1973-02-06

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43 I ask leave of the House to move a motion on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, arising from the confusion and concern that exist in many parts of the country with regard to land claims and aboriginal rights of the native peoples of Canada. I would hope that the government would be disposed to accept this motion, particularly since it was so receptive to the motion put forward yesterday by the hon. member-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That is argument. The hon. member is not allowed to do that. The hon. member should indicate, as soon as possible, what the motion is.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Taylor):
That the annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development be referred to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development for consideration and report.


Mr. Nielsen:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, exactly the same as that on which the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) rose yesterday, I would suggest to the government that since it was so receptive yesterday to a motion exactly the same proposed by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas), this motion should commend itself to the government for acceptance.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That, of course, is not a point of order. The hon. member is arguing in favour of the motion proposed by the hon. member for Kingston and The Islands. I suggest to the House that if we get involved in a practice where members, on a point of order, argue in favour of a motion proposed under Standing Order 43, we will move forward only with pain and difficulty.


Erik Nielsen: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I rose on a point of order which was exactly the same as that raised by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources yesterday. The Chair found no fault with it, so
25714-63)
I presumed that my point of order today would be acceptable.


Mr. Speaker:: I found serious fault with this procedure. Standing Order 43 does not make it possible for the President of the Privy Council, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources or any other member to rise and say that he refuses or accepts a proposed motion under Standing Order 43. That is why I feel that such motions have to be proposed as quickly as possible without argument either from one side or the other. I agree with the hon. member for Yukon that it is irregular at this point either for a minister to stand and say he agrees to a motion or for a member to argue by way of a point of order that it should be accepted.
Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimity.


ABORIGINAL RIGHTS-REQUEST FOR UNANIMOUS CONSENT TO MOVE MOTION
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43 I rise to move a motion on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, and much more to the point, I think, than the preposterous stupidity we just heard from the hon. member for Kingston and The Islands (Miss MacDonald).


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order please. I suggest to the hon. member that his comments are irregular and certainly cannot be brought into a motion under Standing Order 43. The hon. member has the floor for the purpose of indicating what his motion is.


Frank Howard: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Withdraw!


Frank Howard: The motion, seconded by the hon. member for Northwest Territories (Mr. Firth), which, as I said, is much more to the point, is as follows:
That the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development be authorized to investigate all aspects of the question of aboriginal rights of the native Indian and Eskimo people of Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

February 6, 1973
Small Craft Harbour Facilities


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimity.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43 I rise on a matter of the most urgent and pressing necessity. Some 67,000 Canadians cannot find employment in the Atlantic provinces, and the rate of unemployment in the province of Newfoundland has climbed to 18 per cent, three times the national average. In light of the obvious failure of Department of Regional Economic Expansion programs to achieve any decent increase in employment opportunities in this region, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie):
That in the opinion of this House the Prime Minister should immediately arrange a conference between the Atlantic provinces and the federal government on alternative economic opportunities for the region, and that the federal government outline its short and medium-term targets to reduce unemployment and to ameliorate the present disastrous situation in the Atlantic provinces.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to the motion proposed by the hon. member for St. John's East?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimity.


HARBOURS
Mr. Thomas S. Barnett (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, in light of the statement made last evening by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries to the effect that transfer of administration of small craft harbour facilities to his department from the Department of Transport will be completed before April 1, 1973, and in view of the fact that no proper parliamentary consideration has been given to policy changes in small craft harbour administration being instituted by the government, I ask leave of the House to move, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43:
That all matters pertaining to small craft harbour administration be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications for inquiry and report, and that the committee be instructed to report to the House not later than March 15,1973.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


CANADA ELECTIONS ACT
Frank Howard: for leave to introduce Bill C-137, to amend the Canada Elections Act (form of ballot).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that the number of spoiled ballots in the last federal election was almost three times the number spoiled in the 1968 election, the purpose of this bill is to restore the earlier form of ballot and eliminate the small circle or the form used in the last election.


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

Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-138, to amend the Criminal Code (control of weapons and firearms).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to prohibit the possession of all hand guns and all weapons which under the Criminal Code are at present described as restricted. The bill also requires the registration of all rifles and makes all offences dealing with guns indictable offences. The bill also seeks to prevent those who have a history of mental instability or a history of criminal offences from obtaining firearms of any kind, particularly rifles. The last provision is included to give the Solicitor General an opportunity to reintroduce the legislation that he had intended-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
February 6, 1973___________________COMMONS DEBATES____________ 993


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance and arises from the report by Statistics Canada indicating that some 688,000 Canadians were unemployed in January, or some 23,000 more than in the corresponding period last year. In view of these figures, has the minister any explanation for the fact that his budget, for the first nine months of the year, is showing a surplus over $600 million higher than the corresponding period in the previous year? In view of the minister's statement that he was going to produce an expansionary budget, has he any explanation why he has allowed this large surplus to accumulate during the first nine months?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think the explanation is simple. The Leader of the Opposition is not taking into account all the figures. He knows that the draw-down on the cash position of the government comes in the next two or three months and that the budgetary surplus he sees at this time of the year will not exist at the end of the fiscal year. If he looks at the true fiscal position of the government he must take the budgetary and non-budgetary aspects of the fiscal stance of the government which, as I said on May 8, would amount to about $2 billion. It is likely to be very close to that figure by the end of the current fiscal year.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: May I ask the minister what his current forecast is as to the budgetary surplus or deficit for the 12-month period? I am sure he must have at this time quite an accurate forecast.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, that
depends on the allocations in the next two months, but I have said in the House that I expect the total deficit or fiscal stance of the government in budgetary and nonbudgetary terms to be about $2 billion, the amount I forecast on May 8.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: May I ask the minister why, in view of the evident improvement in the budgetary position of the government-I remind the minister that he forecasted a deficit of some $450 million in the budgetary position of the government-and in light of these unemployment figures, he allowed this budgetary surplus to accumulate and why early last fall, for example, when it must have been apparent to him that this was going to happen, he allowed this to happen despite the unemployment situation?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman knows that the position of the government must be measured according to the total fiscal and capital needs of the government in budgetary and non-budgetary terms.


An hon. Member:: But not in human terms.
Oral Questions


John Napier Turner: The fact that our revenues are buoyant is a reflection of the strength of the economy, and he knows that as well as I do.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Tell that to your own caucus.


DATE OF BUDGET
Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, in order to remove the uncertainty as to just exactly what is the nature of this budgetary surplus and what proposals the government is going to put forward to deal with the fantastic unemployment figures, may I ask whether the minister is going to present a budget, and when?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I think it would be very useful if the House had facts instead of proceeding on the basis of the conjectures that have been advanced by the Leader of the Opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: I think we ought to take some encouragement from the fact that the seasonal figures have declined from 6.8 per cent to 6.2.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: The same thing happened one year ago.


Mr. Hees:: They have declined from the astronomical to the not quite astronomical.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker,-


An hon. Member:: We want Walter Gordon back.


George Harris Hees: We saw the same sort of figures last year.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me-


George Harris Hees: Benson looked pretty good compared with you.


John Napier Turner: -that it would be very useful for the opposition to deal with facts. I would intend to bring down a budget on Monday, February 19.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: The date is smoked out.


RECONSIDERATION OF CORPORATE TAX REDUCTION AND ACCELERATED WRITE-OFFS IN LIGHT OF EFFECT OF UNITED STATES DISC PROGRAM
Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Finance one or two questions on the general subject that has been raised. May I ask whether, in view of the fact that the reduction in corporate taxes and the accelerated write-off for certain machinery and equipment which he proposed last May were justified by him on the basis of the need to protect Canadian manufacturing against the DISC program in the United States, and in view of the fact that all information so far has shown that

February 6, 1973
Oral Questions
the effect of the DISC program has been minimal on Canadian manufacturing, he is now reconsidering the corporate rip-off which he proposed last May?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to accept some of the rhetoric that the hon. member put in his question. The government remains committed to those provisions, Mr. Speaker. Those tax provisions, if approved by parliament, will not only have the effect of compensating for any program of DISC instituted by the United States Congress but any other measures that the United States, the common market or Japan might take in order to pierce and take advantage of a very competitive world market. In view of that, those budgetary provisions of last May are necessary to continue Canada's competitive position for manufacturing and processing industries. In that respect the government remains committed to those provisions.


Mr. Alexander:: That's the end of the marriage.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, one should never confuse a gentle courtship with marriage.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Lewis: I wish to ask the Minister of Finance whether the statement he made is based on any information he has regarding the effect on Canadian manufacturing exports as a result of DISC, or any analysis which has been made by him or anyone else with respect to the possible effects of Britain entering the European Economic Community, or on what basis his statement, if he can put it briefly, was made?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I will try to put my answer as briefly as the question was put by the hon. member. The budget of May 8 provided for a tax reduction as of January 1, 1973. Therefore it is still premature to assess the full value of that budget which on the corporate side had medium and long-term structural effects and, I submit, advantages for the Canadian economy. I do not think it needs much imagination to envisage what the position of Canada will be in a competitive world with a protectionist stance in the United States, with Bri-tian, our second largest customer, entering the European Common Market, and with a rejuvenated Japan. I submit to the House, as I did on May 8-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair will recognize the hon. member for York South for a last supplementary at this time. We will try to continue with further supplemen-taries from other hon. members.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the Minister of Finance has announced that he will present his budget on Monday, February 19, but may I ask him even at this time whether the corporate concessions he announced last May are the only ones this parliament will be faced with or whether there are any others?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has anticipated the difficulty I would have in answering that question at this time.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member for Portneuf wish to ask a supplementary?


Mr. Roland Godin (Portneuf):: No, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to direct it to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.


Mr. Speaker:: I shall recognize the hon. member in a moment, after allowing a few other supplementaries on the subject now under consideration.


CORPORATION TAX REDUCTIONS-HIGHER PRICES FOR CARS PURCHASED IN CANADA
Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the Minister of Finance. In view of the fact the minister gave the corporations tax credits and tax advantages in his May budget, will he explain to the House why he has not insisted that the car manufacturers sell cars made in Canada at the same prices as cars made in the United States?


John Napier Turner: 
MANPOWER
Roland Godin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
In view of the fact that since the beginning of December a new regulation compels the unemployed to take personal steps to find work, could he tell us if in his opinion the application of this regulation will be enough to boost the economy or if by setting that course he just wanted to prove that he no longer believes in the efficiency of the manpower centres in Canada?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, I would think the efficiency of the manpower centres is increasing regularly. While we are far from perfection, I do not accept the premise of the question.
February 6, 1973


LOCAL INITIATIVES PROGRAM-MEASURES TO ACCELERATE APPROVAL OF PROJECTS
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question.
In view of the increased number of unemployed, especially in the province of Quebec, does the hon. Minister of Manpower and Immigration intend to ask officials to proceed more rapidly with the study of local initiative projects so they can be undertaken as soon as possible thus creating jobs and decreasing unemployment?


Robert Knight Andras: Yes, Mr. Speaker. We have been trying to speed this up regularly over the last month and a half. I think nearly all the decisions are made, although it is my intention to transfer some funds from the amount reserved for what we call the business, co-operative and entrepreneurial LIP program to the regular LIP program, plus the transfer of $10 million from the on-the-job training program to the local initiatives program, not because the on-the-job training program is not a good one but because we think we can put people to work faster under the circumstances through the local initiatives program.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Don Valley on a supplementary.


Mr. Gillies:: My question is not exactly a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to put it anyway.


Mr. Speaker:: I appreciate the hon. member's honesty, but obviously there is no reward for that quality. I believe the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings has a supplementary.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


George Harris Hees: You bet your sweet life he has.


FINANCE
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary to the Prime Minister in connection with a previous question. Since the Prime Minister has stated privately that it would be unrealistic to expect the government to be able to reduce unemployment below a 5 per cent level, is he now prepared to give consideration to the policies put forward by the Official Opposition for reducing unemployment well below that figure?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: I wish, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member had shown more of that virtue that you recognized in the hon. member for Don Valley.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Don Valley.


An hon. Member:: Honesty has its rewards after all!


FIGHTING OF INFLATION OR REDUCTION OF UNEMPLOYMENT-GOVERNMENT POLICY
James McPhail Gillies: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Since there now seems to be a surplus in the budget, I should like to ask the hon. gentleman whether the policy of the government has been to fight inflation rather than to solve the unemployment problem?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that my priority is jobs. When he refers to a surplus he is misleading the House in the sense that he knows that the surplus or deficit position of the government is measured by the total fiscal and monetary stance, namely, budgetary and non-budgetary. I have said to the House that the fiscal or budgetary stance of the government would be $2 billion, and that remains very close to the figure that I will be able to report to the House.


James McPhail Gillies: Is it the position of the Minister of Finance and the government that one can fight unemployment and really operate the economy, at a time of 6.7 per cent unemployment, with a balanced budget or a slight deficit?


SUGGESTED MEETING OF FEDERAL AND ATLANTIC
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. Will the minister meet with the finance ministers of the four Atlantic provinces before bringing down his budget so that he can discuss measures to be included in his budget that will do something about the stagnating economy in the Atlantic provinces, which I might say is a direct result of the monetary and fiscal policies of this government-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: -and programs can be introduced by the government to alleviate the very serious and critically high unemployment problem in the Atlantic region?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, despite the argumentative nature of the hon. gentleman's question, may I say I do not minimize the problem in Newfoundland at all. I had some very good conversations with the Minister of Finance of Newfoundland both at the federal-provincial finance ministers conference on January 18 and 19 and again last week in a private meeting with Mr. Crosbie.


James Aloysius McGrath: In view of the fact that there seems to be no change in the unemployment situation in the Atlantic provinces, and in view of the budget that is going to be presented to the House on February 19, will the minister

February 6, 1973
Oral Questions
meet with his counterparts in the four Atlantic provinces to discuss measures to alleviate the situation?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, we had a thorough review of the situation just two or three weeks ago. In the circumstances it will not be possible for me to meet with my counterparts in the Atlantic provinces until after the budget.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member for Drummond wish to ask a supplementary question?


Mr. Jean-Marie Boisvert (Drummond):: No, Mr. Speaker, it is not a supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Joliette wishes to ask a supplementary question.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Roch La Salle (loliette):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Prime Minister a supplementary question.
As unemployment still represents a very serious problem for the country, I would like to ask the Prime Minister if he seriously considers an old age security plan where we would be eligible at age 60, which would allow the creation of thousands of new jobs?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member is using a rather unusual slant to bring up this problem, which, in fact, has already been dealt with by the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and I have nothing to add to the statement of the minister.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Doug Rowland (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the right hon. Prime Minister. Was the Minister of National Defence stating government policy when he indicated to the Globe and Mail that the NORAD agreement would be renewed for three years and perhaps longer?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I shall have to consult with the minister as to exactly what he said, but I believe it is true to say that we have not yet had negotiations with the United States about this.


Douglas Charles Rowland: Will the Prime Minister assure the House that the House will have an opportunity to debate this question prior to the agreement, which is due for renewal on May 12, being signed? Will he also assure us that the terms of reference that are given to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence will be
broad enough to encompass a complete study of the NORAD agreement?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the first part of the question I think it is fair to assume, the House being willing, that there will be opposition days on which the subject can be debated at the suggestion of the opposition.


Douglas Charles Rowland: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the Minister of National Defence. I should like to ask him whether he could give his assurance to the House that, should the NORAD agreement be renewed, something I would not be very happy about, it would not involve this country in expenditures on equipment purchases such as AW ACS, over the horizon backscatter radar and interceptor aircraft requiring sophisticated ground control equipment, expenditures that would have utility only within the context of the NORAD agreement and which would restrict the flexibility of our armed forces?


Hon. lames Richardson (Minister oi National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, as I have said and as the Secretary of State for External Affairs has said, we have not entered into formal negotiations with the United States concerning the renewal of the NORAD agreement. I stated the other day that, as our second priority in defence was the air defence of North America, it was unthinkable that we would not be renewing the agreement in some form. However, the terms have not been settled and I have made no recommendation to my colleagues concerning the terms.


FINANCE
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance arising out of his statement that over all, on budgetary and non-budgetary account, things have worked out as he envisaged when he presented his budget. Is the minister satisfied with the effects of that budget on the economy and on unemployment, as things have worked out during the course of the year?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I was referring to the fiscal forecast. I was talking, as the hon. gentleman knows, of the fiscal stance, of the cash requirements of the government, in total budgetary and non-budgetary terms. Of course I am not satisfied with the present situation in terms of unemployment in this country. I take some comfort from the fact that the seasonally adjusted figures have come down, though I am disturbed about their erratic nature. In terms of my budget of May 8, the stimulus given at that time was in a period when there was a very buoyant first and second quarter, as the hon. gentleman knows, and the third quarter was flatter than we had expected. However, as the hon. gentleman knows, in terms of corporate stimulus the budget and the tax structure of the country were medium and long term in effect, to give us a medium and long-

February 6, 1973___________________COMMONS DEBATES______________________________________997
term competitive position on world markets as well as defending our markets at home.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, the third quarter was as flat as this government's program during the election campaign. Since the Minister of Finance has said he is not satisfied with the effects of his budget on unemployment, may I ask him why he did not respond to the persistently high rate of unemployment during the year by increasing the expansionary effect of the economy and utilizing the obviously improved budgetary position, which for the first nine months is running at a rate of $600 million over the previous year? If the minister was not satisfied with the effects of his budget on unemployment, has he any explanation of why he did not act when it became clear that it was unsatisfactory?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The minister will be allowed to reply to the question, but I will then go to other questioners for a few minutes and return to supplementaries. The hon. member for Drummond wishes to ask a question and the hon. member for Selkirk had a supplementary to his question that he did not get a chance to ask. Therefore, when the minister has replied to the question from the Leader of the Opposition we will go to another subject for a few moments and I will return to this very important matter later.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I dealt with this point thoroughly-


Robert Lorne Stanfield: No, you did not.


John Napier Turner: -in the debate on the Speech from the Throne. The hon. gentleman was present so I will not repeat what I said. It is a debating point and we can take it up again during the budget debate. However, I will again draw to the attention of the House that when the hon. gentleman tries to isolate the budgetary position of the government from the non-budgetary he is giving a misleading impression to the House.


MANPOWER
Jean-Marie Boisvert: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
Can he tell us if the department he manages considers as the most important factor, with regard to the approval of a local initiatives project, the level of unemployment registered in the area where the project originates.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, as I have already indicated, we take this into consideration as a major factor.
Oral Questions


REDISTRIBUTION OF RIDINGS-CONSIDERATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO INCREASE NUMBER OF SEATS
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, would the Prime Minister let the House and the country know what progress, if any, has been made in connection with the matter of redistribution by way of an alternative to the present system and with particular reference to the number of members in the House? On January 11 this matter was brought to his attention and he indicated consideration was being given as to what might be done and later he repeated that. I know that members in all parts of the House are naturally interested in this matter as time is of the essence, having regard to the fact that committees in various provinces are already providing maps or getting ready to provide them on the basis of the present representation in the House.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (President of the Privy Council):: If I may, Mr. Speaker, I should like to answer the question addressed by the right hon. gentleman. I believe the last time the question was raised the Prime Minister suggested that I might meet with the other House leaders and consider the matter with the objective that if it was possible to reach some consensus we might move on this matter. I have had a meeting today with my opposite numbers and we had a general discussion, with some explicit proposals that I expect will now be discussed among all parties to see whether some conclusion can be reached. I believe we all felt that at this stage this might be the most effective procedure to follow.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister whether consideration has been given by him, as he has a general responsibility in this regard, or the cabinet to a constitutional amendment to bring about an increase in the number of seats in the House and also to provide a floor for some of the provinces where the population is decreasing very rapidly?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if the right hon. member will refer to my previous answer he will see that a variety of ways have been considered by myself, and we have decided to proceed with this matter in the way just mentioned by the House leader.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister whether the government is giving consideration to a constitutional amendment. That was my question and he cannot pass it off to one of the junior ministers.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Poor old Allan.


