1972-03-09

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think hon. members might be interested to know that during the last few hours I have received five separate notices under Standing Order 17 on the part of hon. members who propose to move a motion of privilege under the terms of this Standing Order. Essentially, these five motions relate to the same matter. Because this is so unusual I am not sure how the matter should be handled. My thought is that hon. members who have given notice of these motions might be allowed one after the other to indicate what their arguments and what their motions would be, someone would then reply on behalf of the government, and the matter might be taken under advisement. These hon. members, as is required by the Standing Order, have had the courtesy to file notices, but to this point there is no information on the part of the House concerning what the motions would be and what arguments would be advanced in support of such motions.
With the consent of the House, I will take these motions in chronological order as they were received, and the one who has been most diligent in this respect is the hon. member for Peace River.



PRIVILEGE


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I hope that all your other decisions from now on are as good as that one. I did serve notice pursuant to Standing Order 17 with regard to this matter because I feel that what is involved is in fact a question of privilege. I would go on to say that in addition to a question of privilege being involved with regard to the question contained within the four corners of the notice I sent to Your Honour, namely, the extent to which the Auditor General of Canada, an officer of parliament and servant of this House, is being inhibited in the opportunities which he should have to carry out his duties, there is the question of the inherent right of this House, as indeed of the other place, to call before it as a witness any person it sees fit to subject to examination and discussion. I shall deal with both these questions as I proceed. I have, of course, had to give notice to Your Honour pursuant to Standing Order 17 in order to obtain the opportunity to make this motion, and I will be making a motion on the question of privilege, but I
want to make it abundantly clear that there is in addition to the question of privilege, and related to it, the very important issue of the right of this House and of parliament as the highest court in this land to call before it any witness, not necessarily a person who may have offended against the privileges of the House but any witness, and conduct an examination according to the traditions and practices of the House, and to the extent to which these may be changed by order or by the modern practice we have now developed.
Certainly, on the question of privilege, it seems to me that any interference with any of the officers of this House in such a way-


Mr. MacEachen:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member for Peace River has now been speaking for some minutes, yet as far as I am aware he has not stated the matter of privilege he is raising. I am asking him to state the matter of privilege because he has risen on a question of privilege. He has now had the floor for a sufficiently long period to have stated on what the question of privilege is that he is raising. I am asking him to state the question because I should like to argue the point whether the matter he wishes to raise, which is still unknown to the House, has been raised at the earliest possible moment.


Gerald William Baldwin: I understand the position of the President of the Privy Council. I was coming to that. But I always feel that in dealing with hon. gentlemen on the other side we should take longer in explaining matters than if we were dealing with ordinary people.
On the question of privilege, I now come to the first branch of my argument. Any officer of this House-I would include the Clerk, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and the Auditor General whom I place squarely in that category- must be allowed to carry out his duties in such a way as not to limit in any manner the opportunity for hon. members of this chamber to fulfil their responsibilities. I simply indicate, by way of illustration, that if in the course of taking a vote the Clerk was interfered with so that the count could not be made, I would consider this to be a breach of privilege such as interfered with the opportunity of hon. members to carry out their duties. I submit, therefore, that if I can show Your Honour that there has been this kind of interference, that an officer of this House has been denied the opportunity so to fulfil his duties as to prevent hon. members on both sides of the House fulfilling the responsibilities they must exercise on behalf of their constituents and the people of Canada generally, then that is a breach of privilege.
I am dealing with the question of the Auditor General and the comments which were made yesterday, the state-

March 9, 1972
Business of the House
ment by the Prime Minister that the Auditor General was breaking the law and the position in which this leaves members of the House.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the hon., gentleman is raising as a matter of privilege comments made yesterday in the House by any hon. member, then I suggest he is not permitted to raise a question of privilege at this point because Standing Order 17 provides that whenever any matter of privilege arises it shall be taken into consideration immediately. It is a fact that the hon. member for York South did raise a question of privilege on the comments made by the right hon. Prime Minister yesterday and was heard by the Chair.
If the hon. member is raising a new matter of privilege, then I will cease my argument, but if he is raising a matter of privilege based on the comments made yesterday, then under the terms of the Standing Order he was obligated to take the matter into consideration, because it is clear from Standing Order 17(2) that notice is to be given by an hon. member proposing to raise a matter of privilege other than one arising out of proceedings in the chamber. I am merely saying, as he has referred to statements made by the Prime Minister yesterday, that in my humble submission he is not entitled under the terms of the Standing Order to found a question of privilege on those comments.


Mr. Speaker:: I have some difficulty now in ruling on the point raised by the hon. member because actually I have not heard to the end of the question of privilege which the hon. member for Peace River wishes to raise. I think it might be simpler if we allowed the hon. member for Peace River to complete his presentation. It seems to me that the point now made by the President of the Privy Council might be made afterwards, along with other objections which he might have to the points made by the hon. member for Peace River. I would hope that we might proceed in an orderly fashion and as expeditiously as possible with the presentation of the five questions of privilege of which I have received notice. All hon. members who have such points might want to take into consideration the fact that there are all these presentations to be made which will have to be taken into account by the Chair and about which the President of the Privy Council may have some comments to make. I invite the hon. member for Peace River to pursue his presentation at this time.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, let me go ahead from where I was interrupted. Under the Financial Administration Act-I think this will answer the President of the Privy Council-the office of the Auditor General is created. It is a statutory office with a statutory function. I will not take the time of the House to read in detail the duties and responsibilities of the Auditor General, but under section 61 he is required to report annually to the House of Commons the results of his examination of the public accounts. Then the section continues:
2. The report of the Auditor General shall be laid before the House of Commons by the Minister on or before 31st day of December, or, if Parliament is then not in session, within 15 days after the commencement of the next ensuing session-
I would also call Your Honour's attention and that of the House to the fact that under section 56 of this act,

subsection 4, there is a provision with respect to the Auditor General which reads:
Such officers and employees as are necessary to enable the Auditor General to perform his duties shall be appointed in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act.
The point of my reference to the discussion yesterday was that the Auditor General had not performed his statutory duty, and in relation to that statement the Prime Minister said yesterday that the Auditor General was an officer of the House, was in breach of the law, and that it was incumbent upon some person in the House to do something about it.
There is no question in my mind, Mr. Speaker, that if the Auditor General is prohibited, if he is prevented from carrying out his duty as an officer of this House to place before parliament the results of his examination of the public accounts of Canada and as a result the opportunities for hon. members to discharge their responsibilities as members representing the people of their constituencies in particular and the people of Canada in general are limited, this constitutes, per se, a breach of the privileges of the House. If it should appear, during the course of a debate which may or may not take place following the motion that I intend to place before Your Honour, that this has come about because of the fault of the government then, Mr. Speaker, it will be my view, and the people of this country are entitled to take the view, that the government has been guilty of such contributory negligence as to prevent the Auditor General from carrying out his duties and to limit the opportunities for members of this House to do their job. I think that is the simple issue and is a question of privilege standing by itself. There is no question about it.
There may be some question as to the procedure that needs to be followed. There may be those who would say that this question should be considered by a committee. Let me make it abundantly clear, Sir, that this is an unique and unusual situation. We have here an officer of parliament who by act of parliament, by statute, is compelled to carry out certain responsibilities and to do certain very essential things, particularly today when we come to examine the expenditures of this government, of of any government for that matter, and its involvement so far as the taxpayers of Canada are concerned. He is a very important functionary.
I make it abundantly clear that I am not asking Your Honour to come to a decision on whether or not the Auditor General should be called before the bar of the House. I am not asking Your Honour to decide that. That, I suggest, is a matter for the House alone, but of course Your Honour has the responsibility of deciding whether the motion should be put before the House. As a matter of fact, it might well be that the argument could stop right now if the government has the intestinal fortitude to accept the fact that there is this issue and accept this motion and let the House decide. However, I doubt that it will do that, even though I make the suggestion that this might stop further argument on the issue.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Let us hear the motion.
March 9, 1972


Gerald William Baldwin: The President of the Privy Council will hear the motion in due time. Mr. Speaker, what I am in fact putting before the House, putting before Your Honour, is what is known as an interlocutory application as to whether or not Your Honour should put the question to the House on the motion which I shall read very shortly.
However, before I leave this branch of my case I suggest that when we find a situation where an officer of the House, of the importance of the Auditor General, is involved in an issue where it appears that he is deprived of carrying out his exceedingly important statutory duties, then surely, Sir, there should be an examination on that issue, and the only place that examination should properly take place is at the bar of this House. There are committees-yes. The very fact that the House has the right to call witnesses before it is indicative of the fact that it also has the power to give that right to a committee.
But the inherent power-and this is the second branch of my case-is that there is, there always has been, and I pray God there always will be, an inherent right in this House, and in the other place for that matter, when there is a feeling that there has been an injustice, some challenge to the authority of the House, and particularly, Sir, when it involves an important officer of the House, for that officer to be called not before a committee but before the bar of the House. The Public Accounts Committee has been suggested. It is or will be charged with the responsibility of dealing with the report of the Auditor General covering the year ended March 31, 1970. There will be no opportunity, there will be no scope, no means by which this matter could be decided by that committee.
I know, Mr. Speaker, that this is a matter which should come to the House itself for decision but I suggest, if some proposition is made that the proceedings and the means are difficult or complex, that this is for the House to decide. If it is difficult, because of the practice and traditions of the past, for us to deal with the situation where an officer of the House appears at the bar of the House, we are not without resources to apply a procedure which will be acceptable.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let me briefly deal with the second part of my case-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I certainly do not wish to interrupt the hon. member uselessly or needlessly but I would hope that the presentation could be as brief as possible, although I appreciate the importance of the matter. I trust that the hon. member will indicate as soon as possible the motion that he proposes to submit to the House.


Gerald William Baldwin: I shall do that very shortly, Mr. Speaker. I want to make it plain, as I indicated earlier in my argument, that not only is there a question of privilege-all the yowling and screaming from the other side will not prevent me from making my presentation-


Mr. Ricard:: The big mouth from St. Boniface (Mr. Guay).


Gerald William Baldwin: -but there is also an inherent right of this House to call witnesses before it, not necessarily witnesses
Business of the House
who are malefactors or have committed infractions against the privileges of this House but any witnesses. This is an inherent right of the House. This may be unusual but the facts are unusual and call for unusual treatment, especially when the Prime Minister saw fit yesterday-I think this is an issue which Your Honour cannot ignore-to refer to the Auditor General as a lawbreaker and to call upon this House to do something about it.
Our system provides or ought to provide for every person charged with some offence to appear and make his defence in the proper forum. I suggest to you, Sir, that every member of this House has the right in this day, with the continual encroachment of the executive, to have the opportunity to have the Auditor General appear at the bar of the House and make his explanation and indicate his position with regard to this very serious charge which has been laid and the effect it has on the rights of members of this House.
Before I read the motion I would once more call to Your Honour's attention the fact that in the final analysis this is a matter for the House to decide. I am not asking Your Honour to take upon yourself the responsibility of deciding whether the Auditor General should appear before the bar of this House. This is for the House. I would suggest, with the greatest respect, that Your Honour is limited to the question of whether a case has been made which would justify this procedure being adopted. Even if Your Honour does so with the full knowledge that it entails difficulties with regard to procedure, this is a matter for the House to consider and if the House, with full knowledge of what is involved, comes to this decision it is a right which the House should exercise.
I would therefore seek leave to move the following motion, seconded by the hon. member for Saint John-Lan-caster (Mr. Bell):
That the report of the Auditor General of Canada for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1971 not having been laid before this House as set out in the Financial Administration Act, and the Prime Minister of Canada having stated in this House that the Auditor General has broken the law, this House orders that the Auditor General of Canada appear before the bar of this House at a time within seven days of this order to be fixed by Mr. Speaker, there to explain to this House why the said report has not been tabled and there to have the opportunity to make his statement in respect of the said allegation.


Mr. Speaker:: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier at the opening of the House, there are a number of motions dealing with the same set of circumstances. I think it might be somewhat difficult to make a ruling in each particular instance and my thought is that all hon. members who have given notice of motions should be given an opportunity to make a brief presentation. Perhaps they might take into account, in making those presentations, that some of the facts have now been laid before the House by the hon. member for Peace River. I am not suggesting that all the motions are the same; I am sure they are all different and that they all take a different approach to the situation mentioned and the circumstances of the case. However, they do, basically, refer to the same set of circumstances and I think it would be in order for the Chair to hear hon. members who have given
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Business of the House
notice, subject to a ruling being made in due course. I recognize the hon. member for York South.



MR. LEWIS-DELAY IN TABLING AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT

Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief. I hope Your Honour will be able to permit me to present the context for the motion which I would move if Your Honour thought there was a prima facie case of privilege. My question of privilege arises out of a complaint by the Auditor General who says that he is prevented from performing his duty, a duty which he is required to carry out on behalf of the members of this House.
Mr. Speaker, it is the duty of this chamber to supervise and, indeed, to control public expenditures. The Auditor General is appointed by statute to examine the public accounts and to prepare a report which would enable the members of this chamber to carry out their duties with respect to supervising and controlling public expenditures. The allegation by the Auditor General that he is being prevented from carrying out his duty therefore clearly means that there is interference with the rights of all members of the House and, indeed, an interference with the duty of this parliament. Therefore it is a matter, in my respectful submission, of privilege concerning all members of the House and the very working of this House of Commons collectively.
The matter effectively came to our attention yesterday and also through reports in the press dealing with statements made by the Auditor General.
Permit me, Sir, to start with the obvious. Aside from our legislative duties as a House of Commons, there is no duty that is more important for members of this House to perform than the duty of watching over public expenditures.
I remind you, Sir, that the early history of the parliamentary system which we follow was essentially a history of struggle between the House of Commons and the Crown as to the authority to impose taxes, to collect taxes and to have control over public expenditures. Some heads rolled as a result of that struggle, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps it is time for political heads to roll now. I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that the result of that struggle, which is historically of immense importance, was that the duty to supervise public expenditures and to control the levying and collection of taxes was placed not in the Crown, not in the executive, not even in the House of Lords or in the Senate, but in the hands of the elected representatives of the people of Canada who sit in the House of Commons. I am reminding the House of these elementary facts because I believe that what is now happening with respect to the Auditor General ought to be placed and understood in that context.
May I also point out to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House that the duties and functions of the Auditor General are not merely to carry out a simple bookkeeping audit. Section 58, subsection (b) of the Financial Administration Act, for instance, requires the Auditor General to examine public expenditures and to report on whether in his opinion all public money has been fully accounted for, "and the rules and procedures applied are sufficient to

secure an effective check on the assessment, collection"- note these words-"and proper allocation of the revenue". Subsection (c) of that section requires the Auditor General to ascertain whether in his opinion "money has been expended for the purposes for which it was appropriated by Parliament, and the expenditures have been made as authorized."
Section 61 requires the Auditor General to report not merely on the accuracy of the bookkeeping, which is what the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) and the government would like him to do, but to report whether any appropriation was exceeded or was applied to a purpose or in a manner not authorized by parliament. Subsection (d) of that section says he must report whether an expenditure was not authorized or was not properly vouched or certified. He must say, under subsection (e), whether there has been a deficiency and so on. The final words of section 61 provide that the attention of parliament is to be drawn to any other case that the Auditor General considers should be brought to the notice of the House of Commons.
I think it is important that Your Honour-this is the reason I referred to these sections-should consider the duties laid on the Auditor General in the terms I have indicated briefly in order to underline the submission I am making, namely, that the Auditor General is required by statute to prepare, as it were, in detail a report on all aspects of public expenditure for the purpose of enabling members of parliament to do their duty as elected representatives of the people. That is the purpose of the Auditor General. The government has interfered with his performance of that duty. I say that on the basis of evidence we have had for a long time the government has in fact interfered with the performance of his duty. It has mischievously interfered and, the government having done that, it is important for members of the House to look into the matter.
I understand that the Auditor General may have sent a letter to the appropriate minister explaining the reasons for the late filing of the report. If that is so, the letter ought to have been tabled so we could all see it.
I am about to conclude, Mr. Speaker. I will not take more than another minute. I merely point out that the Auditor General, in speaking to the press, has indicated that his staff has been denigrated, that his office has not been given sufficient staff, that 40 of his staff members have resigned and 22 of them have accepted jobs in other government departments for more money than he is permitted to pay them. As I said yesterday, his arms and legs have been amputated and therefore he could not file his report in accordance with the deadline established by statute. I believe there has been mischievous interference, which leaves this whole question in doubt.
If Your Honour accepts the motion moved by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) and agrees that there is a prima facie case of privilege, I and my colleagues will be happy to support the hon. member's motion. But if the Auditor General appears before the bar of parliament, all that can happen-and I am not taking anything away from the motion of the hon. member for Peace River-is that the Auditor General will have an opportunity to make a statement, and there it has to end. I
March 9, 1972

feel that this matter requires more inquiry and more examination than that action alone can supply. Therefore, in addition to the suggestion of my hon. friend that the Auditor General be ordered to appear at the bar of the House I suggest that there ought to be a deeper investigation and inquiry into this situation. If, therefore, Your Honour thinks I have established a prima facie case of privilege I would move:
That the complaint of the Auditor General that the government has failed to provide him with such officers and employees as are necessary to enable him to perform his duties, as required by Section 56(4) of the Financial Administration Act, and his consequent failure to submit his report in time, be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and that the said committee hear the Auditor General and other witnesses and report its recommendations thereon not later than March 29.
If the government is carrying out its duties as it ought to, if it has nothing to hide, if it has the courage of the convictions which it constantly expresses, but in a hypocritical tones of which I am getting sick-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Lewis: -then the government will place such a motion before the House and I will be glad to support it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. members will appreciate that there is something a bit unusual about the procedure we are following this afternoon, but of course it is somewhat unusual to have all these notices about the same circumstances. However, having heard the hon. member for Peace River and the hon. member for York South, probably the best course of action to follow in the circumstances is to hear brief presentations from hon. members in support of their proposed motions. This will give an opportunity for the Chair to consider the matter in its broader aspects, in toto. Chronologically, the next motion of which the Chair received notice came from the hon. member for Annapolis Valley.



MR. NOWLAN-DELAY IN TABLING AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT

Mr. I. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to be brief, but the point is serious. It raises matters of substance which cannot be sloughed off by catcalls across the way. I did give notice for that reason and to anticipate the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) saying that this did not come to the attention of the House at the earliest possible moment.
I was in the House yesterday, Mr. Speaker. Frankly, I could not believe what I thought my ears had heard. It was only when I saw the printed record of this institution that I obtained confirmation of the allegation by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), an allegation without foundation in the parliamentary annals of the House of Commons, be it on this or the other side of the Atlantic, the Commons across the way that is commonly called the Mother of Parliaments.
Neither the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) nor the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis) referred directly to the words used by the Prime Minister. They
Business of the House
were an insult to my eyes when I read the printed page. I have tried to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt in the first reference to illegality alleged against the Auditor General when, in answer to a question, the Prime Minister said, as recorded at page 635 of Hansard:
-if an officer of Parliament is breaking the law-
In effect he said, don't ask me why he is breaking the law. By innuendo there is a suggestion that the Auditor General is breaking the law, but you cannot raise a question of privilege in this institution where innuendo and imputation are sometimes the order of the day. But in answer to the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Hark-ness) the Prime Minister, still conditional and still philosophizing, said:
If parliament wants to condone his breaking the law and not do anything about it-
Thereby the innuendo is removed and by direct reference the Prime Minister is suggesting that the Auditor General is breaking the law of the land. If he is breaking the law of the land, then we can come before Your Honour with a question of privilege.
I suggest this is serious because there are only three servants of this House of Commons-the Chief Electoral Officer, the Official Languages Commissioner and the Auditor General. They are beyond appointment by any department and in their respective capacities and areas of competence are the conscience of this parliament. We are not going to talk about elections and the Chief Electoral Officer, but that is pretty fundamental to the law of the land. This does not involve an area of culture that is part of the history of this land, a responsibility of the Official Languages Commissioner. We are dealing in terms of auditing facts and figures, the power of the purse. The Auditor General is in fact the ombudsman of the purse of Canadian taxpayers from coast to coast.
To suggest even casually that the Auditor General is in breach of the law deserves and demands rebuke, Mr. Speaker. Parliament is the conscience of the land. If this Commons is painted with illegality, how can it discharge the responsibility of being the conscience of the land? The voice in the wilderness across the way is why there is such a thing as privilege. You have to start tying matters down to rules. Whether the Prime Minister likes it or not, there are rules and regulations which governed this institution long before he came here and will govern it long after he is gone.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: My question of privilege arises from the fact that there is a reflection on the dignity of this House. There are three parts to my question of privilege. I am not going through some of the travesties which have been attached to the dignity of the House by words that have been said both in and out of the House and allegations about the status of members. They have had a deleterious effect on the dignity of this House and on the House discharging its duties. When you have accusations of partiality and discourtesy against members of this House, when you have libels against members of this House that in effect concern the character and conduct of members of the House-

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Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member should relate his remarks to the situation now before the House. I do not think it is competent upon him to review the general situation which may have inspired his comments. I think as much as possible he should try to limit his remarks to what is now before us.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I am very directly relating my remarks to the situation that arose yesterday. I have tried to lay some foundation in a general historical way for the edification of members abroad. I am not going into the history of why this institution arose to fight the King and obtained the right to impose levies despite what the Crown wanted to do. Coming to today, I am dealing with the dignity of the House in three ways.
According to Beauchesne, when there were accusations of partiality and discourtesy in the past or libels against members that in effect reflected on the conduct or character of members, or scandalous charges or imputations directed against members, these were always found to be a breach of privilege. I am transposing "members" to one of the main servants of the House of Commons. I am asking Your Honour to find that, when there are allegations of partiality, discourtesy or illegality, surely this raises a question of privilege. When there has been a reflection not against the character or conduct of a member but against the character or conduct of one of the three main servants of parliament, surely there is a potential point of privilege. Even more important, without referring to all the references to occasions when scandalous charges or imputations have been directed against members of the House of Commons-Your Honour is more familiar with Beauchesne than I-one need only look to page 98, paragraph 102, of Beauchesne which states that when there are imputations and scandalous charges against members of a select committee you in effect have a point of privilege.
In conclusion, when the Prime Minister of this land, the leader of this government, alleges illegality against one of the three servants of this institution, you have ipso facto a point of privilege. I support the motion of the hon. member for Peace River-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member was given the floor for the purpose of proposing a motion. It is well known that on a question of privilege hon. members are given an opportunity to propose their motions and indicate their question of privilege. There is no debate, the responsibility being cast by members on the Chair to decide whether there is a prima facie case of privilege. I do not think it is in order for a member to give notice to the Chair and then to sit down having said he supports a motion proposed by some other hon. member. The hon. member has given notice and I heard him for that purpose. I do not want to make things difficult for the hon. member. On the other hand, I would not want to establish a precedent that members can simply give notice for the purpose of supporting some other motion proposed by another member. I shall not press the matter further.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: With all respect and due deference to the Chair, I was coming to the point where I was going to

make a separate motion. I not only support the motion moved by the hon. member for Peace River, but I move that the Prime Minister admit the impropriety of his remark and that he withdraw it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.



