discussing this matter but once in a while I trespass in somewhat trembling fashion into these problems. The other day I tried to strike a blow for a nursing mother who, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail, had been deprived of certain rights by the Unemployment Insurance Commission. It turned out that the Globe and Mail report was incorrect and that the problem had been rectified. That fact was not reported in the Globe and Mail. I think it was not reported because I once had the temerity to stand up in the House of Commons, surveying that vast brood known as the editorial board of the Toronto Globe and Mail, and state I thought they had solved their housing problem very neatly because every two of them required only one seat in the editorial room. Ever since that deep criticism I have been put on the black-list of that noble publication.
Be that as it may, Sir, I support my colleague from the NDP in her endeavour to bring before us a very sensible point of view. It is one that can be referred to a committee of the House of Commons. In principle we are not being asked to accept everything, holus-bolus, that is set forth in her bill. That is no longer the purpose of second reading. We do not have to accept everything in principle; we simply say it is a matter that we should at least refer to a committee for study and consideration. Let the committee look at it, make changes and report back. When we see that product we will decide whether we accept it in principle. That is what we now do on second reading. It is not what we did before.
If there are imperfections in the way the bill is drafted-and I for one would niggle about some of its language-I would not say that was an imperfection. I simply say as a lawyer, and I am sure any other lawyer in the House would agree, that no two people would ever draft a bill in the same way. The bill is there, with reasonable certainty and clarity, and the important thing is that it catches a principle which could be put into the law of this country. The principle is that a woman should not be penalized for what women very naturally do. Women, very naturally, do have children from time to time. Quite apart from the element of statistics-and I would never approve or disapprove a bill like this because there was an overwhelming statistical or no statistical need for it-I say that we should look at its principle. I would not accept a statistical argument in any way, shape or form as a reason for approving legislation.
During the last 30 or 40 years more and more women have joined the labour force. I am sure that employers would tell us that you could not find any greater degree of loyalty, efficiency and job stability among employees than you find among females. Therefore, they should not be penalized in any way. We should not take from them their given right to have children and to carry on the race. I hope that not only this matter will be referred to the committee but that in addition to the two provinces
which already have legislation in this field, the new women's division which is playing a great part in the Department of Labour will initiate action through the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey) so there is more action at the provincial level and a sort of standard provision dealing with this important right at the federal level.
My final thought on the subject is that the Bird Royal Commission has not yet been heard from. Presumably it will report during this session. I think the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) expressed the hope last June that these ladies would put their views before us soon. I hope this will occur very shortly. I do not think we have to hold up this measure until we receive that report. It could go to the committee, and in due course when the Bird Royal Commission makes recommendations they could be sent to a committee where this very important topic could be discussed. In any event, this subject should be dealt with by a committee on its merits and a report sent back to the House. In short, I support the idea and suggest that we should not wait for months but should get on with it right now.


Mr. Ray Perrault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the director of the women's bureau of the Canada Department of Labour delivered a speech to the Women's Canadian Club in Toronto the other day. It was a very good speech. The lady's name, of course, is Sylvia Gelber. She asked the question, "What do women want?" She answered her own rhetorical question in the words of the report of a task force on women's rights and responsibilities submitted to the President of the United States a few months ago. Her answer was, "A matter of simple justice". It seems to me that is what we are talking about when we talk about the need for a maternity leave policy in Canada. It is a matter of simple justice, and perhaps overdue justice.
For ten years in Canada women have had the statutory assurance that within the federal jurisdiction there will be no discrimination on grounds of sex in connection with the right of the individual to equality before the law, a principle embodied in the Canadian Bill of Rights. For the past ten years efforts have been made to give meaning and substance to these technical statutory guarantees under the Canadian Bill of Rights. It is painfully clear-this fact has been pointed out by speakers in this debate and on many other occasions by spokesmen of all parties in all parts of Canada-that women do not enjoy full equality before the law and that there is not equality for them in many other areas of activity in this country.
In the area of justice, it is hoped that when the new law reform commission is established and operating, the women of Canada will have the opportunity to bring to its attention certain of the present sections of the law relating to women which might well be re-designed, if not eliminated. This is progress. But progress certainly cannot stop there, as has been pointed out by hon. members who have spoken on this bill which has been brought before the House this afternoon.

November 3, 1970

[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
There are certain sections of the law in Canada which still reflect the attitudes of another era, an era in which it was assumed that all married women were wholly dependent upon and supported by their husbands, and problems relating to the responsibility for surviving dependents were viewed as problems solely affecting the male provider. Times have changed, and changed dramatically. I know that during election time when we go door-to-door in the process of canvassing our respective constituencies, so often we find there is no housewife at the door. She is out working, trying to earn money to put food on the family table.
I am sure hon. members realize full well the dramatic differences between the Canada of today and the Canada of 25 years ago. There are in this country today several hundred thousand women who are the sole supporters of their families. Some of these women are widows, others have been deserted, others have been divorced and thousands are married women who must work because their husbands are unable to secure enough income to provide a decent standard of living for the family. This is the situation we are talking about.
Today more than one out of every three women is in the Canadian labour force. There are now in Canada 2.5 million women employed. This represents one million more than there were 10 years ago. More than half of these women are married. In other words, of the 2.5 million women employed, more than half are married. There are 1J million married women in the Canadian labour force. In 1951, 11 per cent of all married women went out to work. This figure has now risen to over 30 per cent, and all of the analyses available to the government indicate that this trend will continue and that there will be an even higher percentage in the future.
All of us should bear in mind the following figures. In August of 1970 the total Canadian labour force was 8,720,000. The total number of women 14 years of age or over was 7,601,000. The number of women in the labour force was 2,733,000, 36 per cent of the total population of women or 31.3 per cent of the total labour force. This is an incredible figure. Not only is it significant from the sociological standpoint, but we see increasingly the importance of women in Canada's general drive toward greater productivity. The GNP in very large measure is the result of the work of women in the labour force.
Let us compare these figures with the figures for 1931. The total labour force then was 3,921,833. The total number of women in Canada 14 years of age or over was 3,481,089. The total number of women in the labour force was 665,302, 19.1 per cent of the total population of women or 17 per cent of the total labour force. So we have seen an increase between 1931 and 1970 from 17 per cent of the total labour force to 31.3 per cent of the total labour force. Against this background it seems clear that legislative standards governing maternity leave are both necessary and desirable. The government in no way quarrels with this concept. Against this background it seems equally clear that other legislative reforms are needed to assist the women in Canada's work force.
Maternity Leave Act
The White Paper with the "golden cover", entitled "Unemployment Insurance in the 70s", is a remarkable document and deserves to be given far greater publicity by all members of the House. It is perhaps one of the most advanced documents relating to social legislation to come before Canada's Parliament. This document states with validity:
The rewards of economic growth should be directed not only toward the individuals who have had the opportunity for a good education, a well-paid job, a two-car garage and a home in the country... They are also for the widow or divorcee working long hours.
I think it should be added that society's concern must be extended to those who have been cruelly deserted and to those married women living on the economic margin. We talk a great deal about the just society. Indeed, this goal should be the object of all our activities in the House. In a truly just society the rewards of economic growth cannot, and must not, be denied to those married women who because of economic circumstances must go out to work in order to put food on the table and help raise their families in human dignity.
This country and the party which the people of this country chose to be the government in 1968 have built a remarkable record of social legislation, and there are those in other parties who are similarly concerned about the need for improved social legislation. No one claims a monopoly of interest in that field. Much of this reform has taken place over the past 35 years. That legislation has been geared to meet a whole spectrum of human needs. Despite this good legislation, the need for reform continues.
One area of need has been outlined today by the sponsor of this bill and by others who have participated in the debate. It must be obvious that a need for maternity leave exists, particularly in view of the increasing numbers and importance of women in Canada's work force. For anyone to suggest that the government and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackasey) hold a contrary view, represents a distortion of fact. Surely no one in this House would ever attempt to distort facts. The Minister of Labour has distinguished himself as a strong supporter of women's rights, including maternity rights. The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) may have been in the House on November 25, 1968, when the minister said:
The idea of maternity leave is certainly not an original one. It makes sense and it should at least be part of the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act, if nothing else, when unemployment insurance comes up for drastic overhaul early in the new year.
This document "Unemployment Insurance in the 70's" reflects the real concern by the government of the need for action in this area. Admittedly, it talks in terms of compensation during the period of pregnancy, but it must be obvious that the two concepts of maternity leave and compensation during a period of maternity must go hand in hand. I want to assure this House that the government's and the minister's determination is still to correct

