1974-03-19

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Duncan M. Beattie (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 43 to seek the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Having regard to the fact that the frequency of aircraft hijackings perpetrated by the use of violence has increased dramatically over the last few months, resulting in an alarming danger to human lives and loss of property, compounded by the fact that the apprehension of the person or persons responsible for aircraft hijackings invariably leads to another hijacking for the purpose of freeing such persons, such facts having the result that the various courts of the jurisdictions where the hijackings occur have been unable to deal effectively with the persons responsible for such hijackings, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Burnaby-Richmond-Delta (Mr. Reynolds):
That this House recommend that our government take the initiative in sponsoring a resolution in the United Nations that would provide for the establishment of a tribunal under that organization which would have exclusive jurisdiction to obtain custody of, try and sentence all persons apprehended as the result of an airline hijacking.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's motion is proposed under the terms of Standing Order 43 and requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


TRANSPORT
Mr. Mark Rose (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the tragic deaths of two more men last weekend as the result of a rail accident in the Fraser Canyon, and in view of the fact that the case against both national railways, in their criminal failure to meet adequate safety and track maintenance standards, is well documented and studied but action is long overdue, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow):
That this House calls upon the government to implement immediately the recommendations contained in the third report of the rail safety inquiry of the Canadian Transport Commission.


Mr. Speaker:: This motion proposed for the consideration of the House under Standing Order 43 requires unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: The motion cannot be put.


TRAINING FOR OLYMPIC GAMES-REQUEST FOR UNANIMOUS CONSENT TO MOVE MOTION
Mr. H. T. Herbert (Vaudreuil):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I request the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion on a matter of urgency in that the United States, Russia and other countries already have such a program fully operational. I move:
That this House request the Minister of National Defence to give immediate consideration to redirecting the armed forces recruiting program to encourage young athletes to join the armed forces for full-time training for the Olympics to be held in Canada in 1976.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's motion requires unanimous consent. Is there unanimity?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


INDUSTRY
Mr. Reg Stackhouse (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to put a motion under the terms of Standing Order 43.
In view of the rapid price escalation in the construction industry, the price of materials often rising over 15 per cent in the period between a tender being submitted and

March 19, 1974
Student Loans
work being started, and in view of the Prime Minister's assurance that the government is attempting to stabilize prices in individual industries, I ask leave of the House to move, seconded by the hon. member for Edmonton-Strath-cona (Mr. Roche):
That the government be urged to give priority to taking measures to stabilize prices in the construction industry.


Mr. Speaker:: Again, this motion is proposed to the House under the terms of Standing Order 43. The Chair will inquire whether there is unanimous consent so that the motion can be put and debated this afternoon. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent. The motion cannot be put, considered and debated this afternoon.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Elias Nesdoly (Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, under the terms of Standing Order 43 I rise on a matter of utmost urgency arising from the confusion now existing across Canada in bur cattle marketing. This confusion has been brought about as a result of the government bungling the subsidy program to date.


An hon. Member:: You are part of the government.


Elias (Eli) Nesdoly: Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Knight):
That this House calls on the government of Canada to pay a subsidy directly to producers of cattle marketed for slaughter purposes and grading A or B, and that the government should give serious consideration to setting a floor price on beef related to the cost of production.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


CANADA STUDENT LOANS ACT
[Stage Direction]
On the order: Introduction of Bills:
March 14, 1974-Mr. Reynolds-Bill intituled: "An Act to amend the Canada Student Loans Act."
Mr. Speaker:: I indicated to the hon. member yesterday that the Chair had some reservation about the procedural aspect of the bill. The hon. member indicated also that at some propitious moment he might give his views on the procedural question of whether the bill should be put to the House. I gather that the hon. member is prepared to submit argument now for consideration by the Chair in due course.


Mr. John Reynolds (Burnaby-Richmond-Delta):: Mr. Speaker, the idea of this bill is to allow people who are now legitimately unable to attend school on a full-time basis to attend part time. In no way did I mean that the government should spend more money. Certainly they spend enough now.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Douglas Reynolds: The bill does not say anything about spending money. The bill clearly wants the government to allow people to apply for student loans if they wish to go to school part time. The government could leave its budget at the same amount as it is now but allow these people to apply to participate in the program.


Mr. Speaker:: The argument of the hon. member is interesting and perhaps somewhat imaginative. I want to be fair to him. Perhaps I might look at the matter further. When there is the slightest doubt the Chair should give the hon. member the benefit of the doubt so that the bill can at least be put on the order paper. Before making a decision I might have a second look at the matter in light of the argument submitted by the hon. member for Burnaby-Richmond-Delta.


MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S.O. 26   AGRICULTURE SUBSIDY TO BEEF PRODUCERS
Mr. A. P. Gleave (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave, seconded by the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters), to move the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 26 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely, the confusion now existing across Canada in livestock and cattle markets as a result of the subsidy program for beef cattle announced by the government, which has created a situation of extreme uncertainty for cattle producers and makes it urgent that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) outline in detail to the House the method of payment of the subsidy to the producer so that the effect of this program on the consumer and the producer can be fully discussed and reviewed by this parliament.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar has given the required notice and I have had an opportunity to give serious consideration to the hon. member's proposal that the business scheduled for today be set aside
March 19, 1974

for the purpose of considering the subject matter of his proposed motion.
As hon. members know, there appears on today's order paper notice of a motion in the name of the hon. member for Champlain which would come up for consideration this afternoon under the terms of Standing Order 58. The hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar is proposing that his own motion be given priority over the supply proceedings proposed under Standing Order 58. The Chair has serious reservations about this suggested course of action.
I would be very reluctant, except perhaps in the most extreme circumstances and when there is no early opportunity for debate, to agree that an emergency debate under Standing Order 26 take precedence over a motion proposed for consideration under Standing Order 58. In this instance, the Chair must take into account that not only this day but also Thursday and Friday of this week and Monday and Tuesday of next week have been designated as supply days. In the circumstances, I must conclude that the motion of which the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar has given notice should not be put at this time.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Bert Hargrave (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the continued chaos and confusion in cattle markets all across Canada as a result of the seven cent subsidy announcement last Friday, and in view of a $4 to $5 drop in market prices since this announcement, leading to a loss in inventory value of an estimated half a billion dollars to Canada's 13 million head cattle industry, in spite of the minister's operational procedures issued last night, will the minister now indicate what steps the government intends to pursue to restore some confidence and stability to the Canadian cattle industry?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, it may be coincidental but there is a downward trend in the United States cattle market and that has affected the cattle market here.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
Mb. Whelan: To say that this is not the proper time to put this program into force or to say whether it is really going to work-it is much too early to say it has caused all this confusion that some members are trying to indicate.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Eugene Whelan: Come on! As far as I am concerned, they are the ones who are adding confusion by some of the statements they are making.
Oral Questions


Herbert Thomas (Bert) Hargrave: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the uncertainty that still exists in cattle markets, especially the Toronto market, in spite of the instructions in point No. 2 of his special procedural announcement last night, is the minister aware that on this morning's market in Toronto the procedure being followed does not include the seven cent subsidy in the bid or market price established by the trade?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I am informed that, while there are a few nonconformists in the Toronto market, the majority of the major buyers are purchasing on bid prices plus the seven cents. Bidding is continuing as normal but accountants add seven cents per pound to the producer.


SUBSIDY TO BEEF PRODUCERS-REIMBURSEMENT OF PROCESSORS FOR AMOUNTS PAID
Mr. Dan Hollands (Pembina):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Agriculture. As the regulations released yesterday regarding the beef subsidy say nothing of when the processor will be reimbursed out of the fund for payments made, will the minister inform the House and the country when he is going to make an announcement?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, the processor knows very well that he will be reimbursed for the amount he pays to the producer. He will have to prove that he actually paid that amount to the producer. Our accountants will be checking his books. They will be checking vouchers with the people who sold the cattle. There will be no way that they can be compensated by the government without proving definitely that they paid the producer that amount for the product, which would include the government premium.


Daniel Fulton Hollands: Who is going to pay the interest on this amount of money? Will the processors be reimbursed before six months have passed?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, these payments will be made within one week from the time of delivery. They are going to be made that quickly.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


SUBSIDY TO BEEF PRODUCERS-REQUEST FOR DIRECT PRICE SUPPORT PROGRAM-DURATION OF SUBSIDY
[Stage Direction]
Mir. A. P. Gleave (Saskatoon-Biggar): Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question of the minister. As the declines in the market that have taken place since the minister's announcement last week have wiped out over half the seven cent subsidy per pound which the minister offered producers, is the minister prepared to look at a direct price support program which will assure to the producer the money which the taxpayer of Canada is going to put up under the program the minister is advocating?
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[Stage Direction]
March 19, 1974
Oral Questions
Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I said yesterday that we are watching this very closely and if this program is not doing what we want it to do we will have to change it.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: As we run a real risk of heavy runs on the market because of the very program the minister is putting into effect, which will further depress prices, will the minister include some dates in this program and at least tell farmers that it will continue into June or July so that there will not be an emptying of feedlots and, following that, a real rise in prices?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, we stated when we
announced this program that it will be continued until the whole beef market levels out to where we think it should be in order to give the producer a proper amount for the beef he is placing on the market. We intend to continue the program or a program that will do just that.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps the Chair shall see the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar and the hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley on supplementaries and then try to go to the next subject.


Alfred Pullen Gleave: Since price is the key to this program and the price to the producer is surely the key to the government's objective, will the minister tell us what price objective he is aiming for? What is the level of the price objective he mentioned a moment ago?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I thought I made it fairly clear when we talked about what the return ought to be to the producer. We realize that prices so far today are not giving enough return to the producer to keep him in business. That is why we are as concerned as he and all other members. If there happens to be some kind of collusion between the packing firms that are buying the cattle, I can certainly ask my colleague, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Eugene Whelan: -to have their purchasing practices investigate under the Combines Investigation Act. As far as I am concerned, it is much too early in the program even to suggest I do that at this time, unless hon. members have advice otherwise.


Mr. Speaker:: In addition to the hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley, there are others seeking supplementaries, including the hon. member for Wellington and the hon. member for Middlesex. Perhaps we might allow the hon. member for Richmond to ask his question and then return to the hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley.


BEEF SUBSIDY-APPLICATION OF PROGRAM
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Agriculture. Can he advise the House which of the A-l and A-2 cattle categories, once the program concerning A-3 and A-4 cattle is terminated, will benefit from the seven cent subsidy?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, all cattle used for human consumption in Canada are inspected. There should be no difficulty in determining the grades of cattle being sold in Canada for human consumption.


Léonel Beaudoin: The minister got my question all wrong, Mr. Speaker.
I am talking about cattle sold at public auctions where nobody knows where they come from and who the producers are. When the program concerning A-3 and A-4 cattle is terminated, can he say which of the A-l and A-2 cattle categories will benefit from the subsidy?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, the market shows the real value of cattle. It has always showed the real value. Any person trying to sell is certainly aware of what that market is that day. That is the way cattle have been sold. We do not intend to change that unless something drastic happens in the market that is different from what has been shown in past operations.


AMOUNT OF SUBSIDY TO BEEF PRODUCERS
Mr. Norval Horner (Battleford-Kindersley):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the Minister of Agriculture. Perhaps he can clear up some of the confusion he has created. There is no confusion in the minds of the packers. They are buying meat at five cents less than before the minister made the announcement. In his statement released yesterday the minister said that the subsidy on cattle retroactive to March 4 would be seven cents. On a radio program one hour ago someone from his department said it would not be done by grade but that they would average it at five cents. Perhaps the minister can clear that up. Will it be five cents average on all cattle sold or seven cents on A-l and A-2?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, the whole idea of making it retroactive to March 4 is to compensate those people who delivered Canadian cattle when they were able to put them on the market. The over-all compensation will be seven cents for A-l and A-2. Compensation will be paid on A-3 and A-4, and on all cattle it will average out to about five cents a pound.


REQUEST FOR FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO TURKEY PRODUCERS
Mr. Marcel Roy (Laval):: I wish to direct a supplementary to the Minister of Agriculture.
In view of the fact that when Bill C-176 concerning farm product marketing came before us, hon. members of the opposition and the leaders of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association opposed any federal government intervention into the marketing-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member kindly ask his question?
March 19, 1974



I will then recognize the hon. member for Wellington. Hon. members will appreciate that after all these minutes we are still on the first subject, the very first question. After the hon. member for Wellington I will see the hon. member for York South on the second question.


Marcel-Claude Roy: Mr. Speaker, because the Canadian Cattlemen's Association was opposed to government intervention in the marketing of beef, and considering increased costs to turkeys producers as a result of the higher cost of grains in the Prairies, might the Minister of Agriculture consider the possibility of intervening with turkey producers with a view to bringing prices back in line with production costs?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, the turkey producers of Canada are organized under a national marketing agency and it is much easier to assist them through an organization of that type. We have met with them and we are discussing the request they have made. To be really honest, this is one of the problems we are running into in the beef program. There is no real organization, so beef is marketed in every way one can imagine.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It seems to me we have strayed from beef to turkeys. We might get back to beef for a last supplementary, after which the Chair will recognize the hon. member for York South.


SUBSIDY TO BEEF PRODUCERS-CHECKING BY AUDITORS TO PREVENT IMPROPER PAYMENTS
Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the extreme difficulty of administering the beef subsidy and in view of the fact that speculators could conceivably get two subsidy payments, has the minister alerted the audit services and Auditor General to be on the lookout for the discrepancies that are bound to occur?


Eugene Whelan: We are
well aware that what the hon. member has suggested could possibly happen. If we can devise regulations to cover such situations we shall do so, though we think such cases are not likely to be frequent. We are aware of what might happen. I am sure the same person called me as called the hon. member to point this out.


HOUSING
Mr. David Lewis (York South):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question on another subject for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs arising out of a proposal by Centennial Properties Limited in Halifax to build apartment housing known as the Quinpool Road project. Even though this
Oral Questions
question refers to a specific project in a particular city, it has general national application. In view of the fact that the rental price to be charged is about $340 a month on the average, and in view of the fact that this particular corporation was severely criticized in the Charney report in connection with its previous work, may I ask the minister whether he has looked into the matter? I did give his office notice about this question yesterday. May I also ask him whether Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation will give the necessary loan guarantees which this not very desirable firm is seeking?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: I appreciate the hon. member having given me notice of the question. Apparently the project has been given a building permit by the city of Halifax and the issuance thereof has been supported by the province of British Columbia.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Stanley Ronald Basford: That just shows that British Columbia is constantly on my mind.
The information in the possession of CMHC with regard to the application made to it is in such a preliminary form at the moment that the corporation is not able to form any view about a recommendation to me on the matter, but I will give the hon. member further information when it is available from our Halifax office.


David Lewis: I would be very happy if it were only British Columbia which was on the minister's mind. I sometimes think it is the Rocky Mountains, which would be much more serious. In view of the fact that considerable objection to this project has been raised by citizens and that some people are trying to create a co-operative housing organization for the purpose of building the same number of dwelling units as is proposed by Centennial Properties Limited, may I ask the minister whether he will look into this application seriously and inquire into this attempt by citizens to form a co-operative housing association for this purpose? I make this request particularly in view of the hon. gentleman's statement to the Canadian Labour Congress about his desire to see co-operative development-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please!


Stanley Ronald Basford: I do not see the two applications as being competing applications at all. If there is a group in Halifax-I must admit I have not yet heard of it-wishing to organize a co-operative housing group, it will have the full benefit of the National Housing Act and of the budget that supports the co-operative housing program. We are anxious to approve all applications, not just some of them.


