1972-04-20

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Warren Allmand (Noire-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to move a motion under Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Yesterday, Northern Electric in Montreal announced extensive lay-offs at its Laurentian Boulevard plant, including the transfer of 300 to 600 jobs to Ontario and other locations. With these lay-offs the total number of lay-offs during the past year by Northern Electric amounts to approximately 2,000 jobs. Consequently I move:
That the entire question of Northern Electric lay-offs in Montreal be referred to the Standing Committee of Labour, Manpower and Immigration for investigation and report.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Hon. members have heard the motion proposed by the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace. Under the terms of Standing Order 43 this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimity?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There does not appear to be unanimity.


Mr. Bell:: The Liberals are against it.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent and therefore the motion cannot be put.



CERTIFICATION OF MASTERS BILL


Mr. David Anderson (for Mr. Groos) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-192, respecting the certification of masters of foreign vessels.


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


David Anderson: for leave to introduce Bill C-193, respecting construction standards for foreign vessels.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


David Anderson: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the hon. member for Victoria who is presently attending a meeting of ships' pilots, may I say that the purpose of this bill is to ensure that foreign vessels using Canadian waters are subjected to the same construction standards as apply to Canadian-built vessels.


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

David Anderson: for leave to introduce Bill C-194, to control marine traffic on the west coast.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


David Anderson: Mr. Speaker, like the previous bills, this one is to regulate and control marine traffic operating within the zone adjacent to the Canadian shore on the west coast, and whose destination is a port or anchorage on the west coast of Canada.


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


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance who I had hoped would be a very frank and open minister in the House in answering questions.


Mr. Guay (St. Boniface):: Oh, you're back!
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Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am not sure whether the hon. member's preliminary comments are relevant to the question he proposes to ask.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I was just reminding the minister of his reputation in the house, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Trudeau:: Think of your own.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I would like to ask the minister, now that we are well into the new fiscal year, whether he can yet tell us when we can expect a budget statement and financial accounting such as we are used to receiving in this parliament?
Hon. John ,N. Turner (Minister of Finance):	Mr. Speaker, I dealt with that question two days ago when the hon. member's colleague from Edmonton put the same question to me.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I had hoped the minister might have received some enlightenment over the weekend. I would like to ask the minister, particularly in view of unemployment remaining at 6 per cent and in view of the recent report that the rate of growth in the economy may very well slow down in the first quarter, whether he is now prepared to present to the house measures designed specifically to create jobs in this country?


Mr. Turner (Ollawa-Carlelon):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. gentleman can count on me to present the appropriate measures at the appropriate time, and he will receive advance notice of that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Judging from the minister's answer, is the country then in the position that action on these matters will depend more on the date and decision relating to an election rather than on the economic needs of the country?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: That is fair comment.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The response to the hon. member's question is an indication that it was argument rather than a question.



MEASURES TO PROVIDE JOBS FOR PERSONS NOW EMPLOYED ON WINTER WORKS PROGRAMS

Mr. Edward Broadbenl (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Finance. Is he planning any measures at all to deal with the thousands of people currently employed on winter works programs which are due to be completed by the end of May? Has he any concrete measures to present to the House in the near future that will provide employment in the summer months for these people?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, those employment programs are being reviewed with the provinces, and if and when the government has something to say it will say it in the House.



ASSURANCE OF USUAL PERIOD OF DEBATE IF BUDGET INTRODUCED

Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, can the minister assure the House that when and if a budget is introduced the usual time will be given to the House to debate the budget and for the people of the country to become aware of its contents before the government is called to account by the people of the country in a general election?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: What are you so nervous about?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, if that were to happen I would want to assure the House that the opposition would have all the time it needed to debate a budget, if that were to come before the House, but judging from some performances the opposition may not need too much time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Gerald William Baldwin: On a point of order-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Chair will recognize the hon. member on a supplementary, but obviously this is not a very productive exchange of questions and answers. The Chair will recognize the hon. member for York South immediately after we have heard the hon. member's supplementary.


Gerald William Baldwin: It is a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I asked the minister what I thought was a very simple question but all we got was a bad commercial. I hope he will answer my question.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, if I were convinced that some of the questions were devoid of political motive I would answer them in the terms they deserve.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. minister cannot impute motives.



COMBINES


Mr. David Lewis (York South):: I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Speaker. Some time ago Mr. Henry, the director of investigation and research under the Combines Investigation Act, was reported as having said in Toronto that his division was looking into the closing down of the Toronto
April 20, 1972

Telegram and the purchase by the Toronto Star oi the Telegram subscription list to see whether or not a formal inquiry was required. May I ask the minister if he can inform the House whether Mr. Henry has concluded his preliminary inquiry and whether he has decided that it is necessary to go forward with something else?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding, and I should like to have an opportunity within the next day or two to doublecheck this, that the investigation indicated that there was no justification or need to pursue ;he matter further.



INVESTIGATION OF CLOSING OF TORONTO &quot;TELEGRAM&quot; AND PURCHASE OF SUBSCRIPTION LIST BY &quot;STAR&quot; -INVOLVEMENT OF RCMP

David Lewis: I have a supplementary question for the Solicitor General on the same subject, Mr. Speaker. Some months ago I asked the minister whether he could inform the House if the RCMP were involved in this investigation and he was good enough to say that he would look into the matter. Can the minister now tell the House whether the RCMP were involved?


An hon. Member:: He didn't hear you.


An hon. Member:: The same as yesterday.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: The same answer as last week.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I trust that the minister is reading something interesting.
I asked him, a few months ago, whether the RCMP had investigated the purchase by the Toronto Star, of the Telegram subscribers' list. He then told me he would look into it and advise me. Can he do so now?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Solicitor General):: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot do so now, but I shall Monday.
* * [DOT]



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Mr. Roland Godin (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, I intended to put a question to the Minister of Labour but in his absence and that of his parliamentary secretary, I shall put it to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
My question deals with the problems of some of the unemployed who have been waiting for their unemployment insurance cheques for three months. As several unemployed in Quebec have had to go to the welfare offices for assistance and as these offices are now closed because of the strike of the Quebec civil servants, can the minister promise that the unemployed will soon receive the money coming to them?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Inquiries of the Ministry



INDUSTRY


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: My question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, Mr. Speaker. In view of the continuing shutdown of pulp and paper mills across Canada, accentuated by the closing of Ocean Falls in western Canada, will the minister indicate to the House what progress is being made in his discussions with the pulp and paper industry to overcome this serious situation?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: The studies and analyses to which I referred previously in the House are continuing. We have met once again with the leaders in this industry and we are supposed to meet again.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I have a question for the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. The minister spoke about the possibility of a budget and other matters a few moments ago. Bearing in mind the report of Statistics Canada about the actual decline in the rate of growth of real output in Canada, and combining that with the high level of unemployment and continuing inflation, would the minister advise the House whether he has considered short-term measures, which will correct this trend and, in addition, what long-term measures does he have in mind to make sure that the economy continues to grow? He has a problem in light of his prophecy about dealing with unemployment.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think the answer to that kind of question should normally be given by way of a statement on motions. If the minister thinks he can reply briefly to the hon. member's question, he will be recognized for that purpose. Otherwise, if it is to be a lengthy statement it ought to be made on motions.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: It should be made in a budget address.



INDUSTRY


Mr. H. W. Danforth (Kenl-Essex):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a related question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce dealing with the drop in produc-
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tion. Since there are now concrete indications that some Canadian suppliers of auto parts and accessories are now receiving either smaller orders or no orders at all from their normal United States customers, is the government now convinced that the DISC program is working against our industries and are any steps being taken to curb our losses of production as a result of this program?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is inviting an opinion from the minister responsible. He is asking whether the minister is convinced of something or other. That is certainly not a proper form of question.


Harold Warren Danforth: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce in this fashion. Since there is a drop in trade between our automobile suppliers and their normal United States customers that is attributed to the DISC program, is the minister taking any concrete steps to provide policies to counteracting this situation?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge, what the hon. member posits is wrong. We have conducted an inquiry into the auto parts industry very recently and the inquiry demonstrates that the level of auto part exports at the moment is as high as it was last year and that it is expected to be even better next year if the present trend in automobile buying continues.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


Righi Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works. Is the government about to demobilize the Corps of Commissionaires in so far as service with government departments is concerned under his jurisdiction as Minister of Public Works and replace them with personnel of a private detective agency to be appointed?


Hon. Jean-Eudes Dube (Minister of Public Works):: No,
Mr. Speaker. I am not aware of any such intention on the part of the Department of Public Works.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, may I ask who the
minister in charge is? I do not know who the minister in charge is. Is it the Minister of Public Works? Is he the one who is in charge of this?


Jean-Eudes Dubé: Mr. Speaker, I am not in charge of any demotion of the Corps of Commissionaires. That is all I can say.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, possibly I could direct my question to the Solicitor General. Has he any information on this subject?


Jean-Pierre Goyer: Mr. Speaker, there is no question of it for the federal buildings.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Greenwood.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, this game of shuffleboard on the part of ministers is not in keeping with the dignity of the House of Commons. Does the Minister of Public Works-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I merely want to apologize to the hon. member for Greenwood whom I recognized a moment ago. Perhaps we might allow the right hon. gentleman to ask his supplementary question first.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I want an answer. Are the Commissionaires, 150 of these old soldiers-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: -to be removed and replaced by a private agency now being advertised for to fill positions of a supervisory nature now filled by the Commissionaires?


Jean-Eudes Dubé: Mr. Speaker, I have had occasion in the course of the past three and a half years to show my respect for the old soldiers.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Eudes Dubé: We have shown our respect in concrete terms and we are certainly not about to demote them in any way, shape or form.


John George Diefenbaker: But that does not answer my question completely.



HOUSING


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs in charge of housing. Will the minister table in the House or publish the final report of the task force on low-income housing headed by Professor Michael Dennis, which I believe was presented to him recently, so that the public can be aware of what is contained in the report?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, Professor Dennis is still working on his editing.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower
April 20, 1972

and Immigration. Considering the lay-offs announced yesterday by Northern Electric in Montreal, which are part of a continuing series of lay-ofEs, will the minister contact the authorities of Northern Electric to see if the efEects of these lay-offs can be minimized and the men can be placed in other work?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, that has already been done in view of the particular location in which Northern Electric is situated. There has been maximum co-operation between management, labour and the Department of Manpower to minimize the lay-offs. I am sure that Northern Electric should be or are conscious of the moral obligation they have to remain as much as possible in the province of Quebec, because little is to be gained by transferring that company and its operations out of that province to another part of Canada.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Has his department any measures to assist the electronics industry in Canada and, in particular, to assist Northern Electric with its marketing problems?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Yes, we have, Mr. Speaker. We are helping and will continue to help. We are going to help even more if possible than we have helped in the past.



NORTHERN ELECTRIC, MONTREAL-LETTER FROM UNION PRESIDENT-POSSIBLE MEETING WITH UNION REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Raymond Rock (Lachine):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Has the minister received a letter from Gordon P. Meehan, President of the Canadian Union of Communication Workers, concerning Northern Electric lay-offs and transfers of jobs to Ontario? If so, has the minister met with union representatives and does he intend to make a statement to the House in this regard?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I received a letter from this gentleman and I am answering it. In a previous answer to the House I indicated that my information was that the company did not have any intention of moving from Quebec to Ontario. However, it is obvious that companies like this have to readjust and adapt to the market demands, irrespective of provincial borders. This is what the company is now doing. According to the figures I have, Northern Electric had more employees in Quebec in 1971 than in 1970.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We should try to move on. As hon. members will notice from looking around, there are many hon. members who for one reason or another are anxious to ask questions at this time.


Jean-Luc Pepin: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, may I indicate that I was giving a percentage. I meant that the percentage of employees of that company in Quebec is higher now than it was in 1970.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That is hardly a question of privilege.


Mr. Valade:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Sainte-Marie on a point of order.


Georges-J. Valade: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, has just given information which contradicts the statement he made in this House last week. When I asked him what were the intentions of the heads of Northern Electric and what he was planning to do in order to ensure the employment of the people who work for that company, the minister answered that there was nothing wrong with the situation at Northern Electric.
I would therefore ask the minister, since he gave misleading information to the House last week, to say whether he has talked with the union of Northern Electric employees in order to find out whether the 2,200 employees who have been laid off will be provided with-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. There is evidently no point of order. The hon. member is putting a supplementary question. The minister may reply and we shall then go on to another subject.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I also rise on a serious matter of privilege. Knowing my hon. friend, I took due precautions and if he will consult page 884 of Hansard-unfortunately I have only the English text here-he will see that I said none of the things he accuses me of having said at that time. And if I may quote in English, here is what I replied at the time-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I suggest to the hon. minister and to the hon. member as well that there is neither a point of order nor a question of privilege involved. We could spend the whole question period discussing what the minister said or did not say. It seems to me that such is not the purpose of the question period and it might be possible for the minister and the hon. member concerned to meet later and determine what really was said, but I do not believe there are grounds here for a question of privilege.

If hon. members wish to debate for 40 minutes what the minister has said or has not said, I shall hear the hon. member for Sainte-Marie and then I shall give the minister every opportunity to reply.

I now recognize the hon. member for Sainte-Marie.


Georges-J. Valade: Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to rise on a question of privilege, since the hon. minister has said that I had accused him of saying things that he had not said.

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Inquiries of the Ministry
I simply spoke on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When hon. members ask the minister a question and he answers evasively and erroneously, we have a duty to ask him to put the information back into context and my point of order as well as my question of privilege are related, as the hon. minister accuses me of misquoting him with respect to a question that I asked him.
Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. minister to specify whether he has had contacts with the union representing the employees of Northern Electric, as in a letter that the union has sent us, it accuses the minister of having never contacted the employees of Northern Electric-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I intend to recognize the minister, as I said a moment ago, and we shall spend another five or ten minutes on this, but I suggest it is highly unfair to other hon. members.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is rising on a question of privilege.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I feel your remarks are justified and I resumed my seat.



PENSIONS


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Is the minister now in a position to answer my question of yesterday as to whether the reciprocal agreement between Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany respecting the payment of pensions has been ratified by West Germany? Can the minister also tell us on what date the payment of these pensions will be put into effect in Canada?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: There are certain details I should like to fill in before making a full statement. With the hon. member's permission, I should like to make it next Monday.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister undertake to make the statement in the House?


John Carr Munro: Yes, Mr. Speaker.



MANPOWER


Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.

Are there any funds available at present under the local initiatives program because some groups or municipalities were unable to carry out approved projects?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, we are reviewing the funds available for the local initiatives program to determine whether any money is still available for projects which for climatic or other reasons were begun a little later than normal.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. May I suggest to the minister that it is just about impossible to hear him because of the conversation going on next to him over the same microphone.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, we are reviewing the funds that were placed at the disposal of the local initiatives program, particularly as far as municipalities are concerned, to determine, in cases where projects may have been delayed for reasons beyond their control- weather conditions, for instance-whether it would be beneficial to extend the termination date presently fixed for the end of May, provided, of course, that this does not involve the provision of additional money but merely the exhaustion of funds already allocated.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member for Champlain wish to ask a supplementary question in connection with the one he put earlier?


René Matte: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Could the Minister of Manpower and Immigration tell us whether he discussed with the Quebec Department of Municipal Affairs the difficulties experienced by municipalities with that department in obtaining the funds required to carry out their projects?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: There have not been meetings at the ministerial level but it is quite possible there have been meetings at the senior official level. I shall inquire.



REQUEST FOR ISSUANCE OF TEMPORARY EXPORT PERMITS FOR ALBERTA NATURAL GAS

Mr. William Skoreyko (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Would the minister consider granting temporary export permits in view of the 500 million cubic feet per day of natural gas presently available in Alberta wells but remaining unused?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I will take notice of this question and refer
April 20, 1972

it to my colleague the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources who will, I am certain, bring it to the attention of the National Energy Board.



AGRICULTURE


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he has anything new to report with regard to expediting and integrating the small farm assistance program of this government and the government of Prince Edward Island? I ask this question in light of the fact that farm cash receipts for that province dropped, it is estimated, by more than $5 million in 1971.


Hon. H. A. Olson (Minister of Agriculture):: The small farms development program is, of course, not designed to resolve the very real problem that the hon. member has mentioned. There are discussions due to take place, I think, on Monday or Tuesday of next week with at least one or two of the provinces to work out the administrative details. I am as anxious as the hon. member to make this program operative as soon as possible.


John Angus MacLean: May I ask the minister whether any discussions of programs are in train for the purpose of improving the market position of growers of tobacco, potatoes and hogs, whose difficulties have given rise to this general problem in both Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Yes, Mr. Speaker-not any specific program at the moment, but the hon. member will recall we have taken action on a number of occasions in the past few months to improve the situation.



REQUEST FOR ACTION TO ENSURE THAT FOODS FOR HUMANS ARE AVAILABLE ON NUTRITIONAL BASIS

Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question I should like to direct to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the statement by the national co-ordinator of Canada's nutrition survey that the only foods now sold on the basis of their nutritional value are pet foods, will the minister take action to investigate this situation with the object of ensuring that foods for humans are also available on a nutritional basis?


Robert Knight Andras: That is an excellent suggestion, Mr. Speaker.


Winona Grace MacInnis: Pending the carrying out of that suggestion, would the minister consider reclassifying human beings as pets who require nutritional food?
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ALLEGED REFUSAL OF UNITED STATES TREASURY SECRETARY TO ATTEND INTERNATIONAL MONETARY CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN MONTREAL

Mr. S. Perry Ryan (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Finance. Has the minister been in touch with the United States Secretary of the Treasury, John Connally, with respect to his announced refusal to appear with him at the international monetary conference sponsored by the American Bankers' Association to be held in Montreal from May 9 to 12 next?


John Napier Turner: The host of that conference is the International Bankers' Association. On the agenda I received my name appears as one who will attend, and so does the name of the United States Secretary of the Treasury. I have no further information.


Sylvester Perry Ryan: Apparently it came out yesterday that Mr. Connally will not be there. As this is the first occasion since 1950 that a United States Secretary of the Treasury has refused to attend such an annual meeting, may I ask whether the government has received any assurance or indication from the United States Treasury Department that President Nixon has altered the intransigent position of Mr. Connally with respect to current trade difficulties between Canada and the United States?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the hosts of the conference in Montreal are the international bankers, not the Canadian government. At the moment I am acting on the basis that I will be there, and the agenda shows that Mr. Connally will be there.



MANPOWER


Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration and is in regard to a discussion at another time and in another place. What consideration is the minister giving to the inclusion of those who are taking manpower training under unemployment insurance coverage?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Perhaps I may be forgiven, Mr. Speaker; the answer would be a detailed one. Since the other place to which the hon. gentleman alluded is a very hospitable one, pernaps we should renew the meeting there and I shall provide an answer under the same circumstances and in the same surroundings.


Robert Muir: I am very agreeable, as everyone knows. In the event that the minister's answer is in the negative, in view of the fact that allowances under manpower

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Inquiries of the Ministry
training are taxable as income, in view of the fact that cadets at the Canadian Coastguard College who are taking training are covered by unemployment insurance, and in view of the fact that those who take training cannot find jobs after they have completed their courses, would the minister give further consideration to this problem?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I certainly will, Mr. Speaker. To be quite honest, I do not know the answer to the question. I will try to find out and answer tomorrow.



POST OFFICE


Mr. R. E. McKinley (Huron):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Postmaster General. The question was asked in his absence and was to be relayed to him. As six-day mail delivery was maintained in rural areas at the insistence of many members of the House, is the minister now going to grant the same privilege to urban Canadians and reinstate six-day mail delivery to speed up mail delivery in these areas?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Cole (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, what I said and I say it again, is that even if the mail delivery has greatly improved these last few years, there are still problems regarding the mail posted on week-ends. We must find a solution, and if the only one is to resume mail delivery on Saturdays, we will do so.


Robert Elgin McKinley: How soon does the minister plan to make an announcement on this matter, and is it being investigated now?


Desmond Morton Code: Mr. Speaker, I cannot announce a decision which has yet to be taken.



POSSIBLE RESTORATION OF SATURDAY MAIL DELIVERY-REPRESENTATIONS FROM POSTAL UNIONS- RELATIONSHIP TO CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS

Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question on the same subject. In view of the continuing delay in mail delivery, have representations been received from the postal unions on this matter, and is this a vital part of the current negotiations now going on for a new settlement?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Cote (Postmaster General):: I am
sorry, Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the first part of the question.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Is the question of restoration of six-day mail delivery part of the negotiations going on with the postal unions, has the minister received representations 
from the postal unions in this respect, and is it vital to a satisfactory settlement?


Joseph Julien Jean-Pierre Côté: No, Mr. Speaker, I don't diink that the problem of mail delivery on Saturday is being negotiated at the present time. According to the first impressions gathered, some union officials were in favour of it but reports in this morning's newspapers reveal that interest was fading.



DELAY IN DELIVERY OF MAIL FROM SCOTLAND

Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister look into the problem respecting mail coming from Scotland? I am in receipt of several letters which indicate that delivery is taking five to six months. Would the minister at his earliest opportunity look into this matter in order that he can make a statement to the House?


Joseph Julien Jean-Pierre Côté: Mr. Speaker, this problem is not one for which the Post Office Department is responsible; it is simply due to the fact that strikes in American ports have delayed the unloading of a number of postal bags.
I think that most of these bags were returned to us and have now been delivered.



POSSIBLE RESTORATION OF OTHER SERVICES IN ADDITION TO SATURDAY MAIL DELIVERY

Mr. Barry Mather (Surrey-White Rock):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister. In addition to consideration being given to restoring Saturday delivery, would the minister indicate whether the department is considering restoring other services which have been affected by the policy the department has followed, I think adversely, in recent times?


Joseph Julien Jean-Pierre Côté: Which ones, Mr. Speaker?



