1972-06-29

Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare) moved: that Bill C-170, to provide for the payment of benefits in respect of children, be read the third time and do pass.
He said: Mr. Speaker, during the last several weeks of compressed debate on this legislation the argument I have heard perhaps most frequently is that the family income security plan legislation is detrimental to the middle income group. This is hardly astonishing for, as I indicated in an earlier debate, the argument does have its political appeal, at least initially. I firmly believe, however, that such political appeal is tenuous and of short-term duration. It is difficult to reconcile the constant and differing demands by the opposition. On the one hand, they demand an increasing redistribution of income and, on the other hand, the same members of the opposition simultaneously espouse the cause of lowering the tax burden on our middle income groups. The facetious attempts on the part of the opposition to palm off this political sleight of hand will, I fear, damage greatly its credibility with Canadians in the long run. In other words, how can the opposition call for greater expenditures than the government is now making, yet accuse the government at the same time of placing too heavy a tax burden on the middle income groups.


Mr. Baldwin:: That is a matter of interpretation.


John Carr Munro: Therefore I have become increasingly convinced that such an approach is based on a cynical and disdainful regard for the intelligence of the majority of Canadians.
Needless to say, some in the opposition have advocated that the rich and the corporations should be taxed more. Of course they should be. If we are to undertake these additional financial obligations, it will be absolutely mandatory that we do so. It will be mandatory not just for the sake of the revenue which would be provided but also for the simple reason that the affluent of this country must accept their full obligation to our society generally.


Mr. Gilbert:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Say that to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner).


John Carr Munro: As it stands, the government is already making a heavy investment in income security. At present, roughly $4 billion is committed to just three programs. Old age security and the guaranteed income supplement for the aged, with the increases voted by Parliament in December, 1970, and again last month, will represent expenditures of about $2.5 billion. The legislation now before the House represents an additional $800 million, and perhaps more. In addition, the federal 50 per cent share of provincial allotments for social assistance and social support and rehabilitation services means another $800 million in expenditures. With these facts in the background I should like to deal with some of the proposals I have heard opposition members raise.
Some in the opposition say that what we are proposing is not enough. For example, when the Family Income Security Plan legislation was last before the House some in the opposition talked about increasing the benefits over and above those recommended in the present bill as well as making those increased benefits universal. Just to make the benefits universal at the present levels, let alone provide increases, would require an additional $700 million over and above the $800 million that is now recommended.


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: The minister forgets that these payments could be subject to income tax.


John Carr Munro: I ask, from where is this additional revenue to come? Let us combine this measure with another promise or position advanced in the House during the current session, namely, that there should be universal old age security payments of $150 a month. The first proposal would pay family allowances at the rate of $15 a month for those under 16, $20 a month for those 16 and 17, on a universal basis. The implementation of these two programs would require an additional expenditure of about $1.5 billion in excess of the presently projected costs I have already mentioned. Do those in the opposition who talk about the burden on the middle income group really believe that the middle income group can be misled to believe that these promises will not cost them money?
I have not finished costing some of the proposals of those in the opposition. Some have talked about the desirability of a guaranteed annual income, a concept which I have indicated before the government is continuing to consider. We already use the guaranteed income technique in the income supplement for the aged and we are now about to apply it to family allowances. In addition, we have created a fund in conjunction with interested provincial governments which will be used to finance experiments on a full guaranteed income technique.
However, to move immediately to a full nation-wide guaranteed income would require enormous new finan-

June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
cial resources. Even if paid only at the poverty line levels set out in the 1969 Economic Council brief to the Senate committee on poverty, which numerous councils and agencies have suggested are already outdated, such a full program would cost anywhere from an additional $1.5 billion to $2 billion taking into account all savings from present programs, including savings from the recent guaranteed income supplement increases for the aged and the projected FISP expenditures. I have picked a conservative figure of $1.5 billion to $2 billion based on outdated poverty line levels.
Let us add it all up. Those who advocate a universal old age security payment of $150 a month are advocating an increased expenditure of $700 million to $800 million. Those who advocate universal family allowance payments at maximum FISP benefit levels are advocating an additional $700 million of federal spending. Those who advocate a guaranteed income, even at 1969 Economic Council levels, are advocating an additional expenditure of $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion. The projected expenditure of $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion for a guaranteed income would be over and above what is now being spent. It would be over and above the increased spending resulting from the two guaranteed income supplement increases for the aged voted in the last two years and would be over and above the money allocated to FISP. This brings us to a rather grand price tag at the level of $3 billion to $3.5 billion in extra federal expenditures.
It would only be fair to go into how those in the opposition who suggest this very extensive increase in our expenditures for income security would fund these proposals. On the basis of the promises already advanced by the opposition, I believe that when we analyse the inadequacy of their responses to this question we will see that they are really insulting the intelligence of middle income Canadians.
This government accepts that the burden of financing new programs should be spread fairly and equitably. I think the Family Income Security Plan will reflect this philosophy. Only 28 per cent of the revenue required to finance FISP will come directly from families with children who must give up all or part of their present family allowances. The remaining 72 per cent will come from general revenue. This means corporations, childless couples and single people as well as families with children. In short, everyone will bear a proportion of this task.
What I pointed out in Quebec and re-emphasize now is that even if we were to increase the tax rate on high income earners and on corporations to extreme proportions, the revenue generated would be greatly inadequate to finance the new large-scale programs advocated by various members of the opposition. I was simply pointing out where we must look for the needed revenue if the promises of many of these politicians are to be realized. Do any in this House seriously think the middle income groups in this country can be so easily manipulated that they will believe that promises and policies such as I have heard in the House would not cast a partial burden upon them?
I might refer to a recent speech by the leader of the New Democratic Party when he talked about where we might find some additional revenue. He talked about obliterat-

ing any tax concessions to corporations as a fetchingly appealing strategy. Unfortunately, it will soon come home that even that by doing that not enough revenue would be generated to anywhere near finance proposals of this magnitude. I have pointed out that, on the basis of rough estimates, steep increases in corporation tax, in the order of say 20 per cent, would yield only $400 million to $500 million. I have also pointed out that just a $10 universal increase in the old age pensions from $80 to $90, a woefully inadequate figure in itself, would eat up approximately half of that amount.
Some of the opposition talk of taxing the rich to implement this promise. I repeat, of course we should: However, 1969 statistics show that only 11 per cent of the Canadian taxpayers paid on incomes of over $10,000 a year.


Mr. Lewis:: We know that.


John Carr Munro: It is a fact. Even if this is but a rough guide, it hardly indicates a sufficient tax base to render adequate revenue to the government, even at prohibitive tax rates. I frankly feel that if we taxed in full every dollar earned over $20,000 we would get but a fraction of the amount necessary for the large-scale programs mentioned.
In light of these facts, I realize that some of those in the opposition will admit that even if we applied prohibitive tax rate increases against the affluent it would not bring in enough revenue for all the increases they are suggesting. But then, of course, at least in respect of FISP they would go on to suggest special recovery rates, especially if we made universal payments to the middle income groups.
In setting these recovery rates the opposition has a choice. They can recover at rates of up to 100 per cent, or, if they are afraid of further alienating the middle-income voter, which they greatly desire not to do, they can recover at much lower levels.
If they do not recover at rates of up to 100 per cent there will be a major leakage of benefits to the affluent in this country and there will also be a heavy additional burden on the general revenue fund, the bulk of which comes, once again, from the middle income group which they claim they want to rescue from the burden of increased taxation. If, for example, they recover at normal tax rates, then that recovery would represent only slightly in excess of $200 million of the additional $700 million needed to pay universal benefits-a loss of close to $500 million which could otherwise be directed to other more pressing social concerns, as well as a substantial burden on the middle income groups, as I have just pointed out. If, on the other hand, they did recover at rates of 100 per cent, then all they would be doing would be placing an additional tax burden on the middle and upper income husband in order to make a payment to his wife.
So once more let us review the opposition proposals in their totality: new additional federal spending programs of up to $3.5 billion, with little prospect of obtaining a significant proportion of this money from increased levies on the rich and the corporations, even at prohibitive rates.
June 29, 1972

Thus it is obvious that those opposition members to whom I have referred are already advocating increased taxation affecting the middle income groups.


Mrs. Maclnnis:: What about the other income groups?


John Carr Munro: With regard to the upper income groups and the corporations I have already said that to finance this proposal-and they will pay their share-taxation would have to be levelled at much higher, even at prohibitive rates.
So when opposition members make charges of irresponsibility, let them, to avoid charges of disdain for the intelligence of Canadian taxpayers, tell the middle income group where they intend to raise the money to carry out the promises they are making. Let them be assured of one thing: these middle income Canadians are not so naiVe that they will not ask the question. I believe this is a challenge which the opposition must meet.
For the benefit of those who talk about the burden of some of our policies on the middle income group I should point out just in what way certain of our policies have helped the middle income group.
For example, we have not forgotten to provide financial compensation to middle income citizens with families. Our income tax laws continue to provide for children's exemptions. This is because they are mainly directed to horizontal redistribution of the tax burden from taxpayers who have children to taxpayers who do not. Tax exemptions for children are estimated to represent $550 million. The tax exemption system does favour middle and higher income families because, as income is higher, the exemption becomes more valuable.


Some hon. Members:: Right on!


John Carr Munro: Nor is this the only government measure which aids the middle income group. I would cite for example, programs such as hospital insurance, medicare, unemployment insurance, the Canada Pension Plan, retirement, disability, widows' and orphans' benefits, and the financing of post-secondary education, all of which were implemented under Liberal governments.
These have spared those benefiting by them enormous personal financial obligations which might otherwise have crushed their financial security and forced them into a dependency on welfare. This is especially true since programs such as hospital insurance, medicare and postsecondary education financing have been most heavily utilized by the middle income groups in comparison with all other income groups in our society.
In this connection I should stress that our country has outperformed the United States, despite their vastly superior financial resources. We have not only kept pace with the American economy and the American standard of living, notwithstanding the extra pressure of a proportionately faster growing labour force, but we have also provided social benefits not yet available in the United States, for example, comprehensive universal hospital insurance and medicare, basic non-contributory old age pensions and family allowances.
Moreover, we should remember that thanks to the prosperity resulting from the improvement of the economy in
Family Income Security Plan
the last decade, a process toward which present government and Liberal governments preceding it have greatly contributed, real income flowing to the middle income group, over and above the inflation factor, has risen by almost 30 per cent. In short, thanks to positive government economic measures much of our working class has moved into the middle income group. And through continued vigorous government action we intend to see that these workingmen who have moved into the middle income group stay there.
I should also like to talk about a few of the other criticisms which have been levelled at the Family Income Security Plan. First, I would point out that its key principle is to assist the low income worker. Thus it goes a long way toward meeting a number of criticisms of our present welfare system.
This plan is not designed to aid the indolent. Its principal aim, I repeat, is to aid those who work, to build in incentives which will encourage them to continue working by providing supplementation to their low-level earnings.
We hear today much criticism on the grounds that people are sometimes placed in situations which encourage them to ask: Why should I work when I can get as much on welfare? The middle income group feels it has worked hard and saved its money. Naturally it resents those who would abuse the welfare system and prefer to use the hard-earned middle income tax dollar to support themselves without working.
Of course, as I have often stated, the number of people who would prefer to live on welfare rather than work is exaggerated. But the feeling held by many people is understandable, none the less. There are some who would prefer to live on welfare and turn down reasonable job opportunities.
The Family Income Security Plan helps meet this problem by providing incentives for the low income earner. It assists him or her to resist the temptation, if and when it does exist, to go on welfare and withhold his or her contribution to society.


An hon. Member:: How does the bill do that?


John Carr Munro: If the criticism about some social assistance rates being as high as or higher than certain wage levels is justified, it is derived from the fact that in some provinces social assistance rates applicable to a family with several children often do come perilously close to what the minimum wage rates or laws provide in that province.


An hon. Member:: Anything is possible with this government.


John Carr Munro: I could easily talk about some provincial governments of the same political complexion as the hon. member which do the same thing. This closeness between welfare and the minimum wage is especially true when one considers that often other social services, such as hospitalization and medicare, are provided to the man or woman with a family on social assistance while the wage earner must pay the regular shot. FISP does something about this.

Family Income Security Plan Mr. Alexander: The minister is filibustering his own bill.
June 29, 1972


John Carr Munro: It builds in incentives for workers to remain in the work force by providing incremental income. The wage structure in Canada does not take into account the dependency factor.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I would suggest to hon. members to my left that there is so much noise and interruption that it might be deemed to be somewhat unfair to the minister who is trying to make his speech. I think the minister should be given an opportunity to make his speech without all these interruptions.


John Carr Munro: As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, in terms of incentives the wage structure in Canada does not take into account the dependency factor. An employer pays the same rate to the married man or woman with a family as to the single man or woman for the same job and the same duties. Therein lies the problem.
Social assistance rates leave a large gap between the level paid to a single man or woman and the level of income that the single man or woman can earn by working. So, to a much greater degree, incentives are preserved. It is where the man or woman has a family that social assistance levels sometimes approximate minimum income wage rates. This results from a legitimate desire on the part of the welfare system not to penalize the child or children of the welfare recipient. And this-the position of a family on assistance-is where the disincentives emerge as a real problem.
FISP recognizes the problem. It gives meaningful income supplementation to the low income wage earner. It recognizes that his or her earnings are low and boosts the total family income according to his or her family responsibilities. In other words, it takes into account the number of children, a factor that the wage structure, by its very nature, cannot do.
The importance of this principle of wage supplementation was brought up again in the latest report of the National Council of Welfare which restressed the profile of Canadian poverty. The basic fact is that the majority of Canada's poverty population comes from the working poor group, those in marginal, seasonal, interrupted or part-time employment.
I should now like to refer to one other criticism made by some members of the opposition of the Family Income Security Plan, namely, that somehow the FISP application form and cheque will constitute some form of stigma as well, as some have indicated, as an administrative nightmare.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carr Munro: Let hon. members hear the explanation. Potential FISP beneficiaries will fill out a simple income form, just as impartial and anonymous as and simpler than the income tax forms millions of Canadians now fill out. On the return voyage-the arrival and cashing of the FISP cheque-the stigma is non-existent as well. The amount of the cheque alone is no indicator of income, since a person would have to know the number and ages of the recipient's children before he could begin to calculate the person's income. The cheque will be a government

of Canada cheque, as are millions of cheques received by beneficiaries of other government programs, such as unemployment insurance, old age security, Canada Pension Plan, manpower training allowances, and, of course, the regular pay cheques issued by the federal government to its employees. Finally, the only people who need know the amount of the cheque are those who cash it, and I do not think Canadian banks are in the habit of announcing the details of the financial dealings of their customers.
This will not be our first experience with cheques issued under a selective benefit program. We have had five years' experience with the guaranteed income supplement for the aged, which is now received by more than one million senior citizens, and we have not heard loud cries of outrage that this cheque stigmatizes the pensioners.
Why should there be? The income test under the guaranteed income supplement is impersonal; it is a matter strictly between the administering authorities and the person concerned. The test is conducted by mail, and payments are made by cheque which can be promptly cashed or deposited in any one of the many and conveniently distributed branches of Canada's banking system. Why, then, should there be a social stigma under the Family Income Security Plan?
With regard to the question of administrative complexity, may I make just a few comments. I frankly admit that the administration of the plan is, of course, more complex than the rather simplistic approach to universal payments. However, the main principles of FISP are not at all difficult to comprehend. The amount of benefits payable is not difficult to comprehend; the ages determining the amount of benefits are not difficult to comprehend; the concept of basic income levels or thresholds is not difficult to comprehend. Neither is the idea that an income test similar in principle to income taxation is used to determine eligibility, or the application of this simple income test on one application form, as is the case with the guaranteed income supplement. I believe all these points are easy to understand.
In conclusion, may I point out that the Family Income Security Plan is but one facet of an over-all government program to deal constructively with employment generating policies and with poverty. These priorities fall into three categories among the Canadian population. First, there are those Canadians who are permanently out of the work force. They are one priority. When we review government policies designed to assist this group I think it can be established that this group is treated better under this government than the same group would be in any country of the free world comparable to Canada. Let me just analyse the people in this group. There are the aged, and for these we have provided the guaranteed income supplement. For the disabled we cost-share support payments under the Canada Assistance Plan.
The second category is the working poor, for whom we have designed policies, of which FISP is a major ingredient, to assist them; I have already listed these policies, in addition, we have the new unemployment insurance plan. We have also raised the minimum wage levels in the federal sphere as well as introduced needed labour legislation to protect these workers from the ravages of technological change.
June 29, 1972

Lastly, the third category and priority among Canadian citizens is the unemployed. We have directly intervened, in cases where the private sector has not been able to be of assistance, with programs such as Local Initiative, Opportunities for Youth, cost-sharing with the provinces and work activity projects.
I recommend the Family Income Security Plan to the House as an essential ingredient in the necessary over-all attack in terms of giving added income supplementation to the working poor of this country and as a constructive measure to deal with poverty.


Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a good deal of interest to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro). Somebody said he was trying to defend the indefensible, but he reminds me of a goldfish going around and around in a fish bowl and getting nowhere.


An hon. Member:: You need a new pair of glasses.


Philip Bernard Rynard: As a matter of fact, he reminded me a little bit of what Shakespeare said in that he protested far too much. It is interesting to note that he spoke about the things the Liberal government has done over the years but forgot to refer to what that great Prime Minister did who occupied the seats of the mighty for longer than any other man in the British Commonwealth, Prime Minister Mackenzie King. I am sure he did not do that intentionally; in fact, I would never accuse him of really doing anything intentionally. Mackenzie King brought in children's allowances in 1946.


Stanley Howard Knowles: 1944.


Philip Bernard Rynard: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) corrects me and I accept his correction, but I think the bill became law in 1946.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was passed in 1944 and became law in 1945.


Philip Bernard Rynard: I accept that correction and I note that the hon. member has been reading up on this subject. He was in the House at the time so he has that advantage over the minister and myself.
Why the minister did not refer to this fact when he was boasting so much about what the Liberal party had done over the years is a little hard for me to comprehend. I always try to comprehend what the minister has to say because I get such peculiar answers to the questions I ask him.
The minister referred to OHSIP, the training of doctors, and the health resource fund. I hope I am not going to embarrass him by mentioning these things, but he knows the mess they are in at this time. He is having difficulty all across the country with health resources and the shortage of general practitioners.


John Carr Munro: Dr. Potter says there is no shortage.


Philip Bernard Rynard: The minister does not have to refer to Dr. Potter because he is referring to Ontario. The minister is
Family Income Security Plan
in trouble in every province because of a shortage of doctors, general practitioners; he knows that and that emergency wards are overtaxed. Over and over again I have asked him about this. Once in a while there is a flash of light and the minister seems to see a vision, but then he loses it.
On June 9 the minister said that the next thing he was going to bring in or think about, which should have been brought in before on the recommendation of the Hall Commission, is pharmacare or drug care. Yesterday he forgot about these things and said that we are doing this under the Canada Assistance Plan. He has told me that for the last two or three years. What I want to know is, did he lose his vision of June 9, 1972, again?
Let us go back to all those great things he said the Liberal party was doing. This bill is very complex, ill-conceived and poorly prepared. It is almost impossible to administer and if there is any answer to that I should like to hear it.


An hon. Member:: You just haven't read it.


Philip Bernard Rynard: No one can. Would it not have been easier to have family allowances payable to everybody and cut back a little on other government spending?


An hon. Member:: Like what?


Philip Bernard Rynard: I will give you some examples a little later if you will have patience. Let me refer to what Mr. King did and compare it with the situation today. This bill does not provide the economic help the Liberal party gave back in 1944 when it brought in family allowances. If the minister thinks it does I should like him to get up and say so. This bill includes a means test and classifies poverty. It creates different stratas in our society. What financial help does it give the mothers of this country? I suggest it gives less than the measure adopted in 1944. The minister did not tell the mothers they were going to get less. Let us be clear about that. But he underestimates them.
In 1946 the average industrial wage was just over $30 per week and in 1970 it was just over $130 per week, four times as much or a 400 per cent increase. It does not take a mathematician to compare the purchasing value of the two figures. FISP will pay $180 in respect of children up to age 12, and it will pay $240 in respect of those from 12 to 18 years of age. All FISP does is restore a portion of the purchasing value of the dollar; yet the minister makes a great deal out of what he is doing for the unfortunate poor. Even those entitled to the maximum now will have less in purchasing power than people had originally under the previous family allowance scheme. That scheme was universal; this is not. People will be much worse off, so this is nothing more than a pious platitude or a crying epitaph to a vanishing allowance.
Approximately one-third of those now receiving family allowances will be cut off entirely. About one-third will be receiving the maximum. I should like to know why the $4,500 income bracket was chosen as the most deserving. As far as I know the minister gave no reason for choosing this figure. Why is the $9,100 income bracket the least deserving? About one-third will get the full allowance. About half of the remainder will get less than they do
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June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan under the present scheme and the other half will get a little more.
I think we must keep in mind that this bill was first advanced in 1970 but is not going to come into force until 1973. I should like hon. members to remember that the minister first advanced this scheme in 1970 but nothing will take place until June, 1973. What will be the result of inflation in the meantime? If inflation continues at the 10 per cent rate over two and a half years the $20 the minister is talking about will only be worth $18. I notice the minister is making note of this so I hope he will have a change of heart and increase the amount.
Just a short time ago the minister announced that this legislation would be in effect this fall. A week or so later he said it would not be operative until next year. In the space of one week he doubled the time for it to become operative. This is why I wonder whether or not the government knows what it is doing. What information did the minister have when he made the statement that it would be in effect this fall? What information did he have at that time which he did not have previously? I think that is a very pertinent question. Why did he then change the date from the fall until next June? What was his reasoning? In September of 1971 he said it would be operative in May of this year. Does anyone really know when it will be operative? Why was it necessary to hire outside help? Why did th eminister find it necessary to hire experts and consultants from outside in order to tell him how to run the computer.
The minister boasted about what the government has been doing in respect of unemployment insurance and so on. The minister has been in the House only about half the time, but long enough surely to have heard over and over again the questions about people who were having difficulty getting their unemployment insurance payments and were almost starving. If this is an example of the Liberal philosophy of being good to the poor, it is a different philosophy from that of the Conservative party.
As I said before, the experts and consultants had to tell the department how to run the computer. One of the higher-ups in the minister's department said, "Well, it is the computers; we got into a mess in respect of unemployment insurance because of the computers; it was a catastrophe". This makes one wonder whether this bill will be just as great a catastrophe.
Let us take another look at the defects of this poorly drawn and poorly drafted bill. If a worker started with an income of $4,500 in 1970, with the ordinary increase in salary he would receive he would not qualify for the full benefits by the year 1973. He would be paying more money in income tax and would be taxed on the FISP benefits he would receive simply because he would be receiving less money from FISP. In reality this is a tax. This will continue all the way up the scale until he is pushed to the cut-off level at which he will not be eligible. As poverty increases more and more, as it has in the last few years, people will be beyond the cut-off level and less payments will be made in respect of children's allowances.
The minister was not in the House at the time, but I am sure some of his colleagues who are sitting here were, when Mr. Pearson as Prime Minister came into the House in 1963 and announced the very bright philosophy about which the minister spoke this morning to the effect that poverty would be ended. Unfortunately, it has become worse.


An hon. Member:: The just society.


Philip Bernard Rynard: No. That came along later in 1968. This is another gimmick, of course. They were trying to fool the people. This is what the minister is trying to do now. I believe he protesteth far too much.


Mr. Bechard:: Tell us about the opposition of the Conservatives in 1944.


Philip Bernard Rynard: If you are asking for it I will give it to you before I am through. I will tell you about the mess you made of medicare and a few other things in this country as well as about unemployment and inflation. You will hear about this if you ask for it. On the other hand, if you want to stick to the subject we are on we will stick to it. As I was saying, more and more people are living below the poverty line. This is the way the minister thinks he will end poverty. He may have bright ambitions, but as a result of my experience in life I can tell him that he is no Lochinvar on a white charger.
The last point I wish to make has to do with the complete absence of any provision for the retarded child. The minister may ask what this has to do with this legislation. He continues going around and around the fishbowl. There is no provision for the provincial guardian or some other responsible party to guard and guide the interests of the child. I have seen many children who have been abused. It is not very long ago that many articles appeared about the battered child syndrome. So far as I can see the minister has done nothing about this. No provision whatever is made for the retarded child who requires extra care. If the minister, with his great humanitarian ideas, wants to do the things he is talking about let him bring in a provision to pay for the care of retarded children who are in the home. These children require extra care. Once they go to an institution the government is faced with an expense of$10to$15a day. Why does the minister not bring in some provision in this regard and add it to this bill if he really has a humanitarian attitude toward these people? There is no provision whatsoever for the child who is retarded and requires extra care in cases where the parents look after him in their own homes at their own expense instead of shoving him off to an institution at the expense of the public. These people do not receive a cent.
I say to the minister that his bill falls far short of what was done in 1945. At that time payments were made universal. Now he is picking out about a third of the people to help and is doing less for them because of the purchasing value of the dollar. I think the minister should redraft his speech before the public become aware of it.
I wish to refer now to the filling out of the tax reform sheet and what amounts to a tax of 33 cents on every $100 of additional income. In my opinion this is a complete nightmare. The minister obviously does not understand

June 29, 1972

the bill. I say that with all kindness in my heart because as I looked over the figures I could not understand them either. I asked some other people to look at them and they did not understand them. The minister has already proven that even his experts do not understand this provision or are afraid of the computer because they do not know how it is to be fed the information.
The minister postponed this measure until this June and then until perhaps next June. He goes around and around the merry-go-round. He talks about the poor and about taxing the middle class more. If the minister did not say this I will accept his word for it. However, the Montreal Gazette and some other papers thought he was really after the middle class and would reduce them to serfdom. Whether or not the minister really meant that or whether or not he really said it, it is a fact that the middle class people are the ones who will be properly soaked by taxation.
The government refers with piety to its humanitarian instinct and says that all things that are good come from their party. As I look across at them and remember how well they hid the fact that they will increase taxes next year by 3 per cent, I deny their humanitarianism. The minister did not include that in his speech this morning when he was defending the middle class. Whatever the minister's feelings may be, he is part of a government that is increasing taxation for the middle class next year by 3 per cent.
I should like to comment now on these new income tax forms. Every time a person's salary goes up or down he must report it. Every time a person's salary or a person's commission goes down and he finds himself in difficulties because of decreased income and applies for help which he needs immediately, how long will it take to reach him? I ask the minister, if a fellow applies in 1970 will he not get help until 1973? If a fellow finds that his income is cut and he needs the money now, how long will it take before he gets it? I think that is a very fair question.
I do not want to go into further details and embarrass the minister because he is in a sufficiently bad position now. However, let me point out that people must fill in these forms every time their income goes up or down. It is like a yoyo. Once the form arrives in Ottawa nobody will be able to figure it out so they will put it into the computer and then the fellow will be told either that he will get less money next year or a little more. Where are these records to be checked? Believe it or not, they are to be checked in the income tax branch. I remember, as many in the House do, when the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) accused the government of attempting to do that very thing, but it was denied. Hon. members can check this in Hansard. However, we were told in committee that this is the very thing they are going to do in relation to this measure. These are Gestapo tactics, with a Gestapo checking financial returns that are supposed to be completely secret.
I spoke about the person who really needs help. In the majority of cases it is my opinion that FISP will pay too much or too little each year. There will be one heck of a mess. In the majority of cases incomes will be going up
Family Income Security Plan
and down like a yoyo. As I said, the process will be computerized and it will be only as good as the people who are feeding data into the computer. Since the information will be changing continually, the computers will get mixed up. This will be no better than Information Canada, and it has been a great disappointment to the people running it. I could go on about a few other things that have been great disappointments.
This measure was brought in with loud cheers from the government supposedly to help the poor more than the rich, but it does not do this. A family with an income of $3,000, paying no income tax and with one child, will get $180 from FISP, but a family with an income of $60,000 and one child will get an extra $184. How in the world can the minister tell me that the plan does more for the poor than for the rich? It seems to me that the only sane thing to do is to make the family allowance universal and to cut back on welfare payments for children by an equal and offsetting amount. The government has just taken us into another jungle of computers from which it will be difficult to extricate ourselves, and already they are in a mess, so far as computers are concerned, with the social security measures they have brought in.
I could refer to medicare and talk at length of the mess there which they do not know how to get out of. They do not know whether to get more doctors because costs are going up and up and they cannot meet them. As I have said before, they do not know what to do with emergency departments in hospitals. So they are in an all-round jungle.
It is my belief that all this should be brought under one department. For instance, why should $30 million be spent on the administration of a program that is supposed to help the poor? This is exactly what is being done, with a doubling of the staff. The minister failed to point this out in his speech. I hope he will correct this when he goes on the hustings. I hope he will tell the people just how bad this bill is.


