1970-05-19

PRIVILEGE


Mr. Bruce Howard (Okanagan Boundary);: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. On Monday, May 4, this House debated a motion by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). In referring to events of that date, I wish to state that certain newspaper accounts of the debate have just been brought to my attention and for that reason I was not able to raise the question until today.
As Your Honour will recall, the debate on that day was on the subject of considering increased old age and veterans pensions. The motion called for "an immediate and substantial increase in the basic amount of old age security pensions and in veterans pensions." In preliminary discussion of the motion Your Honour ruled that the motion was a no-confidence motion in the government. In other words, the debate became a matter of procedure. If the motion had carried, Parliament would have been dissolved at once and the country would have had to spend millions of dollars on an election. More than that, there would not have been a government in office to bring in the pension increases proposed by the motion.


Mr. Baldwin:: There is no government now.


Bruce Andrew Thomas Howard: Your Honour knew that under Standing Order 58(9) the motion was a no-confidence motion in the government. All members of this House and all members of the Press Gallery knew that, but the people back home did not know it.


Mr. Hees:: They know you are against raising pensions.


Bruce Andrew Thomas Howard: One
member of the Press Gallery, whose words are carried in 42 newspapers across Canada, used that lack of public knowledge of the
rules of parliamentary debate as the basis for a monumental distortion of events as they occurred in the House. His words appeared in various newspapers between May 9 and May 12.
The newspaper article I cite was written by Patrick Nicholson of the Thomson newspaper chain. The distortions and inaccuracies of that column are typical of many of the columns that he writes in 42 Thomson newspapers across Canada. This is a situation that grows more alarming with every new purchase by the Thomson newspaper chain.
In all fairness I want to make it clear that I am not referring to the hard news that is carried in the Thomson newspapers. In my view hard news as reported by the Thomson staff is generally fair and accurate. What I am referring to is the daily ration of distorted and inaccurate interpretations of events in Ottawa carried in the column "Ottawa Report" by Patrick Nicholson.
The world today feeds on news. We depend on newsmen to tell us accurately and honestly about the events of the day. In a time when riot, war and demonstrations are the daily fare, we become doubly conscious of the power of the written word to calm or to incite, to build or destroy the nation. If we are to survive the difficult days ahead we need a strong and a free press. But we need journalists with higher standards of responsibility-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have to interrupt the hon. member to ask him to indicate in what way he thinks this is a question of privilege. If the hon. member has a motion, he should indicate what motion he has in mind. He has now had the floor for a few minutes. The hon. member owes it to the Chair and hon. members to indicate as quickly as possibly the question of privilege.


Bruce Andrew Thomas Howard: I intend to move a motion, Mr. Speaker. I can finish with just one more paragraph.


George Harris Hees: That is one too many. Let us have the motion now.


Bruce Andrew Thomas Howard: With
each new purchase of an independent newspaper in Canada by the Thomson chain, the
May 19, 1970
7059	COMMONS DEBATES
Interpretation of Debate by Newspaper
hoped-for day of accurate news reporting is farther away. That affects the political fabric of the nation and for that reason is of great concern to members of this House. If Your Honour rules that this is a proper question of privilege, I intend to move that, as the Press Gallery is an integral part of the operation of a democracy and of this House, the matter of the growing threat to freedom of the press as posed by the continued extension of the Thomson newspaper chain in Canada be referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections.
[DOT] (2:10 p.m.)


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Okanagan Boundary has given notice of his intention to raise the question of privilege he has just outlined. As hon. members well know, the responsibility of the Chair at this stage is to determine, as a procedural point, whether there is a prima facie case of privilege. Precedents also indicate that the Chair has to determine whether the matter has been raised at the first opportunity.
;The point made by the hon. member for Okanagan Boundary has reference to interpretative reporting of Parliament in the Thompson chain of newspapers. The hon. member proposes to move the following ihotion:
That the matter of the growing threat to freedom of the press as posed by the continued extension of the Thomson newspaper chain in Canada be referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections.
The question to be resolved by the Chair at this stage is whether the situation complained of by the hon. member constitutes a prima facie case of privilege. Parliamentary privilege has been defined in many instances. I remind hon. members once again of Sir Erskine May's definition of parliamentary privilege as-
-the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament, and by members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions, and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals. Thus privilege, though part of the law of the land, is to a certain extent an exemption from the ordinary law,' I
Does the situation complained of by the hon. member constitute an interference with members of the House, either collectively or individually, in the discharge of their functions as members of the House? The answer, in;my view, must be in the negative.
What the hon. member seeks is an inquiry by) the Standing Committee on Privileges and

Elections into an alleged threat to the freedom of the press. If such a far-reaching question were to be investigated by the House it seems to me that the proposal should come to hon. members by way of a substantive motion rather than by way of a question of privilege. May I refer hon. members to citation 113 of Beauchesne's fourth edition. As an example of a breach of parliamentary privilege the author states the following:
Libels upon members and aspersions upon them in relation to Parliament and interference of any kind with their official duties, are breaches of the privileges of the members.
Farther on, Beauchesne states that an attack in a newspaper article is not a breach of privilege unless it comes within the definition of privileges given above. The suggestion is that a newspaper article cannot be questioned by way of breach of privilege unless its contents are tantamount to libel and constitute an interference with their official duties. I repeat that I cannot find these essential elements of breach of parliamentary privilege in the circumstances alluded to by the hon. member for Okanagan Boundary and I must conclude that his motion cannot be put at this time.



MR. CAOUETTE-CORRECTION OF STATEMENT IN THE HOUSE

Mr. Real Caouelle (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege in order to set the record straight concerning a statement I made in the House last May 4. According to certain information I have received since then, I believe I may have misled the House as regards summer employment for students. Indeed, I made the following statement:
In my region, for example, the mining companies hire local students during the summer months. The Noranda mine, for one, had between 1,000 and 1,200 students on the payroll last year, but this year they have decided to hire only some 200.
Now, Mr. Speaker, my correction is as follows: Whereas the government's recommendation is that private industry hire students in a ratio of about 5 per cent of its current active manpower, I must admit that, according to the information provided by Mr. Berube, the manager of Noranda Mines, this particular company goes further than the government's suggestion since it hires a number of students which equals 17.6 per cent of its labour force, that is, three times as much, as the government standards.
May 19, 1970	COMMONS
Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the Noranda mine gave jobs to 195 students in 1960, 257 in 1965 and 287 in 1970 in my area only. On the other hand, this year, the Noranda company will hire 2,200 students in its various industries.
To do the company justice and not to mislead the House, I believed it was my duty to set the facts in their true light.


Mr. Speaker:: I doubt whether there is a question of privilege. In any event, the hon. member did not put any motion before the House. I rather believe it is a correction and I assume that the statement of the hon. member has been considered as such by his colleagues.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Fourth report of Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates, in both official languages-Mr. Fernand-E. Leblanc (Laurier).

[Stage Direction]
First report of Special Committee on Environmental Pollution-Mr. Anderson.
[Editor's Note: For text of above reports, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41(2) I wish to table herewith in both official languages the report of the agricultural task force.



AIRPORTS


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, on a number of occasions recently hon. members have asked me for details of the research and planning now under way in connection with the needs of Toronto and the southern Ontario region for additional airport facilities. In answer to some of these inquiries I have indicated, first, that preliminary studies have ruled out any possibility that a large international airport could be built at any location on or near the
DEBATES	7057
Toronto Airport Expansion waterfront; second, that the studies now under way for over a year, and which initially involved an examination of more than 60 potential sites, had now been refined to the point where all but three or four possible locations have been rejected. I indicated also that further and more detailed examination of the remaining sites was necessary before a final choice could be made.
This work is being carried out in the closest possible co-operation with the government of the province of Ontario. In addition, I have informed representatives of the city council of Toronto and of the municipality of metropolitan Toronto that I was quite prepared to have them provided with a full briefing on the nature and scope of the studies. As I indicated on a previous occasion, such a briefing must be on a confidential basis because of the possible risk of land speculation should the details of the potential sites in question become a matter of public knowledge prematurely.
I have also indicated both to the Chairman of Metro and to the Mayor of Toronto our willingness to examine with them the criteria we have established for the airport project. I have also assured both of these gentlemen and their officials that we will be pleased to consider all possible means through which it may be possible to integrate the airport development with the general planning of the adjacent municipalities. This offer has been accepted and such matters as ground transportation services, potential industrial development, and urban planning, as these relate to the proposed new airport, are now being discussed.
While it is still not possible to make a full public disclosure of the current status of the site studies, I can say that the area of the search for a suitable location has been narrowed to the region generally norih and west of Toronto. Since	this area includes
municipalities other than the city of Toronto and Metro I would be quite prepared to arrange for a full confidential briefing for any of the municipalities likely to be affected by this project. Officials of the Ministry of Transport have been instructed to make the necessary approach to those concerned. I hope that in this way it will be possible to have the fullest possible consultation, and I can assure the House that at the earliest possible moment I am prepared to release the full details of our findings and to withhold the final decision regarding the site until there
May 19. 1970

Toronto Airport Expansion has been adequate opportunity for all appropriate submissions to be received and considered thoroughly.
[DOT] (2:20 p.m.)
I want to say a word also about the so-called downtown airport. At the present time there is on Toronto Island a small airport that serves the general aviation needs of the area. For several years this airport has been operated by the Toronto Harbour Commission which has custody of the facility. Some time ago published reports stated that the government of Ontario was considering a redevelopment plan known as Harbour City. Reports indicated that this plan would involve the closing of the present Toronto Island airport with the site being used for housing and other purposes. The federal government is in no position to comment on that proposal until its full implications are known.
This proposal of course raises questions as to the desirability of having any form of airport facility in the downtown area. Insofar as the Ministry of Transport is concerned, this is largely a matter for the residents of the Toronto area and their elected representatives. The role of the Ministry of Transport has been simply to examine the technical feasibility of establishing any form of new airport at a downtown location bearing in mind that most aviation and airport planners feel that in future very large metropolitan areas need to be served by a conveniently located facility, particularly for inter-city air travel.
I want to emphasize that the Minister of Transport has made no decision as to the advisability of such a downtown airport but is simply examining the widest possible range of alternatives with a view to meeting the transportation needs of this important area.
From a technical standpoint we have now determined that no waterfront site can accommodate any type of jet aircraft as we know them today. Therefore any planning for inter-city travel could only be implemented if and when new types of aircraft, such as the so called STOL or short takeoff and landing planes, are available. For these reasons there appears to be no possibility that a new commercial airport will be built on the waterfront in the foreseeable future. It is considered advisable, however, that the probability of future need be taken into account in any long-range planning for the area. Should the Harbour City project proceed as planned, it would mean that there would be no down-

town airport of any kind in Toronto, but I repeat that this is a decision that must be made by the local representatives.


Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to reply to the minister's statement on aviation facilities for the Toronto area. I recall that a statement of a similar nature was made a few months ago. Today's statement has added nothing. I am very surprised that, with all the facilities and resources the minister has and in view of the fact that he has been in consultation with the province and the municipalities, a site has not yet been chosen. I am pleased to see that the statement has narrowed down the area.
It is most important, I believe, that the people of the three or four likely areas which may be affected by this airport should know sooner than the government is planning to tell them where the site will be because it seems to me, having attended many urban affairs forums, that the people are becoming frustrated. In light of the possibility of their land being gobbled up by the federal government, they need to have advice soon concerning where the particular site will be.
Keeping in mind the necessity of making decisions on ground transportation services, potential industrial development and urban policy, it is imperative that the minister make as full disclosure as possible to those municipalities which are likely to be affected. I do not know how many there are. The minister said there were three or four. In keeping with the just society and participatory democracy, the minister should make every attempt to announce in the very near future where the probable site will be. The people are extremely concerned about the unilateral or even bilateral approach to this matter without those who will be directly affected being given an opportunity to have any say concerning the site. I hope the minister will be able to assure us that, before any final decision is taken on approval of the site, those who will be directly affected, other than the elected representatives of any particular municipality, will be given an opportunity to present briefs and will be given a full hearing so that we can say they at least had the opportunity to give the government some guidance in respect of the site.
Finally, I hope that the next time the minister speaks on this matter he will indicate to the House and the country that he has chosen a site.
May 19. 1970	COMMONS


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in the minister's announcement, as are my constituents and others in the east of Toronto who are vitally affected and very concerned about the proposed waterfront airport. I must say that I am relieved by the confirmation-I think it is a confirmation-that any plan for a large-scale international airport on the waterfront has definitely been dropped. I am also glad to hear that any form of commercial waterfront airport is at least remote. Speaking for my constituents, I think we would rather have heard that there would be no waterfront airport at all.
I want to echo what the last speaker has said about the tremendous importance of consulting the people who are concerned in this matter. There are many people in my constituency who want to have the opportunity to make representations. They want consultation not just with the experts, not only with their elected representatives; the people whose lives will be affected want to have an opportunity to appear, present their own views, and take some part in the vitally important decisions to be made.
I would have preferred it if the minister had given an undertaking not to proceed with any plan without giving the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications the opportunity to hear witnesses and make recommendations. We have to encourage economic growth, but it is also incumbent on us in Parliament to save the people from noise pollution and other threats to the quality of Canadian life.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, the salient point in the statement of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) is the fact that the federal government is willing to ask the advice of the provincial authorities as well as that of the municipal authorities of Toronto and the adjacent communities.
I think that if the same procedure had been used in the case of the Montreal international airport, there would be fewer problems at the present time.
The other point which prompts me to approve the minister's statement is that he did not disclose the location of that airport, so as to prevent speculators from taking advantage of the people, from purchasing, for example, lots at ridiculously low prices, and selling them back at a profit of 100, 200 or
DEBATES	7059
Electoral Boundary Readjustment Act even 1000 per cent. From that point of view,
I think the minister is acting in the interests of the population of Toronto and adjacent areas, while making it clear at the same time that the federal authorities, by discussing the matter with the Ontario government as well as with the municipalities, wants the location of the airport to be selected so as to serve the area people in the best possible way.
[DOT] (2:30 p.m.)



ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT


Mr. Marchand (Kamloops Cariboo, for Mr. McBride) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-213, respecting the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Mr. McCleave:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Kam-loops-Cariboo wishes to explain the bill that has just been presented to the House. He was trying to, anyway.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It would be somewhat irregular to return to the consideration of a bill after it has already received first reading and has been committed, but if hon. members are agreed that the hon. member ex post facto might be allowed to explain it I shall recognize him.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Len Marchand: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Lanark and Renfrew is on a French immersion course this week, and so I am very happy to move this bill on his behalf. The purpose of the bill is to change the name of the electoral district of Lanark and Renfrew to "Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton" in order to reflect more accurately the fact that a sizeable portion of each of these three counties is contained in the electoral district now known as Lanark and Renfrew.



CANADA LABOUR (STANDARDS) CODE INCREASE IN MINIMUM HOURLY WAGE

Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (for fhe Minister of Labour) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-214, to amend the Canada Labour (Standards) Code.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
[Stage Direction]
May 19, 1970
[DOT] \ Inquiries of the Ministry CANADA ELECTIONS ACT

Donald Stovel Macdonald: for leave to introduce Bill C-215, respecting the franchise of electors and the election of members to the House of Commons.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Speaker:: When shall the said bill be read the second time? Next sitting of the House?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, there have been some discussions about this bill and in view of the general interest in the bill it has been suggested that after second reading it should be referred to the committee of the whole rather than to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections. On that basis I wonder if the House would agree to change the second reading order, contrary to the usual rule, so that it would be referred to the committee of the whole?


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, we agree to this. The government has had so little legislation to place before the House that we thought the time might be employed better in that way.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Why don't you read the Order Paper?


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Acting Prime Minister whether the Postmaster General was speaking as a minister of the government when he said over the weekend that the Post Office is a place of poor pay and unsatisfactory working conditions, that labour relations are in a mess, and that it is a department with a lack of opportunities for advancement?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, iplease. The Leader of the Opposition will appreciate that the Chair fMr. Macdonald (Rosedale) .1
ought to take some exception to the form of the question. My understanding is that questions asked concerning statements made by ministers outside the House should be for the purpose of seeking information on whether these statements reflect government policy. .


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: Well, that
is what it was.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I hasten to comply with your suggestion. I asked th6 question because I had some doubt as to what the status of the minister might be by this time. I ask the Acting Prime Minister wheth-* er the Postmaster General was expressing the policy of the government when he said these things?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, obviously this is not, as you have said, a question of policy.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Just a statement of fact.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, might I ask the Acting Prime Minister whether those who are conducting the negotiations on behalf of the Treasury Board are reflecting the views expressed by the Postmaster General with regard to the level of pay and working conditions, or whether on the other hand they are reflecting the views expressed by the representative of the government on the conciliation board that postal workers are not underpaid in relation to other workers in the country? Can the Acting Prime Minister tell the House and the country which point of view is being reflected by the government negotiators?	;


Mitchell William Sharp: It is quite clear that if I were to agree with the statements made by the Leader of the Opposition, for which I have only his word-I have not talked to the Postmaster General and I doubt very much whether he said these things-


An hon. Member:: You would.


Mitchell William Sharp: Of course the position the government would be taking would be to support the chairman of the conciliation board. Therefore the answer is that we are supporting the position of the chairman of the conciliation board.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I did not notice the Postmaster General rise on a question of privilege when I gave a summary of what he said, so I think I am entitled to assume he was accurately reported. I ask the Acting
May 19, 1970	COMMONS
Prime Minister whether it is the policy of the government, at a very critical stage of the negotiations, to have the minister of the department concerned, the Postmaster General, express a point of view substantially at odds with the point of view being expressed jn the negotiations by the negotiators for the government? Is this the policy of the government?


Mr. Kierans:: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The minister seeks the floor on a question of privilege.