David Lewis: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair will recognize the hon. member for York South but I seek the co-operation of hon. members in limiting the number of supplementaries so that we may move on a little faster between now and the end of the question period.


David Lewis: I do want to put this supplementary to the minister. It arises out of information I have that the
648

March 19, 1974
Oral Questions
co-operative organization being formed is seeking to build on precisely the same terrain as Centennial Properties Limited. In view of this, may I ask the minister whether he will assist the co-operative instead of this not very reputable corporation?


Stanley Ronald Basford: I will obtain further information on the matter. I have no information regarding the co-operative group. The group which the hon. member suggests should not receive any money would receive a normal mortgage and would not receive any particular grant or subsidy. I will examine the co-operative application to see whether they should get an application of subsidy or grant.


MANPOWER
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration, but in view of his absence I shall address it to his parliamentary secretary.
Seeing there is a shortage of qualified agricultural labour, which problem is of great concern to the farmers, can the minister or his secretary tell the House whether the details of the student employment program have been finalized and whether application forms will soon be available at the manpower centres?


Mr. Mark MacGuigan (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: This program is in the process of being fully developed.


POSSIBILITY OF FARMERS HAULING WHEAT BY TRUCK TO UNITED STATES
Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the minister in charge of the Wheat Board. Is the Wheat Board considering giving farmers the right to haul wheat by truck to the United States, particularly to the Minneapolis market, to take advantage of current high prices since it now seems certain that large amounts of wheat will not be delivered this year due to transportation difficulties?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: In the ordinary course the Canadian Wheat Board itself would take advantage of any export opportunities and would share those opportunities among producers through the quota system.


FINANCE
Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance based on a recent statement by the minister indicating that he felt corporate profits in certain industries had reached a point at which they were so healthy that it was not necessary for business to pass on to the consumer every increase in costs. Would the minister indicate the studies upon which this claim was based, and tell us what particular industries he had in mind?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I reached that conclusion just from a review of the general profit picture which is available to every hon. member of this House through the statistics that are published regularly.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: In view of the difficulties that firms in the construction industry are having regarding the escalation of costs between the time of tendering and the time of fulfilling contracts, would the minister indicate whether the construction industry is an industry in which he thinks the profits are so healthy that businesses can absorb increases in costs?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, that is a matter of judgment upon which we may or may not act.


FISHERIES
Mr. Walter C. Carter (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries. Is the minister aware of the fact that helicopters carrying American tourists are landing in the middle of seal herds, thereby causing panic among the herds and danger to the landsmen hunting the seals? If not, would he ask his colleague the Solicitor General to direct the RCMP to investigate this matter and to take the necessary action, since this contravenes a section of the Fisheries Act?


Hon. Jack Davis (Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, allegations to that effect have been made and we are making investigations.


Walter C. Carter: In view of the fact that the regulations imposed on the seal fishery by the minister were passed largely on the recommendation made to him and the government by one Brian Davies, the person now responsible for breaking the law, and in view of the fact the regulations have had a very serious effect on the economy in certain parts of eastern Canada, would the minister now undertake to have these regulations rescinded, thereby restoring the sealing industry to eastern Canada?

Oral Questions TRANSPORT


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the regulations have been developed over a period of years by very competent people, not including Brian Davies. Brian Davies has been warned. He was warned before that helicopters cannot land within half a mile of a herd. If in fact his helicopters have been landing within half a mile, appropriate action will be taken.


FORESTRY
Mr. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment. Is the government going to continue to share with the province of New Brunswick the cost of spraying New Brunswick's forests to control and eradicate insects, particularly the spruce budworm, during the spring and summer of 1974?


John (Jack) Davis: Yes, Mr. Speaker, but only under a limited budget.


STATISTICS CANADA
Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, my question relates to the matter of the confidentiality of income tax mailing lists which I raised in the House yesterday. Again my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In view of the fact Statistics Canada has now announced that it has discontinued the sale of these lists, even though we have evidence that the lists are still being used, and as the minister responsible for the policies of Statistics Canada implied yesterday that he is not in favour of these lists being used for this purpose, my question is twofold: first, when is the government going to change the legislation and, second, what is the minister doing to stop immediately these lists continuing to be used for this purpose?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, we may introduce some amendments to the Statistics Act during the course of this session. As for the second question, I do not think there is any action that I can take, even if I wanted to take action, to prevent those who have purchased these lists quite legally and in good faith from Statistics Canada using them for commercial business purposes.


ACTION TO IMPLEMENT TRANSPORT COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PREVENTION OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS
Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. In light of last weekend's tragic rail deaths in British Columbia, and in light of the report issued in January by the Canadian Transport Commission criticizing CNR and CPR rail safety practices which have resulted in tripling the number of derailments between 1959 and 1972 and calling upon the government to institute rail safety measures, can the minister inform the House what action he intends to take to implement the CTC recommendations and prevent the increase in rail accidents which is predicted by the commission in the absence of government action?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I very much regret this accident. As hon. members know, there was a derailment at Spences Bridge, if my memory serves me well, and two men were killed. Although this was a place where there had not been slides before, it happened that time. We are trying to take care of this situation and we are now pursuing studies with the CTC in order to improve the record.


Mr. Speaker:: I recognize the hon. member for Fraser Valley West on a supplementary, followed by the Leader of the Opposition.


Mark Willson Rose: Since the report accurately predicted deaths would occur unless safety improved, can the minister inform the House whether he has established a deadline for completion of his department's study of this report, and when will he announce to the House the measures that his department will take to implement the CTC's recommendations?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated to the House, and I believe somebody also suggested this previously, that I should like to go a little further and have someone not involved in the Department of Transport empowered to inquire into this kind of accident so we can ensure that all precautions are taken. I cannot establish a time limit, but we are trying to do this as fast as we can.


OIL EXPORT TAX-COMMUNICATION TO PROVINCES OF LEGAL OPINION THAT THEIR SHARE NOT SUBJECT TO EQUALIZATION
Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance who stated in the House yesterday that he has received a legal opinion that the provincial share of receipts from the oil export tax are not subject to equalization. May I ask the minister whether he has communicated this legal opinion and the position of the federal government to the provinces, and whether any province has disputed that position?

March 19, 1974
Oral Questions


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday, during the meeting that I had with the provincial treasurers and ministers of finance I took the position that there was no equalization payable as a result of division of the export tax. I have not communicated that opinion to my colleagues at the provincial level. That opinion, as other legal opinions, I take to be privileged to the federal government.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Has the minister communicated on behalf of the government of Canada in a formal way, or at least in a definite way, to the provinces that the provincial share of receipts from the oil export tax will not be subject to equalization as far as the federal government is concerned?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I took the position that under the present law and regulations it was not so chargeable.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for taking the time of the House, but may I ask the minister whether he has communicated this to the provinces, and has he received any protest from any provinces?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, it was the subject of virtually one day's discussion at the ministerial level by the ministers of finance at the end of January, and some of the provinces, of course, were not particularly entranced with my stand.


MANPOWER
Mr. Jean-Marie Boisvert (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, the minister being absent, I should like to put a supplementary to the question addressed to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
The parliamentary secretary has just said that the program for agricultural labour is under study. As this is March 19, will the minister pass his tests fast enough for the farmers to benefit from the program this summer?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Mr. Speaker, the government is very conscious of the urgency of this question and it is being speedily implemented.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and is related to the question I posed to him on Wednesday with reference to the reduction in

the work force of approximately 1,000 employees at General Instrument Corporation of Sydney by some 300 employees. Since that time there has been another lay-off of 80 employees. The minister said that he would have his officials contact the principals of this corporation to ascertain what might be done. Is the minister in a position to give a further report to the House?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report that my officials have been in contact with the company, but I am not in a position to state further what particular measures might be taken.


Robert Muir: May I ask the minister whether, during the discussions with the superiors or great leaders of this company, he would ascertain if the reason for their moving out of Sydney due to lack of demand for automobile radio tuners is a legitimate one, or is the reason because they want to go to countries like Mexico, Portugal or Taiwan where they pay starvation wages? Would the minister assure us that he will bring a report back?


Alastair William Gillespie: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to go into that further. I might say at this time the advice I have received is that the reason for the lay-offs is the reduction in sales of automobiles in the United States. That has been the primary reason for the shortfall in sales this year.


FINANCE
Mr. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Can the minister tell the House if the purpose of his most recent budget of 13 months ago, which removed the sales tax on near-food products such as chocolate bars, is succeeding in benefiting Canadians both in the form of lower prices and more value for their money in light of the fact that the largest confectionery manufacturer in Canada will increase the price of chocolate bars and it is anticipated that related manufacturers will also follow this action?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, a survey taken by a monitoring system for my colleague the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs showed that in the period of five or six months after the sales tax was taken off those commodities there was a beneficial result. It may well have retarded an increase in price. Any increase in price may have reflected an increase in cost. As a matter of fact, it might well have kept the size of chocolate bars the way it is.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is also to the Minister of Finance. The budget speech said that the price would be lower. It is now higher. Has the minister any additional steps in mind in respect of action to prevent consumers having to face yet another price increase?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Calgary North.
March 19, 1974


OIL PIPELINE EXTENSION TO MONTREAL-INQUIRY AS TO APPROVAL BY BOARD AND LETTING OF CONTRACT
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources whether the National Energy Board has approved the Montreal pipeline and whether the contract at this time is now let in light of the fact that there now seems to be an easing of the pressure with regard to security of supply of crude petroleum and other energy?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the board has not yet given approval for the pipeline.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Is the application before the board and has the government ensured that the pipeline will be built so that we will have a security of supply and not have the panic we had this winter?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I spoke to the chairman about this matter this morning. He is anticipating an application at a very early date.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Defence. Can he tell the House whether a decision has been taken not to replace the Centurion tank?


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, no decision has been taken. The service life of the Centurion tank has been extended to 1976.


FISHERIES
[Stage Direction]
QUEBEC-DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL FISHING IN GASP* AND MAGDALEN ISLANDS
Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Fisheries.
Can the minister tell the House whether he has received a letter from the Quebec Minister of Industry and Commerce informing him that the development of commercial fishing is compromised in the Gaspe peninsula and the Magdalen Islands as a result of cuts in the 1974-75 budget for building fishing harbours?


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have received such a letter. The budget has in fact been increased. I should like to remind the hon. member that fishing in Quebec is delegated to the province.
Oral Questions


Alexandre Cyr: Mr. Speaker-


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


Alexandre Cyr: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Maybe the minister did not understand my question. He says that the fishing industry comes under the jurisdiction of Quebec, which is true, but building harbours for small boats comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
I therefore ask the minister whether he intends sending an encouraging reply to the province of Quebec and the fishermen saying that the commitments contained in the Canada-Quebec agreement will be met by the federal government?


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, the Canada-Quebec agreement is a matter for DREE.


STEPS TO LOWER WATER LEVEL OF LAKES ONTARIO AND ERIE TO PREVENT POSSIBLE DAMAGE
Mr. Kenneth J. Higson (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. With the water level of Lakes Ontario and Erie continuing at a dangerously high level, with a resulting threat to lake-shore property owners, is the minister satisfied that the International Joint Commission and other appropriate authorities are taking all necessary and possible steps to lower the water level of Lakes Ontario and Erie so as to reduce potential property damage and threat to human life to an absolute minimum?


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope so. Our staff is working full time with the IJ C in this connection.



FINANCE


Mr. Doug Rowland (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Justice and relates to what has been referred to in the House as loan sharking operations, technically discounting of government cheques. About 18 months ago the government of Canada took one of these operators to court. Can the minister inform the House what has been the disposition of that case?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is referring to the case recently decided by the Alberta Court of Appeal in which this particular kind of operation was held not to be a loan within the

March 19, 1974
Oral Questions
definition of the act, that is the result. Of course, following that result the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, who shares with me great concern in this matter, is looking at what steps we ought to take.


Douglas Charles Rowland: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Minister of Finance. I am not sure whether it should be directed to the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. It relates to the Small Loans Act. Is the government contemplating amendments to the Small Loans Act which would bring within its ambit this kind of transaction which is essentially a lending operation?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, this is being examined.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Douglas Roche (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. How does the government intend to respond to UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim's charge that Canada is among those developed nations engaged in a brain drain of developing countries by which we promote the migration of physicians, engineers and scientists from the countries most in need of these educated leaders?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I would deny it.


Mr. Crouse:: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. member would allow the hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona to pursue his supplementary. We are almost at the end of the question period. The hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona.


Douglas Roche: Having in mind that this charge was carried in the New York Times Sunday edition, I should like to ask if the government intends to relax its now stringent regulations, recently announced, insisting that prospective immigrants have jobs before entering Canada, thereby tying immigration to manpower in precisely the way criticized by the UN Secretary General.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I want to make it quite clear I was not denying the fact that the statement had been made. I was denying the allegation.



ACTION TO GET UNITED STATES TO OBSERVE ICNAF FISHING REGULATIONS

Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of the difficulties that have occurred between Canada and the United States over the implementation of the International Commission for xhe

North Atlantic Fishery regulations, has the minister taken any steps to bring order out of the chaos that exists in fishing laws, especially as they apply between Canada and the United States and, if so, what action has he taken?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I would deny there is any chaos in the relations between Canada and the United States in respect of fishing. My colleague, the Minister of Fisheries, has done an admirable job in protecting the interests of Canada and I expect he will continue to do so.



CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION


Mr. Donald Maclnnis (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Based on the delay by the minister of law in providing me with an answer in that he has not told me anything, and I assume he knows nothing, I would ask the Prime Minister if he would investigate why the Cape Breton Development Corporation has used documents in the courts which have no legal status?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: I will investigate, Mr. Speaker, whether the hon. member is bringing up any new allegation. I think he has talked about this as long as I have been around and I think the Minister of Justice and other ministers have replied to him. I will look into it to see if the allegation has any new facts to present.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, would the Prime Minister talk to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion when he returns to the House and ask the minister what is the legal status of the agreement signed by the federal and provincial governments on June 13, 1967? From there he will get his answer and he will know very well that Devco has been using documents that do not have legal status. Will he then refer this to the minister of law, not the Minister of Justice who does not know the meaning of the word?



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of the Environment. Has the government done any environmental studies of the impact on Manitoba of the proposed Garrison dam project, and if the government has done independent studies on its own, will he at this time tell the House what is the outcome of these studies?
March 19, 1974


John (Jack) Davis: Mr. Speaker, some background work has been done. We are convinced that the effects will be unfavourable. More work is under way.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Lisgar will be recognized for a supplementary. We have reached the end of the question period. Following the hon. member for Lisgar I will recognize the hon. member for York West and then the hon. member for Okanagan Boundary.


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, I have just a short supplementary for the minister. If the federal government is convinced that the effects of the proposed dam which is being constructed at present will be unfavourable to Manitoba, has this fact been communicated to the United States and has the International Joint Commission been brought into this matter? Also, has the Manitoba government been informed because they seem to feel that the proposed project will not harm the province?


John (Jack) Davis: The answer to all three questions is yes, Mr. Speaker.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Jim Fleming (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. In view of the current taxi crisis at the Toronto International Airport whereby unlicensed cabs are operating at outrageously high prices and pandemonium prevails, can the minister report whether any action has been taken by the cabinet or himself?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, as you know, we can regulate the taxis at the airport very well but we cannot do so outside the area of the airport. The only solution to the problem is to have an understanding with the city of Toronto-and this is what we are working on now-so as to cover the whole field.



