1971-02-22

PRIVILEGE

[Stage Direction]
MR. McGRATH-SITTING OF STANDING COMMITTEES! while

Mr. Speaker:: On Tuesday, February 16 last, the hon. member for St. John's East raised a question concerning the regularity or the propriety of a Committee of the Whole sitting when a number of standing committees were scheduled to meet. The following day, Wednesday, February 17, the hon. member raised a similar question but that time as a point of privilege.
While not accepting the hon. member's proposition as a question of privilege, the Chair recognized that there was some difficulty and assured the House that further and continuing study would be given to the situation. In particular, it was proposed that the procedural difficulty be considered by the House Leaders. It is my hope that these hon. gentlemen will be available for such a meeting within the next few hours, perhaps, or at least the next few days.
In the comparatively brief period at my disposal I have endeavoured to review the practice of the House in respect of concurrent sittings of the House or Committees of the Whole with standing or special committees. Up to this moment I have been able to consider, in some detail, every regular session of our Parliament back to 1952, and there has been little difficulty in establishing that Committees of the Whole and standing committees have in fact sat concurrently throughout those years.
I do not suggest the House should presume that such conditions were unopposed. Senior members of the House will vouch for the fact that strong positions were taken and many hours were spent over the years in objecting to such meetings on the very same grounds as have been recently advanced particularly by the hon. member for St. John's East. It would seem that this practice, rightly or wrongly, has been confirmed by the recent revision of the Standing Orders of the House. I suggest that the condition has been accentuated by the unanimous order of the House referring the government reorganization bill to a Committee of the Whole House. While that bill is an omnibus bill the Standing Orders do not provide for the consideration of such a bill in Committee of the Whole except by order of the House.
While it is apparent that it may not have been appropriate to send that bill to a standing committee, it would not have been inappropriate to establish a special committee to which it could have been referred. It seems to me that sections 1 and 2 of Standing Order 74 contemplate such a procedure, and had that procedure been observed the present difficulty would not have arisen. It might be of interest if I were to refer to Standing Order 81 of the British House as printed at page 1084 of May's 17th edition. It reads as follows:
All committees, other than committees of the whole House, shall have leave to sit at any time on any day on which the House sits, but may not otherwise sit during any adjournment of the House, without the leave of the House, and such leave shall not be moved for without notice.
That Standing Order of the British House indicates that our own long-standing practice is not unique and not at variance with the practice in other Parliaments, in particular at Westminster. It is of interest to note, however, that in the British House proceedings in standing committees are interrupted in order to allow members to participate in divisions in the Committee of the Whole.
This brings me to consider the objection voiced by the hon. members for Edmonton West and Calgary North to the effect that when a Committee of the Whole is sitting members in attendance at standing committees receive no warning of impending votes as is the case when the Speaker is in the chair. The difficulty is solved in the British House by the practice of interrupting proceedings in a standing committee so that members can proceed to the House to participate in a division called in Committee of the Whole. Our own revised rules provide for deferred votes at the report stage of a bill, presumably to eliminate the possibility of frequent interruptions of standing committees. It may well be that our rules should be further amended to establish a similar procedure for votes which might be called in Committee of the Whole or possibly to establish a practice similar to that which exists at Westminster.
With respect to the interruption of proceedings in standing committees, these are possibilities which should be considered by hon. members and in particular by the House Leaders on behalf of their respective parties. The difficulty might well be considered also by the Committee on Procedure and Organization. While, as I have stated on two or three occasions last week, there appears to be a difficulty when there is a prolonged consideration of a bill in Committee of the Whole, it does seem to me that situation is not in conflict with our existing practice or with the provisions of our Standing Orders and that the difficulty is not one which can be considered under the heading of parliamentary privilege.
It is, I suggest respectfully to hon. members, the kind of difficulty or problem which might rather be considered

February 22, 1971
Dental Health
by the representatives of the parties in the House who I am sure are anxious to find a common ground to ensure the orderly flow of the legislative process in the House. That is why I took the initiative in suggesting a meeting between the representatives of all parties. It is my hope this meeting can take place soon and that it will have some broad and helpful results.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Fourth report of Standing Committee on Public Accounts-Mr. Hales.
[Editor's Note: For text of above report see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Hon. Oito E. Lang (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41 (2) I propose to lay on the table a copy in both official languages of the government's grassland incentive program.
^ $



STATEMENT ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON DENTAL


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to announce to the House that the report of the ad hoc committee on dental auxiliaries has now been received.
The ad hoc committee was established in June, 1968, by the previous Minister of National Health and Welfare, the Hon. Allan MacEachen, with the full co-operation of the Canadian Dental Association. Its terms of reference were to study all aspects of dental auxiliaries, with special emphasis on the possible contribution that auxiliaries could make in helping to achieve better dental health for the Canadian public. The chairman of the committee was the Hon. Dalton C. Wells, Chief Justice of the High Court of Ontario who is in the Speaker's gallery today, and I would like to acknowledge his presence.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carr Munro: The report contains 43 recommendations. The first 21 cover such areas as the qualifications of dental assistants, hygienists and technicians, their training, education and experience, and a wide range of more responsible duties to enable them to contribute more effectively to the dental health care requirement.
The report also recommends that each province pass legislation regulating dental auxiliaries, and that provincial boards be established to administer these acts.
A national dental program for children is also recom mended. Such a program would incorporate prevention education and treatment beginning with younger children and annually encompassing new age groups up to school leaving age.
The committee also calls upon the federal and provincial governments to devise incentives for dentists to develop the team approach to dentistry with support from dental auxiliaries, and for the governments to provide funds for training, research and facilities, and recommends that dental care in its broadest sense be offered to all Canadians incorporating the same principles of quality control and financing as medical care.
The recommendations contained in this report will be studied most closely by my department. Implementation of the report is of considerable consequence to the dental health of all Canadians. Copies of this report are available from my office. Again, may I on behalf of the House indicate our appreciation to the Hon. Dalton Wells and his committee for an excellent report.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I understood that a report was to be tabled today and I thought it would be tabled under the appropriate Standing Order, 41 (2). I am not taking exception to the procedure adopted by the minister, but we will reserve any comment with regard to the value of this report until we have examined it. I simply call to the attention of the Chair that this is the kind of report which should be tabled without comment. It speaks for itself. If, on the other hand, a statement is to be made, then I think that opposition parties should receive a copy of the report beforehand so they can discuss it fairly and intelligently. The minister usually does this, but I point this out because, as I say, in the past there have been abuses under this Standing Order and I think the government should be very careful as to its procedure in this regard.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member for Peace River pointed out, the Minister of National Health and Welfare usually obliges us with copies of statements he is going to make on motions. Therefore I suppose we should not castigate him too severely today. But I do suggest he return to the normal practice. I have no objection to the report being tabled-the purpose of tabling is to make such documents public-but we think it would be well to advise the opposition parties in advance. Having listened to the brief statement the minister made, I want to underline in particular the recommendation that dental care for Canadians be put on at least the same basis as medical care. I hope that implementation of this recommendation will soon take place.

February 22, 1971



QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER

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

Mr. Salisman: 1.	What applications have been received under the revised Patent Act for licences from the Patent Commissioner to manufacture or import and sell patented drugs, up to October 1, 1970?
2. What applications have been approved or refused by the Patent Commissioner?
3.	What reasons were given for those drug patent applications that have been rejected?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: 1. Up to October 1, 1970 the Commissioner of Patents has received 85 applications for licences under Section 41(4) of the revised Patent Act, of which five are applications to manufacture and sell, 52 are applications to import and sell, and 28 are applications to both manufacture and import and sell patented drugs. These applications are for licences under 120 patents covering 33 drugs.
2.	The Commissioner has approved and issued licences on 44 applications, to the following companies: S & U Chemicals Limited, Toronto, Ontario, 21 licences; Novo-pharm Limited, Scarborough, Ontario, nine licences; Sterilab Corporation Limited, Rexdale, Ontario, four licences; Micro Chemicals Limited, Toronto, Ontario, two licences; Mowatt & Moore Ltd., Pointe Claire, Quebec, two licences; Neo Drug Company, Montreal, Quebec, two licences; Frank W. Horner Limited, Montreal, Quebec, one licence; Laboratoire Medic Ltee, Ville de Laval, Quebec, one licence; Compagnie, Pharmaceutique Vita Ltee, St. Romuald, Quebec, one licence; Trans-Canada Dermapeutics Ltd., Montreal, Quebec, one licence.
3.	The Commissioner, on December 10, 1969, refused to grant to Sterilab Corporation Limited of Rexdale, Ontario, a licence to import and sell the drug Hydrocortisone Sodium Succinate under a patent owned by the Upjohn Company, for the reason that the application failed to meet the statutory requirements. Sterilab later filed a new, corrected application, which was accepted, and a licence was issued to them on April 24, 1970.


REGULATIONS COVERING STORAGE AND LABELLING OF FOOD
Mr. Mather: Is consideration being given to the request of the Consumers' Association of Canada to establish bacteriological standards and to implement regulations regarding the storage of meat, fish, poultry and their products and to develop a system of labelling to provide consumers, at the point of purchase, information as to whether the product has been previously frozen?


Mr. J. A. Jerome (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: I am informed by the De-
Questions
partment of National Health and Welfare and the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs as follows: Regulations under the Food and Drugs Act have been enacted which govern the bacteriological quality of certain dairy, fish, meat and egg products. Steps now are being taken to extend these regulations to cover additional foods, including frozen foods. Yes. A labelling system which would advise consumers at the point of sale that thawed foods had been previously frozen is under consideration, but there are difficult technical problems to be overcome.


POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT-FEMALE LETTER CARRIERS
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	How many female letter carriers are presently employed by the Post Office Department?
2.	How many have applied for such positions?
3 Who is the highest ranking officer in the Post Office Department of the female sex?
4.	By district, how many (a) males (b) females are currently employed in the Post Office Department?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Cote (Minister without Portfolio):: 1.	Thirty-two.
2.	In some instances applications are made direct to the local Canada Manpower Centre, others direct to the Post Office Department where the Canada Manpower Centre is unable to provide recruitment service. We do not maintain records on the sex of those applying in letter carrier competitions, therefore we are unable to provide complete and accurate data in order to answer this question.
3.	Rosemarie Hanel, C.S. 2.
District	Male	FemaleSt. John's, Nfld.	423	76Halifax, N.S.	1,060	131Saint John, N.B.	826	106Quebec, P.Q.	1,610	98Montreal, P.Q.	6,519	402Ottawa, Ontario	1,715	71Toronto, Ont.	7,044	526London, Ont.	1,955	169North Bay, Ont.	797	255Winnipeg, Man.	1,644	172Saskatoon, Sask.	793	32Calgary, Alta.	1,234	155Edmonton, Alta.	1,080	261Vancouver, B.C.	3,324	601Ottawa, Ont.	751	367
(Headquarters)

February 22, 1971
Questions


FEDERAL ASSISTANCE TO MUNICIPALITY OP ST-CAMILLE, BELLECHASSE CONSTITUENCY
Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse): For each year since 1968, what departments or agencies have granted loans to the municipality of St-Camille in the constituency of Bellechasse (a) for what purpose were these loans granted (b) what was the amount of each (c) what was the rate of interest (d) what was the duration of the loan and what are the terms of reimbursement?


James Alexander Jerome: I am advised as follows: 1. The Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, in 1970, approved a loan to the municipality of St. Camille, Bellechasse County, (a) for a sewage treatment project, (b) in the amount of $90,000, (c) at an interest rate of 84 percent, (d) for a term of 40 years. Under Section 36G of the National Housing Act, 25 per cent of the principal amount of the loan, and 25 per cent of the interest on the loan accrued to the date of completion of the project will be forgiven.


FEED FREIGHT ASSISTANCE POLICY
Mr. Southam: 1.	Has the government made any determination yet on its Feed Freight Assistance Policy, i.e., whether it will be increased, decreased or left as is?
2.	When will such policy decision be announced?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: 1. As was
announced last Spring the rates of freight assistance now in effect will continue through the end of this fiscal year. The program is now being reviewed and plans for the 1971-72 program are being prepared.
2. It is expected that the rates of freight subsidy for the 1971-72 fiscal year will be made known before April 1.


NATIONAL DEFENCE-CONSIDERATION OF UNIONS IN MILITARY FORCES
Mr. McCleave: 1.	Has the Department of National Defence made studies about the existence of military unions in (a) Norway (b) West Germany (c) Sweden (d) Austria (e) Denmark?
2.	Is the government or the Department prepared to give recognition to similar unions if established in Canada and, if so, what of the following subjects would be considered a legitimate part of the collective bargaining process (a) pay, including its relationship to civilian pay (b) benefits paid upon severance of engagement (c) the right to strike (d) determination of disciplinary measures (e) rights of those below the officer level to advance to same (f) facilities for adult education (g) pensions (h) political activity and/or political candidacy at federal, provincial or municipal levels (i) the determination of the union to represent the military (j) uniform allowances (k) hirsute appearances and other cosmetic factors (1) options as to uniform?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of National Defence):: 1. No.
2. No consideration has been given to unions in the military forces.


EMPLOYMENT OF MR. CLYDE SANGER
Mr. Robinson: 1.	Has Mr. Clyde Sanger been appointed as Communications Adviser to the Canadian International Development Agency and, if so, what are his duties, salary and expense allowances?
2.	Is Mr. Cranford Pratt an adviser to CIDA and, if so, what are his duties, salary and expense allowances?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: 1. Mr. Clyde Sanger is a self-employed person engaged with the Canadian International Development Agency under the Government Contract Regulations as Special Adviser on Communications. His salary is $18,000 per annum. There have been no expenses to date. There is provision in the contract to pay travel expenses in accordance with the Treasury Board Travel Directive.
Hereunder is a statement of duties performed by Mr. Sanger: Under the direction of the President: To carry out research and prepare materials for presentations to Committees of the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as briefs and submissions to national and international bodies which are concerned with aspects of international development; to conduct research in connection with important policy statements and speeches for Ministers and senior officers which involve specialized research; to prepare material for seminars relating to international development which require senior level participation and ensuring that appropriate CIDA representation is provided with researched documentation; to provide advice and assistance to the President and senior management during the period of reorganizing and developing the Information Division of CIDA in respect of certain aspects of the Information role and supplement the existing capability of the Information Division; to assist senior management in the conduct and maintenance of relationships within and outside Government in the preparation and distribution of related materials for special public bodies, e.g., Members of the House of Commons, The Senate and various other Government Departments as well as for other organizations and agencies with a special interest in the development field; to advise and assist on special projects in relation to the field of communications.
2. No.


NATIONAL DEFENCE-THEFT OF ARMS
Mr. Godin: 1.	During the past five years, were arms stolen from the Canadian Army and, if so (a) from what camps were these arms stolen (b) in each camp, what were the models and quantities of stolen arms (c) what was the value of the stolen arms (d) have the thieves been apprehended?
2.	Have all these arms been found during searches made under the War Measures Act?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: 1. Yes.

February 22, 1971

Questions
(b) Models and Quantities
Auto.
Rifle	Rifle	(c) Total.303	.22	9MM	7.62	7.62	.38 Current(a) Location	Rifle	Rifle Pistol SMG FNC1 FNC2 Bren Revolver ValueGERMANY	
22	17	10	1	$ 5,287.78CYPRUS	
1	68.04


NEWFOUNDLAND
[Stage Direction]
St. John's	 1	39.00

[Stage Direction]
Moncton	
1	120.00Gagetown	
4	272.16St.John	
1	1	107.04

[Stage Direction]
Halifax	 2	1	238.08
[Stage Direction]
Montreal	
7	9	3	2	1,578.74Quebec	
Ill	363.73Shawinigan	
1	102.00Valcartier	
1	2	2	659.42La Tuque	
4	156.00

[Stage Direction]
Borden	
10	12	1,904.40Trenton	
1	68.04London	
2	204.00Rockcliffe	
2	1	329.77Port Hope	
2	67.48Toronto	
4	4	10	2,617.06Merriton	
2	387.38Kapuskasing	
1	33.74Sudbury	
1	3	649.11Windsor	
3	2	1	446.77Petawawa	
Ill	363.73Hamilton	
1	1	227.43Oshawa	
1	102.00Guelph	
1	1	295.69North Bay	
3	581.07Centralia	
2	204.00

[Stage Direction]
Shilo	
1	1	1	486.44Rivers	
1	102.00Churchill	
1	3	614.81Winnipeg	
30	1	6	2,084.04

[Stage Direction]
Saskatoon	 1	68.04

[Stage Direction]
Calgary	
1	2	426.38Lethbridge	
10	1,936.90Penhold	
1	68.04Edmonton	
1	1	2	557.42

[Stage Direction]
Esquimalt	
1	68.04Chilliwack	
1	12	4	1,335.48Vancouver	
3	10	10	1	3,298.61TOTAL	
5	51	80	59	67	2	6	6	$28,519.86
(d) 22 persons were apprehended as a result of being involved in 13 of the 114 cases investigated.
[Stage Direction]
February 22, 1971
Questions
2. No, only one was found during search under the War Measures Act-an FNC1 Rifle.

Mr. Simpson: What was the total amount of revenue received through personal income tax from each of the ten provinces for each year 1960 to 1969 inclusive?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of National Revenue):: Tax
collection figures by provinces are not available for 1969. The attached table, derived from the annual statistical analysis of the tax returns filed by individuals, indicates the total tax payable by individuals in each province for the years 1960 to 1968, as shown on federal tax returns. The tax payable includes federal income and old age security tax throughout, and for 1962 and subsequent years includes provincial income tax which is collected on behalf of all provinces except Quebec. The tax levied by Quebec province is excluded.
Total Tax Payable by Individuals
	I960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969
				(In Millions of Dollars)						
Newfoundland	
17.1	18.5	20.2	22.0	26.5	30.4	36.6	45.9	57.7	Prince Edward Island	
2.9	3.1	3.3	3.8	4.8	5.8	6.6	8.4	9.9	Nova Scotia	
38.6	40.2	42.8	47.0	56.6	66.1	74.8	95.7	117.2	New Brunswick	
26.4	28.8	30.1	33.0	41.4	47.5	56.3	71.4	84.2	Quebec	
371.9	409.6	424.3	474.3	583.8	475.7	531.1	658.8	786.5	Not yetOntario	
845.4	905.4	945.0	1,049.7	1.264.5	1,425.0	1,680.9	2,074.1	2,541.9	availableManitoba	
84.5	89.0	96.2	105.3	119.8	129.2	152.1	192.7	229.0	Saskatchewan	
60.1	63.2	73.8	86.0	108.1	115.3	134.1	169.3	181.6	Alberta	
126.9	135.6	146.6	156.4	182.8	205.0	249.8	326.4	395.0	British Columbia	
205.5	211.5	228.3	254.9	314.3	361.3	431.0	532.7	639.6	
Source: Taxation Statistics, editions 1962-1970 inclusive-Table 1.


HISTORIC SITES-DESIGNATION OF PROVINCE HOUSE, CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I.
Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	Have requests been received for the designation of Province House, Charlottetown, P.E.I. as a national historic shrine and, if so, from what individuals or organizations were such requests or suggestions received, and what is the date of each?
2.	What is the response of the Government of Canada to such requests?
3.	In what other provinces has the building containing the meeting place of the provincial legislature been turned over to the Government of Canada?


Mr. Judd Buchanan (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: 1. Yes, recently two written representations have been received, one from the Prince Edward Island Tourist Association dated December 10, 1970 and the other from the Cavendish Tourist Association dated December 17, 1970.
2. The Minister declared Province House to be of national historic significance on the recommendation of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada at its October 1966 meeting. The possibility of the Department taking an active part in the restoration and interpretation
of Province House is under discussion with the Provincial Government of P.E.I.
3. None.


FISH SANCTUARIES
Mr. Robinson: How many fish sanctuaries are there in Canada (a) where is each located (b) what is the size of each (c) what species of fish are protected in each (d) how much is the cost to the federal government to maintain each sanctuary?


Mr. Eymard Corbin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Forestry):: None, but there are hundreds of areas throughout Canada where various species of fish are protected at one or all stages of their life history, usually to ensure adequate propagation to maintain the species. These areas are located on rivers, lakes and in the sea, and can be found listed in the Manual of Fisheries Acts and Regulations under the various Provinces' fishery regulations. Some areas protect fish only from commercial fishing, while others allow no fishing of any type. Species protected in these sanctuaries, or "closed areas" range from marine to anadromous to freshwater species and include halibut, herring, Atlantic salmon, Pacific salmon, whitefish, lake trout, etc. The size

February 22, 1971

of these closed areas varies greatly and their boundaries are detailed in the manual mentioned previously.


BANFF NATIONAL PARK-DEMOLITION OF GREENHOUSE
Mr. Sulalycky: 1.	What was the cost of demolishing the greenhouses in Banff National Park?
2.	Were tenders called for the dismantling and removal of these structures and, if not, for what reason?


J. Judd Buchanan: 1. $927.84 including equipment usage.
Fiscal year ended		
March 31st	1966	1967(a) Quebec	9,310,598	9,747,283(b) Ontario	4,129,629	4,175,562(c) New Brunswick	1,156,724	1,505,580(d) Nova Scotia	2,075,261	1,837,771(e) Prince Edward	Island	482,592	479,532(f) Newfoundland	758,197	515,401


'REVIEW OF CHARTER OF UNITED NATIONS
Mr. Fairweather: 1.	Does the government support the concept that a review of the Charter of the United Nations is necessary?
2.	Did Canada support the initiative taken by eight governments at the last session of the General Assembly directed toward that end?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the reply to this question is rather lengthy and I wonder if the House would agree that it be printed in Hansard as if it had been read.


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: The answer follows:]
1. A basic premise of Canada's foreign policy, as noted in the recent review, is to continue to work actively to make the United Nations a more effective instrument for international cooperation, and to ensure, in this context, that it can meet its responsibilities. Some suggest that, to achieve this end, a review of the Charter is necessary on the grounds that the Charter is now 25 years old, that conditions have changed greatly since it was drawn up, and that there are serious indications that the United Nations has not adequately met its central purpose of maintaining international peace and security. Others maintain that there is little evidence that the Charter itself has limited the scope for co-operation among states, that in fact it has adapted rather well to changing conditions, and that there is opportunity for further change within the existing framework. This argument suggests
Questions
2. Tenders were not called as there was no salvage value and it was more economical to have the Parks Staff do the actual demolition.


FEED FREIGHT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse): What was the total paid by the government in subsidies for the transportation of grain during the years 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970 in the Provinces of (a) Quebec (b) Ontario (c) New Brunswick (d) Nova Scotia (e) Prince Edward Island (f) Newfoundland?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Expenditures under the Feed Freight Assistance Program in these five years have been:
1968	1969	19709,835,701	8,425,816	9,438,2004,627,951	2,937,808	4,857,8581,194,859	1,167,597	1,345,1051,838,314	1,622,498	1,782,344533,025	403,734	347,893507,152	488,688	634,119
that the United Nations can be made more dynamic without actually rewriting the Charter, and that the effectiveness of the UN depends not upon changing the basic structure of the Organization so much as upon the political resolve of the member states to fulfil the obligations and the responsibilities each has undertaken in agreeing to abide by the provisions of the 1945 Charter. In short, the effectiveness of the United Nations is directly dependent on the political will of its members.
The Canadian Government is quite prepared to give serious consideration to all specific constructive proposals for the revision of certain provisions of the Charter, if a majority of the membership considers this would be useful. However, for such a review to be successful, it is mandatory that the permanent members of the Security Council and particularly both the United States and the Soviet Union, support the idea. At present there is little evidence to suggest that such agreement exists for a review at this time. In the interim, we consider that changes can be made within the existing framework to render the UN more effective. To this end we have supported the establishment of the Special Committee of 31 to make recommendations on rationalizing procedures in the General Assembly. We have also supported the efforts to further develop and codify international legal principles such as those relating to friendly relations and cooperation among states, and we are working within the Peacekeeping Committee to achieve agreement on ways of enabling the United Nations to act more effectively in dealing with peacekeeping situations.
2. At the Twenty-fifth Session of the General Assembly Canada voted in favour of a resolution, co-sponsored by Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Haiti, Japan,

February 22, 1971
Orders for Returns
Liberia, and the Philippines which decided to include an item on the agenda of the assembly session to be held in late 1972 entitled, "Need to consider suggestions regarding the review of the Charter of the United Nations".
cation of residents of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories for the past five years and, what is the breakdown for each year?
2. What percentage of the total Northern Economic Development Branch budget do the above educational expenditures account represent?


REGIONAL DESKS IN THE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE
Mr. Peddle: 1.	How many Regional Desks are associated with the Prime Ministers' Office?
2.	What is the name of the individual who heads each desk and his salary?
3.	What regions do such desks represent?


Mr. Barnett J. Danson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister):: 1. Four.
2.
Salary Range
Gilles Dufault	$10,000-12,500
Jean Hache	$10,000-12,500
Colin Kenny	$10,000-12,500
David Thomson	$17,500-20,000
3. Quebec, Atlantic, Ontario and Western Canada.


CROP INSURANCE ACT-PAYMENTS FOR DAMAGES CAUSED BY HAIL
Mr. Laprise: Under the Crop Insurance Act, what amount has been paid each year to each province for damages caused by hail since the Act was passed?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Under the comprehensive coverage provided by agreements with the provinces made under authority of the Crop Insurance Act indemnities are paid on the basis of final crop yields which can be, and frequently are, affected by more than one cause of crop loss and it would be most difficult, if not impossible, to segregate the amounts paid in respect of any one cause of reduced yields.
* *
*



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. McCleave: 1.	What are the results of the recruiting plans up to the end of 1971 of departments, agencies and Crown corporations to employ (a) chartered accountants (b) lawyers (c) medical doctors (d) engineers?
2.	Are they to be recruited by the Public Service Commission or by the department, agency or Crown corporation concerned?
Return tabled.