MANPOWER


Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed at the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
Would the minister indicate whether there have been talks at the ministers' level between Quebec and Ottawa concerning the policy to be followed-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Bellechasse could ask his question.
April 20, 1972


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, can I very peacefully ask the Minister of Manpower and Immigration whether there have been talks at the ministers' level between Ottawa and Quebec concerning the policy to be followed in manpower centres in Quebec and the rest of Canada with regard to the hiring of workers for the James Bay project?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, there have been informal discussions between various ministries in Quebec and Ottawa on the James Bay project. There have been no specific discussions between the ministers of manpower of Quebec and Ottawa. about the possible employment policy when the project gets under way.



FINANCE


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance which is actually supplementary to the one asked a while ago by the hon. member for Spadina. In view of the refusal by the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. John Connally, to attend the international monetary conference of the American Bankers Association in Montreal, has the Minister of Finance taken any steps to invite Mr. Connally to Ottawa for a mini-conference on trade and monetary policies as they affect relations between Canada and the United States?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that I have no direct information that the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States has either accepted or refused the invitation to the international bankers' meeting this year in Montreal. As to the second part of his question, no, I have no immediate plans at the moment to invite Secretary Connally to Ottawa.



REQUEST FOR STATEMENT ON PROPOSALS TO COMBAT ESCALATING CARE COSTS

Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the minister's statement on the galloping increase in health care costs which is threatening the whole field of health care, would the minister make a statement to the House on motions outlining his proposals to correct the situation?
Inquiries of the Ministry


John Carr Munro: Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to consider making a statement, but I think the hon. member is aware-indeed I know he is-of the quite explicit proposals that the federal government made at the last two federal-provincial conferences of health ministers regarding what we think should be considered in order to achieve the end of reducing the escalating cost of health care.


Philip Bernard Rynard: There is a great deal of alarm abroad about the statement the minister has made, and I feel a statement should be made to the House on motions. If he would do this-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This, of course, is a representation to the minister.



FINANCE


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. In view of the heavy deficit financing of provincial governments and the consequent necessity for these governments to borrow funds, possibly in foreign markets, has the minister consulted or does he intend to consult his provincial counterparts on the possible effects of heavy external borrowings on the Canadian dollar at this time?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, when I first met the provincial treasurers and ministers of finance in Jasper I reiterated the request of my predecessor, that wherever possible the provinces should seek to satisfy their borrowing requirements on Canadian capital markets. In the ordinary course of dealings with the province of Quebec and the province of Ontario lately, I have been apprised of the intentions of both these provinces regarding their borrowing requirements and how much they anticipate they may have to seek outside Canadian markets. I have received good cooperation from those two provinces in particular.



TAXATION


Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of Finance. In his preparations for a budgetary statement, whenever that might be, can he assure the House he is giving consideration to the representations of farm organizations for a change in the income tax treatment of the sale of marketing quotas.

April 20, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I will have to treat the preamble to the question as a hypothesis, but in answer may I say I assured the Canadian Federation of Agriculture when they met with cabinet that I had set up, in conjunction with my colleague the Minister of State from Calgary, a joint interdepartmental committee-agriculture, finance and national revenue-to review the effect of the Income Tax Act upon agriculture and farmers generally, and that subject of course, will be one of those that will be reviewed.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have at this time to remind hon. members that there are two minutes left before the end of the question period. The hon. member for Regina East on a supplementary.



SUGGESTED REMOVAL OF SALES TAX ON SOFT DRINKS AND CHANGE IN CUSTOMS TARIFF ON TELEPHONE ACCESSORIES FOR DEAF

John Stratford Burton: Mr. Speaker, could the Minister of Finance indicate whether he is giving consideration to requests for the implementation of the recommendation in the Carter report that the sales tax on soft drinks be removed, and could he also indicate whether he is giving consideration to changing the customs tariff as it affects telephone accessories for deaf people?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, in respect of the first part of the question 1 think I have received representations from virtually every member of the House about the soft drink manufacturers and the sales tax. I am meeting with a delegation from that industry later this week or the beginning of next week. In answer to the second part of the question that is one of a variety of issues of this kind that I am considering.



REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION


Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. In relation to the ARDA and FRED programs which are being carried on in the Interlake area of Manitoba, can the minister say whether consideration is being given or has been given to enlarging the programs in order to give financial assistance to the number one priority of the area, namely, sewer and water services in the towns that do not have these services?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member must be aware that priorities concerning ARDA programs are decided by the provinces, not by the federal government. It all depends, therefore, on whether the province itself asked that such works be done.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture related to a question asked previously in connection with the small farms policy. How long will it be before the small farms policy which has been proposed by the government will be in operation and to what provinces will the initial impact of the program be directed?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: Mr. Speaker, as soon as possible. The only delay at the moment is in working out with the provinces the administrative responsibilities between the two levels of government. In so far as I am concerned I hope the result will be that the benefits will be available uniformly and equally in all provinces across Canada.



SHEEP-INQUIRY AS TO WINTERING ALLOWANCE PAID TO QUEBEC PRODUCERS

Mr. Rod Thomson (Ballleford-Kindersley):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Was a wintering allowance paid by the federal government to the sheep producers of Quebec and, if so, why was such an allowance not paid in Saskatchewan?


Horace Andrew (Bud) Olson: There was no such program paid by the federal government.



REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION


Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. In view of the fact the agreement between his department and the government of Alberta is about to expire in respect of the designated areas, can the minister indicate whether there is a plan to change the boundaries of these designated areas or whether they will be continued as they are now?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I said, I think yesterday or the day before, that we are in the process of consultation with the provinces concerning the designated areas.


Mr. Speaker:: We have just about run out of time. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition might be allowed a question before I call orders of the day.

April 20, 1972

Family Income Security Plan



FINANCE


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance arising out of his suggestion that he suspected political motivation behind certain questions asked him about a budget. Having just come from a part of Canada where unemployment is even more serious than it was at this time last year, I should like to ask the minister in all earnestness, no matter what he may suspect about my motives, whether he will tell the House and the country when he will be prepared to announce his policies and his position?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I share the hon. gentleman's concern about unemployment in this country and I want to assure him I will respond to his question at the earliest possible opportunity.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the government House leader about the business for this week and, if he is sufficiently informed, he might like to go on to next week as well.


Mr. MacEachen:: 
Paul Yewchuk: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order concerns the insufficient number of copies of the bill dealing with the Explosives Act. There are not sufficient numbers. There is great interest in this legislation in the country and we are unable to obtain sufficient copies to provide them to interested citizens in order that they may make representations on this matter before it comes before the House. I wonder whether more copies of the bill might be provided to members of the House.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I assume this is a question which normally ought to be directed to the officials of the House, but I am advised that at this moment additional copies are being prepared for distribution to hon. members.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Wednesday, April 19, 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 second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs and the amendment (Mr. Lewis) p. 1448.
Mr. Thomas S. Barnett (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday while the Leader of the New Democratic Party was speaking to the second reading of this bill he said it was a veritable nightmare from an administrative point of view. I should like to spend a little time today documenting the statement made yesterday by my leader. In the remarks I made yesterday afternoon, I hope I made clear that this administrative nightmare is really inherent in the deficiencies of principle in the bill which are pointed out by the amendment under consideration at the present time.
I suggest very few Canadian people have any real inkling of just what lies before them if and when this bill becomes law. Not all people in Canada will read Hansard, but more people will read it than will read the fine print in the bill that is before us for consideration. I intend to spend part of my time in documenting this statement about an administrative nightmare by indicating through some actual references to the text of the bill just what form the nightmare may take. I suggest that if one considers the high number of applicants there have been for unemployment insurance this past winter, and the administrative nightmare that resulted from the operation of that act, one realizes that that was a very mild foretaste of what lies ahead for a great many Canadians if this bill is passed. Indeed, in my view, the two are interrelated.
I would like to suggest also that while my main concern is for the general citizenry of Canadaj I do have some feeling for the employees of the government of Canada who, if this bill becomes operative, will have the responsibility of trying to deal with irate and perplexed citizens. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that what we should be considering, if we are going to pass this kind of bill, is the doubling or tripling of the number of members in this House, because if many of us had to spend a good deal of our time during this past winter trying to unravel some of the difficulties caused by the new unemployment insurance plan, we can be sure that sort of activity on our part will be trebled under this plan.
I suppose one should start with the clause which determines the amount of benefit paid under the bill. I suppose this might be described as the simplest part. It reads:
The amount of a benefit in respect of a child for any month in a benefit year is,

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
(a)	in the case of a child who is less than twelve years of age, $15, and
(b)	in the case of a child who is twelve or more years of age but less than eighteen years of age, $20, minus 33 cents for each full $100 of income by which the income of that child's family for the base calendar year exceeds
(c)	$4,500 when that child is the only child in the family,
I suppose it is fair to say that that involves a calculation which is relatively simple, so that part of the bill may be comprehensible to large numbers of people. However, the calculations involved become increasingly complicated as one starts deducting 33 cents for each additional full $100 of income. If a person has an income of $4,599.99, and a child who is 11 years old, that child will get $15; but if the income is $4,600, he would only get $14.67. That is perhaps the simplest part of the bill.
However, we then come to the part which is headed "Statement of Estimate of Income". Here we see a close relationship to the kind of calculation that is required of people who apply for the guaranteed income supplement. This section of the bill provides for the filing of a statement of income, otherwise the benefit cannot be approved. There have been complications in the dealings that people in receipt of the guaranteed income supplement have had with the government. Many members are fully aware of the difficulties connected with the adjustment of income and the reclaiming of benefits paid. Those are problems which come to the attention of members and problems with which the administrative officials have to deal. But let us remember that when we are speaking of people who are getting the guaranteed income supplement, by and large we are speaking of people who are receiving retirement benefits or who are in receipt of the basic old age security pension. These considerations do not apply when we are talking about benefits payable to or on behalf of children of parents who are earning an income.
In documenting what I consider to be a complete administrative nightmare, I should like to refer to those parts of the bill that deal with occasions when a family's income is reduced or increased, just to give some idea of the kind of gobbledygook with which an individual citizen is faced.. Let me make reference to that part of the bill which reads:
(2)	Where at any time during the base calendar year or during the fourth month of a current benefit year a parent
(a)	ceases to hold an office or employment previously held by him or ceases to carry on a business previously carried on by him, or
(b)	for any other reason suffers a loss or reduction of income, as a result of which event or occurrence it is reasonable to expect that the income of the family for the calendar year next following the calendar year in which the event or occurrence took place will be substantially reduced, the parents may, in such manner and within such time as are prescribed, file a statement of the estimated income of the family for that next following calendar year, in which case the income of the family for that calendar year shall be deemed to be the income of the family for the base calendar year.
(3)	Where at any time during the first eleven months of a benefit year, other than the fourth month, or during the eight-month period next before that benefit year a parent

(a)	ceases to hold an office or employment previously held by him or ceases to carry on a business previously carried on by him, or
(b)	for any other reason suffers a loss or reduction of income
as a result of which event or occurrence it is reasonable to expect that the income for the family for the calendar year in which the event or occurrence took place or for the next following calendar year will be substantially reduced, the parents may, in such manner and within such time as are prescribed, file a statement of the estimated income of the family for the calendar year in which the event or occurrence took place, in which case the income of the family received during that part of the calendar year after the month in which the event or occurrence took place divided by the number of months in that part of that calendar year and multiplied by twelve shall be deemed to be the income of the family for the base calendar year.
Then the bill repeats that exercise in semantics in dealing with the situation when the family income is increased. If anything is going to cause confusion and misunderstanding, is going to leave people not knowing where they stand from one month to the next in relation to the receipt of family allowance benefits, I suggest it is that formula set out in the bill. If one puts that provision together with the new and much more complex provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act, the result will be that each time somebody files a claim for unemployment insurance benefit he will probably have to file a statement showing what adjustment should be made in the family allowance payments to his children.
I notice that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Perrault) is in the chamber. I know he is well aware of some of the complexities faced by people who made application for unemployment insurance benefits last winter. I ask him to visualize the situation, if he continues to hold that office next winter, when people will not only be in turmoil over whether they get their unemployment insurance or not, but will be in turmoil over whether their family allowance cheques are to be cut off, increased or reduced.
People will be in a turmoil over what to do if they are laid off and their family income is reduced. They will need to know what to do if they are called back to work. I can just imagine what will happen in the case of some of the loggers on Vancouver Island who have been having problems with unemployment insurance. I can just imagine what will happen when they are called back to work again and their income is increased. They will have to go all through this exercise again. They will feel apprehension about their family allowance cheques in addition to worrying about whether their unemployment insurance cheques will catch up with them after they return to work. When the leader of my party suggested that this bill would lead to an administrative nightmare he was not exaggerating the impact of the bill.
In other parts of the bill, there are provisions to extract information respecting claimants from other departments of government. We have had a tradition in Canada that our incomes are known only to the Department of
April 20, 1972

National Revenue. Now, the Department of National Health and Welfare will have access to income information. In addition to that, income information may be given to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Department of Manpower and Immigration, the Department of Supply and Services, the Unemployment Insurance Commission and to an officer employed in Statistics Canada.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It might as well be in the newspaper.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: I hesitate to use this word, Mr. Speaker, but to check on this information we will create, under the terms of the bill, what can only be described as a government Gestapo service. If somebody makes a mistake in supplying income information, and somebody also takes the notion that he made the mistake knowingly, that person is liable to imprisonment. According to the terms of the bill:
Every person who knowingly makes a false or misleading statement in any application or statement required or permitted by this Act or makes any such application or statement that by reason of any non-disclosure of facts is false or misleading,
provides any person employed in the administration or enforcement of this Act or appointed to make an inquiry under this Act with any statement or information that is false in any material part-
The clause then refers to cashing cheques, and so on.
-is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or to both.
Parents who make application under this legislation and who make a mistake in their applications, are liable to imprisonment for six months and fines of up to $1,000 if someone believes they made such mistake knowingly.
We have come to accept the fact that the Department of National Revenue is the body which polices our income returns to determine the accuracy of them. This may be necessary in order to ensure that all people carry their fair share of the tax burden. But if one starts multiplying that kind of authority and extending it to other government departments, then the ordinary citizen will feel so overwhelmed by this supervision of every move he makes, each time he is laid off, each time he goes back to work for a week or a month, and makes some mistake in reporting his income, that the scientists of Canada should be put to work developing a portable computer for all citizens which could be supplied with the family allowance cheques to help him avoid running afoul of the law. These illustrations support the statement made yesterday by the leader of the New Democratic Party when he moved the amendment opposing the principle of this bill, and suggested that the citizens of Canada had an administrative nightmare ahead of them.


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lolbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, it is certainly my duty to speak to the motion for second reading of Bill C-170, to provide for the payment of benefits in respect of children.
Family Income Security Plan
This legislation, sponsored by the hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro) will turn into a nightmare for Canadian families, instead of an assistance measure. The government, I suggest, seeks by this legislation to replace the present family allowance plan which, as is generally known, is a universal plan applying to all children-those under 10 now receive $6 a month, those between 10 and 16 receive $8.
The bill before us purports to abolish the principle of universality instead of merely increasing family allowances. The government, on the one hand, will grant a very slight increase of these family allowances, giving $15 to children under 12, and $20 to children between 12 and 18.
On the other hand, however, while giving this slightly increased amount, the government will be establishing a nightmarish system for families which will end up by disgusting them rather than helping them.
As some hon. members have done before me, I will refer to certain clauses of the bill in order to clarify this point. In the government bill now before us, and according to paragraphs (a) (b) and (c) of subclause 1 of clause 6, a ceiling has been set on family income which, if exceeded, will entail a decrease in family allowances in respect of children and, under some circumstances, their eventual disappearance.
This bill provides that benefits of $15 and $20 will be reduced by 33 cents for each full $100 of excess family income. And as I said a few moments ago, Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to read these figures.
My colleagues of the Social Credit party and myself have made some calculations in this respect to see where we were heading.
For example, if the parents of an only child earn a yearly income of $6,000, the maximum allowable income of those parents will be deducted from this amount thus making a difference of $1,500 resulting in an allowance decrease of $4.95. The benefit in respect of the child will therefore amount to $15 less $4.95, or $10.05.
If the parents have two children, the income ceiling, according to the provisions of the bill, is set at $4,500 plus $500, making a total of $5,000. This amount is deducted from the gross income of $6,000, leaving an excess of $1,000 entailing a reduction of 10 times 33 cents, or $3.30. A child will be entitled in this particular case to $11.70.
This is all very intricate, Mr. Speaker. This is the system which is being foisted on every Canadian family.
For a couple with one child and an income of $8,000, the ceiling is set at $4,500 and the benefit at $11.55. For a family with two children and a gross income of $10,000, the ceiling would therefore be $5,500 and the benefit would decrease by $18.15. Thus we have the picture. And the bill says that the child will not even get 15 cents a month when the allowance is less than $5.
Such a bill has been introduced by the government, Mr. Speaker. How will it be enforced? In the recom-

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
mendation that goes with the bill it is said that this measure tends not only to provide for the benefits but also to provide for the calculation of such benefits and the determination of the persons or institutions to whom they are payable and the times at which they are payable.
That is very precise, Mr. Speaker. This means that in this measure the government provides for a whole administrative and technical system of red tape to get people into line, to determine whether the children of a given family will receive benefits or not.
To do that, through this legislation, the government provides for a selective approach. Instead of sending family allowances to all children, on a universal basis, as it is doing now, the government removes this principle, which has been taken for granted, and wants to adopt the selective approach. In other words, we are going to give allowances to certain children, on the basis of extraordinary complex calculations to which I referred a While ago.
How will such data be used to determine whether a family is to be assisted or not? A host of civil servants will make the decisions on the basis of increases or decreases in the number of children in each family, as well as on the basis of increases or decreases in family income. This is precisely the point on which I should like to elaborate.
In clause 8, for instance, we read that a statement of income must be submitted with the application. This means that if a family wants to receive family allowances, it will not get them until it has submitted a statement of income each year, somewhat in the same way as for an income tax return.
This legislation also provides that whenever some change occurs in the family income-be it the father's or the mother's-the family has to make a new statement of income. This, according to a very serious study made by technocrats, will have the effect of reducing the amount of allowances by 5, 10, 15 cents, $1, or more.
And if for some reason or other a person goes on strike or becomes ill, which would bring a change in his income, he must, in order to avoid making a false statement, being sued and having to pay a fine, make a statement to inform the government of the new circumstances.
I want to say straight out that I am going to oppose categorically the principle of this legislation which is only going to increase bureaucracy in Canada and to create more annoyances for Canadians. In short, this legislation, far from serving the population, will just increase its problems.
Mr. Speaker, needy families in Canada are already bothered no end because of all the welfare measures- both provincial and federal. A number of investigators go from home to home asking: Do you have any money in the bank? Do you have any money hidden in the house? Have you bought a new fridge or stove lately? Do you have any lodgers here, and, if so, how much

money do you get from them, and how long have they been staying here?
Such investigations are being made constantly, and people are being bothered by governments which spend most of their revenues on paying bureaucrats, instead of giving the money to families who need it.
The Unemployment Insurance Act is another measure enacted by the government to help families. It is good in itself, since it provides a worker who is temporarily unemployed with up to $100 per week in benefits. But in order to get it, he must deal with a whole army of bureaucrats, which is a terrible headache, no matter what the minister may say, regardless of the numerous delays. Why? Because the administration has been centralized and the number of officials unduly increased.
I shall give only one example to make the minister responsible for this bill realize what is involved here. There is a provision in this new Unemployment Insurance Act under which illness is covered, provided the patient submits a medical certificate.
But there is nothing in the act about the part to be played by the physician. In fact, the worker who becomes unemployed due to illness has to wait in line to obtain a medical certificate, and until he submits it, he is not entitled to any benefits.
And when he finally gets to see the doctor and to take up his time with that request, the latter issues a certificate between two appointments and sends it to the regional office. The public servant is then entitled, under the law, to decide whether this is a serious illness or not. The public servant reaches that decision on his own. I wonder what sort of ability he has to diagnose people's illnesses. He decides that that person will not be eligible to unemployment insurance benefits because his medical statement is incomplete or inaccurate. The claimant then gets the following answer: You are not eligible, for your medical certificate is incomplete. Therefore he must go through the whole process again, aware that the end result might be the same as the first time.
This shows how ridiculous the unemployment insurance legislation is. Indeed, the government is giving some public servants, who hardly know how to add or to sub-stract, the authority to decide whether people are ill or not. Finally, this legislation is more of a nuisance than anything else.
Now, what are we doing, at this time, with family allowances? Exactly the same thing. But there, the intrusion into people's privacy is even more obvious.
Instead of quite simply giving everyone, with a minimum of bureaucracy, the same right to receive allowances, the government prefers to "divide" the population into two segments, stating that those whose incomes are above $8,000 will no longer receive these allowances and those whose incomes are below $8,000 will be entitled to them, providing they report their income and
April 20, 1972

what they expect to receive during the year and advise the government of any change in their income, failing which their allowances will be discontinued.
What will happen, Mr. Speaker? It is quite simple. Mr. X's family, living on Y street in Victoriaville, will apply for family allowances. Mr. X will produce a statement of income which will be sent to a public servant. The public servant will compare the statement with the same family's income tax return, checking for possible false statements, and then if all these requirements have been met, and all the complicated calculations mentioned at the very start of my remarks have been carried out, the civil servant may send the family allowance right away. If he finds any details lacking, what will he do? He will say the decision on your family allowance will remain pending unless you supply such and such data, tell us for whom you worked, at what date, how much you earned, whether another member of your family besides yourself is working, etc., etc. The report will then come back to the civil servant who will work out the calculations and it will be months before the individual receives anything.
Mr. Speaker, it might be said: Yes, but there will be retroactivity. But what is the philosophy behind the government's introduction of legislation which, instead of just assisting the people, will strictly contribute to aggravate them? Here is an example of the ridiculous nature of the legislation. In case of a decrease in income, the family will have to file a statement with the government, otherwise the statement will automatically be false, and the family will probably be liable to a fine. These civil servants are experts on fines. What should the family do if the family income is reduced? Here is what the bill says at page 8:
(2) Where at any time during the base calendar year-
This means that the family will have to file a statement five, four, three, ten or twelve times a year, or as often as there is a change in the family income.
I resume the quotation:
Where at any time during the base calendar year or during the fourth month of a current benefit year, a parent
(a)	ceases to hold an office or employment previously held by him or ceases to carry on a business previously carried on by him, or
(b)	for any other reason suffers a loss or reduction of income,
Whatever this reduction of income may be.
I continue the quotation:
as a result of which event or occurrence it is reasonable to expect that the income of the family for the calendar year next following the calendar year in which the event or occurrence took place will be substantially reduced, the parents may, in such manner and within such time as are prescribed file a statement of the estimated income of the family for that next following calendar year;
There again, Mr. Speaker, what bureaucratic nonsen; Obviously, the family cannot estimate to the last ce the income it will be getting. Therefore, a statement an estimated income will have to be filed. If this fami makes a mistake, if it cannot anticipate everything will be accused of making a false statement, and c'o sequently will have to pay a fine.
Family Income Security Plan
I continue the quotation:
-in which case the income of the family for that calendar year shall be deemed to be the income of the family for the base calendar year.
And so on.
Subsection (4) provides the following:
-that the income of the family-will be substantially increased-
Then, line 39 reads as follows:
-file a statement of the estimated income of the family for the next following calendar year-
And so on, and so forth.
Mr. Speaker, to my mind, this bill is absolutely revolting. It will only add to the dissatisfaction amongst the people, the division between them. For instance, a family with one or two children receives $30 a month, the neighbour will ask how much they get in family allowances? He will be told $30. He can then obviously know exactly what the income of that family is because the same calculation will apply in all cases.
Before, a person's or a family's income was a personal thing which did not concern the whole town or country. Now, because of the system, the government will help to spread that much more dissension among people. That is exactly what the government seems to be looking for. Before, filling out your income tax form was relatively simple. With the tax reform, it has become so complicated a procedure that people must go to an accountant and pay his fee. Now, we will have to make a statement on income with regard to family allowances every time the financial situation changes. Is there anything more ridiculous, more revolting?
I shall give you an example to show what thinking lies behind this, the thinking that inspires the government. When a man becomes entitled to the old age security pension and his income is not adequate, he applies for the guaranteed income supplement. What is such person to do? Another income statement with a check of bank accounts, etc.
Mr. Speaker, why continue to bother the people, to socialize the individual, to control strictly all his activities? Why continue to do so and act in such a way that Canadians are increasingly becoming mere numbers in their country instead of builders? This is the aim of this government. On the contrary, the members of the Social Credit of Canada suggest that we stop bothering the people.
What will be the administrative costs of the family allowances program? It will cost millions of dollars merely for comptrollers, scientists, technocrats, investigators, etc. The remnants or the remainder will be paid as family allowances.
Mr. Speaker, why not establish a realistic social security system in Canada instead of being always negative, always bothering people, always making them dance a few steps before giving them a penny, doling out 42 cents a month in assistance as was the case with the old age