David Lewis: Yes, do that, John.


Philip Bernard Rynard: It is more likely that the program will cost $50 million rather than $30 million to administer instead of the previous figure of $15 million. Some more universal form must be found of doing this through one department and one form. The costs of other plans now are not only astronomical but the plans are not working in the interests of those people whom we are trying to help.
Furthermore, I am disturbed by the fact that the Department of National Health and Welfare will be checking with the income tax branch. Perhaps the solution could be found by scrapping income tax exemptions for dependent children, scrapping government handouts for public housing and increasing family allowances to cover all these things and make sure that we deal fairly with everybody and that we keep in mind that family allowances are for children. I want to remind the House that the benefits paid with respect to children and persons referred to in subsection 1 of section 5 are to be applied exclusively toward the maintenance, care, training, education or advancement of the children and persons. The cardinal principle is that this is a Family Income Security Plan and that it is the children of this land who are

June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
supposed to be protected. I am sorry to see the government in this age of affluence bringing in a bill that does much less for the poor people of this country than was done in 1945.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro) I felt rather sad. It is always sad to watch a man's tortuous anguish as his once kind heart is at war with his guilty conscience, for that was the background of his speech this morning, and it is the background of the speeches he has made recently across the country.
This poor, sad minister, who would like to go down in history as a great friend of the ordinary Canadian, is being ground to dust by the reactionaries who accompany him in the cabinet of Canada. And as is always the case, Mr. Speaker, if you allow yourself to be ground down by ideas and thoughts in which you do not believe, you end up by accepting those ideas and thoughts and becoming just as reactionary as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) and other ministers in the Cabinet.
The minister's speech this morning was a remarkable exercise in lack of logic, in lack of sense and indeed, Mr. Speaker, in lack of honesty. When he was trying to show how much everybody wanted he included not only the additional cost under FISP for universality that some of us advocate, not only the increases in pension costs, but also talked about a guaranteed annual income, something which has never come into this debate. I just wonder whether he should fire his speech writers and advisers because they stopped short. Why did they not include the cost of housing, the cost of post-secondary education, the cost of pollution, the cost of everything else? He would have had a great budget in that case and he could have beaten his poor breast a little harder. Uriah Heap had nothing on this minister.
Because he is trying to suggest to the middle income groups that he is really their champion, what does he do? I say this with great sadness, and I use strong language. He does the most disgusting thing he could have done, and that is to appeal to the anti-welfare backlash in this country.
If there is any logic at all in what he said, let me say to him that his bill, with the maze and mess administratively that it is, is only an invitation to abuse. Anyone who knows anything at all about law or about administration knows perfectly well that if the administration is simple, abuse is difficult-you cannot get away with anything. But if the administration is complicated, abuse is a lot easier. There are loopholes you can get through. You can deny that you have made $200, that your wife has made $200, or deny other things much more easily than you could have under the previous plan.
The minister knows that a complicated bill will make abuse easier. Then why in heaven's name should he talk about it? Why does he talk about it except to try to throw sand in the eyes of many people who think that this bill is a retrograde step? There are many people in his constituency, many workers in his city, who know that what he is doing in this bill is diddling the people of Hamilton and the people of Canada.

Then he reminds us that only 11 per cent of the people in Canada make incomes over $10,000. We have been saying that to this government and to the Conservative government that preceded it ever since I have been active in politics. We have been saying to these people that the kind of system they promote concentrates income and wealth in an ever smaller group of the population. He is not telling me anything new when he tells me that only 11 per cent-and I am a little surprised it is as high as that- have incomes above $10,000. But what he did not tell us, and what he carefully avoided telling us, is the proportion of the total income in Canada, the percentage of the total wealth in Canada, over which this small group of people actually have control. It is about 30 per cent, compared with his figure of 11 per cent of the population.
FISP is a tax on the middle income groups, and the minister is hypocritical when he warns those groups about taxing them. He is taxing them in this bill when he takes from them the payment that would otherwise have been made to them. It is a regressive tax because it is a tax that falls only on those who have children. That is why it is a regressive and undesirable tax.
Here we are talking about the middle income groups. Ages ago we used to speak about such people being fairly rich, but now we are talking about people making between $7,000 and $11,000 a year, and that in modern society is not very much.
May I remind this minister who undoubtedly reads history, particularly the history of the Liberal party,' with a great deal of attention and pleasure, that when the late Mackenzie King introduced family allowances in the first place he reduced the tax exemption for a child in receipt of family allowance from $500 to $300.
We are told in books that Mackenzie King sometimes consulted certain mediums. May I suggest that this minister consult the ghost of Mackenzie King because even from that gentleman he could learn a great deal, and he has been dead for some years. That is the way to handle this matter. When you have a universal family allowance plan you should deal with the tax system as was done in 1944-45. You do not deal with it as the minister does.
The minister says that all the increases in welfare and in family security that we advocate will cost a lot of money, and asks where will the money come from except from the middle income groups? I want to tell him where it can come from, Mr. Speaker. He is right when he says it could only come from the middle income groups so long as his government is in power, because that is the only place that his government will go for the money.


John Carr Munro: I did not say that.


David Lewis: So long as the squire from Mount Royal is Prime Minister of Canada, the only people who will be taxed will be the middle income groups. But if you had a government that was oriented toward the people of Canada, that was honestly concerned about improving the lot of the ordinary Canadian, there would, let me tell the minister, be no mystery about where the money could come from.
On a national accounts basis this year we are to collect, after the last budget, 50 per cent of our federal revenue
June 29, 1972

from individual taxpayers and only 12 per cent from corporations. Just ten years ago we collected about 41 per cent from individuals and somewhere around 20 per cent from corporations. Twenty years ago we collected about
28	per cent from individual taxpayers and 27 per cent from corporations, and about 25 or 30 years ago we collected about 27 per cent from individuals and 28 per cent,
29	per cent or 30 per cent from corporations. This government and the Tory government that preceded it in 1963 introduced tax systems which have consistently squeezed a larger and larger proportion of federal revenue out of individual taxpayers and consistently reduced the proportion that comes from corporations.
What is the result of this kind of tax system? The result is that in 1969, the latest year for which there are figures, 46 per cent of all Canadian corporations did not pay a single, solitary cent in income tax.


Mr. Nystrom:: And people call this a just society.


David Lewis: Of the mining and oil corporations in Canada, 78 per cent did not pay a single sou in income tax to the federal treasury. Poor Shell Oil Company, Mr. Speaker, one of the underprivileged, impoverished multinational corporations of the world, made about $250 million in profits in the five-year period between 1964 and 1969 but did not pay a single, solitary cent in income tax to the federal treasury. One might assume that Shell Oil would be philanthropic; well, it was not. Falconbridge mines in the same period made a profit of about $250 million and paid $15 million in income tax; that represents a tax rate of 6 per cent. And, if that was not enough, the company shortly thereafter obtained a $4 million grant from the federal treasury. That was a gift from the people of Canada to another impoverished corporation in Canada.


John Gilbert: How do you like that, Murray? Are you not proud?


David Lewis: The tax cuts and other goodies the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) provided for the corporations of this country a little while ago will save them $500 million in the first year and $700 million in the second year. He has given them $1.2 billion which they do not need, as profits in the last six months have been going up, up and up without ceasing. They have increased by between 30 per cent and 40 per cent over what they were in the similar period one year ago. The minister has handed $1.2 billion to the corporations. This is money which they do not need, money which will not create any employment, money which has been given to manufacturing and processing concerns that are now working at less than capacity. I say to the government that if that $1.2 billion were used to help the poor in Canada and middle income groups of Canada, not only would there be greater justice in our society but the economy would be a great deal better off and unemployment would be reduced.
I remind the minister also of the handouts this government has given corporations every year. The total amount, including tax concessions, etc., is about $2 billion every year. We have given handouts through the Depart-
Family Income Security Plan
ment of Regional Economic Expansion. According to a preliminary study undertaken by a young professor who did a conscientious job, handouts of $200 million, $300 million and $400 million a year under DREE have brought almost no benefit to the areas of this country concerned. We hand out hundreds of millions of dollars under all sorts of programs. These handouts to corporations altogether total about $2 billion a year, Mr. Speaker. I emphasize this. I say that that is where the money is to be found, that is from where it should come. Let us stop this welfare system for the wealthy corporations of this country, most of them foreign-owned, and let us bring in some welfare for the ordinary people of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, when you look carefully at the budget which the Minister of Finance presented you will arrive at a significant and important conclusion, and if any member of the Liberal party is not shaken by that conclusion he has lost his marbles, lost his humanity, or perhaps lost both.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If he had any
marbles or humanity to begin with.


David Lewis: When you read the budget speech of the Minister of Finance and peruse the accompanying material, you will find that the corporations of Canada will contribute in 1972-73, on a budgetary basis, 15 per cent of the total federal revenue. If you look at another chart in the budgetary material, you will find that the federal government will pay out 15 per cent of all federal expenditures to the corporations. It will pay that much to them under what is called economic development and support. Economic development and support obviously means various handouts to corporations under DREE, under other development grants, under defence industry programs and includes, I must add, manpower training grants which undoubtedly would be desirable if the program were planned properly.
I want to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to this: Corporations will contribute 15 per cent toward revenues; corporations will take 15 per cent of the expenditures. In the result, the corporations of Canada will contribute nothing at all to family allowances, old age pensions, medicare, hospital insurance programs or to any of those humane schemes that reluctant governments have been forced to put on the statute books. That is the result of this government's policies. One can readily see where the money can be found.
The money is there, Mr. Speaker, the funds are there, the revenues are there, and the necessary wealth is there. This is a great country, a rich country, a wonderful country. The minister cannot do what I assume in his heart he would like to do, namely, deal justly and decently with the people of Canada, because the funds, the wealth, are in the wrong hands. They are in a few corporate hands in this country and the government does not have the guts to open those hands and take for Canada the money that is in them.
Let me tell the minister of another way to obtain revenue. The government could obtain more if it were to reduce unemployment significantly. The Economic Coun-

Family Income Security Plan cil of Canada said two or three years ago that every percentage point of unemployment means a loss to us of $1.5 billion per year. Today that loss is probably slightly more in view of increased prices of various sorts. Every percentage point of unemployment means at least a loss of $1.5 billion. Every $1.5 billion that is lost to us represents a loss to the federal treasury of approximately $500 million, $600 million or $700 million; I do not know exactly how much is lost that way. If unemployment, instead of being at more than 6 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis, were to be down to 3 per cent, the minister would have all the revenue he needs for a proper family allowances plan and a proper old age pension plan, and there would be no need to impose additional taxes on the middle income groups of this country.
What has this government permitted? It has deliberately created loopholes for corporations that cost the treasury about $400 million each year. It has deliberately cut the taxes of corporations, and these tax cuts will cost the treasury $500 million and $700 million a year for two years. We are talking about $1 billion, roughly. It has deliberately given the mining and oil corporations tax holidays without end. These, according to the hon. member for Duvernay (Mr. Kierans), cost the federal treasury between $300 million and $400 million per year. I heard the other day that Steep Rock mines in northern Ontario was very interested in the three-year tax holiday which is given to the mining corporations of Canada. What did that company do? It had what you and I and anybody else would call one mine. It divided this into three parts, opened the first third and got a three-year tax holiday. When that holiday ended it opened the second third and obtained an additional three-year tax holiday. When that was ended it opened the final third and got another three-year tax holiday. So, instead of obtaining a three-year tax holiday it got a nine-year tax holiday, Mr. Speaker. I understand that the operation was a strip mining or surface mining operation. The company is now considering sinking some shafts, calling it a fourth mine and asking for another three-year tax holiday.
The tax system for which this government is responsible makes that kind of tax avoidance possible. It gives these benefits to corporations. It deliberately creates massive unemployment that brings further losses in production and in revenue, and then it stands there and cries shamelessly "where is the money to come from." The money is there, Mr. Speaker. It is there in the corporations. It is there in the country and the government will not do anything about it.
The real problem that faces the minister and the country with respect to social security programs is that for many years, instead of doing the humane and decent thing of adjusting those programs year by year in accordance with the cost of living increase and the standard of living increase, we sat back and let the same inadequate amount be paid year after year for tens of years, as we did in this case. Suddenly we arrive in 1972, an election year, and the government feels that it ought to do something. They sit down and make calculations and find that if they are to increase the $6 that is now paid for the cost of living increase this figure must be increased to $15. Therefore

you get a 150 per cent jump in one year. To increase the $8 now paid for the cost of living increase the figure must be increased to $20. Again there is a 150 per cent increase in one year. That is what is wrong with our system and the way we do things.
If we had increased the $6 to $7 or $7.50 and then to $9 the second year as the cost of living, the gross national product and the standard of living went up, and increased the family allowance year by year in accordance with the increase of wealth in this country, no one would have to make the kind of calculations which the minister had to make this morning. The increase would be related to what is happening in our economy and to prices. The people would have been dealt with fairly.
What good is it to a family whose children are now grown up who were in hardship all the years the $6 meant less and less year after year until we reached 1972 when it does not mean anything at all? What good is it for the family who lived through those hardships without getting the increases? Justice demands universality. Decency demands universality. Unity demands universality.
The miserable excuses which the minister has trotted out in this and other speeches are meaningless. They are without validity and without meaning. They are the hapless cry of a guilty conscience that is now trying to make political hay out of a situation that the minister knows will not come to him. In fact, we are rearing the point which makes it impolite for me to describe precisely the present state.
The minister talked about our fooling the middle income people. We are not trying to fool them. It is a simple fact that many of the voters in the minister's constituency, Hamilton East, who work for Stelco, Defasco, Westinghouse, in other plants or anywhere else will not receive a penny in family allowance. It is shameful and criminal that that is the way we are going to treat a large proportion of the voters in the minister's own riding. That is why he makes the speeches he does. The minister knows perfectly well that those people resent what he is doing to them. They see that he is adding a tax on to them through this bill. Therefore, he is trying to build up a case for himself. No one, even people who are sometimes called tough, will really begrudge a poor, suffering conscience like that of the minister from looking for an excuse and seeking to get out of this terrible, immoral morass into which the minister and his colleagues have gotten themselves. I am really sorry for the minister. He looks like such a nice guy. He talks as though he really wants to do something. However, after his speech is over the substance which he produced is as disappointing as the poor excuses he tried to make.
My colleagues and I see no excuse for the destruction of the principle of universality. We do not see anything which the minister can boast about in bringing up the family allowance to the level at which the cost of living would have brought it up anyway. We see only sadness in a situation which will divide people and again hurt people who ought not to be hurt. The Minister of National Health and Welfare cannot possibly persuade anyone with intelligence and any kind of social conscience that his FISP bill is anything other than a miserable destruction of the important principle of universality, anything other than
June 29, 1972

neglect for a large number of the children of this country, or that it will assist the poor in Canada as they ought to be assisted. All the minister is doing is enabling them to buy as much in 1972 as they were able to buy some 12, 15 or 20 years ago.
I oppose the bill now as I did then. I am only sorry that the minister is engaging in the kind of argument he has advanced. I suggest to him it is saddening and rather undignified to see him in constant convolution trying to make sense and decency out of a bill that has neither.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Henry Latulippe (Compton):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to the topic now before the House which, to my mind, is one of the most important ever discussed here.
Family allowances were given the Canadian people in 1945, I believe and they have remained practically the same since. In fact, they were increased by approximately $1 whereas the cost of living has gone up by about 300 per cent.
Now, we see that the minister wants to reduce families to the level of dollars because he reduces family allowances to a matter of dollars and cents. The minister does not know where he will get the money needed to pay those allowances.
But families are worth more than dollars. If there is anything truly concrete, truly great, truly noble, the family is. In fact, were it not for the family, governments would not exist. The population is made up of families. The family has the right to live, it needs all the state can do for it. The needs that should be given priority in our economy are those of the family.
All the speeches we have heard the minister deliver on family allowances are imbued with the fear of lack of money to ensure a decent life to the children of Canada from the uncalculable resources the whole country would have to distribute. We rightfully claim that such an approach to the problem of family income security and family allowances is depressing and absurd, even though it represents the thinking of our most intelligent members of Parliament who endeavoured to summarize government policy in a notorious white paper which was communicated to the population a year ago, published after wide research in the fields of university, administration and legislation. Now let us look at the results. They are offering an extra $170 million, a staggering amount for Canada's 7 million children under 17, the third of a population with a national product of $92 billion in 1971-72 and a production of over $100 billion in 1972-73.
They don't know where to get the money! With an increase by $8 billion in the gross national product in 1972-73, they are wondering where they will find money to help families. But they fail to realize that if we give more money to the families through family allowances they will not keep it but they will spend it.
By doing so, we would give a new impetus to the economy. Families would pay 12 per cent sales tax to the feder-
Family Income Security Plan
al government and 8 per cent to the provincial government-I am thinking of the Quebec government-in addition to all kinds of direct and indirect taxes.
We do not know how to raise money, but we forget that payments made to families would be recovered by the treasury.
Mr. Speaker, having increased by $170 million the allowances paid to the 7 million children under 18 and following an increased production of $8 billion for next year, we forget that 50 per cent of Canadians are unemployed and cannot purchase the goods available in stores and warehouses. We must keep in mind that giving money to families will be the best investment ever made in the history of our economy.
We have funds for the Opportunities for Youth program. This morning I received two telegrams from citizens who asked me to see that things are straightened out because some persons have received grants under this program and they are spending it on orgies. We are witnessing the corruption of our youth. There is plenty of money to corrupt youth, but none whatsoever to support families.
But, national production from 1944 to 1945 amounted to $12 billion only and it has increased to $92 billion in 1971. It will reach $100 billion in 1972.
In 1944, an hon. member's basic salary was $4,000 and we are now drawing some $26,000-nearly seven times more. But family allowances have remained at the same rate. In fact, we take decisions according to our judgment and knowledge.
The salaries of members of Parliament and of many other people have kept pace with the ever increasing cost of living, but family allowances have been left aside. What could be more important, more easily perceived and more human than the family, for it constitutes the basis of society.
The revenues of judges, ministers of the Crown, university graduates, accountants, economists are all geared to rise with the cost of living and the national product; but in the case of our children-they account for one third of our population-the same family allowance rates apply as in 1944-45 when the GNP had an estimated value of only $12 billion, seven or eight times less than today. Yet, we live in the year 1972-73.


Mr. Ouellet:: Right you are!


Henry P. Latulippe: Therefore, it seems to me that, about a matter of such importance as guaranteed personal and family income, all the members chosen by the people of Canada to represent them in this House, all equally interested in the well-being of every one of the 23 million citizens living in Canada, in their constituencies, should get together because the most important of all economic questions is that one, a guaranteed personal income based on our national product, brought about by the development of our natural and national resources, by means of the capital and the labour invested by the active adults of our land.
If at long last we would realize that the life of our fellow Canadians is as important as the capital and the labour of the makers of our national product, we would at least
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June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
have taken the first step towards a balanced economy, a balanced economic security.
In the various sectors of our economy, we could at last hopefully foresee the end of inflation, unemployment and poverty by putting the needed economic blood in the hands of the true consumers who are the families.
But all that, Mr. Speaker, requires the acknowledgment of the first objective of ail government and parliamentary activities: to guarantee the income security and the life of every living citizen, every human being. This is the first objective of our government. The life of the citizens must have priority over capital-the minister should know that-even over labour because where can we find capital and labour if the citizen has no life?
If we protected so much the capital, the guaranteed income and the work of each individual, why should we not take more care of the life of every citizen even if they have neither work nor money? This is the main concern of any sound, honest and logical administration, of any efficient legislation. This is the main question which should interest all government members elected by the same nation numbering about 23 million at the present time, all having the right to live before being entitled to work and to have money.
Life must come before everything. It is because there are citizens that we have a country, provinces and municipalities.
If capital has an existence which differs from that of human beings, if work exists as an expression of man, life is the foundation of this man's existence and the base of his work or of his capital. Without life, capital and work are impossible for a citizen.
Life deserves our attention; it must be the first objective of our national economic administration as it is the first expression of each citizen's existence even before he is able to work or own capital.
Life first, work afterwards. Is this the order we follow in the hierarchy of our administrative priorities? It is not surprising that there is a lack of economic balance, that capital has to cope with inflation, that work is affected by the changes in the unemployment rate and that the lives of citizens are threatened by the obtrusive presence of dishonouring and depressing poverty.
This is a situation which prevails in many Canadian families. This is how the more we progress the more we go backward in the battle against inflation, unemployment and poverty. We simply take everything backward and cannot see straight. We try to protect capital and work before protecting the citizen. We are considering the scale of values the wrong way. We think we are going up but we continue to slide. Mr. Speaker, this is where we must intervene with all our might, with all our being. We must claim respect for our legal family rights and the establishment of the genuine just society for the family. This is why everywhere capital becomes more and more important, in volume and in revenue, to the detriment of personal incomes which are increasingly taxed, to the detriment of the way of life of citizens without work or money, who become more and more impoverished by the rising cost of

living. Citizens too young, too old, too sick are unable to earn their living either through work or through capital.
We are rich, Mr. Speaker, and we live in poverty. The hon. minister should understand that. This can be remedied by the simple conversion of the guaranteed personal income, by the vital personal right of each family, taking into account the decision we will reach here, in Parliament, the members elected by the people of Canada for a period of five years ending around mid-July 1973.
The decision is up to us; no other citizen of Canada can be held responsible for this decision. Everybody has had the chance to have his say in the many royal commissions held in the last ten years. Research councils and white papers have done their job. Now is the hour of action, of legislation, of administration, in short, the establishment of a new economic order which depends on us only.
If capital is very well treated by every kind of companies and labour unions, the fact remains that every citizen's right to live must be defended with energy and protected permanently by the provisions of Bill C-170 which cannot be adopted without due consideration.
Mr. Speaker, may I call it one o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, it being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair.
At one o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Gaston Clermont (Parliamentary Secretary to President of Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I take this opportunity to congratulate Your Honour on having supplied hon. members with a sample of a bilingual order of the day, which format exists already in the case of bills and committee proceedings. I trust that this practice will soon extend to Hansard and the Votes and Proceedings of the House.
June 29, 1972



CANADIAN CULTURE


Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, the House is already aware of the government's interest in all matters affecting cultural development in Canada. In the past few years this interest has become apparent in areas such as publishing, museums, films, the purchase of collections and the award of grants to cultural institutions. Other matters are being studied, some of which are of such importance that certain acts will have to be amended and we shall table these amendments in the House at the appropriate time.
Some time ago we were informed of a suggestion which will certainly interest the House of Commons. The right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) decided some time ago to offer to the University of Saskatchewan his collections of documents, books and other items relating to his term of office. The university expressed the desire, not only to accept these collections, but to locate them in a setting worthy of their importance. In order to do so it would be necessary to construct a building on the university campus at a cost of some $600,000. The organizers of this project are making every effort to obtain half of this sum from the private sector and they propose that the remaining $300,000 be contributed by the federal government. This suggestion has been studied by our services and negotiations are now under way between the Public Archives, the University of Saskatchewan and the Department of the Secretary of State.
On the basis of this suggestion, I have asked the officials of the Department of the Secretary of State to submit to me a general policy on the question of documents which prime ministers decide to donate to private institutions, as was done by the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett whose papers are now deposited in the archives of the University of New Brunswick.
However, while these negotiations are still taking place, I wish to inform the House of Commons that the government is most willing to continue its discussions with the University of Saskatchewan, so that the right hon. member's very generous gift can be placed in a setting appropriate to the important contribution he has made to the development of this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I know the statement made by the Secretary of State will be received with delight by members of the House. As a general proposition it is, of course, very important that we preserve and develop a sense of the history of our country as well as an understanding of our country. As my fellow Nova Scotian, the late Joseph Howe, said so well many years ago, a wise nation honours her great men.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Canadian Culture


Robert Lorne Stanfield: The right hon. member for Prince Albert already holds a very proud place in our history, and it would certainly be very inadequate and inaccurate for me to describe my right hon. friend as an historic figure because, in addition to his proud place in our history, he continues to be a very strong public force in our contemporary life. So, my few words today are not intended as an obituary or as a summing up of the right hon. gentleman's career, because I am certain there will be a few more papers and documents added to the collection we are discussing today.
I should like to say simply that the recognition of the right hon. gentleman's contribution, and the respect and admiration for the right hon. gentleman, is shared by Canadians and that the recognition, respect and admiration for him transcend far beyond party lines in this country. I am happy, therefore, at the decision of the government and I believe it will give pleasure throughout the land. The right hon. member has made a generous gift. It is reassuring to know that it will be properly housed and displayed, thereby deepening the understanding of Canadians of their country and of this very unique Canadian. It is appropriate, of course, that this collection be housed in the university to which the right hon. gentleman is devoting his service and his talent as chancellor. I believe that this move to strengthen the culture of our country is one which every member of this House will approve without reservation. I congratulate the Secretary of State and the government, and I express the hope that the library to be built will make ample provision for an expanding collection.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition said that he was not indulging in an obituary. My comment on that is that there are many young people in Canada who envy the liveliness and the vibrant presence of the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker). One of the great strengths of the democratic system, one of the attributes of our system that distinguishes it so fundamentally from other systems, is that men and women who disagree strongly about social and political objectives and philosophies none the less respect each other and honour each other as citizens of the world and as citizens of Canada. I want to say without any hesitation whatever that I add my words to those expressed about the right hon. gentleman's contribution to this institution and to Canada as a whole.
I sometimes think, Sir, that there are three categories of politicians. First, there is the serious, hardworking politician who serves his constituency and the country. Second, there is the one who may have the joie de vivre and who makes of political activity a kind of interesting game; and the third, one who has the capacity to combine both. I think that the right hon. gentleman from Prince Albert has the capacity to combine earnest service to his constituency and to the country with a liveliness of attitude and of expression that makes of politics a joy rather than a chore. That is a great contribution, Mr. Speaker.
Finally, sir, I also wish to congratulate the Secretary of State, not only for his action with respect to the papers and documents of the right hon. gentleman from Prince
25319-44^

June 29, 1972
C.N.R. Pension Increases
Albert, but for having done more than honouring one person by giving a proper place to safeguard important documents of the history of this country, which is obviously a desirable objective. Canada's history, unlike that of many other nations, consists less of victorious generals, admirals and the like, and much more of victorious people in the building of a decent society. That is why, with others, I greet the right hon. gentleman from Prince Albert, and am so proud of my country.


Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to join my colleagues in thanking the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) for offering his collection of documents, books and other objects relating to his term of office. His gesture is doubtless very eloquent and the Canadian people will have the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the activities of this statesman.
To my mind, the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletierjis right, in a way, in taking steps to locate those documents in a worthy setting. The minister did not specify whether the proposed building will be used only for that collection or other ends. In any event, I believe this is a positive measure which should be repeated in the future.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I find great difficulty in expressing my deep feelings of appreciation to the Secretary of State (Mr. Pelletier) for the announcement he has made, to my leader, the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), to the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis), and to the hon. member for Abitibi (Mr. Laprise). If I were to express everything that is in my heart, it could be embodied in a few lines. This day reveals the true meaning of Parliament. Each of us here is trying to make his or her contribution to a greater Canada.
Naturally I am most grateful, personally. This announcement came as a complete surprise to me. Again I thank one and all for what has been said, and as Chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan I know I speak for the entire company of scholars of that university when I say how grateful that institution will be for what the Secretary of State has announced. From the bottom of my heart, Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. gentlemen. This is a day, for me, to be remembered.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I am informed by the President of Canadian National Railways that the company is announcing today that pensions, including pensions received by widows, will be increased to take into account increases in the cost of living since 1969.