INDIAN AFFAIRS AND NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT-EDUCATION COSTS IN YUKON AND NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Mr. Howard (Skeena): 1. What was the total amount of money spent by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in federally operated schools and vocational training institutions for the edu-
Return tabled.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. It concerns today's announcement by his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Home, regarding the issuance of export licences for the sale to South Africa of seven Wasp helicopters. Considering the degree to which arms sales to South Africa have been discussed between the British and the Canadian governments bilaterally and at Singapore, can the minister advise if the Canadian government was notified of this British move and, if so, is it the government's view that such action is in accord with the Singapore communique?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the government was not advised in advance of the statement made by Sir Alec Douglas-Home in the British House of Commons. My only comment is that the statement, as it has been reported, is in accordance with British policy which has never been changed. It has been our view, and it continues to be, that the supplying of arms to South Africa will not promote the strength and the unity of the Commonwealth and we hope that the British government, notwithstanding the statement made, will not proceed.


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Considering that Canada is a member of the arms committee formed at Singapore, and in light of our past protestations, can the minister advise if within that committee Canada will take some initiative in respect of further sales of helicopters inasmuch as Mr. Home believes they have a commitment with respect to the first seven?


Mitchell William Sharp: As far as I know, Mr. Speaker, there have been no sales of helicopters by Britain to South Africa. The statement made by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, as reported to me, is that Britain would allow the export of Wasp helicopters if the South African government placed orders for them, but no orders have yet been placed. As far as the committee is concerned, it is true that Canada is a member of a committee to discuss the security of the Indian Ocean, and we would hope to have an active and useful role in that committee. I should add, however, that the British government never did say it would withhold action on the sale of arms to South Africa because of the formation of the committee.

February 22, 1971



POLLUTION


Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of the fact that this past weekend at Blaine Peace Arch a large number of Canadians and Americans voiced their concern over west coast oil pollution flowing from the proposed tanker route from Alaska to Cherry Point, Washington, is the government making official representations to Washington requesting full consultation before further plans are proceeded with?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, as I said in the House the other day, I have already invited the Secretary of State of the United States to consult with us on this question,


Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, I realize that as this is an international problem the minister's initiatives are somewhat limited, but is he prepared to go as far as his high office will allow to assert and reassert forcefully whatever initiatives are open to Canada in this very important matter?


Mitchell William Sharp: We have no dispute with the United States government at the present time. No decision has been made to authorize the building of the trans-Alaska pipeline system. As I have said in the House, and I repeat it, I hope that all those concerned about the dangers of pollution, as I am and as the Canadian government is, will raise their voices quite clearly so that the decision by the board that is now examining the question can be made in light of these environmental considerations. It would not be appropriate at the present time for me to do more than consult with the United States government about any problems that may arise in the future.


Mr. Louis-Roland Comeau (South Western Nova):: Mr. Speaker, in view of what the minister has just said, that we should make our representations known, is the government again making representations rather than inviting consultation? Are the minister and his department making representations in this regard?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, as I said previously in the House, a United States government board is holding hearings now on the question of whether the trans-Alaska pipeline project should go ahead. It would not be appropriate for the Canadian government to appear before such a United States body. A member of this House has appeared in his private capacity and in my view has made a most useful intervention. But I do believe it is important that all of those concerned, particularly the people affected in the state of Washington and in the province of British Columbia, should make their views about this question known so that at least this decision is made in the full knowledge of the very serious dangers of pollution that exist. I have no hesitation in saying on behalf of the Canadian government that we believe there are serious dangers of pollution.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Randolph Harding (Kootenay West):: Having
regard to the delay in proceeding with the trans-Alaska pipeline system, may I ask whether any pressure has been brought to bear upon the Canadian government by United States oil companies for the building of a pipeline down the Mackenzie River Valley?


Mitchell William Sharp: No, I do not know of any pressure from United States oil companies. As the hon. member is aware, there has been discussion between the Canadian and United States governments on the subject of an oil policy and at that time there was some talk about whether the pipeline should be continued on to supply Montreal.


Mr. David Anderson (Esquimalt-Saanich):: I should like to know whether the Secretary of State has received a reply to his letter of last Wednesday, I believe, to the United States Secretary of State on this question.


Mitchell William Sharp: We have not yet received a formal reply in writing but when my message was transmitted to the Secretary of State there were some informal soundings.


Randolph Harding: I have a further supplementary for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. When may we expect the results of the feasibility study being undertaken in connection with the projected Mackenzie Valley pipeline?


Mitchell William Sharp: I suggest that question should be directed to the minister directly concerned with these matters, namely, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources who I expect will be here within the next day or so.



CANADIAN POSITION ON CONTINENTAL ENERGY POLICY

Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs which really is supplementary to an earlier round of questions. Since it has been suggested by Robert Clark of the United States Bureau of Commercial Fisheries that our oil pollution problem could be solved by a United States-Canada energy policy, has the government yet made clear to the United States Canada's position on a continental energy policy?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, as I have said on other occasions, we are not discussing a continental energy policy. However, I think the hon. gentleman will agree that in so far as we have our own policies we should try to co-ordinate them for the mutual benefit of both countries.



FAILURE OF INTERNATIONAL WHEAT CONFERENCE TO REACH PRICE AGREEMENT-GUARANTEED MINIMUM DOMESTIC AND EXPORT PRICES

Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: I have a question for the minister in charge of the Wheat Board. Since the

February 22, 1971
Inquiries of the Ministry
international wheat trade conference failed to agree upon a minimum price structure, thus establishing a free market and prolonging the uncertainty in the Canadian grain industry, can the minister tell us what initiatives the government is considering toward setting up an equitable guaranteed minimum scale of prices for Canadian grain, both for domestic and export consumption?
Hon, Otto E. Lang (Minister of Manpower and Immigration): As I have said a number of times in the House during the last ten days, nothing very much has changed as a result of what was done during this particular stage of the discussions. We shall be watching with interest the possibility of pricing talks being reconvened under the jurisdiction of the wheat council.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Bearing in mind the desperately low incomes of western farmers, can the minister tell us whether consideration is being given at the present time to increasing the domestic price level of wheat to a figure in the order of $3 a bushel?


Otto Emil Lang: There are, of course, a number of issues before us as a government in the form of our proposals affecting grain. But I think the most immediately useful thing we could do would be to get the legislation into the House and proceed to implement the stabilization program and other things of that sort.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister could indicate to the House what the government intends to do to alleviate the hard-pressed position of Alberta's 65,000 farmers who in 1970 recorded an average net income of only $1,325?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar.



TIME OF PAYMENTS TO FARMERS UNDER STABILIZATION PROGRAM

Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the minister's statement in answer to a question on a televised program yesterday that the government might well come forward with a payment of $100 million in respect of the stabilization program earlier than the end of the current crop year, can he inform the House as to the approximate time of such a payment? Will it be prior to seeding or June 1?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I cannot add anything to what was said earlier on this subject in the House. I would envisage that it would depend on the specific provisions of the legislation, which of course is not yet before the House. Therefore I doubt that there would be any possibility of this happening before seeding.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's dilemma, but in view of the statement by the minister on the same program about the possibility-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member cannot ask questions of ministers about statements made outside the House. He should ask his question directly if he seeks information from the minister at this time.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, may I rephrase my question. Will it be possible, earlier than the end of the current crop year, to make a payment on the basis of the plans set out in the cereal grains stabilization program, or are other methods being considered which will make earlier payment possible?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, that whole question is being considered.



INQUIRY AS TO CONTINUATION OF LIFT PROGRAM IN NEXT CROP YEAR

Mr. H. A. Moore (Weiaslciwin):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the minister. Is the minister planning the continuation of the Lift program in the next crop year?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the Lift program, which was designed as a one-year program specifically to avoid the difficulties associated with such a program extending for a number of years, succeeded fairly well in attacking part of the inventory problem in regard to wheat. There is no intention to continue it.


Harry Andrew Moore: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I see that a number of hon. members apparently wish to seek the floor to ask supplementary questions on this subject. May I caution hon. members that we ought to go to another subject soon. For the moment, however, the Chair will recognize the hon. member for Wetaskiwin.


Harry Andrew Moore: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister what advice grain growers are to be given this year in regard to what they should or should not grow?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I should be glad to refer the hon. member to the statement I made in the House on October 28 or 29 and to indicate to him that I have nothing further to add at this stage, although we may have some elaboration before long.



GRASSLAND INCENTIVE PROGRAM-ON-FARM INSPECTION PRIOR TO PAYMENTS

Mr. A. B. Douglas (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration who is in charge of the Wheat Board. In connection with the grassland incentive program announced by the minister today, will applications for payments be subject to on-the-farm inspections by PFAA?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the expected procedure is that half

February 22, 1971

of the $10 payment will be made at the time of the completed application and the other half of the payment will be made one year later after there has been opportunity for inspection.



USE OF TREASURY FUNDS BY UNITED STATES TO MAKE WHEAT COMPETITIVE-CANADIAN ACTION

Mr. John L. Skoberg (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, may 1 direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. In view of the report from the Geneva International Wheat Conference that the United States will use its government treasury to ensure that United States wheat is competitive, can the Prime Minister say whether Canadian producers can expect the same consideration from the Canadian treasury in order to ensure that we obtain our share of the world market?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the premise of the question is purely speculative. There is no indication that this will happen. So far as the Canadian treasury is concerned, it does support to a considerable extent the Canadian wheat grower.


Mr. Hees:: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question?


John Leroy Skoberg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister suggested that the premise of the question was purely speculative. This is a report from the Geneva conference by one of the United States delegates.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That is hardly a point of order. The hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings.



ACTION TO INCREASE EXPORTS OF MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS

George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. In view of the sharp falling off in export sales so far this year, is the government planning a massive trade drive to increase exports, particularly of manufactured products which, as the Prime Minister knows, are labour intensive and very much needed to provide additional job opportunities at this time?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome the hon. member back from the Bugaboos if I were not afraid that the opposition might think it was an obscene word and ask what it is. With regard to the question that the hon. member asked, I point out to him that the record of performance of the Canadian economy in the last year has been double that of any previous year in our peacetime history. Therefore I think that the hon. member should be congratulating us on the management of the economy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
Inquiries of the Ministry


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Prime Minister is not aware that exports of manufactured products increased by only 4.2 per cent last year, which is a very low increase.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member kindly ask his supplementary?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to bring the Prime Minister into the picture. I ask the Prime Minister to look personally into the operations of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce so that he may learn first-hand that the departments strong desire to begin a massive trade drive has been frustrated by the government's refusal to finance such a trade drive.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Benson:: There is a $3 billion surplus.



NATIONAL SECURITY


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In light of the firm statement made by the Premier of Quebec that a permanent law will replace the Public Order (Temporary Measures) Act after the end of April, may I ask if the government has changed its position since January 11 when the Acting Prime Minister said that the matter would not be dealt with by legislation? Is the government now engaged in drafting such a bill?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the government's position will be announced on this. What we have said, and the position on which I confirm the Acting Prime Minister as being right, is that we would bring the matter before the House before the expiration of the Public Order (Temporary Measures) Act. The form in which it will be brought in will be known to the House when it is introduced.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that the Premier of Quebec said that discussions are now being carried on between the governments, may I ask if these discussions are limited to the government of Quebec and the government of Canada or are the governments of the other provinces taking part in the discussions? Also, was the matter discussed at the recent federal-provincial conference?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the matter was not discussed at the recent federal-provincial conference. If there are any discussions with the province of Quebec, they are only at a very informal level. I do not know of them as such. There has perhaps been some consultation between our Minister of Justice and the Minister of Justice of Quebec as to the way in which the Public Order (Temporary Measures) Act has applied, but there
February 22, 1971

Inquiries of the Ministry
has certainly been no formal exchange with the totality of the provinces.



WELFARE


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Has he made any appointment with the chairman of the Metro Toronto Council and the mayor of Toronto to discuss the question of the sharply rising costs of welfare and possible public works projects which, with federal participation, might alleviate that problem?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I have not such a meeting envisaged at the present time. I am not sure whether I have been invited to participate in such a meeting.



CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour. Can the minister report to the House any progress on the recovery from Devco of Unemployment Insurance Commission funds taken from the people in respect of the preretired miners?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. gentleman would refer his question directly to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion who is responsible in the House for Devco.


Mr. McGrath:: He cannot do anything; he does not know anything about it.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, the Devco situation
becomes more bewildering every day, more so to the government than to myself. If I have a question with respect to the Unemployment Insurance Commission, there is only one minister to whom it can be directed and that is the minister who has that responsibility.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the hon. member has that right, but he is asking about Devco and Devco is not the Unemployment Insurance Commission. The Devco preretirement plan is a combination of UIC benefits and a supplementary sum of money advanced by Devco. I suggest to the hon. member that the question be referred to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion to see whether the increase by 10 per cent in unemployment insurance benefits will be taken into consideration by Devco in adjusting or not adjusting their supplement to unemployment insurance.


Donald MacInnis: With Your Honour's permission, I will stay with the Minister of Labour. In that Devco has admitted publicly that they used coercion with respect to establishing this plan, will the minister make an effort to recover all the UIC funds which have been taken under duress?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I cannot accept that premise.


Donald MacInnis: A further supplementary.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member cannot go on asking supplementaries. I believe he has already had two supplementaries. The Chair will recognize the hon. member for one further supplementary and perhaps we might then move on to another subject.


Donald MacInnis: Probably a point of order would be more appropriate. The minister said he could not accept my premise. I ask the minister to read the evidence given before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs at which time Devco admitted the use of coercion.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



NOVA SCOTIA-REQUEST FOR FUNDS TO REPAIR DAMAGE

Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax-East Hants):: My question is for the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister indicate if the government has reached a decision regarding the request of Nova Scotia for flood relief? If so, what is the decision?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I will have to inquire. The government has not reached such a decision. I am not even sure if I have received a request as of this date for such relief.



LABOUR RELATIONS


Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: My question is for the Minister of Labour. Has the minister received a request for a mediator, has a mediator been provided, and are there any developments in the dispute between the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company and the union, involving approximately 2,500 employees?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, there has been no official request yet from either management or labour or management and labour together for a mediator in that dispute. I would hope that both management and labour would understand the terrible economic hardships that are being imposed on that particular town because of their lack of understanding of each other's position and their responsibility to the com-

February 22, 1971

munity. If and when such a request is received, we will act upon it promptly.



FINANCE


Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo):: My question is for the
Minister of Finance. Can the minister inform the House whether it is his view that the standpat policy of the Bank of Canada since the beginning of the year with regard to the money supply is consistent with the stated expansionary policy of the government? If the minister does not agree with the Bank of Canada, can he indicate what action he intends to take in this regard?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The first part of the hon. member's question is very theoretical. The minister is being asked to express an opinion as to the policy or non-policy of the Bank of Canada. That part of the question is certainly not in order. With regard to the second part of the question, if we stretch things a bit it might be considered to be in order and the minister might want to reply.


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, the policy of the Bank of Canada is a steadily expanding monetary supply, with which I agree.


Max Saltsman: In view of the minister's agreement, may I ask whether his purpose in supporting that policy is to maintain higher levels of interest rates in Canada than in the United States?


Edgar John Benson: No, Mr. Speaker. This policy means lower interest rates in Canada.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Mr. Mac T. McCutcheon (Lamblon-Kent):: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. I apologize for not having given prior notice. Has the minister given consideration to arranging for manpower officers to be given the responsibility for dealing with unemployment insurance claims in locations where they operate and where UIC staff have been withdrawn? I understand that many of these people would welcome duties of this nature as many of their specific responsibilities-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is now making a speech. Perhaps the minister might reply to the first part of the address.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, even without advance notice I appreciate the question. What the hon. member really wants to know is what we can do to provide better service to the unemployed. Last
Inquiries of the Ministry
week we opened four new claims service offices in the Vancouver area. After the question period I will be pleased to discuss the particular problems of the area the hon. member represents to see if we can improve the service there.


Mr. McCulcheon:: Mr. Speaker, I shall endeavour not to make a speech. I wish to direct my supplementary question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Will the minister agree to some such measure, even on a temporary basis, in order to help avoid the hardship caused by applicants having to travel great distances to UIC offices?


Otto Emil Lang: 

CITIZENSHIP


[Stage Direction]
Hon John N. Turner (Minister of Justice): Mr. Speaker, I have been asked by the Minister without Portfolio who responds for Information Canada to reply to a question directed to him on February 17 by the hon. member for Edmonton Centre. In the absence of the Minister without Portfolio the hon. member asked "under whose recommendation Alexia Alexandrovich Banda was hired for the Citizenship Branch under Information Canada in the Vancouver area."
I have been asked by my colleague, who is in Toronto on government business, to tender his response to this question. The Citizenship Branch which, incidentally, has never been under Information Canada, never hired Alexia Alexandrovich Banda. On Friday the hon. member for Edmonton Centre referred to one Alex Bandy, whose full name I understand is Sandor Emerich Bandy. Alex Bandy, a Canadian citizen, was hired on a casual term basis by the Citizenship Branch on January 15, 1971, for a period ending March 31, 1971. He was hired by the Vancouver field officer for research and documentation.
Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Spadina.


Mr. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton Centre):: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: I have to interrupt the hon. member for Spadina who, as always, has been very patient. The hon. member for Edmonton Centre has a supplementary.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Was a security check made on this gentleman?


Mr. Turner (Oltawa-Carleion):: I am advised by my colleague that no security clearance is required for casual term employees under these circumstances by the Citizenship Branch.
3614

February 22, 1971
Inquiries of the Ministry WELFARE



PROJECTIONS OF INCREASED COSTS BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICIES

Mr. S. Perry Ryan (Spadina):: My question is for the
Minister of Finance. Did the government develop projections of the increased welfare costs the cities and provinces would have to shoulder as a result of the restrictive monetary and fiscal policies the government followed to fight inflation? If so, will the government table these projections for this winter?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, without accepting the precept-the premise of the hon. member's question, the government estimates what its share will be under the Canada Assistance Plan, which is 50 per cent of welfare costs. These figures are tabled in the estimates.


Sylvester Perry Ryan: I wish to make it clear that I am not in the habit of issuing precepts. Those come from the government, perhaps a little too frequently and too harshly. Is it the position of the government that this burden on the provinces and cities is of no concern to the federal government?


Edgar John Benson: Not at all, Mr. Speaker. We pay 50 per cent of the costs.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION


Mr. Lome Nysirom (Yorklon-Melville):: I have an urgent and pressing question for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. Will the minister undertake to table all correspondence and representations made to him and his department regarding the recent awarding of a regional development incentive grant of $67,000 to the Stanfield underwear company of Truro, Nova Scotia?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. David MacDonald (Egmonl):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and it relates to the continuing difficult situation in the Middle East. Can the minister inform the House whether or not the Canadian government has taken any position on the recent peace proposal of the Egyptian government, and can the minister indicate, either now or later in a statement on motions, what is the position of the Canadian government with respect to that proposal?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the
question is that the Canadian government has not been asked for its views. Negotiations have been proceeding through Ambassador Jarring and we hope the outcome will be successful. I think we are all a little more encouraged today than we were yesterday by the developments that have taken place. As I say, we have not been consulted directly, and there is no particular reason why we should take a position as between Israel and the Arab countries. Our hope is that Ambassador Jarring will succeed.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, since I think the minister would agree that the proposal presently under discussion is more than just a proposal that is representative of only one side of the question, will the government be taking any steps to initiate discussions, either bilaterally or multilaterally, on this important question, and perhaps more specifically with the government of Israel?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, we have entrusted Ambassador Jarring with this delicate task and I think he should be left to carry on. He is a very skilful negotiator and we wish him every success.
^ ^


AGRICULTURE
Stanley James Korchinski: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture. To try to solve one side of the chicken and egg war, has the government agreed to buy up broilers in the last several weeks?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, about two weeks ago-I do not recall the exact date- we called for tenders for the export of broilers from Canada.


Mr. Jack Murla (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the fact that broilers are at least being considered for purchase under a government subsidization program, can the minister say whether or not the government is considering a similar proposal for surplus eggs from Manitoba?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, at the present time broilers are not under a support program. Eggs are under a continuing support program of 28.5 cents a dozen on the national weighted average. I should also advise the hon. member that only very recently there has been a rather large volume of eggs exported from Canada. There has been no export of broilers from Canada during the past few months.


Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the fact that the time for tendering for broilers was extended by one week, could the minister advise the House when the result of the tenders will be published and the successful tenderer named?

February 22, 1971


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I would hope later today. The tender period was extended because a number of firms complained that seven days was insufficient time to ascertain the information they would need to make a tender-that is today, to make arrangements with overseas buyers and so on. Therefore we extended the date for closing the tenders until noon today, February 22. I hope that within a very few hours we will be able to announce who the successful tenderer is.


MANPOWER
Louis-Roland Comeau: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Can the minister state whether a grant has been given to the Canadian Council of Social Development to stage a conference on student employment, as requested? While I am on my feet, may I ask the minister when we can expect a statement from him on student employment for the summer?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, no decision has been taken on these matters. We do, of course, hope that before very long we may be able to announce our decision.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I believe the hon. member for South Western Nova has a supplementary to the previous question.


Louis-Roland Comeau: No, Mr. Speaker, but the minister did not answer my question. I should like to ask him when we may expect a statement on this summer's student employment picture.


Otto Emil Lang: That is the question I answered, Mr. Speaker.


AGRICULTURE
Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, I do not know how you could possibly mistake me for the hon. member for South Western Nova, but I have a supplementary for the Minister of Agriculture. I should like to ask the minister whether the tendering time was extended for one week because the original tenders were too high?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: No, Mr. Speaker. The reason for the extension was that a number of people involved in the trade indicated to us that seven days was insufficient time for them to contact overseas buyers, arrange for shipping, and then to put in a tender. Tenders were called on the basis of the difference
Inquiries of the Ministry
between the price in Canada and the relationship of that factor to the cost of getting the broilers to the overseas market.


WHEAT-INQUIRY AS TO IMPLEMENTATION OF TWO-PRICE SYSTEM
Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Aihabasca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. Can the minister inform the House whether the government has yet made a decision on the implementation of a two-price system for wheat, and can we expect a statement on this in the near future?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, the minister responsible for the Wheat Board answered a similar question a little earlier today.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Labour. In view of the fact that the offer made by Treasury Board to the east and west coast dockyard workers increases the disparity in wages between these two groups, and since the offer has been rejected by an almost 100 per cent vote of the workers, can the minister advise whether or not there has been any request for the assignment of an industry specialist in this area, or if the minister has been holding consultations with the President of the Treasury Board with a view to correcting the offer so that it will not increase the disparity in wages?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, past experience indicates to me that the President of the Treasury Board is quite capable of looking after collective bargaining in the Public Service and does not need advice from the Minister of Labour.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the minister would advise the President of the Treasury Board that it is poor labour practice to offer the top wage suggested in a majority report to one group and the bottom wage suggested in a minority report to another group?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


MANPOWER
Mr. Doug Rowland (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. In

February 22, 1971
Inquiries of the Ministry
view of the heavy demands being made on manpower training facilities and the resultant inability of some people to find accommodation within the program, is the minister holding discussions with the provincial governments in order to increase facilities available for manpower training?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the facilities are not manpower facilities but rather facilities provided by or obtained within the provinces. There are continuing discussions taking place between manpower officials and the various departments of the provinces in connection with facilities that are available and future requirements, and these discussions continue steadily.


ALLEGED SLOWDOWN IN MOVEMENT TO VANCOUVER BECAUSE OF LABOUR PROBLEMS-ADVANCE NOTICE OF GRADES REQUIRED
John Leroy Skoberg: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour. In view of the observation made by the Minister of Manpower and Immigrat.on yesterday on the program "Question Period" to the effect that there was some slowdown in the movement of grain to Vancouver during the period when a couple of sporadic labour problems led to difficulties, can the minister inform the House where the slowdowns occurred and for how long the flow of grain was slowed down?
Kon. Bryce Mackasey (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, not having had any advance notice of this question I can haidly answer it with any accuracy.


John Leroy Skoberg: Mr. Speaker, may I put a supplementary question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration who is in charge of the Wheat Board. In view of the fact that grain movement to Vancouver was slowed down for only two days, can the minister inform the House how much advance notice is required to meet our commitments for specific grades of grain bound for export?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I must have missed something at the beginning of the question and I would be glad to have the hon. member repeat it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
% % %


POST OFFICE
Mr. Real Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Prime Minister.
Last Friday he met the president of the CNTU, Mr. Marcel Pepin, with regard to the former employees of G. Lapalme Inc.; I should like to ask him whether an agreement was reached as a result of this meeting?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, one can say an agreement was reached but not on the matter of rehiring the men. We agreed to consider any CNTU proposal that might be fair to all parties concerned, including the people the government assigned to posts turned down by the former employees of G. Lapalme Inc. Although no agreement was reached with regard to resuming negotiations, on either side, we did not however close the door to future representations, should there be need for any.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether Mr. Marcel Pepin intends to submit suggestions to the government with a view to settling this conflict which has been going on for several months?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I cannot say, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Pepin had no specific suggestions to make on Friday. He should perhaps make suggestions to the former employees of G. Lapalme Inc. and submit a specific proposal to the government. However, as I said before, no proposals were made on Friday.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day. Is the hon. member
rising on a question of privilege?


Donald MacInnis: Yes, Mr. Speaker. My question of privilege arises from the fact that the Minister of Labour indicated I had prefaced a question with a statement that was not in accordance with the facts. At that time I referred to the fact that Devco has used coercion on preretired miners. This statement was questioned by the minister, so I ask him to check what the vice-president of industrial relations of Devco said before a committee in answer to a direct question by the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants (Mr. McCleave):
So In effect this would be the coercion to get him down there.
He was referring to the Unemployment Insurance Commission people. The answer given by Mr. McDade, the vice-president of industrial relations was: "Yes." I would simply ask the minister this question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member now seeks to ask the minister a question. He has raised a matter of discussion as to the accuracy of either the statement made by the hon. member or the reply given by the minister. I suggest this is a matter of debate between the minister and the hon. member, and I am wondering whether the minister and the hon. member might not get together and look at the evidence before the committee in an attempt to straighten out the matter. I really do not think this can be resolved by a question of privilege.