MR. KNOWLES (WINNIPEG NORTH CENTRE)-DELAY IN TABLING AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to indicate my support for the contention of the leader of this party, the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis), that if there has been any breaking of the law it is to be found in the failure of the government to carry out the provisions of section 56(4) of the Financial Administration Act.
However, I too have sent Your Honour notice of my intention to raise a question of privilege because I feel that there is a distinct aspect of this matter that should be considered. As Your Honour has pointed out to us many times, the whole question of privilege is a very difficult one, and the Chair is not supposed to find that there is a prima facie case of privilege unless it can be shown that the privileges of a member or of members of the House of Commons have been offended. It is my contention that this is what has been done. I contend that our privileges have been attacked and therefore, something should be done about it.
In what way do I contend that our privileges have been attacked? Let me put it this way. The Auditor General is an officer of the parliament of Canada. He is responsible to this House. He is also responsible to the other place, but that is by the by; he is responsible to us. I contend that when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), the leader of this House, makes statements on the floor of the House, statements which in turn are carried in the press, to the effect that an officer of this House is a lawbreaker, that he failed to keep the law, and that this action on his part is being condoned by parliament, then we are involved in the making of charges against an officer of this House, charges in which we have had no say.
It is not just a case of a backbencher standing up and saying something that is unfair, cruel or untrue of an officer of this House; it is a case of the leader of this House standing in his place and saying that an officer of this House has broken the law. I contend, therefore, that we should have the opportunity to express ourselves on the contention of the Prime Minister.
I believe that the way for us to resolve this matter now is to hear from the Auditor General, to hear from this person who is an officer of this House. I think, therefore, that he should be given an opportunity of telling us why he has not been able to file his annual report on time.
I am in general sympathy with the motion presented by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), and if Your Honour allows that motion my colleagues and I shall certainly support it. But I do feel a little bit unhappy about the way in which the motion seems to order the Auditor General here, as though he had done something wrong. I think that the way in which it should be put is
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that the Auditor General, having been attacked in this House by the Prime Minister, should be given the right, the opportunity, to appear before this House to tell us why he has not been able to file his report on time. Then and only then would it be possible for this House to make a decision whether or not the Auditor General has broken the law.
I repeat, Sir, that I feel we do have the quality of privilege in what I am presenting to the Chair at the present time. The members of this House have had their reputations damaged because they sit here having been spoken for by the Prime Minister, who has made statements that they do not support and in which they have had no part whatsoever.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, if you find that I have a question of privilege I would be happy to move:
That the Auditor General of Canada, having been accused by the Prime Minister of non-compliance with the law respecting the filing of his annual report, be permitted to appear before the bar of the House of Commons for the purpose of stating the reasons for his not having been able to file his report within the time specified in the Financial Administration Act.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has also received notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Egmont.



MR. MACDONALD (EGMONT)-DELAY IN TABLING AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT

Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the House is waiting breathlessly. I think that much of this present discussion would be unnecessary for the members of the House had the government, throughout its brief history in office, acted properly with respect to this important officer of the House. As in all things within the ambit of a question of privilege, there is a fair bit of discretion put in the hands of the Speaker. It has been a well known fact that through the centuries of traditions and the functioning of parliament questions of privilege must relate, when they are raised, to the context of the day. I think the very real context of the discussion being pursued at the present moment relates to the well known attitude of this government toward the functions of the Auditor General.
Perhaps the verbal indiscretion yesterday afternoon of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) would have been accepted simply as that had we not had the previous experience of dealing with legislation in this House that obviously was out to muzzle and to limit the powers of the Auditor General. The position is made clear in Bourinot's Rules of Order, page 40, and I should like to quote from that page briefly:
Questions of privilege cover a wide range, but it may be stated in general terms that they refer to all matters affecting the rights and immunities of the House collectively, or to the position and conduct of members in their representative character. In other words, a breach of privilege is a wilful disregard by a member or any other person of the dignity and lawful authority of parliament.
With regard to matters affecting the rights and immunities of the House collectively, it is indeed difficult to think of questions of privilege that would more directly affect the collective rights and responsibilities of this House than the disposition of public funds. Surely this is of even greater importance today in view of the recent changes
Business of the House
that have been made in the rules which effectively restrict the competence of the House to deal with the estimates that are regularly before us. The House has already been limited, through the alteration of these rules, in regard to its control of the estimates.
Now we have seen, through the information conveyed to us by the Prime Minister yesterday, that the Auditor General, in his function as watchdog of the public purse, is being even more severely restricted. Surely a debate on this matter should not be necessary at all. It has already been suggested by the leader of this House that the Auditor General is breaking the law. When that kind of statement is made within this chamber, there is no recourse to a higher court. Members are placed in the difficult situation of being informed by the leader of this House that one of its own statutes is being wilfully broken by an officer of this House.
Surely it is of the utmost importance that hon. members of this Chamber be allowed to reach a decision on this important question. What is being asked for in this instance is not so much a decision from Your Honour as to the desirability or otherwise of having such a motion brought before the House; what is obviously necessary is that we should be allowed to reach a decision on such an important question. How can this chamber continue to function day after day and week after week if there is no opportunity for us either to confirm or discount the validity of the statement made yesterday by the Prime Minister? Surely it makes a mockery of the stewardship we are supposed to exercise in this place. Nothing is more basic-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member indicated in his opening remarks that he intended to be brief. He should indicate as soon as possible the nature of his question of privilege. The hon. member is now making the kind of speech which would normally be made if there were a debate on the question of privilege. I hope he will take into consideration the fact that other hon. members have been brief in their presentations and have not wandered too far from the motions they propose to make. I trust the hon. member for Egmont will indicate as soon as possible what his motion is.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Before I do that, before I indicate the nature of my motion, may I say this? The Prime Minister made it very clear that if an officer of parliament was breaking the law an hon. member should not ask the Prime Minister why he is breaking the law; he should address that question to the officer of parliament concerned. Surely there is only one context in which this can take place, namely, in the House of Commons. What is being sought is an opportunity for the House to make that decision. I believe there is here a question of privilege based both on deliberate interference with the Auditor General's ability to carry out his responsibilities plus the fact the Prime Minister has indicated he is presently breaking the law. I believe we should put the motion in order to clarify this situation.
If Your Honour rules there is a prima facie case of privilege, I would be prepared to move:

March 9, 1972
Business of the House
That this House make available to the Auditor General such resources as are necessary for the fulfilment of his legislative mandate.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has now heard from the hon. members who have given notice under the terms of Standing Order 17. I am not sure whether the President of the Privy Council indicated earlier that he wanted to make some comments from a strictly procedural standpoint. If he is prepared to do so, this is as far as the Chair would be prepared to go. I will hear the minister and then take the matter under advisement.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, if I had been shaking in my boots at the possible damage to the government which might be inflicted by this issue, I have been totally relieved by the contradictory and discordant effort which has been made on the part of the opposition to find ways of attacking the government and of attempting to solve the problem.
The Conservative party alone has three different proposals as to the manner in which the House ought to deal with what is claimed to be a question of privilege. The hon. member for Peace River says: take the Auditor General to the bar of the House. The hon. member for Annapolis Valley says: apologize, Prime Minister. The hon. member for Egmont has unleashed an unfocused chorus of vocal frustration, ending by letting the cat out of the bag and placing an ordinary substantive motion before the House. If there was any doubt whether this matter involves privilege it has been clearly dispelled by the motions which have been proposed. At least three of them are substantive motions which can only be heard upon normal notice being given and which do not raise any question of privilege at all.
The hon. member for York South proposed that this matter go to a committee. He made a reasonable defence of that proposal. He wanted a deep examination of the facts. He wanted, really, to know whether there was justification for the complaints which have been made by the Auditor General. He must, at least, have an open mind because he wanted to have a complete examination carried out by a standing committee.
His deskmate, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), really did not accept the lead of his leader. He favoured a modified version of the Peace River proposal. He said: Come to the bar, Auditor General, but please come; we do not order you to come but come at our gentle invitation.
The question of legality has been raised. A number of the comments made suggested that the question of privilege rested on words uttered by the Prime Minister yesterday. My foundation for that statement is the particular comments made by the hon. member for Annapolis Valley and the words used in the motion of the hon. member for Peace River. The matter has been alluded to less directly by other hon. members. I would resubmit my argument that if the words uttered by the Prime Minister involved a matter of privilege then the matter ought to have been raised instantly. In fact, it was-almost-raised instantly by the hon. member for York South. And it was disposed of by the House.


Mr. Speaker:: I have to interrupt the minister for a moment. I believe the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond wishes to rise on a point of order. I hope we can resolve this matter without too many points of order and further questions of privilege.


Mr. Maclnnis:: Mr. Speaker, I raise the same point of order as the leader of the House tried to raise earlier in the debate. My point of order can be substantiated by your own remarks as recorded in Hansard when the Prime Minister and the hon. member for York South were engaged in an exchange in the House. The Prime Minister definitely said that the hon. member for York South was twisting his words and you, Sir, made at that time no ruling on a question of privilege but asked the hon. members, as you will see from the record of the House, to avoid any further exchanges on the basis that they were not contributing anything to the debate. There was therefore no ruling on any question of privilege yesterday.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps we might try to make further progress. We have been engaged on this matter for over an hour now. I would hope we might go on soon with the business of the House on the understanding that I will take into consideration all the points which have been expressed, including the point of order raised by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I was stating that if the comments made by the Prime Minister were complained of, then under the rules it was the obligation of hon. members to raise the matter at that time. In fact the hon. member for York South did raise the matter under a question of privilege. So it is my submission it would not be possible to raise that matter again at this time under the guise of privilege. As a matter of fact, my position is supported by what happened earlier in the week and particularly by the question the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Harkness) addressed to the Prime Minister on March 6, 1972, as recorded at page 541 of Hansard. The hon. member for Calgary Centre put this question:
Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. Since the Financial Administration Act provides that the report of the Auditor General shall be laid before the House of Commons by the minister on or before December 31 or, if parliament is not then in session, within 15 days after the commencement of the next ensuing session, and since this is the eighteenth day of the present session, why has this report not been laid before parliament. What excuse, if any, is there for this breach of the law?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: So, the first reference-


Mr. Harkness:: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I wonder whether it is the intention of hon. members that we should have a debate for the rest of the day on this subject. If we are to pursue points of order and questions of privilege, that might be the easiest decision to make. I think we should try to bring the matter to an early conclusion. We have heard from hon. members. The President of the Privy Council should
March 9, 1972

have the right to rise and state his views and I certainly will listen to him with the same patience, forbearance and understanding with which I have listened to other hon. members. I gather the hon. member for Calgary Centre wishes to rise on a question of privilege. Perhaps I might be allowed to suggest that it is difficult to have a further question of privilege when we have one already before the House, but with the consent of hon. members we might allow the hon. member for Calgary Centre to indicate what he has in mind.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I think the statement which has been made by the President of the Privy Council does give rise to a question of privilege but so far as I am concerned I would be quite happy, if it would be your desire, to wait until the President of the Privy Council has finished and then raise my question of privilege on what he said. The reason I rise at this moment is that I believe the rules provide that one is supposed to do so immediately. Mr. Speaker, I wait for your direction.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I will allow the hon. member for Calgary Centre to indicate his grievance, point of order or question of privilege and then we will try to end the discussion with the last concluding words from the President of the Privy Council. I think we should get on with the other business of the House. I would not try to minimize the importance of this subject but perhaps we have heard most of the points of view and aspects of the situation. The hon. member for Calgary Centre.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, when I asked what I thought was a perfectly innocent question I did not expect I would open the sort of debate on various points which has ensued. However, my point of privilege is that I did not as a matter of fact accuse the Auditor General, as now implied by the President of the Privy Council and I think by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) yesterday, of being in breach of the law.


An hon. Member:: Head it.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As recorded at page 541 of Hansard I read the relevant section that the President of the Privy Council has just read from the Financial Administration Act which states that the report of the Auditor General shall be laid before the House of Commons by the minister on or before December 31 or, if parliament is not then in session, within 15 days after the commencement of the next ensuing session. Then I asked, since this is the 18th day of the present session, why has this report not been laid before parliament and what excuse if any, is there for this breach of the law?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, it is quite evident-


An hon. Member:: It sure is.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -that there has been a breach of the law.
Business of the House


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member should be given an opportunity to complete his remarks.


Douglas Scott Harkness: It is quite evident there has been a breach of the law-


Mr. Trudeau:: Say that again.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -but the breach of the law so far as this section is concerned is on the part of the minister. I might say that had I been sure which minister it was I would have asked him the question directly. At one time it was the Minister of Finance. I think now it is the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury), but I do not know. The President of the Treasury Board shakes his head. For that reason and because the Prime Minister is the responsible head of the government I directed the question to him. In any event, so far as this section of the act is concerned I think it is quite clear that the person who is in breach of the law is the minister who I take it now is the Minister of Finance.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It seems to me that the hon. member has made his point. I wonder again whether there is any point in pursuing the matter further. The hon. member rose on a question of privilege. He has indicated what his grievance is. It seems to me we should co-operate with one another in an effort to bring this interesting debate to a close.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I have just one more point to make, if I may. I think the minister was in breach of the law not only because he did not place the report before parliament but also, not having been in a position to do so, he should have put before parliament the reasons the report was not presented and then all of this would not have been raised.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Douglas Scott Harkness: It is because the minister-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We are obviously debating the issue. We could continue this argument for a long time this afternoon, but I invite hon. members to permit the Chair to try to bring the matter to an end. I will listen to the President of the Privy Council briefly and then indicate what the ruling might be.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I think we have made considerable progress because the hon. member has indicated what he intended-


An hon. Member:: What he said. Read it.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I must say that the question of privilege was raised by the hon. member after I had finished reading his question without any further comment or conclusion on my part on it. My point is now-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Again I suggest to hon. members that if this is the kind of House they want we

March 9, 1972
Business of the House
could go on eternally. I think there is a responsibility on both sides of the House to try to bring this matter under control. I invite the President of the Privy Council to indicate as soon as possible what the point is that he wants to make. He has had the floor now for some time.


Donald MacInnis: I am rising on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Why don't you go home?


Donald MacInnis: Keep on braying. Since I have been recognized by the Chair I do not intend to compete with the braying on the other side.
The House leader is now trying to mislead every member of the House by saying that he read the question of the hon. member for Calgary Centre and made no comment. The record will show that the House leader clearly made comments on the very statement he read into the record.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I will advise hon. members that I will allow the President of the Privy Council to conclude his remarks briefly. I will hear no further about this matter. It is just as simple as that.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: May I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, in all seriousness, that the opposition parties put up five members on this subject who continued until well after three o'clock. From the moment I rose to my feet I have occupied only a small part of the time. It has been mainly occupied by members of the opposition. I ask Your Honour to reconsider whether it is fair to this side of the House to ask me, in light of the time elapsed, to conclude my remarks briefly.


Mr. Speaker:: I think it is fair and I invite the President of the Privy Council to do so.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think it should be clear that I did not ask the President of the Privy Council to resume his seat. I asked him to be as brief as possible in concluding his remarks. I did not intend to suggest that the remarks of the President of the Privy Council were finished. I would not have wanted to do this because I do want to take into account that there have been five contributors from the left of the Chair on the question of privilege and it would be unfair to the President of the Privy Council if I were not to allow him to say what he has in mind. However, I would suggest to him that he should speak as briefly as possible, and I am asking him to do what I asked other members to do when they made their contributions to the question of privilege.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I appreciate your admonition and I will attempt to conclude my remarks as briefly as possible in a much shorter time than has been used by the opposition. I believe that the hon. member for Calgary Centre was the first person in the House this week to allude to a breach of the law. There is no question about that. The second person, in my study of Hansard, who has not used those

words but who raised the subject in the context was the Right Hon. Robert L. Stanfield, Leader of the Opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I am following the mistake that was made the other day on his radio program.


Mr. Aiken:: It is a forecast, not a mistake.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: He said:
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister who undertook on Monday, I believe, to investigate why the report of the Auditor General had not been tabled in the House within the time required by law.
I think that is a totally neutral statement. It is a fact that the report of the Auditor General has not been tabled in the House in the time required by the law. The hon. member for Calgary Centre said that the minister has breached the law. He is a fair hon. member and he should ask himself whether that is a fair charge against the minister that he breached the law by failing to table the report which had not been provided to him under the terms of the same law by the Auditor General.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Douglas Scott Harkness: I said a few minutes ago that he might well have had a good excuse.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The Prime Minister then referred to the same matter and referred obviously to the breaking of the law. There is no doubt in anybody's mind that the law has not been complied with. It is not the first time that the law has not been complied with in respect of the tabling of the Auditor General's report. This is the sixth year in succession that the Auditor General's report has not been tabled under the terms required by the law.


Some hon. Members:: Why?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I ask you, Mr. Speaker-and I am coming to a conclusion-why has the matter become a question of privilege in its sixth year and not in its first, second, third, fourth or fifth years? Those are the facts, and at no other time has this House raised a question of privilege.
I make a final concluding point, Mr. Speaker, and it is this: it is suggested-and I will not go beyond that-that the Auditor General-let me put it in the most neutral way because I do not want to denigrate in any way the post of the Auditor General.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It is not my intention and it is not the intention of the government to do that. We want to cooperate with his work in the greatest possible way. So let me say it has been suggested that the report has not been tabled, that the law has not been complied with because facilities have not been made available to the Auditor General. That is the contention. We on this side do not accept the validity of that contention.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
March 9, 1972


Allan Joseph MacEachen: We regard it as a matter of debate, of dispute, and not a matter of privilege. But in order to ensure that the facts are studied properly and in the proper form we are ready to accept the motion put by the hon. member for York South. If he will agree and the House will agree to accept this motion and to send the matter to the committee without debate, the inquiry can start tomorrow.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We may be going beyond the point of the question of privilege or the procedural aspects of the question of privilege. I would not want hon. members to become involved in a debate when it has not yet been determined that there should be such a debate. I would certainly hope that the President of the Privy Council will again limit his contribution to the strictly procedural aspect of the matter. Having said that, I am not sure how far we should go in responding to the comments just made by the President of the Privy Council, whether there should be further points of order, further questions of privilege. Perhaps it might be wise to allow the matter to rest at this point.


Mr. Guay (St. Boniface):: That's a commitment, Bob.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Is the hon. member for York South rising on a point of order?


David Lewis: I am rising on a point of order, but very briefly, Mr. Speaker. We are happy to accept the government's belated arrangement, which it should have taken the initiative in proposing.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I will allow the hon. member just one moment because we certainly cannot get involved in a debate now on which motions are acceptable and which motions are not acceptable. That would be unfair to other hon. members who have placed motions before the Chair and on which no ruling has been made. I believe the hon. member says that his point of order is coming to a conclusion. I will hear him to that conclusion.


David Lewis: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I was merely going to conclude, having said we would be glad to accept that, as I am sure other members would, by asking the minister whether now, or on motions, he will carry out his acceptance of my motion and move it today?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I said that this should be without debate because we have other government business before the House. If we can pass it without debate, as I stated, then I will put the motion on motions.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Agreed.
669
Public Accounts



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Allan ]. MacEachen (President of the Privy Council): Mr. Speaker, I would like to move, seconded by the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis):
That the complaint of the Auditor General that the government has failed to provide him with such officers and employees as are necessary to enable him to perform his duties, as required by section 56(4) of the Financial Administration Act, and his consequent failure to submit his report in time, be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and that the said committee hear the Auditor General and other witnesses and report its recommendations thereon not later than March 29.
Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. For a long time now I have been threatening hon. members with the possibility of a motion from the government under Standing Order 43, and apparently this is what we are getting at this time. Hon. members have heard the motion. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, we are very happy to accept the motion on the understanding, of course, that you are still going to consider the questions of privilege that have been raised.


Mr. Speaker:: Of course the hon. member will realize that I will consider the questions of privilege, but at the same time, to be very honest, I would think that if this motion were accepted by the House it might have an influence, not an undue influence but some kind of influence, on the consideration of the matter by the Chair. I think it would certainly not be honest on my part to say that this would not be one of the factors considered by the Chair in deciding whether there is a matter of privilege before the House. I do not say it is the only matter that would be given consideration. I would certainly give every consideration to all aspects of the matters referred to by hon. members. I think that assurance can be given by the Chair, but I really think the Chair should not be involved in this at all. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The motion is carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint lohn-Lancaster):: Mr. Speaker, after that successful effort I would like to try a motion under Standing Order 43. The matter is the impasse in

March 9, 1972
Manpower
contract negotiations between the CBC management and the National Association of Broadcasting Employees and Technicians, which is seriously and presently affecting the public interest by preventing the broadcast of National Hockey League games on our national television service. With the consent of the House I will move, seconded by the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Simpson):
This House urges the government to act forthwith to put into immediate effect the conciliation board recommendations and such further concessions as the CBC management may have since offered, and to instruct the CBC management to negotiate in good faith thereafter with the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians with a view to the settlement of any matters then in dispute. And this House further urges that if the CBC management and the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians fail to conclude a settlement within three days after such instruction is given, the government take measures to establish procedures for effecting a settlement and for broadcasting National Hockey League games on our national television service.
I hope that the poor people in Toronto get their Saturday night broadcast, even though I am a Montreal fan.


Mr. Speaker:: Hon. members have heard the motion proposed by the hon. member for Saint John-Lancaster. The motion requires consent in the same way as the previous motion. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to advise the hon. member that unfortunately there is not unanimity. This interesting motion cannot be put.



MANPOWER


Hon. Martin P. O'Connell (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 41(2) I wish to table copies of the letters of recommendation, appreciation and endorsement relating to the Process Church of the Final Judgment, pursuant to the request made by the hon. member for Oxford on March 6.


Mr. Nesbitt:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wish to point out that there was some disturbance in the House. I am sorry that I was unable to hear the minister.


Mr. Speaker:: My understanding is that the minister referred to a motion. Would the minister repeat the motion? I believe it alluded to an exchange with the hon. member for Oxford, and he ought to be given an opportunity to understand what the motion was.


Mr. O'Connell:: Mr. Speaker, I was just tabling under Standing Order 41(2) copies of letters of recommendation and endorsement concerning the Process Church of the Final Judgment as requested by the hon. member for Oxford.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: I thank the minister.



GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS


Hon. lean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Industry. Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, in keeping with the practice adopted two years ago and further to the wish expressed by Your Honour to expedite the distribution of the Statistics Canada publication entitled "Canada", it is my pleasure to table, in both languages, copies of this publication.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. I would like to ask the minister whether he has received any communication from the Auditor General relating to the preparation and presentation Of the Auditor General's report to parliament for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1971, and, if so, what form of communication?