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Maternity Leave Act
at the earliest feasible opportunity the injustice of women facing possible loss of employment because of pregnancy. As one speaker stated, maternity is a perfectly natural and, indeed, in so far as the future of this country is concerned, desirable phenomenon.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)
Let no one make the erroneous assumption that the problem of maternity leave has been tucked away in some governmental cubbyhole. Hopefully, the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women will be tabled in the House next month. I think we will all welcome the tabling of that report by Mrs. Bird and the other commissioners. It may well be that this document will contain explicit recommendations not only for maternity leave but for other benefits associated with maternity leave. It may contain recommendations for new measures which would provide maternity leave as a matter of right for women employed in industries under federal jurisdiction. It can be argued that any action which the government may contemplate in the area of maternity leave should await that report. I think there is some logic in that position. As well, there may well be other recommendations contained in the Bird Commission Report which should be included in some wide-ranging, omnibus measure.
Let me reiterate one salient fact: there is strong and enthusiastic support on this side of the House for new measures which will be more favourable to the female labour force in this country. When this measure is brought forward by the government in whatever form it takes, it is encouraging to know the degree of support which exists in this House, not only on the part of government members but also on the part of the official opposition and members of the NDP.
In this regard I would remind hon. members that the proposed changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act will provide substantial new benefits for the women of this country. Under the act as it stands now, a sick person receives no benefit unless he or she becomes sick after entering the benefit structure. If pregnant, a woman is now generally disqualified for six weeks before and six weeks after the birth of her child. Personally, I find that kind of regulation indefensible. In the context of today's social situation, this denial of benefits to employees who become sick or pregnant is indefensible. Both sickness and pregnancy are natural phenomena. I
I am sure that even opposition members will embrace with enthusiasm the proposal of the Minister of Labour that these anomalies be removed. The working women of Canada must be provided with benefits based upon a realistic appraisal of what their particular interruption of earnings means in the context of the work force of today. It has been pointed out by others who have discussed this point that when we adopt the concept of maternity leave we will not be wild-eyed revolutionaries in the process, that many other jurisdictions moved long ago to help women faced with this particular problem.
[Mr. Perrault.l
Under the proposed changes set forth in the unemployment insurance white paper, which goes hand in hand with the idea of maternity leave, if a woman has had 20 or more employment weeks in the previous 52 she will be entitled to UIC benefits nine weeks before and six weeks after her confinement, after a two-week waiting period. When we are thinking in terms of planning new legislation to bring into force a program of maternity leave, we should keep in mind these limits. There should be a standard relationship between UIC benefits and maternity leave benefits.
In the white paper entitled "Unemployment in the 70s" it is proposed that provision be made for the payment of benefits in the event of unemployment due to maternity. Financial benefits totalling two-thirds of earnings will be available, after a two-week waiting period, to women with 20 or more employment weeks in the previous 52 weeks and whose loss of income is due to pregnancy. Generally, the benefits will be available for a period of six weeks after confinement and nine weeks before. Similarly, there are many persuasive reasons why employers should be required in defined circumstances to reinstate them following leave and to protect their continuity of service for purposes of pensions and other employee benefits.
I agree with my colleague who spoke earlier that the limits should be defined and that rules and regulations should be provided. My colleague made a very valid point when he said that reference should also be made to the type of work which is available after maternity leave. If an employer proposes to provide employment after the leave has expired, but it is not the same type of employment, that is a very important factor. No one will dispute the fact that the period of eligibility for maternity leave should be long enough to embrace normal periods of probation, the period that a new employee must complete before achieving permanent status. These periods vary from employer to employer, but one to three months is common for non-office workers, and up to six months for office workers.
Surely, the period of eligibility should be long enough to counteract any tendency on the part of employers to introduce undesirable hiring practices such as requirement for a pregnancy test-this has been suggested as one of the stratagems which could conceivably be employed-which would suggest a minimum of at least nine months. Together with my colleagues on this side of the House I have no difficulty whatsoever in supporting the principle contained in this bill. It is a good principle. I am happy to see the official opposition joining the government in the desire to see reform in this area.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hour for the consideration of private members' business having expired, I do now leave the chair to resume same at eight o'clock p.m.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
November 3, 1970



COMMONS DEBATES AFTER RECESS

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Olson that Bill C-175, respecting grain, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
Mr. Rod Thomson (Ballleford-Kindersley):: Mr. Speaker, we in this party favour the reintroduction of Bill C-196 as it was known, or Bill C-175 as it is now known, at the level at which it was last dealt with by the House. Certainly, we do not think it is necessary to return it to committee. We feel the bill does some good and essential things. For example, we feel it provides for the protein grading of wheat so that importing nations and the markets of the world will be in a position to purchase Canadian grain on a guaranteed protein basis. This is a good thing. The bill also provides for mixing at terminals or, if you will, tailor-making samples of grain for export. This will have some advantages: one is that we will be able to mix grain to the order of the buyer.
We on this side of the House, and I think most farmers, have long argued that something more specific should be done in the directing of boxcars on the Prairies. This has been a complaint for as long as I have been farming, and certainly for some time before that. I think these three aspects of the bill should have been introduced at least ten years ago. I recall that when I was a wheat pool delegate in the 1950s, farmers, wheat pool delegates and farm organization people were talking about them then. I only wonder why it has taken so long to get them before Parliament and passed in this form.
The important issue to be remembered when dealing with this bill is the selling of grain. Getting markets for our grain has always been a problem for as long as I have been farming, and we must be alive to changes in the markets. Too often we have been complacent. We have accepted the fact that our wheat and other grains were the best in the world and expected buyers to come to us. This is no longer true. Now we are in a buyer's market and we must do something if we are to sell our grain in competition with other countries.
I would like to mention just a few items which illustrate what I mean. A new milling process is being used to turn wheat into flour. It is known as the Chorley process and it requires a specific protein level of wheat. Bread can be made with a lower level of protein, but there must be a certain consistency to that level so the miller will not encounter difficulties. As I say, this bill would allow us to sell grain on a guaranteed protein basis.
Canada Grain Bill
Another matter I wish to mention is that other countries have been experiencing problems in agriculture, particularly with respect to agricultural trade. Some of them have been introducing tariff changes which may work against us. I wish to quote from a news clipping headed "Canada's wheat problems with U.K. begin." It reads in part:
The British budget brought down last week signalled export problems for Canadian wheat much sooner than anyone here had expected.
The budget indicated that the British government plans to start protecting its farmers with tariff walls even before it joins the European Economic Community.
In effect this is going to start now.
Under the present British system, food is imported free, the government pays subsidies to the farmers, and consumers are given the benefit of lower prices.
Under the new scheme, subsidies will be gradually abandoned, and Britain will switch to a system of import levies.
That will make imported food more expensive and allow the British farmer to raise his prices.
The important question now is who will suffer most. Will the British consumer bear the whole cost of the tariff? Or will the Canadian exporter have to accept lower prices in order to maintain his sales to Britain?
It is the reference to the Canadian exporter that I am worried about, because we export grain. If we are not awake to the problem posed by Britain joining the European Common Market, we may completely lose our sales of wheat to Britain, which we cannot afford to do. We have a surplus of grain. Our country's economy depends upon selling this grain. Much of western Canada's welfare depends upon the export of wheat, and we do not want to lose any sales if we can possibly avoid it.
I would like to mention a different matter in connection with this bill. Last summer we held hearings for several weeks in connection with Bill C-196, the Canada Grain Act, and I was very unhappy at the attitude of the grain companies in presenting their briefs to us. I was particularly unhappy with the Canada Grains Council. I felt its members did not give the leadership in this area that they might have done. I speak both in sorrow and in anger. I am sorry they did not give leadership and I am angry because the Canadian taxpayer pays for the Canada Grains Council; he pays $50,000 through the Department of Agriculture and another $50,000 through the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In my opinion, their reaction to the bill was a negative one. I feel we deserve better than that from the Canada Grains Council.
Had the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) expected this reaction, he might have had second thoughts about the people he appointed to the Canada Grains Council. We saw his creation, the Canada Grains Council, making a negative response to his bill. It makes me think of the man who has been bitten by a dog, and the worst part is that it was his own dog. The Canadian taxpayer deserves better than that. The Canada Grains Council has been very disappointing in so far as giving any leadership in this area is concerned. They have ignored the marketing needs of Canadian farmers and grain producers. Their

