1973-01-29

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary ol State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table in the two official languages the texts of four identical notes dated January 27, 1973, communicated to the parties participating in the Paris conference on Viet Nam.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43, on a question of urgent and pressing necessity, namely, the sit-in of Indian people at the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development offices at Kamloops, and the necessity of dealing with the situation there, I should like to move, seconded by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Barnett):
That the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development be authorized to inquire immediately into the recent band council election at the Kamloops Indian Reserve and into the involvement of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in that election, and especially into events subsequent thereto.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent under the terms of Standing Order 43?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is no unanimity. The hon. member's motion cannot be put.


POLLUTION
Mr. Randolph Harding (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, under the terms of Standing Order 43 I ask permission to
move a motion on the grounds of urgent necessity. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard):
That the special committee of the House of Commons on environmental pollution be re-established, composed of not more than 20 members to be later designated by the House, to investigate all matters relating to the discharge of oil by the bulk carrier Irish Stardust into the waters of Johnstone Strait and the Strait of Georgia, including, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, the ownership and operating authority of the ship; the condition of the ship both before and after the incident; the role played before, during and subsequent to the incident by each and every agency established by act of parliament with responsibilities related to preventing or minimizing the damage; and the adequacy or inadequacy of relevant legislation and regulations, with powers to report from time to time its observations, opinions and recommendations thereon;
And that the committee be empowered to send for persons, papers and records; to sit during sittings and adjournments of the House either in Ottawa or British Columbia, and to travel between Ottawa and British Columbia; to print from day to day such papers and evidence as may be ordered by the committee; and to appoint from among its members such subcommittees as it may deem advisable or necessary, and to delegate thereto all or any of its powers except the power to report directly to the House.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: The motion cannot be put.


NATIONAL PARKS
Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to present a motion under Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgency. Bearing in mind the memorandum of agreement signed by the appropriate ministers for Canada and Newfoundland on October 31, 1970, respecting the establishment of a national park on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland, and in view of the imminence of the necessary expropriations, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Lundrigan):
That the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development recommend to the Governor in Council that the communities presently designated within the boundaries proposed for the Gros Morne National Park not be subject to the relocation clauses which would have the effect of destroying the traditional way of life, and rights, of several communities and their citizens.


Mr. Speaker:: Again, this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

January 29, 1973
Order Paper Questions


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not, and the hon. member's motion cannot be put at this time.


NATIONAL HOUSING ACT
[Stage Direction]
On the order: Introduction of Bills:
January 26, 1973-The Minister of State for Urban Affairs-Bill intituled: "An Act to amend the National Housing Act".
Mr. MacEachen:: Stand.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister has asked that this bill stand. Perhaps I should draw to the attention of the House an error in the French version of the recommendation attached to this bill to amend the National Housing Act. [Translation]
The French version of the recommendation reads in part as follows:
... augmentant de quinze milliards a dix-neuf milliards de dollars le montant global. ..
Whereas it should read:
. . . augmentant de seize milliards a dix-neuf milliards de dollars le montant global. ..
The English version of the recommendation is accurate.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Crouse: 1.	Is it the intention of the government to establish a satellite park along tlje coast of Nova Scotia as a supplement to the facilities provided by Kejimkujik National Park and, if so (a) what are the boundaries of the area selected (b) what is the estimated size of the park?
2.	How much money has been set aside for the development of a satellite park?
3.	On what date does the government estimate development work for a satellite park will be undertaken?


Mr. Len Marchand (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: 1. A
proposal to establish a coastal adjunct to Kejimkujik National Park has been under study for several years and in response to negotiations with the Province of Nova Scotia, this proposal has been given a low priority, (a) Precise boundaries have not been established; (b) The size of the proposal cannot be determined until boundaries are agreed upon.
2.	No funds are currently programmed for this purpose.
3.	No date has yet been determined.


Mr. NyStrom: 1.	What was the total amount of money spent in each of the fiscal years 1968-69, 1969-70, 1970-71, 1971-72 by the Company of Young Canadians on contracts to outside persons and organizations for research, development and other consulting services?
2.	What are the names and addresses of these outside persons and organizations and what amounts of money were involved in each contract?
3.	What was the purpose of each contract and title of each report submitted?
What are the names and addresses of outside persons and organizations who were awarded contracts for research, development and other consulting services in the current fiscal year, what are the amounts of money involved in each case and what is the purpose of each contract?


Hon. lames Hugh Faulkner (Secretary of State):: I am
informed by the Company of Young Canadians as follows: 1. 1968-1969, $15,913.30; 1969-1970, $6,192.13; 19701971, Nil; 1971-1972, Nil.
2 and 3. Contracts over $2,000:
Walter Kubiski	Consultant to advise
249 Talbot Street	Executive Director
Apt. 108
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Berger, Tisdall,	Public Relations
Clark and Lesly Ltd.
Box 61
Toronto Dominion Centre
Toronto, Ontario
Bruce Becker	Technician consultant
40 Hazel ton Avenue	(Technician, Radio
Apt. 7	station Kenomadiwin)
Toronto, Ontario
M. W. Bright	Accounting consultant
97 Queensline Drive Ottawa, Ontario
Fees:	$4,125.00
Expenses: $2,273.35
April 15, 1968- January 14, 1969 Fees:	$6,225.00
Expenses:	425.00
Fees:	$2,400.00
Fees:	$2,850.00
Expenses:	14.95
1972-1973 J. P. Gareau	Researcher-Social	Fees:	$2,830.002695 Dezeny	Welfare Recipients	Expenses:	458.90Montreal, Quebec Vincent D. Burk	Economic Development	Fees:	$2,000.0018 Greengrove	North Eastern Alberta	Expenses: $1,107.00	Crescent Sherwood Park, Alberta Michael J. Economic Development	Fees:	$2,000.00Woodward	North Eastern Alberta	Expenses:	569.00
55 Menlo Crescent Sherwood Park, Alberta


Mr. Broadbent: In each budget since 1968 (a) what was the estimate of revenues and what were the actual revenues collected on both a budgetary and national accounts basis (b) what accounted for the difference
January 29, 1973

between the forecast and the actual amount collected in each case where the discrepancy was greater than 2 per cent?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Finance):: The following table shows, for each budget presented in the period from fiscal 1968-69 to the present, the published forecast of revenues both on a budgetary and on a national accounts basis. It also shows the actual outcome for each year, and the percentage difference between forecast and actual revenues.
Fiscal Year	Budget Date	Budgetary Revenue	% diff.	National Accounts Revenue	.% diff.1968-69	Oct. 22,	Forecast	10,105	-0.9	12,125	-2.21968	Actual	10,191	12,397*	1969-70	June 3,	Forecast	12,025	-2.5	14,310	-1.41969	Actual	12,324	14,505*	1970-71	Mar. 12,	Forecast	13,150	2.6	15,620	0.51970	Actual	12,80.3	15,545*	Dec. 3,	Forecast	13,035	1.8	15,700	-0.21970	Actual	12,803	15,731	1971-72	June 18,	Forecast	13,660	-4.2	17,050	-4.11971	Actual	14,227	17,752	1972-73	May 8,	Forecast	15,670	n.a.	19,250	n.a.1972	Actual	n.a.	n.a.	
*Prior to Historical National Accounts Revisions, n.a.-Not available.
Disregarding the sign of the difference, the average difference between forecast and outcome was 2.4 per cent on a budgetary basis and 1.7 per cent on a national accounts basis. It should be noted that these averages have been somewhat distorted by virtue of the fact that some budget forecasts were rendered obsolete by a subsequent budget within the same fiscal year, or by discretionary changes introduced without the benefit of a formal budget.
For the five budgets for which "forecast versus actual" comparisons are available, three underestimated budgetary revenues, while two overestimated them. An important factor causing the underestimation was a higher than anticipated rate of price inflation. The overestimations occurred in 1970, and were attributable to the greater than anticipated deceleration of the economy experienced in that year.
In considering the accuracy of these forecasts, it is necessary to note that there is some imprecision in the published National Income Accounts, which constitute the point of departure for economic and fiscal forecasting exercises. For example, there is at the present time a residual error of approximately $2.0 billion or two per cent between the income and expenditure sides of the accounts. In addition, there is always uncertainty regarding the rapidity with which persons or companies respond to fiscal measures.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	What were the names of employers who offered at least 20 jobs to the recipients of grants under the Canada Manpower Mobility Program, in each of the fiscal years 1967-68, 1968-69, 1969-70,1970-71,1971-72, 1972-73 to date'
Order Paper Questions
2.	How many jobs were offered by each of the above-mentioned employers in each of the above fiscal years?
3.	What was the total value of mobility grants in each of the above cases in each fiscal year?
4.	What are the objectives of the program?
5.	Has the department conducted any evaluative study of the program and, if so, what was the date of the latest report?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: 1. Grants under the program are given individually to workers who meet the eligibility criteria prescribed by the Manpower Mobility Regulations rather than to employers and therefore the Department does not maintain a record of the names of employers offering jobs to manpower mobility grant recipients.
2.	See 1 above.
3.	See 1 above.
4.	The primary objective of the Canada Manpower Mobility Program is to optimise the use and geographical mobility of all manpower resources available to the country by assisting unemployed, underemployed and about to become unemployed workers, who cannot get suitable employment locally to move to more productive and more remunerative employment. The aim of the Canada Manpower Mobility Program is not to subsidize all worker mobility, but rather to assist and serve as an incentive to those who need to move but require financial assistance. The program also helps workers to travel to and take advantage of training and retraining opportunities which are not available in their home communities. The Manpower Mobility Regulations provide three types of assistance: Trainee Travel and Commuting Allowances: to enable adults to take training in a locality other than that in which they reside. Exploratory Grants: to enable a search for employment in another area. Relocation Grants: to facilitate permanent relocation.
5.	Yes. December 1972.


Mr. Laprise: Has the Export Development Corporation granted any loans to the Compagnie Maritime des Chargeurs Reunis and to the Soeiete Navale Chargeurs Delmas-Vieljeux for the purchase of ships built in Canada and, if so, what amounts and interest rates have been granted to each of these two companies?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Export Development Corporation states: 1. On September 10, 1971 it made an agreement with La Compagnie Maritime des Chargeurs Reunis of Paris, France, agreeing to lend that company $15.12 million repayable in instalments after delivery, to finance a sale by Marine Industries Limited, Sorel, Quebec, of two 15,600 ton multi-purpose vessels.
2.	On September 10, 1971, also, it made a similar agreement with La Soeiete Navale Chargeurs Delmas-Vieljeux of Paris, France, to lend that company Can. $37.8 million on the same terms to finance a sale of 5 similar vessels by the same shipbuilder.

January 29, 1973
Order Paper Questions
3.	The same rate of interest applies in each case; it is a commercial rate negotiated on the basis of rates prevailing internationally at the time; interest rates in Canada's long term financing are not published because negotiations now in progress may be hurt by publication.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Is it the intention of the government to proceed with improvements to the beach and swimming areas at the Mallorytown Landing Section of the St. Lawrence Islands National Park?
2.	Is it the intention of the government to improve the adequacy of the camping area at Mallorytown Landing by (a) utilizing undeveloped land presently government owned and lying north of Highway 2S (b) acquiring additional land presently privately owned and lying between Highway 2S and Highway 401?


Len Marchand: 1. Improvements at the Mallorytown Landing Section of the St. Lawrence Islands National Park that are planned for 1973/74 consist of: (a) A small building in the area will be remodelled into an Interpretive Centre, (b) Some renovations to the Outdoor Theatre, (c) Continuing the enlargement of the beach area by adding sand.
2. (a) No. (b) No.


Mr. Stackhouse: Will the Minister of Manpower and Immigration inform the House how many people received federally funded retraining programs in 1972, or any part of it for which statistics are available, and how many of them obtained jobs in fields in which they had been retrained?


Mr. John M. Reid (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, during the 1972 calendar year a total of 327,950 persons received assistance to enrol in federally funded training programs, distributed as follows among the various types of programs:
No. of Persons Enrolled in<u Federally Funded Training Programs-Canada, 1972
1.	Full time institutional	153,9522.	Training on the job	44,4293.	Part time institutional	46,9514.	Apprenticeship	32,8885.	Training in industry	49,730Total	327,950
(1) Enrolments represent numbers starting training courses during the period; an individual may participate

in more than one course during the year, and he is counted each time he starts a new course.
While persons participating in programs 3 to 5 are usually employed, the bulk of those involved in programs 1 and 2 above are unemployed when enrolled in training.
According to the latest follow-up results for full time institutional training, 76 per cent of trainees who completed skill courses in 1971-72 were employed three to four months after graduation. 48.5 per cent of the graduates found employment in occupations for which they were trained, and the remaining 27.5 per cent were employed in occupations not related to their training course.
Of the 44,429 persons enrolled in the training on the job program in 1972, 66 per cent completed their training. 93 per cent of those who completed training were employed after federal funding was terminated; 89.8 per cent were with the same employer working in the occupations for which they were trained; another 1 per cent were in a different occupation, while the remainder found employment with another employer.


Mr. Nesdoly: 1.	What was the total number of employees in the latest 12 month period at the Eldorado Nuclear Ltd. mine operation at Uranium City, Saskatchewan?
2.	How many were hourly-rated and how many were salary-rated?
3.	What was the total payroll?
4.	What was the breakdown of the payroll between hourly-rated employees and salary-rated employees?
5.	What was the total production of ore in each of the past ten years?
6.	What was the cost of producing a pound of uranium oxide for each of the past ten years?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Eldorado Nuclear Limited reports as follows: 1. 388 average.
2.	Hourly rated, 246.25 average; Salaried, 141.75 average.
3.	$4,045,238.
4.	Hourly rated, $2,591,165; Salaried, $1,454,073.
5.	1963, 1,885,212 pounds; 1964, 1,837,029 pounds; 1965, 1,800,467 pounds; 1966, 1,687,501 pounds; 1967, 2,003,369 pounds; 1968, 2,001,648 pounds; 1969, 1,562,357 pounds; 1970, 1,531,893; 1971, 1,204,406 pounds; 1972, 1,334,647 pounds.
6.	The requested information is of a proprietary nature, the disclosure of which would be prejudicial to the Company's-and the public's-interests in light of the competitive position of Eldorado Nuclear Limited in marketing uranium on a worldwide basis.



QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN


Mr. Broadbent: 1. What were the names of corporations benefitting from subsidies under the Subventions for Coal Transport Program (SCT), in
January 29, 1973

each of the fiscal years 1968-69, 1969-70,1970-71, 1971-72, 1972-73 to date, and what were the amounts of subsidies in each case?
2.	What are the objectives of the above program?
3.	Has the department conducted any evaluative study of the program and, if so, what was the date of the latest report?
Return tabled.


Mr. Diefenbaker:: Mr. Speaker, may I point out that starred question No. 53 and starred question No. 56, both of which have been on the order paper since January 4, have not yet been answered. It is very difficult to ask questions in the House before orders of the day, restricted as we are by the rules, and the reason for starred questions is to enable answers to be given.
It is obvious that the answer to starred question No. 53, having to do with the removal of the descriptive letters "RCMP" from detachments, automobiles and other vehicles, might be embarassing to the finer sensibilities of the cabinet, but that is no excuse for not answering it. Starred question No. 56 asks:
Since January 1, 1972, have any departments of government removed from mail envelopes the letters O.H.M.S. and, if so, what departments-
That question is in the same category. In view of the newly-found devotion to Her Majesty on the part of the Prime Minister, I see no reason why I should not get an answer to this very simple question.



MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S.O. 26 POLLUTION DAMAGE FROM OIL DISCHARGE BY VESSEL, &quot;IRISH STARDUST&quot;

Mr. Thomas S. Barnett (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 26 I ask leave, seconded by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas) to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely, the failure of the government to exercise its authority under the Canada Shipping Act to enact the regulations and to establish an administrative organization which could have prevented the widespread damage to seashores and coastal waters off British Columbia resulting from damage to the hull of the vessel Irish Stardust, the subsequent voyage of this ship to Victoria and the discharge of fuel oil therefrom.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Comox-Alberni has forwarded the notice required under Standing Order 26. I have given serious consideration to the hon. member's proposed motion that the House adjourn to discuss the matter referred to in his notice. Essentially, the hon. member proposes that the House debate what he terms the failure of the government to take certain action. Thus the hon. member for Comox-Alberni wishes to put before
Oral Questions
us a motion of censure against the government. With respect, I suggest to him that Standing Order 26 cannot be used for this purpose. He knows, I am sure, that there are many precedents to this effect. As the House knows, there are a number of avenues open to hon. members to bring on a debate based essentially on a censure motion. In particular, Standing Order 58 is available for this purpose.
In the circumstances, I regret that the hon. member's motion cannot be put under the terms of Standing Order
26.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Revenue arising from the fact that Canadians 65 years of age or older are permitted to claim an exemption of $1,000, as opposed to the $650 previously permitted, in completing their income tax returns for the year 1972. Will the minister indicate what exemption is available to Canadians 65 years of age or older in computing their tax deductions in connection with employment for the year 1973?


Hon. Robert Stanbury (Minister of National Revenue):: The exemptions are those provided for in the law, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Nielsen:: He doesn't know the answer.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the minister whether there is any explanation of the fact that in the TD-1 forms being sent out by the department, that is, the form on which the employee's tax deduction is computed for the year 1973, the exemption available to Canadians 65 years of age or older is $650 rather than the $1,000 such a person can claim in respect of income in the year 1972? Is there any explanation for this other than confusion within the minister's department and the government?


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Mr. Speaker, the explanation is that the exemptions will be subject to the law that parliament passes.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, in view of the importance of this question to Canadians 65 years of age or older who are now completing their tax deduction forms and, therefore, on the basis of these forms are being subjected to tax deductions in excess of those that would be made on the basis of the $1,000 exemption being applied by the govern-
718

January 29, 1973
Oral Questions
ment for the year 1972, can the minister assure the House as to any steps he proposes to take to prevent taxes being deducted from Canadians of the age of 65 years or older on the basis of the lower exemption included in the form? I ask this question, Sir, because if this is not done immediately many Canadians of the age 65 years or older are going to suffer an injustice and will have to wait for a year or so for a tax rebate instead of getting the benefit of the exemption that has been made available to the same people for the year 1972 but which is not being made available to them for 1973 through confusion in the department and the government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Mr. Speaker, I expect that an adjustment will be possible and we will be anxious to see that is is made just as we were very anxious to see that the forms were available as quickly as possible at the usual time so that people could take full advantage of any increase in exemption that parliament accepts.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Will the minister come into the House tomorrow and state what emergency measures the government proposes to take to correct this injustice? I ask the question in view of the fact the minister has no idea what this is all about.


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Mr. Speaker, there is no injustice and many-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


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


DECREASE IN DEDUCTION FROM 1973 INCOME ALLOWED PERSONS 65 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER-REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE LEGISLATION TO CORRECT SITUATION
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question, but may I direct it to the Minister of Finance as the minister responsible for introducing tax legislation. In view of the confusion to which reference has just been made, will the minister consider separating from his other budget proposals of May 8 of last year the proposal regarding the amount of the exemption for those aged 65 and over and will he bring it in right away so that last year's arrang-ment can be confirmed and so that this year's arrangement can be put into effect without delay?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, there is no confusion, but the hon. gentleman's representation will be considered.


POSSIBLE REASONS FOR DELAY IN ANNOUNCING DATE OF BUDGET
Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. Is the delay in announcing the date of the budget contingent upon the conference of federal-provincial ministers on welfare and other related matters later this week in which old age security matters are going to be discussed? Also, must we await this determination before we get the date of the budget so that all related matters, including that alluded to by the Leader of the Opposition and by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, can be straightened out, because there is a great deal of confusion in the mind of the Minister of National Revenue?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair will recognize the hon. member for Wellington on a last supplementary on this subject and will then recognize the hon. member for York South.


COMPLETION OF 1972 RETURNS-AVAILABILITY OF DEPARTMENTAL OFFICIALS TO ANSWER TAXPAYERS' QUESTIONS
Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of National Revenue. In view of the confusion that exists and the problems faced in filling out income tax forms, are the minister and his department considering making members of that department available at strategic points to help answer some of these questions?


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Mr. Speaker, there is no confusion thus far-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Hon. members opposite may be wishing to promote some hysteria among the public, but that is not the case yet. We have made available this year additional facilities for providing information to the public. For the first time citizens can call their income tax office from wherever they may live in Canada without toll charges, so they can get this information readily and without expense.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We will return to this matter as there are a number of supplementaries. We will hear the hon. member for York South and a representative of the other party to complete the first round of questioning and return to this matter later.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask some questions of the Secretary of State for External Affairs arising out of the situation in Viet Nam and out of the disquieting reports that the cease-fire agreed upon is apparently not yet fully observed and that there any many violations. Are he or the observers watching the situation

January 29, 1973

carefully, and have the parties to the Paris agreement, and particularly the joint military commission set up under it, been informed that if violations of the cease-fire continue Canada may have to reconsider its acceptance of a part in the International Control and Supervisory Commission?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, while it is regrettable, I do not think it is surprising that after a war that has lasted for a generation there has been a continuation after the hour of the cease-fire. In a number of public statements and in representations made to the various parties I drew attention to the possibility that this might be so, and that the international commission should not be expected to undertake its responsibilities immediately, that it was necessary to provide some time before the cease-fire could be considered to be in effect. However, I do hope that this situation will not continue and that we will then be in a position to carry out our responsibilities in the hope that the truce will in fact be observed.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, if I may say so I am very glad that the minister made that statement. I want to ask a supplementary question. In view of recent allegations that Canadians on the old International Control Commission made separate reports containing military information to the United States authorities, I would like to ask the minister whether present Canadian personnel have been formally instructed to make all reports, whether unanimous reports or separate reports, as provided for in the Paris agreement, to all four parties to the Paris agreement and not to any one of them alone?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I also have heard these allegations. They have not been pinpointed. It is not clear from the reports I have heard whether there are charges in fact that Canadians did give this information or whether in fact these were simply third-hand reports to the effect that somehow some information had got into the hands of the Americans, perhaps through Canadian eyes. Our personnel on the old International Control Commission were authorized to give individual reports only to Ottawa. They were never authorized to give reports to any other country, including the United States, and that is the situation today. I do hope that the measures we are taking will remove even the suggestion that we might be engaged in spying activities.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, to understand the minister correctly I should like him to clarify the situation. My reading of the agreement indicates that the members of the International Control and Supervisory Commission may issue either unanimous reports or each member of the commission may issue reports to the parties to the agreement. If my understanding is correct, will the minister take steps to make certain that such reports, even when there is not unanimity on the commission, will go to all parties to the agreement as well as to Ottawa, and that such reports will be made public so that people can know exactly what is happening on the ground?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I think that is a reasonable suggestion. It is certainly what we have in mind and I hope it can be carried through.
Oral Questions


VIET NAM-CEASE-FIRE AGREEMENT-FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT BY SUPERVISORY COMMISSION PERSONNEL
Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the point the minister makes about the commission taking a bit of time to get established, but could we know whether the observers have yet been able to obtain the freedom of movement that the protocols call for?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the commission is just being organized now and, as the hon. gentleman knows, it has to work along with the military commissions to discharge its responsibilities. We are not yet in a position to know whether in fact the agreement will be carried through with respect to those sections that do give reasonable access to the areas in South Viet Nam.


VIET NAM-CEASE-FIRE AGREEMENT-DISPATCHING OF DESTROYER, &quot;TERRA NOVA&quot;, TO SOUTH PACIFIC
[Stage Direction]
Mr. ]. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East): Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of National Defence. Can he advise the House whether the Terra Nova or any other Canadian war vessel is to proceed to Viet Nam immediately or in the near future and, if so, for what purpose? Could he also tell us whether he and the Secretary of State for External Affairs are satisfied with respect to the propriety of Canada stationing a ship that may be provocative, in the sense that it is armed, in Vietnamese waters?
Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will appreciate that the second part of his supplementary asks for an expression of opinion. The minister may want to reply to the first part.


Hon. lames Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, the Terra Nova is sailing today for the South Pacific but is not sailing directly to Viet Nam and will not be going into the territorial waters of either South or North Viet Nam. It is on an extended training exercise and is also part of our contingency planning in the event that we require a possible evacuation.


Mr. Forrestall:: Mr. Speaker, will the minister not carry his answer further and tell us whether or not these training exercises include plans for the Terra Nova to carry any live armament on board? Also, where will it be serviced?


James Armstrong Richardson: Mr. Speaker, the ship will be armed in the conventional way. It does not carry helicopters but it will carry the normal armament such as depth charges, cannon and other normal destroyer equipment. It will be supplied at the ports of usual call such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

January 29, 1973
Oral Questions


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Agriculture.
Since the price of feed grains noticeably increased last week in eastern Canada, can the minister say whether he intends to take the required measures to curb this price increase?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister oi Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I do not have the latest prices on feed grains but I am aware of the increases which are mostly due to the protein supplement. We are meeting with the Canadian Feed Manufacturers Association and I am having another meeting tomorrow with the people directly involved in the industry in eastern Canada.


FEED GRAIN-SUGGESTED ASSISTANCE RESPECTING PROTEIN SUPPLEMENT
Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Agriculture. Has he had time to consider the recommendation of the Maritime Farmers Council that feed grain protein supplement be added to the feed freight assistance program? If so, when will he make an announcement?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, that is one of the things we are discussing and will be discussing later this afternoon with the National Dairy Farmers of Canada.


FLAX-PROVISION OF SUFFICIENT SUPPLY AT WEST COAST PORTS TO MEET EXPORT DEMAND
[Stage Direction]
Mr. A. P. ©leave (Saskatoon-Biggar): Mr. Speaker, may I ask a further supplementary and direct my question to the minister in charge of the Wheat Board. In view of the lack of supplies of flax, a protein oilseed, at west coast ports to meet export demands, can the minister assure the House that action is being taken by the Canadian Wheat Board and the transport committee to put sufficient supplies in place?
Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, this, of course, is normal procedure under the block shipping system. Without doubt, as ships are scheduled grains as required are sent to meet them. In the case of flax a very large ship can occasionally require some additional supplies and some waiting time. This has not happened often in recent weeks.