Hon. lohn N. Turner (Minister of Finance):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have. As hon. members know, the Auditor General is an officer of parliament and has a duty under the Financial Administration Act to table annually his report. That report is tabled through the Minister of Finance who has the duty to table the report if, as, and when he receives it. I talked to Mr. Henderson this morning and advised him of the possibility that his letter to me of March 7 might well be called for by hon. members of the House. In that letter he advised me of being unable to hand me his annual report before the month of May. I replied to his letter this morning, March 9, and I would be perfectly willing, with the consent of the House, to table that correspondence in view of what has transpired.


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the letter in question is not too long whether it might not be placed in Hansard.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I believe the hon. member for Peace River has a supplementary question.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, unless the letter is of inordinate length it might well be placed in the record of Hansard, or attached to Hansard.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, since the matter has been referred to a committee the proper incorporation might be in the minutes of that committee.
March 9, 1972



RESEARCH


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister arising out of the report of CALURA, the report under the act requiring corporations and labour unions to make certain returns, and arising out of the fact that the report shows that Canadian controlled companies obtained 7 per cent of their research and development funds from federal government sources and that foreign owned companies received 23 per cent of the funds spent on research and development. Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether this discrepancy between Canadian and foreign owned companies with respect to government grants in the field of research and development is consistent with the existing government policy in the field of foreign ownership and in development and research.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can answer this question but in order to do so properly I would have to make certain qualifications. First of all, the statistics quoted by the Globe and Mail are not exact; it is 19 per cent, not 23 per cent. Secondly, the figure given by Statistics Canada does not cover the whole of the research and development. For example, 1RDIA grants are not included, and under that program Canadian-owned companies do much better than American-owned companies in Canada. Thirdly, the figures do not take into account research and development done by American-Canadian owned companies outside Canada, and this would be an important factor. All of these factors would have to be taken into account in order to make a proper assessment of what the situation is. Basically, the answer is that one day the opposition complains that American-owned companies are not doing enough research in Canada and the next day, as today, they complain that they are getting more government funds as they are doing more research-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think the hon. minister would agree that he is now debating the issue. The hon. member for York South on a supplementary.



RELATIONSHIP OF DEFENCE CONTRACTS TO ALLOCATION OF FUNDS

David Lewis: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, I cannot debate that question with the minister, but may I ask him whether one of the reasons for the way in which funds are decided is related to defence contracts? Is that the area in which the foreign owned corporations do more?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, defence is one of the areas where American owned companies in Canada do more research and development than Canadian owned companies. Generally speaking, a lot of the American companies research in Canada is in the more technologically sophisticated area of Canadian industry and my department
25020-43*
Inquiries of the Ministry
gives grants without reference or discrimination concerning the ownership of the company. As they do more, they get more research funds.



ELECTIONS


David Lewis: May I have a further supplementary which I should like to address to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that the government, for one reason or another, has not introduced and is not proposing to introduce in this session any legislation dealing with election expenses, is the government considering or would the government consider introducing an amendment to the act requiring both labour unions and corporations to report their contributions to political parties and candidates?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I shall look at the suggestion of the hon. member, Mr. Speaker.



AUDITOR GENERAL


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: I have a question for the Minister of Finance supplementary to the one asked by the hon. Leader of the Opposition. Since the Auditor General is a servant of this House, has the minister given any thought to having the Auditor General report to the House of Commons through the Speaker who would then determine the total budgetary requirements of the Auditor General? In this way the Auditor General would be free to establish rates of pay and other conditions of employment for his staff, as well as the size of his establishment, provided he stayed within his budget. This could well eliminate the present impasse.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, how the Auditor General should report is a matter for Parliament to decide, because he is an officer of this House. Perhaps any representations should be made to the committee which will hear this matter.



DATE OF PUBLICATION OF RESULTS

Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
May I ask him whether the results of the 1971 census will be published shortly?

March 9, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, the census report will be divided into several stages and I do not remember them all. Some figures will be issued in April, others in June, and others in July. If my hon. friend would wait a while I could supply him with the dates when we expect to receive various parts of the census results.



MANPOWER


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I put a question to the Minister of Labour regarding eligibility for LIP grants. The minister replied that he was not sure of the answer but would look into the matter. The question was whether non-Canadian citizens who did not become landed immigrants would be eligible for grants. Is the minister in a position to give an answer today?


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, two circumstances prevail. In the case of sponsors, the requirement is that if they are receiving remuneration they must conform with the laws of Canada. That is spelled out. They must be either citizens, landed immigrants or if neither of those, they must have work permits. The same would apply for persons employed on a project. They must be citizens or landed immigrants or have work permits. The question of citizenship is not directly asked. The requirement is that all employees be paid and sponsors conform to all the laws of the competent authority, and that includes the labour laws.


Mr. Speaker:: I shall allow the hon. member's supplementary but I think I should draw to the attention of hon. members that I shall attempt to recognize some of those who were not recognized yesterday. I think they can identify themselves or perhaps go back to Hansard and see whether or not they were reported yesterday. I shall make the effort today to recognize some of those who were not given the opportunity to ask questions yesterday. For the moment, the hon. member for Oxford may ask a supplementary.



LOCAL INITIATIVES PROGRAM-REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION OF PARTICIPANTS IN CERTAIN TORONTO PROJECTS

['Order, please. The Chair will return to the subject in a moment. The hon. member for Regina East and other hon. members are anxious to ask further supplementaries, but in fairness to other members the Chair will first recognize the hon. member for Lotbiniere.']
Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Will the minister undertake to investigate the LIP projects in Toronto which have been under discussion lately, both in this House and outside, in order to ascertain whether all the recipients come within the three categories that he has just mentioned, and will he report to the House?


Abram Ernest Epp: I do not
think I shall give that undertaking, Mr. Speaker. I do not understand these opposition attacks on Toronto. I would invite the opposition member to be specific with respect to any project that he thinks does not conform. I do not propose to terrorize the city of Toronto.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Mr. Speaker, I cannot have the minister twisting my words like that.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member rises on a point of order. I will recognize him. Certainly, I agree with the hon. member that that is debate.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the hon. minister, who is new at his job and until now has been very agreeable, would take this opportunity of clearly twisting my words-although perhaps he does not hear very well-by stating that I am making attacks on the city of Toronto. The minister knows perfectly well the projects that I have in mind. They have been mentioned time and again in this House, in the press and everywhere. I hope the minister will reconsider his remarks.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I hope we do not have the same situation as we had yesterday when most of the 40 minutes were taken up with points of order. That is why I have an obligation today to many hon. members who were not recognized yesterday, including the hon. member for Greenwood.


Mr. Brewin:: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I apologize to the hon. member. The hon. member for Gander-Twillingate rises on a question of privilege.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Lundrigan:: I hope Your Honour will give me at least a minute in view of. the fact that we have taken two hours today on questions of privilege. The fact is we have asked about a $150 million program brought into effect on October 1. I have had calls todajr from people who received $20,000 cheques in the mail with no strings attached. They could use the money to go to Spain as far as the government is concerned. We have a responsibility, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that there is at least some control and some evaluation of the procedures to make sure this money is well spent.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. What that has to do with a point of order is beyond the comprehension of the Speaker. This is debate. There are many opportunities for debating these points. This is what I have tried to point out to hon. members. Certainly, we are not using the question period the way it ought to be used if we spend five or ten minutes on every question. I am not condemning any individual member because I appreciate that the hon. minister himself gave a response which gave rise to debate. However, we are certainly not helping hon. members who are trying to ask questions if we raise these questions of privilege or points of order. The hon. member may have a valid point and I will recognize him in a moment for a question, if he wants to ask one.
March 9, 1972


John Howard Lundrigan: Mr. Speaker, I had almost finished my remarks. I certainly want to say, in view of the attack by the minister on the legitimate efforts of members of the opposition to ensure that there is some control of government spending of this money, that I request the minister, on behalf of the opposition to withdraw those remarks which are unfair.


Mr. Speaker:: This is obviously debate. There is no precedent to indicate that this kind of remark ought to be withdrawn, either by the minister or an individual member. I will again recognize the hon. member for Greenwood.



Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In light of the recent announcement by CIDA that the total Canadian contribution for emergency relief for refugees in India and Bangla Desh amounts to $11.5 million out of a total allocation of $20 million, and in light of reliable reports to the effect that there is immediate urgency for transportation and communication, has consideration been given by the government for emergency action to provide STOL aircraft, locomotives, bridges and technical equipment, in order to prevent an even greater disaster in Bangla Desh?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary oi State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, so long as I am not misunderstood, the answer to the question is, yes. Consideration has been given to this possibility, although our resources in this field are not as good as in other fields and we are not as well situated as some other countries to provide this kind of help. However, the President of CIDA is going to Dacca during his trip to the subcontinent and will investigate the question directly.


Mr. Robert Simpson (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice in relation to his responsibilities in answering for the Canadian Wheat Board. I should like to ask, in relation to the recent announcement by the minister of a sale of grain to Russia, whether or not substantial quantities of this grain will be shipped through the port of Churchill this coming shipping season?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows from the announcement of the sale, the option was given to the buyer of taking a certain quantity of this grain through the port of Churchill. The
Inquiries of the Ministry
Wheat Board, of course, tries to accommodate buyers in every possible way, and the decision as to how much in the end will be taken through that port is largely up to the buyer.


Robert Simpson: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the Wheat Board has indicated from time to time that it is interested in moving substantial quantities of grain out of the port of Churchill, would the minister co-operate by trying to influence his colleague, the Minister of Transport, to carry out the very necessary dredging program at Churchill this summer. The lack of these facilities is probably one reason the Russians have not taken greater advantage of the port of Churchill.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That is not a supplementary question but, rather, a representation to the minister.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Justice, in his capacity as answering for the Wheat Board, whether the Wheat Board has temporarily withdrawn offers for the sale of grain to other nations. Could the minister give the House the reason for this situation?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the Wheat Board is, of course, continuing to make sales of grain for future delivery over certain periods. I understand that because sales already made have taxed the port of Vancouver to its limit, the Wheat Board may have ceased offering deliveries for a particular period of time to particular countries.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the answer given by the minister that this year new sales have not been accepted, or will not be accepted for particular periods of time through Vancouver, is the government giving consideration to cleaning new grain at the inland terminals or expanding the facilities at Vancouver, so that these additional sales are not lost to grain farmers?


Otto Emil Lang: Yes, Mr. Speaker. As a result of the very thorough work of examining the handling and transportation system which we have done this last year and a half, and in the expectation that we will reach record sales levels, we have studied every facet of the transportation situation and will be in a position, at an early date, to begin some additional inland cleaning in a regular way. The Wheat Board is now fairly satisfied that these facilities can, in a particular way, add to the total capacity of the system for delivering grain. We are also in discussion with a number of parties about additional facilities at Vancouver.

March 9, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question along the lines of the previous question. In view of the continuing low level of wheat stocks in store at west coast terminals, can the minister assure us that the volume of grain moved and the allocation of boxcars by the two railroads will be such as to correct this intolerable situation?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the railroads have assured us that they will make every effort to correct the grain situation in Vancouver as soon as it is physically possible to do so. I am satisfied that it is not the shortage of cars or shortage of motive power which is the limiting factor at the moment but, rather, the very unusual and severe snow slide conditions in the Rocky Mountains which have prevented these rail facilities from carrying adequate amounts of grain to Vancouver.


Mr. Fairweather:: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. A number of hon. members wish to ask supplementaries. I hope that they will be brief supplementaries. I will try to recognize as many hon. members as possible. I now recognize the hon. member for Fundy-Royal.


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, although I know nothing about snow slides in British Columbia, I have a domestic concern and that is domestic deliveries of feed grain. Can we be assured that the government has explored ways of improving rail deliveries of feed grain within the country; also, will the loading of unit trains for export be carried out in such a manner as not to interfere with the regular and orderly deliveries of feed grain for Canadian users?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, when we had discussions about the exceptional movement of grain by unit train to points east for export, and we were given assurances by the railroads that the regular movement of grain could be taken care of.


Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the proposed takeover of Federal grain facilities tomorrow by certain pools, and since the boxcar allocation which might have been assigned to Federal is also to be turned over to the pools, which allocation has not been earned by the pool but has been bought, would the minister consider allocating the normal Federal allocation to all other existing train elevators on a proportionate basis of the shipments made over the past year?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the allocation of boxcars is made according to the Bracken formula. This is a self-adjusting formula, and works over a period of time. There are special problems which arise when congestion results, despite the application of that formula. Some steps are under way to see if special measures can or should be taken to deal with that congestion problem.


Mr. Speaker:: I will recognize the hon. member for Mackenzie for a second supplementary, but we must move on. The hon. member was not on my list of those who did not ask questions yesterday. However, I know the matter is important and he may ask his supplementary question.


Stanley James Korchinski: Mr. Speaker, does the minister intend to reply to the United Grain Growers in regard to this matter?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I have replied to the United Grain Growers on this subject.


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: I would like to direct a supplementary question to the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. In view of the fact that the demurrage charges on boats that are waiting in the harbour of Vancouver are running between $3,400 and $6,000 per day per boat, as well as the fact and the consequence that this money will have to be paid by the Canadian Wheat Board and, therefore, taken off the farmer's grain payment, does the minister or his government have any plans to reimburse the Canadian Wheat Board for moneys that will be lost through the recent transportation difficulties we have experienced?


Otto Emil Lang: No, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair will return to the subject in a moment. The hon. member for Regina East and other hon. members are anxious to ask further supplementaries, but in fairness to other members the Chair will first recognize the hon. member for Lotbiniere.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the right hon. Prime Minister.
I would like to know whether he has received any criticism, representations or requests relating to the problem raised by delayed unemployment insurance checks anti whether he has ordered an investigation or the adoption of steps to expedite those checks.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I have looked into this problem with the minister con-
March 9, 1972

cerned, his deputy minister and also with his parliamentary secretary.



DELAY IN PAYMENT OF BENEFITS-RESULTS OF STUDY BY MINISTER

[Stage Direction]
Mr.Andre Fortin (Lotbiniere): Mr. Speaker, in view of the answer of the Prime Minister about reviewing the matter, I would like to ask him what is the result of his inquiry.
['I will be glad to look into that question, Mr. Speaker.']
Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I came to rather numerous conclusions all of which I cannot list here but, essentially, the unemployment insurance program under the new act provides benefits which on the average are 40 per cent higher than the previous ones. That program has been implemented after certain changes stemming from the new taxation system, from the fact that unemployment benefits became taxable and that part of the program was affected as of last July, another as of January 1, 1972, another as of January 2-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the right hon. gentleman but it seems to me that the statement he wishes to make in reply to the question of the hon. member is becoming somewhat drawn out. I do not blame him, but I think the question is of a very general nature.
Does the hon. member for Lotbiniere wish to ask a supplementary?


André-Gilles Fortin: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: I hope it will be brief because we have to proceed with our business as soon as possible.


André-Gilles Fortin: Mr. Speaker, the right hon. Prime Minister has explained the provisions of the new legislation as compared with the old one. I would like therefore to ask him what results he and his advisors have obtained regarding the problems that have arisen in respect of the new legislation?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is what I was explaining, Mr. Speaker. This new legislation, which differs from the old one, had to take into account three different dates together with all the factors I mentioned earlier. Its administration has created some difficulties. The UIC had foreseen these difficulties, hired auxiliary staff and opened new centres, but there have actually been delays in the mailing of unemployment cheques, largely because the contributors themselves according to the ceiling-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I regret to interrupt the right hon. gentleman once again and I appreciate fully that it is difficult for him to reply briefly, but I suggest to the hon. member that his question is of such a general nature that it should be answered by a statement on motions.
There are only a few minutes left before the end of the question period and I hope to obtain the co-operation of the hon. member and the ministers replying to questions.


André-Gilles Fortin: I have a very specific supplementary question, Mr. Speaker
In view of the fact that in my riding of Lotbiniere 450 very specific cases have been set before the Unemploy-
Inquiries of the Ministry
ment Insurance Commission offices in Sherbrooke and Montreal, and we have not had any results, I would like to again ask the Prime Minister what very specific concrete steps-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is asking the same question for the second time. The Prime Minister has already attempted to answer it; in fact, we have spent almost five minutes on it. I think we should now move on to another subject.

I notice that a number of my colleagues are getting impatient. I really think they should be given an opportunity. I will first recognize the hon. member for Hillsborough.


Mr. Nielsen:: A supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: I apologize to the hon. member-


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. A moment ago Your Honour referred to the fact that there was one minute remaining. However, I believe we started at 20 minutes to four-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member did not hear me correctly.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair will recognize the hon. member for Yukon on a supplementary in a moment. I have recognized the hon. member for Hillsborough.



Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: My question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. It concerns recurring reports of repression and restrictions upon Soviet Jews seeking to move to Israel and notably an article by Rabbi Stewart Rosenberg of Toronto. Can the minister advise if these reports have been investigated and have any representations or inquiries been made to the government of the Soviet Union?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, we have been following the situation in the Soviet Union as closely as we can. Our ambassador keeps us informed on developments which he is able to ascertain from his contacts in Moscow. I believe the hon. member will agree there has been a very notable increase in the movement of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel. I cannot, of course, guarantee that there will not continue to be repression.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I believe a moment ago I said I would recognize the hon. member for Yukon on a supplementary.

March 9, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Erik Nielsen: My question is for the Minister of Labour. It is supplementary to the questions asked by the hon. member for Lotbiniere. In view of the hardships that are being suffered as a result of large numbers of claims for Unemployment Insurance benefits in the Yukon, and in view of the crushing burdens being placed on welfare agencies because of delays, will the minister consider the re-establishment of an operative and functioning Unemployment Insurance Commission office in Whitehorse in this separate jurisdiction?


Abram Ernest Epp: I will be glad to look into that question, Mr. Speaker.



REQUEST THAT FURTHER REPORTS OF LE DAIN


Mr. H. E. Stafford (Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, I am one of those who tried yesterday and on previous days to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In his absence today, I intended to direct my question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In his absence today, I will direct it to the Acting Minister of National Health and Welfare, the Secretary of State. In view of considerable evidence that the first two documents of the Le Dain Commission on Drugs, namely the "Interim Report" and "Treatment" contain misleading and inaccurate statements which, in the view of important medical people could be dangerous to health, is the government willing to withhold the publication and distribution of the next report on cannibis until it has been carefully scrutinized and a proper cautionary foreword prepared by a qualified team of medical experts, nominated by an independent body such as the Canadian Medical Association, for inclusion in the report?


Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I am taking note of this question and will pass it on to the minister.



INTERNATIONAL WHEAT AGREEMENT-INQUIRY AS TO GOVERNMENT ACTION ON RE-NEGOTIATION

Mr. R. R. Southam (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: My
question is for the Minister of Justice in his capacity as being responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. In light of numerous and strong representations being made by spokesmen for Canadian and American farm organizations recently, calling on both governments to move

toward re-negotiating the International Wheat Agreement with meaningful price levels, what action, if any, is our government taking in this regard?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, we are following up this matter in discussions with the interested governments. We will certainly welcome any early opportunity to move toward such orderly pricing levels.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


Mr. A. D. Alkenbrack (Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: My question is for the Prime Minister. It arises from an advertisement of national scope in connection with advertising Royal Military Colleges as Military Colleges. In view of the keen interest of the general public in our traditions, and in view of the fact several members of this House are graduates of Royal Military Colleges, I ask the government why the government has dropped the word "Royal" in their advertising of the Royal Military College at Kingston, Royal Roads at Victoria and the College Militaire at St. Jean, Quebec. This is obvious from the current nation-wide advertising I have seen.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member has asked a question. Perhaps he might allow the Prime Minister to reply.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the advertisement. I am not sure if it is one that has been placed by the colleges or by the government. If this was done by the government, it was presumably done by the Minister of National Defence or his department. I will refer the question to him.



CRIMINAL CODE


Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. In view of the indication in the speech from the throne delivered in the Ontario legislature last week that the government of Ontario will legalize off-track betting shops when the necessary amendments are made to the Criminal Code, is it the intention of the Minister of Justice to introduce those necessary amendments?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, we are giving serious consideration to the timing of some amendments in this regard, but I intend to have some further discussions with the provincial authorities before bringing a proposal before the House.
March 9, 1972



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State. I wonder
whether the minister would bring us up-to-date on the present state of negotiations between the CBC management and NABET in their continuing, smouldering public service dispute.


Gérard Pelletier: Mr. Speaker, as I have just returned from a tour of western Canada, I have not yet met with the CBC management and cannot give the hon. member an up-to-date report.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the minister was away yesterday, but hopefully may I ask if he would be in attendance tomorrow, even though he does not appear on the roster, to make a statement on the state of the negotiations in view of problems relating to showing National Hockey League games and other programs at the weekend?


Gérard Pelletier: Mr. Speaker, I cannot make any promises in this connection, but I will try.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for St. Boniface.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Don't be too rough, now.


An hon. Member:: Stand up straight, don't crouch.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: If for no other reason, Mr. Speaker, I should like, first of all, to say I appreciate the fact that you have recognized me today.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I also appreciate the comments made by the Leader of the Opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Thomas Miller Bell: Ten o'clock.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: May I thank you once again for recognizing me, Mr. Speaker.



GOVERNMENT ACTION TO CORRECT IMBALANCE WITH TAIWAN

Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of Industry Trade and Commerce; since he has been ignored I think I should put a question to him. In view of the fact that Taiwan exported $81 million worth of goods to Canada last year
Inquiries of the Ministry
while our exports to Taiwan dropped from $18 million to $14 million, what steps is the minister taking at the present time to correct this growing imbalance in trade between Taiwan and Canada?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, the least I can say on the subject is that it is difficult for me to make a big case of this. In a number of occasions in our trade with foreign countries we are on the advantageous side of this equation.



OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUTH-REQUEST FOR OTHER PROGRAMS TO ALLEVIATE UNEMPLOYMENT

David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State. In view of the leak earlier this week concerning the Cohen report to the effect that there was a major failure to solve student unemployment problems on the part of the government's summer programs last year, is the Secretary of State now exploring with the provinces or with business and other authorities, further measures that might be taken to alleviate very serious student unemployment this coming summer?


Gérard Pelletier: Mr. Speaker, we are exploring all possible means to reduce unemployment.



DIVERSION OF SHIPMENTS TO PACIFIC GREAT EASTERN-POSSIBLE CONSTRUCTION OF LINK WITH CNR AND CPR TO AVOID SNOW SLIDES

Mr. John Burton (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. In view of the very low level of unloadings of grain in Vancouver at various times recently due to blockages of the two major railways' main lines, has the minister or the Canadian Wheat Board pressed the railways, particularly the CNR, to divert grain shipments to the Pacific Great Eastern line, which I understand is capable of handling up to 400 cars a day?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I understand from discussions about this matter that there are some difficulties regarding rates and other arrangements that might be made by the CNR and this particular railroad, which is a provincial railroad. It is largely the CNR which can take advantage of this situation, rather than the CPR, without building more expensive trackage. It is the CPR that has had the bulk of the snow slide problems.