An hon. Member:: Hi there, junior.


John George Diefenbaker: I asked the Prime Minister a question.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
998

February 6, 1973
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should ask the right hon. member to withdraw that comment.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: The facetiousness of the Prime Minister is exceeded only by his impertinence.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The right hon. gentleman's facetiousness is demonstrated by what he-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I see that the Prime Minister is whispering his answer to the reporter. I remember other occasions when he whispered.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: I will be interested to learn what he said when we read Hansard. Whispering is one of his highest qualifications.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


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


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister whether consideration is being given to a constitutional amendment. If it is not, it will be too late because at the rate these committees are meeting the whole matter will have been decided. Can he answer that?


George Harris Hees: Just yes or no.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I refer to what the Prime Minister said on January 11-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The right hon. gentleman asked a question and there was no reply. As the right hon. member knows, that is the prerogative of the minister who is being questioned. I do not think that the matter can be commented on further.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a question of privilege. I know how this government treats the opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: I know how contemptuous the Prime Minister is when he refers to members on his own side of the House as bums.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: I ask him whether it is in keeping with his position as the first minister of Her Majesty in the House to refuse-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: -to answer a question as to whether what he said on January 11, that it would require a constitutional amendment, is still his viewpoint and that he is doing something about it, or is he just whispering?


George Harris Hees: Just answer yes or no, if you please.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


POLLUTION
Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport and concerns the west coast oil spill. Will he tell the House approximately what the cost of the clean-up is, and has he taken any civil legal proceedings to seize the vessel, Irish Stardust, which is still in the harbour at Victoria, before the vessel leaves?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the last report I had is that it is going to take about two weeks before the oil on the beaches is cleaned up, so we do not have any idea of the price right now. The hon. member knows that the master appeared before the court and that a bond of $20,000 has been deposited. 1 am waiting for the judgment of the court on this.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Claude Wagner (Saint-Hyacinthe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the right hon. Prime Minister.
As a quarter of a million Quebecers are now unemployed, has the government drawn up short term projects to reduce substantially the rate of unemployment in Quebec? If so, what are those projects and when will they be introduced?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Quebec section of the Progressive Conservative party, I could-


George Harris Hees: Where are the Alberta members?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. May we have order, please. [Translation]
It seems the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe wants to put a supplementary. He may have the floor.


Claude Wagner: I now wish to put a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.
In view of the deplorable situation in Quebec, where a quarter of a million people are unemployed, is the present leader of the temporary government willing to look favourably on the initiative he casually brushed off a few weeks ago, namely an immediate federal-provincial conference in Quebec to discuss the economic problems of that province, to which all political leaders, leaders of intermediary organizations and representatives of both unions and employers would participate?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member would suggest that federal-provincial conferences be held at that level for each province. He should be aware of the federal-provincial conferences which have already taken place between the ministers of finance, the ministers of health, and of those which are scheduled for the forthcoming months.
Concerning the particular conferences as important as those which have been suggested by him, the hon. member should remember that we of the Liberal party have rejected the associate states thesis.


Mr. Grafitey:: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I hope that the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe will excuse me but his colleague from Brome-Missisquoi has a point of order.


UNEMPLOYMENT IN QUEBEC-REVIEW OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY
William Heward Grafftey: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question to the Prime Minister.
Considering the figures relating to unemployment announced today in the province of Quebec, is this government prepared to drastically review its regional development policy?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I wonder in what direction the hon. member would have this policy reviewed, but it seems that we heard some people state during the election campaign that too much was being granted to the province of Quebec.
Oral Questions


William Heward Grafftey: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to ask questions, but I certainly did not say that there was too much going to the province of Quebec.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Heward Grafftey: Could we have order in the House, Mr. Speaker?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Heward Grafftey: It is impossible to ask questions in this House, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. If the hon. member will kindly resume his seat I will try to assist him.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think hon. members are being unfair to the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi. He has the right to ask a supplementary question.


William Heward Grafftey: I sometimes think I am in kindergarten, not in the highest court of the land. I now ask the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion the following question: in view of today's unemployment figures showing ever-increasing regional economic disparities, especially in the province of Quebec, will the minister now review the various policies that brought about such a situation?
Hon. Donald C. jamieson (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion): Mr. Speaker, we are in the process, and have been for the last three months, of discussing with each of the provinces what variations they would like to see in regional expansion policies. I have had some consultations with officials of the government of the province of Quebec and we will be holding others in the very near future. We are quite open to changes in the present approach if these can be proved to be more effective.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact the government of the United States used the Department of Regional Economic Expansion program to justify its countervailing duty against the Michelin Corporation, in view of the further fact it was announced in Paris today that the Michelin Corporation has received credits of some $150 million to build two plants in the United States, can the minister assure the House that he has obtained assurances from the Michelin Corporation that they will live up to their commitment to export 80 per cent of their Canadian production to the United States?
Hon. Donald C. jamieson (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion): Mr. Speaker, there has been no change in the original plans of Michelin, nothing that has been con-
25714-64J

February 6, 1973
Oral Questions
veyed to me with regard to their marketing intentions, and I understand that there has been no change either in their recruitment program with regard to employing Canadian workers in their Canadian plant.


INQUIRY AS TO PROTEST TO GATT CONCERNING
John Edward Broadbent: Can the minister inform the House whether or not he or some other minister of the government has filed a formal protest to GATT concerning the United States decision on Michelin? If so, would he consider tabling that protest? Finally, would he inform the House when an answer or decision might be expected to be reached by GATT, if that action has been taken?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, as I explained to the House on an earlier occasion, we did file a formal protest with the United States government. We have not yet received a reply to that formal protest. We have not yet filed a formal protest with GATT.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. There is some urgency because at the present time the United States Federal Power Commission is receiving briefs regarding flooding of the Canadian Skagit valley. In view of the stated opposition of the government of Canada, of the Official Opposition and of the New Democratic Party to the flooding of the Canadian Skagit valley by Seattle Light and Power, would the minister advise the House what action he is taking in this regard to save this Canadian valley from being flooded by an American power corporation?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, on January 9 a note was sent to the United States authorities requesting discussions on this question. This is the procedure that has been approved by both the government of the province of British Columbia and of course by this government. It seems to us the most effective way of getting action.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, again I stress the urgency of this matter. On December 17, 1971, the Minister of the Environment-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member ask his question as quickly as possible, because we have reached the end of the question period.


John Allen Fraser: Can the minister advise the house whether in fact any formal protest has been issued by the government of Canada to the government of the United States

saying plainly that we will not accept the flooding of this valley?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, we have made our representations to the United States government which I believe is quite happy to discuss them with us. The outstanding issue at the moment is not the question of the flooding but the question of the cost, and this is what we are discussing at present.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We have reached the end of the question period. The Chair will allow another supplementary question from the hon. member for Vancouver South, following which we will have to call orders of the day.


John Allen Fraser: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In view of the reply by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, can the minister tell the House why the Minister of the Environment recently stated that the Skagit was a dead issue when apparently this is not so?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please, I suggest to the hon. member that this is hardly in order.


John Allen Fraser: Ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, February 5, consideration of the motion of Mr. Andras that Bill C-124, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971 (No. 1), be read the third time and do pass.
Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Verdun):: Mr. Speaker, last evening at ten o'clock I had just begun my remarks on third reading of this very important bill. I am very pleased that I came into the House for the question period which I want to do more and more in the future. I am very happy that the hon. member for Saint Hyacinthe (Mr. Wagner), who is a good friend of mine, showed as much concern as he did during the question period for the unemployed in the province of Quebec. I am wondering how he could possibly reconcile this concern for the unwilling victims of our fiscal and monetary policies with his vote later on when he votes against Bill C-124 which would indicate that he is quite prepared to deny to those unemployed the unemployment insurance benefits which would be due them next week.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Claude Wagner: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.
February 6, 1973___________________COMMONS DEBATES____________________________ 1001


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe on a question of privilege.


Claude Wagner: Mr. Speaker, I have no idea where the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey) found the comments which he attributes to me, but with respect I must suggest to him that they are inaccurate. Moreover, I would suggest that he should wait for the vote to find out which way I shall vote.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I am rather pleased that a one time protegee of mine has shown such humanitarian concern.
I have reviewed the debate on second reading, in committee and on third reading. It is not my intention-it is never my intention-to be partisan, of course, but I do think we have reached the moment of truth in Bill C-124.1 think the new members, as do the old members, realize that we have advanced through all the various stages of Bill C-124. On second reading in this House, by the method of a vote, of course, we adopted the principle of the bill, which is very explicit and well thought out, namely, that the ceiling governing the advances which the government makes available to the Unemployment Insurance Commission shall be deleted from that act.
The hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) raised an important point in the debate last night. He was concerned that the removal of the $800 million ceiling might in some way remove control over the operations of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. I think this is a vary valid approach to a very valid concern. This morning, Mr. Speaker, I took the trouble to check out the ways and means that are still left for exercising control over the Unemployment Insurance Commission.
First of all, every month the DBS publishes the benefit payments and the number of claimants on unemployment insurance. Then, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) publishes the amount of financial disbursements, including advances as well as payments of unemployment insurance benefits^ Then, the statute which set up the Unemployment Insurance Commission demands a public annual report by the commission. Fourth, Mr. Speaker, there is a financial statement which must be certified by the Auditor General. There must be a detailed accounting of expenditures included in the public accounts. Then, the government's share of the unemployment insurance costs must be included in its main estimates. Then, the main estimates must be referred to the appropriate standing committees of the House.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the public accounts will be scrutinized by the Public Accounts Committee, as usual, and the Auditor General's report will be scrutinized by that committee. As well as that, there is the existence of a team of internal auditors of unemployment insurance, all of which indicates that the control over the expenditures, operations and administration of the Unemployment Insurance Commission does not rest solely on the existence of an $800 million ceiling.
With these ten points I have just explained, for the benefit of hon. members, that we have-
Unemployment Insurance Act


Mr. Woolliams:: Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in this point. I wonder if the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey), the former minister of labour, could tell the House-I am sure he discussed it with his former colleagues in government-why Bill C-125 was withdrawn, because it was supposed to assist the hon. member in his argument?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman would permit me, I intend to talk about Bill C-125 in a few moments. I intend to touch briefly on that point.
I have mentioned that in this House we have accepted the principle of Bill C-124. It may not have been unanimously accepted, but the fact remains that it was accepted. It was that the amount of $800 million specified in the original act be deleted as the sum of money to which the government is limited in making advances to the Unemployment Insurance Commission in order to finance its day-to-day operations. As I mentioned on second reading, and as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) mentioned last evening, the $800 million mentioned in the act is nothing more than a sum of money which the government is entitled to advance to the Unemployment Insurance Commission, not in the form of a deficit, not in the form of a commitment but simply in the form of a loan in the same sense, as I mentioned previously, that a bank will advance moneys to finance accounts receivable, or debts receivable, or inventory, in the case of a normal private enterprise.
Obviously, the $800 million has been inadequate for the purpose for which it was originally intended, but members on the committee, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre knows, accepted that particular amendment to the act rather reluctantly at the time. We felt it was the best way out at that time. Experience has indicated, however, that as long as this ceiling remains in the act it can be a hindrance or handicap to the government's main responsibility, the one that was outlined so often today in the question period, that is, the responsibility of this government, or of any government in the future if, as a result of fiscal or monetary policies, as a result of tariff policies, as a result of the relationship between the Canadian dollar and foreign currencies, or for one reason or another, the rate of unemployment in this country is abnormally high. The government of the day must then assume its responsibilities and commit itself, as the act stipulates, to absorbing the cost of unemployment insurance when the unemployment rate on a national level and on a regional level happens to be over 4 per cent.
Just to repeat, Mr. Speaker, the cost of the unemployment insurance plan when unemployment is below 4 per cent is borne by the employers and employees. The cost is met from weekly contributions, with the provision that by 1976-77 these particular contributions shall be in balance, in the sense that if there is a surplus in the fund of the Unemployment Insurance Commission it will be reflected in a lowering of the contribution rates, something which I think will take place in 1977. If the contributions are not sufficient, then the rates will be raised in order to eliminate any deficit. In the interval there is a deficit of $189 million which will be carried forward over the next few years, as the act provides.

February 6, 1973
1002_____________________________________
Unemployment Insurance Act
When the accounts are balanced off in April, Mr. Speaker, and all the T4 slips are analysed, we will find that in effect the commission owes the government $189 million, which in effect is owed by the employers and employees of this country, and which will be absorbed and balanced off over the next few years by minor adjustments of a nickel or a dime to the weekly contributions. I cannot stress strongly enough that to defeat this bill, or even to postpone the passage of this bill, can have only one effect and that effect will be to deny to the unemployed of Canada the unemployment insurance benefits to which they are entitled, and to deny them as early as next week. That will be the general effect of postponing Bill C-124 or of defeating it in the House of Commons. The failure to carry out that responsibility and moral obligation is something that I do not think anybody in this House wants to have on his conscience. Certainly, the party with which I am presently allied does not want to be responsible for denying the unemployed of this country that to which they are entitled.
Constantly through the question period today there was concern shown by hon. members opposite for the unemployed, but it is very difficult for me to equate their concern during question time with their obvious intention to downgrade, to question, to defeat, if necessary, the Unemployment Insurance Act by postponing, delaying or defeating Bill C-124.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: It is all right for the members opposite to holler and take exception to my remarks but through you, Mr. Speaker, I say to them that you cannot have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand condemn the government, with justification, for the abnormally high rate of unemployment, if on the other hand you begrudge the cost of the plan to the government, out of the general revenues, for supplying financial assistance to the unemployed of Canada. You simply cannot have it both ways.
If you argue that they are unemployed through no fault of their own in the overwhelming majority of cases, and that seems to be the general theme that emerges from this debate, then how can you begrudge them sufficient income in order that in the interim, while they are looking for work, they can at least exist with a degree of dignity, a degree of dignity that was impossible under the old act because of the very small levels of weekly payments?
Another thing that caught my attention today, Mr. Speaker, was that hon. members opposite have said the latest figures show a great degree of regional disparity. This is a problem that has faced governments for a considerable number of years. How many members opposite in the debate on second reading, in their question before the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee, the Labour, Manpower and Immigration Committee or this debate on third reading, have bothered to pay token tribute to the economic advantages of the present act and the contribution that unemployment insurance has made to reducing regional disparity? I want to quote once again some of the figures that I quoted on second reading, Mr. Speaker.

In Newfoundland under the old act, $20,630,740 was distributed in unemployment insurance benefits in the first six months of 1971 and for the same period in 1972, $42,264,696 was distributed; in Prince Edward Island, $3,627,433 under the old act and $7,486,583 under the new act; Nova Scotia, $23 million, under the old act and $42 million under the new act; New Brunswick, $21,512,336 under the old act and $42 million under the new act; in Quebec, $156,518,741 under the old act and $308,663,331 under the new act; Ontario, $169,880,126 under the old act and $327 million under the new act. In case people out west think that they are not getting their fair share of this money that tends to reduce regional disparity, may I cite these figures? Manitoba received $25,604,776 under the old act and $37,564,287 under the new act; Saskatchewan, $15 million under the old act and $33 million under the new act; Alberta, $30 million under the old act and almost $62 million under the new act and finally, British Columbia $61,417,092 under the old act and $136,442,825 under the new act. I am sorry that I do not have the breakdown for the Territories.
The new Unemployment Insurance Act happens to be a good business instrument, both socially and economically, to reduce regional disparity. As I have pointed out before, the money I am talking about is one of the reasons we have had a certain degree of prosperity in Newfoundland this Christmas, as I am sure many hon. members opposite would agree. It has helped drop the unemployment figures we read today. The boom in retail sales is shown. It has arrested unemployment in this area by helping to reduce inventories of wholesalers and by providing work for the small industries in this country. I do not think anybody should discourage that, Mr. Speaker.
The question is, Mr. Speaker, what would the fate of the economy be at the moment if we had not distributed $2 billion through unemployment insurance benefits over the last year? What method would we have used to transfer this money from the treasury to the people of this country?


Mr. Mazankowski:: Give them some work.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, members opposite can provide their own answers; I am only asking the questions. I am simply saying that the unemployment insurance fund this year has distributed $2 billion which does not vary too greatly, as hon. members know, from the concept of reducing personal taxes for precisely the same reason. Personal taxes are reduced in order to stimulate the economy and in order to provide more money for spending. An across the board reduction in personal taxes is not so effective in the sense that the wealthy get it; the person who has no income tax in which to reflect the reduction does not benefit. The wealthy may put it in the bank, not necessarily spend it, so it can have inflationary effects in the main cities. With this act we at least provide the people with money to spend in the regions of high unemployment, which at the moment are essentially the Atlantic provinces. I am surprised that any member of this House should disparage the $2 billion that has come from the federal treasury to be distributed to the unemployed in Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I have tried to participate today on a certain level, and I shall try to stay there, but if hon. members opposite want to heckle I am quite prepared to get into a good debate. I enjoy a battle but if Your Honour should prefer that I desist, that is fine, too.
There are points that I should like to make. The hon. member from Alberta whose riding changes periodically-I shall describe him as a very wealthy lawyer from Alberta-he is a good friend of mine but he keeps shifting his role-


An hon. Member:: And what happened to you?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: The hon. member to whom I refer posed a very intelligent question, that is the question of abuse. The mail which I have been receiving, Mr. Speaker, which is pretty heavy, has shifted in tone somewhat in recent weeks. The mood now seems to be that we need unemployment insurance, that there is nothing to be gained by destroying what has been part of the social fabric of this country for 30 years.


An hon. Member:: To get them back to where?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I had occasion a moment ago when an hon. member was trying to ask a question to say that other hon. members were making it difficult for him to do so. I think I have to say the same thing to protect the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey). It is entirely against the rules of this House and the long established practice for hon. members to heckle and make it difficult for another member to make his speech. It is extremely easy for hon. members to interrupt the member who is speaking, but it is against the Standing Orders of this House. I suggest to hon. members that they should be fair to the hon. member for Verdun and allow him to make his speech.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I did not know better I would think the people who are heckling- who are in a minority in the opposition-are those so desperate to get into power that they want to ride on the backs of the poor. I am not going to fall into that trap, however; their speeches are on record and their efforts during the election campaign to destroy what is very progressive legislation is there for all to see. I can understand their dilemma in having to vote for or against the bill, thus showing their inconsistency with the approach they took during the election. I can resort to this kind of attack if they prefer or can continue along the lines I had decided. We are on third reading, not second reading, now and it is entirely up to the opposition to determine on what plane they want to continue the debate.
I received a lot of mail on this subject which all members of this House are welcome to read. In recent weeks the theme of the mail has shifted. No longer is it coming from unemployed people who are saying "What am I guilty of?" or "Find me a job".