INCOME TAX


Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In view of the announcement last Friday that the British Columbia government has implemented rent control on residential property because of the shortage of rental units and the resulting increases in rents, will the minister consider, as a means of increasing the supply of rental units, restoring the incentives to investors in rental housing which were formerly provided in the Income Tax Act?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, that is a subject worth considering, and I suppose also that within the jurisdiction of the province of British
Oral Questions
Columbia more emphasis could be put on incentives to the private sector as well.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day. The hon. member for Middlesex rises on a question of privilege.


Mr. Frank:: Mr. Speaker, I hate to delay the House with this point of privilege and I hope it is a point of privilege, but I take very strong exception to the Minister of Agriculture blaming the opposition for the confusion that exists in the cattle industry in the country as a whole. The Minister of Agriculture announced a program in the House on Friday, without guidelines being laid down, and then came in on the next working day, which was Monday, again without setting any guidelines, and tried to say that it is we who are creating the confusion in the industry.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the hon. member appreciates that he is now making a point of debate. This is not a question of privilege, and I do not see how we can have a debate on a question of privilege based on the statement which the hon. member for Middlesex has just made. It seems to me that he is arguing with the minister. He may be right or he may be wrong, but I suggest to him that this is hardly a question of privilege.


William Charles Frank: I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. The point I would like to make is that I am sure you cannot realize the importance of the situation which exists and which this government has brought about in the country. Yesterday during the question period we had three small questions regarding the industry. If the minister thinks that the people are not concerned about the matter I would like him to get in touch with his colleague in Ontario. He is concerned and he is in the gallery today.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: Why is he not at work at Queen's Park?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the hon. member will agree that this is not a question of privilege and the matter should not be pursued.


Mr. Dinsdale:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order regarding a matter which was brought up during the question period today. The point I wish to raise is an urgent one because the Garrison dam project is threatening domestic water supplies from the Souris River and it is only appropriate at this time to point out to the Minister of the Environment that the IJC is the responsible agency-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member has made his point to the minister on a point of order. May I suggest again that every day we have alleged points of order and questions of privilege which do not comply with our rules, and when hon. members make such points, raise such questions and argue with ministers it is not very good for the orderly conduct of the affairs of the House. [Translation]
The hon. member will excuse me but I think he wishes to rise on a point of order or privilege.

March 19, 1974
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Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege concerning the statement made a few moments ago in this House by the hon. member for Laval (Mr. Roy) that the opposition had objected to Bill C-176, the agricultural products marketing legislation. I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that when this bill was introduced in this House the Social Credit Party did not object to it. We asked for some amendments so as to include only beef.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain) moved:: That this House regrets that the government has taken no concrete steps to ensure the establishment of a guaranteed minimum annual income to overcome poverty in Canada and enable each Canadian citizen to cope with problems of rising prices and to fight inflation efficiently.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the gist of our motion is of such importance that I feel the government should consider it very attentively, so as to fill in the gaps which exist at the present time.
Mr. Speaker, hon. members of this party have been ridiculed over the years for advocating the establishment of a guaranteed minimum annual income system which, our adversaries claimed, would be equivalent to "throwing good money away" and inciting people to idleness. Over the past few years, however, all political parties have more or less looked into this idea of a vital minimum income. It is therefore important to conceive such a program and to examine the true fundamental principles which may bring us the best in this area.
The motion which I had the honour to move, Mr. Speaker, aims at blaming the government in a concrete way, for we all remember that it had been proposed in the Speech from the Throne for 1972-it was then a glimmer of hope for us-to have at least an embryonic program of a guaranteed minimum annual income.
Unfortunately, it seems that the government is not yet ready to go ahead with such a program, which explains our motion. Mr. Speaker, we are in favour of a program which, contrary to those administered by the provinces, would replace a ramshackle, unfair, frustrating and expensive system. We are proposing an adequate and fair system which would respect individual freedom.
Mr. Speaker, the welfare programs now in operation in all the provinces, the old age security pensions, the unemployment insurance program, all those programs concerned more or less with welfare are inadequate because they are no longer realistic, and we have to keep improving them all the time. They are unfair because some people need a much higher income than what they are receiving in welfare, for instance, but they are not getting it. Others

who do not need allowances are getting them. Under the old age security system, there is a glaring discrimination against couples when one of the spouses is younger or older. It is a case of flagrant injustice when one of the spouses is 65 and the other 60 or 55. They are told to be content with one income, namely $180 a month, including the supplement.
If both spouses are 65, they get an amount of $350, as if, Mr. Speaker, the cost of living for two people aged between 60 and 65 was lower than for two people who are 65. This is unfair. Under our present welfare programs, there is a great deal of injustice. It is a defective program.
Therefore, we are proposing a real program that would prompt people to be even more energetic, more active, that would urge them to work instead of rushing for unemployment insurance as they are doing at present. And this is understandable. Faced with such dilemmas and when the alternative is to work at 30 below in the middle of winter for $90 a week, I understand that someone will hesitate and move heaven and earth to get unemployment insurance instead.
When families earn a very low income in wages while welfare recipients get as much, it is understandable that the head of family who works and earns very low wages longs to live on welfare.
Mr. Speaker, it is our present system that makes people take such an attitude. In my opinion, this is a very serious matter and I intend to prove that our party has been advocating this program for a very long time and wishes to bring it back to its true proportions.
Nowadays, there is much talk about guaranteed annual income. Many economists have endorsed the principle of guaranteed income. All federal political parties have considered at their conventions the implementation of such a policy. Many countries, and even a Canadian province, are now trying out these programs.
The Senate Special Committee on Poverty, chaired by Senator Croll, recommended this policy as the most efficient way of dealing with the problem of poverty in Canada during the seventies. Many people, including the most influential members of the present government, have not agreed yet to implement this guaranteed annual income program.
But, Mr. Speaker, nobody now is making fun of the idea of establishing such a program, that could be set up today and this I believe is a great step we have taken.
According to many books published recently on the various guaranteed income plans, it is said that such a concept has become popular only since 1966. However, we must point out that the Social Crediters called for such an income distribution program many decades ago.
The Social Credit proposals as to the best guaranteed annual income program are still much more advanced than most systems, the objective of which is to provide for a sufficient and vital income for all, so as to guarantee them a decent living.
Quoting the words of Social Credit founder Major C. H. Douglas is enough to show the truth of that assertion. Douglas called for the payment of a national dividend to all citizens to meet their essential physical needs. The

March 19, 1974

object of such national dividends was to increase people's income so as to permit the maximum use of the benefits of industrialization and automation.
In 1924, Douglas specified the three basic principles that should be followed if the transition to a productive system based on machinery is to be successful rather than disastrous. The third of those principles was, and I quote:
That the distribution of monetary credit to individuals must be progressively less, according to the worker's salary, which means that the dividend must progressively replace salaries.
Ten years later, during a radio broadcast, he described the effects of such a policy in the following way, and I quote:
The actual effect of a national dividend would be:
1. to provide for individuals an income source which, although it would be desirable to increase it through work, could nevertheless ensure the purchasing power needed to maintain the individual's independence and health.
By thus providing a regular demand for our production system, it would already be a major step to stabilize conditions in the business world and would assure producers a constant domestic market for their goods.
When considering those comments, we are led to realize how strange it is that throughout the discussions recently held on a system aimed at increasing personal incomes, nobody has ever admitted that Crediters have been demanding such a program for decades.
How can such a situation be explained, Mr. Speaker? Is it possible that those who denounced or ridiculed the proposals of the Social Credit are embarrassed because they are compelled by events to consider, in order to deal with our economic problems, the same solutions which they ridiculed and disdainfully rejected?
Mr. Speaker, I think that it is now essential at this stage of my remarks to show that the guaranteed minimum annual income is a right to which all Canadians are entitled.
When a guaranteed annual income is proposed, it is often believed that government has the right to accept or reject it. The Social Credit Party of Canada asserts that the guaranteed annual income is a basic question. Payment of an adequate income to each member of our society so as to look after his basic and essential needs is not a government favour to be granted or taken back according to the decisions of a few individuals who are momentarily in power.
In fact, guaranteed income is a right of the individual, and in any modern and prosperous economy, this right must be recognized. We must realize that the philosophy underlying the actual methods of income distribution is basically primitive compared to the attitudes of civilized societies of some hundred years ago, when means were much more limited than they are today.
Policies that would deprive someone of the necessities of life so as to force him to work under some other person's rule are negating a civilized society's ideal. More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle said that any man forced to do anything to earn some money is nothing more than a slave.
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Former American president and political philosopher Thomas Jefferson said essentially the same thing when he stated that every man must possess enough earthly goods to look after himself, for in other cases, he would be reduced to the level of slave who depended physically and mentally on other men.
Professor Erich Fromm wrote, and I quote:
A guaranteed income would not only establish freedom as a reality rather than as a slogan, it would also establish a principle which is deep-rooted in the humanist and religious tradition of western civilization, namely that man has a right to live. This right to live, this right to have food, shelter, medical care, education, etc., is a basic human right which should not be restricted under any circumstances, even under the condition that man should be useful to society.
This tradition aiming at putting each individual in a position of economic independence so as to give him free moral determination was one of the achievements of our civilization in the past. The government rejected this principle in speech and in action. However, it has no right to do so. To deny its citizens the basic right to economic security is simply to deprive them of a birth right. I will indicate how this is so. We, Canadians, are fortunate to live in a rich country. However, many Canadians do not get a fair share of our affluence. They are not in a position to claim effectively a share of our common wealth. If we understood the actual basis of our wealth, we would realize that we need a new system that would enable individuals to claim and obtain the share of our riches which they need and which is their due.
The concept that a small group of individuals can monopolize practically all our wealth and keep all the profits for themselves is unacceptable. This concept results from a misunderstanding of the notion of wealth and of its sources.
In the past, it was thought that all wealth was a product of three interacting factors: land, labour and capital. This essentially materialistic concept did not take into account other factors which prevailed as production developed through increasingly sophisticated techniques.
One of these factors is what may be called the free benefits of partnership. This means quite simply that people can achieve more by co-operating than by going different ways. For instance, ten persons who work together systematically to meet their economic needs can do much more, and much more easily, if they unite instead of trying to work separately. This "surplus" that results from the common effort belongs naturally to all and should be distributed among all.
Another intangible factor of modern production is our cultural heritage. Our generation has the capacity to offer material abundance to all, but only an idiot would put down our position to our efforts alone. Without the contributions of previous generations, our civilization would not by far be as developed as it is today. Technological knowledge has been accumulating in human society for centuries, since and even before the day when a brilliant individual became aware for the first time of the potential of the wheel. Without the benefit of this tremendous heritage we received from our ancestors, we would not be any more advanced than the most primitive tribes of the world. Who would dare deny that every member of our society today has the unalienable right to participate in the profits of that heritage? Dealing with that question in

March 19, 1974
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his volume entitled Social Credit, Major Douglas wrote the following, and I quote:
It seems difficult to deny that society in general taken as an entity and not because of its titles to nature, work or capital would not be the natural heir to it. If ownership of the wealth produced is assigned to the proprietors of the factors which contributed to their production and if the proprietors of the heritage of industrial arts make up society in general it also becomes difficult to deny that the major proprietors and true beneficiaries of the modern system-


Mr. Speaker:: I must interrupt the hon. member for a moment simply to remind him that according to the note I have been handed his time is up. However, a review of the situation indicates that he still has nine minutes to go. I apologize to the hon. member for having temporarily interrupted him.


René Matte: Mr. Speaker, I think I started my remarks at around 3:10 and I am entitled to 30 minutes.


Mr. Speaker:: That is right. I indicated to the hon. member that this information is correct. I apologize to him, he still has nine minutes to go.


René Matte: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I continue:
-the true beneficiaries of the modern system of production happen to be those individuals who make up society as such. To deny the common nature of that heritage would have the effect of setting in motion the process of disintegration of society as we know it.
Major Douglas was then brought to the inevitable conclusion that the equivalent in terms of money of the contribution of those intangible factors, that is the free benefits from association and cultural heritage added to production, must belong to the members of the community in general.
Consequently, when we insist on the need for a universal guaranteed income program, the Social Credit Party of Canada is not satisfied with asking the government to be more generous than it has been up to now. This party contends that the government's current policy deprives people of the fruits of their common heritage and a guaranteed annual income would only give back to people as a whole what they were lawfully entitled to from the beginning.
Mr. Speaker, how can we establish a real guaranteed income program? I believe that we should follow these principles. For such a system to be efficient there are essential conditions to meet. This is important because several suggested programs would spell the downfall of the economy or would merely fail to meet their main object which is to overcome poverty. We consider the following criteria as necessary and essential.
First, the program must provide each individual with adequate food, clothes and housing.
Second, the benefits must be paid on a universal basis in accordance with the principle that these benefits are in fact a heritage to which each member of our society is entitled.
Third, in order to promote rather than discourage personal enterprise and the desire to work, the basic tax exemption should be higher so that the vital minimum will not be taxed.
Fourth, the guaranteed annual income program should be financed not only from taxation revenues, but with new
[Mr. Matte.l
credits according to the real wealth of the nation. This is the answer to the question asked yesterday by the hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde). Thus, instead of contributing to the already crushing burden of the debt, a debt we have no means of paying except by making more debts, the guaranteed annual income will really increase the total purchasing power of the community. It would be insane to finance this program since debts are a mortgage on future income and the community would derive no long term benefit.
Mr. Speaker, each time we put forward such solutions, we are always given the same objections: All right, but where are we going to take the money? We will take the money not only in taxes but in new credit. I see the minister imitating the "dollar machine", Mr. Speaker. That is an old joke, he could find others which are more up to date. When we know that we have all the material and human potential to produce ourselves everything we need to meet our essential needs, Mr. Speaker, absolutely nothing prevents us therefore from issuing the credits. The minister cannot make me believe that a bridge or a road is built with money, because I have always seen a bridge built with concrete, iron and materials. If these materials are there in abundance, if we have the labour needed to do it, if we have the know-how to design plans, nobody can make me believe we need money. If we need money, it is to keep the wheel going and not the "dollar machine". And to keep the wheel going, Mr. Speaker, we just have to issue the credits we need.
In conclusion I shall simply mention what the guaranteed minimum income should be. In my opinion, the tax exemption for single people should be increased to $3,000, thus to $6,000 for a married couple, with an exemption of $500 for each child.
Our system, Mr. Speaker, would be very simple. I can explain it in a minute, I think. It would be sufficient to give $300 a year to every Canadian who is 18 or less and $1500 a year every citizen from 18 to 60. At the age of 60, the person would receive $250 a month and if married, whatever the age of the spouse, the spouse would receive $200, which would make $450 per couple. The amounts are the same for disabled persons: $250 a month, and $200 for the spouse if the person is married. For a widow with children, there would be $250 a month, plus $500 a year for each child.
Mr. Speaker, regarding the figures I have mentioned, the minister may well say: You speak in terms of billions and billions! We made the calculation ourselves and realized that this program would not require much administration. The question is to know whether the individual is Canadian, still lives and how old he or she is. That is all. Only the case of disabled persons may require a more thorough investigation, but by reducing clerical work to a minimum, the cost of such a program would be only a few billions more than the cost of all the welfare programs we now have in Canada. If, in addition, we apply the basic principle that normally the minimum income should come from our national dividend, which means that we would not be relying exclusively on taxes to grant it, we will be able to establish a system that will make each and every Canadian a truly free citizen who will know that nothing
March 19, 1974

prevents him from working to supplement the guaranteed minimum income. At the present time, the unemployed or the welfare recipient is under close watch and if he dares work, the benefits are cut off. Mr. Speaker, that is why there is such an unemployment insurance rush.
Such a system would encourage the instinctive ambition which is common to all men, that of having as much as the others, as well as a healthful rivalry. Who would not work, Mr. Speaker, even if only at $30 or $40 a week, in order to increase his minimum guaranteed income? Who would not do it?
We would no longer be faced with situations where we have to bring in West Indians to pick apples in Quebec, since inadequate programs established years ago have taught the people to stay unemployed. They are right to do so because the systems are false. We should therefore seriously consider establishing a minimum annual guaranteed income such as the one that we suggest.