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Canada Grain Bill
concern has been with their own problems and what is happening to the grain companies, with hardly a thought given to the export market.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
I suggest that this bill is concerned with the export market. I hasten to say that some grain companies had a much better approach to this problem than had the Grains Council, but on the whole I was disappointed with the presentations. The Canada Grains Council should give leadership and bring forward new ideas regarding the problems experienced in regard to western Canadian grain. They should be looking for new and better varieties of grain, for cheaper methods of handling and transportation. They should be looking for future markets, finding out where they are and what kind of grains they need.
The possibilities for trade should be examined from the point of view of credit arrangements. I think there needs to be a shake-up within the council, because I do not think they have the leadership necessary to accomplish these things. The Canada Grains Council should be looking at the shifting emphasis in the market from the primary products of grain to secondary products such as meat. They should investigate the possibilities in the world meat market, and whether it might be worth while developing a market which would provide more employment than the growing of grain. This is just one of many areas that should be investigated.
The Canada Grains Council is a creature of the government, Mr. Speaker, and we should demand that they do better or be fired. The council should consider the value of grain, particularly wheat, for food. Just recently I read in the press that enriched bread was only good enough for rats to starve on. I suggest that whole wheat has much more value than this. If there is something wrong with the bread, it is because something is taken out of the wheat to start with, because wheat is rich in vitamins, minerals, protein and starch. As a country of grain producers we should be looking for improved foods and new uses for our wheat. Within the terms of this bill there may be room for such investigation.
We do not wish to belabour the point, Mr. Speaker. As we have said on a number of occasions, we are in favour of the bill and feel that it should be dealt with now. Therefore, we are quite prepared to support it.


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I think it could be expected that the member representing the constituency which includes the wheat city of the west, the city of Brandon, would be concerned with the implications of Bill C-175 as it has come before the House. I followed the debate during the course of the afternoon and was glad to learn that the minister has modified his position considerably since this measure was first introduced during the last session as Bill C-196.
Within the limitations of time available today I have re-read the debate on that occasion. The minister's emphasis at that time was on the necessity for haste because fundamental amendments to the Canada Grain
Act were of the utmost importance if we were to deal with the problem that had reached crisis proportions by last spring, namely, the difficulty caused by the drastic drop in wheat sales in particular and grain sales in general. As was pointed out by the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Korchinski) who spoke for the official opposition, the minister was on a slightly different wicket today. The thesis previously propounded by the minister was that the grain export situation depended upon the quick passage of the bill. That thesis no longer holds water.
As I remarked earlier, as the representative of a constituency still closely tied to grain for its continued prosperity, I feel it is of the utmost importance that the contents of this bill be examined carefully and in detail. This is the first time since 1930 that any major amendments have been made to the Canada Grain Act. The general state of the Prairie economy demonstrates that wheat is still king in the maintenance of prosperity. The situation which has developed over the past two years, the growing spirit of western alienation, has largely arisen from the fact that this government has been completely out of touch with the fundamental position of wheat in the well-being of the Prairie economy. Policies have been initiated that are incomprehensible to most Prairie farmers and producers.
I have attended many meetings where various attempts have been made to grapple with the growing crisis in the grain trade. Last spring I attended several meetings in connection with the Lift program, the Lower Inventory for Tomorrow program as it was described by the government, and the Lower Income for Tomorrow program as it was dubbed by the unhappy farmers.
At that time the criticism was that the federal government, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson), and the minister from Saskatchewan responsible for the Wheat Board had failed to appreciate that Lift would do nothing to solve the grain problem; in fact, in the long run it would aggravate it. This has been demonstrated recently by the report of increased grain sales with the reopening of the market in mainland China and the prospects of substantial sales of grain, primarily wheat, to the Soviet Union. Indeed, we find that the government so badly miscalculated in connection with the Lift program that perhaps by creating an artificial crop failure, or a government-directed crop failure as it is described by the farmers, we have placed our future sales position and prospects in jeopardy.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)
Therefore, I would urge very strongly, Mr. Speaker, that instead of acceding to the minister's request to reinstate the bill before the House at the level it had reached in the previous Parliament, we move very carefully and cautiously in order that we may make a fundamental revision of the Canada Grain Act and deal with the critical problems of our grain industry. It has been demonstrated by the changes that have taken place in the last few months that there is no need for haste. Exports are opening up, notwithstanding our dealing or not dealing with the matter of protein content. Therefore,

November 3, 1970

from that standpoint there is no excuse for hasty action on the bill.
There is before us at second reading stage a bill that is a rather complex and weighty document. I do not intend to go into detail with respect to particular items except to point out to the minister and the government that the enlarged powers to be given to the Canadian Grain Commission, which will be its new designation, should be carefully reviewed. The previous speaker criticized the reservations of the Canada Grains Council in this respect. But that is not the only representative body of the grain producers which has expressed reservations concerning the powers that are to be given under the revisions to the Canadian Grain Commission. Some of the leading publications representing the farmers of the province of Manitoba, for example, have expressed the same anxiety. The Manitoba Co-operator, a paper that followed closely the discussions that took place in committee and in Parliament with respect to Bill C-196, said as recently as last June 25:
It is equally apparent that if Bill C-196 is delayed until the next session of Parliament that the Conservative opposition will be charged with being obstructionists. The government will say that Canada's ability to compete in the world wheat market has been damaged by the delay caused by the opposition. That, of course, is patently false, since as we have said, the matter of protein grading could be dealt with promptly, and with the full blessing of the opposition, if so many other strings had not been attached to the bundle.
One of the strings that has been attached to the bundle in this impressively large bill is the new powers that will be given to the Canadian Grain Commission which is replacing the old Board of Grain Commissioners. We shall need to consider under the terms of the legislation the whole question of the transportation of grain to export markets. Apparently, the entire problem of box car allocation is to be dealt with in the bill before us. In other words, it would appear that the legislation will provide the legislative basis for the block system which is already operating on the Prairies on an experimental basis. It appears that the bill will empower the Canadian Grain Commission to become the authority in the matter of the transport of grains.
In the latter part of the 1950s and the early part of the 1960s, when grain exports increased at a tremendous rate under the then Conservative government and the problem of providing or allocating boxcars at the right place and at the right time in order to bring out the required quantities and grades of wheat that were urgently required or the export market grew enormously, it became necessary to appoint a transport controller. This ad hoc provision of course was quite inadequate to deal with the upsurge of grain sales in the last few years. There was some delay in appointing a transportation controller, the result being that we suffered some unfortunate tie-ups both at Thunder Bay and at the western ports. It appears that the placing of this authority in the Canadian Grain Commission, under this legislation, will be a step in the right direction in this regard. Again, since these matters are fundamental there should be no haste in coming to definitive conclusions about them until there has been an opportunity to hear from all the
Canada Grain Bill
representative groups engaged in the grains export industry.
One of the problems of our grain trade arises from its dependence upon the export market for its prosperity. The very fact that the export market is a fluctuating and difficult market to maintain is all the more reason for our having the best possible legislative framework for dealing with this matter. Fundamentally, Mr. Speaker, the bill is catching up on the years of neglect on the part of Canadian governments. The minister has made the point that there is a great and growing need for a new grading system of grain that will emphasize its protein content. Canada is one of the last major grain exporting countries to bring its legislation up-to-date in this regard. Australia and the United States have already provided the legislative procedures for this difficult problem.
In dealing with the problem of the protein content of wheat, we are merely dealing with a sympton of the over-all difficulties and not with a cure-all that will solve all the problems of the grain trade. For example, one of the major difficulties in the Canadian wheat and grain trade stems from our failure to upgrade the yields of wheat. This difficulty has arisen because of our failure to cope with improved technologies. There will be fundamental changes in the grain trade during the next few years because of the new varieties of grain that are being developed, particularly as a result of experiments that are going on in Mexico under the direction of Dr. Bor-laug, who has been the director of the Ford Foundation research in that country for the past 20 years.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
It is interesting to note that among the Nobel Peace Prize winners announced this year was the name of Dr. Borlaug for his breakthrough in dwarf wheats. This is the first time that an agronomist has been recognized by this award. It indicates the vital nature of work that has been going on in that country under the direction of that distinguished American who, incidentally, is strongly supported by Canadian researchers. One of the chief researchers for those programs is Dr. Frank Zillinsky, formerly with the Canadian Experimental Farm service. These are matters that have to be discussed when the legislation is before the committee. The more time and opportunity we have to grapple with all the complex phases of the industry, the more effective the new legislative framework will be.
Those of us who are concerned with the continuing problems of the grain trade agree that we should concentrate on the problems of selling grain as much as growing and distributing it. It has been demonstrated that the sales are there if the Wheat Board, on behalf of the government, carries out an aggressive sales program. There have been announcements regarding the sale of substantial amounts of wheat, for example, to mainland China amounting to approximately 98 million bushels. We are not sure about the price of the wheat that is involved. It is suspected that it is at the level of fire sale prices. If this is so, it will not solve the problem of the wheat grower. After two years of drastic decline in sales