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, as I have said in interviews, post offices across the world have had considerable difficulty in recent years and this stems from the fact that governments have never sought to invest in either the human resources or the material resources in recent generations in the way they should have, that a great many of the working conditions, as pointed out by Mr. Justice Montpe-tit, have since improved, that pay conditions are a lot better, but that post offices do not offer the same opportunities for advancement and creative contribution^ that other lines of endeavour do, and that !We in the Post Office are endeavouring to modernize these things and to project this picture-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I again ask the Acting Prime Minister whether it is the policy of the government, at a critical stage of the negotiations, to have the minister of the department concerned, the Postmaster General, express views substantially different from those which the Acting Prime Minister says are being expressed by the negotiators for the government at the bargaining table?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the Postmaster General speaking I found myself in agreement with what he said, and I do not think this will in any way hamper the negotiations that are under way.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for York South.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Edmonton West on a question of privilege.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege to indicate
DEBATES	7061
Inquiries of the Ministry to the Postmaster General and to the Acting Prime Minister that those were not the remarks the Postmaster General made in connection with conditions in the Post Office, as his speech was reported and on which the questions have been based. This has been a straight prevarication from the truth.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon.
member for Edmonton West knows very well that it is difficult to raise as a question of privilege the accuracy of reported statements. This, of course, as hon. members will see immediately, is the difficulty about asking questions on statements ministers are reported to have made outside the House. We become involved in disputes as to what was said and what was not said. The Postmaster General rose on a question of privilege, the hon. member for Edmonton West also rose on a question of privilege, and it seems to me that the situation generally has not been assisted to any great extent. I think it would be advisable if I were to recognize the hon. member for York South.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I suggest, with great respect, that there is no difficulty because the Postmaster General really did not deny what I had attributed to him.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



POSSIBLE NATIONAL STRIKE-POSITION OF GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATORS-RESUMPTION OF NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the President of the Treasury Board a question relating to the negotiations. It arises out of an answer of the Acting Prime Minister. I think it is important both for the people and the postal employees to know the facts, and the Acting Prime Minister may or may not know them. Has the Treasury Board in the negotiations taken the position of supporting the recommendations of the chairman of the conciliation board, Judge Lippe, or has it taken the position of supporting the recommendations of its representative on the conciliation board, Keith Campbell?


Hon. C. M. Drury (President of the Treasury Board):: Both, Mr. Speaker.


David Lewis: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the minister's answer and in view of the fact there-is a very considerable difference between the wage recommen-
May 19, 1970

Inquiries of the Ministry dation of Judge Lippe and the wage recommendation of Keith Campbell, does the minister's answer refer to those recommendations in Judge Lippe's report which Mr. Campbell also supports? If so, is Treasury Board adopting the position of Keith Campbell on the wage issue rather than the position of the chairman of the board? I should like clarification of this point.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Mr. Speaker, in respect of the recommendations on which the views of the chairman and of Mr. Campbell were the same, the government supports the views of both these gentlemen. In the case of wages, where there was a difference of view as between the union representative, the employer's representative and the chairman, the government supports the view of the employer's representative.


David Lewis: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I thank the minister for clearing up that matter because it is important for all of us. Have any negotiations been taking place in the last few days? If so, were they on the major issues or were they not on the major issues? I ask this question because the union negotiating committee was occupied with its strike vote. May I also ask the minister whether it is the intention of Treasury Board to resume full negotiations the moment the strike vote is completed and seek to negotiate continuously day and night in search of a settlement satisfactory to the postal employees so that a strike may be averted?


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Mr. Speaker, I indicated in the House the other day that negotiations were interrupted at the request of the union representatives to allow them to consult their membership. This consultation has not yet been completed. We have invited the unions to reassemble and to meet us again to resume the interrupted negotiations as soon as they are free to do so. The government, on its side, will be prepared to negotiate continuously day and night if this will meet with the wishes of the union. I think the hon. gentleman will well understand that even though the government has been ready to negotiate over the weekend, it has not been possible to do so owing to the unwillingness of the other party.


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


Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: No, Mr. Speaker.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a further supplementary question to the Postmaster General. In view of the fact, and I understand it is a fact, that the fear of loss of jobs due to mechanization and automation is a major issue in the negotiations and in view of the minister's emphasis on the need for mechanization and automation in the report to which the Leader of the Opposition referred, is the minister supporting the request of the union negotiators that job security be contractually safeguarded in the case of people who might be affected by the automation he has promised for the Post Office?


Eric William Kierans: Mr. Speaker, I think a great deal has been said about this and there is a great deal of misunderstanding. Over the next five years the work force of the Post Office will expand by some 5,000 people, primarily to meet the increase in volume, if the Canadian public continues to have confidence in the services of the Post Office.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Eric William Kierans: There is no possibility of people who want to work not having work in the Post Office, and this depends as much on the people who work in the Post Office as on any policies that the government may develop. There is no possibility of automation or productivity outstripping the present work force. People who seek contractual obligations sometimes seek not the work but the pay without the work.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I should like to say, and I am certain that all hon. members will agree, that for the minister responsible for the Post Office to have made the statement he has just made when both sides are in the midst of negotiations is absolutely scandalous and irresponsible.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon.
member will recognize that that is not a question of privilege. The Chair will recognize the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings on a supplementary and then the hon. member for Champlain.
May 19. 1970


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Acting Prime Minister. In view of conditions existing in the Canadian Post Office today, as described by the Postmaster General over the weekend, is it any wonder that there is an impending strike, a strike which has every possibility of taking place?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I doubt whether the question as asked is in order.



POSSIBLE NATIONAL STRIKE-DELIVERY OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE CHEQUES

René Matte: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the Acting Prime Minister a question.
In view of the fact that the government has decided to send out the social security cheques early because a postal strike is threatening, what decision has been taken concerning unemployment insurance benefits for current or future recipients?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, this matter was looked into very carefully. It was decided that at least those payments that are handled entirely by mail and would be difficult to handle otherwise should be forwarded by an early mailing. We looked at the other question but decided it was not possible to deal with it in the same way.



INDUSTRY


Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce about the United States-Canada automobile pact. Have the minister or any members of his department had recent discussions with United States officials concerning alterations to the terms of the pact supposedly in retaliation for certain things that Canada has done?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, there have been extensive discussions with U.S. officials on the auto pact for a number of months now, but no threats have ever been made, no intimidation of the type referred to in the articles to which the hon. member
Inquiries oj the Ministry obviously refers have taken place. Besides if the pact were to be abrogated, notification of one year would have to be given by either government wanting to do so. I do not think any suspicion should be entertained that the United States government intends to take any such action as was imputed to it in some press reports.


Alfred Dryden Hales: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Have leading officials of the United States asked Canada to suspend the pact for two years?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, mention was made by United States officials that the U.S. government would very much welcome an elimination, temporary or permanent, of two of the safeguards, the ratio and the Canadian value added.


Mr. J. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt the minister in his full flight of oratory, but may I ask him a supplementary question. Would he assure the House that any guarantees which already exist in the pact in the form of protection for Canada will not be changed?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I do not think that one's mind should be petrified on this subject, or any other one for that matter.



INFORMATION CANADA


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: I have a question for the Acting Prime Minister. Has he received any report in connection with the investigation of the background of Mr. Jean-Louis Gagnon, a matter that was before the House some weeks ago?


Mitchell William Sharp: No, Mr. Speaker.


John George Diefenbaker: Has there been no investigation? I further ask the minister, in view of the amount of mail that is now coming in-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: It takes longer but we get it none the less. In view of the amount of mail that is now being received in connection with the chronological background and biography of that gentleman which, if untrue, would make the senders of that mail criminally liable to prosecution and punishment, will the minister consider giving Mr. Gagnon an opportunity to appear before a committee
COMMONS DEBATES	May 19, 1970
Inquiries of the Ministry bf.the House and bring with him the true biography so that Canadians will be reassured, that under his leadership of Information Canada objective reports and objective information will be available to the Canadian people?


Mitchell William Sharp: I thank the right hon. gentleman for his tribute to the efficiency of the Post Office. It came at a most opportune time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: On the question that has been raised, I do not share the view that the reputation of this gentleman is being questioned in the way that he has questioned it in the House today.


John George Diefenbaker: I ask the minister whether he has received a letter setting out in detail a series of events which if true, are a denial of that objectivity and responsibility that the person heading Information Canada should have?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question is no. I have not received any such report. I understand that the gentleman in question is appearing before one of the House committees today.


John George Diefenbaker: Will he be bringing with him his biographical record?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskaloon-Biggar):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the findings of the Barber Commission that farm machinery costs in Canada are excessive and since recent reports show that farm machinery sales have dropped sharply, 17 per cent in the first three months of this year, is the minister or his department conducting any surveys to determine if tractor and combine prices have been reduced since the Barber report was received?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I will check to see whether we have any later statistics respecting the prices and the percentage of list prices paid by the farmers in the three-month period referred to by the hon. member compared with other periods examined by the task force.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: A supplementary question. Can the minister inform the House as to the increase in imports of farm machinery which I understood was to be the government's main attack on farm machinery prices? Have imports increased since the report of the commission?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps the minister might reply to the question briefly. He should not go into detail. I have the impression the hon. member is asking for statistical information. To that extent the question could not be in order, but the minister should be allowed to reply briefly.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I will not mention any statistics, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member must realize that the imports of tractors and combines that I referred to were so that there would be greater and more real competition amongst farm machinery companies, not amongst dealers. Obviously a small number of pieces of this kind of equipment have to be brought into the country in the initial stages for testing to determine whether they are acceptable for the purposes of the Canadian farmers.



FARM MACHINERY-IMPLEMENTATION OF BARBER COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS

Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: I have a supplementary question for the minister of Agriculture. Would the minister state briefly which of the recommendations of the Barber Commission have been implemented at the present time and which are in the process of being implemented?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Yes, Mr. Speaker. All the recommendations except the one dealing with the reverse dumping duty are at the point where some progress has been made.



AVAILABILITY OF REPAIR PARTS FOR IMPORTED TRACTORS

John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the minister of something that has come to my attention on two occasions in the last three days, namely, that on tractors imported into Canada it was understood that the needed supply of parts would be available. That undertaking has not been maintained. In the importation of these tractors into this country will the minister see that there is an assurance to those who purchase them that they will be able to secure the necessary parts?
May 19, 1970


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I would appreciate it if the right hon. member would send me the details so that the particular makes could be identified. I am sure the right hon. member realizes that in many of the provinces, indeed most, there is provincial law dealing with the availability of repair parts for a certain number of years after a particular machine is offered for sale. That does not come within the responsibility of the federal government or my department.


John George Diefenbaker: That is so, Mr. Speaker, but the fact remains there is no way to enforce it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John George Diefenbaker: That is why I ask the federal authorities to act-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



COST OF REPAIRING FARM MACHINERY

Mr. A. B. Douglas (Assiniboia):: I wish to ask a supplementary question. In view of the tremendous number of complaints being received regarding the increase in the price of repairs of farm machinery, when the minister is investigating the prices of new machinery will he also investigate the cost of repairs to see whether it has been increasing at too great a rate?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, that particular question will be the subject of a further and, indeed, the final report of the Barber Commission which has not yet been received.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
Is the government aware that since it has announced its new textile policy, hundreds of workers have been laid-off in Sherbrooke and Drummondville and can the government tell the House what it intends to do about the matter?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of the situation, but I shall make inquiries.
Inquiries of the Ministry



NATIONAL REVENUE


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Louis-Roland Comeau (South Western
Nova): I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Pending the introduction of the new legislation announced by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce last week, can the minister assure Canadians in the textile industry that the officers of his department will more rigidly enforce existing protective measures regarding imports? Will the officers be more severe in the future?
Hon. E. J. Benson (Minister of Finance):: This is basically a matter for the Minister of National Revenue who enforces customs regulations in this country. I can assure the hon. member that my experience has been that these regulations have been enforced to the full. Where there have been allegations that they have not been enforced, it has often been because individual firms in Canada have not provided evidence of dumping so that the dumping could be investigated by the Department of National Revenue.



POLLUTION


Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. It relates to the dangers of industrial pollution. Does an industry moving into a designated area submit a brief or a study in connection with pollution likely to be caused by that particular industry, and ways and means of controlling it? Further, has the department set up a list of criteria which must be met before industries are allowed to locate in designated areas?


Hon. J. J. Greene (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: There is no list of criteria. There are varying factors for each industry and each location which would affect the total pollution hazard with respect to any particular undertaking. I am satisfied that through the interdepartmental structure which ensures that all departments have an opportunity to voice their views in a decision as to whether or not to support an industry in a designated area, my department and others concerned with pollution have an opportunity to study the plans in particular applications
7066	COMMONS
Inquiries of the Ministry and to state a case with regard to pollution should it be thought undesirable to support an application.



BROADCASTING


Mr. Jack Mclniosh (Swifi Current-Maple Creek):: I wish to direct a question to the Acting Prime Minister. Are the new rules and regulations proposed by the CRTC intended ultimately to bring about the nationalization of all Canadian broadcasting?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will recognize that his question is asked in very general terms; he is really asking for a statement of policy. I am not sure that the question is in order, but since it has been asked perhaps the Acting Prime Minister might be allowed to reply.


Mitchell William Sharp: As far as I know the answer is no. But the question is one which ought to be directed to the CRTC itself.



STATEMENT BY MINISTER OF ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES IN DENVER

['Mr. Speaker, we have had it for only a very short time, but the report is a very lengthy document and deserves careful consideration by the department before any public statement about it is made by me.']
Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: directed a question on this subject to the Acting Prime Minister the other day. At that time the hon. gentleman who now occupies this temporary post was absent from the House and someone else replied. I would like to ask the hon. member for Eglinton, or whoever is acting as Prime Minister, to comment on the interesting speech made by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources at Denver and tell us whether he was expressing government policy when he gave unqualified support to the present proposals of the CRTC and said, as found on page 34 of the text of that speech, that the government was in favour of increased Canadian content in our television and radio programs?


Mitchell William Sharp: I would have to look at the words of the hon. minister. Certainly, as far as the government is concerned we favour, as does Parliament, the principle that the Canadian content of programs should predominate.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: We are all in favour of motherhood, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh?

DEBATES	May 19, 1970


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Well, I am in favour of it. Some hon. gentlemen opposite might not be. Regardless of the objective, Mr. Speaker, my question was: Does the statement of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, as set out in interesting terms on page 34, indicate that it is government policy to support without qualification the present proposals of the CRTC?


Mitchell William Sharp: No, Mr. Speaker. The CRTC. has made proposals which are now under discussion. If the CRTC. were to change those proposals, that would be its responsibility, not the government's.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I should like to ask the Acting Prime Minister whether I was correct in understanding him to say that he had not yet read the speech to which reference has been made-the speech by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. If my understanding is correct, was the omission due to lack of time or deliberate policy?


Mitchell William Sharp: I can tell the hon. gentleman that I have read my colleague's speech. It is quite a brilliant speech.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: It is one which I am sure the hon. gentleman would like to have delivered himself. However, the question which was put to me originally was whether I had read the speech before it was delivered. The answer to that was no.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: On a point of order-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has to resume his seat. He seeks to rise on a point of order and the Chair will recognize him in a moment. Again, I have to bring to the attention of hon. members the fact that we shall soon be running out of time. The hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek, who raised the original question on this point, has a supplementary. He will be recognized in a moment. First we will hear the hon. member who has a point of order.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: My point of order is this, Mr. Speaker. I thought, from the Acting Prime Minister's earlier answer, that he had not read that portion of the speech which was the basis of my question. Now, he has said he has read the speech and that it was a brilliant speech. My question referred specifically to
May 19. 1970

page 34 and to the observation on Canadian content as directed by the CRTC. I think the hon. gentleman misled the House.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek on a supplementary.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I am not satisfied, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I appreciate that the hon. member may not be satisfied but he has asked his question twice. There is a point of dispute, it seems, between him and the Acting Prime Minister, but that is hardly a point of order. For the moment the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek should be allowed to ask his supplementary.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: It seems the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek will have to wait a few moments yet while we hear the point of order raised by the Leader of the Opposition.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: With all due respect, the Acting Prime Minister seemed at first to give the impression that he had not read the statement when he was asked whether part of it represented government policy. Now we have finally elicited from him that he has read it and members of the opposition are most anxious and believe it to be most important to ascertain whether it reflects government policy. I put this point to Your Honour as earnestly as I can.


Mitchell William Sharp: Perhaps I can attempt to answer the question. When the question was originally put to me, the hon. member asked whether the Prime Minister or myself had read the speech before it had been delivered and therefore, in effect, whether we had approved it in advance. The answer to that question was no. Neither of us had read it before it was delivered, or given specific approval to it. Now, I am asked to comment on certain aspects of the speech. In this instance the question is whether I agree with the minister in supporting what the CRTC proposes by way of Canadian content. The position is, obviously, that the CRTC has made some proposals; it may change those proposals and if it does so it is discharging its responsibility. The government is not coming down in favour of any of the specific recommendations which are now being presented. If I am asked whether I agree in general that there should 22375-291
Inquiries of the Ministry be a high proportion of Canadian content in our programs, then I agree with my colleague the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: In the light of that circuitous answer, I should like to ask whether the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources was not expressing government policy when he stated, as reported on page 34 of his interesting speech, that the government is in favour of Canadian content in radio and television programs as directed by the CRTC?


Mitchell William Sharp: The CRTC is now in the process of putting forward some proposals for changes and until it decides what shall ultimately be done it will be very difficult for any minister to say he agrees. We must await the proposals of the CRTC.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: A further supplementary-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has asked a number of questions. Perhaps we might recognize the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek who has been very patient.


John (Jack) McIntosh: My question arises out of the answer the Acting Prime Minister gave to my first question and also his attitude to the questions put to him by my colleague. Has the government delegated to the CRTC the power to nationalize all broadcasting in Canada?


Mitchell William Sharp: The answer is no, Mr. Speaker.



Francis Andrew Brewin: My
question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Now that he has had discussions with the Foreign Secretary of Israel, could he tell the House whether he can confirm that Soviet personnel are manning antiaircraft weapons in Egypt and, if so, would he consider making representations to the government of the U.S.S.R. concerning the dangers to world peace inherent in such a confrontation?


Mitchell William Sharp: I discussed this subject with the Foreign Secretary of Israel while he was here. He laid particular emphasis upon his government's concern about the level of Soviet military involvement in that area. On behalf of the
7P68
May 19, 1970

Inquiries of the Ministry
government of Canada, may I say that we are concerned about the involvement of any outside power in this area. We hope that this involvement will be minimized and that everyone will work toward a de-escalation of this conflict.


Paul Yewchuk: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister of external affairs. Has Canada taken an official position or indicated officially any reaction to the recent Israeli activity in Lebanon?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have had representations from the Ambassador of Lebanon who called on me to discuss this matter. I took note of the views of the Lebanese government. As the hon. member knows, at the present time this matter is under discussion in New York. We are all interested in trying to de-escalate the conflict. That is what I said in reply to my hon. friend who asked the previous question, and I repeat it to the House as a whole.
These incidents are building up tensions even higher than they have been, and 1 think that we in Canada ought to be working to try to reduce them as best we can. However, I do not think it helps greatly in this particular connection to be taking positions with regard to particular instances. I think we ought to be dealing with the conflict as a whole, as well as the interventions made on both sides and the unnecessary violence accompanying them.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Has the minister's department yet assessed the report of the special committee which reported to the Council of Europe on the question of the torture of political prisoners in Greek jails? If so, what position has the government of Canada taken on this question?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, we have now received the report that was submitted to the Council of Europe, and this is under study. I shall probably say something about it when we have completed our study.