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I think this is the first time that I, on behalf of my party, have had the opportunity to respond as first speaker to a motion proposed by the Social Credit Party. I should like to say to the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte) that I find myself a little ill at ease when I hear him discussing monetary policy and, sometimes, general economic policy. However, I have noticed in my years here that his party from time to time has made vigorous and consistent advocacy on behalf of the people of Canada who most need assistance. They have been good spokesmen for the poor people of Canada. I commend them for that. May I say in a personal way that I wish to extend good wishes to the hon. member's leader, the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette), who has struck me as one of the most interesting, effective and entertaining parliamentarians in this House. I extend to him my good wishes for his health and recovery.
The mover of the motion was profoundly right in pointing out that although we are a rich country, although Canada is always in the top bracket of the "have" countries-in any great gathering of developed countries Canada is always included-although we are rich, with great resources and a productive people, one Canadian citizen in four or five lives at or below the poverty line. God knows, those at the poverty line do not enjoy gracious living by any means. It is certainly not gracious living at a time of rampant and uncontrolled inflation. I understand that while one in five, or perhaps it is now one in four, of our citizens as a whole are living at or below the poverty line, half our people 65 and over are at that terrible level.
There must be something wrong with a system which year after year can tolerate so much poverty in a rich country. I often think of the colossal gall of the political party that can bring that about year after year, and yet somehow insist to the people of Canada that they and they alone should be given the power to govern this country. Is there no better time for the party presently holding office to have the humility to ask if it is, in fact, doing well enough for the people of Canada.
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We have to find some way to improve the situation for more of our Canadian citizens. We all know there are many, many programs. There is a proliferation of programs, municipal, provincial and national, whereby the state in one of its emanations tries to assist the people who need assistance. We have our select groups. We give so much to the old people. They are not getting enough. We give the disabled so much under the aegis of the provincial government. The stories we hear from some of these people are very, very shameful. Someone once said you almost have to be dead and be able to prove it before you are regarded as wholly disabled by some authorities. We have our family allowances which give a measure of assistance to those in that group. We have much further to
go-
We should look carefully at the suggestion which the hon. member has put forward. He pointed out that his party first advocated it. There are other groups who have suggested a guaranteed annual income. One must be very careful what one says about the gentlemen in the other place, but they are rarely described as starry eyed radicals. However, the Senate committee on poverty produced a very interesting document. I believed they worked sincerely when looking at the problem. They advocated the establishment of a guaranteed annual income program. I do not know how seriously their suggestion was taken by the present government, but surely such a group of competent and senior legislators lending their support to a proposal should mean something. When I first heard the expression "guaranteed annual income" used, there was a great shying away from it. People were suggesting this was some device for legislating, legitimizing and eternalizing laziness, bumming, welfare and so on.
We have to look carefully as to whether we might be at a stage where we should consider replacing a whole congeries of programs by something which is more efficiently organized and more universal in its application. The sym-pathetical feelings I have toward the guaranteed annual income are along the lines of its possible greater efficiency. We know that in society there are people who must be given security. We must do more for our aged people. We must do more for those between 60 and 65. Last session I referred to the amusing, if it were not so tragic, situation whereby if you are 90 years you can work all you like and get your full Canada Pension Plan, but in a more productive period, if you work you have your pension deducted.
All across the land today we are faced with people who are opting out of the work force and getting more fully involved in programs of assistance from the state. That is disturbing. I do not think we should ever have a situation in which if someone is employable, it is more to his benefit to receive state aid than to work. However, I receive hundreds of letters from people who are receiving a small pension. If they go out and find a small job, every single dollar is knocked off their pension even though quite often the two together are not sufficient to keep the man or his family going.
We have to get back that incentive. We have to stop what is far too common, the bureaucratic impinging on citizens who desire to work. I know that in every society down through the ages there are some people who are going to swing the lead, to beat the rap, but I cannot

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believe otherwise than that the great majority of Canadians would prefer to work than to be unemployed and receiving a miserable pittance from the state. Therefore, I think this thing should be considered.
I would like to say to the hon. member that I attended a very important national meeting yesterday and the day before. Many useful things were discussed there. I refer to the meeting of the Progressive Conservative party of Canada. One thing we did discuss. The hon. member will be pleased with this. We reiterated our view that the spouse of a 65 year old recipient of OAS and other pensions should also be given that pension. I think it is a good thing. There is nothing personal involved in this, but it would be in the interests of a young wife to look after the husband if he is getting along in years. Keep him healthy. Keep him well. Keep him there! In a more serious way, it is only right, just and proper. It is an anomaly for a wife age 61 with a husband age 67 and both be treated by the state as if they were a single individual. I agree with the minister that it might be the other way around. Sometimes the young man may get the older lady. It is a matter of taste, preference and luck.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: What about the 61 year old woman who is single?


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: I do not want to conduct a whole symposium on what should be done in every individual case. However, if hon. members wish to write me a letter, I will be glad to render a decision on each one.


Stanley Howard Knowles: How about lowering the age from 65 to 60?


Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Since the honourable and venerable member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) raised the question, at our national meeting we did discuss that very question of lowering the age from 65 to 60. I do not believe we should put people out to pasture when they are 60 years of age. I think we may be at the stage of development in our country where he or she who wishes to retire at age 60 should be able to do it in decency, comfort and dignity. I think this country is able to do that for its people.
I come back to another aspect that the hon. member has mentioned, that is the important aspect of incentive to work. It is said that we Presbyterians are great believers in the work ethic. We are told that the work ethic is dead. I have often been told this. However, it is not dead in those countries that are competing with us in the market places of the world. It is not dead in Japan, Germany or Switzerland. In these countries they are concerned when there are 100 people on the unemployment list. We are supposed to become accustomed to 750,000 month after month. We find that these are countries which still believe, apparently, in the work ethic, and they are taking markets from us. Whenever I go abroad I like to go to the harbours because I was born near the sea coast in Prince Edward Island. You see the flagships of nations all over the world but you won't see Canadian flagships there because in our outrageous stupidity we took ourselves out of the merchant marine, and we are losing out in competition all across the world. Other people have asked for consideration of the guaranteed annual income. Reuben

Baetz of the Canadian Council on Social Development said not long ago in one of the reports issued by that organization:
It is my personal view that Canada both can and should provide, as a matter of right, sufficient income to support an adequate standard of physical and social well-being for all its people. This is based on a principle of social justice, now generally accepted in all advanced countries.
So I say to the hon. member that he is in good company. He is in company with Reuben Baetz and with the Senate of Canada. Other submissions have been made by the Canadian Labour Association. There is the Report on Poverty, and I suppose we can even say we have the orange paper. We have the program where now we are moving to a guaranteed income for some sectors of society.
There is a big experiment going on in Manitoba, and I assume the minister will tell us about it later this evening. I hope this experiment provides good results. I think it would be prudent to study the results most carefully. I have thought about a guaranteed annual income for a long time and I am like King Agrippa-I am almost persuaded. I am a little troubled about the effect on incentive as I implied in my earlier remarks. I hope it is an efficient method and that it will not come as just another layer on top of those we already have. In a highly bureaucratic society such as ours this might be a danger. But my own orientation is one of sympathy, and I am inclined to believe this is an idea which is coming into its own time.
When I first came to this House, the idea was way ahead of its time but I think now we may see it. I commend the hon. member for his interest and the philosophical manner in which he put forward his proposal. I liked his speech very much, especially when he referred to my favourite American of all time, perhaps one of the greatest men of all history, Thomas Jefferson. His quote from Jefferson was a very enduring one. So, we have Thomas Jefferson, the Senate of Canada and Major Douglas all on the same wave length.
It is important that we who are trying to represent our people-and we should care most for those who need care in our society-should set aside a day to deal with such matters. I have always been touched by the condition of our poor people, but in the last year or so, since I have been given special responsibilities within our caucus and have had the opportunity to hear from literally thousands of Canadians, I am all the more sensitized to the fact that far too many of our people are finding life far too hard. There is a vast area in which the government must move before we have anything even close to social justice, especially for the aged, the disadvantaged, the dispossessed. I think right now we should be able to say to the unemployable man that he will be looked after, that his problems are at an end, that he does not have to degrade himself by proving his incapacity and his poverty. That group should immediately be allotted a guaranteed income, if you like to call it that.
We must always be sure that the administrators temper their interpretation of the regulations with compassion. I had a man tell me he went in and asked how he could qualify for old age security. They said, come back in 33 'A years and you will be all right. He said, I am 88 now.
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Imagine telling him to come back in 33 years. He is an Irishman from Prince Edward Island and the rules do not permit a repetition of his remarks, but his language was explicit. I took up this matter with the department concerned and they got it down to eight and a half years through a new interpretation. That would make him 96 Vi. Another woman wrote who had tried to get assistance. They said, you own a house, lady, and you own a car. Sell both, then come back and qualify. That is terrible. Far better the system suggested by the hon. member than these efforts to economize a little on the backs of the poor.
I think the greatest sin of the government, and it has many, is that its surrender to inflation has left on the field the poor, the aged, the people with little savings and the people with no savings, the people with fixed incomes, the people who thought they had provided for their own security, the people bereft of those who had earned for them. These are the victims of a cold, callous, insensitive government which says: inflation is a way of life, there is nothing we can do about it. There must be something we can do about it, and at another time I shall be able to tell the House and the country about some of the decisions we made when we decided down at a hotel the other day what we are going to do.
Suffice it to say I am interested in this well-presented motion. I commend the hon. member for Champlain and his party for their concern for the poor of this country. I will think increasingly about their suggestion, which contains a great deal of merit. There are some things which still trouble me, but I think he has made an important contribution to the discussion of a most pertinent subject. [Translation]


Mrs. Grace Maclnnis (Vancouver Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, the members of our party rejoice in the fact that our colleagues of the Social Credit Party of Canada have decided to move this motion in the House today.
Ensuring each citizen, man or woman, each family in Canada sufficient income to meet the needs of modern life is a formidable task. Still, giving control of the means to coexist with the big industrial and financial companies that dominate and control our whole existence is the most imperative task in our times.
I am very glad to have this motion from those over in that corner. As a matter of fact, I know that our colleagues in the Social Credit Party have pioneered along these lines. Perhaps they do not realize that for 30 years we have had a guaranteed income in our program, and we as a party have been working steadily toward the same aim ever since that time.
For all those years we have advocated a guaranteed income. When we could not get it, we did what the people have had to do-settle for this patchwork that is involved in their social security scheme. The difference now is that while many years ago a guaranteed income seemed to be an impractical dream, today it is becoming the practical next step that must be taken to provide social security to people all across the country. It is becoming something that must be done. We are finding that the social security network that we have is overlapping in many areas and is
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wasteful. It does not reach the people who really need help and does not do a job of protecting whole groups of people who are in a very bad way indeed.
I was glad to hear my Social Credit colleague mention two features that are essential in a guaranteed income scheme. One is that it should be universal, that it should cover all groups in our society. The second is that it should not provide a disincentive for people to work. People should be encouraged to add to their income to the extent of their ability and capacity. I think both these features are very important.
As I say, I think the guaranteed income is the very next step that has to be taken in providing social security. I should like also to point out that there are three provinces where experiments along this line are now being made in a practical way. They do not embrace the whole population yet since provincial revenues are not sufficient for that. Further, it is essential to have the necessary expertise and at the start we do not have this.
May I point out that in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia experiments are being conducted in this field, and it is no accident that these are three provinces with NDP governments. They are provinces whose governments believe that, in order to plan social security, and indeed the whole economy in an intelligent and sane way today, the needs of the people must be placed in the centre of the picture and the economy must be built around them, instead of having the great corporate interests in the steel, coal and other heavy industries looking after their interests first. This sort of thing leads us into more and more trouble every day that goes by.
In the three provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia the governments have shown the courage of their democratic socialist convictions by placing human beings in the centre of government planning and public thinking. They have had the courage to experiment along these lines. Saskatchewan has just started, and so has Manitoba. As a matter of fact, Manitoba has the backing and full co-operation of the federal government. This was the only province that the federal government could find willing to go along with such an experiment. British Columbia, of course, has its own scheme. Ontario would not experiment. If that is not true, I wish the minister would contradict me; it would be the sweetest contradiction I have had in a long time.
The big, powerful and wealthy province of Ontario considered this idea, but unfortunately the idea of every man for himself, of dog eat dog, is too strong in the Ontario government for it to try any experiment in guaranteed incomes for those really in need. Obviously, they are not ready for such a program yet in Ontario. If members like the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie) ever reach a majority in that government, then I imagine that within the fullness of time they will have some influence, or at least I hope they will.
In British Columbia things are moving. They have had their guaranteed minimum income assistance plan in effect for well over a year. It is known as Mincome. At first it covered all low income people 65 years and over, and guaranteed them an income of $200 a month. These people added up their income, and Mincome brought it to $200 a month and no less. The program was well received,

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it paid dividends in the form of contentment to the elderly. It also removed people from a number of other expensive programs. Then, last October 1 the guaranteed income age was lowered to 60 and over. Anyone living in British Columbia 60 years of age and over, whose monthly income does not amount to the Mincome figure, has their income brought up to that figure, no matter how much the differential. Furthermore, the program now applies to the handicapped at age 18 and over, though there are some differences in application.
As I say, the Mincome experiment in British Columbia began with guaranteeing a monthly income of $200. They are now adding to that $200 the federal old age pension increases and increases in the supplement. At the present time, people over the age of 60 in British Columbia are guaranteed by the provincial government an income of not less than $213.85 per individual, or $427.70 per couple. In arriving at this figure, their income is counted but not their assets, such as house, bank account or other asset. These items are not taken into the calculation. About
127,000	people are now benefitting from this scheme in British Columbia, and the intent of the program is to bring security through a guaranteed income so the people in the province can live reasonably comfortably.
Lowering the age to 60 also did something else. A great many people between the age of 60 and 65, as all of us know, are finding their work a strain. They are breaking down in sickness or are trying to find other jobs. If they are not successful, they try to manage on their own pitiful revenue and wish to goodness that they were 65 years of age in order to qualify for Mincome. Now that they can qualify at age 60, this is a very great blessing to them indeed.
The program is intended to provide those who have reached the age of 60 with sufficient income on which to live. I think it is an excellent program and we would do well to watch progress in this area, though we should not wait too long. I am sick and tired of members in this chamber continuing to sit and watch misery, injustice and suffering in face of the ever-increasing cost of living, but not doing a darned thing about it. We do not need to sit and watch this kind of program indefinitely. I have been assured by all sources, governmental and those involved, that the program is working extremely well in British Columbia, and I think we should have the courage to implement it on a larger scale. The program has been directed toward the elderly and the handicapped but I think it should be extended throughout our society.
I am aware of the dangers outlined by the hon. member for Hillsborough, and this is why I do not think that the guaranteed income is the answer to all our woes. I do not think it is the panacea, the new heaven and new earth in itself that members across the way seem to think it is. I think other measures must supplement it. Mr. Reuben Baetz made it clear all along that guaranteed, worth-while employment, along with a guaranteed income, must be assured those who are young and able to work. This is something we do not have today. I say "guaranteed worthwhile employment".