Members may recall that effective January 1, 1971, Canadian National pensions were increased by 2 per cent for each year of retirement up to 1969, and in some cases by a larger percentage. The increases to be announced by the company today will, from January, 1972, add 4 per cent to all current pensions that were in force on December 31, 1970; and 2 per cent to current pensions that first came into force during the year ending December 31, 1971. Combined with the action taken in 1971, the effect is that CN pensions will have been increased by 2 per cent for each year of retirement throughout the period 1935-71. I am also informed that the General Chairmen's Association, representing all union members in CN, has submitted proposals for changes in the company's pension plan and these proposals are currently under discussion by the CN Pension Board. Among them is one to escalate pensions because of the higher cost of living.
The announcement by Canadian National of increased pensions is in response to that proposal and to the strong representations made by the General Chairmen on the Pension Board that action be taken as quickly as possible. I might add, parenthetically, Mr. Speaker, that undoubtedly there were strong pressures from this House, as well. The Pension Board has expressed the view that similar adjustments of existing pensions should be made in the future. I understand the union members of the Pension Board welcome this response to their representations.
With regard to the pension formula and other improvements proposed by the General Chairmen's Association, their representatives on the Pension Board are hopeful that further changes to the pension rules will follow. Mr. MacMillan advises me that historically changes proposed by the Pension Board have been implemented. In any event, negotiations with unions representing major groups of employees are due to open well before the year end, at which time any unresolved question is expected to be a bargaining issue.
Having regard to on-going discussions in the Pension Board and the opening of negotiations in the fall, I hope that all hon. members will agree that these matters should be left to labour and management to be resolved in that process. The President of CN also informs me that several changes have been made in the Pension Plan and its administration, through agreement reached through the Pension Board, since the 1970 report of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications. One of those changes I have already mentioned: the 1971 escalation of 32,000 pensions. In addition, early retirement rules were improved; the 1959 plan was again reopened to members of the 1935 plan and 9,000 employees transferred; age and service requirements for survivor benefits were eliminated for employees killed in the performance of duty and the Pension Board has been reconstituted to give equal representation to union and management, with each side including a pensioner in its membership and designating a co-chairman. In 1972, the company's costs for pension plans are expected to be at least $50 million, an increase of $17 million, or 50 per cent over the last two years.
June 29, 1972


Mr. Charles H. Thomas (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, we in this party welcome the minister's announcement of the long overdue increases in Canadian National pensions. I think it is a tribute to the workings of the parliamentary system that there was unanimous support for this from all sides of the House. As a result of the report on pensions the Standing Committee brought down some years ago, and through the efforts of the minister, this breakthrough has been accomplished. I hope that benefits will continue to flow from this report in the years to come.
The increase in pensions will be welcomed by all those pensioners whose pensions, which were far from adequate when they were first established, have been eroded because of inflation which has gone unchecked for the past four or five years. These increases will be welcome news for them, but I point out to the minister that they are little enough. These increases do not offset increases in the cost of living, which run between 3.5 per cent and 4 per cent per year, nor will they offset any purchasing power pensioners have lost over the years as a result of inflation.
I am encouraged by the statement that the matter of escalating pensions is to be a continuing subject of discussion by the Pension Board. I am hopeful the minister will use his influence to persuade the pension board that the very least that should be built into the CNR pension plan is a provision for the automatic escalation of pensions to cover the cost of living. It is an anomalous and distressing situation that these pensioners should be the pawns of Parliament and have to come to us hat in hand to ask for increases in their pensions which should be given to them as a matter of right because of the inflationary situation we have today. I hope the minister will use his influence to persuade the pension board to recommend that this provision be built into the CN pension plan.
I also hope that the minister will use his influence with the Canadian Pacific Railways. The CPR is not mentioned in the minister's statement, naturally, but I hope the minister will be able to prevail upon the CPR to take some action.
I am a bit disturbed by the announcement concerning the pension plan for those now employed by CNR. It is stated that since this matter will come up for negotiation this fall, probably we should leave it this way. Representations were made during the committee hearings. The union took the position that pension adjustments or increases were properly a matter for negotiation. After talking to CNR workers, my impression is that they Eire not satisfied the pension scheme has been given proper attention in negotiations. I strongly urge the minister to consider this matter. If something satisfactory does not develop as a result of the negotiations this fall, some action must be taken to protect the employees who feel they are not being given a proper break. This escalation provision should be built into their pension scheme so that escalation becomes a matter of right.
I congratulate the minister on this announcement. I ask him not to rest here, but to continue to press the CNR and CPR to bring their pension schemes up to a comparable level with those which prevail in industry.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
C.N.R. Pension Increases


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, on Friday, December 19, 1969, when the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) announced a formula for increasing the pensions of retired civil servants, and again on Friday, February 5, 1971, when the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) announced increases in the pensions of retired Canadian National Railways employees that were then being put into effect, I did not hesitate to rise in my place, congratulate both of these ministers and express appreciation for what was being done. I must say, however, that I can hardly be expected to leap for joy today over what the Minister of Transport has now announced.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: This statement is reasonably lengthy. It makes many references to matters still under discussion about which something might be done in the future. It also recites, as a matter of history, a number of things that have been done in the past couple of years. However, with regard to what was announced today in terms of actual dollars and cents, all we have been told is that the arrangement to escalate CNR pensions by 2 per cent for each year of retirement has been brought up to date by two years. That is all it does. This means that those who got the increase that was provided a little over a year ago will receive increases based on 2 per cent per year or for the two years, 4 per cent but that does not mean 4 per cent of what they are now getting. It is 4 per cent of their basic pension which was established years ago. It means that those who retired in 1970 will get a 4 per cent increase, while those who retired in 1971 will get a 2 per cent increase. That is all it does, and the minister has the gall to say that this is being done to enable these pensioners to cope with the increase in the cost of living. Even old age pensions and veterans pensions are being increased in accordance with the actual rise in the cost of living or in other words, by 3.6 per cent. But these retired employees are being asked to settle for 2 per cent in a year in which the cost of living increased by 3.6 per cent, or 4 per cent over two years in which the cost of living increased by 7 or 8 per cent or more.
I therefore say to the minister that though, like the last speaker, I am prepared to welcome anything which is given to pensioners, when it will amount only to a dollar or two a month, as it will in many cases, I am sure he will not expect me to shout for joy; I am sure he will not think it incumbent upon me to express great appreciation of what has been done. I think the minister should go back to his office, get Mr. Norman MacMillan on the phone and tell him this is not good enough. A lot more has to be done.
The escalation of railway pensions has to be put on a permanent basis. It should not be a case of this being done every year or so when ever the opposition gets tough on the CNR financing bill. Escalation of the pensions of employees must be related to the cost of living. It is not good enough to give a 2 per cent increase when the cost of living goes up by 3 or 4 per cent. The time has come for an adjustment in the basic pension plan so that there will be a factor of at least 2 per cent for every year of service an employee has worked. These questions have been under

June 29, 1972
C.N.R. Pension Increases
discussion across the country, so the CNR management and the pension board understand them just as well as anyone in this House. They know, even before the minister telephones Montreal, that this increase is not satisfactory and that it will not be satisfactory to the employees who have retired. Yes, we are always glad to see increases in pensions, even a dollar or two, but this is not good enough and I call on the minister to make this fact known to the CNR.
I know it is about time for me to resume my seat, Mr. Speaker. Like the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Thomas) I suggest to the Minister of Transport that he should not tell us he has no influence over the CPR. The CPR is not the government of the country. The cabinet over there is the government. It is time for the government to tell the CPR to put the pensions of its employees on a just, proper and humane basis, and to do it now.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Roland Godin (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to congratulate the hon. minister for announcing the decisions reached by the CN in respect of its retired employees' pensions. We should normally rejoice since this project provides increased payments, but actually the increase is so small, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (M. Knowles) has pointed out, that judgment really calls for some qualifications.
The CN estimates that its pensions schemes will cost at least $50 million, that is an increase of $17 million. But these amounts are not so considerable if we take into account the great contributions made by CN employees as well as the messing about that has been going on for a long time in the pension fund. It is known that these pensioners have asked the government to compel the CN to repay into the fund an amount of $675 million it had borrowed for 60 years at 4 per cent interest.
Everyone is aware that Social Crediters are against levying interest on new credits or savings. As regards the $675 million loan the CN has obtained from the pensioners' fund at 4 per cent interest for a period of 60 years, we think it has gone a little bit too far and this is why the CN is egged on today to grant a small increase of $1.50 or $2.
Another important point which should be raised, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that before the 1968 elections, the CN had received the support of some government members to distract from its pensioners' fund an amount of $371 million.
We therefore rejoice-as I said earlier-at what is happening today to pensioners, but we hope that the hon. minister will make a statement informing us when the CN intends to repay into the fund the $675 million it has borrowed at 4 per cent interest and when it will repay the $371 million which it also had to borrow and which appear nowhere and can to a certain extent be construed as a theft.
I therefore ask the minister to make another statement in the near future.



COMBINES


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to table in each of the official languages a report of the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission entitled Draught Beer, Metropolitan Toronto.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



FINANCE


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under Standing Order 43. My motion is related to further recent increases in the exchange value of the Canadian dollar resulting in a total increase of 10 cents over the past two years. I have made calculations which show that every increase of one cent costs prairie farmers $10 million and that an increase of 10 cents costs prairie farmers $100 million a year. Thus, I move:
That this House urges the Government of Canada to give early consideration to the provision of compensation to Canadian farmers to offset the loss of income caused by falling export prices brought about by the rising exchange value of the Canadian dollar.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not, and the motion cannot be put.



PROTEST RESPECTING FILM &quot;DUPLESSIS ET APRES&quot;- REQUEST FOR UNANIMOUS CONSENT TO MOVE MOTION UNDER S.O. 43

Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under Standing Order 43.
I ask unanimous consent of the House to move an urgent motion concerning a film which has been showing for a few weeks in several Canadian theatres, and particularly at the Comedie canadienne theatre, entitled "Duples-sis et apres . . ." This film was made by the National Film Board with the taxpayers' money-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member must state his motion. He cannot make an argument to support a motion which he intends to submit to the House.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
All along that film, fun is made on institutions-
June 29, 1972


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member should take into consideration the suggestion which I have just made to him. He cannot make an argument, and can simply state as quickly as possible what his motion is.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, I move:
That this House do issue an order giving the committee on broadcasting, films and assistance to the arts an opportunity to study the policy and administration of the National Film Board, which produced the film "Duplessis et apres . . .", a revolutionary film which ridicules the religious institutions of Quebec, the Liberal party, the Union nationale, the Social Credit party, and-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Is there unanimous
consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: The motion cannot be put.



FINANCE


Mr. Bill Knight (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. It concerns a revelation in the latest report of the Auditor General that a large automobile manufacturer received forgiveness of a debt to the treasury amounting to $6 million.
I therefore move, seconded by my hon. friend from Regina East:
That the government give serious consideration to forgiving under Section 17 of the Financial Administration Act, overpayments made to 4,000 western grain producers, to a total amount of $540,000, under Operation Lift.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not. The motion cannot be put.



ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW BOARD


Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-226, to establish an administrative review board.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Mark Willson Rose: Briefly, Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to correct the present situation under which the grievance of a public servant against a departmental superior usually filters down to the individual who made the original decision. This bill envisions a distinct and separate appel-
Inquiries of the Ministry
late body with powers similar to those granted in the case of war disability pensions to the Pension Review Board.


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


Mark Willson Rose: for leave to introduce Bill C-227, to amend the Harbour Commissions Act (commission membership).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.	.


Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this act is to eliminate the possibility of having the membership restricted to purely local business interests and to provide for members on the Fraser River Harbours Commission who will be representatives of the various interest groups using the river, to wit, fishing, labour, recreational, logging and shipping interests.


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


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Labour what his position is at the present time regarding the dispute in the St. Lawrence ports. Is it the position of the minister that he is simply hoping that the award made by the arbiter, Judge Gold, will be complied with?


Hon. Martin P. O'Connell (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the arbitration hearings have been concluded. Judge Alan B. Gold is in the course of preparing his report, and I think all hon. members would agree that it would be improper for me to comment while this process is reaching its final stages.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the reported intention of the union not to comply with the award, has the minister met with the union officials and discussed with them whether their attitude is correctly reported?


Mr. O'Connell:: Mr. Speaker, I expect that the parties to this dispute will come to their senses following the publication of the award and that they will comply with it.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the minister's statement of hope, but

June 29, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry
his failure to be able to give me a more positive answer to the question I have just asked him, has the minister any contingency plan-I ask him this question today since he is not due to be in the House tomorrow-in the event that the arbiter's award is not complied with and the reported intention of the union, which apparently the minister has not checked, turns out to be correct?


Martin Patrick O'Connell: Mr. Speaker, the government has under consideration all of the options available to it in light of the award of the arbitrator.



QUEBEC-LONGSHOREMEN'S STRIKE-EFFECT ON MOVEMENT OF GRAIN-CONTINGENCY PLANS

Mr. A. P. Cleave (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board which arose from a question I put to him last week. Has the minister or the Wheat Board been able to devise methods for moving grain to offset the export losses that have resulted from the closure of these ports?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to the House at the last opportunity, the remaining ports are operating to the maximum of their capacity in attempting to move the grain. There is, of course, a resultant delay for some of the ships coming in to collect grain.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister assure the House that he has further contingency plans underway if this tie-up at these ports is not immediately settled?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is repeating a question which was asked previously.



QUEBEC-LONGSHOREMEN'S STRIKE-ALLEGED ACCUSATION BY REPRESENTATIVE OF MONTREAL AUTHORITIES AGAINST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT-POSITION OF PRIME MINISTER

Mr. Real Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary to the Prime Minister.
A representative of the municipal authorities of Montreal yesterday charged the federal government with failing to intervene in the longshoremen conflict for political reasons. That is a statement which, in my opinion, is absolutely indecent. Did the Prime Minister answer that wanton charge from a representative of the Montreal municipal authorities?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I regret not having been aware of the statement. I did not know that it had been made, but I thank the hon. member for having pointed it to me. I will examine it and answer it if necessary.



QUEBEC-LONGSHOREMEN'S STRIKE-REQUEST FOR STATEMENT BEFORE ADJOURNMENT OF HOUSE

['Yes, Mr. Speaker. On several occasions, long before the government received any request to do so, we communicated with the French government to make it aware of the presence of some Canadians on a ship-not a Canadian ship-in the Pacific. The French government has informed us that the ship left these waters voluntarily and there was no intervention whatsoever by French authorities. This is the information we have from the French government, and since I cannot be in touch with the Greenpeace I cannot confirm it.']
Mr. Georges Valade (Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question to the Prime Minister in connection with that conflict.
As a result of the serious situation and the considerable damages in Quebec, especially in the port of Montreal, I would like to ask him if he intends to let the House adjourn before the settlement of that conflict?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, there is an adjournment motion on the order paper which will be called tomorrow, if necessary.


Georges-J. Valade: I should like to ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to ask the Minister of Labour if, as a result of that serious situation, he intends to make a statement before the adjournment of the House so that the people, the press and Parliament be informed of the exact situation and the steps the government intends to take to settle that conflict.


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I will give consideration to the suggestion, but I have no intention of taking such action at the present time. We are awaiting the award of the arbitrator.



David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Would he inform the House whether France has exploded a nuclear device in the South Pacific, contrary to the requests of nations of the world such as Canada and the countries of South America, and has the minister or the government any official or other information with regard to France's intentions respecting further nuclear tests in the area?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the French government has refused so far to confirm that any of the tests have been made, but we have every reason to believe that at least one has been made. We do not have any means of detecting explosions in the atmosphere, but we have been told that an explosion has already occurred, so we are assuming that is so. We have every reason to believe that, notwithstanding the very vigorous protests that have been made by us and other countries, even by this House of Commons, the French government intends to proceed with the rest of the tests.


David Lewis: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister be good enough to inform the House of the source of the information that at least one test has
June 29, 1972

taken place? Would he also inform the House whether any further protest to France is being organized by Canada or any other nation that takes the initiative for that purpose?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the information we have has come to us in various ways. None of it is contradictory, so we just assume it is true. It has not been denied by the French government, nor has it been confirmed. Our protests have been made to the French government, as have the protests of other countries, and, like the Prime Minister of New Zealand, I find myself having to conclude that the French government, notwithstanding what we consider to be action contrary to the welfare of mankind, puts its tests ahead of that consideration.


David Lewis: May I now ask the minister whether his department has kept in touch with the plight of the Greenpeace III, the ship which was supposed to be in the area where the tests were to take place? Are the reports that the French government has chased this ship out of that area correct, and are we in any way in touch now with the rather courageous people on the Greenpeace who are trying to make the protest against nuclear tests dramatic, in view of the danger to lives-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the hon. member will appreciate that this is not a question. The minister may reply to that part of the hon. member's intervention which was a question.


Mitchell William Sharp: Yes, Mr. Speaker. On several occasions, long before the government received any request to do so, we communicated with the French government to make it aware of the presence of some Canadians on a ship-not a Canadian ship-in the Pacific. The French government has informed us that the ship left these waters voluntarily and there was no intervention whatsoever by French authorities. This is the information we have from the French government, and since I cannot be in touch with the Greenpeace I cannot confirm it.



AGRICULTURE


Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Agriculture.
Could he tell us whether he intends to intervene to grant a delay concerning the legislation on fowl slaughter since a great many farmers could not take advantage of the legislation because the one million figure provided for in the legislation has been reached?


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: No, Mr. Speaker. In the press release I gave out upon the initiation
Inquiries of the Ministry
of the flock reduction program, the numbers were indicated. It was stated that when we had reached about one million birds in total-more than the normal number of 250,000 per week-the program would be terminated.


Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question.
According to farmers, a considerable number of chickens ought to be slaughtered to restore a balance.
What is the minister's decision regarding this? Are there any other considerations on which farmers could count?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: There may be some disequilibrium between individual producers in the provinces, but we have no control over any equity allotment or any authority to make such quotas. What we do know is the numbers involved in the flock reduction program for various provinces necessary to get the right balance was reasonably satisfactory.



NATIONAL PARKS


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in his capacity as minister in charge of parks. Knowing that he is interested in obtaining as much tourist traffic as possible, I would ask him whether he has received complaints from various United States tourists and others across Canada about the increase in the daily charge in National Parks for trailers and automobile homes from $2.50 to $4. I point out these people came to Canada or have been visiting the parks on the basis of information provided in booklets from his department stating that the cost would be $2.50 per day?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I have not received any such representations from tourists. Of course, it is always unfortunate to have to increase prices, but this $2.50 charge had been in force for many years; in view of the services we render to the public, we thought we were justified in increasing the cost at this time, but I do not think that the new price will be likely to scare visitors away. In my view, they realize this is still most reasonable for the services available to them in national parks.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the minister is changing the rules in the middle of the game. I have had four or five communications in this connection containing strong condemnation by United States tourists of what has been done. They are not complaining about the amount involved, but about the fact that they came to Canada on the basis of information that the charge would be $2.50. I would ask him whether he is prepared-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.

June 29, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry


John George Diefenbaker: -to postpone the coming into effect-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. May we have order, please. Perhaps the right hon. gentleman would resume his seat.


John George Diefenbaker: I am in such an agreeable mood today I would not ask an embarassing question.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: In light of the fact this change was made after the season was underway, I would ask the minister whether he will give consideration to postponing the coming into effect of this change until the end of the present season in order to encourage tourist traffic?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I am always glad to listen to the suggestions of the right hon. member. I shall take this one under consideration, but I do not know whether I shall be able to follow through with it.



ALLEGED DETERIORATION OF SERVICES IN CAMPGROUNDS

Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, in view of the information given by the right hon. member for Prince Albert about the fee increase for tenting and campground space in our national parks, would the minister advise the House why it is we are receiving so many complaints about the accumulation of garbage and the deterioration of services in some of these tenting grounds?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, that is the fact.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. H. W. Danforth (Kent-Essex):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Are investigations being carried out by his department to substantiate charges that there is unrestricted importation of fruits and vegetables into Canada, for example peppers, which have been exposed during growth to DDT spray? Will the minister state whether the government intends to either curb such importations or allow our growers to use the same chemicals instead of the other more costly substitutes required by Canadian law?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, I will look into this to see whether this is, in fact, happening, but I would like to remind the House that the tolerance of the residue of these chemicals on the plants is nil, so we would not find any residue whatever or the product would be rejected.


Mr. Horner:: Why don't you legalize it in Canada?



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like someone to allay my suspicions as to whether or not a member of this House can read. I should like to ask the Solicitor General whether he has yet read the article by Corporal Ramsay in the July issue of Macleans magazine which contains serious charges and statements about the RCMP, and has he instituted any inquiries into the subject matter of that article? If he has done so, is the inquiry being carried out by an independent group or by members of the force?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, I was informed that the publication involved withheld details which could have led to slander action. On the other hand, the individual who gave information to that magazine has a standing invitation to meet me. As I have said my door is open to both the publishers of the magazine and this individual so that I may be informed of specific cases. I shall certainly look into them to ascertain if an investigation is required. Anybody could then blame any government organization, which would compel the government to investigate each case.



ALLEGED PUBLICATION OF PORTION OF CONSULTANTS REPORT BY COMMISSIONER-CONSULTATION WITH MINISTER

Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact the minister stated in the House that the report on the RCMP published in 1968 by a group of business consultants cannot be made public because it is an internal document, and in view of the fact the Commissioner of the RCMP took the liberty of quoting portions of this report on the radio and in a telex message, I should like to ask whether the Commissioner obtained the permission of the minister to make public those parts of this report? If so, did he do so before or after he made them public?


Jean-Pierre Goyer: Mr. Speaker, if within that organization there are documents aimed at improving its administration, that means we are working at such an improvement. It is quite evident.


Mr. Speaker:: I will recognize the hon. member, but the House will have noted that we are not moving very quickly this afternoon. If we have 3, 4 or 5 supplementaries to each question, we will not be successful in recognizing too many members during the question period. I would advise hon. members, therefore, to try to limit their supplementaries for the benefit of their colleagues.
June 29, 1972



METHOD FOLLOWED IN PREPARATION OF CONSULTANTS REPORT

Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the minister said he cannot make that report public, will he advise the House who were the authors of the report, whether it is correct that in compiling the report they never left the city of Ottawa and whether or not they failed to interview any members of the force of lower rank or their wives or members of the Indian and Metis people.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the minister might reply briefly to this question, but the hon. member has asked a series of questions. I doubt whether that is in order. The minister may be recognized for the purpose of replying briefly.


Jean-Pierre Goyer: Mr. Speaker, I certainly refuse to accept all the hon. member's allegations, but I shall take his request into serious consideration.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the minister's announcement of the senior citizens New Horizons Program, would he advise the House whether he will make a statement on motions before the recess to advise Canadians what this program will entail.


John Carr Munro: I doubt that I will be able to make a further announcement before the recess. The government has under consideration now the criteria that will be applicable in respect of the New Horizons Program and I doubt whether we will complete our consideration by then.


Jack Marshall: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the long summer recess would give all Members of Parliament an opportunity to overcome the failure to communicate with people, would the minister reconsider and make a statement on motions tomorrow advising what the criteria will be so that members will be able to relay that message to the senior citizens of the country.


John Carr Munro: As I indicated I realize the communications aspect is important. Once we arrive at the decision we will endeavour to get that information to them as quickly as possible. We are endeavouring to discuss the criteria with the various provinces and have not completed that phase.



POSSIBILITY OF NEW PROPOSALS TO PROVINCES ON HEALTH COSTS-REQUEST FOR STATEMENT

Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In light of the indication given in
Inquiries of the Ministry
Quebec yesterday by the Minister of Finance that new proposals would be made to the province on the matter of health, I should like to ask the minister whether he will be making a statement on this subject before the House rises or whether this is something the Minister of Finance has taken into his own hands?


John Carr Munro: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Finance was down there with certain of his own officers and officials to discuss the health-cost formula. I believe he received various suggestions from the province of Quebec which he indicated he would consider in respect of further changes with a view to getting an agreement. However, that would take some time and I do not anticipate making a further announcement.



&quot;NEW HORIZONS FOR THE AGED&quot;-CONSULTATIONS WITH SENIOR CITIZENS GROUPS ON IMPLEMENTATION OF PROGRAM

Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey-White Rock):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare which is supplementary to those addressed to him a few moments ago about the proposed New Horizons Program. I should like to ask the minister whether in the carrying out of this program or in the putting of it together, the senior citizens themselves and probably their organizations will be consulted and advised.


John Carr Munro: Yes, they will. We have had some consultation with one or two of the national senior citizens organizations. It would be our hope to have further consultation with them. We hope the criteria will be flexible enough that it can always be changed to take into account their views.



FINANCE


Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance who was due to be in the House today but in his absence I will direct it to the acting minister. Have the Minister of Finance or any official of his department been in touch with the chartered banks to make sure they do not take advantage of the rising prime lending rates in the United States to increase the prime lending rate in this country?


Hon. P. M. Mahoney (Minister of State):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows the Minister of Finance was in very close touch with the Canadian chartered banks as recently as a couple of weeks ago, as a result of which short-term interest rates were lowered. I am sure he is in constant touch with them.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, due to that non-answer I will put a supplementary question. Is it the intention of the Canadian government to do everything in its power to

June 29, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry
stop a rise in the prime lending rate at this time, since a rise in the prime lending rate causes interest rates to go up which could and would adversely affect industrial expansion and employment at this time.


Patrick Morgan Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, the government, of course, is concerned about interest rates, among other things, in the economic operation and we watch this situation very carefully.


George Harris Hees: Then, why in the world do you not do something about it?



WELFARE


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare concerning a subject which has the heather ablaze in Prince Edward Island. It concerns the discontinuance of the grant from his department to the Prince Edward Island Tenants Union. Can the minister advise why such a step was taken, and whether the Prince Edward Island government made any representation regarding this highly criticized move which has added to unemployment in our area.


John Carr Munro: Mr. Speaker, I would advise that the decision was taken by myself as a result of evidence which came before me. I felt that the activities of the organization in question were outside the terms of the grant.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Solicitor General whether, in light of the fact that a charge has been laid-and I do not want to get into that matter-his cancellation of the program of temporary release of prisoners applies only to those who are dangerous sex offenders and who have been declared so, or does it apply to everyone in the penitentiary at this time? To whom does it apply?


Jean-Pierre Goyer: Mr. Speaker, I clearly indicated that the application of the program has been discontinued with regard to dangerous sex maniacs.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: In light of the fact that a fellow has just been charged, one of the ones whom the minister or his department has released, Swearngen, the man who shot two people, then disarmed two other policemen, was finally arrested and now given an additional eight years, will

he not apply the same criteria to those people who are given life sentences as a result of violent crimes or who have been convicted of murder, or is he going to do the same as he did in the other cases?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Jean-Pierre Goyer: Mr. Speaker, I am in full sympathy with the victims of criminals, whoever and wherever they may be but nevertheless I believe the hon. member's reasoning might lead to total discontinuing of the temporary leave program. Is that what he wants?



TEMPORARY RELEASE PROGRAM-RETURN OF JURISDICTION TO PAROLE BOARD

Eldon Mattison Woolliams: May I ask a further supplementary-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member may ask a supplementary, but I do not think there should be a debate. The questions and the minister's answers are taking the form of a debate between the two hon. gentlemen.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, in light of the mistakes which are now evident in respect of the program-the minister has admitted them himself-would he now return the jurisdiction to the Parole Board where it belongs or set up regional boards if he intends to continue with his program on an ad hoc basis and leave society unprotected.


Jean-Pierre Goyer: Mr. Speaker, I see that the hon. member shares my views. I have said again and again during the past few months that there should be a thorough review of the Parole Board and of the liberation of inmates in general. That is why I have set up a task force chaired by Judge Hugessen; a Senate committee is now dealing with this matter and will probably report on it in the fall.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest to the hon. member that we are running short of time. Perhaps we should try to limit supplementaries, and if there is time return to the hon. member.



HOUSING


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs whose name was on the roster for today. I do not see either him or his parliamentary secretary in the House, so I shall address my question to the acting minister or to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that printed copies of the report by Professor Michael Dennis on low income housing will be delivered today or tomorrow, and in view
June 29, 1972

of the immense importance of the subject to many Canadians, will the minister undertake to table a copy of this report in the House before adjournment?


Hon. lack Davis (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I will take notice of the question and draw it to the attention of the responsible minister.



NATIONAL HARBOURS BOARD


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the right hon. Prime Minister. In the light of the extraordinary situation disclosed by the hon. member for Wellington the other day that the National Harbours Board is unable or unwilling to give to the Minister of Transport a properly audited statement to table in the House, will the Prime Minister instruct the National Harbours Board or use his best influence to persuade them to give to the minister such a statement in order that the National Harbours Board may purge its contempt of Parliament and Parliament may know what are the conditions of the financial affairs of the National Harbours Board?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I should like to take notice of the question, Mr. Speaker.



GRAINS ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE-REQUEST FOR STATEMENT NAMING MEMBERS AND OUTLINING DUTIES

Mr. R. R. Southam (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice who is responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. In view of the recent statement made by the minister relative to the Canada Grains Council, the Grains Group, and the creation of a new broadly based Grains Administration Committee, would the minister take the first opportunity on motions to explain to the House what the exact duties of this new committee will be, who the members of the committee will be, and why there is such a proliferation of councils, groups and committees dealing with the same problems?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I thought that the announcement about the activities of the committee of the Canada Grains Council was clear, but if not, I will be glad to discuss it with the hon. member.



ANTI-DUMPING TRIBUNAL-SUGGESTED NAMING OF CHAIRMAN

Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed either to the Prime Minister or to
Inquiries of the Ministry
the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In view of the fact that there are hearings before the Anti-Dumping Tribunal and that some sort of a cloud still hangs over certain decisions of that board, would the right hon. gentleman or the minister advise the House when it is intended to appoint a new chairman of the board so that the board will be regularly constituted for its investigatory work as well as any particular hearings that may be held over the next few months?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance, under whose jurisdiction this is, has discussed this with me. I know he has been actively discussing the recruitment of certain persons for that important post.