November 3, 1970
Canada Grain Bill
he is faced with accumulated debts of cash advances and all the other sources of credit that have been made available. In order to recover his financial position, he will require an extended period of time with the maximum price for his grain.
There have been rumours to the effect that there has been a miscalculation in the demand for barley, so much so that it has been placed under export embargo. As it has been euphemistically explained, it is not an embargo on exports but, rather, a refusal on the part of the Wheat Board to receive any further export orders for barley. This is another way of saying precisely the same thing. I mention these matters at this stage of the discussion merely to point out that what we are grappling with in Bill C-175 will have a tremendous impact on the continuing progress and future health of the grain industry in Canada. This industry is fundamental to the prosperity of the Canadian Prairies.
The fear so often expressed at the various public meetings to which I have referred was this. There is a strong suspicion that behind this bill, as well as some of the other initiatives in agricultural legislation that have been put forward by the government in recent months, the government is attempting to deal indirectly rather than directly with the continuing problem of railway line abandonment on the Prairies. The question of railway line abandonment or continuation is intimately bound up in the whole stituation of the grain trade on the Prairies, involving the transportation facilities, the collection of the grain and the eventual transfer to export positions. We know that there has been only a temporary freeze on railway line abandonment for a certain period of time.
Some of the implications of the legislation are that there will be a rationalization of elevator facilities. What the government has in mind in some of its amendments is very closely related to the whole problem of railway line abandonment. This in turn relates to the process that has been going on not only in western Canada but in all rural parts of Canada. There has been a gradual diminution of the role of the rural community with the decline of the rural population. The population shift from the rural to the urban community goes on apace. In recent months much concern has been expressed because of the implications of this continuing shift of population from rural to urban communities.
The major problem area in Canadian society today is in our large complex urban communities-the booming, buzzing confusion of urban life. In this regard the government has not done anything to discourage the trend. Indeed, it has gone along with the trend, particularly with reference to the closing of post offices, our fundamental means of communication. Over the past two years in particular we have seen the ruthless, wholesale closure of rural post offices. In many instances this has meant the failure of community stores in small towns. When the country store goes, that is the end of that rural community as such. Since the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Cote) who is responsible for the Post Office has assumed this responsibility, there has been a change of government policy in this regard. He has declared there will no further elimination of rural post offices until the whole
matter can be reviewed. I suggest that the same thesis applies with respect to further rationalization of country elevators.
Anyone who has experience of the Prairies knows that the dominant characteristic of rural communities on the Prairies is the two or three grain elevators that stand starkly on the horizon. They are fundamental to the economic life of rural areas of the Prairies. They are also a very integral part of the whole problem of the decline of rural communities, with the consequent upsurge of urbanization and all the social and economic problems that arise therefrom. There is no need to belabour the point further. These considerations will have to be borne in mind when the legislative proposals are reviewed in committee.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
Already some 20 amendments have been accepted by the government. These amendments could not have been made, of course, had the official opposition not stuck to its guns and delayed the passage of this legislation. A further 40 amendments or so not yet taken into consideration in connection with the new bill before the House have already come forward and, no doubt, as we hear from spokesmen from various sectors of the grain industry others will be set down for consideration. Eventually, we hope, after 40 years we shall come up with a new or completely rewritten Canada Grain Act which will be adequate to deal with the contemporary problems of the grain industry.


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak in this debate may I say I am well aware that this is the second time around for a bill which is essentially similar to Bill C-196, on which a great deal of effort was spent in order to bring about changes to the Canada Grain Act. It now appears that a great many valuable improvements are to be expected.
It is 40 years since the Canada Grain Act was substantially amended. In my opinion, the bringing forward of that measure was a task which had to be undertaken and a great deal of effort was required to arrive at reasonable legislation. Ostensibly, the enactment of Bill C-175 is considered urgent as a means of bringing protein grading to Canadian wheat. It has been said we are losing sales because protein grading in specific percentages is required by some importing nations in order to satisfy new milling and baking practices. No doubt this position is accepted by all, but it is interesting to note that we have succeeded in increasing our sales of grain this year to a number of overseas countries-for the most part, perhaps, to the less developed countries where the subject of protein grading is not of such importance and where price is a more dominant factor.
I have in mind markets such as Red China, to which the sale of some 90 million bushels amounted to slightly more than exports in the previous highest year, but at a price considerably below the minimum set under the International Grains Arrangement. The farmers' position is further worsened by the rise in value of the Canadian
[Mr. Dinsdale.l
November 3, 1970

dollar, representing a price reduction of 6 or 7 cents. Then there are the sales made on extended credit, some of which perhaps fall in the category of give-aways and were possible only in the light of long-term credit.
Our main success in selling wheat in the absence of protein grading seems to have resulted from more aggressive selling by the Canadian Wheat Board in circumstances which called for more wheat to be imported into countries where a short crop had set the stage for this to happen. The government made much of the argument that the need for protein grading justified their insistence last session that the bill should be passed without much scrutiny. If protein grading had been so important at that time, amendments to the act would have received speedy passage in the House. Even so, we heard responsible people testify before the Standing Committee on Agriculture that protein segregation could be carried out under the existing system. They gave evidence that our customers could have been assured of protein grading although it would have been impossible, as I understand it, for this effort to have been reflected in the amounts paid to individual farmers.
It is to be hoped the introduction of protein grading will, in fact, as has been suggested, increase the acceptance of Canadian wheat in areas where such grading is desired. There is, unfortunately, one cloud on the horizon which threatens our sales of high quality protein wheat, especially to the United Kingdom. The other day, in an imaginative and bold budget, the Conservative government under Mr. Heath instituted a cut in both income and corporation taxes, while increasing social charges directly to citizens. The budget also included a plan to increase tariffs on food imported into the United Kingdom, while reducing subsidies paid to British agriculture. This is in preparation of the suggested entry of the United Kingdom into the European Common Market. This reverses the position traditionally taken by the British government since 1846, when with the repeal of the corn laws Great Britain embarked upon a policy of importing cheap food and providing subsidies for agriculture.
The United Kingdom has been one of our best and most consistent markets since the earliest days of the grain industry in this country. Although exports fell somewhat last year, exports to Britain amounted to 54 million bushels, mainly of the higher-priced grades, bringing a better price in dollars. So the introduction of protein grading should be welcomed as a means of securing markets in the United Kingdom and other countries of the European Common Market.
I turn now to the subject of barley, where a peculiar situation has arisen. A year ago, barley sales were almost non-existent. In September 1969, the Wheat Board lowered the price of barley from approximately $1 to 78 cents a bushel. This resulted in some sales and we began to sell barley on the world market. Subsequently, the Wheat Board initiated an aggressive selling program which produced sales in the present crop year amounting to at least 125 million bushels, though at prices considerably lower than those the market can command at this time. In other words, the board sold at cash prices and
Canada Grain Bill
not in futures. This was perhaps unfortunate, especially since some of the sales were in respect of barley which has still to be sown.
Another special situation has arisen with regard to rapeseed, called by some the Cinderella of the grain trade. Transportation and movement of rapeseed to the ports has not been effectively managed and indeed there has been little free rapeseed in west coast ports-not enough, in fact, to take care of the demand which this grain is generating.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
The bill touches a very sensitive area to which producers, the government and the grain trade will have to give serious consideration. Modernization of handling and transportation are the inevitable results of changes in technology. This is brought into sharp focus by the fact that the price of grain per bushel on world markets has hardly risen in 20 years; indeed, it has fallen in recent years. The grain farmer has been able to survive only by increasing his productivity, with an almost stationary or declining dollar value per bushel.
The costs of handling and transportation have not stood still. During the long years of oversupply, with large wheat storage costs being paid out of the public treasury and with large payments out of the farmers' pool, the grain handling companies have tended to obscure the actual cost of handling and the necessity of a more rational approach to the problems of handling and transporting grain. The original bill, C-196, seemed to give the government a blank cheque and complete power to move in on the grain handling industry, 60 per cent of which is owned by farmers, wheat pools and the United Grain Growers, in order to carry out their so-called rationalization at will. Perhaps the government made the original bill severe without intending to do so, but it certainly seems that this would have been its effect.
The committee heard many objections from farm organizations and from the grain trade at large to the effect that this power was much too sweeping. I think the amended bill probably will remove many of the objections. Another note of anxiety is that the grain trade and the private grain companies could well diminish their activities in the grain handling field and move into the apparently more lucrative agribusiness. This is the business of selling many different farm items to their customers. This perhaps stands to reason, because when handling charges are so rigidly set by the government it leaves little room for manoeuvre or expansion. With this in mind it seems likely that the grain handling business will have to be carried out by farm grain organizations.
It is no secret that in the minds of those who appeared on behalf of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan wheat pools before the parliamentary Committee on Taxation, in Regina, this was a real worry. They need the income and capital to carry out rationalization because they feel that as farm organizations they are much more able to do so than the government. This is a program we will have to consider for the future.