Donald MacInnis: I rise on a point of order and I do so
with great deference to you, Sir. Has it not been a rule of

February 22, 1971

this House for a long time that no member can question a minister on anything outside his own area of responsibility? If that is the case, the Minister of Labour refused to answer a direct question involving Unemployment Insurance Commission benefits, by referring it to the Minister of Regional and Economic Expansion, and it has nothing to do with that minister.


An hon. Member:: It does.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It is my suggestion that we will become involved in a debate between the minister and the hon. member. I think this may very well be the subject of an interesting debate, but it cannot be raised at this time on a question of privilege. I think this is the kind of situation which should be resolved in another way, perhaps by direct discussion between the minister and the hon. member.


Donald MacInnis: I have a further point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. There is no question of privilege and the hon. member is seeking to pursue the matter further by way of a point of order. There is really not a valid point of order. Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
On the Order:
January 25, 1971-Second reading in reference to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs of Bill C-219, an Act to establish the Canada Development Corporation-the Minister of Finance.
Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, some time ago, on a point of order, I filed an oral caveat in respect of this bill in the expectation that there was a point which ought to be discussed in order to give the Chair an opportunity to examine the precedents and in order to give other hon. members, including the Government House Leader, the same opportunity. It deals very simply with the question of whether this is a hybrid bill, whether the procedure employed to introduce such bills is proper, whether we must change our procedure in future with regard to the carriage of these bills, and what will be the consequences if, in fact, this bill is declared by the House and Your Honour to be a hybrid bill.
The subject is a novel one. It has not had too much discussion in the House, but as I see the picture, we are now getting into a stage where this kind of bill may well be presented repeatedly in the future. It is about time we considered this possibility and laid down our practice. I am reinforced in this case by what Your Honour said on January 26 when dealing with a point of order raised by
Canada Development Corporation my colleague, the hon. member for Halifax-East-Hants (Mr. McCleave) in connection with the government organization bill. Your Honour pointed out very properly something which we on this side of the House have always felt was so, but which the government people seem to have forgotten. Your Honour stated that a government bill is subject to the same rules, criteria and examination, and can be subject to the same difficulties as private bills. You also indicated that this matter should be raised before second reading.
The question of what is a hybrid bill is something which has engaged the attention of the United Kingdom House. As it may be a rather strange and foreign word the hon. members, I am going to briefly indicate what is a hybrid bill, why this bill should be considered as such, and if so what the consequence will be. In the United Kingdom, because of the fact there have been socialistic and capitalistic governments replacing each other over the years, especially since the 1920's, there have been many bills dealing with nationalization, renationalization and denationalization. In addition to that, the Parliament of the United Kingdom operates in a Unitarian state and consequently questions relating to many matters and the operation of the rules dealing with hybrid bills are raised more frequently.
Because there have been a great many precedents going back over the years on this issue, the House of Commons at Westminster established a committee in 1948 which reported on February 14, 1949. This report was the subject of a very interesting debate in the House at that time. In order to set the foundation for this argument, I just want to take the time to read one or two extracts from that report. It was introduced by the Lord President of the Council, Mr. Morrison, later Lord Morrison, now deceased. He said:
The Report which we are inviting the House to approve is really a piece of Parliamentary spring cleaning, and the dusty comer we want to start to sweep out is our procedure for handling hybrid Bills on the Committee stage-
He goes on to say:
*-that is, those Bills which are public Measures but which also affect private interests in such a way that we apply to them our Standing Orders and procedure relating to private business.
We have had before us in the last few years quite a number of hybrid Bills, some important, some relatively unimportant: and I have no doubt that more will be needed in years to come.
That was a socialist philosophy and I am not saying that disparagingly. I see that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) was about to rise when I used those words.
Then the lord president of the council went on to state, after reciting a long list of bills which fall within the category of hybrid bills and in respect of which the special procedure was invited and in fact required:
The hybrid Bill is somewhere half-way between the ordinary public Bill and the private Bill, and so it is not very surprising that the procedure we recommend the House to adopt lies somewhere half-way between the two forms of practice which I have just described.

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation
I am going to leave it to my hon. learned colleague, the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) who is intimately acquainted with all the details of this bill to deal with this further. In due course, I hope early, if Your Honour allows the point of order I am making, the hon. member will be speaking for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in respect of this bill. I will leave it to him to argue, in detail and I think with logic, that this bill does in fact have the qualities of a private and a public bill, and as such must be classified as a hybrid bill. I should like to call the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) to confirm this statement. When Bill C-219 was introduced, the Minister of Finance, who probably had some doubts concerning the reception of the bill issued a press release. On Page 2 of that press release we find certain comments by the Minister of Finance which I suggest Your Honour can consider in the course of this argument. These are the comments:
Able and experienced entrepreneurs will direct the corporation's operations to areas of critical importance in economic development-to high-technology industry, to resource utilization, to northern-oriented companies and to industries where Canada has a special competitive advantage.
And then further on the same page:
It is a principal objective to have CDC shares widely held. Shares will be sold to the public in competition with all other investment vehicles, and the bill specifically directs CDC to invest for profit in the best interest of the shareholders. The CDC will act in the broad area in which the national interest and the profit motive are compatible. The CDC will seek to develop balance and diversity in its holdings.
The capital structure is designed to give the corporation a high degree of flexibility in raising funds from the public.
I quote those words to support the argument which will be made in much more detail, and quite convincingly, by my hon. friend from Edmonton West that in addition to the public aspect of the bill, which is quite apparent from the second and third parts, the first part of the bill taken together with this statement is an indication beyond any shadow of a doubt that this bill has many of the aspects of a private bill.
In the belief that the arguments which will be advanced by the hon. member for Edmonton West, and other hon. members, in support of this contention will result in a statement by the Chair that this is a hybrid bill, I propose for a very few minutes to indicate to Your Honour what are the likely consequences so far as this bill is concerned. I do so because there have been only one or two instances in our Parliament when this issue has, in fact, been raised. I think there are one or two precedents which can be cited. There is a reference in Bourinot's second edition, at pages 688 to 695, to a ruling in respect of an act to increase the harbour accommodation of the City of Toronto and to extend the esplanade. This ruling dates back to 1883 but it has not been altered since then.
Then, Mr. Speaker, I wish to quote from Beauchesne in this regard. It has been recognized by this learned author on parliamentary practice-and I am referring to the fourth edition of Beauchesne at page 351, citations 482
and 483-that a situation can arise where a bill introduced by the government, apparently as a public bill, can have such substantial elements of a private bill that consideration must be given to that fact. One consideration is contained in citation 482, which deals with what the result is on second reading:
The second reading of a private Bill corresponds with the same stage in other Bills, and in agreeing to it the House affirms the general principle, or expediency, of the measure. There is, however, a distinction between the second reading of a public and of a private Bill, which should not be overlooked. A public Bill being founded on reasons of state policy, the House, in agreeing to its second reading, accepts and affirms those reasons; but the expediency of a private Bill, being mainly founded upon allegations of fact, which have not yet been proved, the House, in agreeing to its second reading, affirms the principle of the Bill, conditionally, and subject to the proof of such allegations before the committee.
That is reinforced quite strongly, Mr. Speaker, in the debate which took place in the House of Commons, in Westminster when Mr. Morrison made it quite plain that in his view the report of the committee would mean that a bill, once held to be a private bill, would receive a different type of treatment so far as second reading was concerned. Even though we have altered our rules here, and to some extent have diluted the effect of the second reading, that has not affected the principle that a private bill is always subject to the facts alleged in it being confirmed at the committee stage.
I suggest to Your Honour that you should very seriously consider, if a bill is held to be a hybrid bill, that the question of the effect of second reading must differ from that of a public bill. I think that is of some consequence now because we are dealing with a very important measure. It may well be the first of a great many bills of this kind. I think Your Honour can take judicial notice of the debates in this House, and the regard given by you to a request by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas) for a special debate under Standing Order 26 dealing with a matter which is probably closely related to this bill. There have been a great many other questions asked. The press is full of these statements. The question of economic nationalism is very much to the fore in this country. Having in mind the requests made and suggestions advanced in the press, by members of the public and by members of this House, I fully expect that this government or its successor will hear requests for a great many other bills along the lines of this legislation.
For that reason, I consider it extremely important that some precedent be now established and that we who are members of this House should have an opportunity to have Your Honour consider the effect of this argument so that you might be able to tell us, if this is a hybrid bill, what we will have to do when we give second reading to it. It is true enough that there is a public interest and a private interest. I do not believe I have any difficulty in arguing that the public interest will always suffer from undue interference with the private interest. It is for this reason that in respect of a hybrid bill there should be an opportunity for those members of the public at large, who are more particularly affected than the average

February 22, 1971

person, to appear before the select, standing or joint committee to outline their views and indicate, if they have a special interest, what they object to in the bill. That is a right with regard to a hybrid bill which, in the United Kingdom at least, has now been settled as being beyond any doubt.
I suggest to Your Honour that this course has been incorporated in a standing order of the United Kingdom Parliament, namely, Standing Order 38. In addition to that, there is the question of notice and examination. The question of examination is made quite plain in the United Kingdom. There must be an examination, as in the case of a private bill, by the examiner of private bills in that jurisdiction. Are we to have the same result here? What about notice? There will be established by this legislation, if it is passed, a special group of private individuals who will be affected, namely, the shareholders. This limited group of the public will be invited to subscribe for shares. They will have rights over and above those of the ordinary public. True enough, the average person, the ordinary taxpayer, will be affected to the extent to which the government becomes a subscriber for shares, to the extent to which the government through its directors seeks to direct to some extent the policies of this corporation. But there will be established a particular and special group whose interests will be affected if this bill should pass.
Other hon. members will be intervening, and I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House. I would point out to Your Honour, in conclusion, that if what I say has any effect on your views, if you are inclined to hold that this is a hybrid bill, then I suggest that we should give that fact careful consideration. While it is true that we do not have a great many precedents and we do not have anything in our Standing Orders, I would refer Your Honour to our first Standing Order which provides that:
In all cases not provided for hereafter or by sessional or other orders, the usages and customs of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as in force at the time shall be followed so far as they may be applicable to this House.
I submit that we are in a position where the government-and I do not say this disparagingly-while paying lip service to private enterprise and to the private profit motive, is steadily enlarging the area of socialist activities. I am not going to argue whether or not this is right. I am simply saying it is a matter of fact. All one has to do is to read the legislation. We are going to get an increasing number of these kinds of bills, and I think this House is entitled to know whether they should be brought in as government bills, or as private bills. If they have the characteristics of both, they should receive special treatment. I suggest to you, with due deference to the Minister of Finance, that to bring in a bill of this nature and to expect it to be processed by the ordinary standing orders, rules and precedents of this House of Commons is completely wrong. I ask Your Honour to give due effect to this argument and to what else may be said. If you
Canada Development Corporation hold it is a hybrid bill, I ask Your Honour to consider carefully what the consequences will be and what the future carriage of this bill will be in the light of the practices of this House.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, if in what I have to say I am to a considerable extent on the same side as the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), let me assure the House at the outset that it is not because I see this bill as incipient socialism. As a matter of fact, if the bill were a little more socialistic it would be a lot better. In any case, we are into another of these procedural arguments which fill the galleries and bring the press people back so that it can be reported in full in tomorrow's newspapers. But despite that comment, call it what you will, this is a very important point of order and one that could become more important as time goes on.
May I say that to call a bill a hybrid bill is not to use a nasty word. We do not do that sort of thing in the House, anyway.


Gerald William Baldwin: Question.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I also say that it is correct that we do not have in our Standing Orders any rules that deal specifically with hybrid bills. Nevertheless, we do have a citation on this matter in Beauchesne's Fourth Edition, and those citations make it clear that if there is before us what is recognized as a hybrid bill, it should get the treatment that is given to private bills.
Now, Sir, I looked again today at our Standing Orders and I find that there are 26 Standing Orders relating to private bills, Standing Orders 90 to 115, both inclusive. If I wanted to give a digest of those 26 Standing Orders, the House would certainly be empty before I got through it. Nevertheless, because one of the results of the point of order being raised could be, as I think it should be, a decision by Your Honour that this is a hybrid bill and should be treated as such, I think it is important to state as briefly as I can the rationale on the basis of which private bills are given treatment different from that given to public bills. The reason for such different treatment is this.
A private bill is a bill for a single person, a small group of persons or a company, any selected group of individuals who constitute less than the community as a whole. A private bill is one seeking to provide something special, a special privilege or concession for a group of the Canadian population which is less than the country as a whole. Therefore, we have accepted the principle over the years that when a private bill is presented there are two particular things that must be done that are different from what is done in the case of a public bill. In the first place, that private bill must go to a committee before which the promoters of the bill must appear and justify it. The second thing that must be done is that at the hearings of the committee to which the bill is referred the general public, or anybody who is affected by the private bill, must have the right to appear and state a defence against what is proposed. In other words, if a private company is seeking an incorporation to do

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation business in the insurance field-going back to the days when we did that on the floor of the House instead of by letters patent under the Canada Corporations Act-the people seeking that right have to appear and justify their claim, but anybody else who felt that his rights were being interfered with also had the right to appear and offer his defence.
We still agree that that shall apply in the case of a private company, whether it is insurance, investment, banking, railway, pipe fines, or what have you. I think that rationale makes sense. It is perfectly all right, when there is a bill going through Parliament that is for the general good, that affects everybody, for Parliament to process it by itself, through its committees but without hearing witnesses. But when a special interest is sought, when legislation is desired to set up a special interest, then these two things must happen: the promoter must justify his request, and those who are affected by the possible implementation of that request must have the right to appear and state their defence.
We think, Mr. Speaker, that this is a hybrid bill in the sense that it is more of a private bill than a public bill. It sets up a special interest, a special group of people and it gives them certain special privileges, certain rights to make profits, to do this, that and the other thing in a way that is not available to the entire populace. Therefore, when this special group of people is to be given a special right, the bill takes on the character of a private bill and should be treated in that manner.
It would be difficult to spend much time trying to prove to Your Honour that this is a bill with heavily private connotations without getting into the substance of it, but may I, even under the limitations of a procedural debate, say a few words that border on substance. In the first place, as I understand it, the Board of Directors of the Canada Development Corporation is to constitute from 18 to 21 persons, only four of whom are to be appointed by the government; the rest are to be named at a general meeting of the shareholders.
In the second place, the bill is drawn in such a way to make it clear that in no sense does the Canada Development Corporation come under the control of Parliament. True, the bill could be amended; the objectives could be changed, but so far as the normal operations of the corporation are concerned, that corporation is farther away from us than many of things we have set up. Parliament is to set up this baby and give it free rein. We are to have no more control over it than we would have over Canadian Pacific Investments, or an insurance company, a mutual investment company, or what have you. It is a private corporation that we are establishing.
Third, the bill makes it clear that the corporation is not an agent of Her Majesty and is not a Crown corporation. There is no suggestion in the bill that it is a corporation for the general advantage of Canada. In other words on all counts, Sir, what we are establishing is a private corporation.

I do not want to come back too often to the little twitting that my hon. friend from Peace River did about this being a socialist proposition. I have to tell him that he had better read the bill again.


Gerald William Baldwin: I said elements of socialism.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is less socialism in this than I have seen in any bill for a long time.
If I may go on with one more point in support of my contention that this bill sets up a private company, I draw attention to the extensive and complicated language of clause 27. This clause contains references to ways in which the Canada Corporations Act shall not apply. Then, this clause gets to the point where it says that in relation to this company the usual references to letters patent in the Canada Corporations Act shall refer to this bill. In other words, Sir, what we would be doing by the passing of this bill is that in effect we would be taking the place of the bureau that grants letters patent to private companies. We are providing the letters patent that would normally be provided to a private corporation. We are doing so by the passing of this bill, and we say so quite clearly in clause 27.


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: That is what we did last year.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Private companies do not now need to come to Parliament as they did for many years. They go to the appropriate office and get letters patent, but we are giving this corporation a little special treatment. We are giving it the letters patent by the passing of this bill.
Therefore without developing that point any further, Your Honour, I assert that this bill is not a socialist document. It is not even a Walter Gordon document. It is a private outfit, and the passing of this bill establishes special privilege for a limited number of people.
May I also point out that if this bill is passed and this company is set up it will have certain powers that could be used to the disadvantage of other Canadians, indeed I would say to the disadvantage of all Canadians. We have now in existence in this country the Polymer Corporation, Eldorado Nuclear Limited, PanArctic Oils Limited, Northern Transportation Limited, and perhaps one or two other entities of that order, and these entities are either wholly owned by the public or largely owned by the public.
But under this bill the Canada Development Corporation would be given the right to buy these Crown companies, and bring them under what would be partly public and partly private ownership. At the moment they are under public ownership. They belong to us, to the people of Canada, but under this bill they would become largely privately owned.
Now, Sir, at the moment I am trying to stay away from the substance, although it will be obvious from what I have said that I do not approve of this. But I go back to the point I made earlier, about the rationale behind the treatment accorded to private bills, namely, that the
February 22, 1971

people affected have the right to appear. I now make the point that the people of Canada can be adversely affected by what this company would be able to do, just as much as I could argue, and indeed just as much as we used to argue when we had American owned insurance companies coming here, that the people of Canada could be adversely affected by setting up those particular companies.
I say that because this Canada Development Corporation could carry on business in a way that would be inimical to the best interests of the people of Canada, and the people of Canada should have the right under our private bills orders to appear before a standing or special committee and state their objection to what is proposed in this bill. So I press the point, Mr. Speaker, and I press it upon the House, that although this may be another one of those dull procedural debates, something pretty important is involved here, and that we should not let this sort of thing get out of hand.
I am not suggesting that the government does not have the right to bring in this kind of bill. I am not suggesting that the Parliament of Canada does not have the right to deal with this kind of measure. It frequently deals with measures that I do not like, that I think are offensive to peace, order and good government, and so on, but at least if something like this is being done it should be done according to the well established rules.
Let me run the risk of repeating myself by saying if there are some of our rules that members think are a bit silly and unnecessarily complicated, I do not think that can be said about the special requirements of the rules that apply to private bills. When you have a private bill you are seeking a special or private interest. Therefore you have to do the two things I have identified-you have to hear from the promoter, and you have to give to the people the right to state their defence.
This bill aims to establish a private corporation. Others may develop this more fully, but I point out that in clause 6 of the bill it says that one of its purposes is the making of profit. If profit is to be made it will be at somebody else's expense. So, all told the bill has completely the characteristics of a private bill. As the hon. member for Peace River has pointed out it also has a couple of the characteristics of a public bill, mainly because it is being brought in by a public person, no less than the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) himself. But although he may have done enough to bring it under the wire as a public bill I submit that because its effect is so largely that which is achieved by a private bill, it should be given the private bill treatment which is supposed to be given to hybrid bills.
I said earlier that though we have lots of Standing Orders concerning public bills and 26 of them concerning private bills we do not have any governing hybrid bills. But we do have Beauchesne. In citation 376 of the fourth edition we find this:
Bills are of three kinds, public bills, private bills and bills of a mixed character styled hybrid bills which, though of a public character, affect private rights, and in their passage through Parliament these are subjected to a special procedure.
Canada Development Corporation
That is what we are asking for. We are not saying the government cannot go ahead with this bill if it wants to do so but we are saying that because it is a hybrid bill it should be treated in accordance with a special procedure.
The citation continues:
If the House finds that private rights may be affected

And they certainly would be by this bill.
-an order is made referring the bill to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills who may report that Standing Orders relating to private bills are applicable.
We believe this is what should be done. This bill should be referred to the examiners of petitions for private bills. Let them reach a decision whether the Standing Orders relating to private bills should apply in this case. Beauchesne continues:
The report should then be referred to the Standing Committee on Standing Orders-
Since this volume was produced we have altered our rules. We no longer have a committee which deals exclusively with Standing Orders. However, we have kept this function alive, and Standing Order 65 which deals with the setting up of the Standing Committees lists:
(o) miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders
In other words we have kept the Standing Orders Committee alive. I go on:
The report should then be referred to the Standing Committee on Standing Orders which is empowered to report to the House whether such standing orders ought or ought not to be dispensed with. These two reports must be received before the second reading of the bill can be proceeded with.
So the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) was quite right to enter his caveat the other day and raise his point of order today before the motion for second reading was put. To continue the quotation:
Should the Examiners report that none of the Standing Orders relating to private bills are applicable, the bill proceeds on his course as an ordinary public bill. Should the Committee on Standing Orders report that Standing Orders relative to private bills are applicable, have not been complied with, and ought not to be dispensed with, the order of the day for the second reading is read and discharged, after which the bill may be withdrawn.
The proceedings in a committee on a hybrid bill are conducted in the same manner as in a committee on a private bill.
In other words, even though we do not have Standing Orders under a heading "Hybrid Bills" we do have a direction as to how to deal with hybrid bills, namely, they should be given private bill treatment.
It strikes me it is not for us to come to a conclusion about this question on the floor of the House. Indeed, it strikes me it is not even Your Honour's responsibility to make a decision as to whether or not this bill is a hybrid bill. But it does seem to me that in view of the serious doubt which exists as to whether it can be classed as a public bill Your Honour should rule that before it is proceeded with on second reading it should be referred to the examiners of petitions for private bills.
I say to you, Sir, that this is one course that could be followed. I believe Your Honour will agree with me that up to this point I have confined my comments to the pro-
3622

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation cedural aspects. But in our view there is another course which might be taken. That would be for the government to withdraw this private corporation legislation and bring in a Canada development corporation bill which would really be public and which would really protect the public interest instead of the kind of legislation which is now before us.
So I have made two proposals. One is for Your Honour to decide and the other is for the government. I guess I have more faith in Your Honour than I have in the government. At any rate these are the courses which we believe to be open. One is for the government to withdraw this bill and bring in a proper one which would really protect the public interest. But if the government declines to do so, then I urge Your Honour to recognize the force of the argument we have advanced thus far in the debate on procedure and agree that the bill before us is a bill which is more private than public and that it should therefore receive the special treatment set out in the case of private bills. This would involve, first of all, a reference to the examiners of petitions for private bills. If they were to decide that this was a hybrid bill, it would then be referred to the Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders. The next stage would depend upon what that committee reported. At any rate I do not think it is proper for the House to continue to discuss the order before us at all until this issue has been resolved, and I hope Your Honour will so rule.


Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abiiibi):: Mr. Speaker, we have just heard two masterly speeches on procedure and not being an expert in this field, I do not intend to try to influence your decision on the way Bill C-219 should be considered. Besides, I believe we will hear at least one more expert. For this reason, I shall not be long because I merely want to say that in my opinion the bill shows a strong socialist tendency.
No matter how the legislation is introduced, whether it is called a public bill, a private bill or a hybrid bill, the government will do all it can to have it adopted. As far as I am concerned, and I think it is the feeling of all my colleagues of the Ralliement creditiste, I shall rely entirely on your decision.
No matter how this bill is introduced, we shall object to it, because its purpose is to create a corporation to maintain Canadian ownership of our industries. We are convinced that there are other ways to protect our Canadian companies and to guide production in Canada.
This, I think, is not the role of the government. This is why we shall object to this bill, no matter how it is introduced.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I wish to deal with one particular aspect of the argument which should be placed before Your Honour in connection with the presentation of this bill. It is not my intention to comment, except incidentally, on the contents of the measure; I am concerned rather with the method used in presenting this legislation.