PROPOSED MACKENZIE VALLEY GAS PIPELINE-INQUIRY AS TO DECISION TO AUTHORIZE CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Has the government firmly decided to authorize the building of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline at this time if an application is made?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, we have always taken the position that we would study any application, whoever submitted it. Apparently, an application for the construction of a gas pipeline might be submitted, and we shall consider it at the end of the year.



POSSIBLE INCREASE IN ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIPS- GOVERNMENT POSITION

Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Has the minister decided to increase his athletic scholarship program or physical fitness scholarships, so that the many hundreds of deserving young men and women who have been turned down recently will be able to have some opportunity in this regard?


John Carr Munro: Mr. Speaker, at present there is no intention to increase the allocation. As the hon. member knows, it is approximately $1 million now and we have been able to recognize many fine athletes in the country with that $1 million. However, there is no intention at present to increase this any further.
Inquiries of the Ministry TRADE

June 29, 1972



EXPORT OF CARS BY CHRYSLER UNDER DISC PROGRAM-GOVERNMENT ACTION

Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Can he inform the House as to whether or not the General Motors Corporations and the Chrysler Corporation in the United States have begun to export cars to Canada under DISC?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry. Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know about General Motors, but I am informed that Chrysler has begun to do that.


John Edward Broadbent: Can the minister inform the House as to whether or not the government intends to take any steps to prohibit this violation of the auto pact. Chrysler is the second corporation, joining Ford, and we may certainly anticipate that General Motors will undertake similar action. Does the government have any plans that it intends to implement in the summer months to stop this clear violation of the pact?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I have answered a similar question a number of times, Mr. Speaker. The best we can do is to say that we are keeping our options open.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair will recognize the hon. member for one last supplementary question. There is not much more than five minutes before the end of the question period, and I think that we should give an opportunity to other hon. members to ask their questions. I might mention in passing that I notice some hon. members who have asked questions or supplementary questions are rising again. Since they have already been recognized during the question period, they might as well take a rest for the remainder of the question period.



INQUIRY AS TO RESUMPTION OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNITED STATES

John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a final supplementary question for the minister. Is he in a position to inform the House now, or would he do so tomorrow, on the current state of trade discussions that have been going on for many months now with the United States to inform us if some agreement has been reached, more specifically, some agreement on Canada-U.S. trade.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, no formal discussions have taken place recently and this is mostly due to the fact that both countries' negotiating teams have been busy with bilateral and multilateral negotiations round the world such as, for example, the United States and China and the Soviet Union. But with Secretary Shultz' appointment now confirmed, and with the so-called holiday season 
approaching, there are good chances that these negotiations will be resumed on bilateral issues as well as on broader issues. In the meantime-


Mr. Speaker:: Can we have order, please.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint ]ohn-Lancaster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works. In view of the fact that No. 2 temporary building on Wellington Street is to be demolished within the next few months, can the minister say why expensive tiling is now being laid down there?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



COMMUNICATIONS


Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Communications.
Have the minister and his officials studied or agreed to the regulation of telecommunications by Quebec and the rate schedules set out in bill 35 where cablevision is defined as a public service, falling under the jurisdiction of a public service agency of the Quebec government?


Hon. Robert Stanbury (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I think the bill to which the hon. member refers applies to action within the jurisdiction of the province of Quebec. I do not think the federal government would take exception to any action which is within the jurisdiction of the province of Quebec.



FISHERIES


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of the Environment and Fisheries. In view of the decline by 51 million pounds in the quantity and more than $6 million in the value of fish landings for May as announced by the fisheries service of his department, will the minister inform the House whether he is still carrying on discussions with American authorities concerning the possibility of re-establishing the sword fishing industry in Atlantic Canada, and if so, is there any indication that import restrictions imposed by the United States authorities on Canadian swordfish imports may soon be lifted?
June 29, 1972


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any likelihood that the United States will relent and change its stipulation that swordfish containing more than half a part per million of mercury will not be allowed into the United States. However, we will continue to make representations.



GUIDELINES FOR CONSTRUCTION OF OIL AND GAS PIPELINES-GOVERNMENT POSITION ON SCREENING APPLICATIONS AND SUPERVISING CONSTRUCTION- POSSIBLE CONSULTATION WITH PRIVATE INDUSTRY

Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. With regard to the guidelines released yesterday on pipeline construction for Arctic oil and gas, on which he gave an extensive interview last night, has the government decided which agency will screen applications and supervise construction under these guidelines?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of the act, the management of the lands in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon falls within the jurisdiction of my department. The department's officials will control the progress of the work and this, in the light of advice from experts of the Department of the Environment.


Gordon Harvey Aiken: In view of the fact that most of the intensive research up to this time has been done by private industry and not by government sources, will the minister indicate whether the government will consult private industry, or what expertise his department expects to have?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, my department and the Department of the Environment have spent more than $15 million in the last three years to have some research done and the companies that make an application will have to prove that the construction of the pipeline will not cause any damage. If they cannot prove it, they will not be allowed to build it.



VENEREAL DISEASE-POSSIBLE EVALUATION OF NEW VACCINE

Philip Bernard Rynard: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the great concern over the increase in venereal disease is any research or clinical investigation
Inquiries of the Ministry
being undertaken by Canadian researchers in order to evaluate the results of the use of the new vaccine?


John Carr Munro: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I believe there is, but I am not aware of the precise details and will have to get them for the hon. member.



CRIMINAL CODE


John Gilbert: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Did he have the approval of the provinces, particularly the province of Ontario, for the amendments to the Criminal Code with respect to off-track betting, which are in the bill that he introduced yesterday?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, we had consultations with the provinces on the subject matter of introducing changes in the law which would allow, with provincial licensing, the extension of betting to off-track establishments. This was approved, generally speaking, by the provinces, although there were some reservations. In the case of Ontario, there was approval.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Last Friday I asked a question regarding gratuitous remarks by a British Columbia Supreme Court Justice. Has the minister had an opportunity to read the complaint lodged by the British Columbia Association of Non-Status Indians and does he believe, as a result of that complaint, that any action is warranted?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, while I have not had an opportunity to read the transcript myself and therefore form any personal opinion, the letter that came to us from the association has been referred to the Judicial Council.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the government House leader, having in mind that the cabinet apparently laboured until almost two o'clock, what is the size and description of the legislative list which was produced for today and tomorrow?

June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan


Mr. MacEachen:: Mr. Speaker, I would not admit that it required much labour to decide what is on the menu for the rest of the session. We will continue with FISP, the Family Income Security Plan, and hopefully when that is disposed of we might consider disposing of the report stage and third reading of the Pension Act, which will not take very much time. Hopefully, the third reading of the Farm Credit Corporation amending bill might also fall into that category of brief passage through the House, followed by the Canada Labour Code and the takeover bill. I still have waiting in the wings the Representation Commissioner Act and the CNR financing measure. If my hon. friend wants more, I will call another cabinet meeting.


Gerald William Baldwin: In light of the fact that the Prime Minister expressed some doubt as to whether the motion in his name on the order paper might be put tomorrow, can the government House leader take us into his confidence as to what doubt the Prime Minister might have and, if he gives way to these doubts, what we might be doing next week?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, there are no doubts whatsoever in the Prime Minister's mind about this motion tomorrow.


Mr. Alkenbrack:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a brief point of order. Earlier I attempted to ask a question pertaining to revenue, which I think is important, before the termination of this week's proceedings, and I wonder if I might get permission to ask it.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member might ask the question tomorrow. The hon. member will appreciate that there are other hon. members, in particular the hon. member for Moncton, who have questions to ask. I have tried to see them all, and perhaps once more I might mention that the members in the third, fourth and fifth rows again today were not given a fair chance to ask their questions.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Munro for the third reading of Bill C-170, to provide for the payment of benefits in respect of children.
Henry P. Latulippe: Mr. Speaker, before lunch I was stating the family's basic principles and prerequisites. I was saying that the human being is the most important aspect in society, as a divine creature, with aspirations and spiritual and material requirements, and that it has inalienable rights which must be respected and safeguarded.
I was saying as well that the most important duty of a democratic government within society is to give the

people the type of public administration they want, provided it is physically feasible and normally acceptable.
As regards family allowances, we are aware that it is physically possible to provide all Canadian families with family allowances geared to the increase in the cost of living. That is where our views differ from those of the hon. minister; we belong to those who have been asking for a long time for the increase in family allowances, not only for a designated group of families, but for all regardless of race, colour or language. They are human beings who deserve the highest possible consideration from their leaders.
We regret those complex aspects which were brought into Bill C-170. The decreasing rate is unacceptable because it is the money of the community, which must be spent by the community and not only by a group. The children from families whose annual income is below $4,500 are certainly entitled to adequate allowances properly tailored to the cost of living because an annual income of $4,500 is not sufficient.
Even an income between $4,500 and $8,000 is still too low. Families adjust their expenditures to their revenues. The higher their income, the more they spend; and the more they spend, the stronger the economy. In order to solve the problem of poverty, do we have to strip the poor man to help his poorer fellow?
This bill does not leave any room for the fight against poverty. Family allowances were designed to help Canadian families raise their children, the most important resource in our country. This objective becomes fuzzy the moment family allowances are made selective; everyone knows it would be impossible to pay family allowances large enough to compensate for all the expenses needed to raise children. The hon. minister stated in one of his speeches that more than a million Canadian families would not benefit at all from the legislation.
Is there any member here or any Canadian who believes that there are more than a million wealthy families in this country? Does the minister really believe it is fair not to give anything to the children of more than a million Canadian families? Does he really believe there are more than a million families in Canada which do not need any assistance to bring up their children?
Mr. Speaker, this shows the injustice generated by the bill now before us. We would have much to add about this but we say to the minister that he is making a big mistake and creating the greatest social injustice a country has ever known in having this House pass a legislation like the one before us now.
Every family in this country must benefit from this legislation. Whatever their income, all our families need family allowances.


An hon. Member:: That is not true.


Henry P. Latulippe: Somebody says it is not true. The Department of Revenue can get the surplus out of those who do not need them because it is empowered to do so under the law. But if there are shortages we must leave all necessary economic and monetary powers to the family so they may fulfill their possibilities; the community must distribute
June 29, 1972

its money among all citizens. Every child of any family in this country is entitled to family allowances.
There is no better way of distributing money in this country than giving mothers what they need for their family and for the country, for the family provides the servicemen the country will need to defend the crazy systems that exist.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, first may I say that when we consider Bill C-170 we must consider the entire aspect of redistribution of wealth. Family allowances were established on the principle of universality back in 1946, I believe. Through this bill we shall in a sense redistribute money throughout the various regions of Canada and among the lower income groups of our society. This program, in seeking to implement the theory that it is the government's duty to redistribute the wealth of the people, will turn the universal family allowance concept which was first adopted in 1946 into an additional welfare program. If we accept that, we must then ask, how much will the program cost? It will cost the people of our country an additional $150 million according to the minister. Whom will it benefit? Will it reduce welfare, or perpetuate it? Will it reduce poverty, or contribute to it? I believe this program will perpetuate welfare and poverty since it will encourage people who can least afford large families to raise large families.
Young people growing up in a welfare atmosphere become accustomed to it. They are satisfied to live that way and for a great part of their lives accept welfare and the dole. It is wrong, morally, to do this in a nation as wealthy as Canada, a nation populated with energetic people. As it is, we tax our people too much; we tax our young too much and our old too much. What happens to the middle income groups? They are taxed very heavily, much more heavily, on a proportionate basis, than the wealthy. I think this policy is a mistake.
Before we redistribute wealth on a regional basis we must consider how the various regions of Canada are made up. Which regions will benefit most? How will this money be redistributed? These questions were never answered in committee or during the second reading debate. Perhaps the minister does not know how this is to be done, or is afraid to disclose to the people how our wealth will be redistributed among the regions of this country. This is an important matter, Mr. Speaker, because at the extremities of Canada there is disunity. Before adopting a system that will redistribute wealth we must at this time, for the sake of our survival as a nation, examine how the redistribution is to take place, how it will affect the really rich and the middle classes.
Actually, we have provided a bonus for the married man raising a young family. I am referring, of course, to the previous family allowance plan and to the new FISP plan as well. At present there are income tax exemptions for every child. If we look closely at the system we will see that a married couple with an income of $3,000 per year and one child benefits to the extent of $180 per year from this program. When the income increases to $4,500 the family will receive that $180 and an additional $74 by
Family Income Security Plan
virtue of the reduction in income tax. If the family's income rises to $7,000, its extra spending power diminishes sharply. At $7,000 it obtains little or no benefit from the program. At $9,000 the reduction in income tax is $90. With an income of between $9,000 and $21,000 taxes rise drastically.
However, if you earn between $50,000 and $60,000 you receive almost as great a benefit from the tax system as the man earning $3,000. Clearly, the middle income group shoulders the load. That, I suppose, corresponds with the minister's thinking as expressed in his speech in Quebec. I hold in my hand a copy of the Montreal Gazette of June 21. The following is reported in this newspaper:
Munro said it would be "foolish" to think welfare needs could be met by hitting the "super-rich" and corporations with drastic tax increases.
In other words, he has adopted the Liberal party's concept that we must save the super-rich and tax the middle classes. I wonder if the workers in Hamilton appreciate that. There are many middle income people there. The article continues:
Furthermore, the minister argued that placing too much of a tax burden on the rich could remove the "incentive" to become rich which would leave the government "no further ahead and perhaps worse off."
The report in the Montreal Gazette of June 21 shows that the minister does not think we should tax heavily the super-rich. I used to think Canada was made up mostly of middle income people. The middle class is shrinking. The super-rich, as the minister calls them, and the poor who live at or below the poverty line are increasing. This bill does very little for our shrinking middle class. On the other hand, I think it will perpetuate poverty at the lower end of the income scale. Furthermore, it will permit the super-rich to avoid completely carrying their fair share of the burden in our economy.
Let us consider this redistribution. The committee studying this bill was never informed of any concept or forward-thinking which the department may have worked out as to how the money would be divided between the various regions of Canada. Nor has this House been so informed.
I wish to refer to some figures put forward by Mr. Reuben Baetz, executive director of the Canadian Council on Social Development, with regard to those living below what he and the Economic Council of Canada have established as the poverty level. For a married couple with two children the figure is $3,100, and for a married couple with five children the figure is a little over $5,000. That is what he has classified as the poverty level.
I now wish to refer to the areas which have the greatest number of families living below the poverty line. The figures are as follows: Quebec, 17.5 per cent; Ontario, 12.1 per cent; the prairie provinces, 24 per cent; British Columbia, 14.2 per cent; the Atlantic provinces, 29.7 per cent. There is a great deal of disparity as between the various regions with regard to families living below the poverty line. Has the minister stated that he believes redistribution of wealth as between the various regions under this program will correspond with the program

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Family Income Security Plan presented by Mr. Baetz in the Economic Council report of 1969? He has not. It should be clearly stated where this redistribution will take place.
Many people attacked Premier Bennett of British Columbia when he stated there should be a redistribution of wealth. I am in complete agreement with that, but it should go directly to the poor people. As I stated, the percentage of poor families in British Columbia is 14.2 per cent, a little better than Ontario and not that much better than Quebec. The prairie provinces and the Atlantic region suffer most in this respect. Will there be a more equitable distribution of wealth under the new family allowance program? I do not believe so.
I wish to refer to some figures in the report concerning unattached individuals living below the poverty line. These figures were established by the Economic Council of Canada and are as follows: the Atlantic provinces, 49.7 per cent; Quebec, 36.2 per cent; Ontario, 30 per cent; the prairie provinces, 40 per cent; British Columbia, 34.5 per cent. Here again, there is some merit to Premier Bennett's thinking. If we were to distribute our wealth among the poor, 34.5 per cent of the unattached individuals in British Columbia would benefit from such a scheme.
I shall read some more figures which are also very revealing. They are found in a report prepared by Statistics Canada with regard to the percentage of dwellings in Canada having less than one room per person. Can the minister give us the assurance that redistribution of wealth will alleviate this problem? Dwellings in Canada having less than one room per person amounted to 22 per cent. For Manitoba the figure was 25 per cent. For Alberta, that wealthy province which is often considered to be one of those which pays the shot, the figure was 25 per cent. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) visited Alberta before the last election he said it had to pay the shot, but in fact rural Albertans are not enjoying the same high standard of living as some other regions. It is interesting to note that the Maritimes fared fairly well. The figures are: Prince Edward Island, 18 per cent; rural Nova Scotia, 18 per cent; rural New Brunswick, 25 per cent; rural Quebec, 29 per cent; rural Newfoundland, 29 per cent.
These figures indicate that all is not well in many regions which are considered wealthy and must pay the shot for many of the equalization and redistribution programs. They really do not enjoy the standard of living which they might. In fact, having studied these figures, as well as those relating to unemployment and wage levels in the various regions, I believe that people on the Prairies are prepared to, and do, work for less. This is not good because we are rewarding the less thrifty, and to some degree at least those who are not interested in working. This concept is wrong.
It is wrong to perpetuate this sort of situation. We should try through good legislation to reward the thrifty and encourage people to reach a high degree of fulfilment. A system that rewards effort and thrift will bring about a better Canada in which to live. This program is basically wrong. It will perpetuate poverty and welfare and encourage large families at the low income level where people are least able to educate their children in

order that they may take their place in the highly technological society in which we live.
I am disappointed that the minister has failed to give a breakdown of who will pay the increased tax and which regions will benefit so that we may know whether this program will alleviate poverty in our country. The minister could have devised a program much more in keeping with the needs of today's society.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, of all the
stupid, idiotic, miserable and impossible bills introduced by this government, Bill C-170 must set a new highwater mark for bureaucratic bungling. Perhaps the bill should be entitled "an act to guarantee the establishment of bureaucracy" or "an act to drive ordinary taxpayers crazy." An ordinary person would have to lie awake at night for weeks to dream up anything as complicated. Even an ordinary nightmare would be a welcome relief after reading Bill C-170. This is a horrendous bill, Mr. Speaker. It fills the heart with despair that this government will ever abandon its penchant for symptom-treating. That is the fundamental objection: Bill C-170 is symptom-treating.
If the anti-poverty campaign of the past few years had been successful, this bill would not now be necessary. In fact, as was stated earlier in this debate, there is more poverty, relatively, today than when the anti-poverty campaign began a few years ago. There are much better ways to distribute income. The one that I would like to see adopted in this country is higher minimum wages. Frankly, I do not think there is any substitute for it.
During the past few years we have distorted our economy out of all reason until today we have people working in some parts of this country for $1.25 or $1.50 an hour while in other parts people with approximately the same level of education are earning $7, $8 or $9 an hour, plus fringe benefits. It is totally impossible for the person earning minimum wages or near minimum wages today to buy the products of those who are earning the higher wages. Something has to be done about this situation. In my opinion there is no better method than bringing minimum wages for employables up from the bottom. Not only must this be done but it must be done on an accelerated basis.
I am aware the minister might suggest that this is a provincial matter. I agree that it is in part a provincial matter. At the same time, there is no reason the federal government cannot get together with the provinces and work out ways of increasing minimum wages on an accelerated basis. If necessary, the federal government, with its tremendous fiscal leverage, can use moral suasion to get the provinces to take action.
Minimum wages is the best method of distributing income. It is the cheapest of all methods of doing so because there is no brokerage involved; there is no one to take a nickel or a dime off for administration since the payment is made directly to recipients. In my opinion there is no substitute for what is the most efficient, most
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economic method of distributing income to employables, which is through minimum wages.
It has been argued that minimum wages raise costs and, therefore, the prices of marginal goods. This is true, of course. If one small shop or one small restaurant had to pay higher minimum wages than its competitors, it would be placed at a disadvantage. But if all similar establishments had to pay higher minimum wages the competitive position would remain intact.
If no other changes took place, the cost of the goods or services provided to the public would increase. But there is a related effect. Instead of collecting extra tax dollars necessary to finance some of these income redistribution schemes, the government could reduce taxes so as to compensate for, or at any rate largely offset, the effect of increased costs due to higher minimum wages. In these circumstances the effect of higher minimum wages would be mitigated. There would be no necessity for higher prices in most cases and in other cases only marginally higher prices would be necessary, not greater than those which would be required in any case as a result of higher tax levels.
So an increase in the minimum wage would not cost more, and it would probably cost less. It would cost less because it would not be necessary to collect money from the taxpayers on the one hand, to handle it at great cost through a large number of employees engaged in administration and then to redistribute it to many of the people who had paid it in the first place. In addition, it is socially more acceptable. There is something good about people getting their incomes in their own pay packets. There is something socially desirable about a system under which payments are made directly to recipients and subject to less probing by the bureaucracy; where there is less "big brother" interference in the lives of ordinary citizens.
One of the most regrettable developments in the last two decades has been the degree of insistent interference with the petty details of people's lives. Is it any wonder people are beginning to go right up the wall? The minister could take a lesson from what is happening in Sweden, where the level of bureaucratic interference is such that not only is efficiency falling off but people who were so proud of their democratic system until recently are now having serious doubts about it. The bureaucrats of this country are driving the little people crazy. It is a matter of sensitivity, a matter of humanity. The more interference there is in the details of people's lives, the more inhumane the system becomes.
Of particular interest is the provision here for adjustments to correspond to changes in the cost of living. This is another indication that the government has no serious intention of taking action to control inflation. This afternoon the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) told us that one more adjustment to compensate for inflationary rates was being made. Another occurs in the bill before us. We are bringing in more and more legislation containing provisions for adjustment to reflect increases in the cost of living.
Is this an admission that there is nothing we can do about inflation? Does it mean we have capitulated to this most insidious of all the threats to our economy, that we have given up all hope of being able to bring costs under
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control, that the government has abdicated its responsibility and has no further plans to put before the Canadian people? It is evident that something has to be done. It is impossible to allow this erosion to take place at the present rate for many more years.
One must look ahead. With wage settlements following the present pattern, and on the basis of the existing rate of productivity in this country, by the end of the century milk will cost $1.65 a quart, a television set will cost $2,500 and a house that today costs $25,000 will cost $146,000. The worst aspect of these figures is that a great many ordinary, innocent people will be hurt in the process. So when we see the government once again coming forward with legislation and provisions which are nothing more than superficial symptom-treating, we begin to give up hope of any move toward more radical and positive alternatives.
I should like to recite what I think the positive alternatives should be. As far as employables are concerned, they should have access to jobs with decent wages. If the minister would do his mathematics he would find that a modest increase in the minimum wage would provide more relief for more Canadian families that are affected by the bill before us. And it would be a lot less complicated. The solution for employables, then, is jobs in such numbers that anyone who wants to work can work. There is no secrecy about how this can be done; all the orthodox economists know how to do it. It is being done in most countries of the western world-in Germany, Switzerland, and all the Nordic countries. It is being done in New Zealand and Japan. It is only in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy that there is a high level of unemployment. And, of course, Canada has the worst record of all.
Wages for those who want to work should be high enough to enable them to look after all their basic requirements, that is to say, food, clothing, shelter and personal needs. Wages should be high enough to enable them to keep themselves and their families in reasonable dignity. This is an assurance of guaranteed annual work, which is an altogether different proposition from a guaranteed annual income, a direction in which the minister seems to be moving by the back door. I tell him that a guaranteed annual income is nothing more than institutionalized welfare. It is one of the most retrograde developments which could possibly be imagined. What it does is to establish as a matter of right those incomes that are sufficiently high as to be a disincentive to work for many people.
Whether the minister knows it or not, there are in Canada today tens of thousands of people who find themselves in the position where taking a job at or near minimum wages provides them with less cash disposable income than they can get from the welfare program. So guaranteed annual work, rather than guaranteed annual income, is the solution for employables.
For unemployables, of course, a guaranteed annual income is required. Once again, that guaranteed annual income for those who cannot work or are unable to work, for deserted mothers and so on, must be high enough to look after their basic necessities of life-food, clothing, shelter and personal requirements-so that they too do

June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
not have to beg, so that they too do not have to look for aid from "big brother", so that they too do not have to look over their backs at weekends to see whether someone is watching them and seeing how they spend their time, whether they are doing a little moonlighting. In other words, we must restore a little dignity to human life by providing our unemployables with a guaranteed annual income that is sufficient for their basic needs.
We would then be able to use our tax laws to compensate people for the extra cost incurred in raising children. There is no reason why, with decent minimum wages for jobs which are available for those who want to work, our tax laws cannot be regulated in such a way that the extra income required to raise children is thus available to families with children.
One wonders, of course, whether a really progressive government that appreciates the necessity for going to zero population growth would want to encourage large families. In the event they decided that notwithstanding the consequences to the environment of this planet they wanted to encourage large families, or they just wanted to compensate people for the cost of the raising children who are already on this planet, there would be a better way to accomplish it than the proposals put forward in this bill. The government can still use the tax laws in order to provide the extra net income for a family's requirements.
In addition, as I have stated, it is necessary to protect the purchasing power of the ordinary people. We must control inflation; we cannot allow it to continue the way it is at the present time. I have stated over and over again that in my opinion there is no substitute for mandatory guidelines for wages and profits where monopoly power exists. If there is any other solution, I should like to know what it is; but to the best of my knowledge there is none.
Wages where monopoly power exists-which means where big unions exist-must be related to productivity. An increase in wages must be related to the average productivity increase in the whole economy. Then where giant companies are so big, so strong and powerful that they can regulate markets, their profits must be controlled in such a way that the benefits of the controlled wages are passed on to the consuming public. If that is done, then it is in fact possible to operate a free society in such a way that jobs are available for anyone who wants to work and, at the same time, the purchasing power of the Canadian economy is preserved and the savings of our senior citizens and others living on fixed incomes are kept intact.
I know of no other way to get to the position where prices are stable. It is possible to make our financial system work superbly and to provide jobs for all who want to work, at decent wages. It is possible to offer wages at a level high enough to look after family responsibilities. But this will require action quite different from that proposed in this House during recent weeks.
When one considers the common sense alternatives that are available, one wonders how Bill C-170 ever got through the cabinet. It is a terrible indictment of the cabinet system. Where is cabinet control of the bureaucracy? Where is cabinet control of its silly ministers? I hope the minister does not take offence at that remark, because