Many young people have copped out or opted out of jobs which they find miserably deadening and in which they have no interest. Many young people, even those with university training do not wish to be a cog in an industrial machine, a servant to computers of a handmaiden to machinery of any sort. That is not worthwhile. While there are many faults to be found with the Local Initiatives Program and the Opportunities for Youth Program, they have at least pointed the way to the truth that there are many kinds of community jobs and services to people which in many ways could be carried out by young people. The young people like to perform these functions if they can find a way to live while so engaged. There should be more of that kind of job. This relates to helping the elderly, the sick, the retarded and young people in the field of sports, athletics and so on. There are a host of such things.
Along with the guaranteed income must go guaranteed productive work. If we do not provide that we will be running into what the hon. member for Hillsborough and I are afraid of; that is, the young people will sit there in an unproductive way and later we will never get them into useful activities no matter how necessary they may be. I want to see both these things go hand in hand. In addition I think they should be accompanied by a system of fair taxation. I believe we should get the dust off the Carter Report to see what he recommended, and if there are any latter-day Carters so much the better. No matter how one receives income, taxation should be applied fairly and evenly. If we had such a system we would find that some of those corporations with broad shoulders, which are now getting away with murder in respect of not carrying a fair share of taxation, would be bearing much of the taxation which today rests on the shoulders of the poor low-income people who are opposed to progress for the simple reason that they cannot stand the burden of financing it. If we had proper productivity and productive and useful work added to a guaranteed income and added to fair taxation, we would have a good start on the way to a much better way of doing things.
Now, I should like to talk about what is happening in too many Canadian homes. I think part of the picture is given in an address by Miss Sylva M. Gelber, Director, Women's Bureau of the Canada Department of Labour. She said:
There are today in Canada nearly three-quarters of a million (678,035) working women who have over one and one-third million (1,350,000) children under the age of fourteen. They are the wives of men whose families consist of one or more children under fourteen and who have a median income of less than six and one-half thousand dollars ($6,454) per year. Or they are women without husbands as in the case of some sixty thousand (60,083) of them.
There are also today in Canada about one-third of a million (331,434) women who are the sole support of families; the vast majority (206,117) are widows. Consider with these, almost a million (925,000) single working women, and it may be fair to assume that the vast majority of women, particularly married women with young children who double their own burden by going out to work, are employed because of economic need.
These are women in the low-income groups. There are vast numbers of them. They must go out to work and neglect their homes because they cannot afford to hire babysitters or housekeepers. I suggest that if we had a
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guaranteed income this would go a long way toward allowing these people to go back to the home. They are tearing i.hemselves into pieces between working in the daytime and coming home miserably tired and overburdened, in an attempt to cope with their family and housekeeping duties in the evening. Then, there are single women, women without husbands, women who are divorced or separated, who are trying to do the double job of working and housekeeping. Then, there is the woman whose husband's pay is so low that she must join her little pay cheque with that of her husband in order to meet their needs. Here is where a guaranteed income would be of great benefit not only to the women but to Canada. We want to keep our Canadian homes on good foundations. While women who have better incomes, better education and financial backing can carry on careers without neglecting their homes, these other women cannot do so. I think a guaranteed income would help these people.
Then, we have heard about the women whose husbands are in receipt of the old age pension but who themselves have no chance of receiving it for a few years. Such a woman might be 45 years of age. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, try to find a job for a woman 45 years of age unless she happens to be highly qualified in a technical way. She is simply out of luck.
These are some of the reasons we support the idea of a guaranteed income. I want to agree with the hon. member for Hillsborough and the hon. member who introduced this motion by indicating that this would be a mark of the degree of our civilization if we could now bring in this measure. In this last year we have seen the utter futility of increasing pensions when the people see the dollars being eaten away because of increased prices, increased rents, the increase in the cost of clothing and many other items. There is no sense in this. We must have some stabilized form of income if we are to have a secure and decent life for the Canadian people. Let us think in those terms. If a guaranteed income is to work we must think in these terms, and our party will push for this no matter where the move originates or who introduces it.


Mr. Norman A. Cafik (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the motion we have before us today introduced by the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte) is really in three parts. The first is that the government has taken no concrete steps to ensure the establishment of a guaranteed minimum annual income to overcome poverty in Canada. The second element deals with Canadians coping with the problem of rising prices. The third is almost the same. I presume the hon. member means that the guaranteed annual income he has in mind would be in fact an efficient and total way to fight inflation.
Since there is not sufficient time to deal with all the elements involved in this motion, I should like first of all to try to deal with the question of a guaranteed income in order to overcome poverty. Some of us often forget that there is a guaranteed income in Canada now. Although it does not cover all people it certainly covers the senior citizens in this country. This fact is often conveniently overlooked. For instance, as of January 1, 1974 the OAS and GIS payments to single people are $183.99 per month and to a married couple $351.02. That in essence is the
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guaranteed income level for people over age 65. This factor cannot be ignored when talking about a guaranteed income in Canada.
The other point I should like to refer to is that made by the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway (Mrs. Macln-nis) when she said that these benefits are often eaten away by inflation. I am sure the hon. member and all hon. members in this House realize that the increase in the cost of living is automatically added to the amount of the OAS and the GIS payments to our senior citizens on a quarterly basis. This means that if it is eaten up in one period, it is made up in the next period. That fact also seems to be forgotten by many people.
The other point is that we must look at the problem of a guaranteed annual income in the perspective of the overall social priorities in Canada. On April 18, 1973, the government tabled a working paper in this House on social security. It deals with this very question and a broad series of other questions relating to the wellbeing of Canadians, particularly those on social assistance of one kind or another. In addition to the working paper there has been much action as a consequence of the proposals put forward at that time, specifically in relation to a guaranteed annual income, especially in the province of Manitoba. As a matter of fact, there the project the federal government is in the process of embarking upon is a guaranteed annual income experimental program at a cost of $17 million, 75 per cent of which is provided for out of federal funds. This program will cover approximately
2,500	families over a period of three years and its purpose is to find out the social impact of a guaranteed income program in this country.
It is important to note that such a program leaves many unanswered questions. It is not good enough to simply say that we need a guaranteed annual income in Canada. You must find out what kind of levels we are talking about, what kind of recovery rates are involved for income that is earned by people outside of the amount guaranteed by the government. There are a whole lot of unanswered questions, and it is imperative for any responsible government embarking on a program of such significance to find out what the impact is on society in general, particularly on the question which is very central to the minds of all of us, namely work incentives in our country. That program is a very important step forward in determining answers to the whole matter of guaranteed annual incomes in Canada. It is a very important project, one that the federal government has embarked upon with the province, and I am sure that it will shed very substantial light on the over-all question.
However, I think that in addition to that program one must look, as I mentioned before, at the over-all problem of social security in Canada. The review that was embarked upon on April 18 is founded on a number of essential principles. I think that one of the most important principles underlying that review was that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) in conjunction with provincial ministers of health and welfare agreed upon one essential point, namely, that the problem of jurisdiction and of who is responsible for the implementation of what kind of program, should be set aside for the

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time being and that both levels of government should consider the real question as it affects human beings. Obviously, they are the ones whom all governments are elected to serve. That was accepted by all the ministers and the review is going forward taking into account the broad range of social policies that exist in Canada on all levels. They are being considered so as to try to sort them out and co-ordinate them in such a way that the bureaucratic jungle that exists in part in social security in Canada will be eliminated and that people will be served to the maximum.
In addition to that principle, there was a second one that I consider to be very important which relates to people as well, that is that the service that is provided by all levels of government to those in need in this country should be co-ordinated in such a way that individuals looking for assistance will not be shunted from pillar to post in their search of the right kind of institution or level of government to be of service. Personally, I describe that kind of approach as one where we will provide, in the long run I hope, what I would call a "one stop service centre" where municipal, provincial and federal government agencies will be housed under one roof so that individuals and communities will be able to go there and obtain assistance without the kind of red tape that often exists when people seek help from governments at present.
In addition to this, we feel that it is very important that we rationalize the whole question of social security in Canada. To that end, this paper has provided a whole series of suggestions to the provincial levels of government regarding what should be done. The objectives of the review are very simple: first of all, to provide an acceptable basic income to all Canadians without which they cannot adequately survive; second, to make sure that we provide universal access to the essential services required by people in this country, whether it be housing, hospital or medical care, legal aid or any other assistance; third, the objective is to provide assistance to people in emergency situations where the general over-all policies do not fit and to take their individual circumstances into account.
It is important in such a review that the various levels of government take into account the essential belief of all Canadians that in so far as possible we should be independent, that we should try to provide for ourselves and that the purpose of a social policy is to look after those who are unable to provide for themselves. The policy is a recognition of the principle of independence and its value, and a recognition of the need of interdependence so that others can look after those who are unable to look after themselves.
The elements involved in social security are pretty clear: first, the need for minimum wages in Canada at adequate levels; second, the need for insurance programs to provide a vehicle for those who try to provide for themselves so that they can look after themselves in cases of emergency requirements such as unemployment, sickness, injury, disability, hospital, medical assistance, and so forth; and third, to provide to those who are working at minimum or near minimum wages income supplementation so that they can provide for themselves without being forced to seek assistance under various welfare or social assistance programs.
[Mr. Cafik.l
I think that any real worthwhile social security system in Canada that will be developed as a consequence of this important review must be acceptable to the people of this country. That is inherent in any program that is brought forward in a democracy. That program must reflect and not distort the social values that are held by Canadians. The program must be in harmony with and not opposed to the real economic forces that exist in our country. It must be fair and humane and understand the real human needs of people. It must be fair, not only to the recipient, but to the person who pays the bill, namely, the taxpayer. It must be designed in such a way that it will effectively combat poverty in this country. It must be a system that is simple and understandable to the people who will use it. It must be capable of being effectively administered so that there is no wastage of funds in the administration of it and so that the majority of resources do not go to running the system rather than to those who are in fact in need of help. It must complement and be accessible to the people of this country and take into account the institutional services that already exist, some of which will continue to exist after the review.
In the social policy review the federal government, through the Department of National Health and Welfare, came forward with 14 basic propositions for consideration by the provincial governments. I would like to run through them very briefly.
The first proposition is that whatever we decide on, it must not provide a disincentive to work. It must be an effective instrument to provide a real meaningful incentive for people to work.
The second proposition is to assure that governments, on all levels, do everything possible to make sure that work is provided for those who need work.
The third proposition deals with a community employment program where both levels of government, through co-operation, should establish ways and means of taking up a shortfall in employment where the private sector cannot always achieve it, by providing some level of community employment that is socially useful and necessary.
The fourth proposition is to assure that the system provides social insurance and incentive to our people to save for themselves today, and also in the future.
In addition to this, in terms of an income supplementation strategy, which is a very important element of the review, proposition five deals with the need for family allowance increases. On that subject the paper recommended that there would be nearly a threefold increase in family allowances from an average of $7.21 a month at that time, to an average of $20 a month across Canada. Not only is that a proposition and a recommendation, but in fact it has indeed been implemented at this particular time.
Those family allowance changes themselves have increased federal expenditures from 1973-74 to 1974-75 by $1,072 million dollars. That is a lot of money to provide a higher level of income to those who are looking after children, and who have an obligation to do so. It has a tremendous impact on providing a greater incentive to work because that amount of money is automatically, obviously, added to the money that people earn when they
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are out working for a living. This recommendation has already been implemented.
Proposition six talks about income supplementation. Both levels of government are pursuing this actively now to decide on levels of income supplementation, and ways and means to implement it, so that people who are working for a living can find it possible economically to do so, without the kind of disincentives that exist at the present time. Those disincentives that exist now are a consequence of the relationship between what one can secure on welfare in Canada and what one can earn on minimum wages in this country.
When this working paper was brought forward, if my memory serves me correctly, I think in every province in Canada one could get more on social assistance than one could in fact by working for a living at minimum wages, or near minimum wages. In addition to that, the recovery rates were 100 per cent in most cases, which meant that if a person was drawing welfare payments on the provincial level and went out and got a part-time job to supplement that income, the government on the provincial level would recover 100 per cent of the money that that person earned. That certainly did not provide an incentive for people to get out and try to help themselves. It left them locked into the welfare cycle. That kind of problem has got to be resolved and it is dealt with quite substantively in the working paper on social security.
In addition to that, proposition 7 refers to the need for a guaranteed income for those who are unable to work, or should not be expected to work.
The hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie) talked about this as if it were some kind of a new idea. The fact of the matter is that it is proposed in our working paper on social security. It is a proposal that will, in due course, be implemented when the bugs are ironed out and arrangements are worked out in co-operation with the provinces themselves. This is not an exclusively federal jurisdiction, and therefore cannot be solved totally by the federal government.
Now, in addition to this, Mr. Speaker, I did refer to old age security and the guaranteed supplement earlier. That was referred to in proposition 8 of the over-all review. That proposition has largely been implemented, as well, through escalation and through incremental increases. I think that has been very important in offsetting the affects of inflation on those who were formerly on fixed incomes.
It is important to point out that, with the change in a large majority of federal programs to assist people in this country by escalating them to suit the real increase in the cost of living, such people are no longer on fixed incomes. Their incomes are increased automatically as the cost of living increases as well.
Proposition 9 refers to the need for a review of the Canada Assistance Plan, and for some adjustments in that regard. I can point out that the minister, only a few days ago, indicated that we would be broadening-and in fact have broadened-the terms under the Canada Assistance Plan to deal with day care centres, to allow those on lower incomes to be subsidized in terms of finding some institution to look after their children while they are out work-
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ing. That is one of the over-all questions that is dealt with in the social policy review.
In addition to this, proposition 10 talks about the need for additional social services that are required in Canada. Here we are really referring to such things as training programs, counselling, rehabilitation, homemaker service and so on, to make sure that those who presently are unable to find employment are brought back into the mainstream of employables in this country by meaningful programs, so that they will be better able to find employment which would be beneficial to themselves and to Canada in terms of social security costs.
Proposition 11 talks about the need for institutional services such as day care centres, which I alluded to earlier, nursing homes and so on. That kind of question is very important to the over-all review of social security.
Proposition 12 refers to the need for a flexible approach between one province and another, which shows that the federal government recognizes that this is a pretty broad country, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. What is advisable in one province, in this country, need not necessarily be advisable in another. Therefore, proposition 12 recognizes the need to allow the provinces a degree of flexibility in establishing income levels, whether it be in terms of supplementary income for the working poor, or any other social programs that may be brought forward.
Proposition 13, however, puts a caveat on that, in that it is necessary for the federal government to guarantee that the parliament of Canada is really served in the way in which it wants to be served and, therefore, it is our obligation to bring forward certain universal minimums, beyond which they will not go, in terms of the flexibility provisions.
Proposition 14 is a realistic recognition that such an over-all review, which has never before been undertaken in Canada, cannot be done in one moment or even in one year. In fact, proposition 14 proposes that this over-all review should be ironed out with the provinces, with a target date of between two or three years. I think, Mr. Speaker, that this is a realistic recognition of the magnitude of the task that we have embarked upon in the social policy review.


Mr. Peters:: That program is so out of date that even Ontario would not accept it.