John Edward Broadbent: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister assure the 
House that he will hasten the study of the matter since the report is already some four months old?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, we have had it for only a very short time, but the report is a very lengthy document and deserves careful consideration by the department before any public statement about it is made by me.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Waller Deakon (High Park):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact that the Air Terminal Transport contract for Toronto International Airport expires on July 1 of this year, can the minister advise the House when a decision may be expected as to the renewal, rescission or otherwise of this contract in order to enable the drivers and other employees of the company to plan accordingly?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, I would have to take that question as notice in order to enable me to examine the existing contract. On the broader question of ground transportation, we will make a decision as soon as the report on this subject by the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications has been received.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Hamilton West rising on a supplementary question?



TORONTO-ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW SITE

Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Yes, Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question which in a way is also related. With respect to the announcement that the minister made today, and bearing in mind that the minister has already indicated that he has been studying the question of a site for over a year and a half, I am fearful that the minister might take over a year to announce the site of the new airport. Has the minister any projected time within which he intends to make an announcement about an approved site, subject always, of course, to the participation of the citizenry involved?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, that is the most ingenious supplementary question of the decade. We will put ground transportation
May 19, 1970	COMMONS
services to the new airport just as soon as the site has been determined. I will announce that site just as soon as the studies have been completed, and as I indicated earlier this is likely to be in early September.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: The final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We have
reached the end of the question period, but I think in fairness to the hon. member for Brandon-Souris he should be recognized.



MANPOWER


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Thank you for your consideration, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I can ask my question and supplementary question at the same time in order to save time. My question is directed to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Has the hon. gentleman received complaints from students in rural areas to the effect that it is more difficult for them to obtain employment with the government of Canada compared with students from the urban parts of Canada? If so, in view of the severe economic problems in the rural parts, would the minister investigate this matter?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I have received no complaints from such students, but I will look into the point raised in any event.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
House in committee of the whole on Bill C-193, to amend the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Act-Mr. Pepin-Mr. Faulkner in the Chair.
On clause 1-Associated Corporations.
The Chairman:: Order. House in committee of the whole on Bill C-193, an act to amend the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Act. Shall clause 1 carry?
DEBATES	70S9
Industrial Research and Development Act


Mr. Harkness:: Mr. Chairman, before clause 1 carries-


James Hugh Faulkner: Order, please. Can we have order in committee of the whole? Perhaps some of the conversations might be carried oh outside the chamber.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, before clause 1 carries I wonder whether the minister would make a little more clear than he did irt his speech on second reading of the bill on March 23 the necessity for this particular change. At that time the minister said, as reported at page 5357 of Hansard:
For example, two companies have been disqualified for grants which otherwise would have totalled $176,000 and 15 other companies have suffered reductions in grants totalling $325,000 because of the associated companies provision.
Would the minister explain what the circumstances were as far as these two companies were concerned, and how this particular amendment to the act will change the situation? If this explanation does not extend to the other 15 companies, then what is the difference between the two companies on the one hand and the 15 on the other, both of which groups were disqualified under the act?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Chairman, this is a very complicated subject; I think that much is granted.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I expect that is why I do not
understand it.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Perhaps that is why I may not be able to explain it too well myself. The intention of the act is to assist industrial research and development. However, it is not intended to offer any special favour to companies that are associated. Under the original act such associated companies cannot receive more because of their association than they would receive without it. But they should not be penalized because of it, either. That is the purpose of the suggested amendment.
For example, let us say that three associated companies, A, B and C, are dealing together at arm's length. Perhaps one of these companies that should be assisted is not being assisted or is being assisted less because of its associated status with the other two. We want to leave the matter of deciding if they are or are not "at arm's length" to the discretion of the minister. I have been reminded by the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings, that I should be very virtuous in this regard, and I promised to be so. In such circum-
Industrial Research and Development Act stances, I would have the capacity to decide whether, notwithstanding the associated status of one of these companies, the company should nevertheless receive assistance.
[DOT] (3:20 p.m.)


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I think
everyone in this House is anxious to do everything possible to increase the amount of industrial research and development in order to put our industries in a better competitive position so far as securing world markets is concerned. Thus, there is every disposition in this part of the House to assist in this regard. However, on the basis of what the minister just said, that two or three associated companies cannot receive these grants, I wonder whether these changes will result in increasing the amount of industrial research in this country. Why should two companies, even though associated, which are prepared to spend money on research not be assisted under this act, because if they were not associated each would be entitled to assistance?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Well, Mr. Chairman, there is a nuance to be taken into account here. Three associated companies can be helped, by this bill, but they cannot be helped collectively more than separately. That is the purpose of the clause. It is a complicated situation perhaps, but by so doing one wants to avoid the possibility of three associated companies becoming involved in gimmicks in their association in order to obtain more money under this bill; for example, by cycling their research in such a way as to make more use of the funds or inflating prices of articles and things exchanged between themselves. I repeat, however, that there are situations in which three associated companies are dealing with each other at arm's length where the amendment would make it possible for the minister, informed of that fact, to rule that they should not be prevented from getting more.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to return to a discussion which has gone on for a couple of years now between the minister and I in respect of various programs concerned with research and development, and more particularly the IRDIA program. At this time I do not want to repeat a number of general criticisms I made in the House on March 23 about the government's R and D programs, nor do I want to repeat a number of distinct, important national advantages which accrue to any country

May 19, 1970
having meaningful research and development programs. These are all on the record if one wishes to look at Hansard for March 23. I should like to go back to a more specific consideration, and once again refer to criticisms that have been made of this program in the hope that the minister this time will give an adequate answer in order to justify this program.
In the judgment of the New Democratic Party-and I might add in the judgment of many scientists in this country-the $30 million odd now being spent on this program are a complete waste so far as meaningful research and development work is concerned. This program really has its roots in the old GIRD Act of 1961. This was the beginning of an attempt to encourage scientific research and development by the provision of tax incentives. In 1967, IRDIA made a sensible change from encouraging scientific development on the basis of tax incentives to a basis of outright grants. However, the minister has not provided the slightest bit of convincing evidence in support of the view that IRDIA has contributed in any meaningful way to research and development in Canada. I shall refer specifically to the most recent debate on this subject which appears at page 5357 of Hansard for March 23.
In that debate the minister attempted to justify the IRDIA program. I suggest to him, as a former university professor, that he look at the logic of his argument with some care. I suggest that his argument is completely fallacious. In fact, in the argument he assumes what he was supposed to prove by it. I wish to quote from page 5357 of Hansard, beginning at the bottom of the page:
When one tries to estimate the general effect of that program on research and development, one can cite as an example that the amount of research made in Canada reached $80.8 million last year and that it went up this year to $100.8 million. These are current expenses allowable during the period between 1968-69 and 1969-70. The program has therefore led to a significant increase in the amounts earmarked for research in Canada.
I suggest, with all respect, that the kind of evidence he produces does not suggest that to us at all. In fact, this is the kind of argument which depends on the truth of the general causal conclusions in order to lend any weight to it at all. The minister has restated what he was supposed to be trying to prove. If one were to look at the available statistics as I have them, the rate-and I emphasize this-the rate of increase of research and development has fallen in Canada since the

May 19, 1970	COMMONS
IRDIA program got under way. If the minister is to argue in any convincing fashion that the IRDIA program contributed in a positive way to the rate of increase in research and development, the very least he has to show is that during this period in Canada the upward curve which existed for research and development continued upward.
In fact, if one looks at the research and development pattern since the beginning of the IRDIA program one finds that the rate of increase has fallen. So, I would hope the minister will try to improve on the argument he provided on March 23 on that point. I am not in any way trying to raise a sophistical, logical point. I am trying to raise what I believe to be a very substantial point, namely, that there is no evidence to suggest that the millions of dollars involved in the IRDIA program have contributed to an increase in research and development in this country. To repeat a point I made on March 23, there is good cause to believe that far from contributing to any research and development, the IRDIA funds are simply being taken up by firms which would have undertaken research programs at their own expense. Therefore, the money is a net waste so far as the Canadian taxpayer is concerned.
While we are on the question of the use of figures, I should like the minister to explain the figures he provided on the same day as shown at page 5355 of Hansard. At the top of the right hand column, the minister is reported as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the amounts earmarked for research and development in Canada are fortunately increasing. Considering the contribution of all participants-the federal government, industry, universities-
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)
And so on. He provided a number of figures. I should like to know the basis of those figures. Where did he get them? According to the records I have at my disposal, the last year for which we have meaningful statistics is 1967. So, what basis does the minister have for the statistics which appear at the top of page 5355? Unless the minister does today what he should do, that is justify the continuation of this program, I will move, at the appropriate time, a motion which would have the effect of removing this program entirely. The consensus of those people who are seriously concerned with research and development is that research aid should not be given on the basis of general grants to which everyone would be eligible, but that rather we
DEBATES	7071
Industrial Research and Development Act should have specific programs, such as PAIT, for example. We should assess particular research projects, make a very careful assessment of their likely contribution to the economy and the scientific progress in this country, and then make a judgment.
We should, therefore, scrap all programs of the IRDIA nature and concentrate on those of the PAIT nature. Therefore, the minister has an important responsibility in this House to justify what his department is doing in the IRDIA program. Up to this point, he certainly has not done that.
Another point I should like to raise this afternoon is that if you look at the money provided by the Canadian government, that is to say by the Canadian taxpayer, you will find that about two thirds of the millions of dollars which go out in grants go to firms that are foreign controlled. If we look at the IRDIA program itself for 1968-69, we find that the major portion of these funds is going to Canadian owned firms. However, if we total all the expenditures on all research and development programs for 1968-69, we see that foreign owned firms received $41.4 million and Canadian owned firms received $18.7 million.
One aspect of this question of money going to foreign owned as opposed to Canadian owned firms, is that surely we should expect some meaningful research and development would be done by these firms in Canada. Certainly, there should be some response by these firms to increasing political demands that more concern be shown by these companies in Canadian developments. However, when we look at the research and development programs of the foreign owned firms for the last few years, do we see an increase in the amount of research and development they are doing in Canada, such as one might obviously expect from firms getting millions of dollars from the Canadian taxpayer? No, the evidence is just the opposite. The amount of research being done by foreign owned firms has dropped off in recent years in Canada. They are continuing to do more outside the country in the home plant as opposed to the branch plant.
The situation in the year 1968-69 was that the taxpayer of Canada put in some $41.4 million in the form of grants to foreign companies to encourage research and development. We now find that the amount of research and development which they are doing in this country is being reduced. I suggest that this is a clear and fundamental illus-
Industrial Research and Development Act tration of the dangers which exist from haying such a high degree of foreign ownership of our industry and of giving grants of federal money to firms on an indiscriminate basis. I hope the minister will deal with this objection in a straightforward fashion.
The other point that I want to make this afternoon, and it will be my last one, is to make a suggestion about what the minister's department should be doing to encourage scientific research and development, and in what area Canada might begin to take world leadership. I should like to suggest that one important area which has attracted serious consideration from a number of Canadian citizens in recent months is that of pollution. This is the first time I have spoken in this House about that motherhood subject-pollution. I cannot find a person in any political party who would say that pollution is a good thing. Everyone is in favour of controlling it. In fact, it will probably replace motherhood as the all-embracing worthy cause.


Gerald William Baldwin: The Criminal Code has already done that.


John Edward Broadbent: But in spite of the fact that all people in all parties want to do something about it, it is a serious question none the less. It is an area to which the Canadian government, through its spending of research and development money, might give serious consideration to encouraging our researchers to play a leading role in the world. This is an area in which studies are just getting under way. Each of us could produce a list of other sectors of the economy in which research and development is already well established, so instead of trying to get into the act in some already established field, I should like to suggest that we begin spending, say, $30 million on research and development for controlling some aspects of pollution. This is the sum of money which is currently being wasted on the IRDIA program. We could do some serious work on the fundamental development of pollution control, on product innovation and on all other aspects of the pollution question.
We should look at air pollution, water pollution and soil pollution. We could find scientists in every university in Canada, I am sure, who would be interested in doing serious, fundamental work in these areas if they were encouraged to do so by the provision of federal government funds. The cumulative effects of this would be twofold. On the one hand, we would make a breakthrough in certain 
May 19, 1970
areas of pollution control. We would, ipso facto, remove that aspect of pollution danger. Also, from an economical point of view, which is important, we could develop new products in Canada before other countries did so and these could be sold abroad. Thus, we could establish some leadership in one sector of industry in world markets.
I should like to conclude with the specific suggestion that the minister abandon the IRDIA program. I know he is not going to do that and I know that he will attempt to justify the program. However, if he does not agree with the suggestion that he should abandon it, I hope he will give serious consideration to urging this government to provide real leadership in Canada in doing research and development on the subject of pollution.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)


Mr.   Oiio@: Mr. Chairman, before the minister explained clause 1 I thought I understood it pretty well, but now that he has explained it I am not sure that I do understand it. Since then, he has had a moment to reflect with his advisers. It is my understanding that before this amendment was introduced, if there were two corporations or two companies working on development projects for which the government could contribute, nothing could be done for them if, under the Income Tax Act, they were deemed to be not at arm's length. I understand the amendment says that unless a corporation establishes to the satisfaction of the minister that the two companies dealt with each other at arm's length it can receive nothing. Am I correct in saying that if it can establish to the satisfaction of the minister that during the period of the research program they were at arms length, then the minister can give the corporation a grant or some assistance despite the Income Tax Act? I see the minister nodding his head, indicating he agrees with me. I think both of us now understand what the clause means.
The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby made some pointed remarks about the advisability of carrying on this program, but he did not comment on what he would substitute for it.


John Edward Broadbent: Yes, I did.


Mr. Otto:: He said he would discontinue the program completely and go on to pollution measures. However, I would suggest that he might be partially right-


John Edward Broadbent: Would the hon. member-


Steven Otto: Will the hon. gentleman sit down? I will support him in his arguments

May 19, 1970	COMMONS
that nowadays research and development are not the simple things they used to be. Consequently, many of the large corporations are forced to undertake their research programs in the United States. We no longer conduct a specific research program on a product. We have to research the product and the market, and it is no longer a national market but an international market. We have to research the price structure, the financing, and all such things. There are very few small corporations that can do this.
In fact, most Canadian corporations cannot do this, and so they continue with a fly-bynight operation which absorbs a lot of their money and a lot of the government's money. About seven years ago I suggested that the government establish a Crown research corporation that could put all of this together. It has been said many times that this is a wonderful idea and that we will have to think about it sooner or later, but the "later" always seems to come much sooner than the "sooner."
It is no longer possible for an industry to make an effective contribution to research and development of its product without taking into consideration many other factors, of which pollution is one. Pollution is something that has to be researched, but you cannot expect one small industry producing soap flakes to undei'take such a great project. Therefore, we must have a Crown Corporation very much like the original Rand Corporation in the United States, through which we can use our talent, where research programs are undertaken in sequence, where as the need arises other departments and other advisers can help. Such a program would be twice as effective as this program and would cost half as much.
I have looked over the other clauses of the bill, and I think they solve a lot of the problems that arose in connection with the original act. I repeat that the minister and his department should look carefully into the establishment of a Crown research corporation which could effectively make a contribution to our industry, to our economic affairs and to our government. I think the bill is worthy of support, and I hope the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby was not serious in saying he was going to move some sort of amendment to do away with the original act.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Very rapidly, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby makes a frontal attack on this program, which is one of general research; he would like us to 22375-30
DEBATES	7073
Industrial Research and Development Act emphasize more specific types of research, which is what we have under the PAIT program. My answer is that in the department we try to have all types of research and development programs. That is really what we try to achieve. Why do we do that? Frankly, it is because we feel industries have different needs, have different siiuations, and we try to meet as many of these particular situations as we can. This is why we have specific research and development programs, and this is why we have a general research and development program which is known as IRDIA. Our motivation is really to meet the client on his own terms, if you want to put it this way.
I could give two examples to indicate the success of this approach. I could say, that under the stimulus of government assistance programs in general Canadian industry increased its expenditures on scientific research and development between 1961 and 1967 from $127.5 million to $337.8 million, which is an increase of 165 percent, from 1.17 per cent of its net output in terms of total value added to 1.87 per cent of total value added.
I could say that the growth rate in funds provided by industry for current intra-mural research and development has increased over the same period of time from 12.8 per cent per annum to more than 19 per cent per annum. But I am afraid that this kind of statistics would not impress the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby.
This being a general program I cannot indeed relate the effect of the program to any particular case except to indicate that total research and development in Canada has increased in recent years, and I may venture to say that IRDIA is one of the reasons. I cannot be more specific than that, IRDIA being a general program.
In answer to the statistics offered by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby to the effect that the rate of increase in research and development has been going down, I can only say that it might have been worse had it not been for IRDIA. I do not think he can challenge that on logical grounds. I would also have to indicate that there would be other factors to bear in mind if the rate of increase is going down. One of these is the fact that the Canadian government contribution to defence research is not as high now as it was three, four, five or ten years ago. The hon. member tells me that I cannot prove in mathematical terms the effect of IRDIA, and I
May 19, 1970
7074	COMMONS DEBATES
Industrial Research and Development Act agree. But for the very same reasons he cannot prove that IRDIA has not done any worthwhile work. So, let us leave it at that, Mr. Chairman. I simply cannot be more specific.
Another thing I could say is that the number of companies which applied for this research and development money in 1967-68 was 111; in 1968-69 it was 464, and the estimate for 1969-70 is 630. So, unless these people are all fools, and I do not think the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby would say that. There must be good reasons why a total of 1,205 companies have made use of this program. If it is not a good program and does not fulfil a particular need I wonder why 1,205 companies bothered to ask for the money.


John Edward Broadbent: Because it is free money.