I know his heart is in the right place even if his legislation is every bit as bad as I have painted it. Certainly after reading the bill and the remarks the minister made in Quebec City recently, I must regretfully put the minister in that category. This is one of the problems with the present government. It has a lot of ministers who for one reason or another are guilty of what could be most generously described as fuzzy or furry thinking. And apparently the other ministers are unable to control them.
Where does the minister think that the money he needs will come from? He made a case today which I found very interesting: he said that it would not come from the middle class. I am wondering just where he thinks it will come from. He certainly is correct in saying that it will come from the middle class, because there is not enough money available from that source.
To illustrate this, recently I asked the parliamentary library to do an exercise for me to demonstrate what would happen if we taxed all incomes $20,000 and over at 100 per cent. The answer reveals that there would be about $250 million extra income, at least as I recall the figure. If this amount were distributed among the whole working force, each member of the working force would receive 1| cents an hour. If the level were reduced to $15,000 and all income above that was taxed at 100 per cent, you would have an additional income of about $530 million. Divided amongst the whole working force this would provide an extra three cents an hour. This is not the kind of aggregate that would gladden the hearts of the average working person in this country at the present time.
As I have suggested, Mr. Speaker, there is no way we can get the money required except by increasing production. The way to increase production is to get people off welfare and back into the work force. We must get people off unemployment insurance and back into the work force. If, as suggested earlier, by the leader of the New Democratic Party, we reduced the present level of unemployment from 6 per cent to 3 per cent, reducing the number out of work in this country from about 600,000 to 300,000, roughly $5 billion a year in real terms would be produced to enable us to do all the things that are required to make this country great.
This money can, of course, be used to eliminate poverty. It can be used to bring minimum incomes up to the point where people can breathe a little easier. It can be used to eliminate slums and wipe out the terrible shacks that exist in many parts of the country. Some of this money could be used to build houses for people and families who need them. Some of it could be used to construct an urban transportation system to enable people to travel around in some comfort, and thus some dignity would be restored to urban living. Some of it could be used for the development of industries and resources in Canada-this would be Canadian capital-if only our tax laws encouraged savings, as opposed to the kind of laws passed recently by this Parliament which had the opposite, negative effect.
If the economic management of this country was worth anything, we would have available extra resources to the tune of $4 billion or $5 billion annually over and above natural growth. This could be used to eliminate poverty, slums, to build houses, to construct an urban transporta-
June 29, 1972

tion system and to develop our resources. In other words, it would enable us to do those things which Canadians want done. That is the method we should adopt. That is the direction we should take, rather than taking more income out of the present pot and passing it to people who in many cases have no incentive to get back into the work force.
The present policy is retrogressive both economically and socially. It is retrogressive economically in the sense that every person who is discouraged from participating in the work force means less productivity, and thus we are unable to do all those things which remain to be done. It is retrogressive socially because most people are happier when they are working, when they have something productive and worth while to do and feel important. They are happier if they feel they are part of the process and Eire needed and wanted. It is socially more desirable to have people working than having a welfare system which discourages their working. Of course this happens, and I can give the minister many individual cases if he is interested in having them.
We are already reaching the point of diminishing returns and to push tax rates higher would be another folly. In the last two weeks I have talked to a number of individuals who already have refused to work overtime. By the time the government takes its cut, they say it is not worth while. One would expect that this would apply to a number of people in the professions, and it does. Now it has come down to a level which I would call the average working level.
Recently I was involved in a television interview and the CBC technician behind the camera came over afterward and said he refused to work any more overtime. He was a single man and the tax rates are so high that he feels there is no point working overtime; it was not worth while. A week ago Saturday I attended a garden party in my riding at a home for senior citizens, and the chief nurse said the same thing. She said she would no longer work overtime bec'ause there was no percentage in it for her. She said she was working that day and would take time off. She would not work overtime because the taxes she had to pay to the government of Canada and to other levels of government were so high it was not worth while; she was going to take time off instead.
We have reached the point of diminishing returns, and there is no place from which the extra tax money required for these new measures can come unless we put back to work people who are presently unemployed and who in most cases would welcome a chance to go to work if wages were high enough to enable them to keep themselves. You cannot blame somebody for not going to work when he can make 20 per cent or 30 per cent more by staying home than by re-entering the work force.
One might also ask where the Liberal backbenchers were when this bill was being presented. Did they object to it in caucus? I know what some of them think by listening to them over here, ministers and backbenchers alike. They think this is a very bad bill. Most of them do not want to fight an election on it and hope it will not go through in the next two days, yet they let it through
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caucus and they come in and rubberstamp it. Are they as incapable of exercising independent thought as the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said they were when he was writing in "Cite Libre" some years ago? We have a chance to find out in the course of the next two days.
I suppose one might ask the official opposition if this is not an opportunity for them. Surely they do not want something as complicated as this bill to pass the House. Surely if they are serious about forming a government later this year they would not want to foreclose their opportunity by allowing this bill to pass at this time. Surely they could come up with something more ingenious than this bill. Surely they have some ideas of their own they would like to put forward after the election. If they are serious and really believe there is any possibility of forming a government, then to demonstrate that belief they should hold up this bill so it does not pass and clear the deck for action with measures of a more ingenious and fundamental character when the next Parliament is called later this year. That is what I would recommend.
I would recommend that all people who believe the time for symptom-treating has come to an end, who believe we must get back to fundamentals and start curing diseases rather than putting band-aid on top of band-aid, should vote against this bill, stop it in its tracks. Then perhaps at the next Parliament of Canada someone will come up with a fundamental measure that will enable people of this country who want to work, to work for wages high enough to keep themselves and their families in decency and at the same time make a contribution to both the economic and social welfare of this great nation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the debate on Bill C-170 is really a debate in respect of a basic principle. I recognize that the waters have been muddied a good deal and we have got away from serious discussion of the principle that I believe should be central to this debate, but the principle is still there. It is because in our view that principle is a very important one both now and in the future that we still think the government should not press Parliament to pass this legislation at this time.
As I suggested yesterday when we were at the committee stage, I strongly believe this bill should be taken back to the drawing boards, and I still make that plea to the minister as earnestly as I can. I said there is a principle at stake in this bill. That principle, as I see it, is simply this: Are we going to treat people in Canada as people, or are we going to treat them as pawns in an economic mess? When any government provides assistance to its people, whether it is called welfare, allowances or what-have-you, because they are poor, and when any government bases its social programs on poverty it is violating the principle that people have rights because they are people.
I believe in the redistribution of wealth. I do not think it is yet within the capacity of mankind to devise an economic system which will automatically distribute the wealth we produce on the basis of equality, yet I think that a civilization which is civilized ought to aim at equality, and I favour the redistribution of wealth being done through progressive taxation and the distribution of allowances to people to enable them to enjoy an adequate standard of living. I want those allowances to go to

June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
people, old age citizens, mothers, children and what-have-you, not because certain of those people are poor but because they are people and have the right to share in the wealth this country produces.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro) is sitting there ready to say he has heard this speech from me ten, fifty or a thousand times, but it is still true that over the years we have made some progress in this Parliament. The day came when we took away from our older people the stigma that was attached to them when pensions were given only if they declared their absolute poverty. That day came when we established old age security on a universal basis. We had enough years of experience with old age security on a universal basis to be able to compare that experience with what had gone on before. I am prepared to assert and reassert that we gave to many senior citizens in those years a dignity that we denied our older people in earlier years.
We gave to Louis St. Laurent when he became 70, we gave to other politicians, we gave to professionals, to working people and so-called poor people the same basic pension. We accorded a dignity to old age because we gave it to Canadians over a certain age, not because they were poor but because they were Canadians of that age. We did not ask them to declare their poverty in order to receive that pension. No matter how much the Minister of National Health and Welfare wants to chide me about making this speech times without number, and no matter how uncomfortable he feels because I assert this is one good thing a Liberal government once did, it is a fact it was a piece of legislation that was good. The thing that was good about it was that it accepted the basic principle that people should be treated by the economy of the country-and after all, it is the government which has control of it-not in terms of their wealth or poverty but in terms of their being people.
I say to you, sir, that we did the same thing in 1944 in respect of family allowances. The amount of money that was provided was very small, and I do not want to subscribe to all the things Mr. Mackenzie King said about the humble poor, the working poor, and so on, when he was putting this legislation through; but the basic principle of that legislation was good. We said we were going to provide an amount of money for the children of this country because they were the children of this country. We attached no means test to it. It was a good piece of legislation.
However, this government headed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), a latecomer to the Liberal party who decided that the Liberals who went before him did not know what they were talking about, decided that the progress we made toward universality, toward the payment of pensions and allowances to people, not as welfare or as handouts because they were poor but as their share of the wealth that was being produced, was wrong. The cabinet ministers over there have now decided that was wrong. I submit to them that they have not thought the matter through and that they are turning back the clock of history so far as Canada is concerned.

Just as it was wrong to attach a means, a needs or an income test to a portion of the old age pension, so it is wrong in principle to attach a means or a needs or income test to the family allowance. I urge as strongly as I can that the minister, who along with my leader I think has a good heart, not have it on his record that in his younger years, instead of helping to achieve progress in this country he turned the clock backward and returned to the practice of payment of allowances to children on the basis of poverty.


Mr. Haidasz:: He is not prime minister yet.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do not know what that has to do with it but I suppose the point is well taken, that it is the Prime Minister who made this decision and that the Minister of National Health and Welfare is just carrying out the decision the Prime Minister made. Now they have decided that Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent and Lester Pearson did not know what they were talking about when they tried to establish and reinforce the principle of universality.
I realize I am repeating myself, but to me this is terribly important. I think we are talking about the most important aspect of social policy that this Parliament ever considers. When we give money to people because they are poor and make them declare their poverty, we keep them in that poverty. One of the things I do not like about this FISP legislation, if it goes through, is that I think just as welfare has produced generations which are on welfare because the former generation was, so we will divide this country into the haves and have-nots and many of the have-nots are families with children who will receive the FISP benefit because they have met a poverty test, and those children will grow up to become the parents of families which will do the same thing. Do we not want to bring a halt to this?
In all our discussions about national unity we hear a great deal about language and race. If there is to be national unity, it must be in economic terms. We must move in the direction of economic equality among our people. We will not do this by the method of saying to people that they will receive the allowances they are entitled to, not because they are Canadians but because they declare their poverty.
This morning when the Minister of National Health and Welfare was making that interesting speech, the purpose of which is obscure, he had quite a bit to say about our charge that this legislation stigmatizes those who will receive these FISP cheques. He is quite justified in saying that quite a bit was said over here about the comer grocery store man knowing the position of certain families when he would cash the cheques, and so on. Because things like that were mentioned over here I do not blame him for trying to answer them.
However, the minister missed the main way in which this legislation will stigmatize and dehumanize people. It is very simple. We now have a family allowance program for which people qualify because they have children of certain ages; that is all there is to it. But under the new legislation the only way one can receive a benefit under FISP is by declaring his poverty. I do not want Canadians to be forced by legislation to declare their poverty, or for them to start a tradition in which their children and their
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children's children will do the same thing. I want to move in the direction of economic equality. We will get there a lot faster with universal programs than we ever would with the kind of legislation the minister now has placed before us.
As I say, there is a lot of talk about the need for Canadian unity. We have to get together among the provinces, the provinces have to get together with the federal government and both have to get together with the language groups, and so on. I agree on the need for Canadian unity, but I insist there will not be real unity until there is an equal opportunity among all people in this country to enjoy a decent standard of living.
The hon. member who spoke just before me seemed worried about the guaranteed income and people having the right to welfare. I think he put it this way. If I am misquoting him, I trust he will forgive me. It seems to me what is wrong in his thinking is his failure to realize that there are already things to which people have a right. People have a right to live. People have a right to use the roads and highways and the postal service. People have the right to be defended and protected. They have the right to education. We say people have a right to decent housing, and they also have the right to enough money to be able to enjoy a decent standard of living. We believe that right should no more depend on whether or not they are lucky enough to get remunerative employment than the right to an education should depend on whether they were born in a poor or a wealthy home. It is because we believe that the redistribution of wealth should be done on the basis of right that we favour allowances being given on a universal basis rather than as welfare payments being handed out on a basis of one's declaration of poverty.
So I say that we are discussing today one of the most important matters of principle that we ever discuss in this House of Commons. The whole issue has been with us for a long time. Among the things that I have read fairly often is the report of the Liberal convention of 1919 when they were concerned about unemployment, old age and sickness and pledged themselves to do something about those difficulties. It took them a long while to sort out their thinking. But I have to say for the Liberals that even though it may have taken prodding from this side of the House to make them do it, they came to the point when they realized that these problems were not to be solved by welfare handout programs but, rather, by universal allowances or by insurance programs.
I think the travail that the Liberal party went through for a few decades to come to this position was worth it. The trouble is now-and it is a tragedy for Canada-that the Liberal government is headed by a Prime Minister who thinks he knows better than all the Liberals who went before him, so he has handed out the dictum that the way the other Liberals did it is not the right way. So now they foreswear the principle of universality, the very principle that led this Parliament to bring in good social legislation.
I believe it is most unfortunate that this has happened to the Liberal party. If it had happened only to the Liberal
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party it might not be so bad, but because the Liberal party is in power it is happening to the country as a whole. I see this piece of legislation, if it goes on the statute books, as an unfortunate one, not just for the mess that I will talk about in a few minutes but because I think it turns back the clock; it increases the sense of division in this country; it divides us into haves and have-nots; it perpetuates living on handouts, on welfare, on means tests or income test programs instead of enjoying one's share of the wealth that we produce because we are people, because we are Canadians and because we are part of this great country.
If we cannot persuade the government under the present Prime Minister to realize the mistake that it is making, I hope that at least by debating this measure, as now seems likely in view of the speech made by the Minister of National Health and Welfare, we may yet give the government the summer to think it all over.
I said a moment ago that I would say something about the mess that this legislation will create. There is no doubt about that. It is true that some of the many difficulties that the new Unemployment Insurance Act created have lessened, but they have not gone. We still have cases of persons over 65 or over 70 years of age having received unemployment insurance benefits being told a few months later that they have to return the $200 or $300 they received. One can imagine the tragedies that this kind of thing produces.
We still have people not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled or having to go through all sorts of rigmarole. Why? Because a relatively understandable Unemployment Insurance Act was replaced by one that had in it so many complications that it is just not working. The troubles that the computer had with the Unemployment Insurance Act are minor compared to the troubles the computer will have with this act. The minister and his officials have had to admit from time to time that it will take longer and longer to get this legislation into effect.
Originally, there was a bill under which payments were to have been made last month, in May, 1972. Now we have a bill the intention of which was that the payments would be made in September or October of 1972. That has been delayed to December and then to January. Yesterday the minister admitted that very probably the payments under the new legislation will not be made, even if the bill passes now, until next summer, the summer of 1973. I suggest to you, Sir, that if it will take that long to get it started, it is an indication of the length of time that will be needed to sort out the complications and the messes that will arise under this legislation.
It has been said many times that the amount that you get will have to be readjusted time and time again because people do not live lives under static conditions. The average family finds its income going up or down, finds the number of children increasing or decreasing and their ages changing. There are cases where people go on unemployment insurance and then go back to work again, or have periods when they do not get either, so that the amount of income a person will have in a year is an unknown quantity at the beginning of the year and in some cases is unknown at the end of the year. All these

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Family Income Security Plan things can determine the amount that each family will get under FISP.
The result of all this, as I say, is that there will be a complicated mess, and in addition to the delays and changes that will take place there will be the fear that thousands of mothers and families will have, that they may be saying the wrong thing, that they may be making a mistake, that they may have failed to report something which they should have reported. The result will be that they will put themselves in danger of having to pay moneys back or face prosecution.
Compare all that with the simple system we have had since 1944 under which all of these other economic factors did not matter at all. I submit that these complications make this bill one that no sensible group of people, such as I hope we have in the House of Commons, should accept. I disagree with a good deal that the hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Hellyer) said in the speech he made this afternoon, although I understand some of what he said and agree with some of it. But what interested me most was his reflection, as one who sits to Your Honour's right, of the kind of talking that is going on in the Liberal party. He is not of them any more, but he is over there with them and he made it clear to us that there are many of them, ministers and backbenchers alike, who hope this legislation will not go through.
As a matter of fact, this morning when the Minister of National Health and Welfare made that very provocative speech I wondered if that was his purpose. Was he trying to provoke more speeches in this debate so that the bill would not get through today or tomorrow?


John Carr Munro: It was not all that provocative, surely.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Nothing is impossible, from the minister. In fact, if the minister wants to know, I will look him straight in the eye and tell him that I do not think he believes in this legislation.


John Carr Munro: That is not true.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do not think that the minister, whom I knew under other circumstances when he was a private member sitting on the opposition side of the House, and when he was parliamentary secretary to the minister of national health and welfare during the Canada Pension Plan days, is the person whom I knew in those days. I do not think he believes in the principle which the Prime Minister has told him must be enshrined in this legislation. For all these reasons, and in particular because of the complicated mess that this legislation will produce, we think it should not be passed today or tomorrow.
In passing I would like to make reference to another awkward situation that is likely to develop. If my friend, the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Macln-nis), gets the floor in this debate she will enlarge upon it because it is a matter that she raised when the bill was before the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs. But in case she is delayed in joining the debate, she has asked me if I would mention it now. As the minister knows, my colleague asked questions in the committee about the possibility of the FISP benefits being

treated as income for purposes of welfare payments in some of the provinces. In particular, she asked whether any steps would be taken to make sure that this would not happen. This was dealt with in the committee on May 24, 1972. The record of that discussion is on pages 9:20 and 9:21. I will not take the time to read what is said there, but I would point out that the minister simply expressed the hope that they would not do it but he was not able to give an assurance. He insisted that it was not the job of the federal government to require provinces to sign an agreement in this respect.
I have in my hand a letter which the national anti-poverty organization of Alberta sent to the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway, with a carbon copy to all Alberta members as well as to other interested members, in which it is pointed out that in Alberta the present family allowance payments are not regarded as income for the purposes of welfare, but there is every indication that in that province family income security benefits, mainly because they will be larger, in some cases will be counted as income for the purposes of welfare payments. The result could well be a smaller total cash flow to individual families.
My colleague tells me that the same thing is likely to happen in British Columbia. I say to the minister that the provinces which provide welfare payments do so on the basis of the Canada Assistance Plan, which is funded 50 per cent by the federal government, and I see no reason why the government could not find a way to make sure that payments made under FISP are not counted as income and therefore deducted from the welfare payments made in the provinces.
I hope my colleague will be able to get into this debate at some point and develop this matter. I mention it here as one complication that is bound to develop with this kind of legislation. Indeed, complications are bound to develop with respect to the whole nature of this program, which is the welfare program that the hon. member for Trinity does not like. I quite agree with him in his opposition to welfare. Where I disagree with him is in his opposition to a guaranteed income, his opposition to redistributing wealth with the aim of providing an adequate and decent standard of living for all our people.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I know the hon. member would not want to create a false impression. Whereas I did suggest that work for employables is better economically and socially than welfare, my proposal was for accelerated minimum wages which would lead to income redistribution.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am happy to accept that correction and to accept the hon. member's statement that he believes in income redistribution. But where we part is on the question of how it is to be done. You cannot do it by minimum wage levels, necessary as they are. In the final analysis there has to be a tax structure and the payment of allowances in a way-


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: No way.
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Stanley Howard Knowles: -that will really redistribute wealth and bring something approaching equality to this country. The hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert), who has made a number of interjections which I have not stopped to listen to, says there is no way for that to work. Mr. Speaker, let it be on the record that I, too, do not believe it is possible to devise an economic system that will distribute income and wealth equally to all citizens. I think it is the job of government to step in and do that, because people are people no matter where they were born.
I suspect that many of us in this chamber were born under conditions of poverty. I am not going to recite my own case, for there are many others in this House who could do likewise. A number of us have been able to break through the barrier, to get into a little better climate of life; but that number is few. What I do not like is that so many people are confined to the same level, the same stratum of society in which their parents lived.
I think that as we go on with these kinds of payments, based on poverty, that is what we perpetuate. I do not want to perpetuate it. I want to work by every means we can, under federal and provincial legislation, to a greater redistribution of the wealth of this country. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we want to see an increase in the payments of what we have known since 1944 as family allowances. We welcome the proposal in this bill that instead of paying $6, $8 and $10 at various ages, we pay $15 and $20.1 would be quite happy to see those amounts made larger. I will not waste any time on the question of where the money would come from, because my leader the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis) completely demolished the arguments made by the minister this morning in that respect.
As a matter of fact, I have spent my whole adult life listening to Liberals, from Charlie Dunning on down, saying that we cannot find the money to do this or that, yet I have seen Liberal governments find the money when they have been forced into doing things. We urge that the payments stipulated in this bill be made on a universal basis. We think that the tax structure should be revamped so that those in the upper brackets will pay them back.
I am quite prepared to accept what the Canadian Council on Social Development has sometimes called an arrangement whereby they are clawed back, even in some cases up to 100 per cent. The minister asked whether we want a system whereby we give the money to a wife and then make the husband pay it back. Most husbands are used to that. That is the way we have been doing it under the Family Allowances Act; the money has been going to the wife, to the mother. We think that should continue to be the case, but with an income tax system that would take it back from those in the upper brackets.
If any individuals wished not to apply, then they would not have to apply. I am not worried about wealthy people having to declare their wealth for the payment of income tax, but I am annoyed that poor people have to declare their poverty in order to get what is their right. That is why my colleagues and I feel strongly that this legislation should not be put through in its present form, but that it either should be taken back to the drawing board by the government or referred back to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs so that we can keep
Family Income Security Plan
in it the higher amounts of $15 and $20 but put out of it the means, or needs, or income test provisions that are now in it. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for V ancouver-Kingsway:
That Bill C-170 be not now read a third time, but that it be referred back to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs for the purpose of reconsidering the portions of clause 6 and of such other clauses that impose a means or income test for the receipt of benefits under the said bill.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, a few moments ago the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) indicated he had heard me interjecting "No way". I meant that there was no way the Canadian public would accept the egalitarian society for which he is preaching.


Mr. Orlikow:: Why not ask the minister if he agrees?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I will develop this thesis as I go along. I spoke at some length in the second reading debate on this bill. Once again I must confess my amazement. I am surprised that the government, in searching for a more equitable way to make payments to families, in abandoning the old family allowance plan and adopting the new Family Income Security Plan has, in my estimation, come up with a program which is infinitely more unjust than the old one. It will cause much more controversy and much more dissatisfaction on the part of those who may be entitled to more or who may be disentitled to any benefits under this program.
The minister this morning put figures on some of the most extravagant propositions raised by individual members, attributed those suggestions to the opposition in general. He failed to realize that individual members on this side of the House are not, and must never be, in the position of members of cabinet who must display cabinet solidarity. Otherwise, all one would need in this House would be party leaders-the prime minister, the leader of the opposition and the leaders of other parties. There can be no exchange of ideas under a system like that.
I disagree fundamentally with the egalitarian, socialistic philosophy of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. I do not agree with him one iota.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Then one of us must be wrong.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: On the other hand, he must be permitted to express his ideas in this forum even though he disagrees with some of his colleagues.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Even though he disagrees with some of his colleagues, he must express his ideas. I am sure the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) does not share these opinions expressed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not at all; he is my chief supporter.
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Family Income Security Plan


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Not according to what I hear; there are great differences of opinion between those hon. members. The minister in his speech this morning mentioned ideas which come within the widest parameters. In putting a dollar figure against these ideas, he conveniently forgot the net cost to government that this program involves. Of course, he may have considered the matter on a gross cost basis. The various methods of redistribution, say the old age pension, unemployment insurance and other programs, come within the purview of income tax, and this is where I differ from the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
I agree that the entitlement to benefits for children should be determined on a universal basis. However, if we are to achieve the aims of this bill, surely the simplest way would be by putting family allowances under the Income Tax Act. Let them be subject to income tax. We do this with old age security. At one time I thought the NDP would adopt that position. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has not spoken about this, so I do not know whether he has abandoned the idea that family allowances ought to be subject to income tax. Entitlement to benefit ought to vary according to ability to pay. In that way, low income people and those with large numbers of children would obtain greater entitlement. This, I put to you, Mr. Speaker, and to hon. members is the thrust and purpose of the bill.
What will we do under this bill? We shall create an administrative monster. We shall ask every parent, living singly or otherwise, to estimate family income. On the basis of that estimate the allowance will be paid. There is no guarantee that the mother will work and earn that income. If she is a part-time employee she may not earn as much as she estimated, or she may earn more. If she does earn more, at the end of the year money must be repaid to the state; an adjustment must be made. If you think there will be no opportunity for those who desire to fiddle, think again. Right at that point there will be an open invitation to fiddle.
My second point is that there will be difficulty, as there is with unemployment insurance benefits, in the recovery of overpayments.


Mr. Peters:: This is terrible.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: What effort will be made by the collection branch of the Department of National Health and Welfare to recover overpayments made under FISP? Think of the huge bureaucracy that must be created to monitor the annual returns that will need to be made to establish entitlement to family income security!


William Arnold Peters: That might be one way of lessening unemployment.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I hear an hon. member saying that this may be one way of solving part of our unemployment difficulty.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order, please.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Five o'clock, Mr. Speaker.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: 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 Humb-er-St. George's-St. Barbe-(Mr. Marshall)-National Defence-Alleged inadequate quota for Newfoundland in provision of work under student summer employment program; the hon. member for Fraser Valley West (Mr. Rose)-Industry-Request for action to prevent closure of Port Moody plant of Cascade-Delta Benco Company; the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie)-External Affairs-Reported request to group visiting Quebec House in Paris to remove Canadian flag lapel pins.
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, private bills, notices of motions for the production of papers, and public bills. As there are no private bills listed on the order paper, the House will proceed immediately to the consideration of notices of motions for the production of papers.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Winona Grace MacInnis: That an order of the House do issue for a copy of the interim report made in March, 1968, by Dr. A. Vennema, director of Canadian medical aid in Vietnam in 1967-68 and for copies of any subsequent correspondence between him and the Department of External Affairs.
She said: Mr. Speaker, two years ago I placed on the order paper a request for the production of papers connected with the report of Dr. A. Vennema. At that time the hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald) I believe had placed a similar request on the order paper. On March 8 of this year the Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Isabelle) replied to my request in the following words:
Mr. Speaker, all experts such as Dr. Vennema, who perform a particular service under contract to the Canadian International Development Agency, submit reports on their respective projects as a matter of routine. These reports and other correspondence are submitted on the understanding that they will be treated as confidential and privileged documents. If these experts felt that such documents could be made public they would be reticent about making meaningful comments that would help in the effective implementation of Canada's aid program. For these reasons I ask, with regret, that the hon. member withdraw her motion.
This I refuse to do for reasons which I shall make evident. Who is Dr. Alje Vennema, whose report I requested? Dr. Vennema, according to the biography accompanying his article in "Canadian Commentator" published in Toronto, was head of Canadian medical services in South Viet Nam from 1964 to 1968. He was later awarded the
June 29, 1972

medal of the Order of Canada for his services in that capacity. Following his work in South Viet Nam he submitted a report to the government. It is this report that I have been unable to get. His report has been buried in the vaults of the Department of External Affairs. In other words, he was given a medal and told to be quiet.
What is contained in the report we do not know exactly, but we have a fair idea because of the article which he wrote for "Canadian Commentator" last summer. I quote from this article:
Canada was supposed to be neutral and objective. We could have drawn the attention of the Americans to the catastrophe they had unleashed upon the Vietnamese by telling them: "What you are doing is not only disastrous, it's tragic, it's godawful and you ought to stop it."
But we always tried to placate the Americans in almost everything. The Canadian delegation to the ICC was in essence an extension of the U.S. State Department. If there was an important decision in an area that might hurt the Americans, the Canadians would make sure it wasn't published.
Most of the Canadians with the ICC felt they were doing the right thing. Many shared the American opinion that there was a place for the Americans in Viet Nam, fighting Communism and infiltration from the north. Some thought it was a useless situation to be in; others, that the Canadian component of the ICC existed to further the affairs of the West, as the Poles represented the East and there were those who felt anything being done was the right thing to stem the tide of Communism. Yet we were in a unique position to tell the Americans: "Look, what's going on here is a tragedy".
I went to South Viet Nam to join the American Dr. Tom Dooley's medical mission and moved to the Canadian mission in 1964. Under the terms on which Canadian medical aid was extended to Viet Nam in 1954 we were supposed to deal with both North and South Viet Nam through a liaison committee. But we didn't really want to give aid to the North and we never offered it. We didn't deal through the liaison committee but through an exchange of notes with the South Vietnamese government, which was de facto recognition of that government. Every time there was a coup and the government changed we exchanged notes but we never had a project agreement although we spent more than three million dollars.
Our services were not directly concerned with the war as we were dealing with tuberculosis and nutrition and so on in the TB hospital we built in Quang Ngai.
But I handled 20-30 napalm bomb casualties in the hospital. When a Toronto Star reporter wrote this the ICC delegation got cables from Ottawa saying "Better talk to Vennema about this. This type of thing should not be said. The U.S. government says there are no napalm cases in this province."
In 1967-68 I first told about the American use of gas. The Canadian delegate, Ormond Dier, called me in and said "What's this?" I said I had handled people affected by gas-likely CS or CN. He said the delegation was upset that this had been put out and advised me to keep quiet.
Don't forget, this man was later awarded the Order of Canada. He is not a man who can be lightly brushed aside.
Blair Seaborn, the ICC delegate who carried U.S. messages to Hanoi was, I thought, a very reasonable man who had a good grasp of the situation, but he was just a go-between and he personally had no decision or say-so in anything. The decisions were made between Ottawa and Washington-
I left the hospital in 1968. It was taken over by the South-Viet-namese army paramilitary forces who used it as a firing base- what the hell is the use of making a hospital and having it used as a firing base? I suggested to Ormond Dier that he withdraw all his voluntary medical personnel because they were risking their lives. Secondly, I said, by providing medical aid what you are really doing is prolonging the conflict. South-Vietnamese doctors and nurses were never much interested in their own people and the
Vennema Report on Viet Nam War
medical services in the country were being rendered by foreign personnel.
Dier's response was that we must have Canadians at Quang Ngai because it was very important for Canada to be in Viet Nam. Canadians had died for Canada before, he said. I asked if it's that important why don't you send a civil servant there from the department of external affairs who can just sit there and wave a flag? But he put a lot of things into perspective for me. What was important in Viet Nam was Canadian representation-to show we were there. Again, to placate the Americans. There was nothing we could do in Viet Nam without the Americans. We depended on them for transportation, often for food, for everything.
This article was written by the man whose report I am trying to obtain. This is some indication of the tenor of the report and why we cannot get it. This man has refused to be shut up by the receipt of the Order of Canada. His four years in the South Viet Nam hell performing medical service ought to be given respect by making his opinions and report available to the representatives of this country. We do not know exactly what is contained in his report but I think this article indicates what is likely to be there.
The remarks of the parliamentary secretary about meaningful comments that would help in the effective implementation of Canada's aid program take on a different meaning. The parliamentary secretary indicated that reports such as this can be released only if they are helpful to Canada's aid program. What aid program? Canada's aid program to the Vietnamese, or Canada's aid to the American attempt to wipe them out? All through the piece, all through this costly, dragged-out war Canada has been the silent partner in the murder of the Vietnamese people. True, we have had a hospital there to bind the wounds and care for the sick, but our country, through defence sharing agreements, has helped to supply the means of killing and mutilating the people and despoiling and destroying their country.
Dr. Vennema's former assistant in the Canadian antituberculosis hospital at Quang Ngai, Claire Culhane, has written a description of the dreadful and unbearable horrors she witnessed daily in the course of her nursing work there. Her feeling of the hypocritical futility of the whole Canadian exercise of caring for the victims while helping to cause the casualties is summed up in her description of the case of one young patient. She writes:
In the soft tissue ward I had been nursing a youngster whose entire body was one big open wound, but it was healing. Gradually, after three months of careful treatment he was beginning to be able to romp around the ward, quite naked as he could not bear to have anything touch his raw flesh. One morning I came in to find he had been discharged home. The utter futility of our TLC (tender-loving-care) program filled me with despair. If he didn't get bombed or blown up on the way home (two provinces distant)-if there was a home and a family still there-with no further treatment and only dirt and dust to play in, he would surely become infected and die in no time at all. All we had been doing for three months was treating a doomed child. But what degree of difference was the prospect for any of the other patients as soon as they left the hospital? Every procedure was just an exercise in futility and could not have been made more vivid than at that moment.
That is Claire Culhane who went through the hell over there at that period of time. Mr. Speaker, I think it is time we began to realize we are living in a single world and that all these imperialisms and frontiers are dangerous;
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Vennema Report on Viet Nam War they are impossible things with the people of the world being just human beings wherever they may be found.
The motion we are considering has been on the order paper for a long time and Dr. Vennema's report has been in the hands of the government for a much longer time. The war which was described by the former Secretary General of the United Nations, U Thant, as "this monstrous war" still goes on. Canada's "Pentagon Papers" should be released. The people have a right to the facts. They paid for the preparation of the report. They sent Dr. Vennema over there, and no matter what they thought of his political opinions the government has recognized his services by awarding him the Order of Canada.
The very least we should do in this instance is to air the facts in the way the American facts have been coming out and allow the people of this country to know the truth of Canada's role in the war in Viet Nam. It is no longer good enough to say, as the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) did when questioned about the $300 million worth of military equipment being sold to the United States by Canada and which found its way to Viet Nam, "The choice is between $300 million sales or clean hands and empty bellies." I believe the Prime Minister was exceedingly wide of the mark: that is not the choice. As the Americans are learning, the choice is not between clean hands and empty bellies, but between using the equipment and technology they possess for the purposes of war, killing, destroying, mutilating and ruining the environment, and turning that technological know-how and skill to the purposes of peace. That is the choice in front of us.