As Your Honour is aware, I have on previous occasions objected to the manner in which legislation has been brought forward-the nature of the recommendations, for example. These are matters which need to be watched carefully because it is not beyond the capacity of the government to err with respect to them. I would suggest to Your Honour respectfully that the government has erred this afternoon, as it did the other day, in presenting this bill in such a manner. Not only the government, but the House itself, is faced with a problem. Some people may say, "All right, let us get on; the objectives here are good." I put it to Your Honour that the ends do not justify the means, and if there is a way of doing things correctly, they ought to be done correctly.
As was properly pointed out by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) and, I believe, by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), we are now charting a course on previously unchartered seas. It is conceivable that in the years to come legislation of a general pattern similar to this will be brought forward by whatever administration has power then, and it would be extremely wrong if we were to chart the course in a wrong direction. I, therefore, wish to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that this bill, in its composition, is very definitely a hybrid bill. Although our rules make no provision directly for dealing with hybrid bills, we still, under our Standing Order, have clause 1. That is in force just as is any other rule and, therefore, I would suggest to Your Honour the way that this perhaps should be considered.
Since the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has referred to some of the detail I wished to refer to Your Honour, I hope to be able to shorten my argument and not repeat what the hon. member said. There is no doubt that Bill C-219 has the criteria of a public bill. Part II of the bill is entitled, "Federal Government Participation". If we refer to clauses 35, 37, 39 and 40 we shall see that each of them entitles the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) to do certain things; they empower the minister to lend public moneys to the corporation. Clause 39 provides that certain public companies that own public property may be sold by the government to that particular corporation. Another clause provides that the government may appoint a number of directors instead of exercising share voting rights. Clause 42 provides that the Minister of Finance may use public money from the consolidated revenue fund to buy shares of or make loans to the company. I would say that this is a sufficient indication of the public interest in the bill and the consequent measure of public policy involved.
Also, Mr. Speaker, the bill was introduced by a minister. It did not come in by way of a petition, and therefore it has that aspect of a public bill. There was a recommendation; but that, too, is one of the attributes of a public bill. I put it to Your Honour that the entire bill, other than two very temporary and transitory features affecting the government, is of a private nature. Part I of the bill is strictly a corporate incorporation bill, and the
February 22, 1971

schedule thereto lays down some of what we could call the bylaws. It is also interesting to note what is Part I.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The bill is letters patent.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre says, it is, in effect, letters patent. Last year, when the Canada Corporations Act was amended, certain provisions were left in the act whereby certain types of companies would need to come to the House for incorporation. Certain types of operations still cannot obtain letters patent from the registrar of Canadian corporations.
The second part of the hybrid bill test is whether Bill C-219 affects private interests in such a way that, if it were a private bill, it would, under our Standing Orders relating to private business, require notice to be given or served inasmuch as private interests, as a class in small or great degree, may be benefited or adversely affected. I have said that if Part II were deleted from the bill, and this could happen in its progress through the House, the result would be the creation of a private corporation that could survive as an entity without further action. The only public interest would be the transitional one, the right of the government under clause 4 to appoint provisional directors only, and to designate, under clause 10, the original head office. Yet, it is interesting to note that there is no reference whatsoever to the government of Canada. What is all the more convincing, Mr. Speaker, is that clause 31 in Part II reads:
The company is not an agent of Her Majesty or a Crown corporation within the meaning of the Financial Administration Act.
Therefore, this clause definitely removes the company from an area in which there would be a public interest. It is not a Crown corporation, and it is not an agency under the Financial Administration Act. Thus, the private business Standing Orders of this House are not precluded from applying to this corporation on any principle that this bill is for the incorporation of a Crown company. It is not a Crown company. Since the proposed company is not a public corporation, it must be a private corporation owned by private interests. There is provision, of course, that the public in the right of Canada and the public in the right of provinces can own shares; but this provision is neither mandatory nor exclusive. One has only to examine the bill to see that this is so. There is not one word in the bill to the effect that the Crown in the right of Canada must own at least one share-not one. It may have holdings in excess of 10 per cent. It "may," I said.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It does not have to.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I defy anybody on the government side to indicate one word which indicates that one share or more of the corporation must be owned by the Crown in the right of Canada. There is nothing that says so. Nor is there anything in the act which excludes private ownership in whole or in part, and therefore the public nature of the bill almost disappears.
Canada Development Corporation
Clause 6(1) provides that the objects of this private corporation shall be carried out in anticipation of profits and in the best interests of the shareholders as a whole. I have indicated to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House that such shareholders may be exclusively private persons. It is interesting to note that, although this private corporation has powers sufficiently flexible under clause 6(1) to acquire, develop and operate local works wholly situated within a province, the bill contains no clause which specifically provides that such works are to be for the general advantage of Canada or for the advantage of two or more provinces.
I would, however, refer Your Honour to clause 7, where the bill speaks of a charter. This is the charter that we are being asked to pass upon. I would further direct Your Honour's attention to that part of the bill dealing with the personal liability of directors. For the moment, I cannot find the clause number but there is personal liability for directors. Therefore, we are right into the area of company incorporation by private charter.
Just making these references, Mr. Speaker, outlines, part of what we consider to be the criteria of a private bill. As well as asking for the incorporation of a company for the benefit of a class of private citizens, because the public shareholders, if any, can only appear subsequent to the incorporation, the bill asks for preferred treatment under section 33 of the Income Tax Act, for preferred exemption, from certain provisions of the Corporations Act, and for preferred exemption from the insolvency and winding-up laws.
In addition, this corporation and the private shareholders of this corporation will enjoy a most special privilege not enjoyed by all those persons who will not be shareholders and not enjoyed by any other corporation, federal or provincial, Canadian or foreign. It will only be this corporation and its shareholders that will have the opportunity to buy Polymer Corporation Limited, Eldorado Nuclear Limited, Northern Transportation Company Limited, possibly Northern Canada Power Commission as well as the public percentage of Panarctic Oils Ltd., and some others. These are to be sold by the government of Canada to the corporation and no other.
Conversely, this private corporation will, if the government exercises its discretionary power to sell, have a monopoly option to buy these publicly-owned corporations and properties. I emphasize the word "monopoly", Mr. Speaker, because words "fair and reasonable price", as used in clause 39, presumes in the everyday language of commerce and law, the existence of an alternative buyer in a free and open market. To reiterate, Mr. Speaker, a monopoly is a special interest which is the exclusive property of a specific entity, whether that entity is a class of persons or a corporation. On the basis of this, there is no doubt that this is a hybrid bill. I could perhaps advance further arguments, but I think this is sufficient.
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Canada Development Corporation
To recap, and to refer to what the hon. member for Peace River indicated, this is the first time we have been faced with a bill of this kind. It becomes even more important that the appropriate procedure be followed. I do not know whether it is for Your Honour to decide if the bill should be hybrid and what steps should be taken, or whether it should be referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders. This committee has been undistinguished by its activities over the past couple of years. I do not think that it has had to do very much. I suggest to Your Honour that this is one time when we can say halt. It is not that I object to the consideration of Bill C-219 on the basis of its substance. In good time, we will have some observations to make about it. At this point, I suggest the government should stand the second reading today, Your Honour should consider your decision and that we should move on to another item of business.


Douglas Charles Rowland: Mr. Speaker, I think I can reduce the length of my remarks in light of the contribution made to this debate by the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert). In any event, it is with some trepidation that I rise to offer my advice to your Honour, as I have not been here very long and hitherto my interest in procedure has been largely academic. As the hon. member for Edmonton West indicated, this is the first time a bill of this nature has come before this House. In consequence, the means selected to process it will likely have a profound effect upon the kind of legislation which this House is likely to be dealing with in the future.
As others have said, the point upon which Your Honour must in fact decide is whether Bill C-219 is a hybrid bill, that is, is it one which incorporates the elements of both a public bill and a private bill. Having decided that, it will be necessary to determine the procedure which must be followed by this House in dealing with it. It is our contention that although this bill contains sufficient elements of a public nature to persuade the government it should be introduced by a cabinet minister, it is essentially a private bill establishing a private corporation which will combine some of the characteristics of a private mutual fund and those of Argus Corporation or Molson Enterprises and which will be not more subject to governmental control, or more accurately, only marginally more subject, than are those organizations. Therefore, we argue that there are two options open to this House.
The first is that the bill ultimately be treated as a private bill, thereby enabling those who feel they would be adversely affected by the establishment of the corporation to make representations to a committee of this House. In our opinion, such persons would include the public of Canada who may, under the provisions of the bill, lose their interests in the Crown corporations Polymer, Eldorado Mining, Northern Transportation and also in the Northern Light and Power Commission and Panarctic Oil. The second option, which we prefer, is that the bill be withdrawn and rewritten, so that the corporation

unmistakably becomes an instrument of government or public policy.
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, the key to Your Honour's decision is whether this bill can be considered an instrument of public policy. In other to be so considered, the bill must obviously apply to the people of Canada equally and generally, rather than act for the special advantage of a few. In this regard, I wish to submit several points for Your Honour's consideration. In so doing, I may come dangerously close to making substantial arguments, but I hope Your Honour will agree that such an approach is genuinely unavoidable.
The first point I ask Your Honour to consider is that the corporation to be created by this bill has not even been declared to be a work for the general advantage of Canada. The second point is, it is obvious from reading the bill and by virtue of unequivocal statements of its sponsor, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson), that the corporation is purely and simply a profit making venture. Here, I refer to the remarks of the hon. member for Edmonton West. Its objectives could be achieved equally well, perhaps better, by making the same funds available to an organization such as Argus Corporation. The minister can argue that shares will be offered to the Canadian public, but it is a demonstrable fact that only seven per cent of Canadians involved themselves in such speculation. Its provisions, therefore, do not de facto apply equally and generally.
Moreover, and this is my third point, the bill makes possible the sale to the corporation which it creates several crown corporations whose profits have hitherto gone into general revenues to be applied to the general advantage of all Canadians. This bill will permit those profits to be distributed exclusively among that small group of Canadians who are in a position to purchase shares of the proposed Canada Development Corporation.
Fourth, the bill cannot be considered to be an instrument of public policy because the public wiH have absolutely no control over the method of operation of the corporation once it is established except that any change in its objectives must be referred to Parliament. I suggest that the objectives set out in the bill are so general in nature as to authorize virtually anything so that a reference would hardly be necessary. I say that the public, through its elected representatives, will have no control because, as other hon. members have pointed out, first, the corporation is specifically stated not to be an agency of Her Majesty. Second, as a result of existing legislation, Parliament is specifically excluded from the surveillance of the corporation's activities. Third, not more than four of its directors can be appointed by the government of Canada, whether the board consists of 18 directors or 21. Thus, the government is in a distinct minority position. Even then the government can appoint its four directors if, and only if, it surrenders the right to exercise its voting shares in the election of officers. I refer here specifically to clause 40, subclause (1). My fourth point is that clause 42, subclause (3) of the bill would seem to indicate that the Crown's portion of the voting shares may be allowed to drop below 10 per cent of the total,
February 22, 1971

thus even further weakening its ability to ensure that the corporation operates in the public interest.
Taken together, the four points that I have drawn to Your Honour's attention demonstrate that the corporation would be no more subject to public control than is Canadian Pacific Investments, and thus can hardly be considered to be any more an instrument of public policy than Canadian Pacific Investments. Moreover, I would argue that my earlier suggestions provide at least a strong indication that the corporation will not operate in a manner generally and equally applicable to the Canadian people. Indeed, it will operate in the interests of a special few, and hence cannot be considered, on this ground alone, to be an instrument of public policy.
Therefore, we suggest to Your Honour that it would be consistent with the facts to rule that this bill must be treated as a hybrid bill. If such is your ruling, we would further suggest to the government that it withdraw the bill and resubmit it in a form which would make it unmistakeably an instrument of public policy.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Presidenl of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I realize that in the course of the commentaries on the procedural point there have been a number of policy observations made about the bill itself, whether it contained too little socialism or too much socialism. These are interesting points for debate at a later stage, but at the moment the point of order has been raised that this is a hybrid bill and, accordingly, ought to be dealt with in a different way from a normal public bill. Indeed, at one point I believe the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Rowland) argued that it was exclusively a private bill; and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) came dangerously close to taking that position.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was close but not dangerous.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I realize that, to some extent, we are dealing with a point of order that is not generally raised and for which there are not all that many precedents. I noticed that while hon. members opposite were addressing themselves to a bill to establish a corporation to help develop and maintain strong Canadian control over corporations in the private sector, none of them found it possible to put forward any Canadian precedent to support the arguments they were making.
There are one or two precedents that may be of some help in determining what the attitude of this House has been to this particular problem. I have no objection to the definition of a hybrid bill. Beauchesne deals with the matter initially in two citations, 376 and 377. In the first citation Beauchesne states:
Bills are of three kinds, Public Bills, Private Bills and Bills of a mixed character styled "Hybrid Bills" which, though of a public character, affect private rights; and in their passage through Parliament are subjected to a special procedure.
I emphasize and draw particular attention to the phrase "private rights" because under Beauchesne's defi-
Canada Development Corporation nition a bill which is of a mixed character must affect private rights. Accordingly, it seems to me that it is a pivotal question to ask: In what way does this bill affect present and previously existing private rights? I will return to that in a moment. I accept the definition and I move on to the procedure that has been outlined for examining hybrid or private bills. I accept the outline given of the procedure and the argument that, if a bill is private or hybrid, a different procedure is laid down. But I do ask the question, which has not been fully dealt with: Why is it that a special procedure has been laid down for examining a private bill; why has the House decided to establish a special procedure?
I suggest the reason is that the House wants to satisfy itself about the extent to which previously existing private rights, or indeed private rights to be established, are to be affected by the bill; that the House would have no other way of satisfying itself on that point except by permitting persons to come forward and explain to a committee what rights they sought for themselves. Not for the body politic or for the public at large, but rights they sought for themselves as persons or corporations.


Gerald William Baldwin: Would the minister permit a question at this point?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I will when I am finished. I think we can throw some light on the question by asking ourselves why there has been a special procedure laid down for the examination of private bills. My submission is it is because private rights and private interests are affected or sought, and because the House must have a way to examine them. I go on to say that this is ready the key to the solution, or to opening the door to the solution, of the procedural issue that has been raised.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said that the bill affects private individuals, and a special group of individuals-presumably the potential shareholders in the Canada Development Corporation. But surely this is no argument for suggesting that special rights are being affected in this bill any more than special rights were affected in the passage of the amendments to the Old Age Security Act before Christmas when a special benefit was conferred on one particular group in the community, namely those who had reached a certain age. Of course, a bill can affect individuals in the community at large. But the question is: What special rights are affected, and in what way?
Erskine May's seventeenth edition deals with the distinction between public and private bills on pages 871873. It quotes Mr. Speaker Hylton-Foster's view as to what is a hybrid bill, as follows:
I think that a hybrid bill can be defined as a public bill which affects a particular interest in a manner different from the private interests of other persons or bodies of the same category or class.
I argue from that that it must not only affect the private rights and particular interests of individuals, but particular interests of individuals differently from the interests of other individuals in the same category.

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation Erskine May goes on in his recital to examine cases in the British House. However, I should like to state that because this is a Canada development bill we should look also at precedents made in Canada that might assist us in establishing this point of order, rather than taking refuge in the procedures of other countries, however respectful we are of their traditions.
Beauchesne cites one case of a hybrid bill, the entry in the Journal of the House for March 12, 1875. I refer to a motion of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, seconded by Mr. Fournier. I will not read all the details except to say that the purpose of the motion was to bring in a bill to rearrange the capital of the Northern Railway of Canada, to change the gauge of its railway and to amalgamate with the Northern Extension Railways Company. For that reason, the point of order in this case was raised by the hon. Edward Blake, as reported in the House of Commons Debates of March 12, 1875, at page 662.
He argued that the essential elements in the bill were related to the reorganization of the company and affected the private rights of private shareholders including the city of Toronto and the county of Simcoe. In other words, he raised the point of order that this public bill had a direct affect on the shareholders of the company, rights which they had acquired and which would be changed. On that ground the Speaker ruled that, indeed, this had the aspects of a hybrid bill because previously existing private rights and particular interests were affected.
There is nothing in this bill which will affect private rights of individual interests of any person, corporation, or groups of persons. If the bill passes there will be an opportunity for Canadian citizens to acquire shares in the Canada Development Corporation at a later date.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr, Baldwin) made a very interesting comment when he quoted citation 482 of Beauchesne's. I asked myself how we could place this argument or citation in context with the argument I am making. He did read from Beauchesne's citation 482 as follows:-
There is, however, a distinction between the second reading of a public and of a private Bill, which should not be overlooked. A public Bill being founded on reasons of state policy, the House, in agreeing to its second reading, accepts and affirms those reasons; but the expediency of a private Bill, being mainly founded upon allegations of fact, which have not yet been proved, the House, in agreeing to its second reading, affirms the principle of the Bill, conditionally, and subject to the proof of such allegations before the committee.
Why is that so? I argue procedurally that that is the special examination provided to determine the nature of the special interests or the special rights; that is the special private rights as stated by Beauchesne, or the particular interests or private interests as mentioned by Mr. Speaker Hylton-Foster as quoted in Erskine May's. That is why there is that different treatment, under that special kind of situation.
I turn just for a moment to the Standing Orders which seem to support this view. When we are talking about private interests or private rights we are not talking about something general or vague, or something affecting the body politic as a whole. We are talking about concrete, definite and identifiable rights. That is why on

page 103 of the Standing Orders in reference to application for private bills it is suggested:
When the application is for the purpose of obtaining for any person or existing corporation any exclusive rights or privileges or the power to do any matter or thing which in its operation would affect the rights or property of others; in the particular locality or localities in which the business, rights or property of others may be specially affected by the proposed Act.
This would suggest that there is a link between what Beauchesne, Mr. Speaker Hylton-Foster and the Standing Orders say, that these are rights which must be identified and related one to another, and are private rights.
Because it has been stated that this is something new we are trying, I mention another case which raises a situation similar to the one we have today. Bill 19 of the Fifth Session of the Seventeenth Parliament probably presents the closest parallel, and certainly a useful precedent on this question. This bill, which became Chapter 43 of the Statutes of Canada for 1934, was based upon a resolution to be found in the House of Commons Journals, page 35, February 2, 1934. It goes on to quote the resolution preceding the measure to incorporate a central bank in Canada and to provide for the appointment and salaries of the officers and staff of the bank and the appointment and fees of the directors, and to make such further provisions in respect of the functions, powers and adm nistration as recommended by the Royal Commission on Banking and Currency.
This Act established the Bank of Canada, not as we know it today as a government-owned institution, but as a privately held company. In fact, three amendments to provide for government ownership were ruled out of order. Nobody suggested at that time that this was a hybrid bill or that it, in fact, related to private rights, even though the Bank of Canada was to be privately held.
It is true the Act involved government participation in the operations of the bank at several levels, including the naming of interim directors and the sale and holding of shares. Indeed, as you read both you cannot establish an exact parallel but you can certainly find enough support to our view that we are on solid Canadian procedural ground in proposing the Canada Development Corporation bill in this form.
I will come to a conclusion very quickly, Mr. Speaker. I say that my submission is that the purpose of the special procedure on private bills is to ensure that the rights of persons or bodies are not unjustly made greater or smaller than the rights of persons or bodies in similar categories or circumstances. The special procedures for private bills was developed so that Parliament could assure that no existing individual or corporate rights would be unjustly abridged if a measure were proceeded with.
I would also argue that it would apply to a special right being sought by an individual or by a corporation. In this bill we are giving effect, not to a private group of individuals' wishes, but to government policy. This is an instrument of economic policy designed to bring greater opportunities to individuals to invest and participate in the future development of Canada. That is the broad objective. No particular interest is being affected. No
February 22, 1971

private right is being taken away. It is up to Your Honour now to judge, but unless somebody can throw more light on the subject, in the face of my examination I cannot see how it could be concluded that there is a private aspect unless we were to change very greatly the procedures we have developed up to the present in the House of Commons.
I realize the precedents are skimpy, but there must be some special reason for having special procedures for private bills. I suggest the special reason for the special procedure is that previously existing or established special rights affecting special groups or special persons are involved, and the House must examine these in a particular way. That is why we have special procedures. If it should be decided that this is a hybrid bill, what would the Examiner of Petitions or the standing committee do with it? Who would appear? The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) said all the people of Canada in a special assembly. This is the reductio ad absurdum of the day. I think it explodes his argument because who would come to the committee to protect the public interest but the elected representatives, because this is a matter of public policy and affects the body politic as a whole.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I believe the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) seeks the floor for the purpose of asking a question.


Gerald William Baldwin: Yes, Mr. Speaker. At the end of his statement the minister made a valid observation which worried me originally, until I saw the light. Perhaps, I might ask the minister a question. The minister talks about what rights may be affected. In the light of the fact that the Standing Orders mainly deal with private bills introduced on behalf of companies to be incorporated under the provisions of these rules, and in the light of the fact that hundreds of corporations have been affected by the provisions of these orders,-corporations which had no previous rights or existence before that-how does the minister reconcile his remarks about no private rights being affected with the fact that private corporations have been incorporated under private bills for decades with certain rights affecting certain individuals. That is the point I make and it is a case the minister has not met. That is why I ask the question.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I do not know whether I can give a very adequate answer. But when a private corporation petitions the House of Commons, presumably the petition is to create future special rights and special advantages that would accrue to that corporation itself.


Gerald William Baldwin: As this bill does.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Who is petitioning here? This is one of the points raised in Erskine May's. How could the Crown petition the Crown? His Excellency really is recommending to the House of Commons on behalf of the Crown this measure, not a measure to create a private interest for the benefit of individuals or a special group or special corporation but is recommending to the House
Canada Development Corporation
of Commons a measure which in the expectation of the government would have the effect of increasing the strength of the Canadianism of our economy.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: That is wrong.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The hon. member may say we are not taking the right steps, as has been stated. But that is what the House is being asked to judge. It is not the creation of a special interest or privilege for anybody.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is precisely what it is doing.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It is not. I suggest to my hon. friend that anybody can buy shares and we pass laws all the time affecting such groups.


Gerald William Baldwin: Who else has the right to buy these four government companies?


Mr. Speaker:: May I suggest to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen), and to hon. members, that we appear to be getting involved in the substance of the matter. I do not think this is what we should do at the stage of the proceedings. We should limit ourselves as much as possible to the procedural aspect of the matter. I believe the hon. member for Waterloo (Mr. Saltsman) has a contribution to make to this debate, and we will hear him with pleasure.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen), it would seem to me that he has hinged his entire argument on the question of private rights. If his case is to stand at all, he must make a case that private rights are not affected. I think he asked a rhetorical question which in a way deals with the matter of private rights, to which I want to refer. He asked who would come before the committee. I should like to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the poor of Canada would come before the committee because the condition of all people is not alike.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not propose to interrupt the hon. member but I would bring to his attention that his argument comes very close to being a debate on the substance of the bill which is now before the House. I feel that the type of argument advanced by the hon. member, and perhaps to some extent on this particular point by the President of the Privy Council, is close to a substantive debate. I would invite the hon. member to limit his contribution as much as possible to the procedural aspect of the matter.


Max Saltsman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was coming to the procedural point. In order to say that no private rights are affected, I believe one would have to look at the Canadian population and assume that the same conditions exist for all. When you take property, which is now public property, and transfer it or indicate your intention to transfer it to a private corporation in which the general public can buy shares, that is well and good provided every member of the general public is in a position to buy shares in that corporation. This seems to

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation
be the assumption the President of the Privy Council is making; that is, that no private rights are being lost because everyone can invest in the Canada Development Corporation. This is a pretty difficult argument to sustain when we look at the disparity which exists in this country, and the figures which indicate that 20 per cent or 25 per cent of the population is below the poverty line. We must ask the question whether all people will be able to share equally in the new opportunity that is being created. All persons in Canada whether rich or poor at the moment participate in and benefit from the Crown corporations which exist because they are all shareholders in those Crown Corporations.
If those Crown corporations were transferred to what looks like a private corporation to which a person would have to pay $5 in order to be an investor, then the poor of Canada would be deprived of the opportunity to make an investment. They would constitute a special group whose rights were being taken away. The rights which they now possess by being able to participate in Crown corporations would be taken away from them if those Crown corporations were transferred to a private corporation. This is the only argument I want to make.
The example the minister gave about the Bank of Canada is hardly applicable in this particular case. I am trying to recall whether, previous to the introduction of the bill which provided for the establishment of the Bank of Canada there were different Crown corporations whose assets were transferred to a private corporation. Now, it strikes me that this was not the case. The bank was a completely new creation, and therefore the comparison between what we are talking about today and some of the things the minister dragged out is really not applicable.


Mr. Speaker:: If there are no further contributions to this most interesting and important debate, perhaps the House would allow the Chair to express some views about the matter.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) indicated some time ago that he proposed to object to the bill from a procedural standpoint before second reading and in this way the House, the Speaker and all hon. members were put on notice that this very interesting point would be raised today. The hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) indicated, in an informal way, that he proposed to object to the form in which the bill was being submittd to the House for consideration. I make reference to this background to indicate that I have tried to do my homework, as hon. members would expect the Speaker to do, and to give serious thought to the difficulty, to study precedents, to look at our rules as closely as possible, and perhaps be more informed on this as well as on the arguments submitted by hon. members in the course of the debate.
There is no doubt whatsoever that this has been a most informative debate from a procedural standpoint, but the objections advanced by hon. members who have taken part in the debate-and I will refer to no one in particular because the contributions were all constructive, I
think-are not ones to which the Chair at this time should give effect.
If hon. members will bear with me for just a few moments I will go over what I consider to be essential about the definitions of private bills and public bills and also so-called hybrid bills. As hon. members know, a public bill is one intended for the general or public benefit. It relates to matters of public policy and is introduced directly by members of the House. On the other hand, a private bill is one involving not general or public benefit but the particular and private rights or interests of a person or body of persons and where what is being sought cannot be obtained by means of a general law. Bourinot defines a private bill in this way as recorded at page 558:
Private bills are distinguished from public bills in that they directly relate to the affairs of private persons or of corporate bodies, and not to matters of general public policy or to the community at large.
My understanding of the private bill procedure is that it was established to protect the public against the uncontrolled granting of special powers to private interests. I believe that there is no quarrel about this interpretation.
What has been described as a third category of bills, that is hybrid bills, does not, in fact, exist in our Canadian parliamentary practice. Citations 376, 377 and 460 of Beauchesne's Fourth Edition refer to hybrid bills. It is suggested that these citations relate to British practice only. This is pointed out by the fact that the citations come from May's "Parliamentary Practice", and the British practice, as hon. members themselves have pointed out, relating to hybrid bills is spelled out in the standing orders of the British house, contrary to the citations in our own House where no provision whatsoever is made for the consideration of what in the British parliament is called a hybrid bill. In other words, we have, according to our Standing Orders and our long established practice, just two kinds of bills-private bills and public bills. In Britain, in accordance with their standing orders and practice, there are three kinds of bills.
What is being proposed by hon. members is that when we stumble upon a kind of bill which, by coincidence, might correspond with that which the British call a hybrid bill, we should apply the British practice to our House. In support of this imaginative suggestion, hon. members referred to Standing Order 1 of our House of Commons which suggests that when there is no existing practice in the Canadian parliamentary history to cover a certain situation, we should apply procedures followed by the British house.
I suggest this may well be so when there is no practice, but in Canada there is a practice which is that there are only two kinds of bills, private bills and public bills. Hon. members may want to call the bills different names. I have heard different names applied to different bills. They may want to call a bill a hybrid bill. But the fact that it may correspond to what is a hybrid bill in another house, particularly in the British house, does not mean it should be treated in that way in our own Parliament. I repeat that in the Canadian practice bills are divided into

February 22, 1971

private bills and public bills, and until now in any event, there has been no instance where a bill has been clearly classified as a hybrid bill and given special consideration which would be akin or related in some way to the practice adopted in the British house in relation to such hybrid bills. The question, therefore is whether the proposed legislation should be classified as a private or a public bill and considered by the House according to the relevant procedures specified in the standing orders.
The hon. member for Peace River in the course of his argument referred to a citation in Bourinot's second edition which dates back to the year 1883, that is the Toronto Esplanade and Harbour bill. I suggest to the hon. member that this is not a very strong precedent in support of his case. I looked quickly at the bill while the argument was waxing a moment ago, and my conclusion about this particular precedent is as follows. First, this was introduced as a public bill. It was considered by the House, given first and second reading as a public bill, and then referred to the railway committee. What happened in the railway committee is not clear because, as I am informed, the records in this respect are not complete. The bill was reported from the committee to the effect that the preamble was not proven, which is a procedure ordinarily adopted in relation to private bills. To some extent this is significant, and it is to that extent that the argument of the hon. member for Peace River is valid. But I suggest to him that the precedent is not entirely helpful, since our records are not complete.
The same edition of Bourinot's goes on at the following page to refer to a second precedent where a different course was adopted. This other precedent goes back even farther, that is to the year 1875 when the then prime minister moved for leave to introduce a public bill relating to the Northern Railway of Canada. Eventually, a ruling was made that the proposed legislation was both private and public in nature, and subsequently separate bills were passed by the House, one public and one private. This of course is a very interesting precedent. The explanation which I gathered from reading this precedent is that the essential reason why part of the bill was required by the Chair to be introduced as a private bill was that it purported to amend the original act, which itself was considered and passed as a private bill even before Confederation.
The suggestion was made by some hon. members that there are no precedents at all and that this is an entirely new situation. I agree with the suggestion to some extent, but to a limited extent only. There are a number of precedents where there has been an admixture of private bill and public bill considerations. The President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen), has referred to one of these precedents, which is the Bank of Canada Act of 1934. In that instance, I am informed, the bill was a public bill preceded by a resolution. In that instance, the act provided for public offerings of its shares and at the same time included provision for the government to participate.
Another precedent, which to some extent comes close to the bill which is now before the House, is the Trans-
Canada Development Corporation Canada Air Lines Act, found in the Statutes of Canada, 1937, chapter 43. The Journals indicate that the company was established by a public bill preceded by a resolution, and included even the designation by name of the incorporators, normally a feature of a private bill. Yet in the course of consideration by the House and later until its eventual adoption, the measure was considered and treated by the Canadian Parliament as a public bill.
It has been suggested to me that there may be also be an analogy with the Telesat Act of 1968-69. I am not sure about this precedent, and I do not think it should be pressed although this bill was introduced and treated as a public bill. In any event, I suggest to hon. members that in order that a bill be designated as private it should not and cannot include any feature of public policy because such characterization will transcend any private nature it may have.
There appear to be well established principles in determining that a private bill should not be allowed to proceed as such but should be introduced as a public bill. They are described as follows:
1.	Where public policy is affected.
2.	Where the bill proposes to amend or repeal public acts.
3.	Because of the magnitude of the area and the multiplicity of the interests involved.
4.	The fact that the bill, though partly of a private nature, has as its main object a public matter.
These principles are outlined at page 873 of May's seventeeth edition.
It may be that hon. members may suggest that none of these criteria apply in this particular case, but to discuss this aspect of the matter I suggest we would have to go into the consideration of the essence of the bill, and to some extent this is what we have been doing in considering the procedural aspects of the matter. But if one applies the principles to which I have referred to Bill C-219, particularly to clause 6 of the bill which sets out the objects of the proposed legislation, I think it is clear that whatever may be said of its private nature respecting incorporation of a company with public participation, this bill would appear to be a declaration of public policy, and would meet some of the other tests provided by the learned author. Again, I refer hon. members to clause 6 of the bill.
I was about to go into other clauses of the bill, but perhaps I should stay away from that, because, I might give the appearance of delving too closely into the details of the bill, and I think all hon. members have tried to stay away from discussing the details of the bill or going into its different clauses. I think I will limit my suggestion to this that clause 6, that is the objects clause, would indicate that in view of the principles set down by May, and which have been recognized over the years, the bill should be treated as a public bill. My conclusion, therefore, must be that procedurally speaking the bill is properly before the House in this form at the present time. I will, therefore, put the motion.