Mr. Gleave:: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member's question, in my view, was not supplementary but related. Perhaps the hon. member might be given an opportunity in a moment to return to this subject. I will recognize him in due course. I had undertaken when we were on the first subject to return to it after the first round of questioning. I believe the right hon. member for Prince Albert has a supplementary to the first question asked this afternoon.


INCOME TAX
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of National Revenue whether it is not a fact that across the country there is great difficulty among taxpayers in interpreting the new income tax forms? Indeed, they might as well be written in Sanskrit.


An hon. Member:: Or put out by Information Canada.


John George Diefenbaker: I ask the minister whether he will send out instructions on the interpretation of some of these sections to the various offices across Canada, because I have found that when they were communicated with their answer was, "Well, how do you expect me to know what it is?"


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: Will he send them some information so they will be able to explain the unexplainable?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John George Diefenbaker: What is the answer?


An hon. Member:: What is the question?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the answer was. I think it would be about as intelligent as I would expect.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. May we have order, please?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I should like to know what the answer was.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. My interpretation of the right hon. gentleman's intervention is that it was a suggestion or representation.


John George Diefenbaker: No, no.


Mr. Speaker:: I think he can assume that the minister has heard it. I do not think it was a question in the usual form. If the minister wants to reply briefly, perhaps it would be simpler if he were allowed to do so and then I will recognize the hon. member for Don Valley.


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Mr. Speaker, I would not want to leave the impression that I did not want to answer the right hon. gentleman's

January 29, 1973

question. I was anxious to answer. I would be glad to consider his representation, but very clear guides have been sent with the forms this year and I think his constituents will find them helpful.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I am speaking about people in Ontario who have written.


Mr. Baldwin:: What would Gordon Sinclair think about it?


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: Mr. Speaker, I have taken the trouble to compare the forms this year with those of 1962.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Robert Douglas George Stanbury: I find them as simple this year and the exemptions are much higher-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Would the minister kindly resume his seat? The hon. member for Don Valley.


John George Diefenbaker: People do not know what the forms mean.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. lames Gillies (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Can the minister tell us whether or not the contingency program for price and wage controls, which has been mentioned off and on in the House, has been discussed with the appropriate officials of the provinces?


John Napier Turner: No, Sir.


James McPhail Gillies: Is it the position of the Minister of Finance and the government that a price and wage control program could be put into effect in Canada without the support and co-operation of the provinces?


John Napier Turner: If that should ever become necessary, and the hon. gentleman knows my view about that, of course we would need a national consensus and that would require provincial co-operation. In constitutional terms it is probably not necessary.


HOUSING
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I had wanted to direct a question to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs but maybe the Minister of Finance will answer it in light of the great increase in certain costs. As Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation has agreed to permit rents for low-cost apartments to go up immediately, would the minister be prepared to investigate this increase of between 15 and 20 per cent in low-cost hous-
Oral Questions
ing, particularly as an agency of the Department of Urban Affairs has agreed to the increase?


Mr. Ian Watson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I will take the question as notice and bring it to the attention of the minister.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's attempt to answer the question, but I directed it to the Minister of Finance. Perhaps I should direct it to the Prime Minister. As rent increases are affecting tenants all across Canada, with the rents paid by thousands of people being increased by 15 per cent, would the Prime Minister ask the minister responsible to investigate the matter and report immediately upon his return?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the subject is an important one and it will not be lost on the minister who is in Toronto today addressing the annual convention of the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada. I feel rather certain that they will be discussing this kind of question with him, officially or unofficially, and the minister may have some answer when he comes back.


FOOD PRICES
Mr. Walter Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: I have a question for the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. Is it the intention of the government to present to the committee on food prices its contingency plan for price and wage controls so that the committee will be able to rule and judge whether it will be an effective plan if and when the government decides to bring in wage and price controls?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the very nature of the question deals with a contingency plan. It is a contingency question. I would have to give a contingency answer.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I have a very serious question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Can he advise the House whether he is giving consideration to the recent proposal from a number of very prestigious deliberate bodies that legislation be introduced to protect a substantial portion of the pensions of old age security recipients living in nursing homes, who find that the rates there rise much faster and more frequently than pension increases?

January 29, 1973
Oral Questions


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 
AIRPORT
Mr. John Reynolds (Burnaby-Richmond-Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Public Works. The hearings on the Lancaster expropriation at the Vancouver international airport have been completed and I am wondering when the report on these hearings will be tabled in the House of Commons?


Hon. lean-Eudes Dube (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, a decision in connection with this expropriation has to be made before Friday. I have not given any thought to tabling the report of the hearing, but if it is the wish of the House I will do so.


John Douglas Reynolds: In view of the fact that these reports have not so far been tabled and that hearings started today on expropriations in connection with the runway at Vancouver airport, and in view of the fact that members of this party and of other parties have asked that the hearings be stopped until they have had a chance to review the report of which the minister spoke, would the hon. gentleman agree to halt the proceedings until the report is tabled and the people in the area have had a chance to review it?


Jean-Eudes Dubé: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot agree to stop the hearings because if too much time is spent the expropriation would be declared abandoned. But I agree to table the report on the first expropriation.


POLLUTION
Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport about what can only be described as the incredible saga of the Irish Stardust. In view of conflicting news reports, can the minister tell us exactly where this ship went aground, in what circumstances, and under whose authority or direction the vessel proceeded to Victoria after grounding?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I trust the minister can give this information briefly. Otherwise he would have to give the information to the House by way of a statement on motions.


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Environment is now in British

Columbia for the specific purpose of conducting a thorough inquiry and receiving all reports and thus be able to inform the House of what happened.
I have partial information which I can give the House. For instance, the amount of oil spilled I know was 340 tons. I know there were a pilot and an assistant or apprentice pilot on board, that there was an opening of some four feet by two in the hull of the ship. For any further information, I think we shall have to await the return of the Minister of Environment for details.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Hon. Paul Hellyer (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Finance. Would the minister advise us how he intends to recognize a national consensus in favour of wage and price controls when it occurs?


John Napier Turner: That will be a matter of judgment, Mr. Speaker.


Gerald William Baldwin: That is what you are short of over there.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Since there have been innumerable polls indicating that more than 70 per cent of the Canadian people already favour them-in some provinces such as British Columbia the percentage is as high as 86 per cent-


Mr. Speaker:: Would the hon. member ask the question?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: -when will the minister agree that the percentage of agreement has reached a national consensus? Or does he believe there ought to be 100 per cent agreement?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I watch opinion as closely as does the hon. gentleman. And I have found great difficulty in trying to establish the opinion of the party to which he now belongs.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Paul Theodore Hellyer: A further supplementary-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest this is debate between the hon. member and the minister and I am afraid it could go on for a long time. I shall return to the hon. member eventually, but a number of hon. members who failed to be recognized last Friday are still waiting, in particular the hon. member for Edmonton Centre who has a supplementary from last Friday.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
\
January 29, 1973


COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton Centre):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was beginning to wonder whether I was becoming the most invisible member of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Explain!


Steve Eugene Paproski: My question is to the Prime Minister. It is now two years since the Davey report on the news media was presented to the government. When does the government propose to implement the recommendations contained in that report, tabled December 9, 1970, in particular the one proposing the establishment of a federal press council?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I think the hon. member is mistaken. There was no report to the government. It was not demanded by the government nor was the report made to the government. It is a report regarding which both opposition and government members can form various opinions.


Steve Eugene Paproski: My supplementary is directed to the Minister of State in charge of multiculturalism. Would the minister advise the House who are his federal multicultural centre program representatives, and whether they are speaking for the minister's department or for the Liberal party when they travel across Canada promising multicultural centres?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member's question is visibly out of order.


RESTRICTIVE TRADE PRACTICES
Mr. William Knowles (Norfolk-Haldimand):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. Inasmuch as officials of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs have completed their investigation of the Pfizer Company Limited in connection with price fixing and have made a recommendation to prosecute to his department, what steps have the department taken to initiate proceedings against this company?


Otto Emil Lang: I would want to look into the exact status of that matter to see whether there is anything I could reasonably report to the hon. member at this time.
Oral Questions


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance, one which has a good deal to do with the Unemployment Insurance Commission. Has the minister arrived at any projection of the level of unemployment for this year in order to be able to calculate the cost of unemployment insurance? If so, has he passed this information on to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration in order that the latter might be in a position to calculate the cost this year?


John Napier Turner: Any projection would be bound to contain a number of ingredients, not only the level of unemployment but the average number of weeks per benefit and the average weekly payment during those benefits. As the hon. member knows, there are a number of ingredients that would go into such a projection.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: The minister seems to have forgotten that one of the prime criteria embodied in the Unemployment Insurance Act calls for government intervention once unemployment reaches 4 per cent. Can I assume from the minister's answer that the unemployment target as far as the government is concerned is the 4 per cent referred to in the Unemployment Insurance Act? I ask this question because it seems important to me that no change should have been made in the act in this regard. In other words, is that the limit which the government accepts?


John Napier Turner: I am not too sure I would be happy even with that target. That was the threshold at which parliament decided to bring in contributions from the people of Canada over the employer-employee contributions. As I have said on other occasions, the target for me and for the government is that we would not be satisfied unless every man and woman in the country able to work and seeking work could find work.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: A supplementary-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I will recognize the hon. member on a supplementary and then the hon. member for Yukon, but it seems to me that this kind of exchange that has been going on, from day to day, I may say, between the hon. member for Hamilton West and the minister on this same point is not very helpful, from a procedural standpoint, at least.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I beg the indulgence of the House, but it seems to me it is of extreme importance, because of the calculations required for the Unemployment Insurance Act, that the minister have a projected figure of unemployment. My last supplementary is this: in order that we may arrive at some idea of the government's thinking on this subject, will the minister advise us whether his target is to reach an unemployment rate of less than 6 per cent this year?

January 29, 1973
Oral Questions


John Napier Turner: Yes, Sir.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the Acting Minister of Manpower and Immigration who I assume would be the Minister of Labour. Would the hon. gentleman inform the House whether the discussions with the leader of the New Democratic Party are yet concluded with respect to Bill C-125, so that we may know when to expect this legislation to be proceeded with.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Stanley Howard Knowles: The answer is, yes.


POLLUTION
Randolph Harding: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport in connection with the grounding of the Irish Stardust off the British Columbia coast. Who will be responsible for the clean-up costs resulting from this oil spill?


Jean Marchand: The
master of the ship was brought into court last Friday and a bond of $20,000 has been deposited with the court pending the report we are to receive. So legal action has been taken, though I do not know the result of it.


Randolph Harding: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact the cost of the clean-up of the pollution from this oil spill will greatly exceed $100,000, may I ask the minister whether the fund that has been set aside through a levy on the import and export of oil will be applied to the cost of cleaning up this disaster, or can it be applied?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, as I said previously, I do not have a complete report on this spill. The Minister of the Environment will be here tomorrow and I think he will be in a better position to give the information requested by the hon. member.
 * *


MONTREAL OLYMPIC GAMES, 1976-POSSIBLE REVISION OF GOVERNMENT'S POSITION
Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the right hon. Prime Minister.
An inquiry, the results of which were published over the weekend, reveals that 59 per cent of all Canadians favour federal help to the 1976 Olympics: would the right hon. Prime Minister then tell us whether his government will
study the possibility of revising the position taken last week?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker,
I do not know on what point the hon. member would have the government revise its position. It is identical to the position Mayor Drapeau has always taken, that is, that the Olympics would not cost the Canadian government a penny. I am wondering whether the hon. member is now suggesting that I should disagree with Mayor Drapeau.


Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether the Prime Minister could also report to the House when his minister returns on the number and amount of LIP applications in the hands of the government respecting the Olympic games?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member cannot seriously suggest that that is a supplementary. The hon. member for Dauphin.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker; it was supplementary to the question about the Olympic games. These LIP applications are with respect to the games.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair has recognized the hon. member for Dauphin.


FINANCE
Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Is the minister considering cutting federal sales and excise taxes in the forthcoming budget as a means of containing inflation?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the hon. gentleman's opinion.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Keith Taylor (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. In view of the fact lengthy delays have occurred in completing an amending agreement with the government of Manitoba for the Manitoba special area, would the minister advise the House whether an amending agreement has now been completed and, if not, when such an agreement will likely be completed?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I too am unhappy, as I am sure the hon. member is, that delays have occurred. I do not think they are entirely one-sided in that this is a complex issue. We are continuing our talks and I have
(Mr. Alexander.)
January 29, 1973

indicated that I am prepared to meet with the officials of the Manitoba government any time they are ready.


Charles Keith Taylor: Would the minister advise the House what additional areas and projects are being discussed with the province of Manitoba and which of these projects have been agreed upon?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, until such time as an agreement is actually signed there can be no definitive agreement. In fairness to the government of Manitoba, I think I would have to get their consent to the disclosure of any matters that are now the subject of negotiation.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Now that a consultant has been appointed to deal with the health problems of former European prisoners of war, would the minister tell the House whether or not all applicants are going to have an opportunity, if they desire, of appearing before the consultant? Or how will each case be decided?
Hon. Daniel ]. MacDonald (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member's question may I say that I spent some time this morning with the gentleman who was appointed the other day, and no specific rules have been laid down yet. Considerable time will be taken in doing this very important job. The doctor who has been appointed is under no particular rules and is not strapped down. No one is telling him what to do. It will probably take him six months or more to do his job. As far as laying down any specific rules at this time is concerned, we are not intending to do so since we do not think it would be proper. He will be reporting to us and we will watch the situation with him. Our department and all doctors across Canada who have some familiarity with this sort of thing will be giving him all the assistance possible.


FOOD PRICES
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs whether he has now had an opportunity to peruse the studies, reports and recommendations of the Prices and Incomes Commission, and can the minister indicate to the House whether any such studies will be made available or put at the disposal of the House committee on food prices?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, certain studies have already been
Oral Questions
made public and they will be available. With regard to other studies that we expect will be published as soon as the work of translation and printing has been completed, they will be available as they are disclosed to the public.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In view of the fact that on the weekend the president of General Motors Corporation described the minister's efforts to get that company to bring its prices into line with those in the United States as being somewhat less than aggressive, would the minister inform the House of the nature of his attempts to get this corporation and the other automobile companies to bring their prices down, and with what success?


Mr. Speaker:: I would hope that the minister will attempt to reply briefly. It seems to me that this question is very wide and would normally invite a statement on motions.


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I agree the question is very wide. The first thing I should like to say is that the president of General Motors issued what he described as an emphatic denial of the statements attributed to him in the Financial Post article. As to my efforts with respect to narrowing the price differential, I did meet, as I told the House earlier, I think on our first day back, with the president of General Motors and the presidents of the other auto companies. I secured a commitment from the president of General Motors and from the president of Ford Motor Company that there would be no increase in 1973 model year cars respecting economic costs, and a further commitment with respect to 1974 year model cars which would respect the government's objective of narrowing the price differential.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. In view of the fact these companies have already increased their prices on 1973 models after they gave that assurance to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, and in view of the fact that in announcing his budget proposals last year the Minister of Finance specifically said that he would expect the automotive industry to take into account in their pricing policies the tax reduction they received and they have not done so for the 1973 model year, can the minister indicate what plans his department has in mind to bring these companies into line?


Mr. Speaker:: Again I suggest that this information should be given by way of a statement on motions.
Oral Questions EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

January 29, 1973


CANADIAN PROPOSALS TO FORTHCOMING LAW OF THE SEA CONFERENCE-OPPORTUNITY FOR MEMBERS TO STUDY BEFORE PRESENTATION
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Would the minister inform the House whether he has taken any steps to prepare a comprehensive Canadian approach to the conflicts of political, military, legal, economic and fisheries problems which confront us on our Canadian continental shelf? If so, will the people's representatives in this House have an opportunity to study these proposals, either in the House or in committee, before they are presented to the next Law of the Sea Conference?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have had the international legal section of my department engaged in this matter for a very long time now and they are very well prepared for the next Law of the Sea Conference. In appearances before committees of the House I think they have been very forthcoming and I am sure they will continue to be so under the questioning of my hon. friend and others.


Mr. John Lundrigan (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that Iceland has declared its position, which has been known to the various nations for almost a year, can the minister indicate when Canada will make its position known publicly or at least to members of the House of Commons so we can react to Canada's position?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I hope members on the other side, as well as on this side, will all be agreed in respect of protecting Canadian interests.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We have reached the end of the question period and have gone beyond it by a few minutes. Perhaps the hon. member for Gander-Twillingate might ask a supplementary question and then I will have to call orders of the day.


John Howard Lundrigan: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to jeopardize the chance of the minister gaining international recognition again but would he answer the question? I should like to ask why Canada cannot make its position known in respect of the Law of the Sea Conference, which is very vital to the marine parts of this country, just as the position of Iceland has been made clear for almost a year?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any mystery about Canada's position or the vital questions to be raised at the Law of the Sea Conference. As I say, when the committees are in session I am sure my officials will be very happy to appear and answer questions. I do not think it would be appropriate, however, to put before the House the various views that have been considered internally. What really matters is the position we take at the conference, and we will be very happy to oblige the hon. member.


John Howard Lundrigan: We have no position; we have nothing.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe might be allowed to ask a supplementary question. And then I will call orders of the day.


PROPOSAL TO NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY
Jack Marshall: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the Secretary of State for External Affairs has been apprised of an all-party delegation proposal put to the North Atlantic assembly in November past which calls for an investigation of marine resources in the North Atlantic prior to the Law of the Sea Conference, and will he indicate what answer he has given or what decision has been made in this regard?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, as the House may know, the North Atlantic Assembly is an organization which is not dominated by governments. It is a group of members of parliament who meet as members of NATO. The government always gives very serious consideration to the proposals made. I cannot answer in respect of this specific one because it has not yet been brought to my attention.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Friday, January 26, consideration of the motion of Mr. Allmand that Bill C-2, to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
Mr. Peter Reilly (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, there have been several other members who have spoken before me in this debate on capital punishment, and I should like to congratulate them. They have all spoken eloquently and, I am sure, from deep conviction. This topic so transcends in its value many of the others we have before us that, in my view, it does not admit of partisanship.
I regret that I cannot agree with all those who have spoken before me, including members of my own party, because I cannot agree with those who think it is proper for the state to deprive its citizens of their lives. We have heard much argument in favour of that proposition, Mr. Speaker, and we shall hear more. In fact, I am resigned, as I comprehend the situation now, to being on the losing side of this debate.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, no.
January 29, 1973


Peter Reilly: My hon. friends say no, but I am afraid that too many members of this House will not vote according to their consciences, but that they will vote according to the way they believe their constituents want them to vote.


An hon. Member:: What is wrong with that?


Peter Reilly: That, of course, would result in the reinstatement of the death penalty in this country. I hope I am wrong in that assessment. I hope I am wrong because if there was one thing that impelled me to leave private life and come to this House, if there was one motivating force, it was the belief that the most sacred thing in existence is human life, and the most lasting and beautiful things that men do are those things they do to enhance it.
None of us is here to impose harsher restrictions on life. In my submission, we are here for one thing and one thing only, and that is to ensure that Canada is a good place to be and a country in which everyone may be free to pursue the course he deems best for him. It is only when people behave in such a way that is a menace to the happiness and well-being of their fellow citizens that the state has the right to intervene. Even then, in my submission, that right of intervention is qualified in this way, that there must be as little force as necessary to ensure the public safety. This is the rule followed in the courts of this country when a person is accused of assault and pleads self-defence. The rule is that some force or some restraint may be allowed, but only enough to repel the attack. I believe that approach is the one which the government should take toward crime. If that principle were to apply, then capital punishment would disappear in this country for all time, regardless of circumstance.
Capital punishment does not protect anyone who could not as effectively be protected by imprisonment for life, if necessary, of the murderer, and I shall deal with that later. We will hear many facts and statistics on both sides of this question. We will hear pro and con on the proposition that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder. We will hear, and I wish this were not so, from many people who will claim that obedience to the word of God Himself requires the reinstatement of capital punishment.
I have received, as I am sure all hon. members have, a good deal of mail on this topic. It has come from those on both sides of the question, but the central theme repeated in nearly every piece of pro-hanging mail I have received, the common theme that runs through all of these reten-tionist's letters is this blasphemy on the name of a being whom all of us, regardless of our religious affiliations or backgrounds, have been taught to believe is above all else, a God of love.
I do not propose to tell you how God feels about this. I am not that arrogant. He does not tell me how He feels on this or any other human concern. But I was raised a Christian, and the most puzzling anomaly in the pro-hanging argument is the ability of the proponents of capital punishment to equate the Christ of the manger, the Man-God who chose to come among us as a weakling infant and who suffered Himself to be reviled, tormented and beaten, and finally murdered in a horrible fashion, but who in the midst of all that was able to forgive his tor-menters, with a person of stern being who demands an eye for an eye. I cannot understand that.
Capital Punishment
Let me quote from Hansard on this matter. Almost seven years ago the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis) was asked a question about God's will in the matter of capital punishment. He said, as recorded at page 3286 of Hansard for March 28, 1966:
Mr. Speaker, may I say very simply to the hon. member as seriously as he asked the question, that in all the teaching I received about God and about the duties of all men to God the central point was that mercy and charity in the human breast and human mind are the most obvious and most essential characteristics of a religious and godly life. This is as true for society collectively as it is for every individual in society. Second, all the teaching I received on the subject has taught me that it is not right for me to state certain ideas and seek refuge in the assertion that they come from God but that it is much more important for me, as it is for all members in this house, to use the intelligence and the conscience which God gave us to arrive at the conclusion at which we are intended to arrive as human beings exercising our own will.
I share those sentiments of the hon. member for York South. I have not heard them better put and I shall not try to improve upon them. We learned from different teachers, but the principles were the same. We learned, I think that the same principles are common to all human institutions, and if one of them is immutable and universal it must be that human beings, individually and collectively, are the most precious things in the world.
I do not oppose capital punishment because I harbour any sympathy or concern over the fate of murderers. I must confess that I do not spend too much time mulling over their fate. I do care very much about the society in which I live and the effect on that society of state murder. If I may quote a former member of this House, I should like to cite a speech by the former member for Winnipeg South, Mr. Sherman.
He said on March 28, 1966:
I am opposed to the death penalty because it brutalizes me and brutalizes society. It forces me to descend to the same level as the murderer I am hanging. It is sanctioned murder and I resent having to participate in it or have any part in it because it drag me down to the level of the person who is sentenced to death.
That is the matter we should be concerned about, Mr. Speaker. The society that puts people to death is a sick society. It is sick because those societies that insist on the practice almost invariably choose the most painful methods of execution available to them.
There have always existed painless ways to kill people. If those proponents of capital punishment really believe it is necessary as a deterrent to others, or for public safety, they could accomplish their aim in painless fashion. But they do not, Mr. Speaker. They strangle their prisoner; they break his neck; they crush his windpipe. They send thousands of volts of electricity through his body and cook his insides. They choke him to death with poison gas. Did you ever hear of a society that killed its prisoners by giving them an overdose of a pleasant, easeful narcotic? That would be very simple. But if I were to propose in this chamber the adoption of that course, the angry reaction from one end of the country to the other would be heard by all hon. members. The reason such a reaction is that a prisoner would not be struggling in agony, in pain, even as he surrendered up his most precious possession, his life.

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In my experience these proponents of hanging are the same people who are the first to moan piously about the fate of the fetus whenever the question of abortion is raised. Even before a fetus has achieved growth to the point where it could survive in the human environment by itself, they insist that its quasi-human status be prolonged. Why? Is it because of their reverence for human life? Or is it because they insist that the errant woman who carries that fetus should suffer the shame, the indignity, the torment, and the opprobrium of society for her so-called crime? I wonder, but I don't wonder very long.
There is one reason, and one reason alone why people insist on capital punishment, and that is revenge. It is easy to understand why people seek revenge. It is easy to sympathize with them. I have three small children, Mr. Speaker. If one of those children were harmed or killed by someone, my immediate reaction would be to want to murder in return, as horribly as I could contrive to do it, the person responsible. That wish is not rational, and its fulfilment would do me a terrible disservice. It demeans me and brings me to the level of that pitiable creature who wronged my child. It renders me no less contemptible than the murderer. I submit that to the extent that one of us is demeaned and sickened in this fashion, society is contaminated by the disease. I do not want that kind of society, and I do not want it for my children.
It has been said by those who want to reinstate hanging in this country that violent crime is rising everywhere and that people are not safe on the streets. I do not know whether this is true. Certainly, I have never encountered any difficulty walking the streets of this or any other Canadian city in which I have lived or visited. But supposing it were true, would the reinstatement of capital punishment change it very much? I seriously doubt that. I believe that our society places far too high a premium on material things, and far too low a premium on human well-being and safety. For that reason, I urge a much more drastic approach to crimes of violence, crimes against the person as opposed to crimes against property.
Only last week I read about a man who kidnapped three young people, two girls and a boy. He struck the young man over the head with an axe, then raped the two girls, struck them over the heads with his axe, and threw all three of his victim into a river. He was convicted of these offences and received a sentence of 18 years in prison. In my opinion, that is not enough. I believe he should never again see daylight except in the exercise yard of some prison, not to punish him but to protect society against the possibility that he would do it again, and to protect him from himself because he has shown that he cannot cope with life among us. His violence could be directed anywhere, even against himself. I do not believe that a man who viciously and wantonly attacks like that is a misunderstood individual. I understand him; I understand him all to well. I understand the message he is sending. He is saying he cannot live in our society, that he cannot cope with our society, and that for his own good and that of society he should be locked up. That goes not only for those who kill people, who kill others, but it also goes for all violent people.
But it is not necessary for us to authorize the state to do something that we have not the courage to do ourselves.