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: It is coming from people who are saying "We are amongst those fortunate people who can afford 90 cents or a dollar for someone less fortunate, but we want to be sure there are no abuses in the act". I think
Unemployment Insurance Act
that is the point that the hon. gentleman wanted to make in all honesty and sincerity. The question of abuse is one that has bothered us all. Last night there were few people present and I did not have the opportunity of reviewing once and for all the argument regarding abuse. I think hon. members opposite are concerned. I know there are Liberals in the Conservative party just as there are Conservatives in the Liberal party.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: The hon. member is not talking about the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) is he?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I should like to make the following statistics clear, because they concern abuse. I want hon. members to think of 1970, the last complete year when we operated under the old act. Older members will know exactly what that implies. Under the old act the greatest pay-out was $53, I think, although on average the pay-out was $35. The maximum was raised to $58. In order to qualify one had to acquire 30 weeks attachment to a job over a two-year period, and eight weeks had to be acquired in the last 52 weeks. As there was no universality provision under the old act, only part of the work force was covered. School teachers were not covered, and it might be interesting to note that over 15,000 of them are unemployed in Canada today. Nurses were not covered. Certain public servants were eliminated. Casual workers were eliminated. Hospital workers were not included. People with salaries of over $7,800 were not included. So, the work force which was covered in 1970 totalled about 4,900,000. That meant that if those people became unemployed they were eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. This number also included so-called selfemployed people, such as fishermen and other people in special categories.
One would think that with such a small work force, with difficulties regarding eligibility the provisions for which were very stringent, and with the lower rates of unemployment in 1970-72, there would have been a substantially smaller number of people on claim. Mr. Speaker, in 1970, of 4,900,000 people who were eligible for unemployment insurance and covered, at various times of the year 2,049,000 people were on claim. I now come to 1972.1 shall skip 1971, for a very good reason which I can explain. In the first part of the year we operated under the old act, and in the second part under the new act. Universality did not apply, but at least I can give hon. members the following statistic: there were 2,092,000 on claim.
In 1972, the year we have just completed and, significantly, the first year in which universality applied and the first year when the overwhelming majority of Canadian workers were covered by unemployment insurance, the number of people eligible for unemployment insurance and entitled to collect if unemployed rose to 7,150,000. Even more significant is the change in the eligibility rule, which was reduced from 30 weeks over a two-year period to eight weeks in one year. According to what I learned from the astute questioning of opposition members in the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee and Labour Committee-and after all it is their job to ask these questions and that is why these committees are set up-2,099,000 people were on claim, only 50,000 more than in 1970. This hap-

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act pened when there was a much higher level of unemployment and when the work force covered totalled over 7 million, as opposed to a work force covered of slightly under 5 million.
Where is the abuse that we hear so much about? Where are the hundreds of thousands of citizens who, supposedly, are taking advantage of the eight-week eligibility provision, who are taking advantage of the higher benefits and who are taking advantage of the so-called breakdown in administration in order to collect unemployment insurance. I say that since only 40,000 or 50,000 more people claimed unemployment insurance in 1972 than claimed it in the year 1970, and in 1972, as a result of universality, the work force was almost double the size of that covered in 1970, is it not time people stopped presuming that the man who works for a living has a monopoly on honesty in this country?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: How do the figures of about 3 per cent or 4 per cent of claimants who abuse unemployment insurance in this country compare with the figures recently released relating to doctors in Ontario? Their own association says that there is almost a 12 per cent, and certainly an 11 per cent, rip-off on medicare.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: How many of our corporation lawyers will make a fortune pretty soon in finding loopholes in the income tax law in order to enable their clients to evade income tax legally? Mr. Speaker, the more proficient you become in finding loopholes in taxation laws the greater your chances are in this country of being named a Queen's Counsel.
There cannot be different standards for different types of people. Most certainly, within the work force there are people who deliberately set out to defraud the Unemployment Insurance Commission, just as there are people who deliberately set out to cheat under any particular type of social policy or any type of legislation enacted in this or any other country. The important point is that we have an obligation to those who are working, to those who obtain unemployment insurance, to keep those abuses to the very lowest possible figure. That is why I hope, despite the concern of the NDP, that Bill C-125 will be sent to an appropriate committee of the House before second reading, in order that-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must interrupt the hon. member for two purposes. First, I must remind the hon. member who has the floor that we should be discussing the bill before the House and not another bill which is on the order paper and which may or may not be considered by the House later. Second, I must advise the hon. member that his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member can be allowed to continue only if he has the unanimous consent of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I will take only a few minutes more. I appreciate the courtesy of the House, which is traditional I am glad to say. I have tried on third reading to make a case to opposition members who, on political grounds perhaps, might see some advantage in voting against the bill. If that were to happen, those on this side of the House would immediately let the unemployed of this country know that by that vote hon. members opposite are prepared to deny the unemployed their money.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Oh, come off that nonsense, Bryce.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: All parties agree on the basic principle of the act. Essentially, that has to do with removing one of the impediments to the unemployment insurance legislation that makes it difficult for the government to assume its main responsibility, that of providing the unwitting victims of unemployment a decent level of income to which they are entitled because they are unemployed through no fault of their own, because they are unemployed as a direct result of government action or government policy. I can visualize many occasions in future when, as in the past, governments will be forced into the position of creating temporary disruptions in the work force.


An hon. Member:: It should never happen.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I have long felt that the high level of unemployment at the moment is due to a combination of factors, as I think many economists will agree. We have what is known as structural unemployment. There has been a shift in the Phillips curve. At the same time as we have experienced an abnormal growth in the work force we have been obliged by events outside this country to lower tariffs under the Kennedy Round, to meet competition from Japan, as the Minister of Finance said, to meet competition from Sweden, the United States and West Germany, and to attempt to invade the Common Market. We cannot do that by hiding behind high tariffs and encouraging labour intensive industries, especially if we expect to maintain our position as an exporting nation and create jobs for the future generations of this country.
Where I may differ with the NDP is that I say that accelerated depreciation, lower tariffs and incentives of various types are designed to make this country more competitive, to introduce new technology and to force inefficient industry to become efficient by purchasing new equipment. These things are bound to bring short range disruptive effects to the work force, but that is exactly the purpose of unemployment insurance, to help people who are temporarily unemployed for reasons beyond their control. However, it is the government's responsibility to force industry into a position of efficiency. Even then, it causes disruptive effects on the work force. I think the culmination of these reductions of tariffs as a result of the Kennedy rounds and the increase in productivity that is coming from machine rather than labour intensive industry at a time of abnormal growth in the work force has caused this lingering unemployment.
February 6, 1973

I simply say, because we have a decent Unemployment Insurance Act for the first time that helps people draw a decent income during this disruptive period, a period which will eventually result in new jobs, more jobs and an expanded industry, as is now happening in the textile industry, the lumber industry and the pulp and paper industry, the net result will be more jobs. In the meantime, we should not begrudge the unemployed people in this country what is justly theirs, a decent income at government expense because the reasons for their unemployment are reasons beyond their control. It is time we put an end to the accent on abuses. This plan is not abused.
In case people think I tolerate abuses, I want to say that in 1969 I expressed my concern about abuses in no uncertain terms. In that year I caused to be published a series of advertisements in the newspapers against abuses. I pointed out the consequences. The advertisements pointed out that if a person abused the fund, he was stealing from his fellow worker. They also pointed out the criminal aspects of defrauding the fund. What did this do? It prompted a beautiful column by Canada's answer to Zane Grey, Dalton Camp, who writes about the sun setting nationally. What did he say in analysing these thoughts, as he has a right to do? He reminded me how easy it is to become reactionary when dealing with people. He took me to task, not without a certain degree of justification, for these ads. What did he say? I quote from his column of January 19, 1970:
I feel it is a duty to point out that the unemployed have been recently summoned by the Prime Minister to a higher calling; they are no longer sitting idle, indeed no. They are fighting inflation. Seldom in our history has so much been owed so many by so many.
Churchill also spoke in that way. Possibly Dalton Camp wrote his speeches, too.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: The article continues:
It is not to end there. The silent, nearly invisible jobless are not only fighting inflation, they must also be singled out for prominence by their friend, ("If you're not working for someone, we're working for you."), the Unemployment Insurance Commission, which has proclaimed to the country through a half-page advertisement that some of the unemployed "deliberately cheat."
This is what was said all during the election.
Thus, the Canadian Government confirms what some have so long suspected-that it's high time somebody tried to make the poor and down and out an honest man. Like the rest of us.
Here we get the sarcasm. It is well deserved. He goes on to say:
Frankly, I am puzzled by the strategy. It may be that the Unemployment Insurance Commission has been overwhelmed by cheaters. It could be that the number of lazy, ingenious, jobless Canadians bilking the commission has become epidemic. And it may be, although it challenges credulity, that the effective way to remedy such a national scandal is to launch an advertising campaign, which, I am sorry to say, menaces those who will not read it and sanctifies the prejudices of many who will read it.
The point I am getting at, Mr. Speaker, is that this causes Dalton Camp to react. He goes on to refer to his concern about how alleged abuses can be equated with
Unemployment Insurance Act
other programs if we pick on the helpless. The article continues:
A Day In Court for whom?
One thinks of old age pensioners, or war veterans, or children ravaging the Youth Allowance funds. Later on-much later-will they get around to a national advertising campaign of promised retribution for contractors on aircraft carrier repairs, or promoters of worthless merchandise, or unscrupulous landlords, or corporate thieves who swindle the life savings of the innocent?
That was Dalton Camp speaking in 1969. Would hon. members like to hear what he said in 1972?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: After talking about a leaked document, Mr. Camp went on to talk about abuses of unemployment insurance and complained that to draw unemployment insurance is too easy. He endorsed Reuben Baetz who said that nobody should draw unemployment insurance unless he has 20 weeks attachment. Mr. Camp complained that the cost of the plan was astronomical and, therefore, we should be reducing the number of people drawing from it by making the eligibility more difficult. I quote from the article:
If we all search our minds, we might recall that Robert Stanfield said, many weeks ago, much of what Baetz has recently said, although, it turns out, Stanfield's estimated cost of this folly of government policy was conservative. Would you believe $2.2 billion?
What folly? Is it the folly that the federal government is responsible for providing a decent income to the unemployed of this country who are unemployed through no fault of their own? Is that supposed to be the folly of the Liberal government to which Dalton Camp suddenly takes exception? Why did he take exception? In this article he went on to point out that he takes exception because unemployment insurance had the effect of tran-quilizing the poor, thus removing the problem of unemployment as an election issue. This was what was bothering Zane Grey II; nothing more, nothing less, namely that unemployment insurance was at least providing the unemployed with sufficient income, that they were not abnormally upset about unemployment, that they were not hysterical about the subject and that they were prepared to wait until the economy improved, as long as they at least had enough to pay the rent and groceries. This was hardly consistent with Mr. Camp's other concerns and ambitions. Obviously now for a little while he will have to limit himself to not talking about the sun setting nationally but provincially.
I know, Mr. Speaker, that I have taken extra time. However, the time will come very shortly to vote and we must remember that we are voting for a continuation of the payments of unemployment benefits this week, next week and the following week, as well as the removal of a clause that can periodically interfere with the government's main responsibility, that is to provide unemployment insurance to the unwitting victim of a policy over which he has no control.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Alfred Dryden Hales: Mr. Speaker, will the hon. member permit a question?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act


Alfred Dryden Hales: The hon. member was the minister responsible at the time the government found it necessary to put a ceiling of $800 million into the act. Less than 18 months later, he and this government recommend that that ceiling be removed. Why was it necessary in the first place, and why do they now want it removed?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: That is a fair question and it is one which has been asked of the officials in the committee. I attempted to answer it on second reading. The original concept did not include the $800 million, or any ceiling. The hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) as well as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) made that point. The ceiling was introduced at the request of the Department of Finance which felt that, because of the number of variables in the future, it would be desirable to insert one rather than try to anticipate the sums of money which should be paid from year to year in anticipation of the rate of unemployment. They felt there were so many variables, they could hardly anticipate with a certain amount of accuracy the amounts which would be needed at various levels of unemployment. Events have proven that they have been unable to do this with any degree of accuracy.
The main point, as the hon. gentleman appreciates, is that this is an advance which must be repaid. As I mentioned, when the figures are totalled up in April we shall find that the government owes the government all but $159 million. What we felt, therefore, was that the inclusion of a ceiling was convenient and we could anticipate unemployment in the future. I think, upon reflection, that our original concept of not including a ceiling made sense. Obviously, it does to the government today.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I believe the hon. member's time has expired and there is an objection to another question being asked. I now recognize the hon. member for Yukon.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, today and yesterday we witnessed the most astonishing spectacle. We witnessed the return of the former minister of labour, who appears to be answering for the government. We have heard nothing from the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras) whose responsibility this bill is. There has been no statement from him. Regrettably, he was ill during some of the most important committee sittings and we had no opportunity of putting questions to him, or of getting answers. Not only were we denied that opportunity of questioning the minister, but having reviewed the record of the proceedings of the standing committee, as well as the debate on second reading, I can say we were disadvantaged by the tactics of members like the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. MacGui-gan) who was constantly, in the standing committee, as is very apparent from a reading of the proceedings, intervening and preventing the witnesses before the committee from answering legitimate questions being put by members.
Moreover, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang) acted as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. Does Your Honour think that one of the members on that committee, unless he was on the government side, or a member of the

NDP, got any answers? They were prevented at every turn. Yet the former minister of manpower and immigration speaks of providing information; he speaks of the usefulness of standing committees in dealing with matters of this nature. We got nothing there and we are getting nothing here from the minister-nothing from the minister of manpower who has been sitting mute in his seat throughout this debate, except for one or two interjections.
I am surprised at the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey). I have known him for many years and he has usually struck me as being a fair person. I believe he made a sincere effort when he was holding the portfolio, which I think he was forced to resign because of a fundamental difference with his cabinet colleagues. What really surprised me was his manner of approaching this debate. He did the same thing on second reading. On the one hand, he says he likes to be fair and non-partisan, and to discuss the merits of an issue such as this without injecting party politics. Yet he proceeds to do just that. He has been deliberately distorting the views expressed by my hon. friend from Hamilton West and deliberately distorting a position we made abundantly clear on the second reading of this bill, as well as during the debate now under way.
He accuses us on this side of adopting tactics of delay for the sole purpose of preventing unemployed persons from obtaining unemployment insurance benefits. That, Mr. Speaker, is as far from the truth as can be imagined. Persons legitimately unemployed are required to be paid benefits by the law, and we intend to see that they are.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: Members opposite have no monopoly on desire to apply the law, certainly not hon. members to my left in their sanctimonious approach to this whole subject. The hon. member for Verdun says the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe (Mr. Wagner) voted against Bill C-124, indicating a wish on his part to prevent payment of unemployment insurance benefits. That is a paraphrase of what the hon. member said, but he did make that accusation. The hon. member for Verdun knows this is not the position. So why does he say such a thing? He says he reviewed the discussion in committee. He knows whereof I speak when I say that the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville adopted delaying tactics, tactics deliberately designed to prevent us eliciting information from witnesses. At one stage, the chairman of the committee was asked question after question and on each occasion either the member for Windsor-Walkerville or the Minister of Justice intervened. This went on for over an hour.
The principle of the bill we are discussing today is not as the former minister stated it. The principle of the bill is two-fold. First, it would remove the ceiling, thereby, we say, removing parliamentary control. Second, it sets out to legalize what we say was illegal in the first place. I am referring to clause two. The hon. member for Verdun tries to destroy our position with respect to clause one of the bill by saying that we maintain control and that we do so in ten ways.
He says, first, that we are able to do so because figures are published by Statistics Canada every month. These
February 6, 1973

figures, I may say, are normally about three months late in reaching hon. members. What measure of control does that offer? Second, he says the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) publishes a statement with respect to the situation of the fund. What control do we have over that? We do not debate the statement. In the third place, he says the Unemployment Insurance Commission publishes an annual report. How on earth can the publication of an annual report give parliament any control over what is spent? Fourth, he tells us that the financial statement is certified by the Auditor General. So what? What control does that give us over the expenditure of funds by the commission. Fifth, he says that a detailed financial statement is passed to the Public Accounts Committee for examination. This is normally done a year after the event. What control does that give parliament over the expenditure of funds? Sixth, he says the Minister of Finance inserts an item in his main estimates which includes the cost of the government's share.
I agree with the Minister of Finance that one of the requirements placed upon him is to put such an item in his main estimates, which are going to be before us very shortly. If the minister must make provision for the government's share of this fund, why on earth does the government not know now what will be the projected cost? They cannot take the position they have been taking, on the one hand, of not being able to supply us with information as to the projected cost, yet on the other hand take the position that they will give parliament a definitive and accurate estimate in the main estimates that will be placed before us in a matter of days.
Seventh, the hon. member said that one factor of control was that the main estimates were referred to the various committees. What control does that give parliament over the appropriation of the funds now being asked for in unlimited amounts? Eighth, the hon. member said that the public accounts committee examines the estimates. Again I ask, what control does that give parliament?
None of the ten points advanced by the hon. member for Verdun in support of his argument that parliament retains control over the appropriation of these funds is valid. The hon. member said that we were downgrading and defeating by relay. That is not so. The members of this party take second position to no one with regard to the philosophy of unemployment insurance. It was this party which designed the first unemployment insurance legislation under Bennett in 1935. He did not stay in office long enough to get the legislation passed; that occurred in a subsequent administration. These historical developments go back not 30 years, as the hon. member for Verdun said, but 42 or 43 years, and it was this party's philosophy that resulted in the unemployment insurance system in this country today.
The hon. member then took great satisfaction from citing the relatively higher benefits that had been paid out this year as opposed to those paid last year and the year before. I say that instead of taking satisfaction from the greatly increased benefits that were paid out, he and his government should be ashamed that billions of dollars have had to be paid to an unemployed work force, a
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condition brought about by the government's own deliberate creation of unemployment. The government and their supporters have nothing to be proud about in saying that huge sums are being paid out. It is rather sad that the economy of this country is in such a state today that we have such a large number of unemployed persons on the rolls as a direct result of government policy.
The hon. member put his finger on the root of the trouble when he said that this was the government's fault. Truly it is. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) wholeheartedly and callously announced he intended to create unemployment in order to fight inflation. While he said that on the one hand, his other ministers on the other hand, namely the Minister of Finance of that day-a course that has been followed by the present Minister of Finance- ran about the country saying we were in boom times, that the economy was boiling, that we in this country were flush. And today we have mounting rolls of unemployed. What we on this side are objecting to on behalf, in my view, of the vast majority of Canadians is precisely the fact that we are being obliged to pay out such huge sums to the unemployed of the country, people who have become unemployed as a result of the heartless and inhuman policy pursued by the Prime Minister and his government.
The hon. member then took satisfaction from asserting that there has been a drop in the numbers of unemployed during the last month. The figures are exactly the same as the figures for last year. What satisfaction can the government take in having advanced not one inch toward reducing unemployment in this country over the course of one year, a situation created by their own deliberate tactics to cure inflation?
As hon. members pointed out during the question period today, the number of unemployed in the Atlantic provinces has shown a rather dramatic rise, a very tragic rise. What information were we given when hon. members on this side asked what would be the policies of the government to cure this sad state of affairs? The hon. member for Saint Hyacinthe asked what the government had in mind to cure the sad rise in unemployment figures in the province of Quebec, but he, too, received no reply. The government have no plans. They are as bankrupt as the unemployment insurance fund.
Then, we had this twisted philosophy of the hon. member for Verdun of adopting the position that somehow it is beneficial to the economy, in priority to everything else, to spend huge sums on unemployment insurance because, he said, it created jobs, because there would be more money in circulation to demand goods and services, which in turn created jobs. He accuses us, if we oppose that philosophy, of being against the poor, that we are trying to ride to power on the backs of the poor.
Surely, any rational person can see the argument that we on this side are advancing-the argument being advanced by the vast majority of Canadians-namely, that we do not want to live in a society that has to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. We do not want to live in a society where everyone is on unemployment insurance benefits. We do not want to live in a society where everyone is on welfare. Yet that is the philosophy being propounded by the hon. member for Verdun.