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation


Edgar John Benson: that Bill C-219, to establish the Canada Development Corporation, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
He said: Mr. speaker, the concept of the Canada Development Corporation has created widespread public interest, as well as some interest in this House, where it appears that all of the opposition parties seem to be in favour of the Canada Development Corporation yet against it at the same time.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Edgar John Benson: Fundamental issues such as the need for a Canada Development Corporation, its objectives, the role to be played by the government, and the nature of its ownership have been thoroughly discussed. The government has benefited from this public discussion and from the briefs it has received in preparing the bill now before the House.
This government believes that there is a role to be played by a new institution, backed by substantial sources of Canadian capital and managed by skilled, experienced Canadian entrepreneurs, to help make possible fuller Canadian participation in the growth and development of Canada. Such an institution will be able to work closely with the other members of the Canadian business and financial community and provide Canadian entrepreneurship with the access to more substantial concentrations of Canadian capital required to ensure a greater Canadian presence in the growth of our own economy.
The general environment into which the new corporation will fit is that of a rapidly developing and diversifying Canadian economy. It is an economy with an enormous resource base and a still greater potential, and a greatly expanded secondary manufacturing sector that must grow and prosper in a highly competitive international environment. Business and industry have entered a new period of internationalism which makes it desirable that there be a number of Canadian controlled corporations with headquarters in Canada and with the kind of institutional strength and management capabilities to compete successfully in Canadian and international markets.
To take advantage of the opportunities and to meet the challenges created by this environment demands a vigorous, inventive and skilled people, large scale organization and the mobilization of substantial blocks of capital and entrepreneurial talent. In a country at Canada's stage of development and, open as we are to foreign capital and international competition, it also requires appropriate government policies.
While Canadians have one of the highest saving rates in the world and provide the bulk of Canada's private investment needs, foreign ownership and control of Canadian industry have become very extensive. Canadians have enjoyed significant material benefits as a result of these investments. Nevertheless, Canadians today are asking why they cannot participate more fully in their own resource and industrial development and in the
growth of strong Canadian based corporations with extensive international interests and operations.
It is against the background of all these factors that the federal government has determined to move ahead with the bill to establish a Canada Development Corporation. The purposes of the Canada Development Corporation-



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski)-Grain-Suggested amendment of repayment formula under Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act; the hon. member for Fraser Valley West (Mr. Rose)-Public Service-Review of Staff Relations Act

Consultation with employee associations-reference to committee; the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants (Mr. McCleave)-Transport-Suggested use of light on Halifax monument as signal for shipping.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members business as listed on today's Order Paper, namely, notices of motions, public bills.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS


Robert Jardine McCleave: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of declaring as rapidly as feasible a 90-10 formula of cost-sharing with the Atlantic Provinces, of the highways program formerly carried on with those provinces by the Atlantic Development Board, and of joining with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the Fundy Trail project, and of joining with Nova Scotia in building a crossing across the Shubenaca-die River.
He said: Mr. Speaker, about two years ago the transport committee of this House considered the transportation problems of the Atlantic provinces and subsequently reported on June 17, 1969. One recommendation of particular interest in this connection is to be found at page 39 of the Transport Committee's proceedings No. 28. I quote:
It is further recommended that the government should consider the advisability of instituting a five-year program of federal assistance to highways in the Atlantic provinces, $30 million to be the maximum federal contribution in any one year. This program should be financed on a 90-10 basis. The provinces would be required to submit plans for a defined network of allweather highways, chosen for their effect on competition among transportation modes in the Atlantic provinces, and for their con-

February 22, 1971

tribution toward the economic development of the Atlantic provinces.
Before hon. members who raise points of order rush back in to scream "foul" because this suggests the spending of money by the government, I would point out that this recommendation was more or less in the form of a prayer attached to the end of the Transport Committee's report. We felt this was the only way of escaping the censure of those who remind us that a private member cannot bring in a resolution which involves the expenditure of money.
The fact is that the private members on that committee, and they were from all political parties, agreed unanimously that this was a most important matter, this 90-10 formula for Atlantic Canada highways. The Atlantic Development Board is deceased, but its ghost is well remembered for the work it did in connection with highway development in my part of Canada. Late in 1969, on December 1, I engaged in one of those late night fishing expeditions at ten o'clock, on that occasion with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. O'Connell). I asked him to find out in some general way what the new department of regional economic expansion proposed in the form of cost sharing arrangements in connection with future highway developments in Atlantic Canada. As reported at page 1473 of Hansard, I said:
I am wondering whether the formula will cover such projects as the Shubenacadie River crossing or a second bridge from Halifax across the northwest arm, both being within the riding of Halifax-East Hants.
The parliamentary secretary replied:
Let me say that the development programs which the Department of Regional Economic Expansion is currently discussing with provinces in the Atlantic Region are expected to make provision for a certain amount of highway assistance integrated with comprehensive plans for regional development.
At the time of the federal election of the year before, for the first time, East Hants became part of my responsibility. The people there are very anxious, and have been over the years, to obtain some crossing of the Shubenacadie River which would cut off many tens of miles for people on the west bank of the river and greatly convenience those in the Colchester-Maitland-Hants County area. I hold up one of my files to indicate I have been somewhat fervent in my correspondence with members of the federal and provincial governments on this matter. I gave the people concerned the promise that I would work hard for this project and I am trying to do just that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Jardine McCleave: Since my time is limited, I will try to deal with some of the aspects that are on record. For example, in a letter to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) last year, I said:
Here are several reasons which I suggest be considered in support of the building of the crossing.
(1)	Truck traffic into and out of the Annapolis Valley to the east is increasing, and because transport trucks are becoming larger and heavier, either bridges on existing routes will have to be improved or a crossing provided.
Highways
(2)	Annapolis agriculture would benefit by the shorter haul to the Truro area (and on to New Brunswick).
(3)	If a causeway were decided upon, a great inland fresh water lake would develop, thus providing a logical northern playland for Metropolitan Halifax-Dartmouth, as well as an extension of the metropolitan growth centre.
(4)	In due season, Fundy tidal power will be developed. In the course of hundreds of millions of dollars of construction, no doubt important savings would be made by having a shorter link from Truro.
(5)	There are educational and health benefits for the people on the west side of the Shubenacadie River whose natural capital is Truro.
(6)	The crossing is a logical link in a Fundy trail.
As a matter of fact, it occurred to me only a few weeks ago when I took a fresh look at the plans for Fundy power development, that the crossing could well be on top of a dam. Fundy power development will need at least three dams to be effective and the crossing could be made on top of one of them, thus combining a vista of a man-made wonder of the world with transportation benefits. I know that in France where they have harnessed tidal power they have turned that project into a tourist attraction. This might be of benefit; it might be considered. Perhaps I should not even have mentioned it, because it might give people an opportunity to put off the building of the Shubenacadie River crossing for another 40 years.
I also wrote to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand), to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) and to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen). The Minister of Transport provided a quick answer as one would expect. He did point out that this was not part of a highways program for last year. I gather that the highways program for that year was limited to the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway; it would certainly have been drawn up much earlier in the year than the date on which I sent him the letter. Be this as it may, it was not a submission by the provincial government to the federal government at that point. The answer I received from the President of the Privy Council, then the Minister of Manpower and Immigration was that he was actively pursuing the matter with his colleagues.
A major development came on August 27 at a meeting of the provincial cabinet in Halifax, when it was unanimously agreed that the Shubenacadie crossing bridge should be included in the five-year plan to be presented to Ottawa some time this fall. This information is contained in a letter from Mr. Gerald C. Ritcey, the provincial secretary for trade, written to Mr. Herbert McDuffie, president of the Shubenacadie River crossing committee. Then, came the provincial election, and I gather that at the moment the river crossing project is still very much a dream-a dream without any concrete reality.
Among the proponents of this project over the years is Mr. Herbert McDuffie, who is head of the committee with respect to it. He is an old man now, and I suppose in his evening years he hopes to see at least a start made on the crossing. The Maritime Provinces Chamber of Commerce has also been a proponent of the scheme. Mr. Ritcey was

February 22, 1971
Highways
the man who most of all carried it forward in Nova Scotia. The present Premier of Nova Scotia is also in favour of the scheme, or was, during the provincial election of 1967. The Nova Scotia Federation of Home and School Associations has supported it, as have the municipalities of East Hants, West Hants, and Colchester, the towns of Truro and Stewiacke, the Tourist Council of Central Nova Scotia, and Annapolis Valley Affiliated Boards of Trade, the Truro Board of Trade, the Truro Area Industrial Committee, and the Fundy vacation trail committee of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. All those bodies are in favour of the Shubenacadie River crossing.
In order to allow other hon. members interested in transportation in the Maritimes an opportunity to speak, I shall shorten my speech. As you may have noticed, I have not dealt with the Fundy Trail fully; I will leave that to my seconder, the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Thomas). May I read part of the article "the publisher's column", by J. M. Murphy, in the Truro Weekly News of January 28. Mr. Murphy has promoted the idea of the Shubenacadie River crossing as follows:
The value oi the 'intangibles' to them, which crossing would provide, would be the moving of provincial and federal government services emanating out of Truro, some 30 miles closer to them. These services include health, postal, RCMP, educational, Department of Agriculture, veterinary, Manpower, Unemployment Insurance, express and freight shipments by truck, and various commercial services among the many. The cost of transportation to and from Truro and the area would be lessened. The area would be opened up to the tourist trade, 85 per cent of which streams into the province through the Amherst border and North Hants would also be opened up as a new recreational and conceivably residential area, with a resulting increase in land value. Such places as Maitland and Noel might once again become important ocean shipping ports for such things as petroleum products, pulpwood, cement and the like.
It is interesting to note that the largest four masted vessel ever to be built in Canada was built in Maitland approximately 100 years ago.
I have placed on the record some of my thoughts. I have pursued this matter pretty zealously since East Hants became part of my responsibilities after the 1968 election. May I sum it up this way: the crossing can come into existence under either one of two federal programs. It can be done if the federal government adopts the 90-10 highway sharing formula suggested in the transport committee's report of July, 1969. The other way would be for the crossing to be included as part of an over-all regional development program under the Department of Regional Economic Expansion agreement with the province of Nova Scotia. I would not quarrel with either of these methods; I just want to see this done, and done soon.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Richard):: The hon. member for Northumberland-Miramichi.


Mr. Guy Crossman (Weslmcrland-Kenl):: Mr. Speaker, may I congratulate the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants (Mr. McCleave) for moving this private members' notice of motion because it deals with the improvement and further construction of highways in the Atlantic region. On December 16, 1968, a similar motion was moved by the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Thomas), and dealt with in this House. I say it was a similar motion, for it also dealt with the Fundy Trail construction. That, in part, is what I wish to speak about today. I think that the Shubenacadie River crossing is a matter for the provincial authorities and the government of Canada.
So far as the Fundy Trail construction is concerned, on December 16, 1968, I endeavoured to point out, while keeping in mind the importance of this trail to the promotion of tourism in the area, that it was also essential that a long look be taken at the over-all situation before establishing priorities. I mentioned at that time that only the southwestern part of New Brunswick has highways completed to modern standards. One of these is the Trans-Canada Highway leading from the Quebec border, through Woodstock, Fredericton and Moncton to the Nova Scotia border and also to the P.E.I. ferry crossing at Cape Tormentine. Another is the highway leading from St. Stephen to Saint John and from Saint John to the Trans-Canada Highway. I am also pleased to say that considerable work was done to the highway from Woodstock to Houlton during the 1970 season; but the completion of this very important artery is still in the future. The highways just mentioned cover in part the requirements in the south and west areas.
One short look at the substandard condition of the No. 11 highway linking the northern part of New Brunswick to the rest of the province along the eastern seaboard would convince anyone that the priorities agreed on in the special areas and highways agreement for 1970-72 were well chosen. The hundreds of towns and villages depending on this highway are hampered by seasonal weight restrictions and by lack of an easy access to markets for their perishable products of the sea. This part of the road lies along the coast of the Northumberland Strait. It is with concern that we realize that many of the bridges on this highway were built before today's heavy traffic was envisaged. The collapse of one of these bridges would cause a serious traffic tie up for indefinite periods. One bridge I have in mind is the bridge entering Bathurst. The traffic of today is really overtaking this bridge. If that bridge were to be out of use it would seriously hamper a most industrious town. Another bridge I have in mind is the Cocagne Bridge bridging the Cocagne River. If there were a tie up in those cases, great hardship would be caused along many miles of the coast of the Northumberland Strait.


Robert Jardine McCleave: That is quite right.


Guy F. Crossman: I have pointed out only a few reasons for showing that if any concern is felt for the possible future economic development of this large region, the continuation and completion of the new No. 11 highway should remain the No. 1 priority.
I have in my hand a document entitled, "Canada/New Brunswick Special Areas and Highways Agreement 1970/72". Numerous items in schedule B relating to highway construction show that the government of the province of New Brunswick saw eye to eye with the Department of Regional Economic Expansion on what I consider

February 22, 1971

to be a matter of top priority, the improvement of No. 11 highway. Numerous items in schedule B show that work was begun in different areas along the No. 11 highway. I hope that this very important project will be continued in the coming year.
Having said this, I wish to assure my hon. friend for Halifax-East Hants that nothing could please me more than if ways and means could be found to finance his proposed project. Nevertheless, I differ with him in the formula he has suggested. I listened to the hon. member today. This afternoon he suggested that the government should consider the advisability of declaring as rapidly as feasible a 90-10 cost-sharing formula for the highway program that was formerly embarked on by those provinces and the Atlantic Development Board. Perhaps the hon. member is not aware what a retrograde step this would be. The maximum cost sharing under the Atlantic Development Board program was of the order of 75-25.
The present agreements on special areas and highways provided for 100 per cent federal financing of construction costs and, unlike the ADB program, for loan financing for land acquisition in urban areas where acquisition costs are often high. The total assistance provided by the ADB to the Atlantic provinces, from the first agreement in 1964 to the fourth agreement in 1968, was $66.5 million, distributed as follows: $19.5 million to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and $8 million to Prince Edward Island. Under the DREE Special Areas and Highway Agreements signed this year, the amount committed toward highways in fiscal 1970-71 alone comes to $63.4 millions, composed of $55.4 million in grants and $8 million in loans. Over the short life of the agreement, from April 1, 1970 to June 30, 1972, the total expenditure under this agreement on highways in the Atlantic provinces will be approximately $88 million, consisting of $76 million in grants and $12 million in loans. These amounts are, of course, additional to the $7.5 million in federal funds committed for highways under the FRED Plan for P.E.I. In fiscal 1970-71 alone, almost as much money has been committed to highway development in the Atlantic provinces as was provided over four years in the old ADB Agreements.
With respect to the highways that are assisted, and specifically the Pundy Trail project and a crossing of the Shubenacadie river, it must be pointed out that highway programs are joint programs with the provinces. In all cases they must be highways that we and the provinces agree jointly are important contributors to the economic development of the province. We are aware of the merits of the roads that the member has suggested and their potential contribution to the development of the provinces, but the provinces concerned felt, and we agreed, that they would not contribute as importantly to the development of the region as a whole and the individual provinces as the highways that were chosen for priority construction.
I would like the hon. member to enlighten me on one point. The program for construction of the Shubenacadie crossing has not yet been advanced by the provincial
Highways
authorities to the federal authorities. This is what I gather. I ask the hon. member whether this is a fact.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Richard):: Order, please. Hon. members will appreciate that while I called the hon. member for Northumberland-Miramichi (Mr. Smith), it was the hon. member for Westmorland-Kent (Mr. Crossman) who spoke.


Mr. Charles H. Thomas (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, it was with considerable interest that I noticed my colleague, the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants (Mr. McCleave), had placed this notice of motion on the Order Paper. It ties in very closely with my own notice of motion No. 20, which calls on the government to develop an over-all transportation policy for the Atlantic region. This is something that has been promised to the area for a good many years. It was specifically promised in 1967 when the National Transporation Act was passed. The necessity for an over-all policy was recognized by the government at that time when they instituted the freeze on railway rates. Over the past four years, the recognition has been more in the breach than in the observance. We all know what happened to the freeze on rail rates. We know what happened to rail rates in the past four years. Only those who live in the Atlantic provinces are aware of the fact that we are still no closer to an Atlantic transportation policy than in 1966.
I want to emphasize the need for an over-all transportation policy. I appreciate remarks made by the hon. member for Westmorland-Kent (Mr. Crossman). I am very happy that he is with us. I feel only through the co-operation of all Atlantic members, regardless of political affiliation, will we eventually be able to arrive at a coherent and comprehensive policy for the area.
While I agree with the figures given by the hon. member for Westmorland-Kent, and appreciate the fact that many millions of dollars have been pumped into the area through the agreement he referred to, I maintain the position we have taken from the start that this is still not [DOT]the comprehensive policy that has been called for by the old ADB, the Atlantic Provinces Premiers' Report and the Standing Committee on Transportation. DREE is basically an ad hoc policy. As far as we are concerned, the time has long passed when we should abandon this idea of ad hoc assistance for the area and come up with a long-range development policy to bring this area up to the level of the rest of Canada. This fact has been long recognized. The old ADB was established in 1963. I quote from their fined report:
From its inception, the Board recognized that shortcomings in transportation were responsible for much of the lagging economic growth of the Atlantic region. While it was apparent that these shortcomings embraced all modes of transport, the solutions were anything but obvious, involving as they did complex questions of national and regional policy objectives. What was clear and undisputed, however, was the need for a network of modern, all-weather trunk highways, to be constructed at the same time as an over-all transportation policy for the region was being developed.
That was in 1963, close to eight years ago. We are still waiting for a comprehensive transportation policy for the Atlantic area. It is all right for the government to say

February 22, 1971
Highways
that millions of dollars have been dumped into that area.
I agree that in the period 1964-67 $66.5 million were provided for highway construction in the area. These were crash programs to try to bring some of these areas up to some sort of standard. It was not a comprehensive policy. In case there is any confusion, I point out that the assistance varied from 50/50 in some cases to 75/25 in others, but not the 90/10 that was later developed to finish the Trans-Canada Highway in areas where the costs of construction were prohibitive.
Our problem in the Atlantic area is the fact that highway construction is very costly because of the small population and rugged terrain. Highway construction in that area has always fallen behind the rest of Canada. We have never had the good, all-weather highways that people in central Canada have been blessed with for many years.
The principles of the National Transportation Act, which are essentially based on the principle of competition to protect regional areas from discriminatory rates, have not worked in our area. There is no effective competition there. The National Transportation Act provides that rail rates must be compensatory. However, the catch is the clause which allows the railway or other carrier to charge whatever rate competition will permit. In an area where there is only limited competition, there is nothing to prevent the carrier in the region from charging what the traffic will bear. This is our problem. This is why ADB, and all the commissions which have studied the area, have identified the lack of suitable transportation as one of the root causes of our economic disparity.
The National Transportation Act as it applies today does little or nothing for our area. Even though we have had $66.5 million pumped into the area and other money put in by DREE, we still lack an all-weather arterial highway network. The Atlantic Premiers referred many times in their report to the fact that if secondary industries are to be developed in the Atlantic region, and other industries brought up to the potential of industries in the rest of Canada, an adequate highway network that will accommodate other modes of transportation, such as trucking, must be constructed in order to provide competition for the railways. Then we will truly have compensatory rates as envisaged under the National Transportation Act.
In the report referred to by my colleague for Halifax-East Hants, entitled "The Basic Elements of an Atlantic Provinces Transportation Policy" published in March, 1969, the Premiers expressed the view that the limited financial capabilities of the Atlantic provinces necessitate an increase in federal investment in the arterial highway program. They stated that a long-term program was essential to get maximum benefit from available funds-frequent reference is made to this throughout the report-and that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has special highway requirements within the Atlantic region.
They went on to point out that as a result of these peculiar conditions to which I have referred in the Atlan-

tic area and the high cost of building highways, the Atlantic region is entitled to special assistance such as our national transportation policy recognizes is required for other types of transportation. I need mention only briefly the assistance provided primary producers in the west under the Crow's Nest Pass rates, the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which was essentially created and subsidized by the government to enable shippers from western Canada to export and manufacturers in central Canada to import, and subsidizing the construction of the Trans-Canada Highway by the federal government, again a highway built to assist long-range transportation.
In practically all the reports and submissions that have been made it has been contended that the Atlantic provinces are entitled to extra assistance. This is why my colleague's motion asks for an allocation of funds to the extent of 90 per cent by the federal government and 10 per cent by the province concerned. In this connection I should like to put on record the submission of the Atlantic Premiers in regard to an over-all assistance program:
The length of this program should be ten years with the first five years fixed and the balance renegotiated and reconsidered prior to the conclusion of the first five years. The federal share of total costs, including acquisition of right of way, should be 90 per cent for the first five years. Prior to the end of ten years, a further program should be negotiated, if needed.
To avoid a two-year pause in construction while a detailed program is being developed and negotiated, it is recommended that the detailed one-year program contained in the Atlantic provinces submission to the Atlantic Development Board be extended to cover two years-[DOT]
This is the basis of my submission. I appreciate that funds have been pumped into the Atlantic area, but I maintain and have always been of the opinion that short-range, ad hoc policies are not the answer to our problem. What we require is something along the line envisaged by this motion, namely, a long-range program-such as that suggested by the Atlantic Premiers-which would be the foundation or cornerstone of an Atlantic transportation policy of the sort for which I have been fighting and arguing since I have been a member of this House.
My colleague referred to the Fundy Trail, and I spoke about it two years ago. I am still strongly in favour of the construction of the Fundy Trail. In fact, I think this area is so badly in need of new highways that we should not become too sectional or regional in our approach. Indeed, we should lend our support to the Shubenacadie River crossing, or to route 9 or route 11, to which my hon. friend from Westmorland-Kent made reference. All of these could be embraced within one over-all program. Since I hope my hon. friend from Saint John-Lancaster (Mr. Bell) will have a chance to say something about the Fundy Trail, I will leave that subject to him.