The killing of another human being guarantees only one thing. If he is a murderer, it guarantees he will not be here tomorrow to repeat his offence. However, that is equally true of car thieves, forgers and pickpockets, and it is not the answer. We must learn to distinguish between the crime and the person. Just as there are non-capital crimes committed by people who would never be turned loose, who ought to be imprisoned for life, there are capital crimes committed by people for whom one day in jail would be unnecessary. This kind of approach and emphasis on public safety and rehabilitation, with the one before the other, would take a great deal of money to put into effect. The present slapdash approach to sentencing and parole, which is under justified attack from all sides, would have to be scrapped. In its place we should put a system which does not punish but protects, which does not destroy but renews where possible. It is always more difficult to save a bad situation than to quit cold and move along; but very often, Mr. Speaker, the rewards are worth the trouble.
We are told that capital punishment is a deterrent. If that were so it would seem to me that when it was suspended for all but one category of murders, the number of offences within that one category would either stabilize immediately or diminish. Yet we find, and these are the only statistics I shall cite, that in 1968, the first year after the Criminal Code was amended, there were eight persons charged with the murder of policemen, the only offence which still carried the death penalty. That was an increase of 800 per cent over the previous year when only one person was so charged. In 1969, that figure fell to seven persons charged with murdering a policeman, and in 1970 it fell back to one. If those figures tell us anything, it is that the presence of the death penalty did not deter anyone, and that the incidence of crime, violent and otherwise, is a totally unpredictable thing.
In any case, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe, and I am getting rather weary of the proposition, that the burden of proof in this matter rests upon me or upon those who support my position. In a sense our position is analagous to that of defence counsel, and I submit that the only thing incumbent upon us is to demonstrate a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof, if any proof exists, is clearly upon those who would commit this state perpetually to a policy of cold blooded murder. They have not established even a prima facie case for their position, Mr. Speaker, and their only contributions have been those of obfuscation, bloated rhetoric and alarmist nonsense about what happens on the streets when the sun goes down. They have deliberately tried to confuse the issue of rising violence in general with that of whether the state should demand and collect a life for a life, and they are behaving irresponsibly when they do so.
I do not believe you can prove ultimate principles, Mr. Speaker. You cannot demand a reason for everything. But that does not mean that these principles are unintelligible or imponderable or that they cannot be reflected upon. And surely one of them is that no man, individually or through the agency of the state, has the moral right to kill another, unless his own life is in peril. I want to deal now with the question of our responsibility as Members of
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Parliament. The theory is being advanced, most recently by the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, that members ought not to vote according to their individual beliefs or their consciences but according to what has been described as the expressed will of the Canadian people. I do not know of any satisfactory way in which to determine the wish of the electorate, short of holding a plebiscite and requiring every citizen to take part in it upon pain of penalty. But even if there were a way to determine the wish of the electorate it would make no difference to me. I intend to vote according to my conscience, because I believe this is my responsibility as a Member of Parliament.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Reilly: In support of that position I should like to quote part of an essay on representative government by John Stuart Mill. He says that he disagrees with those who insist that a Member of Parliament is in fact an instructed delegate. He goes on to say that constituents:
... are entitled to a full knowledge of the political opinions and sentiments of the candidate; and not only entitled, but often bound, to reject one who differs from themselves on the few articles which are the foundation of their political belief: That in proportion to the opinion they entertain of the mental superiority of a candidate, they ought to put up with his expressing and acting on opinions different from theirs on any number of things not included in their fundamental articles of belief: That they ought to be unremitting in their search for a representative of such calibre as to be entrusted with full power of obeying the dictates of his own judgment: That they should consider it a duty which they owe to their fellow-countrymen, to do their utmost toward placing men of this quality in the legislature: and that it is of much greater importance to themselves to be represented by such a man than by one who professes agreement in a greater number of their opinions: for the benefits of his ability are certain, while the hypothesis of his being wrong and their being right on the points of difference is a very doubtful one.
I hope that members will listen to that message, Mr. Speaker, and that those who have not been listening will read it because I think it is an important doctrine. I hope they will be able to vote according to their own consciences, and when they have finished voting I hope they will be able to contemplate their action free of doubt. It is a fearful responsibility and I am sure most Members of Parliament wish, as I do, that they did not have to accept it.
For me, once I have been forced to take the responsibility, the choice is relatively simple. I have been able to make it a highly personal issue. Recently my wife and I were fortunate enough to have born to us a son. He is now two months old, a little tiny person just becoming aware of the world around him. Some of the happiest moments that I spend-and they are very few these days-are with this little person before I come up here to work in the morning. He is not capable of doing any wrong now but in the years to come if I fail him as a father-and God knows I am a fallible man-or if something vital to humanity is left out of his make-up, he could go wrong. He could come to grievous harm or even do harm to others. I do not like to think that will ever happen, but I have to recognize that it could. Then, I have to ask myself if I could ever contemplate with calm and equanimity the idea that one day my son could be taken out and brutally strangled because he failed or I failed? Could I ever bring myself to believe that
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society was in some way better off because it destroyed that body that I helped to create? Could I ever believe that one decent purpose was served by choking off for all time that brightness and being of my son? Mr. Speaker, the answer is, whatever he has done, God help me, no, I cannot. I will not ever believe that. My son is no different from anyone else's son.
Those are my arguments, Mr. Speaker. They may not be strong enough to move any hearts. They are not buttressed by ledgers full of facts; they are intuitive. But they are none the less valid because I believe that when men and women presume to decide whether they should kill their brothers and sisters there are more important things to consider than facts. I think they should listen to their inner voice. I have listened to mine and it tells me simply that killing is wrong and we should not do it. I urge all members to support the government bill.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Jim Fleming (York West):: Mr. Speaker, it pleases me that I rise immediately after the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly) to make my remarks on this very difficult bill before us. He and I come from similar professional backgrounds and share, from our experience of the world as journalists, the belief that the death penalty is wrong.
My stand as an abolitionist goes back about 11 years to December 11, 1962. In Toronto, at the Don jail on a very cold drizzly night when Canadian society for the last time-and I hope it was for the last time-took life in the name of its laws. That was the occasion of the hanging of Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas, both convicted of capital murder. To me, as a young newsman of 22 or 23 years, it seemed like something out of "A Tale of Two Cities", something very medieval or Dickensian; waiting until midnight after all the lights had gone out in the jail and that single, symbolic light remained; waiting for the 30 or 35 minutes for the crowd of drunks to emerge from the nearby bars and the motocycle gangs to come revving their engines; waiting till that light went out and the notice was posted on the door of the jail. Then, I went with the other newsmen to the old city hall where I listened to the sheriff of York county, a witness to the hanging, a man shaking and shaken, declare that he would never again have any part of it, that he had changed his views on the necessity for the death penalty.
In the dark of night, in the 1960's, in Canada, two men were hanged, back to back, because society said that would stop somebody else from committing the same crime. I cannot believe that, Mr. Speaker. I do not believe that any member of this House, having considered the mass of material that is being circulated to us, can possibly believe that the death penalty is a deterrent.
We all agree that statistics can be manoeuvred and manipulated to make our point. However, I should like to present a few statistics to show that they do not prove a thing, that they are not conclusive and we must refer to facts, because only then do we find some satisfaction in our views or the possibility of changing our views.
I have a list of the murder rate in various American states, those with the death penalty and those without. I am going to refer to it very briefly. In the State of Alaba-

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ma they have electrocution. According to the latest statistics available for 1971, the murder rate in Alabama was 11.7 per one hundred thousand of population. If I wanted to play with statistics I could go to Rhode Island, which has not had the death penalty for many years. There the murder rate is 2.2 per one hundred thousand. If I were to be more responsible in reciting these statistics I ought to mention those for Massachusetts and Maine. Those states are in about the same part of the U.S.A., both are composed of the same types of people who live in similar environments. In Massachusetts, where electrocution is retained, the murder rate is 2.8; in Maine it is 0.4; so, we still come out ahead in that circumstance. Now let me compare New York with New Jersey. New York, without the penalty, has a rate of 5.4, but New Jersey, with electrocution, has one of 3.9. There, the tendency is in the other direction. What does this prove? It proves nothing when you try to compare murder rates with the imposition of capital punishment or the non-imposition of capital punishment. There is simply no relationship between the punishment and the murder rate.
Of more immediate concern to this House are Canadian statistics. I believe those most recently available are for 1970. The statistics are reported by the various police departments across Canada. I will use them, but I point out the inadequacy of statistics and their use unless there is a very deep study of how those figures are arrived at, and unless they are fully understood and related to the various tables. Briefly, the number of murders reported in Canada in 1970-and this figure will be repeated time and again so I ask hon. members to bear it in mind-was 430. This figure, I repeat, relates to two years ago. According to police records, 430 people were killed. Well, the number of people sent to trial, in other words the number of murder cases that were heard, and I mention murder cases because we are talking about the crime of murder, was 153. Out of 153 cases, only one accused was convicted in 1970 of capital murder under the law of that time; only 34 of 153 were convicted of non-capital murder and 56 were convicted of manslaughter.
So, if we are talking about capital punishment versus non-capital punishment, let us remember that out of 430 cases, or reported cases, there was only one conviction for capital murder. There was a grand total of one convicted out of all that number, under the law. Yet that law remains on the statute books. It is the law of our country and of our society. In other words, we feel that we must take a life, as a society, in order to stop people from taking a life. That is a very strange rationale. Let me repeat the 1970 figure, because we shall return to it again and again. Out of 430 cases or incidents reported by the police departments, one accused was convicted of capital murder. To be fair, there are 33 cases still pending. Nevertheless, one was convicted of capital murder and 153 cases out of 430 incidents went to trial.
The Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) said, in opening this debate the other day, that there is a two-year delay in the provision of adequate statistics and that therefore he would like to have this legislation in existence for another five-year trial period. He suggested that if statistics are to be valid they must be taken from a broad cross-section of

the population; only in that way can you reach any conclusion. Any single set of statistics is of questionable value. I am not sure that we need more statistics.
However, if the minister thinks we do then, since he is a member of the government I support, I am prepared to support him in that position only if we cannot do better. I am sure we all harbour our own doubts as to the proper way statistics should be used, because statistics have been compiled for decades around the world. We have seen exact statistics compiled in the United States over the last ten years. There are our own statistics, as I mentioned a moment ago, for 1970. Indeed, if we need more, let us have more, but what will they show? We have already seen that there was one conviction out of 430 incidents.
The issue of a national referendum was introduced into this debate. I think the Solicitor General referred to it and dealt with the matter much more adequately than I could deal with it. Some question arose about the referendum in California where public opinion demanded the return of the death penalty. That referendum had the force of law; it would not have the force of law in Canada. Much more important and more to the point, it seems to me that if we in this House react to popular issues with popular decisions, there is no reason for the existence of this House. We cannot escape the obligation of making decisions on behalf of those who voted for us. I think we should set a very dangerous precedent indeed if we were to try to escape making such a difficult decision as this through the mechanism of a referendum, and thereby set a precedent that could have an effect in law. In any crisis in future when any unpopular decision would have to be taken by parliament, that is the precedent we would follow.
It is said that the polls show that an overwhelming number of people want the return of the death penalty. Without trying to be biased, and forgive me if I am, I remind hon. members that our system of law and parliamentary procedure is very much based on the British system. I do not think that parliament across the water is disintegrating and I do not think its effectiveness as one of the best trial by chance, true democratic means of carrying on government and holding together a society is failing. I think we respect it and do not try to impute motives to whatever government is at the helm at the moment. It should be remembered that just before the government of Great Britain voted for the permanent abolition of the death penalty, 80 per cent of the people polled had said, "No, we want the death penalty." Would anyone say that the British parliament turned against its people, or that it had not tried to act wisely and carry out its heavy responsibilities under that system.
The hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) mentioned the RCMP when he spoke in this debate a few days ago. He said that there was great concern over declining morale of the NDP-


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Not the NDP.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: I beg your pardon. I did not mean the NDP; I withdraw that. I meant that there is concern over declining morale in the RCMP.
January 29, 1973


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I expect to see the NDP leader rising on a question of privilege.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to speak about improving the morale of that party, if it needs improving. I was talking about the RCMP. The hon. member for Yukon said that the RCMP suffered from low morale and that morale should not be further eroded as it would be if we permitted the bill before the House to pass. I for one, along with any really involved Canadian who cares for his country and participates in its activities, take great pride in the RCMP and the respect it has brought us around the world. Yet, surely to goodness there is a basic difference to be remembered; they are law-enforcers and we are law-makers. We must take into account their views and their experiences, but the decision is ours. If the morale of the force is low, surely to goodness it is not low because we are not hanging people-even if the RCMP thinks we ought to. We must consider that morale and correct it, if anything is wrong, without resorting to that kind of red herring and without embellishing the kind of argument that pits the morale of that force against society taking human life under its laws.
An old friend of mine who is a prison psychiatrist has written me a letter. He is not a wild-eyed dreamer, but a practical man. He wrote to me and I wrote to him; we do not agree completely, as one can see from the contents of his letter. However, we do not think the issue of the death penalty is simple. It is much more complicated than, "Execute and be safer or do not execute and be unsafe." He wrote:
I would rather confine my remarks to my observations, after ten years of forensic work, on convicted murderers. At least one I know is probably completely innocent. Several others were undoubtedly mentally ill at the time of their offense, but not so markedly so as to convince a court of their lack of guilt by reason of insanity. Several (especially the women) were with a person who committed a murder, but struck no blow themselves, and often deny any knowledge that a murder was planned. Most Canadian killers commit murder only once within a highly-charged emotional relationship, often within the family. It seems entirely capricious to me that some of the accused in a homicide offense are found not guilty for reasons of accident, self-defense, automatism, or are found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. This might depend on the calibre of the lawyers, the judge, the public reaction to the apparent facts, the demeanour or social class of the accused, etc. The point seems to revolve around this-there is a tradition that the lawbreaker should be punished, and most severely for severe crimes. After society has exacted its retribution, and reminded the populace of its basic sanctions, then how many of these people remain dangerous?
According to the experts, not many remain dangerous. Some do, and we ought to enact laws that will protect us from those few. That does not mean that we need to kill those people in order to be protected. I shall deal with that argument in a moment. What is the relationship between a death penalty and the number of convicted murderers? I read from the second paragraph of this letter:
You tell me that those who wish to retain capital punishment are concerned about the rising crime rate, violence in the streets, and the safety of the public. So are all decent citizens. The growth of crime may have its roots in a very complex causality-e g. the decline of the stable family structure, over-population, urbanization, the dishonesty of corporations or unions, parole, drugs, gov-
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ernment waste, the Bail Reform Act, the welfare philosophy, the decline of the churches, etc.
Any one of those reasons is important. Not just because the law says you may hang or you may not hang.
I want to make one further quote if I may. This is a quotation from Lewis Lawes who was the warden of Sing Sing Prison for many years. Warden Lawes said:
Not only does capital punishment fail in its justification, but no punishment could be invented with so many inherent defects. It is an unequal punishment in the way it is applied to the rich and to the poor. The defendant of wealth and position never goes to the electric chair or to the gallows. Juries do not intentionally favour the rich, the law is theoretically impartial, but the defendant with ample means is able to have his case presented with every favourable aspect, while the poor defendant often has a lawyer assigned by the court... with no experience.
In making his case the other day, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yukon showed his great debating skills. These are, I am sure, known not only to members in this House but elsewhere as well. Before I came here I had heard about them. He has what I would call an excessive ability to manoeuvre words and situations. As an example, he quoted the Toronto Star of January 18, 1973, and he seemed to imply, in his use of that quotation, that the rule of majority must be the rule this debate should follow. The hon. member for the Yukon said that in an earlier debate on this subject he had made a long and objective study and had taken a particularly unemotional look at the question. He went on to say that statistics did not prove anything. On that point I must agree.
The Star article the hon. member quoted was cited without reference to its author. The newspaper itself, I would like to make clear, is on record as being in favour of abolition, but it is in favour of abolition with a proviso that would guarantee the real safety of society. I quote from an editorial which appeared in the same newspaper, the Toronto Star, two days later than the article quoted by the hon. member for Yukon. It is headed, "A substitute for the gallows", and reads as follows:
One of the basic problems in the debate over retaining the ban on capital punishment is what to do with hard-core murderers- the type who were almost always hanged under the old system. The penalty for non-capital murder is now, nominally, life imprisonment, but under present practice prisoners sentenced to life may be released on parole after serving 10 years.
If the National Parole Board had an infallible record in selecting prisoners suitable for release, there might be no quarrel with this; but the board is unfortunately anything but infallible. As a result a great many people are haunted by the fear of hardened, vicious killers being turned loose to kill again, and their fears have contributed to the demand for the return of the gallows.
The article goes on, Mr. Speaker:
To meet this problem, Solicitor-General Warren Allmand has indicated that he is considering a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years for all convicted murderers.
This is altogether too sweeping. Murderers after all, fall into many categories.
The article goes on to make reference to crimes of passion and so on. The article later goes on to say:
But there are other types of murderers for whom long minimum sentences are certainly justified. They include hired killers, political assassins and terrorists, sexual psychopaths and other psychopathic killers. These are the types who, if released, are likely to repeat their crimes. Keeping them under lock and key for as long as possible is therefore a measure of public safety.

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If Allmand's proposed 25-year minimum sentence were restricted to murderers in these classifications, it would do a good deal to reassure the public, and it might disarm a good deal of the opposition to the permanent abolition of the death penalty.
I apologize to the minister if the 25-year minimum idea has been hung upon him but the non. member for St. Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) and I do propose it. I will get back to that point in a moment. I am sure most hon. members are aware that we had intended to propose something along that line. We are not making a formal amendment at this time. We are still considering how the principle might be adjusted a little.
The hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly) made reference to the question of crime in the streets. I was pleased to hear that he feels safe in our streets and I must admit that I share his feeling. However, many women and children do not feel safe. In the suburban part of Metropolitan Toronto from which I come there has been a great deal of crime, including several murders, over the last year or two. There has been an increase in drug problems, and evidence of increasing fear among the people. It is unfortunate that people have focussed upon the death penalty as a means of regaining their safety, as if this vengeance would put fear into criminals. I do not believe that retention of the death penalty will have the effect they desire. The general rate of crime has gone up more rapidly than has the murder rate. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot relate the two. I cannot believe that a couple of hangings, terrible as it would be for society to return to that condition, would change the trend of crime.
I agree we have to review the bail system, the parole system and tighten them where necessary. We have to work toward a healthier society, and I appreciate that this sounds lofty, as does being in favour of motherhood and so on. Right now, in my opinion, it is more necessary to work toward this healthier society than it has ever been. Perhaps we should direct ourselves to improving our environment and education-and when I say "education" I mean not just education to be scholarly, but education in coping with the tremendous drives and strains of our day.
While I will, if I must, support the bill before us, I do hope that at a more appropriate time, perhaps in committee, I may argue with its principle to some small degree. I wish to say lhat I would rather not have half the principle, but the whole principle, while recognizing the need for deterrent power and especially the feeling of public safety through whatever final legislation is approved by this House. For that reason, as many are probably aware from statements outside the House, the hon. member for St. Denis and myself will attempt at a more appropriate moment to get a life imprisonment term for first degree murder which will mean a 25-year incarceration period, without release for any reason other than, perhaps, to attend a funeral of a mother whilst under guard escort; 25-years of incarceration with just a possibility of parole to give a glimmer of hope. At this point, I think it is important to put emphasis on the safety of people rather than on that of the criminal.
If some are alarmed at this idea on the grounds of the impossibility of rehabilitation, let them argue the point as statistics become available. Maybe, if they prove their point, this regulation can be rolled back. But only by

parliament. I believe that the taking of life by society has proved not only ineffective, but that it is wrong. Meanwhile I do believe we must give our people some reassurance that we are acting in the interests of their safety.
There are two letters I would like to read, if I may, Mr. Speaker, because I hope that some hon. members have received similar reactions. The first letter reads:
Dear Mr. Fleming:
I have just read in this morning's Gazette that you and Mr. Marcel Prud'homme propose to introduce an amendment to the bill regarding capital punishment whereby convicted murderers would not be eligible for parole for 25 years. Congratulations. I hope you are successful. I have just written my own M. P., Mr. Warren Allmand, to this effect.
Until now, people like myself, and I believe we run into thousands and possibly millions, have had no alternative but to ask for the return of the death penalty because any other punishment was ridiculously easy on the murderer. Loss of freedom for 8-10 years seems ridiculous to me for such a crime anyway, and I believe if you are successful with your amendment the feeling of the population toward banning the death penalty either permanently or temporarily would be completely different.
Mr. Speaker, my time is running short but in conclusion I should like to make reference to the formation in 1964 of the Canadian Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. From time to time during this debate we have heard references made to the "do-gooders" who are in favour of motherhood and against sin. Let me give you an idea of what this Society is. First off, it is not a social service agency, though the work that they do is just great and should always be respected. So often the public's view of such organizations is slanted in that sense. It.was founded by a young man named Ted Matlow, who was a law student at the University of Toronto. He had read some news stories and reports and became concerned when this issue was building here that no one in society was trying to focus on the wrongness of taking life under our law. He wrote letters to 30 Members of Parliament and former members of parliament who got together and formed this society.
To show that this is not a matter of political philosophy but rather a matter of conscience and understanding, let me give the House an example of the kind of people who belong to this society. For example, the hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Fairweather) was a member of the founding group. The leader of the New Democratic Party, the hon. member for York South (Mr. Lewis), was also a member of that group. Senator Wallace McCutcheon, who can hardly be described as a left-wing Liberal, was a member of that group. The late Mr. Ross Thatcher was also a member. So was Frank McGee, once a member of this House. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), very respected by his fellow members, especially those on the benches opposite, was a member of that group. All of these were men and women who felt concerned enough to get together and decide to fight for the principle that society should not take life.
I want to make one thing clear as I conclude. This does not for one moment mean that I, as an abolitionist, have any right to be pious, to look down my nose at those people who honestly believe that the death penalty is necessary. If those people succeed in this debate and we
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return to the law as it stands today, and as it stood before the trial period, then the onus on them will be much greater than that which the rest of us, as abolitionists, will bear if we succeed. Because by voting for retention they in fact carry the weight of society's decision to take a life. If these 120 votes or so succeed, that will start the gallows working again. I do not scoff at the responsibility that they bear or how deep their conviction is within their conscience, for they must live with that. But I am sure that they must be as aware on their side as we are on ours of the real concern. I am not afraid to live with an angry public because of a superficial understanding of what I believe. The retentionists may have the public with them this time, but they must live with themselves if we in fact go back to hanging.
In studying this matter in the past I remember making some reference to what was said by the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker). It is a small point and not the most important point in this debate. I think the most important point is the issue of deterrence and whether or not society should take life; whether it is for the public good to do so. Public safety is also important. The right hon. member for Prince Albert is on our record as having said that in his own experience as a criminal lawyer he saw one client of his condemned, executed, and then six months later the star Crown witness came foward and confessed to the crime.
I should like to refer to one final letter, if I may. This letter came to me a week or so ago and reads as follows: Dear Mr. Fleming:
I would like to sincerely approve of the proposal to be put forth to the Federal Government (and also by Marcel Prud'homme) re capital punishment.
I cannot quite bring myself to advocate the death penalty for murderers, either of the police doing their duty, or of a civilian, in spite of the fact that my husband and two business associates were murdered in Hamilton in 1937.
The murderer, father of a lawyer in that city, served a term in Kingston, during which time he apparently became a model prisoner and went about teaching religion to other inmates.
He was released some years later-where he is or what he is doing I have no idea, nor do I wish to know, and I never discuss it with anyone.
I did, however, call our member, Mr. Terry O'Connor of Oakville, and told him of this tragedy in my life and of my approval of your proposal-with accent on 25 year minimum sentences.
The guilty man (or woman) has to live with this dreadful act he has committed and perhaps, by the grace of God, can make something of his life.
I support the government, and I hope very much that this bill, after receiving the support of this House on second reading, will go to committee. At that time I hope with my colleague, the hon. member for St. Denis (Mr. Prud'homme), to make some proposals with regard to a 25 year minimum life sentence and also with regard to the categories of first degree murder.
More than anything, however, I hope that the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly) is wrong-I know that he speaks in honesty and conscience-when he says he believes that the retentionist side will win. I appreciate that all of us have to act in accordance with our own conscience and in light of our own experience, reflecting, of course, the views of our electorate. But I would find it incredible if today we voted for retention, in view of the
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number of states that have abolished the death penalty and the example of Great Britain, whose government stood in the face of a public that was not fully aware of the situation and voted according to conscience to abolish the death penalty. The British parliament continues its tradition of making difficult as well as easy decisions. Then, there is the example of the United States which has to cope with the terrible dilemma posed by the referendum that was held in California recently and which resulted in a mix-up of the law. I hope that when the moment comes for the final vote, we shall take the responsibility upon ourselves, and as individuals, be we retentionists or abolitionists, vote according to our own mind, not simply reflecting the will of our constituents or any other group.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the calibre of my remarks will be equal to the calibre of the debate we have had to date. I listened with great interest to the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand), to the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen), to the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly), the hon. member for York West (Mr. Fleming), and also to the brief remarks, in view of the shortness of time, of the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner). I think the debate has been of very high calibre.
Let me come down to the nub of the matter. I think parliament wants to know where I stand on the abolition bill. I am going to oppose the bill. I will support only law that retains some from of capital punishment-and I emphasize some form of capital punishment-for planned, premeditated, deliberate killing, known as culpable homicide, and for the killing of a person by violent means where any reasonable person would or ought to know that death would ensue. This is defined as capital murder. That is the provision in the law today, unless this bill receives a vote of confidence in this House.
I support the formula that was devised by the Diefenbaker government under which murder was defined as culpable homicide, categorized either as capital or as noncapital murder. From my experience, only in exceptional cases does a trial judge let the matter go to the jury as capital murder under the formula of 1961. In other words, only when the evidence indicates a certainty that the killing of another person was planned, premeditated, deliberate or caused by violence that was planned and premeditated, and as a result death ensued, is the jury asked to decide, first, whether the murder was capital or non-capital. Ninety-five per cent of cases under the old formula went to the jury as non-capital murder cases, which called for a penalty of life imprisonment. Hence, for most murders the death penalty was abolished as early as 1961. That was the first step in the reform of our criminal law. I think all of us would agree, whether we are abolitionists or retentionists, that that was the case.
Before discussing the merits of my argument for capital punishment as an effective punishment for capital murder, let me repeat that in my opinion-I say this quite frankly-there was no need at this time, when Canada is suffering from a lack of economic policy, to have a debate on this bill.
Why do I say that? Since the Trudeau government was elected in 1968 capital punishment has been abolished as a

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fact, or as we lawyers say, de facto, if not totally by law, or de jure. As the Solicitor General told me last Friday in response to my questions, no one has paid the price according to law by suffering death for killing a police officer or a guard, and no one is waiting in custody for a commutation of the death penalty at this time. Those are the facts and that is where we start on this debate. There has been a complete softening and easing, in my opinion, on capital punishment under the present government with reference to those found guilty of murder and violent crime.
The 1967 bill was only approved by this House of Commons on the grounds that capital punishment would remain for all those convicted of killing police officers and guards. The government would never have been able to get this bill approved by certain areas of this country if that solemn undertaking had not been given by the government, which is lead by the same man today. No sooner had the bill passed than a group of prisoners awaiting penalties had their sentences commuted. There were 12 of them who were found guilty of murdering police officers and guards who had their sentences commuted, and I will deal with their names later. A number of them were awaiting the sentence, but the bill was no sooner passed and received Royal approval than their sentences were commuted. In my opinion, this was a fraud perpetrated on parliament.
The Trudeau government has not changed and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has not changed. All those people convicted of capital murder under this bill will have their sentences commuted as has been done previously. I would rather see a government come in today and say honestly that it intends to abolish capital punishment absolutely, and then let us have a vote on that. Truly that is what we will be voting on when this bill comes back from the committee for third reading.
In my opinion this debate was called by the government for the purpose of sweeping under the carpet serious problems of unemployment and inflation, as well as the suffering and frustration of our senior citizens and those on fixed incomes who are waiting for relief in respect of all these economic cares. In a sense, the Prime Minister has carried out the emasculation of the democratic process by ignoring the will of the people who are asking for immediate relief, and this course is being supported unfortunately by the NDP because it must do so for its own survival. It is that support which is the reason this government, defunct and bankrupt of ideas, is now still in office.
Let me now turn to the names of those people convicted by due process of law in Canada, which means a trial by jury in most provinces, with the exception of one, the right to an appeal and the right with leave, and under certain circumstances without leave, to go to the Supreme Court of Canada, of murdering police officers and guards but who have had their sentences commuted since January 4, 1968. There are 12 in all, and they are as follows: Douglas J. Booth, Rene G. Castellani, Jean-Jacques Boivin, David A. DeLeon, Henri Boivin, Herbert M. Myers, Harold A. Ortt, Ovila Bonlet, Leonard Otto Borg.