February 6, 1973
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Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker-


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Now, he is up on a question of privilege.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I am not rising on a point of order because a question may be simpler. Is the hon. gentleman suggesting that I said that unemployment insurance is preferable to work, to jobs? Have I not said that above all else people should be working and that the government should be reducing the numbers of unemployed? All I said was that, as an alternative to having no work, these people should have a decent income through unemployment insurance.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I wish the hon. gentleman had been as direct in his initial remarks as he has been now. From the words that he used on second reading, as well as the words he uttered a few moments ago, I drew the plain inference that somehow or other it was better for unemployed persons to receive benefits in preference to the creation of a society in which jobs would be provided; that somehow it was better to have welfare recipients than to create a society where welfare was reduced to a minimum. Then, at the end of that diatribe he accused the members on this side of attempting to ride to power on the backs of the poor-a very unworthy suggestion, I might say, coming from the hon. member for Verdun.
No accusation can justifiably be made by members opposite or by those to my left that we begrudge payments to unemployed people, because we do not. Neither do the vast majority of Canadians begrudge payments to unemployed people. What we do begrudge is the policy followed by the government, a policy that is still being followed by the government since it has effected no other programs, whereby unemployment is permitted to exist at such high levels. The hon. member for Verdun says there seems to be a somewhat changed mood in the country in that people are now in favour of unemployment insurance. My reading of the mood is that no one is opposed to the philosophy of unemployment insurance and that no one is exerting any effort to destroy the scheme. Not even the worst writer on the subject could be accused of that. Not even Zane Grey No. 2, to whom the hon. member for Verdun has referred, could be accused of propounding that proposition. That would be an unworthy accusation.
Surely, we can expect the unemployment insurance scheme to apply to those who are legitimately out of work and cannot find jobs. The hon. member for Verdun has made a great to do about abuses, and he is protected in his position by those to my left. It would be unrealistic for any member of the House to say there had been no abuses of the unemployment insurance scheme. There was a fellow in my constituency who was not a Canadian citizen but who will remain nameless. He came from the United States and, after getting a work permit, he worked for just barely the qualifying period, then left his employment and commenced drawing unemployment insurance benefits at the preferred rate.
When his period of entitlement ran out he applied for vocational training which is supported by federal and territorial government funds. He was being paid then to go to school. He was taking a course in welding and there

was a workmen's compensation regulation which prohibited any welder having a beard. He was told he would have to terminate his attendance at school unless he shaved off his beard. He was rather attached to his beard and insisted upon keeping it, so he had to quit the course. He chose the beard over education and a living, but he figured out another way. He went back to school and took a carpentry course. He was allowed to keep his beard then because having a beard was not against workmen's compensation regulations for carpenters. After telling me this story he said: "You guys have got to have the greatest country in the world. I don't have to work."


An hon. Member:: He should have taken a course in barbering.


Erik Nielsen: This is the kind of abuse to which Canadians are objecting, and the ex-minister knows this. If the hon. member for Verdun says there are no abuses, was it announced while he was in office that there were going to be some 350 new personnel taken on in the Department of Manpower and Immigration specifically to investigate this kind of abuse and to enforce the law as it should be enforced? If there are no abuses, why all this concern?
I am not talking about fraudulent applications for unemployment insurance which are investigated by that branch of the department, I am speaking about legal abuse. I refer to people who come over to this country from the United States, for instance, and apply for unemployment insurance. It was quite easy at the time for them to do so, although it is a little more difficult now. These people came over and worked for a minimum qualifying period, then made arrangements with a friend to send their unemployment insurance cheques to them. The cheques were sent to a Canadian address, then cashed in Canada and the money sent across the line.
This is the kind of abuse that takes place because of the loose manner in which the administration has been handling the fund. As a result, there has been an expression of disgust by the ordinary working man of this country who has worked all his life and never drawn unemployment insurance benefits. I have spoken to many of them, as have other hon. members including some of those in that party to my left who are supposed to be the champions of the working man, but who support Clause 2 of this bill which imposes an extra financial burden on the shoulders of the working men of this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Knight Andras: What extra burden?


Erik Nielsen: I hear the minister finally saying something. I welcome him to the debate and hope that he says more than the few words he has just uttered.


Robert Knight Andras: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Erik Nielsen: Surely.


Robert Knight Andras: Would the hon. member clearly define what he means when he says that the employees and employers who are contributing to the fund are bearing an extra burden in respect of these advances about which we are now talking, in addition to what was covered by the act as
February 6, 1973

it was passed a year and a half ago? Would he clearly explain what he means by that?


Erik Nielsen: The minister was at committee meetings and he heard me propound that theory when I participated in the debate on second reading. I would invite him to review the debates in order to find my answer. I made that statement and I stand by it. I may be wrong, but that is my conviction.


An hon. Member:: You are wrong.


Erik Nielsen: Of course, my friends to the left would say I am wrong because they have to be the big Wally for the government. They have to keep it in office and keep it clean, so they naturally are going to say I am wrong. As a matter of fact, I see the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) paying acute attention to my remarks. The efforts of the hon. member for Verdun to destroy the position of this party are only exceeded by the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. If you review his participation in this debate, beginning at page 981 of Hansard, you will see that he is convoluting, squirming and wriggling in an attempt to justify the position he now takes. He even stooped to the level of providing us gratuitously with a 15-minute lecture on the bill and its effect. In effect, he suggests we are all stupid in this House because only he and those in his party understand what we are really talking about.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Would the hon. member permit a question? Would he allow me to apologize to him for having tried to explain this bill to him, since he cannot understand it?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I never ask any member to apologize to me in legitimate debate, and I never shall. I do thmk the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre perhaps owes the collective House an apology for deigning to set himself up as an expert on all things, not only this bill but all bills. No one in the House knows more than the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Thank you.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: I say that he and those behind him are betraying the working man by supporting Clause 2 of this bill.


An hon. Member:: Oh, get on with it.


Erik Nielsen: I am right on it. They are betraying not only the working man of this country who is unemployed, but the working man who has worked 35 or 40 years, contributing throughout those years to this fund without drawing a cent. That is the guy who is really annoyed at what is happening, and that is the individual this bill is really hitting.
I have just been handed a copy of Maclean's magazine for February, 1973. At page 4, there is an article covering the farewell remarks of the hon. member for Verdun on
Unemployment Insurance Act
leaving the Cabinet. It is headed "Farewell To Power. Departing Thoughts Of An Absent Cabinet Minister".


Mr. Baldwin:: It should be Mackasey's eulogy.


Erik Nielsen: This does not appear in quotation marks, but this is what is written:
And the Unemployment Insurance Plan? I can't understand all the fuss. Do people want to go back to the Hungry Thirties, the labour camps, the bread lines? The problem with this country isn't unemployment insurance, it's unemployment.
We can find no greater supporter of that contention than I. The hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orli-kow) wishes to ask a question and I invite him to stand on his feet and not be so cowardly as to interject while remaining seated. The article goes on to read:
Seven per cent unemployment. And that's not the fault of the Manpower officials. The real culprits are those smug, arrogant civil servants in the Finance Department-
He chastised us yesterday for having been a little forceful with the chairman of the commission in the committee. He refers to the real culprits being "those smug, arrogant civil servants in the Finance Department". The article goes on to read:
-superbly confident of their ability to manipulate the economy with methods that should have died with Lord Keynes. They created the unemployment.
This is quite correct. They created the unemployment, and they are allowing it to continue.
Again, I hear remarks from my left. May I remind those to my left of that great press release which hit the streets with such a force on November 15, published by their party and released by their leader. At the top of the list of eight priorities was that they would give this government a while-I think the word used in the press release was "immediately"-to do something about unemployment. Let the hon. members to my left tell me of one measure that this government has introduced-and we are in the second month of this session-that meets that condition in their press release. Not a thing.
What they have done has been to remove the $800 million ceiling because somehow, according to the hon. member for Verdun, if we pay out more money we are going to create more jobs. What they have done amounts to a big zero, and so much for the press release of the NDP whose bark is obviously a heck of a lot worse than their bite. They will find it very difficult to continue in this posture, supporting a government which they have condemned throughout the country and throughout the whole of the last parliament as well as in their press release of November 15. Now, they hang on like some desperate tail wagging the dog because they are frightened of going into another election. But in the meantime, the prostitution of their principles is not going unnoticed by the people of this country.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Shame.


Erik Nielsen: We have had at least an admission by the leader of that group to my left that there was some arrangement between his party and the party in power. It was not a marriage. I think the term he used was "a gentle

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act
courtship". We should not confuse gentle courtship with marriage.


Mr. Rose:: Would the hon. member permit a question? Is the hon. member suggesting that the New Democratic Party members would be unfortunate allies should the government be defeated and members of his party asked to form a government?


Erik Nielsen: May I say in reply to that question that should that be the situation, of course not, and the legislation which would have been forthcoming last December rather than now, because that is when parliament would have been called, would have been of such an attractive nature that members to my left could not have possibly avoided supporting it. It would have been aimed at curing the situation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: Next question.


Robert Knight Andras: A $900 million ceiling; that is the kind of legislation you would get.


Erik Nielsen: They want unlimited access to millions upon millions of dollars. Also, with respect to clause 2, they distorted our position because what they wanted us to do, to which we objected on second reading, was to ratify an illegality, and it still remains that, notwithstanding the position taken by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang). We remember last year we were debating the illegal position taken by the Minister of Justice. He involved himself in that debate, as did other members on the government side, and the members to my left then knew the government position was wrong because they were withholding lawful payments to the farmers for some 14 months. In the face of a mandatory provision in the bill, which could not have been clearer, the Minister of Justice said that they had the discretion to withhold those payments. He is taking the same sort of weak position today. There should be no clause 2. The provisions of the Financial Administration Act as they now stand should apply, and these funds should not be deemed to be an advance.
I think I have summed up the position of this party, certainly as I understand it, with respect to the two clauses of this bill. I think I have made it sufficiently clear now so that perhaps others might be dissuaded when taking part in this debate from accusing us, and continuing to accuse us on this side, of preventing unemployment insurance benefits from being paid. We object to the legislation, first, because it gives the government a blank cheque, and certainly the people of Canada want to see us adopt a positive stand to prevent that kind of thing from happening here. Second, we take the position with respect to clause 2 that it would be unconscionable for parliament to ratify something that was illegal. How, members say, do we assert control if not by taking off the ceiling?
The government had three choices open to it, and they still have those three choices, in order to obtain these funds in the proper manner and in order to allow parliament to continue its control over appropriations. First, they can bring in an appropriation and ask for a specific sum. They can do that, I say, because they know now

what the Minister of Finance is going to put in his estimates with respect to government requirements in that regard. Second, they can bring in a supplementary estimate specifically for that purpose. Again, parliament would have to deal with it. Third, they can amend the act and provide specifically for the funds that they need. But going on in this fashion is taking all parliamentary control away from the members of this house and giving the government a blank cheque. It is wrong and it denudes the House of Commons of the traditional power to pass all appropriations and all money requirements of the government.
It is not enough for the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre to cite the legislation affecting pensions, the legislation affecting other matters similar to pensions, because those funds are not being abused. There are not billions of dollars being spent out of those funds in an abusive fashion. We know that the government is not controlling the operation of the commission properly. We know that they are not controlling the effective expenditure of these funds. That is all the more reason for parliament to retain that kind of control in the manner that I have suggested.


Mr. Charles H. Thomas (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my purpose in speaking on this bill today is to try to dispel some of the misinformation that has been spread through the House in the last two days of debate. Certain hon. members in the House have continually tried to obscure the real purpose of this bill. They keep telling us that failure to pass this bill will destroy the Unemployment Insurance Act, and that failure to pass this bill is persecution of the poor. We have heard all these phrases about riding into power on the backs of the poor. We have heard this time and time again from government spokesmen, and we have heard from the NDP that this is just a bill to provide advances. Yet they say that if we do not pass it we will destroy the Unemployment Insurance Act.
I agree with the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) who expressed the hope that the minister would make some remarks on third reading. I was one of the members who sat on the Labour Committee. I realize it was not any fault of the minister that he was not able to be present. He sent in a substitute but, so far as I was concerned, the substitute might as well have stayed in bed because he either could not or would not answer any questions. Repeatedly we tried to find out from the minister why the ceiling was included in the act in the first place, and second, what had changed in the course of a year and a half that made it necessary to remove the ceiling. The minister's only reply was that obviously it should not have been in the act in the first place, and further he said that the government did not want it there now because things have changed.
A year and a half ago the department was able to estimate the costs of this program within $10 million over a full year's operation. That is what officials told us a year and a half ago in committee. Now, suddenly this department, with all its know-how and all its knowledge, cannot specify any amount that should be stipulated for advances. The officials say they cannot forecast with any
February 6, 1973

reasonable accuracy because of the variables. Surely, those variables were there a year and a half ago? We pointed them out many times to UIC officials. We said, "Your figures are wrong. You are talking about 5.3 per cent unemployment. That should be closer to 7 per cent, between 6} per cent and 7 per cent." Now, suddenly they admit that they cannot forecast even two, three or four months ahead. They cannot tell us how much money they need.
As the hon. member for Yukon said, the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey) still seems to be the spokesman for the department. I had hoped that when the hon. member for Verdun rose this afternoon he would give us some of the answers, but again he went into the same old diatribe that we heard on second reading. He told us what a wonderful Unemployment Insurance Act we had, that it was the best in the world, and that if we did not pass this bill we would destroy that act thus, in effect, riding into power on the backs of the poor. But he did not once tell us why, when he was the minister who piloted the original bill through the House, he found it necessary to put a ceiling in the bill. Why did he think at that time that there should be a ceiling on the advances? He did not mention that at all.
He went on to say that the unemployed would not get their benefits if this bill did not pass. He told us how heartless we all were. But he did not tell us the reason we are in this bind now is the incompetence and bungling of his department and his officials. They were the ones who got us into this mess. All he said was, "We are in a mess; we want carte blanche to get out of it." When the House granted him an extension of time, I thought he would get into the meat of this bill. But no, he talked for ten minutes on Bill C-125, and was completely out of order. However, the Speaker let him go and we still got no information.
It may be true that members of government have painted themselves into a corner, that they have exhausted all their means of getting money into the Unemployment Insurance Commission. But this is their own fault. There is no point in suggesting that we are destroying the act. There are ample provisions in the act to meet such contingencies as we have here.
The UIC could have sought help from the government as early as last September, when it knew the indications were that it was going to be short of money before the end of the fiscal year. Testimony given to us in the committee shows that officials did go to the government with that information. That is the time when the government should have acted to bring in the type of bill we have today, but instead of asking for a complete removal of the ceiling it could have asked for a special appropriation; it could have introduced legislation asking parliament to provide enough money to run the commission until the end of March. Now, members of the government come crying, "If you don't pass this bill it will be your fault if the unemployed don't get their money."


Robert Knight Andras: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Charles Humbert Thomas: Certainly.


Robert Knight Andras: In view of the very words that the hon. member has just uttered, in view of the fact that since he
Unemployment Insurance Act
said the government was informed in September, would he not admit that the House was dissolved at that stage? If so, how could the government bring legislation before the House when at that stage an election had been called?


Charles Humbert Thomas: I did not say the government should bring in legislation then. In any event, the House could have been recalled in a matter of days. Then, the very type of bill that the government has introduced now, could have been introduced, but asking for a specific amount rather than for the removal of the ceiling. It was government mismanagement that got us into this mess.


Gerald William Baldwin: The government also knew about it in August. That is on the record.


Mr. Reid:: You put it there, Jed.


Gerald William Baldwin: I have got it right here.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Moncton has the floor.


Charles Humbert Thomas: I have until five o'clock, Mr. Speaker, so if they want to yap let them go to it.
This bill proposes to amend legislation that was duly passed by the House of Commons. I had hoped that after sitting for I don't know how many months in committee on Bill C-229, after hearing the minister and all the UIC officials tell us that that bill was the ultimate, that this was the most wonderful plan in the world and that everything was fine, we would not be faced, within a year and a half with having to make changes in it. But now the government suddenly comes back within a year and a half and says, "We were wrong; we want to make changes." I do not know what other changes the government has in mind, but now we must discuss this wonderful plan all over again.
Because the government is asking parliament to change legislation already passed, I think I should briefly review the reason the legislation was passed in the first place. Why was this ceiling put into the act originally? I refer to testimony given before the Labour, Manpower and Immigration Committee as recorded at page 24:26 of its proceedings No. 24, on May 19, 1971, when clause 137 of the bill, dealing with advances, was under consideration. At that time we had before us Mr. Douglas, General Legal Counsel for the Unemployment Insurance Commission. The vice-chairman of the committee called on Mr. Douglas to explain clause 137, and Mr. Douglas said:
Clause 137 authorizes the government to advance to the Consolidated Revenue Fund or the Unemployment Insurance Account in the Consolidated Revenue Fund sufficient to enable the Commission to pay benefits if the account is in a deficit position.
Then, he went on to say:
This would be in an interim position when actual costs were being determined and before the money had been collected or the government advance had actually been made.
This is another aspect on which we got a lot of misinformation in the House and in the committee. I have heard government members ask, as well as hon. members to my left, "What is all this fuss about advances? They are only advances. They are not costing the country anything. They will be paid back. What are you worrying about?

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act This is only an advance." I would like to point out that these advances are, in part, to cover the government's costs after unemployment reaches a level of 4 per cent.
It is true that up to the 4 per cent level the employer-employee rates can be adjusted so that a deficit position is covered, but over 4 per cent the government has to foot the cost. This was brought out time and time again in committee and elsewhere. I don't know why people continue to say, "It is only an advance. I don't know what you are worrying about. It will be paid back." How is it to be paid back? The government gets a special warrant to get money into the account, let's say $400 million or $450 million, but this is repayable. How is it repaid? It is repaid when the government assesses the amount it owes, so it transfers money to the unemployment insurance account to cover the amount that it owes when unemployment rises above 4 per cent. Then, the unemployment insurance account pays off the debt to the Treasury Board. Where does that money come from? It comes out of the general tax revenue, out of the tax dollar. Why do we sit here and say that it does not matter, that it is only an advance and will be paid back? Yes, it will be paid back-by the taxpayer. I thought it was very well explained in committee when we were discussing Bill C-229.


Robert Knight Andras: But the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) confused it.


Mr. McKinley:: I don't think you understand it; that is why you are not saying much.


Charles Humbert Thomas: Up to 4 per cent unemployment, the commission can adjust the premium rates to meet the deficit. But who pays these premium rates-the employer and the employee so what we have here is another indirect tax. The taxpayer has to provide the money.
When we were discussing Bill C-229 in committee several questions were raised, so I would dispute the statement of some hon. members who said there was not much discussion on it. On May 19, 1971, Mr. D. Allan, Director, Policy Analysis and Formulation with the Unemployment Insurance Commission was being asked about the reason for the advance. In reply to a question by the hon. member for Wellington (Mr. Hales) he said at page 27 of the proceedings:
One factor is that there will be a delay between the incurring of benefit costs during a year and our ability to calculate what would have been the costs for that year had the unemployment rates been 4 per cent and our obtaining for the unemployment insurance account the credit from the government for its portion of the costs which were above 4 per cent.
He went on to say that there would be no problem with the first part, and then continued:
So it is quite possible we would have a large cash outflow, but it would be because the unemployment rate had become very high and would not cause us to raise the premium rates for the employees and employers because this drain, this cash outflow would not affect the portion of the costs that the employees and the employers would eventually have to pay.
I cannot understand those members who say there is nothing to worry about because this situation will be covered by the adjustment of premium rates. This is not so. If unemployment rises above 4 per cent, the deficit is

paid entirely by the government. Call it what you will, an advance or anything else, I say it is still an additional tax put on the taxpayer. In the committee that day the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) tried to find out how the commission arrived at the $800 million ceiling. Mr. Allan's remarks were very illuminating. He said, as recorded at page 29 of the same committee report:
Mr. Chairman, the $800 million represented, as an upper limit on the amount of advances, presumably the worst possible case we could think of in terms of a deficit.
The worst possible case, Mr. Speaker. Then, the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) asked:
So you used 7 per cent then?