Mr. G. A. Percy Smith (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this debate on the motion moved by the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants (Mr. McCleave), seconded by the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Thomas), I cannot but commend both of them for requesting additional financial assistance from the federal government for the transportation system mentioned in the motion. The motion reads as follows:
February 22, 1971

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of declaring as rapidly as feasible a 90-10 formula of cost-sharing with the Atlantic provinces, of the highways program formerly carried on with those provinces by the Atlantic Development Board, and of joining with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the Fundy Trail project, and of joining with Nova Scotia in building a crossing across the Shubenacadie River.
This is not the first time that this or a similar motion has been debated in the House. On December 16, 1968, on a motion moved by the hon. member tor Moncton, there was considerable debate about the Fundy Trail. However, the present motion is somewhat wider, not only because it makes reference to the Shubenacadie River crossing but also because, by necessary implication, it brings up for discussion the whole question of federal aid to the provinces in regard to highway construction.
I do not think any member of the House, especially a member from the Atlantic region, would be wholly inclined to disagree with this motion. Part of the motion, the part on which I expected to hear most debate, refers to the Fundy Trail. This is essentially a route that would be a great tourist attraction. It would follow the shores of the Bay of Fundy both on the New Brunswick and the Nova Scotia side. It would undoubtedly be a most attractive tourist route, following through some of the most scenic parts of the two provinces. However, from what I have seen of the terrain, it is quite rugged and therefore construction costs would be quite high. Its length would be approximately 550 miles from St. Stephen, New Brunswick to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, about half of this distance being in each province.
The existing highway that follows the shore of the Bay of Fundy for the most part does not afford a view of the waters of the bay. It runs inland from the bay, sometimes up to a distance of 40 miles, and the fishing communities dotted along the shore of the bay are themselves serviced by small branch roads. The constructing of roads inland in earlier times may have been dictated by the fact that it was less rugged country and therefore construction costs were cheaper.
Like all hon. members who have spoken, I am a great believer in the fullest possible development of the tourist potent;al of the Atlantic provinces. I believe we have something exceptional to offer tourists, especially in areas such as the proposed Fundy Trail and along our east coasts. I feel that the provinces in attempting to attract industry to our chronically depressed Atlantic provinces sometimes tend to overlook our real tourist potential. Perhaps this is because we compete with each other. It is unfortunate that in the past most efforts have been directed toward the attraction of resource-based industry. Considerable sums in grants and other concessions have often been made to that type of industry to induce them to locate there. However, the result in many cases has simply been the carting away of our natural resources by foreign companies which sometimes leave the landscape in a most unattractive condition.
A more enlightened approach in recent years has been shown by some companies who are exploiting our renew-
Highways
able resources, particularly our forests, and have begun to show an interest in reforestation. The results of the exploitation of our non-renewable resources, such as minerals, are more serious since nothing can be done to replace our ore bodies in the ground. A further side-effect to the exploitation of our minerals is the damage which this operation does to one of our main tourist attractions, that is, the fish life to be found in our streams, lakes and rivers. Our pulp mills contribute as well, but to a lesser degree, to the destruction of this great natural resource.
I am keenly aware of this problem, living as I do on the banks of the Miramichi River, which is the greatest Atlantic salmon river in the world but where pollution is now reaching a dangerous stage. I am pleased to note that our Minister of Fisheries and Forestry (Mr. Davis) is taking a very serious view of this matter and is showing polluters and potential polluters of our waters that he means business.
Let me return to the question of the Fundy Trail. It should be pointed out that although money is being made available by the government of Canada to the provinces to meet our pressing transportation problem, including highways, the priorities for such construction are set out by the provinces concerned. In the pressing and even desperate need to service relatively large provinces containing relatively small populations, they have so far elected to spend the moneys available on roads that would serve the dual purpose of providing transportation between major population centres and also assist the tourist industry.
I am not certain of the priorities set out by the province of Nova Scotia but I know that in New Brunswick, at least under the former government of Hon. Louis J. Robichaud, the main priority was for an all-weather road from Moncton to Chatham and thence to Bathurst and Campbellton. I hope the present government of New Brunswick will uphold this priority, especially in view of the fact that construction of this road had already commenced under the previous government. I might add that this road as well as connecting main population centres would be a very scenic one: it would follow the east coast of New Brunswick, crossing the Miramichi River at Chatham over the newly-constructed Centennial Bridge located in the constitutency of Northumberland-Mirami-chi which I have the honour to represent in this House.
On the question of priorities, which I repeat-and I think the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants will agree-is a provincial matter, I should like to mention another project which has been discussed for almost as long as the Fundy Trail. It was started many years ago under the roads to resources program, and although passable with difficulty, it is far from being completed. I refer to the Renous-Plaster Rock highway, which would open up the whole central area of New Brunswick. Furthermore, it would tie in with the much discussed corridor road from New Brunswick to Montreal through the state of Maine. It would decrease the travel distance from eastern New Brunswick to Montreal by over 100 miles.
I mention the corridor road because it was referred to in a submission signed by the Premiers of the four

February 22, 1971
Highways
Atlantic provinces and forwarded to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) in March, 1969. This submission, to which the hon. member for Moncton referred, relates to the corridor road in connection with spending money on roads in Atlantic Canada. It suggests that especially when we consider spending large amounts of money, an over-all view of present and future needs should be taken, including connecting roads between provinces and methods of ingress and egress to and from the whole area. I quote from page 17 of that report under the heading, "Transportation Modes-Highways".
An adequate highway network is essential to the economic development of the region. The limited financial capabilities of the Atlantic provinces necessitate an increase in the federal investment in the arterial highway program. A long-term program is essential to get maximum benefit from available funds. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has special highway requirements within the Atlantic region.
The position of the Atlantic provinces on highways was outlined in detail in their submission to the Atlantc Development Board on April 1, 1968. At that time the submission to the ADB recognized that the subsequent findings contained in this report might necessitate some amendments to the original submission. The four provinces recommend the following modifications in the ADB brief:
(1)	Greater emphasis on the need for urban arterials.
(2)	Recognition in the long-term program of the differing needs and financial capabilities of the individual provinces.
I quote one more paragraph of the report:
Emphasis should be placed upon acceptance by the federal government of the principle of such a long-term program and upon acceptance of that principle the following course of action is proposed:
(1) Before implementing a long-term arterial highway program, a detailed assessment of the network needs of the individual provinces should be carried out. Such an assessment should include detailed analysis of the potential impact on the regional highway network of such major projects as the Northumberland Strait causeway and the corridor road.
I would point out to the hon. member who introduced the motion that nowhere in this report, or in any other submission or report I have seen, have recent governments of Nova Scotia headed by men of like political persuasion to his placed a high priority on the Fundy Trail. The hon. member for Halifax-East Hants might be well advised to first convince his province of Nova Scotia of the high priority the Fund Trail deserves and which I agree it should have.
The hon. member for Halifax-East Hants and the hon. member for Moncton suggest that this government consider the advisability of declaring as rapidly as feasible a 90-10 per cent cost-sharing formula in respect of the highways' program formerly carried on with the Atlantic provinces by the Atlantic Development Board. I suggest that the formula detailed by the hon. member for West-morland-Kent (Mr. Crossman) is more generous than the one requested.
Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take up too much time. I will simply repeat what I believe was said by the hon. member for Westmorland-Kent, that in the fiscal year

1970-71 alone almost as much money has been committed to highway development in the Atlantic provinces as was provided over four years under the Atlantic Development Board agreements. With respect to highways that are assisted, specifically the Fundy Trail project and the crossing of the Shubenacadie River, it must be pointed out, as has been mentioned already, that they are joint programs with the provinces. In all cases they must be highways which Ottawa and the provinces jointly agree are important contributors to the economic development of the province.
I am aware of the merit of the roads the hon. member has referred to and their potential contribution to the development of these areas, but apparently the provinces concerned felt, and Ottawa agreed, that they would not contribute as importantly to the development of the region as a whole and the individual provinces as would the highways that were chosen for priority construction.
In conclusion, I repeat that I would support the hon. member's motion fully, with the single reservation that the priority in respect of it must be spelled out by the provincial governments concerned. And, of course-this is understood-this project must not be constructed at the expense of funds that would otherwise be used for projects which I have indicated, and which the two provinces have indicated, have higher priority.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, lest the record should seem to indicate that only members from the Atlantic provinces are interested in this motion, perhaps a voice from the west might have the floor for 30 seconds. I admit to an ancestral prejudice in favour of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick but I believe it is also true that in western Canada we think that what is good for the Atlantic provinces is good for Canada. I like the idea of an over-all highways' program for the Atlantic provinces, I support the Fundy Trail, and I believe Nova Scotia should have the Shubenacadie crossing. I commend the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants (Mr. McCleave) for presenting this motion this afternoon.


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Lancasler):: Mr. Speaker, in spite of the advance billing of the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Thomas), I really had not intended to make extensive remarks. The parliamentary secretary has been making notes so I want to give him plenty of time to talk out the bill. There is, however, one thing I should like to say briefly in connection with the Fundy Trail. I have advocated this for years, along with many other members, and when I get up to speak about the Fundy Trail now everybody yells out "funny trail". But it is a great project and I, as one who helped in its early promotion, envisage a particular type of vacation trail the funds for which would not come from regular highway sources.
I regret that this has been misunderstood by members of this House and by many of the sincere promoters of this project. I do not feel we should take the highway moneys of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, regardless of the governments concerned, and allocate them to a tourist trail, because these moneys are scarce. I believe we
February 22, 1971

should start by gradually developing the roads around the Bay of Fundy, as has been explained, and then look into the matter to see if there is a better way to do it. In this way we could find out how much should be spent on the project. I envisage money coming from Fundy Park and such projects, in the way the special highways at Banff and Jasper were built.
I commend those hon. members who have taken the opportunity to put forward very sensible remarks about the effect this transportation program would have and the need for it in the Maritimes.


Mr. Allen B. Sulatycky (Rocky Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this debate I do not wish to be misunderstood in the sense that I am opposed to federal involvement in the development of highways which previous speakers have advocated for the Atlantic provinces. Like the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), I wish to see an over-all highways policy involving not only the Atlantic provinces but all of Canada. In other parts of Canada there are highways which deserve federal attention because of their importance, the contribution they could make to transportation at the national level and the great impact they could have on the tourist industry, which as hon. members know is one of the major foreign exchange earners in this country.
Two such highways come to mind in this connection. The first is the Alaska Highway. Hon. members have advocated that the federal government become involved in the paving of this very important route. The number of tourists who use this route is increasing every year, but it is nowhere as large as we could expect if it were paved. Indeed, people who travel this route have to be most adventuresome. In addition to such people there are many others who would like to travel the northern part of this continent but are unable to do so because of the very poor condition of this road.
Another highway, on which I shall concentrate more, is the Yellowhead route. This highway is already built. It is really the second trans-Canada highway in the prairie provinces. It begins at Portage la Prairie in Manitoba and runs through such prairie centres as Yorkton, Saskatoon, North Battleford, Lloydminister, Edmonton, Edson, Hinton, then through the national park and community of Jasper to finally join the Trans-Canada Highway again at Kamloops.
As I said, this highway has been completed. Many parts of it are superior to the Trans-Canada Highway. The dimensions and structure of it exceed the requirements of the Trans-Canada Highway Act. All that is lacking is a national designation of this highway. Many people have been involved in the development of the highway and its promotion. To put it simply, they feel the federal government could, by adding its name to this highway, increase its stature and thereby bring more tourists to that part of the prairie provinces.
In addition, this highway saves dollars for transport companies who operate to Vancouver, because of low gas consumption on it. The grades along the highway are much smaller than those on the Trans-Canada Highway
Canada Development Corporation through Rogers Pass. The snowfall on this highway is also much less than it is in the Rogers Pass portion of the Trans-Canada Highway.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Richard):: Order, please. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business has now expired.
At six o'clock 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. Benson that Bill C-219, to establish the Canada Development Corporation, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, the purposes of the CDC are essentially twofold; first, to help develop and maintain strong Canadian-controlled and Canadian-managed corporations in the private sector of the economy and, second, to give Canadians greater opportunities to invest and participate in the economic development of Canada.
The CDC would seek to achieve its first objective by investing in the equity of existing corporations, by helping in the expansion and establishment of significant new enterprises and by assisting the expansion of existing ones. In doing so it will normally invest in enterprises in which it expects to have a substantial holding of shares carrying voting rights and in which the total value of the shareholders' equity will be, or is likely to become, $1 million or more. It is expected that CDC's investment in a corporation would normally be large enough, either alone or in combination with other Canadian investors, to ensure Canadian control. It would generally not seek to exercise direct operating control of the corporations in which it invests, and accordingly it would not be necessary for them to be CDC subsidiaries. It would, of course, be in a position to exercise the degree of influence on the basic policies and direction of such corporations appropriate for a major shareholder.
The corporation will be expected to work very closely with other members of the Canadian business and financial community. Ideally, many of its actions and investments will be in response to proposals made to it by others. It should concentrate the exercise of its own direct entrepreneurial functions in those areas of particular promise and interest to the Canadian economy where there is not otherwise likely to be a sufficient degree of Canadian participation.

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation
We anticipate that it will give special attention to industries considered to be of greatest potential and importance to Canada's future economic development. It should emphasize areas involving the development and application of new technology, those which involve the exploitation and utilization of Canadian natural resources, those which have special relevance to the development of the north and those in which Canada now has or can develop significant comparative advantages by international standards.
To take full advantage of future opportunities to develop our economy, some significant steps must be taken to rationalize and improve various sectors of Canadian industry. Some of these steps will involve mergers, amalgamations and other corporate arrangements designed to strengthen the competitiveness of Canadian industry. However, it is often in the process of making such desirable changes that Canadian control of a corporation involved becomes most vulnerable.
The CDC should be in a position to play an important catalytic and facilitating role in making such constructive changes possible and reducing the risks of an undesirable degree of foreign control of the industries concerned. Thus, it will work in close and creative co-operation with Canada's business and investing community, in helping to build the kind of Canadian institutions which will enlarge the opportunities for Canadians to use their management and technical skills and to develop greater markets for Canadian goods and services.
The primary role of the CDC will be to help shape and secure the future rather than to recover the past. Its approach must be a dynamic, positive and forward-looking one. Just as the forces at work in our economy are many and complex, the measures we must take to shape our economy in the 1970s must be varied and flexible. The CDC has been designed with broad investment powers to give its management the resources and the flexibility to achieve, in the most effective way, the objectives set out for it.
The corporation will operate within the private sector of the economy with the capabilities and constraints of a private corporation. It will be expected to carry out its objects, in the words of the bill, "in anticipation of profit and in the best interests of the shareholders as a whole." Since the shares of the corporation will as soon as practicable be sold to the public in competition with all other investment vehicles, the management of the corporation will at all times be fully aware of the need to earn a competitive rate of return on invested capital fully commensurate with the risks involved.
The CDC cannot and must not be expected to make investments which do not meet its criteria for profitability. The national interest and the profit motive are not always compatible, but there is a broad area over which they are or can be in harmony. It is in this area that the corporation's activities and interest will be concentrated. This means that there are limits to what the corporation can be expected to accomplish. It should be regarded as only one of the measures to promote greater ownership
and control of our economy by Canadians. But I am confident that the role it can play will make a very important contribution to our efforts to deal positively and constructively with these concerns.
The other major purpose set out in the bill is that the corporation should be owned by the Canadian public, with as wide a distribution of the shares as possible. The corporation will be uniquely Canadian with its voting shares held only by Canadian citizens and residents. Through it a new opportunity will be provided for every Canadian to invest in Canadian industry and to share in the profits of such an investment. It is intended that these shares will, when widely held, be listed on Canadian stock exchanges.
I have described the objectives and the kinds of activities set out for the CDC. The government believes these purposes and activities are overwhelmingly supported by Canadians. I am confident that the business community is also behind the CDC, subject to the very important reservation that the CDC must be free to make good business decisions. That prescription has been written into the bill. It is the CDC's mandate.
Comment on the CDC since the introduction of this legislation has, of course, included some strident voices of the political right and left. From the left, my friends of the New Democratic Party cry of a "sell-out to private enterprise" in a statement by their leader that appeared without so much as a cursory examination of the bill. Having now read the bill, the NDP may wish to recognize that the CDC will be widely held, that it will have a specific role to promote Canadian ownership and control and that it will pursue industrial development and greater processing of primary products in Canada. However, I see very little hope for the CDC because this afternoon, in doing something we on this side would have been condemned for, they issued a press release saying what their amendment to the second reading of the bill would be, in which they really propose that we should have a Canada Development Corporation which is designed to take over industry in Canada and have it owned by the government of Canada. That is what they believe in for the CDC.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the
minister-


Edgar John Benson: When I am finished.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Is the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) rising on a point of order?


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was to be on
a question, but I will make it on a point of order. What did the minister mean when he said, "I now see very little hope for the CDC"?


Edgar John Benson: Oh, no. I said I had no hope for the NDP.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't fuddle with Hansard. It was "CDC".

February 22, 1971


Edgar John Benson: Well, if I said "CDC" I apologize. I really meant the NDP, and in that I am in concert with all Canadians.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Once in a while you happen to be right the first time.


Edgar John Benson: But the CDC will also pursue profits, a word that apparently dismays the New Democrats, and the CDC will operate free of pressure by departments of the federal government. This government has no intention of tying the CDC to specific regional programs, as the NDP would suggest. We do not want another fiasco such as the one in Saskatchewan when the present leader of the NDP was Premier of that province. Nor does the government have any intention of distorting the competitive structure of our financial system by forcing all financial institutions to invest in the CDC, as the New Democrats would insist.
Comment from the right does not, of course, look upon the Canada Development Corporation as a sell-out to big business at all. On the contrary, it sees Socialism-and this was mentioned by hon. members opposite today. One columnist has called the CDC another manifestation of government policy to drive the entrepreneur out of the Canadian economy. Perhaps this kind of acute suspicion can only be resolved by the good performance of the corporation working co-operatively for stronger private corporations increasingly managed and owned by Canadians.
I will now outline some very important provisions of the bill relating to the operation of the corporation. The affairs of the corporation will be managed by a board of directors consisting of 18 to 21 members. The federal government will have the choice of appointing not more than four directors in lieu of voting the government's shares for election of the entire slate of directors. I think the members of the NDP were misleading this afternoon in stating the government would only elect four members of the board of directors. The government has the choice as the corporation develops. If its shares allow it to elect all members of the board of directors, it could, or it could choose the other option.
During any period when the government's voting shares exceed 50 per cent of the outstanding shares issued, the Deputy Minister of Finance and the Deputy Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce will be appointed ex-officio, non-voting members of the board. These provisions are designed to provide the necessary degree of additional liaison between the corporation and the government during the initial period of its existence. The board of directors of the corporation which the government will initially appoint will be a representative body of suitably qualified Canadians with broad experience in Canadian business, finance and economic development. I am confident that men of this calibre will be available to serve on the board. In addition to the relevant requirements of the Corporations Act, careful procedures will be evolved to deal with situations of possible conflict of interest.
Canada Development Corporation
The high quality of the board and the chief executive officer will ensure the corporation of the degree of independence in its operations which it will require to carry out its objectives effectively. Initially the government will be the sole shareholder and it will always be the largest single shareholder. Because of the significant role the corporation has been given by its purposes and objects, the government will want to show a continuing interest in it, and it is expected that the government will always want to hold at least 10 per cent of the voting shares. Thus, it will always be in a position to exercise the degree of influence on the over-all policies of the corporation which would be appropriate to its shareholding at any particular time. However, to underscore the importance the government attaches to achieving the maximum degree of public ownership of the CDC by the Canadian public, the corporation is to be given the right to reduce the government's holding of voting shares down to 10 per cent.
The CDC will operate basically within the provisions of the Canada Corporations Act. It will not be a federal Crown corporation or agency, and this is explicitly set out in the bill. The capital structure of the corporation is designed to give it a high degree of flexibility in raising funds from the public. Its authorized capital will comprise 200 million common shares without nominal or par value, and $1 billion of preferred shares. The preferred shares may be issued with or without voting privileges. The initial offering to the public of common shares is expected to be at a price of about $5 per share to encourage a broad shareholding throughout the whole of Canada.
The source of the corporation's equity capital and the owners of the corporation will be Canadian investors. By Canadian investors we mean residents of Canada and individual Canadian citizens who may be resident abroad. Non-resident foreigners will not be able to hold voting shares though it would be possible for them to purchase non-voting preferred shares. Also, to ensure that the voting shares are widely held, the amount of voting shares that can be held by any one Canadian shareholder or group of associated shareholders is to be limited to 3 per cent. Special redemption features have been provided to enable the corporation to purchase for cancellation shares that are held illegally.
In addition to its right to redeem shares owned by the government to reduce the government's holdings to the minimum of 10 per cent, and to its right to redeem any shares held illegally, the corporation would have the power to use its surplus to reduce its outstanding capital by purchasing its common shares for cancellation without reducing its authorized capital. The provision, if implemented by the board, would improve the ultimate marketability of the corporation's shares. Such a provision is contained in the new Ontario Business Corporations Act and is being considered for the Canada Corporations Act. This power has been available to companies in the United States for some time. The CDC bill provides a number of safeguards to ensure that the exercise of this power will not be abused.

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation
In order to enable the corporation to commence operations without delay upon approval of this bill, and to work effectively toward the achievement of its objects, the federal government will make $250 million available to the corporation by undertaking to purchase its shares either directly or as underwriter. The amount that the government will be required to subscribe under this arrangement is limited to $100 million in the first year and $75 million in each of the following two years. These funds will be set aside for the corporation to be drawn down as suitable investment opportunities arise. In addition, the bill also provides authority for the government to lend up to $100 million to the corporation. It is not intended that this authority to lend will be used during the period when the government is providing equity funds to the corporation.
The bill also gives the government authority to sell to the CDC at such fair and reasonable prices as may be agreed upon between the government and the corporation, the government's investments in certain Crown-owned corporations and businesses which are operating in the private sector on a profitable or potentially profitable basis. An independent evaluation of the government's investment in each of these enterprises will be carried out immediately with a view to effecting the transfer of ownership of those in respect of which agreement can be reached with the corporation. Some of these enterprises are in a position where their further growth and development could be facilitated by giving them the greater flexibility to operate and better access to capital markets which would come from CDC ownership of their shares. The scope of its operations will, of course, be national and it will undoubtedly establish offices in the major business and financial centres in Canada.
The establishment of the CDC is one of the important measures that the government proposes to take in order to widen the opportunities for Canadians to participate in their own development. Its purpose is a positive one. It is designed to look to the future and not to the past. The corporation will be unique in its objects, its ownership, its size and capability. No other corporation in Canada is required by its objects to take into account national interest as well as profitability. Only Canadian citizens or residents can hold its voting shares.
Its capitalization will allow it to become one of the largest Canadian corporations. It will represent a new and significant partnership between the public and private sectors in the dynamic development of our economy. It will create a new centres of entrepreneurship and capital to help build the kind of strong and enterprising Canadian corporations which can compete successfully in an increasingly competitive world. It will enable certain government-owned enterprises to grow and develop as full-fledged members of the business and industrial community, and it will help broaden the opportunities for both Canadian skills and Canadian capital to participate in our own development.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, there is one temptation which I hope will be resisted in the course of this debate. That would be to launch into a full discussion on the subject of economic nationalism
and foreign ownership. I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that the bill before us is in no way related to this question. Not only is the cart before the horse tonight, but the cart has been completely detached from the horse. We have been asked to deal with a bill which has as its objective the creation of some form of government-sponsored investment corporation designed to maintain a strong degree of Canadian control as well as to develop the Canadian economy.
It would seem to me that before we can discuss this measure intelligently to determine whether or not it will do the job people expect of it and meet the objectives set for it, we should be told something about the foreign ownership policy and the industrial development policy of the government. In the absence of this information in crystal clear terms, how are we to evaluate the proposal before us? There is a policy vacuum. We can examine the proposal to set up this corporation, and depending upon where you want to put your money you can take your choice as to the advantages.
If you want to look at it from the viewpoint of national interest, this corporation can lose all the money it cares to in the pursuit of that objective. On the other hand, if we are to be guided by the minister's press release and by the words contained in the bill, which say in effect that the cardinal principle by which the directors must be guided is the rate of profitable return, the situation is seen in an entirely different light and national interests go hang. The idea will then be for the corporation to get into industries operating in higher return areas-parts of Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta- where a really good return can be expected; and in other parts of the country too, because every region has its share of good industry. Anyway, the idea will be to invest in types of industry or economic development which will provide a quick return.
But if this is to be the underlying principle guiding the corporation, I say the cart has been presented long before the horse since we do not know what is to be the foreign ownership policy of the government. Is this to be the type of vehicle the government intends to use? The minister has told us the corporation will not be a buyer of last resort. First, he told us it will not be a buy-back corporation. He shows some intelligence there, because there is not enough money in Canada, government or otherwise, federal plus provincial, to undertake a realistic buy-back operation. Before you can buy back, the other person must be willing to sell. There will no real opportunity to buy back unless, of course, you are to play the prodigal and give anything that a potential vendor might want.
As I said, I do not think this should be a debate on the pros and cons of controls on foreign ownership or on related matters of economic nationalism; it ought to be a debate on this particular bill. We may as well consider that we have here a proposal which before long this bill will end up in committee and my colleagues and I will put forward many questions. We will, of course, raise very serious doubts about the efficacy of this proposed corporation. This bill will go before the Standing Committee

February 22, 1971

on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs for examination and public hearing in regard to it. We will then see just what the country thinks about the bill.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let us examine the objectives. It is important to inquire about the objectives of the proposed Canada Development Corporation. Since not too many details were given to us until this evening, and since those are somewhat sketchy, we can only infer to a certain degree what the proposal is. It has been intimated that the CDC is primarily to assist in the development of major projects in Canada and that it will seek to reduce foreign takeover of Canadian corporations.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Why should it not stop that?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Of course, when one hears that ones heart goes pit-a-pat a little faster.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That is right.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Those are great, laudable objectives. They are in the same category as objectives in favour of motherhood, although apparently some people these days are not in favour of motherhood.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Some mothers are not.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: This is another
instance of somebody being against sin, although I understand that these days many people are not against sin.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Could the hon. member name one?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Perhaps the reference is a little out of date. In any event, the minister has expressed noble sentiments because, after all, who can disapprove of the development of major projects by Canadians and of the preservation of Canadian control of our industry? We can all say those words with the appropriate tremolo in our voices.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hallelujah!