Norman Augustine Cafik: It is odd the hon. member says that it is out of date, when in fact the previous speaker, from his own party, was recommending that we implement a number of the proposals that I have just spoken about in relation to our social policy review. So I would suggest to the hon. member that he should look at the proposals very, very carefully and realize that it involves a decision that ultimately has to be taken by both levels of government.
The federal government, through the Minister of National Health and Welfare, is certainly committed to the principle that I think all of us would share, that we must provide levels of social assistance in Canada which will meet the basic criteria of all Canadians; that people who want to save and provide for themselves will be enabled

March 19, 1974
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and encouraged to do so and those who are unable to do so for one reason or another that is justified, will be adequately taken care of in a proper and effective way.
I should like to turn to one other area for a moment and that is to consider the kinds of things we have done as a consequence of the review in the last year. I do not believe that there has ever been a period in the parliament of this country in which any government has done so much in social security policy as has been done in the last year by the present Minister of National Health and Welfare.
One just has to look at that record to see how very impressive it is. I have talked about old age security, guaranteed income and the escalation of these. That is a very substantial program which has helped a great number of senior citizens. We can look also at family allowances which have been substantially increased and have had an enormous impact on young families bringing up children in this country. These allowances are also escalated on an annual basis to meet the cost of living. The Canada Pension Plan has also been escalated to meet the cost of living. The levels have been changed and further legislation is coming forward with respect to that in the near future.
I see the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. MacDonald) in the House. He has done a great job in changing the rates of veterans allowances and escalating payments to veterans in this country who served us so well in two world wars.
Pensions for civil servants and others have been escalated according to the real cost of living and the rates have been changed. That is a substantial step forward and an example to other levels of government that perhaps need an incentive.
The hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) spoke about income tax, and I agree with her that this is a very important question but look what has happened in the last year and a half. Income tax deductions for children have been escalated according to the cost of living and this year the exemptions have been increased to reflect that differential. That is an important step forward. In the budget brought forward in February of last year, everybody in this country enjoyed a substantial decrease in the amount of income tax payable through a reduction in rates. Those in the lower income level benefitted very substantially in comparison to those on higher incomes and that is important as a social principle.
I would simply say in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that hon. members should look carefully at the action we have taken as a government in relation to inflation in this country. Considering the measures brought in to offset the effects of inflation which is largely international and partly domestic, it must be concluded that we have done a great deal-indeed, more than any other country in the world. The policies we have brought forward must surely demand the respect and support of all hon. members today as they did when they were brought forward in this House and supported by them.
It may be said that there is more to be done and that is what the minister has been saying since he took office and what his predecessors said. There is always a lot to be done but this government is committed to doing more than
[Mr. Cafik.)
talking about it; it is committed to implementing policies and programs which will better serve the people of this country.


Jean-Marie Boisvert: Mr. Speaker, it can be said that successive Liberal cabinet ministers are not more of the same. As to the last one, because he may have gone a little too far, he was sent to the Department of Labour.
This contradictory attitude at this time bears witness to tne inconsistencies of this Liberal federal administration.
In fact, the then Minister of National Health and Welfare who is now Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro) made the following statement in his 1970 White Paper, and I quote:
This section provides the main thrust of the government's proposed policy for the coming years, which include:
First, the development of the guaranteed income technique-
He was all for it. How lucky Canadians were in those days!
-as a major anti-poverty policy.
Considering that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) has stated his opposition to a guaranteed minimum annual income, this constitutes a glaring contradiction of his predecessor's policy. Indeed, in the Ottawa newspaper Le Droit of November 21, 1973, one can read and I quote:


LALONDE AGAINST A GUARANTEED INCOME
[Stage Direction]
The federal Minister of Health and Welfare, Mr. Marc Lalonde, is against the principle of a guaranteed income. In his opinion, a guaranteed income program will enable Canadians to choose between work and leisure and such a situation will not fit in with the system of values of the great majority of Canadians. Mr. Lalonde, who was talking Tuesday in Montreal to the Association canadienne d'etudes fiscales, has pointed out on the other hand that one of the great challenges to those responsible for the Canadian social security was the task of finding new employment opportunities for the unemployed.
This is not new. We have been hearing that song for 50 years.
It is also important, he added, to find a way to increase the incomes of those whose salary is below a decent minimum level.
Finally, we must, according to him, find the means to set up new programs without causing social, financial or economical disruption.
There is nothing to fear on that account. I think a lot of water will flow under the bridge before the Minister of National Health and Welfare causes social disruption.
In Drummondville, there are many welfare recipients and unemployed. It is true that there were always two ministers in that constituency, and you will notice that the ones we have now are not most reliable. Therefore, in my Drummondville office, I have the opportunity to meet welfare recipients and unemployed every weekend. I wish to point out here another inconsistency. This is not a criticism, but the minister represents one of the wealthiest constituencies in Canada, that of Outremont. I do not think he often sees welfare recipients. I believe there is something wrong here, I cannot see how a man who is unaware of this problem and who represents one of the wealthiest constituencies in Canada can look after underprivileged people. At all events, he must be much less sensitized to the problem. He may claim perhaps that he
March 19, 1974
[Stage Direction]
has already taken action as regards the Manitoba experiment.
On February 22 last, the Minister of National Health and Welfare announced that the federal government would finance 75 per cent of a guaranteed income program that will be tried in Manitoba. The project is called Mincome Manitoba. It was two years in preparation. Twenty five thousand samplings-one can imagine the number of public servants working on that-were taken in various municipalities before the program could be implemented. The experiment, that will last three years, will involve
2.500	families only. The Social Credit Party of Canada particularly regrets that those figures show that the government has no intention of setting up a guaranteed annual income scheme until the results of this experiment in Manitoba have been compiled and analyzed. This will take at least three to four years. If such is the case, the government will only use its financial involvement in Mincome Manitoba as a pretext to shirk its immediate responsibilities.
There is no need for studies or surveys to know that poverty and financial insecurity are major problems of Canada. In addition, this program which will involve only
2.500	families in a single province cannot surely alleviate the poverty problem which will require much more important measures. The government is simply throwing a smoke screen in order to conceal to the Canadian people its inability to cope with the problems of poverty. Mincome Manitoba will surely provide a wealth of information for planners and sociologists, but the program will provide no solution whatsoever to the problems of people who are really in need. There are many serious weaknesses in the program that was tried out in Manitoba, but the most important one is that this experiment is so limited as regards the number of people affected as compared to the number of people who really are in great need, that this experience as a whole is laughable.
Of course, Social Crediters are not the only ones to call for a guaranteed income. There is even a Liberal-imagine that-Senator David Croll who says, and I quote:
We have promoted unemployment.. .
The senator's comments are quite serious.
We have promoted unemployment and made it attractive.
Considering that during the past few years our country was governed mainly by the Liberal party, one may conclude that unemployment was promoted by them. I see that it is a Liberal who says so, in Le Jour of March 14, 1974, and I quote:
The former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Poverty, Senator David Croll, an Ontarian with Liberal views,... strongly denounced the minimum wage rates that are awfully low in several parts of this country.
We have promoted unemployment and made it attractive, Senator Croll asserted, throwing away the old story according to which an increase in minimum wage rates will signal the end of some industries. Very seldom have periodic increases in minimum wages reduced the number of jobs, he stated.
Mr. Croll called on the government to develop a guaranteed annual income program for every Canadian, a goal which is now within political and social range.
Such a program could pull the disadvantaged out of poverty and avoid prejudices suffered by families and the labour force as a result of the present welfare program.
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According to Mr. Croll, minimum wage rates are inadequate and measly in many parts of this country.
Then, Mr. Speaker, Liberal members will have to come to an agreement one of these days, because we are going to think that we are right.
The report of the Senate Special Committee on Poverty says, among others things, on page 106, and I quote:
The poor are often handicapped with respect to purchasing power by lack of education, experience, information, training and opportunity as well as by lack of ready cash.
The Social Crediters are not the only ones to say so. "Best-buy" decisions depend not only on information about quality and performance, but also on a comparison of prices in different kinds of stores in different locations. To get this information takes time, effort, and money. Because of transportation expenses or credit difficulties, the poor cannot shop around. As a result, they shop in small neighbourhood stores where prices are higher, and selection is limited-but where delivery service and credit are available.
Among the poor, one typical example is that of senior citizens who cannot afford motor transportation, walk very far or carry heavy things. They really have no choice. Here is how a representative of the Conseil des oeuvres catholiques described their terrible situation:
When I speak of very poor people, I mean those living in an apartment building where, for instance, they share their soup with an immediate neighbour. They are the ones who try to meet their needs with a very limited income, who are not entitled to social welfare but only have a very low income or pension. They live on toasts and tea and find it most difficult to provide for their own needs.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to poverty, Canada also has an ever increasing public debt. In 1955, it amounted to $17,951 millions and in 1973 to $51,717 millions, having trebled in less than 20 years.
Provinces and municipalities are also overburdened with debts. For 1973, their debts amounted to $8 billion approximately with yearly interests of $452 million. Provincial debts amounted to $17 billion, with yearly interests of approximately $566,185,000. The Federal debt, to give the example, as usual, amounted to $51,717,700,000 and interests to be paid within the next fiscal year will be approximately $3 billion.
The increasing public debt shows beyond all doubt that our governments at all levels: municipal, provincial and federal, are unable to meet their obligations and must go into debt.
A guaranteed income paid out of taxes would not in any way help to improve the national and individual financial position. The guaranteed annual income must be paid out through new credits in order to increase the buying power. That is the only possible solution to the permanent shortage of buying power. What about the consumer debt. We know that for lack of purchasing power, Canadians have to go steadily into debt, and they are given all the facilities. There are credit cards in all consumer sectors and they are widely advertised. Loans are granted by banks, lending institutions and finance companies, and as a result of the extensive advertising of all products in the stores, people run into debt, because they 'ack the necessary purchasing power to meet their commitments. But the purchasing power should in fact be compared to the power of production. Thus, in the past ten or 12 years, we have witnessed a tremendous development. In 1962, Canadians were indebted to the tune of $4,200 million.
[Stage Direction]
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In 1967, this amount had increased to $6.7 billion. In 1971, the debts of Canadians amounted to $11.7 billion, and as of December 31, 1973, the consumer debt had reached $17,694 million.
The enormous accumulation of the private debt shows without any doubt the chronic lack of purchasing power of the consumer who must run into debt in order to buy the food products he needs.
The Social Creditors are not the only ones to stress this fact. During a conference in 1966, a world famous economist, Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, warned that the present industrial system, and I quote:
... cannot ensure that the purchasing power in the economy will be equal or even approximately equal to the products that can be manufactured through present industrial methods.
A universal guaranteed annual income paid with new credits would contribute to increase the purchasing power of the people and bring it to the level of production. Instead of mortgaging their future incomes, people would be able to purchase with today's money the products that they need today, thus checking the staggering rise in the consumer debt, which has quadrupled in less than 10 years.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: 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 Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-Social Security-Possibility of production of cost of living index related to goods and services purchased by pensioners; the hon. member for Simcoe North (Mr. Rynard)-Health-Request for assurance medical research funds will not be reduced.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed debate on the motion of Mr. Matte (Champlain).
Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take this opportunity to discuss the motion proposed by the Social Credit Party of Canada, which reads as follows: That this House regrets that the government has taken no concrete steps to ensure the establishment of a guaranteed minimum annual 
income to overcome poverty in Canada and enable each Canadian citizen to cope with problems of rising prices and to fight inflation efficiently.
Mr. Speaker, I think that the problems facing us every day not only in the province of Quebec but throughout the country can never be overemphasized. We know it full well, right after a fantastic congress where we had the opportunity to listen to the representatives of about 2,000 delegates who came to explain those general problems-


Mr. Lefebvre:: Were you there last year?


Roch La Salle: No, Mr. Speaker, I was not there last year but I was very interested to know the views of citizens from all parts of the country.
My friends opposite understand very well what I mean. The views expressed today have convinced us that the problems set forth by the Social Credit Party of Canada affect the whole country.
For those reasons, it is obvious that the motion before us is surely worth discussing, and I hope that after hearing our repeated remarks in this House, the government will understand that those problems are serious. I think it has already been realized that they are serious and that the words will be followed by concrete action.
A few minutes ago, the program of welfare allowances was said to be acceptable to the government.
Mr. Speaker, I think the government has presented many measures. In view of the increase in the cost of living and the difficulties we face, we must admit that the government, even if it has made efforts and come up with some improvements, has provided for increases in some programs. Even if the increase in the cost of living has been much more rapid than the rise in benefits, I am very happy to say that, however inadequate, improvements have been made. Repeating that the government has taken no action is not fair, but it is not fair either to say it has taken concrete action.
The motion now before us allows us to remind the government that its measures are insufficient.
The unemployment insurance program was mentioned earlier. The provision of an annual guaranteed income could alleviate the difficulties we are now having with the Unemployment Insurance Commission and the frequent embarrassment of the recipients. If the guaranteed minimum income program were adopted, there could be tremendous advantages and changes for the Unemployment Insurance Commission.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to take this opportunity to deal with a subject dear to me, the eligibility for old age security at 60 years of age. I think it can be discussed in the debate on the motion now before us, since it concerns a form of annual income for 65 year old people.
Yesterday, I learned that an NDP member had spoken of the importance of that measure.
With regard to the guaranteed annual income, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), in reply to the responsible minister, said that all categories of citizens should be helped. I agree with the minister that
March 19, 1974

all groups of citizens should be helped, but if we can give even more help to those of 60, to my mind we could also help the young people indirectly. If legislation to that effect were introduced, that is to grant the old age security pension at 60, it should first of all be voluntary.
We know full well that in the case of thousands of individuals, work becomes a hardship at 60. That measure could be passed at the same time as voluntary old age security pensions at 60. This would help thousands of people and would simultaneously open extraordinary job opportunities for the young.
At the present time, our social legislation often encourages some citizens to take advantage of them instead of trying harder to get jobs. The rate of unemployment has remained quite steady in the last five or six years, but we also know that it is difficult for the young to find a full-time job.
We would then have found a formula to allow people of 60 and over to rest, to take well deserved holidays, if they so chose, because it seems that a good number of them still wish to work.
And I feel it is our responsibility to leave them this freedom. On the other hand, we are also aware that thousands of people would benefit from such an old age security scheme. In this repect, we could consider the possibility of paying more in Old Age Security Pension than we are doing at present.
I know that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) stated yesterday, in reply to the CLC, that granting the Old Age Security pension at age 60 could cost as much as $400,000,000.


Mr. Lalonde:: It would cost as much as $1.2 billion.