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
pension? Let us stop this tomfoolery if we are really serious in this House and start a social security program tailored to the needs of the individual. Let us give every Canadian family and every Canadian citizen the possibility of living decently in this country instead of constantly pestering them and giving them nothing but the crumbs left over once the bureaucrats have helped themselves.
Mr. Speaker, if we are intelligent enough to land on the moon, if we are clever enough to ensure that technology and progress keep on growing in Canada, we should be at least brilliant enough to create a financial system that will provide positive social security for Canadians.
I am aware, Mr. Speaker, that they will find it odd, in this House, that social credit is again referred to concerning this bill, but nevertheless this bill is in complete contradiction with the creditiste philosophy advocating for all a guaranteed minimum income so that they may live decently, an income paid automatically without any difficulty and investigation so that they may then keep on improving their lot without stumbling over officials.
I shall give you but one example. You will say: Yes, but this is expensive. But it does not cost more, on the contrary. If administration costs are reduced, there will be more money to give to people and less to bureaucrats.
Mr. Speaker, some of our colleagues say that the situation is not rosy out west. Why? Because the people from that area have too much wheat, too much of everything.
In Quebec things are going bad because there is too much wood, too much milk, in short too much of everything.
In the Maritim.es conditions are also bad because there is too much of everything. So, the government clamps down on production.
At the same time, the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand) grants millions of dollars to create employment and boost production. One man says produce more, the other argues against higher production.
I am thinking about the Canadian policy on milk, wheat, fisheries, etc.
The problem in Canada is that we have a sector called the production sector of which the Canadian people should be proud. Instead, three families out of five in Canada are literally starving. The Croll report on poverty changes nothing to the fact that we have over a million unemployed. Indeed, unemployment and welfare have become our main industries in Canada. We let people live in poverty, despite the high volume of production. This is a scandal in Canada: riches and poverty live side by side. And in order to solve the problem of minimum security, the government contrives all sorts of civil service gimmicks to go on irking people who, while they get entangled in all those investigations, will go on starving in their own country.
Yet Canada is the second largest country in the world. It is situated between two oceans and draws its wealth

from unlimited sources, but there is poverty nevertheless. But at the same time Denmark, a small country which can rely only on its mineral resources, enjoys a standard of living comparable with ours.
Japan, which has 122 million inhabitants living on twelve small islands, now ranks third among trading countries in the world. As for us, with a lot of mineral resources and an overflow in every field-minerals, wood products and all kinds of other resources-we give away our hardwood by granting timber concessions without doing anything to ensure forestation. As for softwood, we have so much that our factories, like Domtar, in Trois-Rivieres, must close down and dismiss their employees because they cannot transform all the wood. It is the same picture in fisheries.
In this country which is overflowing with wealth, there are people dying of starvation. This administration insists that there must be no inflation, that inflation is at the root of all our problems. Can anyone imagine such inconsistencies!
So, for the past three or four years, this administration fought mercilessly against inflation. To end up with what? Unemployment. And now that we are fighting this new enemy, prices are going up again. This is complete chaos.
And this bill has been given the same slant as those on unemployment insurance, social welfare and all the other plans which this government has introduced and which contributed directly to the growth of bureaucracy and the reduction of the real assistance which families need.
Mr. Speaker, since when does a Canadian government have the power to decide who has the right to live to discriminate between the children of families whose, income is $8,000 per year or less and those which earn in excess of $8,000? On whose authority does it exercise the power of deciding someone's fate while subordinating this right to the hypothetical results of various inquiries?
Hon. members realize that the control of the situation has shifted from the government to an all powerful bureaucracy that gobbles up millions of dollars collected through taxation to administer programs, while the Canadian people are only given bits and pieces.
I would be most interested to know what Canadians had to pay to officials to enable them to increase senior citizens' pensions by 42 cents a month and I would be greatly indebted to the minister who fights for this bill as if it were the apple of his eyes if he could tell us the estimated costs earmarked for the administration of the family allowance plan.
I would like to know what benefits will acrrue to the Canadian people and what will be the administrative costs of this program. But I am sure the hon. minister does not know the answer, because he does not care. He does not care to know how much the bill will cost. What matters is to shore up his control over each Canadian citizen, to increase the rub-a-dub for the Canadian people instead of helping them.
April 20, 1972

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian people of Lotbiniere are thirsting for economic security and freedom. They do not want to be bothered any more. On the contrary, they want to be helped and encouraged to progress in life instead of being discouraged.
Did you ever notice that whenever someone is trying to make headway in Canada there is a government to hamper his efforts?
In the House, I have previously brought forward this fact. If the father of a family is working hard to get a decent income and succeeds in earning over $8,000, he will automatically lose his family allowances. Is it the way a hard-working man is being rewarded for his efforts? This is certainly not the proper way to encourage Canadians to have the interest of their country at heart.
Let us take the case of a student. He does not work during summer but, on the other hand, he will be granted the maximum grant available when he returns to school.
On the other hand, if he worked all summer, he will not be entitled to any bursaries from either government, federal or provincial. As a matter of fact, he will be told: "Considering your earnings of last summer, we cannot grant you a bursary. Therefore, the student who had nothing to do all summer long will get a bursary whereas the one who worked will not get anything. This is surely not a way to encourage people to help build their own country.
What afflicts me is that in spite of past experiences, in spite of the noisy display thrusted upon this House by the government, this same government is still following the way of control, which amounts to dominating the individual and assigning him "ceilings". The work and energies of the individual are subject to a never-ending control.
The same may be said of the farmers. Whenever one of them exceeds his milk quota,, not only is he deprived of any encouragement on the part of the government, but he also has to pay a tax, or a fine for having worked too hard. That is most economical!
Mr. Chairman, conditions have become unbearable. Our economy will never progress if it feeds only on the eloquence of our ministers. The Canadian economy will never work that way. Indeed, it will only work inasmuch as Canadians will play the game, inasmuch as the government will stop pestering them. Instead, let us give them whatever encouragement we can so they may co-operate in the building of a nation of their own.
Mr. Speaker, there is no other way. We must stop- and that is urgent-passing legislation that will merely help divide our people, to emphasize class struggles and discourage the individual.
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to have to tell the House such things. I am really sorry to see the Canadian people in their present situation, due mainly to their having a majority government. The government claimed that with a majority, it could settle all problems, that a majority government was absolutely necessary to prevent disorder in Canada, to build up a sound economy and check unemployment.
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Mr. Speaker, we have a majority government. What is it doing? It introduces measures designed to discourage initiative. More and more I have the impression that there are fewer and fewer people working in Canada and that it is the working people who provide for the increasing number of those who remain idle.


Jean Marchand: No, this is not true!


André-Gilles Fortin: The Minister of Regional Economic Expansion says it is not true.
Mr. Speaker, I invite him to visit my riding again, where he is always welcome, and not to keep to Liberal circles. Then, I will introduce him to the people of Lotbiniere and he will find out that I am telling the truth.
On my street, Mr. Speaker, a father of eight children is working 14 or 15 hours a day. Because of that, he will be deprived of his family allowances, since he is earning over $8,000 a year. His neighbour, another man with a family, is on welfare and can support three children. That one will get the maximum allowance.
Perhaps the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion will tell me that this is all normal. As for me, I would tell him that I find it awkward to tell a worker to keep on working with all his heart, his energy, his life and his health and that whever he will earn over the ceiling will be given to someone else!
Mr. Speaker, I maintain that Canadians are entitled to live in their country and unless this government recognizes the right of Canadians to build their country, disagreement, the current conflicts in Quebec, social troubles which hurt us so much, and economic slowdown will prevail. This is due to the fact that everybody's problem is a money problem, and not a constitutional problem; it is not a problem of language, economic expansion or regional differences. We have reached the point where the whole country should be considered a designated area.
Mr. Speaker, I shall conclude by saying that the government has a choice to make and that it should make it now because the people are going to make it soon. Either we go on adopting gimmicks such as the one before us today, which only serves the purpose of irking the people and increasing the powers of technocrats, or in other words we go on treading the way of extreme socialism, or else we change our course and deal with the true problem in Canada, which is financial in character, we give each human person his freedom and security. and we recognize the right of each human being to life and security.
Mr. Speaker, I often ask two questions to which I have never been able to get an answer. Perhaps the minister could tell me how it is that we make reforms in all fields-it would take me longer than this day to list them all-except in the one monetary field.
I ask the minister why we can discuss any matter, except something which is taken in the House, the banking or financial reform. This golden calf is so sacred that we must hide to speak about it.

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Mr. Speaker, the minister tells me that it is normal, because everything is okay. I strongly urge him to come and explain that to the Canadian people. It is urgent!
Reforms have been made in every field, except in the monetary field. When we refer to family allowances, etc. we hear not a word. All's well. When we mention the constitution, we hear not a word. All's well. When we refer to languages, we hear not a word. All's well. Discussions are sometimes held between Ottawa and the provinces, but they always boil down to the same problem, to wit who is going to tax: Ottawa or the provinces. Finally, everybody is speaking about financial matters, but instead of dealing with the monetary problem, the debate is carried on.
Mr. Speaker if the minister prefers to keep with those people who talk, good for him. As for me I would rather be with those who do things.


Mr. B. Keith Penner (Thunder Bay):: Mr. Speaker, after the speech we have just heard, I am pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words in defence of this bill. The measure now before parliament proposes a new family income security plan which will directly benefit two and a half million Canadian families. One half of those families, that is, 1,250,000 Canadian families, will receive the maximum benefit under this plan, which is $15 per month per child under the age of 12 and $20 per month per child between the ages of 12 and 17. And these are non-taxable benefits.
The effect of this plan is to redistribute income, to place additional buying power in the hands of those who need it most. That is the basic principle of the bill and it is one which must be emphasized in the course of this debate. Although it is almost impossible to define in an objective way exactly what is meant by social justice, I am satisfied that the plan before us at least approaches such an ideal. It is true there are those who will cease to receive the family and youth allowances. But a wiser man than I once pointed out that social justice is not a single and simple ideal of society but that it is an essential part of a great complex of social change, and that to achieve it some things may have to be sacrificed. In this case, those with greater earning power in our society will have to sacrifice the monetary pittance which they now receive from the family and youth allowance plan.
No one pretends that the new family income security plan will of itself eradicate poverty within our borders. But it is an essential part of an evolving federal program designed to bring about total income security. It coordinates with the old age security plan, the guaranteed income supplement, the Canada Pension Plan, unemploy-1-ment insurance and the Canada Assistance Plan, all of which are designed to help ensure that needy families keep a roof over their heads, bread on the table-with perhaps some meat as well-and the bill collector away from the door.
It may be that those who succeed us in this chamber in years to come, will regard these various plans and

programs as merely timid steps toward a full scale guaranteed annual income. Such a massive extension and intensification of social justice as this may well be enacted in due course along with an amendment to the Bill of Rights stating that all Canadians have a democratic right to consume at least a basic minimum of the goods and services produced by a high-geared technological society such as our own.
Some Canadians, including some members of this House, have expressed concern about the complexity of the family income security plan, despite assurances as to the efficiency of operation of this plan thanks to computer programming.


An hon. Member:: Like the unemployment insurance plan?


B. Keith Penner: I am coming to that; just be patient. Many citizens envisage arguments and disputes with bureaucrats about their benefits. They see themselves engaged in exchanges of correspondence with officials, appeals to members of parliament and general fuss and bother such as one hon. member just mentioned has gone on in connection with the unemployment insurance plan. We all know there were difficulties with that plan for all concerned, most particularly for the beneficiaries. But it seems to me it should not be beyond our skill to work out a system under which those who qualify for benefits under the new plan will be spared the agony of having to make a case for what is due to them under the law. I really think the minister should assure the House that his officials are, in fact, making all the necessary arrangements and that a computer programming system has been developed which will make the administration of the program as simple and convenient as possible. I am confident that this can be done.
The family income security plan does not come cheaply. It is estimated that it will cost approximately $800 million a year, which is $150 million more than the present expenditure on family and youth allowances. If the government were to retain the existing universal scheme while doubling the amount of the benefits, the cost would rise by an additional $560 million per year. The family income security plan, costing much less, puts more dollars in the places where they are most required. I agree with the minister that it is a more efficient use of the tax dollar.
Opposition spokesmen have been critical of the selective nature of the plan, arguing that the move to selectivity makes it a welfare program, something which universal payments avoided. Do they also argue that selective payments or subsidies to various sections of the agriculture industry are similarly welfare schemes? In northwestern Ontario, where the forest products industry is king, we would dearly love to benefit from something similar to the Prairie Lift program, or from a two-price system for our products. But the need for selectivity has ruled us out. While we do not like it, we realize it is a necessity of life. By the same token, it seems to me that thousands of Canadian families need help, also on a selective basis, in meeting their obligations as parents.
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This is something that will not only benefit them but help the economy because the money they will spend will be mainly on essential items, thus helping to bring about an acceptable level of family living.
Returning for a moment to that difficult concept of social justice, it seems apparent that justice requires that all shall have the chance to follow the natural human instinct to make for themselves a reasonably happy and satisfactory life. In so far as income redistribution can help achieve that end, governments have a clear and unambiguous obligation to act. To have an equal concern for the good lives of its members requires that society treat people differently, selectively. The unemployed and the sick receive certain benefits. The old receive pensions. Those with families and small incomes receive income supplements, and all of this on a selective basis. The principle of selectivity is fair, it is equitable and it is logical.
I see the family income security plan as an investment, a social investment in families and persons, an investment in which there is almost certain to be a return in human values. If we do not have this plan, or one similar to it, then other and possibly less acceptable means must be found to assist those families with a greater need. Going cap in hand to some agency or another is not the answer, because it humbles our citizens and spawns an attitude of bitterness and resentment.
I see the family income security plan as being an enrichment of the concrete substance of civilized life. If there is to be an enrichment, then it follows almost as an axiom that there must be selectivity. Why fertilize soil that is already rich and producing strong, healthy plants? Some political writers have contended that maintaining a minimum standard of living within a society has less to do with justice and more to do with basic humanity. They have said that the maintenance of minimum standards is a requirement of humanity rather than of justice. All of this is merely semantics. Whether the family income security plan is an example of social justice or whether it is just plain humanity does not matter very much. What does matter, it seems to me, is that this bill receives the support of all hon. members so that it can be passed quickly into law in order to provide financial assistance to so many in this country who are, and will be, dependent upon it.


Harold Warren Danforth: Mr. Speaker, when you read this bill, and it is not a simple bill, you begin to wonder what actually is the basis upon which the government has introduced it. Is it because the young families of this nation have pressured the government to introduce a new measure? Is it because, for economic reasons, they need more money to raise their families? Is it because the government and its provincial counterparts have come to the conclusion that the normal annual increases in these payments are growing at such a rate there is not enough money to go round? Was this bill drafted in an honest effort to give more money to those who need it and less to those who perhaps need it less?
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Was it designed to create actual savings in tax moneys so that less tax dollars would be flowing out? What was the basis for the bill?
When you analyse this bill, Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to find any real basis for the introduction of the measure in its present form. In the present election climate that we are facing, politicians are asking themselves whether this bill was delayed and designed to be one of the last bills in a dying parliament in order to influence voters at election time. Was that the basic reason for the bill?
When you try to answer these questions as honestly and earnestly as you can, you begin to feel that, whatever your doubts, you have sound reasons for those doubts. It seems that during its tenure of office the government has sought to make changes, one after another, to many of our basic laws and basic establishments in the land. Although the reasons for such changes appeared logical at the time, the results under this government's administration, unfortunately for the people of Canada, have in many instances been almost chaotic. Though the government tends to shift the blame for some of its maladministration to the civil service, many of us in this House believe the fault lies in the way these new policies have been introduced. The way they have been drawn up makes it almost impossible to have practical administration.
May I point out some concrete examples of what I mean-and I am not being facetious, Mr. Speaker. I think something is drastically wrong. We changed the basic concept of the postal service in Canada on the premise that we were going to introduce new electronic devices and computers, that we were facing a new age with new methods. Is it not really shameful that we must now face the fact that under this new administration, this new and polished system, it takes as long to send a piece of mail across a street as it took to send it from coast to coast under the old method?
We were told that we were going to have a brand new Unemployment Insurance Commission with a brand new approach to this very complicated subject. We were going to close down all the little local offices and concentrate operations in large computerized centres so that in seconds we could provide a service which perhaps took days before. But what has happened? The story is known nationwide. There has been utter chaos. Instead of reducing the time period within which cheques were issued from days to seconds, in many instances the time has been increased from days to weeks and months.
Then, the government brought in its tax bill, which was introduced as a measure of reform, as a method to simplify tax returns for those who must pay taxes. This bill, it was suggested would make it easier for people to compile the tax they owed the government and would make collection easier. Again, what has happened? The new tax bill is so complicated and complex that even those who produced it say privately and publicly that they do not understand the full ramifications of the measure.

I am wondering about another point. The legislation provides that in order to qualify a person will have to file a statement of his income, and that there may be an exchange of this information between departments. This is serious. Does this mean that if an individual who feels he qualifies for family allowance under the new regulations files his statement of income, this information will be compared with his income tax return filed with the Department of National Revenue? Is this the comparison that will be made? Is this how it will be checked? Will the incomes of the citizens of this country become public property and public knowledge? Do we have to make public all the income and business returns of a family; is this what will happen? This is what the situation appears to be under the terms of this legislation.
I hope the minister will explain some of these things to me in order that I might understand them more fully and in order that the people whom I represent may have an opportunity to understand them. This would be a change in the policy which has existed for a great many years. It is amazing, indeed, when one realizes that over the years many families have used their family allowances for specific purposes, such as the college tuition of the child involved, pension or a trust, special wardrobes or any of the other special expenses which families have to meet. What will happen when this bill is passed? Many families have counted on this money for years and suddenly it will be stopped. What will happen to a family which has been counting on this money to send the children to college? The family has had to live from day to day on earnings, and this little extra every month has been set aside for a specific purpose? What will happen when it is cut off? This is the type of hardship that the cold clauses of a bill often fail to take into consideration.
We who deal with this type of legislation sometimes become so involved in the legal phraseology that we forget the human element. After all, this is the important element and we must consider what we are doing for people. I feel that this legislation will cause an emotional disruption, as has been pointed out by so many people. It will cause an emotional disruption when there are two neighbours on a street who are placed in a different category and who receive different rates of family allowance for children of the same age, when we have people in different regions who, because of the normal economic returns for families, receive far less than people in other regions, or when we have people who have an excess of income one year and who are faced with scarcity the next year. As a result of four months of plenty when they do not need it, they will be registering for the four months of scarcity when they cannot get it. So, we will have hardship after hardship.
Although the principle may be sound, I feel that we will not satisfy the people of Canada because those who will be struck off the rolls of recipients of family allowances will feel that they have been discriminated against and those whose family allowances will be reduced will feel they have been treated as second class citizens. I venture to say that the very few people whom this govern-
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ment is desperately trying to help, those who are in poverty and on welfare, will be directly helped by increases in family allowances. However, they will be just as dissatisfied because they will feel that under the changed plan the family allowances they will receive will not be high enough to improve their standard of living.
These are the reasons I am very much concerned about this legislation. First of all, I do not think we are solving a basic problem. Second, I think we are interfering with an established practice and changing it in such a way as to cause chaos. Third, I feel that we are bringing in just one more piece of legislation, the administration of which will be almost impossible. Fourth, I am definitely of the opinion that if we do pass this legislation we will not satisfy the people of Canada, and we will not satisfy those who will be called upon to pay. This is the group of people whom we sometimes forget. We are certainly humanely concerned with those who do not have enough, but I wonder if we ever stop to think about those people who have enough but on whom every year we impose a greater and greater financial burden. When will this stop?
These people have rights and they are concerned, and justly so. Perhaps they do not need family allowances as desperately as other families but they will feel discriminated against. Certainly, they pay taxes to pay for the present program, and in receiving family allowances they are on the same footing as every other family in Canada, but their level of income makes them subject to greater taxation. They were prepared to accept this program and through the years there has been very little criticism of it, but now they are being told that not only will they be called upon once more to pay for this program but they will be written out of the contract entirely; they will no longer be eligible for family allowances. This is how double taxation is imposed.
There is one other feature of this legislation to which I should like to refer before concluding. Have we not reached a strange state of affairs in the administration of economic justice in this country when we find ourselves ready to reduce the payments for any child in any family to 42 cents a month? This figure has been bandied around because it is the same amount by which the old age pension was increased. When I appealed to my friends to compile as fairly as possible, the cost of administering a 42 cent cheque, I discovered-and I would like to have this checked-that we will be paying $3 in administrative costs every time we send out a 42 cent cheque. This is what the government is trying to tell us will be the Utopia when we are under a computer system and pay people according to their needs. I wonder if anybody will profit under such a measure.