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Of course, the development corporation can develop projects or curtail the expansion of foreign ownership, but an analysis of the costs involved and an analysis of this type of initiative leads me to say that this legislation may be self-defeating. Any projects that are economically viable by their very nature can stand on their own feet without government assistance.
The intention of the government is to give constructive help, in co-operation with the private sector, when a decision has been taken. Some claim that there is a large institutional gap in our capital market; but what evidence is there for this assertion? One can think of all sorts of companies which have started from scratch in Canada. In my own province of Alberta small companies have been built on ability and the willingness to scratch. Some of them perhaps had the good fortune to work in an economic climate that was suitable and in a market that was suitable. The same may be said for Ontario. I am sure that all hon. members in the House at present can think of medium and large businesses in their con-
Canada Development Corporation stituencies that were started and developed by Canadians without too much government assistance.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: So I ask, why is there this particular concern at this time? Why must there be this Canada Development Corporation? Let us see what has happened in Alberta. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Mahoney) to cast his memory back to the little bill in 1965 that set up the Alberta Development Fund. That was set up under a Crown corporation with a board of directors. Its purpose was to help struggling Alberta companies. The public were invited to subscribe to debentures which were guaranteed as to 3 per cent, plus a share of the profits over and above that. The sad history is, Mr. Speaker, that the public response was almost nil. No moneys were advanced to any corporate entity. A few bonds were bought. I am informed that as of today the government is preparing to phase-out the Alberta development fund. This is a lesson in part as to what may happen to an organization of that kind.
Referring back to the conflicting objectives that I pointed out were set out in the press release by the minister, I ask, in what sector of the economy will the CDC be more effective? Will it invest in the already more economically successful regions, or will it work under the regional incentives program of the government? If the dominant shareholders are to be government-oriented, and if the profit motive is to be the principal motive for the corporation, will not this corporation work at cross-purposes with regard to the regional incentives program of the government; or will it be asked to complement the regional incentives program?
We know that the regional incentives program is not designed to work in the economically strong areas where a steady rate of return on economic development may be readily anticipated. So I ask right away: Which shall prevail; the principle underlying the CDC, or the programs of the government such as those that are being put into practice by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand)?
Let me ask another question, Mr. Speaker, about CDC involvement in the development of major resource projects. As the minister told us a little while ago, this is to be done without outside participation. Can the minister tell us where the outlets will be? The minister, the government and anybody else can talk about funnelling investment into industry and about putting up facilities to develop resources, but unless the products of that economic activity can be sold or utilized you might as well shut up shop right from the beginning, because it will have been a useless exercise.
Let me refer to a classic example. United States and Japanese steel companies usually prefer to own their own raw materials in order to be assured of adequate supplies and also to participate in the profits of their own purchases. Both are classical reasons for vertical integration. The parliamentary secretary is from Calgary. He knows what is happening to the development of coal in our

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation province and in the neighbouring province of British Columbia. The aim is 40 million tons of coal to be shipped to Japan. There will be very little Canadian capital involved in that development. The project in British Columbia is financed by American capital. The one at Grande Cache is operated by a company controlled by Americans and extensively financed by the Japanese. The Japanese hope to put more money into this project in order to guarantee the quantity of coal that is required. The alternative would have been no development whatsoever. Thousands of jobs would have been lost. There would have been hundreds of millions of dollars a year less in our international trade. The alternative to foreign investment is to let the resource lay fallow. If Canada had denied these opportunities to foreign steel companies, they would have gone to other nations. There are competing sources of coal, iron ore, many other metals, oil, gas and other developments. Other nations would be more hospitable, and Canada would lose.
How is the Canada Development Corporation going to invest its funds? Even the Quebec general investment fund was not fully invested several years after it was established. That was a relatively small fund with apparently a great field for opportunity. It is only a fraction of the size of the CDC but already its record does not inspire confidence in this type of operation. A friend of mine, a highly placed executive in a major Canadian company, wrote to me the other day with regard to the CDC. I quote from his letter:
"Mr Benson stressed that the CDC will be a source of large amounts of capital to create major new industries and to join with other companies in acquiring and rationalizing existing companies where competitiveness may be improved by merger, amalgamation and other corporate arrangements."
I can't believe that the CDC board of directors is going to be any more able than the composite management of the present large companies to unearth these vast unexploited opportunities-
What sort of magic wand will the board of directors of the CDC be able to wave which will give it greater knowledge and understanding of investment opportunities in Canada than existing management? The only way this can be done is if they intend to rationalize existing companies. If rationalizing existing companies means mergers, amalgamations, etc., as indicated by the minister, there is something further the minister has not told us which is an absolute must. If he intends that to be a rational objective of the CDC, he has only gone half way. He has not told this House and the country that he and his colleague, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Basford), are planning wide-sweeping changes to the Combines Investigation Act.
If there are to be mergers, amalgamations and rationalizations, what about the risks from a combines investigation? I see that the parliamentary secretary is taking notes. This is a real problem. I hope that the minister or the parliamentary secretary come up with a logical answer, because it is a very dangerous problem in Canada for anyone to undertake a major reorganization and merger and then run into the problems of a com-

bines investigation and possibly an order from the court to dissolve the merger and amalgamation. The CDC would look rather silly if it entered into some sort of policy to provide the funds for a merger and the court declared it to be illegal.
I now wish to deal briefly with foreign ownership. The minister has indicated that this might be an answer or part of the answer to the encroachment of foreign ownership in Canada. It was designed to maintain a strong, continuing Canadian control of companies. I suggest that a development corporation is a poor remedy. The very movement of capital both across frontiers and domestically should not be hindered by any government-sponsored pool of capital. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) is confident that competent management would not make unrealistic bids to counter offers from foreign sources. I just wonder about that.
I am going to stop at that point because the minister has indicated that this corporation will not be a buyer of last resort. If there were in existence today a Canadian Development Corporation, how realistic would it be to think that the directors of that corporation would resist political pressure both from the public and the government with regard to Ryerson Press, Home Oil or a similar type operation that catches the public imagination or eye? This is a climate of inspired nationalism. I have listened to people who have become self-appointed experts in the media on the nature of the Canadian economy. They spend their time beating their Canadian chests to some sort of tribal chant about how wrong it is to receive American money. At the same time, many of them derive their livelihood, without protest, from the same source of capital investment.
What would happen if there were unrealistic offers from abroad or promoted sales within Canada? Let me assure you, Mr. Speaker, that in no time at all several members of this House could devise half a dozen to a dozen easy ways of puffing up a potential sale to foreign interests so we could then come crying to the public and asking to be saved. We would say to the CDC, "Be our saviour. Save our Canadian national identity for three, four or five greasy dollars". Because that is what they would be. After all, the puffery of the situation would only be accentuated by the emotional plea that may be made.
Frankly, I am amazed that people accept with an incomprehensible naivety what a CDC could or might do and what it would be very hard for it to avoid doing. For a foreign company with competent management, worldwide outlets and unused facilities, the benefits of amalgamation could justify a far higher price than any CDC should pay. For instance, what would the CDC do with a national beer company? The advantages of a Canadian outlet to a United States company are evident. The closing down of duplicate facilities by combining production and sales forces, and I suppose reducing advertising budgets, are easily apparent advantages and we have seen this sort of thing happening.
February 22, 1971

Almost in Mr. Deputy Speaker's own riding, United States automobile manufacturers have an incentive to acquire automobile parts companies in Canada, as parts used by the manufacturers of new cars can be moved across the border duty free. That sort of thing has been done. Do we think that the CDC would be able, by merger or amalgamation and infusion of new capital, to meet the price that was offered by a foreign purchaser? It is difficult to see what a development corporation could do to check foreign ownership in most cases except by making an unrealistically high bid.
What I have said has been based on one underlying thesis, namely, the continuation of the present Canadian tax system or some modification of the white paper proposals, which as far as the Canadian is concerned is a deterioration of his position vis-a-vis foreign taxpayers, particularly the United States taxpayer. Let us admit that the big bogey man of foreign ownership is the United States. Nevertheless, the United States taxpayer is in a far better position, either from the corporation point of view or from the individual point of view, than his Canadian counterpart. We have only to look at the estate tax and succession duty situation to see what an invidious position the Canadian taxpayer is in. In this regard it is not only the government of Canada that has to bear the responsibility; I point the finger at the government of the province of Ontario as well as of the province of Quebec.

-and particularly at the province of Quebec in matters of succession duties. One would never believe that a provincial government would wish to stifle industry in its own province. It is not surprising that Quebec businessmen are willing to sell when they are offered a good price, and this on account of succession duties.
In fact, a very rough study of the situation reveals that parochialism has been perpetuated in that province for generations. Government authorities kill all initiatives to protect Quebec businesses.

One has only to watch what happens in the case of shares of Quebec corporations that are held by people in, say, the province of Alberta who have had no contact whatsoever with the province of Quebec. Although the corporation may be a national one with a registered office in the province of Quebec, the province of Alberta will insist upon its pound of flesh on the transfer of any shares. Of course, corporations soon found ways to get around that situation. All they have to do is to have a registered office listed with the transfer registry in Vancouver, Calgary or Winnipeg and transfer the head office. They will never learn, and that can be said of Canadians as a whole.
Last year we had the not so amusing spectacle of the Minister of Finance bringing in a brutal and savage increase in estate tax. This is now combined with a proposal for a capital gains tax. And we want to maintain Canada's ownership of our business enterprises. Let us not laugh, Mr. Speaker. The situation is so tragic that it makes one wonder just what sort of logic is at work in
Canada Development Corporation the Department of Finance to propose these companion measures, followed by this proposal to establish a Canada Development Corporation.
The government claims it will be able to entice the public to invest in the shares of CDC. I would ask, how? There are two reasons for an individual investing. First of all, if there is a growth stock which offers opportunity for capital appreciation. However, with a capital gains tax, followed by a highly aggravated estate tax, what would be the advantage of investing in a potential growth stock? So I would say that principle would be negated. Certainly there is no encouragement offered Canadian investors, unless it be a corporate investment, so far as estate tax is concerned.
The other thing is that there shall be a record of dividends. Where are the dividends going to come from? Are they to come from the developments, as the minister indicated? I am sorry I did not have time to take copious and sufficient notes, but there was something said about different operations which might not be able to attract capital but might have great potential, for instance, in the development of natural resources and the development of the north. All of these are long-term potential. I am not decrying the possibility of returns on the development of natural resources, the north, new frontiers and many inventive ideas of Canadians, but these ideas all come within the long pull and it is not with this long pull that one builds up a record of dividends. Where is the money to come from to pay these dividends? I suppose that is why Polymer, Eldorado and Northern Transportation are being pulled in and turned over to this Canadian Development Corporation.
Is the $13 million that Polymer made last year, which was paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, going to be used as the milk cow to provide the dividends for these corporations? If there is capital to be left over to these Crown corporations which are to be turned over to the Canada Development Corporation, where will the money come from? What are these corporations going to use for expansion and diversification such as Polymer has done, and as I suggest Eldorado and Northern Transportation may want to do? What about the financial requirements of Pan-Arctic, which is of a very different class? Pan-Arctic will not pay dividends for quite a long time. Who is going to provide that company with its cash source? Will the government provide this capital through some other procedure, or will Polymer have to come to the government for its expansion capital requirements?
It will not be the board of management of Polymer which will then control the affairs of that company. The owners will be the Canada Development Corporation and it may have a counter policy in many instances. Which authority is going to prevail? This is a question to which I would like an answer. This is indeed a strange business, bringing Polymer and Eldorado into the fold.
I have an article before me which was written in June, 1966. The author was a gentleman by the name of Edward Cape. I do not know whether at the time he was

February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation particularly privy to the ideas of the former Minister of Finance, now Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp), or that he had been particularly privy to that former misguided Minister of Finance who is no longer here. In any event, it is amazing to read some of the ideas that were presented at that time, just five years ago, in respect of the Canada Development Corporation. Apparently Polymer was still to be a source of money at that time and the old 3 per cent limitation on holdings, as we note now in the bill, was then a feature. But I would like to know what made the government change its mind in regard to this feature in the present bill. This article reads in part:
The first and small board of directors of CDC would be appointed by the government from among the most unquestionably independent and successful industrialists and financiers it could get.
Oh, what a hope! I am referring to the first plan. The parliamentary secretary had better listen with greater interest than he apparently is now. The article goes on to state:
After the initial issue of CDC shares had been sold, the shareholders themselves would elect a board of directors of eight, of which the government would elect only one. If and when the board grew to 15 or more, the government would have the right to elect two of these, but no more, and never the chief executive.
Now, five years later, we have a different version. The chief executive will be a government appointee from the government service, if we are to understand the rumour and believe what we read. Shares were going to be sold right from the outset and the shareholders would elect the board of directors. There has been a complete reversal. The minister tells us that they are not going to sell shares to the public right away. The government is going to exercise the option to name four directors in lieu of voting of their shares, and name all the other directors.
The government's holdings may be 10 per cent in order to give the government necessary leverage. Of course, the holdings initially will be 100 per cent. There is one thing that I see is missing from the bill but which seems to have been at the root of the other plan. I should have thought the minister might have found this attractive. There was to have been a provision in this bill to prohibit the government from selling its shares over a short period of time, in other words, unloading a lot of its shares. The article continues:
Without such a provision, the CDC and the value of its shares would be under constant threat of being undermined, and the institution would not be fully protected against de facto government control.
I hope the minister has taken note of that, keeping in mind that if the corporation were to sell a lot of its shares it could thereby substantially decrease the value of public ownership. The de facto government control would exist as a result of the government suddenly unloading its shares. It could decrease the market value of those shares so as to hold the other shareholders at ransom.
I have many more questions and should like to devote more time to them. I should like to offer an alternative

proposal, as my leader has done. Briefly, let me outline what I think might give greater hope to Canadians and to Canadian industry than will be given by the Canada Development Corporation. First of all, the government must obtain something like $250 million in cash. It will have to sell bonds. All the money it passes over to the Canada Development Corporation will come out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund whether it be by loan or by purchase of shares in CDC. Governments get money by going to the market. They compete for individual holdings, go to institutional lenders or obtain moneys from chartered banks. The banks are able to buy these bonds and there is a question of what is the affect on inflation by the consequent increase in bank reserves. That is item No. 1.
Item No. 2 involves the question of competing with the individual investor. The net result is that if the investor puts his money into CDC shares as against putting it into other investments-equity investments in Canadian enterprise-there is no gain whatsoever for the country. I should like to see, first of all, an undertaking by the Minister of Finance that something very drastic will be done to lower our estate taxes. Secondly, I should like to see an undertaking by the Minister of Finance that he will arrange to meet with his counterparts in the provinces to do something about their share of estate and succession duties, because they too have a responsibility in this regard. Then let us look at the taxpayer himself to see, with regard to Canadian investment, whether there is nothing more that can be done for him.
The other night the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Greene) gave us a clear look at the picture of Home Oil which showed that not only the Canadian individual taxpayer but the Canadian corporate taxpayer was in a position inferior to that of the United States taxpayer, whether corporate or individual, when it came to acquiring control of Home Oil or any other Canadian company, or when it came to carrying on activities of the kind carried on by Home Oil.
No wonder Canadian buyers are scarce when it comes to making a competitive offer. Canadians cannot even begin to match the United States offer because taxwise it is not possible for them to do so. Yet it is expected that Canadian investors, hobbled by an extra ball and chain on one ankle and possibly with an arm tied behind their back, will go into not a combat but a competition with United States investors for the development of Canadian resources and for Canadian companies. The struggle is totally unequal and we are now seeing the results of that inequality of position. Yet the government's idea for tax changes is likely to produce not one ball and chain but a ball and chain or the other leg and perhaps a rope around the second wrist to fetter the Canadian investor even more than he has been in the past.
We have been living in a fool's paradise based on what we thought was our economy and overloading it with a superstructure of government services which just could not be supported by the economy in that state of devel-
February 22, 1971

opment, and we want to continue loading it on and pumping away faster than we can provide the water in the well. It is as though we were trying to pump out more water than is flowing into the well and, naturally, the level has been going down. Now because it is becoming perilously close to the bottom with regard to some industries, cries of alarm are going up. But we have been doing that to ourselves all these years, and the government comes along without, as 1 say, a policy as to foreign ownership, without an industrial development policy and we are asked to approve the plan of a Canada Development Corporation as it is before us.
Mr. Speaker, I have been very critical of this proposal, basically because of these things. I am not involved at all in the question of the degree of foreign ownership that should be allowed, nor the degree of economic nationalism that should be rampant today in Canada, because what I am doing is criticizing something that has come out of the blue and which so to speak has been placed here in a vacuum. We are asked to accept it as the instrument which will cure, what? We do not know, Mr. Speaker, because the policy has not been disclosed to us.
I suppose this bill will take some time in the House and will take much more time in committee. Perhaps by the time the public gets to hear of it and has an opportunity to read it, we will have the report being prepared by the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Gray) which will give us an inkling of the government's thinking in respect of foreign ownership. I would think now is the time for the Minister of Finance to recast his thinking with regard to the tax plans he is to divulge in late April or early May, so we would know what is to be the position of the Canadian investor and what kind of a taxpayer he is to be. On that basis, all I can say is that we will take our time with this bill because there are a great many questions to be asked and as many answers to be given to us before we can accept it.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, after waiting eight years for a Canada Development Corporation we finally have a bill before us. The big question, of course, is why the government bothered, since it really is not much of a bill and I will not have very much to say in its favour. This needs a note of explanation since the New Democratic Party has for many years been in favour of a Canada Development Corporation.
The bill before us, however, falls far short of what we think is required in such a corporation. We look at this bill and all we can see is a gesture for propaganda purposes. It seems to be designed to undercut the growing concern that has taken place in this country with regard to foreign ownership. It seems to be designed to lull the people of Canada to sleep. It is satisfying that the build-up in this country is to the effect that we are in a desperate situation and something is required. So the Liberal party has given the people something. But unfortunately that something winds up being nothing but a deceitful joke and little more than a mirage held before desperate public opinion.
Canada Development Corporation
We have been told, perhaps more than we have been told other things, of the things the bill will not do. We have been shown the negative aspect of things. There has been a great defensiveness on the part of the minister in reassuring everyone in Canada of the things the bill will not do. It is not going to buy back Canada. He makes an argument on that, but nobody has really asked to buy back Canada. What we are concerned about is the future, and certainly we cannot do very much about the future with the kind of bill the minister has introduced.
Prior to the formation of the CDC there must be a definite limit on foreign ownership in this country. One of the reasons Canadian industry has been sold out is that we do not have laws limiting foreign ownership. In the absence of those laws, the advantage is always with the foreign buyer for whom it makes more sense, and is more profitable, to buy a company and integrate it into an international corporation than for Canadians. Contrary to what the previous speaker said about our tax laws not encouraging a sell-out, tax laws have encouraged a sell out; but probably he would not admit to it.
It has probably been the absence of a capital gains tax in this country that has contributed to the selling out of Canadian businesses because there is an enormous advantage under our present tax laws, under which capital gains are not taxed, for a company to sell out, to take their money and not pay any tax on capital appreciation. Had we had a capital gains tax in the past, the problem we are facing today might not have been as severe. So I am suggesting that we need a framework and definite limits on foreign ownership in order to make any kind of system work, particularly laws regarding the level of foreign ownership in our country.
It strikes me as one of the strange things in our society that those most opposed to limiting foreign ownership in Canada are Canadian businessmen. One has only to look at the representations made by spokesmen for Canadian business when they come before our House of Commons committee to see how determined they are that legislation affecting foreign ownership shall not be passed. There are exceptions. Walter Gordon and some of the Toronto-Tory nationalists had other points of view on this. The reason is simply that if you limit foreign ownership, you cut down on the number of opportunities and the number of customers available for business to be sold to.
When we talk about the Canadian businessman being concerned about the national interest, we should not kid ourselves about it and perhaps we should not expect it either, because they are the ones who have felt that in the interests of the profit motive we should have the kind of economy we have today-that there should be no limit on foreign ownership or on the opportunity to pursue profit motives.
One of the other things that this bill specifically excludes is assistance to small companies. I do not know why the Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) had to go to
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February 22, 1971
Canada Development Corporation the great lengths he did in order to point out that it is not the intention of the CDC to lend money or to involve itself in corporations whose capitalization is less than $1 million. I am not entirely clear what that means. Does it mean the investment of the CDC plus the existing capitalization of a company, or does it mean that the company itself has to have capitalization of $1 million?
Large companies in Canada do not seem to have any trouble getting money, so why is the CDC concerned about helping corporations which already are in a position to obtain finances? Certainly they are in a much better position to get their financing than are smaller Canadian companies-and it is really the smaller company, the innovator company, whether it is a drug company or a scientific research company, that is having this difficulty. If we are thinking about the future, surely these are the companies about which we should be concerned. Yet they are the very companies that the minister is excluding from CDC assistance.
Let me illustrate this point with an example of how unfair the CDC will be to such companies. On February 2, 1970, a news story appeared in the Financial Times headed "Wanted: Industrial Sponsor for DRB's New Gas Laser". The research branch had developed a laser that had commercial application. Since they were not in a position to develop it themselves, they were looking for someone who would undertake to put it on the market. Canadian Patents and Developments Limited therefore called on companies to indicate that they are prepared to do this. Two small Canadian companies were selected for this purpose.
I called the department to see how they were getting along and what kind of progress was being made with this laser which had an enormous potential. My understanding is that the companies are working hard on it but are severely hampered by lack of capital. These companies do not have $1 million themselves; they fall far short of it. As a matter of fact, probably all they have is the ingenuity of their owners, their talent and brains. But because of the way the bill before us is written, these companies with enormous potential, the very companies we should be helping, will be excluded from any help at all. I find it difficult to believe that the government will be in a very strong position as long as it insists on keeping this particular clause in the bill.
The minister has gone to great pains to indicate that the CDC will not be a Crown corporation. Over and over again he said that it will not be responsible to government and will not be under the direction of government. Yet in some ways it will receive guidance from the government. In some ways it is supposed to act in the national interest. I have been trying to fathom out the chain of communication. Either the minister is misleading us, and I would hate to think he would do such a thing, or he intends to exercise very strong control over the policies ot the CDC. If that is not so, then I think it is pointless. What is the point of the whole thing? It is so pointless that the story is going around-some of the news stories that have been written and the analyses made indicate this-that it will be virtually impossible to obtain the kind of management that we should be getting
for the CDC because any sensible businessman, faced with the kind of contradictory terms of the proposed corporation, would not undertake to carry out those terms.
If you tell a manager that the purpose of your corporation is to act under the direction of the government in policy matters as defined by the government, he knows what to do. If you tell him that all he is supposed to do is just make profit, again he knows what to do. But when you tell him that he is supposed to make profit but he is also supposed to act in the national interest, no such person will be found because I do not know how anyone can operate a company in this way. Therefore, this legislation is unfair and unworkable and the government will have to change its terms somewhere along the line if it is to have any purpose at all.
This afternoon when the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) was arguing the point of order before the House, he dug up two examples of Canadian corporations which started out as private companies. They are both very bad examples for the future of the CDC. In one case he mentioned the CNR when attempts were made to keep it in private hands. Eventually the government had to take it over, in the national interest.
In the other case they started off with the Bank of Canada-in some ways the history of the Bank of Canada is quite similar to the CDC-and they were going to offer shares to the public and bring in people from the banking industry to sit on the board. That became unworkable, in fact absolutely impossible because the purpose of the bank was to serve a national interest and the purpose of the people being put on the board was to make a profit. The two things could not be reconciled. This country has never looked back on that situation, and whether we like public ownership or not I think everyone agrees that the Bank of Canada should be as it is today. Over the years it has become increasingly clarified that the bank is an instrument of, or a response to government policy, and could not be otherwise.
The minister also says that the government will not try to control company policies and that the government is just going to be an investor. I would think that control is more important than just putting money into the corporation, because sometimes if you are concerned about national interest you need to have a say in the policies of the corporation. You do not necessarily need control, but you have to be in a position where if the board are not acting in the national interest, you have a say. The minister says he does not want to do this, that he does not want to interfere with the management of the company. But what assurance has he that the companies he will want to invest in will respond to the national interest? If the corporation is not going to do all these things, then what is it supposed to do? The one message that emerges most clearly is that it is supposed to make money. Over and over again we are told that the CDC is supposed to make a profit.
Let me make it clear that I think there are many areas where profitability is perhaps a reasonable approach, a
[Mr. Saltsman.l
February 22, 1971

reasonable objective, that there are a lot of things that the market system can do fairly effectively. But there is no evidence, and there never has been, that the profit motive and national interest are the same thing, except perhaps to hon. members opposite. After all, this country has been guided by the profit motive from its earliest times. How much did the profit motive do to prevent the sell-out of Canadian industry? We are faced with today's problems because of the profit motive. The minister cannot correct the deficiencies that have arisen by creating another corporation which has a profit motive: it cannot be done. Are we so short of mutual funds that we need this? Really that is all the minister is proposing, the establishment of a mutual fund in which an individual can invest $5. We have lots of mutual funds. There is no evidence that we are short of mutual funds in which Canadians may invest. That is not what we need. We need something else. We need something that will act as an instrument for Canadian government policy and secure Canadian objectives. You cannot do this with a corporation primarily oriented toward profit.
The minister hopes the pursuit of profit will accomplish his objectives. We find it difficult to go along with that. What we really need is a corporation that is prepared to take the kind of chances that other corporations have not or will not take. Let us leave the safe investments to others. That is not our problem. Let us take the chances. In a way, what has happened in Canada has been due to the failure of the entrepreneurial spirit. We have been too cautious. Now the minister proposes to set up another corporation to continue in this grand old tradition of caution. That is not what we need.
We need a corporation that takes into account the deficiencies of our market system. I for one, as I have said earlier, believe there are some things the market can do fairly effectively. We will leave those things to the market. There are other things the market cannot do, and this is the role for a Canada Development Corporation. If we do not do it through the Canada Development Corporation, then who will take care of the difficulties that will arise because of the market economy?
The second major point that the minister makes about the corporation is the need to rationalize industry. I would not disagree with the minister. This is a worthwhile objective. The Canadian economy is desperately in need of some instrument for putting companies together in new forms and combinations to improve their efficiency. But one of the difficulties is that it is probably too late to deal with major companies in the manufacturing field where the problem is greatest. The problem does not exist so much in the resource industries; it is mostly in the manufacturing industries. The reason it will be difficult to do this in the manufacturing field is that most of the companies are now U.S. owned. How does the minister propose to rationalize them in Canada when they are not rationalized anywhere else around the world? He will have to do a great deal more in the area of rationalization than just make the kind of references that are made in the CDC bill.
Canada Development Corporation
How can we undertake any kind of rationalization out of context with government policy? As a matter of fact, if we had the right kind of government policies we would not have to use the CDC for this purpose. Let us accept the idea that the CDC would be appropriate in some instances to accomplish rationalization, to prevent Canadian companies from being sold out, to put them together in new combinations-but it will be difficult in the absence of other government policies.
I said earlier that one of the reasons Canadian companies sell out is that it is more advantageous for foreign corporations to buy them than it is for other Canadian corporations to acquire them. What will happen if the minister does not have laws restricting the sale of Canadian companies to foreign corporations? Will the Canada Development Corporations keep bidding up and up to match the extra advantage possessed by nonCanadian companies? I do not think this is what the minister has in mind. I hope we will get a great deal more explanation of what he means and proposes with respect to rationalization.
To watch the. government, Mr. Speaker, one would think we did not have any problems. To watch the government one would think its members had never read history or learned the lessons of history. We have a number of examples where attempts have been made to combine what is generally called the public interest with private profit. In Quebec the GIC started off on this line and has run into a great deal of trouble. In fact, the price of its shares has dropped substantially and there does not seem to be any further talk of putting more shares on the market. The GIC has done some good things in terms of public development, but it has not been able to combine public development and public interest with profitability to shareholders; and I do not think the federal government will have any more success in that direction.
We had another example in Telesat Canada. It was set up on a troika arrangement, with one third of the shares held by the government, one third by the common carriers and one third to be offered to the public. Shares have not yet been offered to the public and Telesat has not got off the ground. In fact, in a recent report the Telesat chairman said that the board was having difficulty because of the internal contradictions that exist in that kind of arrangement. Telesat could have fulfilled a purpose in national development, but it cannot do that when it has to take into consideration the interest of the private investors and of the other people associated with it.
In his opening remarks the minister made a brief attack on the NDP, saying we want to nationalize everything and take everything under our control. This is not what we are saying. We are quite prepared to see the CDC act in consort with others. We are quite prepared to see the CDC engaged in the development of private corporations, even with non-Canadian corporations. This must be clear. In these circumstances, I wish to move, seconded by my hon. friend from Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis):
23966-19J