By the way, Borg's sentence was commuted on July 3, 1969.
Then we have Clifford Wickett Lurvey, December 23, 1970; William R. Rosik, February 4, 1971, and the twelfth, Thomas Mason Shand, March 8, 1972. So twelve people convicted of murdering police officers and guards had their sentences commuted, even though there was a solemn understanding that if we passed the bill those people convicted of such crimes would be subject to capital punishment. It is true that there is the Royal prerogative, but it was never intended to be used in that fashion. Where a discretion is exercised 100 per cent one way, there is no discretion at all.
The Solicitor General left the impression by his speech, perhaps unintentionally, that there were only four convicted killers of police officers and guards who had their sentences commuted since January 4, 1968, whereas there were four under the 1967 bill but 12 in total since January 4, 1968. I repeat that there were four as a result of the 1967 act, but the government stayed eight executions of killers of police officers and guards while the 1967 bill was being approved and receiving Royal Assent. In brief, all 12 were convicted under the same kind of law. There was no change in 1967 from what existed in 1966, when it comes to that, because in 1967 the law in respect of killing police officers and guards did not change the penalty.
Then on Friday, and I am not breaking a confidence here because this is a matter of information, I received the following letter from the Solicitor General:
Eldon.
I just got more information on your question. There were 17 commutations on January 4/68-
This means that over and above the eight, there were nine found guilty of capital murder under the old law who received commutation of sentence on that date. The letter continues as follows:
The government decided to get these matters dealt with before the new law got fully under way.
We have really had complete abolition. There is no question but that the government wanted complete abolition, so it could have gone ahead with the economic problems and I am sure this would not have bothered the conscience of any Cabinet member. That is the point I wanted to make.
All arguments and points of view in reference to capital punishment have previously been discussed, stated and restated in this parliament. We have had two lengthy debates. Nothing has changed and nothing new will come out of this debate. Do you think any person will really change his mind after the debate is over or because statistics and figures will be given by various people to support their own viewpoints and special interests, showing increases or decreases or a holding of the line in respect of murder convictions? Murder victims are not mathematical figures; murder victims are human figures and spell human suffering at all levels.
We have had a tremendous amount of statistics. I received a call from the Calgary Herald on January 18, 1973 which indicated there were some statistics left out. I am not going to spend too much time on statistics because my time is limited and I do not want to waste it in this
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way. I can only draw the conclusion that a breakdown of homicide has been made into 10 or 12 categories. When we look at those categories we must make some deductions. When you lump them together they do not mean very much.
The number of murders in the course of robbery and theft, which is violence, shot up almost 100 per cent during the first three years after the ban. After seven years with fairly level figures, about 65 or 68 killings, there were 119 in the next three years. If you analyse the statistics and motives you will find that murder shot up in numbers in connection with crimes of all kinds; sex crimes and others. The only type of murder where the figures did not go up were those murders caused by passion, generally killings between spouses, which always, as I suggested in my introductory remarks, would be categorized as non-capital murder as a judge would withdraw a different charge from the jury.
I am the first to admit that this subject is a highly emotional and highly controversial one. That is why I was so happy to hear the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly) speak as he did. In this party when we say there will be a free vote, we mean a free vote. There will be no duress on members of this party from anyone. Certainly, we all feel sympathy for an accused awaiting trial and at the time of conviction. I have had experience and I know the feelings of the family, the accused and the community as a result of a conviction. We have sympathy at the time when there is an agonizing waiting period in the penitentiary. You only have to talk to the people who have been in penitentiaries for years to know what kind of a penalty that is.
All of these things after the event tend to work men and women into an emotional frenzy. However, on the other hand, if there were as much emphasis and publicity about some of the monstrous, horrifying and brutal crimes committed against society, the emotional frenzy and sympathy could well run the other way and certainly would be more inflammatory. One only has to consider how the people felt in Vancouver after the Head case.
Let us consider the Head case. This is a man who had been convicted on four different occasions of brutal, sexual assaults on girls between the ages of six and nine years. During the time he was under a life imprisonment sentence he was once declared criminally insane and had the sentence reduced to 15 years. He was released illegally, in my opinion, and I have not time to go into that, and while out of the penitentiary he was accused and found guilty of murdering Tanya Busch, a girl of about six or seven years of age who was the daughter of a prison guard. This apparently was a vendetta against the girl's father.
There are many other cases I could outline and if this bill should go to the committee I hope to deal with them there. I was criticized when I cited the Head case in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister in order to defend his solicitor general, tried to accuse me of linking the two, meaning Head and the victim, prior to the charge of murder. I ignored that remark then and I do so now. My purpose in this debate is to see that society is protect-
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ed in these cases against administrative asininity. Of course, the minister must take responsibility in this case. The previous minister went on and on and on, and would not stop until finally it became a chronic situation and changes were made. Certainly, we should have rehabilitation of convicted prisoners. I should like to congratulate the new Solicitor General in that regard. It should be remembered that the former solicitor general never understood the priority; that the protection of society must be paramount over rehabilitation and paramount over any other consideration is the protection of society. That is the fundamental matter to be considered in this debate and no other.
I speak from experience. It is not for me to discuss how many times I have been called upon to use my energy and ability to defend those charged with murder. The Solicitor General was teasing me the other day because he had gone to a certain institution and met 12 inmates who had been convicted of murder and who had got a new trial. He was somewhat surprised, but I know something of standing in court with the responsibility of defending people charged with capital and non-capital murder. I mention that only to emphasize that my experience should permit me to speak from the other side of the fence as it were.
Many of my friends suggest that basically I should be an abolitionist, but in the face of violent crime and the lack of consideration for the most precious civil right of all, the right to live within that degree of freedom and liberty that a free society guarantees the individual, I say that the most important civil right is life. I must measure up, therefore, to the responsibility and oppose the bill. Those who obey the law must have rights as well as those who deliberately and violently break the law. If I thought imprisonment was the answer I would support the bill. However, I only have to refer to examples such as the Geoffroy case and the Laporte case to see how much consideration is given to the accused and how little consideration is given to the victims or their relatives, even to the extent that Geoffroy should spend his honeymoon in Spain. I once described it as "going the Goyer way".
The bill flaunts the will of the people of Canada. I dare this government and the abolitionists to test the will of the people on the question of capital punishment by plebiscite. I have started to take my own plebiscite but I did not have time to send out house mail so I advertised asking for a straight yes or no. In the last three days, 996 replies came in from Calgary North asking for the death penalty on planned and premeditated murder but only 70 replies were against it. Total replies were 1066 so that gives me some idea of how people are worked up about the way our society is protected today.
We all dream of a day when society would be safe for the smallest and the frailest. I listened to the hon. member for Ottawa West and I wish to congratulate him on the recent birth of a son. We all reject the law "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" and hope that in the 20th century the scaffold will be dead, war will be dead and violence will be dead-but they are very much alive, Mr. Speaker.
Where have we failed in society? Today, we look around us and see that monstruous, planned and deliberate murder is committed and for what purpose? I will deal

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with questions of insanity and provocation in a few minutes, but why are most murders committed? They are committed for power and materialism.
One of the arguments presented by the hon. member for York West (Mr. Fleming) in favour of abolition is the fear of judicial error. Let us talk about that, Mr. Speaker. It would have been more likely to occur prior to 1961 when the definition of murder was changed. The penalties were changed too; for example, life imprisonment for non-capital murder and the death penalty for capital murder. When you have a capital murder case before a judge and jury and the evidence leaves any doubt, not any reasonable doubt but any doubt, in the judge's mind, he reduces the charge to non-capital murder and the jury then only has to decide the question of guilt or innocence. That has been my experience before the high courts in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and I am sure that the judges in the other provinces also understand their responsibility and duty. We have a great judiciary in Canada; our judiciary cannot be compared with that of the United States. Since 1961, few have been convicted of capital murder because where the evidence leaves any doubt-not any reasonable doubt-the judge would withdraw the question of capital punishment from the jury and they would have to decide only on the question of guilt or innocence.
What are some of the defences to murder? Some people believe that if a person has been killed, there has been a homicide. That is not necessarily the case, Mr. Speaker. Let us deal with insanity, Mr. Speaker. Is it any defence? The law of insanity has been more liberally interpreted by the courts. Although parliament has not amended the M'Naghten rule in reference to the law of insanity for 100 years, our knowledge now of diseases such as schizophrenia, paranoia or a combination of both, has increased. From scientific and medical experiments, experts are able to advise the court far better than they did 100 years ago or even ten years ago. The courts have liberally interpreted the section which sets the following test: First, did the aecused know the nature and quality of his act and, second, did he know the act was wrong? In other words, did he know what he was doing and did he know it was wrong? Some people lack social conscience and cannot determine what is right or wrong. I had a case once where one brother shot another on the golf course and, because of something in his environment or make-up, he was declared insane. He did not know that what he was doing was wrong. The law provides protection in such a case.
Provocation is another defence. In my experience, courts are giving a more liberal interpretation of the law where culpable homicide may be reduced to manslaughter if provocation is proven. This is where a reasonable man is provoked beyond what a reasonable man can take. For example, if a man came home and found his wife in bed with somebody else and, without any time elapsing, killed that person, that is not murder but it may be manslaughter.
Last but not least, the courts are now being presided over by younger, more progressive thinking judges and, in consequence, there is a more liberal interpretation of the law. I know when I was a young lawyer some of the judges I appeared before used to make me shake and tremble. Today, the atmosphere is more homey and the
[Mr. Woolliams.J
judicial atmosphere is that justice not only must be done but must be seen to be done.
Life imprisonment and capital punishment have proven to be inadequate with the administration ignoring the Criminal Code which demands that before a person is released there must be an order in council permitting his release. In consequence, these people are released only to duplicate or substitute another crime of violence. I ask hon. members to check their copies of the Criminal Code. Section 684(3) reads:
Notwithstanding any other law or authority, a person in respect of whom a sentence of death has been commuted to imprisonment for life or a term of imprisonment or a person upon whom a sentence of imprisonment for life has been imposed as a minimum punishment, shall not be released during his life or such term, as the case may be, without the prior approval of the Governor in Council.
When our late prime minister, Mr. Pearson, introduced that provision, I thought it was somewhat dangerous because it put the matter in the field of politics. But today, released criminals wander around Just today I was told of a case in Calgary-I will check it out-where a young person was sentenced to 15 years for kidnapping a girl and locking her up in the trunk of a car for a period of seven or eight hours. Now, that offender is going to university, and spends one or two days a week in jail. That is a fine way to get a schooling. If you cannot afford university commit the right crime, such as kidnapping.
In his speech, the minister stressed swift administration of justice. In my opinion, he overlooked one of the most important things, namely, proper punishment. Mr. Justice Mackay of the Court of Appeal of Ontario had something to say about this matter in 1954. He visited prison institutions in the United States, and also at Kingston in Canada. The honourable lady behind me in this party knows something about Kingston, Mr. Speaker. Over the years a few riots have broken out at Kingston. Here is what Mr. Justice Mackay said:
The ultimate justification of any punishment is not alone that it's a deterrent, but that it is the emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime, and from this point of view there are some murders which, because of the enormity of their horror, demand the most emphatic denunciation of all, the death penalty.
He was talking about two young men who had taken an old couple in Northern Ontario and sat them on an electric stove, turned on the burners and tortured them in order to get a few pennies from their pension cheques. The punishment must suit the enormity of the crime. As I say, in 1954 Mr. Justice Mackay had interviewed many prisoners in the United States. Bank robbery was a common crime in those days, and criminals told him on occasion they would not take ammunition with them fearing that if they used guns, and were caught, they might fry. Those were their words.
I am not here to say whether capital punishment is a deterrent, but I agree with the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) in that regard. The most precious civil right is surely the right to life. Today we heard one speech about humanity. The hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly) talked about young girls and boys being safe on the streets. Mr. Speaker, I have kept a file on violent crimes over the last two months, violent crimes against
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children. I hold it in my hand. I do not think the streets are that safe. When we talk about capital punishment being a deterrent I will end with these words, and maybe this is the answer:
There is a rock in a harbour, and upon it a lighthouse is placed to warn ships of the danger. One hears about the ships that run upon the rock in the fog, or during the storm, but one never hears of the ships that passed by in safety.
That is an argument in favour of the deterrent. Who knows how many people capital punishment has deterred from committing murder?


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, a previous participant in this debate has remarked that at this stage most of the members have already made up their minds and it is hardly likely their attitudes will be changed in the course of the debate, even by the most eloquent and cogent speeches. For this reason I was inclined to refrain from contributing to the debate, and particularly because I so entirely agree by what was said by the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) and by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt), and also today by the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly). However, I have received, as no doubt have other hon. members, a great many letters from individuals and organizations both within my constituency and outside of it, and I did take an active part in the parliament that passed the act of 1967, the partial test ban, which we are now asked to extend for another five years.
I have deeply held convictions on this subject that I would like to express. I would much prefer the final and total abolition of capital punishment, but I will support the partial ban in the present bill as the best available means of moving towards that final and total abolition.
These are moral issues, and questions of fact are involved as well as questions of principle. In my opinion capital punishment, the taking of life by the state, is degrading. Above all, after the most careful study that I have been able to make, I have come to the conclusion that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent and serves no useful purpose.
Many of those who wish to see the return of capital punishment and argue for its retention do so very sincerely, and because of their belief that it is necessary for the protection of society against the gravest of all crimes, the commission of deliberate murder. But in my view this is a mistake.
The great and preponderant weight of the evidence is in favour of the proposition that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent. Mr. Speaker, the matter has been argued over the years in many jurisdictions. I have not the time and I do not want to go into all of them. I was impressed by the statement of Professor Fattah on this matter in his "Study of the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment with Special Reference to the Canadian Situation," prepared for the Solicitor General, which has already been cited in parliament by the Solicitor General himself. He concludes that the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent is so limited that its abolition cannot have any serious effect on the incidence of murder.
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He cites the following limits of deterrence: one, deterrence is irrelevant to the bulk of the population who follow the normal norms of society and whose self-concepts will not permit them to commit crimes, including crimes of murder. Two, deterrence cannot be effective in the case of certain acts of impulsive nature where high emotions or strong motivations are involved. I suspect that they are a very large percentage of the crimes of murder. Three, deterrence cannot be effective for certain categories of criminals such as insane, abnormal, impulsive or compulsive offenders or those consciously or unconsciously seeking to be punished. Four, the death penalty cannot be an effective deterrent for those who are not afraid to die or for those who have a conscious or unconscious desire to die. This includes murderers who commit suicide. Five, deterrence cannot be effective in the cases where punishment can be avoided. I suspect that in the case of most murderers they are satisfied that the punishment can be avoided by their own actions.
I have seen, and I have no doubt most of the members of the House have seen the statistics relating to this question from Europe, Great Britain, and from the various jurisdictions in the United States of America where, I believe, some 11 states have abolished capital punishment. As far as I have been able to determine it is not an even balance. The unquestionable conclusion to be drawn from these actual experiments in the abolition of capital punishment must be that abolition does not in fact increase the rate of crime.
Let us recall that crime was more rife in communities such as Great Britain when capital punishment was a penalty for conviction of petty theft and numerous other offences. Indeed there, when to pickpocket was to commit a crime carrying capital punishment, many people carried on their occupation as pickpockets in the shadow of the gallows, and that is a fairly good illustration, I think, of how capital punishment was a deterrent. When it was proposed to abolish capital punishment in England for the theft of goods worth five shillings or more from a shop, Lord Ellenborough, Chief Justice of the Kings's Bench, said that the repeal of the law and the abolition of the death penalty for stealing goods worth five shillings would cause the most dire consequences, including complete loss of security by homeowners in Britain. The same sort of argument is being used today, and it has the same sort of validity.
There are, of course, much more recent examples. There have been in innumerable studies of the matter by those expert in criminology. The great majority of experts have concluded, as stated by Barnes & Teeters, eminent penologists, in a book entitled, "New Horizons in Criminology", as follows:
History reveals the most varied and numerous proofs that there is no correlation between the severity of the Criminal Code and the infrequency of crime. The statistics that we have available show that there is no ground whatever for holding that the murder rate increases when the death penalty is abolished.
That is stated as a fact by experts and by innumerable people who have taken the trouble to examine the facts.

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Let us deal with the moral issue. Let me quote what the Reverend Archbishop Temple of Great Britain, for whom I have the highest regard and reverence, has written:
I believe that the example of the state taking life, even when it does so in return for life already taken, does more to lower the value of human life in the minds of its citizens than the deterrent influence of this penalty can do to protect the lives of its citizens. In this way I believe that the main influence of the retention of the death penalty is rather to increase than diminish the number of murders.
Those who propose the retention of capital punishment or, indeed, the repeal of the law passed by parliament in 1967 cite facts to show that there has been an increasing number of murders in Canada since the enactment of the legislation abolishing the death penalty, except in the cases of the murder of police officers and prison personnel. What those who cite such figures fail to observe and what is made quite clear in the volume, "Capital Punishment-New Material 1965 to 1972" published under the authority of the former Solicitor General, is that the increase in the rate of that crime has been less than the general increase in the rate of crime in Canada with respect of offences which are not subject to capital punishment. So, even if there is an increase in the rate of murders, that increase is less, apparently, than the common trend of crimes not affected by the existence of capital punishment.
I now want to turn to another item in the book, "Capital Punishment-New Material 1965 to 1972". As mentioned at page 62, the death penalty has been abolished with respect to convictions for rape in Canada. It is of interest to note that at this time, because that law was abolished as long ago as 1955. One would think that if capital punishment had been an effective deterrent with respect to that crime, the abolition of capital punishment would have been accompanied by a substantial rise in the crime rate respecting that particular offence. Exactly the opposite has happened, as shown by the tables. After the death penalty was abolished for that particular offence, the number of offences steadily declined.
I am persuaded, Mr. Speaker, that those most able to recommend on questions involving moral judgment are almost universally in favour of abolition. As recently as November 24, 1972, and may I be pardoned as an Anglican for citing this authority, Archbishop E. W. Scott, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said in a statement to the government that, in his view, the death penalty was immoral as long as there is the faintest possibility that an innocent person might be put to death.
Speaking as a lawyer with some experience in the courts, I know that it is indeed a possibility that an innocent person might be convicted after trial and put to death. In the most advanced jurisdictions of the world there are classic examples of this. The famous Christie case in England is well known because, after an individual was executed for murder, another person confessed to being the guilty party; indeed, it was clear that a miscarriage of justice had resulted. The right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) testifies to a clear case of judicial error in a murder case in which he was engaged as counsel.
I have the greatest respect for the courts. I have a lot to do with them. They are a necessary and vital institution in
(Mr. Brewin.]
our society. Nevertheless, the courts are a human institution. It is notorious that, on occasion, they do err. I, myself, have been involved in cases-not, I admit capital cases-in which subsequent new evidence has shown that decisions made and confirmed by courts of first instance and approved by courts of appeal were, in fact, clearly and entirely erroneous. Another case that comes to mind is the famous Truscott case. That case did not involve the finality of execution. On his conviction, as I recall it, Truscott was either 14 or 15 years old. If he had been older he would have been executed and there would have been no possibility of reviewing his case. I studied his case in great detail and it has always been my view that the dissenting judgment of Mr. Justice Hall in the Supreme Court of Canada, in which he held that there had been a mistrial in the Truscott case, was far more convincing than the judgment of the majority of the court.
Archbishop Scott, in the statement I mentioned earlier, went on to say on November 24, 1972:
Since there does not seem to be any conclusive evidence that the death penalty does in fact constitute a deterrent, the present legislation should be retained for at least another five years.
The General Council of the United Church of Canada last month confirmed its stand taken in 1956 for the abolition of the death penalty and now asks the federal government to make such abolition a total, permanent feature of the Criminal Code, as of the expiry date of December 29, 1972.
Social workers are another group with experience in this field. In the province of Ontario, the Ontario Association of Professional Social Workers which represents 1,150 professional social workers supports the abolition of the death penalty. They state:
The issue of the death penalty is really one of ethics and morality. As social workers we feel that the worth and dignity of man is cheapened and lessened by state execution. We are in strong support of the abolition of the death penalty.
There is no lack of high judicial authority on the subject of capital punishment. Quite recently the Supreme Court of the United States, by a five to four verdict, ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional as it was a breach of the phrase of the Constitution forbidding cruel and unusual punishment. This is a weighty authority in a jurisdiction close to our own and deserves our most careful consideration.
In my view, Mr. Speaker, those countries which can claim the highest measure of social advance have almost exclusively accepted the abolition of the death penalty without serious consequences. I am thinking in particular of the countries of northern Europe, where the murder rates are low and where capital punishment has been abolished for many years. I am thinking of 11 states of the United States of America where the experience has beer, the same. I am thinking of Great Britain, whose social judgments we have often been content to follow in Canada. In that country, after a checkered career, abolition of the death penalty has now been finally accepted. In my view it would be a retrograde step if, indeed, we were to reintroduce the death penalty as the general consequence of conviction for murder.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
January 29, 1973


Francis Andrew Brewin: I am well aware, of course, as are all members of this House, that the crime of murder is often accompanied by a disregard for human life, by brutality and horror which causes, and justly so, moral indignation. It is my view, however, that moral indignation is a poor basis for judgment. Sometimes moral indignation results in a cry for vengeance. The state should not be the instrument for vengeance or retribution. There is the duty, of course, to protect society; but if, as I have said, the protection of society does not require the use of the death penalty, then the state should not use this means.
I am aware from letters I receive that many of my constituents believe the death penalty to be necessary for their security. All I can say, and I say it with all sincerity, is that I believe they are mistaken. I do not know whether in my constituency the majority would like to see the death penalty retained or restored. I am deeply convinced, however, that this is a matter of moral judgment and conviction and that I have no right to shelter behind any theory as to the counting of heads. Ever since the famous speech of Edmund Burke to the Bristol voters, it has been clear that our parliamentary system does not require us to be counters of heads or automatic reflectors of opinion in our constituencies. We are elected to use our own best judgment and to obey our deepest convictions.
I believe, with all the conviction I can muster, that capital punishment does not perform the function claimed by its supporters, nor do I think it can ever be made to serve such a function. It does not protect society. It brutalizes society. It is an archaic custom which has disappeared in most civilized countries. I earnestly hope that this parliament will not take a backward step but rather that it will, perhaps after further delay and further study of statistical evidence, move toward total and final abolition of capital punishment.