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Canada Grain Bill
What is troubling many farmers in western Canada is the constant report that the system may be rationalized so there will be only a few terminals, perhaps 30 or 40 throughout western Canada. This will mean farmers hauling grain for 100 miles or more. This might be considered to be in the interests of efficiency. There is considerable fear that the government might, through its backroom boys, bring forward this rationalization system. This is not necessarily the answer. When a farmer has to haul his grain too far, it is a very expensive proposition. Even though the terminals may be very efficient in themselves, this extra cost to the farmer is substantial.
I was glad to see that an amendment to Bill C-196, to the effect that the producer would have the right to load grain over the platform, was accepted. This is a very important and basic right that the individual producer should have. In the matter of rationalization of the movement of grain, we must consider the railways. There is some talk about unit trains, and so on. This may be envisaged for the future, but we must remember that the facilities on the west coast, where much of our grain is handled, are inadequate to handle the volume that will probably be involved in the future. There does not seem to be any doubt about this. Government authorities will have to increase the amount of grain storage and the grain handling facilities on the west coast if the industry is to function at anything like the level of efficiency necessary.
The minister, in his explanation to the House on clauses 108 and 109, discussed the 1 per cent levy for the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. Needless to say, this is an interesting item. This 1 per cent levy has been in existence for many years and it seems to have drawn a mixed reception from many farmers. In my experience, many of them feel this levy may have outlived its usefulness and little practical use is made of it.
It is my impression that the PFAA has provided a very useful means of providing disaster relief to those farmers who usually do not carry crop insurance. I have found that many farmers have decided that crop insurance is too expensive, unsuited or unfitted to their particular circumstances. There are still many farmers who to some extent need to be treated as social cases when circumstances make it impossible for them to become operators of good, economic units in a so-called economic sense. It is important that at their age they continue to do what they have been doing all their working lives.
The Prairie Farm Assistance Act has provided a measure of relief to the low-income farmer who for various reasons does not wish to take out crop insurance. Unfortunately, the PFAA has not been upgraded since its inception in 1939 when it was designed for the era of the horse and buggy. It could stand some upgrading in order to become a more useful tool to help farmers who are in real distress. This measure has rarely cost the federal government more than has been collected through the 1 per cent levy. On only two occasions during 30 years were substantial payments made out of the federal treasury. I believe that as a means of government subsidy in times of severe crop failure, this is one of the most
efficient ways of providing assistance in areas where it does the most good.
Regarding the announcement of the minister in charge of the Wheat Board, with his so-called proposals for a production and grain receipts policy for the western grain industry, the suggestion is that a 3 per cent levy be charged against the grain sales of producers which, on top of the 1 per cent for the PFAA, makes quite a formidable charge. When it is considered that payments to the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act amount to $50 million to $70 million per year, and that this will be transferred out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund as a charge to the farmers' pool, it can well be seen that a levy of 4 per cent to grain trade producers on delivery of grain to the elevator will be severe. In the coming months this matter will receive a great deal of considerations and discussion. I do not think the 1 per cent charge in respect of the PFAA should be discontinued unless there is an adjustment in other levies.
Having been a member of the Committee on Agriculture during a part of the discussion last year on Bill C-196, I am glad that 26 amendments were incorporated into the new bill. I think this will go a long way in meeting the objections of the producers and the grain trade both privately-owned and farmer-owned. There are further amendments that can be made to improve this bill. I hope the bill will be referred to the agricultural committee for the purpose of improving it.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)


Albert B. Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to unnecessarily prolong this debate, but I feel I should place my remarks on the record concerning the desirability of getting the revised Canada Grain Act into operation at an early date. While it is true that wheat sales will be somewhat higher in this crop year than they were last year, they may still be far short of the total exported in the peak years from 1963-64 to 1966-67, inclusive, when our wheat and wheat flour exports from Canada averaged 522 million bushels per year. I would point out in passing that those were all years under a federal Liberal government.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: And so are the present years.


Albert B. Douglas: The current level of exports is still far below the productive capacity of our Prairie farmers. In 1966-67 we produce 827 million bushels of wheat in Canada. Even with the improved outlook for wheat sales we are experiencing, farmers are being asked to hold wheat acreage down to 20 million acres in 1971, which could mean a production of about 500 million bushels.
The improved sales which have taken place have been mainly to countries that do not yet require a guaranteed protein level in the wheat they buy. However, an increasing number of major wheat importing countries demand a guaranteed protein level in the wheat they purchase. We are at a disadvantage in these markets. Most of the farmers in the Prairies are heartily in favour
[Mr. Ritchie.)
November 3, 1970

of moving quickly to protein grading. Even though they may not be sure the wheat they produce individually is high in protein, they know that if we can maintain and expand our wheat exports to these sophisticated and growing markets, our total wheat exports will increase and there will be more opportunities for the sale of their grain whether or not it be lower in protein, or barley, oats or rapeseed.
To suggest, as the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Korchinski) did a short while ago, that there was no longer urgency in the matter of protein grading because the minister in charge of the Wheat Board has done such a good job in promoting grain sales, is unacceptable to the western farmers, to say the least. We cannot be complacent. We must cultivate all our markets to the maximum. There is no doubt that we must put ourselves in a position as soon as possible to supply wheat to meet the specifications of the growing number of countries which require high quality wheat. After all, this is our best and most reliable market.
Members of the Conservative party are doing their best to convey the false impression that somehow this bil is designed to radically reduce the number of grain elevators on the Prairies. The Board of Grain Commissioners has always had the power to license or not to license grain elevators. If the government had made up its mind about this matter, drastic steps could have been taken before now. The fact is that there is a study going on at the present time to determine what savings, if any, could be achieved through various types of grain handling and transportation systems.
When this study is completed, the information will be made public and the farmers and other people concerned will indicate whether they prefer to retain the present system or move more quickly toward another, and the government no doubt would be guided by their wishes. In the meantime, the grain handling system has not remained static. The grain companies have been doing a great-deal of reorganization on their own. Dozens of elevators are being closed out each year and, through a process of exchanges between companies, regrouping is taking place making better utilization of our elevators and elevator operators. I expect that this sort of thing will continue and there will be no sudden and dramatic speeding up of this process. The point I want to make is that the movement toward a rationalization of our grain handling system is completely independent of this revision of the Canada Grain Act; it proceeded under the old act and could continue under it.
Most people will agree that the Canada Grain Act is due for a general revision. There has not been one for 40 years. There is no great change in the basic concepts of Bill C-175 from those enshrined in the old Canada Grain Act. One important thing that is new in Bill C-175, in addition to protein grading, is the provision which gives the Governor in Council power to regulate the supply and allocation of boxcars, which it does not now have. It seems to me this provision could be every bit as important and urgent at this time as protein grading.
Canada Grain Bill
If it is in order, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read three subclauses of clause 97 which deal with this matter. They are as follows:
The Governor in Council may by order, (a) where he considers it necessary in the public interest to do so, require a railway company to supply to and to place at any point at which the railway company supplies a service, railway cars for the carriage of grain;
(b)	notwithstanding anything in this act or the Canadian Wheat Board Act, authorize and direct any minister of the Crown or any agency of the government of Canada to exercise the powers in respect of the allocation of available railway cars contained in any provision of this act, other than paragraph (a) of this section, or of the Canadian Wheat Board Act;
(c)	direct that any allocation of railway cars be guided by the principle that the producer should have the right to select the elevator of his choice or to load directly-
All these are very important powers. Two of them are new and with the very heavy movement of grain anticipated in the next year or two I think these powers could be very useful. I suggest there are many reasons besides those I have enumerated for getting on with this bill and having it made part of the law as soon as possible. I offer my greatest co-operation to those who would assist in bringing this matter to a conclusion at the earliest possible date.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to take very few minutes to comment not only on this bill but on what has been said by a few hon. members. First I wish to say that one aspect of the bill which the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Douglas) just mentioned, concerning the allocation of boxcars at the elevator of the farmer's choice, is something that members of this party and members of the official opposition were espousing on the Prairie provinces in the days prior to, and since, the Bracken commission. At long last a Liberal speaker has stood upon and advocated support for this provision. I have heard little mention of this matter from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) or from any other government member; therefore, I was glad to hear the hon. member for Assiniboia speak on it. I hope the hon. member for Assiniboia, the Minister of Agriculture and other government members realize that if they in fact implement fully and completely this measure in the bill, the private grain elevators in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta will all be out of business.
If the government is prepared to go along with that proposal, it will have the full support of the New Democratic Party. It it is not prepared to go along with it, it should quit kidding the troops and the farmers, because there is no question that if boxcars are really allocated to the elevator of the farmer's choice, the United Grain Growers, the National Grain Company, the Pioneer Grain Company, Mr. Heffelfinger and all those who sit on the Canada Grains Council will be out of business. The government had better quit kidding the farmers and this Parliament.
Allocate boxcars to the elevator of the farmer's choices! I dare the hon. member for Assiniboia and the Minister of Agriculture to implement what this bill provides. Their colleague from Winnipeg, the Minister of Supply