John Stratford Burton: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister or the Canadian Wheat Board pressing for some further investigations and studies into both the
678

March 9, 1972
Inquiries of the Ministry
feasibility and the desirability of building a link between the two major railways' main lines west of Kamloops or Lillooet, or some other suitable location, and the Great Eastern railway line?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I can only say, speaking broadly, that we are concerned about ensuring that there are adequate rail facilities between prairie points and the coast for all our products, and that this is a matter that is going to concern us very much in the time ahead.



FISHERIES


John Howard Lundrigan: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Has the government been able to determine which foreign national was responsible for the incident of intimidation that occurred off the east coast of Canada earlier this week, and have any charges been laid or statement's been made by the minister's department? More importantly, has the government decided to step up naval and air surveillance along our coast line in order to give our ships more protection?
Hon. ]ack Davis (Minister oi the Environment): Mr. Speaker, our fisheries service officers are investigating the incident and will be making a report shortly.


John Howard Lundrigan: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I hope that the minister will answer my second question, which is the more important, regarding giving our own Canadian ships more protection from this kind of happening or event by stepping up naval presence off our coast, and especially air surveillance.


Mr. Davis:: Mr. Speaker, Canada has not been noted for using gunboat diplomacy far out at sea.



ACTION AGAINST DEFAULTERS ON REPAYMENT OF CASH ADVANCES-REQUEST THAT PENALTIES BE DROPPED

['Mr. Speaker, there has been very close liaison between the Minister of Finance here and the financial authorities in the European Common Market. We are both striving for stability, security and prosperity.\n.Mr. Speaker: We have just about reached the end of the question period but we might have one or two more questions.']
Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the minister in charge of the Wheat Board. In view of the action of certain grain producers who took cash advances in the 1969-70 and 1970-71 crop years and who are now considered in default, though they have scrupulously filled their quotas as space became available, does the minister intend to have charges and any penalties dropped in cases where the producer has fulfilled his contract?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding from discussions with the commissioners of the Canadian Wheat Board that they do not propose to exact any penalties from anyone who in fact has been delivering grain on quotas as they opened. They will do so

only in cases where there has been a clear default in the delivery of grain.



Mr. Henry Latulippe (Compton):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of External Affairs.
Would the minister indicate whether Canada has a part to play in the European Economic Community in connection with the stability of the International Monetary Fund? If so, what is Canada's attitude to the policy of the European Economic Community?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, there has been very close liaison between the Minister of Finance here and the financial authorities in the European Common Market. We are both striving for stability, security and prosperity.
.Mr. Speaker: We have just about reached the end of the question period but we might have one or two more questions.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Mr. lack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Some time ago the minister advised the House he was having ongoing discussions with the pulp and paper associations. I wonder whether he is now prepared to give the House a report on what conclusions they came to in regard to the problems facing the industry and the help that the government will give.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, some officers of this industrial group are waiting for me and other ministers at this moment in another room of this building.



FINANCE


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. In view of the increase in net profit earned by the chartered banks of Canada during the previous two years, and in view of the most recent increase of 41 per cent in operating profits for the first quarter of the chartered banks' fiscal year, can the Minister of Finance say whether he and the Governor of the Bank of Canada are
March 9, 1972

making any investigation into these profits, and are they considering asking the chartered banks to lower interest rates on consumer loans as well as to lower their bank charges?


John Napier Turner: Interest rates have been lower for some time, but I will take the submission of the hon. member into consideration.


Mr. Speaker:: I am not sure whether the Postmaster General is rising on a point of order, but we have gone a little beyond the question period. I have attempted to recognize several of the hon. members who have been patiently seeking the floor. Again, I recognize that some of my colleagues did not have that opportunity today and I will try to give them preference tomorrow.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the Postmaster General rising on a point of order?


Mr. Cote (Longueuil):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, the hon. member for Brandon-Souris implied there was a contradiction between a statement I had made in the House on Monday and statements contained in a report prepared by the consultant firm of Samson, Belair, Riddell, Stead, Inc. which was commissioned by the Post Office in July, 1969, and tabled imthe House on February 18, 1970.
The main concern of that consultant firm's study, to the work on which Mr. Moodie was attached as representative of the Post Office, was to study the feasibility, or the necessity, of some form of postal coding-


Mr. Speaker:: That is not a point of order. The hon. minister is contesting what he believes to be the interpretation of what was said yesterday by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris. If we do this, we shall spend most of our time arguing as to what has been said by members on one side of the House or the other. I hope the minister will not pursue the matter further.


An hon. Member:: Make a statement on motions.


Mr. Speaker:: If the minister is answering a question, that is a different matter. And if he wishes to make a statement on motions, again, he has a right to do this. But the statement he is making now to correct what he considers to be a wrong interpretation of what he said should not be made by way of a point of order.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre rising on a point of order?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Today being Thursday, I wonder whether the President of the Privy Council is in a position to tell us what the business will be next week.
CNR and Air Canada


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Today we are continuing with the CNR bill. Tomorrow will be an Opposition Day. Next week, we shall call three Opposition Days, the first on Monday. I had in mind Wednesday and Friday for the two succeeding days next week, but this can be discussed or considered later.
The following bills will be on the agenda: The CNR bill, the amendments to the BNA Act, the amendments to the Explosives Act, and the Criminal Code, hijacking and piracy. There is also the budget bill, which I hope will be given first reading in time to be dealt with in the two days given to us next week.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Wednesday, March 8, consideration of the motion of Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton) that Bill C-4, to authorize the provision of moneys to meet certain capital expenditures of the Canadian National Railways system and Air Canada for the period from January 1, 1971 to June 30, 1972, and to authorize the guarantee by Her Majesty of certain securities to be issued by the Canadian National Railway Company, and certain debentures to be issued by Air Canada, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications.
Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, when this matter was last before the House I was talking about the need to clear up the long-term debt which has plagued the CNR for years. It is a debt which has made the ordinary financing of the Canadian National impossible, and it has plagued this House, too, inasmuch as it has been necessary every year to bring in a bill providing additional moneys to the railway company. If we had disposed of this matter when the CN was first taken over as a national railway, the company would have been able to operate at a profit which would have allowed for normal expansion.
For many years to come, there will be a real need in this country for rail passenger transportation. In my opinion, parliament was providing for this when it passed the Transportation Act. It ought not to be necessary for the railway to undertake a ludicrous program designed to put passenger service in the worst possible light so that it could show a paper deficit on that service for the purpose of getting additional grants from Parliament. Under the present system, the more passengers the railway carry, the more money they lose. On the basis of the system of accounting presently used, there is no possibility of profitably increasing the number of people who use the railways. The only result is the creation of confusion. The more passengers the railway carries, the worse the situation becomes. Obviously the railways have not been buying passenger cars, dining cars or cars with sleeping accommodation. They sure as hell have not been provid-
25020-44 A

March 9, 1972
CNR and Air Canada
mg facilities for passengers in any segment of the service, including waiting rooms and facilities normally considered necessary to meet the needs of the travelling public.
There is obviously something wrong with the present accounting system, and this should be looked at closely because there are areas in Canada where railways are still the best system of moving people around. In many parts of Canada it is almost impossible to fly at certain periods because of bad weather conditions. This is true of the maritimes. It is true of northern Ontario. It has been true, this year, of British Columbia. Yet, the alternative travel facilities provided are not sufficient to meet the demand. This is the case in northern Ontario. One of the basic requirements of regional development is a suitable transportation system to meet all the needs of the community. We do not enjoy the benefits of such a system. I suggest that when the CNR appears before the Transport Commission with an application to abandon the line between Toronto and North Bay on the grounds that it is not profitable to carry passengers, the company should be obliged to offer the route, especially the portions of the line which have been twinned, to the Ontario Northland Railway so as to give the people of northern Ontario an opportunity to provide their own facilities.
Northern Ontario does not occupy the same weather zone as does Toronto. It very often happens that when weather is fine in Northern Ontario, poor visibility or other adverse conditions make it impossible for planes to operate from Toronto. On the other hand, the weather in Toronto may be clear at times when the Ontario northland is encountering severe storms. Air travel in the spring and fall months, particularly, is subject to many delays and interruptions. Often it is not possible to fly for as many as 11 or 12 days a month. If we had better transport facilities we would be able to get on a train at night, enjoy a good night's sleep and arrive early the next morning in Toronto, since trains are usually scheduled to arrive in Toronto early. If you leave in the evening, you will be back in your place of business in northern Ontario the next morning after having enjoyed two nights on a train with proper facilities. Those facilities do not exist now because of the attitude of the Canadian National toward the people of northern Ontario. Since that portion of the CNR line between Toronto and North Bay has been twinned, they could use one line interfering with the other. They could sell the one which runs around Lake Simcoe.
We are told that the government of Ontario would be glad to buy it if they had the opportunity. Instead of having a facility into Parry Sound, we would have a connection into Toronto and the rest of the area. If the Canadian National does not want to operate the line, they should put a price on it and we will operate it for the people of Ontario. I am sure this line would pay because the Ontario Northland Railway has always paid. I am sure that if such projects were undertaken in other areas of Canada where rail transportation is difficult and where accommodation is lousy the people of the area would respond.
Great mistakes have been made in respect of the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific Railways.

They have cost the Canadian people more money than any other mistakes we have made, including two world wars. These mistakes have been made because of incompetence, because of the disregard of the people using the facility and because of a desire to add vice-president after vice-president. If anyone wants to know why they do this, all he would have to do is read the book "The Peter Principle". A man is moved to a level of incompetence and when it is found that he is not any good he is promoted to vice-president in charge of something or nothing in a bureaucracy of incompetence. This has been done in the railways.
It is almost impossible for the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) to consider an ideal location for airports. We find a new airport is to be built just north of Toronto. It will be so close to Toronto that if the past growth of the city of Toronto is repeated in the next 25 years, it will be as close to the downtown area as Malton is. This airport is to be placed in an area where farming is possible. It is true that land values in the area are so unrelated to production value that it is difficult to farm there. However, the land is capable of supporting agricultural production. There is other land nearby that is not capable of supporting agricultural production I am told that three miles north of the chosen site there is a sandy area in which the airport could be built with a bulldozer. There are no people living there because it is barren waste land which continues for some miles northward.
Everybody knows that if you are thinking of jumbo jets 25 years in the future, you are thinking about intercontinental transportation. This type of traffic should be kept as far as possible from any centre of population. I suggest that in Canada such an airport should be located north of the city of Kingston, in an area where agricultural production is almost impossible now and will remain so in the foreseeable future. I wonder why we do not consider these aspects. We have the ability in Canada to develop rapid ground transportation. There is a speed limit of 60 miles an hour on our highways, and yet we build automobiles capable of travelling at speeds of 100 miles an hour or more. We have not been able to design a highway which can match the capability of these cars and therefore have kept the speed limit down to 60 miles an hour. If one had a 1930 automobile which was in good shape, one could probably reach the speed limit on our highways.
We have not developed efficient land transportation in Canada mainly because there has been no inclination on the part of governments to have better service. We have not really faced the problems of environmental pollution created by airports in downtown areas. Twenty-five years ago a United States train travelling through Canada could travel at an average speed of 90 miles an hour. We have never duplicated that and we are not likely to'do so because we play around with transportation as we did before. The New York Central had a train, the Silver Bullet, which travelled through Canada at an average speed of 90 miles an hour. We cannot duplicate this with the tracks we have because one man is supposed to look after a mile of track rather than a reasonable amount.
Exactly the same situation exists in respect of Air Canada. Air Canada has been spending large sums of money each year in the form of deposits on super-jumbo
March 9, 1972

jets. Air Canada will not be able to compete in the international traffic field so long as it is faced with competition from groups who charter a full aircraft. Under these conditions the company is always sure the aircraft will be fully loaded. I am not suggesting that Air Canada should not fly on these international routes. I believe it is a matter of prestige for all Canadians. I think we must be in that field. I would be surprised if I went to the Airport in London and found that the airline of Bechuanaland was flying to Canada, and that Canada was unable to provide such a facility for the Canadian public. We do not know what we are planning to do with the jumbo-jets and yet we are tying up money for the purchase of such planes. We are not even sure that they will fly, or if so how they are to be used.
In many parts of Canada this year we face the possibility of having no aircraft which will meet the needs of the feeder lines which really are the basis of our trans-Canada airline service. If we are to operate a trans-Canada airline service, either by Air Canada or by giving the service to the Ontario government which seems to want to get into that particular field, we will still have to provide feeder lines to connect with the trans-Canada service in order to ensure that passengers travelling from the north and south of the major airlines will be able to make the right connection.
I looked up an aeronautical magazine, Aviation Week & Space Technology, put out by McGraw-Hill. It is the publication for March 1970. It indicates that there are number of Viscount planes still around. This is the type of aircraft which flies into the airports in my area of northern Ontario and which flies into northern Quebec, northern Saskatchewan, northern Alberta and northern British Columbia. The Viscount was made by the British Aircraft Corporation. It is listed as an 800 or an 801. It was made as a transport plane to carry 73 passengers. Then, there is the Vanguard which carries 139 passengers. These same people also make other planes. They make a BAC 111 which is used in flights to a number of destinations in Canada and carries 78, 84 or 109 passengers. The Branif airline uses model 203, and Mohawk uses model 204 of this aircraft. American airlines use model 401. There are others, of course. The Americans are making some, and the Japanese are making a plane which will carry 60 passengers. Their JS-11 and the JS lla200 both carry 60 passengers. The Americans are building a number of them. Douglas is building the SST prototype which carries 48 to 58 passengers, and another version carries 64 to 92 passengers, while another one will carry 60 to 95 passengers. The Friendship series of Fairchild will carry 40 to 48 passengers in two or three versions.
I grant you that there are not many but these are planes which travel in the range of 280 to 350 miles an hour. Those are fairly modern, up to date planes. Certainly, everybody will agree that the Viscount has been a satisfactory type of plane and the Vanguard has not been bad either. Air Canada has made some very good choices. But I suggest that unless this government makes up its mind soon-and it certainly has not made up its mind on its feeder line policy-we will have such a jumble of aircraft flying over this country in all directions, without provid-
CNR and Air Canada
ing the necessary services and without making the proper connections for the travelling public, that we will find ourselves in exactly the same position as we have with our passenger service on the railways. It is necessary for us to unify.
Let us give Air Canada all the credit it deserves, in spite of the fact that it serves lousy meals, and without a doubt has the most discourteous passenger desk personnel I have met as well as the poorest informed and poorest trained personnel that I have met, particularly the Ottawa division. However, it certainly has an enviable record in the air, an enviable service record on the ground in terms of maintenance and ground support staff; it has an enviable record in the hours it has flown without accident, and without a doubt it is the best of the North American services that I have used in terms of passenger reservations. If Air Canada were to lend their passenger reservation facilities to the Unemployment Insurance Commission, the latter would probably save two or three weeks on every inquiry because the appropriate number would be filed on the applications. It is an ideal system and Air Canada has every right to be proud of it.
I suggest that in Canada we want a unified service for all areas. In northern Ontario, we have been very satisfied with the service that we receive. I am sure everyone will agree, however, that it could be expanded. I am also sure that unless this government faces up to the need for the unification of our service by ordering, not asking, Air Canada to buy the type of plane that will meet the needs on its feeder lines, we will find ourselves in a chaotic situation in all the outlying parts of Canada. It will be impossible to relate those outlying feeder areas to the mainstream of transportation both across Canada and internationally.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but the time allotted to him has expired.


Mr. Roland Godin (Portneui):: Mr. Speaker, this week, more specifically on March 6, as it does every year the government presented guidelines to the Canadian National, a Crown company.
As the member for a riding that company and Air Canada both serve, I feel that it is my duty to convey my impressions to the minister who is piloting Bill C-4 cited under the short title of Canadian National Railways Financing and Guarantee Act, 1971.
Mr. Speaker, last year the government also asked us to vote certain sums of money. The first request was made on November 30, and then the bill was shelved. It was only on February 8 that the government brought up the subject again through Bill C-186, because it seems that the CN is in the red every year at about the same time.
Whether a liberal government or a progressive conservative government is in power, whether or not stations are closed down, lines abandoned, workers laid off, experts mobilized to analyze the situation, and other experts hired to implement the recommendations of other experts, whether or not we live through years of depression or years of abundance, whether the CN witnesses a decrease or an increase in the volume of transport, it always ends

March 9, 1972
CNR and Air Canada
up in the red, and there is seldom any change in the amount of money requested.
In fact, this year, Bill C-4 asks the authorization to provide $219 million. This we read on page 2 of the bill and I quote:
Estimated requirements in the calendar year 1971:
Last year, Bill C-186 asked for $229 million, reflecting a small $10 million difference.
We recall that, surprisingly, in 1968 the CN was granted government authorization to cross out a debt of $371 million-the amount it owed to its employees' pension fund.
Mr. Speaker, when debts of $371 million disappear thus, the amount becomes net profits. So I would like to know from the CN, through the minister who is piloting this bill today, how this amount of $371 million will be included in the budget.
I would like to know whether the Canadian National intends to add those $371 million to its assets at the rate of $70 million during a five-year period or to show $371 million as profit on a single balance sheet.
Speaking of CN balance sheets, an important item in my opinion is that of the debt charges appearing in the annual report of the company under "Total interests on debt".
I imagine, Mr. Speaker, that the officials of the company do their utmost to maintain the operations at an economic level. If such is the case, these officials could prove us that they are responsible by looking for less costly procedures than those they are using at the present time.
If we compare the balance sheets of the last years, we find that in 1952, the debt charges amounted to $25,415,000 in comparison with $75 million in 1970.
Mr. Speaker, the CN debt tripled in less than twenty years. I think this is absolutely abnormal. In addition to that, while we are on the subject of credits, there is one point I would like to make and it has to do with the maintenance of the tracks.
Keeping in mind the number of derailments that took place on CN tracks, we must ask ourselves a question to which the answer is readily found. Since it is a Crown company, we can assume that some incompetent people hold important positions. I think unexperienced employees are the cause of several accidents that happened recently. They are employees who obtained their positions without knowing exactly what a railroad is all about, employees who have no practical knowledge and think that railroad lines need no maintenance.
It is true, Mr. Speaker, that construction methods have changed. A railroad line can be rapidly built because of heavy equipment that can do a lot of work in little time. Even if it is easy to build railroad lines, I think we must keep in mind the fact that they still need to be maintained.
Twenty years ago, a team of five men maintained ten miles of rail. Today, the same team of five must maintain 50 miles of rail, which is physically impossible. The number of accidents since the beginning of the year, in a radius of 125 miles around Quebec City alone, is proof that the security limit has been exceeded.

For the information of the minister in charge, I will make a summary of those accidents. I think all hon. members read it in the newspapers. The first derailment since the beginning of the year happened in Val Jalbert, causing inconvenience to passengers and leaving two locomotives overturned. Recently, Rapido No. 20 left the tracks with 125 passengers on board, which left one dead and one seriously injured who died a few hours later from a heart attack. On the same day, at Edward Lake, 22 cars left the track. At about the same time, in Donnacona, while the trains were running in front of the snowplow, the train became stuck and the Quebec-Abitibi passenger train was cancelled.
Near Quebec City, around Ste-Foy, there was another derailment. In Grand'Mere, 17 cars left the tracks. In Eatonville, in the county of Kamouraska, 51 cars left the tracks and damages were estimated at $6 million. More recently, in Fitzpatrick, there was another derailment in a tunnel and traffic was delayed for twelve hours.
Mr. Speaker, if I said the public is beginning to have second thoughts about the security of CN tracks, I think the people would say I am right. If we discussed with CN officials all the serious accidents that have happened since the beginning of the year, I am convinced that there would certainly be some of them who would say it is due to the rough climate. Mr. Speaker, if CN trains were the only ones running in the country, I think we could really believe that the climate would be the cause of those accidents.
By the way, another company is in the same field and that is the Canadian Pacific whose trains operate also in the same area under the same climate, except that the Canadian Pacific is privately-owned and that its authorities are concerned with their responsibilities.
To bluff the public, they make believe, through some minor layoffs, that management is sound, since they thus achieve savings of a few thousands of dollars. But at the same time, security has been ignored, which has caused damages of several million dollars. This is not, in my mind, what we can call sound management.
Yesterday again, the CNR management have met at their Quebec City office with representatives of the municipalities of the county of Portneuf. The purpose of this meeting was to try to bring the mayors of the county to accept the closing down of some stations in the district concerned. If some stations are closed, station masters and wireless operators will automatically lose their jobs.
It is rather strange, Mr. Speaker, that, for the past ten days, because of bad weather conditions, those station masters, who are to be dismissed shortly, have worked as much as 18 hours a day, and those are the people that the CN is on the point of dismissing.
If anyone here understands this, I would like to meet him. I for one cannot understand how people who have to work 18 hours a day can be dismissed. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this company has become the business of a few people only.
Railway workers, I repeat, have been dismissed; station masters are being dismissed; the number of clients contin-
March 9, 1972

ues to decrease; revenues remain low and competent employees, tired of being directed stupidly, resign almost every week. Meanwhile, employees of some categories are on the increase. In some administrative service, there are more senior officials than supervisors and more supervisors than workers.
In my view, railways have forgotten their mission and the recommendations of the MacPherson Commission, as applied until now, have been a failure.
In order to ensure, first of all, more security, sections should be brought back to a maximum of 20 miles. That would be a starting point. Considering that there are more supervisors than workers, any private company in similar circumstances would be unable to operate within its budget.
Since the CN is reducing its income because it has too many official or semi-official technocrats, I wonder if we should not copy Swedes and Norwegians who a few years ago cleaned up the administration of their railways.
The government should also take into consideration the case of CN retired employees. As the industrial and technological development is not solving the unemployment problem, new means should be devised. Premature retirement by those wishing and requesting it would improve the living conditions of the young people and would wage war against unemployment.
Where there exist well established retirement plans, like in the CN, serious thought should be given to early retirement so as to provide as much employment as possible for young people entering the labour market. In turn, this would encourage young people to organize their lives in a decent way in a rich country like ours.
Mr. Speaker, we know that there have been many consultations with insurance companies as to the methods for developing pension plans for employees.
Since we know insurance companies, while keeping within the law, can achieve incomes of several million dollars a year, it is clear that the consultants on loan from these companies are not the ones to tell us what they should do to pay out more.
So, as the Canadian National pension fund was never set up to be a lucrative organization, it is evident that an increase in pension benefits of that company has long been imperative. Since 1952, Canadian National employees have partially accepted payments of 2 i or 3 per cent interest on their contributions in order to consolidate their reserve capital, and in return they received increased pension benefits.
At the end of 1968, the reserve capital of the Canadian National pension fund was almost $1.5 billion.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: 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 Central Nova
Proposed National Park
(Mr. MacKay)-Administration of justice-Release of Yves Geoffroy from St-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary- Inquiry as to advice from security planning and research group; the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Skoberg)- Transport-Suggested delay in closing of certain Saskatchewan stations; the hon. member for Abitibi (Mr. Laprise)-Housing-Pointe-Gatineau-La Ferme le Baron housing development-Request for compensation to owners.
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 there are no private bills on the order paper, the House will proceed directly to notices of motions (papers).



PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


John Stratford Burton: That an order of the House do issue for a copy of a description of the area which the federal government would like to see incorporated in the proposed second national park in Saskatchewan to be situated in the Val Marie-Killdeer area.
He said: Mr. Speaker, for some years there has been discussion about the possibility of developing a grassland park in the southern portion of Saskatchewan which would take advantage of a few of the remaining areas of native grasses. This would make available to the people of Canada in perpetuity an area of grassland and open range country which still exists in its native form and natural state. This matter has aroused considerable interest in the province of Saskatchewan, in the southern area of the province and many of the communities located nearby. A number of organizations and societies have expressed interest in it. Some problems have been encountered in the negotiations between the government of Saskatchewan and the government of Canada, and a few remain to be resolved.
It is not my purpose today to go into the problems, the advantages or possible disadvantages of this park. What I am asking today, as a member of parliament is to have access to information to which I submit I have a right. That is the issue this afternoon. As I understand the situation, a good part of the proposed area is located in the constituency of Assiniboia. At the time I originally made inquiries that constituency was not represented but, of course, today it is very ably represented in this House.
Mr. Speaker, on May 3, 1971,1 requested some papers in the following terms:
That an humble address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House a copy of the following documents with respect to the proposed second national park in Saskatchewan to be situated in the Val Marie-Killdeer

March 9, 1972
Proposed National Park
area (a) all correspondence between the government of Canada and the government of Saskatchewan on this park since January 1, 1964 (b) all correspondence between the government of Canada and other interested persons and organizations since January 1, 1964, concerning the proposed park (c) an outline of plans for development of this park.
I obtained that information in October or November, 1971, when it was tabled in this House. The correspondence and documents make a volume two inches thick. Later, I pointed out to the then parliamentary secretary that some of the information requested and ordered by the House was not there, namely, an outline of plans for the development of this park. That information is still outstanding.
Looking through the documents, I was interested in one in particular so, on October 27, 1971,1 moved:
That an order of the House do issue for a copy of a report prepared for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development by Kaplan Consulting Associates Limited, entitled "Economic Impact Study of Alternative National Park Proposals at Val Marie, Saskatchewan.
That was tabled on December 16, 1971 approximately and is a fairly substantial document as well. A note added to the text of this document reads:
This report was prepared by Kaplan Consulting Associates Limited of Montreal in 1968 to provide further background data regarding the economic impact of establishing a national park near Val Marie, Saskatchewan. The report does not represent the current situation with respect to boundary alternatives or discussions with the present government of Saskatchewan. Further, the economic circumstances in the area may have changed since the report was commissioned.
Now, the fact that boundary alternatives are mentioned confirms that one or more set of boundaries for the park are being considered. What I have attempted to obtain during the last session and by this motion is:
-a copy of a description of the area which the federal government would like to see incorporated in the proposed second national park in Saskatchewan to be situated in the Val Marie-Killdeer area.
I deliberately worded the motion in this way, recognizing that the matter is still under negotiation and that any proposals the federal government may have at the present time are not necessarily final. Of course, the Saskatchewan government may have views on this matter as well. However, the note appended to the motion for papers tabled last November indicates that there is at least one boundary alternative and probably another indicated at the present time. I submit that the government should make available all the information it has on this subject at the present time because of the widespread interest in the matter. There is no reason for the information not being available. There is considerable interest and discussion amongst the local residents in the area between Val Marie and Killdeer, Saskatchewan. They have a pretty good idea of what the government has in mind, though some of the rumours are not too well founded I am sure but others are probably based on good information.
What the government is trying to do has a good deal of merit if certain problems can be worked out but we, as Members of Parliament, do not have access to this information. We do not know what the federal government is discussing with the government of Saskatchewan and with some of the local residents. This illustrates this gov-

ernment's penchant for secrecy. If pressed on the point, I believe that the minister and the parliamentary secretary would say that there is no reason for this information not being made available in a general way. Probably they were told by some of the bureaucrats in their department that it should not be made available. Some of the bureaucrats probably feel that they would have a little less control or power if the information were released. I submit that this has to come to an end, Mr. Speaker. It is about time that the people of Canada and their representatives had access to this type of information.
As I indicated earlier, I deliberately worded my motion in a way that would take into account the fact that there has been no final decision on this matter. It provides scope for the government to qualify any information tabled in the House on the basis that it is a tentative proposal, that there are several proposals under consideration or that this proposal could be amended in the future. I would have no objection to such qualifications. That is the case with the motion for papers that I mentioned earlier, where a qualifying paragraph was necessary at the beginning of the document which was tabled. If there is any particular problem about the wording of the motion, I would be happy to amend it to give consideration to any areas of sensitivity. Basically, I say again that I think this type of information should be made available to members of the House of Commons. I urge the government to make sure that members of the House are not denied rightful access to information respecting public affairs and the expenditure of the public's money. That is money over which we are supposed to be exercising control.


Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take part in this debate on the motion of the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. Burton), which reads in part as follows:
for a copy of a description of the area which the federal government would like to see incorporated in the proposed second national park in Saskatchewan to be situated in the Val Marie-Kil-deer area.
Mr. Speaker, it is easy for me to speak on this motion, since development of the first national park in Quebec was started in my riding in 1970. We have had all sorts of problems in connection with designation of the area and expropriation of land.
I want to start by giving you the background of the Forillon National Park, and remind hon. members that on May 29, 1963, in the first speech I made in this House, I pointed out the importance of establishing a national park in the Gaspe Peninsula. I had hoped that such a park could be developed as a centennial project.
Having explained my project to the minister and submitted it to the Quebec provincial secretary, I was told that it could not be realized as the province was not at that time prepared to give up land to the Canadian government for the development of such a park.
Still trying to take steps in order to obtain a national park in the Gaspe Peninsula, the Eastern Quebec Planning Bureau recommended in a study on the economic
March 9, 1972

and social development of the Gaspe Peninsula that, in view of the touristic appeal of the area, a national park be mentioned in the Ottawa-Quebec agreement.
As well as being nature conservation areas, large provincial and federal parks have now become important tourist attractions. The Gaspe Peninsula offers interesting natural sites which have remained untouched and which are being developed in order to give visitors open air recreational facilities.
I congratulate the mover of this motion for having pointed out earlier the importance of national parks, but I think he forgot to mention the wonderful work which the present government is doing towards conservation of our land.
The province of Quebec and the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development have agreed in principle on having a national park in the Gaspe Peninsula.
According to the law, the government of the province was then to purchase and lease to the federal government, free of charge, for such time and on such conditions as would be mutually acceptable, the territory designated as the park.
The mover insisted a while ago on the necessity for the province to agree on having the park; it seems Saskatchewan is willing to do so. ,
But, Mr. Speaker, when it was decided that there would be a park in the Forillon Peninsula, needless to say many tried to speculate on the sale of the land.
A few weeks before the signature of an agreement for the development of the park, even a provincial department took the liberty of granting some prospectors an oil exploratory permit in the Forillon Peninsula where the park was to be located. Far from me, Mr. Speaker, the idea of implicating provincial officials about the grant of an exploratory permit a few weeks before the signature of the agreement, but the newspapers at the time not only suggested that the transaction was questionable, but that it showed lack of communication between two departments within the same government.
In order to prevent speculation in the transaction of land to develop the Forillon National Park, the Quebec government-that is, the National Assembly-introduced in July 1970, Bill 29, an Act concerning the Forillon Park and adjoining areas. The purpose of the bill was to enable the Quebec government to purchase quickly and transfer to the Canadian government the necessary land for the development of the Forillon Park.
The bill was also aimed at preventing, until June 30, 1971, except for agricultural purposes and in certain exceptional cases, any building, rebuilding, transformation, addition or new implantation of buildings as well as drawing up any plans for divisions or subdivisions in this area.
Section 4 of the act is very explicit and provides for deposit of the plan pertaining to the park. It reads as follows:
4. Deposit of the plan mentioned in article 792 of the Code of Civil Procedure carries with it, as of right, rescinding of any grants or licences of occupation or leases granted under the Lands and Forests Act or the Colonization Land Sales Act covering
Proposed National Park
public lands included in the Forillon Park area as described in Schedule A. For the sole purpose of compensation payments, the owner of such a right is deemed to have been expropriated.
By way of this legislation, the Quebec National Assembly forestalled all potential speculation in the area. When the government decided to develop an airport at Sainte-Scholastique, the Department of Transport proceeded likewise, depositing all the plans and tenders and stipulating all the lands to be expropriated, in order to avoid speculation.
Last fall, I went to Washington wish a group of members of this House to study the operation of national parks. I was therefore able to see that in the United States they also have problems when determining the location of a historical site or a national park.
Mr. Speaker, there are always some citizens who are interested in speculation and this is only human. And when public funds are involved, many are not overly scrupulous.
This government, and in particular the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Chretien), wishes to stimulate the tourist industry in this country as well as the development of the national parks system so as to ensure the preservation of immense Canadian stretches of land in their natural state, and this in order that present and future generations may enjoy them. This House must pay tribute to the minister responsible for national parks for his magnificent work and initiatives.
I cannot figure out why a member would want the minister to make public the description of an area that he wishes to include into a park project, even before the end of negotiations with the province.
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I must say that the master plan for the development of the Forillon National Park is finished and, after looking at the plans and specifications, it is possible to conclude that this park will become one of the most interesting in Canada as, for the first time, the Park Branch intends to include cultural and human interpretation.
The geological and biological attractions of Forillon are truly extraordinary and, by themselves, they provide very eminent examples of nature's marvels. Recognition will be given to the historical value of the site through conservation and interpretation. Visitors to Gaspe will be able to appreciate Forillon for its natural marvels where man will be seen as part of nature and integrated into a dynamic environment. The whole project will provide a unique example of harmony between man, earth and sea. Forillon Park will be an inspiration to our people in its consideration of man's relation to nature.


Mr. Bill Knight (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of interest and anticipation that I involve myself in this debate on the matter of disclosing a description of the boundaries of a park in part of my constituency. The hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Cyr) suggested there should be some secrecy within the area of negotiations. I suggest to him this is not the case.

March 9, 1972
Proposed National Park
The particular land involved in the area of Killdeer-Vai Marie is Crown owned land. I suspect there is no room for any type of speculation in that area. I point out to the hon. member for Gaspe that there is quite a difference between drawing up a park for the area of Killdeer-Val Marie and drawing up one for any particular area of the Gaspe. It was a nice treat to hear a description of his park. Some day I would like to visit it. However, I question the value of such a description in relation to the matter at hand. The question is a simple matter of asking the government to disclose the suggested boundaries for the area of a park in southern Saskatchewan.
During the recent by-election, I travelled in that part of the country. There was a considerable amount of concern as to the nature of this park and how it would affect the livelihood of such areas as Mankota, which is dependent upon the cattle raised on the grazing land around the proposed park. The government has been good enough, and I say this with some hesitation, to give copies of reports to the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. Burton) concerning this park. It does not seem inclined to give a description of the park in terms of the boundaries involved.
Although this may seem minor in many ways, a question does arise. I think it is an important matter when members of the House of Commons, who are directly involved in the problem of the creation of a national park in their area, are not informed as to the suggested boundaries of that park and are not informed of the other proposals in relation to that park or how it will affect the people involved. I can go along with the statement that this is a unique area of grazing land and a unique area of Canada in terms of its beauty. There is no question about that. However, there are questions as to how to keep the grazing land in that area trimmed. If it gets too long, it can be easily swallowed up by prairie fires. Some academic in a department drawing up plans for a park does not realize that most of this grazing land must be utilized to avoid prairie fires, since this is one of the most dried out parts of Saskatchewan.
The suggested boundaries for the park do not take into consideration the uniqueness of the particular area. It is a cattle producing area, and the lifestyle of the people is inclined toward being adventuresome; it is unique in comparison to the lifestyle of other Canadians. It is important to keep in mind that this is a part of their heritage. It was they who originally pioneered and developed the area in terms of its use in the cattle industry. If these people are removed from that area, what will be the economic effect on the town of Mankota which receives the benefit from something in the neighbourhood of $1 million in cattle sales each year?
One does not want to get excited about the government's proposal, or become involved in a long and lengthy discussion of it, without knowing some particulars of this suggested park, such as the boundaries. These boundaries should be made known to the public and, in particular, members of parliament. This information would allow the member for Assiniboia, myself at the moment, to meet with these people and discuss these matters. If such information were available, a considerable amount of the hearsay and misunderstanding in connection with setting up a

second national park in this area, or the question of setting one up at all would be eliminated. There are many questions involved.
I hope the government will listen to the legitimate requests of the hon. member for Regina East and myself for a description of the boundaries of this proposed national park.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words on this subject. Perhaps it might be a worthwhile exercise to go into some of the history of our parklands. If one wants to make a good assessment, he would probably have to go back many years. In fact, it was three centuries ago when our forefathers inherited the forest, lakes and rivers which are today within the boundaries of our national parks. For many years these elements were often regarded as enemies to be overcome before the country could be developed.
We are strongly marked by the fact that for many years our history was influenced by the fight against the domination of nature. At some stage in the development of our nation, a problem of considerable import forced itself on our conscience. We became aware that misuse, together with a lack of foresight and planning, caused considerable and perhaps irreparable damage to beautiful regions of our country. This becomes a serious matter when a striking and unique example of our natural national heritage is destroyed. Decisions are needed. Definite measures are necessary to correct this situation. Every community must decide upon the format for its economic, social and cultural development and the use of its land. Conservation is an essential element in a comprehensive policy of land development. At every level of political and governmental structure, conservation must be given due consideration each time the fate of any park or other land is decided upon. This is true of the municipal, the provincial and federal levels.
More precisely, all governments must assume a policy of conservation for the purpose of providing green areas and reserving natural beauty spots where the balance of nature, wildlife and other elements may be maintained and may evolve freely. At the national level our conservation policy has taken concrete form in the creation of 19 national parks, covering an area of 30,000 square miles or more.
The first of these parks, Banff National Park in the Rocky mountains, dates from the last century when those holding political office had the necessary foresight to reserve under state protection a tract of land, including sulphurous waters and springs, in a magnificent mountain setting bearing traces of the passage of glaciers that centuries ago chiselled out the features of our country. All types of flora and fauna abounded in this area. Alpine meadows covered with delicate growth, animals such as the dangerous cougar and the great grizzly bear, and less terrifying species such as herd elk, deer and moose, wild sheep and goats, made the mountain slopes their home.


Mr. Skoberg:: Hear, hear!


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I am glad someone is listening.
March 9, 1972


John Stratford Burton: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Regina East fMr. Burton) on a point of order.


John Stratford Burton: Mr. Speaker, my point of order has to do with the relevance of the very interesting remarks being made by the hon. member to the motion under consideration, which concerns whether or not certain documents should be made available to this House.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I will hear the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Guay) on the point of order, if he wishes to assist the Chair.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I am just coming to that point, Mr. Speaker. I am learning fast from opposition members and giving them some of their own back. You cannot sit here for as long as I have without at times acting as they do. May I continue?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I thought the hon. member for St. Boniface might want to speak to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. Burton). I have considerable sympathy for the point made by the hon. member for Regina East, but I understand the hon. member for St. Boniface is making preliminary or introductory remarks. I invite him to lead very quickly into the matter now before the chamber.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Thank you, Mr. Speaker-and this I will do. Keen fishermen and hunters will no doubt tell you that every year they have to travel a little farther in search of less abundant game in ever-increasing populated areas. Our natural parks guarantee the survival of our wildlife by protecting their natural habitats. Then, too, there are places where the tensions of city life can be forgotten, where nature can be enjoyed on a camping excursion or while fishing, exploring, canoeing, or what have you. Hunting is prohibited in our parks. Appropriate protective measures must be taken to create game sanctuaries at random points across the country, otherwise hunting may become a thing of the past.
Samples of our fauna and flora are needed for scientific purposes and to further our education and that of our children. We must also preserve the tourist appeal of our countryside and draw attention to certain areas of outstanding natural beauty which should be better known to everyone. This is what we are trying to do in our national parks. Also, in our national parks areas are left in their natural state to provide the perfect habitat for local fauna and to allow the species their liberty. They also provide visitors with the agreeable experience of seeing animals at liberty in their natural state. What is more, we have set aside areas of these natural sanctuaries for migratory birds. Such resources are of inestimable value for Canadians and tourists from other countries. Unfortunately, our national parks system is at present incomplete.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. 1 do not like interrupting the hon. member or any hon. member, for that matter, but I have a responsibility to the chamber. May I re-read the motion which is before the House for consideration:
Proposed National Park
That an order of the House do issue for a copy of a description of the area which the federal government would like to see incorporated in the proposed second national park in Saskatchewan to be situated in the Val Marie-Killdeer area.
It seems to the Chair that the speech being made by the hon. member for St. Boniface is very helpful and useful in a general discussion of our national parks, and I am not in the least critical of it or of remarks made by other hon. members. But as occupant of the chair I have the responsibility to ask hon. members, in so far as it is possible for them to do so, to speak to the question before the House. I invite the hon. member for St. Boniface to do so, and I know he will.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I was coming to that point, Mr. Speaker.


John Stratford Burton: That is what you said the last time.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I will watch it this time, and I am glad you have brought it to my attention, Mr. Speaker.
I am very concerned about the parks both in Saskatchewan and in Manitoba. In fact, I am so interested in a national park for Manitoba that I should like to address some remarks to that subject. I should like to refer to an article pertaining to this question, which I believe is relevant to the motion before the House, appearing in the Winnipeg Free Press for February 26, 1972. It is headed '"Partly Right' on Park" and reads in part as follows:
Premier Ed Schreyer of Manitoba agreed Friday that he is no longer as interested in having a national park in the northern part of the province as when he was a member of the House of Commons for Selkirk.
The Premier was replying to an accusation by federal Northern Affairs Minister Jean Chretien that Mr. Schreyer-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: This quotation does have a bearing, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I want the hon. member to continue, but I must once more say that the discussion of a park in Manitoba and the opinion of the Premier of Manitoba, or anybody else, on the question of the establishment of such a park is not relevant to the description of a proposed park in Saskatchewan. I know the hon. member is an experienced parliamentarian and that he will be able to tie these two matters together. I would invite him to indicate to the Chair the way in which his remarks are relevant to the motion.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Perhaps I should put it another way, Mr. Speaker. The Premier of Manitoba is not interested any more in having the federal government initiate a national park in Manitoba. I am very concerned about this and I think I should spell it out. If he is not interested, then I am. In speaking to this motion may I say I am interested in having a park in Saskatchewan and a park in Manitoba, to be immediately initiated by the federal government-and the sooner the better! If it had not been for the foresight of our forefathers, we would never have had our beautiful Banff national park. This is why I felt I needed to refer to this background before I referred to a park in Manitoba. The federal government, in co-opera-

March 9, 1972
Proposed National Park
tion with the Premier of my province, should initiate a park in northern Manitoba.
I am surprised the Premier would not wish to accept the offer of the federal government to establish a national park. He said he could do this just as well as the federal government. If it were done by the federal government, the saving to the people of Manitoba would be very great indeed, bearing in mind that the federal government would be responsible for looking after the area, beautifying it and making it a place that not only this generation but our children could enjoy. I hope the Premier, whom I admire, will reconsider his position.


John Stratford Burton: What about the government reconsidering its view about this motion?


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I did not hear what the hon. member said. Would he repeat his question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Regina East has a question.


John Stratford Burton: Would the hon. member persuade the federal government to reconsider its views and accept the motion now before the House which has to do with the production of certain information or documents concerning a proposed second national park in Saskatchewan?


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I appreciate that the hon. member is very concerned about Saskatchewan, I am equally concerned about a park being initiated in Manitoba. The federal government is doing its utmost to initiate both projects with benefits not to one province only but to two. I agree there should be a park in Saskatchewan, but it seems to me that it should be the policy of the federal government to deal with the nation as a whole and not only with Saskatchewan or Manitoba.


John Stratford Burton: Does the hon. member not consider it would help him in his objective of securing a second national park for Manitoba if this information with respect to a proposed second national park in Saskatchewan were made available to the public?


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I am all in favour of any number of parks.


An hon. Member:: Answer the question.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: That is what I am trying to do. If Manitoba or Saskatchewan wish to establish other parks on their own, I am in agreement. At the moment, I believe the province is responsible for long-term planning, if I may use that term-


An hon. Member:: Go ahead.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: -and has responsibility to preserve land for the enjoyment of the citizens of the future, keeping it as a wilderness for the recreation of those who come after us. This is the policy of the federal government, and I cannot understand why the Premier of the

province changed his mind. He was in favour of the project when he was in this House, but now he is Premier his views have altered. According to the Free Press, he is reported to have said: "I am less interested today than I was five years ago." Mr. Speaker, I am interested every day of the year when the federal government has the common sense and initiative to help the people in our western provinces.


Mr. Eymard Corbin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, there are certain pertinent comments I should like to put on record and address to hon. members in connection with the motion now before us.

I should like to make my remarks in French, Mr. Speaker, because it is the language in which I can express myself more easily and more fluently, particularly when I have no prepared notes.
The motion before the House reads as follows:
That an Order of the House do issue for a copy of a description of the area which the federal government would like to see incorporated in the proposed second national park in Saskatchewan to be situated in the Val Marie-Killdeer area.
I do not possess much information on the area referred to in this motion, but I think it gives me an opportunity of making some comments of a general nature which can apply to any other proposal for national parks in Canada.
Earlier today, when I heard my two hon. friends exchanging remarks across the way, I made the following reflection: if it is difficult to determine the best place for the location of a national park in western Canada, I am prepared to accept every proposal of the government for the location of a third park in New Brunswick.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the motion proposed by the hon. member, asking "for a copy of a description of the area" could lead to a sort of excessive speculation on the land to be included into the general area of a national park. And it seems to me that the fundamental question to be asked-


John Stratford Burton: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he was in the House to hear what my hon. friend from Assiniboia (Mr. Knight) said a few minutes ago in answer to earlier remarks about the possibility of speculation? My hon. friend said that most of the land in this area is Crown-owned; it is held on lease by various ranchers or farmers but speculation does not come into the picture. If at any time there are negotiations for the sale of privately-held land, people will be fully aware of what they are about.


Eymard G. Corbin: I was not in the House at that point in the debate. In this case we are, it is true, dealing with Crown land, but what the hon. member is trying to establish is the principle that the government should be obliged to table a map or general description of any area which is in the future to be designated as a national park. This is the heart of this discussion. The hon. member may have a point with respect to this particular proposal, but if accepted we would be setting a precedent which could be
March 9, 1972

detrimental to the efforts of the government to establish at the lowest cost possible to the public purse a national park or a number of national parks.
I wished to refer particularly to the repercussions which the adoption of the motion before us might have on park proposals within my own province of New Brunswick; however, I should like to comply with the request of the parliamentary secretary and close my remarks at this point in order to give him an opportunity to put some facts on the record.