Albert Béchard: What about the aid coming from the Russians?


Winona Grace MacInnis: I don't care what the Russians, the Chinese or anybody else are doing. That is not germane. I am talking about Canada. Canada is our backyard and we should be cleaning it up before we go around finding out what anybody else is doing. This is the place we can control and that is what we should be doing. As a first step we should not be afraid of getting at the truth. If Canada has been an accomplice in this matter and still is, I think it is time the Canadian people were made aware of it. If Dr. Vennema's report contains facts and figures about what he has been doing in Viet Nam, and deals with what he saw in addition to his medical work, we deserve to hear those facts. Let us not forget that Dr. Vennema was regarded highly enough by this country to be awarded the Order of Canada.


Albert Béchard: For the work he has done there.


Winona Grace MacInnis: All right, for the work he has done there. But not only for the work he has done, which is only part of the thinking that merited the award. Certainly we should not censor Dr. Vennema's report. The government has no right to censor that report or to black it out entirely. The people of this country have a right to be given the facts. This is the reason several of us in the House have hung on doggedly, despite the amount of time which has gone by since the motion was placed on the order paper and despite the fact that Dr. Vennema must have long ago given up hope of getting this matter brought out into the public gaze. Claire Culhane has also

worked very hard in this regard, as have a great many others, protesting that it is not too late to bring out these facts. It is never too late to bring out the truth into the light of day for people to see.


Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take this opportunity to speak in connection with this motion for the production of papers. As the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) said a few moments ago, the issue involved here is not a new one. It is tragic that it is still a contemporary issue in that the conflict in Viet Nam continues, as does the complicity of Canada in that conflict. It is disturbing, especially when one considers the wanton destruction of life and environment in that tragic little land of Viet Nam.
I have been particularly concerned with the lack of forthrightness of the government, not only in reference to Dr. Alje Vennema, with whom I have had an opportunity to talk from time to time, but with reference to a whole host of people many of whom have been sent to Viet Nam over the years and who have come back to Canada with serious reports only to have the greater part of them swept under the rug.
It is interesting when we recall, as the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway has pointed out, the high regard in which Dr. Alje Vennema is held in this country and the award he has received. I could mention, in addition, people such as Dr. Gustav Gingras who recently received an award from, I believe, the Royal Bank of Canada of $50,000 for his great work in rehabilitation. I think members on both sides of the House will remember that Dr. Gingras was involved in the examination of a possible rehabilitation program under which children were to be brought from Viet Nam to this country, as well as with rehabilitation work with children in Viet Nam. Again, he was most critical of the posture and performance of the Canadian government toward that country. It is quite clear, Mr. Speaker, that anyone who attempts to deal with the humanitarian issues which are at stake in Viet Nam immediately becomes concerned about the role played by the Canadian government in that conflict.
It was much more comfortable for the government and for Canadians generally to be in support of the role of Canada in Viet Nam while there was still widespread support for the United States interest and involvement in the conflict. However, since the decline of American support for its own involvement in that war, the revelations which have been made with regard to the atrocities committed and the real political issues at stake in that country have impressed both young and old alike with the folly and, of course, the tragedy of the war. The tragedy in the first instance, of course, involves the people of Viet Nam themselves. The tragedy for the United States, and the tragedy for Canada, lies in allowing itself the foolishness of getting involved in that conflict and for believing it had interests at stake great enough to encourage the destruction of a people and of a land.
The United States has not yet extricated itself from that war. There is a widespread belief both here and in the United States that this will happen. But at some time there will need to be an accounting taken, not only by the Americans of what they have lost and suffered in the conflict but of Canada's own role. It will not be a happy
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one. When the story can be fully told by Dr. Gingras, Dr. Vennema, Claire Culhane and the secret reports of the International Control Commission, as well as all the other documents and papers which the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway suggested are secreted away in some vault, I have a deep-seated belief that Canadians will be sorely ashamed.
It is an easy thing to say. It has become increasingly obvious that we have willingly consented to a good deal of the United States military intervention in Viet Nam and that our aid projects as such have been, as I think has been suggested, 50 per cent humanitarian and 50 per cent political. Much of what has been declared as aid has of necessity been tinged politically because we have offered cover, protection and assistance to the military of South Viet Nam and of the United States.
We have proclaimed that we are, in one sense, neutral. But we have not been neutral. It is a well documented fact that we have supplied hundreds of millions of dollars worth of destructive materials which have been used to cause injury and death in South Viet Nam. Yet we have attempted to provide some kind of humanitarian program under the umbrella of the South Vietnamese military regime and the United States military government. This has never been clearly stated by any prime minister or minister of the government, but it cannot be denied for it would not be true to deny it. We have given no official recognition to the regimes of either Hanoi or Saigon, yet we have been a willing ally in terms of our activities with the Saigon regime. We have, of course, had no contact, apart from what limited contact has been available through the ICC, with the Hanoi regime.
There are two fundamental issues at stake this afternoon. One issue is Canada's real role in Viet Nam both in terms of military hardware and in terms of aid and humanitarian programs. There has been no tragedy greater for North America during the last decade than its involvement in Viet Nam. To the degree that we have encouraged or assisted in that conflict and extended it, we must admit that in one sense we have been duped and in another sense more than duped. Perhaps we have been willing accomplices-mistakenly, perhaps-with regard to the real issues in this conflict.
It has been stated very clearly by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway that there is a good deal to know about Canada's aid program in Viet Nam. For the last four sessions, with the exception of the present brief session, I have continued to have on the order paper a notice for production of papers asking for the documents relating to Mrs. Claire Culhane. Mrs. Culhane is a rather well known individual in this country for she has demonstrated unceasingly against Canadian involvement in Viet Nam. She has created something of a reputation for herself because of her single-mindedness on this issue.
What she has tried to bring forward in every possible way in conversations with the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), as well as through repeated letters to ministers and members of the House, is the full round of reports that she herself has made. On an earlier occasion when I attempted to obtain these reports and documents which
Vennema Report on Viet Nam War
she has filed as CIDA adviser, I was told by the officials of the minister's department that if the documents were made public they would very likely be libellous.
What I was asking for were documents that Mrs. Culhane had herself submitted. I assume that if they were libellous, Mrs. Culhane would have to accept responsibility for them, and it has always been my impression that this is what she was prepared to do. Yet the government has been most reluctant to provide the full facts and background information respecting her reports and other reports which have been filed over that period. I submit it is important that the Canadian people know what in fact has been the role of the Canadian government in regard to its aid programs in this terrible conflict. If it is the wish of this particular government not to make these records available, then it is paramount that some future government do so in the interests of the Canadian people.
The second issue at stake here is directly related to this whole business of production of papers. Yesterday afternoon I was, quite frankly, very tempted to rise on a point of order immediately following the point of order raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) when consent to a motion for production of papers was refused to the hon. member for Yorkton-Mel-ville (Mr. Nystrom). I think in Hansard for yesterday afternoon we have a classic record of the inability of this House to deal effectively with the production of papers. As reported at page 3596, the following motion No. 48 put on the order paper by the hon. member for Yorkton-Mel-ville was moved:
That an order of the House do issue for copies of all contracts dealing with publicity and/or information entered into by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce in the fiscal years 1970-71 and 1971-72.
That notice of motion for production of papers was agreed to. Then in the very next instance, as recorded on the next page, notice of motion No. 46, again standing in the name of the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville, was moved, asking as follows:
That an order of the House do issue for copies of all contracts deaing with publicity and/or information entered into by the Department of National Health and Welfare in the fiscal years 1970-71 and 1971-72.
The parliamentary secretary replied as follows:
Mr. Speaker, we cannot accede to the request of the hon. member because a contract is a confidential document between the individual and his employer.
What kind of situation do we have, Mr. Speaker, when in one instance one parliamentary secretary says the motion is perfectly acceptable and that the government is prepared to respond by tabling papers and documents, and the very next moment another parliamentary secretary says it would not be proper for such a motion to be accepted1? I think this illustrates that at the present time the only rules governing production of papers in this House can be very simply stated as follows: Yes we want to do it, no we don't.
Quite frankly, Sir, I think in your capacity as senior officer of the House a special responsibility falls upon you, and particularly on those concerned with the procedures used in this place, to scrutinize very carefully what the House adopts as its customary practice in regard to

June 29, 1972
Vennema Report on Viet Nam War the tabling of documents. It is a matter of increasing concern not only to Members of Parliament but to the general public that larger and larger amounts of government information are being labelled as confidential, as highly confidential, as secret, as top secret, as not for public distribution, as an interdepartmental communication, as a special study, as an advisory report or whatever the label that is applied.
In effect, we are seeing an attempt to block a basic democratic process, that of the right to know. In recent days we have had debates in the House touching on this very issue, and we are clearly seeing that on this question the government is using its opinion regarding the production of a particular document or paper as the criterion for deciding whether so to produce the information.
I think we must establish very clearly that there are basic ground rules in respect of the tabling of documents. Instead of adopting the attitude that whenever the government feels it necessary, it may maintain that things are confidential, we should reverse this trend and say that generally it is in the public interest to have this information unless it can be conclusively proved that documents if made public will create substantial harm in one form or another. Now it appears the burden of proof is the other way and members are drastically limited in this regard.
We know that at the end of a session, even at the end of a very brief one such as this, there remains a long list of motions which hon. members have brought forward for the production of papers. A few are adopted, fewer still are voted on, and most are completely ignored. I do not think this is good enough. I do not think a system of government as complex as the one we have evolved in this country can work effectively if information is increasingly denied the people and their representatives.
If ever there was proof of lack of policy and clear procedure for the House to deal with the production of papers, it was pointed out in yesterday afternoon's performance in this House. We would not need constantly to go through a repetition of the kind of thing the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway and myself have done in respect of these specific papers on CIDA in Viet Nam if we had clear procedure and if there were a clear delineation as to what should be made public and under what conditions. At the present time this business is increasingly frustrating; it is frustrating to the point of delaying the work of government and denying public participation.
I think it is most difficult for any government spokesman to prove that the public does not have the right to know what has been our performance, policy and activity in respect of aid programs in such a sensitive situation as that in Viet Nam. I for one would be most interested to know why, particularly after a long passage of time, it is generally thought that reports submitted should not be made available. I should like to know why these reports cannot now be in the public domain. I think the burden of proving the necessity of maintaining them as confidential documents should be with the government. I will be very interested to hear what the government has to say in this instance.


Mr. Grant Deachman (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, there are two aspects of this debate on the motion for the production of papers moved by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis). One is the policy of the Canadian government in respect of the war in Viet Nam. Every debate on a motion for the production of papers brings with it a substantial discussion on the material that is said to be contained or may be contained in those papers. Then there is the question-this was raised in the last few minutes of the remarks of the hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald)-of the confidentiality of documents exchanged between public servants and ministers of the Crown. Those are the two aspects of this debate.
With regard to the first aspect, the policy of the Canadian government on the war in Viet Nam, we on this side of the House do not accept the allegations of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway and the hon. member for Egmont. During these remarks I shall not enter into the question of what is Canadian policy in respect of the war in Viet Nam or what it should or should not have been. I shall not engage in a refutation of the remarks of those who preceded me. That matter might better be discussed in a debate on external affairs which gives ample scope to discuss the substance of the question. I want to address myself particularly to the concluding remarks of the hon. member for Egmont when he spoke of confidential papers and what the government ought to do about them.
This motion provides a good case for examination. First of all, who is Dr. Vennema? That has been very ably dealt with by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway. If I might just refresh the minds of hon. members for a moment, he was project director of the Canadian tuberculosis centre in Quang Ngai from 1965 to 1967. He was appointed director of Canadian medical services in Viet Nam shortly before his departure. Following the 1968 Tet offensive, he returned to Viet Nam briefly to report on the status of Canadian medical aid projects.
During his assignments in Viet Nam, Dr. Vennema prepared several reports for the government, including two following his February 12 to March 28, 1968, visit. He recommended, among other things, the withdrawal of all Canadian medical personnel from Viet Nam. He had some very vivid things to say about his experiences in Viet Nam. He is a person of great sincerity whose work and ability as a medical man won for him the medal of the Order of Canada. He is a man of unquestioned integrity and reputation. Having heard him speak on television following his assignment, I think he can only be regarded as a good Canadian with a message in which he sincerely believed and wanted to convey to the Canadian people.
The questions with which we must deal in the case of the papers of Dr. Vennema are: What was his relationship with the government, and what was his relationship in respect of the reports he submitted? There was a relationship of confidentiality. Whatever may have been said by Dr. Vennema subsequently in making his case, which he had a perfect right to do, he was at that time bound by confidentiality in his reports. I think he respected that fact in the reports he made to the Canadian government.
June 29, 1972

All experts such as Dr. Vennema who perform a particular service under contract-to CIDA in this case- submit reports on their projects as a matter of routine. These reports are part of the requirement of service and are all submitted on the understanding that they will be treated as confidential and privileged documents, because frequently they contain information and personal opinions about individuals as well as views about the projects in which they are involved.
These reports are of considerable importance in improving CIDA's assistance programs to developing countries and, in fact, in improving the ability of the government of Canada to assist in a particular situation. Public distribution by the government of such reports could be interpreted by the experts working for CIDA as a breach of confidence. Moreover, if it became the practice to make such reports public it would inhibit officials of CIDA or any other officials from expressing their views.
We must remember that confidentiality is part of the daily life of employers and employees working together in a particular situation. Confidentiality enters into our discussions in this House as the business of the House moves forward: there is confidentiality in respect of meetings of House leaders, confidentiality in conversations between whips, between members and ministers and between members on both sides of the House about the business we put forward.
If what was said by them were to be made into a press release, then what was said between employer and employee and what we said in this House to each other when discussing business in confidence, would be only what we were prepared to see printed for publication. So, if we were to move, as suggested by the hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald), to a position where a report from a public servant could be made public unless, as he put it, it were conclusively proven that it would be harmful to the public interest, then we could be assured that the reports the government receives from its public servants in departments everywhere and abroad would contain only those matters which they were prepared to see published. In this event, the minister and the executives in the public service would know no more about what was going on than what they read in the papers. If confidentiality does not and cannot exist in documents of this kind, there would be no sense whatever in asking for a report from a man of Dr. Vennema's stature and undoubted integrity for he certainly would not report in all honesty what he felt if he believed his opinions were to be made public.
If we ask a man his opinion in confidence the answer will be different from one given for publication. This is something we all know.


An hon. Member:: Dr. Vennema wants it published.


Grant Deachman: The government of Canada has a position to maintain in respect of its public servants. If it took the position that it would, from time to time, pluck a confidential report out of the basket and make it public material, as is being suggested now by the hon. member,
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then all I can say is that public servants will report to their employers precisely the kind of material that the hon. gentleman and I see every day of our lives and shove into the wastepaper basket. That kind of material is cranked out by the public service day after day. We know a great deal about it. The scrap paper people become wealthy just carting away the press releases which contain that kind of information in the House of Commons.


An hon. Member:: This is not that type.


Grant Deachman: I know the kind of information to which the hon. gentleman is referring. He is referring to a confidential report made to the government of Canada, and made in confidence so that the government could make a judgment. I think we must respect our public servants and be prepared to deal with them in confidence. Although this is most unlikely, I say to the hon. member that if the day should ever come when he occupies a seat on this side of the House or a seat on the cabinet bench, I doubt very much that he would tell his senior officials that they should not tell him anything they do not want published because they would be likely to find themselves in a most embarrassing position since confidentiality between him and them had gone out the window. That is not really what the hon. member would do if he found himself in that position. Dr. Vennema knew that would not happen when he sent that report to the government of Canada advising the government about conditions.


An hon. Member:: Why does he say he wants it made public now?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order. The hon. member has the floor, and I think he should be allowed to continue his speech without interruption.


Grant Deachman: I think that is a matter the hon. gentleman and others should take up with Dr. Vennema.
In closing, I simply want to make the point clear once more that there is no question about the confidential relationship which must exist between senior officials of the government of Canada and ministers in respect of reports. If that relationship cannot exist, they certainly cannot work together. That is the way it has been when other governments have been in power. That is the way it was when the Conservative government, the party of the hon. member for Egmont, was in power. That is how it would be if, as I say, it should ever fall to the NDP to form a government in this country.


Albert Béchard: Mr. Speaker, the motion of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) again brings up, among other things, the traditional question of the obligation, for the government authorities, of making public all documents, letters and reports that originate from or are addressed to a minister.
Is it in the public interest to bring out in broad daylight all the reports on private or public inquiries, special surveys and expert advice ordered by various departments, boards or government agencies, in the daily administration of public affairs?

June 29, 1972
Vennema Report on Viet Nam War
Mr. Speaker, in some cases, would publishing all their correspondence and reports really be honest towards the employees of the government, government boards or agencies? For my part, I do not hesitate to say that we would be doing a disservice to the country and to the Canadian people, contrary to what has been suggested by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway.
For example, would the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway be ready to authorize the publication of her entire correspondence with a department, or with a board, etc?
As pointed out earlier, who is Dr. A. Vennema? As stated he was head of Canadian medical services in Vietnam in 1967 working for the Canadian International Development Agency which-


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: The hon. member is rising for the purpose of asking a question. Does the parliamentary secretary allow the hon. member to ask his question?


Albert Béchard: Mr. Speaker, I have prepared a speech which I should like to have enough time to deliver this afternoon. The hon. member made his own speech; therefore, I wish he gave me the same opportunity, after which he might ask his questions.
Dr. Vennema is recognized as a highly competent specialist who carried out the particular work entrusted to him in Vietnam most ably and successfully, on account of his medical knowledge and the human character he gave to his work there, in the circumstances known to all of us which prevailed in that area of the world then and unfortunately are still prevailing now. The high professional ability of Dr. Vennema is beyond any doubt. Besides, Canada has recognized his achievements.
Dr. Vennema is a Canadian who in the early 60s first worked in Vietnam, as stated by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway, under an American medical program designed to alleviate the plight of the civil population constantly pressed by the war actions that were and still are breaking up on that territory.
At the request of the Vietnamese government, Canada agreed to contribute to the construction, the equipment and the operation of a anti-tuberculosis centre. In accordance with that agreement, our country, under its foreign aid program administered by the Canadian International Development Agency, built a modest two-storey building. This country provided the necessary equipment and medical supplies, as well as a team of experts for ensuring the effective operation of that centre. On the other hand, the Vietnamese people provided the lot and shared the operating costs. The Canadian medical team included the project director, who was Dr. Vennema from 1965 to 1967, nurses, technicians and administrative personnel, whose tasks included management of the training given to the Vietnamese people who were eventually to take over the

administration of that centre and who in fact did so in 1972.
The centre which, by the way, is located in the city of Quangngai in the province of the same name, was inaugurated officially at the end of 1967 at which time Dr. Vennema was appointed director of the project. However, as a result of the events we are all aware of and which accompanied the Tet offensive early in 1968, the centre was closed temporarily and the Canadian medical staff pulled out of Quangngai. At the end of his tenure, in 1968, Dr. Vennema was replaced by Dr. Michel Jutras, who remained director from December 3, 1967 until July 6, 1971.
Mr. Speaker, Canada spent $2,000,000 on that anti-tuberculosis clinic project. The project has proved very efficient in that province of Viet Nam owing to the generous contribution of the Canadian personnel, including Dr. Vennema and other Canadians just mentioned.
In fact, the responsibility for that project has been transferred to the Minister of Health of South Viet Nam on March 22, 1972, and all the Canadians who were affected completed their contract and left QuangNgai as expected.
During his stay in Viet Nam, Dr. Vennema has naturally prepared and presented several reports on behalf of the Canadian government including two in 1968, in order to evaluate the consequences of the Tet offensive. Among other things, these reports recommended, as said earlier, the withdrawal of all Canadian medical personnel from Vietnam as of 1968. Later on, Dr. Vennema made the newspapers' headlines by commenting the use of poison gas in Vietnam, the massacre of Vietnamese civilians and the presence of Canadians.
As for Mrs. Culhane, whose name was mentioned by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway, on her arrival in Vietnam she criticized the Canadian policy and presence in that country. Apparently, at least from the newspapers' reports on Mrs. Culhane and Dr. Vennema, their criticisms were rather of a political nature and were not in the least aimed at the high quality of the Canadian medical assistance to the Vietnamese civil population and how welcome was this assistance in Vietnam. The issue of Vietnam policy had nothing to do with the assignment of the Canadians who went there to establish hospitals. In fact, part of Dr. Vennema's report recommended the creation of several hospitals and this recommendation was implemented by Canada; several hospitals have been set up throughout Vietnam.
Over the last two years, similar motions have been introduced by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway and by the hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald) doubtlessly following the failure of the "Voice of Women" in their efforts to obtain copies of those reports and correspondence and also following the repeated criticisms from Mrs. Culhane. The department refused to release the reports prepared by the advisers of the Canadian International Development Agency because they are considered as classified and, as I said earlier, I think that in the public interest those documents should be recognized as such.
June 29, 1972


Mr. Wahn:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. May I have your permission and the unanimous consent of the House to revert to routine proceedings for the purpose of presenting a report by a standing committee?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Is there agreement of the House?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Third report of Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence-Mr. Wahn.
[Editor's Note-For text of above report see todays Votes and Proceedings]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock.
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. Munro that Bill C-170, to provide for the payment of benefits in respect of children, be read the third time and do pass and the amendment thereto of Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre).
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment hour I had been speaking about the difficulties that would be created under this bill because of the bureaucracy that will be necessary to monitor family income as a result of the adoption of this plan. I had an opportunity to reread the remarks I made on March 28 when this bill was before the House for second reading. At that time I referred to the administrative nightmare that would be created. I have not changed my mind one iota in the interval. As a matter of fact, I think the committee hearings have confirmed the fact that the administration of the bill will create a great deal of difficulty.
Family Income Security Plan
Seemingly the public has been lulled into a false sense of security as a result of the lengthy interval between second reading and now, when the government insists on coming back with the bill in the dying hours of this session of Parliament in an effort to get it accepted. The bill is political window dressing, Mr. Speaker. I am not quarrelling personally with the minister on this score. I blame the whole administration for it. I have said the same thing with regard to Bill C-201, the so-called takeovers bill. I predict that we will see some more bits and pieces of legislation tossed out during the course of the summer in an attempt to make sweeter to the Canadian public what up to now has been a very unpalatable situation in the anticipation of the possibility of a fall election. Indeed, the context of an election must be considered in connection with all these matters.
In a constituency of the kind I represent, this type of bill is resented. In view of all the protestations of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) with regard to the social egalitarianism that he talks about, and his plan for an attempted redistribution of income, obviously he does not believe in the doers in this country. He believes in the non-doers. He neglects the fact that what makes this country go forward, what pays my salary, pays the minister's salary, pays the member's salary, and pays for all of the so-called income adjustments, is that section of the people who are the doers.
The hon. member speaks about a built-in welfare society. Those are the non-doers. We are building more and more of them into our society. If you want to find out about them ask the small employers who tried to get workers during the winter time. Ask the ranchers if these people would accept employment in the winter time. They prefer to draw unemployment insurance.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Never mind the winter, just try it in summer time.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: This is the non-doer mentality. All of us have a certain amount of non-doism in our makeup. We have a certain reluctance to get out and scratch. It is much easier to sit back and receive than to get out and produce. Yet the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre would seem to favour the non-doers in this philosophy that he has, that presumably is shared by his party, when he says that the product of the doers must be shared, and to the point of equality, with the non-doers.


William Arnold Peters: Aren't they just the kids?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: This statement was not limited to the kids. This was the total philosophy expressed by the hon. member. I am not worried about this particular bill. I am concerned about the policy of social egalitarianism that was propounded this afternoon as being righteous and the epitome for Canadian society. This I disagree with fundamentally.
There are those people who will work longer hours, who will suffer from high blood pressure and who will face the problems of meeting payrolls and holding inventories. These people will work harder on their farms and in their businesses in order to get ahead. I am talking of the man
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June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
who might be an ordinary plumber but decides that he wants to start his own business. He may hire another fellow and ask his wife to work with him, and together they will build up the business.
These are the doers, Mr. Speaker. And what do we do to them? We take away their incentive. We tax them too heavily. We say, "We shall take the money you have accumulated and spread it evenly." No philosophy more false has ever been expounded in the free world. Yet this is what the hon. member was propounding. And what the minister proposes in this bill is not contrary to that philosophy. There is, in an artificial sense only some separation between his ideas and those of the hon. member. Of course, the minister in this proposal includes an income test and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) protests this; but I have not heard him protest the income test applied under the guaranteed income supplement.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But I have protested repeatedly.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Under the guaranteed income supplement there is an income test.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There should not be one.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The hon. member says there should not be one. In other words, I suppose pensions can rise without limit in the process of redistribution of income. At least he is consistent. However, he suffers from schizophrenia when he views other programs. Does he not think that under the student loans plan, for example, there should be an examination of the resources backing up the student? But there is such an examination, and rightly so.
Under the war veterans allowance program there is an examination; the means test is there and the principle is acceptable. It is acceptable in many provinces with regard to medicare and forgiveness of premium charges. That principle applies in many provinces and discriminates in favour of those who are over 65; they need not pay any medicare premium. Therefore, there is no universal rejection or approbation of a means test or income test. These tests are here in living colour!
Under this program the minister says that there shall be a means test or income test to determine the family's entitlement. As I said in my speech on second reading, there is some inconsistency here because there is no allowance to make up for the child care allowance. Why was not that deducted from family income in this instance? It is deducted under the income Tax Act. Surely we must be consistent, Mr. Speaker. As I said before, the minister will rue the day-mark my words-when he first agreed to this measure under which he shall set up a huge bureaucracy. I am not talking about any individuals who are concerned; I am talking about the machinery.
Even if the act were to come into effect this summer, benefits could not be paid under it until next March or April. Why? Because all parents or all persons who might claim benefits under the plan must register. They must set out their income in the base year, the year prior to the

coming into force of the act. That registration form must be checked out. The hon. member wonders about this. He objects to the means test. How will this income be checked out? Will the investigation be perfunctory? Will an inspector check the application? How are the minister's monitors or inspectors to check out these claim forms?
If the scheme were set up negligently, if it were found that officials had been careless in administering the system and that claims had been checked only perfunctorily, and if it were found through a perusal of next year's Auditor General's report that there were vast overpayments, the minister would be pilloried in the House and he would merit every word of criticism. On the other hand, what will the public say if the minister's monitors, in checking these applications, enter each home involved and ask questions? For instance, let us say they go to the home of the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters).