Jean-Luc Pepin: They pay the major share. If I put all these things together, the number of applications, the general growth of research and development in industry, then I may say, "My God, maybe IRDIA had something to do with it." Again, I cannot be more specific than that. In these programs, you cannot point to a particular product and say that you assisted its development.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
I repeat what I said at the beginning. We do not want anybody to have reasons for not undertaking research and development in this country. Consequently, since the government has a limited amount of money available it tries to develop a number of programs, so as to accommodate all companies interested in these programs of research and development.
The other point raised by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, and this is almost a leitmotiv with him, has to do with foreign-owned or controlled companies. The hon. member mentioned that these companies have received $41 million; I think that is the figure he used. I do not have the figures with me today.
If it is not surprising that foreign-owned or controlled companies should receive quite substantial percentages of these funds. In the areas we are mostly concerned about, the areas of secondary industry, over 60 per cent of Canadian industry is foreign controlled. The percentage of foreign control or ownership in our science based industries is probably even higher than that. So, again it is not surprising that such a substantial part of the

moneys available should go to foreign-owned or controlled companies. As you know, Mr. Chairman, it has to be demonstrated each time that the research and development that is to be undertaken under the assistance programs is in the Canadian interest; that the money is for research aimed at facilities and products that are to be developed in Canada and for Canada.
Again, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby says that we should do more to incite-I think that is what he meant- these foreign-owned companies to undertake more research in Canada. I agree with that. But IRDIA and other programs make it easier for them to undertake research and development, with federal government assistance. If they do not undertake it, then it is the responsibility of their Canadian directors and management as well as of Canadian governments, federal and provincial alike, to impress upon them the requirements of the Canadian interest. To my way of thinking we would not be adopting an intelligent approach if we were to deprive them of government support in the undertaking of the research and development. As a matter of fact, only if we make available to these foreign-controlled companies the same facilities that we offer to Canadian-owned companies can we say, "Look, you are wrong; you are not even using the money the federal government is putting at your disposal." It seems to me that it would be only logical-and I am always very impressed by the capacity for logic of my former confrere, the professor of political science from Oshawa-Whitby-not to exclude such companies from the research and development faciilties of the Canadian government.
I agree with the hon. gentleman on the other aspect, that these companies established in Canada should be always reminded of the Canadian interest. My information is-if my officials say I am wrong I will apologize for my error-that, according to studies we have made, it is demonstrated that these foreign-owned and controlled companies do proportionately more research than Canadian companies do, generally speaking. Am I right? I am right.


John Edward Broadbent: May I follow up on that point, Mr. Chairman, because I think it needs elaborating. The point is that in the last couple of years there has been a decrease in the amount of research and development undertaken by foreign-owned firms, as opposed to an increase.
May 19. 1970

That activity has fallen off. True, if you compare the general records of foreign-owned and domestically-owned firms, you will see that foreign-owned firms have a better record. But if you look at the figures available for the past two years, you will see that foreign-owned firms have undertaken relatively less research work in this country than in the past. You might have thought they might have undertaken more, especially in the light of public attention brought to bear on them.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I am not in a position to check on the accuracy of the hon. member's opinions. I am suggesting that depriving foreign-owned and controlled firms of the advantages of IRDIA would not be the right kind of approach to any problems which might exist. In the last couple of years, as a result of the good work of my officials, I, as Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, have been in the position of impressing upon foreign-owned companies the requirements of the Canadian interest.
I am sure that those in the House who preceded me in my portfolio have, on occasion, done something similar, that is, called in a firm and said, "Look, you are making lots of money in Canada; you are doing quite well in terms of plant and equipment; but research and development commands the future and we would very much appreciate it if you would develop in Canada facilities of the type you have in the United States or Europe." I have done that on a number of occasions, with some success if I might say so, not because it was I who was speaking but because I was speaking in those instances on behalf of the Government of Canada. I suggest, that the hon. member for Oshawa-Whit-by ought to ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce to be even more aggressive than he has been in doing this kind of work. I suggest also that what he says about IRDIA does not really apply in the present circumstances.
The rest of the hon. member's speech, having to do with areas where more research and development ought to take place, involves a matter of opinion. Research into pollution is welcome and all the facilities of the research and development program of the government are open to companies willing to do research and development in anti-pollution equipment. But there are many other areas that are also of great importance for the future of Canada, and it so happens that we do not all agree on 22375-30J
DEBATES	7075
Industrial Research and Development Act what those areas are. It happens, once in a while when research is undertaken in an area we think justified, that somebody else in another country makes a big discovery in that very same area. But research and development is a difficult game, and you have to gamble at times.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
All branches of my department are also there to advise industries and people of the research and development programs of the department on those areas where research and development would be most worth while. Members of the House must not forget that the department has a sort of counselling position in these matters and, in my view, does this remarkably well. In the area of electronics, for example, my department played a prominent role in making sure that what is called the third generation micro-circuits would be properly assisted. And it was. Although the area of pollution is important, one could make a case for many other areas as well; those areas too should be given research and development money. The companies have the final say on which area they will spend their money and the government assistance funds.


Mr. Barnett:: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the minister a question? A few minutes ago he was giving us some statistics which, as I understood, he regarded as indicators of the success achieved by this program of industrial research which is assisted by the government. Does the minister have any indications or statistics as to what results may have been achieved, either in general or in particular instances, by way of a percentage increase in productivity as a result of the research programs which have been conducted under this program?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I am not in a position to do that now. However, I will write to the hon. member on the subject if I can muster enough information. I know that studies are conducted in my department regarding productivity in general. I will attempt to find out if there is a known relationship between the rate of increase of research and development and the increased rate of productivity in this country. There must be a relationship, but I do not know if figures are available to demonstrate it.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I thank the minister. It strikes me that this would be a very useful approach from which to examine the value of the
Industrial Research and Development Act investment of public funds if it is proposed to continue to have a program of this kind.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Chairman, I am going to return to the use of logic. The minister does not seem to have been concerned with it at all. It is very important. I acknowledge the difficulty of making casual connections. As I understood the minister, he said that under the IRDIA program which was introduced there was some increase in the amount of research and development that was being done in this country during this period of time. The minister went on to say, and I agree, that there was a falling off of the rate of increase after the program was announced. If I understood the minister's argument, the introducting of IRDIA had some impact on all this. This is not exactly the most brilliant argument in defence of a program.
The amount of rainfall in Canada might have increased during the same period, or it might have fallen off during that same period. Did the IRDIA program have an effect on that? The production of cattle might have increased or decreased. Possibly there is a connection between the IRDIA program and that statistical happening.
It is not up to me to make a scientific argument to disprove that there is a connection between a government program and what happens in society. Surely, the onus of proof is on the government to show that there is a connection. Not many centuries ago if you accused someone of being a witch, you put that person in a bag and threw her in the water. If that person emerged from the bag alive, that proved she was not a witch. If that person drowned, it proved that she was a witch.


Gerald William Baldwin: That is the way the government treats the opposition.


John Edward Broadbent: It may not be the way the government treats the opposition, but it is the type of logic the minister used in his argument. There is no logic in terms of a casual explanation. That, surely, is what is required.
To go back to the time when the IRDIA program was introduced, I suggested that the rate of increase-could I have the attention of the minister for one minute to follow my argument? Could I get the minister's attention? If one looks at the time that the IRDIA program was introduced, when it was said that research and development was going to have a positive causal impact-I agree it is

May 19, 1970
very difficult to see a causal connection

a statistical argument could be made if the curve in the graph continued upward.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Not necessarily.


John Edward Broadbent: Not necessarily, but it could provide some kind of positive evidence. At least the first analysis might be that there was a positive effect from the program. Surely, if the curve is going up like this, and then when a program is introduced it starts to go down-


Jean-Luc Pepin: Some other factors may enter into it.


John Edward Broadbent: I agree that there may be many other factors, but I do not agree with the minister's suggestion that somehow, in some mystical fashion, the IRDIA program must have made a positive contribution. The minister by-passed my argument that the IRDIA program conceivably had no impact whatsoever on new research and development in the country. That argument should be taken seriously.
I do not accept the minister's argument about the number of firms making application. I also referred in the past to the applications. The point I wish to make is, with a program like IRDIA, it would be foolish for a firm not to apply for government funds to which they are automatically entitled. It is conceivable and quite probable that in many cases these firms would have undertaken a research and development program quite independently of this general program. This issue should be studied very carefully.
If there is not evidence one way or the other, I wish the minister would say that and then follow that up by saying he will have certain officials in his department make a serious study of the IRDIA program. Although I acknowledge it would be difficult to do, I would like that kind of commitment.
The minister suggested that I should not argue about the fact that research and development funds are being made available to foreign owned firms because they control such a high percentage of the industry in this country. The minister concluded that a lot of research and development would not be done if these firms were excluded. I agree in principle with that argument if that is as far as we go.
My two points are that the IRDIA program should be scrapped and that we should concentrate on a PAIT kind of program, that is
to say study specific projects, from which I

May 19, 1970	COMMONS
would not exclude foreign owned firms. For the reasons I mentioned earlier, I think the PAIT type of program is much more important and relevant than the general one. My argument is not against foreign owned firms per se, especially in our society, but against the IRDIA program.
My second point is that positive action is required by the government not only in the area of research and development, but in all aspects of the foreign-owned sectors of our economy. The government should set up regulations as to how these firms should operate, specifically, in the context of today's debate, in the research field. If foreign owned firms are going to receive the vast majority of the government grants, as they do now, the government should work out some means in contractual form whereby these companies do a percentage of their general research and development in this country, which would correspond to the share of business they do in this country. They should not only conduct research and development in this country according to the amount of the particular grant they receive from this government, but as a rule these firms should conduct a high percentage of the total of all their research and development in this country. I ask the minister to comment on these points.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Before doing so, Mr. Chairman,
I wish to answer the question raised by the hon. member for York North. This question was in connection with the very technical amendment with respect to associated companies. He seemed to have difficulty understanding the situation. Associated corporations are not excluded now and will not be excluded from receiving research and development funds, but they cannot receive more as a combination than separately. I wish to clear up that possible confusion. Why is that? It is because we do not want these corporations to be tempted by the possibility of arranging things amongst their associated companies.
But, and this is the purpose of the amendment, if the minister finds that these companies are dealing with each other at arm's length, the minister can permit a company to receive more than it would have received under the act as it stands now. I hope that is a bit clearer.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
On the subject of research by a Crown company, I suggest there are a number of agencies doing research which are quite close to being Crown companies, such as the
DEBATES	7077
Industrial Research and Development Act National Research Council and Atomic Energy of Canada. What the hon. member
may have in mind is a collective entity, one unit which would bring all these facilities together. There is a debate on that question. There are those who say that all these facilities should be in the hands of one minister. There are others who maintain that if every minister has his own program he keeps a better watch on it. Some of us think that a ministerial committee bringing all these elements together, as we have now, is sufficient.
I shall return to what the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby has said. I had the impression that the debate between us ended in a tie. He cannot demonstrate that there is no correlation between IRDIA and research and development progress in Canada. On the other hand, neither can I demonstrate that there is a direct relation between the two. I suggest again that we call it a tie and say that, notwithstanding the great capacity for logical gymnastics we possess, neither one of us can win. My view is that whatever decline there has been would have been worse had it not been for the introduction of federal assistance programs like IRDIA and PAIT. Many factors, including the general reduction in recent years' of research and development money made available by the government for defence purposes should be taken into account in analysing the figures quoted by the hon. member.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 4 inclusive agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
James Hugh Faulkner: Shall the bill carry?


John Edward Broadbent: Could the Chair help a relatively new member at this point? I wish to put a motion, and I hope I am rising in time to do so.


Some hon. Members:: Too late.


James Hugh Faulkner: The proposal before the committee now is that the bill carry.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Bill reported.


Jean-Luc Pepin: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move:
That Bill C-193 be not now read the third time but that it be read the third time this day six months hence.
May 19, 1970
"078	COMMONS DEBATES
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill
, My friend, the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Barnett) will second the motion.