Mr. Allen B. Sulatycky (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. Burton) in the course of his remarks pointed out that some time ago he first raised this subject at a time when the seat of Assiniboia was not represented in this House. But in doing so I am sure he did not intend to indicate that was the first time this matter had been raised, because I know many hon. members are aware of the very assiduous efforts made by the former member for Assiniboia, the late Ab Douglas, one of the most respected men who served in this House. He made many efforts to secure this park for that part of Saskatchewan. If the hon. member had diligently studied the documents which were delivered to him some months ago relating to this park, he would have found that the first correspondence from any Member of Parliament was from the late Ab Douglas in relation to a proposed park in southwestern Saskatchewan.
The hon. member for Regina East seems to feel the government is placing a very high priority on the matter of secrecy. Let me assure him that this is not the case. The government does not wish to keep anything secret in so far as the park is concerned: it wishes to create a prairie grasslands park in southern Saskatchewan. It is the stated intention of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Chretien) to increase by 60 the number of parks in Canada before the end of this century. In the last four years the minister has done more to preserve the natural features of Canada for future generations than has any minister in the history of this country. One has only to consider the growth of our national parks system to recognize that the minister is not concerned about keeping secret the locations or delineations of national parks but, rather, is concerned about creating more national parks.
In the last four years the government has created 10 parks. Since 1944 it is interesting to note that with the exception of the province of Alberta, which even then had a greater percentage of its lands in national parks than any similar area of the globe, two provinces have not seen fit to transfer to the government the necessary land for parks. These two provinces have Socialist governments.


John Stratford Burton: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. That statement of the parliamentary secretary is irresponsible and inaccurate. It was the Liberal government in Saskatchewan which refused to negotiate in this matter.
Proposed National Park


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. members may not agree with statements of other hon. members, but that is hardly a point of order


Allen B. Sulatycky: Mr. Speaker, I was referring to the year 1944 which is a red-letter date for the Socialist movement in Canada, and in Saskatchewan in particular. Let me go back to the history of this park so that the statements of the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. Burton) and the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Knight) are not left uncorrected. First, as the hon. member for Assiniboia has said, in order for the land to be used by the federal government it must be Crown land. It may be in fact provincial Crown land. However, it is up to the provincial gover-ment to negotiate for the lands which it will be turning over to the federal government for use as national parks.
Therefore the federal government cannot delineate the precise boundaries it intends to set aside for a national park in southwestern Saskatchewan until the provincial government has completed its negotiations with the land holders. There are land holders in fee simple and there are land holders who hold land by virtue of a lease, which gives them as much right to hold the land &nd demand compensation as if they had it in fee simple. It is up to the provincial government of Saskatchewan to ensure that the land is acquired, that there are no encumbrances on it and that it is transferred to the federal government.


John Stratford Burton: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Yes, if the hon. member who has the floor will receive it.


Allen B. Sulatycky: I do not want to leave the wrong impression. In the last few months there has been more communication on this matter than ever in the past. This has been the situation since the last provincial election in Saskatchewan. The Hon. E. Kramer and our Minister oi Indian Affairs and Northern Development have ended an apparent breakdown, so to speak, in communication. Just last week the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development received correspondence from his counterpart in Saskatchewan and is now preparing a reply. So there is very good reason to believe that in due course positive evidence will be seen of the new negotiations which have taken place between the two governments.
I am hopeful that in very short order the minister will be in a position to make a statement to the House on this matter. I point this out in an effort to convince the House, the hon. member for Regina East and the hon. member for Assiniboia that it is not the purpose of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to keep this matter secret. It is not our intention to keep information from these two hon. members. All the documents which can be produced have been produced. We are simply waiting for the provincial government of Saskatchewan to acquire the land in an unencumbered state and transfer it to the federal government so that a second national park may be established in Saskatchewan as part of the effort the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has been making in the last ten years to create a fully-rounded national parks system in Canada.

March 9, 1972
CNR and Air Canada
We place the highest priority on creating a prairie grasslands park. There has been tremendous public interest in this matter, not only from members representing federal ridings in Saskatchewan but from large numbers of people outside the political sphere and from people outside Saskatchewan who feel it is important that a prairie grasslands park be designated in order to give us the completely-rounded system which we all desire in Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair, to resume the same at 8 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. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton) that Bill C-4, to authorize the provision of moneys to meet certain capital expenditures of the Canadian National Railways system and Air Canada for the period from January 1, 1971, to June 30, 1972, and to authorize the guarantee by Her Majesty of certain securities to be issued by the Canadian National Railway Company and certain debentures to be issued by Air Canada, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications.
Roland Godin: Mr. Speaker, before recess, I was expressing the wish of numerous pensioners of the Canadian National who would like to see their pension increased. I was just going to quote figures to prove that this is possible, since by the end of 1968, the pension fund of the CN was close to $1.5 billion.
From 1952, the number of CN employees went from 121,000 down to 84,000, a decrease of 35 per cent.
On the other hand, from 1959 to 1968, the number of contributors to the pension fund jumped from 50 to 73 per cent, and I think that the day is not far when it will strike 100 per cent. During the same period, from 1952 to 1968, the reserve capital has gone up by 700 per cent.
According to the financial report, again for 1968, without taking into account the $41 million contribution of railways to the pension fund, the amount contributed by the employees, in addition to the interest on investments, was $65,880,597. Pensions paid during the year amounted to $46 million. Had those pensions been raised by 25 per cent, there would still remain $8 million to add to the reserve capital.

It is also found that if current regulations are maintained, contributions to the pension fund will have increased by 50 to 55 per cent in 1980.
I do not advocate a direct boost of 25 per cent. However, so as to eliminate any discrimination, current regulations should be examined. To this effect, CN employees made a complete study and even came to Ottawa to make recommendations to CN authorities. Some of these recommendations are found in Issue No. 29 of June 2, 1970 of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications under the chairmanship of the member for LaSalle (Mr. Lessard) and I quote:
Recommend the immediate decking or stacking of the CN pensions with the Canada Pension, rather than the present integrated arrangement.
Remove penalty for early voluntary retirement after the age of 55 years, where the age and service add to 85 or more as at present.
All existing and future C.N. pensions to be increased in accordance with existing cost of living index and an escalator clause to be inserted in agreements to cover.
Increase the basic pension under Part I from the minimum of $300 annually. Increase to be in accordance with the cost of living index applicable as from 1949.
Recommended that the survivor benefits paid to widows or dependents of pensioners be increased from the present 50 per cent to the full amount of the pension formerly paid.
That the present pension board, which now consists of four representatives for the company, and three representatives for the employees, (now held by union executives), be increased to four representatives each for the company and for the employees, plus one independent member, preferably an actuary. That the capital reserve of the C.N. pension fund be pegged at a set amount and be reviewed every three years when any recommended revisions necessary may be implemented.
Mr. Speaker, my suggestions can be summed up in three points. First, more security through better maintenance of railroad tracks by reducing the distances a given group of men has to cover. Second, a new method of financing which in fact would allow right off the bat savings of $75 million a year. Third, since there was enough in the pension fund for this tampering to be allowed to go on, let us put an end to that practice and let us see to it that our pensioners are treated with all the respect due to those people who devoted their lives to a Crown company.
In brief, Mr. Speaker, the government, the CNR, the employees and the public will all benefit from it.


Mr. Grant Deachman (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House, but having been a member of the transport committee and having enjoyed my relationship with it and with the people I was fortunate to meet in the Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, Air Canada and elsewhere in the transport industry throughout Canada, I do not want to let this occasion pass without participating in the debate.
I notice that when we enter this annual debate with respect to Canadian National Railways, the chamber retains mainly those members who are from the far reaches of Canada and who are interested in transportation problems. Those who are from the centre of Canada,
March 9, 1972

within easy reach of Ottawa, do not attend this debate in great number. So it is on an occasion like this that we find in the chamber and interested in the debate members such as the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard), on the shore of the Pacific, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), representing the greatest railway centre in Canada and the one from which a great deal of wheat is moved, the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch) whose riding touches the shores of Vancouver Quadra in and out of which ships take wheat to the Far East, the hon. member for Malpeque (Mr. MacLean), the hon. member for Egmont (Mr, MacDonald) whose riding in Prince Edward Island is almost wholly dependent not only on the efficiency of Canadian National but on the ferry service which it operates, and the hon. member for Saint-Jean (Mr. Smith) who represents a railway centre in the province of Quebec.
When I first came to this chamber in 1963 the standing committee on transport was the first committee with which I had anything to do. I have very vivid recollections of going into that committee, sitting down in a seat to look at a committee of parliament for the first time and finding myself seated between Douglas Fisher on the one hand and the late Sherwood Rideout on the other, a railway man from New Brunswick. These two gentlemen were the rugged defenders of parliament against the ogre of that day, Donald Gordon. They were in the forefront of what for many years had been a great vendetta between the members of parliament interested in transportation or the one side and Canadian National Railways on the other. It was an interesting procedure to watch. Donald Gordon, the president of the railway, would come into the room and he would have with him a coterie of vice-presidents and officials, each of whom had a black bag in which there were sheaves of railway statistics. When he was asked a question he would say, "I will defer to Mr. Smith, vice-president of the railway," to the "vice-president of maintenance of ways"-or of whatever it happened to be-"and he will give you the information." Whereupon this gentleman would open up his black bag and we would be showered with railway statistics for the next half hour.
I do not suppose that in the history of parliament a better snow job was done on parliament than that which was done by Donald Gordon, and I don't suppose a better job was done of squaring up to a rugged man like Donald Gordon and tackling him at the parliamentary level than was done in those days by Douglas Fisher and Sherwood Rideout. This was a great introduction for me to the procedure of parliamentary committees. When I look back on it now I realize that Donald Gordon really showed us only the tip of his slipper pushed out from beneath the Pullman curtain, because we saw so very little of what went on behind.
As time went on, the committee became more sophisticated and its members much more knowledgeable about railway and transportation affairs generally and about the CNR and Air Canada in particular. Over those and the ensuing years we took part in such debates and in debate on the act setting up the Canadian Transport Commission. We listened to many experts and in fact became semi-experts ourselves. In addition to that, the practice grew in the House of Commons of letting committees
CNR and Air Canada
travel around the country in order to study what was going on. One of these committees which saw the country and discussed with people on their own ground the problems of transportation was the standing committee on transport. Over the years the committee has had many able chairmen, not the least of whom is the present chairman, the hon. member for LaSalle (Mr. Lessard). He is a fair and impartial chairman, very interested in the problems.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Grant Deachman: I believe members on all sides of the House respect him as a parliamentarian-


Mr. Horner:: What is all this leading up to? Are you going to put him in the Senate?


Stanley Howard Knowles: He is too good for that.


Grant Deachman: I have not had an opportunity tonight to say how much the committee has benefited from the participation of the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) whose continuing interest in transportation has been over the years a highlight of the work of the committee. He suggests that the chairman of the committee should be sent to the Senate-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I did not suggest that. I rise on question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. The hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) rises on a question of privilege.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is attempting to-I do not want to use the word "twist" but he is attempting to mislead the House by his misinterpretation of the question I asked him under cover of flowery compliments paid to the chairman of the transportation committee. I posed the question-


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


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I am coming to my question of privilege. I posed the question, "What is going to happen next? Are you going to put him in the Senate?" I did not suggest that he should go. I am one who wants him to remain as chairman of the transportation committee. The hon. member and myself and most members of the Converva-tive party get along very well when that member is in the chair.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. The hon. member for Crowfoot knows that he cannot take advantage of a question of privilege to seek the floor in this way.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: He misinterpreted my remarks.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: By using the Standing Orders and rules of the House the hon. member can gain the floor-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: That was a bona fide question of privilege.

March 9, 1972
CNR and Air Canada


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, if I were the Prime Minister, who is the only member of this House who can make appointments to the Senate, I would say to the hon. member for LaSalle, "It breaks my heart not to be able to send you there, but the boys in the House of commons want you on the transportation committee. Your time has not yet come."


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Put me in the Senate, then.


Grant Deachman: I will put in a word for you.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Thank you.


Grant Deachman: Last evening, when we were debating this subject, one hon. member went to considerable lengths to point out the faults of the railway and describe how in terms of equipment, service, cleanliness and just about everything you can think of it was not living up to expectations. Tonight I want to say a few things on behalf of the railway. That may seem strange, but I think we should be realistic, look at what is taking place in the country and assess it.
I have here a press release issued last year by the CNR dealing with grain traffic. I should like to refresh the memories of hon. members about what is taking place in the movement of bulk commodities and grain in the west. This release is dated July 31, points out that Canadian National had just completed the best annual grain handling job in their history and goes on to say:
Reasons largely responsible for setting a number of new grain handling records in the 1970-71 crop year, which ends today (July 31), included a new pool unloading system instituted at the west coast and Thunder Bay terminal elevators, as well as CN's introduction of 1,400 covered hopper cars in the grain trade and the operation of 52 grain unit trains of 100 such cars each.
The pool unloading system now operating at Thunder Bay and Vancouver provides faster turn-around of railway cars. It was made possible through co-operative efforts between grain companies.
Many new export records also were established in the grain handling system, Mr. Gardiner added. The railways delivered more than 690 million bushels of all grains, five million bushels more than the previous record established in the 1963-64 crop year.
Then it says:
Nearly 260 million bushels of grain were handled through west coast ports in the 1970-71 crop year. This is about 25 million bushels more than the previous record year of 1965-66.


Mr. Woolliams:: That is like saying you are one year older than last year.


Grant Deachman: The release continues:
During the 1970-71 crop year, CN loaded 177,000 cars of grain, surpassing the previous record of 175,000 carloads. It also was pointed out by Mr. Gardiner that CN loading to Thunder Bay and Vancouver of wheat, oats, barley, rye, flaxseed and rapeseed all showed substantial average bushel increases per car than was achieved in the 1969-70 crop year.
It is also worth while to refer to the 1970 annual report of Canadian National Railways where they give statistics in regard to new equipment. This is a matter which has been discussed in the course of this debate. At page 10 the report points out:
During 1970 a total of 4,546 new freight units were acquired. These
IMr. Horner.]
included steel-covered hoppers for potash, fertilizer and general service; bulkhead flatcars for international lumber service; newsprint boxcars; coal cars and Piggyback flat cars. In addition 51 diesel-electric locomotives of 3,000 horsepower each and 20 of 3,600 horsepower each were delivered during the year. On order at year end were 12 diesel-electric locomotives of 2,000 horsepower each, 20 of 3,600 horsepower, and 66 of 3,000 horsepower.
These facts escape the hon. member opposite who felt that the replacement had come to an end and that we were dealing with an antiquated railway system. The report deals with containerization at page 11 as follows:
In the spring, Japanese lines started operating regular container services into the newly constructed centennial pier in Vancouver, and this operation is expected to expand in the coming year.
One of the biggest, if not the biggest, containerized vessels in the world is now arriving on the east coast, and equally big and modern vessels are arriving on the west coast. The day is not far distant when freight will be moved in this way around the world, arriving in Vancouver on fast, ocean-going vessels which will discharge the containers on to trains which will move across the continent, then the containers will be placed on vessels at the east coast and thus shipped across the Atlantic.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question.


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that I have a listener who wants to ask a question.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. The hon. member knows that he may ask a question only if the hon. member who has the floor agrees, since the time taken is subtracted from the time allotted to the hon. member.


Grant Deachman: I will be delighted to answer.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, disregarding for a moment


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, disregarding for a moment the euphoria of the hon. member over the modernization which he has described, can he tell us why the minister in charge of the Wheat Board said in the House today thai orders for deliveries of grain cannot be accepted at Vancouver? If existing facilities are sufficient, why has the minister in charge of the Wheat Board informed this House that the authorities cannot accept orders for grain deliveries?


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, I am not here to expound on the minister's problems.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Alfred Pullen Gleave: They are not the minister's problems, they are the farmers' problems.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: They are the problems of all western Canada.


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, let me point once more to the figures which show what has taken place in the movement of grain on the west coast. I think the hon. member opposite knows as well as I do that in the course of a very
March 9, 1972

few years the capability of the west coast to handle grain and move it abroad has doubled.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: So what? Doesn't the merchant build his business to suit the customer?


Grant Deachman: Of course he does.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: What is happening makes me sick.


Grant Deachman: Of course that is what a merchant does. And to satisfy the customer, the most efficient as well as well as the newest elevator in Canada, operated by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, has been built-


Alfred Pullen Gleave: It was built because you guys would not put up the money. All my neighbours put up the money.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: What has happened to the government elevators out there?


Alfred Pullen Gleave: They would not even move the wheat out there after we had put up all that money.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The government elevators closed down in Vancouver.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. We must be fair to the hon. member who has the floor. Hon. members will have an opportunity to express views on the bill before us and on the operation of railways in Canada. We cannot make progress if there are lengthy exchanges among hon. members. According to the rules of the House, hon. members must address the Chair: that is the best way to make progress.


Grant Deachman: These exchanges illustrate, I think, Mr. Speaker, what I tried to say originally. Members of the transport committee, as well as others who are interested in transport matters, are present and are anxious to take part in the debate. This is a good debate. Speaking as one who is taking part in the debate, I am delighted to find the great amount of interest that is evident in the House. Hon. members are listening instead of going to sleep behind the funny papers.
These exchanges illustrate that for those who live in western Canada on the west coast, on the Prairies, in Prince Edward Island or in the Maritimes, transportation is an interesting subject. When this subject is discussed in the House, people wake up and take an interest in what is going on. Therefore I welcome the questions and remarks that are coming from the other side of the House. Do not knock what is happening, Sir, because these exchanges are evidence of hon. members' interest in a subject that is well worth debating in this House.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member accept a question?


Grant Deachman: I shall be delighted to do so.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Does the hon. member appreciate that right now they are short 20 million bushels of wheat in the terminals at Vancouver? In 1928 this country produced 600 million bushels of wheat. Then we had an old-fashioned railway system and the farmers delivered by wagon
CNR and Air Canada
and horse and got their wheat to market. But now there is nothing in the terminals at Vancouver to move to market, as the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Gleave) just suggested. I should like the hon. member to say-and he can refer to documents-why this government is not moving our wheat from the Prairies to Vancouver. That is the question we must consider tonight, and not this nonsense to which the hon. member is referring.


An hon. Member:: It takes Conservatives to move wheat.


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer the hon. member's question. I think hon. members opposite know that I represent a riding in the city of Vancouver which is concerned particularly about the shipment and movement of grain. That movement, when I first came to parliament, did not begin to approach the grain movement that we now see going out of west coast ports. This movement has arisen in the course of a decade and we have had to cope with it in the course of a decade.
We are looking at the shift in the movement of grain from its traditional European export path to a Pacific export path. We are looking at a country that is attempting to orient its export shipments from a traditional eastward movement to a westward movement. When I see what has taken place in the harbour of Vancouver to cope with this problem, I think the harbour of Vancouver and the people who are responsible for it-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: It has not changed one iota.


Grant Deachman: Just a moment-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: It has not changed one iota.


Grant Deachman: Just a moment, now-


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member be willing to accept another question?


Grant Deachman: I have been willing, Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order, please. The hon. member knows that he cannot force a question on the hon. member who has the floor. It was the impression of the Chair that the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Deachman) intended to complete his remarks without accepting all the questions which might arise. If the hon. member accepts all such questions I do not think much time will be left for him to complete his remarks.


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, I dislike very much not accepting the questions of hon. members. May I continue the thread of the argument I was following a moment or two ago? Hon. members opposite can ask questions if there is time, or enter into the debate. Essentially I want to say this: some of the things we have done in coping during the past decade, with the great switch in our export market which saw our outgoing Atlantic movement change to a Pacific movement, are as follows-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: What changes have you made?


Grant Deachman: There has been built, for instance, on the west coast the best and most modern elevator available.

March 9, 1972
CNR and Air Canada Mr. Horner: And who built that?


Grant Deachman: Well-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Who built that?


Grant Deachman: I will be very glad to tell you hon. members who built it. It was built by the Saskatchewan co-op, by many hon. members opposite whose dollars are involved in that co-op.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Don't take the credit for it, then. Tell us what the government did.


Grant Deachman: I am saying that it was built at Vancouver harbour to improve the grain trade.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Grant Deachman: And to provide access to that elevator the biggest suspension bridge in Canada was built across the harbour. Along the harbour, at other points, dredging took place in order to allow larger vessels to come to Vancouver harbour and accept grain.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The harbour is dredged every year.


Grant Deachman: Longer jetties were extended into Vancouver harbour in order that vessels of longer length could be loaded and in order that more and more holds at one time could be filled, thereby enabling the men to work more quickly and ships to turn around faster. The net result of this-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Did you people put electric light bulbs over the edge of the harbour so that ships could be loaded at night?


Grant Deachman: That may have been done. However, the net accumulated effect of all this, plus the accumulated effect of the additional boxcars and modern unit trains I referred to earlier in my remarks, has enabled the port of Vancouver to deliver twice the amount of grain-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: No.


Grant Deachman: It has moved twice the amount of grain that it was able to move a decade ago.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: In 1960 they loaded one million bushels per day. They are not loading that much today.


Grant Deachman: I ask hon. members who doubt these figures to check the amount that was loaded on average a decade ago. Look at the amount being loaded now and compare the operations of a decade ago with what is being done now.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Who cares about what happened ten years ago?


Grant Deachman: Also, Mr. Speaker, we who come from Vancouver can say that we have moved from being Canada's second or third ranking port to Canada's first ranking port in terms of export volume.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: That has resulted from the level of ocean freight rates and not from anything the port did.


Grant Deachman: One could say, perhaps, that we have not done the best job in the world-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Hear, hear!


Grant Deachman: Essentially, what we have succeeded in doing-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Another failure by the government!


Grant Deachman: No, it is not. We have succeeded in doubling the capacity of that port to take care of Prairie shipments. I do not think that is a bad performance. Hon. members opposite from the prairie provinces may want to tell us what they have done about grain drying and utilizing grain cleaning equipment to enable them to send clean, dried grain to the west coast so we would not have to perform those functions at the moment grain was demanded by ships. They might look at their own antiquated elevator system, which is based on the movement of the horse and wagon to a railway elevator point, and ask themselves just what they have done to improve the system on the Prairies for the smooth movement of grain. I listened to hon. members telling us about the movement of grain. I listened to experts who appeared before the transport committee telling us about the antiquated system for which members opposite have fought.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: They are not antiquated.