February 22, 1971.
Canada Development Corporation
That this bill be not now read the second time but that this House affirm that there ought to be established a Canada Development Corporation which should be a Crown corporation directly responsible to Parliament through a ministry, so that this said corporation might serve the Canadian people by increasing Canada's independence and by planning and developing regional and economic industrialization.
We believe the object of the CDC should be to mobilize funds and channel them into investments serving the interest of Canada as a whole, the money to be raised by selling bonds on the market and requiring all financial institutions to allocate part of the saving collected from the Canadian people to national development. When the Minister of Finance took exception to this position of ours, he forgot that the government already takes a similar position in the case of the chartered banks. Fifteen per cent of their deposits are already under the direction of government whether by way of farm improvement loans, government funds or student loans. In these circumstances, should not all financial institutions in this country be required to serve in some way the national purposes and priorities of the people of Canada? We believe that all the moneys now being paid out to industry under the various industrial incentives, defence, research and development programs should be allocated as capital to the CDC.
The government seems to show no hesitation in applying a little Socialism to private industry. Giving out money to industry does not bother the government; that is not Socialism! But when we talk about taking these funds and channelling them through the CDC it becomes Socialism because the people of Canada might benefit more directly. There are occasions when it makes sense to give money to industry either in the form of loans or even in the form of forgiveable loans.
The difficulty at this moment is that we have no choice as to the course we should take or, at least, we have not been allowed to make any choice. We cannot decide whether it would be better to establish a Crown corporation or not. All we can do is give away money and hope that by such a program we can exercise some influence on the pattern of industrialization. In my view, this process is much too uncertain and much too unfair to the taxpayers of Canada. Over the last five years more than $750 million has been given out in this way with, I might add, negligible results. Many of the provinces are moving in the direction we are suggesting the government should move. We are prepared to help industry but we also want something in return for our participation. In other words, we are not prepared to take all the risks without sharing the potential profit. We shall share the risks but we also want to share the profit, if there is one.
We believe the CDC should be used to expand the public sector of the economy where necessary for the growth of the economy, for national planning and for increasing Canada's independence. This will normally be done by the creation of Crown corporations. However, the CDC may also enter into consortium arrangements with private concerns where it has or can acquire effec-
[Mr. Saltsman.l
tive control. The use of Crown corporations in Canada is not new. On many occasions we have used Crown corporations in the national interest. If we do not use Crown corporations now, as occasion arises, we should certainly be offered the possibility of setting one up should the private sector not provide the results we require.
The CDC should act always as an instrument of government policy and development policy and be directly responsible to Parliament through a minister. It is too easy for the government to slough off responsibility for the CDC and say, "This concerns private investors. We have nothing to do with it. We have set it up and the corporation is on its own". This is an evasion of government responsibility; it avoids the necessity for planning and explaining what the corporation is doing. We believe the CDC ought to be an instrument of national planning and that it should be responsible to the people of Canada through Parliament; its decisions should be subject to scrutiny by the House.
In our view, the CDC should be involved in regional development policies with provincial bodies and agencies in order to ensure that every part of Canada capable of supporting viable development is extensively involved in the industrial future of this country. We believe the CDC should finance and develop new initiatives in research and scientific and technological development which will increase the ability of Canadian industry to specialize and compete in world markets.
Report after report indicates that we have failed to make full use of the funds allocated to science in this country. The reasons, I suspect, are that first we have not understood what our priorities should be and, second, our efforts have been so diffused as to be ineffective. Establishment of the CDC brings us an opportunity to intensify scientific research in areas of prime importance to the nation. The CDC should be used to assist companies and individuals to fashion economic opportunity out of inventiveness and to ensure that Canada derives the benefit therefrom.
All this would, of course, make the CDC a giant of an organization. Even the government has realized that it must be of substantial size. The CDC we envisage will go beyond that contemplated by the government. We visualize the CDC being used more extensively for the development of national purposes in an era of international, giant corporations. The only way in which we in Canada can counter their intrusion into our economy and compete with them is to form a large one ourselves. Enormous advantages attach to this kind of corporation in a modern society. It carries out its own research, arranges its own financing and its own marketing. One of the most outstanding failures in the Canadian system is the absence of a large marketing organization. These facilities should be at our disposal and they should be used at the direction of the government.
It is best to leave the profit making to the private sector. Let the private sector do those things which are not of national urgency. Let it do some of the more frivolous things and provide the more frivolous goods. In the most important areas of development, the private
February 22, 1971

sector has obviously failed. We would not be talking about setting up a CDC had the private sector succeeded in keeping the economy Canadian, had it preserved the national identity. We are engaged in this debate because of the failure of the entrepreneurial system in the private sector. The role of the CDC must therefore be to make up for that deficiency and to act where the private sector is not able or willing to do so.


Gérard Laprise: Mr. Speaker, while listening to the hon. member for Waterloo (Mr. Saltsman), I realized how far I could be from state socialism. The hon. member moves an amendment because, according to him, the bill is not consistent enough with socialist principles. As for me, I would be almost ready, for that reason, to move an amendment because I believe the views of the hon. member for Waterloo on this bill greatly differ from mine.
Mr. Speaker, in such circumstances, one should remember the old saying: He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Bill C-219 provides for the establishment of a powerful corporation according to the hon. minister himself, and I thank him for having circulated the text of his speech before delivering it in the House. The hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Benson) said tonight, and I quote:
The corporation will be expected to work very closely with other members of the Canadian business and financial community and to give Canadian firms access to greater capital concentrations-
It is quite obvious that in introducing such a measure, the government has in mind the establishment of a monopoly, not only to have greater control over capital and investments, but also to guide Canadian production. In fact, nearing the end of his speech, the minister said:
Its capitalization will allow it to become one of the largest Canadian corporations.
That corporation will become the greatest monopoly in Canada. If such a law were applied by a liberal government, it might not be as bad as one would believe, but it will be, when applied by Fabian socialists. We have noted since this government came to power in 1968 how the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was prompt to assign important duties to clearly leftist men. With that kind of force, by putting the filler hard over to the left, this government has steered the Canadian administration on a precise course.
Even if bills like this could seem not too important, not of great consequence at first sight, we know how these men are going to implement it. We know what kind of control this bill will enable them to have on the economic activities of this country. This bill is introduced allegedly to check the flow of foreign capital, and mainly American capital, on the market. One fact remains: too many of our industries and businesses belong to foreigners. I have here an article published in La Presse on January 20, 1970 and entitled: "Foreign capital has taken over more than 1,000 firms in ten years". And I quote:
Canada Development Corporation
Although the taking over of Canadian undertakings by foreigners-namely Americans-is causing in this country more and more opposition, the number of small businesses taken over by foreigners without causing as much furore as the famous cases of Denison and Ryerson Press is increasing day by day.
Since 1960, over 1,000 Canadian undertakings have quite simply become foreign companies located in Canada.
Lats year, the Americans alone spent over $222 million to purchase 104 Canadian firms which brought total American assets in Canada to $34.3 billion and the number of foreign-controlled Canadian companies in excess of 8,000.
In 1967, last year for which statistics are available, 26 per cent of the total assets of the firms in Canada belonged to foreigners.
Through concentration of property, foreigners were able to control 58 per cent of our manufacturing industry in 1966, 63 per cent of the mining and smelting industry and 71 per cent of the oil and natural gas industry.
As early as 1964, foreigners controlled over 90 per cent of some specific industries: car and aircraft manufacturing, tobacco, rubber and petroleum products.
How can this situation be explained?
Mr. Max Goldhar, an investment counsellor in Toronto, is a man whose job is to find industrial concerns up for sale and to sell them to foreigners. Such a situation, he thinks, is not due to our businessmen, or manufacturers or tradesmen, but rather to our financial circles.
The people who are really to blame, he says, are those who control funds, those who could provide our business men with the capital assistance they need, but will not do it.
I shall end here my quotation of this very interesting article, which definitely proves that far too many foreigners control our industries and trade. Anyway, will Bill C-219, entitled "An Act to establish the Canada Development Corporation", prevent foreign manufacturers from investing in Canada and buying Canadian industries? I do not believe it will, and I am not the only one to think so.
On resuming my speech, I shall suggest to the government a solution based on factual data.
As I started my speech late tonight, may I call it ten o'clock?



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. MacLean:: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister of Finance if the government intends to continue with this piece of legislation tomorrow.


Edgar John Benson: Yes, Mr. Speaker.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the question I wish to raise tonight has to do with amending

February 22, 1971
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion the repayment formula under the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. I originally raised the question on Wednesday, February 10, as recorded at page 3248 of Hansard.
I place this question before the minister, for consideration, in all sincerity and all seriousness, hoping that my appeal will not fall on deaf ears. The critical shortage of cash in the west, as a result of depressed farm income, is strangling the economy of the rural prairies. It is destroying the spirit of those engaged in agriculture. It is creating uncertainty for spring planting operations. It is creating apprehension among the rural merchants upon whom most producers rely for credit, particularly since many have not been able to discharge last year's debts. The Farm Credit Corporation is badgering, foreclosing or threatening to foreclose. Banks are pressuring for payment. Some are renewing notes at exorbitant rates of interest and among the population the feeling of helplessness, anger and frustration is rapidly developing.
I recently mailed out a questionnaire seeking opinions and guidance on current farm policy. I wish to report to the House that the response indicates that the climate is not too healthy: all is not well. The majority of replies carry with them a message of downright apprehension, disgust, frustration and in some cases a note of militancy. With Your Honour's permission, I wish to record extracts from some of the letters I have received. The first is from a farmer in the Minburn, Alberta, district who writes as follows:
1 am a farmer in your constituency and up till the past year I have been able to keep my mortgage payments paid up to date but owing to the new quota system and the very low price for hogs I have been unable to pay my last year's mortgage payment and now they are foreclosing on me. Is there anything you or the government can do to stop things going on like this?
The next is from a farmer from Vermilion, Alberta:
Through no fault of mine I have gotten into debt along with hundreds of other people.
I have been paying on these debts every year all I could, as well as living expenses for my family.
We are being showered with threatening letters. They have added 12 per cent interest.
We do not want to be forced off our farm and into the ranks of the unemployed and homeless.
The worst creditors are the banks and wealthy companies.
Is there anything being done about some protection for debtors?
The next is from St. Michael, Alberta:
If the government doesn't change its policies and stays in power for a couple years, all the smaller farmers will go broke. Up till now the quota for wheat is opened to 4 bushels. I can sell 308 bushels of wheat. My tax is $350. How can I make a living on a farm?
A reply to my questionnaire from Smoky Lake, Alberta, reads:
I feel that the present Liberal government has blundered enough without recommending any more changes. Mr. Trudeau's government has done nothing but harm the rural people by its
meaningless changes in legislature. One example is the cancellation of the quota system. That's where the small fellow gets hurt the most. In other words the present government has given the farm people nothing, nothing and more nothing-
This is an example of the feeling of the people in my constituency. Why has this situation developed? It has developed under the maladministration of this government and its lack of concern for rural Canada. We have achieved some new records under this administration.
I now wish to deal with net farm income. In 1967 the total net farm income in Canada was $1.65 billion. The prairie region recorded better than 50 per cent, $951 million. Today that figure has dropped to $444 million, the lowest in 15 years. When we take into consideration the value of inventory changes, we see a real net income in the prairie provinces of $174 million. That is less than $1,000 per farmer in the prairie region. When we consider the inflationary factor in relation to that which was given in 1955, 15 years ago, it is worse than the depression.
In the October issue of "Canadian Farm Economics" we find that for the first time in Canadian history, Canada recorded an agricultural trade deficit of $35 million. These are the kind of records the government has achieved. With regard to the implications for the future, it reads as follows:
Will Canada be a net agricultural importer in 1970 and 1971? The answer is a tentative "no", but for the longer run, the outlook is less clear.
It further states-and this is the attitude of the government:
There is nothing inherently wrong with a country's being a net importer of agricultural products. In fact, on the basis of an efficient allocation of the available domestic resources, many countries should accept this situation as an economic reality.
I submit this in shameful, disgusting and downright senseless. When we relate this dismal performance to the actual producer, who is the victim, we find that in Alberta, for example, which has fared a little better than the major western provinces, his annual income is $1,325. This is deplorable, worse than the depression. Out of this the producer must pay taxes, fuel bills, his fertilizer bills, his Farm Credit Corporation loan, his farm improvement loan, his bank note and his additional operating expenses.
For this reason I appeal to the minister to give consideration to an adjustment of the repayment of cash advances. Since my original submission, and after some research and study of the matter, I now have no choice other than to recommend that the minister propose a full moratorium on the repayment of cash advances until such time as conditions improve. Surely this is not asking too much. It would not be a hand-out but merely an accommodation. I submit that this extension would provide a temporary measure of relief, a stop-gap if you like. I know the minister will answer by saying we are going to adopt the grain stabilization proposal. I suggest this would only be adding insult to injury. It will take another 3 or 5 per cent off the gross receipts, which is more like 12 per cent of net receipts.

February 22, 1971


Mr. Horner:: Fifteen.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Maybe it is 15. Therefore, I plead with the minister to give this matter consideration.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has made a specific suggestion which would do very little good, perhaps, for some farmers; namely a moratorium on or postponement of repayment of cash advances made to farmers. However, at the same time it would act in ways which perhaps would not be particularly desirable from the point of view of the whole program. It would help some farmers who in fact might not need that particular form of assistance. With the very high quotas on barley and the free movement of rapeseed, there are different situations arising all across the Prairies. None the less, I would point out to the hon. member that such a proposal would require a change in the legislation. It may be that before long this legislation will be before the House, and then we can look at all aspects of the matter with some figures in our hands.
The hon. member referred to the apprehension and frustration of farmers in the prairie region, and there is a good deal of it there. A good deal of it was put there by opposition members who spent all their time, in very partisan fashion, attempting to gain every possible political advantage instead of trying to advance the knowledge of the farmer in regard to the programs that are afoot. The farmers in the prairie region who in fact are in the most difficult situation are those who listened to hon. members opposite, the Tory and NDP members, who instead of explaining to the farmers what the LIFT program was about last year, told them to ignore it-to their financial disadvantage.
This is the sort of misfortune that has befallen the farmers on the Prairies as a result of the partisan attitude of hon. members opposite. I have implored them before, and I implore them again, instead of this partisan campaigning to acquaint farmers with the very many programs the government has implemented, more than have ever been attempted in years gone by. Let them be understood and made effective throughout the prairie region for the good of all farmers, particularly for the small, family farmers for whom we feel so deeply.



PUBLIC SERVICE-REVIEW OF STAFF RELATIONS ACT-CONSULTATION WITH EMPLOYEE ASSOCIATIONS- REFERENCE TO COMMITTEE

Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, this is the second time in recent weeks that I have been prompted to speak about the smouldering resentment within the public service at the government's lethargy in coming to grips with the serious problems stemming in large part, I think, from the blatant inadequacies within the Public Service Staff Relations Act. I speak again tonight because there seem to be some contradictions in the replies I have received. The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) said in the House on November 27:
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
The government is now reviewing the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
That seemed a definite enough statement. But on December 9, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), in a written reply to a similar query from the professional institute, said in part:
When a decision is taken to initiate a review of this legislation, your organization ... will be given every opportunity to present its views on the matter.
At least we might be excused for being somewhat confused when a senior minister of the Crown states boldly that a review is being currently undertaken, when in contrast the first minister indicates that a decision might be reached to initiate such a review. While we cannot accuse these ministers of outright misrepresentation, at the very least I think this indicates another situation where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, to coin a phrase.
As a result of this non-premeditated confusion I asked for clarification on January 29, of the President of the Treasury Board, and lo and behold I find another minister is now in on the act, none other than the wheat farmer's friend, the affable Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Lang). It seems now he replies to the Commons for the Public Service Staff Relations Act. I was advised to consort with this minister for clarification-a consortation, I might add, that I did not find at first impulse particularly appealing. But while waiting my turn during the daily athletic, free enterprise session known in the House as the oral question period, a press release from his ministry appeared miraculously on my desk.
This press release, after a suitable and comfortable-type preamble, indeed confirmed that the Public Service Staff Relations Act is being reviewed. Will there be a public review? The answer is no. Will there be an opportunity for consultation with the affected sections within the service? Again the answer is no.
A three-man group, including some very reputable people, has been named, according to the minister's February 12 press release. This group is to examine written representations and to-get this-report directly and privately to the minister. It is interesting how this government works. If there is some political mileage to be made out of an issue, we have all kinds of very active and interesting operations of the government including a travelling circus, committees, white papers, task forces and so forth. On the other hand, if there is a possibility of real controversy or a possibility that the examination of some government furtive activity might prove embarrassing, the government comes up with a group or a committee to report directly or secretly to the minister.
What the people in the public service really want to know is as follows: What will flow from the group's report to the minister, and will the minister respond to it? At present there is no government commitment to do anything at all about the group's report. MPs want to know, and so does the public service, whether there will be amendments to the Public Service Staff Relations Act.

February 22, 1971
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion Will these flow from the report? Will the report be examined publicly by the appropriate standing committee of this Parliament? Will the group recommend changes in, for instance, what is arbitrable and things like classifications, check-offs, time off for union activities, and so on? Will a thorough examination of the entrenched management rights contained in section 7 be revised in an enlightened and progressive manner in terms of shared decision-making?
Management holds all the marbles at the present time. The public service can go for Collective bargaining and gain a particular kind of contract, then the government can and does juggle the classifications so that the contract is useless. The whole thing is a farce. Are these things going to be examined and changed? These are the questions we ask and need answers to now.
How can you find these things out from a group that is to report solely to the minister? Will there be an independent appellate division set up to ensure that those who rule on an issue in the first place do not handle the appeal as well? This practice is currently taking place and that, among other things, is what is concerning the people of the public service.
Will the Public Service Staff Relations Board be given powers so that it can discipline both sides, including the government? We have seen instances where the board has ruled in favour of the employees and it has turned out that they could not do anything about management decisions. The example I give will be one in respect of the public service board ruling on retroactive pay which was not paid within the prescribed 90 days. They made a ruling favouring the employees but nothing could be done about it. What kind of discipline will the government accept as a result of this? In short, this is a very serious matter in the public service. We are sorry this had to be done privately and, as I said earlier, furtively.
The public service wants to know if the review by this particular study group is to play a real role in improvement. Will its recommendation result in changes in legislation? Will this legislation then be examined by the appropriate parliamentary committee, or is this just another in a monotonous series of delaying tactics and was the group appointed merely to give the government an excuse for another six months' delay?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member indicating that he understands the importance and, indeed, the delicacy of the many issues involved in a review of the Public Service Staff Relations Act. We hope to have a thorough understanding of the viewpoints of the interested parties before taking any definite steps in answer to the many questions, some of which the hon. member raised in his remarks and some of which he left out, which come up in looking at this act and the operation of the public Service Staff Relations Board in its few years of history.
I have recently made this known to all interested parties and I hope to invite their co-operation in the review,
receive their views and discuss them with the distinguished men who have agreed to work on the review. I do not wish to speculate at this time upon the result, but this much at least I can say-that is is likely that the review may result in legislation being proposed to the House. I say that without prejudging the issues but simply recognizing the many points made on all sides about the difficulty in relation to the act, the board, its operation and points for improvement.
Of course, at that time I would anticipate there would be the fullest opportunity to examine in every way the issues involved in and attitudes to changes which may be proposed. I therefore see this as a process of trying to obtain a thorough understanding of the viewpoints as we move from one step to another toward making improvements which may be required in this very important law governing the relationship of those in our public service with the government of Canada.



TRANSPORT-SUGGESTED USE OF LIGHT ON HALIFAX MONUMENT AS SIGNAL FOR SHIPPING

Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, I make these remarks with two thoughts in mind. First, I am pleased that the hon. member for Saint John-Lancaster (Mr. Bell) is here, because of his distinguished service as a merchant seaman during the Second World War. I am sure these remarks will have a special meaning for him. Second, I believe the reply will come from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Duquet), who has had some difficulties. We are pleased he has won this battle and is with us.
If you go to Halifax, go to the south end and look out from Point Pleasant Park to the stone faces on the other side of Halifax harbour, you look across the broad Atlantic. It was from there the great convoys of the Second World War sailed. Many brave men did not reach the other side, or did not come back again. A few years ago the Royal Canadian Naval Association had a monument erected to these men. It is a very impressive monument and one from which a light beacon shines. But unfortunately, those who built it were perhaps more ambitious than the funds allowed in keeping this memorial going perpetually.
Therefore I was forced to ask whether some means could be found to keep lighting this monument. The problem, I think, is that while the equipment is there, what is needed is $1,500 a year for its floodlighting. While one would expect that this request should be directed to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald) and his department, I also had in mind that this monument does stare out at night onto the Atlantic Ocean and, therefore, might properly be regarded as a beacon that could be operated by the Department of Transport. Perhaps I could put it in as brief a wording as possible, to put the matter in true perspective, by quoting from a Canadian Press report which appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail of Friday, February 12. It reads as follows:

February 22, 1971

The national war memorial for servicemen lost at sea, a beacon for ships entering Halifax harbour at night, will be blacked out after March 31 unless someone finds the $1,500 a year needed to pay for the floodlighting.
The Royal Canadian Naval Association raised the money to instal the lights but says it cannot afford the cost of electricity any longer.
The memorial was built by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It stands on Point Pleasant in the park of the same name at the southern end of the Halifax peninsula.
The park commission, financed by the city treasury, says it hasn't any money to spare but will try to get the defence department to do something.
I raised this question with the Minister of National Defence and his answer was the reason for my coming here this evening. I will not dwell on either my question or his answer. I think it is rather important that this memorial be kept lighted, perhaps for the simple reason that most people do not realize what I think some would realize, that a memorial such as that for men and women who are lost at sea is their gravestone and should be treated with the utmost respect.


Mr. Gerard Duquet (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, my first words will be to thank the hon. member for his kind words on my coming back to the House today. 1 appreciate them very much.
So far as the matter raised by the hon. member is concerned, he directed his question in the first instance to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald). However, the main point in the question is one of direct
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
interest to the Department of Transport in that it suggests the possible use of a floodlit monument in Halifax as a navigational aid. The monument in question is located in the southern end of the city in Point Pleasant Park. This site is a national historic park and is administered by the parks branch of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The Department of Transport has had correspondence on this subject from the directors of the Point Pleasant Park as well as from the Royal Canadian Naval Association, and it would appear that there has been an understanding between these two bodies over the years for the payment of hydro costs which has been paid by the Point Pleasant Park.
The department officials undertook a full review of this very worthy suggestion. They found that the floodlit memorial did not constitute an aid to navigation, nor would it be feasible to use it as such. I am informed that the shoal water, which stretches for roughly one mile south of the park, is adequately marked by navigational buoys. These are well known to those who navigate that area. In addition, there are other short-based lights in the region which can also be used for positive positioning.
I fully appreciate the hon. member's sincere concern in this matter. He has raised some additional points and I will be only too pleased to address them to the department for consideration.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.25 p.m.
3655

Tuesday, February 23, 1971