Winona Grace MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, when I spoke on this bill at an earlier stage I likened it to an umbrella that was full of holes, and said we had no choice but to accept it in view of the heavy rain shower that we were suffering. In the

April 20, 1972
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interim, I and a number of my colleagues have had a chance to study the measure more closely. Now, I find that the leaky umbrella, full of holes, has collapsed into a mass of metal ribs and torn cloth. It is completely useless to do the job of providing family allowances for people across the country.
Had there been any doubt in my mind about this, I feel sure the debate during the last few days would have removed it. Member after member has brought up points regarding this complicated way of dealing with family allowances, indicating that it is an impossibility, and is an unjust and unworkable measure. As a result, I feel we have no choice at this stage but to abandon the project entirely and introduce a better one in its place. The faults in the bill have been enumerated. I will simply mention them again because they have been thoroughly discussed. The biggest one is the departure from the principle of universality, a principle which was established years ago and which has worked well. What was really required was an increase in the amount of the allowance to bring it more closely into line with today's cost of living.
The second fault is the distortion of the family allowance system from one of ensuring a little more well being for families into one of welfare, to be used exclusively as a social assistance measure.
The third bad feature of the legislation is that it will increase the division of the Canadian people into the have's and have-not's, particularly at a time when it is being borne in upon us at every hand that what we need is much greater cohesion and co-operation among the different sections of our people. At such a time it is most deplorable to divide them still further by such a measure.
The fourth bad feature is the administrative nightmare that the bill will bring about. This is something that has been dealt with thoroughly. When the hon. member for Kent-Essex (Mr. Danforth) was speaking,
I remembered what one of his colleagues had said earlier in this debate that it had been calculated with respect to measures of this type that only about nine cents out of every dollar reached the people for whom the money was intended. I am not at all enamoured of the way in which computers, armies of bureaucrats, yards and yards of red tape and oceans of paper are supposed to be saving the taxpayers money. I believe that the system of family allowances that we have had, with its universality, is an infinitely better, simpler and fairer method than what is proposed here.
The fifth bad feature of the bill is the costs it will place upon taxpayers who are already over-burdened and who will not share any more in family allowances. One thing we ought to have learned on this continent is that taxpayers do not forgive governments when they are taxed without receiving any share of the benefits. This is exactly what this measure proposes for at least a third of the families in Canada.
The sixth bad feature I would mention, and it is something that has not yet been successfully contradicted, is

that the children of social assistance families will get only half the benefits. I am still waiting for a successful refutation of that statement, and the fact it is so slow in coming indicates there is doubt about the way the bill has been drafted. I will put my faith in my party leader, who is a very competent legal person. He tells us that according to his reading of the measure children in families that are on social assistance will receive only one half of the benefits of the family allowance.
But more than all these things, what brought me to change my mind with regard to the bill was my realization that this is part of a pattern whereby the government is singling out a group of taxpayers, those in the lower middle and lower income brackets, and telling them, "Look, there is only so much money available for family allowances, for old age pensions, or for whatever social measure is under discussion." The government is telling these people, "If you do not want to be crushed into the ground with taxation we must modify the scheme to make sure that instead of universality the money is given to those who need it the most. This is the only way in which you people can be saved from being completely crushed into the ground." It is this pattern, which is completely dishonest and ruinous, that has made me decide that the time has come to make a stand and say we want no more of this deceptive way of slipping things over on the Canadian people. This is the method which the government uses to slip over basically unfair and unjust legislation on the people of the country.
The government tells these over-burdened taxpayers, "We cannot afford to keep this universal system any more. We regret it." As the hon. member for Thunder Bay (Mr. Penner) said a little while ago, "We are building the edifice of social justice, and in the process of building, something has to go." What is going is social justice. It is regarded as a crime in Canada to be poor. In the view of many people that is the most evil crime in the country. I repeat that the government tells these over-burdened taxpayers, "We have to limit the family allowance to the people who need it most. We have no more money." Why didn't the government think about that last fall when the tax reform bill was under discussion, when these same lower-middle and lower income groups were saddled with a tax structure which took far more than their share from them, and did not equalize their burden as the incomes of rich people and of corporations rose higher on the scale? Why did this government not say, "We want to readjust our family allowance scheme, to modernize it; we must put in a fair tax system so that those people who are able to pay for family allowance can be taxed when the time comes to make the payments under the scheme." Why did they not do it then?
Let me give some evidence, Mr. Speaker. Recently, a seminar sponsored by the Nuffield Foundation of England under the auspices of the Canadian Council for Social Development, was held in the Laurentians, not far from here. A number of eminent people attended, amongst
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them Professor S. M. Miller of New York University and Professor Martin Rein of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The latter informed the gathering that if Canadians are ranked according to income, the lowest 40 per cent of the population earned 15 per cent of the country's total income in 1969. The top 40 per cent earned two-thirds of this group. Professor Miller said:
This means that more people are getting rich than are moving out of the most intense level of poverty-this means that those in the lowest group have become relatively worse off, farther below a standard of living which has shifted upwards.
It is these lower levels who are losing out on the rising standard of living in this country, yet they are bearing the burden of the cost of the social welfare schemes.
We are told there is no money for family allowances. But we hear estimates of up to $10 billion for the Mackenzie Valley pipeline and $10 billion for the James Bay hydro and other projects. On Sunday last on CTV the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) forecast that $50 billion will be needed for resource and energy development in Canada over an unspecified period. We know that $1 billion has been spent by DREE since it was founded. There is plenty of money for pipelines and things like that, but no money for people and the needs of people. This is why I believe this bill should be scrapped. We hear talk about the various kinds of evils in government, but I believe there are few evils more insidious and dangerous than those which crusade under the cliches of the just society while pulling the rug from under that group of taxpayers that is hit the hardest. People talk about the increase in the gross national product, but what is the use of that if the GNP continues to be distributed unfairly to the people of this country? That is what is happening now. I cannot get excited about the growth because I know that the more gross national product there is, the more unfair will be the distribution to the people.
The Royal Commission on the Status of Women made a number of suggestions and outlined a number of measures to protect family life in this country. They recommended child care allowances over and above the present system of family allowances. All across Canada, women have been waiting for action to be taken on the recommendations of the commission. The report was tabled around Christmas, 1970. It had 167 recommendations but so far only two of those of any substance have been implemented, both by the minister of labour last session when he brought in legislation under the Unemployment Insurance Act to look after the confinement period of pregnant women, and legislation for the Public Service of Canada which guaranteed that women could have pregnancy leave without injury to seniority and other benefits. These are the only recommendations of substance affecting women that this government has implemented so far.
How long do the women of Canada have to wait for some guarantee or indication of interest on the part of this government? I know all about the task forces that have divided up the recommendations and are studying
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them, but I also know that task forces, commissions, boards, white papers, and all the rest are used as a means of putting off the evil day of action. I regret to say that is what appears to be happening in this case. In the Speech from the Throne on February 17, 1972, there appeared this sentence:
Another step and long overdue, consists of policies to ensure the equality of women in Canadian society. These will be announced this session.
The only announcement that this government has made so far this session relative to that sentence is to the effect that one million mothers will be deprived of family allowances and that the children of mothers on social assistance will get only half of the new family allowance. This is a blow and an insult to the mothers of this country and they are not going to overlook it.
Time and again my colleagues in my own and other parties have pointed out what those family allowance cheques have meant to the mothers of this country. Often the lowest income people have had to use the cheque for food, clothing and the necessities of life, while families a little higher up on the income scale have used it for things like school supplies or have put it aside so that the children may have the advantages of higher schooling later on or other things that are deemed necessary. Now, with one stroke of the pen, this family allowance cheque is to be taken from a million mothers on the ground that they are wealthy and do not need it. The government will not get away with this. People will realize, as some of them do already, that it is just plain dishonest presentation and deceptive packaging to say to those mothers "You do not need it and you will have to sacrifice in order to give the lower income families a little bit of a family allowance cheque." They know about the machinery of giving the cheques out and then taking them back again through taxation from those who do not need them. But they won't use this basically fair method.
Just the other day the minister asked me "What is the difference if you give it out and take it all back?" If he only knew about the psychology of women, he would know that often the family allowance cheque is the only money they have to call their own, that they can rely on at all times. It makes a tremendous difference when they know that they can always have that cheque at their disposal instead of having to go to sometimes stingy husbands and ask for an allowance-present company is always excepted, of course. However, there are a great many stingy husbands in this country. Some women have to beg, and they are not going to forget it.
I tell you, this legislation will sharpen people's vision very considerably. They will watch money being poured out like water in the hiring of hordes of public servants who will administer this legislation. They will read the little pamphlets sent out by the government and learn how to keep on the right side of the law, how to avoid being sent to jail if there are fewer children in the family than previously reported, or if certain children become too old for benefits, or if there are changes and improve-

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
ments in the family's income. People will be pestered to death with administrative details, and they are already being pestered almost to death in many such ways. Talk about computers! Some on the government side have so much faith in computers that they have begun to lose all sense and reason through not using their own brains.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Winona Grace MacInnis: Computers are taking the place of brains. I must speak strongly. It is high time the government opposite looked at the homes of this country and considered the mothers who, under difficult conditions, have tried to keep the homes of this country intact. They have tried to keep the home in good order during these difficult days when many forces are working to tear it apart. These women appreciated that small piece of evidence which indicated the government recognized they existed, the family allowance cheque.
A few years ago I tried without success to get the government to pass legislation to provide a salary to mothers who wanted to stay home and look after their young children. I wanted that salary paid to mothers, so that they could stay home instead of having to get a job in a factory. And would the government do that? Oh, no. The government would not go for that. Now, it is going much further. Now, that family allowance cheque which has meant so much, and which has enabled mothers to buy small amenities for the family, is to be taken away from a great number of families. The government is not satisfied with insulting women; it is not satisfied with neglecting to do anything with the report of the royal commission; it is prepared to snatch away the only bit of money that is paid directly to women and which women have a right to expect.


Philip Bernard Rynard: Shame!


Winona Grace MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, this is not a war on poverty that the government is conducting; it is a war on women. It is a war against the family.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: (Winnipeg North Centre): And they cannot win it.


Winona Grace MacInnis: They cannot win it, that is right. That is a war the government cannot win.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Winona Grace MacInnis: If some hon. members enjoy my putting it this way, I hope they will laugh heartily now. The laugh will be on the other side once it becomes necessary to administer this measure.
My party has made a counter proposal. May I repeat its three main features. First, we have asked for a substantial increase in family allowances. Let no one tell me that there is not enough money, because I will tell any hon. member who suggests that the things on which the government is spending money. I will read excerpts to show what is being done with pipelines and all kinds of

other developments, while the homes of this country are being shamefully neglected.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Winona Grace MacInnis: The second feature of our proposal is the recommendation that this program be universal in application. I say to the government, for goodness sake, even though it has alienated many sections of the Canadian public, so much so that it is scared to go to the country in June, let it not alienate the mothers of this country further. Let the members of the party opposite not do that if they have any regard for their future, either in government or in opposition. Third, we want to see related changes in income tax laws. We are not a bit happy about what was done last fall. We said so then and we will continue saying so. Again, I say to the members of the government, when they are outside this House talking about the goodness of their own legislation and the badness of the opposition, for goodness sake keep your guard up. Do not go near any mothers of this country for I warn you, hell hath no fury like 100 million mothers who have been scorned and whose social assistance has been cut off.


An hon. Member:: Should that not bp one million?


Winona Grace MacInnis: I meant one million. If I said 100 million, I must have said it to make the government realize just what it is up against. I wanted to warn the government thoroughly. One million angry mothers represent trouble for the government. Let it take that into account and consider the mistake it is about to make while there is still time to change this measure.
What the government is trying to do is dangerous. It is dangerous for the homes of this country and dangerous for the government, if it wants to survive. It is also dangerous for this country where people still cherish the idea that parliament is where you can get social justice, if not actually, at least potentially.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order. 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 Nanai-mo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas)-Oil-Inquiry as to revoking of drilling permits for British Columbia coastal waters; the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall)-National Defence-Rent increases for married quarters-Suggested delay until parity with public service achieved; the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Barnett)-Pollution-Wrecking of freighter "Vanlene" near Pacific rim park-Steps to supply adequate equipment for clean-ups and strengthen navigational rules.
April 20, 1972



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[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 second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs and the amendment (Mr. Lewis) p. 1448.
Mr. Real Caouelle (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) who, quite logically, stated that the government was prepared to spend billions of dollars'in any area except in that of family allowances.
Needless to say, we did not wait for the opinion or proposals of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway and for years we have been asking that family allowances be increased and related to the cost of living. I think the creditistes have been the first to say in this House that family allowances should increase with the cost of life.
However, family allowances have not been increased for many years. Nevertheless millions and even billions of dollars have been spent in many areas except to improve the living conditions of young Canadians.
The hon. member stated earlier that the James Bay project, the building of a pipeline, and so on, would cost $10 billion. Recently the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Dube) I think mentioned $50 billion. No restrictions is mentioned for this project and still the government has no time to help Canadian children.
Just two weeks ago I was informed that the offices of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) have been completely renovated at a cost of $28,000 for carpets and armchairs.
The Prime Minister has never said that Canada did not have enough money to put down new carpets or replace arm chairs when existing ones were still serviceable.
The taxpayers' money is being spent by the millions and we do not find the means to effectively help needy Canadians. This administration is said to be honest, rational, progressive and fair. I believe that social justice exists within the Prime Minister's office. But I do not believe that social justice exists for Canadian children. A member of the New Democratic Party has tabled the following amendment, and I quote:
That Bill C-170 be not now read a second time, but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this House the government should give consideration to the introduction of legislation amending the Family Allowances Act and the Youth Allowances Act to provide for a substantial increase in the allowances paid thereunder, for continuing the principle of universality, and for related changes in the income tax legislation.
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Mr. Speaker, the principle of universality in respect of family allowances should be adhered to, otherwise the enforcement of this legislation will require, all over Canada, a frightening bureaucracy in order to determine who is entitled or not to an allowance of $4.55 or $5.85.
Mr. Speaker, may I call it five o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order. 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 (papers) and public bills.
As no private bills are listed on today's order paper, the House will proceed forthwith to the consideration of notices of motions (papers).



PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North) moved:: That an Order of the House do issue for a copy of the study by Summerour and Associates Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, undertaken for the Department of Manpower and Immigration regarding the "Analysis of the Manpower Utilization of the Manitoba Garment Industry".
He said: Mr. Speaker, I raise this question for two reasons. First, I think it is important that this material be made public because of the problems which confront the garment industry and, indeed, the whole clothing and textile industry in Canada. These industries have traditionally been and still are to a very large extent labour intensive. There has been very little mechanization in the garment industry. A very high percentage of the cost of producing the garments which are produced and sold in Canada and worn by Canadians goes into the payment of wages for the workers in this industry.
This industry is going through a period of great upheaval. It is buffeted on all sides from the importation of competitive goods from countries which have traditionally paid substantially lower wages than those Canadian workers receive. Countries such as Taiwan, Mainland China, Japan and areas such as Hong Kong, where the wage rates are fantastically lower than in Canada, are in competition with Canadian industry. Therefore, the industry has had difficulty trying to meet the competition of products imported into Canada from those countries.
I am not an expert, but I have been told that one cannot buy a shirt now that retails for less than $10, except for those imported from the countries I have mentioned. This is because the cost of labour in Canada is too high to compete with the cost of shirts produced in those countries to which I referred.
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April 20, 1972
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In addition to the Canadian garment industry finding it difficult to compete with these countries, it is becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to attract labour into their industry. They must compete with industries in Canada which are not labour intensive, as is the garment industry, but are in fact capital intensive. To give one example, in my own city of Winnipeg, a person who begins work in a packing plant with no experience, training or skill receives a starting wage of substantially more than $3 an hour because these plants are very highly automated and equipment oriented rather than labour oriented. The hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Guay) is in the chamber. He can confirm what I say. The garment industry finds it difficult to pay more than 25 cents, 35 cents or 50 cents above the minimum wage which, in Manitoba, as in all other provinces, is less than $2 an hour. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to recruit well educated, skilled, trained workers.
I submit that when a study is carried out on manpower needs or manpower utilization of the garment industry in Winnipeg or anywhere else, it is important that the information obtained not be kept secret, locked in the vaults of the government department which commissioned the study. It should be made available to the industry, the unions, and workers concerned and, indeed, all the people of Canada.
I want to spend a few moments talking about the general question of making information available to the people of Canada. As our society becomes more complex, mechanized and automated, governments play a much more active role than in earlier years. It does not matter whether it is the government of Canada, the United States or any other country, nor does it matter which political party happens to form the government. The governments are playing a much more active role than ever before. Canada is no exception.
In this country, we know from government reports and independent sources that the government requirements for information have grown at a fantastic rate. There have been tremendous increases in the number of highly skilled, trained and highly qualified government employees, such as economists and scientists. I am not being critical. I think this is necessary. Maybe we have not done enough of this. They have been given the job of researching many of the basic problems which face the people of this country and with which governments will have to deal. It is not only the civil service which has increased, but to a very large extent many of the problems with which governments have to deal have increased. Various government departments and agents will have to come up with answers in the next one, two or five years. Private groups, companies and individuals, who are supposedly expert in the field, will have to provide information which is required.
There have been commissions, a host of studies, task forces, special reports, or call them what you may, in every field which affects the people of Canada. We have had a task force on social security. We debated that

bill for some time. We have also had task forces on ecology and pollution. There have been studies on scientific research; there have been studies on industrial strategy for Canada. Most of these are, perhaps, required. I am certain that members of parliament who are not cabinet ministers could make worthwhile suggestions to the government concerning other studies which need to be carried out.
The point I am trying to make is really a very simple one. I believe that the overwhelming bulk of the studies which have been commissioned contain information which ought not to remain virtually the private property of the minister or of the department concerned. If the people of Canada are to understand what governments are doing, we must arrange our system in such a way as to provide them with the necessary information upon which to reach valid opinions. Especially is this true as the problems facing our people become more complex.
Let me refer to the debate which has been going on in this House during the last few days, the debate on the family income security plan. I suggest that had members of this House, members of the press gallery and media workers generally as well as members of the public been given access to the white paper on social security prepared under direction of the Deputy Minister of the Department of National Health and Welfare, several desirable consequences would have ensued. All concerned would have been in possession of information conducive to arriving at a consensus about the kind of legislation required to meet the needs of Canada's poorer families and we should not now be conducting a highly partisan debate such as we have heard for the past several days and, no doubt, will be hearing for a number of days yet to come. As it is, members of parliament as well as members of the public generally are not in possession of all the facts involved, facts as researched by a committee under the leadership of the Deputy Minister and incorporated into a report which has since been locked in the files of the government.
I am not suggesting for a moment that there are not some reports which should remain unpublished, for example reports having to do with national security or financial matters, cases where a government is trying to decide whether one company or another is receiving a particular contract. A report of that kind ought not to be made public because the information contained in it might give an unfair advantage to one group or another. But, Mr. Speaker, when we are talking about family allowances or a projected multi-million dollar transportation corridor down the Mackenzie Valley, the people should surely be told all the relevant information. Surely, it is essential that they should be in possession of all the facts. In the case of the Mackenzie Valley project, for example, they should know the estimated cost in dollars, the probable effects upon the ecology, including the damage which would be done to wildlife, the consequences for the indiginous people, and so on. And yet 99 per cent of all these studies conducted in all these various fields are being kept locked in the files of ministers and when hon. members from either side of the
April 20, 1972