Grant Deachman: I do not think we on the west coast have to apologize for anything. We have twice the capability for moving grain that we had a decade ago. The people on the Prairies do not begin to have twice the capabilities. I drove through the Prairies. What did I see? Did I find the prairie people in the co-op, who were boasting a moment ago, capable of taking care of the grain situation? No. I found storage on farmers' land in increasing quantities because, I presume, the co-ops have not been able to take care of it. If I were looking for efficiency in the handling of grain and the storing and movement of grain, I would not look to the west coast for improvement but to the Prairies.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Deachman) sat down so quickly, because he was having such a good time telling us how great things are in the west. He could have started to tell us that in the east we have no problems in spite of the eight increases in freight rates we have suffered over the past three years and the considerable decline in the movement of our basic products such as potatoes to central markets. However, one presumes that the hon. member has no limit to his naivety and that on a future occasion he will favour us with a rendition of how things are not in eastern Canada.
Having listened to Aesop's Fables for the past few minutes, I think it would be useful to put some hard facts on the record. In the past few days I have received a newsletter issued by the potato trade which indicates in factual terms the deterioration in service provided by the railway for the movement of that basic commodity from Prince Edward Island. It is interesting to note the move-
March 9, 1972

ment of potatoes over the past five years and see where increasing freight rates are leading the potato industry.
I shall read this into the record briefly. It stands as some kind of monument to the impact of the present transportation policy on the agricultural industry of eastern Canada. To February 25, 1968, there were 9,760 carloads of potatoes moved by rail from Prince Edward Island. To February 25, 1969, there were 10,912 carloads moved by rail. To February 25, 1970, 12,306 carloads of potatoes were moved. I stop at this point to indicate that until this time we had been operating under a freight rate assistance act that had not been altered substantially since before World War II. In those three years, 1968 through
1970,	there was a considerable increase in the amount of potatoes moved by rail.
What happened in the first full calendar year after the new freight structure was introduced? To February 25,
1971,	there was a sudden drop from 12,306 cars to 8,654-a fantastic drop of approximately 33 per cent. To February 25, 1972, the number of carloads of potatoes moved by rail declined by more than a thousand to 7,643. This is as a direct result of freight increases, eight of which we have suffered in the past 29 months. The last rail rate increase was on February 24 of this year. That increase, announced by the Railway Association of Canada on behalf of the Canadian railways, ranges from 4 per cent to 8 per cent.
The latest increase is another in what has become a pattern of increase every six months since the lifting of the rail freight rate freeze on September 23, 1969. This succession of rail rate increases now stands at a cumulative total of 35 to 68 per cent, depending upon the rate level, for non-competitive rail rates and 19 to 40 per cent on competitive rail rates. While it may be argued that railway rates were frozen for almost ten years prior to September 23, 1969, the accumulative increase enacted during the years immediately following the lifting of the wartime prices and income freeze, in fact for the lower rated traffic the increase since September 23, 1969, exceeds the increase in any similar period since World War II.
I wonder if the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra is still listening and is still prepared to tell me how wonderful things are with regard to the operation of the railroad and the discriminatory action taken by this government with respect to rail rates as they affect the Atlantic region. It is ludicrous for anyone in this chamber or anywhere else to suggest that we have somehow benefited from any kind of enlightened transportation policy. In fact, we know the situation is quite the reverse; we are faced with an extremely serious situation.
So that no one will be inclined to suggest that this decline in the use of the railroad is the result of shifting to other carriers such as truck transport, may I put on record the figures for the same five-year period. To February 25, 1968, 822 truckloads of potatoes were moved from Prince Edward Island. To February 25, 1969, 870 truckloads were moved. To February 25, 1970, 879 truckloads were moved. To February 25, 1971-presumably because some advantages were granted to the trucking industry-there was an increase to 1,173 truckloads. To February 25, 1972, when action was being taken to
CNR and Air Canada
increase rates for the trucking industry, there was a substantial decline to 922 truckloads.
The situation in which we find ourselves at the present time with regard to moving perishable commodities and basic products such as potatoes is that increasing discriminatory action is being taken by the transport industry, I assume under the direction of the Canadian Transport Commission. This will undoubtedly have a continuing depressing affect on the agricultural industry of Atlantic Canada. In this respect I wish to refer to Fraser's Potato Newsletter which is published in Prince Edward Island, which indicates that this trend will probably continue and that we will be seeing more people moving closer to the population centres of Canada or to the ports where they can move their spuds to market short distances by truck and water instead of in the old-fashioned way. The old-fashioned way seems to be the fundamental way for the basic industry of Prince Edward Island. Unless and until the government requires its own agency, the CNR, to live up to its commitments, the agricultural industry in Prince Edward Island will face increasing difficulties. I find it rather difficult to believe that the government would introduce these measures without requiring their agency, the CNR, to reconsider its over-all policy respecting the movement of such basic commodities.
I do not want to spend all of the time available to me discussing the aspect of freight rates alone. Recently, both railroads applied to discontinue passenger train service to the Atlantic region, which applications were denied. I was happily surprised that the Canadian Transport Commission not only refused the applications of the railroads but took the rather unusual step, which I hope will be very largely responded to by the general public, of inviting suggestions from the public in regard to improving passenger train service between Montreal and the Maritimes.
li ever I felt there was need for public response and contribution it is in the area of giving some imagination to the current unimaginative and dreary attitude exhibited by the nation's railroads in connection with passenger service. I have occasion from time to time to travel on the railroad, both long distances from here to Prince Edward Island and shorter commuting distances such as to Montreal and Toronto, and every time I realize how actively the railroad discourages public use of the railroad for passenger traffic. It cannot be said more simply and directly than that. It is abundantly clear, particularly under the new transportation arrangements, that the railroads do everything they legally can to ensure that passenger travel will be at least an unpleasant experience. It is difficult to describe, unless one has a tremendous flair for language and colour, the paucity of imagination regarding the facilities provided for passenger traffic on our railroads. Just recently the railroads took a further backward step in deciding to increase passenger costs by separating accommodation and meals which had been hitherto provided on the same ticket. What does one find when one travels aboard Canada's railroads today?


William Arnold Peters: Members of parliament.

March 9, 1972
CNR and Air Canada


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: That is right, but you also find many people who have no alternative mode of travel. There are not many who travel because they choose to use the railways.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Only when there are strikes.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mostly during strikes, that is true. They do so out of desperation, I presume. No effort is made to make the trip an enjoyable event in itself, whether in terms of housekeeping facilities and general level of hospitality-if I may put it that way-aboard the railroads, or in terms of some diversion or entertainment while aboard.
It is a rather fascinating piece of Canadian history that when radio broadcasting was first developed in this country, which was in the 1920s, one of the first places a person could listen to the radio was while sitting in the lounge car of a railroad train.


Stanley Howard Knowles: A CNR train.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: A CNR train, that is correct.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Both you and Stan are about the same age!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Yes, he is just reminding me of that. As I was saying, it is fascinating to realize that radio, that new and exciting means of communication, found its first home aboard a railroad car. What imaginative and daring people must have existed in the 1920s who not only placed radios in lounge cars but even began the first radio network. This was certainly an imaginative step to be taken by such daring individuals in the 1920s.


Stanley Howard Knowles: With an operator to keep them in good shape, too.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I am reminded that there was an operator to keep them tuned in to the best programs of the day. Where are all the men of imagination and daring of the 1920s? I can only conclude they are 50 years older and are still sitting at the desks they were sitting at in the 1920s, never having had a new idea since. Who would think of doing such a dangerous and daring thing as placing a television set or a movie screen aboard a railroad car? That would be unheard of. Or who would think of supplying a stewardess?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Or even a janitor to clean up the floor.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: These are suggestions that must boggle the imagination of anyone who is responsible for passenger traffic on our railroads today. What has happened to all the old ideas? Or is it considered improper for a national institution like a railroad to do anything to entertain the traveller on short or long trips other than providing him with a Reader's Digest that is six months old or with bingo at ten o'clock? Certainly, this seems to be the sum total of their imagination at the present time. Somewhere in the dim and dark past the railroad apparently discovered that bingo was a good thing.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: CPA have Playboy now.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Well, I will not get into that. Bingo is a good thing and the railroads feel it is an exciting diversion that satisfies every predilection of the travelling public. What utter, transparent nonsense!
I think it is time that somehow, somewhere, there be thorough shake-up of the individual and collective imaginations behind our nation's railroads. Perhaps in a way this is what the Canadian Transport Commission is trying to do when it suggests that the time has come for the general public to give its views on how the railroads tackle such things as the routing of trains, frequency of service, connections, times of departure, methods of providing meals, methods and cost of providing sleeping car service, fare levels, improved reservations and a whole host of other things that I will not bother to go into now. I sincerely hope that prior to the deadline announced by the commission of April 15, 1972, the general public in the Maritimes and Atlantic provinces inundate the Canadian Transport Commission with all kinds of suggestions.
The only place where there seems to be any kind of imagination shown, any suggestion that people might actually enjoy themselves while travelling on a train, is in these high-priced, glossy magazine advertisement that we see, or in some of the television commercials depicting happy, smiling, joking families having such a wonderful time aboard a railroad train in the dining car or lounge car. It is never made quite clear what they are enjoying, but obviously they are enjoying something. Perhaps it is time to call the bluff of the corporate bosses and ask them what the railroad plans to do to make passenger travel an exciting prospect for both long distance and short distance travellers.
Things are so bad in terms of the ability of the railways to adjust to the needs of passenger traffic that in Ontario the province is developing its own railroad to serve mass transit needs. The Go-transit system is Ontario's answer to failures on the part of the CNR. There are many examples of these shortcomings. One thinks of the commuter service operating between Ottawa and Montreal. I am not a regular user of this service but many members of this House are, and from time to time we hear laments, private and public, about the shortcomings of that service. Surely suggestions for improving it have been passed along often enough to merit a response.
I wish to turn now to another aspect of the responsibilities of the Canadian National, namely, the operation of the ferry service between Prince Edward Island and the mainland. There are few things of more vital concern to a Member of Parliament from Prince Edward Island than the efficiency of this ferry service. I do not want to be completely negative in my approach. I want to take this opportunity to say that one of the best things done by the CNR in connection with the service has been the complete structural change in terminal facilities at both Borden and Tormentine. The arrangements for both passengers and freight now represent a vast improvement over any we have previously known. This is an important development in providing a more humane and effective method of travelling to and from Prince Edward Island from the mainland.
March 9, 1972

Having said this, I want to make some specific suggestions with regard to improving the present service. I had occasion to use these terminals fairly recently and I can therefore speak from personal knowledge. There are two areas which need substantial improvement. The first is so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning. It arises from the fact that after ten o'clock in the evening there is no provision whatever for food or sustenance for those who might have to wait many hours for ferries. I cannot understand why, when they are so close to the operation, the CNR has allowed or compelled that restaurant service close at 10 p.m. while still operating the ferries until 1 a.m.
It would be bad enough if the ferries operated on a regular schedule. But everybody who knows this service knows that for a long period during the winter months one cannot be sure how long it will be before a ferry leaves or how long the crossing will take from either of the terminal centres. On some occasions people must wait five or six hours, well into the small hours of the morning, literally without food or drink to sustain them. Surely, inhumane conditions of this kind do not need to be perpetuated and a reasonable adjustment could be made in restaurant hours to provide necessary facilities required by travellers, particularly during the cold winter months.
My second criticism is of particular importance to those who use the service infrequently or rarely. There is a real paucity of information concerning the time at which ferries travel or what delays the traveller can expect. I arrived at one of the terminals the other night shortly after midnight and tried to find out whether the ferry would leave on time. For a long time I was unable to get this information. Finally, though, I was able to rouse an official who was occupied with quite another responsibility and he was able to tell me. Surely it would not take a great deal of effort or imagination to provide some way by which simple information could be given to the travelling public.
There is another matter I should raise in connection with the ferry service. A continuing bone of contention is the off and on again situation with regard to the John Hamilton Gray. Many hon. members will recall the concern expressed by Islanders when this vessel, the flagship of the fleet, was suddenly whisked away from the Prince Edward Island operation to the Newfoundland-Port aux Basques run. Islanders felt rightful indignation that a ship which had been constructed especially to operate between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick should suddenly be plucked from that service to supplement a service for which it had not been constructed and for which it was not, in some respects, particularly suited. I am aware that the Minister of Transport is again considering relocating the John Hamilton Gray on the Newfoundland service in the summer months. I think this would be a move not happily accepted by Islanders.
I am even more concerned about the possibility that, having once gone into the Newfoundland service again, the vessel might stay there for an indefinite period and not return to Prince Edward Island next fall. Any suggestion of such a step would in my opinion be tantamount to a breach of the basic agreement in the constitution to provide continuous and effective communication between Prince Edward Island and the mainland. I cannot believe
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that any official in the Department of Transport would treat such a request seriously.
I ask the CNR to consider how it could ever discharge its duties in terms of the movement of heavy traffic during the winter months in the absence of a ship such as the John Hamilton Gray. It is crucial that the Gray be retained to handle the heavy movement of freight during the winter months. Moreover, in my opinion, it will be crucial, perhaps not this summer but in succeeding summers, to make use of the Gray to handle the tremendous annual increase in tourist traffic in Prince Edward Island. Any worsening of the service presently provided would amount to a great obstacle to the economic development and improvement of Prince Edward Island.
I wish to refer briefly to only one further question with regard to the legislation under discussion. This bill also encompasses grants of money for Air Canada. Prince Edward Island is a unique province in many ways. It is particularly unique in terms of air transport in that it is the only province not served by the national carrier, Air Canada. Prince Edward Island has never been served by Air Canada because our air transport requirements over the years have been met by regional carriers, first Maritime Central Airways and in more recent years Eastern Provincial.
There have been suggestions that Eastern Provincial will be altering its schedule shortly. It has an application to this effect. The application is to direct its main service from Charlottetown through Halifax and an intermediate point to Montreal. Such a step would certainly be a backward one. I have had the experience of representing an area, Summerside, in Prince County, Prince Edward Island, which has lost the air service previously provided by Eastern Provincial and before that by Maritime Central Airways. I would hope there is not an attempt on the part of the regional carrier to further downgrade the service provided out of the province itself by air.
Surely, if Prince Edward Island is faced with a deteriorating air service from this regional carrier there will deservedly be much more pressure for the national carrier to provide service to all ten provinces and not just nine as is presently the case. I would hope Air Canada as well would examine the air requirements from time to time which exist in Prince Edward Island, because I do not think it is inevitable that forever and a day the island should not be part of the national air transportation link. It might well be that on a trial basis Air Canada could well serve Prince Edward Island during the peak travel months of July and August. I believe this would be met with great favour by those who are increasingly using air transport to visit Prince Edward Island during the heavy tourist months.
Mr. Speaker, I conclude with the hope that Canadian National Railways, which has provided service internally to Prince Edward Island for years in the past, will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Without the movement of railroad traffic it would be impossible to move internally or externally our heavy production in potatoes. I am concerned about the level of maintenance being put forward on the island roadbeds as they already exist. This

March 9, 1972
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is a matter I hope to raise at a later date either in this House or in committee.


Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I listened earlier to the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Deachman) and I immediately understood why he is referred to as the member for "Vancouver quandary," because he certainly was in a quandary when he was trying to talk about grain, grain movement, elevators and the like.


Grant Deachman: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I do not mind the hon. gentleman saying I am in a quandary. However, I come from a constituency in which we are proud of the name Vancouver Quadra, which commemorates the names of two great, gallant seamen. I do not particularly like it referred to as "Vancouver quandary." I do not refer to the hon. member's constituency in derogatory terms, and I know he feels as proud of his constituency as I do of mine. If he wants to say I am in a quandary, that is another matter. I will take my lumps in debate as well as give a few myself sometimes, but I think he should respect our constituencies and what they stand for.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, I am rather pleased I gave the hon. gentleman an opportunity to say something worth while for a change. Perhaps he was not listening. I do not wish to continue this sort of argument, but I said that after listening to him it is no wonder many of his colleagues call him the hon. member for "Vancouver quandary." I did not suggest that was the name of the constituency. The hon. member's oversensitivity ran away with his good judgment.
When I first moved up to north central British Columbia many years ago, Canadian National Railways used to operate a train between Jasper, Alberta, and Prince Rupert, the terminus on the coast, on a three-day a week basis. One day it went westbound and the next day it went eastbound and the seventh day was day of rest. After that a bit of progress was made and the passenger train expanded its operations to run six days each way. In other words, we had a train each day, one going east and one going west.
In recent years the Canadian National has seen fit to revert to that earlier time when there was a smaller population and less industrial activity than there is now. We are back on a three-day schedule, and have been for quite a number of years now except during the peak summer months of tourist traffic. It was always my impression that the Canadian National was an organization that always looked backward, but I see from the revelations about radio and things like that that it did not look back far enough in order to find some inspiration to do something worth while for the' nation.
At one time it was a pretty proud occupation, and still is, to be a railroader. Railroaders had good morale, a good feeling, good comradeship and loyalty to the company, particularly in the Canadian National. There was a dedication of the individual to the efficient functioning and operation of the railway. The people who worked for the railway were very proud to be railroaders and proud to be working for that particular company. I do not know when

the change took place, but there was a coincidental, if nothing else, deterioration in the level of service, a decline in the morale and feeling of railroaders at about the same time the late Donald Gordon took over the reins of the CNR and became its president.
I think this was probably because of the attitude of Donald Gordon, the attitude about centralization of authority in the CNR, the attitude of computerizing the operations, the attitude of using a slide-rule and not being concerned so much with the actual functioning and operation of the railway, and the attitude about lay-offs and curtailment of service as well as everything else. In other words, there was an indication to the people who worked on the railway that Donald Gordon as the president was really not very interested in the people who worked as railroaders. There was not the old spirit at the top, and it filtered down on the men and destroyed the morale and efficient functioning of the Canadian National itself.


An hon. Member:: It reflected government policy.


Frank Howard: One of my colleagues tells me it was a reflection of government policy. That may well be so. We know Donald Gordon was one of the dollar-a-year men during the war years, and perhaps the disinterest of Mackenzie King rubbed off on him.
As everyone says, in northern British Columbia we have a fantastic amount of natural wealth, fantastic amounts of minerals, timber, lumber, pulp and paper and everything that flows from that. We have an agricultural potential and a hydroelectric potential for industrial activity which abounds all over that country. The Canadian National Railways has an industrial development branch, section or division which in theory is supposed to concern itself with industrial development.
So far-and this is within the limited years of my knowledge of what they do-the CN has ignored completely whatever potential exists in the area from which I come and, I gather, in other areas as well. While the Canadian National theoretically has concern about industrial development, engineering and structuring its activity to provide development and job opportunities for people, it has completely ignored it and has operated on a kind of single-track mentality without any regard whatever for what its function should be.
Northward from the community called Hazelton, which in B.C. is the northernmost point on the CN line, some time during the early years of the Second World War-this would be about 30 years ago now-there was a designation made of a route classified as route A. It was a wartime concept, the hope being that this was one of the north-south routes that could be used to tie Alaska with the southern continental part of the U.S. and help better to prosecute the war effort. Finally, a different route was used, of course-namely, the Alaska highway.
The point I am trying to make is that 30 years ago this route was conceived and on quite a number of occasions since then, and in the latter years particularly, the CN has had engineers in that area who have conducted surveys. It was the Department of Transport, I believe, which contracted an engineering firm by the name of Menzies a few
March 9, 1972

years ago which conducted an extensive survey in the area for a potential northward line of the CN to open up that part of the country in the northern 500 miles of B.C.
There have been studies upon studies upon examinations of considerations, engineering reports and heaven knows what other kind of examination made of that type of extension, but no activity, no action, no concrete proposals and no attempts whatever to really do something about it. During the time that Jack Pickersgill was minister of transport, I wrote him a letter. This was before he got that cushy job for himself paying him $40,000 a year or something like that. The money is insignificant to Mr. Pickersgill. He was not concerned about the money. He was just concerned about finding an area for retirement for himself where he would not have to do anything, and he succeeded because it is he who conceived the legislation that created the job to which he got himself appointed after the legislation was passed.
However, I do not want to get involved in that sort of discussion about Mr. Pickersgill. I like him very much. In fact, I wrote letters to him when he was minister of transport in that informal way in which friends can write to each other. I started, "Dear Jack" and I related to him what was and what should be going on in B.C. about this extension, and I asked whether he would do something about it. I got a delightful letter back in which he wrote, "Dear Frank". It acknowledged my letter and told me that this had nothing to do with his department and that I should get in touch with Canadian National: they were the ones who were in the business of building railways, not him.
So I wrote CN and used almost the same phraseology. I said, "Here is the situation, here is the potential, here is the area, here is what is necessary. How about doing it?" The reply I received from CN was that they were not involved in that sort of activity. They suggested that I get hold of the Department of Transport and the minister because this was a matter of government policy. This running around back and forth between the government and CN has resulted in no activity taking place in terms of railroad development in that area where it can really be worth while.
Let us take a contrasting situation to put this matter in perspective. In my own province we have another socialis-tically-operated railroad which used to be called Pacific Great Eastern. The Pacific Great Eastern Railway right at the moment, and all credit to them, are building a railroad extension in exactly the same area into which we have been trying to push CN for a number of years. At one stage a premier of my province, who was also president of the PGE railroad, offered to buy the CN north line because he saw what the potential was. I cannot understand the reluctance on the part of the government, because they were not interested in that operation in the first place. I do not know why they did not enter into negotiations to sell the railroad, because now we have the ludicrous situation of PGE building a railroad extension northward from Prince George which for quite a distance parallels the Canadian National line after which it branches off in a northwesterly direction.
The question arises now: What happens to the Canadian National line, and what happens to Prince Rupert as a
CNR and Air Canada
potential port for shipment of goods and materials in and out of that port? Is it going to be over the CN line, or will the Pacific Great Eastern-a provincially-owned and operated railway which is still building the extension where the CN should have built it, because the CN was in that area long before PGE was-manage all the traffic in and out of that area?
If I was running PGE I would want all the traffic possible to move over that railroad as distinct from trying to get it over the CN. I understand that some discussions are taking place, but what they are nobody seems to know at the moment or at least they do not want to say. I think this points out that the CNR really has not concerned itself too much about what it should be providing Canadians. It is a publicly-owned corporation and a publicly-owned railway, and undoubtedly its lack of concern reflects what successive governments have imparted to it.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: They do not believe that.