Mr. B. Keith Penner (Thunder Bay):: Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member who has just spoken. He has given us in such an eloquent way an excellent case for the abolition of what he called a custom which is out of date and which ought to be abolished. It is clear that many of the documents from which the hon. member read are familiar to all of us here, so that in this debate there is bound to be some repetition as we explain to other members of this House and to our constituents why we will cast our votes on this bill in a particular way.
There are those who view the capital punishment debate primarily in terms of its effect on law enforcement and public safety. They argue, correctly I believe, that the prevention of violent crime is one of the most important functions of government, and, indeed, a government which fails to establish and sustain the citizens' safety of life and limb is not worthy of support. Many Canadians today believe hanging should be reintroduced as punishment for murder.
The Gallup poll published on February 2, 1972 asked whether or not the death penalty should be brought back. Of those responding, 63 per cent said yes, bring it back. Of those who favoured reinstatement, 64 per cent cited a rising crime rate as their reason. The heart of the matter, then, seems to be whether or not capital punishment is an
Capital Punishment
effective deterrent against the crime of murder. In certain cases it could so be regarded, as, for example, when a convicted murderer kills again after release from prison. The friends and relatives of victims of such crimes have every reason to feel deeply bitter toward a society which allows a dangerous person to be at large and repeat the criminal act of murder.
In general, however, contrary to popular opinion, there is no clear evidence that the death penalty serves as a deterrent against the committing of murder. In the United States, where the use of the death penalty is determined state by state, there is, in fact, an inverse relationship. The five states with the highest homicide rates all retain the death penalty, while the five with the lowest homicide rates have all abolished the death penalty. Over all, the mean homicide rate in retentionist states is more than double the mean rate in abolitionist states. This, of course, does not prove that retaining the death penalty results in more murders; it simply underscores the difficulty of trying to prove through statistics that the death penalty deters murderers.
The most serious of the social arguments in favour of the death penalty, then, is based on the theory of deterrence. It is claimed that if persons intending to commit crimes know what the punishment will be, they will turn away from committing them. At first glance, this seems to make good sense, but upon closer examination the idea proves less convincing. It has been said that an ordinary person is deterred from crime by comparatively minor penalties. A normal person, if sure of being caught, would refrain from a criminal act out of regard for the consequences. Murderers, however, are surely not normal people. They are abnormal people driven by who-knows-what compulsive forces. Certainly, they are driven sometimes by strong emotional forces, by forces accompanying insanity, even though their particular state of mind at the time may not be legally so defined. In conditions like these, no weighing of consequences takes place within the minds of such persons as they decide to kill. The psychopath will not be deterred by threat of punishment, however severe. Crimes of passion, including violent crimes committed under the influence of drugs such as alcohol, cannot reasonably be assumed to be deterrable by a means such as a death penalty.
If it could be proven that the death penalty was in fact a deterrent-and it cannot be so proved-then, surely, every effort should be made to make the deterrent as effective as possible. As it is now, however, most executions are private affairs rather than public spectacles. Attendance is restricted to the prison warden, a physician, a chaplain and a very few others. Surely, it is illogical to admit to the execution only those who are least in need of such a spectacle to deter them from committing murder.
Why, also, if the death penalty is a deterrent, do we chose a method which is considered to be relatively swift and painless in place of one involving prolonged torture and agony? In Canada, hanging has been accepted as a humane method of execution. In the United States, many states have chosen to electrocute or gas the condemned. If deterrence is the main purpose for imposing the death penalty, then it should not be as humane as possible but,

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Capital Punishment
rather, slow and agonizing. It should not be a private affair but, rather, a public spectacle.
The bill presently before the House seeks to limit capital murder to cases involving the death of police or prison officers. Those who deal with criminals on a regular basis in the line of duty are unusually susceptible to being murdered. There is no doubt that they ought to receive some special protection, indeed, considerable special protection. It is worth noting, however, that the largest number of police murders, a total of 11, took place in 1962 when capital punishment was still in effect, a year in which two murderers were executed. Since 1962, there have been no executions in Canada; nor has there been an increase in the number of police officers killed in the line of duty. Police work can be extremely dangerous and often is, but there is no evidence to show that having the death penalty in effect makes the working life of a police officer any safer.
It is quite true that there has been an increase in criminal homocide in recent years, but a report from the Solicitor General's department on the deterrent effect of capital punishment, which has been mentioned in several instances in this debate, concludes that the increase cannot be attributed to the suspension of capital punishment. Other violent crimes have also increased, and this situation disturbs and troubles us all. But is the answer to the problem to introduce the death penalty? Is not this simply one more violent reaction to violent action? If we use killing in an effort to prevent killing, then surely this is a sign of despair in our society. It shows that we have no answers to the pressing problem of violent crime and how to prevent it. In addition, capital punishment leaves no room whatsoever for the possible errors of those who sit in judgment on other persons.
I take the stand that the lives of others are not ours to dispose of. The state, in its enforcement of the law against criminal homicide, must not itself permit what amounts to legalized murder. If we appeal to private individuals to refrain from killing, we have just as much right, indeed we have an obligation, also to appeal to the state to refrain from killing.
It should be possible, and I believe that it is possible, to protect society without judicial killing as a sanction. Of course, the public must be satisfied that an individual guilty of murder is given a sentence that is appropriate to his or her crime, considering all the circumstances in each case. The public must be assured that a dangerous criminal is not set free again to threaten our safety. There is surely a need for a better system of deterrence to acts of violence in our society. Certainly, however, the imposition of the death penalty is no such deterrent.
In a five to four decision last June, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty must be forbidden in almost all cases because it had lost its usefulness. In short, as a deterrent to murder it does not work. I say, then, that we ought to abolish, not in part but outright, the death penalty. When we have done that, we should push on with other social and economic measures which hopefully will be effective in decreasing the resentment and hostility harboured by some of our citizens, for

these are the emotions which may very well in some cases lead to acts of violence, including murder.


Mr. Beattie (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, with your permission may I call it five o'clock?



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 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 Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forre-stall)-External Affairs-Viet Nam-Proposed peacekeeping force-Source of funds to cover cost of Canadian participation; the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-Old Age Security-Inquiry as to increase in basic amount and lowering of age of eligibility; the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker)- Public Service Amendment of statutes affecting employment-Legislative priority.
It being five o'clock the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely notices of motions.



PRIVATE MEMBERS MOTIONS


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lotbiniere) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, a special committee of inquiry on Crown corporations exercising financial, commercial or industrial activities be established to study the various Acts establishing such Crown corporations, the Crown Corporations Act sections 76 to 88 of the Financial Administration Act, and all other laws concerning Crown Corporations and to recommend to the House the adoption of a law regarding federal public enterprises; the committee should also study the following subjects without restrictions (a) the legal rules pertaining to the employees of such corporations (b) their financial structure (c) the way in which they are financed (d) government control over said corporations (e) fiscal regulations (municipal, school, provincial and federal taxes, (f) the status of the administrators (g) the privileges of such corporations resulting from their being "commissioned by Her Majesty" (h) the status of the subsidiaries of these enterprises (i) their purchasing policy (j) the problem of auditing by the Auditor General of Canada or by private auditors (k) the appropriateness of State intervention in the economic field in the form of enterprises; and all other matters concerned.
Mr. Speaker, once again I am introducing this motion concerning Crown corporations and I would like to draw the attention of the House on three specific facts.
January 29, 1973

Firstly, Crown corporations are creatures of the Government and, as such, of Parliament itself, each one with a specific field of activity. Now, the only information we get as members of Parliament on those corporations is summarized in their respective annual reports. Finally, parliamentary control is just about nonexistent. This I will try to show in a little while.
Secondly, the government to-day, in Canada, ownes and operates about a hundred industrial, commercial or financial corporations the assets of which are in excess of $20 billion. This modern phenomenon of governments involved in business undertakings give rise to many problems especially where parliament and parliamentary control over such corporations are concerned. For instance who will tell me what is the status to-day of a government involved in business dealings? Will it be subject to private law or public law? Will it be given a mixed status and be made subject to both private and public law? What kind of control has parliament over these Crown corporations? How is it that the Auditor General of Canada, who is a parliament employee appointed by parliament cannot audit the books of all these Crown corporations?
For MPs, the main sources of information on Crown corporations are their annual report, written questions on the order paper, and the tabling of documents. We shall see how efficient each of these may be. Why is parliament opposed, through the government, to creating a committee on Crown corporations so that members may control their operations?
Those are questions which warrant consideration since, in this House, Crown corporations are now a forbidden subject. Nobody dares mention them. What means of control do we have over the Crown corporations? They amount to just about nothing. The corporations do send us their annual reports which, and everybody will agree with me, are put away on the shelves to collect dust.
To my mind, normally or ideally, those reports should be referred to a parliamentary committee on public corporations. In a way, such a committee would act as a shareholders' meeting and the members could control the various activities of those companies.
The written questions offer the hon. members another opportunity of obtaining information on Crown corporations. The written questions are those the members put on the order paper. Anybody knows that. They can be technical. However, I would remind my hon. colleagues that in all cases, the minister may decline to answer a question on the order paper without stating his reason for doing so, and it is even against the Standing Orders of the House to insist on getting an answer; furthermore, no debate is allowed under those conditions. In this regard, I refer my colleagues to Citation 181(3), page 158 of Beauchesne's Rules and Forms, 4th edition. In other words, neither annual reports nor questions on the order paper have any value as far as parliamentary control is concerned.
Mr. Speaker, that is why I am bringing forward the motion before us in order that members of Parliament may exercise some control, be aware of what is happening in Crown corporations, and report to the people of
Crown Corporations
Canada on the activities of some hundred Crown corporations handling over $20 billion of the taxpayers' money.
Mr. Speaker, it quite frequently happens that the management of such an agency or the minister in charge refuse to reply to our questions. In fact when a member of Parliament makes an inquiry of a minister or writes to a Crown corporation, inquiring about one area or another, on many occasions he receives negative replies. That is what I particularly want to object to.
For instance, I am concerned with the problem of internal management. A public agency is under no obligation to reply to a question concerning internal management, yet the appointment of personnel of a public agency is solely a responsibility of management. One can make any kind of patronage one wishes. Management never discloses information from the personal files of officers and employees. Also, and I quote:
It is not customary to ask Crown corporations . .. information about their employees or other matters of internal management.
This is why it was so difficult last year, as much for me as for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Bicul-turalism, to learn how many employees of each one of these corporations were bilingual, how many had English or French as their mother tongue, what were their salaries. It is a nonsense to tolerate such a situation.
If a member of Parliament wants to inquire about the salaries of the employees of these hundred or so Crown corporations, what will happen? A public corporation will not answer a question either about the salary of an employee or of a group of employees. The answer will be:
.. . salaries are deemed confidential.
I would refer you to the order paper of October 23, 1963, more precisely to question No. 1246. Regarding salaries, the late Hon. Guy Favreau, then Minister of Justice, said, and I quote:
Let us note here that in the Public Accounts, while the individual salary of every public servant paid more than a certain amount is listed, the salaries of employees of a Crown corporation are grouped under a single item. It is practically only through a question directed in the House to the responsible minister that the salary of an officer or an employee of a Crown corporation will be known if it pleases the minister to divulge it.
Then again, may I remind the House of the citation of parliamentary procedure which I quoted earlier, so that the hon. member still cannot get the requested information.
Again recently, the C.B.C. stated through its responsible minister, and I quote:
... it is not the Corporation's policy to divulge the salary paid to an individual.
With regard to fees, any public corporation will also refuse to disclose what it pays to an individual.
This is what appears on page 4975 of Hansard for December 4, 1967:
-The Corporation is not usually required to disclose the fees paid to any particular person.
Identical replies were given to questions Nos. 1,713 and 1,868 of December 4 and 18, 1963.
Each time the minister gave exactly the same answer so that one can conclude that CBC is protected by the minis-
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Crown Corporations
ter; he is authorized to refuse to answer if he feels like it so that any member, whether on the government side or on the opposition side, has absolutely no control and cannot get information in any way.
On the subject of the contract awarded following a call for tenders the public firm will refuse-
-to disclose the name of the companies or persons submitting tenders or to give information on the tenders received.
And that at almost any time.
One could also talk about internal studies. It could be interesting sometimes for a member to know the studies made by experts within a given Crown corporation. Those studies, one must admit again, are paid for by the taxpayers.
There again it was decided, and I quote:
-it is contrary to custom ... to disclose the names of persons assigned to studies.
The firm considers those studies to be-
-private documents-
-for the internal use of the firm.
I could refer you to the debates of the House of Commons of February 26, 1969, page 5969. One could also talk about the salary of the president and general manager of a corporation. One can read there:
It is customary not to disclose any information from personal files of civil servants and employees and this custom was supported by the Sessional Committee on Railways and Shipping.
I will refer now to page 5665 of the Debates of December 20, 1967 and page 6387 of the Debates of March 10, 1969.
Mr. Speaker, that answer was given by Air Canada, Northern Transport Corporations Limited, Eldorado Nuclear Limited, Cape Breton Development Corporation and by Polymer Corporation Limited. Nevertheless, the Canadian National, the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation, the CBC, the CHMC, and the SACE revealed the salary of their chief executive. So there is no established or well defined practice there either.
All that may somewhat bore some of my colleagues but it is nonetheless an extremely important matter. In concluding, I will only call their attention to this: It is a well known fact that a large industrial, commercial and financial area is owned and operated today by the federal government. I will say for the benefit of my colleagues, that the government operates uranium mines, like Eldorado Nuclear Limited, coal mines, like Cape Breton Development Corporation, is carrying out mining exploration through SOQUEM and oil exploration through the Panarctic Oils Limited. The government operates one of the world's largest railway systems with the Canadian National Railways Company. It owns several road transport corporations with the Canadian National Transportation Limited. It operates the most important hotels in Canada with the Canadian National Hotels Limited. It is involved in air transport with Air Canada and Eldorado Aviation Limited as well as maritime transport with the Canadian National and Northern Transportation Corporation Limited.

The State, the federal government, is also one of the largest rubber producers in the world, with Polymer Corporation Limited; it owns and operates one of the largest radio and television systems, namely the CBC, it produces and sells electricity with Hydro-Quebec, Ontario Hydro etc. It grants interest bearing loans through the Industrial Development Bank, the CMHC, the Farm Credit Corporation, the Deposit and Investment Fund, etc. In brief the state owns and operates today more than one hundred of those corporations and thus administers more than $20 billion of the taxpayers' money in goods and capital.
The purpose of the motion I introduced is to urge this House to create a committee to study all factors related to the administration of these corporations. Why is the Auditor General of Canada not allowed to audit the accounts of these corporations? I could refer my colleagues to a question which I asked in the House and that I had to put on the Order Paper. Finally, this question was answered after pressures were put on the minister. I was told that for this or that Crown corporation, the books were audited by a Toronto company, made up of friends of the party in power, etc.
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General of Canada is the only public officer commissioned by Parliament to audit accounts. I do not understand why this person whom the government does not like but who however has authority, could not audit the books of these corporations on behalf of Parliament. I do not understand why hon. members, who have been elected by their constituents, could not have the privilege and right to sit on a parliamentary committee on Crown corporations, for instance, in order to know the administration, the policy, the investments of such corporations, etc.
Mr. Speaker, I hope that the motion will not only get the attention of my colleagues from all parties in this House, but most of all their support, so that Parliament finds a way to control the Crown corporations and thus account for them to the population in a more efficient way.


Mr. Ralph Stewart (Cochrane):: Mr. Speaker, the notice of motion proposed by the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Fortin) is similar to a notice of motion standing on the order paper in my name and one on which I spoke a few years ago. In fact, his notice of motion goes further than mine. Mine simply suggested that there should be at least one member of parliament on each of the boards of directors of crown corporations in order to have closer control over the spending of government that takes place through the crown corporations. The hon. member for Lotbiniere suggests that perhaps a special committee of the House could be established to look into all aspects of crown corporations. I think this is a good idea, although I do not necessarily agree with all the details the hon. member has mentioned. This is something which is long overdue.
We come here as representatives of the people but are unable to represent them because we have absolutely no say over most of the spending of government which takes place through crown corporations. Even the minister has very little to say in the matter because these corporations have become completely autonomous, and it is a bad thing to suggest political interference. Who represents the
January 29, 1973

people of Canada if not the Members of Parliament? We should be looking into these matters; indeed, it is our duty to do so yet we are being thwarted at every turn because the Mandarins have built into their organizations so much autonomy and so much independence from the elected representatives. They are trying to head us off at the pass because we have been asking that control be given back to those who were elected. I can give a very good example of this.
Certain bills which are being prepared by the Mandarins propose to include members of the public service on the boards of directors instead of Members of Parliament. They want to keep us as far away as possible whilst retaining and adding to the power that they already have. This is the case in the Air Canada Act which is being prepared at the present time. Until recently even Air Canada had nothing to say about it because the Mandarins were writing themselves into the act as members of the board of directors. Are we going to stand for this kind of thing?
I believe that the hon. member's suggestion that a special committee be formed is an excellent one. Most of our crown corporations report to the Secretary of State (Mr. Faulkner) for Canada and that minister exercises certain statutory powers over some, such as the CBC, CRTC, Canadian Film Development Corporation and the National Museum. However, he is not responsible for the management of them. The role of the minister with regard to some of the other agencies is as spokesman to the House. If we ask a question of the minister in the House, all he can say is that he will refer it to the corporation in question and bring back their answer. In other words, responsibility concerning the management of most of the corporations and agencies under the jurisdiction of the minister does not rest directly upon his shoulders. Consequently, he has no direct control over their activities in spite of the fact that the over-all policy is supposed to be a policy of the government.
In this regard, Mr. Speaker, there are some Crown corporations which have been making policy, although in my view this should not be the role of a Crown corporation. Policy should be made by the government. The merits of independence from the executive power have been questioned by many people on the grounds that any agency which spends public funds should be answerable to a public official who, in turn, must be responsible ultimately to parliament. On the other hand, those who argue in favour of the greatest possible independence of these agencies from the executive power claim that these institutions must have a freedom of action which will keep them outside the political sphere completely, so that they can fulfil their obligations and duties objectively and without partisanship.
With regard to the question of keeping outside the political sphere and being non-partisan and objective, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that when you get patronage from public servants, it is far worse than any patronage from politicians. The argument that is used is the sensitive one regarding freedom of expression and thought, particularly with respect to the CBC. Government control of the CBC would infringe on freedom of expression and thought, of course, but it seems to me that there is a great
Crown Corporations
deal of difference between control by the government and the other extreme which is abuse or licence and which really cannot be called freedom at all.
The government has several solutions at its disposal. For example, it can name the president of the CBC and it has control over the budget which goes before the committee. In theory I suppose the minister could tell the committee not to approve the budget but, of course, this simply is not done. It would be tantamount to a vote of non-confidence in the government.
Another more difficult problem is the question of control over corporations and agencies by this parliament. Parliament must authorize funds and expenditures. Of course, it could refuse but I have never known this to happen and I do not think it would be a very good idea to refuse funds already approved by the Treasury Board and which have very likely been spent. So, we are beaten before we start in that respect as well. There have been many complaints on the part of Members of Parliament, as well as by the public, and there has been an expression of frustration on the part of Members of Parliament. We represent the people. Therefore, we naturally feel that we should have some say in how the moneys of the people are spent. Yet under the present system when moneys are misappropriated by Crown agencies, the representatives of the people are helpless in stopping such practices.
I agree that it is a ticklish problem to determine where control should be applied. On the one hand, agencies should be free of political intervention if they are to function properly, but they must be kept aware of the fact that the funds are supplied by the people of Canada. The only control possible would be through the representatives of the people in parliament. This is the reason I have repeatedly suggested that on the board of directors of each of the Crown corporations and agencies there should be at least one Member of Parliament. This does not necessarily mean a member from the government side of the House. In fact, in the case of the CNR and the CBC these are large enough agencies that they could have more than one Member of Parliament on their boards, perhaps a member from the government side and a member from one of the opposition parties. This would ensure some kind of political in-put.
When I say political in-put, I am not talking about partisanship. These members would act as watchdogs over the spending of those corporations. Mr. Speaker, I have raised this matter on several occasions in the House, and on one occasion I had a concrete example given to me. Since I have not had the chance to ask for the hon. member's permission, that is, of the hon. member who wrote me this letter, I shall not quote it but merely paraphrase it.
This Member of Parliament ran into a very difficult situation when a Crown corporation laid off a number of men and advised him only the night before the announcement was to be made. Here was a case where the hon. member had several arguments that he could have presented. He was not able to do so because he only knew after the fact. As a result, many people were out of work because of the decision taken by the board of that Crown
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Crown Corporations
corporation. There is no doubt that other means could have been employed such as that political in-put which I have suggested by someone who understands the situation from the people's point of view, someone who represents those people here in this House. Here is a case where that hon. member felt that if he, or another political person, had been on the board of directors of that corporation this unfortunate situation could have been avoided.
So, Mr. Speaker, perhaps the idea of having Members of Parliament on the boards of directors is one of the things that should be considered by a committee. Therefore, I like the idea that the hon. member has put forward. The committee could be made up of members from both sides of the House, as are all our committees. It could go from place to place in order to decide what is the best course to follow to give us more control over these bodies.
A while ago I mentioned the Crown corporations coming under the Secretary of State. There are many others as well. There is the CNR, for example. The pages and pages that have been put into Hansard on that subject show that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in the country with the way the CNR is handled. Perhaps a little more in-put from this House would help that situation. And we have people who are capable of doing these things, people who know just as much about railroads as people who are presently on the board of the CNR.
Air Canada is another Crown corporation which should be studied and looked at from various points of view. A committee of this kind could look at the various questions concerning Air Canada. From time to time we have heard suggestions that Air Canada should not be strictly a Crown corporation, that it should be owned only partially by the government, say, 50 per cent or 60 per cent, and partially through public shares. This is something that could be looked at by the suggested committee. We have heard another suggestion that CP and Air Canada should be amalgamated, and thereby have only one international airline for Canada. It is a suggestion that has merit and could be examined by a special committee such as this. There are all kinds of subjects that could be looked at by such a committee.
The government does not have to adopt everything the committee recommends, but the government would be in a position to judge much better the various problems which it does not have the time to examine itself. A special committee of the House could certainly provide the basic necessities, and bring the various studies together. Many studies have been made of different subjects, but the reports are lying about all over the place. They have never been co-ordinated, and one weighed against another, to determine the best course for Canadians.
I terminate with these words, Mr. Speaker, that although I still believe there should be Members of Parliament on the boards of Crown corporations, I should like to say that I am even more excited about the idea of a special committee which could look into not only that aspect but several other aspects of the affairs of Crown corporations.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, the subject matter that is before us during this private member's hour is an interesting one, although when you look

at the terms of the motion before us you find that it is a verry broad one indeed. The hon. member says that he wants a special committee of inquiry on Crown corporations, and the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Stewart) as well as the hon. member who moved the motion, seemed to imply that it is to be a special committee of this House. However, as I look upon the motion that is before us, I see that it could be much broader than that in its terms. It could include a special committee such as is brought in for other inquiries. I could think of the Rand Inquiry with respect to certain matters. I could think of the Bryden Committee, one formed for public service matters which, like so many other committees formed by the government, has never yet reported despite the repeated requests of members of this House.
There are many kinds of committees that could be envisaged within the terms of the motion. Unfortunately, the terms of reference are not clear as to what kind of committee the House would be dealing with in the event that it saw fit to pass the motion. However, the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Fortin) asked a very fundamental question with respect to Crown corporations. He asked: what business has the state in the business field? As I pondered that question I was looking at a document called "The Government of Canada Programs and Services" issued in July, 1972, by CCH Canada Limited. On page 417 of that document there is an appendix which sets forth certain Crown corporations. The list is intended to be exhaustive, but from what the hon. member says I am satisfied that there are many more than appear on this list.
I return now to the question of what business has the state in the business field. When one reads about the various types of Crown corporations, one can see how the state or government has entry into the business world, under the guise of a Crown corporation, in a way that is somewhat frightening. A Crown corporation, Mr. Speaker, is a form of public enterprise which has become increasingly important as this type of institution has developed. As you know, Sir, Crown corporations are established and regulated under the Financial Administration Act which defines a Crown corporation as a corporation that is accountable to parliament, through the minister, for the conduct of its affairs.
Generally speaking, there are three classes of Crown corporations. First, there is the departmental corporation which is a servant or agent of Her Majesty in right of Canada and is responsible for the administration, regulation or supervision of activities that are governmental in nature. I do not think there is much difficulty with that kind of Crown corporation or any problem with respect to intrusion into the private sector.
Second is the corporation which is an agent of Her Majesty in right of Canada and is responsible for the management of trading or surplus operations on a semicommercial basis, or for management, procurement, construction or disposal activities on behalf of Her Majesty in right of Canada. That kind of corporation, I think, has intruded into the business life of the community. Then there is the other type of corporation known as the proprietary corporation, which is responsible for the manage-
January 29, 1973

ment of lending or financing operations or for the management of commercial and industrial operations involving the production or the dealing in of goods and the supply of services to the public. The agency corporation normally is required to conduct its operations without federal appropriations. Whether Crown corporations conduct their operations with or without federal appropriations, they are none the less those kinds of corporations that bring themselves within the parameters of the question posed by the mover of the motion before the House.
Certainly, when there is an intrusion into business life and, more importantly, when this intrusion is occasioned on money provided from the public purse, there ought to be some agency set up for the control of those expenditures, to monitor the activities of those corporations and organizations. Two types of agencies have been suggested in this debate. The first is a special committee of this House or perhaps of both Houses. I hesitate to make this suggestion because the other place has suffered somewhat at the hands of this House. Such a committee is one suggestion. By this means there could be a reporting from time to time on a regular basis and the opportunity to call witnesses. Actually, Mr. Speaker, we have such rights at the moment.
I am a new member of this parliament. I first came to this chamber of January 4, 1973. Before coming I read, in preparation, some committee proceedings involving an agency of government, the National Capital Commission, which is near and dear to my heart and to those in the constituency I have the honour to represent. That commission came before a committee of this House to have its estimates examined. The chairman of the commission, Mr. Douglas Fullerton, and the responsible minister through whom that commission reports to this House were examined by members of the committee composed of representatives from all sides of the House. I admit that that committee examination was not searching because there was general agreement in the community and committee over the objects and methods of operation of the National Capital Commission. So to those who say that this kind of reporting does not take place, I say that it does.
I am satisfied that as a result of the work of the hon. member and his eloquence in putting forward his motion to the House, the matter will be given consideration and these rights will perhaps be expanded. It is not true to suggest, however, with all respect, that there is not examination by committees. The other method of reporting was that put forward by the hon. member for Cochrane who suggested-it was an interesting suggestion, perhaps new in this House-that a Member of Parliament should be appointed to sit on each of the boards of directors of Crown corporations and Crown organizations. He even suggested, and this was indeed a novel departure, that the government of the day-of this day, I assume-ought to appoint a member of one of the opposition parties to sit on such boards.
Let me say that if this is another deathbed repentance or another lesson learned from the election, I as a member of the House and of the opposition welcome the generous suggestion and look forward to an appointment to one of
Crown Corporations
the boards or commissions so that I may enjoy, with hont members on the other side of the House, the fees, honorariums and honours which would come from serving on the distinguished boards of various Crown agencies. But that has been tried in Ontario. The government of Ontario is in the firmament among the governments of this country; it is known for its progressive legislation.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: That government is well known for its responsiveness to the needs of the people and its ethics in public dealings are beyond approach. It has examined the subject; it examined it with respect to Ontario Hydro. The hydroelectric commission of Ontario was the forerunner of the types of publicly-owned utilities that have met the needs of the people of Canada. It is a very important element in our life and contributes to the well-being of the community.
The Ontario government tried the experiment; it still does it. A number of members of the legislature of Ontario still sit on the board, and they have been criticized for that. The critics say that the very thing the hon. member for Cochrane said is good is, in their minds, bad. The critics say that such appointments have introduced to the administration and operation of that kind of commission a political input which has no place there. Of course, I am satisfied that if the government saw fit to accept the generous suggestion of the hon. member for Cochrane and appointed members of the opposition to the boards of commissions and corporations of the federal government, that kind of input would not take place. However, as a member of this House I would be very much concerned if only my colleagues on the other side of the House found themselves on such boards of commissions and corporations.
Speaking as a member who represents a riding touching the national capital area, there is one matter that disturbs me. In his speech this afternoon the hon. member for Cochrane, I believe, referred to the civil servants of this country being a group of mandarins. He implied that it is bad to appoint a person to membership on a board of a Crown corporation or agency merely because that person is a public servant.
The hon. member for Cochrane implies there are not, within the public service of this country, sufficient men and women of objectivity to handle the public affairs of these corporations engaged in business, I think this is a dangerous doctrine. He spoke of what he called public service patronage. I do not know what he meant by that, but I should like to remind him that his hon. friend the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) served in the public service of Canada and that other members sitting on the front benches opposite served in the public service of Canada.