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


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say, yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those against, please say, nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The nays have it. Negatived on division.
Amendment (Mr. Broadbent) negatived.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The question is now on the main motion.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, May 14, consideration of the motion of Mr. Olson that Bill C-197, 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, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Homer (p.6719).
i Mr. A. D. Alkenbrack (Fronlenac-Lennox and Addington): Mr. Speaker, when we were debating this bill on Thursday evening last I followed very closely the remarks made by the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Sko-berg). Throughout most of his speech he spoke in favour of the amendment which had been put forward so ably by the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner). Yet, at the end of his remarks he told the House he was not completely "sold" on my hon. friend's proposal. Now, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, where do the hon. member for Moose Jaw and his New Democratic Party stand on this question? Equivocation of this kind will not serve, and is of no use to the agriculture industry.
Most hon. members who were present on that occasion will recall the sudden intervention of the minister into the debate. He [Mr. Broadbent.)
excused himself then, by saying he was obliged to clear up some misunderstanding which had arisen in connection with the bill and with the amendment. I would only comment that it must be a pretty good amendment when it brings the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) to his feet to try to defend a bill which is so indefensible from a democratic point of view.
When the government announced it was proposing legislation aimed at regulating the production and marketing of farm products throughout the country on a uniform basis, I was elated and so were most of the farmers in my constituency of Frontenac-Lennox and Addington. I immediately joined my voice to the chorus of approval from this side of the House. Together with other members in whose constituencies a great many farmers live, I have long been convinced that such legislation was both desirable and necessary. In past years, the regulation of production and marketing of farm products has been handled on a regional or area basis, sometimes effectively but often less than satisfactorily. When Bill C-197 was tabled I thought that at long last we could take a giant step towards solving these problems that have plagued one of our largest and most important industries for so long a time.
[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
However, Mr. Speaker, I was quite unprepared for the sweeping and drastic measures that the government has proposed in this bill, and my enthusiasm has changed to alarm. I am deeply alarmed that this government continues to approach this country's problems with coercive arrogance instead of understanding. I am alarmed that this government continues to erode the spirit of free enterprise in this country in order to avoid facing up to economic and social problems.
For example, where is the report of the agricultural task force organized by this government last year and sent out across the country to glean much needed information? What would the task force think of this Bill C-197? Are its members in favour of this autocratic piece of legislative dictatorship? Is this what they recommended? I think not. As a body extramural to the government, I would think from their journeys of inquiry across the nation that the task force would not be in support of the dictatorial clauses of this bill.
To review further the background to the introduction of this bill, what is the political
May 19. 1970
COMMONS DEBATES	7079
Farm, Products Marketing Agencies Bill
climate and state of the nation at the present time? First of all, the government is in trouble. The "Trudeaumania" of 1968 has faded and the "Trudeaumaniacs", now much wiser, face the harsh facts and realities of 1970. Unemployment is at an all-time high, the highest since the great depression of the thirties, and increasing conversely to the usual pattern in former years in the previously optimistic months of April and May. Most of our students do not know where to turn for jobs. Housing starts are at a dismal low. Western agriculture is being deliberately throttled and stultified by legislation introduced by this government, such as its notorious summer fallow regulations.
Today's Ottawa Journal carries on page 7 the headline: "Prairie farmers 'just plain mad'". If the government has its way, the prairies will be more black than green this summer and the result will be more unemployed farmers. Further, unfair foreign competition is being allowed by this government to replace, and in many cases to ruin, our own established secondary manufacturing industries and particularly the textile and synthetic fibre trade, as well as the electronics industry.
Taxpayers are getting the poorest value for their tax dollar this current fiscal year in the whole history of this country. Inefficiency, blundering and reprehensible error are rife in the Trudeau administration and in the public service. More money is being utterly wasted by this government than ever before. National morale is at an all-time low under this so-called participatory democracy posture of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his government. At the same time, the taxpaying populace as a whole is being threatened by a nefarious white paper on taxation, which promises more and heavier taxation for farmers, salaried people and small business. This will tend to kill individual and private incentive, which is the engine of prosperity and economic solvency.
May I again quote today's Ottawa Journal? It carries the headline "Manufacturers attack white paper. Tax proposal declared 'An unwise experiment' ". The Ottawa Journal then quotes from a brief presented to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, and the article continues:
In the paper entitled The Outcome of Income, the association said it was disturbed by an underlying philosophy "which considers it inherently desirable to take more savings out of private hands and entrust them to the government."
The government has put Bill C-197 before the House, a bill that will put the farmer and landowner, especially the small farmer, in a strait jacket. It is my prediction that if this bill passes with its harmful, dictatorial clauses intact, in due time the small farmer will have to get a licence to sow a five-acre field. If he planted a certain crop without the permission of the Prime Minister, the crop would be useless to him because he would not be allowed to sell it. This is just one thing that I predict could result from the passage of this bill because of its tyrannical powers.
For more than one hundred years the farmers of this country have lived and worked in an environment that reflected the free enterprise system in its highest form. In earlier years, there were more people on the land than in the cities. The farmers have been called the bulwark of our developing society, and have long been considered the grass roots structure and foundation of our social and political systems. Today there is a growing trend towards urbanization, and millions of people who once lived on the land are now crowded together in sprawling metropolises. Indeed, crowding and compacting of people in urban centres is becoming so intense that it has been necessary to apply a new word to the phenomenon, "megalopolis."
But in spite of this continuing trend, there are still some 430,000 farms in this country, and there would be more if it were possible for small farmholders to realize a living and a reasonable profit from the operation. This is where the problem starts. This is the heart of the agriculture problem.
I have found from my travels around Ontario that the small farmer and his products have long been exploited. Four years ago I cited a good example, having visited many of the large restaurants along the Mac-donald-Cartier Freeway. I noted that they were charging 15 cents for a seven and a half ounce glass of milk. This represents a charge of $32 per hundred pounds, or over six times the price that the fluid milk farmer receives for his product and anywhere from 10 to 12 times the price received by other farmers who produce other classes of milk, such as industrial milk, and usually of equal quality. I am not blaming the minister or this government for this sort of exploitation; I just bring it forward as an example of how the farmer and his product are exploited. Certainly, $32 per hundred pounds for milk represents a
May 19, 1970
7080	COMMONS
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill good profit. I must say that it was good milk, much better than the coffee served in some of these eating places.
I diverge to describe this coffee, and let me try and draw a parallel from the past. Was it the great Stephen Leacock, in describing the weak chicken soup then being prepared by certain hotels, who said that this soup was made by boiling water on the kitchen stove, then rounding up a rooster in the back-yard and chasing him past the kitchen door? It would seem that some of the restaurants I have mentioned must make their coffee by boiling water in a percolator in front of a map of Brazil which is securely fastened to a nearby wall.
® (4:30 p.m.)
For the past couple of decades the farmers of this country have realized that in order to survive it is necessary to have extensive reforms initiated in respect of methods of producing and marketing farm products. The old hit and miss practice of a farmer trying to guess what the market might be in the next month, or three months hence, in the hope that the demand for his product would be high at harvest time no longer stands up in a highly competitive world. The successful farmer today practices modern business techniques. He is in fact an astute business man because he must be. But, Mr. Speaker, good business and production practices on the farm are not enough. These practices must be extended across the board. The farmer today must be an integral part of both provincial and federal systems that are designed to keep him informed of demands for farm produce, warn him of impending crises such as overproduction in other sectors of the market, and offer guidance to the farmer in the preparation and movement of his product into the market.
These are the things that the farmers of this country have been asking the government to deal with. These are the problems that the farmers have been asking assistance in solving. They have been asking the government to establish a system of production and marketing policies that would lead to price stabilization throughout the farm product spectrum. What they did not ask for, Mr. Speaker, was a system such as that employed in Eastern European countries.
It is estimated that roughly half of the farms in this country or about 200,000 are in the single unit or family farm category. These are commonly called small farms. It is the small farmer who is most likely to be 
[Stage Direction]
adversely affected by the operation of the Farm Products Marketing Council envisioned by Bill C-197. I use the term "the operation of the council" for a very good reason. As the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ritchie) noted a few days ago when he spoke on this bill, the operation of the council will not necessarily reflect the policies of the government. The bill does not, in fact, set forth anything in the way of government policy with regard to the functions of the council. The most glaring deficiency in this bill-and this is maintained throughout the bill-is that the terms of reference for the council and for the resulting regulatory agencies are too general. There are too many powers allowed the council by this bill, and there are too many references to the broad and sweeping authority vested in the council to establish its own policies.
When a government can express its policies in vague and general terms, only one inference can be drawn by the observer; that is, that government has the power to do as it wishes and therefore cannot be forced to enunciate national policies in precise and specific terms. We are in such a situation today and I say again that the real victim will be the small farmer.
The hon. member from Dauphin also pointed out that the council, or any of its agencies, may determine for itself whether or not a farm is being operated efficiently, and may take whatever measures it deems necessary to correct a situation it considers unsatisfactory. Again, I say that this smacks of totalitarianism. This takes us back to an age pre-dating the free enterprise system. This bill will transport us backwards in time, and to another continent-specifically, behind the Iron Curtain.
The farmers of this country did not ask for this type of legislation, Mr. Speaker, and they will not sit idly by and let government bureaucrats move in and take over their farms and their lives. There are farmers in this country from Poland. They would never consider going back to Poland because in that country they would have to live and work under a system envisioned by Bill C-197. There are farmers in this country who emigrated from the Ukraine. They can tell you what it is like to have bureaucrats take over your property and your crops, and tell you how much you can grow and what you will receive for your product.
Our farmers want guidance and direction, as many of my colleagues have stated before me Mr. Speaker, but they do not want confis-
May 19. 1970
[Stage Direction]
cation. They want an opportunity to function more efficiently under the free enterprise system. They want an opportunity to become more productive under the free enterprise system, and they want an opportunity to derive a just and equitable return from their labours and their investments.
The hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) has pointed out that the vast majority of farmers in this country have been the victims in recent years of monopolistic practices on the part of the larger, organized producers who co-empt the market along with the powerful retailer groups. When this bill was tabled by the government I am certain in my own mind the farmers thought that at long last someone was about to put the agricultural house in order. At long last, they thought they would have a voice in the decision making councils and would have a hand in the framing of policies for their own industry. What a sad awakening, Mr. Speaker, for these people who have waited so long for this government to acknowledge that they, the farmers, have as much right as anyone else to expect a decent break from this government.
I must point out, as my colleagues have stressed before me, that there is no provision in Bill C-197 for farmer representation on the Farm Products Marketing Council, or on the boards of any of the agencies that will be established by the council. There is no provision in the bill for avenues of appeal from arbitrary and onerous actions and decisions on the part of agency inspectors. As the inspectors terms of reference are vaguely written and without specified reasonable limits, I am concerned and apprehensive for the future of the small farmer. I am concerned that the farmers of this country will be encouraged to revolt rather than submit to confiscation and oppression.
At this point in time there is a general feeling among farmers, and among members of this House who are close to the agricultural scene, that the government is determined to accelerate the exodus of farmers into the cities in an effort to reduce the number of farms in this country to a hard core of economic units. This will result in more unemployment. This might be considered a wise and even necessary move in the light of statistics which show that there are thousands of farmers across the country who are barely subsisting. But, Mr. Speaker, the various makeshift and ad hoc programs that the government has initiated to ease the burden on farmers who are forced off the land are less
DEBATES	7081
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill than adequate, and in many cases the farmers are worse off after they leave their farms.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
There are various programs designed to retrain farmers in job skills that are expected to fit them for employment in cities and towns. When the farmers are retrained they discover that the jobs they were trained for do not exist. If training farmers to become skilled labourers and tradesmen were the answer to uneconomic farm operations, then where are the jobs for which they are trained? There are more than half a million adult unemployed in this country, and the number is climbing steadily. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that what we are doing is adding to the number of skilled unemployed in the country. Is it better to have skilled unemployed ex-farmers than to have unskilled, unemployed ex-farmers? I think, whatever the answer might be to this problem, Bill C-197 is not it. I do not think that accelerating the exodus of farmers from the land with the lure of new skills is the answer at this time. A better answer would be to put some of the expenditure, and most of the effort, into programs that would allow farmers to stay on the land until realistic and workable programs of resettlement can be worked out. At a time when the government is creating more unemployment instead of attempting to create jobs, it is a classic application of reverse logic to train farmers for jobs that do not exist and will not exist until something is done to stimulate the Canadian economy.
I would like to touch briefly on one more aspect of Bill C-197 that troubles me, and one that further widens the credibility gap between the government and the people. This concerns the obvious intent of the government to create a monopoly of large corporate producers of farm products. Bill C-197 plays directly into the hands of the large producers and further inhibits the survival of the small, family size farm.
Since the Farm Products Marketing Council will have absolute control over the producers of farm products through its own authority as the supreme marketing body and through its agencies, it can be seen that in time all production of farm products will be in the hands of a few large farms and, to a large extent, in the hands of a few conglomerates. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land in the hands of giant corporations and conglomerates in the United States, and the attractiveness of such holdings is becoming
7082	COMMONS
evident to many non-agricultural corporations in this country.
The point I want to make here is that when this transformation is complete in our own agricultural industry, the consumer will be the loser. We have laws to control the development of monopolistic empires in the major industries in this country. We have laws that specifically prohibit any form of price fixing in the merchandising of consumer goods. Yet, here we have the government laying the groundwork for monopoly in the production of farm products and the ultimate fixing of prices of those products.
Finally, I can point to one more aspect of this bill that will put the consumer squarely over the barrel. The fact is that the consumer has been over the barrel for a very long time in this country what with rising prices, rising inflation and rising unemployment, but here is still another way in which this government can show its arrogance and its disdain for the individual.
Bill C-197 provides for the unrestrained and uncontrolled growth of an enormous new agency to regulate production and marketing of farm products. The cost of this bureaucratic empire will be borne by the producers of farm products according to the provisions of the bill. But we know from the writings of economic experts, and indeed we know from bitter experience, that it is the consumer who ultimately pays the crushing costs of bureaucracy. It is a strange phenomenon that we should experience an unparalleled growth of bureaus, departments and agencies in this country at the federal level, while at the same time this government talks about how it is streamlining the machinery and the processes of government. There is some strange new logic in all of this that is lost to the majority of us. There are increasing signs that this logic is lost on many of the Liberal government backbenchers, and even on the cabinet itself.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I wish to join my colleagues on this side of the House, and all reasonable and compassionate members on the government side, in condemning this latest attempt on the part of an arrogant government to solve a serious problem by pretending that the individual is expendable. The hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Moore), my seatmate, noted a few days ago that the Canadian farmer epitomizes the spirit of free enterprise, the free spirit of the Canadian individual. I concur wholeheartedly, and I can only hope that Canadian farmers
[Mr. Alkenbrack.l
DEBATES	May 19, 1970
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill will vent this free spirit in all its might and fury if and when this legislation becomes law. I urge all hon. members in the name of democratic private enterprise to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner), and seconded by the hon. member for Palliser (Mr. Schumacher), which vastly improves the bill and gives the farmers of Canada a measure of control and a voice in their productive economy.
John (Jack) McIntosh: First of all, I want to say that the minister knows as well as I do that the purpose behind Bill C-197 is state control of the agricultural industry, including the livestock industry, which should be of some concern to him and to his constituents in Medicine Hat. I say that if the principle of the bill were to establish a national farm products marketing agency, with adequate producer representation, he would not have encountered too much criticism from this side of the House, except, possibly, from those who represent livestock areas. The livestock people have never endorsed the idea of a marketing board for their branch of the industry, as the minister well knows. Provision should have been made in this bill for any branch of the industry which does not want to be controlled by a marketing board. Marketing through a board should be their choice, not something imposed on them by politicians. This should be the choice of the people engaged in that branch of agriculture.
We on this side of the House have been endeavouring to ascertain whether the principle behind the bill is actually what some farmers and some farm organizations believe it to be. According to information we have on our desks from such organizations as the Federated Agricultural Organizations, this bill establishes a national farm products marketing agency with adequate producer representation. Actually, as a result of studies that have been made, we have found that it is not. In fact, the title of the bill conceals more than it reveals, and the minister, by his efforts, has contributed to this deception. I assume that he has also deceived those organizations which to date have been publicly pushing for this type of legislation on a national basis. I am quite sure that, within a very short time, they will change their minds.
The minister has deliberately tried to conceal from the farmers the immense power the government seeks to obtain over the agriculture industry. The minister knows the pro-
Ma^- 19, 1970	COMMONS
posed act is a government take-over of all decision making in Canadian agriculture, including production-a fact he has denied. The bill asks Parliament to grant the government a monopoly in the agriculture industry in Canada.
Under clause 17 the government, without the necessity of consultation with anyone or with any farm organization, will have power to delegate the complete control and regulation of any product of agriculture to a cabinet controlled agency, and let us not forget that fact. This cabinet or ministerial power can range from deciding who can grow or produce any agricultural product, to who can sell it, who can buy it, who can price it, who can assemble it, who can transport it, who can process it, who can store it, and who can be engaged in the field of agriculture or any of its allied industries.
Is this what the farmers want? We do not think so. As I stated previously, this bill has a deceptive title. It conceals the intent or principle behind it, in our opinion. The wording of the bill, and the minister's attempts at an explanation, camouflage the government's power once the bill is passed.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
The council will be a government agency and, therefore, completely and utterly subject to cabinet or ministerial direction. That is why we on this side of the House maintain that the principle of the bill is not what the minister implies, a producers' marketing bill, but rather a bill giving government control over the entire industry, even to the extent of determining which farmer will survive and which farmer will not. This is a principle we cannot support.
I am sure that the farm organizations will not support this type of principle. I am sure this is not what the farmers I represent want. This is not what the farmers and farm organizations have been requesting. This is not what the farmers believe the minister is endeavouring to establish by Bill C-197 at the present time. I am sure that once the farmers realize just what this bill contains they will be as alarmed, as my colleague from Fron-ienac-Lennox and Addington was when he said that his enthusiasm turned to alarm after he read the bill.
The minister has implied that we in the Conservative party are trying to create a fear about "state control," the reason for which does not exist in the bill. I would suggest to the minister that he has not been listening to
DEBATES	7083
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill the spokesmen for the other opposition parties. I would like to put on record again some of the remarks made by some members of the other parties. I refer first to page 6995 of Hansard where the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte) is reported as saying: However, state control per se involves certain risks. There is every evidence that some clauses of the bill can do more harm than good to producers.
Again, on the same day, one of the NDP members, the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Skoberg), made these statements as recorded at page 6991 of Hansard:
As the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Gleave) said on April 28, the farmer will be little more than the hired man of the agency if farmers are not allowed to be council members and take part in decision-making. The amendment of the hon. member for Crowfoot spells out the exact position of the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar.
A little further on, he said:
In the eyes of the producers today the government is suspect. Canadian producers are suspicious about this government having complete control of their marketing. They have every reason to be suspicious.
Further on, he said:
I am sure that many people across the country are beginning to wonder whether the wide marketing powers of the cabinet are in the best interests of those in the agricultural production business.
We are wondering that also. He went on to
say:
We know what happened recently with the LIFT program. The government used the big club and told farmers not to plant, that if they did plant the club would come down and they would have no quota.
This is exactly what is happening to the small farmer today in western Canada.
Using that as an analogy, I am sure that this is why some people are concerned at the provisions of Bill C-197, now before the House. Equally, I am sure it is why most members of the House will support the amendment of the hon. member for Crowfoot. If the amendment were accepted, there would be broad representation provisions in a new bill. This is our concern at the present time and I am sure it is the concern of many people in this nation.
I also wish to refer to the remarks of the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Latulippe) as recorded at page 6685 of Hansard for May 7: I shall say right away that this legislation will exert an absolute control over the entire farm economy, and add that the Liberals have certainly not been elected to bring in a socialist system-
Then, he went on to say:
I do not know why the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson)-who studied the principles of free-
May 19, 1970
"084	COMMONS DEBATES
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill
dom and security wishes to impose such legislation that will put agriculture under the yoke. Farmers will no longer have any responsibility. They will be treated as mere things. What is the policy of the government? It has no right to create socialist organizations and to force them on to the Canadian people.
As recorded at page 6689, he said:
Many farmers support the bill because they do not understand, because they do not know what freedom is, because previously they enjoyed no security. Regrettably, they want security at the expense of liberty, because the true meaning of the bill was not made clear to the people. They do not know that they will be tied by the neck, that this bill is a yoke under which the individuals and especially the farmers will find themselves forever.
Therefore, we oppose this bill very strongly. We urge the Minister of Agriculture to open his eyes and his ears.
I now wish to comment for a few moments on three points made by the minister in his speech on May 14. The first is to be found on page 6997 of Hansard, in the first column, where the minister is recorded as having said:
I wish to intervene briefly at this time on the amendment because in all the years that I have been in parliament I do not believe I have ever heard a debate like this one wherein the content of a bill has been so badly misinterpreted.
In this statement the minister implies that the misinterpretation was made by the Opposition. He seems to forget that we, for the present at least, are still under a democratic system of government. It is our duty in the opposition to question the minister. It is his duty to interpret and to explain the bill, which he has not done in a proper manner. One of my colleagues says he is hiding the intent behind the title of the bill, and that I agree. I would suggest that the minister, in his own words, condemns himself as incapable of piloting the bill through the House in the normal manner.
He has forgotten, or is not aware, that it is his duty to explain the bill, and if misinterpretation does arise that it is the result of incomplete and inefficient introduction by him. By the use of his words, and I paraphrase, "In all the years I have been in Parliament I have never heard a debate as badly misunderstood as that on Bill C-197," I would suggest he has proved his inability to explain his bill to practical farmers or to those elected to represent them in Parliament. Alternatively these words prove the inability of the minister to conceal the true meaning of the bill if it is, as we believe, state control of the agriculture industry. I would further suggest

once again that the arrogance of the minister, who is hungry for power at any price, is revealed by his annoyance when questioned by anyone who challenges his statements.
Let us take a closer look at a couple of his statements in which he has deliberately tried to misinform the producer and this House. I refer to page 6998 of Hansard, the second column, where he is recorded as saying:
Some members opposite have suggested that if this bill becomes an act it will give the government power to take over the agricultural industry. This, of course, is completely erroneous. If it were so, I wonder why provincial governments, with exactly the same kind of legislation-
He uses the expression, "exactly the same kind of legislation" and he knows that is not true.
on their books for years and having used it successfully in setting up marketing agencies, have not taken over the agricultural industry. There is no difference in their legislation and what is proposed in Bill C-197.
The minister knows that this is not absolutely true. He knows-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The hon.
member may want to call it five o'clock.


John (Jack) McIntosh: May I call it five o'clock, Mr. Speaker.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Rowland); National Defence-Study	of base	consolidation-
Examinations of recommendations.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Member's business as listed on today's Order Paper, namely, public bills.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)



PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, May 12, consideration of Bill C-29, respecting Canada
May 19, 1970
[Stage Direction]
Private Members' Public Bills
Day, title amended to read an Act respecting Confederation Day, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, and Motion No. 1 (Mr. Gibson).
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I may point out to the
House that the last time the House dealt with public bills we had before us Bill C-29, about which certain procedural questions were raised and I am prepared to give a ruling, but would first like to recognize the hon. member for Saint John-Lancaster.


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Lancas-ter):: Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a moment to clear up some points raised in my interventions on the last two occasions in this procedural debate. This matter moved on more quickly than anticipated and I did not have a chance, personally, to look up all the relevant precedents. I felt that if this bill had dropped to the bottom of the list it might have been brought forward by the government for debate on government orders. It has since been demonstrated by those who know more about the rules than I that if the bill had dropped to the bottom of the list it would have disappeared and, unless the government wanted to bring it forward as a measure of its own, that would have been the end of it. I am prepared to forgo what I said before, and if it is decided that the measure ought to be dropped, that will suit me. It was more a case of my not trusting the new rules rather than of not knowing them. I argue now that the bill should be dropped to the bottom of the list and disappear for this session. I felt, originally, that we could control matters if the bill were kept in its place. I thank the House for listening to my apology.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: If there are no further contributions, I might now deal with the procedural questions raised the last time we dealt with Bill C-29. As hon. members will remember, on the initiative of the hon. member for Saint John-Lancaster (Mr. Bell), a special order was made by the House on April 24, 1970, as reported at page 6269 of Hansard, for the purpose of allowing Bill C-29, an Act respecting Canada Day, to retain its precedence at the head of the list of public bills. When the bill was before the House on May 12, 1970, the hon. member for Malpeque (Mr. MacLean) raised a point of order with respect to the position of the said bill on the Order Paper. Some question arose as to whether the provisions of the special order made in relation to the said bill, as recorded at pages 714 and 715 of Votes and Proceedings for April 24, was of a permanent nature. In the opinion of the Chair, that special order had effect for the sitting of May 12 only and the wording in the Votes and Proceedings must be so construed. That wording reads as follows:
By unanimous consent, it was ordered,-That should consideration of Bill C-29, An Act respecting Canada Day, not be disposed of at this sitting, the said bill shall stand and retain its precedence.
The wording in the foregoing, I suggest, limits the operation of the special order to a single sitting, that is, the next sitting after April 24 in which the said bill was reached. That was the twelfth day of May.
Accordingly, it is my view that order no. 1 under Public Bills should be dropped and the House will now proceed with Order No. 2, namely, second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development of Bill C-28, an act to preserve and promote native Indian and Eskimo arts and crafts.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Too bad.


Mr. Yves Forest (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, owing to special circumstances, I believe there is general agreement in the House to call it six o'clock.


Gerald William Baldwin: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we agree, unless the House is prepared to give unanimous consent to the passage of item No. 110, which strikes me as being a very good private members' public bill.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall I call it six
o'clock?


Stanley Howard Knowles: We
may as well call it six o'clock, so we can lick our wounds.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being six o'clock, I do now leave the Chair until 8 p.m.
At 5.05 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Olson that Bill C-197, to estab-
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill lish 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, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Horner (p.6719).
John (Jack) McIntosh: Mr. Speaker, prior to five o'clock I was endeavouring to explain to the House how difficult it is for the members on this side of the House to determine the principle behind this bill. We know that it is not what the minister has told the farmers and farm organizations, that is, a national marketing board with producer participation. We think this bill disguises the complete takeover of the control of the agricultural industry by the government.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Of course, that is not true.