Mr.   Allan@: We used 7 per cent, and then some. We later calculated a figure that could represent the worst possible case and then we added another $100 million or so for good measure.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: What is $100 million.
Here is the point I am trying to make, Mr. Speaker. Just under two years ago in May, 1971 the commission stated in testimony that the worst possible eventuality would only lead to a drain on the cash advance account of $700 million, so they threw in another $100 million for good measure and that is how they got the figure of $800 million. This is an indication of the complete breakdown between 1971 and today. In 1971, we have officials estimating the cost of the plan and setting a figure which they said would be enough; today the same officials in that department cannot or will not give an estimate for two months ahead.
During the committee hearings there was a good deal of discussion about the cost of unemployment insurance. I suggest that one of the reasons the $800 million ceiling was fixed was that the government and the commission had estimated the cost of the liberalization of the plan and so had to put this $800 million which they felt would act as a control over expenditures. At that time I had some discussion with the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mack-asey), the then minister, trying to find out the purpose of the ceiling and the purpose for asking for this advance. He inferred that the reason the government was taking up the total cost of the plan above 4 per cent was that it would be an inducement to the cabinet to keep unemployment down to that figure so, by inference, the $800 million figure was put in as a type of control. If unemployment were running too high and the costs were running too high, the government would have to come back to parliament to ask for more money. In his testimony, he referred several times to the fact that forcing the government to back the cost of unemployment above 4 per cent would be a strong incentive to the government to keep the cost of the plan within the $800 million ceiling. Rightly or wrongly, this was the impression given to members of the committee and we felt confident that there was a justification for the $800 million figure.
Now, it appears that for some reason or other the government finds that this figure is not enough. As the former minister said in the House today, this ceiling was not in the original act but was inserted after consideration. No one can convince me that this was not done for a specific reason. The government is now requesting that we remove the ceiling because they say it is not realistic.
February 6, 1973

I was interested in reading report No. 2 of the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee when it was studying the supplementary estimates, in particular this $800 million advance figure. This happened after both the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras) and the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang) had told us that the ceiling was not realistic, should not be in the legislation, and that there was no reason for it. When the estimates were discussed before the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee, Mr. Nielsen was questioning the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) on the $800 million ceiling on advances. After remarking that advances had been made under special warrants over and above the $800 million ceiling, Mr. Neilsen remarked-


An hon. Member:: Order!


Charles Humbert Thomas: -as follows:
There seems little purpose in having a ceiling at all in the act...


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member who has just made a remark is not the only one who wishes to make the point that I am about to bring to the attention of the House. It is considered against parliamentary practice to refer to other hon. members by name. They should be referred to by constituency or, if they happen to be in the ministry or occupy some other position, they should be referred to as occupying that position in the ministry or elsewhere. They should not be referred to by name. I regret to make this point during the hon. member's speech, as he has not in any way used that ill practice with malice or intent. However, I must bring this to the attention of the House and ask for consideration of proprieties.


Charles Humbert Thomas: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your admonition. May I point out that I was quoting directly from Issue No. 2 of the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee proceedings, dated January 16. As Your Honour is aware, people asking questions in the committee are referred to by name and not by constituency. I thought what I was doing was permissible as I was quoting directly from the report.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member is correct in referring to^excerpts from reports of committee proceedings in that way. I did not understand at first that he was reading a question asked by an hon. member, or a comment made by an hon. member. However, there have been occasions when hon. members, including the hon. member who has just spoken, have referred to other hon. members by name rather than by their constituencies and at that time they were not dealing with quotations from committee proceedings. That practice is wrong and the Chair asks the co-operation of the House in avoiding it.


Charles Humbert Thomas: Mr. Speaker, I will try to make clear when I am reading from the report. I am about to quote from Issue No. 2 of Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence of the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates, dated January 16, 1973. In that particular committee the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) was questioning the President of the Treasury Board and the following exchange is recorded on page 2:25:
Unemployment Insurance Act


Erik Nielsen: There seems little purpose in having a ceiling at all in the act under those conditions.


Mr. Drury:: No, Mr. Chairman, I suggest there is a very good purpose in having a ceiling. This particular ceiling, I suggest, was put in in order that Parliament would have an opportunity to examine the reasons for the circumstances surrounding any sums in excess of this, which is precisely what we are engaged in now.
After all our efforts to obtain some explanation from the responsible minister or his substitute as to the reason for the ceiling, those who served on the committee and who knew there had to be some reason for the ceiling learned, by inference, that it was included for the purpose of enabling parliament to exercise control. The President of the Treasury Board admitted as much when he said, as we had suggested all along, that the ceiling was put in the act in order to give parliament some control over the actions of the government.
On the next page we find the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) reported as saying that, in the circumstances, the ceiling was not necessary and was useless. The following exchange is recorded:


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Let me put it another way, Mr. Chairman. I do not want to make a great thing of this. Parliament would have an opportunity ...


Erik Nielsen: Ex post facto.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: ... of inquiring into the operation of the fund if the amount of the advances exceeded $800 million. If the ceiling had been set at a hypothetical figure, $5 billion,-
Let me add paranthetically that the government is no longer asking for $5 billion. The sky is the limit now. I continue:
-there would have been no occasion for the issue of Governor General's warrants. There would have been no occasion for a parliamentary examination of the operations of the fund or the commission. By placing this limitation, the executive is required to come before Parliament to explain how and why it happened and what changes should be made.
Is that not what members of my party have been saying ever since second reading?


An hon. Member:: Right on.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, will the hon. member permit a question?


Charles Humbert Thomas: Mr. Speaker, I will entertain questions, if I have time, at the conclusion of my speech.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order, please. Does the hon. member agree to accept a question?


Charles Humbert Thomas: If I have time at the conclusion of my speech I will be glad to entertain questions, otherwise I am afraid I may not finish.
As I was saying, do the minister's words not confirm exactly the position that we, in the opposition, have been taking? The reason for the ceiling is obvious. It was included, as the President of the Treasury Board said, to permit parliament to exercise control over the actions of the government with respect to the operation of this account.
The minister now responsible for the act authorized, I assume, a news release dated January 17, 1973 which attempts to explain the purpose of Bill C-124. At the top of the new release one sees, "Unemployment Insurance,

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act Canada". I apologize if I said, inadvertently, that the minister had issued this news release. Let me correct that. The minister's name does not appear on it; it is put out by the Public Relations Branch of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. The heading of the communique reads: "Notes on proposed amendments to the U.I. Act concerning the ceiling on advances". Talking of the removal of the $800 million ceiling on advances, the communique says, "Such a ceiling is unrealistic in the light of constantly-changing and unpredictable factors . .
The second paragraph of the communique mentions that the government's share, payable when the national unemployment rate is over 4 per cent, is not paid until April 1 of the following calendar year. Then, farther down the page, there occurs a sentence which is most interesting. Although the minister's name does not appear on the communique, I assume that he cleared it before its release. The words I refer to are, "There are sufficient controls, through annual reports ..
In one paragraph the communique refers to taking off the $800 million ceiling on advances and in the next it refers to the controls that exist. Does that not imply that the ceiling was included for purposes of control? If the ceiling were to be raised, the matter would come before parliament. At any rate, that is how I see it. The full sentence in the communique reads:
There are sufficient controls, through annual reports, Auditor General reports and Public Accounts to ensure an adequate review of the financial operation of the program.
The government, in this communique which must have been cleared by the minister, is saying in so many words, "Although we want to take off one control, do not worry; there are other controls which will offset that."
The former minister took some time talking about the ten different controls existing. Obviously, he was concerned. I assume he realized we were losing this control. He said, in effect, don't worry; we have other sufficient controls. My colleague, the hon. member for Yukon, reviewed these so-called controls very thoroughly. I will not go into them again other than to put on record that the so-called controls are not controls at all. They are not controls before the fact, they are controls after the fact.
In committee we questioned the minister who substituted for the minister responsible about these controls. He said, don't worry; you have the annual report of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. What is a report? What controls are there? He ignored the fact that the report does not come out until the September after the fiscal year is over. He talked about the auditor General's report. What controls are there in a report that comes out a year or two after the fact? What can parliament do about it then?
I submit there is a very definite reason for this clause being in the original act. The reason is that this was the only way we could force a wild spending government to come back to parliament and justify their actions. I submit that the ceiling should remain. I do not buy the argument that we destroy the Unemployment Insurance Act if we do not pass this bill. As I said earlier, there are many ways in which the Unemployment Insurance Com-

mission can get the necessary money to pay the benefits under the act. It is not legitimate to state that when we have passed legislation that guarantees benefits to the unemployed, we can put something in it to prevent the unemployed from getting those benefits. I submit that the act does not do this. The act states that the Unemployment Insurance Commission shall pay benefits at such and such a rate. It also contains special clauses which give the Unemployment Insurance Commission, through proper representations to the government, the power to raise all the necessary monies to pay the benefits guaranteed under the act.
This whole business is a sham. We listened to members on the government side say that we were ruining the act. The Unemployment Insurance Act is good. It is not the act that is on trial here. It is the government that is on trial because of its mismanagement, getting into this mess and now coming to us to get them out of it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Charles-Eugene Dionne (Kamouraska):: Mr. Speaker, I have often pointed out to the House that most of the laws are drafted in a language which leads to confusion. The present example shows that long and quite costly studies were made, that commissions of inquiry were established, that white papers were published and that economists were hired who tried to estimate the approximate cost of the variations established about the rates of contributions and benefits, probable income and expenditures.
All this resulted in the presentation of Bill C-229 entitled "An Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act", after unending studies in committee and debates in the House where a certain number of members seem more interested-and we have again noticed today-in hearing themselves talk rather than making practical suggestions.
The legislation was adopted on June 14, 1971. Since that date, various things occurred, none of which helped reduce unemployment. This is so evident that for the past few days, officials have been trying to find a way to pay advances to the commission to enable it to pay unemployed people the benefits to which they are entitled.
Answering some questions on January 31 last, during a sitting of the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration, the minister said, and I quote:
If it were to happen that the commission, as a result of failing to have the advances which this bill allows, be out of funds, the commission would simply have to stop issuing cheques for benefits so long as it was in that position.
-which period had been mentioned in the question.
Later, the minister said:
Well, yes, the estimates at the moment, as precise as we can have them in terms of hours and timing, really mean that that is the critical day. I am quite satisfied that that estimate could be out an hour either way-that kind of thing.
When the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) asked him:
It could even be out a day, but a point would be reached at which unemployment insurance claims would not pe paid.
February 6, 1973

The minister replied:
Yes, that is right.
We are now discussing a bill which is indeed very short. I am used to criticizing the inordinate length of some bills which thus tend to be incomprehensible. Unfortunately, we are taking days to deal with Bill C-124. This procedure enabled some hon. members who spoke before-and I followed the debates in the House-to comment on the whole unemployment insurance legislation.
We shall have an opportunity to discuss the Unemployment Insurance Act when another bill dealing with it is brought forward. We shall then discuss the initial period, the waiting period, the reference period and the extension period and also the two kinds of unemployment, casual and hard-core or chronic unemployment. However, today we are dealing with a bill to enable the commission to pay benefits to unemployed people. It has been hard enough, since the beginning of the winter, to accelerate such payments without adding to that the creation of an atmosphere of hesitation among civil servants.
In view of the many delays unemployed people have been having in receiving their benefits, we should not add to that the encouraging of a hesitant attitude.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for York-ton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom)-Agriculture-Possibility of financial assistance to Saskatchewan land bank program; the hon. member for Okanagan Boundary (Mr. Whittaker)-Public Works-Alleged disposal of old barges by Department in Lake Okanagan-Steps to remove; the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Knight)-Agriculture- Increase in price of fertilizer-Inquiry as to action.
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 public bills, private bills and notices of motions.
National Housing Act



PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BILLS


[Stage Direction]
On the order: Public Bills:
January 15, 1973-Second Reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs of Bill C-6, an act to amend the National Housing Act (Municipal Water and Soil Pollution Projects)-Mr. Alexander.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Hon. members will recall that on January 18 Mr. Speaker made some reference to Bill C-6, and it was to the effect that the bill contained money provisions. Of course, if the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) has any further explanation to offer, or has any further information to give, the Chair will certainly take the time required to pay attention to what he has to say.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can appreciate the dilemma in which Bill C-6 has placed the Chair. But I believe it is the substance of the bill which should most concern us, and that is what I should like to bring to Your Honour's attention.
Bill C-6 is an act to amend the National Housing Act. It is concerned with municipal soil and water anti-pollution projects. A great deal of urgency attaches to it because of the rate of urban growth and corresponding problems related to sewage disposal arrangements. I know that when the bill was first brought to the attention of the Chair a caveat was expressed; it was pointed out that I was dealing with a matter involving the financial prerogatives of the Crown. This is something which immediately comes to the attention of the Chair in cases in which a bill originates with a private member. In other words, the Chair itself scrutinizes private members' bills to see that they comply with the rules, and, where justified, in the Speaker's opinion, initiates objections and rules a bill to be out of order.
I do not object to this practice. What I do object to is the fact that such initiative is not exercised by the Chair in the case of public bills, including those introduced by a minister of the Crown. Obviously, the Chair does not exercise this initiative where government bills are concerned. I need only refer to the Government Organization Bill, 1970, one which really contained about eight bills which should have been split. In this case the initiative, the raising of the point of order, was not undertaken by the Chair, but by Members of the Opposition. Again, in connection with the Income Tax Reform Bill, at least two points of order were initially raised by the Official Opposition, one of them so vital that the legislation could have been blocked for weeks while the Chair perused its contents, perhaps with the result that the measure would have been thrown out. The other defect was so serious that a special order of the House was required before the bill could proceed. There are other precedents in this connection, but the two I have mentioned are recent. And

February 6, 1973
National Housing Act
they were not latent defects, but patent. Indeed, they were blatant defects. My understanding is that except where Standing Orders provide otherwise, all members are equal in their rights. What Standing Order provides that the Chair shall not initiate objections on points of order against public bills introduced, or sought to be introduced, by ministers of the Crown? I shall say no more on this score for the time being, since before my time expires I must enter my response to the caveat issued by the Chair in connection with Bill C-6.
I should like to draw Your Honour's attention to clause 3 in this regard. I should like to point out that expenditures mentioned under this clause are to be provided only when, and as, moneys therefor are made available out of the public revenue by parliament in accordance with law. Thus, Mr. Speaker, even though I may be dealing indirectly with money, nothing whatsoever can happen until such time as the proper procedure is followed in the House of Commons and the necessary appropriation has been made according to law.
What really concerns me here is the difficulty in which municipalities are finding themselves as a result of urban sprawl. It seems odd to me that the definition of sewage treatment contained in section 50 of the National Housing Act should refer to sewage treatment projects as meaning projects consisting of:
(1) (a) A trunk sewage collector system, a central treatment plant or both for the collection and treatment of sewage from one or more municipalities, or
(ii) a trunk water main facility or system, a trunk storm sewage
collector or system or both such facilities or systems, for serving
one or more municipalities.
What happens if we extend that definition, if, in effect, we make loans in respect of trunk water mains and trunk storm sewage collectors, in addition? We now come to the gist of my submission; what I am talking about, now, is forgiveness. Forgiveness becomes extremely important in these days when the populations of our cities are growing so rapidly. I was speaking with officials in the City of Hamilton the other day. They were most concerned about the fact that they could not afford the services which a growing population requires for health and sanitation purposes. They feel it is time the government became aware of the fact that by the year 2,000, some 80 per cent of our population will be concentrated in cities such as Hamilton.
I mention Hamilton first because, as hon. members know, I have a special responsibility in that area. But what I say applies equally to Toronto, Winnipeg, Guelph, Calgary and our other major cities. The hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin) wants recognition for his city in this regard. That is natural. These are our major cities. When we are talking about sewage systems, as we must, we are only talking about 25 per cent forgiveness. It is high time we recognized the serious financial plight of our cities due to the fact that their tax base is so limited. They cannot get more money from the provinces, and the federal government, rightly at times, is reluctant to reach directly through the provinces to the municipalities. So the municipalities are looking to us for the forgiveness of loans under the terms of the National Housing Act.
I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are consulting Erskine May and Beauchesne and it would not surprise me if you were almost prepared to rule me out of order. Still, it is private members' hour, now; we are not debating government policy or the incompetence of the government and its lack of appreciation for the frustrations felt by ordinary citizens. In these circumstances I should like to continue my remarks for your edification. I know all hon. members will appreciate that what I am talking about makes a great deal of sense. What I am attempting to do is to bring the problem of the municipalities to a focus in this forum where I know I can certainly count on a sympathetic ear, even from the Speaker, who seems prepared to allow me to develop my argument, at least to a considerable extent, even though I might stray from the point of order.
I might say that my clause three is a negation of an appropriation. If Your Honour is concerned with my tampering with public funds or with the financial administration aspects of the House of Commons, then clause 3 should allay your fears in this regard. As I have said, nothing can happen until a bill comes before the House and the moneys are appropriated in due course, something similar to the provision we will shortly be facing in the near future with respect to miscellaneous estimates. That is money that has been set aside, through Governor General's warrants, for expenditure on matters of transportation, agriculture and so on. Every department is involved, and this money has to be appropriated by this House.
If I am right in this respect, why should the Chair be concerned? It is right that the Chair should be concerned; all I am saying is that this is the negation of an appropriation. It would not take one cent out of the public revenues of Canada if the bill were enacted and received royal assent tonight. Unless and until the Governor General recommends to the House the expenditure of funds to fulfil the purpose of the bill, and unless this House passes a bill containing a vote for that purpose, no public moneys can be spent.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that I am making sense. I see Your Honour is still reading Beauchesne and May, but I hope my arguments are getting through to you. I submit this is nothing more nor less than a petition, and I would ask Your Honour to consider it in that light. This is a petition whereby I am bringing the plight of municipalities, both big and small, to the attention of the House and asking for the immediate consideration of the House. If the bill is adopted, then we can move ahead. If the bill is not adopted and there is no vote or royal assent, then nothing can happen. Therefore, why cannot hon. members discuss the bill?
There is no deeming clause in the bill, as there is in Bill C-124 in the name of the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras). Nor is there reference to a vote as authorized by this House. What I am trying to say, Mr. Speaker, is this. We are all aware of the plight we find ourselves in through pollution of the ecology. Indeed "pollution" and "ecology" are household words. An uncontrolled urbanization is playing havoc with our environment. This is so not only in the city of Hamilton, which is registering concern, but also in all the major cities to

February 6, 1973

which I referred a little while ago. The accelerating congestion of human and industrial activity is threatening our existence. Little thought has been given to the dumping of waste. Water is the final receptacle for most waste materials resulting from human, industrial and agricultural activities as well as from transportation.
Therefore, why should we not discuss at this time questions such as these, notwithstanding the rules of the House which, I submit, do not apply in this area? As I have said, nothing can happen until such time as the House of Commons approves an appropriation act that will earmark funds for the purpose. I say that until that happens we are in order in discussing the bill.
May I go on record as saying that since the regenerative capacity of water is limited, the dumping of wastes directly or indirectly into water tables, rivers, lakes and oceans can-as it is today-overload the medium. The overloading of our water supplies will destroy our recreational facilities, wipe out our fisheries and drastically reduce the supply of water. This will pose direct health hazards, such as typhoid.
I am still not dealing with the expenditure of money, Mr. Speaker, even though it may appear that I am. In the final analysis, I am not asking for money to be spent right now.