Roch La Salle: $1.2 billion. This policy would cost over one billion, according to the figures quoted by the minister.
Now, I should like him to tell us just how much we are paying for everything connected with social welfare, for our 500,000 unemployed, how much Canadians are paying for all that, for they are the ones who must foot the bill.
If we decide to reduce appreciably the unemployment rate, it is clear that this money could easily be earmarked for old age security. I feel that any worker would be quite willing to have his taxes earmarked for old age security enabling him to take advantage of that policy rather than to have a large percentage of his taxes used solely to pay unemployment insurance or social welfare.
I think that it would be advisable to ask for an assessment of the costs of our social services, because we could, by paying the old age pension at 60, considerably reduce the unemployment rate.
Such a policy would surely contribute to the improvement of the social climate. We know perfectly well that 60-year old people would be quite happy if they were sure of getting an adequate income in their old age. There would surely not be revolutionists and we must understand that the young people who do not have adequate opportunities on the labour market are liable to criticize and to rebel against the State which does not seem to assume its responsibilities.
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I think it would be to our advantage to study this legislation as soon as possible.
Mr. Speaker, we are speaking about a guaranteed annual income. As stated earlier by the member for Champlain (Mr. Matte), the State must supply a guaranteed income to its citizens. If the State has obligations towards individuals I think that from the day they are born individuals also have obligations. It is no exaggeration to say that we are at least obliged to work and do something for the country, it is our responsibility to build our country and to work to the benefit of all Canadians.
It is important that the government should have repeated meetings with associations, organizations, unions, businessmen to impress upon them that if they keep on making windfall benefits they will jeopardize their future and that of the whole society. It would be useful for the government to impress upon the investors or upon big business in general that they really ought to do much more than now for people living below the poverty live. And no matter how often we are reminded that ours is a rich country with enormous natural resources, it is quite dangerous to reach an untenable situation to the extent that individuals do not get an adequate minimum income.
And if we consider, for example, the concern of mothers and fathers or of society in general about the increase in the cost of living we find that as regards food, clothing, and essential services those increases have been extremely high. Then, how about introducing legislation? In the Speech from the Throne they led us to believe that they were going to deal with some of the increases. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) made this statement recently about the increase in food prices, and I quote: "I think we have every reason to have some hopes, to be optimistic".
I think this is not enough, Mr. Speaker, and for that very reason I urge the government to introduce positive measures which will meet very specifically the present needs and which could remove the uneasiness now being felt.
Mr. Speaker, all the hon. members are aware of the deep concern of the Canadian people. How often, in our constituencies, have we not been told this, for instance: "What is going to happen, with this increase in the cost of living, with inflation and all the big problems we are now facing? Anyone who has seen his heating oil costs doubled, anyone who has to buy gas these days, cannot help having the government in mind once in a while.
Mr. Speaker, I think that we cannot go on like this, being told on paper that we will introduce amendments or legislation which will solve these problems. The government must therefore act quickly. Some of the government proposals should not be rejected. On this side of the House, a price freeze was advocated and the government finds justification in saying that this was tried in the United States or somewhere else and that it did not bring the expected results. However, the government is providing evidence that they do not have the answers to the present problems and, therefore, if the price freeze is not an effective measure then just let them give us the solution which will be. But one thing is sure, that is for the past four or five years if opposition parties could not

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convince the government of the timeliness of their suggestions, the government nevertheless showed that it did not have the solution. How long will Canadians have to wait, and how long will they have to endure the malaises they now know? We have the responsibility to multiply our representations, our interventions in this House, to ask the government to act in a concrete way.
So favouring one category of people-those at age 60- would also bring about improvements in job opportunities for young people. And I think our social climate would have been corrected and improved.
There is talk about a guaranteed annual income. It is extremely important that each individual have a minimum to live on and even then I would want to make sure when we talk about implementing a guaranteed annual minimum income, for example, that we do not encourage people at the outset to be satisfied with a guaranteed income and reduce their efforts with respect to the work they nevertheless have an obligation to do for their country and fellow citizens. Of course, incentive formulas will have to be introduced to ensure that minimum annual income. There are also incentive programs for jobs and work openings, and it is up to the government in co-operation with organizations I referred to earlier, with businessmen, to create jobs for the young and adults. We have that responsibility. The first responsibility is to try as soon as possible to give a well deserved holiday to a certain category of people, which would indeed make room for younger people. Then we will have done something concrete to meet, I am convinced, the wishes of the people of this country. With regard to the motion under consideration, I am not ashamed to admit that it is with pleasure that I congratulate the Social Credit Party of Canada for having brought in a proposal to enable many hon. members to discuss this question and for reminding the government of its responsibilities. To what extent is the government going to reply positively and quickly to comments made in the House? I do not know. I do hope that it will feel compelled to do so. Once again, I hope that there will be other contributions and that similar motions will be brought in as often as the government will keep on turning a deaf ear to the needs, to the problems facing us every day.
Mr. Speaker, these few comments were made in the hope of bringing Canadians improved conditions and a satisfactory stability, and of receiving an affirmative reply from the government. We hope our interventions will not be forgotten, will not have fallen on deaf ears and that Canadians will be able to benefit from the contributions and the suggestions made. They have been waiting for a long time.


Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, when one examines attentively the motion presented by the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte), one realizes from the start that it is a non-confidence motion against the government. One realizes also that this motion blames the government for two separate reasons. First, it blames the government for having taken, according to the Social Credit, no concrete steps to ensure the establishment of a guaranteed minimum income plan, to overcome poverty in Canada. This motion also accuses the government of having done nothing to fight inflation efficiently. It is on

this second point of the motion that I should like to dwell, as my colleague the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Cafik), Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, stated a while ago, in a brilliant way, I think, the reasons why the Canadian government so far did not think it wise to establish a guaranteed minimum income plan.
As for me, I do not agree at all that the government did not do anything to fight inflation efficiently, as it is said in the motion proposed by the hon. member for Champlain, which would have us believe, if we read it attentively, that a guaranteed minimum income could be used to fight inflation. And I do not agree at all on that.
I am not sure at all that a guaranteed income program could be used to fight inflation. On the contrary, I believe that putting more money in circulation and increasing the money supply available to the Canadian people would only increase the demand for products and, should that demand come at a time when there is no mechanism to provide for an equivalent supply, inflation would be still more serious. Making millions of dollars available to the Canadian people through the establishment of a guaranteed minimum income plan could eventually worsen inflation. And it is on that point that I disagree entirely with the hon. member for Champlain, who maintains, according to his motion, that a guaranteed minimum income could fight inflation.
Moreover, I believe it would be a false principle to give money to all Canadians through a guaranteed minimum income, while inflation does not affect everybody. And I should like to insist on that point a few minutes and repeat what was already said in this House, namely that the average Canadian benefits from the simultaneous increase in prices and incomes.
I wish to quote here the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) who, speaking in the House on March 5, said that last year the real per capita personal income of Canadians, which is the income left to each person to spend or save after paying taxes and allowing for the inflation rate, has increased by 6.8 per cent. This means that income has increased more rapidly than the cost of living. This recent rise follows the already exceptional increases of 5.9 per cent and 6.7 per cent recorded in 1971 and 1972 respectively.
The minister went on to say that last year's strong increase in personal income was the result of various factors, notably an unprecedented increase in the number of Canadians productively employed, a substantial growth in farm income, the reduction in personal income tax provided for in the budget and equal to 12 or 13 per cent, the raising of social benefits, especially of old age security pensions, of family allowances and of other social security benefits.
The minister continued to say that this 6.8 per cent increase in the real disposable personal income per capita last year in Canada was one and a half higher than that of the United States. Since 1970, the average real disposable income of Canadians has gone up by 21 per cent, that is almost twice more than that of the American people.
March 19, 1974

This means that inflation does not affect everybody. Inflation does affect a few citizens, particularly those on fixed incomes. So I cannot agree with the motion of the hon. member for Champlain who claims that a guaranteed minimum income might help fight inflation. On the contrary, I feel that if the government acted in this way, it would put money in the hands of those citizens who do not need it and who already benefit from simultaneous increases in prices and incomes.
Finally, I would like to answer more directly the charge in this motion, which states that the government did not do anything to fight inflation efficiently. On the contrary, in the past, that is in 1973, the government took many steps to deal with inflation. And even more important, Mr. Speaker, the government intends to take more steps this year. The Speech from the Throne that was delivered at the opening of this session showed that the government was going to make all efforts possible this year to fight inflation.
What are the government's plans for 1974 as regards inflation? First let us recall-and it is a wellknown fact- that the government is concerned by the inflation problem, and that it does not think necessary to resort to an overall control system. The government recognizes that our economy is resting for a large part on our trading relationship with other countries. That is why inflation that developed in the whole world as a result of certain phenomena is affecting us as well.
However, the government fully recognizes that there are in Canada different means to deal with inflation, and these means are much more effective than the guaranteed minimum income referred to in the motion.
The government programs designed to fight inflation are actually divided into three separate parts. First, in the speech from the throne, we mentioned projects aimed at protecting the individuals, mainly those on fixed or low income. We are also proposing measures intended to prevent price increases in specific areas. We also intend, and this is very important, to deal with shortage-creating problems by encouraging supply, that is to say by stimulating production. The government prefers such a system which, besides, has been used over the last few months, namely selective measures applied in different ways and at different times as the occasion warrants to selected goods and services.
This makes for a flexible and appropriate system in a society seeking to control change in the most effective manner. Lately, the government has applied such selective measures to which I will come later. However, we will not hesitate to resort to additional deflationary measures if required. And as previously stated in this House by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), we will not hesitate to go after the "big guys" in the market place to protect the Canadian consumer.
One of the cornerstones of the counter-inflationary program we will launch in 1974 as a follow-up to those we have initiated last year is production stimulation, particularly of foodstuffs. Since food is one of the major factors in the price index in Canada and that the food shortage in the rest of the world as in Canada is one of the major inflation factors, the government set forth recently in the speech from the throne a food policy which will urge
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Canadian producers to produce more so as to check rising prices. Of course, this is a medium and a long-term method, but the government also took some immediate measures.
I should like to deal in particular with some measures that the government implemented last year and which are still being applied, in order to show clearly that the blame put on the government by this motion is quite unfounded.
Last year, the government first set up a committee which was instructed to investigate food prices and which the House approved on January 23, 1973. Later on, the government created a Food Prices Review Board, which actually replaced a House committee.
I should like to emphasize the much more specific and selective measures which are included in our counterinflationary program and which the government implemented last year in order to check the rise in prices of certain goods, particularly food products.
In the meat business, in August 1973 the government imposed export restrictions on beef and hog. That resulted in a widespread ban on Canadian meat sales on the U.S. market where prices were higher because of reduced production brought about by controlled prices and salaries. That initiative stopped meat prices in Canada from going up for a while.
With milk which is another basic commodity, the government announced last September that it would be subsidizing powdered milk at a rate of 20 cents a pound which resulted in a price drop of 14.3 per cent. It also announced a 5 cent subsidy on liquid milk which prevented or at least slowed down subsequent price increases. Of course, that plan is still in force.
With bread also in September the government set up a two-price system for flour which resulted in Canadian bakers receiving a subsidy which slowed down a price increase.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Canadians have difficulty recognizing the result of steps to prevent prices from rising. Prices are high and people are not satisfied. If we pass a measure which would reduce the price of a commodity, people could understand right away and feel that we curbed inflation.
But people are having difficulty realizing the effectiveness of steps such as those I just mentioned and which prevented milk prices from increasing because if the price of bread does not go up for six months, people find that normal. However, people often forget that it is because of steps taken by this government that the price of commodities such as bread, milk and meat, increased in a more moderate way or did not go up at all recently.
Let us now turn to what the government did to check the increase in the cost of oil products.
At the end of last year, the government asked oil producers in Canada to freeze their prices voluntarily as of September. So, in the part of the country that lies west of the Ottawa Valley, the price remained about $4 a barrel while the price of crude oil on the world market reached more than $10 a barrel.
The government is now negotiating with the provinces to set for all of Canada a standard price that would be
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lower than the present world price. Besides, the government took other budgetary and economic measures, such as amendments to the Income Tax Act. The government took many other steps against inflation and I was surprised to hear the hon. member for Champlain contend that we had not done anything to fight inflation.
May I remind that among other measures, the government indexed personal income tax on the cost of living. As will be recalled, the government enacted legislation under which the income tax deductions of individuals will increase according to the rise in the cost of living index. Such a measure will result in annual tax reduction to the extent of price increases. The net result is, for this year alone, that 175,000 Canadian taxpayers will have no income tax to pay while all the others will pay less.
Still on the subject of income tax, the government announced that it will reduce the basic rate of taxation between 10 and 21 per cent, according to the taxpayer's income. For instance, a single taxpayer whose income bracket is between $5,000 and $8,000, will have a tax reduction of between 10 to 20 per cent. Therefore, every Canadian taxpayer will save at least $100 for the 1973 fiscal year. A couple whose annual income bracket is between $7,000 and $10,000 will see its income tax reduced between 11 and 21 per cent.
These measures have even been suggested to us by some members from other parties. That is why it is surprising to see that when the government adopts measures such as those I just mentioned, we are charged with doing nothing to stop the price increases.
But we have done even more, we have eliminated the sales tax on certain consumer products to counter the effects of inflation. Amongts those products are soft drinks, sweets, fruit juices, which are totally free from federal sales tax. Children's clothes are no more subjected to any tax, there will not be any excise tax on tooth paste, shaving lather and other cosmetics. Custom tarrifs have been reduced for numerous kinds of imported fruit, a measure that should bring a reduction of consumer prices for these food stuffs which are not normally produced in Canada.
To fight inflation, we have taken many other measures that are certainly more efficient than the establishment of a guaranteed minimum income. For example, the Canada Pension Plan has been changed in order to increase the maximum annual pensionable earnings and the benefits to meet the rise in the cost of living.
As you know, there has been a substantial increase in family allowances, in order to compensate the beneficiaries for the rise in the cost of living.
Changes have also been brought, for the same reason, to the veterans allowances, to the old age security pension plan and to the guaranteed income supplement.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I think I have definitely proven, as I mentioned in the beginning of my speech, that this year's government programs are particularly aimed at fighting inflation. I believe I have proved as well that the government will live up to the promises it made in the Speech from the Throne.
The best way of knowing what the government will do with regard to this problem is to consider what it did in

the past. The measures I have just mentioned and which were implemented by the government in 1973 to fight inflation are the best guarantee Canadian citizens could possibly have of the efficiency with which we will tackle this inflation in the year to come.
Mr. Speaker, I completely reject the claims of the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte) when he says we do not fight inflation. On the contrary, I say that of all the governments of industrialized countries, the Canadian government is the one that has set up the most complete the most diversified, arsenal, that has taken the wisest decisions in the fight against increasing prices, problem which concerns the government and which is doubtless one of the most severe Canadians have to face at this time.
I would like to add that the measures promised by the government in the Speech from the Throne will be implemented, that others will be brought forward, and that Canadians can rest assured that even if prices rise, which is happening in every country in the world, the Canadian government intends to solve this problem which is considered to be the most important one facing our country.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the two ideas which were put together in the motion of the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte), and particularly in his explanation of the first portion which is related to the guaranteed minimum annual income. For many years I have listened to members of the Social Credit Party discussing their idea of a dividend. I have heard their leader explaining this matter many times on television, but I have never heard anybody come as close to Karl Marx's theory as did the hon. member for Champlain this afternoon when he said "each to his need according to his ability".
Then the hon. member added something that I found very interesting, something that in fact the Liberal government has been doing for a long time. He went on to say that we would mortgage the future if we issued money; and never mind what happens, all of this would eventually be related to our ability to increase the gross national product. Is that not exactly what the Liberal government has been doing for years? Whenever they need more money, they print it and put it down to the national debt. In fact, when we had too much money kicking around it was taken out of our debt. So the bookkeeping has been carried out pretty well in the way in which the hon. member for Champlain outlined it. However, I am not sure I am sufficiently socialistic to accept the full Karl Marx theory "to each his need according to his ability". I have always felt that was a little too generous and too cosmopolitan.


Mr. Caouette (Charlevoix):: You should read the speech.


William Arnold Peters: I agree with the hon. member who said I should read the speech, because it may not read that way; but that was the impression I had as I listened to it. I listened to it very carefully because I have been interested in this idea of a guaranteed minimum income. I think we have reached the stage in this country at which we have almost as many civil servants as we have workers. Prob-
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ably we have as many people living off the backs of the workers as there are workers themselves. This is an odd situation.
It is interesting to note that we now pay a single, old age pensioner a GIS of almost $2,000 a year. When he reaches the age of 65 he is eligible for that sum of money. If he is married, in many circumstances he can almost double that amount provided his wife is the same age as him. If he is married to a younger woman, they must survive on his GIS because the Liberal government believes in the theory that two can live as cheaply as one. This sounds like an advertisement of a matrimonial bureau. However, I have found that it is not possible for two to live as cheaply as one. It is a myth that Hollywood propagated many years ago and that most people have debunked. There is obviously a necessity to take into consideration the problem of younger wives and their total dependence on their husbands for a living, particularly when they have to survive on the $2,000 that they are getting.
Over the years I have been involved in both municipal and provincial politics, not by design but by necessity. People bring to me their problems, as they do to all members of parliament, and one has to learn something about the proliferating programs, particularly at the provincial level. This afternoon we listened to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Cafik) in rare form outlining the orange document that was put out recently respecting the government's program. He said that this is the kind of program Ontario would accept. If this is so, then any member of the Liberal Party who considers himself to be a Liberal should look at himself in the mirror. The programs outlined in the orange booklet to which the parliamentary secretary referred today are typically Conservative and we find that the Conservatives are not only sitting on one side of the House. A true Conservative, according to a definition I heard many years ago, is a man who fights all his life to protect those things that his father fought all his life to prevent. How many Liberal members who are still in this House have stood up and said, "We cannot have a medicare plan; it is impossible" and "We cannot have a universal old age pension plan; it would cost too much"? I well remember the time when it was raised from $50 to $56 and then to $60.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was $55, $65, $75.