John (Jack) McIntosh: That is what the minister has been saying for some time. The minister has interjected from time to time. Practically every time a speaker rises, the minister says, "Read the bill". We have read it and re-read it, Mr. Speaker. Also, we have read the statements the minister has made in this House. He has mislead this House and misinformed the farmers and farm organizations. It was on this point that I was speaking at five o'clock. I wish to refer to it again and point out to the minister some of the statements he has made. I am going to repeat the statements which are not true. The minister said, as recorded at page 6998 of Hansard:
-X wonder why provincial governments, with exactly the same kind of legislation on their books-
The minister knows it is not exactly the same kind of legislation that is on the provincial books. He further stated:
There is no difference in their legislation and what is proposed in Bill C-197.
There is a great difference, Mr. Speaker, and the minister knows it. Why should he try to mislead the House with a mistruth like that? In fact, in the same speech on May 14 the minister contradicted himself.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am not particularly sensitive to the remarks of the hon. member.


John (Jack) McIntosh: I couldn't care less.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I couldn't care less, too, because really I have no great respect for the member's opinion on anything. However, the rules

May 19, 1970
of the House are such that this type of language is against the rules. I could refer to citation 154 or 155 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, or to May's seventeenth edition, where there are many examples of unparliamentary language. In my view, if this language were allowed it would in effect degrade this House. I am not interested in what the hon. member says about me, for the reasons I have already expressed, but I would hate to have the situation where this unparliamentary language was allowed to be used and became a precedent, so that other hon. members could with impunity use this kind of language and degrade this House for which I have a great deal of respect.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: On the point of order raised by the minister, it is certainly the tradition and practice of this House than an hon. member does not suggest, intimate or otherwise state that an hon. member has been deliberately misleading the House. I have been listening fairly carefully to what the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. McIntosh) has been saying. I hope he has not been saying that, and as I interpret it he was not saying that. I am sure the hon. member would be the first to recognize that this would be unparliamentary. He is a member who has had a great deal of experience in this House. The point of order having been raised, I simply seek the co-operation of the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek in conforming to this long-standing tradition.


John (Jack) McIntosh: I wish to continue with my speech, Mr. Speaker, and if the minister wishes to rise again he may. I said that the minister used the words "exactly the same kind" although he knows that is not true. He also said, "There is no difference in their legislation". I say that the minister contradicted himself in his speech. If he did not, he can explain to the House what he means by these words:
I know that there are variations in the details of provincial legislation for the setting up of specific marketing agencies.
Just after the minister said they are "exactly the same", he said, "I know there are variations". It is the variations of the details with which we are concerned, Mr. Speaker. It is all very well to say that the government has control of marketing, or does not have control of marketing, but there is here the difference between day and night. The minister misled this House and he misled the farmers and farm organizations when he said it is

May 19, 1970	COMMONS
"exactly the same kind of legislation-There is no difference in their legislation and what is proposed in Bill C-197." There is a difference. The minister has proved it himself. We are interested in the fine print of this bill.
Even if there were no difference, there is an altogether" different story between having legislation in a provincial House and having the same kind of legislation in the federal House. For example, jurisdiction over education rests with the provinces. When it rests with the provinces, it is a safeguard. If it were a matter of federal jurisdiction, we would be concerned. Hitler proved what could happen when he had control over the youth of his country. Such a situation could not develop with this type of legislation.
[DOT] (8:10 p.m.)
Even if the legislation were the same, which it is not, there would still be an argument against this bill. This point glaringly illustrates that the minister has misled this House. Not only has he misled this House but he has misled the farmers and farm organizations, although they have not yet recognized this point. This is the point we want to uncover, the principle behind this bill. It has been said time and again by members of the opposition parties that they find no fault with a national marketing board provided there is producer participation. This is what the farmers want. This is what the minister is denying them. The farmers want a national marketing board with producer participation. They will not get it through this bill. We are afraid of this. The minister also said:
This legislation only provides for control over interprovincial and export marketing, and gives the government no authority whatever to control marketing or production-
There are several clauses in this bill which refer to production. I shall read clause 22:
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.
The farmers of this country do not want control over production in any shape or form.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John (Jack) McIntosh: The minister stated that our objection to certain provisions in this bill "is an amazing exercise" and beyond his comprehension. He seems to be imbued with the idea that now that he is the Minister of Agriculture at long last, he has been given some
DEBATES	7087
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill responsibility as a member of the cabinet and he and he alone knows what is best for those engaged in the production of agricultural products. I wish to refer to the closing remarks of his speech to which I referred a moment ago. I shall read the last paragraph of the minister's speech as recorded at page 7002 of Hansard:
There may be some opposition to this bill from across the way, but this does not in my view constitute sustained opposition from the producers of this country, and it is in their interest that I am bringing this measure forward.
The minister did not say the government is bringing this measure forward; he said, "I am bringing this measure forward". That statement and the statement of the minister a few months ago demonstrates to the House the arrogance of this man. It shows that this man is power hungry. He wants power at any price. We know what his sojourn in this House has been. The minister will do anything for power-even deceive the livestock producers in his own constituency. It was not only an arrogant statement but a stupid statement for a minister to make. He is a prime candidate for a stooge in a state dictatorship. That is where we think this bill will lead.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I have already pointed out, I have no respect for what the hon. member says. However, I cannot sit here and allow the hon. member to abuse the rules of this House to the extent to which he is now doing. I respectfully ask Your Honour to remind the hon. member that the dignity of this House needs to be preserved. If the hon. member wants to make remarks in this House, he must respect the dignity to which we have become accustomed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I realize that arguments in this House are sometimes strongly worded. It is sometimes very difficult for the Chair to distinguish the difference between what amounts to very strong language, and unparliamentary language. I am trying to be as fair as possible to hon. members, both of whom the Chair must respect. I have been listening carefully to the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek. Despite the strength of his language, I do not have the impression that he is going too far. Of course, I am subject to error as well. In light of the minister's interjection on a point of order, I appeal to the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek. Up to now I think he has been following what amounts to a very fine line.
7088	COMMONS
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I point out that strong language is a part of the tenor of debate. While we pattern ourselves after the mother of parliaments, I do not advocate that we go as far as they do. Not long ago an opposition member in the United Kingdom Parliament called the Prime Minister a swine. I am not suggesting that expression or trying to persuade the hon. member to use it.
I have not yet read Hansard to see what Mr. Speaker King did with respect to that statement. However, it is an agricultural term.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to speak to the point of order and reply to the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) now that he has raised the mother of parliaments. Erskine May, who of course is familiar with Parliament and has written 17 editions based on the precedents and practices of Parliament, says at page 465 of his revised edition that "The imputation of false or unavowed motives" is unparliamentary language.
I suggest to the hon. member who raised this example that he at least read the representations made by the people who are experts on that Parliament, in order to determine what is parliamentary and what is unparliamentary. Mr. Speaker, I have no objection to strong language-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: -but there are specific
examples-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: *-of unparliamentary language listed in May and Beauchesne.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The House will recognize that this is a most delicate and difficult area for the Chair to make a ruling. I seek the co-operation of all hon. members. When a member of the House rises on a point of order and argues that his reputation as a member has been attacked, it must be listened to very carefully. I am willing to do that. I appeal to all hon. members to realize the difficulty in which this type of exchange puts the Chair. I do not want to curtail the right of the hon. member to contribute to the debate. I am trying to bear in mind the tradition of strong language which is characteristic of our system plus the equally strong and more important tradition of not impugning the reputation of or attributing motives to an hon. member. I know that the 
DEBATES	May 19, 1970
hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek is as aware of these traditions as is the Chair. I seek his co-operation and the co-operation of all hon. members.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, to be called a fool by a fool is no indictment!


Mr. Gundlock:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in this House we listen to "yeas" and "nays," but very seldom do we have to listen to a Minister of Agriculture who says "I, I".


Paul Yewchuk: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in spite of the fact that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) does not like what is being said, what he is really doing is obstructing the opposition in putting their views forward.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I do not think that is a point of order.


John (Jack) McIntosh: Your Honour is quite right: I was not imputing motives; I was imputing stupidity. This minister shows complete disregard for the democratic, parliamentary system which we have. He believes that of the 264 members who were elected in 1968, he alone is aware of what the agricultural producers want and what is good for them. He thinks that he alone in this House knows what is good for the agricultural industry. That is stupid, Mr. Speaker.
[DOT] (8:20 p.m.)
The second statement to which I want to refer appears in the minister's speech where he said-


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I am not going to listen to you any more; I have more important things to do.


John (Jack) McIntosh: You will, after the next election. The minister said, as reported at page 6997 of Hansard of May 14 last:
If I had not been closely associated with the development of the bill I would conclude from their remarks that we are proposing a law which opens up a whole new area of public authority, which provides vast new power to the government in the area of marketing farm produce, power which does not already exist. This, of course, is absolutely wrong.
To paraphrase the minister, he is saying that the opposition are misconstruing the intention of the bill in that we dare to suggest that the bill has anything to do with a whole new area of public authority which provides vast new power to the government, power
May 19. 1970	COMMONS
which does not already exist. Then he ends his statement by saying: "This, of course, is absolutely wrong".


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: That is right.


John (Jack) McIntosh: The minister's own statements are an indication that we are absolutely right. Let us see what he has to say about the livestock industry, with which he should be very concerned. The livestock industry has always strongly opposed the suggestion of livestock marketing boards. The minister, coming from a constituency that has a large amount of livestock producers, should be aware of this. I ask the minister, is it now the wish of the livestock producers to have a marketing board? The minister has said he acts on behalf of all producers, so may I refer to what he said as reported at page 6998 of Hansard:
I know, Mr. Speaker, that we could single out commodities. Let us take beef, for instance. At the present time there are no marketing boards involved in the marketing of beef . .. and there probably never will be as long as that industry is not in severe economic difficulty. If no province brings in that kind of legislation, then of course no part of Bill C-197 will ever be applied to the beef industry.
In view of that statement I ask the minister why the provision is in the bill. The words used by the minister are "probably never will be", not as long as he is minister-though we do not expect him to be minister for very long.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: You might not get your wish.


John (Jack) McIntosh: I do not wish for anything for you. I am wishing for the livestock producers.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I would invite the hon. member to direct his remarks to the Chair. Perhaps fewer interjections will enable him to do that.


John (Jack) McIntosh: I ask the minister why clause 22 is in the bill, the clause that refers to production and marketing. Why is clause 17 in the bill? Clause 17 provides:
(1)	The Governor in Council may by proclamation establish an agency with powers relating to any farm product or farm products the marketing of which in interprovincial and export trade is not regulated pursuant to the Canadian Wheat Board Act or the Canadian Dairy Commission Act.
(2)	Every agency established pursuant to this act is a body corporate.
If these two provisions never will be applied, why are they in the bill? Clause 2 (e)
DEBATES	7089
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill (v), which is also an interesting provision, reads as follows:
-a system for the licensing of persons engaged in the growing or production of the regulated product for, or the marketing thereof in, interprovincial or export trade, including provision for fees payable to the appropriate agency by any such person in respect of any licence issued to him and for the cancellation or suspension of any such licence where a term or condition thereof is not complied with-
If this provision were never used against the livestock producers, it would be funny indeed. The minister also said in his speech that the word is written and that if it becomes law, it will be the law and that all people will abide by it-including the livestock producers; let no mistake be made about that. The third statement of the minister to which I wish to refer is as follows:
I challenge hon. members opposite to find in Bill C-197 any power to control the actions of individuals which is not already to be found in the legislation of the provinces across Canada-
We accept that challenge. If we are proved right, then the minister should either resign or withdraw his bill. I refer the minister, or anyone else for that matter, to clause 22, which I have already read, dealing with the control of production and marketing, to clause 37 which provides for punishment for offences and for penalties, and to clause 34 dealing with the powers of inspectors. If I had more time I would go into that matter, too. That provision is unheard of in Canada. I suggest it is unheard of in any democratic society, being reserved for countries behind the iron curtain. Those are the minister's words relating to the livestock industry. I said that the minister has contradicted himself, and he has. That alone proves his statement to be wrong.
I have already referred to clause 2 (e) (v) which provides for licences and fees in regard to the growing and production of regulated products. I suggest that under the terms of this bill any person engaged in the industry of agriculture can be controlled. The bill can determine those who are to work in agriculture and those who will be removed. If in the view of the government young people should not take up farming, again this bill gives the federal government power so to provide. This is not what the producers want.
The minister also stated that the federal government has not jurisdiction to set up, under a bill, a program of supply management on the production side. He said it is clear that it is within provincial jurisdiction, that it is provided for in existing provincial
May 19, 1970
7090	COMMONS DEBATES
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill statutes. The minister went on to say, as reported at page 7002 of Hansard:
-the federal government cannot enact supply-management legislation on the production side. This has been ruled ultra vires once or twice by the Supreme Court. It therefore has to be done by the province.
The government's own task force warned him against any attempt of this kind, yet the minister goes ahead and introduces this bill. Naturally, the question that follows is: Why does clause 22 and clause 2 (e) (v) of the bill refer to the term "production"? We know from previous experience how the government has disregarded the terms of the British North America Act, or any rule or regulation used in this House, as a guide. The government uses them only when it suits its purpose to do so.
Most of us in this House remember the government's efforts regarding the official languages bill. In spite of the fact that many believed the languages bill to be unconstitutional, because of their numbers the government bulldozed the bill through the House, refusing to submit it to the courts for a legal opinion before final approval was given. Yes, Mr. Speaker, they forced the bill through in spite of the fact that no less a person than one who had held the second highest judicial position in this country vigorously maintained that the bill was unconstitutional.
We also know the action the government took regarding the Criminal Code amendments, the hate literature bill and the white paper on tax reform. We know the statements made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in regard to the white paper on tax reform while speaking to a Liberal audience in Toronto not too long ago. I have picked out three sentences which were the meat of his address; everything else was camouflage. The Prime Minister said:
We will not be bullied or blackmailed by hysterical charges and threats.
Such tactics will not distinct us from the fundamental objective of our reform.
Then his third statement was:
In many ways, our white papers introduce a new concept of government for Canada.
Are not the people of Canada entitled to know what that new concept is? Is it state control? That is the message he gave the people of Canada. As I have said, the rest of his speech was camouflage. His objective- and his message-is a new concept of government for Canada. Bill C-197 is one more step toward his goal of complete state control.

[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)


Mr. Doug Rowland (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, as hon. members opposite may have realized, there really are two reasons for being somewhat chary in one's support of this bill even though the major concept of it is one with which most members opposite could agree. First, the bill does not permit the producer as of right a say in the operation of the marketing mechanisms it establishes. The second major reason is that the legislation has not been placed within a context, and I shall come to that in a moment. The legislation gives the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) great powers, but at this moment we are not sure what he intends to do with those powers. Moreover, we have every reason to suspect that the proposed legislation, under the direction of this government, will be employed as an additional device to force bona fide farmers off the land to the benefit of corporate farming enterprises.
The ostensible purpose of Bill C-197 is to establish a National Farm Products Marketing Council and national marketing agencies for farm products. It is to provide the council and its agencies with terms of reference, staff and the finances necessary to carry out their responsibilities. Hopefully, the machinery thus established will be employed to stabilize commodity prices and strengthen farm producer bargaining power in the economy. However, both the legislation and the minister's introductory remarks leave us in some doubt about the purpose of the legislation. This is what we would hope it would be employed for, but we are by no means sure.
We in the New Democratic Party are wholeheartedly in favour of the concept of national commodity marketing boards with which provincial producer-controlled marketing boards could conform and thereby be able to market products in any part of Canada and in the export markets. We see such a device as one of several steps which must be taken in order to introduce some stability in commodity pricing. Indeed, at the 1967 biennial convention of the New Democratic Party a clause was included in a resolution adopted on the subject of agriculture which read in part, "orderly marketing of farm commodities must be established by"-and there were several mechanisms presented. One was "by providing federal legislation to establish the machinery for national marketing with which provincial producer-controlled marketing boards could conform and thereby be able to market products in any part of Canada or the export market."
May 19, 1970	COMMONS
Having said that, the Minister of Agriculture might well wonder why I do not sit down so that we might get on with the job of passing the legislation. There is one particular reason and I intend to pursue it at some length. The reason is this: the bill delegates sweeping legislative powers to the Minister of Agriculture, the proposed National Farm Products Marketing Council and the proposed marketing agencies for farm products. It does so without any accompanying indication of the direction the policies, to be set by the minister, his council and agencies, will take.
This bill, should it become law in its present form, has the potential to be employed as a powerful instrument for social and economic change in rural Canada. It could be used to accelerate the current rate of rural depopulation or, alternatively, it could be employed to arrest the rot which has set into our rural communities and to aid in slowing the drift of our rural population to the cities. It would be used for either purpose, but our experience over the last two or three decades indicates to us that the former rather than the latter purpose is the one to which it is likely to be put. That is, should the bill become law in its present form, it might well be used as an additional means of driving the small farmer off the land.
I may say that the report of the task force on agriculture which we received today, "Canadian Agriculture in the Seventies", does not offer any solace at all to those of us who are concerned about the trend toward rural depopulation. I must admit that my opportunity to read in excess of 450 pages of the report since receiving it this afternoon was limited, but I did read the summary of recommendations at the front and found it disquieting in relation to what it anticipates will happen in the rural community.
This is one more reason we have some inquiries about the legislation which is before us today. We might take a look at the developments of the past two or three decades. The farmers are becoming clients of agribusiness corporations, or the Americans, or the government. They are becoming wage slaves for the corporations and absentee landlords, or are selling their land to the Americans and thus alienating another piece of a resource which Canada cannot afford to lose. What has already occurred in natural resources and in heavy industry because of the need to mobilize large blocks of capital to compete in an industrial-capitalistic economy is now occurring in agriculture as well. Current policies
DEBATES	7091
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill are forcing good men off the land and into the cities-to do what? They are being forced off the land to go to our cities and search hopelessly for employment. These cities are ill-equipped to cope with an influx of middle-aged men and women who may have been first-rate farmers but who simply are not trained for commerce and industry.
It is this thought which makes my colleagues embrace this piece of legislation with some trepidation. It is this thought which makes us demand to know to what use the council and the agencies contemplated by the legislation will be put once they are set up. It is this thought which makes us demand the full participation of the producers in the establishment and management of the council and the marketing agencies, because the producers understand the value of the family farm even if their government, despite its lip service to the institution, does not.
Understanding its value, the producers will make every effort to bend this legislation to the service of the family farm. We have less certainty concerning the use to which governmental appointees will put the legislation. This is why we demand producer participation, and not merely because of the obviously salutary effect participation in making the decisions that affect their lives has upon citizens; and it is not merely because we believe in the right of the citizen to participate in such decisions, but also because with producers on the agencies and council we know this powerful tool will be properly employed.
My plea for the continued existence and the upgrading of the family farm is not based upon any premise that rural life is superior to life in a city or that being close to the land instils special virtues in a man. Indeed, even if I did think so I would be mad to say it because my constituency is two-thirds urban. It would perhaps not be politic for me to make such a statement. Nor is my support for the family farm based upon nostalgia. One of the greatest shortcomings of our society, indeed perhaps of all societies, is that nostalgia occupies too common a position in the decision-making process. I find myself fully in accord with various statements made by John Kenneth Galbraith, one of which I would quote:
Social nostalgia supports a continuing conviction that life can be simple and that difficult problems will yield to old and familiar rules and formula. The family and the church will save us; we must have a simple faith for our time; we should be led by a simple man of simple beliefs. We stop just short of praise of the simple mind. Simplicity provides an important clue to social nostalgia.
May 19, 1970
7092	COMMONS DEBATES
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill Rather than being based upon a belief in the superior virtue of rural life or upon some nostalgia for existing rural institutions, my plea for the family farm is based upon the fact that it provides men and women with a respectable and rewarding way of life, a way of life vastly to be preferred to that lived by the great majority of the displaced farmers in our cities. My plea is also based upon a desire to permit the rational and reasonable development of our urban areas and to avoid where possible the kind of situation which Paul Goodman, the noted American sociologist, described in his Massey lectures of 1966. In illustration I would like to quote a passage from Mr. Goodman's lectures as follows:
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
in my own city of New York, during the past year we have been visited by 10 critical plagues, some of them temporary emergencies that could recur at any time, some abiding sores that are getting worse- The rivers and bays are polluted and often stink: in a huge city with no open spaces and few facilities for recreation, this is a calamity. The air is bad, but not critical, so I will not include it. The congestion is critical. Traffic often hardly moves, and new highways will only make the situation worse-As for human crowding, it is hard to know at what density people can no longer adapt, but there must be a point at which there are too many signals and the circuits become clogged, and where people do not have enough social space to feel possessed. In some areas, in my opinion, we have passed that point. In Harlem, there are 67,000 to the square mile; people live two and three to a room; and the average child of 12 will not have been half a mile from home.
Finally, there are the plagues that indicate breakdown, psychopathology and sociopathology. There are an estimated 70,000 dope addicts, with the attendant desperate petty burglary. The juvenile delinquency starts like urban juvenile delinquency of the past, but it persists into addiction or other social withdrawal because there is less neighbourhood support and less economic opportunity. Families have now grown up for several generations dependent on relief, reformatories, public hospitals, and asylums as the normal course of life. A psychiatric survey of midtown Manhattan has shown that 75 per cent have marked neurotic symptoms and 25 per cent need psychiatric treatment, which is of course unavailable.
Well, who needs it? Do we want that for our country? And yet that is the way we are heading. Mr. Goodman argues that although the urban areas are patently unliveable in his own country, they have narrowed their inhabitants' experience so that no other choice seems available to them. They just cannot contemplate any other form of life. Mr. Goodman went on to speak specifically of Canada in the following terms:
In Canada, a more rational judgment is possible. You have a rural ratio of 15-20 per cent, including independent fishermen, lumberers, etc., that we