Mr. Paproski:: Not at this time.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: My colleague from Edmonton Centre helps me in this regard by saying, not at this time. I do not wish to belabour my point of order. I think that the Speaker in his wisdom, and in his ultimate compassion, will show me some mercy in this regard by ruling my bill in order so I can submit further arguments in support of the proposition that I have advanced.
If I may refer directly to the bill, the present section 36E(b) of the National Housing Act confines loans made to municipalities to trunk sewage collector systems and to central treatment plants. The proposed amendment permits loans for trunk water mains and trunk storm sewage collectors.
Then, the bill becomes involved in the aspect of forgiveness. My proposed amendment raises the forgiveness provision from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the loan. Note that I am talking about forgiveness, Mr. Speaker, not about the spending of money. By the new subsection (3) the bill provides for 100 per cent forgiveness for works constructed during the winter months. The additional forgiveness is shared 25 per cent by the federal government and by the provincial government. The five month period may commence, at the option of the province, either on November 1 or December 1 to allow for regional seasonal employment; however, this option does not apply in 1974 since the assistance under the act expires in 1975 and a period commencing in December would extend past the expiry date of March 31, 1975.
I am very grateful for the indulgence that Your Honour and hon. members have exhibited, and I close by saying that the provisions of clause 3 of the bill are a negation of an appropriation. In this regard I hope Your Honour has followed my argument and will render a judgment in my favour.
National Housing Act


Mr. Ian Watson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, we all appreciate the initiative of the hon. member and the painstaking labour that I am sure he has expended in bringing forward his bill. It is a generous bill that has much to recommend it. I should have liked, in reply to this rather expansive enlargement of the discussion of the point of order, to go into detail on the newest federal initiatives taken in the area of sewage disposal systems which will have a beneficial effect on municipal pocketbooks, but I shall try to avoid that temptation.
However, I should like to mention that the new communities program, which is part of the measures that have been introduced into this House to amend the National Housing Act, and the neighbourhood improvement program, both include features that will allow for new forms of assistance from our level of government, in collaboration with the provinces, to be given to the municipalities by way of making available these extremely expensive services at the lowest possible cost to municipal taxpayers.
A number of discussions are now going on with the provinces and are contemplated to continue throughout 1973 in the area of sewage disposal systems and the means of financing such systems; and also, perhaps more importantly, it is contemplated during the year having discussions with the provinces in the whole area of public financing of services and how improvements can be made in this domain. This is a domain which over the years we have found-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: Order, please. While I allowed fairly extensive time to the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander), I should remind the hon. member that he should speak to the point of order. The Chair has not put the question as yet.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just as the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) did.


Ian Watson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to draw your attention to the two points relevant here. The first is Standing Order 62(1) which reads:
This House shall not adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address or bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue, or of any tax or impost, to any purpose that has not been first recommended to the House by a message from the Governor General in the session in which such vote, resolution, address or bill is proposed.
Clauses 1 and 2 clearly represent a charge upon the Crown and there has been no recommendation from the Governor General. The only person who could introduce such a bill in this House is a minister on recommendation from the Governor General.
Although I realize it is unnecessary to bring this to your attention, let me point out that Citation 249 at page 214 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, Fourth Edition, reads in part:
"No cases can be found of any private member in the Canadian Commons receiving the authority of the Crown, through a minister, to propose a motion involving the expenditure of public money. No principle is better understood than the constitutional

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National Housing Act
obligation that rests upon the executive government, of alone initiating measures imposing charges upon the public exchequer."
I know you have studied these points in detail but I thought it useful to bring them again to your attention.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: I have listened with great attention to the very interesting arguments put forward by hon. members in respect of Bill C-6. If hon. members will permit me, I should like to express my remarks in respect of the argument in French. [Translation]
When he spoke, the hon. member for Hamilton West referred to a procedure that has nothing to do with the point of order. His remarks were very interesting but I do not feel that I should comment on them at this time. Still, some of his remarks were pertinent, and I shall make it my duty to submit them to Mr. Speaker.
With regard to the point of order, I shall read a few explanations and my ruling will rest on citation 246 (1) of Beauchesne's 4th edition, after which I shall refer to another citation.
The bill introduced by the hon. member proposes amendments to Part VIII of the National Housing Act which deals with loans for the financing of municipal sewage treatment projects.
The act stipulates that loans can be granted to facilitate the construction or expansion of sewage treatment facilities. Under clause 1 of the bill introduced by the hon. member loans could be granted in order to facilitate the construction or expansion of water mains and storm sewers. However, in the existing legislation, there are provisions for forgiveness of 25 per cent of the loan and interest, under certain conditions. Clause 2 of the bill would increase the percentage of this forgiveness to 50 per cent and to 75 per cent in certain cases.
As the legislation now in effect sets a limit to disbursements out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund with regard to these loans, the bill under consideration would abolish this limit.
Finally, clause 3 of the bill introduced by the hon. member provides that the required expenditures will be provided through appropriation acts.
The Chair is of the opinion that such works would entail a disbursement of public moneys. Therefore, this bill is actually what might be called a money bill.
Clause 1 of the bill would extend availability of loans for a further purpose. Clause 2 would provide for an easing of terms and restrictions governing loans. As for clause 3, it provides appropriation of funds by Parliament for the purposes of the bill and eventual elimination of limits on disbursements out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, allowing for loans of unlimited amounts.
The hon. member is raising a specific point when suggesting that a private member's bill can provide easing by the government of conditions governing loans.
I submit that the subject matter of the hon. member's bill includes points because of which it could only be brought forward by a minister of the Crown, and accompanied by a recommendation from His Excellency.

I shall not refer to the arguments brought forward by the hon. member for Laprairie (Mr. Watson) referring to citation 249 from Beauchesne's and I shall confine myself to the Standing Orders.
Standing Order 6 2 (1) provides that:
This House shall not adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address or bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue, or of any tax or impost, to any purpose that has not been first recommended to the House by a message from the Governor General in the session in which such vote, resolution, address or bill is proposed.
As for the particular point on forgiveness of loans, I shall refer to citation 246 (1) of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, 4th Edition, which reads as follows:
(1) The recommendation of the Crown is needed for such measures as Bills relating ... to the repayment ... or compounding of sums due to the Crown-
I shall also quote citation 256 (1):
(1) A resolution, imposing on the Dominion Government the obligation to carry out a compact not fulfilled by the Government of the late Province of Canada whereunder settlers were to receive moneys derived from Crown lands, was ruled out because it did not originate in committee and was not recommended by the Governor-General.

Under those circumstances, it is difficult for the Chair to make the decision to allow the bill to proceed. Therefore, it is the ruling of the Chair that the bill cannot proceed.


John Mercer Reid: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think there might be consent to take Bill C-13 in the name of the hon. member for Burnaby-Richmond-Delta (Mr. Reynolds) during the remaining time.


Mr. Bell:: Mr. Speaker, on this point of order, let me say that the hon. member was ready to proceed with this important bill. However, at least half the private members' hour has been taken up with procedural matters, as well as with Your Honour's extensive and well researched decision. I hope there is agreement that we adjourn and not continue with the short time left of private members' hour. I hope this meets with everybody's approval.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: As hon. members have heard, there is a suggestion that we do not continue with private members' hour. I need the unanimous consent of the House to call it six o'clock. Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
At 5.35 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
February 6, 1973


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Andras that Bill C-124, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971 (No. 1), be read the third time and do pass.
Charles-Eugène Dionne: Mr. Speaker, when the House took recess, I was saying that we should not add another element which would result in creating a problem through some hesitation of issuing cheques for fear that the fund of the Commission be depleted. The unemployed have such a hard time getting paid nowadays that if ever some functionary-who decides to function from time to time-learned that there is no more money in the fund, we would be in great difficulty.
One must try to be serious especially after having adopted an act dealing with unemployment insurance which lacks flexibility and complicates the unemployed's life with administrative red tape which contributes in delaying payment of benefits. Futile discussions should not however delay the adoption of a bill tp grant cash advances to the commission and the payment of benefits to the unemployed.
Yesterday, a well qualified speaker, a parliamentarian who is much familiar with the Standing Orders and with procedure, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), after referring to various pension plans and to the possibilities of obtaining funds, stated as recorded in Hansard, and I quote:
The Canada Assistance Plan works much the same way. In that case, the federal government even underwrites what the provinces do.
As long as the provinces meet certain conditions laid down in the Canada Assistance Plan, they can pay supplements to their pensioners, get various programs under way in the social welfare field and collect 50 per cent of the cost from Ottawa. Nowhere is there any ceiling or provision that says they cannot get this when they exceed a certain amount of money. What is it that is wrong with unemployed people, in the minds of my friends to the right, that they must be pilloried in the way they are being pilloried in this House tonight and being told that they cannot get their money?
It is quite clear tough. What the government is asking for the time being is nothing outstanding, that is to advance monies to the fund. It is only a type of loan, something we are used to for we lend millions of dollars to almost every country of the world, and we would hesitate to advance money to Canada's unemployed! We find ourselves in a very uncomprehensible situation.
I understand that in the area of unemployment, it is sometimes difficult to establish everyone's responsibilities with accuracy; so many factors must be taken into account. However, no serious observer can help concluding that lack of money is the determining factor. The lack of money leads to unemployment. At the present time, we are faced with a shortage of funds to pay the unemployed!
Unemployment Insurance Act
Under the circumstances, I am very pleased to say that all my colleagues from the Social Credit are ready to support the bill and to hasten its passage so that the unemployed will never suffer as a result of the late payment of their allowances.
Unemployment which has reached an alarming extent is due to a restricted monetary flow-but let us not take any action to restrict it further-in various fields of economic activities, as a result of which the unconscious supporters of the present unbalanced financial system, who are often represented in Parliament by a Minister of Finance who juggles with figures, taxes and exorbitant debts and loans, are responsible for those conditions.
If one asks the unemployed what is the cause of his constant concern, he will answer: I am not drawing enough income to ensure my livelihood and that of my family.
He lives from day to day with his fear of tomorrow. There are still people who take the means to create still more concern. This illness is spreading at such a vertiginous pace that a provincial minister of labour has once stated that he could see the end of the present unemployment crisis, which could put Canadians in the not so fortunate prospect of a revolution. These remarks have been published and commented by the media.
During this period, we see, one after the other, the defenders of the system which has resulted in unemployment resorting to every available means to make thousands of unemployed believe that the government is doing all it can to assist them, by considering development programs, readjusting rates of benefits and, since this is the fashion, publishing white papers or papers of any other colour, as required.
But for the time being the question of unemployment insurance will come back for discussion in the House and we shall talk again of the legislation and its necessary amendments. Right now, we must hasten to pass this legislation which would guarantee to the unemployed the income they need.


Mr. Peter Reilly (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, it is a very serious matter that we are discussing tonight and I hesitate to do what I am about to do. We have had caucuses on this matter and I have discussed it with my colleagues. I know that I will not make myself terribly popular by what I am going to say, but I must disagree with some of the remarks of my colleague from Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) who spoke in this debate last night. I am sorry to have to disagree with those remarks and I hope, while he might be angry with me for a while, that our friendship which has been of relatively long standing will not be permanently upset by what I now propose to say.
He said, among other things, that the government's demeanour in the handling of this bill brings into question its competence and integrity. I cannot agree with that, Mr. Speaker. I cannot agree with it because it is impossible to call into question something that never existed in the first place. This is true of the demeanour of the government in almost every undertaking that we have been exposed to in this House and it has been particularly true of the demea-

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nour with which it has faced us and the Canadian people over this issue.
I came in here about two weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, fresh from conversations with my colleagues, convinced that I should vote against this bill. But then I confess to you, Sir, that I wavered; I was tempted. I listened to the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey). We all know him to be a compassionate man. We know him to be a very warm-hearted man with a deep, abiding and sincere concern for those less fortunate than himself. Beyond that, Mr. Speaker, he is a very persuasive speaker. As I sat here the old silver-tongued devil from Verdun took me up on the mountain top and showed me all that lay below. And I was tempted.
I said to my colleagues, "Having listened to the hon. member for Verdun, the man who was the responsible minister before he was turfed out by his colleagues for his humanitarianism, I cannot see my way clear to vote against the bill." They said, "Vote against it. It will go to committee and there you will get a chance to find out everything you need to know about it." So I did: hanging my head as I rose in my place, I voted against the bill. I felt badly at the time but I took the advice of those with more experience than I have, and the bill went to committee.
Then, Mr. Speaker, the whole sordid story was spread before us, the whole tatty tale of how this government deliberately deceived the people of this country about the true story of unemployment just before the election campaign. This was unemployment which they had created deliberately and for which they probably took credit at the time. It became clear to me then how they were trying to cover up a course of action which one of the most responsible men in this country, the Auditor General, has said is of dubious legality and is unique in parliamentary history as far as his research carries him. This is a uniqueness so striking that he has asked for separate legal opinion on whether the government's course of action was legal.
The former minister, the hon. member from Verdun-I wish he had been here about five minutes earlier when I honoured and eulogized him-


Mr. Roy (Timmins):: With knives in the back.


Peter Reilly: The hon. member talks about knives in the back. That is a marvellous thing to hear from a Liberal in reference to the hon. member for Verdun.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Peter Reilly: If I had hired as a straight man the hon. member who interjected, Mr. Speaker, I would sign the cheque right now because he has done the job for the week. But there is more to come.
I want to take hon. members back along memory lane to 1969, when this whole sorry mess began, and to bring them up to date on what has happened since. There has been an attempt by members of the government-the chief among them and the most eloquent, certainly, has been the hon. member for Verdun-to persuade people

that because we in this party have stood from the beginning against a course of action that is clearly illegal, clearly fraudulent, clearly evasive, we are somehow arrayed in all our power against the poor, the unfortunate and the helpless.
If anyone on that side of the House has any doubt about where we stand, or if any of my easily pleased, well-heeled friends at the other end of the House have any doubts about where we stand, let them bring in an appropriation now for the money we need, and we will pass it in all three stages tonight. They will not do that, of course, Mr. Speaker, because that would be admitting that they were wrong-they were wrong when they began, they were wrong throughout and they are wrong now. And to admit to being capable of error is something that the Liberals never do. I repeat, in case there were some hon. members like the straight man who may not have heard me the first time, bring in an appropriation and it will pass in all three stages.


Gerald William Baldwin: As long as they do not have computers to tell us how much.


Peter Reilly: I want to go back to 1969 when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) told reporters hovering around him with microphones and pencils and pads at the ready that he had discovered the enemy of our society, inflation, and that the old people, the poor people, the people on fixed incomes and on pensions and all the others he held dear-all those people were suffering and he proposed to do something about it. In the same year he was warned by the Economic Council of Canada that if he pursued the course which he announced he was going to pursue, two things were likely to happen. First, there would be higher unemployment than that which we were already experiencing-and that was not a happy state of affairs in 1969-and, second, that inflation likely would not be halted at all. Despite that, he pursued his course and said that he did not care that unemployment went as high as 6 per cent. He said that to newspapermen and on television, Mr. Speaker.
Upon reflection, I have to conclude that it is a good thing that the Prime Minister was not scared of the figure of 6 per cent. If he had been, he would have spent a good part of the next couple of years hiding in the cupboard or under the desk because we have had 6 per cent unemployment for most of that time.
We all know how much it concerned him when the hon. member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Lundrigan) persistently sought day after day to find out if this bankrupt government had any plans to cope with the unemployment which it had created. We know what the Prime Minister mouthed across the House of Commons at the hon. member. We know what he told a group of unemployed workers in front of this House, Mr. Speaker. I will not repeat the words. I can only say that Marie Antoinette extended roughly the same invitation to the disgruntled masses in her time. She was a little more eloquent than the Prime Minister, but the effect was the same.
Moving on to 1970 and 1971, unemployment did reach 6 per cent, then went higher. Half a million Canadians were out of work. But still this government forged ahead. We heard at that time that inflation was licked. I remember
February 6, 1973

that was around Christmas time. We all know how the prediction turned out. In 1971 the government had the answer to all these problems-the new Unemployment Insurance Act.
I remember well the pride with which the hon. member for Verdun introduced that plan. Wonders yet unheard of were to be enacted by the House of Commons to the benefit of the Canadian people. Pregnant women were to be able to collect unemployment insurance while they sat and gestated away-students, casual workers, professionals; all manner of people. There was even a time in the Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration when it was suggested that Members of Parliament should collect unemployment insurance when an ungrateful electorate turned them out. That committee report makes fascinating reading, Mr. Speaker; I would recommend it to hon. members opposite as vocational training.
The hon. member for Verdun told us that with up to 4 per cent unemployment the fund would be financed by contributions from workers and bosses, and after that the government would pay. He repeated that phrase this afternoon-"the government will pay". I should like to know at this stage what his concept of the government is, if you except certain ventures of which my friends to his far distant right would probably approve, such as the minting of special money for special events. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that it is the people's pocket we are talking about and that is what the hon. member for Verdun was talking about; but he would never put it that crudely.
It became obvious at that time, as contributions from bosses and workers would not flow in at precisely the same time as it was necessary to pay benefits which were badly needed because of the unemployment created by the government, that a provision would need to be made for an advance to the fund so that the commission could make payments to the unemployed even though the commission had not yet received all the contributions from the workers and the bosses. A provision along these lines was duly incorporated into the bill which went to committee.
About that time, we do not know precisely when, there was inserted by the conservative wing of the so-called Liberal party a provision saying that at no time could the advance from general revenues to this fund total more than $800 million. Some members of the committee examining the estimates were confused as to why that $800 million limit was necessary. Mr. Allen, director of economic policy analysis, said that the $800 million figure represented the upper limit of the advance. Presumably he was talking in terms of deficits. The hon. member for Hamilton West asked if Mr. Allen had used a 7 per cent unemployment rate, to which Mr. Allen replied yes, he had used 7 per cent and that in order to cover the worst possible case they had added another $100 million to the $700 million for good measure. So, that is the scientific way in which the technocrats opposite arrived at the $800 million ceiling of advances to the unemployment insurance fund.
Now we move to May, 1972. The Unemployment Insurance Commission became aware it was running into a 25714-65
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crisis. May I quote from the evidence taken before the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee on January 18 of this year. Mr. Cousineau, the Unemployment Insurance Commissioner, said that in April the commission paid out $109 million, and $84 million in May. So based on the information that was available at the end of May, because there is always a time lag of approximately one month, the officials of the commission were expecting substantial-


Mr. Blais:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Reilly) is quoting from a committee report. I thought it was a previous ruling of the Chair that no proceedings in a committee or reports of a committee were to be dealt with in this House until the committee's reports had been adopted.


An hon. Member:: You are totally wrong.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Stick to your back bench.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: Order. I must point out to the hon. member that the matter he just raised answers exactly his question. In fact, as the committee has already submitted its report to the House, automatically nothing prevents hon. members from talking about what went on in this committee.

Clearly, hon. members are capable of commenting on the proceedings of committees.


Peter Reilly: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At any rate, when the figures for the month of May were tabled there was an indication that the level of benefits would need to be reduced unless the amount in the fund was increased. So they knew away back in May of last year that they were running into trouble.
I quote further from the evidence taken before the committee. Mr. Cousineau said:
I reported to the commission on July 10, and, on the basis of the information that was supplied by my senior staff, I gave instructions for a review in its entirety of our financial operations. In mid-August, based on the first six months of operation, I came to the conclusion there was a possibility that we may be running out of money, in accordance with that ceiling. Our pessimistic estimate was early November but our optimistic estimate was some time towards the end of December.
There, again, we have it on record that the commission knew in the middle of August it would be out of money at the very latest by the end of December. Parliament was in session intermittently until September 1 at which time it was dissolved and the federal election called. You would have thought that the minister who knew while parliament was in session that the commission would be running out of money would have come to parliament and said, "The commission is running out of money. It needs more."


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member permit a question?


Peter Reilly: Certainly.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I know the hon. gentleman is quoting accurately from the committee hearings. I do not have a

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act
copy. Perhaps he would answer a question, since he has done some research. Did the head of the Unemployment Insurance Commission indicate to the committee when he notified me that he felt it was time for us to ask for warrants for more money? The hon. member omitted that, or perhaps ignored it unintentionally.


Peter Reilly: Mr. Speaker, I have not ignored it; I am coming to it. I think the hon. member will find it interesting if he listens. In any event, one would have thought that at such a time the House would have been informed of the facts. In committee, before which the head of the Unemployment Insurance Commission appeared to answer, I asked why the minister had not come to the House. He replied that he had not told the minister about the situation until the middle of September.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The Minister of Finance publishes a monthly statement.


Peter Reilly: I am not aware of the vicissitudes of daily ministerial life. I know ministers of this government are busy men and have a great deal to do. But would you not think that some time after July 10, when this man took over, or even prior to that, some official of the Unemployment Insurance Commission, perhaps over a late night Dixie-cup of coffee in the minister's office or over at the Rideau Club, might have said, "Hey, Bryce. You know that $800 million? Well, it's gone."