House ask for the publication of these reports, they are told this would not be in the public interest because the documents requested are interdepartmental documents. Or some other equally stupid reason is put forward. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) talks frequently and eloquently about participatory democracy, about inviting the public to let parliament and the government know how they feel about various issues. I suggest the public cannot really tell the government how it feels about any of these issues unless it has access to the necessary information. And the only way in which the public can get access to these facts is for the government to publish, as a matter of course, the reports and findings of the studies it has commissioned.
I do not question the right of the government to say, apropos of any particular report, that it does not agree with that report or that it accepts only part of it. That is what governments have to do. I am saying that if the government really believes in the kind of participatory democracy about which the Prime Minister has spoken of so often, it should make available to the people in Canada most of the reports on studies which it has commissioned. So, I urge the government to agree to my motion that this particular report having to do with the analysis of the manpower ultization of the Manitoba garment industry be tabled and made available to members of parliament and to the people.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be given a few minutes in which to speak on this subject. After listening to the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) one would be led to believe that he and his hon. friends purposely put down these motions to give them an opportunity to moan and groan and spread doom and gloom on this five o'clock show almost on a daily basis. On many occasions, when we reply from this side, expressing other opinions or making a rebuttal, we are told we are not sticking with the subject of the motion. But, Mr. Speaker, you yourself heard the last speaker bringing the subject of family allowances into his speech, as well as everything else he could think of, and still dragging bottom, not making good sense of what he was saying.
May I tell the hon. members why I am interested in speaking on this matter? It is because the garment industry in Manitoba, where I come from, traces its origin to the Winnipeg Shirt and Overall Company established many years ago in 1899. I shall make a few remarks about its history, but I assure you I intend to return to the question on the production of papers in a few moments. The industry provides about 40 per cent of the manufacturing employment in downtown Winnipeg. Its early history was one of producing work clothes, primarily for the prairie market, in small facilities scattered across Winnipeg. The success of these firms depended on the personalities of the owners-the Freeds, Stalls, Steinbergs, Jacobs, Berkowitz and others -who were instrumental in establishing the foundations of the industry in the province.
Today, many men continue in the traditions of their fathers, with new personalities extending the fashion
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industry into its current dimensions. There are some 200 firms and production includes children's wear, coats, headwear, sportswear, rainwear, pants, blouses, gloves, leather apparel, suits, sweaters, uniforms and skirts, to mention a few. A significant export market has been developed in the United States and Europe and its value of exports per employee is believed to be higher than that of the industry elsewhere in Canada. I should like to return to this point in a moment. The industry early centralized in the warehouse district of downtown Winnipeg, where approximately 90 per cent of the firms are still located today, and where most employees prefer to work. Many of these are from my constituency.
I said a while ago that exports are very important to this industry. On January 22, 1971, as reported at page 2685 of Hansard, I had this to say:
The shipments to date ol these 126 companies amount to $79.1 million, and the companies employ 6,300 workers... I think these figures prove the point I have endeavoured to make.
In light of these figures, it is fair to say that the Canadian clothing industry is one of demonstrated capability. It is in fact competitive with clothing industries of other developed countries from the point of view of style, quality and price.
In fact, to prove this I went on to quote an article that appeared in Maclean's magazine for June, 1970 praising the style and quality of Canadian made garments. The article was entitled "You mean all that stuff is Canadian!" and I pointed out that it was an article that all Canadians should read. It describes what articles Canadiens are making, exporting and wearing. An article also appeared in Men's Wear magazine in October, 1969 and I should like to quote it again because it is important:
Merchants say the reasons for more imports from Canada are rising prices of the European market, better deliveries, cooperative manufacturers and good quality and fashion ... we like English fabrics, but the cost was getting too high. Now, we get the same fabrics from Canada... at a much lower price-
Two stores in the Atlanta area carry Canadian merchandise: Rich's and Rogue Specialty Shop. Rich's clothing is store labelled and purchased through the AMC buying group. The Rogue carries a line of leather goods and suits from Canada. Gerry Underwood, Rogue owner, reports the suits are one of his most advanced lines and bring a premium price-
The merchandise manager for another major men's wear outlet spoke well of a Montreal clothing resource which supplied suits for his firm under a private label.
The reason I quote that again is to let the House know the capabilities of this industry in Winnipeg, and I quite agree with what the hon. member for Winnipeg North said about it.
In addition to this clothing industry we have a textile industry in this area. There are two firms. One of them is the only textile women's hosiery plant west of Toronto, located in my province at Tevlon, in the Interlake region north of Winnipeg. The company employs 85 people. There is also a fabric knitting textile plant located in Selkirk which knits the only yard material and is the only plant west of Toronto. It employs 110 people.
The report made by the consulting firm of Summerour and Associates is one of which many of us would like to know the outcome. At the same time, other studies have been made so I think we can say that the industry knows

April 20, 1972
Manpower Utilization
what is it all about. The eventual findings of the study were communicated to the industry, so if the hon. member for Winnipeg North wants to know about it, all he need do is communicate with any of the owners of plants and they will tell him.
While the findings of this study were made available to the industry, it was made clear that the greatest efforts by the department would be made on behalf of those firms adopting the ensuing recommendations. These were aimed at developing management and personnel policies-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Winnipeg North seeks the floor. Is it on a point of order?


David Orlikow: I wonder whether the hon. member would permit a question?


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I will gladly, as soon as I have finished my remarks.


John Stratford Burton: You have finished.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Just wait till I get to my notes. I do not want to interrupt their conversation, but I am pleased to hear from them occasionally.


Mr. Osier:: You would think they would know something about it with two plants in their own member's riding.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: These recommendations were aimed at developing management and personnel policies that would improve working conditions, stabilize employment, and improve productivity.
In the last few years the industry has responded well. Productivity has been greatly increased, which has contributed to the improved material welfare of the workers. Further, their job contentment has increased through such things as improved working accommodation and staff relations of all kinds. Our local officers are now enthusiastic about the industry as a source of employment and an officer from headquarters, with considerable knowledge of this industry, recently visited Winnipeg and confirmed our local officers' reports.
It will be seen that this study was in reality an assessment of conditions and needs within an industry. Such assessments are continually being made by our officers to enable us to make the best possible allocation of manpower funds in the face of our numerous demands. In this instance, the operation was more complex than usual because the problem was a complex one, but it was essentially an operational undertaking and the results are expressed in what are essentially operational departmental papers. This is not a consultant's report in the usual sense; you do not get one oh a major industry for $7,000. The consultants simply provided the framework within which the study should be made and assisted in the analysis of data.
However, the department conducts many such studies without consulting assistance. All require the full and free co-operation of employers and workers in the industries involved and none could be conducted if it was

thought for a moment that the word of manpower and immigration officers could not be accepted. More than this, we could close the doors of every Canada Manpower Centre, for neither employer nor worker would have confidence in us.
The simple fact is that many employers of an important industry and a provincial government department undertook a joint effort with a federal department on the word of its officers that any findings would not be made public unless all consented. That is the crux of the matter. The provincial government is involved. First, I believe we should have the permission of the province before these findings are released. The hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) knows this. This is the reason I made the comments I did today. He knows this as well as I do. The industry in the province has specifically declined to ask for this consent.
I should like to mention that many items have been introduced in the textile industry magazine. In fact, I have prepared these comments from that magazine and would like to say a few words on it. The year 1971 was an eventful year for Canada's textile manufacturing industry. In fact, it might well go down in history as a year in which more solid progress was made in several directions than at any other time in the past decade. The federal government has recognized that the industry is well managed, efficiently operated, has a remarkable degree of flexibility and indeed is important to the national economy. Proof of this lies in the fact that in 1970 the government announced its national textile policy and set up the Textile and Clothing Board. Actually, this board commenced functioning in November 1970, before Bill C-215 to establish it was passed into law last May.
Establishment of a national textile policy has been advocated by industry for some time and when this became a reality, industry, through the Canadian Textile Institute moved into high gear to provide full co-operation to the federal government through its Textile and Clothing Board agency in an all-out effort to right the many serious wrongs with which industry has been afflicted for so long. In addition, and in accordance with the policy terms of reference, industry set about putting its own house in order. Restructuring programs have been undertaken and it is safe to say that as a result of a much closer working arrangement between government and industry vis-a-vis adoption of a textile policy and the setting up of the Textile and Clothing Board to study and recommend government action, the over-all position of industry is gradually improving.
Certain it is that the T and CB has been exceptionally active throughout the past year or so, with five reviews conducted. This activity has been and continues to be matched by the CTI with the provision of voluminous briefs and other pertinent data essential for presentation at board hearings. And, while hearings will continue, it is encouraging to note that T and CB rulings on completed hearings have not been countermanded by government and have been, by and large, encouraging to industry. I am not saying these things; it is the people of
April 20, 1972

the textile industry who have said this in their own magazine.
I continue my compilation of the comments in the magazine. Year-end statements by senior executives appear to bear out this assumption. As one executive put it:
The textile industry for the first time in several years is giving every indication of being able to build from a firm base. This is largely the consequence of the government's implementation of a national textile policy which has assured industry of a continuing reasonable share of the domestic market-
And again:
Canadians have been through some difficult economic time and have developed both a flexibility and a ruggedness... and there is, perhaps, a wider acknowledgement that greater employment will depend largely on encouraging the increase of our own manufacturing industry-Reflection of this in the textile industry has been the adoption of a federal textile policy with the textile and Clothing Board to study and recomend government action where needed to sustain efficient Canadian enterprises... Application of such recommendations in keeping with national goals is the key to halting the loss of jobs and retaining a reasonable share of the market for Canadian mills-
There are other slightly less positive statements, but in perspective the views expressed weigh heavily in favour of what has been done in concert between government and industry and will continue to be done to preserve the textile manufacturing industry as a thoroughly viable operation well able to make a generous contribution to the improvement of Canadian manufacturing as a whole. Again as I say these are not my words. They are the words of the textile industry. I am very pleased indeed that they are taking it this way because they appreciate the help the federal government has given them.
Naturally, the gains made during 1971 and those projected for 1973 are not sufficient to put industry on easy street. The struggle against imports, particularly from low-cost areas of the world, continues unabated. Economic moves by the United States which commenced August 13, 1971, continue to erect obstacles in the path of industry, some of which are formidable. Attendant problems are numerous and no easy solution is apparent. One industry executive put it in these words:
I view 1972 as being a potentially favourable year. However, this judgment must be tempered against serious over-all threats to the economy, not the least of which is the instability and irrationality of the U.S.A. in dealing with its problems-
And again:
Canada's fortunes in 1972 will be closely tied to the effectiveness of the new United States economic policy on the domestic side.
I mention these things because they have been said by the industry. The industry knows very well what is going on and has heard of the report the hon. member for Winnipeg North is talking about. The industry made no comment about it in the article to which I am referring. If any member of the industry, particularly in my area of Winnipeg, had any comment to make on this, certainly the hon. member did not mention it in his speech. I feel that if the industry has any reason to be concerned, surely to goodness it would communicate with its representatives here in Ottawa because I believe this is the proper way in which it should be done.
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Surely, also, we would be proud to stand up and speak on its behalf and find out what this study is all about. The industry has not indicated this desire to any of us. I certainly have received no letter saying that they wish to discuss the matter and outlining the various problems they have in mind. Such representations have not been made, and if they had I am sure we would be glad to make the representations on their behalf. In such an event I am sure the minister would be pleased to grant them the appropriate hearing. I suggest the textile industry has not made such a request because it is aware of the contents of the report in question and is satisfied with the report. That is why nothing has been said.
I shall continue my comments in respect of the textile industry's magazine. In spite of real obstacles, the Canadian economy continues the forward progress commenced early last year. It is apparent, therefore, that a restructured and rationalized textile manufacturing industry should participate in any over-all improvement in the national economy.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but I must do so to advise him that his time has expired. The hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) indicated he would like to ask the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Guay) a question and the hon. member for St. Boniface said he would receive it, but there would have to be unanimous consent of the House. Is there such unanimous consent?


Edmund Boyd Osler: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent.


David Orlikow: You are afraid.


Edmund Boyd Osler: I am not afraid of a thing.


David Orlikow: Then why did you not permit a question?


Edmund Boyd Osler: I do not know much about the rules of the House because I have not been here that long, but I know we are not talking about the time of the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Guay); we are talking about my time, and I am not willing to lend him my time in order that he may lend it to the hon. member. It is as simple as that. I am afraid of nothing. If we are going to have any games around here, let us have them with my consent on my time, or with his consent on his time. I do not think we should any longer play games around here this afternoon, because I want to talk on this motion. It is one of the most trumped-up bits of garbage that I have ever seen. I hope the hon. member takes my words and circulates them among his constituents and mine, because I am sure he will say I am being arrogant and all this sort of jazz.


David Orlikow: You are not arrogant; you are stupid and ignorant, as usual.


Edmund Boyd Osler: I just want to tell you a few things. This study that the hon. member wants was commissioned in

April 20, 1972
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1968 with the joint agreement of the industry, the provincial government of the time and the federal government which is in office today. I should like to quote two key sentences from that report as follows:
The consulting firm of Summerour and Associates will work under the control and direction of the clothing committee. All work carried out, including the final report, will be confidential to the members of the clothing committee and will not be available to Summerour and Associates for publication and promotion.
I presume the hon. member knows that as well as I do. If he does not, all he has to do is to turn around and ask the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Rowland) who was executive assistant to the Premier of Manitoba. The Premier and the new government of Manitoba assumed that agreement from the previous government and will not back away from it. If he has a stiff neck or sciatica, he can go to his office and telephone free, as any member of parliament can, the Premier of Manitoba and ask him whether he will release this document. And if the Premier says yes, then he can ask the federal government if they will release it.


David Orlikow: Who paid for the report?


Edmund Boyd Osler: I am not answering your questions at the moment.


David Orlikow: Because you cannot.


Edmund Boyd Osler: If he gets the consent of the Premier of Manitoba, then he will have the right to come to this chamber with his request. If he does not receive this consent, then he must know as well as I do that he is wasting our time today.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Edmund Boyd Osler: The Premier of Manitoba is a very reasonable man.


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


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member who has the floor indicated that he would not, but I will ask him whether he will permit a question.


Edmund Boyd Osler: Certainly not, Mr. Speaker. I will permit no questions until I have finished my speech.


David Orlikow: You are afraid, as usual. You have no guts, as usual.


Edmund Boyd Osler: I am afraid you do not want to hear the truth. It will be very interesting to see your reaction when you hear it.


David Orlikow: You do not know what the truth is.


Edmund Boyd Osler: You New Democrats should be democratic and listen to the other side of the story. I know it is easy to reach the Premier of Manitoba, because he has done me the honour of speaking to me on the telephone and I am not even a member of his party. The hon. member should telephone him and then come to the House with this request. If he does not get that permis-
[Mr. Osier.)
sion, he will be wasting our time. This report was paid for by the three parties concerned: the province of Manitoba paid for some, the government of Canada paid for some, and the industry paid for some. The hon. member probably knows that. If you cannot get the permission of the province of Manitoba-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I would point out, with respect, to the hon. member that he should address his remarks to the Chair.


Edmund Boyd Osler: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I am very glad to be reminded of it. It is always best to keep one's cool when one is giving facts, instead of trying to cloud the issue as some people sometimes do.


Mr. Skoberg:: You have repeated yourself ten times.


Edmund Boyd Osler: If I do, you might get it into your head. This report is not available even if the hon. member telephoned the Premier. I suggest that the Premier will tell him it will not be made available. It is not available for a good reason. These gentlemen who are so interested in the working people and in the poor should know that the report is not available for a good reason, because over 200 working people said in good faith what they did about conditions in the industry. They said things they would not dare to have said had they known it was not going to remain confidential.
Some of the people who are still in the industry could be hurt if the report were released. I submit that the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) probably knows that as well as I do. They were given the assurance that confidentiality would be maintained. The Premier of Manitoba is gentleman enough to have taken over that assurance from the previous government and to have maintained it. To come to this chamber and play these kinds of games seems to me to be a complete waste of time.
I cannot help remarking, before going on to the other portion of my remarks, that it comes particularly badly from a member of a party who knows very well he can get the answers without wasting a whole hour of the time of the House. He is a member of the party which repeatedly, and nauseam say that our Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) is in contempt of the House and wastes the time of the House. The hon. member is wasting our time. I do not know what the overhead of this House is per hour, but it is very high. Better things could be done and said than to play these kinds of tricky games.
If the hon. member really wanted to carry the burning torch to get rid of confidentiality in government, I would join him because I think it is a good principle. But I, like him, would start in my own province of Manitoba and I would do my very best to get the answers to all sorts of questions that are worrying the people of Manitoba today and to which they cannot get a single murmur of response from the government which is formed from a majority of his party.
It is good to practice preaching at home in the confines of your own caucus, in the councils of the party where one has some influence and where one can take some
April 20, 1972

responsibility for the results. But to come here and waste our time is merely a game. This member is not unintelligent; he knows as well as I do that this is a stupid game to play and a terrible waste of time when more important things could be done. He could have spoken on another topic regarding the production of papers, the lack of secrecy or the decline in secrecy which he would like to see in government dealings, and some of us would join him. But to take a trumped-up case like this-


David Orlikow: I will not see the day when you support that.


Edmund Boyd Osler: You will not see it in here.


David Orlikow: You will not be around very long.


Edmund Boyd Osler: When you get down to the guts of the question you find that the hon. member lives completely in the past. He ignores completely the fact that the industry was in such circumstances as to provoke this kind of study but these circumstances do not prevail now. Had he been in Winnipeg last night he would have seen the CBC proudly present a long feature on the industry, what has happened in the industry and how it has been improved to the point where approximately 20 per cent of Canada's fashion exports come from Winnipeg. They go to the United States, to the highly competitive market there and they are doing very well. The reason is twofold. The results of this report provoked much needed improvements in the industry. It is not perfect yet, by any means; there is a great deal to improve.
The state of the industry provoked management into becoming realistic. They now have an aggressive, market-oriented management that is achieving results. There are close to 10,000 people employed in Winnipeg and Manitoba generally in this highly competitive, quickly modernizing and adapting industry which is doing exactly what the government of Manitoba and the government of Canada are trying to do, namely, provide jobs.
Instead of knocking this thing on the basis of ancient history, the hon. member might have informed himself a little better on the subject. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I think some of the people in Winnipeg who saw last night the program to which I have referred will be wondering why their member of parliament is wasting our time today on this*motion.
I am told that it was an unbiased report. This is an industry which is improving drastically in Manitoba. It is not a sexy industry, like computers or the aerospace industry, but it is providing many jobs. I am assured, on the basis of a quote from the program last night, even though I got it second hand, that the wages share of the production bill of the industry has been steadily increasing and is still increasing. This is a quotation from Peter Nygard, manager of Tanjay, who said it on the CBC program last night.
The situation is not all gloom and doom. If there are any corners in which people are trying to be secretive,
Manpower Utilization
those corners are equally to be found in the Manitoba legislature. I would think that the hon. member for Winnipeg North, instead of knocking the industry could have taken a little time to build it up. I think that in Manitoba we can sell all the clothes we manufacture if we go out and try. That is certainly what is happening in the United States. It is too bad if the hon. member left the impression in Ottawa with the wives of members and of newspapermen that they should not be buying Winnipeg clothing because conditions there are still those of the sweatshop.


David Orlikow: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. I do not expect the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Osier) to agree with me-indeed, he has a right to disagree with me-but he has no right to misquote me or to imply that I said things which I did not say. I said not one word which was critical of the industry, its management, the employees or anything else. I simply said that this was an industry which had difficulties because of the kind of industry it was, and. asked that the report be tabled. I made no attack on or criticism of the industry in Winnipeg or anywhere else. I would not want this debate to be completed and my silence to indicate that I agreed for one moment with what the hon. member has said in reference to my remarks.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) of course has the right to clarify the statements he made in debate. This, in effect, is a matter of opinion. Hansard will show the words he used, and hon. members can draw their own conclusions.


Edmund Boyd Osler: Mr. Speaker, I certainly would not want to impute motives to my colleague from Winnipeg North. I am sorry if he thinks I have done so. I do know that he said it is increasingly difficult to attract labour to the industry, and he went on to speak about low wages and competitive wage situations elsewhere. It probably was injudicious of me to jump in and use words in reference to sweated labour, but I think the hon. member made it clear that wages were pretty low and that labour was finding it very difficult to stay on the job. That is not the case. I know that other hon. members may wish to speak in this debate and, even though I could continue for a long time, I will now sit down.


Mr. Ray Perrault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, during the past hour a number of hon. members have evinced considerable interest in the garment industry in Manitoba. They are to be commended for this interest. It is an important industry so far as Canada is concerned. It is not only important to Manitoba, but to all of Canada.
Since its inception, the Department of Manpower and Immigration has concerned itself with the critical shortage of staff which has been characteristic of the garment industry in Manitoba. Understandably, the department has made special efforts, both through immigration and training in industry, to attempt to meet the employment demands of the industry in Manitoba. Between April 1,

April 20, 1972
Manpower Utilization
1967, and June 1, 1969, the cost of such special measures approached $300,000.
In 1969-this matter has been covered by previous speakers-the department felt that additional efforts were warranted. In that year the department invited the industry and the Manitoba department of industry and commerce to join with it in a study to determine the extent and causes of the labour turnover. It was the view of the government that the relatively high labour turnover and the chronic labour shortage should be made the subject of a probe, so a committee was formed representing the two levels of government and the industry. Co-operation was extended not only by the previous provincial government of Manitoba but by the present provincial government. That committee was known as the clothing committee.
The garment industry itself arranged for some 20 firms to participate in the study, with their officers, and over 200 present and former employees agreed to be interviewed in depth. They were given an assurance that anything they said-and some of it, I must be frank with the House, approached the defamatory stage-would be held in absolute confidence. Those were the terms and conditions. Surely this is the source of the difference which appears to exist between the mover of the motion and the government. I choose to believe that the mover of the motion does not fully understand the background or he might have hesitated to bring forward the motion.
With that guarantee, the workers and employers provided full, frank and in some cases subjective opinions on matters of staff training and working conditions. Most of the interviewing was carried out by officers of the Department of Manpower and Immigration. The firm of Summerour and Associates, highly experienced in the field, was retained to provide technical advice on the structure of the study. It was a condition of the contract that all results would be confidential to the clothing committee and its corporate members. This position is still supported by the government of the province of Manitoba, which acted in good faith. That government should be commended for its willingness to carry out a commitment given to the working people of the province by a previous government.
A number of recommendations were made to enable the industry to reduce turnover through improved training and personnel policies and many firms are reported to have implemented them. Indicators show that as a result of these improvements in the Manitoba clothing industry, its outlook is excellent. I can tell the House that it is anticipated that shipments will rise to $110 million by 1976 and the number of employees will increase very greatly. Not only is this important for Manitoba and the working people of that province, but it is important for Canada as a whole because the Manitoba clothing industry, the firms making it up and the skills of the workers of Manitoba are providing Canada with major foreign earnings today. They are not doing it because they enjoy any natural advantage over some other parts of the country; they are doing it through entrepreneurial skill, the skill of the workers, imagination and design ability.