ought to envy. Your cities, though in need of improvement are manageable in size. There is still a nodding acquaintance between city and country.
Mr. Goodman went on to urge us not to proceed down the same primrose path he felt his country has trodden, but to keep the kind of urban-rural ratio we now have and, as our technology and population grow, to work out a better urban-rural symbiosis. I agree with Mr. Goodman but I despair of this government taking action which will indicate that it has accepted the advice of Mr. Goodman and others like him.
The report today of the task force on agriculture reinforces my fear. I despair, also, because for too long the agricultural programs of the federal government have been based upon the statistics of commodity production rather than upon the consideration of the life of the farmer. What we need in an agricultural policy is to decide what kind of rural community we wish to create and then go about creating it. For too long Canada has not had a national agricultural policy worthy of the name. The federal Department of Agriculture has never shown any really sincere attempt to deal with the adjustment side of agriculture. I would have less quarrel with this glaring lack if other federal agencies such as the Department of Manpower and Immigration and the Department of Regional Economic Expansion demonstrated an adequate understanding of the problem and a preparedness to act. We have yet to see convincing evidence of either.
Moreover, in recent years there has been a serious decline in the effectiveness of federal leadership on the commercial side of agriculture. To finish the picture of almost unrelieved gloom, there is now a distinct danger that the wide brush approach toward inflation that has seemingly been adopted by the federal government will further aggravate and weaken an already deflated Prairies' agricultural economy. In short, there is not now and never has been an effective Canadian policy for agriculture. The absence of such a policy is directly responsible for the chronic instability in the agricultural sector of our economy, including the present serious decline in the income of the Prairie farmer especially.
For too long we in this country have been slaves to the myth that the mindless forces of economics and technology must necessarily govern the pattern of our social development. For too long we have been slaves to the myths that bigness means enhanced efficiency,
May 19, 1970

that production is the purpose of man. I ask: Efficiency for what, and in relation to whom? Efficiency for the machine, or efficiency in relation to the man whom the machine is supposed to serve? The instrumentality of the state can and must be employed to give intelligent direction to the forces of technology and economics, to so shape them that they once again serve man.
I should like to quote Mr. Goodman once again in this respect. He said:
Urbanization is not a necessity of technology. On the contrary, the thrust of modern technology, for example, electricity, power tools, automobiles, long distance communication and automation, would seem to be disurbanization, dispersal of population and industry.
Mr. Goodman goes on to say that this was the thinking of Marx and Engels, Kropotkin, Patrick Geddes, Frank Lloyd Wright and other enthusiasts of scientific technology. He continues with this remark:
Urbanization is mainly due not to natural or social-psychological causes, but to political policy and an economic style careless of social costs and even money costs.
A few moments ago I said that Canada has never had an agricultural policy worthy of the name. The reason is that we have always had governments which have conceived their role as being regulative rather than creative. Confronted by change, they have simply reacted, usually too late and only after their unbridled effects have created a crisis atmosphere, to regulate against the most obvious and adverse effects of change. Our national governments have never really looked upon change as an opportunity, although they invariably have given lip service to this concept. Rather, they have without exception reacted to change as though it is necessarily disruptive. Our federal governments have never consistently seized the opportunities represented by change and harnessed and directed them toward shaping the kind of society in which we would like to live.
That is why federal legislation has never had any discernible pattern to it and no inherent logic. Federal legislation is almost invariably a panic response to a crisis situation. That is why our statutes, rather than resembling a closely-woven tapestry resemble an ill-made crazy quilt. That is why we in the New Democratic Party have feelings about this bill which can only be described as ambiguous. We approve of the concept of national marketing boards because of the power they are capable of giving to the
DEBATES	7093
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill farmer in the marketplace. We approve of this concept within the context of underpinning or upgrading the family farm and within the context of restoring vitality to our dying rural communities. But this government has not seen fit to place the legislation in that context. We do not know whether the government has the same idea for the use of this legislation as we have, or whether it intends to use the legislation to speed the trend toward a rural Canada characterized by ghost towns and vast, unpopulated fields.
In order to receive the answers to some of the questions I have posed in these brief remarks this evening our caucus has determined that we will support this bill on second reading. It is in order, also, to be able to make the kind of concrete effective amendments that will ensure that the purpose we wish to see this legislation serve is served, that we will allow this legislation to go before a committee. We are in wholehearted agreement with the major portion of the amendment presented to this House by the official opposition, but we cannot see our way clear to vote with the official opposition in support of the amendment, despite our belief that producers must be represented on the council and the marketing agencies as of right.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
We cannot vote with the official opposition, because voting with them will have the result of effectively destroying the bill with its potential for good. Rather than do that, we will support the bill on second reading so that it may go before committee where we can present amendments which will ensure that producers are represented on the council and the agencies allied to the council as of right; in order to ensure that the legislation will be used for an appropriate purpose.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I must at once say that we have no ambiguous view as to this bill and the amendment which has been placed before the House by the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner). If we had any illusions about this government, if we had any reason to believe it was a government which was flexible enough, sincere enough and sufficiently dedicated to the interests of the farming community to listen to sound, solid, good amendments which are desperately required to make this bill operate, we would not have moved the amendment and would vote to send the bill to committee following second reading. But, Mr. Speaker, we have had
May 19, 1970
7094	COMMONS
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill experience with these gentlemen who inhabit the desert of the treasury benches. We know how inflexible they are. We know that no matter how bad the cause they espouse-and that is a phrase which applies to many of their legislative proposals-they will never listen to, never seek and never admit any legitimate amendments. It was for this reason that we offered the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Crowfoot.
I have no illusions about the bill, but because of what has been said by Your Honour I do not want to give my own views on the bill as they would be considered highly unparliamentary. I prefer to concur in the remarks of the very highest quality of statesmanship made by the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. McIntosh) which express, in sound and solid sentiments, the views which a great many people, which most of the farming community and which all members of this party have and with which, I am very sorry to hear, members of the NDP do not agree.
Something has been said about how long this debate has already taken. When bad legislation comes before the House-and if there was ever bad legislation, Mr. Speaker, this is it-we consider we have not only a right but a duty to discuss the issues and the bill to such an extent that the people of the country, and in particular those who are most affected-in this case the agricultural community-are aware of the defects, the pitfalls and the evils of the legislation. I think we are being successful in this objective. There are now a great many people who, having heard the arguments advanced from this side of the House, are convinced the legislation is not what is suggested by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson). So we have no apologies at all to make for having taken this debate through this period of solid, sensible discussion, at least on this side of the House, so that we and the people of the country know that this bill is not what the Minister of Agriculture says it is.
Just today the Minister of Agriculture tabled the report titled "Canadian Agriculture in the Seventies". I have not had time to read it all-


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Read page 328.


Gerald William Baldwin: -but just glancing through- it I came upon two quotations which I think would be edifying to this House. They are in chapter 11 which deals with the whole issue


of government in agriculture and agribusiness. On page 273 I read:
Canadian farm policy since 1930-has been largely one of providing expedient measures to meet crises of depression, drought, war inflation and surpluses -There is little evidence that Canada has had any over-all national policy based on clear thinking and economic and sociological research facts.
But, more important, on page 300 I read:
The primary and continuing role of governments should be to produce a desirable economic and social climate for farmers and agribusiness.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald William Baldwin: I am amazed to see the Minister of Agriculture applaud that. If he applauds that statement, why didn't he put it into effect in this Bill?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Why don't you read a little of the recommendations on page 328?


Gerald William Baldwin: We on this side of the House do not engage in selective reading, Mr. Speaker.
Economically, governments should promote the efficient use of resources through their support for research, extension, education, marketing services and from time to time, through legislation of funds to increase or stabilize prices and incomes. This role does not include "managing" agriculture any more than it is the role of governments to "manage" the steel industry or the pulp and paper industry.
And, I might even say, to manage the House of Commons, as the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) so dearly loves to do.
Because the firms in farming are smaller than in other sectors, the kinds of government services required to create a desirable climate for them will be different from those of other sectors.
That is the primary recommendation. The role of the government must not include that of managing agriculture. Mr. Speaker, if there was ever a bill before this House which attempted to manage a business, and particularly the business of agriculture, you will see it within the four corners of Bill C-197.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Read the recommendations on page 328.


Gerald William Baldwin: Talk about selective quotations! Last Thursday the minister cited one small, miserable section of the Ontario Farm Produce Marketing Act. That was highly selective indeed. He attempted to persuade the House that there was a parallel between the provisions of this bill and the provisions of the Ontario legislation dealing with the marketing of farm produce. Nothing could be
May 19, 1970	COMMONS
further from the truth. I am not going to inflict upon the House all the pertinent provisions of the Farm Produce Marketing Act of Ontario, but just two or three to show the absolutely plain distinction.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: I have it here.


Gerald William Baldwin: If the minister has it why did he not read those sections that apply? I am trying to be highly parliamentary by saying that in trying to mislead this House on Thursday night he read just a part of the Ontario act. Mr. Speaker, section 5 of that act reads: Where the board receives from a group of producers in Ontario or any part thereof a petition or request asking that a plan be established for the control of the marketing of a farm product or any class or part thereof and the board is of the opinion that the group of producers is representative of persons engaged in the production of the farm product or class or part thereof, the board may recommend the establishment of such plan to the minister.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, in the Ontario Act there is an onus thrust upon the government, upon the minister first to be satisfied by the council that there has been an initiation of a proposal by the producers and then that the council is satisfied that the proposal of the producers is representative of the producers in the area. In other words, there is a statutory requirement to that effect. I defy the minister to find in Bill C-197 anything which parallels the statutory and mandatory requirement upon the provincial government.
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I gladly accept that challenge.


Gerald William Baldwin: If the minister does, it will be the first challenge that he has accepted successfully.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I can quote several clauses in Bill C-197 to satisfy that challenge.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon.
member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) has the floor.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I am carried away by emotion, frustration and anger.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Read section 6.


Gerald William Baldwin: Section 8 provides for the holding of a plebiscite of producers upon the question of approval of a plan, amendment of
DEBATES	7095
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill a plan or any matter respecting the marketing of a regulated product. That is a democratic way of doing business. This government does not believe in such democratic ways of doing business.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald William Baldwin: Section 10a (1) says:
Where any person deems himself aggrieved by any order, direction or decision of a local board, he may appeal to the local board by serving upon the local board written notice of the appeal.
The only kind of appeal this government understands is the kind of appeal I remember in my early days of practising law in the Peace River country. I was defending a man on a charge of bootlegging. That was before the days when it was understood I only defended innocent people. The accused was found guilty, most improperly, and I said to the justice of the peace who had tried the case, "I am going to appeal." He was halfway to the door when I said that, and he turned around, came back to the bench and said, "Fine. I will hear your appeal now." That is the only kind of appeal this government knows, and it disallows them inevitably.


An hon. Member:: You seem to be doing a bit of bootlegging, too.


Gerald William Baldwin: If I had time, Mr. Speaker, I would quote all kinds of sections from the Ontario act, to show the differences between these two acts. Section 12(2) says:
Where the board Is of the opinion that a majority of the producers in Ontario of the farm product mentioned in subsection 1 are in favour of the designation of the association as the representative association of all producers of that farm product in Ontario and are in favour of a proposed programme of the association for stimulating.. .the board may recommend to the minister-
That type of clause does not exist in Bill C-197. That is one reason why we object to the bill, to its form and to the type of clauses the government has seen fit to include in it. But there is another reason for our objection. Even if the bill were more like the Ontario legislation, we would still have doubts. We have watched this government operate over the two years it has been in power and we have watched the extent to which it has been grabbing for power and authority. We have no confidence and no trust in this government, and neither has the farming population of Canada. This bill represents the worse type of coercion, regimentation and dragooning.


An hon. Member:: What does that mean?
May 19, 1970
7096	COMMONS DEBATES
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill


Gerald William Baldwin: This government is expert at dragooning. It does it all the time, and attempts to do it to the opposition. No measure is more calculated to indicate the attitude of the government than Bill C-197. Its provisions constitute a giant step forward in the plot of these arrogant, pseudo-intellectuals to apply a sort of limited economic genocide to the farming community or, to put it another way, to practise an occupational gerrymander against the agricultural constituency of Canada.
This has been the obvious design of the Liberal Party for more than a decade. There has been a deliberate series of actions by Liberal governments to root out the fine quality of independence of rural people and bundle them into the larger centres where they can be made much more tractable and more readily manipulated by the media, both press and electronic, which fit into the slick and slippery machine put together so smoothly by the present Liberal leadership. In a related sense, it is also a continuation of the defeatist attitude Liberal governments have taken toward any attempt to promote a viable agricultural industry in Canada.
Reading the lines of this bill, and reading between the lines, it is quite obvious to note the contemptuous indifference of the Prime Minister and his associates to any really serious and intensive effort to promote new markets for present and potential agricultural production. Who was the distinguished, right hon. gentleman, who said in Winnipeg, "I don't have to sell your wheat. Why should I sell your wheat for you?"
We import hundreds of millions of agricultural products-fruit, meat, grain, oilseeds, vegetables, dairy products, and so on. We have not made any honest and determined effort to relate our production to markets which we have at home or which we could seek out and find in other parts of the world but which we do not bother about. This bill is an obvious measure to limit our production, to limit our exports, to limit those who will be producers and to change the character of those who will be engaged in agricultural production. This bill is the death-knell of the individual farmer. He is to be succeeded by the type of soulless, corporate entity which makes such an appeal to this Liberal government. He is to be succeeded by the Canadian version of the Russian collective farming system.


An hon. Member:: Holy smoke!


Gerald William Baldwin: The more I watch this government, the more I think of the phrase "the man on horseback"-a phrase used on several occasions during the last century to denote those people who were bent on securing unchallengeable authority to rule the affairs of their country. The Prime Minister and his small, elite group both in and out of the cabinet reaching out greedily for ever more authority to exercise over the people of their country constitute in Canada "the man on horseback" seeking unbridled and unlimited rights in this land. Power, sock it to them! Arrogant contemptuousness of Parliament and the people they misrule-that is the name of the game they play; and quite obviously that is what they want to make a permanent rule in the game of politics.
Over and over again I have pointed to clauses in various bills which have been introduced by the government. In those clauses and bills the government has sought, and the House and Parliament has given to it, the right to rule by Order in Council, by decree and by regulation without there being the necessity of the government ever having to come back to Parliament. There have been many examples, the LIFT program being one. There have been other agricultural bills in the last two sessions in which the government has been given the right to set interest rates by Order in Council. There is the Corporations Act, the Investment Companies Act, the Regional expansion and incentives programs, and now there is the new water bill.
Another example is the way in which the government has been dealing with the Indian people of this country, despite its promise to consult with them. We had the transportation bill and the broadcasting bill, and now we find the government moving into the media, through Information Canada, through the means of the Davey committee in the other place and through the uncontrolled right of the CRTC to set regulations. We find the government, either directly or indirectly through its appointed tribunals, saying to the media, "Co-operate or else."
Finally, there has been-as is demonstrated by this bill and other measures-the deliberate downgrading of parliamentary institutions. This is made evident through the changes in the rules, by the neglect to provide full and adequate answers to questions, both oral and written, by the government's deliberately taking the action out of the House of Commons and placing it in so many committees that they cannot be manned by the oppo-
May 19, 1970	COMMONS
sition-the result being that the whole legislative process is rapidly becoming a farce-by the scarcely veiled attacks on the Auditor-General and by many other actions.
It was with this in mind that I instigated some time ago, in co-operation with other hon. members, the establishment of a special committee to investigate these dangerous and growing problems and to propose some remedies.


An hon. Member:: Another committee?