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Peter Reilly: "It's gone, and we need some more." I know that the problems facing gentlemen who operate on such an ethereal plane must be enormous. I know how difficult it must be to remember these little details. Only last week I was reminded by my secretary to pay the telephone bill-but, Mr. Speaker, it was $8, not $800 million. I suggest to you that someone was pretty lax in the performance of his duties.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Reilly: This House had every right to expect to be told, before it was dissolved on September 1 for a general election, that the $800 million advance fund would be dried up by the end of the year and recourse would need to be taken to other means of financing that fund. But the government did not do that. They waited around until parliament was conveniently out of the way and they avoided by that manoeuvre, at least temporarily, the bothersome and embarrassing chore of coming before the House, before hon. members and, thereby, before the people of this country and explaining how they had contrived to get rid of all this money that had been authorized.
They did not need to explain how they had allowed unemployment in this country to reach such incredible proportions that it was necessary to pay out that amount of money from the fund. They did not need to explain how the incompetence of their own forecasters had allowed them to run out of money six months ahead of time-to run out of all $800 million. That is an awful lot of money and they would have had to explain it away. They did not want to do that because guess what happened two months

after parliament dissolved on September 1. Two months after that came October 30, and we all know what happened on that day.
I can only assume that they had hoped-I would not impute rotten motives to the government or any individual in it-to avoid unnecessary and embarrassing questions on this score, and they nearly got away with it. They would have got away with it if my leader had not broken the sad news that the unemployment insurance fund was in difficulty. Then the minister from Verdun, as my colleague put it so colourfully early this evening, went to confession. He called a press conference and explained why on October 5 a governor general's warrant was issued in the amount of $234 million to help finance this fund.
A governor general's warrant, as hon. members may be aware, can only be issued when two conditions are present: first, parliament must not be in session; second, it must be a payment urgently required for the public good. Obviously, the first criterion was met. Parliament-the government saw to that-was conveniently out of the way. That little number had been settled. Now we were left with the urgency of the payment. Well, we had hundreds of thousands of people out of work who needed their benefits, so we have to concede that they needed the money pretty urgently.
However, what does this tell us about the people responsible for the plan and its administration in this government? It tells us that they knew in May or June that they would be broke before December. It tells us that they pretended everything was just fine while parliament was in session until September 1. It tells us they sat on a situation which grew more urgent every day until they were able to dissolve parliament and were free to obtain the money they needed through the back door, without having to confess that they were bankrupt, that their predictions had been wrong and that unemployment was still disastrously high, even in the middle of the summer when it is supposed to recede.
In any event, warrants for $234 million and $220 million were applied for and granted. They total $454 million. In order to deal with this situation the government could have called parliament into session after October 30. It had all of November and December to call us here in order to cope with the situation in which it found itself. It did not do that. It applied for a second governor general's warrant. Two weeks later the government brought us back here and introduced this bill, Bill C-124.
The Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras) told us plaintively that he cannot see why all the fuss is being made over a bill with two clauses in it. I remind him that you can declare war with one clause. They gave us this bill, this obscene mess, to cope with on January 4. We met in committee on January 30. We were then told we had until February 7 to pass this bill through committee, the House, the Senate and all stages it needed to go through or else we would be responsible for depriving the poor and the unemployed of their incomes.


An hon. Member:: Blackmail.
February 6, 1973


Peter Reilly: Blackmail is a very mild word to use for that kind of procedure. We were told that unless we suspended all our critical faculties, we would stand convicted of taking away money from the poor. The government was joined in this gibberish by their friends down the way. Now we hear how they are being treated by the Social Credit party.
Having created unemployment deliberately because they did not know of any other way to deal with inflation, the government stubbornly persisted in its wilful ways despite the best economic advice in the country. Having manifested all the concern and compassion we might expect from a beetle in the face of repeated demonstrations of suffering by the poor people of this country, they now attempt to blame us for their own foolishness. The lawyers in this House know the story, but the demeanour of the crowd across the way reminds me of nothing so much as that of the young man who, having committed double patricide, comes into court pleading for mercy because he is an orphan.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Reilly: We sought to maintain a limit on the amount that could be advanced from general revenues into this account. We sought to do that for very good reasons. First, there was one in the act. It was put in there at the behest of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) who did not trust his colleague the hon. member for Verdun. He thought he was too philanthropic, that he might give away all the money to the pregnant women and, therefore, had a $800 million ceiling put on by the Department of Finance.
I do not blame the hon. member for Verdun and the government for being caught with their nose in the jampot, but the ceiling was put in there, and apparently for good cause. The proof of that was given this afternoon by the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Thomas). This was during the miscellaneous estimates committee evidence on January 16 of this year when the President of the Treasury Board was asked why there was a limit on these advances. My colleague, the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen), stated:
There seems little purpose in having a ceiling at all in the act under those conditions.
The President of the Treasury Board replied as follows:
No, Mr. Chairman, I suggest there is a very good purpose in having a ceiling. This particular ceiling, I suggest, was put in in order that parliament would have an opportunity to examine the reasons for the circumstances surrounding any sums in excess of this, which is precisely what we are engaged in now.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Reilly: There he sits with his face averted. Well he might. He should turn his face to the wall. He should resign from the cabinet.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Reilly: I do not know what he thought we were talking about that morning, but he was obviously in profound conflict with his colleagues on the front benches. Maybe they should take a little recess in order to get their facts straight. Here we have the President of the Treasury
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Board, the man who next to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) is responsible for the regulation and being a watchdog of public expenditures, saying that the ceiling was a good thing. Why? So parliament can examine the facts if we go over the $800 million. It is a red flag. It is a check. We did not say it: we asked, and he told us. Why? We tried to find that out.
We operated under a massive handicap in that committee. First, the Minister of Manpower and Immigration was laid up with the common cold. In his place he sent the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang). There is a performer! I fear for the people of Canada if that man is going to be administering justice for the next little while. I really do. He has his back to me, as well he might. He came in there, danced around and tiptoed through the tulips. You never saw such a performance in your life. We could not get a straight answer out of him even if we tried to buy it.


Mr. Lang:: You would not know one if you saw it.


Peter Reilly: Now he speaks. That is the first simple, declarative sentence he has spoken in all the time I have known him. We tried for a variety of reasons but the chief among them was the reason given by the President of the Treasury Board. That was not on January 16, 1971; that was not on January 16, 1972; it was on January 16, 1973, just a few weeks ago, in the committee discussing the very thing we are discussing here. We tried to understand why the President of the Treasury Board was in such obvious and deep conflict with his colleagues. We could not determine why they wanted this clause to come out. The Minister of Justice said, while it had been thought at one time that a limit on these advances was desirable, more mature reflection had shown that it was no longer desirable.


George Harris Hees: I wrote that and rejected it ten years ago.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Peter Reilly: In any event, Mr. Speaker, mature reflection persuaded them that it should now come out. The phrase "mature reflection", as we have seen by the obvious delight it causes some members, has a fine ring to it. As the British would have it, it is all swank and no knickers because it really does not mean anything. It does not tell us anything of what we should know, which is precisely why the government wants the ceiling removed. They never told us. The President of the Treasury Board gave us good cause for keeping it but there has been no spokesman for the government to tell us why it should be removed. I have to confess that I am perplexed by that kind of performance. The minister responsible for the bill does not mean to favour us with a statement in its defence. We were supposed to sort of absorb his philosophy by some process of osmosis. This might work as far as my colleagues way down on the left are concerned; they are close enough. But it does not work over here. We do not understand. It does not tell us what we need to know. Perhaps the phrase "mature reflection" means "second thoughts after you have been caught out," or maybe if you set a watchdog to watch, it is almost certain you are going to catch somebody.

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act
The government tells us it cannot agree to any limit. At one stage another $100 million was suggested. Could they cope with that? What about a further $100 million? But they did not want to make any prediction. Why? Because they claimed they were not able to make any prediction. Yet, Mr. Speaker, in December when the Unemployment Insurance Commission, among other government agencies, was asked to forecast its requirements up to February 8-and it was precisely February 8 they were asked to forecast to, not some time early in February, or a few weeks hence, or whenever the government could persuade those bad hats in the Conservative party to vote the funds which were needed-they were able to do so. And with such claim to accuracy that the Minister of Immigration told us he was satisfied that their estimating was accurate to within an hour either way.
So evidently it is possible to forecast requirements. Here I renew my invitation to hon. gentlemen opposite. If they have a problem paying the unemployed whom they have put out of work on purpose, they should not try to hang it on us. All they have to do is to come here with an appropriation. They have proven they can forecast how much they need to within an hour on any given date. The hon. minister is waving his hands. I do that a lot. So, arriving at a figure should not be any problem for them. We, as I said earlier, speaking on behalf of all my hon. friends, will pass that appropriation right away.
I do not think there is any doubt that this bill will pass. I do not think anybody here seriously doubts that proposition. I shall not belabour the House with any more metaphysical talk about connubial relations between the Liberals and the NDP. I think that metaphor has been worked to death. I would not like to see any marriage really consummated because of the possibility that the offspring might be so hideous as to stagger the mind. The unemployed, there is no doubt, will get their money and I am as happy as anyone that they will do so. I think I have reasonably good credentials to come here and talk about this bill. I have been a labour union member and an organizer for unions. I have a great many friends in the labour movement and I have first-hand experience-


Mr. Olivier:: Oh, yeah?


Peter Reilly: Where did that sparkling bit of repartee come from? We are bubbling with wit in this House. I think we could probably spare some for the other place. As I was saying, there is no one on this side who is any more genuinely or sincerely concerned about the plight of the unemployed than I am.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Peter Reilly: I would expect that juvenility and cynicism from the back benches of the Liberal party. I have fairly good credentials, I think. But I intend to vote against this bill for the reason that it is a vehicle of shame, fraud, irresponsibility and incompetence on the part of the government and for the reason they have tried to blackmail me and others like me by this phoney concern of theirs about whether the unemployed will get their money. They are trying to shame us, though they created the mess.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Reilly: It was they, on their own initiative, who created the mess they are in right now. It was the Prime Minister who conceived that ill-begotten scheme and who persisted in it despite the best advice offered to him. It was they who fumbled and flapped and fooled around through three years of disaster. It was they who deliberately created unemployment. It was they who foisted on the people of Canada a bill of goods about an unemployment insurance plan which would take care of itself by reason of contributions from the workers and the bosses and a minimum contribution from the government, that faceless nonentity which just produces money from its pocket.
It was the Trudeau government which ignored the sufferings of the people and used fraud to bail itself out of an unconscionable situation. And it continues tonight to insist that it cannot live with a reasonable limitation which would assist parliament in the control of its profligate spending habits despite the fact that the senior financial official within its ranks said not two weeks ago that this kind of limitation was a highly desirable thing.
This is the record of the government. It is a record of incompetence, of fraud, of shame, of total lack of regard for the unfortunate people of this country. And they are stuck with it and they are welcome to it.


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to speak at great length tonight on Bill C-124 but I should like at least to make a few remarks that seem to me to be absolutely vital.
The government has introduced Bill C-124 to raise the ceiling that had been set by a previous bill to $800 million, to make up the deficit of the Unemployment Insurance Commission and pay unemployment insurance benefits after February 7.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Dionne) when he says that we are not here in this House to play politics or to use parliamentary procedures to run the fund dry and deprive the unemployed of Canada of their benefits.
Mr. Speaker, I think that it is the duty of hon. members-even though this government is directly responsible for failing to foresee the situation when it had all the necessary data to do so-notwithstanding any political consideration not to reject the consequences on the unemployed but to allow them to get what they are entitled to.
One must remember the basic principle that those who contributed to the unemployment insurance fund did so out of their pockets in accordance with the act and that when they are out of work the government, in return, must pay them benefits.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I would not like to pass this opportunity to say to the hon. Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras) that he is incompetent and irresponsible and that he is deliberately misleading the House. I know what I am talking about, having already met managers of provincial unemployment insurance offices and having discussed week after week with more
February 6, 1973

than 50 jobless who were complaining about not receiving the benefits they were entitled to.
And each time myself or my Social Credit colleagues raise this question in the House, the minister replies with a wide smile and does not say anything. I want him to know that it is not because he is a Liberal that I will support this bill but because the unemployed need money. I support this bill because we have no right to have the unemployed pay for the government's incompetence. But I also want the minister to know that the centralized payment system of the Unemployment Insurance Commission is absolutely inhuman, impersonal and inefficient. It has been obvious since it was put into operation that the system is not worth a penny.
We are about to pass this bill, to remove the ceiling and to increase without limit the Unemployment Insurance Commission's budget to cover unemployment benefit payments. But these benefits should reach the unemployed.
Mr. Speaker, I am disgusted-and I want to say it clearly-by the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Commission which acts like an ostrich, hiding its head in the sand and not paying benefits.
To speak in a "practical and concrete" way, I should give a specific example which occurs again and again in our province. Probably this happens elsewhere, but the Progressive Conservative members do not say a word about it; they say rather that the Liberals are not good; we were aware of this fact, but we should like them to mention as well the problems resulting from unemployment in their regions.
Mr. Speaker, if a worker becomes unemployed on November 1, and after two months has not received one cent in unemployment insurance benefit, is it because the fund is empty? No, it is not. At that time, it was not empty, according to the minister, if he is not lying to us. This means that the administration which deals with the payment of unemployment insurance benefits is unable to pay such benefits and therefore, it should be blamed by hon. members who are responsible before Parliament of the administration of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, it is a very good thing to vote legislation to enable the people to get better service in such or such an area, but sudh legislation must at least reach the people concerned. I should like to speak again of the head of a family who becomes unemployed on the November 1 and who, on January 1, has not received one cent yet.
The minister will find it funny; he is not even listening, for this is of no interest to him. But I say to him that the head of a family cannot afford to live on fresh air and he is not the one who should finance the Unemployment Insurance Fund. If the fund is empty and benefits cannot be paid or if the unemployed is not eligible to unemployment benefits, let at least someone tell him.
If my colleagues from the Liberal party, as well as those from the other parties, are honest they know that these unemployed ask their member of Parliament what is happening in their case. They tell him they are not receiving benefits even though they have contributed over twenty times and have completed all the cards. They say they receive their cards every week. Other people do not receive any card at all. Sometimes they are sent a heap of
Unemployment Insurance Act
correspondence, sometimes nothing at all and, at the end of two months, these same unemployed that we tried to help with extraordinary legislation, the Unemployment Insurance Act, have not received one cent yet. That is when the member of Parliament must get into the picture. This problem is so serious that the former minister and the current minister have established administrative sections in each regional office to help hon. members. This indicates that the numerous cases submitted to hon. members do exist.
Therefore, I wish to draw the minister's attention to that problem. Tonight, or tomorrow, we shall vote on this legislation aimed at raising the ceiling on the advances in order to replenish the unemployment insurance fund. However, I wish to point out to the minister that if I were sure that the unemployment insurance benefits will not be paid faster once we have passed this legislation, I would definitely vote against this bill in order to disable the Unemployment Insurance Commission and make it unworkable.
Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to vote all the credits possible to allow the Unemployment Insurance Commission to operate but on condition that the benefits really reach the persons actually unemployed.
The situation is very serious. In fact, official statistics show that in Quebec, among other places, the unemployment rate may exceed 10 per cent. I realize that the Unemployment Insurance Commission cannot check unemployment, but it can at least alleviate the hardship suffered by the unemployed. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I consider that the process put in place by the minister and his predecessor in order to decentralize the payment of the benefits is outdated and inefficient, and should indeed be modified. Actually, the local offices should be set up again in order that the benefits might be paid to the recipient from hand to hand to make sure that he gets them regularly, as it should be.
Mr. Speaker, unemployment insurance is like private insurance, health insurance or any other type of insurance. The person who pays a premium expects that the indemnity will be paid to him right away if he is entitled to it.
Unemployment insurance is a public insurance intended to provide the worker with some revenue when he loses his job. Consequently, for unemployment insurance to prove really valuable, its benefits should be paid while the beneficiary is unemployed and not when he has resumed work.
I have in mind at least ten cases where benefits were paid when the beneficiary had resumed work after two or three months of unemployment, which is revolting.
When we get in touch with the regional authorities, we usually get an answer because the officials are devoted. The problem is not there but solely in the impersonal, ineffective and stupid Montreal office and headquarters in all other provinces where everything is computerized. And even if a benefit has been authorized by the director of a regional office that payment will be made only two or three weeks later, unless they make a special payment, as it is called in administrative parlance.

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act
What will happen if you make a "special" or "advance" payment? The card of the recipient will be pulled out and if he ever becomes unemployed again, there will be a problem because it takes at least two months to get the card back into the machine.
That is the information I was given by regional chairmen, and those in charge at the Montreal office, Mr. Speaker; and no one has ever contradicted them. I deplore, the fact that the minister misled the House and continues to do so. Before we past this bill I would very much like the minister to give us a formal guarantee that the benefits will be paid to those who are entitled to them, that the Unemployment Insurance Commission will become personalized, that the offices will be decentralized. For instance, Montreal serves the entire province of Quebec. Steps must be taken so that the unemployed in Victoriaville, Arthabaska or anywhere else in the province will receive their benefits.
Mr. Speaker, those were the few remarks I wanted to make. I made them sincerely, frankly. I want to say this to the minister: time has come for him to pull his hands out of his pockets, to assume his ministerial responsibilities and to see to it that the Unemployment Insurance Commission reaches in fact the people it claims it wants to serve.
Until the contrary is proved, I shall say that the UIC does not achieve its objectives that it is made up of both competent and incompetent people, but that one thing is sure: the overall administration of the UIC is inadequate and does not really achieve its goals.
This is why, Mr. Speaker, it will all be very nice to vote this evening or tomorrow to remove the ceiling and replenish the unemployment insurance fund. This demonstrates once more the failure of the government to stop unemployment. It will all be very nice to pass this legislation but if we vote millions of dollars to pay for benefits that will not be paid out in time, I say that this will have been a waste of time and the minister has misled us and is mocking this House.
I should also like to tell the Conservatives, while I'm in that vein, that I find their attitude concerning this bill absolutely inconceivable and irresponsible. They want to play politics on the government's back, but actually they are playing politics on the backs of the unemployed, because if they kill this bill, this will mean that the claimants will not receive their cheque because the fund will have run out.
Even if there are problems with the Unemployment Insurance Commission, let them rise, as I am rising, let them put pressure on the minister to make him stand up to his responsibilities, which he has not done to this day, in order at least that the benefits meet their purpose. Then we may think about changing the government, but let us not play politics on the backs of unemployed people who are utterly destitute.
I ask the Conservatives to show more decency than the Liberals do. Last year, the Liberals, seeing that the benefits were not being paid out, had the nerve to make an agreement with the government of the province of Quebec in order for the claimants to be granted loans by the

welfare administration until the unemployment insurance cheques were sent out.
Mr. Speaker, this situation is absolutely revolting. The minister did not bother with solving the problem of paying unemployment insurance benefits. He was more interested in reaching an agreement with Quebec whereby the unemployed would depend on welfare allowances that had to be repaid.
Mr. Speaker, I say that this is grossly indecent on the part of the Liberals and I cannot see how the Progressive Conservative members can protect this system by killing the bill and making once again the unemployed foot the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I urge both old parties not only to pay the unemployed what is due to them but also to change either the act or the minister.