The formation of the clothing committee and the job that was undertaken, the co-operation between two levels of government, the industry and the working people, must go down as a successful enterprise which is bringing great results in terms of higher wages for the working people of Manitoba and greater benefits for all of Canada. I want hon. members to be assured that if the House were to approve this motion it would result in the government breaching a contractual agreement with a provincial government and a major Canadian industry. This we refuse to do. It would violate a promise to the workers who participated in the study and might well cause some of them embarrassment. We refuse to do this disservice to the working people of Manitoba. It would destroy the usefulness of an effective economic tool that could conceivably be used to improve the lot of other Canadian workers in the future.
This was a successful technique initiated by the federal government through the Department of Manpower and Immigration. Because of the nature of the study, the type of information sought and received and the commitment made to participants, neither the industrial nor the provincial representatives on the clothing committee will agree to the publication of this report. We concur in this stand. We stand with the other members of this tripartite arrangement, the clothing committee, and we do not believe that approval should be given to this motion which would result in the government breaching a contractual agreement with a provincial government and a major Canadian industry. Some facts were given-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business having expired, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock p.m.
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 second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Lewis (p. 1448).
David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, at the adjournment of the debate on Bill C-170, I was deal-
April 20, 1972

ing with the tremendous bureaucracy that the new legislation would organize, create and control throughout Canada, as it happened with the Canada Pension Plan, which we accepted in principle, while being against its terms of application. We maintain that Bill C-170 will create a bureaucracy that will be very costly to the Canadian taxpayer.
As an example, I have just mentioned the Canada Pension Plan. In today's edition of the Montreal newspaper, La Presse, one can read the following:
Administration costs of the pension plan have tripled.
That is not what we were told when the bill was introduced in the House, but today we And that the plan's administration costs have tripled the paper adds:
Administration costs of the Canada Pension Plan have more than tripled in the last six years increasing from $6,003,805 to $21,153,238.
On the other hand, benefits paid to retired Canadians reached a total of $128,732,461 in 1971, which is almost $51 million more than the preceding year.
-But to come to that, administration costs had to be tripled. I quote further:
As of last December 31, 91,524 pensioners were receiving a monthly pension of less than $20 under the plan.
Mr. Speaker, such administration cost to pay out pensions of less than $20 to the majority of pensioners are high indeed.
There is more to quote:
The amount contributed to the plan, including the interest and other income resulting' from the investment of contributions, reached a total of $1,076 million in 1971.
And with that amount of $1,076 million in 1971, we paid pensions of less than $20 to almost a majority of the pensioners under that plan. The government keeps on saying it was generous because it paid out so many millions of dollars but they are not distributed among the Canadian citizens receiving a pension.
This is why, in m|y opinion, Bill C-170 constitutes discrimination towards the majority of Canadians.
The bill under study deals, as its title indicates, with payments to be made in respect of children-i.e., to those who have children in their custody. Clause I really defines the whole purpose of the bill-it reads as follows:
Family Income Security Plan.
Clause 2 contains the definitions. This is an important clause, because you constantly have to refer to it as you study the bill. For instance, the base calendar year, as regards family income, is the basis for granting allowances applied for.
Clause 2(2) defines the income of a person for a calendar year-which is his income computed in accordance with the provisions of the Income Tax Act, minus any death benefit paid to him under a pension plan.
It is to be noted that, under this bill, family income is calculated by adding together the incomes of both parents-the father's and the mother's-on which the formulation of the new family allowance proposals is based.
Family Income Security Plan
Payments are made from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for any child under 18 years of age in the custody of a citizen residing in Canada. However, if a province makes payment to youths between 16 and 18 years of age, as is the practice in the province of Quebec, no payment is made to children from 16 to 18 years of age by the government of Canada if the latter grants tax abatements in this connection to the said province. This is pure and simple discrimination towards a province- in this case, Quebec-and no account whatsoever is taken of the decisions or positions of provincial authorities.
Clause 6 of the bill is without question the most important and the most complex. It is perhaps more complex than important. Monthly benefits of $15 in respect of children under 12 and of $20 for children from 12 to 18 will be paid.
As indicated in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of subclause 1 of clause 6, a ceiling has been placed on family incomes so that when this ceiling is reached or exceeded, allowances in respect of children decrease and sometimes disappear according to income or to the number of children.
Mr. Speaker, since the bill now before us is unjust and unacceptable, my colleagues of the Social Credit party will support the amendment moved by the New Democratic party in favour of the universality of family allowances.
We do not want to take away from the haves to give to the have nots. That would be unadultered socialism or communism. This is evident in the USSR, in Czechoslovakia and other socialist countries. This does not surprise us at all from a Canadian Prime Minister with a socialist and even communist bend!


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh!


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I hear an interjection from an hon. member whose riding I do not recall, an hon. member I know very well-


Mr. Deachman:: Vancouver Quadra.


David Réal Caouette: I will give some examples.
A general strike is now taking place in the province of Quebec involving 210,000 employees of public and related services. Anyway, I intend to speak on television, next Saturday, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Rouyn-Noranda and Jonquiere to explain that these public servants are asking for a better treatment and rightly so. However, salary increases will not enable us to improve living conditions since salary increases go hand in hand with price increases. Then, it is the workers who bear all the consequences. In those broadcasts, I shall refer to such labour leaders as Marcel Pepin, Louis Laberge and Yvon Char-bonneau.
Mr. Speaker, I mention those three Montreal birds and say they have invented nothing under the sun. They did not invent the kind of strikes we are now having in Quebec to improve people's lot.
Some years ago, actually in 1949, there was a strike in the province of Quebec. And at that time, with my own
1496

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
eyes, I saw in Asbestos the present Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Trudeau), together with the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Marchand), former president of the CNTU, in the picket line, throwing stones at those in charge of maintaining order. Blood was shed in the streets, we all remember that, especially those my age.
The present leaders of the Quebec unions follow the example given by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion in 1949.
Some will tell me today, Mr. Speaker, that those individuals may have been irresponsible in 1949, but if they feel responsible in 1972, they are as responsible as Messrs. Pepin, Laberge and Charbonneau.


Mr. Dupras:: Are you not a little confused?


David Réal Caouette: No, I think that my hon. friend is. He would need some care, not in a wheel-chair, but in a psychiatric institution. He knows quite well what happened then. Because a man was foisted as the leader of the Liberal party, he stupidly accepted him.
Mr. Speaker, as far as family allowances and the welfare of Canadians are concerned, not too long ago I received letters from various provinces and in February last, to answer the Prime Minister, I put a question about Premier Bennett of British Columbia who was accused of being a bigot because he advocated payments to individuals, even children, which would include family allowances.


Mr. Prud'homme:: That was not the reason.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, the member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) tells me that was not the reason.
I have just received a letter from the Prime Minister- that is, from the leader of the hon. member for Saint-Denis-dated April 19, and today is the 20th-"signed in his own hand". I am convinced the member for Saint-Denis has never received a letter signed by his leader, the Prime Minister of Canada. Well, I have one!


Some hon. Members:: That is true.


David Réal Caouette: It is a fact. Two hon. members say I am right.
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister-


An hon. Member:: Read it.


David Réal Caouette: All right. I am asked to read it. I received it today, this afternoon, and it was signed "P. E. Trudeau".


Marcel Prud'homme: It is in English.


David Réal Caouette: It is signed in his own hand.

In ink. In his own hand. You should rise, because it comes from his own hand.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, following my speech of February 22, the Prime Minister wrote to me. My speech offended him. He wrote: "Ottawa K1A 0A2." This must be the code of Mr. Lalonde, his private secretary.


An hon. Member:: His social insurance number!


David Réal Caouette: "My dear Caouette". He no longer calls me "My dear	Real", but	"My	dear Caouette". Mr. Speaker, it is probably more intimate.
The Prime Minister says, and I quote:
X was surprised to hear you say in the House of Commons, on February 22 last-
He was not even in the House!
-that you were not aware of the statement made by the premier of British Columbia concerning the Quebec people; and even more	surprised	to	read	in that day's Hansard
(on page 115) that, according to you, I was the one trying to stir up linguistic and ethnic quarrels.
I thought that the enclosed clippings might somewhat enlighten you on the subject.
I remain, my dear Caouette,-
-He does not say "Real", but "Caouette"-
Yours sincerely,
P. E. Trudeau
Mr. Speaker,	in fact,	he	sent	me all the clippingssaying that the	premier	of	British Columbia was not
blaming the province of Quebec for asking for higher family allowances or social measures benefiting all the Canadian provinces. The premier of British Columbia in fact found fault with three fellows now sitting in the House: the Prime Minister, the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion and the Secretary of State.


An hon. Member:: The three doves.


David Réal Caouette: Yes, the three doves.
Mr. Speaker,-


An hon. Member:: Do you love him?


David Réal Caouette: I think so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: How much is that?


David Réal Caouette: Not too much.
Mr. Speaker, I said this afternoon that for a long time we have advocated this increase in family allowances.
One of my colleagues, the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Latulippe), has been fighting for over 10 years to have family allowances pegged to the cost of living.


Marcel Prud'homme: Ah, ah!


David Réal Caouette: The member for Saint-Denis finds this funny. In fact, he is laughing at his colleague.
In the fields of family allowances and pensions, as in any other areas, we have been suggesting for months
April 20, 1972

that all these plans should be replaced by a program of economic and social security for everybody.
In February, I suggested that we should establish a guaranteed annual income whether it be called that or vital minimum as we have been calling it for 35 years. That has never been accepted.
Let us call it the right to live! This is what the people need now!
Saturday on television-and I am talking about the 210,000 public, para-public, "extra-parapublic" or "intra-parapublic" civil servants, never mind how they are called, who are on strike in Quebec and are seeking job security-they said that not money but job security was at stake. I, for one, would tell them that what we are asking for-let's be honest-is pay and income security. Jobs do not matter but income does. And this is related to family allowances. This is why with our economic and social security plan, without taking anything from those who have to give to those who have not-


Marcel Prud'homme: This is magic.


Mr. Gauthier:: Once more he did not understand.


David Réal Caouette: -there lies the magic.
Recently I said that once I asked that a per capita allowance of $100 be granted as a test, which would cost $2 billion. I was only saying that we should try and see the result after a six month period, and then if we were not satisfied, we should abandon the project, but if it proved to be useful, we should go on with it. They found that funny, saying it was crazy.
Let us consider the interest, for this year only, not the debt but the interest on the public debt, which amounts to $1,235 million. What does that mean? An amount of $106 per capita in Canada, which is paid to financiers. But this is normal, according to the government; this makes sense. This is the miracle I have just been told about. This is possible and no one laughs about it: $106 per capita in Canada for big finance, that is alright. But $100 for each Canadian, that is crazy, that means inflation, that is dangerous, that will make lazy people. This is exactly what we find among members of the government: lazy intellectuals, people who are sick in the head, and we put up with that!
When we talk of an economic and social income or security of $1,200 for every Canadian citizen aged 18 and over, it means that all our students would draw at least $100 per month. That is odd but we spend more than that to deal with strikes, to mobilize the army and to subdue the terrorists in Montreal. But when it comes to helping a young man continue his studies, that is dangerous! We would rather pay to subdue the terrorists whose very reason for turning like this is that there are social inequities.
The hon. member for Saint-Denis is well aware of this, because he used to be a student and he knows about these problems.
Mr. Speaker, we are calling for family allowances of $250 annually per child, up to age 18, whether there are
Family Income Security Plan
8, 10, or 12 children in a family, which means $20 per month. Is there one father, one hon. member or anybody who can raise a child with less than $20 per month? That is impossible.
If war broke out tomorrow, all young students aged 18 or over would be mobilized and the government would not lack any money.
The Prime Minister of Canada would not lack any money. We would find the required amounts to enlist them and pay for their education in any university in Canada. In wartime, this is normal. Why is it not so in peacetime?
Mr. Speaker, let us use our brains. We call for this basic security without infringing on the right to work, which is a basic guarantee for any Canadian citizen, leaving him free to go and work where he wants.
This bill is a near sighted measure which takes away from the man who earns $10,000 to give to the man who earns $4,500. Then the taxpayer who earns $10,000 is frustrated and he is told: "My friend, for the sake of fair distribution, you will have to suffer a little more." All are frustrated and rightly blame the government.
This is why we suggest the establishment of an economic and social program which would not take the income into account. Even hon. members who earn $26,000 a year would enjoy an annual guaranteed income, guaranteed social and economic security, or a guaranteed social minimum, that is a bare minimum.
Then the personal initiative of a citizen would not be restricted or frustrated; all Canadians would be allowed to have ideas, to advocate and carry out plans, which could not be done with Bill C-170 which is, I repeat, sheer frustration, confiscation of the income of a man earning over $7,000, $8,000 or $9,000 a year.
Mr. Speaker, the Creditistes are right to make their claims, whether the government members accept them or not, the facts are there.
After visiting many countries faced with similar problems, where there is not enough money for living but where some is available for killing, we have come to the conclusion, my colleagues and myself, that the monetary system is faulty, that in order to grant adequate family allowances, to insure security with personal freedom and not security alone, it is time to bring in a monetary reform.
I know that on the government side, many people have studied the Social Credit doctrine and understand it, but they are muzzled by the governing party and are therefore unable to express themselves, to say what they think openly and strongly.
Mr. Speaker, the Creditistes will go on fighting, not only in the Biouse, but elsewhere, so that Canada may have an improved family allowance system as well as an economic system guaranteeing for each and every one a decent well-being, security and freedom.


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member whose humour, incidentally, I much admire, allow me one question?
25104-36!

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan


David Réal Caouette: The rest ol the evening, if the hon. member wishes.


Marcel Prud'homme: Could the hon. member, to whom I have listened very attentively, tell me that he can really compare the political action of the present prime minister during the Asbestos strike and the absolutely incredible situation of the workers of that time with the action of today's labour leaders? Can the hon. member truly, in all honesty-and I know he is very honest-can he really compare that action-if my colleague from Laval (M. Roy) would kindly keep quiet for a moment. I could finish my question-can he honestly compare the action of the prime minister in Asbestos with the current strike which no one can approve?


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, may I reply?


Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Go ahead.


David Réal Caouette: The comparison is quite simple, Mr. Speaker.
I saw the hon. member's leader on the picket line at Asbestos, with his colleague, the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, and they were throwing stones at the policemen. I don't know if the hon. member was born then, but I know very well that the Asbestos workers were being stirred up in exactly the same manner as Messrs. Pepin, Laberge and Charbonneau are doing now, in saying to the workers: Don't pay any attention to injunctions: Disobey the laws, and laugh at the government: In those days, the hon. member's leader was doing exactly the same thing. There is my comparison.


An hon. Member:: It is false.


David Réal Caouette: Who said that it is false?


Mr. Albert Bechard (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice):: He has not answered the question.


Marcel Prud'homme: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order. The hon. member will have to wait to raise his question of privilege because the Chair has to reach a decision on the point of order raised by the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe (Mr. Marshall).


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but it seems to me that according to the Standing Orders the question of privilege comes before all others.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order. The Chair has recognized the point of order and it seems to me that the hon. member will agree that his question of privilege can be considered later on.


Jack Marshall: Mr. Speaker, I understand from the debate that Bill C-170 is in contention tonight. I do not know what that bill has to do with an asbestos firm in Quebec or other problems that we have been hearing

about. We are dealing with a family income security plan for all Canadians and I believe we should deal with that problem under Bill C-170.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. The point raised by the hon. member is well taken. Because the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette) referred to this question in the course of his remarks, the Chair thought the question could be allowed. However, I do not think the Chair can allow debate on the question.

The hon. member for Saint-Denis on a question of privilege.


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, I wish to withdraw my question of privilege, but not without saying that in my opinion the leader of the Ralliement did not answer my question at all-


David Réal Caouette: -of the Social Credit Party of Canada.


Marcel Prud'homme: -of the Social Credit Party of Canada did not answer my question at all, but I withdrew it in order to co-operate with the Chair.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. The hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom).


David Réal Caouette: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: The hon. member for Temiscamingue on a point of order.


David Réal Caouette: The hon. member says that he withdraws his question of privilege.
A few minutes ago I was asked to make a comparison, between what happened in 1949 and what is happening now in Quebec.


Albert Béchard: The conditions of workers in those days were different from what they are today.


David Réal Caouette: Workers today are in the same situation as they were then.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. The Chair can hardly allow the question of privilege which actually is not a question of privilege but rather a matter for debate, and the time allotted to the hon. member for Temiscamingue has expired.


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, at the risk of disappointing the two Social Credit members from Saint-Denis and Temiscamingue, 1 will not speak of the asbestos strike but will address myself to Bill C-170 dealing with the family income security plan.


Marcel Prud'homme: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, but I wish to raise a question of privilege.
April 20, 1972


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Marcel Prud'homme: Listen to the question of privilege first and then decide whether it is a question of privilege.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order. The hon. member for Saint-Denis on a question of privilege.


Marcel Prud'homme: For the benefit of my friend in the New Democratic Party, I wish to dissociate myself from the suggestion that I am a member of the Social Credit party. He is a socialist and I would like him also, before he makes any comment, to dissociate himself from the comments made by Social Credit of Canada concerning the conditions of the workers in Asbestos in 1949-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order. I am sure that the hon. member will, in due time, be able to express his views and bring forth the points that he considers worthwhile. However, for the time being, I recognize the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wondered whether the member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) might be one of those on the secret list of 20. At any rate, 1 assure him I definitely dissociate myself from the remarks of the leader of the Social Credit party: I think it is obvious that we do not share his philosophy regarding that particular incident.
The bill before us deals with the family income security plan to replace the Family Allowances Act which has been in effect since 1945. The leader of our party, when speaking to the House yesterday, said that our party finds the bill completely unacceptable. I share that point of view for a number of reasons, but primarily for two basic reasons which I think will come back to haunt the government. First, the question of universality has been discontinued in this bill and replaced by the principle of selectivity. Second, it will become a bureaucratic nightmare which I believe will make the crisis we had in respect of unemployment insurance during the past winter look like child's play when we begin dealing with all the regulations under the bill.
I would also like to make it clear that our party believes we should have in this country substantially increased basic family allowance rates. Our party has made that clear from the beginning. However, this is not the reason we are opposing the bill on second reading and have moved an amendment. Our party wants this bill to be universal rather than selective which I believe is a bad principle which pits neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend and indeed family against family in certain communities. Our party also believes that if we are to have equity in this country's social programs, there must be drastic changes to the Income Tax Act and our taxation laws.
The family allowances program was first introduced in this country on July 1, 1945. At that time I believe 35-1972-4*
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the government made a number of assumptions which basically were very good but which they are abandoning in Bill C-170. First of all, they gave recognition to the fact that families with children have special needs in our society. They recognized the fact that when a family has children it has needs which are basically different, special and extra to those of people who do not have children.
Secondly, under the legislation enacted in 1945 the government recognized that to ensure a greater measure of equality of opportunity for all children, such a measure was needed. These are two principles that I believe are being thrown out of the window either in total or in part under Bill C-170. The program as originally introduced in 1945 was not a welfare program; it was not a poverty program: it was money set aside to assist the mothers of Canada to raise their children and to provide them with some of the basic necessities of life. This is the principle that is being abandoned in the plan before us. It is becoming part of a welfare plan, and when you have selectivity such as this you attach to it a stigma that divides people.
As I have said, the need for such a plan in 1945 was to make up for some of the deficiencies in our system and our way of life. We wanted to provide something extra for families with children because I think everybody realized that when a person gets a job, whether he be a labourer, a teacher or a farmer, he is not paid according to the size of his family but according to his ability or the special status of the job. The family allowances program was one of the many ways in which we hoped to overcome this type of inequity in our society.
The old legislation recognized the importance of children to our country and the fact that they have special rights. It stipulated that the expenditure of the money from this fund should be used to help our children. I come from a family which was by no means affluent. My family was relatively poor, and I knew as a child growing up that the family allowance was of great assistance to my mother.
This principle will be lost in the new Family Income Security Plan, and it is a principle that should not be lost. Under the old Family Allowances Act the payment for children under the age of six was $5, for children aged six to nine it was $6, for children 10 to 12 it was $7, and for children aged 13 to 15 it was $8. In 1957 these payments were adjusted upward. In 1964 we introduced in the House a youth allowance for those aged 16 and 17. We now find that many of these principles which existed in the old family allowance plan are no longer part of the plan which is before us.
The new plan is not universal; universality has gone out of the window and we have adopted the principle of selectivity. The new plan is very much like the guaranteed income supplement for our senior citizens. They receive a basic $80 a month and if they are really poor they may receive a supplement of about $57.70 a month. There is a graduated scale under which if you