Ralph Wesley Stewart: So did I.


Walter David Baker: The late Mr. Lester Pearson served in the public service of Canada. Indeed, the present Prime Min-

January 29, 1973
Crown Corporations
ister (Mr. Trudeau) did so. Mind you, he served in a mysterious capacity. But he served. The hon. member for Cochrane says he served as well. I am not sure whether this was an enhancement of the public service or not. Nevertheless, public servants, merely because they are public servants, should not be deprived of the right to serve on boards of directors and to serve the public in this particular way.
Let us not hear talk in this debate of patronage. Unless I missed the point completely, the hon. member for Cochrane was speaking of patronage and as a member of a party which is a pastmaster of patronage. I want to remind him that a former member of this House, the former hon. member for Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton is now an executive assistant. Who would have thought that a preacher and an agriculturalist would become an expert on the Post Office? But he is now executive assistant to the Postmaster General (Mr. Ouellet). It is an odd coincidence that all the problems of the Postmaster General seem to coincide with the arrival of that former Member of Parliament and another defeated candidate of the party, a man well known to me, another member of the club by the name of Mr. Gervis Black, the man who ran, and lost at Leeds, has found his way into the public service. So when there is such an opportunity for people to serve in various capacities, it seems to me that members of the public service ought not to be excluded from the boards of these corporations as the hon. member suggested. On the contrary, I think it is important that they be included.
The motion before us says, among other things, that the committee should study, without restriction, the legal rules pertaining to employees of Crown corporations. If this proposition is carried to its fullest extent, the servants of these public bodies would not enjoy the reasonable protection which is accorded public servants in the service of Canada, namely, that their affairs ought not to become the subject of debate on the floor of this House or in any committee.
The motion then goes on to say that the committee ought to examine fiscal regulations, municipal, school, provincial and federal taxes; and this is to be done without restriction. I have not been in this House long, but I have heard the discussions which have gone on among hon. members with respect to the British North America Act and the division which has been made among the jurisdictions of the various parliaments of this country. I do not believe it would be appropriate for this House to consider a resolution whose effect might well be to infringe upon the time-honoured restrictions which the BNA Act imposes.
This is not to say that these restrictions ought not to be continually examined or that provision ought not to be made, when found necessary, to meet the needs of the people of this country. But we ought not to pass anything which would upset the delicate balance which men of good will were able to put together in 1867 and which has served us reasonably well, with notable exceptions, since that day.
The motion then goes on to deal with the status of the administrators. I am a little at a loss to understand what that phrase really means. Does it mean that the committee

should consider whether or not management and administrators are to be examined to determine whether they ought not to enjoy the same status in the business world as persons who, let us say, work for the T. Eaton Company or for Domtar? Does it mean that there are to be rules and regulations for the management of Crown corporations so that they cannot function?
What does the motion mean when it goes on in the next paragraph to say that the committee should examine "the privileges of such corporations resulting from their being 'commissioned by Her Majesty'." As I read the statutes, they are subject to the law. They can be sued and they can themselves bring suits. They are subject to all actions in the courts. If this is not the case, an amendment ought to be made immediately to ensure that they are.
The hon. member then goes on to deal with their purchasing policy. Is he advocating the placing of restrictions upon Crown corporations? Is he saying they ought to buy Canadian goods as opposed to goods from countries abroad?


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


Mr. Elias Nesdoly (Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, I hope to leave about three or four minutes so that we may vote on this motion before six o'clock. Basically, I am in favour of it. Possibly for once in the history of this parliament, members opposite will vote for a private member's bill. On second thoughts, that is too much to ask for.
Since I came here some weeks ago I have been trying to get information with respect to several Crown corporations. One of them is Eldorado Nuclear Limited whose headquarters are in my constituency at Uranium City. I looked at the financial statement for 1971, but the information I was seeking is not there. I am basically a simple minded person and I like things to be presented to me in a simple fashion. A lot of facts and figures seem to be hidden, so I directed an inquiry to the ministry. For instance, I wanted to know the total number of employees. I am told it is 388. I also wanted a breakdown as between salaries of the employees paid at an hourly rate and otherwise. In other words, I wanted to know how much was being paid to the miners and how much to people employed on managerial functions. I was told there were 246.25 hourly-paid employees and 141.25 salaried employees. So they divide people into quarters. I also found that the wages of salaried employees were roughly $1,454,000 and the wages of hourly-rated employees totalled approximately $2,591,000. The rub comes in question No. 6 which is as follows:
What was the cost of producing a pound of uranium oxide for each of the past ten years?
The answer I received was rather frustrating:
The requested information is of a proprietary nature, the disclosure of which would be prejudicial to the Company's-and the public's-interests in light of the competitive position of Eldorado Nuclear Limited in marketing uranium on a worldwide basis.
So be it: that information is not available to me. Looking further into the question of financial statements, there
January 29, 1973

is another company that is sort of an offshoot of Eldorado Nuclear, called Eldorado Aviation Limited; they published a balance sheet as well. Eldorado Nuclear also operates a store in Uranium City and it gouges pretty stiff prices out of the miners. There is nothing said in the financial statements about what is the profit and loss picture of this particular store in Uranium City, or about what it has to do with the mining of uranium.
I should like to indicate to hon. members that, despite what one hon. member said, I still believe that there is a place for Crown corporations in Canada. If it were not for the CBC, I doubt that television and radio would have reached the far-flung areas of Canada. Private corporations are not usually eager to fall over themselves to provide such services to sparsely settled areas.
According to the 1970 annual report of Eldorado Nuclear, Eldorado played a major role in the development of this fledgling industry by making available its knowhow in the prospecting, mining and metallurgical fields, as well as by negotiating and administering contracts for the sale of uranium by private producers to agencies of the United States and United Kingdom governments. These services were provided by Eldorado without profit or fee. So we have Eldorado providing services to private companies without profit or fee.
By 1958 there were 25 producing mines in Canada and the peak output of almost 31 million pounds was attained the following year. This Crown corporation was the first uranium producing mine in Canada. When we had a uranium boom, many private mines were opened and Eldorado supplied consultative services to these private mines. Yet when there was a sale of uranium to Spain involving quite a few million dollars, the sale was negotiated by a private company subsidized by the Canadian government to the tune of $29 million. As the Member of Parliament representing this area, I have been unable to find out what proportion of the uranium oxide sold to Spain came from the mine in Uranium City.
I think that on that note I will end, Mr. Speaker. For once I hope government members will see fit to pass this resolution. Perhaps a bit of history will be made in this House if that is the case.


Mr. Jack Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I sincerely regret that other hon. members have seen fit to take so long. Nevertheless, I was impressed with the extensive treatise of the hon. member for Grenville-Carle-ton (Mr. Baker). I, too, have read the same book. Part of the comments I had intended to make he has already made, so fortunately I am saving myself some time.
I note that the hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Nesdoly) who has just spoken suggested we should vote for this motion. My problem-the hon. member for Gren-ville-Carleton apparently has the same problem-is that the motion seems to say one thing, whereas the hon. member who spoke in favour of his motion seemed to suggest it said something else. Then other hon. members have given further and varied interpretations of the motion. I am beginning to wonder what kind of commission, body, group or committee we would set up if in our haste we passed this motion without proper debate.
Crown Corporations
I want to align myself with the stand taken by the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Stewart), but I take a somewhat different attitude to that taken by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton. There are Crown corporations in regard to which members could play a significant part and have some impact. Unlike the thinking of the Conservatives, I think we should operate without an honorarium. The criticism in Ontario is not that members of the legislature sit on these particular boards, tribunals and commissions but, rather, that they are paid. In other words, this situation is referred to as pork-barrelling and anything that these members do while sitting on the commission or board of directors is suspect. I think that we are adequately paid as Members of Parliament and that we have a role to play. However, I think we should be selective in our choice of Crown corporations.
Let me give the House an example of what I mean. I think Members of Parliament could have a social impact if they sat on the board of directors of the Canadian National Railways. I for one cannot understand how a Crown corporation that operates in large measure on subsidization through taxpayers' dollars cannot see fit to increase the pension of its retired employees to at least the 2 per cent level which other civil servants enjoy. That is one area where we could have an impact, perhaps not a financial impact but certainly a social impact.
Another problem is created by the kind of motion introduced by the hon. member, and that is the innuendo that there is something wrong here or illegal. He does not pinpoint the area that he would like to see studied. For example, I served on the public accounts committee and headed a small subcommittee which looked into the travelling expenses of CBC personnel who travelled abroad. We checked the accounts after the Auditor General had checked them. I must say it has always been my feeling that a man who said that he did not cheat on his expense account would lie about other things too. But the CBC personnel came out smiling on this one, and as a result got very little publicity. If we had highlighted the fact that some little thing had taken place, then we would have had scoops of publicity on this issue.
It is not correct to say that the Auditor General does not have any impact or make any input. He audits the books of many Crown corporations in Canada. If hon. members were to sit on the public accounts committee they might be studying the books of Eldorado, as in fact the committee has, where they would be able to ask questions.
Let me say to the hon. member for Meadow Lake, as one who lives in a riding where there is a Crown corporation, not to kid himself that he will not be charged with being responsible for what any Crown corporation in his riding does. Let him put all the questions on the order paper that he likes and get all the information that he can about Crown corporations, because his constituents are going to tar him with that brush. If the Crown corporation is a good thing, he will get the credit; if it is bad, he will not. I see my time is up, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business having expired, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock p.m.
At six o'clock the House took recess.

January 29, 1973
Capital Punishment AFTER RECESS
The House resumed at 8 p.m.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Allmand that Bill C-2, to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
Duncan M. Beattie: Mr. Speaker, much has been written and said on the subject of capital punishment. Yet there is one aspect of this vital and perplexing problem which has been little considered or discussed. I trust it could prove to be the basic premise on which hon. members' final decision on the validity of capital punishment will be made.
Capital punishment, it has been established, is the execution of a criminal pursuant to a sentence of death imposed by a competent court. Whatever may have been its origin, whether in feelings of revenge as described by the lex talionis, the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, or in theories of retribution or deterrence, capital punishment is a term opposed to all irregular modes of punishment, such as the American "lynch law" or any modern survival of "blood avengers".
Capital punishment is so named from the Latin, caput, because hanging or decapitation was the most usual mode of death. In England, during Saxon times, man-slaying demanded the payment of what was known as "wer-gild" or ."blood money", the amount of which varied with the degree of importance in the social scale of the murdered person.
In pre-Norman times there were various forms of capital punishment, including hanging, decapitation, burning, and hurling from rocks after the manner of the Roman custom of throwing malefactors from the classic Tarpeian Rock. After the conquest mutilation seems to have been substituted and this is the punishment mentioned in assizes of the time of Henry II. The law was variable for some time after that but gradually crystallized into such a condition that capital punishment became the common penalty for a great number of crimes, comprising treason and all felonies except larceny and mayhem.
This state of things continued to 1826, at which time there were nominally no fewer than 200 crimes punishable by death. Subsequently in England the only capital offences were treason, murder, piracy with violence, and the crime of setting fire to His Majesty's vessels of war, arsenals, military or naval stores and ships in the port of London. The sentence of capital punishment could also be passed by courts martial in various cases of mutiny, desertion or sleeping on sentry duty.
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel).]
In conformity with his general theory of punishments and reward, that the evil of punishment must not exceed the advantage to the offender, and that punishment should be exactly and mathematically proportioned to the offence, Jeremy Bentham proposed abolishing the death penalty in most cases, retaining it only for murder and treason, and this is a royal commission which submitted its report in 1866 recommended. In Canada, under the Criminal Code of 1906 only treason, murder, piracy with violence, and rape were capital crimes.
Arguments for or against the death penalty in all ages have been of two kinds. Some are categorical assertions based on traditional sentiment and beliefs. The claims that man's innate sense of justice requires that a murderer should lose his own life, or that man has no right to take life, fall into this class. There is another class of arguments which are empirical in nature. They mainly focus on the belief that capital punishment has a unique power to deter people from committing crimes.
It has been well established by statistical studies that: first, when comparisons are made between contiguous states with similar populations and similar social, economic and political conditions, homicide rates are the same and follow the same trend over a long period of time regardless of the use or non-use of capital punishment; second, the abolition, introduction or reintroduction of this penalty is not accompanied by the effect on homicidal rates that is postulated by the advocates of capital punishment; third, even in communities where the deterrent effect should be greatest because the offender and his victim lived there and the trial and execution were well publicized, homicide rates are not affected by the execution; and fourth, the number of policemen killed by criminals is no higher in abolition states than in comparable death penalty states.
Capital punishment, then, does not appear to have a specific influence on the number or trend of the kinds of crime it is supposed to deter people from committing, and its non-use is not followed by a significant upswing in the rate of these crimes. Modern thought, though, strongly concludes that there are types of murder which should be punished with the death penalty. These are: the killing of a policeman or jail guard who because of the nature of his occupation is exposed to being killed, and being the guardians of society they merit the most protection which we can give them; murder for profit or gain; murder during the commission of a crime or as the result thereof, and multiple murder, such as placing a bomb in a school, airplane or public place, or in the mail addressed to a person.
In April, 1966, an attempt was made to achieve complete abolition but it was rejected on a free vote in this House. In 1967, the same parliament passed for a five-year trial a law which has a compromise and which abolished hanging for all but the murderer of prison guards and policemen. This law, as we all know, expired at the end of 1972.
The profound question, then, that immediately faces hon. members in the twenty-ninth parliament is: Are you in favour of the death penalty for murder, or are you not? Perhaps you are one who on religious grounds believes that under no circumstances should life be taken, either by an individual or by the state. In this case, your vote is
January 29, 1973

already decided. Perhaps you hold that society is becoming progressively more lawless and that the death penalty should be extended to more crimes than murder. If so, there are many precedents in history for your stern conviction.
Perhaps you will turn to statistics and try to prove to yourself that either one course or the other is correct. Your decision may depend upon the age, the civilization or the political climate at the time the events underlying the statistical data took place. You may turn to philosophical thought, to prominent moralists or or even to mystical essays to lift your mind out of the morass of indecision in which you flounder.
You may turn to the law and follow its developing course over the centuries and, by hewing strictly to the line, fashion out of solid timber your final judgment. You may find that the attitude to the death penalty is, by the nature of the flux of society, variable. You may have read that in certain countries in times of peace and affluence the death penalty was not considered necessary, but that in the same countries under the rule of a Hitler or a Mussolini or a Stalin capital punishment was used to its full extent.
You may argue that the executions of innocent persons have undoubtedly occurred, even though rarely. You may bolster your argument with the indisputable fact that the trend toward abolition has continued down the years to grow in the peacetime codes of many nations. You may appeal to all the authorities of your own and earlier times and, as they almost invariably have done, you may overlook the one aspect of this sombre problem which might point you to an altogether human and logical answer.
Should a man who has wilfully killed another man, himself be killed? Historically, this question has been asked of those living after the event. The prosecuting attorney pleads it in his implacable argument before judge and jury. The defence attorney denies it in his impassioned plea for the life of the murderer. The judge juggles the question in his summing up to their jury. And the jury deliberates on it, sometimes in anguish, sometimes in great clarity of mind. Yet in all that has been written and said on the subject of capital punishment, seldom has anyone questioned what the victim would say about it if only he could. And, after all, equally with his murderer, the victim has the right of say in the matter of his own death and its punishment.
It is preached, and rightly, that love, the highest of human emotions, should pe practised impartially in a society. It is a political dogma in our own country that equality is the right of all men. That the punishment should fit the crime is the assiduous desire of all lawmakers and of the law itself. Yet this love and this equality and this minute balancing of the law almost invariably are applied to the living. The victim, the dead man, is almost universally forgotten.
At the split second before his death, the victim-to-be has a moral and constitutional right to equality with his murderer. The love that flourishes in the land has an equal demand on the two of them. Equality and love must be equal, else the fabric of society is torn. In this split second
Capital Punishment
before his death, the victim, above all others, has the right to cry out, "Do as you would be done by!" It is to this split second that judge and jury and attorneys and hon. members should look when assessing the rightness of capital punishment.
It is in the law that, if a man comes into your home with his fists clenched to assault you, you may take the requisite steps to defend yourself. You may not go beyond what is necessary to beat him back. You may not take the samurai sword off your wall and run him through. But you may employ equal force to his. Supposing the victim-to-be of a premeditated murder were to know in a flash of insight exactly what was in the mind of his assailant; suppose everything were equal; suppose the victim-to-be had a gun in his hand at the same instant as his murderer approached him with gun in hand. What would be the inalienable right of the threatened man?
What would you do if you were the victim-to-be? Would you simply stand there and allow him to shoot you through the heart? If so, you would voluntarily relinquish your equality before the law and your right to the love of the land. Would you turn and run? Then you would be a coward. Or would you employ equal force to his and shoot him dead? If the majority of hon. members are of the last opinion, then the vote is already in on the question of capital punishment.
The trouble is, the rights of the victim are often overlooked in the hurly-burly of the trial of his murderer. All the attention is fixed on the plight of the man on trial. Safe in their own comfortable homes, remote from the confrontation which took place at the moment of a man's death, people are prone in the intervening months to sympathize with this living man who is, after all, one of them and must merit mercy. They forget that the dead victim received neither sympathy nor mercy.
In effect, judge and jury and populace-all, to some extent, are accomplices after the fact in the murder of the victim. Society, after the crime, does not feel threatened and therefore can afford the luxury of pity for the killer and an inclination toward leniency. Instead, society should stand as a surrogate for the victim, stepping into his shoes in that split second before his death and deciding, with the wisdom of aftersight, what he would have done in the face of his murderer. And, in effect, I ask hon. members, what would you have done?


Mr. Ross Whicher (Bruce):: Mr. Speaker, many excellent speeches have been given on the subject that we are now debating. It is a most controversial bill that is before us, yet a most important one. Certainly it is important to a convicted murderer who may be condemned to death as a result of this debate. It is important to all Canadians who want to do their very best for Canada in so far as it affects the safety of all of its citizens. A country which is not ruled by fair laws and guarantees justice for all is in trouble indeed.
May I first pay my compliments to various members, particularly the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand), who are opposed to capital punishment. I respect their views and the sincerity with which they are presented, but I do not share them. Without any twang of conscience whatsoever. I tell you that under certain circumstances I am for capi-

January 29, 1973
Capital Punishment
tal punishment and I hope that the present bill before us is defeated. My feelings can be summed up in one statement. Where any country begins to think more of the criminal than it does of the victim, then that country is indeed in a horrible state of affairs.
My concern and where I ask that capital punishment be reinitiated in Canada is where it applies to the first degree murderer. The individual who kidnaps a little girl and finally strangles her, the man who shoots a bank teller, the man who over a period of months poisons his wife, the individual who puts a time bomb in a plane and consequently kills dozens of innocent people; this is the type of crime that I describe as first degree murder. Let us not forget, too, the professional killer, the man who kills for a price. These examples are premeditated murder and criminals of this nature, many of whom have been in and out of jail many times, should be eliminated from society.
Are my hon. friends suggesting that law and order have not deteriorated in the past five years? If they are, then they should start reading the papers. Let us for a moment look at that great country to the south of us. Last year there were ten times as many murders in New York city as there were in Canada, twice as many in Detroit as in our country. It is not safe, Mr. Speaker, to walk down the streets of those two cities by oneself because of muggings and other crimes of violence, and the same can be said of other American cities. Thank heaven that we have not yet reached that stage in Canada, but we would be fools not to admit that it could happen right here if our laws are not enforced much more stringently than they are at present.
The average Canadian criminal is now, if he knows his way through the system, all but able to escape meaningful punishment. He can plead psychological unfitness, economic deprivation, drug abuse, alcohol use, poor social environment, and first conviction for a particular crime as mitigating circumstances. Once sentenced he has his day, parole, compassionate leave, holidays, automatic remissions, good behaviour, and the Lord only knows what else, which reduces his time in prison, if such has been the sentence, to about one half of the sentence imposed.
It is no wonder today that people do not understand the courts and the judicial system. The man in the street is quickly losing faith in justice. The officials in society seem to be on the side of the criminal. Crime rates rise, not because of social or economic condition but because persons realize that little or nothing happens to them even when convicted. Certainly capital punishment will stop few from committing murder. However, re-establishing capital punishment, and in fact more strict punishment in general for social crimes, will restore greater faith in our judicial system. It will give greater vitality to persons who wish to lead good lives; it will give people a greater sense of security. Society will benefit. The old concept of reward and punishment will not be a relic of the past. It will reverse the too often criminal trend of our present society.
The Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) tells us there is now compensation for victims of crimes. One could ask the Solicitor General through you, Mr. Speaker, how one
(Mr. Whicher.]
compensates the victim of a murderer. The most that we could do is to pray for such a victim; he or she has passed all other compensation.
It is interesting to note that practically all guards and practically all policemen are for capital punishment. These are the people who really come into contact with all criminals, including murderers. Policemen are not fools, they are not pigs and they are not fuzz. They are men and women who are average Canadians like those of us here, who have accepted the dangerous job of making life for all citizens a better and a safer one. But, Mr. Speaker, many criminals are laughing at the police today. They scorn them and, as a matter of fact, in many instances society takes the side of the criminal and not the police. Deny it if you wish, but it is a fact.
May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, why a policeman should risk his life against an armed criminal who may kill him and then get out of jail in eight or ten years? Why should a guard in a penitentiary face men known as lifers who have nothing to lose? They are supposedly incarcerated for life, and if they kill one guard or ten they cannot be punished more than now. The cards are stacked against the guards. A dog is supposed to be man's best friend, and yet there are some dogs that become mad and must be destroyed. Unfortunately, we have some men who become mad also and they, too, must be destroyed for the sake of society.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I add that I believe such murderers should be eliminated as painlessly as possible. Perhaps a tranquillizing pill and a shot of gas would be the answer for those people who claim that capital punishment is a matter of vengeance. Let us not forget that the vast majority of Canadian citizens conscientiously believe that capital punishment for first degree murder should be reinitiated. Let us as Members of Parliament represent the views of those who sent us here in the first place. Capital punishment must come back where the criminal, beyond a shadow of doubt, has committed first degree murder. It will make Canada a safer and a better place in which to live.