William Arnold Peters: The hon. member is flattering me. I do not think we will have any children; we are past that stage.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Then let me talk about the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Yewchuk) who has three young children eligible for family allowance. Let us say the officials enter his home and ask him and his wife, "Is this a true statement of your income?"

This, Mr. Speaker, is the "Great Visitation" by representatives of the minister.

In other words, every home in which there are children will receive a visit from on high and the visitor will check out the representations made in the application. Will the public accept this? People are used to the family allowance scheme that has operated since 1945. For 27 years the government accepted the registration of a child when it was born-


Mr. La Salle:: Is it the income tax return?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: No. The hon. member for Joliette is asking whether it is the income tax return? No, it is not, because this plan includes the wife's income. It is the income of both spouses. This does not show at all in the taxpayer's return.


Roch La Salle: Everybody makes an income tax return.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: No, not necessarily. The hon. member should know that the wife is allowed a certain minimum income.


Roch La Salle: Can it be claimed?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Yes, but it has to be
examined.

Child care allowances, under these particular circumstances, are not to be allowed. They are not to be exempt; they are to be included in family income along with unemployment insurance. Neither is there any exemption of welfare; that too is part of income. Mr. Speaker, this is
June 29, 1972

going to be the grand inquisition but we are being asked to foist it on the Canadian public.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he is prepared to sell his patrimony for only a few dollars?


Roch La Salle: No.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Is it worth it, for an
increase of only $15 to $20?


Roch La Salle: Go and ask those who need money.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The hon. member can make a speech later. In my opinion, it is not worth it. Not at all.

I want to return to the central theme and purpose of my remarks tonight. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has put forward an amendment. He wishes to eliminate any means or income test. To the extent that the payments might be subject to income tax, we would support the amendment. After all, the Canadian public has some stake in this. Unfortunately, too many people in discussing government projects, laws and proposals, think the Canadian people can be kicked, can be pushed, can be prodded; they think anything can be done to them.


William Arnold Peters: Not us.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) says, not us. I just want to go over some of the proposals he and his party put forward in this House. The Canadian public would have been in a straight jacket had they been accepted. They would not have been able to blow their noses without your permission.
This is another in the category of "big brother knows better" proposals; he will run the Canadian people. I suggest that the Canadian public not only has had a bellyfull, but has had it right up to the eyes with government interference with their rights. I have talked to my constituents. They are worried about this bill because they will have to make one more annual accounting to government inspectors. What are we running? Is this to be a sort of prison society?
Some members may say I am exaggerating, but I lived three years in a type of society where someone else did the thinking and I did the reacting. That was in a prisoner of war camp, and perhaps it was a traumatic experience. I apologize to hon. members if I am over-sensitive. However, there is no way any member of this House can convince me that I have not got the right to make up my own mind. If I want to act foolishly that is my privilege, as long as I do not injure my neighbour. How deficient in recognizing this right so much of our law is. On the other hand, I recognize the public interest and I must not injure my neighbour. I will recognize a paramount public interest in that my actions in labour disputes and so forth shall not transgress that greater public interest. However, when it comes to matters of this kind, I say the state does not
Family Income Security Plan
belong in my home. That is why I dislike this bill intensely.
I fully agree with the change; it has been the philosophy of my party for a number of years. This bill is part of a re-examination of our whole welfare structure in order to put the emphasis where it is needed. We should put our funds, and the good Lord knows they are limited even though my friends to the left think they are unlimited, where they will do the most good. If a man needs two blankets, it is no answer to give him and another each half a blanket. All too often this is what we do. I look at the whole government plan. Within the family allowance plan, I will recognize the principle of universality to the extent that the allowance be paid for each child but when we come to the income tax that should be based on ability to pay. We may disagree with some of the details, but we agree that the criteria for taxation should be the ability to pay.
In the province of Ontario, the ability to pay is the basis of the program for grants to individuals with lower incomes. In order to recover this amount, those with the ability pay a higher proportion of sales tax, customs duties and so forth. We should be heading in this direction. The formula in this bill is a step out of pace with the general formula that we place our funds where they will do the most good. If the amounts are to be $15 and $20,1 am quite prepared to accept that. However, I do not accept the minister's statement that those amounts shall be the net cost to government. By making the family allowance universal, those at the higher income level will pay an increased proportion of that allowance back to the government on the basis of their marginal rates. After all, we are doing that with unemployment insurance and the retraining allowance. We are making them repayable to government at the marginal rate of the tax payer, so why not here?
Some of my friends have a high income of $30,000 or $35,000 a year net. How do they do that? They work 16 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. They have eight or nine children and they work like beavers. Even though these people pay a good deal of income tax, they would still keep 50 per cent of their family allowance. They do not feel penalized because, even though they have a large family, they work hard for their family. As such they must not be penalized. A city policeman does not consider that he is very high in the pecking order of wages. If he is earning $9,500, has a wife who is not working and two children, he does not get a thing. He will lose all the family allowance, so why not put it under income tax and leave him some of it? If we accept that principle, this is where it should be. We have the old age security, unemployment insurance, the retraining allowance and a number of other things under that head, so why not family allowance?


William Arnold Peters: Will the hon. member permit a question? I agree with the hon. member's objection to the large support staff that will be necessary to supervise the plan set out in this bill. Therefore, is the hon. member in favour of the amendment which will eliminate this situation, but still leave the family allowance?
25319-46J

June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, the point is that this amendment does not say that the family income support shall be subject to income tax. If the mover of this amendment will assure me that the allowance is to be subject to income tax, I will support it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: For those in the middle and upper brackets, yes.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: If it is within the framework of the income tax as it exists today, yes, I will support it. If I can be assured of that, as far as I am concerned, I will support the amendment.


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, we have before us tonight the 1972 edition of the family allowances or, as indicated in this bill, of the benefits in respect of children.
Clause 1 of the bill accurately states the range of this legislation regarding family income security plan. Clause 2 deals with definitions and we can sum it up as follows: this clause is important since it must be constantly referred to when considering the bill. For example "the base calendar year" means the year for which the family income is computed and on the basis of which benefits claimed are determined.
Moreover, subclause 2(2) contains a definition of a person's income for a calendar year, which is his income computed for income tax purposes minus death benefits paid under a pension plan.
It should be noted that, in accordance with the legislation, the family income to be considered for the family income security plan is computed by adding the income of both the father and the mother.
Clause 3 provides that benefits will be paid out of the Consolidated Fund in respect of each child less than 18 years of age who is maintained by a person resident in Canada. Should a province pay any benefits in respect of children between the ages of 16 and 18, as is the case with Quebec, then no benefits are payable to these persons by the federal government if the latter provides tax abatements in this regard to the province.
How will the amount of benefit be determined? This is dealt with in clause 6 of the bill which is unquestionably the most important and most complex of them all.
First of all, monthly benefits of $15 for children less than 12 years old are provided. There are also monthly benefits of $20 for children aged 12 or more but under 18.
As clause 6(l)(a), (b) and (c) indicate, there is a ceiling on the income of families. And when the family income is equal to or over that ceiling, the allowances decrease insofar as children are concerned and become nil according to the income or the number of children.
Now we come to the most interesting part of the scheme: the computation formula. In the case of an only child, the amount of the allowance proposed by the minister-$15 or $20-will be reduced by 33 cents for every $100 over the family income of $4,500.

When there is more than one child, in order to understand the computation, the basic income eligible must be added, namely $4,500 plus $500 per child in excess of one to obtain the basis of the computation. Then one has to proceed as I outlined above in the case of an only child.
Here is an example, Mr. Speaker, to show what boat we are getting in. Let us suppose the case of an only child. The family income is $6,000; by subtracting the allowed income of $4,500, one gets $1,500. Now as the rate decreases by 33 cents for each $100, there would be a decrease of $4.95. The allowance for a child under 12 would therefore be $10.05
In the case of children from 12 to 18, the $20 allowance would be reduced to $15.05.


Roch La Salle: That is easy; you managed to figure it out.


André-Gilles Fortin: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle) says the calculation is easy since I managed to figure it out. I recognize that I did, but I owe my thanks to the research service.
But, Mr. Speaker, the citizen s of our riding will never be able to manage that complicated calculation.
If a family with two children has an income of $6,000, the basic income will be $4,500 plus $500, that is $5,000. The hon. member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bechard) should listen: he would learn something! In that case, the allowance would be reduced by $3.30, that is 10 times 33. The allowance for a child under 12 would therefore be $15 less $3.30, that is $11.70, and for the child between 12 and 18, of $20. less $3.30, that is $16.70.
Such is the calculated munificence of the government! Instead of paying a universal benefit for all children, the government is basing it on income.
Let us consider the case of a family with four children, Mr. Speaker. Since up to now some members have been unable to understand I will quote them more figures. They should listen and wait afterwards to make jokes.
In the case of a family with four children, since the allowable income is $6,000-that is $4,500 plus 3 times $500 or $1,500-the basic benefits will be $15 for each child under 12 and $20 for each child from 12 to 18 years of age.
If a family has 5, 6, 8 or 10 children, the benefits will be the same because they will have reached the maximum amount.
For an income of $8,000-Mr. Speaker, I always expect to be called back to order because my speech does not deal with family allowances but with mathematics-the following computation is made: $8,000 less $4,500, that is $3,500. The decreasing rate is 33 cents for each full $100, so the reduction will be 25 times 33 cents or $11.55 The benefit for a child under 12 will be $15 less $11.55, that is $3.45.
It may have cost $50, $100 or $200 for public servants to make the calculations, to print the forms, to mail and return them because of mistakes, etc., in order, finally, to pay only $3.45.
June 29, 1972

For a child between 12 and 18, the allowance will be $20 minus $11.55, or $8.45. For two children, and a family income of $8,000, the maximum income allowed is $4,500. If $500 is added it makes $5,000. So, $8,000 minus $5,000 makes $3,000. Let us multiply each $100 by 33 cents and we get $9.90. The allowance will be $15 minus $9.90, or $5.10, a very generous allowance from this government as a reward to a couple for having earned $8,000 in one year. For children 12 to 18, the allowance will be $20 minus $9.90, or $10.10. That is the reward that this couple is getting for having worked.
For a family of 4 children with an $8,000 income, if you make the famous calculation, $4,500 plus $500 multiplied by 3, or $6,000, then substracted from $8,000, you get $2,000. Twenty times 33 cents make $6.60. So, for a child under 12, the allowance will be $15 minus $6.60 or $8.40. We go backwards instead of forward. For children 12 to 18, if $6.60 is substracted from $20, the benefit amounts to $13.40.
I have in mind another case, Mr. Speaker. This one is a little more serious. I am thinking about the minister's "jokes". Here is a real and not so funny case. The husband's income is $6,000 and he is entitled to benefits. Of course often on investigation he gets them. But he cannot make ends meet. Once food, housing, clothing and care are paid for with $6,000 and three children, it is impossible to manage financially. And Mr. Speaker, there are many Canadian families with a $6,000 income. I will call to mind the Croll report on poverty. This will give you a good idea of the situation. A couple with three children cannot live.
So the husband and wife talk things over. They try hard to find a solution and the wife says: there's no choice; I must find a job. This happens often also. The wife decides therefore to go to work if she can find a job of course. Let us say that she is paid $4,000. This is quite reasonable. My colleagues agree on $4,000. That means they have just lost their family allowances. With $6,000, that couple cannot make ends meet. They decide to make sacrifices, to divide the family in some way, making immense sacrifices to make ends meet and bring up their three children, and because the wife is working, because she has earned an income, she will be rewarded by the loss of family allowances.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the system the minister wants to force on us tonight. It is a negative system, whereby the more you try to help yourself, the harder you try to get along and improve your own lot, the less assistance and the more kicks in the pants you get from the government.
However, the government does not forget to give fantastic fiscal advantages to both Canadian and foreign corporations. And they call that a "just society." To my way of thinking, family allowances, or benefits paid regarding children, mean financial assistance to the family, for the maintenance of children. I consider them as a calculated handout. They should, instead, be a spontaneous gift from the government, without selfish motives, without complications, without civil servants and without confounded bureaucracy. Let them make a spontaneous gift to children and families, instead of discouraging them.
In other words, Bill C-170 proposes to increase benefits to $15 and $20 and administration costs will be as high as the benefits paid.
Family Income Security Plan
Mr. Speaker, the first point I want to make is this: These benefits will be based on the combined income of a couple during the year preceding the implementation of the act. Consequently, this will cause the following difficulties: the couple will apply for benefits as soon as the act is implemented. The first operation will be to complete forms, to compute their income on the basis of the year preceding the implementation of the act. They must send that information to Ottawa or to regional offices.
When those forms are received, they will be fed into the government's IBM computers.


An hon. Member:: Thirdly-


André-Gilles Fortin: Thirdly-the hon. members seem to be interested because they realize as I do that this involves several operations. The civil servants and the computers will study the application. They will wonder whether mistakes have been made. And what will they do? The minister did not mention that.


An hon. Member:: This is hypothetical!


André-Gilles Fortin: It is hypothetical but they will do it anyway. This is what the minister is trying to hide.
They will check the income tax return of the couple for the previous year for any mistake. If there is no error, after the complicated computations I have just mentioned-and I saw you were quite bored by them, Mr. Speaker-the families will finally get $5.90, $6.20 or $9.38, etc.
It will have been necessary to go through a large number of bureaucratic operations so that a mountain could give birth to a mouse.
Every time there is a change, upwards or downwards, in the income of one of the spouses, the couple is going to have to submit a new application and every time the bureaucrats are going to change the $5.30 payment to $5.90 or to $4.30, as the case may be.
Mr. Speaker, what is being established here is a bureaucratic monster.


Mr. Corriveau:: As you were saying, with the guaranteed income supplement, there should not be any problems.


André-Gilles Fortin: Mr. Speaker, I am becoming most annoyed with the interruptions of the hon. member for ... What is your constituency again?


Léopold Corriveau: Frontenac.	,


André-Gilles Fortin: Frontenac. I wish the hon. member would rise and make a speech, but would he please cease interrupting me. If he is not man enough to rise, let him at least be quiet and listen to those who have the courage to make speeches.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. I would invite hon. members to co-operate with the Chair in order to allow the hon. member who has the floor to continue his speech. I will also take this opportunity to remark that at present there are several conversations going on on both sides of the House, which makes it difficult for the

June 29, 1972
Family Income Security Plan Chair to hear the remarks of the hon. member who has the floor.

I also invite hon. members who are undertaking private conversations to do so either behind the curtains or in very low tones in order that the Chair may hear the hon. member who has the floor. The hon. member for Lot-biniere (Mr. Fortin).

The hon. member for Lotbiniere.


André-Gilles Fortin: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Concerning family allowances, the government wants them to be based on family income, whereas they should be based on the needs of the child. I would like to explain this to the minister. If they agree that family allowances, that payments made in respect of children, have to be based on family income, the minister and the government recognize the existence of a problem with family income security.
If this is the problem, Mr. Speaker, rather than have the mountain give birth to a mouse, rather than increasing allowances to $15 and $20, let us establish a guaranteed income for every Canadian, and problems will be over. Instead of doing this, and in order not to maintain the present level of allowances, which is ridiculous, what does the government do? It bases its payments on the income of the parents, and completely forgets about the children.
Mr. Speaker, I claim the government's plan will help neither the children nor the families; it will simply confuse them; it will simply entail more red tape in Ottawa and in the regional offices.
This administrative red tape already gobbles up millions of taxpayers dollars.


Roch La Salle: And distributes them to those who need them.


André-Gilles Fortin: I would refer the hon. member for Joliette and his friends to the booklet "How Your Tax Dollar is Spent", 1972-73 edition. It is outstanding; one learns unbelieveable things in it, Mr. Speaker. For instance, we are told about the cost of administering the health and social security programs in Canada.
The problem, Mr. Speaker, is not one of ensuring social security or income security to the civil servants but of ensuring an income to the Canadian citizens, to the underprivileged, to the needy. That is the problem.
But here is something still more serious; up till now the family income was something secret, something sacred. Someone living at 30 Roger Street, for instance, did not know the salary of another person, of his neighbour on the same street, unless the latter divulged it. But as soon as this benefit system for children is set up one will only have to say how much he receives in benefits for the other person to know automatically his income or that of his spouse.
Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, the government is placing people within a spying and mutual distrust system. I claim
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel).]
that this is further evidence of the weakness of this legislation.
Why do we have to introduce a 24 page bill creating so much red tape for so little? Why not give directly to the child, his parents or his guardian, regardless of tests? The answer is quite simple: The Liberals who established the plan in 1945 recognizing universality deny it today and will pay those benefits to certain groups of individuals. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the famous selectivity concept is established.


Mr. Duquet:: It is matter of justice.


André-Gilles Fortin: In short, if an individual has an income under $10,000, he receives more or less and has to complete forms. If the family income is over $10,000, as a reward to the working couple, all familly allowances are cut off.
Mr. Speaker, a family whose head earns $10,000, $11,000 or $12,000 a year, and which has 5, 6 or 7 children will not get a penny in family allowances.
A family whose income is $12,000 and which has 6 or 7 children will find itself penalized because it has worked too hard or has too many children.
I would like to end my remarks here and say that I object to this bill. I strongly oppose the principle of selectivity. In my view, it is not up to the government to determine who has a right to live in Canada; the government must ensure that everybody has the right to live in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, selectivity is therefore a monstruous and unthinkable concept; the government has no right to pester people like that, and its first moral obligation is to support efforts made by Canadians.
It is not only in that field that we are negative, Mr. Speaker.
As I was saying a while ago, if the head of a family who earns $6,000 cannot make both ends meet his wife will look for a job. Afterwards this couple will receive $10,000 and, as a reward, will lose their family allowances.
Mr. Speaker, at least two answers can be handed me in this regard: the wife should not go to work and all the government has to do is to set up the income security plan. It will have to do it because either this couple cannot make both ends meet, or they earn a sufficient amount of money to do without allowances.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, if this second proposal is justified, the hon. minister should not lower the eligibility age but rather the amount of eligible income. One can easily see that this is a stupid reasoning. Therefore the principle of selectivity based on the combined income of husband and wife is meaningless.
There is another thing that one must keep in mind: that is, a child of a family whose income amounts to $4,000 should be entitled to the same rights as the child in a family whose income amounts to $10,000. The child in a family whose income amounts to $10,000 must enjoy, if all Canadians are equal, the same rights as the other one, whose family is poorer. The government may say that it means a waste of money. Its tax policy-which is
June 29, 1972

described in 190 pages-will easily compensate this by taxing the people. There is no problem here. Our tax experts can find enough money to pay for these benefits. Let us recognize at least this basic right to every child in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, the minister should not bring in a negative bill which discourages the individual, but rather a positive one. The bill now before us is ridiculous! To be entitled to allowances, we must revamp our whole welfare system, in order to arrive at a meaningful and positive overall policy.
As to the welfare allowances, Mr. Speaker, the less a man works, the less he helps himself; the more he abides by officialdom, the more he bows before officials to get his public assistance, the more he gets. The more he tries to help himself, the more he tries to work, to find a job or to perform a small job of some sort to add to his income, the lower the welfare allowances. Governments will then say that people are lazy. And the same governments have established those negative programs which discourage the individual. The law says: the less you help yourself, the more money you get.
As to unemployment insurance, the first condition to get benefits is not to work. That is very positive. That is ridiculous. The second condition is to be available for work. According to the law, what does the expression to be available for work mean? It means a man remains at home, does not limit his availability to one city and is ready to accept any job anywhere in Canada. In any event, the person knows no one will call and waits for the unemployment insurance cheques. These will even be paid for up to 51 weeks.
Mr. Speaker, on examining the FISP legislation, one sees it is well drawn up. The same goes for the bill on family allowances. Close examination of the unemployment insurance act also under which up to $90 or $92 a week are paid the unemployed, reveals that it too is well drawn up. But if we study them together within the social security system in Canada we realize that the basic philosophy of those various bills which are intended to improve the lot of Canadians is negative, so that more and more Canadians depend on the various governments to live and survive, when the opposite should be true.
Mr. Speaker, an ever increasing number of Canadians are living off a decreasing working minority and, according to the new bill passed by the House, from now on the middle class will pay for others and through the nose.
In this regard, socialists say: Take some away from the rich, and give it to the poor. That is exactly what the minister does with this bill. He says: Take some away from the rich-$10,000, and God knows that is not much in Canada in view of the constant increase in the cost of living-and give it to the poor. This is a socialistic bill, Mr. Speaker.
The government will then tell us: Let us establish a just society where each citizen can live freely, enjoy security, and grow to full maturity in his own country. It is perfectly ridiculous and inconsistent.
Mr. Speaker, I urgently request social measures to guarantee income security to each Canadian citizen without any red tape or investigation so that he will automatically receive his benefits as his share of the national production
Business of the House
which reaches $100 billion a year. A bare minimum should be provided for each Canadian citizen and we should refrain from harassing him. I have enough confidence in my fellow citizens to know that they will make way and not live off the fat of the land.
Mr. Speaker, in concluding I will point out that this bill brings up the entire philosophy of the government on social security legislation. I say to the minister that I will vote against his bill because it is one step closer to socialism, a measure which will annoy people and create huge problems with forms, paper work and red tape. What will the bill provide in the long run for the people?



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I have had discussion with members on all sides of the House and I think it might be useful to switch our discussion to a number of matters on which there is greater chance of agreement. I would therefore move that this debate be adjourned. But before making the formal motion I would indicate to the House that if the motion is agreed to we shall call the bill in respect of the Pension Act, for report stage and third reading, then the bill on the Farm Credit Act.
Since my discussion with members on the other side of the House, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Bechard) has indicated that there may be a disposition to pass, without discussion, the bill to change the names of the territorial courts. If that were agreeable we could call it after the Pension Act; however, if it is not agreeable I should like to know before we do so. With those comments I should like to move the adjournment of this debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. It has been moved by Mr. MacEachen, seconded by Mr. Laing, that the debate be adjourned. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?
Motion (Mr. MacEachen) agreed to.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, perhaps you would call government order No. 40, report stage of Bill C-215, to amend the Pension Act.



PENSION ACT


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-215, to amend the Pension Act, as reported (without amendment) from the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.
Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Veterans Affairs) moved: that Bill C-215, to amend the Pension Act, as reported

June 29, 1972
Pension Act
(without amendment) from the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Arthur Laing: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, we have agreed not to debate this bill at this stage and we shall stand by that arrangement. May I ask the minister just one question? Is he, or is he not, concurring in the recommendation made unanimously by the veterans affairs committee that the number of ad hoc commissioners be increased by another five?


Arthur Laing: Mr. Speaker, in speaking to this bill I do not wish to take more than a couple of minutes. I had to make a judgment as to whether the additional members totalling seven could do the job of clearing up the 8,000 cases we have ahead of us, and I have made the judgment that they can. I wish to voice my appreciation, because this may be the last few remarks I make in this House, of the work of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. The thought has been prevalent, I believe, on all sides of this House that a man or woman who offers his or her life for this country is a rather special person. That has been the attitude of the committee on veterans affairs all the way through. I hope that it continues in the future.
This bill pertains to the clearing up of a backoog of cases, and it is my opinion that the additional seven persons will obtain that result.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, if I do not eulogize the minister for half an hour I hope he will not think I do not appreciate the service he has rendered to the country.


Mr. Knowles (Norfolk-Haldimand):: Mr. Speaker, I rise simply to say that I concur in what has already been said. We on this side of the House agreed to go along with the minister's amendment to this legislation. I want to commend the minister for taking the action he has. I should also like to echo the sentiments expressed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) about getting the question of the basic pension rate before the committee at the earliest possible moment.
In closing, may I pay tribute to the minister who has been with us for only a short time in veterans affairs. He has shown deep compassion and understanding for the plight of the veterans. While the increase in the number of commissioners will help in cleaning up the backlog, I think the minister should also keep in mind that representations were made to the committee that the lack of medical personnel was a factor in preventing the clearing of this backlog because of the need to obtain a medical opinion in these cases. I am sure the minister will pay particular attention to finding a way of bringing in more doctors. I might also point out that over the years we have suggested that the number of pension commissioners should be increased, and for that reason we are happy to pass the bill.


André-Gilles Fortin: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving us the opportunity of expressing our appreciation to the minister for what he has just said. We support the amendments he moved as well as the proposal to increase the number of members on the committee.
I take this opportunity to say to him that we also appreciate his work within the committee and that of his department, as well as his devotion to work for a category of such underprivileged people.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, before the next item is called, I believe there is an understanding that we could slip in at this point second reading of the bill to change the names of the territorial courts: there is no great issue or principle involved, and we might get it through. I would suggest that Your Honour call that item. I might mention that if this bill is given second reading it would be necessary to deal with it in committee of the whole.



TERRITORIAL SUPREME COURTS BILL


Otto Emil Lang: that Bill S-3, to change the names of the territorial court of the Yukon Territory and the territorial court of the Northwest Territories, be read the second time and referred to committee of the whole.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Laniel in the chair.
Gérald Laniel: Order, please. House in committee of the whole on Bill S-3, to change the names of the territorial court of the Yukon Territory and the territorial court of the Northwest Territories. Clause 1 stands. Shall clause 2 carry?
On clause 2-Amendments.


William Arnold Peters: Are both these courts now located in permanent quarters in their respective capitals? Has this been established, or is some territorial work still being done in Ottawa?


Otto Emil Lang: In both cases the quarters are in their capitals. I would not want to say whether they are permanent or final; there are some improvements to be made in the future. The general position is that the administration of justice is in the hands of the two territories, but we still appoint judges in these courts as we do in the case of the provinces.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.
Schedules A and B agreed to.
June 29, 1972

Clause 1 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: that Bill C-5, an act to amend the Farm Credit Act, be read the third time and do pass.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Mr. R. E. McKinley (Huron):: Mr. Speaker, I thought last night that perhaps this bill might pass and there would be no further debate on it. However, I would like at this time to bring to the attention of the House some of the difficult problems that agriculture faces. The fact that the government has brought forward this bill is an admission on their part that there are serious difficulties in agriculture and that provisions must be brought in to assist people who engage in the production of agricultural products throughout the country.
On second reading we moved an amendment which was turned down by the government. It was brought forward in an attempt to provide incentives for young farmers who become involved in agriculture, to initiate better programs to enable young people to get started, and to assist those people whom the government is trying to remove from the farms. We believe that incentives should be given to young people to stay on the farm.
This bill provides a little more money. The amount of $56 million has been increased to $66 million in the financial resources of the Farm Credit Corporation. I believe this was done in recognition of the fact that more money is needed to help young people stay on the farm and to assist those engaged in farming to carry on. The bill also provides that loans will be granted to facilitate efficient operation of a farm. Under the present act, loans are available only if the money is necessary for efficient operation. I must admit that this is a move in the right direction-away from negative, last resort aid, to more positive help. This seems to be action taken before last-ditch efforts become necessary- Any move in that direction will, I am sure, be a good thing for the agricultural industry.
Also, under this bill loans will become available to persons under 21 years of age. Previously they were not able to obtain loans, but this legislation brings the age requirement down to 18. In addition, farm improvement loans which are available through the banks can now be obtained without a prior commitment from the Farm Credit Corporation. This seems to be reasonable and will provide money to those engaged in agriculture. It will cut down the red tape which so frequently exists in these matters.
Then in this bill the appraised value of land will include the productive value of a second non-farming enterprise that might be carried on by the same individual. I suggest
Farm Credit Act
that this provision may not be all bad: it will be possible to get an increased loan on a smaller parcel of land. The amendments in this bill are good but in our estimation they are not good enough. We would have liked the bill to include a provision for partial non-repayment of loans when young farmers meet certain performance standards. Before anyone in the NDP jumps up and says young farmers would have to be perfect before qualifying, I would point out that "performance standards" simply means meeting the payments they agreed to meet when they obtained loans.
We also would have liked a provision in the bill that interest payments in the initial period of a loan could be delayed, so that a new enterprise could show some results in a financial way before a farmer had to repay large commitments. However, the government majority voted against us on that suggestion.
Some government members suggested that we would not support this bill. This is not true, Mr. Speaker. They seem to enjoy preaching throughout the country that we oppose for the sake of opposing rather than for the sake of being constructive. This is not true. The measures proposed in this legislation are not that bad, but we say they could be a lot better; and at second reading, committee stage, report stage, and now on third reading, we have endeavoured to improve the legislation. In the House of Commons our aim is to improve legislation. If government members complain that they have trouble getting legislation through the House, it is because government legislation has often been hastily brought forward, ill conceived, and has not served a purpose satisfactory to the people of the country.
I am disappointed that the government stood fast in upholding clause 1 of the bill, giving them all kinds of power, without offering any real explanation of how that power would be used. We voted on that matter last night. I am happy to say that I registered my vote against it.
There are all kinds of precedents for providing incentives to new borrowers. CMHC has provision for partial non-repayment of loans. During the last four years incentives have been provided to various businesses to start operations all across the country. The Financial Administration Act gives the government power to forgive a tax, penalty or debt, in particular cases. If housing and business can receive these incentives, why cannot agriculture have the same privilege? It is often said that what is good for business is good for the country. This was preached by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) in his last budget. I suggest that what is good for the farmer is also good for the country.
The major industry in the constituency of Huron is agriculture. As agriculture goes, so goes the economy of Huron county. So long as I have the privilege of being a member of the House of Commons, agriculture and its betterment will be one of my first priorities. It is disappointing that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) did not see fit to accept some of the amendments put forward by the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Korchinski) and the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski). Had he done so, this would be a much better bill.