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on third reading of the bill. I would have much preferred to have spoken on the amendment which has been ruled out of order as I think the significant part of this bill is the amendment to do away with the $800 million statutory limitation placed on the fund by the government in 1971. It should be noted that it was not the opposition which set the statutory limit, but the government itself. It was obviously done because the government, through the then minister, now the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey), made a solemnly declared statement before the committee that the actuarial figures were bona fide and that the government was quite sure the $800 million ceiling would not be exceeded as there was no way their calculations could be out that much. Even when it was suggested that the studies indicated some doubt about the figures of the Unemployment Insurance Commission officials, the suggestion was dismissed; yet it has been shown that the figures presented to the committee were in fact considerably closer to the final outcome than the government's own figures.
The hon. member for Verdun gave a list of reasons the statutory limit could be released or eased and indicated how the Unemployment Insurance Commission could be checked in a number of ways, but an example was given to show that these were not likely to be very effective.
We are only debating this bill tonight because the $800 million ceiling was put in to look after eventualities. The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Drury) suggested it was put in for a good purpose. There has been some intimation that unless this bill is passed, unemployment insurance recipients will not be able to receive their money. This seems to be a red herring because we know the government can make other arrangements, if necessary, to have the unemployment insurance fund balanced.
No one wants unemployment insurance recipients to go without the money allocated to them under the plan, but it speaks poorly of the government's planning if after six months with parliament not in session, from August to the end of December, it suddenly appears necessary to put through substantial changes to unemployment insurance legislation with little or no scrutiny by the House. I sug-
February 6, 1973

gest that the removal of the ceiling of $800 million opens the way for a large charge on the consolidated revenue fund with little or no scrutiny by parliament for months or even years after the fact.
I suggest the $800 million ceiling was put in by the Department of Finance because it did not trust the estimates of the Unemployment Insurance Commission and wanted some sort of control and discussion in respect of expenditures when they exceeded the statutory limit. It is obvious that when expenditures get above the $800 million ceiling which, after all, represents about 5 per cent of the total federal budget, this is cause for at least discussion and survey at the national level.
It seems certain that the overrun of the unemployment insurance fund in the year 1973 will probably be as great or greater than that of 1972. There are substantial amounts of variables in the plan that may inherently increase the amount of money that will be necessary from the federal treasury. It would seem to me that the government should be more than willing to have the statutory ceiling remain, even if it were increased, because obviously with this Unemployment Insurance Act we are dealing with a plan which will be hard to estimate and in which the administration can make variations of up to hundreds of millions of dollars for which the federal treasury or the employer-employee fund will be liable.
It is interesting to note that in a document headed "Fact and Figures, September, 1970" presented by the government to the committee studying the Unemployment Insurance Act, the estimated contributions were very much on target but the pay-out was entirely off. At a 6.5 per cent rate of unemployment in 1972 the forecast of benefits was $875 million, with the sickness portion being another $142 million, making a total of $1,017 million. At that approximate rate of unemployment in 1972 we find that the actual cost was $1,900 million, with the charge on the government being in the neighbourhood of $800 million, when in fact the forecast was for $369 million at a 6.5 per cent rate of unemployment.
There was obviously a shortfall in contributions from the employer-employee segment which amounted to nearly $400 million. It is indeed fortunate there were $239 million held over from the previous year to be applied to the employer-employee account. In other words, in 1972 there was actually a shortfall in the employer-employee account of nearly $400 million if it was to be brought up to the same position at the start of 1973 as it was at the beginning of 1972.
Mr. Speaker, the employer-employee contributions have been increased to bring in $100 million this year, making it in the neighbourhood of $800 million. But based on the experience of 1972, well over $1 billion would be necessary in the employer-employee account to take care of the charges on the fund for the 4 per cent for which the employer-employee fund is responsible. This means that in 1973 there will have to be advances out of the consolidated revenue fund, if our experience is the same as in 1972, in order to meet this employer-employee share.
I do not quarrel with this, but I would like to point out that the Unemployment Insurance Commission can run a
Unemployment Insurance Act
deficit for many years with the consolidated revenue fund which the federal treasury would carry for a long time. I do not see why the Unemployment Insurance Commission would have to set its rates so that the contributions reflect the 4 per cent rate on which they are presumed to set the tariffs for the employers and employees.
Specifically in this act, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) has the authority to set the rates and conditions of both the repayment of principal and interest on the advances. In other words, the Unemployment Insurance Commission could be in debt to the consolidated revenue fund for years. When the unemployment rate is above 4 per cent and the consolidated revenue fund is responsible for the cost above 4 per cent, it makes little difference whether or not the unemployment insurance fund is in deficit with the government. When the consolidated revenue fund is in deficit for a long time for the part of the benefit costs that are 4 per cent and below, this becomes a matter of concern to parliament. At times there may be good reasons for the insurance fund being in deficit, but I believe that the country should be informed about it through parliament.
The imposition of a statutory limit is one method whereby parliament could have a check on the expenditures of the Unemployment Insurance Commission, because in 1972 the commission was obviously responsible for considerably more than 50 per cent of the total pay-out under the plan. There are other factors under this act, apart from the responsibility for the employer-employee share, which require close supervision of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. In the white paper entitled "Unemployment in the '70's" on which this bill is based, the following statement is made:
Benefits will be higher, more related to earnings and granted more on the basis of need than length of time in the work force.
Surely this implies that the old act was based on the principle of granting social assistance in times of need. The philosophy on which the act was based, of assessment on the basis of need rather than of insurance, implies that there are many open-ended commitments in the act which might result in a substantial increase of the cost without any basic changes having to be made to the structure of the act. Some of these come to mind. For instance, the inclusion of 96 per cent of the labour force has meant the inclusion of many people who were not normally unemployed.
It is my experience that this new group, consisting of teachers, nurses and professional people, has not yet learned how to use the act to its advantage. These people are making contributions so they will take advantage of the act in the same way as anyone else, similar to those who take advantage of the income tax regulations. This is obvious to every member of the House of Commons who finds that the Unemployment Insurance Commission is becoming more autocratic and bureaucratic in its decisions. The decision of the commission to attempt to cut the flow of funds certainly seems, at times at least, to be unfair to the individual and one-sided.
The Unemployment Insurance Act contains regulations which can be widely interpreted and this could result in a substantial drain on the fund while still being within the framework of the act. Any particular leniency in the

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act application of the act or any restrictive interpretation of the regulations could vary the pay-out by hundreds of millions of dollars.
An automatic increase is built into the act in that we can expect the weekly wage rate to rise rapidly, and benefits are tied to this rise. According to the testimony presented to the committee on miscellaneous estimates, there was a rise of 10 per cent in the average weekly wage rate over that which was anticipated when the plan was set up. There was an increase from 13 to 17 weeks in the time during which unemployed recipients can receive benefits. This may have been due to the high unemployment rate and the consequent difficulty in obtaining a job, the failure of recipients to obtain work sooner, or other reasons. The whole thing seems quite obscure.
The decision whether to increase benefits from around 45 per cent of the weekly pay to 66 2/3 per cent of the weekly pay, and whether this should be a factor in increasing the length of time when a recipient who is off work will receive benefits is yet to be made. After all, there are many jobs in our cold country that are unpleasant and this factor will have to be taken into account.
Then there is the rise in the number of those leaving their jobs, from 5.1 per cent in 1970-the last year under the old plan-to 12.5 per cent now, which amounts to almost two and a half times the number of unemployed at a time of high unemployment. It would seem that people should not voluntarily leave their jobs at a time when the high rate of unemployment decreases the possibility of their getting another job. Then again, as has been pointed out by those studying the situation, after eight weeks of employment a minimum of 18 weeks of unemployment benefit is provided. The minimum, depending on the rate of national and regional unemployment, can be extended to 44 weeks as compared to the maximum duration of 51 weeks for any claimant.
In other words, the old act which tended to apply to those with a firm attachment to the labour force has been extended by the addition of people with minimum attachment to the labour force who are either on welfare or use the minimum attachment for their own ends, such as work on special projects and so on. The new Unemployment Insurance Act does not differentiate sufficiently between the worker with a long attachment to the labour force and the person who is either a welfare recipient with short working periods or, on the other end of the scale, the person who works for his own enjoyment or for a specific purpose.
The present Unemployment Insurance Act has a great many variables. The statutory ceiling provided a means for parliament to check expenditures in an obvious and discernible manner. I might point out that it is interesting that figures presented before the miscellaneous estimates committee showed, as the hon. member for Verdun pointed out last might, that the number of people receiving benefits in 1970 and 1972 was approximately the same, that is, in the neighbourhood of two million. If at this time of high unemployment there are many people who should be receiving benefits but are not, presumably this means that the act is not functioning in their interest and in such case it would be well for us to look into it.

I suggest that there is no justification for removing the ceiling after only one year's experience. If at some time in the future the plan shows stability and the charges to the federal treasury are kept in line with the economy of the country, then it might be time to consider the removal of the ceiling. We have to include, as well, the charges to the employer-employee segment because, after all, with 96 per cent of the working people included in the plan this virtually requires that everyone be taxed.
I have attempted to point out that the present Unemployment Insurance Act by its very nature contains many open-ended regulations. Time and time again the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang) suggested in the committee that it contained so many variables that it was almost impossible to estimate the cost of the plan for 1973. It seems to me that parliament should err on the side of caution and that the ceiling should not be removed. We hope that the ceiling will not be surpassed, bearing in mind, however, that everyone would want the recipients to receive their just benefits under the act. I hope that the government will reconsider the removal of the ceiling at this time.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member would permit me to ask him a question. I did not wish to interrupt his train of thought. He raised a very interesting point, that in 1972 the number of claimants was approximately the same as in 1970, even though in 1972 we had over seven million people covered by the act as opposed to four million in 1970. Am I correct that he is suggesting that people are being denied their benefits?


William Gordon Ritchie: No. I do suggest that with a 4.5 per cent rate of unemployment in 1970 and 6.5 per cent now, with the same number of applicants, then presumably if there is more unemployment in our work force there should be more people applying. So if they are not applying, or are not receiving benefits when they do apply, it is because they are ineligible. In other words, there is a large number of people who are unemployed whom this act does not help.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I thank the hon. member, because he raised an interesting point about which I wanted to argue. How does he reconcile the fact that there are approximately the same number of claimants now as in 1970?


William Gordon Ritchie: I am familiar enough with the workings of the old act, but I suggest that there is still a substantial group of people unemployed who are not covered by this act.


Mr. J. R. Ellis (Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, the main question with respect to the bill before us is the removal of the $800 million limit that was imposed on the government, by itself, to keep the Unemployment Insurance Commission in money. Some hon. members will recall that when I made my maiden speech in this House there were two things with which I found fault. One was the Unemployment Insurance Commission. At that time I cited a number of things. I made a special point of pointing out that this was not due, as some people suspected, to the inadequate work of some employees in the department. It so happens that in my riding there is a large section of this
February 6, 1973

department. The people there work industriously and do a great deal of overtime in order to get the cheques out on time. I pointed out that the problem was the responsibility of the government and, in my opinion, of the senior staff of the government. I mentioned the chairman, and the minister saw fit to call me to task for belabouring senior civil servants in this chamber.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, where else could I possibly bring to the attention of the people in my riding in particular, and of the country as a whole, the inadequacy of the government and of its senior employees in administering the Unemployment Insurance Act? At that point in time I made no mention of the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey) because he had been, shall I say, drummed out of his position in the cabinet. I am not in a position to know what happened, but in some way, shape or form he is no longer there and is no longer responsible. However, he has made a number of points in this House that I think should receive some attention.
I do not have copies of the proceedings of the committee with me, even though I participated in many of the meetings, nor do I have copies of Hansard to quote from, so you will have to take what I am about to say as being very, very close to the exact words of the hon. member for Verdun. I remember him accusing the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) of being a reactionary. Mr. Speaker, if Lincoln Alexander is a reactionary I am very proud to stand behind him as another reactionary, particularly in this matter. The hon. member for Verdun said that the $800 million was nothing more than a method by which the government lends money to the Unemployment Insurance Commission. Good gracious, what do we do with $800 million if it is nothing more than a method by which you lend money?
Shortly thereafter he said the $800 million was obviously inadequate. Well, Mr. Speaker, we have seen that it is inadequate. I think it has been quite well demonstrated this evening that the government knew it was inadequate long before the session last August. If the government did not know that, the senior civil servants knew it was inadequate and it was their responsibility to tell the government, as my colleague said earlier, perhaps over a paper-cup of coffee, but certainly the message should have got across.
I charged in my maiden speech that the extra ten cents contribution placed on employers and employees would not be enough to cover the deficit. I am intrigued to hear the hon. member for Verdun now say that the amount left over would be balanced to the nearest five cents or ten cents. Many of the employers who are paying contributions are small employers. They employ very few people. In fact, many of them really do not make as much as some of the people they employ. But they will have to pay that extra nickel or dime. I suggest that that is another method of taxation, and an unfair one to boot.
I was further intrigued by the rationale of the hon. member for Verdun when he said that the paying out of something like $2 billion could be equated to a reduction in taxes and in fact was reducing regional disparity. Perhaps it was balancing the money across the country, but once again it is the taxpayers, the 93 per cent who are employed, who are paying the shot. I suggest that they
1029
Unemployment Insurance Act
might well like a better way of having control over how the money is going out.
At the committee hearings I asked several questions and I have fairly good recall as to the dollar figures that were mentioned. When I questioned the cost of administration I was told that in 1970 the cost of administration had been proposed at about $59 million, and in fact had gone over by maybe 10 per cent and was about $65 million. I was told that the cost of administration in the calendar year 1971 had been proposed at about $70 million, and in actual fact had gone about 20 per cent over to $86 million. Perhaps those figures are not too unreasonable. But then I was told that in 1972, when the estimate had been $71 million, it had in fact gone to about $120 million. I was given the impression that really a million more or less does not really matter, but to someone coming from the county of Hastings in east-central Ontario I can assure you that $1 million more or less makes quite a difference.
The difference, though if it is $120 million, is $49 million-a difference of 70 per cent. In my maiden speech in the House I predicted that we would find that indeed we were over by something like 70 per cent. The Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras) said I should leave personalities out of it when, in my maiden speech, I said that I would not wait to be fired if I had overspent by $50 million; I would quit. If I do not go after the chairman of the commission this evening-and I may-then I think it equally appropriate that he who would allow such extravagant expenditures should in all conscience give up his position.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Raymond Ellis: If this was not an error, Mr. Speaker, and I think it was not, I strongly suspect that this $50 million was tossed into the kitty just to cover up some of the complaints we were getting that they were holding off an election. That $50 million was spent in putting people into jobs with the Unemployment Insurance Commission that they no longer hold. That $50 million was spent in trying to get some of these answers, to get some cheques out and to get people off their backs so that they could get on with an election. They knew the consequences of going into an election with that around their necks, and had to get out of it.
In the miscellaneous estimates committee I asked the chairman of the commission if he would break down the first half and the second half of the year. First of all he estimated a 50-70 break, but then he thought that the first half of the year was not any higher than the last half. I would have thought that the first half of the year might have been higher, but he might have misunderstood the answer I was looking for, in all fairness. In the first half of the year they were pouring money in, trying to stave off the consequences in view of the coming election.
There was a question of whether the number of unemployed was roughly the same in 1970 as in 1972. It is my recollection from statistics quoted earlier in the day that there were only 50,000 more unemployed in 1972 than in 1970. That is not a great increase, but if it is so, then where

February 6, 1973
Unemployment Insurance Act did we spend the extra $50 million? Did we actually spend $100 a head on each of those persons, for administration? I do not think we could possibly do that. I do not see how we had that extra expense of administration and suddenly found ourselves running out of money when we had an $800 million limit.
We in this party have been accused of being against the poor and against the unemployed. In the chief city in my riding the level of unemployment is a little below that of the rest of Canada. The United Empire Loyalists are very hard working people and work when many others do not. I have no hesitation in saying that this party of which I am proud to be a member is not in any way against the poor or the unemployed.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Raymond Ellis: We are fully cognizant of the problems of the unemployed and we think steps should be taken to find jobs for them, not unemployment insurance benefits. I am not going to deal with the legality of that question as other members on this side of the House have gone into it.
Mr. Speaker, I close with the thought that a tremendous hoax has been perpetrated upon us by this government in trying to get rid of a legal, logical limit that was self-imposed in the first place and now is being taken out to save embarrassment.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: May I ask the hon. member a question, Mr. Speaker? In light of the honest way in which the hon. gentleman quoted me without text-and I compliment him because he was fairly accurate-did he state that I suggested that the whole deficit of $189 million would be picked up at the cost of a dime per person over a one-year period? Is that what he suggested?


John Raymond Ellis: Mr. Speaker, I think at twenty minutes to ten in the evening we have debated this question sufficiently. The hon. member is quite capable of remembering what I said, which was that the figures given as to increases are not adequate and we will be faced with further increases which will have to be borne by the employers and employees in this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, as I am under the impression that I will be one of the last to comment on this bill, I believe it is my duty to say a few words.
In my constituency, as, in fact, in all other constituencies, the number of unemployed greatly exceeds an amount we could call reasonable even though unemployment must be considered as a disease per se and should not exist in Canada.
I have listened to a few speeches with more attention and I realize that the government greatly exceeded last year's forecasts.
In my opinion, removing the ceiling is a sure way for the government of not having to give explanations to the House if it did exceed the set ceiling.
In fact it is quite logical to retain a ceiling as any administration must be very closely watched and I think

that an administration which exceeds anticipated credits must come before Parliament to answer for its actions.
Even if the bill under study were not passed, this would in no way prevent the beneficiaries from getting their benefits, because if funds were lacking, measures should have been taken in September to remedy the problem.
In my opinion, a ceiling in itself is not so bad, on the contrary, and I think that the government should explain to the House, if it had to exceed the ceiling, even though the one presently suggested by the Progressive Conservative party is quite higher than the previous limit.
I would like also, like the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Fortin), on behalf of the unemployed in my constituency, to urge the minister to study a very important problem which is related to the services of the Unemployment Insurance Commission that should be improved in order to insure to the recipients that they will receive on time the benefits they are entitled to.
I think that in my constituency, as in all others, there is a serious problem about the Unemployment Insurance Commission services. In fact, there has been a lack of regional offices because of too much decentralization. I wonder whether efforts will be made in order to ensure better services so that recipients will receive their money on time. It has been said many times that these people have paid their contributions, as did those who never had to apply for benefits. I think it is important for the minister to consider improving this system by hiring additional personnel for the various offices and reverting to the previous administration which enabled the recipients to receive their benefits on time.
Many question have been put to the minister who always answered by saying that he would consider complaints made by hon. members on behalf of hundreds of unemplyed in my constituency and on behalf of thousands of others across Canada. I think that the importance of improving those services can never be stressed enough to the minister, in order that the unemployed can receive their unemployment insurance benefits instead of having to turn to social welfar payments as it happened again a few months ago.
I think that the problem is very serious and that, being aware of the situation, the minister should do more so that the unemployed can receive their benefits.
Mr. Speaker, I should not like to deprive the House of the opportunity to vote tonight, but since the unemployed are not happy with the present administration of the plan, it would be desirable for the government to provide explanations when the ceiling set is exceeded. That seems quite fair to me, because the ceiling set last year was substantially exceeded. However, I believe that logically we must keep a ceiling, not only to make the government aware that it is being supervised, but so that it may be forced to give the House its reasons for exceeding the ceiling. That is the only way for Parliament to obtain the required information.
Mr. Speaker, I shall close these remarks by inviting the minister to greater diligence in carrying out his task and
February 6, 1973

asking the government to improve the services that the recipients are entitled to expect.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: Call in the members.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the third time and passed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House will now proceed with the adjournment proceedings. The hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom).


Mr. Nystrom:: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Is the hon. parliamentary secretary rising on a point of order?


John Mercer Reid: Mr. Speaker, I think in view of the lateness of the hour there might be a disposition to forgo the pleasures of the "late show."


Mr. Speaker:: Of course, we are in the hands of the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville who has already been given the floor. I am not sure that hon. members would want to forgo the pleasure of hearing the hon. member.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, because of the tremendous excitement in the House may we forgo this question until Thursday night?


Mr. Speaker:: Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
At 10.31 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Wednesday, February 7, 1973