René Matte: Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with a popular and emotional issue.
This is why the Canadian people are extremely eager to know what will be the decision of their representatives. Such an issue, where indeed the right to live of some citizens is at stake, is very difficult and the members are reduced to a dilemma since some of them can quite conscientiously object to the death penalty while they know quite well that such is not the feeling of their constituents.
This is a real dilemma as we realize when hearing the members who state their views. Is the role of the member restricted to that of voicing a personal view or must he express the opinion of the people who elected him to do so? This the question to which we must reply. We should in that regard consult the public opinion which is well known. In the constituency I have the honour to represent I know-because I inquired in this connection-over 90 per cent of the population endorse capital punishment.
What makes citizens in general basing themselves decide in favour of capital punishment? Sure, there are a

great many reasons ranging from simple revenge to instinctive reaction to inflict upon the murderer the same fate that he inflicted on his victim. This is an instinctive and normal reaction. But if you put yourselves in the shoes of the relatives or friends of the victims, you can undersand their instinctive reaction of insisting that the ultimate penalty be inflicted on the murderer.
Those who have known people who were accused of murder and were not guilty favour the abolition of the death penalty.
What is the major argument put forward by the public? It is for a would-be murderer the fear of knowing that he could be executed. Recent surveys and statistics tended to prove that this fear is practically non-existent. People often base their arguments on the following principle: Society cannot allow itself to do precisely what it blames someone for doing.
Mr. Speaker, people also say that in a modern society there ought not to be inhuman punishment, and they point to changes which have taken place through the years. One might be inclined to agree with those who base their arguments on the reasoned and reasonable principle that society should not allow itself to do what it blames someone else for having done.
Mr. Speaker, we must first of all ask ourselves whether the present society is not as barbarous as it could be centuries ago. Even today, do we not see murders which are acknowledged even by the authorities of all countries in the world?
Mr. Speaker, there are still wars going on that are so cruel as to exceed the greatest cruelties of a few centuries ago.
I ask myself whether society as it is now deserves abolition of the death penalty. That is the very serious question which comes to my mind. Crime of every kind are more prevalent than ever within our society, Humanitarianism has not only failed to develop but has on the contrary declined. I therefore ask myself serious questions and say: Since society, because of its failure to become humanitarian, does not deserve the abolition of the death penalty, although it would be ideal, we should retain, in such a society, means which rationally would seem obsolete.
Thus, what should prompt us to settle the matter and take a stand? I think that in such a case, the people's opinion must be relied upon and expressed in the House.
Cases where capital punishment should be maintained should perhaps be determined in a more precise way. I agree with that. For example, I cannot see why a difference should be made between a prison guard or a policeman and an ordinary citizen. In fact, I believe that all citizens are equal, whatever their functions may be.
It could be argued that policemen or prison guards run more risks of being attacked and that it is why capital punishment is maintained in their case. However, a statistical survey would show that everybody is in danger. The high number of traffic accidents shows how dangerous it is just to be out in the street.
In spite of the respect I have for policemen and guards, I must say they chose their occupation of their own free
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will. What is more, they have all they need to defend themselves and I fail to see why that distinction should be made.
To my mind, the law should be more explicit: it should state precisely what murders carry the death penalty. We would then perhaps manage to prevent them, or even eliminate them totally.
Heinous crimes are also committed, where the culprit himself asks to be done away with, as in the case of Leopold Dion. I believe the public view is right in these circumstances.
The two previous speakers said, and I am of the same opinion, that more attention should be paid the victim than the criminal.
To conclude, I would say that we should try capital punishment as we have tried its abolition. In fact, this punishment has been abolished for much more than five years, as it was the custom even before 1967 to commute death penalty to life imprisonment.
Consequently, capital punishment has not been imposed for several years. Why not give it a real try providing, and I repeat, we specify in which case murder would be punishable by death.
Mr. Speaker, this of course is a very serious question but there is no other way we can reason under these circumstances.
If at least alternatives were put forward in order that a criminal could pay his debt to society otherwise than through capital punishment, our thinking might be different. But there is absolutely nothing in this respect and one could ask therefore if it would not be better to put more into the studying of means which could eliminate crime; the problem of finding the appropriate punishment would then subside. As most people, I believe for instance that some offenders enjoy living at the expense of the state in our prisons and penitentiaries. The taxpayers see their dollars helping support offenders. I understand their resentment against such people and their wish to get rid of them at any cost. However if we found some means of putting those people to work and making them productive, the taxpayers could say: Well, those offenders have really paid their debt to society.
Therefore, I wonder if we could not revert to procedures providing the offenders an opportunity to pay their debt to society by becoming productive citizens and rendering some services to society. Since we have not yet reached that stage, I believe that now, in 1973, there is no solution but to retain imposition of the death penalty in very precise cases.


Thomas Gordon Towers: Mr. Speaker, this being the first time I have had an opportunity of rising to speak in this parliament, I would like to bring to you greetings and congratulations from the many wonderful people it is my pleasure to represent in the electoral district of Red Deer. I thank you for affording me this opportunity of speaking on their behalf in this debate.

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Mr. Speaker, over the years the average Canadian citizen has put a great deal of thought into the ways and means of controlling those who perpetrate crime. Could we, just for a moment, take a look at what constitutes an average Canadian? A Canadian is not a violent individual in any sense of the word. He or she is not barbaric, nor could one say they could be construed as being revengeful but, rather, he or she is a kindly, God-fearing person. Mr. Speaker, if you look closely you will find him to be basically honest, straightforward, hard working, seeking the opportunity to love and to be loved. He will be found to be one who recognizes the rights of others and who in return expects others to recognize his rights as an individual in this big, overwhelming world.
You will find a Canadian to be a person who appreciates the privileges that have been afforded him as a citizen of this great land; a person crying out for everybody to inject into society a little bit of common sense and justice for the common good. You will find an individual who wants to be treated as a human being, not as a mere number among the masses. He wants, not only for this generation but for future generations, retention of the basic rights of freedom of speech, freedom of worship and freedom of living and travelling through this fair land without the fear of being molested or struck down. You will find an individual who believes in maintaining and enforcing law and order.
Mr. and Mrs. Average Canadian live by the law and expect others to do the same. Recognition is given to the many laws which guide thought and action and which have a definite effect on the well-being of all. Through their eyes, let us look for a moment as Canadians at the infinite law of nature as laid down by the Divine Creator. There are basically, to all intents and purposes, two kingdoms in this world-the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom. The photosynthesis and growth which takes place in the plant kingdom complements the respiration and growth of the animal kingdom. One is dependent on the other for maximum growth and development.
Mr. Speaker, this is the basic law of creation laid down for the benefit of man until man decides, as a result of his craving, to disrupt the process. Whatever his reasoning may be for breaking this law, somebody is going to pay the penalty. It could be a law of the environment which is broken, which will prove to be detrimental to somebody or something, regardless of whether it is an oil spill, excess smoke or the misuse of chemicals. Somebody will have to suffer.
Take the law of electricity as an example. Electricity has proven to be one of the greatest benefits to modern society as we know it today and is one of the main basic energy forces in the world created for mankind. Engineers know how to develop it; they know how to control it; they know how to use it. But can they see it? No, they cannot. If an individual comes into contact with this force, he breaks the law of electricity, and we all know that the result can be instant death.
Mr. Speaker, look for a moment if you will at the law of gravity, another part of the perfect law. We know that if the gravitational pull of the earth were too little, we would float off into space; if it became too great, we would not be able to move on the earth's surface. If a man breaks
this law by stepping off a cliff, for instance, we know what the end result would be.
I do not mention these facts of life to bore you, Mr. Speaker, but rather to remind this parliament that the people whom I represent, as do Canadians as a whole, respect these basic rules in the formation of man-made laws. Would it be too much to suggest that we, as elected representatives of this twenty-ninth parliament, are generally agreed on everything I have said to this point? But now comes the crunch. What do we do with those who break the rules in the game of life? What do we do with those who become so estranged and violent that they murder a fellow being deliberately, through passion, emotion, jealousy, hatred, greed or for any other reason? This is the question we have to deal with now.
As I mentioned earlier, Canadians are not a revengeful or barbaric people, as some suggest. I will not accept this as fact just because there are large numbers of people calling for capital punishment for those convicted of murder. When people call for capital punishment they are not necessarily calling for hanging. They are asking for the removal from society, in a humane manner, those who have proven beyond reasonable doubt that they cannot live under the code of life as laid down by the majority. Because of the concern of most Canadians and the divergence of opinion on this vital issue, I am convinced that the best way to reach an acceptable decision is to hold a national referendum in conjunction with the next federal election. As the minister is aware, I have a notice of motion on the order paper in this regard which reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should introduce a measure to provide that, on polling day at the next federal election, there shall be held a national plebiscite on the question of the abolition of capital punishment and on the related and consequent questions arising therefrom.
In all seriousness I ask hon. members to accept this motion as a bill of the government to let the Canadian people become a part of true participatory democracy. Since the decision reached on this important issue will have a direct effect on the future well-being of society, I believe every Canadian should be allowed to make a personal choice in a matter of such magnitude.
In my opinion, the argument of the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) against a national referendum is very weak. To say that to hold a plebiscite on capital punishment would open the way for other plebiscites is, in my opinion, utter nonsense. This would be the satisfactory and just way to settle this highly charged, emotional question. The minister has said that there will be a free vote. It makes me wonder if he has a fear of going to the people and letting them decide for themselves exactly what they want.
The growing concern of multitudes in this country is caused by the continuing increase of crime over the past five years. The day has gone when we can say, "It can't happen here." Mr. Speaker, anything that can happen anywhere in the world can happen in Canada. Some of the most dastardly murders that have been committed on this globe have been equalled here. Do I have to remind hon. members of the Laporte slaying and of the children

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who are molested and either die or, if they survive, have their lives ruined?
Although it is not necessary to go into details here, the minister knows of many such instances, as we all do. He must realize that this increasing wave of crime is what people are crying against. No one feels safe any longer, and what hope is there for Canadians without a deterrent, an enforced deterrent? If the Solicitor General could prove to the people of this country that his department can bring crime under control, and also those who commit crimes, the Canadian people would not be so doubtful or uneasy. But I warn him now that they are not going to be thwarted much longer. There are thousands of Canadians who will not put their faith in or be guided by a government that seeks to abolish capital punishment and at the same time accepts a policy to legalize abortions. For many thousands of seriously thinking people these two proposals cannot be equated.
Canadians, as a whole, are a forgiving people and I would venture to say that by far the vast majority would lend a helping hand to anyone in trouble. Why, then, would those who contemplate crime take a club or a gun to break the law when such help is available? In my opinion, our people would not be so upset over this issue if they had any hope that justice would prevail and that crime would be controlled. Capital punishment is the only hope in controlling murder. Canadian citizens are holding on to this concept as hard as they can because since 1967 they have seen crimes occur which never should have been committed in a civilized country. Instead of the situation improving, unfortunately it is worsening.
I do not deny that Canadians have compassion for those who have broken the law, but I believe they have more compassion for those who are the victims of lawless action. I refer to parents, sisters and brothers of murdered children; I refer to the young mother and 22-month old baby who are left without a husband and father, murdered while on duty as a policeman just recently. Yes, Mr. Speaker, these are the real victims; these are the people whom Mr. and Mrs. Canadian are trying to protect when they press for capital punishment.
According to statistics, capital punishment is a deterrent. A report prepared by Statistics Canada for the Department of the Solicitor General reveals that an average of 222 persons, excluding police officers and prison guards, were murdered in each of the seven years before the partial ban came into effect. The annual average went up to 376 between 1968 and 1971, the last full year for which figures are available. The total for 1971 is 422 non-police murders. I quote for the benefit of the House a recent statement attributed to a law enforcement officer in Ottawa:
In conversing with criminals while being transported to Kingston, the reason many criminals gave for not carrying a revolver was to avoid the possibility of execution resulting from the death of a victim.
Another police officer has recently stated:
No worse time than the present could be chosen for the abolition of the death penalty. We must decide whether we are going to protect society against the criminal or protect the criminal against society.
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Many Canadians believe this. I realize the minister has a great responsibility to protect those who have broken the law, but he has a much more serious responsibility to protect society. His duty is to lessen and control the ravages of crime which at the present time is growing and is out of control. What is being done to protect people from the increased use of drugs which has resulted in some murders? Never in history has there been a time as today. When the younger generation has been subjected to such lawlessness and all its influences.
If parliament removes this deterrent to crime without taking into consideration the individual wishes of people of this country, how, then, will we face those who are personally affected by unwarranted murder? Capital punishment cannot be a deterrent if it is not enforced, neither can life imprisonment be a deterrent if the sentence is not served.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to have an opportunity to speak in this debate on capital punishment, a subject, to be sure, that is very important from all points of view. I think those of us who have come to the House since 1966-1967, when the suspension of hanging was agreed to, will be concerned that we do not spend a great deal of time threshing old straw or debating ideas that have already been well discussed in this place. Nevertheless, as I say, this is a very important debate not only to those people who may become subject to the law we pass here but also as an indication of the direction our society is taking at this stage of its national development.
I believe there is much concern in the United States, as well as in this country, over the recent public mass murders and gangland slayings that have occurred, as well as over the regular diet on television during the past several years of war and murder. I believe there is real concern as to whether our country, indeed our whole generation, is suffering from the brutalizing effects of this particular diet on our television screen every night. Fortunately, the Viet Nam war is almost at an end, at least we hope it is, with the signing of the pact this past week end. But there can be little doubt that a whole generation of people in North America have been witnessing the kind of program I have referred to on television, which is why I say there is concern whether there has been any brutalizing effect therefrom.
It will be interesting to see, both in this debate and in the public debate that follows along with it, whether our Canadian society has moved toward a more human position than was the case five years ago and whether we in this generation really do abhor the thought of murder as much as did the previous generation.
I was interested, when the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) spoke, to hear him say he did not feel this debate was important enough to command our time in the House at this particular stage. It seems to me there can be no question but that this debate has to take place now. Surely the issue of capital punishment is inherently important in our society, not only to people who are charged with murder and other crimes but to the whole society. It is indeed difficult to imagine a question of greater social

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significance than the grounds on which the state claims the right to deprive a citizen of his life. The legislation establishing, defining and circumscribing this right is surely important and involves one of the most fundamental decisions confronting any society at any time. It goes to the very core of our society's philosophy, reflecting and probably helping to create as well the values and norms which permeate all human social intercourse.
Secondly, it seems that this debate is important because of the kind of public opinion which has been generated during the past months and especially during the past weeks as a result of the number of newspaper articles, editorials and television programs we have had relating to the subject, as well as the number of letters Members of Parliament are receiving. It is our responsibility as representatives of the Canadian people to come to grips with this issue at this time.
Thirdly, Mr. Speaker, there is the question of our obligation to enact legislation to replace the previous five-year law which expired on December 29 last. To ignore this issue would be to shirk our responsibility as members of this House of Commons. In the field of criminal law and punishment, as in all others, we must establish policy by design, by responsible, thoughtful and wide deliberation, and not by default.
I recognize the complexity of the issue now before this House, the difficulty of interpreting the relevant statistical data and the sincerity with which honest and responsible men hold divergent views. I want to make my own position clear. In principle I am in favour of the abolition of the death penalty. I regard capital punishment as morally repugnant, ineffective as a deterrent and inadequate as a means of ensuring the protection of our society.
I believe that the convictions of many hon. members on this matter are based as such on subjective theory as on a detached appraisal of statistical evidence. Indeed, I would venture to suggest that most people who have adopted a position on this issue have done so as the result of a sort of inner feeling or reaction which is conditioned by their background, their experience and their philosophy. That renowned criminal lawyer, Clarence Darrow, was no doubt right when he observed half a century ago that "questions of this sort are not settled by reason; they are settled by prejudices and sentiments or by emotion."
Given my own predisposition and the grave implications of state-sanctioned execution, it would require a considerable body of uncontestable evidence proving the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent to persuade me of the merits of the death penalty. Like other members of this House, I have read many reports, studies and analyses on the subject and I am not convinced that any significant link has been established between retention or abolition of the death penalty, on one hand, and the incidence of murder on the other. Indeed, the overwhelming weight of evidence, the opinions of professional psychologists, sociologists and criminologists leads to the conclusion that no such correlation exists. It seems to me that in nearly every country in the world the trend is to less and less capital punishment. Whether there actually is a law providing for capital punishment or not, there is a tendency to carry out fewer and fewer executions.
(Mr. Foster.]
If we consider France, where they still have capital punishment-incidentally, they still use the guillotine which was made famous during the French revolution- we find that between 1953 and 1969 only 22 out of 85 persons sentenced to capital punishment were actually guillotined. This country, which actually has a capital punishment law on the books, is moving toward fewer and fewer executions. Likewise, in the United States between 1965 and 1971 there were ten executions carried out, and those were all under state laws. There have been none under federal law in that country where they have criminal law both in the state and at the federal level.
I would venture to suggest that more statistics have been produced and cited on this subject than on any other. It is not my intention to bombard the House with statistics. Let me just say that there is no such study in which I have found evidence that demonstrates to my satisfaction the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent.
In Europe, those countries which have abolished the death penalty have no higher murder rates; in fact, in many instances they have significantly lower rates than those which have retained the death penalty. In the United States, the abolitionist states have no higher murder rates; in fact, they tend to have lower rates than adjacent states which have retained capital punishment. In those states where the death penalty has been abolished there is no appreciable difference in homicide rates before and after abolition.
In our own country, the result of our recently expired five-year experimental period-though the evidence is still incomplete and tentative-tends to demonstrate yet again that capital punishment has no deterrent effect. The excellent study of Dr. Fattah is most persuasive on this point. Let me quote, in support of this argument, a United Nations' document on capital punishment, published in 1968. That document sums up the position in the following words:
With respect to the influence of the abolition of capital punishment upon the incidence of murder, all of the available data suggest that where the murder rate is increasing, abolition does not appear to hasten the increase; where the murder rate is decreasing, abolition does not appear to interrupt the decrease; where the rate is stable, the presence or absence of capital punishment does not appear to affect it.
It is interesting to note in passing that many authorities even argue that the death penalty, by contributing to a climate of violence and by appealing to the suicidal tendencies of some unbalanced people, actually tends to increase the incidence of murder.
Let me reiterate my own conclusion, Mr. Speaker. I can find no evidence of correlation in either direction between capital punishment and the incidence of murder in our society. To advocate the death penalty as a deterrent to murder seems to me to imply an underlying conception of human conduct and motivation to which I do not subscribe. It assumes a rationality of behaviour on the part of potential murderers, a deliberate choice between alternative courses of action based on calculated consequences and anticipated pleasure and pain. It is now generally acknowledged, however, that much of human behaviour is unplanned and habitual rather than calculated and deliberate.
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Can we deny, Mr. Speaker, that in the case of homicide this aspect of human behaviour is particularly apparent? Very few murders result from cold, calculated plotting. The overwhelming proportion are crimes of passion, committed in the heat of the moment, often resulting from domestic quarrels and frequently associated with drink or drugs. Such crimes are every bit as deplorable and grievous as those committed with deliberate intent but-and this is the point I want to make-they involve no premeditation and no calculation of consequences. In these cases, and in the cases involving mentally deranged killers, the deterrent value of capital punishment, or indeed of any other penalty, is irrelevant. In short, Mr. Speaker, deterrence, if it has any significance at all, can only operate upon rational minds; and people in a rational frame of mind do not commit murders. This is the central dilemma, as I see it, of the "deterrent" school of thought.
In looking back over history, the trend toward a more humane treatment of criminals is unmistakable. It is shocking and frightening to be reminded that only a century and a half ago-as late as the early 1800s-teenage boys and girls were hanged for petty theft and for picking pockets. When offences such as these were removed from the list of crimes punishable by death, great cries arose, sincere no doubt, to express profound fears for the safety of persons and property. It is frightening to realize, too, that it was only a few centuries ago that men were burned at the stake, boiled in oil, broken on the wheel and subjected to the most hideous kinds of brutal torture, all in the name of justice and for the sake of deterrence. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether future generations will look back on our present debate with the same feelings that we now experience in regard to these earlier punishments.
In this historical evolution of criminal punishment, the total and permanent abolition of capital punishment marks a logical, perhaps inevitable step. We have come some distance in creating a more humane approach to the treatment of criminals. I cannot help but think that we in Canada are now in the throes of the last, long, agonizing step in this process of evolution.
Many countries, indeed, have already overcome this last hurdle. Many other countries have officially abolished or unofficially suspened the death penalty. Today, there are some 50 countries in the world where some form of capital punishment for certain crimes still exists. It is perhaps noteworthy that almost half of all executions in the noncommunist world take place in South Africa, which has an average of one execution, usually of a black, every three days. Britain, after a five-year trial period, permanently abolished the death penalty in 1970. The United States supreme court has recently declared the death penalty under most circumstances unconstitutional.
Most statisticians acknowledge that five years is an insufficient period of time to permit a conclusive determination of the trend in the murder rate. I believe that the last two years of statistics for the five-year trial period are not yet available. To be frank, I doubt that any further evidence will be adduced that will cause convinced abolitionists or retentionists to alter their positions. I do think, however, that many people are as yet undecided on the
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merits of the case. For them, another trial period will provide an opportunity to gain additional information on which to base their judgment.
However one interprets the present evidence of public feeling on the issue of capital punishment, it is unmistakably clear that serious divisions of view exist within our country. A matter of this importance, I believe, should have as much public consensus as possible. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the amendment proposed by the hon. member for York West (Mr. Fleming) and the hon. member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) is to the effect that for certain types of convicted murderers there should be a mandatory 25 years' sentence before the normal parole procedure will be considered. This would not only apply to convicted murderers of police officers and prison guards but also to certain type of murders which occur at the time of other violent crimes. When this amendment is moved at the committee stage, I think it should be given very serious consideration. The public of this country is concerned that there is not adequate protection from this type of criminal. It seems to me that the mobster or the hired killer is the type of person from whom people are demanding protection. Perhaps this type of criminal should be incarcerated for this long period before parole is considered.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me emphasize that I am concerned with he protection of society and with the adequacy of our present rehabilitation system. We should re-examine the ways in which we administer our penitentiary policies, our parole system and our leave of absence programs. Certainly we should continue our pursuit of the basic causes of crime, its nature, its prevention and its detection. In this way we can combine an effective and humane treatment of offenders with the maximum degree of public safety. I am confident that we are on the right road. Let us not now turn back.


Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, by the time we finish this debate we will have canvassed all the historical, philosophical, statistical, moral and religious aspects of this issue. Let me preface my remarks by saying that thus far there appears to be a trend with regard to a vote which will be uncomfortably close and therefore it is necessary to present the varying views to persuade members of the House of the importance of this issue.
I think the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) set the tone of the debate and presented arguments in favour of the bill in a quiet, persuasive and telling way. I happen to be a total abolitionist but I am prepared to accept Bill C-2 and extend the law a further five years on the same basis as it was in 1967, because of the necessity of gaining further public support and because of the minister's statement that we are on the road to abolition.
This important social issue embraces all the emotional, mental and spiritual values of members of this House and therefore it will help to reflect that no one possesses all truth and all virtue and that only light can chase away the darkness. That is why I respect the thought and feelings of every person who holds views contrary to mine. But I am quick to add that my view is not a bleeding-heart plea for abolition; my motive is for a more human and decent society rather than misplaced pity for the offender. I am

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deeply encouraged and strengthened by the report, publicly stated, of leaders in the community-church leaders, social workers, penologists, parole workers, and so on, who have expressed their concern, their conviction, their commitment and have indicated the worth of the individual and the redemptive powers of their teaching and their experience.
Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General has said that we are on the road to abolition. This is because of recent changes in the law and the exercise of commutation which have resulted not only in de jure abolition but also in de facto abolition. Not since 1962 has a person been hanged in Canada. Canada has joined other countries in a gradual movement away from capital punishment and is concentrating on alternative methods of effective control. The amendments of 1961 introduced by a Conservative government, by the Hon. Davie Fulton, brought a sharp change in the attitude toward capital punishment. The bill which made a division of murder into capital and noncapital, with the automatic right of appeal even to the Supreme Court of Canada, the polling of the jury as to a recommendation of mercy which was to be forwarded to the Minister of Justice, and the abolition of the death penalty for persons under 18 years, plus the almost full exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy set the change in motion.
The Progressive Conservative party under the leadership of the Hon. Davie Fulton set the change in motion. The debate on that bill in 1966, and the passing of the new bill in 1967 which was introduced by the Liberal government, placed a heavy emphasis on abolition and stressed a move away from capital punishment. Both parties, the Progressive Conservative party and the Liberal party, are to be commended on this move to de facto abolition. Dr. C. H. S. Jayewardine summarizes his view of the movement to de facto abolition in the following way:
Both parties sought to produce the change by executive rather than legislative action. Both parties were goaded into moving the bills that they finally introduced. That the one is now viewed as a retentionist and the other as abolitionist does not appear to be because of their ideological commitment but because of the result of the circumstances in which they were situated. It was the Liberal government's legislation that limited the imposition of the penalty of deith to almost the point of abolition but then the legislation which the Conservative government had been earlier forced to introduce left the Liberal government no choice in the further legislation that they were then forced to introduce. It was the Liberal government that commuted every sentence of death but then the pattern of commutation set by previous Conservative governments left them no choice. It was as if destiny was unfolding itself unobtrusively so as to make the change that was occurring appear congruous with the will of the people.
I would ask the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) to note that change in attitude of the Progressive Conservative party and the Liberal party when considering the move toward de facto abolition. This move, Mr. Speaker, is no different than it has been in other countries throughout the world. When I think that in the year 1840 the small country of Luxemburg moved to abolish capital punishment, and here in 1973-150 years later-the country of Canada is now moving in the same direction, it makes me realize that maybe we are moving not too quickly in comparison with other countries.