June 29, 1972
Farm Credit Act
The government seems to think that those engaged in agriculture are to be used only to produce cheap food, so that in turn industry may have a chance to export industrial products to other countries. This is not acceptable. If farmers received a profitable return for their products, it would have an expansionary effect all across the country. If the primary producers had dollars in their pockets, they would become purchasing consumers of the industrial products which provide jobs.
We also urged the provision of open-ended loans, that loans could be increased without going through all the red tape involved in obtaining the original loan. One report shows that of the $115.2 million in loans approved during 1970-71, $36.4 million went to repay existing loans. We do not disagree with the provision of additional money for loans to single family farm operations, up to the amount of $100,000; but if the government had listened to our suggestions this would be a better bill. We have offered good suggestions but the government has not listened to us.
We have offered suggestions of the type that would make the Liberal party popular, but they seem to feel that they know all, control all, can do all and are the only people who ought to govern. I suggest they had better start listening, for before long they will discover that what they think is not true.


Mr. Rod Thomson (Battleford-Kindersley):: Mr. Speaker, in my remarks on the third reading debate I wish to make three points briefly. First, we in my party feel that the small farms section of the bill is somewhat vague and we are under the impression that the government itself is not too clear as to what it wants in this regard. Second-and I am still talking about the first point-it appears there is some overlapping of provincial and federal jurisdiction. This applies especially to Saskatchewan. Apparently two acts, one federal and the other provincial, are concerned in the administration of similar types of programs. I have suggested this before but wish to repeat my suggestion now for the benefit of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson). If two, similar programs are to be run by two levels of government, then those governments should join hands and turn them into a single program.


Mr. Mazankowski:: The minister is not here and does not care.


Roderick J. (Rod) Thomson: We could thereby avoid duplication of costs.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The minister is not interested.


Roderick J. (Rod) Thomson: The minister may not be interested, but I am sure that the people of Saskatchewan and the rest of Canada who will be paying the shot for this program are very interested.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roderick J. (Rod) Thomson: In any event, I am sure the minister can speak for himself; he is pretty eloquent. I suggest to the minister that he should not rush in and implement these small farm provisions before he has worked out the

details of the program with the provinces concerned, because we do not want duplication in this area. I am concerned about this and I hope he is.
Second, I suggest that the Farm Credit Corporation should look carefully at how much money it will lend against land of certain value. I am concerned about land values. Although I support that the corporation has done in the past with regard to farm credit loans, I feel that some actions of the Farm Credit Corporation tended to force up land prices. People have bid more per acre and values have increased. This has left some farmers in an awkward position. They have found it hard to repay loans. I want to emphasize this point.
Officials of the Farm Credit Corporation, along with farmers and governments, were getting very excited over the large wheat sales made to Russia and to China. This excitement was evident in my province. Consequently, some farmers when they bought land paid prices which were unrealistic. The Farm Credit Corporation helped them to pay these prices. I draw to the attention of the minister and Farm Credit Corporation officials that these farmers are not very happy. Some of them are behing the 8-ball, so to speak, and cannot meet their interest payments. This is a regrettable situation. That is not how we ought to use funds provided or subsidized by the government. I do not think anyone intended that to happen, but happen it did as a result of an oversight or error. I feel the Farm Credit Corporation was in error in this regard.
Third, I should like to emphasize again that not all agricultural problems are to be solved by lending money. It is sometimes thought that if farms were bigger they would become more efficient, that big farmers can produce barley for 64 cents a bushel and oats for 40-odd cents a bushel. I suggest that this is not necessarily so because factors other than borrowing are involved in farm economics. In other words, you cannot, in all circumstances borrow your way out of trouble.
Of course, those who need to borrow money will be helped by this legislation and that is its intent. However, let us not be carried away by the idea that we can borrow our way out of trouble. Price is important too. The minister from Saskatoon-Humboldt seems to think that an increased volume of sales will solve our problems. Volume is important, I agree, but price is also important. Mr. Speaker, those are the three points I wanted to bring to the attention of the minister.


Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, in view of the importance of this bill, I should like to say a couple of words about it.
Having had the advantage of sitting on the Committee on Agriculture for four years, I should like to say that this bill is of a very great significance and has definitely a very great value. In fact, this bill completes remarkably well the farm legislation that this government has passed during the past four years.
I know that in my riding, they have succeeded, through favorable farm measures, in stabilizing the dairy industry so that producers may derive a satisfactory income from it.
June 29, 1972

I think also of Bill C-176 which, thanks to the co-operation of the officials of the agencies concerned and of the provinces, will also bring forth quite interesting improvements.
And we sire now considering Bill C-5 which will enable some agencies to take out loans in order to consolidate incurred debts following certain difficulties with some farm products. On the other hand, this legislation will enable agencies to make investment permitting them to operate a more profitable business.
It is clear, as the previous speaker said, that loans will not solve problems but I think that even so they are important for those who are thinking in terms of growth because we are now aware that expansion is absolutely necessary to enable the producer to get an adequate income and meet competition.
I would like to say a word about the repurchasing program regarding small farms. The minister's objective is fine but I am a little concerned about the bill. Discussions with the provinces, more precisely possible agreements with them regarding the program dealing with the management or repurchasing of small farms do not seem to have been completed. The minister has clearly indicated to the committee and in the House that he did intend to apply that program. How can this program be 100 per cent efficient if one, two, three or four provinces refuse to co-operate with the federal government? I think it is time to say it and I invite the minister to do his utmost to give evidence that this program is efficient and will benefit the provinces.
I should also like to invite the minister to show very great understanding about the provinces' priorities. It is something that we should respect. We know very well that on account of different conditions and mentalities, some provincial priorities are very different from those of the federal government.
I should not like to prolong my comments unduly, nor to insinuate that this problem can be settled without agreement. Quite the opposite, I have confidence in the understanding and ability of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Olson) and in view of his respect for the provinces I am sure he will manage to hold prior consultations with them and demonstrate that it is in the common interest to seek solutions resulting in suitable agreements while respecting provincial priorities, which the federal government might consider as difficult to accept. However, whatever the province involved the producers should not lose the great benefits which Bill C-5 nevertheless does provide.
Mr. Speaker, I have made these few comments merely as an appeal to the minister's consideration of the importance of respecting provincial priorities, without however neglecting the benefits of this legislation for any producer wishing to avail himself thereof.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, in view of the time my comments will be brief. I want to make a couple of points before the bill is read the third time. My principal point is this: if the minister feels this bill will solve many of the problems of prairie farmers and others, he is mistaken. Basically, this bill does two things, one of which I am very concerned about. First, it
Farm Credit Act
gives additional power to the Farm Credit Corporation. That is in clause 1 of Bill C-5 which is before us, which provides:
The corporation has all the powers necessary to carry out such duties or functions as may be assigned to it by the governor in council in relation to the administration of any agricultural program or as are assigned to it pursuant to any other act of the Parliament of Canada.
Under that clause we know that the minister's intention is to bring in through the back door the small farms development plan. I do not judge this to be democratic, I do not think it is what most people think of as parliamentary democracy about which members opposite talk so much. Many farm people in western Canada are very concerned about that program and the report of the task force on agriculture. I do not want to see this clause in the bill become the opening for the small farms development plan and many recommendations of the task force, especially without their being debated in this House. I say this very seriously because I know that most farmers are concerned.
I wish to read a short quotation from the statement made by the National Farmers Union when in Ottawa:
The National Farmers Union has called for rejection of a government bill to amend the Farm Credit Act because it "is designed to move farmers off the land and move land out of agricultural production."
This is a fear of the farmers' union. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Gleave), our party's spokesman on agriculture, the minister has not given adequate answers to questions such as those raised by the National Farmers Union and others concerned about agriculture and rural life in this country. I think he should provide us with those answers. He should not use this bill as an excuse to bring in the small farms development plan which has many ramifications for the rural life style, farmers and those living in small towns and villages on the Prairies. Our small farms are being eliminated quickly enough. According to Statistics Canada, between 1966 and 1971 the number of farms in this country decreased by 15 per cent. The minister should seriously consider this. I believe that the members of this House who represent urban Canada take this fact very seriously.
Many members from urban Canada have a good understanding of farming and rural life, but many people have the mistaken conception that the farmer is not efficient. He is very efficient. Figures show that in the past 10 to 20 years, the farmer's efficiency has gone up at twice the rate of the non-agricultural sector. The farmer is very productive; he knows how to manage his affairs and business.
The problem is that in the past 20 years the farmer's income has increased by only 20 per cent while his costs have doubled. No wonder the farmer is being forced off the land. The price he receives for commodities such as wheat and eggs has gone down between 1950 and 1970 despite the rise in the cost of production. I could elaborate, but that in a nutshell is the problem facing the farmer. That is why I am very concerned about clause 1.
If the small farms development plan is to be introduced, it should be as a separate bill so that we, the people's

June 29, 1972
Representation Commissioner Act representatives who are concerned can debate the bill, move amendments and offer suggestions. If implemented, this move can change the life of many people in rural Canada and, indeed, in many of the urban centres in this country.
My second point is that this bill will raise the ceiling of borrowing from a maximum of $48,000 to a maximum of $100,000. This may be necessary in many cases, but the area of Saskatchewan that I represent is primarily comprised of small and middle-sized farms. Although a clause like this probably will not do any harm, it will not do much good. I recommend that the minister seriously consider subsidizing interest rates for small farmers. For example, on loans up to $30,000 there should be an interest rate of either 3 per cent, 3} per cent or a maximum of 4 per cent. This would really help to keep the average guy on the farm, and would preserve rural Canada.
These are the points about which I am concerned. I am not satisfied with clause 1.1 urge the minister to reconsider some of the ideas and suggestions put forward in this debate, as well as the suggestions of farm organizations, the National Farmers Union, the Federation of Agriculture, wheat pools and others.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, in the remaining few minutes we could call a short bill that I have been holding in the wings for some time. It might meet with the favour of the House. It is Bill C-203, to amend the Representation Commissioner Act. If we give this bill second reading it might be possible to then deal with it in committee of the whole.


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



REPRESENTATION COMMISSIONER ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Allan ]. MacEachen (for the Secretary of State) moved that Bill C-203, to amend the Representation Commissioner Act, be read the second time and referred to committee of the whole.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Boulanger in the chair.
On clause 1-Salary
William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, I would like an explanation from the government as to why this bill is being introduced. We are aware that there have been changes in other government departments and that probably this department has not kept pace because it is under a specific act. It is a rather unique kind of job that operates on a ten-year basis. If we pass this bill we shall, in effect, be providing one man with $400,000 for doing a job which has to be carried out only when a census is taken and the electoral boundaries are redefined.

It seems to me that rather than make the change in the bill as proposed, we should relate the salary of this office to the salaries of deputy ministers, for example, in accordance with whatever criteria are used in those cases. The method used for making this change is similar to that used when we are changing our own salaries. In either case it does not meet with my approval. It is true this gentleman is in a unique position. No one is inclined to raise any particular objection to his salary or he might find his constituency going to Siberia and back.
I am not prepared to move an amendment, but it seems that we are making a long-term salary adjustment covering a ten-year period. If conditions continue in the future as they have in the past, the salary we are talking about today may end up being no more suitable than it was previously. We should consider arriving at an appropriate formula to cover the salaries of people such as Members of Parliament, the Auditor General, the Representation Commissioner and others in that category so that it will not be necessary to pick out individuals and make salary adjustments for them on a periodic basis. Their salaries would then be adjusted in the same way as those of senior officials in government departments.


John Stratford Burton: Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that this should be the only change being made in the legislation. There is some ground for advocating a wider review of the operations of this act. While I recognize that the motives for which the original act was introduced, the desire to take the redistribution of constituency boundaries out of the arena of politics, I believe it should be admitted that there are some shortcomings in the system.
Two changes are needed if we are to arrive at a basis. First, provision should be made to take into account representations from the public before the original set of boundaries is drawn by the provincial commissions. Once those boundaries are drawn, they tend to be fixed and it is difficult to secure meaningful changes. The second point is this and I present it as a personal view: I still feel that final responsibility for the approval of electoral boundaries must rest with the legislators of this country. They are the people who should take the final responsibility for any changes which are made.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to delay the passage of this bill but I should like to point out that in this particular year the Representation Commissioner will be engaged in the very heavy task of participating in the work of the ten provincial commissions. Shortly-as a matter of fact tomorrow, or within a few days-the governor in council will be making public, on the recommendation of His Honour the Speaker, the names of the ten provincial commissioners. The Representation Commissioner is, of course, a member of each of the provincial commissions: thus, he will be carrying a heavy burden. It is for this reason that we are proposing that his salary should be equal to that of the Chief Electoral Officer or, as it is stated in the bill, equal to that of a judge of the Federal Court of Canada. It would be unfortunate if we were to lose the services of a commissioner who had rendered such valuable service to the country as an official of Parliament.
June 29, 1972

Having said this, I agree with the point made by the hon. member for Timiskaming about the need to review the role of Representation Commissioner. The commissioner himself has indicated in testimony before the standing committee that some changes will have to be made because the burden of work in the off years is not great enough to justify the maintenance of the full-time services of any particular person, especially the present commissioner.
It is clear to me that some changes will have to be made, but it did not seem wise to introduce changes just as we were on the threshold of a major redistribution and because of my feeling that members of the House would wish to make use of the services of the most experienced man in the field. Having said this, I would certainly undertake that after the present redistribution the standing committee will have an opportunity to give immediate consideration to what permanent arrangement ought to be made in connection with this particular function. It seems to me the matter ought to be considered along the line of the suggestion made by the hon. member for Timiskaming.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Does the hon. gentleman feel he will be able to implement that commitment from this side of the House?
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, before we rise may I ask the House leader about the business for tomorrow? Is tomorrow to be an opposition day, or is the government insisting upon appropriating the day for its own purposes? If so, what is the business that the House leader will put before the House?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow I propose to call the remaining items that have been on our list for consideration. The opposition will be king tomorrow because it will decide what will pass. However, I propose to try to get before the House the Canada labour bill as the first item, and I have not yet decided whether to call FISP or the foreign takeovers review bill following that. I shall be able to advise my hon. friend early in the morning which bill has been favoured for the attention of the opposition.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Jack Marshall: Mr. Speaker, on June 20 I asked the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Benson) a question regarding the summer student employment program which was part of the Opportunities for Youth program. The government had expounded the magnificence of this great program and announced that there would be 15,000 extra jobs created for students.
I realize that on the "late show" debate the answers we receive are dictated by the department, but before I receive an answer tonight from the parliamentary secretary I want to tell him that I do not agree with the answer he is going to give me. Out of these 15,000 student jobs this summer, 10,000 will be allocated under program No. 3, which relates to the regular student militia and reserve. This has been an ongoing program for many years although other new programs have been announced. This leaves only 5,000 student summer employment opportunities, which to my mind is not realistic.
In the province of Newfoundland, student unemployment is very high and the need for jobs there is greatest. Over-all, I agree with the student militia and ancillary programs; I think it is one of the good programs announced by the government. But it seems that the government does not give highest priority to areas of high unemployment.
Another thing that bothers me relates to program No. 4, which is citizenship and community assistance. Students in the militia are given jobs relating to community assistance, consisting of cleaning up projects and other tasks which employ them for the summer. In Newfoundland, 50 students have been allocated to this program so that in the capital city of St. John's, Newfoundland, a military tattoo can be held on Signal Hill.
This is another program that has been ongoing for many years. These people were taken out of the militia, which is under category 3, and shifted into category 4 under citizenship and community assistance. This means that the 50 personnel allocated to the one program were taken out of the military portion and put into another category which has nothing to do with the military tattoo. This leaves the province of Newfoundland with not one allocation under category 3. This surprises me because every other province has a good allocation and I wonder why the Atlantic region has again been left out.
I do not think the deadline arrives until July 10, so I would ask the parliamentary secretary to urge the minister to reconsider the situation. I have said on a number of occasions that this is one of the best programs the government has ever introduced. I commend the government for it. If it intends to put on a program, why does it tell the people of Canada it will involve a certain number when in reality in involves a much lower number?
In the community in which I live I have experienced 25 years of militia service and that service has allocated 50 people to this program. From information I have received, the allocation will now only be 30. If this is a good program for Canada, I do not think we should be told this is

June 29, 1972
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
what the government is doing when in fact there is no intention of carrying it out. This is a good program and it creates the opportunity of raising a bit of money in order that the students can continue their education.
It also creates the opportunity for building up our militia and reserve forces. I say this facetiously because the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald) and his predecessors for 25 years have been telling me at meetings of the Canadian Infantry Association that great things are happening in the militia, that we have a great bunch of officers and that the militia will do a great service for the country. Contrary to that, what has been happening over the past 25 years has been a steady deterioration of the militia. Certainly that is true of the militia in Newfoundland.
If the present policies are continued, it will not be long before the reserve forces become ineffective and eventually deteriorate to nothing. I ask the parliamentary secretary to pass on my representations to the minister, so that he will tell the militia officers who have performed great service over the years what is going to happen to the militia and whether this program is to be continued. Let them know what is going on, rather than telling them something of a negligible nature.


Mr. I.-Roland Comtois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, before answering the question put by the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe (Mr. Marshall), I would like to commend him for the great interest he is showing in the student summer employment program established by the Department of National Defence.
I am happy to notice that his interest is not limited to that field alone, but also includes the program that is now under way in connection with the militia.
However, before dealing specifically with the allegations of the hon. member, I think it would be useful to summarize the employment programs offered this summer by the Department of National Defence. As it was mentioned before, within the framework of employment programs established by the government to provide
70.000	students with a chance to work or to acquire experience, we provide supplementary employment for
15.000	students all across Canada.
It should be recalled that this program is in addition to the usual summer employment program for reservists and cadets, whereby valuable training is given to over 25,600 young people.
First of all the program involving civilian employees during a fixed period will supply work for some 2,000 students. These will be assigned to general clerical work, administrative tasks, food services, jobs as drivers or labourers.
The program for cadets, over and above the usual summer training program will involve about a thousand more cadets than formerly.
The training program for reserve forces has been substantially increased and it is anticipated that 10,580 students will benefit from it this year.

Finally, within the framework of the community assistance and citizenship program, some 2,400 students will be involved in community assistance programs, fighting pollution in all its aspects.
The hon. member would surely like to know what are the criteria for the distribution of jobs under the above-mentioned programs. Those criteria are as follows: the number and location of defence establishments; the work to be performed in such establishments; the educational capacity of each reserve unit and the experience acquired as the result of the previous year's program.
In Newfoundland, the summer employment program for students made 326 jobs available for .062 per cent of the inhabitants of that province. Apart from the number of cadets, those figures represent an increase of 26 jobs, that is a 14 per cent increase in comparison with past years.
The hon. member has asked that the quotas he reviewed, so that they may be fair for all provinces. We have complied with his request, using the same statistics as he did while making his computations. The results for each Canadian region are as follows: for the Maritimes, .102; for Quebec, .054; for Ontario, 0.55; for the Prairie provinces, .083; for British Columbia, .077-



INDUSTRY-REQUEST FOR ACTION TO PREVENT CLOSURE OF PORT MOODY PLANT OF CASCADE-DELTA BENCO COMPANY

['Mr. Speaker, although the subject matter of the question was somewhat belaboured by the hon. member this evening, this incident was reported this morning in the Montreal newspapers as a harmless and playful incident. I think the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) was done a disservice this evening, because he looked into the matter that the hon. member raised in his question. The Secretary of State for External Affairs addressed himself to this question in the House recently and noted that the Prime Minister of Quebec was reported to be looking into the matter.\nAs I understand it, the deputy premier of Quebec has now indicated in the Quebec national assembly that the remarks reported were not made in any official context and were, essentially, in jest. In view of this, I am gratified to note that in the Quebec government\'s view no slight was intended to the Canadian emblem. A press report on the incident notes that the Quebec provincial legislature thinks that this was merely a "harmless, playful and teasing cocktail conversation."\nMotion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.29 p.m.', 'Friday. lune 30. 1972']
Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, I being to the House tonight a very sad tale which unfortunately under this government has been replicated far too many times all over our country. My specific concern tonight is with approximately 150 employees of the Cascade-Delta Benco Company of Port Moody, in my riding, which plans to close its operation in the next three months and move its operation and manufacturing unit into the golden triangle of the Toronto area.
We in western Canada constantly decry the concentration of secondary and tertiary industry in central Canada, forcing the principal economic preoccupation in western Canada on primary resource and extraction industries. What we in western Canada are losing is an industry of tremendous growth and export potential at a time when western sensitivities are much aroused against the concentration of manufacturing in specifically one area of the country.
To understand completely the motivation behind the Cascade plant closure one must go back in history at least five years. Perhaps before we indulge in the flashback we should know that recently Cascade merged with Delta-Benco of Rexdale, Ontario, an 80 per cent British-owned firm which manufacturers a complementary line of cable television equipment to that of Cascade in my riding. But long before the merger it must be said that Cascade, which is a west coast firm managed by men who are pioneers in the cable TV industry, attempted apparently
June 29, 1972

without much success to secure federal government assistance in one form or another.
I am told that in spite of their access to the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, lubricated by Members of Parliament from British Columbia, all the management of Cascade got was the brush-off by the department. With an export record of between $11 million and $2 million to the United States, and because of the quality of their product which is six months ahead of similar products anywhere else in the world, and unsurpassed, Cascade tried to interest the government in two basic ideas. Cascade asked for federal backing or guarantees on export sales of about 90 per cent in case the corporation in the foreign country declined to honour its indebtedness upon receiving the import from Cascade. This is neither a wild nor a particularly radical suggestion: it is done in many other countries interested in enhancing their export position.
Second, Cascade requested government backing in order to finance sales, both foreign and domestic, somewhat in the manner that large U.S. multicorporations in similar fields are able to do when a cable television distributing company wishes to use a certain manufacturer's product to wire a city or suburb. They need that kind of financing to advance the sale in this instance. But all Cascade got from the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce was stony silence. They never met the minister, so far as I know, and I understand it has been suggested that the Cascade principals did not receive a better reception mainly because Cascade was, in the opinion of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, under-financed in terms of equity capital and much too dependent on loan or debt capital.
With the decision to move the plant, all these details are really irrelevant when it comes to giving 150 jobs in my riding of Fraser Valley West. Some of the people who will be unemployed are undoubtedly subscribers to the same group of companies which owned Cascade originally before they merged with Delta.
What we must address ourselves to, I think, is how we might reverse this decision which was occasioned by a reported loss of something like $200,000 per year on Cascade's operations, regardless of the fact that CRTC foreign-ownership limitations of 20 per cent forced the CBS, an American firm, to divest its interest to the point where Cascade was required to scurry around looking for purchasers or a partner. We are dealing with people's lives and incomes-real people who live in my riding. I think this is the responsibility of a manufacturing industry to those employees who have employed their skills to build the reputation which the company currently enjoys. What we need right now, with government assistance, is to do these things immediately.
I make four suggestions: First, to apply the 90 per cent export guarantee to Cascade which was requested some years ago. Second, to assist in advancing the financing of foreign sales of Cascade's products through a financing mechanism which I suggested earlier. I am not asking for a loan. Third, a government underwriting, perhaps through a means such as DREE or in some other way, to ensure the ultimate profitability of this company which has great potential. Fourth, that we should consider under
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
DREE, when you consider the 9 per cent unemployment rate in the lower mainland of B.C., some kind of special spot zoning assistance, especially for those companies outside designated areas and for those companies which have an important technological growth potential, even if they are located outside designated areas.


Mr. Jack Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy. Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I was asked by the minister to express his apology to the hon. member. He had intended to be here and was here earlier, but was called out on another assignment.
I am advised that his department is aware of the situation at the Port Moody plant of the recently merged Cascade-Delta Benco Company which is being phased out. Delta Benco Limited had originally intended to maintain the Port Moody plant, but due to its unprofitable operations it has reluctantly been obliged to concentrate all operations in its Toronto plant. The company is investigating the transfer of a number of its employees to the Toronto area. This decision will allow Cascade-Delta Benco to compete more effectively in the large U.S. market for CA-TV equipment, with greater benefit to the Canadian economy.



Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Mr. Speaker, some time ago I asked the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) a question in respect of the regrettable incident which was reported in reference to the visit of Alderman Seguin of Hull to Quebec House in Paris, where the honourable alderman reported he was criticized vehemently by one Mr. Michaud, the cultural aide of the province of Quebec, for wearing a pin which was a replica of the Canadian flag.
The last thing I would like to do would be to exacerbate any tension among peoples in our country, but in my opinion the Secretary of State for External Affairs is the man who is responsible for the well-being and the welfare of Canadians abroad. It is the Secretary of State for External Affairs who issues passports for Canadians abroad and he, and he alone, is responsible for the welfare of Canadians abroad. While he might want to emulate his leader and shrug off a question such as was asked three days ago, I think it is not incumbent upon him, as the pre-eminent and most prominent member of the government in respect of external affairs matters, to shrug off these responsibilities and to say that it is a matter for the Premier of Quebec, or for any other provincial leader, to decide what should be done.
I think it has been clearly demonstrated, as was stated in this House by the illustrious former leader of the government, the Right Hon. L. B. Pearson, that in all matters concerning Canadians abroad, in all matters concerning the diplomatic expression of Canada abroad, it is the government of Canada and not the government of any province or any section of the country which must express itself.

June 29, 1972
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
In my opinion it is extremely important that when a Canadian is abroad-in this case it is alderman Seguin of Hull-he carries with him the passport of the government of Canada signed by and issued in the name of the Secretary of State for External Affairs who guarantees the good passage and good reception of that particular Canadian abroad. It is totally unbecoming of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, sardonically, absent-mindedly or otherwise, to shrug off his responsibility. I know that he might want to emulate his great leader in terms of shrugging, but it is still the responsibility of the Secretary of State for External Affairs to look after Canadians who are abroad.
I say to you, Sir, and to the Secretary of State for External Affairs-who is not here tonight-that it is the responsibility of that distinguished officer to take note of the rights of Canadians abroad; and the rights of Canadians abroad, guaranteed by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, transcend any provincial office whether it be Quebec, whether it be Ontario or whether it be Atlantic Canada. This has been demonstrated. Mr. Pearson mentioned some years ago that the prime responsibility, diplomatically, resides with the government of Canada.
I would like to remind the Secretary of State for External Affairs, had he deigned to be here tonight, that this is his responsibility. He who issues a passport to Canadians abroad should stand behind that passport and guarantee the rights of the Canadian citizen abroad, so that that Canadian citizen be not subjected to the denigrating, humiliating circumstances which, regrettably, was the
case when this very distinguished alderman from Hull visited Quebec House and apparently was told not to wear a Canadian flag replica because that was provocative to one particular province of Canada. This kind of thing is very conducive to disunion in the country.
I think any decent Canadian cabinet minister should assert himself in every way possible to exalt the rights of this dominion, of this country, and-as Mr. Pearson said- should remember that it is the country and not the province which is supreme.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, although the subject matter of the question was somewhat belaboured by the hon. member this evening, this incident was reported this morning in the Montreal newspapers as a harmless and playful incident. I think the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) was done a disservice this evening, because he looked into the matter that the hon. member raised in his question. The Secretary of State for External Affairs addressed himself to this question in the House recently and noted that the Prime Minister of Quebec was reported to be looking into the matter.
As I understand it, the deputy premier of Quebec has now indicated in the Quebec national assembly that the remarks reported were not made in any official context and were, essentially, in jest. In view of this, I am gratified to note that in the Quebec government's view no slight was intended to the Canadian emblem. A press report on the incident notes that the Quebec provincial legislature thinks that this was merely a "harmless, playful and teasing cocktail conversation."
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.29 p.m.

Friday. lune 30. 1972