November 3, 1970
Canada Grain Bill
and Services (Mr. Richardson), will be very unhappy when the subsidiary companies of James Richardson and Sons are out of business in the country elevators. They had better quit kidding, because every indication from the time of the Bracken commission until now is that if you deliver boxcars to the elevator of the farmer's choice, a bunch of your friends will go broke. I dare you to implement this provision. I hope you do. I am going to vote for this bill to see whether or not you do it. It will be interesting to find out.
9 (9:10p.m.)
It will be interesting to see what kind of excuses these hon. gentlemen give their friends in the private grain trade when they allocate boxcars to the elevator of the farmer's choice. It will be interesting to see what excuses the hon. member for Assiniboia will give in the sundry communities with which he and I are acquainted, when some of his friends in the elevator companies that are sitting there go belly up. I am waiting to see this, and I have to vote for this bill for that if for no other reason.
There is another reason why I have to vote for this bill. The Liberals are on the spot after 30 cotton-picking years of waiting. The Tories had six years. They had their chance and they blew it. Now they run around the Prairies saying they are friends of the farmers. They talked about elevators of the farmer's choice and they talked about parity prices: then they blew it. Now the Liberals have put it in writing in a bill.
I am dying to see what will happen with this clause on page 69 of the bill regarding the direction of the allocation of boxcars and the ordering of the railways. I am dying to find this out now that the Liberals have put it in writing. They are now putting in writing what they have been mouthing for all these years. When they do it, they and the Tories will lose the grain business and their grain business friends. It seems to me that if the government implements this bill as and when they say they will, the member of the cabinet from Winnipeg, who is part and parcel of the Winnipeg grain exchange and the private grain business, will have no choice but to resign.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Either that, or these people are still kidding the farmers like the Tories did. All of them are the same breed of cat.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, no!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Yes, they are all in the same bag.


An hon. Member:: The same old gang.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It's damn funny, Mr. Speaker. I might have been elected for a lot of crazy reasons, and perhaps the voters in my riding were "had" for a while; but there is one reason why they were not crazy-and I may have been elected by accident or by default-and that is that they were bloody tired of being taken in by these flannel-

mouthed people from places like Assiniboia, Crowfoot, Medicine Hat and Red Deer who only talk to the farmers. Will they bring in amendments to the Canada Grain Act and changes to the farm marketing boards for people who have never believed in farm marketing boards?
While the Liberals and the Tories have been in office we have watched 300,000 farms being lost to Canada. While these people talked about legislation when they were in office we lost another 100,000 farms.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Red Deer
(Mr. Thompson) rising on a point of order?


Robert Norman Thompson: Mr. Speaker, since I have been included in the noble group which the hon. member just named, could he tell the House whether he is referring to the former or to the present member for Assiniboia?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I am referring to both. I am also referring to Red Deer, to Ethiopia or to any other place when it comes to the number of people that rural Canada has lost, to the family farms and to compounding the felonies that they have perpetrated on urban Canada because of the people we have driven from the land. These people who have betrayed rural Canada now sit as government members. The member who used to sit on SARM, and who has been active in the wheat pool movement, now betrays family farms. Now that it is in writing I want to see the production, and that is why I will vote for the bill.
We have lost over half of the family farms in Canada since 1945. The proposals made by these experts, whether it be the Minister of Agriculture or the minister in charge of the Wheat Board, are nothing more than further contributions to the elimination of rural Canada and the elimination of communities such as the one from which the hon. member for Assiniboia comes and about which he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He talks one way and votes another. We are fed up with it. I tell hon. members that I am going to spend a great deal of time and cross many miles asking the people in his riding where the hon. member for Assiniboia was when their communities were dying, their post offices were being closed, their railway stations were being closed, and now that their elevators will be closed.
Mr. Speaker, we have had enough of this damn doubletalk on farm bills from these dinosaurs and these old parties who talked about family farms out of one side of their mouth and who said and did everything they could to promote the Winnipeg grain exchange and to defeat and destroy public compulsory marketing of farm products. They do everything they can to give aid and comfort to the railways which should be a public service, and they do everything they can to give aid and comfort to these outfits that have robbed the people of Canada in general and the farmers in particular.
The hon. member for Assiniboia and the hon. member for Medicine Hat, as well as the dinosaurs in the Tory opposition, will have to answer. I would like you fellows to show up this weekend in Lisgar. You can pick the
November 3, 1970

towns and I will go with you. You name the rules, and you name the place of meeting and invite all your friends to it.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I remind the hon. member that although his remarks are interesting, he should confine himself to the subject under discussion, namely, Bill C-175.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I appreciate your reminder, Mr. Speaker. I would point out that the Canada Grain Act has to do with boxcars, with selling grain, with grades of grain and with the amount of money that farmers get. Since the leading speaker for the official opposition spent most of the time dealing with proposals of the hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt (Mr. Lang) this afternoon, it seems to me that the debate is fairly wide open. In spite of that, I shall adhere to your admonition.
I say to hon. members of the official opposition, "If you really mean what you say, you will support this bill on second reading. If you really mean that farmers should have the right to deliver their grain to the elevators of their choice, you will make sure that that provision remains in the bill when it becomes law. You will also make sure that the Minister of Agriculture enforces this law, because when he does it will mean that the National Grain Company, the Pioneer Grain Company and the Federal Grain Company will be out of business"-and I suspect he will not hold still for that. The hon. member for Medicine Hat will not hold still for that, because if he does the Canada Grain Council will be out of the window. All his friends who sit on the Canada Grain Council, these experts who would not know a quarter section from their backsides, will quit. These are the people he needed to reinforce him in the elimination of rural Canada, so he has to have the Canada Grain Council. As a result, we cannot do anything but help implement this law to make sure that the farmers get boxcars to the elevators of their choice.
The hon. member for Medicine Hat, the hon. member for Assiniboia, the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Thompson), the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) and the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Korchinski) cannot have it both ways: they cannot be half pregnant, Mr. Speaker, because there is no such thing. I hope that all hon. members in the opposition will vote for this bill on second reading. Then we will do everything we can to ensure that the hon. member for Medicine Hat, the hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt and the hon. member for Assiniboia answer our questions-and it will be fun finding out what their answers are. The hon. member for Assiniboia, while he might be doing a great job of reading everything he has said in this House since he came here, will have to answer our questions. I hope every member now will vote for second reading, and let us call these dinosaurs' bluff.
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I came into the House in a quiet and peaceful mood prepared to let bygones be bygones and have this legislation passed,
Canada Grain Bill
but I was inspired by the very fiery speech just made by the hon. member who sits to my left-to my far left, you might say.


An hon. Member:: Right.


Gerald William Baldwin: An hon. member says I am right, that he is to my left. He is to my left, but I am not too far to his right. Mr. Speaker, before we leave the bill to the tender mercies of the minister who is going to deal with it in its final stages, I want to say that we are in favour of many of the proposals made in the bill.
I see the minister taking notes. No matter what notes he takes, he will not be able to contradict the truthfulness of my statement because this is on the record. We in the official opposition suggested last session to the government that what it should do, because of the serious situation that then prevailed with regard to the sale of certain grains, was to take the old legislation and provide, by a very simple amendment, for protein grading. That matter could have been dealt with and disposed of, so far as this party was concerned, in one half hour. One speaker was all we needed, and we would have consented to an arrangement of that kind. The government would have had what it asked for, and what I think the country has wanted for a long time, that is, a change in the regulations with respect to this type of grading. But the government did not want that. Members of the government wanted everything; they were not prepared to compromise. As a result, we have had to wait, unfortunately, for this period of time for the change to be brought about. The minister may say what he wants to when I have sat down, but the record will bear out that I am correct.
When my hon. friend to my left speaks as he has, I point out that one of the things we object to in this bill is the extent to which it places in the hands of the government a great extension of powers. We are afraid of the government, Mr. Speaker. We are afraid of its abuses of the past and those it will be guilty of in the future in respect of powers which this Parliament grants to it. It is all very well for my good friends in the NDP to accept this situation. They are a party which predicates their position on the increasing of bureaucracy. The only way a Socialist party can survive is by having the bureaucracy extended, with powers granted to operate by Order in Council and short-circuit the powers of this House. We do not believe in this. We believe the people of Canada elected us to come here to deliberate and to make the decisions, and not to pass this power over to any government, particulary not to this government.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Gerald William Baldwin: Anybody who has seen the government operating in the last three weeks will see that this is not the kind of government that should be vested with the powers that it is asking for now.