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
make a small amount of money the guaranteed income supplement is reduced.
I know, from travelling in my constituency which contains thousands of old age pensioners, that this is one of the complaints about which I hear perhaps most often except for farm problems. I refer to the frustrations which people have with this type of system, with the means test-frustrations which they have vis-a-vis their own families and others in the community. Despite this plan we know that hundreds of thousands of old people in this country are living in poverty, in conditions of which members of this House should be ashamed. We know, also, that this type of plan under the Old Age Security Act has created a needless amount of bureaucracy. It means the disclosure of a person's income. It creates a stigma. It causes a means test. These are matters which I do not think the Canadian people appreciate.
The new plan introduced in Bill C-170 is based primarily on three things. First, and most important, it is based upon the income of the family. Second, it is based upon the number of children in a family, and third it is based upon the age of the children. The amounts to be paid out under the bill are $15 for children under the age of 12 and $20 for children between the ages of 12 and 17. We And in the regulations that a family with one child, with an income of $4,500 a year, will not benefit from the plan. In other words a family with one child, earning less than $4,500, will qualify for the maximum payment. For each additional child the family income is allowed to escalate by $500.
According to the Minister of National Healtn and Welfare (Mr. Munro), the number of families who will benefit to the maximum will be fewer than one million. We find that for each $100 of additional income, the monthly benefit will decrease by 33 cents. If you add all these figures together you get the following result: 25 per cent of the Canadian families will be better off under the new plan than they were under the old one. We know that even this was questioned in the House the other day.
We find that some of the people under the plan will qualify for only one-half of the benefits. We know also that some of the provinces in this country might see this program as a means of paying less welfare as welfare amounts are adjusted and set according to family income. So perhaps not all the people who qualify on paper for the allowance will actually be better off a year or two from now.
We find that under the new plan, 42 per cent of the people will receive partial payments; they will not receive the maximum. Of this 42 per cent, about half will receive less than they are receiving now, and half will receive more than under the present legislation. We find that roughly one-third of Canadian families, or 33 per cent of one million mothers, will not receive any assistance under this legislation. I think that many of this 33 per cent are not very well off.
Many people will not receive any assistance at all are in the income bracket of $5,000 to $10,000 a year, and you certainly cannot consider them to be wealthy. Many of

them are farm people in our constituencies. They are working people, unionized people, and some professionals such as teachers. Indeed, many of these people are average Canadian citizens. They will be subsidizing those who will receive benefits under this plan. In the long run it will create a great deal of misunderstanding in our society when one group of people who are not making very much have to subsidize those who are making slightly less. This is a way of turning one group in our society against another. It will divide our society and build up resentment. I will give one or two examples of what I mean. Let us consider a family, with one child, living in Toronto or Ottawa and making $5,001 a year. Under this plan they will not receive any benefits. Such a family is not, by any stretch of the imagination, wealthy. This situation will develop resentment in our country.
We find that a family with two children, both under the age of ten, with an income of $9,000 will receive a monthly payment of $3.60, which is less than they are receiving now. And the poor themselves, as I was saying earlier, do not get a much better deal. They are given a few crumbs, a bit of tokenism, a little bit more money, but that is all. A family with four children all under age ten, earning less than $6,000, will get $1,720 a year in payments, but under our archaic income tax laws such a family will lose $400. That is some deal for the people of Canada who need help!
The answer to the question before us today is obvious. We need a plan that first of all is universal. We need a plan that does not have a means test. We need a plan that has a higher basic rate of payment. And we need a fair taxation system. If we do not get these things and this bill goes through without amendment, then the new plan will create more resentment in communities and families than we have now.
I want to say a word about a subject dealt with eloquently this afternoon by my colleague from Van-couver-Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis). It concerns the fact that under this bill many women feel they are discriminated against. Here I am thinking of hundreds of thousands of women who will no longer be receiving family allowance cheques. This is a point the government should keep in mind. It should not be too surprised if it finds that by next fall many of these women are very angry. The second major concern I have about the bill is that it will become an administrative, bureaucratic nightmare. I said earlier that it will make the unemployment insurance crisis look like child's play. The costs of administration will skyrocket. We already know, from an answer given by the government, that the present staff of 730 will have to be doubled to 1,477 as a result of this bill.
The new plan will cause a great deal of confusion in the minds of applicants. It will create a lot more paperwork for bureaucrats, a lot of needless expense that not only frustrates people but turns them against governments and government plans, including many of the better plans which we have in this country. It will create among people hostility to a family allowance plan that
April 20, 1972

could be good if we followed a few of the basic principles and philosophies advocated by many citizens.
Now I want to spend a few minutes considering some of the bureaucratic hang-ups and difficulties that we can get into with a plan of this sort. All applications for family allowance must be checked to determine the eligibility of the applicants. This is obvious under the type of regulations we have. We could get away from many of these difficulties if we had a universal program for all families according to the number of children in the family. Secondly, in the case of eligible applicants payment is based on family income and the age of the children. One gets into a great deal of paperwork if the family income changes and as the ages of the children change.
In the case of non-eligible applicants, appeals and explanations must be handled. We will have people applying who do not qualify. This will cause more bureaucratic hang-up than is necessary. Abuses of the plan must be handled. We all remember the unemployment insurance program and the Lift program with which western members in particular are familiar. You cause a great deal of resentment among people through the appeal procedure. Cases involving a substantial increase or decrease in income must be processed, with appropriate adjustments made to benefits. There may be an overpayment for some reason, or an underpayment. Again, adjustments must be made, causing great difficulty.
What about divorces and the effect they will have on the regulations? We have separations; we have marriages. These must be reported if the family income is affected and the benefits must be adjusted. When you have marriages, separations and divorces-and there are tens of thousands of them every year-it throws more bugs into the plan. Adjustments must also be made to benefits when estimated income differs substantially from actual income. We may find that some people halfway through the year will take a second job, driving a taxi or doing night work. The wife may start teaching in high school or in the local elementary school. As a result, the family income will increase.
Administrative machinery must be set up to recover payments made to ineligible persons. Here again, western members know the difficulties we had with Lift when the administration tried to recover overpayments that had been made. Expert administrative machinery must be set up to detect frauds such as misrepresentation of income, misrepresentation of the ages of children, misrepresentations as to the number of children, failure to report income and failure to report deaths, marriages and separations. This is the type of bureaucratic jungle that we will get into with this bill. Finally, administrative machinery for liaison with the provinces will have to be established. The courts will probably be burdened with new offences and people who are guilty will be liable to fines and, in some cases, jail terms.
These are some of the problems that our party is concerned about. We could avoid many of these unnecessary bureaucratic hang-ups if we had a plan that was universal, that made payments regardless of income, and if
Family Income Security Plan
we had a fair taxation system that did not allow payments to be made to the very wealthy. The position of our party is supported by the Social Development Council. I wish to quote briefly from a brief presented by that council:
Family allowances should be universal, paid to all families with dependent children as a social right thus avoiding divisiveness among families and any element of stigma. The present program has this feature but FISP would eliminate it.
This is precisely what we are trying to get across to the minister.
There should be the maximum feasible simplicity and efficiency in administration. These features are virtues of the present family allowances program but FISP would undoubtedly be considerably more complicated and costly to administer.
The program should be as fully compatible as possible with long-term social and fiscal policies. This is not evident in the FISP proposals.
The program should have a built in escalation clause to meet the full amount of annual rises in the cost of living. This feature is not included in either the present program or FISP.
These are some of the things the Social Development Council is concerned about and that our party is concerned about. These are some of the reasons we are trying to get the government to make important changes in the legislation. As I said at the beginning, Mr. Speaker, basically we want three things. We want payments to be larger, we want them to be universal and we want the tax system to be reformed so that it is equitable and just. To me it seems very contradictory that we have so much money in this country for unnecessary things but when it comes to dealing with the average citizen we do not have enough money. I become very angry when I see some of the large tax loopholes that are available to the very wealthy and to large resource companies. During the last ten years, on average the gas and oil companies paid taxes on only 5.7 per cent of their profits.
What do we have for the poor people, the average worker, the farmer and the small businessman in our country? Basically, we have nothing but a government program that is so bureaucratic, so complicated that it will alienate half the people and do nothing for the other half.


Mr. J. H. Horner (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in the debate on the family income security plan one could become really concerned or look at it light-heartedly and say that perhaps it is a step in the right direction and all will be well once it is established. I think this question touches upon some of the deep-rooted philosophies that must be engendered, endured and borne by those in government. It touches upon the question of whether to be a pragmatist in government, operating on a day to day basis, solving the crisis of today tomorrow and the crisis of tomorrow the day after. But, Mr. Speaker, I think we have in Canada used this type of approach too long in government and it is time we decided upon our goals.
I have been involved in politics for 14 years, and when I compare society in Canada today with what it

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
was when I became involved I realize that the country has changed a great deal. Fourteen years ago I was a young man coming to Ottawa.


An hon. Member:: You are still pretty young.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Thank you. Fourteen years ago I had a fixed concept of what made Canada tick and what made me proud of it. I was proud because I looked upon Canada as a society of middle income people with a low proportion of people who might be termed the exalted rich or the desperately poor.
An hon. member suggests that I might be blind, I wonder how old he was 14 years ago, and how well he had travelled Canada. I recognize him as the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Knight). I think he was elected at 24 years of age, so 14 years ago he would have been ten years old, and probably had not travelled far from the town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, and had no real information as to what made Canada tick.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: And still does not.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Nor had he any idea of what classes there were in our society.


Mr. Borrie:: Just the middle class.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I was proud to be a Canadian in those days. We managed our economy and our society better than the United States, better than Great Britain, and we did not get into all the problems of Europe, East and West Germany, and so on. As Canadians, we had a lot to be proud of. As I measure success in the management of our society and the economy, I can only reach the conclusion that the situation has deteriorated.
We have seen a tremendous increase in the number of exalted rich, a tremendous increase in those who feel they should be classified as the desperately poor, and a shrinking of the middle-class society. The people in the middle class must carry the load in our society and pay taxes to support the desperately poor. They must also carry the load so that the exalted rich may escape paying taxes. Some hon. members may wonder how this can be, but there is a great machine called regional economic expansion which will hand out money to anybody and give all kinds of credit and relief in the form of grants. Many of the wealthy international and foreign companies located in Canada pay very little taxes bemuse of the grants they receive. Indeed, sometimes the grants far exceed the amount they pay in income tax. We hand it back to them saying it is their duty to provide the jobs we desperately need-so much money for so many jobs. This is the criteria and concept we are involved in. I think it is time we paused to examine the cause of the problem, Mr. Speaker. It is partly due to the fact we have developed schemes which undermine the hard working wage earner, the person in the middle class category.
According to Statistics Canada, the average wage is in the area of $135 a week, roughly $7,000 a year. This

is about the middle category. Under this new program, 30 per cent of the people now receiving family allowance will not receive it any longer; the next 18 per cent will receive less,' the next 17 per cent will receive about the same amount and the next 35 per cent will receive more. The $7,000 a year wage earner will find himself in the position of asking whether he should try to earn more and declare his earnings, only to receive less because the universality of the family allowance program has been removed.
I have philosophized, Mr. Speaker, in order to indicate why I think this program is leading us in the wrong direction. I ask the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Munro), is this the only program on the statute books? I think I read in the Toronto Star that the minister said it is unrealistic to think that we can support present welfare and health care costs. Those may not be his exact words but he said something like that.
What does this program do, Mr. Speaker? It destroys the universality of the family allowance program. The old age pension is universal. I ask the minister if this is next to go. He shakes his head in a negative manner; I want that to appear in Hansard. I wish the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) were in the House to shake his head in a negative manner too. We would be so much wiser and so would the minister. The old age pension and the hospitalization programs are universal. Anyone who is a citizen receives provincial hospitalization coverage. The millionaire can enjoy medicare as much as the desperately poor.
Then we introduced unemployment insurance. It doesn't matter how great your assets might be as an individual. You might, if you wanted to, sell your business or your farm and put $2 million in the bank and go to work for an average kind of income. After working for 180 days you might quit and collect unemployment insurance. A man might have even $3 million in the bank or $3 million worth of stocks and bonds: he would still collect unemployment insurance if he had paid into the fund. There is a universal concept in the unemployment insurance program.


Mr, Flemming:: Do not forget medicare.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I mentioned medicare, hospitalization, the old age pension and unemployment insurance. There may be other areas I could deal with but they do not come to mind. Is the government's action in approaching this program on a selective basis the beginning of an attempt to destroy the universal application of a number of programs which have been passed and which reflect some degree of credit on this House? One might ask why I, a Conservative, am speaking this way, why I am concerned about universality. If you destroy the concept of universality, you will cut off from benefit not only the exalted rich but the people in the middle. Today, most people in Canada are in the middle. At least, it can be said that most were in the middle a few years ago: I do not think most people are in the middle today.
April 20, 1972

At the top end of the scale are the exalted rich and then you come to where most middle-class people were, or are. Those people will be asking themselves this question: "Shall I duck a little? Shall I quit working this month and perhaps not earn too much? Shall I moonlight a bit so that my apparent income will stay the same? After all, I will get free hospitalization and medicare benefits and I will qualify for the old age pension next year when I retire. Is it worth while working so hard?"
Do you see what I am getting at, Mr. Speaker? Destroying the universality of these programs will eventually erode the will of some Canadians. I think hon. members know what I am getting at and where my argument is leading. Most Canadians frown on the suggestion that people really do not want to work. For example, why cannot I hire a man? Why must I work 16 hours a day at a filling station in Calgary or wherever it may be, simply because I cannot hire a man to operate the pumps? After all, it is not a hard job; all he has to do is put the hose into the tank of a car.


Mr. Mahoney:: Perhaps that is why the hon. member is never in Ottawa.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The hon. member for Calgary South (Mr. Mahoney) says that is why I am never in Ottawa. I want to make it clear that I do not own a filling station. I was saying that merely to illustrate my point. If the hon. member thinks I am never in Ottawa, let him consider this: why have many Liberals been coming to Crowfoot and saying, "That terrible member for Crowfoot is a thorn in our sides. He holds up legislation," and does this and that. How can one who is never in Ottawa do that, I ask?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I return to my argument. Many people running small businesses find it difficult to hire people. Why, Mr. Speaker? I say our society is turning industrious, serious and conscientious people off. It is destroying their incentive to work. Let me give another example involving income tax. Some say, "If you earn extra money you will go up into the next bracket and they will hit you with a 40 per cent rate." People do not want that. A hired man who has worked for me for many years said, "Can I earn more money now without increasing my taxable income?" I said, "Yes, you can earn more money and more of your income will be exempt from tax because of your increased exemptions. However, the money you earn will be taxed as a higher rate and you will pay a higher rate as a bachelor once you start making substantial amounts of money." He said "I will have to watch that." There you have a prime example of how a seriously minded person can be turned off, so to speak. Similarly, the proposed family allowances program which is to be part of our social security legislation will have a tendency to turn people off.
I am reminded of a poem I read a long time ago entitled, "Lifters and Leaners". The author is un-
Family Income Security Plan
known. What it says is true of the direction in which our society is going today. The poem is as follows: There are two kinds of people on earth today,
Just two kinds of people, no more I say.
Not the saint and the sinner, for 'tis well understood,
The good are half bad, and the bad are half good.
Not the rich and the poor, for to count a man's wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years,
Brings each man his laughter and also his tears;
No, the two kinds of people on earth that I mean,
Are the people who lift, and the people who lean.
I fear that is the direction in which Canadian society is going. We are dividing Canada, not into a society of the exalted rich, the middle-class and the desperately poor but into those who lift and those who lean. This piece of legislation will penalize those who are lifting and encourage growth in the number of leaners.


Robert James Borrie: There are those who lift and those who lean.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Yes, that is what I said.


Robert James Borrie: Those are the two kinds of people on earth.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The poem reads, "There are two kinds of people on earth today... the people who lift and the people who lean." I think that is true.


Robert James Borrie: And there are those who refuse to lift or lean.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, at one time we had an industrious middle class in Canada, willing to work and earn and contribute to Canadian society. We had a few exalted rich and a few desperately poor, yet most were in the middle. Today the middle-class is shrinking. In other words, there is a different sort of division in our society today. Government have encouraged growth in the number of those willing to lean. An increasing number of people say, "To heck with lifting." I was going to use a stronger adjective but thought better of it. People are fed up with contributing to a society that does not appreciate them and overtaxes them. Basically, this bill will tax them.


Robert James Borrie: The hon. member is selling Canadians pretty short.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The hon. member, who is rarely seen here and who seldom speaks in the House, says I am selling Canadians short. I want Canadians to be strong. I want to be vigorous. I want them to buck right in there and hit the collar, as we say in western Canada. As legislators, we are not encouraging them to do that. I am not saying all people are fed up with working. I am not saying all people are not prepared to do their bit. I am saying that we as legislators are encouraging many of them not to work. We are encouraging many to become leaners. This whole concept is wrong.
One of the greatest evils in our society today-I say this without hesitation-is the politician in this House

April 20, 1972
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who can swallow himself whole on a day to day basis. There are too many persons of that kind in this House. They hope that at the end of next week or next month, through some great undercurrent they will again rise to the top, float and be able to say "1 was okay. Nothing really hurt me. That is what the folks wanted and that is what we gave them. They do not know it will hurt them in six months." This is the kind of politician I despise. If all the people in their constituencies wanted candy tomorrow, they would give it to them. However, they will not be back here after the election this fall.


Robert James Borrie: It is the 14-year politician who does that.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I have often wondered about the age of the Prime Minister. I did not know whether he was 14 or 16. It seemed to me it had something to do with even numbers. I did not know whether he was 16, 18, 36, 38, 46, 48 or 52. I knew his age was on even number.


Robert James Borrie: You forgot the opening remarks of your speech.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I never forgot them.


Robert James Borrie: You thought Canada was great 14 years ago.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I thought Canada was great 14 years ago, and I still think there is potential for Canadian greatness. However, we as politicians must recognize our evil and wayward ways.


Robert James Borrie: Quit selling us short.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: We must correct the situation and quit being guided on a day to day basis by politicians who believe they can swallow themselves today. They give the people what they want today and hope it will not catch up with them tomorrow.


John Leroy Skoberg: Are you supporting the bill?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I am supporting the amendment moved by the leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Lewis), or the fellow who sits next to him. I am referring to the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas). I thought he was still the leader because he and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) are always advising the present leader, who is going nowhere in the NDP. While I agree with and am supporting the amendment for absolutely different reasons than he, I believe there is some merit in the concept of universality for many of the social welfare or social justice programs that are on today's legislative books. For that and other reasons which I have expressed, I wholeheartedly support the amendment.
I see the Minister of National Health and Welfare has returned to the chamber. I wish to direct a question to him.


John Leroy Skoberg: How about Bill C-170?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: It is a dangerous thing to get Jack Horner involved in-Bill C-176, did you say?
[Mr. Homer.1


Mr. Mazankowski:: What is Bill C-176?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Bill C-176 was a further erosion-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order, please. I think the Chair has been very generous to the hon. member who has the floor, but he should address himself to the Chair and stay with the amendment before us.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I will do my best but the House seems to be in a mood to heckle. Normally I am not distracted by idle remarks made by members to my left and members opposite, but it appears that I was bothered this evening. I apologize to Your Honour and hon. members for allowing myself to be bothered.
I wish to direct a simple question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I hope that before this legislation is passed the minister will explain the statement I read in the Toronto Star yesterday, that it was unbelievable or unrealistic to expect that Canadians can stand the welfare or health costs of today and then bring forward a piece of legislation which will increase the basic cost from $640 million a year to $800 million for the coming year. We all know that after a few years these costs build up and proliferate. How does the minister explain that concept? Is this the kind of system that will repay itself, such as the old age security pension plan? No, it is not. It is a direct drain upon the taxpayer. The exalted rich escape paying taxes and the desperately poor are not in a position to pay them. This is an increase in tax for the shrinking middle-class. That is my first question.
Second, in destroying the universality of the family income security plan or, as it is commonly called, the family allowances plan, is this the first step toward destroying the universality of many other social justice programs?


Robert James Borrie: Socialistic?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I said social justice. You treat it any way you like. It means different things to different people. To us it means fair play for Canadians. To the Liberals it means fair play for the Liberals.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Excuse me, Your Honour; I am being sidetracked again. Is this the beginning of destroying the universality of the hospitalization program, the medicare system and the unemployment insurance system, which does not come under this minister's department? Before I was interrupted by the catcalls I had referred to the old age security program. While I do not place much credence in the minister's remarks, because we know the Prime Minister rules all his ministers, with the upcoming election the minister's remarks should be on the record. Under the new cabinet system of evolving policy, the Prime Minister rules everything, the cabinet and a couple of other important people. Some people have referred to them as the three wise men, and the minister is not one of them.
April 20, 1972


Robert James Borrie: I am not one of them.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Even though the minister may be overruled by the inner cabinet, to use a polite expression, with the upcoming election he should place his views on record. As the leader of the Liberal party in Manitoba asked about another piece of legislation, is this the tip of the iceberg? I ask this question with regard to the concept of universality in social justice programs that has been long established in this House and the Canadian system. If it is, it amounts to a re-enaction of the means test. The means test draws a line down the middle, and this is where we find the man who carries the lunch-pail, the man who is earning $135 a week. In effect, we are telling him, "Duck below the line and you will get certain services provided free by the government. Do not stick your head above that line, whatever you do." That is the curse of a means test. A means test may be all right in the case of persons over 70, but is the House aware that 67.4 per cent of those over 70 are living below the poverty level? I do not think it is. Yet this is a fact attested to by Statistics Canada.
Are we taking a retrograde step today? Are we returning to an all-inclusive means test which will affect every worker? I have told hon. members what this proposal means. It means that 30 per cent will get no benefits, that 18 per cent will get less, that 17 per cent will get the same, and 35 per cent will get more. Seventeen and 35 make 52. We are right on the halfway line. A person earning less than $7,000 is wise to continue to earn less than $7,000. A person earning more than $7,000 is wise to get below that figure somehow or other. Don't work for two months; go moonlighting where the people in the inland revenue cannot catch up to you. The minister smiles. If he only knew how many people are doing that in today's society. If he only knew how many teachers, how many farmers, how many lawyers-


Mr. Gilbert:: Lawyers?


Patrick Morgan Mahoney: Doctors?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Yes, lawyers. I said that because the Minister of National Health and Welfare has a law degree. I heard the hon. member for Calgary South (Mr. Mahoney) throw in the word "doctors". Yes, doctors, teachers, dentists-you name it! We are all human.


An hon. Member:: And ranchers.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: And ranchers and farmers. We are all human. Draw the line. Recreate the cruel means test. It will apply to the working person and you have caught the guy who carries the lunch-pail, who goes to work every day. Is there not some reward for him in this society? I was about to use a bunch of adjectives such as the average working man would use, but I thought better of it. This will strike at the man who carries the lunch-pail, who eats baloney sandwiches or peanut butter sandwiches, or whatever it is, every day and goes back home for a hot dinner at night. If a man earns more than $10,000 he will get nothing at all. And his wife will
Family Income Security Plan
say, "What are you doing with my money? Give me some money. You are taking the pin money; you are taking the cream cheque money, the egg money." My mother used to get the cream cheque; we boys milked the cows.