England has moved. She commenced her move in 1965 and almost completed abolition in 1969. In 1972 we had the supreme court of the United States bring down an historic and dramatic judgment in which it said that capital punishment constituted cruel and unusual punishment and therefore violated sections 8 and 14 of the United States Constitution. This now is an attempt by Canada to march with the times.
Why am I an abolitionist? There are four main reasons. First, I believe in the basic worth and value of human life. Albert Schwietzer said it beautifully in the words "reverence for life" in the twenty-first century, and Jesus and Gandhi propounded the philosophy and lived it. In the debate on the bill in 1967 the former solicitor general said:
I believe that so long as the state claims the right under the law to deliberately take human life there will be a tendency to regard life more cheaply.
I believe that reverence for life is substantially diminished when we base our law on revenge and retribution, and that reverence for life is substantially increased when we base our law on redemption, reformation and rehabilitation. My second reason for being an abolitionist is that many innocent people have been hanged in the past and many innocent people may be hanged in the future. Judicial courts, even with all the safeguards of appeal procedures, are not infallible. False testimony, mistaken identification, biased juries or misinterpreted circumstantial evidence all make it possible that an innocent person may hang. This is the reason for Lafayette's challenge, "I shall ask for abolition of the death penalty until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me." This is why it goes unanswered by the retentionists.
Mr. Speaker, you will recall the debate in 1967 and the mention of the Christie case in England, which at that time indicated the wrong person had been executed and that this evidence did not come out until the execution had taken place. We remember the D'Arcy McGee murder in Canada which left many doubts as to whether the correct person was executed. And many of us have had agonizing question marks with regard to the guilt of the young man Truscott. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we feel that the death penalty is so final, so irreversible that it almost prompts the statement: I would rather see one hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man executed. This is why there is such a low conviction rate in Canada and elsewhere throughout the world; it is because of the reluctance of judges and juries to bring in a conviction because of the possibility of mistake. Therefore they grapple for and grasp at alternative verdicts.
The third reason I am an abolitionist is that people do not have equal opportunities before the courts. The scales are weighted against the poor and inarticulate. We cannot consider this problem of capital punishment and we cannot consider the act of murder without bringing into consideration the social, the economic, the cultural and the racial factors that are brought into play. Lewis E. Hawes, a former warden of Sing Sing penitentiary in the United States, has written, "Those who are executed are always poor and friendless." He has indicated that money assures the best counsel and the highest chance of acquittal.
January 29, 1973

Differences in racial, cultural and social status discriminate against the poor and the friendless. There is an old Indian saying, "Judge not a man until you have stood in his moccasins." How can we judge the man who has committed murder? How would you like to stand in the shoes of a negro in the southern states, charged with murder for rape, when he has full knowledge that never has a white person in the southern states been convicted of a similar offence?
How would you like to stand in the shoes of a young Canadian Indian when all the cards are stacked against you on economic, social and racial grounds? I hasten to add that we have gone a long way in changing the law and providing all with equal opportunities before the courts. Legal aid and the provision of lawyers in capital murder cases are steps in the right direction, but they do not meet all the inequities that still prevail under the law.
Fourthly, society is largely responsible for the conditions which breed crime and we must accept part of the blame. Violence has been rampant in the world these last few years, and violence begets violence. Just think of half a million men returning from Viet Nam. They have been trained and have experience in killing and they will come back and try to adjust to the American way of life. That will be difficult, Mr. Speaker. I do not doubt that many will encounter difficulties and will commit crimes which call for capital punishment.
The use of guns in society is another problem we must face. Here I recall the fate of the bill which Senator Kennedy brought before the American Congress. Its purpose was to prohibit the use of certain guns in the United States. Hon. members will recall the difficulties that he encountered. He met with no success in securing passage of that bill; it would not pass in Congress. Let me add quickly that an amendment to the Explosives Act was brought forward in the previous parliament. Differences and divergencies of opinion on restrictions affecting the use of guns and the use of ammunition sharply divided the members of this House. We did not come to any final conclusion on the bill.
I have said that society breeds crime. Poor economic conditions, poor employment prospects and lack of decent housing create a kind of desperation, a kind of alienation which form the bedrock in the breeding of crime. One might ask, what is required? Without doubt, we must emphasize the need for improving basic conditions to do with housing, to do with prison programs and to do with the acceptance of responsibilities on the part of inmates so as to bring about their employment and integration into the community. Please notice that I speak of integration into the community, not reintegration. Many men who have spent time in penitentiaries have never been integrated as part of the community; therefore, we cannot talk in terms of reintegration but must talk of integration.
At this stage I wish to commend the former solicitor general who had the courage and wisdom to bring forward changes in our penal system and in the treatment of prisoners. That action took courage and it brought on him criticism not only from members of the House but from many people across Canada. I think time will show that
Capital Punishment
the former solicitor general was on the right track in developing such programs.
The age most critical for young people, the age at which they are most apt to get into trouble, is that between 16 and 24. That is why we in the NDP were deeply concerned over the young offenders bill brought forward in the last parliament. Evidence given before the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs by social workers and other public officials indicated the need for diagnostic and related services to be used in cases involving young people. I for one am happy that I attempted to block passage of that bill. If we are ever to solve this problem and create the type of society in which young people will be less likely to commit murder, we must seek the support of our youth. We must introduce diagnostic and related services that will help us to meet some of the problems that youth encounters today.
We have heard many arguments against abolition and will continue hearing them. It is safe to say that deterrence and the protection of society are the main arguments put forward. Mr. Speaker, I cannot stand statistics, having found that they can be brought forward to support whichever side is preferred. Statistics fail to disclose the facts because they fail to take into account factors involving social, economic, cultural, educational and racial problems which play a far more important part in deterring crime than punishment.
United Nations' reports indicate that the examination of records of the number of murders committed before and after the abolition or reintroduction of the death penalty do not support the theory that capital punishment has a unique deterrent effect. It has been said, and will be repeated again, that if capital punishment is carried to its logical conclusion, then if we are to emphasize the deterrent aspect there ought to be public hangings across Canada. Let us set up a scaffold on the grounds of Parliament Hill, perhaps we should set up a scaffold in the civic square outside the city hall, perhaps we should set up a scaffold on the Expo property in Montreal and publicly display a scaffold in Stanley Park, Vancouver.


An hon. Member:: A good idea.


John Gilbert: This will bring such revulsion when people see what happens to a person who is hanged that capital punishment would come to an immediate end. Studies have indicated that in England during the nineteenth century, of 167 pickpockets who were hanged 164 had seen others hanged publicly. Actually, many of them plied their trade when witnessing the hanging of other pickpockets.
Professor Selling attempted to test the argument that capital punishment offers special protection to police officers by comparing police homicides in abolitionist and retentionist states. While stressing the special difficulties of such a test, Professor Selling reports that "on the whole the abolitionist states . . . seem to have fewer (police) killings but the differences are small".
I would be remiss in my duty if I did not point out that recent public opinion polls indicate that there is a sharp trend in favour of retention. Public acceptance of retention is a relevant but not controlling factor. We must remember that society does not practise what it preaches.

January 29, 1973
Capital Punishment
The steady decrease in executions across the world persuasively demonstrates that capital punishment is unacceptable to society today. One member who spoke earlier this evening mentioned a referendum and suggested that a referendum on the subject ought to be held at the next election. That course, Mr. Speaker, would be a dereliction of the duty of a Member of Parliament.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Gilbert: We are sent here to represent the constituents of our ridings and are expected to inform ourselves on the issues. We are expected to exercise common sense in our judgments. Sending the issue of capital punishment back to the voters in the form of a referendum would be a complete dereliction of our duty. It would not be necessary for us to be here, for all issues could be decided by referendum. Can you imagine what would happen if the imposition of taxes' was determined on the basis of referendum?
Our best protection would be the introduction of basic reforms in the treatment and confinement of inmates. These are needed. It is also necessary to differentiate between different types of murder. Two out of every three murders are crimes of passion committed within the family circle. There is very little likelihood of repetition. The difficult issue is detecting the psychotic and containing him until he is fully restored. This would require research programs, treatment and reformation. This is why we say the Parole Act should be studied in detail so as to find out ways and means of detecting the psychotic killer and devising the programs and research necessary to deal with him.
I direct my final remarks to the new members in this chamber. After sitting here for a good number of years they will ask themselves, "What have I done to make this a better Canada?" And they might find difficulty in deciding. I might as well be personal, I have been here for seven years and I find it very difficult to answer that question. The role of the opposition is that of constructive criticism. This having been said, I feel proud of my own contribution to the final form of the young offenders bill and take pleasure in that achievement. The former hon. member for Welland, Mr. Donald Tolmie, made a significant contribution to the formation of the law permitting the expunging of criminal records. For his part in this legislation he is to be congratulated. Many of us have enjoyed the same kind of satisfaction that he did.
I would say to the new members, "If you want an opportunity to do something which will put Canada in a forward position, which will underline the compassion which is to be found in most of us, you have an opportunity to vote in support of the bill now before this chamber." If we concentrate on the changes which are taking place in terms of treatment, rather than revert to revenge and retribution, we shall march forward and we shall be able to say as the years go by that we have done a good job.


Mr.   Fernand-E. Leblanc@Laurier: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this debate to explain that at the third reading stage, I shall vote against this bill in keeping with the position I

took in this House in 1967. I will explain my situation by repeating some of the arguments put forward by the Solicitor General (M. Allmand) who stated, as recorded on page 688 of Hansard for January 26, 1973, and I quote:
The purpose of the original trial period in 1967 was to allow for a period during which those crimes punishable by death would be severely restricted. This five-year experiment would be a time of intense study and analysis, the results of which were to guide the House's deliberations after December 29, 1972. We are beyond the termination date of that five-year period but, unfortunately, we do not have the full data for the entire five years on which to base studies and, hence, legislative recommendations.
And further on:
It seems to me that we must see the process, commenced in 1967, through to its logical conclusion.
I want to be true to my convictions of 1967 even though, of course, I respect the contrary opinions of my colleagues. I hope they will consider mine favourably. In 1967, I voted against the bill when a free vote was held, regardless of the party line. In 1973, it will also be a free vote. In view of the fact that I have not heard further arguments against my former position, I think I must explain to the House why I will vote in the same manner as in 1967.
I am told that I have not changed. I did not change precisely because the arguments put forward by the Solicitor General himself and by the other members who until now have participated in the debate have not convinced me. I think I am entitled to my opinion in spite of what some members who say I have not changed may think.
Mr. Speaker, I note that the Canadian people are taking a tougher stand with regard to certain acts committed since 1967 and which were witnessed in Quebec and in other provinces. I note that the people are becoming more and more strict and are increasingly asking the government to pass a legislation designed to protect them against a seemingly greater degree of violence than when we enacted a similar legislation in 1967.
The act which abolished capital punishment for a certain type of murder expired on December 29, 1972.
Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I will probably repeat some arguments which were put forward in this House, but I believe that in such an important debate, it is difficult to avoid repetitions. We heard many repetitions in 1964 during the debate on the national flag when some 200 speeches were delivered, and I think that many arguments were then repeated. Nevertheless, each member is entitled to express his views on the bill now under consideration.
I said that except in the case of police officers or prison guards, capital murder was no longer involved.
The bill now under consideration would actually reinstate those provisions, but would substitute to the terms capital murder and non-capital murder the terms murder that is punishable by death and murder that is punishable by life imprisonment.
If the bill were passed, the provisions which have been in force during the past five years would remain for five more years, i.e. until December 31, 1977.
January 29, 1973

In case the amendments were not renewed or permanently adopted before December 31, 1977, we would again come under the act which was in force prior to 1967.
Clauses 8 and 9 of the bill provide for interim measures which will become necessary in case these provisions are adopted in the near future. Those interim measures are all the more necessary because, theoretically, since December 29 1972, the pre-1967 provisions have been restored.
If the bill before us were passed, it would not be fair for people not to benefit by its provisions merely because they fell under the act between December 29, 1972 and the coming into force of this bill, since normally it should have been introduced in the House before expiry of the five-year period, i.e. before December 29, 1972, in order to come immediately into effect on December 30.
I believe, therefore, that on second reading I shall not object to the bill being referred to the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs for detailed study; but the House will again have to deal with the bill and, unless amendments are proposed which coincide with the position I took early in my statement, I shall have to vote against it on third reading, as I did in 1967. On the other hand, I know that some hon. members intend to propose amendments, although I do not know exactly what they are. If some of those strike me as judicious, I shall be happy to support them; but if the bill rejects the death penalty, I shall have to vote against it.


Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, there is an old story that has gone the rounds in many countries and, if I can paraphrase it, it is the story of a man who was sleeping and dreamed he was speaking in the House of Commons on the subject of capital punishment. And when he awoke, by golly, he was! You and me, Mr. Speaker, have both had the opportunity now on two separate occasions to listen to a debate in this chamber encompassing this important subject, and as I was sitting here this evening I was thinking how valuable it was to have the requirement in our rules that a matter cannot be debated twice in one session. However, it now seems that we have not taken enough precautions to have some extensive requirement to prevent this House of Commons from coming back regularly to debate certain issues that seem destined to be debated on into eternity. As has already been mentioned on a number of occasions in this debate, this matter was very exhaustively dealt with by parliament in 1966 and 1967; now in 1973 it is being debated again.
Indeed, this debate has a kind of Mackenzie King quality to it; the debate is so unreal. We are, in effect, asked to extend provisions that would partially abolish that which has already been abolished, as has been noted by previous speakers, for the better part of the last decade. Indeed, I think it is assumed in all parts of the House and by all hon. members that, regardless of the outcome of the debate, the practice that has become very firmly entrenched and accepted in this country today of abolishing capital punishment will be continued.
Perhaps I have missed it, but I have not heard it seriously suggested either inside or outside the House that this
Capital Punishment
practice, which has been carried on extensively now by a number of successive governments, would be or should be discontinued. It therefore must strike many observers as passing strange that we should be launched once again, not on a debate of the kind we had in 1966 to abolish capital punishment but on a debate to almost abolish capital punishment, which I assume has really the end effect merely of satisfying some people more than others. Perhaps before too long there should be an opportunity to have some clear settlement of this issue if only to relieve parliament, let alone the general public, of this continued preoccupation with capital punishment.
As previous speakers have suggested, we are in very great danger, I think particularly in present circumstances when we are perpetuating this debate, of avoiding some of the fundamental issues that concern many hundreds of thousands of Canadians. We are going through a very serious time of economic and social dislocation in this country. We hear about it daily. We read about it in our newspapers. We watch it on the television screen. We know the extent of the misery that many of our fellow Canadians share. Yet here we are involving ourselves in this kind of rarefied debate of a matter which, thank God, touches on the lives of very few Canadians. I suggest something is quite obviously wrong with the priorities of a government that insists on having a prolonged debate on a subject of this nature.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: There is no doubt that there must be a final resolution of this question, but the final resolution is not going to come in this debate. Regardless of the outcome, the question is not going to be resolved. What we are doing, either consciously or unconsciously, is merely contributing to a very unhealthy diversion at a time when some very important questions need to be resolved.
There are some undercurrents and underlying issues in the question of capital punishment and I want to deal with these because I think that if there is anything useful that can be said in this current debate it is not in dealing with the oft debated questions of the importance of a deterrent, the value of capital punishment as a form of punishment-not just directly for the individual involved but indirectly for society-and its importance in the whole build-up of the legal framework of our society. Perhaps I might more appropriately address myself to these concerns tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Speaker, and I shall therefore call it ten o'clock.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, may I ask the government House leader whether we are continuing this debate tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, we will carry on with this debate tomorrow and probably on Wednesday. I want at some point, either on Thursday or Friday, to ask the House if it would deal with the pilotage bill, but I will not

January 29, 1973
Adjournment Debate
change the order of business without giving good advance notice to my hon. friend.


Erik Nielsen: Will the debate on Viet Nam take place on Friday?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It is proposed to have a debate this week, but there are still some loose ends to be tied up before I can determine at what point the debate will be held, whether on Thursday and Friday or part Thursday and continuing on Friday.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, however brief it may be, as I rise for the first time in this parliament I should convey my congratulations to yourself and to my distinguished friend and colleague, the hon. member for Halifax-East Hants (Mr. McCleave), on the elevation to his high post.
On January 16, in the midst of a flurry of questions in respect of the present situation in which Canada finds itself in Viet Nam, I rose and asked the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Richardson) whether he could in a general way at that point in time indicate to the House just who was going to pay for this very unreal excursion into peacekeeping in Viet Nam. The minister, quite properly, I suppose, with the range of knowledge available to him at the time, said he did not know, it was too early to tell and to the best of his knowledge at that time the only cost incurred would be the cost of salaries.
Things have changed quite a bit in the past few days since that question was posed. We do now have troops in Viet Nam, we do in fact have a multimillion dollar destroyer escort en route to water contiguous to Vietnamese waters, we have a Hercules apparently already standing by on the ground, and probably in their wisdom the government has seen fit to keep one or two 707s standing by in the event we have to get out. It would be a pleasure to pursue the reason for all this concern but I think we will have an opportunity to do that if we have a debate later this week.
What I am concerned about is just where the money is to come from. Our distinguished ambassador to France said on June 2, 1969, and I quote from page 9306 of Hansard for that date the last sentence in the second paragraph of the right-hand column:
We believe we can achieve the transition, barring unexpected international developments, within a defence budget which will be maintained for the next three years at its current dollar level.
This is what brought me to my feet the other day in the House and what brings me to my feet again tonight. I want to know where the money is to come from. This will involve more than just the cost of salaries. Will the defence budget, for example, be unfrozen in order to satisfy pay allowances? If it is not to be unfrozen, will attrition or further cutbacks in the armed forces budget provide that money for sustaining a peacekeeping operation of this nature and magnitude in Viet Nam?
Will manpower and capital programs suffer, and will there be further base consolidation? More forced attrition would, in my view-and I hope the view of all members of the House-be intolerable and the effects of it disastrous to morale and training programs. There is not enough money to do nearly the things that our Canadian armed forces have been assigned to do by this government.
I ask the distinguished parliamentary secretary where the money is to come from to pay the 2 per cent of the commission's costs in Viet Nam, and does he have any idea what those costs will be? These are questions to which I think the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) should properly have addressed himself in his initial indication to the House of what in fact we might be doing in connection with this observer role.
I doubt very much that the parliamentary secretary has a detailed response for me tonight, given his limited time, but I am interested in what the per diem cost will be, even if it is based on past experience. This 60-day business is for the birds. We have ships, planes and men over there, and the more people we put in Viet Nam, the more difficult it will be for us to get them out. We have been involved in similar operations in India, Pakistan, Palestine and Kashmir. We have been in Lebanon, West Iran, and we have been with the United Nations' Yemen observer commission. We have taken part in United Nations' emergency forces in Cyprus, and we have been involved in UN operations in the Congo, Korea and with the ICC. And now we are in Viet Nam.
These things are not done without a tremendous burden being placed on departmental budgets. The difference is, Mr. Speaker, that this time we are being asked to do something in the context of a frozen budget and in the absence of an indication from the Minister of National Defence of what the government's intentions are with respect to funding this operation and, indeed, the entire defence budget for the ensuing year. The three-year period called for by the former minister, Mr. Cadieux, has virtually expired. I hope that tonight the distinguished parliamentary secretary can give us some indication of how much this is going to cost and where the money is coming from. If it is going to come out of the defence budget, can he give us any indication of the government's intention and willingness to unfreeze once and for all the current defence budget?


Mr. Leonard Hopkins (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall) asked a lot of questions in a short period of time. As he will appreciate, the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Richardson), in reply to this question on Tuesday, January 16, indicated that as far as the Department of National Defence is concerned the only expenditure it will likely be involved

January 29, 1973

with is that for pay and allowances. Exactly how much this will be is now dependent upon how many personnel are actually sent, now that the government's decision has been made to participate in observer and peacekeeping duties in Viet Nam during the initial 60-day period, and how long the personnel may be required to perform their duties following the initial commitment.
Last Wednesday the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) in response to a question from the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) advised that initially it was suggested that Canada contribute 10 per cent of the budget of the commission. However, in the protocol it is suggested that each member of the supervisory commission should pay 2 per cent of the budget of the commission. As you are aware, Sir, the agreement and the protocols were ratified in Paris on Saturday, 27 January, 1973.
In article 14 of the governing protocol, the basic financing formulaes proposed are as follows: each member country of the commission shall pay salaries and allowances of their respective personnel; each of the four parties to the agreement shall contribute 23 per cent and each member of the commission for supervision to contribute 2 per cent; and, the international commission will prepare its own budget which will be submitted to the four parties signatory to the agreement for their approval.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member would agree that as a result of the government's only becoming aware of the proposed financing formula on Wednesday last, this is only one of the several aspects of the protocols still to be resolved.


OLD AGE SECURITY-INQUIRY AS TO INCREASE IN BASIC AMOUNT AND LOWERING OF AGE OF ELIGIBILITY
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, if I may, I should like to commend my hon. friend, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde), for his attendance here tonight when a "late show" question is being put to him. This is a practice which I hope he will continue and it is a practice on his part that I would commend to other ministers.
On Monday, January 8, as recorded in Hansard at page 38, I put this question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare:
In view of the general reference in the throne speech to the taking of steps to improve the economic conditions of old age pensioners, may I ask the minister if those steps will include an increase in the basic amount of the old age security pension? Will they also include a lowering of the eligibility age?
The reply of the minister was in these words:
Mr. Speaker, I expect to be able to make a statement in the House on this subject later on.
The minister kept that promise by making a speech in the debate on the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne on Thursday, January 11, and included in that speech was this sentence as found on page 202 of Hansard:
However I can assure hon. members that a substantial old age
Adjournment Debate
pension increase will be announced soon, and I hasten to add that it will not be a mere token increase.
Further on in that same paragraph he indicated a concern not only for those over age 65 but also for those under that age. The next day, Friday, January 12, in the speech that I made in the same debate I warmly welcomed the statement of the minister which I have just quoted and gave him my commendation on the attention he seemed to be paying to the department of which he is now the minister.
I may add that since that date there have been a number of other questions put to the minister. Maybe I am an optimistic type, but it seems to me that his answers have all been in the right direction. It does seem clear that something is going to be done to implement the promise in the Speech from the Throne and the promise made by the minister in his speech of January 11. If therefore, Mr. Speaker, I seem pleased with what the minister has said, and if I am optimistic and hopeful, why do I take the time of the House, even in a "late show" period, to press my question? Well, I suppose one learns from long experience in this place that even when things are promised, if one does not rise and press and demand them they don't come.
So I rise tonight to express to the minister the very strong hope that he is not going to be one of those ministers who take forever to implement the Liberal promises of 1919, but that he will act quickly. I remind him that what we are seeking, particularly those of us in this part of the House, is precisely what he has proposed-a substantial increase in the old age pension, not a mere token increase. I remind him also that we want that increase to be an increase in the basic rate of the old age pension. We want it added to the part of the pension that is paid universally, and without any means or income test.
I also remind the minister that we want him in some way to break the 65 age floor either to start paying pensions to all those between 60 and 65 who are out of the labour market or to start paying pensions to spouses of persons who are in receipt of the pension. In a nutshell, Mr. Speaker, these are the points that we hope will be part of an announcement soon, and of legislation which I trust will be introduced almost immediately after the announcement.
I am aware of conversations that the minister intends to hold with his provincial counterparts on Friday of this week, but he has told us that these are only a conversation, that those ministers do not have the power of veto over what he intends to do. Therefore, if it is too much to ask the minister to tell us tonight how much the increase is going to be and what he is going to do about the eligible age, I hope that at least he will confirm his promise that there is going to be action, that he will tell us tonight when the announcement is going to be made and when the legislation is going to be introduced. Mr. Speaker, I hope those dates are next week.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the hon. member for his comments about my presence in the chamber. I would like to assure him that for me this is just part of the long, long training that I am told one has to go through before becoming a House of Commons man, and

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Adjournment Debate
I intend indeed to listen, in view of his experience, to his advice and to maintain my attendance in the House on a constant basis. I can assure him that so far as my other duties allow it, I will certainly listen to his advice in that respect.
So far as the other points he has raised are concerned, he has correctly reported the events that have taken place in the last few weeks and I do not think I can add much more to what he has said. The government indeed is committed to a substantial increase in old age pensions, and is indeed concerned about the fate of those below 65 years.
In the Speech from the Throne there was a clear statement to the effect that we wanted to review our social policy in all respects in Canada, with the provinces, over the next couple of years at the latest, but we would not let the old age pensioners wait for the results of our discussions. In light of the representations that I have received from the minister of social affairs for Quebec, for early discussions on this subject, we have agreed to have a one-day meeting in Ottawa this week when we are going to discuss this question of old age pensions in all its aspects.
Once more, Mr. Speaker, these are conversations. I know what the responsibilities of the federal government are in this respect, and this House is the body that will decide what action finally will be taken and it will not be left to provincial representatives to do so for us.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I regret to interrupt the minister, but the time allotted to him has expired.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, let him say next week, please.


PUBLIC SERVICE-AMENDMENT OF STATUTES AFFECTING EMPLOYMENT-LEGISLATIVE PRIORITY
Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, on January 16 I asked a question of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) with respect to the amendment of statutes affecting the employment of public servants and the legislative priority of those amendments, as reported at p^age 331 of Hansard. The question arose as a result of representations made to me by public servants who expressed concern over the fact that the public service staff association had in 1971 made extensive representations to the legislative review committee chaired by John G. Dryden, wherein there were many suggestions made with respect to changes in public service legislation. That occurred in 1971.
In the intervening period many questions have been placed on the order paper and many questions asked in this House as to when there might be some report on the matter and some legislative enactment. At last in the Speech from the Throne at the beginning of the present session, there was brief reference to the amending of those two statutes which affect the working conditions of public servants. The questions having been asked, the minister replied:
I cannot do more than give assurance that amendments will be introduced this session. I will discuss the precise timing with the House leader.
A similar answer was given to the supplementary asked at that time. In view of the delays, and in view of the great number of public servants in the national capital area and other areas who are anxious to know the answer to this question, it is important to raise it. They want to know, for instance, the limits on arbitration, the limits on negotiation, the resolution of the problem respecting redundant employees, the classification of employees and the standards, norms and rules that would apply; who will be prohibited from collective bargaining and who will not be. Then there is the whole question of managerial employees and confidentiality of certain procedures. There is also the matter of appropriate procedures with respect to the settlement of arbitrations and disputes.
The question of the appropriate procedure with respect to settlement of arbitration, the concepts of retraining because of the introduction of new technology, the whole question of delegation of authority, all of these are important and a large segment of the public service has been waiting a long time for answers. I expressed to the Clerk of the House my feeling that I was not satisfied with the answer given and that there ought to be a statement made by the minister telling us when these matters would be brought forward.
In addition to the budget surplus generally, there is the whole question of the House of Commons staff, the Senate staff, the Governor General's staff, staff locally engaged abroad and all other staffs which have to deal with an employer but which, unfortunately, cannot deal with him on a proper basis with duly qualified representation. I ask the parliamentary secretary whether he is able at this time to give a precise answer. I hope he will tell me that he has consulted the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) who in turn has consulted the government House leader, and that he comes into the chamber prepared to give a precise answer to questions which so many public servants are asking.
It seems to me the federal government should be the leader and point the way to industry and other governments as to what is the proper relationship and balance. This question was asked so that the matter could be brought forward at the earliest possible date. I would appreciate hearing from the parliamentary secretary, and look forward, as do so many public servants, to hearing that after the unemployment insurance legislation public service matters are next on the list to be dealt with.


John Mercer Reid: Mr. Speaker, I regret to tell the hon. member I am unable to give him the exact assurances he is seeking. There are a number of reasons for this. He is quite correct in assuming that the government does intend to introduce proposals relating to the Public Service Staff Relations Act and to the Public Service Employment Act during the present session. I am informed by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) that the House will be given ample opportunity to discuss these matters.
Unfortunately, I cannot give the House the precise dates on which these amendments will be introduced. There is a heavy legislative program in preparation and items such as the budget and resolutions flowing therefrom will have

January 29, 1973

to be considered as priority measures. The proposals relating to the legislation I mentioned will be introduced as soon as the timetable of the House will permit. Then, I would hope, they would be referred to the appropriate
Adjournment Debate
committee for discussion before returning to the House for a happy conclusion.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.25 p.m.



Tuesday. January 30, 1973