Frank Howard: No, I guess they do not believe it. They probably do not believe in doing something worth while for Canada either. Consider the port of Prince Rupert. The CNR controls the waterfront in Prince Rupert. I do not know how much property they have along there, but the train runs in and out right along the waterfront and the CN has big blocks of property there under its authority and control. Each time there has been an attempt of any kind at port development in the city of Prince Rupert, in one of the finest harbours on the west coast, it has been blocked by the Canadian National. Each time a proposal has been put forward to do something worth while with that port, the Canadian National, which controls the waterfront, has said, "We are not interested in doing anything-in assisting, in giving up prerogative rights or doing anything at all worth while to develop the port."
The people in charge of Canadian National refuse to budge. Now they are in the process of closing some of the stations in communities that do not even have adequate road transportation and in some cases are on the off-side of the river from the highway and depend desperately on station agents and having a station operative at those points. But it is the intention of the Canadian National to close them, to ignore those communities and disregard the legitimate needs, desires and claims of the people who live in them-all for the purpose of trying to consolidate everything into these servo-centres that Canadian National now has.
With respect to Prince Rupert, I wonder if I could speculate for a moment about the attitude of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang) in his capacity of dealing with the Wheat Board. I do not know how many times it has occurred, Mr. Speaker, but on almost innumerable occasions matters have been raised about the terminal elevators on the west coast and about the shipment of grain, why the ports cannot be operated more efficiently and more effectively, why there have to be blockages, holdups and delays, why grain cannot move through these ports and elevators, why we cannot meet our commitments to world trade, why we cannot give guarantees to

March 9, 1972
CNR and Air Canada
countries which have been told, "Not only will we sell you grain, but we will see to it that it is delivered."
Every time these questions are raised the minister stands up and talks about some place called the port of Vancouver, as if that were the only community in British Columbia. He is the head of the Canadian Wheat Board. He is a member of a federal government party that in 1926 built, and a few years ago doubled the capacity of, owns, operates and runs a terminal grain elevator in the city of Prince Rupert, an elevator that is under-used, that has a capacity that is not used to the limit, that sits idle without ships available for it, without boxcars or grain available for it at certain times of the year, while the city of Vancouver and Vancouver harbour, right outside in English Bay, upwards of a dozen or more grain ships are sitting and waiting either to get into the elevators or waiting because there is not sufficient grain. The same government that gives that response about Vancouver being the only port through which it thinks it can ship grain, on behalf of the people of Canada owns a railroad that runs right into Prince Rupert and owns a terminal elevator as well-but it ignores its operation and use. That is not being Canadian. That is not being helpful to our economy. That is not trying to do things that are worth while. In fact, that is putting an obstacle in the way of progress, in the way of any worth while use of these facilities.
It took a tremendous amount of effort, through two successive governments and I don't know how many ministers of agriculture within the last 12 years, to move the Canadian government to duplicate and double the storage capacity of the elevator in Prince Rupert. If the government really wanted to do something valuable, helpful and worth while for the shipment and movement of grain, which in turn would be helpful to the prairie provinces, helpful to the farmers, helpful to our commitments to world markets, helpful to the railroad-the Canadian National, because it would be moving the grain-helpful to Prince Rupert and helpful to the people of Prince Rupert who would be working in the grain handling facilities there, the government itself should have been working three or four years ago to build additional elevators in Prince Rupert in order to help take the pressure off Vancouver, if that is where the difficulty, the bottleneck, really is. But as I say, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian National and the government seem to have a one-track mind when it comes to the question of doing anything valuable and worth while.
Now I would like to mention in a more broad and national sense one of the things we are concerned about and were concerned about previously, namely, the financial structure of the CNR. As I understand it, the CNR came into existence as a company that incorporated a number of privately-owned, and at that time privately-being-built railroads that had gone bankrupt. The Canadian government at the time of the setting up of the Canadian National said to the investors in those bankrupt railroads, "Never fear; we will bail you out. We will take over your lines. We will guarantee your investment even though the private corporation in which you invested has gone broke or bankrupt and in some cases has probably fleeced you as investors. We, on behalf of the Canadian taxpayers, will take you over, consolidate you all into one railroad and guarantee your investment, guarantee to pay

the bond interest and guarantee you won't lose your money."
I gather that one of the fundamental, principle points of the capitalist system concerns the question of risk capital. You risk your money in private ventures. You invest it, naturally in the hope that this will bring a return, but you take the risk that if the company you invest in goes bankrupt then that is too bad and you have lost your money. But the Canadian government at that time, and successive governments since then, did not really believe in that because they had friends amongst those investors, and governments of the time and ever since then have said to those old-time investors, "Never fear; we will dip into the taxpayers' pockets and we will guarantee your investment. We will guarantee to pay the interest on the money that you have put into these defunct and bankrupt railways." So we took them over and the result has been largely a millstone around the neck of the Canadian National in its financial structure.
Over the years, those original indebtednesses have been refinanced and other bonds issued until it is virtually impossible, without a fleet of chartered accountants going over the books, to find out what the original investment was and how much money was sucked out of the Canadian taxpayer who, through this system of government guaranteeing to those people-most of whom, I understand, were in England at that time-guaranteed that even though they had lost their money in a poor venture they, the Canadian taxpayers, would give it back to them. We went through all this a couple of years ago in trying to assess the financial position of the Canadian National when a similar bill was being dealt with. At that time we also went into extensive questioning about the Canadian National pension fund and the fact that that pension fund had millions of dollars in it of employees' contributions but is dominated by the Canadian National. The money in that fund is what the employees put into it, but it is Canadian National that decides what will happen to the fund.
We made some committee recommendations a few years ago about a couple of these items. Hon. members may wonder how that happened. One of the preludes to it was a CNR financing bill, as we loosely call it, that was before the House at the time. There was a deadline and a timetable, and speaking from memory it was December 31, 1969. Those of us who were interested in this denial of justice to CN employees of pension rights and pension contributions, and in the operations of the board, and those of us who were concerned about the ludicrous financial structure of the CN which makes it top heavy and always losing money, wanted to do something about it to see if it could be corrected. We engaged in a filibuster, that being the only mechanism with which to get any common sense through to the government of the day.
On December 10, 1969, as a result of our continued efforts, though mostly because of that approaching deadline of the end of the year, the government agreed to refer to a parliamentary committee the financial structure of the CN and the operation of the pension fund. The Standing Committee on Transport and Communications examined these matters in some detail. The report dated Sep-
March 9, 1972

tember 8, 1970, went into a number of those questions. It went into the fact that Canadian National Railways chose the chairman of the pension board and decided on the secretary or executive officer of the fund. It went into the fact that there are seven men on the pension board, four of whom are directors of CN and three are elected from the employees. It went into all this in great detail and made recommendations. With respect to the pension fund and the pension board, right at the beginning the report reads:
It soon became evident to the committee members that there was a widespread and strongly felt dissatisfaction with the CN pension plans among the railway's employees-
The committee concluded that it was not fair nor just to have a pension board handling millions of dollars of employees' contributions; to have a pension board dominated by the company; that it was wrong that the chairman of that board should be a director of the company; that the chairman was not an impartial person; that the chairman had a vested interest in preserving the position of the Canadian National and disregarding the position of the employees and their pension rights; that the chairman was unfair and unjust in his dealings with those employees in regard to the pension fund. The only reason the committee was able to come to those conclusions based on the evidence presented was that some of us made life miserable for the government when it was trying to get the bill through the House. We wrung from the government a reluctant referral to that committee, otherwise there would have been no report. We see now that the referral to the committee was really a put-off, that the government was not sincere and did not care about justice for the employees.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: It never did.


Frank Howard: It said so at the time. I do not remember what office the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) occupied then, but I do remember that he said the government recognized the difficulties of the older employees on pensions and those on pensions right, and that he recognized the CN had difficulty with its financial structure. He moved the motion for referral to committee, and it was passed.
The committee made recommendations and concluded that the chairman of the pension board was unfair, unjust, dictatorial and concerned only with the Canadian National part of the pension fund and not concerned with the well-being of the employees. It recommended that the unions involved and the CN each choose an equal number of representatives to serve on the pension board and that an impartial chairman be appointed, "probably by a minister of the Crown".
That recommendation is as valid today as it was then, Mr. Speaker, but it has been ignored by the government that said it was going to do something about it. Obviously, the government was concerned only with cheating the employees of the CN; it was concerned only with cheating those who were on pensions and were denied fair treatment by the fund.
The committee pointed out that there was an annual surplus of some $7 million. Multiply that by the number of years the fund has been in effect-the report was made in
CNR and Air Canada
1970, so presumably there was $7 million in 1969 as well, and in 1970 and in 1971-and that amounts to $21 million. Every member of that committee recognized that justice had to be done to those who were on pension and recommended that the $7 million annual surplus be used to establish a new pension level for the old-time railroaders who went on pension under a less generous plan than now exists. In other words, it should bring them up to a meaningful amount of pension. That also has been ignored. That means nothing more than the government cheating people, the government flying in the face of an unanimous recommendation of the committee.
As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, this matter was referred to the committee because some members of this House who were concerned engaged in a filibuster and because there was a deadline for the passing of that bill-the end of 1969. Nothing definite has come out of that examination. The recommendations have been ignored by the CN, by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his tribe of professional ignorers of almost everything.
We want to get some action and activity from this bill. We do not think it is sufficient for members to stand in the House and talk about the things they are concerned about in their constituencies, valid as those things are. We all know that if the government sets its mind to something it will get it through Parliament even if it has to ram it through, as happened with the tax bill. We all know that logic, common sense, reason, appeals to justice and fair play fall on deaf ears. We all know that speeches in this House go over the heads of the government because their minds have been set beforehand-they have a determination about what the government intends to do and will not listen to another point of view.
We are concerned, as well, about Canadians on pension, about the financial structure of the company and about things like the movement of grain, improper freight rates, about how the public is gouged on freight rates, about railway abandonment proposals, about the curtailment of passenger service and the level of that service. We are also concerned about the servo-centres, about lay-offs and about the destruction of communities resulting from removing from them stations, station agents and railway service.
I do not know whether there is any deadline for this bill. I do not know whether the deadline is the end of this month-nobody has yet said-or any other time. I think there is a deadline in that the government wishes to get on with other legislative matters. I am sure there are other bills the government wants to get through the House, otherwise they would not be on the order paper and the government would not have introduced them.
Whether there is a deadline at the end of the month because that is the end of the fiscal year, or whether there is a deadline in terms of the government's own priorities, I think we should indicate to those government supporters who want to listen or who want to read Hansard that if we have to engage in a filibuster in order to get the valid and worth-while recommendations of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications made on September 8, 1970, accepted, we will just have to engage in a filibuster.
702

March 9, 1972
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
If we have to engage in a filibuster in the House and in committee to deal with the freight rate structure, the rationalization of that structure, the abandonment of service, the level of service and all the other negative things that Canadian National has engaged in, that is what we will have to do. I do not relish the prospect of engaging in filibuster tactics any more than anybody else. However, in a situation where logic, common sense and reason do not prevail, where the valid complaints of citizens of Canada are unheeded by a government that has a mentality like concrete-well mixed and well set-the only course available to us is confrontation. If filibuster and obstruction tactics are the only way to get at the meat of the situation, then let us engage in them. If that is the kind of game the government wants to play, that is the kind of game we will have to play, either until the demands of the people meet with success or until the government decides to call an election or do whatever it wants. That seems to be the only course available.
Reluctant as we are to waste our time, the time of the House and the time of committees, that is the course we shall have to follow in dealing with these matters. The primary consideration-I know that this may sound foreign to the government benches-is justice. Justice must prevail. Let us attempt to get it.


Mr. McQuaid:: Mr. Speaker, may I call it ten o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent that the hon. member call it ten o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, on February 29 I directed a question to the Solicitor General (Mr. Goyer) for which I have received no reply so far. It had to do with any advice that he is deemed to have received from the security planning and research group, as he called it in his statement of September 21, 1971, on page 8027 of Hansard. Previous to that occasion I had asked the Solicitor General a question on December 28 of last year to which I received what I considered an unsatisfactory answer. The minister so much as said that if I would like to check Hansard I would find all the information I would require with regard to this group for which the Solicitor General is responsible. In other words I was told to do my homework.
I checked through Hansard. I specifically checked the editions of April 1, 1971, September 7, 1971, September 9,

1971 and also the minister's statement given to this House on September 21 of that year. With all due deference, Mr. Speaker, the answers to the questions I had asked were not there. So at this time, as a result of the minister's inordinate preoccupation with keeping the functioning of this particular group secret, I should like to put on record a number of other questions in the hope that an early answer will be provided in this House when estimates are considered or on some other occasion.
First, I request that the government table the job description which appeared in British Columbia outling the functions of the first job available in British Columbia for this new, so-called group or intelligence branch as one might refer to it. Second, is the Solicitor General aware of representations made by the British Columbia Federation of Labour criticizing the entire notion of the establishment of this branch? Third, could the Solicitor General also outline the organizational basis of this unit? Will it be organized regionally or will it be organized on the basis of provinces? Fourth, has the Canadian Civil Liberties Union made any comments on the establishment of this group? Have civil libertarians in general brought their position to the attention of the minister?
Fifth, does the group investigate on its own initiative? Sixth, who has access to the files? Do other departments, for example, have access to the files of this division? Can these files be used as the basis for discrimination against individuals or groups applying for federal government jobs or grants in other fields? Seventh, I should also like to ask whether the subjects who are being investigated or evaluated are informed about this process. How long will this information stay in the records of this group for which the Solicitor General is responsible? Eighth, what kind of protection will be afforded to individuals or groups that potentially are being investigated. Ninth, was the justice department's advice solicited on the establishment of this security planning and research group or organization?
Tenth, will they share their files with the ministry of justice? Eleventh, how long will any investigation remain on file? Twelfth, I should like to ask if the advice of this group will transcend the advice of other divisions. Thirteenth, who gathers the information for this group to evaluate. Is it gathered by this particular group, is it gathered by the RCMP, and what are its terms of reference? Fourteenth, I should like to know how this group will make a distinction between anyone promoting social change and someone promoting subversion. My last and fifteenth question is, does this group intend to investigate individuals or groups regarding the objects of such individuals or groups who have received DREE grants, LIP grants or Opportunities for Youth grants which, after all, can be used and are being used in some cases for the promotion of social change?
It seems to me that there are so many questions that need to be answered about this group that it is time we paid more attention to the basis on which it has been set up and under which it operates. The minister's inordinate preoccupation with being secretive about this group probably is doing it a disservice and is perhaps hindering it from fulfilling the function for which it was formed.
March 9, 1972


Mr. Douglas A. Hogarth (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the security planning and research group in the Department of the Solicitor General has not participated in any way whatsoever with respect to the so-called Geof-froy case. In suggesting in his question that the group would be giving advice to the Solicitor General (Mr. Goyer) regarding the penitentiary service and parole board, the hon. member has totally misconstrued the remarks made by the Solicitor General on September 21 of last year with respect to the function of this group. I would invite the hon. member to re-read the remarks made by the Solicitor General at that time and he will see that this group is engaged in studies and analyses of information pertaining only to internal security and not to such matters as are involved in the Geoffroy case.
If the hon. member were to re-read carefully the remarks made by the Solicitor General he would see that many of the questions that this evening he has added to his original question have been answered. As he is aware, the extreme time limitation imposed on me this evening and the lack of prior notice of his questions prevent my giving an adequate answer at this time. I suggest that the hon. member attend the appropriate committee when the estimates of the Solicitor General are before the House. At that time he will have an opportunity to extend the questions he has put on the record tonight.
It seems odd that there is so much mystery over this particular group. When the supplementary estimates were before the House last fall and the matter came before the committee, none of the questions put by the hon. member were presented to the Solicitor General.



TRANSPORT-SUGGESTED DELAY IN CLOSING OF CERTAIN SASKATCHEWAN STATIONS

John Leroy Skoberg: Mr. Speaker, on February 29 I asked the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) a question regarding the suggested delay in closing certain Saskatchewan stations in so far as the customer service plan is concerned. At that time he said he would be glad to sift through all questions in Hansard to find the various representations and would do his best to follow them up. I hope the parliamentary secretary can indicate tonight that he has sifted through and followed up the suggestions in the questions asked.
We hear a lot about industrial peace. We hear a lot about a government and a labour department that wants good labour-management relationships. We read and listen to pious remarks about proper recognition of the rights of labour and the rights of management. Then we see and read a decision by the railway transport committee concerning the removal of 56 agents, nine caretakers and four caretaker-agents from Saskatchewan and four agents and three caretakers from stations in the province of Alberta, all from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
What are the facts, and why would one be concerned after a review by the railway transport committee which rubber-stamped the earlier decision? The review was held at three points in Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Battleford
25020-45?
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion and Wynyard from December 1 to December 11, 1971. Hundreds of pages of testimony were heard by one commissioner. The commissioner repeated the fact he was taking and listening to testimony from all the witnesses and at a later date this evidence would be considered by other members of the commission and a decision rendered. On February 10 a decision was handed down rescinding the application by the government of Saskatchewan and giving the CPR the go ahead to implement its customer service plan on March 16.
What happened then, and why did it happen? The CPR moved ahead without regard to the social element involved in such an implementation. Can one imagine such inhumane treatment to employees expected to move their families if they wanted to be with them in the middle of March? Can you imagine a wife trying to shovel coal and haul ashes from some old, hand-fired furnace while her husband is hundreds of miles away if in fact he is one of the 50 per cent who may be still fortunate enough to have a job? Why did the commission not recognize the social consequences of long-standing employees and their families? What type of society do we live in, with such callous treatment from the hands of appointed boards and employers?
On the other hand, on the Laurentian division in Quebec an order approving the customer-service plan was handed down on January 17. However, the CPR is not implementing that service until May 1, which is realistic. Why the inconsistency in these two applications as far as implementation is concerned? Can the minister not have some input into a reasonable approach to such changes? Cannot the Minister of Labour (Mr. O'Connell) or his industry specialists bring reason and consideration to bear on the railway company? Are we concerned about industrial peace, or do we not give a damn? Surely there is responsibility on the part of government to use all means to bring about fair and proper treatment. Surely this government can move on its own initiative and not let an unfeeling and cold decision develop into bitterness and strife on our railroad.
All I ask is that this government, the minister and the parliamentary secretary use their authority to at least delay the implementation of the Saskatoon customer-service plan until June so at least families can make plans for the disruption which is evident. Let us not hear an argument quoting how people can appeal the decision. Surely there is room for reasonable men to deal with a reasonable proposal. Surely two months is not an unrealistic time to ask for in this situation.
I ask the parliamentary secretary tonight to make some representations to his minister. I ask him at least to get the minister to re-read the question I asked in this House on February 29 and to try to bring about a reasonable solution to a situation that could erupt into direct conflict between management and labour, which would not do either the nation or the economy any good whatever.


Mr. Gerard Duquet (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Skoberg) for the opportunity of responding to this question. I know it is an important matter to him and to other hon. members.

March 9, 1972
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion
The customer-service centre concept is one which is being applied widely in Canada and south of the border. I am told that it is an effective and efficient way of doing business with the railways in this fast-moving age. I understand that the many employees who exercise their seniority rights for the new positions which are created by the plan consider the new jobs very attractive and challenging.
On the general question, I am sure the hon. member is aware of the assurance which was received from the Canadian Transport Commission. I made it clear at this hour on February 22 on a question by the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. Burton) and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Jamieson) reiterated it during the question period a few days later. It is essential to this matter. The assurance which was received from the CTC was that any and every specific complaint that the CPR is not carrying out any of the undertakings given the commission and set out in the decision will be investigated promptly and remedial action will be taken wherever warranted.
One of the specific items raised by the hon. member was the effective date of implementation. There is no evidence of an effective date of implementation in any of the CTC's orders which I have seen. This is a decision which the railway must make, taking into account their collective agreement with their employees. As of the date of the initial decision on such applications, the employees must be given 90 days' notice.


John Leroy Skoberg: Thirty days.


Gérard Duquet: My information is 90 days. The hon. member has made a number of points which I will be glad to refer to the Minister of Transport. In addition, I can inform him that Canadian Pacific Railway is aware of his representation to the Minister.



HOUSING-POINTE-GATINEAU-LA FERME DU BARON PROJECT-REQUEST THAT OWNERS BE COMPENSATED

Gérard Laprise: Mr. Speaker, on March 3 last, I tried to find out from the government what attitude it would adopt in the face of the justified discontent of the owners of the housing development La Ferme le Baron at Pointe-Gatineau.
Having had no reply, I return to the charge this evening to bring home to the government-if that is possible- what I consider to be the worst injustice towards low-income families.
In recent years, under the cover of the National Housing Act, the government has undertaken mass production of slums. I say slums because I visited the housing development La Ferme le Baron while it was being built, in April 1971, and I saw what kind of construction was going on. What is more, this is not the only housing project that offers those characteristics.
I was astonished by what I saw. It was the first time that I saw outside doors with running water inside. The newspaper Le Droit reported the matter recently after having pointed out the defects of those dwellings, namely

extreme humidity, lack of insulation, water back-flow in basements and nonstandard party walls.
The builder simply replied: They only have to improve their ventilation system. Well, it is as simple as that! The builder is not the only one to blame. What he did in Pointe-Gatineau others have done elsewhere with the approval of some officials of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
When some builders are asked to draw up low income housing projects, they are told: Provide as little as possible. Do not build any sidewalk or cement stoop. When the owner will be tired of walking in the mud, he will build one. Hang interior rather than exterior doors, he will never know the difference. Yet, when he does realize this, he will have to replace two doors which will cost him from $300 to $400.
Mr. Speaker, home purchasers in the Le Baron project have been cheated, with the complicity of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I ask that justice be rendered to the homeowners who believe that they were purchasing a house meeting the major house-building standards, not only in the Le Baron project, but elsewhere also. It is not logical to let houses be built without supervision. That opens the door to all kinds of abuse.
On all house construction sites, sponsored by the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, qualified and responsible supervisors should be appointed to protect the purchasers.
The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Andras) is doing a fairly good job of protecting consumers against faulty products and misleading publicity, but in the field of housing, the purchaser is left without protection. What are the government's intentions in this regard?


Mr. David Weatherhead (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Abitibi (Mr. Laprise) for bringing this important question to the attention of the House.
As hon. members may know, this housing project consists of approximately 575 single-storey units of which 51 are of conventional wood-frame construction and the balance of 525 in the form of quadrexes which involve a different system of building. Each quadrex contains four units, each of which shares two common party walls. The walls, floors and roofs are constructed of metal panel manufactured by ARMCO Canada Limited. The project, located in the northeast part of Pointe Gatineau, was one of the earliest proposals received in 1970 by CMHC under the $200 million program. At that time, with its proposed sale price of $10,900 the proposed 300 unit project was one of the first to raise hopes that a breakthrough into lower cost housing was possible.
Construction started in 1970 and was followed in 1971 by a further 147 units being financed by an approved lender and the remaining 128 units financed by CMHC. On December 24, 1971, half the roof and the front end of one of the quadrexes was torn off by wind. The builder, DuBarry Construction Limited, ensured that the needs of
March 9, 1972

the occupants were taken care of and an immediate investigation was made in order to ascertain the reasons for this occurring, because only one building was affected. As a result of discussions between ARMCO Canada Limited, Quadrex Canada Limited, DuBarry Construction Ltee and CMHC, a method of strengthening was agreed upon and was implemented. No further problem is therefore expected in this area.
However, homeowner concern has arisen because of condensation problems and has led to representations by the homeowners' association. Basically, the problem is how to minimize excessive humidity levels created by normal living in houses that are tightly sealed. One
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion method is to ventilate the house by opening windows and doors periodically, but this course of action does not usually appeal to homeowners. In eight of the units with the most severe problems, a system of mechanical ventilation is being tried. At the moment it is uncertain whether the problem has been overcome to the extent possible in these electrically heated homes. A meeting of the builder, the homeowners and CMHC was held on February 26 and a further meeting was held on March 2 with the homeowners association executive.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I regret having to interrupt the hon. gentleman but his time has expired.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.16 p.m.

Friday. March 10, 1972