An hon. Member:: Don't forget the cookie jar, Jack.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The cookie jar was always empty; I had a sweet tooth. But this is removing the money which the average wage earner's housewife really felt was hers. She spent it on the children. She bought little Susie a new dress. She bought little Peter a new pair of shoes.


Patrick Morgan Mahoney: Or a Barbie doll.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Or a Barbie doll. She bought milk for the children or maybe she got a hairdo one week out of 17. There was no need to ask her husband for the money; it was her money and she spent it on the family.
The average housewife will be right on the line. Is her husband earning more than $7,000? If he is, she gets less. If he is earning more than $10,000, she gets nothing. Ten thousand dollars is not a lot of money today in the cities, although it is a lot of money to the farmers and to many other people. Thank the Lord, as far as the farmer is concerned it is net income, it is taxable income and it may therefore not affect very many farmers. But it will affect a great many housewives in the cities. We are told that by 1980 two-thirds of the Canadian people will be living in our major population centres.
Then there is the likelihood of inflation. I do not wish to go into the subject very deeply, but with an increase of more than 30 per cent in the money supply experienced this year, and a 21 per cent increase last year, by next fall, when this legislation really hits home, inflation will be running wild. The Liberals say, "We hope the election will be over by then, and everything will be great." But a year from now, with wages increasing in line with the rate of inflation allowed by the government, the $7,000 limit will not suffice and an increasing number of average wage earners will be disqualified from benefit under this measure. So the average housewife will have less money to spend on her family, the family she treasures, the family she tries to encourage and raise.
For these reasons, I believe the legislation to be a retrograde step and I support the amendment now before the House. I hope, should the amendment be defeated, that a worthy colleague of mine wiM move an amendment warranting the support of the most vocal heckler I have encountered this evening and, also, the support of the triumvirate sitting in the front row of the NDP benches. I sometimes wonder which one is the leader, but they all make a fair stab at it and I would like to think that they would support a further amendment.


Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskaloon-Biggar):: Maybe there is not too much left to say, but I will say this, Mr. Speaker. For those on the other side of the House, for those who are the government tonight, there is a great deal left

April 20, 1972
Family Income Security Plan
to say. Before this bill is dead, buried and forgotten they are going to hear it said. I suggest to those on the other side of the House that they think a little more and remember why and under what circumstances this legislation was placed on the statute books of Canada. It was placed there by a man who for a number of years was one of the most consummate politicians to grace the scene, Mackenzie King. He brought in the legislation at an appropriate time, as well as bringing in certain other legislation. He did so, not because he was a progressive reformer but because he was a politician and the CCF party was breathing down his neck.


An hon. Member:: Who are they?


Alfred Pullen Gleave: If the people to my right do not remember who they were, we will refresh their memories during the next election campaign. And that goes for hon. members opposite too. The legislation we are talking about tonight was brought in for these reasons. Let us give the man who at that time was head of the Liberal party credit that he was enough of an economist to understand that we have to find ways and means of distributing income to those who are disadvantaged. I do not think he would have brought the legislation in except for that, and for the fact he was being threatened by members of the CCF who were offering the Canadian people an alternative to poverty and hardship and the Canadian people were beginning to believe them.
Therefore the family allowance legislation was brought in, as was unemployment insurance. These were two basic programs that were introduced, both of which are now being sabotaged by this government led by a technocrat with ice water in his veins, a man with no basic concept of what this country is all about, who cannot bring to bear an understanding of how to use the wealth we produce. Since he and his party cannot conceive how to use the wealth of this country, they must bring in programs that share poverty around. The options are either to use the wealth that society can produce or to ensure the existence of the privileged few who sit at the top, while sharing the balance of the poverty around.
Look what has been done to the unemployment insurance legislation. Members on the back benches as well as on the front benches-though the latter have some expert help available to them-are trying to solve the problems that the unemployment insurance bill has created in an endeavour to relieve the misery visited on those who cannot quite conform to the new circumstances.
The government is now going to turn the family allowance legislation around and we shall be doing the same thing again-trying to correct the injustices, inequities and unworkable situations that will be created. Can the government tell me how it is going to administer an act that bases the right of an individual to claim payments on the income that he declares, when his income may vary anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 from one year to the nexit? Certainly this will be the case with fishermen, farmers, people in urban areas where the wife may work for five months of the year, or for 12 months, or not at all if she is bringing a child into the family.

How in the world will the government even things out? The previous speaker mentioned that you will be pretty well able to tell a person's level of income by seeing whether he claims a family allowance cheque or not.
What baffles me is why we need this legislation in the first place. It would be far simpler to use the taxation system and tax back surplus income in the higher income levels. But instead of that, the government are increasing the amount of family allowance cheques. They are devising a way to get their fingers on an individual to whom they think they are giving some money, but secretly think that they and their family do not deserve it at all. Their real wish would be to take the money away entirely, but they cannot quite get away with that and know it, so they have to fiddle around and half clobber it. That is the objective of those on that side of the House; that is what they are after.
Led by a technocrat, advised by people in high finance who if they had to run their own business would have been broke yesterday, the government is continuing its folly. Hopefully, before this debate is concluded the government will recant, change its mind and back away from this folly that they now propose to visit upon the Canadian people.
May I call it ten o'clock?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, I know the minister wishes to speak to a matter, but could I ask about the business of the House? Unless an election is called during the night, will we be starting with the CN financing bill tomorrow?


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the probability of an election being called during the night is somewhat remote. The chances are that we can survive until the beginning of the week. In that event we will deal with the CNR bill tomorrow. Then, if we are allowed to proceed we will have an opposition day on Monday, and following that we will be back to-if you will excuse the lisp-FISP.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I rise to request unanimous consent of the House to revert to motions to correct a statement that I made during the question period today.
April 20, 1972


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Does the House agree?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


David Lewis: Alter he has made the correction.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, my correction is to an answer that I gave to a question put by the hon. member lor York South (Mr. Lewis) who asked me about a transaction involving the Toronto Star and Toronto Telegram. As I indicated I would, since I had some hesitation in the answer I gave today, I double-checked with the director under the Combines Investigation Act and he has advised me that he still has the matter belore him. In the process I have satisfied mysell that he is giving it his proper attention. However, in accordance with well established practice, no lurther inlormation can be given with regard to a lormal inquiry in progress unless or until the proceedings are published or until proceedings are commenced in the courts.


David Lewis: Perhaps the minister would be good enough to inlorm the House that what the director has belore him he has in lact had belore him since last October. Does the minister know whether that is so?


Robert Knight Andras: I believe that is the correct date.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, March 8 as recorded at page 635 ol Hansard, and on Tuesday, March 14 as recorded at page 798 ol Hansard, I asked certain questions ol the Minister ol Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) seeking to ascertain whether or not the government had issued oil drilling permits to Petrotar Development Limited ol Calgary covering 2.7 million acres ol coastal waters ol British Columbia. The answers to those questions were so inconclusive and evasive that I decided to put this matter up lor debate on an adjournment motion.
I want to point out that the revelation that these permits had been granted came in the British Columbia legislature Irom a statement made by resources minister Ray Williston which accused the government ol Canada ol talking out ol both sides ol its mouth by agreeing to any exploration in Queen Charlotte sound while publicly agonizing about offshore oil pollution.
When these lacts came to light, the hon. member lor Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Anderson) immediately rushed to the press to assure the public that no such permits would be issued lor exploration ol offshore areas with-
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
out the approval ol the Minister ol the Environment (Mr. Davis). According to the Fisherman ol February 9, the Minister ol the Environment himsell described the lederal permits as an error which would not be repeated. On February 4 he was reported as saying that he had discussed this politically sensitive issue with the Minister ol Energy, Mines and Resources and the Minister ol the Environment is quoted as saying he was assured there would be action to recover the permits.
Consequently, I have been trying to find out, first, whether these permits were issued and, second, whether or not they have been rescinded. I therelore placed a question on the order paper, question No. 322 ol March 16 ol this year. It was passed as an order lor return yesterday, April 19. Here are the questions:
1.	How many oil exploration permits were issued by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources during 1971 covering areas of the coastal waters on the Pacific coast?
This is the answer:
1.	40 oil and gas exploration permits.
The second question is as lollows:
2.	How many oil exploration permits on the Pacific coast were outstanding as of March 1, 1972?
The answer is:
2.	237 oil and gas exploration permits.
I will skip question No. 3 and come back to it later. Question No. 4:
4. What permits, if any, have been revoked since January 1, 1972?
The answer is that there were none. Question No. 3 reads:
3.	What were the names and addresses of the companies granted these permits, on what dates were they issued and what is the area and the location covered by each permit?
The lollowing is the answer:
3.	A list of the oustanding permits, their dates of issue and area covered by each permit is attached as Schedule A, together with a permit map.
A list of the companies holding these permits and their addresses is attached as schedule B.
I have that map. It is rather interesting that the oil permits granted cover practically all of the west coast of Vancouver Island and practically all of the coast of the mainland with the exception of the Strait of Georgia. For from the statement which was attributed to the Minister of the Environment that these 40 permits granted to Petrotar Development Limited of Calgary would be rescinded, we find that they are still in existence, that they have not been revoked.
The Minister of the Environment himself seems to have had a change of heart. I have here a copy of the speech which he delivered on Monday, March 13 to the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union in Vancouver. In that speech he said:
The likelihood of serious damage occurring of course varies from place to place. Out on the big bank off Tofino, we don't have the same urgent problem as we would have were the same spill to occur off Satuma for example.

April 20, 1972
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
It is interesting, with the Pacific Rim Park located in that area, and with Long Beach in that area, that the minister did not think it is a sensitive area. He went on to say in the same speech:
Let me make my own position quite clear. I am opposed to the drilling tor oil in Georgia Strait. But I am not opposed to drilling for oil everywhere on our big continental shelf. I am not opposed to it 400 miles out on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. I am not opposed to it 40 miles west of Victoria either.
The minister may not be opposed to it, but the people in my constituency are opposed to it because this would bring drilling down to areas such as Port Renfrew, Jordan River, Sooke and Metchosin. Not many people in that area are aware of the fact that a present there are five drilling permits granted in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, covering 161,450 acres. We want a clear statement from the government as its policy. Who is going to grant these permits? Is the Minister of the Environment going to have the final say, or are we going to get the same sort of thing we had in 1968 and that we have had again this winter, of one minister granting permits and another saying they will be revoked, but the permits stay and the drilling continues and the coastal waters of B.C. can be polluted by oil spills?


Mr. Jack Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: As the hon. member has indicated, we provided him with a tremendous amount of information and material so that he could research the address which he has made tonight. With the concurrence of my minister, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Davis) announced in Vancouver on March 13 that exploration and drilling for oil would be excluded from sensitive offshore zones. Our departments will work together on the definition of these offshore zones. The total west coast acreage is 16,272,694 acres, covered by 239 permits outstanding. On the Atlantic coast, 4,259 permits cover 315,714,483 acres, and in Hudson Bay and the Hudson Strait region 70,592,807 acres are held under 1,152 permits.
If any of Petrotar's permits should fall within environmentally sensitive zones, then we will be discussing with that company the kinds and conditions of work which will not be allowed. I should like to confirm the government's position that subject to this zoning, exploration and drilling will be encouraged in the offshore frontier in strict adherence to regulations currently enforced by my department and judged to be among the most stringent anywhere in the world.
X0)
Permit acreage may revert to the Crown by reason of surrender of a permit or half permit by the permittee, cancellation of a permit by the minister, expiration of a permit, surrender of a portion-50 per cent or more- of the acreage within a permit area upon conversion of the permit acreage to lease form. Voluntary surrender accounts for a considerable proportion of the permit acreage reverting to the Crown. Last year, some 42 million permit acres in Hudson Bay were surrendered back to the Crown. A permittee may decide to surrender a permit for any of a great variety of reasons, but basically

what it boils down to is that the permittee cannot meet the obligations involved in holding the permit or he decides that the prospective benefits of holding the permit are outweighed by the obligations involved.



NATIONAL DEFENCE-RENT INCREASES FOR MARRIED QUARTERS-SUGGESTED DELAY UNTIL PARITY WITH PUBLIC SERVICE ACHIEVED

Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Darlmoulh-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, my presence here this evening arises from questions that I asked on St. Patrick's day, March 17, recorded at page 919 of Hansard. These were in connection with the attitude of the government with respect to its decision on rental rates for married quarters at Canadian Armed Forces bases.
On that date I put essentially two propositions to the minister. First, I asked whether or not it was right that the government's decision, to change the basis on which the rents are assessed for married quarters, was based on the decision to proceed to parity, so-called, between the Canadian Armed Forces and parallel positions in the public service and, if that in fact were true, whether the government would not admit that it would take at least a full year before this came about. The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) replied:
Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting suggestion. I think, however, that the hon. member is quite correct that the eradication of inequalities is done in two stages and will not be completed until next year.
I then asked, if it is in fact based on parity, would the government not consider delaying implementation for a full year. The new rental systems, while relieving to some degree the rents being paid by about 7,000 or 8,000 families, impose in some cases substantially higher rents on about 16,000 or 17,000 families. If the principle of eradication of the inequalities between the Canadian Armed Forces and parallel positions in the public service is a valid one, why is it that the government will not even give consideration to this particular request?
Secondly, when will the government get around to recognizing the difference in relationships between veterans, Canadian Armed Forces personnel who served during war and personnel who have not had that opportunity, because of their age and the accident of their particular period in the Canadian Armed Forces, who are not qualified veterans in the sense that they are eligible for reasonable percentage rates, if you will, or funds for the purpose of buying a home, building a home, and major rennovations to existing properties? And will the government now give some consideration to a major review, not only of the rental situation that exists with respect to Canadian Armed Forces married quarters but of the whole way in which we treat present day serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces?
I made a suggestion in the question I put to the President of the Treasury Board on that day. The question appears at page 919 of Hansard as follows:
I wonder whether he would initiate discussions within the cabinet with respect to a system which would permit Canadian forces personnel who are compelled to a major degree to live in rented quarters during their careers-
April 20, 1972

Mr. Speaker, an opportunity to build equity would be a method by which a percentage of their rent could be set aside against their retirement so that they would have the funds with which to establish themselves more readily in the civilian community. These are two reasonable requests. They have some urgency and the government has an obligation to its armed forces personnel to be aware of their social needs and the difficulties they face on retirement. They should be aware, as well, of the difficulties faced by young families with growing children which have the usual commitments of most families today.
I have not seen the minister for a couple of months and I wonder whether he comes to the House of Commons any more, but perhaps whoever is to speak on his behalf could give us some thoughts on these two or three points which are minor in a way though major in consequence to Canadian armed forces personnel.


Mr. Gaston Clermont (Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. President, before replying to the second question put by the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestal), if I have understood his last remark, he has not seen the president of the Treasury Board in the House for some time. I feel I should clarify the matter and say that the President of the Treasury Board is present in the house in keeping with the established roster whenever his presence is required.
As I mentioned, Mr. Speaker-


J. Michael Forrestall: I was talking about the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Benson).


Gaston Clermont: I am sorry if I did not properly understand the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall).


J. Michael Forrestall: Had he come into the House I would not have directed the question to your minister.


Gaston Clermont: Mr. Speaker, I shall reply to the second request. It is assumed that this proposal does not relate to superannuation entitlements but that it envisages the accumulation of a capital fund on behalf of the individual which would be made available to him on his retirement, when he would have to leave his military quarters, to assist him in securing other accommodation.
A similar idea has been put forward in another forum. The Treasury Board has initiated a review of its policies relating to the provision of public service living accommodation. There have also been consultations about these policies within the National Joint Council and representatives of the staff associations have made a similar proposal for the development of an equity on behalf of public servants who occupy and pay rent for government-provided accommodation. This general idea will be examined during the course of the policy review, and the proposal related to armed forces personnel can be studied within that context.
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
It might be observed that while the idea may seem attractive at first sight, there are difficulties associated with it. In particular, the question of equitable treatment will arise. If it is clear that our employees are being charged a fair rate of rental for their accommodation-and we believe this to be the case-then the dedication of part of this rental for their own future use would, in effect, imply an increase in the compensation paid to them for their services. This increase in compensation would not be shared by other employees who do not occupy government-provided housing, nor would it be shared, of course, by those who are not in the public service. Considerations such as these will have to be taken into account when this proposal is examined.



POLLUTION-WRECKING OF FREIGHTER &quot;VANLENE&quot; NEAR PACIFIC RIM PARK-STEPS TO SUPPLY ADEQUATE EQUIPMENT FOR CLEAN-UPS AND STRENGTHEN NAVIGATIONAL RULES

Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Speaker, on the first occasion on which I could secure the floor during the question period following the visit to the ill-fated Vanlene which grounded on a rock near Pacific Rim Park off the west coast of Vancouver island, I raised a question which I hoped to address to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) with regard to what steps were to be taken to prevent similar, blundering types of disaster in the future. I suggested that it was more by good luck than good management that we avoided a major ecological disaster.
In particular, I wanted to know what had been done under regulations coming under the new part XIX of the Canada Shipping Act. I also raised some questions about improving methods of clean-up. I intend to raise the question of the shipping regulations tonight. I think it is much more important to consider prevention than to attempt to arrive at a cure after a disaster has happened. In this connection, may I refresh the memory of the House with regard to what part XIX of the Canada Shipping Act provides. Section 739(1) of the Canada Shipping Act provides that the governor in council may make regulations among other things:
(g)	requiring ships in waters to which this part applies and with respect to which the regulations are made applicable to have on board, maintain and use appropriate charts, tide tables, lists of lights and other nautical publications;
(h)	respecting the number and qualifications of navigation and engine room personnel, including pilots and lookouts, required to be on duty on ships of any class designated in the regulations in any waters to which this part applies and with respect to which such regulations are made applicable;
(i)	prescribing procedures and practices to be followed by persons on board ships in order to ensure safe navigation in waters to which this part applies; ...
(o) establishing compulsory traffic routes and other shipping traffic controls considered necessary for safe navigation in waters to which this part applies and with respect to which those regulations are made applicable;
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, those regulations were not effected in this case. I suggest to the House that even if they had been effected, they would have been ineffective to the extent that the act up to now has applied

April 20, 1972
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
only to Canadian waters, that is, within the 12-mile zones and within the fishing zones of Canada. I wish to draw to the attention of the House the fact that just over one year ago, on March 1, 1971, I moved a report stage amendment to that legislation which would have provided that the act would apply to waters outside our fishing zones and territorial zones to a distance of 100 nautical miles seaward.
I am glad to see that some hon. members of the House have become interested in the subject since the recent disaster. I wish the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. Groos) and the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Anderson) had seen fit to support my effort to have that kind of additional safeguard written into the legislation at the time it was being considered by the House. If those additional provisions had been in effect, and if the regulations had been in force, obviously the Van-lene could not have run into the rock off Austin Island. Imagining he was still eight or ten hours steaming distance from the nearest land, the master, according to preliminary news reports, thought he was in a position that was somewhere opposite the shore of the state of Washington.
I suggest it is not much use our going through the long and painful exercise, as we do in the House and committee, in enacting legislation if that legislation is merely to gather dust on the shelves around Parliament Hill. Rather, these regulations ought to have been in effect. The kinds of controls that are suggested in the legislation should have made this particular shipwreck unnecessary and should have prevented it. It is one that could easily have been avoided if the regulations, in conjunction with the provisions of the Pilotage Act which we also passed in the previous session, had been in effect.
May I point out that the Pilotage Act provides that the pilotage authority may, with the approval of the governor in council, establish compulsory pilotage areas and prescribe the ships or classes of ships that are subject to compulsory pilotage. In the interpretation section, the act reads:
(d)	"compulsory pilotage" means, in respect of a ship, the requirement that the ship be under the conduct of a licensed pilot or the holder of a pilotage certificate;
(e)	"compulsory pilotage area" means an area of water in which ships are subject to compulsory pilotage;
While I am very happy about the fact that the Van-lene did not cause any major ecological disaster despite the fact that the long-term damage of the oil that did escape has not been fully assessed, nevertheless if it had been carrying a cargo of oil instead of a cargo of motor cars manufactured in Japan bound for the port of Vancouver, we could have had a disaster on the west
coast of Vancouver Island equal to or greater than the one that occurred in Chedabueto Bay some time ago.
In raising this question I hope I will get an affirmative answer from the government that the regulations under the two acts to which I have referred will become effective immediately and a full assessment will be made of the inadequacies that have been revealed in the clean-up efforts which took place in connection with the Vanlene wreck.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, limited as I am in my time, I cannot reply in a precise way to the hon. member, certainly not in the manner that I would wish. I think the hon. member from Comox-Al-berni (Mr. Barnett) will find that he has the full support of all members of this House in the desire to see the greatest possible degree of marine safety employed in Canadian coastal waters.
I understand that the hon. member and my colleague from Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Anderson) visited the wreckage site of the Vanlene and saw first-hand the work being administered by federal authorities in an attempt to minimize the pollution threat from that vessel. I am informed that a great deal of progress has been achieved in setting up our national contingency plans for this type of pollution, and that millions of dollars are being spent to provide the necessary tools to cope with major oil spills. The Department of Transport has an extensive equipment program under way. Contracts have been let for the construction of specialized equipment and other types of anti-pollution devices are being procured.
Hon. members may recall the success of the Great Lakes contingency planning structures with the U.S. authorities. That plan went into effect last summer. There now are similar plans for the east and west coasts which will provide for joint response and support in areas which are of mutual concern to our country and the United States.
The Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) indicated to the House on Tuesday, April 18, the progress which is being achieved with respect to the enactment of regulations under part XIX of the Canada Shipping Act. These include oil pollution prevention regulations, ships' garbage regulations and traffic routing regulations. In the final stages of planning are additional regulations which will affect ships' navigational appliances, charts, publications and deck watch. The shipping industry has, of course, been consulted on these matters and it is anticipated that they will be gazetted in the next three or four months.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.31 p.m.

Friday. April 21. 1972