November 3, 1970
Canada Crain Bill


Mr. Mahoney:: Explain.


Gerald William Baldwin: I do not need to explain; it is very plain, as it will be plain to the people of Canada. This is a power-hungry government which craves authority to deal with issues in its own way, secretively, without coming to the House of Commons. I am terribly ashamed of my friends on my left who apparently bought this approach to the politics of today. We say this is the place where decisions are to be made. If there is authority to be given, it is to be given by this House and not by the members of the bureaucracy opposite. That is why we have held this bill up, so that it could be debated effectively, so that the people of Canada will know what it is that the government is asking.
We are not going to object to the bill going through tonight. We will have a chance to examine it in committee. We will have a chance to offer amendments. We offered a number of amendments before; we may have some more to offer. The 40 amendments we have had before the House may well be increased. Or it may well be that as a result of discussion between ourselves and the government we will be able to combine them and come back to the House at the stage at which the bill was before, that is, with a number of amendments which will receive the attention of the House and which might restrict the kind of debate which there ought to be.
However, we are not prepared to make such an offer without some objection, without our taking the position that this is a government which we must treat with a great deal of caution when it seeks the kind of powers it is seeking now. We are afraid of it. The people of Canada will learn to be afraid of it, having in mind what it has done and what it intends to do. It is for that reason we have insisted that this debate be held up to the stage where we can make known our points of view. We serve warning right now that when the bill comes back to the House for amendment we will see that every effort is made so that the government will be stripped of the powers it does not really need, and that authority will not be left with the minister but with the House of Commons.
If my hon. friends to my left want to go along with the government, that is fine. I would just call their attention to a section of the Criminal Code which provides a penalty for seduction under the promise of marriage. The kind of seduction the government is going to practise on the NDP is something they should bear in mind before this bill comes back to the House.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I should advise hon. members that if the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) speaks now, he will close the debate.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I am greatly tempted to comment on the irrelevant remarks of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) respecting the Canada Grain Act, but I think that is hardly necessary because the great flaw in his argument is that he could not persuade the people of Canada that
there was any validity to it in spite of the attempts he made.


Gerald William Baldwin: Wait until the by-elections.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I certainly hope he is not advocating that the government, which was elected by the people, should not govern the country, because if he is I suggest he needs a lecture on democratic processes.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: discussions through the usual channels, and I believe there is general agreement among all parties to reinstate this evidence, with the same reservation that was expressed by the hon. member for Peace River respecting Bill C-176, that is, that in reinstating the evidence we do not in any way prejudice the right of the committee to call witnesses and to take whatever additional evidence they feel is necessary.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The minister has indicated that there is consent to reinstate the evidence heard by the committee during the last session, with the reservation the minister has mentioned. Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs) moved: that Bill C-180, respecting the packaging, labelling, sale, importation and advertising of prepackaged and certain other products, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is with great personal pleasure and some personal pride that I rise to move the second reading of Bill C-180, the consumer packaging and labelling act. In my view this is one of the most important pieces of consumer protection legislation that this new department has introduced to Parliament. In a short time, Mr. Speaker, we have introduced some valuable and important legislation to this Parliament for the protection of the consumer, but so far I think this is undoubtedly the most important.
Earlier in the spring this Parliament passed an amendment to the Bills of Exchange Act, which was the first time an amendment had been made in this important field of consumer credit in some years. I refer to the amendment which became effective on November 1. The main feature of this was that finance companies which discount the promissory notes or bills common in consumer finance or time-payment transactions can no longer claim their right to collect from the purchasers under these time-payment contracts in absolute terms, but their claim against the consumer-purchaser is subject to all the rights and equities for a counterclaim which the purchaser might have against the original vendor. This important amendment in the field of consumer legislation, which received the wide acclaim of this House, came into effect only a few days ago.
Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act
Shortly before passage of that legislation this Parliament approved the Hazardous Products Act which I placed before the House. In my view this is the strongest piece of consumer product safety legislation in the world. As a Canadian I was very proud that with my officials this spring I was asked to go to Vienna to explain the operation of the Hazardous Products Act to the International Organization of Consumers Unions.
The National Commission on Products Safety in the United States, a presidential commission which only wound up its work a few months ago, called upon my officials to go to Chicago to testify in front of that commission as to the operation of the Hazardous Products Act. As a result of this, I understand and hope that the American authorities will adopt the methods we are now using in Canada under this act to label hazardous and dangerous household chemicals.
As hon. members know, the Hazardous Products Act placed an immediate ban on the importation, advertising or selling of a number of highly dangerous consumer products and made provision for prescribing the circumstances and conditions under which a number of other products, hazardous if incorrectly used, could be sold, advertised or imported into Canada. Regulations issued under this act have established a nationwide and consistent system of cautionary labelling for a wide range of household products in everyday use. It is a new system which I think other nations are now becoming interested in, and some of them are likely to adopt consumer products safety legislation.
Thousands of individual household products will be covered by these regulations. In the department we are carrying out active research under the Hazardous Products Act which, over the years, will bring more categories of products under the control of this legislation. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I hope to be able to announce by Thursday or Friday some more regulations that we have passed under this legislation to protect the consumer against unsafe products.
In a somewhat different field, early in 1970 this Parliament passed the Textile Labelling Act. Under its authority there will be mandatory labelling of the content of fibres used in clothing and in household textiles, and this will be combined with the fabric care program which I announced early in September. The two programs of textile labelling and care labelling for textiles will go a long way toward solving problems of consumer bewilderment caused by the multiplicity of textiles available in the modern market.
This evening I take pleasure in bringing in another piece of consumer protection legislation along the same lines but in a different field, Bill C-180, the consumer packaging and labelling bill which I suggest should be read with the bill presently before the Senate, Bill S-5, the weights and measures bill which provides for a complete revision of that act. Bill C-180 is designed to afford greater protection to consumers by way of information on the products they buy. It is also designed to make legislation more relative and meaningful in terms of current protection in the world in which the consumer

November 3, 1970
Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act now acts and should remove sources of consumer confusion and discontent, thereby making consumer actions in the marketplace less difficult.
If we can go back in history, we see that people have been concerned for a long time about the weight of things and the measure of things. Consumers have wanted correct information about the products they have bought. I know, Mr. Speaker, that hon. members of this House are all biblical scholars. I would quote, for example, from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 25, verse 15:
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.


James Aloysius McGrath: Amen.


Stanley Ronald Basford: I also quote from the book of Proverbs, chapter 20, verse 23:
Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord: and a false balance is not good.


James Aloysius McGrath: Hallelujah.


Thomas Miller Bell: Is that from the old testament?


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: That is the King James version.


Stanley Ronald Basford: We see, in more recent days than biblical times, references to the subject. For example, I quote article 35 of Magna Carta:


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: We are really for it now.


Stanley Ronald Basford: It says:
There shall be standard measures of wine, ale and com ... throughout the kingdom.


James Aloysius McGrath: Hear, hear!


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: We are getting lots of corn.


Thomas Miller Bell: Explain.


Stanley Ronald Basford: It goes on to say:
There shall also be a standard width of dyed cloth, russett, and haberject, namely two ells within the selvedges. Weights are to be standardized similarly.
I have quoted these extracts, Mr. Speaker, to show that throughout all history people, whether they were biblical consumers or consumers in the reign of King John, have been anxious and concerned about weights, measures, proper labelling and proper information about products available to the consumer. This evening I am putting before the House a modern consumers' Magna Carta by which consumers will be entitled, once this bill is passed, to full, accurate and complete information about the consumer products they buy.


An hon. Member:: But you can't smell a package.