Gerald William Baldwin: This would be a useful device if this bill were to be passed, and I am sure it will be passed despite my conviction that a great many government supporters are not happy about it.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Wrong again.


Gerald William Baldwin: When the vote comes, I am afraid they will either be absent or will not stand up and reassert their views of it.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Oh, no.


Gerald William Baldwin: 
Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald William Baldwin: they know it exists and even though it might not have been approved by a majority of those concerned.
In addition, of course, clause 7(e) gives the council the right to require any person engaged in the production of a product to register with the council, maintain books and records in relation to production and to submit to the council any information which the council may want. This may apply to people who are totally opposed to the plan which affects them. It may even be the case that a majority of those engaged in a particular industry are opposed to it; yet they are compelled to furnish information of the kind mentioned under a penalty of two years in gaol if they resist.
I hope that a number of Liberal backbenchers, many of whom I believe feel as strongly about this bill as we do and are as strongly opposed to it, will seize the opportunity to say to the minister and the government, "This bill cannot pass until it is radically changed so as to conform with the basic rights of the Canadian people". This is the stand which my party takes. When the bill goes to committee we shall continue to take it, and when it comes back again to the House we shall continue to take it. We do not believe in legislation of this type. In particular, we do not think these powers should be possessed by a government which despite its desire for dictatorial authority has so often shown itself to be incompetent. It is bad enough to be governed by a dictator, but incompetent dictatorship is far worse.


Mr. Jerry Pringle (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, although I had the opportunity to speak on the original bill, I find this amendment as proposed to be entirely inadequate. I hate to say this because I have great respect for the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) when we are talking about wheat. But we are not talking about wheat. This is such a transparent amendment that I am confident it could not have been written with typewriter tape; it would have to be written with scotch tape-[DOT]
Some bon. Members: Oh, oh!


M. Ervin Pringle: We are talking about a bill to give some assistance to farmers who do not grow wheat. I have to say to the people to my left that there is a part of agriculture in Canada that is non-wheat. I realize this is seldom accepted in their speeches by the wheat farmers who know little, it appears to me, about the basic problems of the egg
DEBATES	7099
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill industry, the broiler industry, the turkey industry, the honey industry, the hog industry and, possibly, the beef industry. I challenge them to get in touch with the producers. Ask the producers what they think. Let them get in touch with Ed. Morgan, manager of the British Columbia Egg Marketing Board, or with John Janzen, general manager of the Ontario Broiler Marketing Board, on with W. J. Landreth, manager of the Alberta Broiler and Turkey Marketing Board. Let them contact Ed Pratt, manager of the British Columbia Turkey Board; Art Stafford, manager of the British Columbia Broiler Marketing Board; Fred Langstaff, manager of the Saskatchewan Turkey Marketing Board; Emery Kitchen of the Manitoba Turkey Marketing Board; Keith Kennedy, a Prince Edward Island poultryman, or Ed. Gilmore of the British Columbia Vegetable Board. Ask these people what they want.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


M. Ervin Pringle: These producers are a little tired of the opposition trying to run the farming industry from the House of Commons. They have decided that the place to operate a farm is on the farm. They have already made the necessary adjustments with respect to orderly production and marketing. They are already operating under provincial legislation, but they need the help of a national marketing act.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), who is now leaving the House, spoke about our being amateurs. Well, I will say this: they are no longer amateurs in the opposition; they are professionals; they have been here so long that they have lost their amateur standing. This is a serious matter. It is all right to stand up here and play politics, which is what I appear to be doing at the moment.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


M. Ervin Pringle: The difference between members of the opposition and me is that I am admitting it. I am answering political expediency with political facts. They have found a little weakness in this bill which was written to provide the structure for a marketing act in Canada, with a provision for the producers to make their views known. Members of the opposition have prevented this. I suggest- and I believe both the producers and the opposition know it-that if the debate continues beyond this evening there is a distinct possibility that the bill will never get into committee. Perhaps the opposition has been
May 19, 1970
7100	COMMONS DEBATES
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill able to make some political hay because, they have stated, they have found a small weakness in the bill. I think everyone, including myself, has suggested that there is a weakness.


An hon. Member:: What is the weakness?


Mr. Muir (Lisgar):: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member permit a question? The hon. member seemed to suggest that the Ontario broiler interests did not want producer representation on the board. May I ask him to name those he has been talking to?


M. Ervin Pringle: I am sorry. Would the hon. member mind repeating his question?


George Robson Muir: The hon. member
seemed to imply that the Ontario broiler producers did not want producer representation on the council. Who gave him that information?


M. Ervin Pringle: I will be happy to answer that question. I inferred the opposite. On May 25, 26 and 27, the people most concerned with the broiler industry of Ontario will be meeting in the Chateau Laurier, and they will be happy to see the hon. member there and tell him what the producers of Ontario want. And they are not all integrators. Probably less than 20 per cent of the broilers are produced under vertical integration, not more.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)
I apologize to hon. members if I am slightly hot under the collar. The reason is that the producers I happen to know, need this bill. The producers want this bill. They want to appear before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and provide some input for two or three required minor amendments that need to be made. I agree that in the structure of the bill there is not sufficient law, if you like, written in to protect the producers.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


M. Ervin Pringle: But as a member who has had considerable experience with enabling legislation during the past 10 years, I say that the regulations provided for each commodity are the important part of any marketing legislation, and that the structure of the Omnibus bill should be as flexible as possible. The bill does not tie the producers, who want to make decisions in their own way. Neither is there anything new about the bill. This is merely a bill to co-ordinate the marketing agencies of Canada that are already in operation. To this

extent, most of what hon. members on the opposition side of the House have said is irrelevant, because we are talking about marketing boards already formed and in operation-I might say operating very successfully-which need this legislation.
I could go on and kick this political football back to the opposition side of the House so that they could kick it back to the government side again, but I will not do so. I want to plead with the members of the opposition, on behalf of producers in the various commodity groups who are now competing against each other and providing the people of Canada with the best food they can get at very low prices. The suggested amendment, which consists of one sentence, is impossible to accept, though I am sure the idea behind it is well meant and I give the hon. member for Crowfoot credit for that. But I could not support an amendment of that kind. When we get into committee on the bill I shall look forward to assistance from the hon. member for Crowfoot-the committee might also get some help from a wheat farmer from Assiniboia as well-in drafting suitable amendments.
The Minister of Agriculture when speaking the other night said, as reported at page 7001 of Hansard:
I am prepared to work with the House and the committee to improve this bill. I wish to indicate now that some amendments which are being considered will help clarify some of the points raised by hon. members opposite.
I ask the opposition, what more do they want? I realize that my hon. friends have been grasping at little things to enable them to raise a lot of ruckus and they feel, mistakenly, that they are supporting the Canadian farmers. Let me tell them they are going to get a great surprise when they realize that what they have been doing is the very opposite. I have found hon. members opposite very co-operative in committee, and I think government members are as well. We are not perfect in committee, but we are a long way from being imperfect. We have the wherewithal and the know-how to listen to the producers who are now standing in line to come to Ottawa to appear before the committee, or anyone who wishes to listen to them, to state what they feel about this bill. They will ask for very few changes. But as producers they want the right to provide that input which is presently being denied them by members of the opposition.
May 19, 1970	COMMONS


@Acting Speaker: The
hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Hees).


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Hon. George  Kees@Prince Edward-Hastings: Mr. Speaker, if the hounds will stop baying I will get on with my speech. The eloquence and logic of the hon. members who have already dealt with this bill, such as the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. McIntosh), the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) and others on the opposition side have made it possible for me to make tonight one of the shortest speeches on record.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


George Harris Hees: I rise simply to add my voice to those that have already been raised in this debate and to urge the government to make a very important change in this legislation, one that will turn bad legislation into good. The hon. member for Fraser Valley East (Mr. Pringle), who has just resumed his seat, spoke well and referred to two or three mistakes in this bill. One of the mistakes to which he referred and which he did not explain refers to what I am going to talk about tonight and is what the members of the opposition have been talking about in their speeches. As a man of knowledge in this field, the hon. member knows what he is talking about. He has told the minister that some very important changes ought to be made in the bill, and this is why I intend to take a few minutes of the time of the House tonight.
As we all know, Bill C-197 will establish a National Farm Products Marketing Council and national marketing agencies for farm products. We of the official opposition are in favour of the principle of establishing these bodies, because it has been found through practice that they are needed to stabilize the marketing and prices of farm products, particularly when these farm products are sold interprovincially and in export markets. Having said that, I state emphatically that what the members of the official opposition object to very strenuously is the government's proposal completely to take over the control of the pricing and marketing of these products by appointing all of the directors to this council and making the appointments to the agencies. We believe, and believe very firmly, as does the hon. member for Fraser Valley East, that the producers of farm products are best fitted to direct marketing and pricing
DEBATES	7101
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill policies relating to the products that they produce. They are the ones who should be the directors of the council and appointed to these marketing agencies.
We of the official opposition are convinced that the farmers want more orderly marketing and pricing of their products so they can receive a better return for the financial outlay that they make every year, and for the very considerable effort that they put into their farming operations. But they do not want state control of these operations. They want to protect their freedom to direct these operations by being represented by producers of their products on the boards of the council and the marketing agencies.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
That is the reason we oppose the government's proposal to appoint all the directors to the council and the agencies. Everybody in this House knows perfectly well that when the government appoints these members, from the chairman down, to this council and these agencies, the chairman and members will become puppets of this government. They will be paid by the government and they will snap to attention when the government cracks the whip. They will do exactly what the government wishes. The minister knows this. This is dictatorial legislation of a kind which we do not intend to pass in this House. We intend to fight it right down the line.
The hon. member for Fraser Valley East said there were a few little changes which ought to be made. There are fundamental changes in the legislation which we demand be made and which the farmers demand be made so that dictatorial legislation is not passed in this House. This is the reason I have taken a few minutes to speak in this debate. With the members of my party, I strongly urge that this government appoint the chairman and members of the council and agencies from the ranks of the producers of the products concerned so that this can be useful, good, practical legislation that will be for the benefit of the producers of the products concerned.


Deane Roscoe Gundlock: Mr. Speaker and members of this House, there has been much talk about this bill.


An hon. Member:: Too much.


Deane Roscoe Gundlock: As someone says, there has been too much. I should like to start by mentioning what will happen if the bill should pass. We in this party expect that it will not
May 19, 1970
7102	COMMONS DEBATES
Farm Products Marketing Agencies Bill pass in its present form. There is a provision in respect of the levying of licence fees, or charges, on farms as necessary to finance the agencies on a self-sustaining basis without appropriations from Parliament. Then there is a clause which states that any person who violates any provision of the act or regulations is guilty of an indictable offence. Mr. Speaker, the minister is a neighbour of mine. He is also a farmer and rancher: at least, he says he is and I believe he is. But let us look at these words "guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years". Here is an offence punishable by summary conviction.
Mr. Speaker, in the years the minister and I have been here we have heard many ayes and nays. But only tonight have I heard so many "I's" from the minister. I am disappointed that the minister said "I" so many times. Anyone familiar with the agricultural industry knows there is very little relationship between the existing provincial marketing agencies and the type of agencies proposed by this bill. Provincial marketing agencies are set up at the request of a majority of producers. The members of the boards in control of such agencies are elected by the primary producers. Perhaps I might go back for a moment and refer to what I said earlier. I stated that any person who violates any provision of this act or the regulations is gui'tv of an offence. The government, and the minister in particular, are not asking the producers any more. We talk about a just society!
An hon. Membsr: What is that?


Deane Roscoe Gundlock: It would seem to me to be rapidly turning into a controlled society. All we need do is look at the white paper, Information Canada or the CRTC. I can call myself a bona fide farmer because I am one. I think the minister is, too. I am amazed that the minister, who is a farmer and a rancher, would allow this type of legislation to be introduced. I wish to emphasize and repeat that a person who violates any provision of the act or regulations is guilty. He may be a farmer, a rancher or a businessman. If he does not comply with the government's regulations he is guilty. We in our party do not believe v/e are guilty. We believe we have a right to market something. If I have a product which I wish to market, I have a moral right to do so.
Mr. Speaker, through you I would ask the minister: If he had a cow that did not meas-
ure up to the standards laid down, what would he do with it? If he had a chicken which did not measure up to the standards, what would he do with it? Would he just kill it, or would he try to market it? If he did, what would happen to him as a minister or as a farmer? I think we have gone too far, and when I say "we" I mean Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)


Deane Roscoe Gundlock: I sincerely suggest that the minister should pay attention to the advice of the committee and of his own members on that committee. Certainly he should pay attention to the advice of his conscience. Whether I raise a duck, grow grain, build a house or gravel a road, I am a basic producer. We come right back to the same thing when we are basic producers and do not agree with the government and with this piece of legislation-we violate all the provisions of this bill. In other words, we cannot sell the produce of our labour any more. We have to ask the government, "What are we going to do? What will happen to us?" What is left for us? It is an indictable offence and we are liable to imprisonment.
I am a bona fide farmer and have been a Member of Parliament for several years. As a matter of fact, I am a neighbour of the minister and I am surprised that he should condone such legislation. I welcome an explanation from the minister at this point. This bill provides for an offence punishable on summary conviction. As a Canadian, as a farmer and as a Member of Parliament, I cannot understand the minister and I cannot go along with this legislation.
As I said earlier, this is not a just society but a controlled society, and I think the minister is controlled by the society in which we are supposed to live. This bill spells it out loudly and clearly. The minister goes along with it. The first time I ever rose on a point of order in this House I heard many yeas and many nays, but I have never before heard the minister say so often, in such a short time, that he is for the bill.
He says he goes along with the bill. I think he will have to live with it and so will the government. But I cannot imagine why the government should want to bring forth a piece of legislation such as this. We are talking about a bill on agriculture. Anyone who is a primary producer, whether he be a farmer, a fisherman or a bricklayer, if he cannot sell his produce, whether it be from the land, the
May 19. 1970	COMMONS
sea or the river, without asking the government or the minister what he can do with it, will find that he is living in different conditions than any in which many of us have been raised.
I will conclude, Mr. Speaker. We can look back to wartime and our producers and learn a lesson. I will not bore you with the details, Mr. Speaker, but I think there is a little lesson to be learned here. V7e are talking about sheep producers and wool producers. In the good old days you could take a sheep to your back. If this bill passes, no longer will we be able to do this without asking the minister or the government.


Mr. Schumacher:: It is three minutes to ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker. Would there be a disposition on the part of the House to allow me to call it ten o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.
Seme hon. Members: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: I understand this is not the wish of the House.


Thomas Miller Bell: I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if you would formally call this question and we will find out who does not wish to go on with this lovely evening.
The Acling Speaker (Mr. Bechard): Is it the
wish of the House that I call it ten o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


Some hon. Members:: No.


George Harris Hees: They are filibustering.


George Robson Muir: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I notice that the House Leader is not here. I wonder if the minister would inform the House whether this bill will be carried forward tomorrow for debate.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: There are about three or four minutes left, and during that period we could pass this legislation.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. The hon. member's point was not a point of order.


George Harris Hees: Would the minister answer the question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. The point raised by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Muir) was not a point of order.
DEBATES	7103
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion Mr. Schumacher: May I now call it ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker?


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: The
House is not willing to call it ten o'clock.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It
will be, if we keep on talking.


Stanley Stanford Schumacher: Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: Don't waste the time of the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bechard):: Order, please. It is now ten o'clock.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been moved.

Douglas Charles Rowland: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I put a question to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Cadieux) with respect to studies now being undertaken by his department in respect of base redundancy. I also asked the minister about the possibility of his allowing representations to be made by interested members of the public and various interested organizations to a committee of the House prior to the final decision being made on the closure of various bases.
In his reply the minister indicated that he believed his decision in respect of the future of Canadian forces bases was solely and entirely the prerogative of the executive. The implication was that he saw no need for such public representations. I will readily concede that in the end the executive must make the decision and take the consequences. To be frank, I do not envy the minister. However, implicit in his reply was the minister's assumption that he was under no obligation to consult with the people affected, prior to making his decision.
May I say parenthetically that I was pleased to hear his undertaking to offer considerable advance notice to civic governments and to the workers affected. Nevertheless, he was not willing to admit the necessity of prior consultation with affected groups. It would seem to me that in a situation where
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion the ultimate effect of the exercise of the prerogative of the executive could result in profound social and economic dislocation for a community-such as would be the case in Gimli in my constituency; and I realize a decision has not yet been made wi!h respect to the Canadian forces base at Gimli-the executive has a responsibility to consult with interested members of the community.
9 (10:00 p.m.)
For example, the community has a right to know the criteria upon which the executive decision is to be based. Is the decision simply to be made on the basis of the internal efficiency of the department, or are wider social and economic implications taken into account? In such a situation, also, I believe citizens have the right to expect every possible effort to be made by their government to permit them the opportunity to present their point of view in the most forceful and effective manner possible. Without public hearings of some description they can never be sure that this will be done.
Moreover, the general public has the right, whenever such great social and economic dislocation is possible, to be able to weigh the relative merits of the closure of one base in one area of the country against the closure of another base in another area. Thus, there is a strong case to be made for revelation of the total package of recommendations before action is taken, rather than being notified of decisions on an ad hoc basis.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the general public has a right to know what action, if any, the government contemplates to offset the adverse social and economic effects of base closures in those communities where bases are to be closed. The general public has a right to discuss with and make representations to the government about the efficacy and adequacy of its plans for compensation, for alternative employment and alternative means of income for the community, if indeed the government
May 19, 1970
has any such plans. Therefore, I would strongly urge the minister, through his representative here this evening, to reconsider his approach to the problem, if I have interpreted his remarks correctly and he has no intention of setting up a mechanism to allow the expression of public opinion. In a situation as fraught with social and economic consequences as the closure of a Canadian forces base the public has a right to be heard before the executive exercises its prerogative to make the final decision.


Mr. D. W. Groos (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I am always interested in hearing what the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Rowland) has to say. I must say that, personally, I sympathize with him and I think he has presented his case with remarkable vigour. But in response to the question from the hon. member there is really nothing that I can add to the reply given by my minister in the House last Friday. At that time, as the member has said, the minister stated that in order to achieve the objective of operating within a fixed budget there are certain decisions that are an executive prerogative. The minister further stated that he expected to make a final decision early in June or at the end of May.
The practice has been to consult with local authorities concerning the plans for base consolidation. The policy is to provide one year's notice of intention concerning the future of bases that are affected by this program. Further, in respect to people employed, the practice is to provide six months' notice. Every effort is made by the department, in conjunction with other agencies, to assist these employees. I know the minister will be very pleased to read in Hansard tomorrow the representations which have been made by the hon. member for Selkirk, and I thank him for making them.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.06 p.m.



Wednesday, May 20, 1970