Stanley Ronald Basford: As hon. members know, there has been in recent years a rapid change in packaging and merchandising methods used in modern business. There has also been an equally rapid increase in the number of prepackaged items appearing on the market. The trend has been to the supermarket type of operation, not only in the food field but in many of the retailing fields. While this bill refers to many things other than food, it is illuminating, I think, for us to know that in a modern supermarket there are approximately 7,000 different prepackaged items. Estimates says that in four years there will be between 15,000 and 20,000 different items in this category.
One only has to go into a modern department store to realize what a huge array of consumer products the consumer is faced with. One result of this development has been that the package has replaced, to a great extent, the live salesman. The consumer must now rely on the package to give him the basic product information he once received from the merchant. In days gone past we knew the corner grocer or butcher; we went down to him and discussed the products that we wanted to buy. That is not the case now. Modem packaging has revolutionized retailing methods and has contributed significantly to the cleanliness, appearance and convenience of many consumer goods.


An hon. Member:: Without profit to the consumer.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Undoubtedly there have been improvements and consumers have derived some advantages from this development. Nevertheless, despite those obvious advantages there has been a considerable measure of consumer discontent about packaging practices. For one thing, packaging often conceals some essential qualities of the goods and makes consumers dependent upon labels for information about what they are buying. You cannot taste boxes. You cannot see, taste, feel and smell the product when it is sold in tins, cardboard boxes, wrapping-paper or plastic. Actually there may not be anyone in the store who can tell you the qualities of the product.
The situation is not the same for all classes of products. For some, particularly for pre-packaged food and drugs, the labelling requirements are fairly comprehensive under existing, modern food and drug laws in this country. Although these laws are good, there is a variation in requirements as between one class and another and I suggest that is a source of concern both to producers and consumers. For others, labelling requirements are minimal or even non-existent. The result is that the consumer is often misguided and confused, and perhaps even deceived, by a vast array of poorly labelled items which makes a rational purchasing decision virtually an impossibility. There is therefore, in my view, a serious need to fill the large legislative vacuum which now exists in many areas and to bring some uniformity and coherence into those areas where there is now a bewildering variety of labelling requirements.
This may be regarded as the prime objective of this bill. It is designed as a comprehensive labelling and packaging bill of general application and is to apply to
November 3, 1970

all consumer products. As the regulations passed under its authority are brought progressively into effect, it will go a long way toward facilitating choice among consumer products by providing better information and helping to reduce confusion in the marketplace. Consumers on the whole, and I am referring to modern consumers, are demanding the right to know what they are buying. They want full, factual and complete information about the products they are buying. They are given that right in matters of advertising. We have the right to truth in advertising, the right to truth in packaging, to truth in labelling, and so on. All these rights are aimed at giving consumers a chance to make a rational and intelligent purchase.
The inability, Mr. Speaker, to make a rational buying decision in regard to consumer commodities is not a reflection on the consumer. We are all fairly familiar with the problems we encounter upon going into a modern supermarket. If you want to choose between competing products and make the best buy, you almost need a degree in mathematics or calculus to figure out the best buy. I submit that this inability does not reflect on the consumer. It reflects, in my view, rather on the packaging and pricing patterns in the marketplace, which often have very little rationale. The consumer must act on the assumption that packaging and pricing are rational. If consumers did not act on this assumption, if all consumers insisted on weighing packages, examining contents and challenging the validity of prices in the many sizes of packages, the whole system of mass distribution would break down.
If it is to function efficiently, modern marketing requires that the buyer must be able to trust the package to give relevant, sufficient and accurate information. This, at present, he cannot do. Modern marketing, with the packages acting as salesmen, has created problems not only for the consumer but for the ethical business firm. It has fostered, as an unfortunate side effect, a form of unfair competition which can be seriously prejudicial to business rivals who do not engage in dubious practices.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: When did the minister learn that?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Legitimate business can act in its own interest and in the interest of the consumer only if competitive conditions permit.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: When did the minister find this out?


Stanley Ronald Basford: This requires laws and regulations to establish a framework of competition prohibiting deceptive and confusing practices and protecting the legitimate competitor from the unfair tactics of less scrupulous rivals.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Miller Bell: Terrific.


Stanley Ronald Basford: I am glad that the whip of the official opposition thinks so highly of the bill. Perhaps that means it will obtain easy passage through the House.
Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act


Thomas Miller Bell: I was talking about the speech.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Let us have some more quotations from the scriptures.


Stanley Ronald Basford: I am sure that the critics of Parliament will be delighted to know how welcome biblical quotations are in the House of Commons of Canada. Mr. Speaker, I return to the bill before the House. On the basic premise that the consumer has the right to full, accurate and relevant information, the bill before this House seeks to achieve the following objectives. The legislation will increase the efficiency of the average family as a spending unit. They will be able to spend their consumer dollars better and, as a result, live better. It will promote effective price competition by minimizing the capacity of packaging to confuse or deceive the buyer, and permit buyers to purchase more intelligently and more rationally. It will assure a quality of competitive opportunity for all producers and distributors. Small businesses are especially vulnerable to irrationality in the marketplace. Because of its limited resources, the small business has a vital need for competitive standards that permit the focusing of attention on price and quality.
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)
When this bill is passed, the regulations will enhance the integrity of markets in order that they may accurately direct the productive activities of the economy by making it more likely that profits will be channelled to the more efficient producer rather than the inefficient. One of the effects will be to promote sound and effective competition by eliminating unfair or deceptive packaging in commerce and thereby upgrading the economic value of the fair packaging and labelling practices followed by the majority of our businessmen.
It seems that quite apart from this economic rationale for full, accurate and relevant information, the consumer is entitled to the truth about a product for truth's sake. Truth surely is a virtue in itself, and should therefore be sufficient reason for the requirements concerning packaging and labelling which are contained in this bill. We are sometimes told by marketing men that the consumer should and does "vote for the product with his dollars". The inference is that this act of consumer free choice is basically all that is required in the marketplace. I contend, Mr. Speaker, that the voting process-and that is what goes on in a marketplace-is more effective to the extent that full and accurate information is available to the voter, the consumer, and to the extent that he has not been misled. That destroys the operation of a marketplace. Some people who appear before the consumer affairs committee say we do not need labelling legislation because the consumer goes into the market every day and votes for his product. This bill assures us that the voting process is completely unfettered and that the voting is on the basis of complete information.
In adopting these objectives and in drafting this bill, as I indicated earlier, I paid close attention to the representations made by concerned individuals and by organized consumer groups such as the Consumers' Association of
862

November 3, 1970
Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act Canada. I am grateful to them for their representations over the years in the field of packaging and labelling. I have also been influenced and guided by the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on Consumer Credit on which Senator Croll and I served as co-chairmen and by the more recent report of the Batten commission on the cost of living and inflation in the three Prairie provinces. I wish to quote from the interim report of the joint parliamentary committee which was published on December 20, 1966. The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis), who was very active on that committee, will remember this observation which the committee included in the interim report:
Product information must be provided. Consumers must be informed about physical properties of products they are buying such as weight, volume, quality and number of units and this information should be immediately available at the time of purchase and should be expressed clearly and unequivocally ...
It is essential for the government to take all measures within its power to foster the welfare of the consumer. In particular, the government has a responsibility for protecting the consumer against all forms of exploitation. I
I believe that the essential recommendations of that committee, in so far as they apply to packaging and labelling, are met by the consumer packaging and labelling bill. If I may, I would refer to another source of information and inspiration for this bill. The criticisms of the Batten report in the field of packaging and labelling are summarized as follows:
In the area of labelling this commission has found that present practices fall short of consumer requirements in a number of important ways. First, even where legislation applies, it is not consistent between products. In effect, it contributes little
more than voluntary standards would. Second, the commission has found that many manufacturers hold the belief, and act on it, that consumers do not want accurate, or even any, technical information about many of the products they buy. Third, information is presented in different ways about different products to such an extent that what there is cannot be effectively compared. This is especially true of heavy appliances but prevails everywhere. Fourth, some product lines provide the consumer almost no information at the point of sale. Textiles are particularly to be noted in this regard but other lines have been called as strongly to the commission's attention.
The textile labelling bill which we passed last session will, of course, correct that situation.
Fifth, some packagings carry labels which are actually depictive of things which are only somewhat like the product, but are not exactly the product inside.
That is, the pictures on the packages and labels are not descriptive of what is inside; they are deceptive.
Sixth, many labels continue to carry terms which purport to be descriptive of contents, such as "jumbo", "giant", and so on, but which are not. All of these defects persist despite the widely acknowledged view by manufacturers that "the package is a salesman" of which the label is a critical part".
May I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker?


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, there might be disposition on the part of the House to allow the minister to conclude his remarks if he can do so in the next ten minutes.


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.
At ten o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Wednesday, November 4, 1970