William Arnold Peters: My colleague knows all the grim details. There have been many machinations. Whenever we proposed an increase, Liberal members would say, "we must keep it at the present level because the country cannot afford any more". Then we find them doing what the Creditiste member suggested this afternoon, or we find that an election comes up and suddenly we can afford the increase.
I suggest that we must consider a guaranteed minimum annual income. I was not surprised when Ontario turned down a program to see what would be the effects of a guaranteed annual income in one of the communities in the province. I am sure that most civil servants in Ontario would be violently opposed to such a program being implemented and that it would scare the pants off many of them
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to even consider it. We have people looking after children's aid, the mother's and father's allowance, the dependant father's allowance, disability pensions, windows' pensions, guaranteed income supplements, compensation and family allowances. Sometimes there are five or six different people coming into one household telling the family how to make ends meet.
There is a great proliferation of such programs and if we were smart we would put them all into a guaranteed minimum annual income. I understand from the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) that under such a program a single person in British Columbia receives almost $2,600. We have people in Ontario who are working at the minimum wage and trying to keep a family on $4,000 a year. They do not have their hospital expenses paid. They do not have all the other advantages which accrue to elderly persons in British Columbia or Ontario. Out of that $4,000 they must pay income tax, they must pay their medical plan contributions, their Canada Pension Plan contributions and all the other payments that are deducted from one's income. They end up probably earning less than the $3,000 a year which has been suggested is the poverty line.
I have here a letter that I would like to read. It underlines some of the problems involved. It is from a man who offered to help a person who was in financial trouble. He started to look after this person's books. He discovered that the person's wife had died and a number of bills had to be paid. The individual involved has a daughter who is now 18 years of age. He was trying to figure out this man's income tax. The man earned $6,707.55 and had already paid $659.83 in income tax. The income tax people wanted an additional $359.67. That was the problem. He decided to put this man and his daughter on a budget. The budget for two people per week includes $25 for food, $10 utilities, $2 clothing, $4 miscellaneous, $3 savings account and $25 rent. In addition, there are three loans outstanding-to Household Finance, Beneficial Finance and the Imperial Bank of Commerce, and $25 a week is being paid on those three loans. This man has a car on which he pays $8 a week. His car needs substantial repairs-it is a 1964 Chev-but it is doubtful if it can be repaired. The budget allows this man $3 a week spending money. That totals $105 a week, and there is no money available to pay the $300 owed in income tax.
There is nothing extravagant in this budget. As a matter of fact, I do not know how you can feed two people on $25 a week and I do not know where you can get accommodation for $25 a week. But this man who was working every day, making $6,700 a year and paying over $1,000 in income tax, cannot make a deduction for his daughter because she made $175 over the amount she is allowed to make while working after school in an IGA store. It is not only those on disability pension and other types of pension whom we must consider. We have a large number of working poor in this country. This leads me to the second part of the motion.
Despite what the previous speaker said, we have not done anything about the high cost of living. Yesterday I heard the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) quote statistics to the Canada Labour Congress showing that every-
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thing looked fine and employment was increasing. He pointed out that more people were employed in Canada than ever before, that our standard of living was rising and that everything was rosy. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is not rosy for a very large number of people; it is not rosy for those who cannot afford the bare necessities of life at present-day prices. The hon. member mentioned a number of things that had been done with respect to such items as oil, bread, milk and beef. Surely the Liberal Party is not going to take any credit for that, because that was the price the NDP extracted for supporting the government.
Let me add that even we may have thought those programs out poorly, because they were only a bargaining position. But again let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, they were really terrible programs when put into effect by the government because it did not have any rationale for putting them into effect. Even yet the government has not started to sit down to try to rationalize rising costs and their impact upon persons who are least able to afford them.
I think it is true to say that Mrs. Plumptre should go, and I would add that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Gray), should also go because he is of absolutely no value. Really, we have not done anything in this House about the cost of living; we have not done anything about putting controls on food prices; we have not done anything about restrictive trade practices. It is interesting to note that recently seven cement companies in British Columbia were charged under the Combines Investigation Act. What did we do with those companies, Mr. Speaker? We fined them $500,000. But how much money did they make? They probably made $100 million from the illegal practices in which they were engaged.
I suggest that if the Nielson company raises the price of chocolate bars today, then tomorrow all other chocolate companies will raise their prices because they all operate as a combine. Really, Mr. Speaker, there is no longer anyone in the Conservative Party who favours competition. In fact we do not have competition in this country. We have made all kinds of tax concessions to corporations, so that in effect we have eliminated the possibility of competition.
When one bread company raises the price of bread, all bread companies raise their price. I can give one example of a case raised by one of my constituents who pointed out that a specific commodity was 50 cents higher in one store than in another store in the same community. What was the result? The Department of Consumer Affairs drew this to the attention of Mike's supermarket, which then reduced the price by 50 cents. But, Mr. Speaker, that price is still 30 cents higher than in many of the chain stores in Toronto. Incidentally, this information comes from the Department of Consumer Affairs.
We really have not decided to do anything about that problem. We have not decided to cut out gouging. We have not decided to put in competition. Think what would happen if we considered buying into the food industry in the way we have in other fields. Suppose we went to one of the major chains and said, "Now you are operating a chain store and a wholesale business for us and you will supply 15 basic food commodities at a price we will set which will be reasonable for all those on low, fixed

incomes. You can do whatever you like with the other commodities you sell, raise their prices as high as you like, make what profit you like on them and that profit will pay for the 15 basic commodities." That might be one way to reduce prices. But it is not what we did with bread, because the consumer did not achieve any saving on bread and the producer did not get anything out of it. In fact, he was asked to subsidize bread by $1.50 a bushel. Without any direct subsidies, the price of bread has increased.
The story was different with milk because there was strict marketing legislation in effect, as a result of which the price of milk reflected the 5 cents that the federal government gave to the provincial governments. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) could not stabilize the price of beef on the same basis. In fact, I think he said quite clearly that he could do nothing more than he had done under the circumstances, because the producers will not get together and enter into an arrangement that would allow orderly marketing so that a subsidy could be provided to keep the producers in business.
Mr. Speaker, I point out that if the producers go out of business, then the price of beef will automatically go up. If such an arrangement were in effect, the minister would be able to subsidize the consumer at the same time so that the price he paid would be fair and he would not be gouged by the middleman and others out to make a profit.
I would like to see a vote on this motion. I would like to know whether the Liberal government is interested in doing something about the cost of living in a meaningful way, and at the same time maintain a guaranteed income for those at the bottom of the income scale.


An hon. Member:: Then let's have a vote.


William Arnold Peters: The hon. member raises a good question. We will have many opportunities to vote. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that so far as I am concerned if the government pretty soon does not start to do something fundamental about some of the problems, it will not get my support. But I hasten to add, having listened to the Conservatives and the alternatives they have put forward, that I think they are less entitled to my support than the government, considering the fiddling around they have been doing with a very serious problem.
May I call it six o'clock?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laniel):: I gather that two minutes extra were allocated to the hon. member, and therefore he has finished his speech. It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock tonight.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Gilles Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I heard with interest some speeches delivered this afternoon and I find it rather strange once again that some members are more interested in playing politics than in really looking
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for proper solutions to the problems now existing in Canada.
The Social Credit Party of Canada recognizes as the basic principle of its philosophy that the human being is the most important being in the world and that indeed no community could exist without the individual. In order to recognize effectively that importance of the individual, we must organize our society so as to respect any individual whoever he may be.
Now, in a modern society, in order to recognize the importance of the individual, we have to recognize his needs and his right to satisfy those needs.
I think that you will all agree with me that the individual is better qualified to know his own needs as he is better qualified to decide how they can be satisfied.
But if our society is to meet each individual's needs, it must be structured so as to allow the individual to make a choice while preserving his freedom; in other words, he must be assured of his security with freedom and not without it. Let me give you an example; I give security to my dog, in feeding it, in giving it care and shelter, but without freedom, for I am the one who decides when and what it will eat, and if I decide it will stay outdoors, it is my decision, not the dog's decision.
But, Mr. Speaker, I still can say the dog enjoys security, but I repeat that this is not the type of security we ought to give people.
We must give the individual security with freedom. That is what is really difficult.
This government and previous ones have certainly attempted on several occasions to guarantee some security to the individuals but, every time, they applied controls thus deciding for the individual and restricting his freedom. There is plenty of evidence to support this. With one hand, they give the individual some degree of security but with the other, they put a collar around his neck. Every government acts like a trainer with his animal: with one hand, he gives it what it likes, what it wants, and with the other, he puts a collar around its neck in order to direct it, to oblige it to do what he wants. I am sure that once more the animal has some security, but no freedom. The only way we can really be sure that the individual's needs will be met is to go back to the means of exchange between the needs and the production of goods necessary to meet these needs.
The most common means is still money. Within 50 years or even 100 years, we might have developed some other means of exchange. We might go back to the barter system, which is the exchange of one commodity for another. But in one way or another, today, the most common means is still the use of money. It is therefore necessary to provide individuals with the means to meet his needs through an existing production, that is a means of exchange, by providing him with the money he needs for this purpose.
The minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) may say that hospitals are not money. They are services designed to meet needs, and older people homes are services that are designed to satisfy needs. But the minister does not understand, and his colleagues even less, that these services are subject to some sort of freedom
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loss. Can the older citizen who goes to live in a home choose what services he will get inside? No, he cannot. What section he will live in? No. The older citizen is placed in a corner, and they say: society is taking care of him, it is taking care of his security. It may be so, but it also destroys or deprives him from his freedom, or part of it. And this is what happens whenever the government tries to meddle with the so-called social affairs.
We feel therefore that the solution to this problem would be to find a way for society to provide each individual with enough money to allow him a choice, enough money to satisfy his basic needs and help him make his own free choice. It remains for us to find the means whereby society can recognize the needs and fully satisfy the needs of everyone without penalizing some of them, as it is the case at the present time.
Mr. Speaker, the philosophy of this administration is based on the necessity to distribute the riches. We have heard government members mention in turn that distributing the riches meant taking away from those who have too much to give to those who have nothing. Any way, the potential of everybody is reduced so that we end up with a "gang" of "have-nots", while some of the wealth is in fewer hands. A society where wealth is shared is the just society we want. But what really goes on? Tax exemptions are granted to large companies. They are permitted to increase their price. What help for the little people! This is so in the case of sugar, iron and oil. This is probably how the government feel that lower income people should be helped. And what is more surprising still, the four most highly paid individuals in Canada do not even pay a cent of income tax a year. This is the "liberal" redistribution of wealth.
No doubt the minister of National Health and Welfare intends to talk again about higher family allowances and old age pensions, but he will not say that those alleged incomes are now taxable. Unemployment insurance benefits are taxable. Whatever they give with one hand they take it back with the other so that those who still have the strength or courage to work are penalized.
Last week, I asked a carpenter to come and make a few repairs in my home but after discussing with him we agreed that it was only a two-day's work. Then the guy made me easily understand that he was not interested in losing his unemployment insurance benefits to work two days at my place. He said that by working two days for me he would earn only $60 whereas he would be paid over $100 by the unemployment insurance and that in addition to that, if he made those repairs for me, he would lose his unemployment insurance benefits. He would be penalized. So he refused and rightly so. Why would he be foolish enough to lose $40 and be victimized by an incompetent Department of Manpower and Immigration? That man is right when he does not want to be penalized as is done by all the existing welfare programs.
We, in the Social Credit party, are trying to consider facts from a new angle, namely that all individuals should get help instead of penalizing some guy in order to help some other one faced with hardship.

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Therefore I urge the minister to stop being so blind and to have a little more nerve and energy with regard to his approach to a review of the government administration of social programs. I take advantage of this opportunity to give the minister a few technical explanations about the philosophy behind the rights of the individuals.
In the third edition of his work entitled Warning Democracy published in 1935, Major C. H. Douglas wrote in connection with finance and industry, and I quote:
If we consider the fact that the production of goods of all kinds, by unit of mechanized work employed, and if we also consider that this energy over the last 100 years increased from 3,000 to 4,000 per cent...
And I would say more than that today. I quote further:
... three things can happen: either each and everyone must consume 30 or 40 times more than before and consume still more as energy makes possible increases in production; either we have to dispose, through export or otherwise, of our production surpluses; either we must admit that the so-called unemployment problem results from progress in applied research in industry and that we have to make drastic changes in the system of distribution.
We have precisely come to that point today, but in his analysis Major Douglas was lead to propose that distribution of income should be separate from employment, in other words, that income does not necessarily arise from a job, so as to provide each and everyone with a vital minimum.
In Quebec especially, this opinion of the Scottish engineer was really recognized only after sociologists and theologians made the population understand that nothing in this statement was contrary to the social doctrine of the Church.
Daniel-Rops and Jacques Maritain, two eminent Roman Catholic sociologists and philosophers, have set forth in convincing terms the philosophy of the minimum living wage, and this idea has gained a lot of followers.
Daniel-Rops wrote in Par dela notre nuit:
The solution lies in the establishment of a minimum living wage to which every man would be entitled simply because he was born.
Moreover, Jacques Maritain says in Humanisme integral: "The law of usus communis leads us to conclude that, at least as concerns man's primary, material and spiritual needs, it is fitting that we should get for nothing the greatest possible number of things."
The Social Crediters were the first to realize the new economic and social conditions brought about by new techniques and automation. And I should like to take this opportunity to say to the New Democratic member who spoke before me that this is the very essence of the difference between Marx and Douglas. Karl Marx did not recognize automation and could not in his time foresee the advent of production machinery.
That is why the Social Crediters were the first to demand a minimum living wage based on production. The first measure to that end was to come into force in Canada through the passage of the family allowance legislation.
In 1947, the International Labour Review defined the implied objectives of this Canadian legislation as follows, and I quote:
The desire to keep at a satisfactory level the family purchasing power, especially of low income families.
[Mr. Caouette (Charievoix).l
The Review, stated further:
Family allowances were not considered as a salary supplement-and still less as a relief-but as a social measure designed to protect the incomes to which, according to some sovereign states, and for economical and social reasons, families, including children, are entitled.
The documents make it clear that the idea was gaining ground and that no less than 30 economists, sociologists and prominent Americans urged the U.S. President, Mr. L. B. Johnson, in 1964, to have a piece of legislation passed "so as to provide every individual and every family with an adequate income".
According to the authors of the brief addressed to President Johnson, such a minimum income should be high enough to make it possible to do away with all the social measures in force: unemployment insurance, social welfare, old age security pensions, medicare and others.
Later on, Robert Theobald, who had signed the previous document, set forth his philosophy on a guaranteed minimum income in his book Free Men and Free Markets. He explains that this minimum income should be guaranteed by the American Constitution and that it represents a basic right that no law, no court or no individual could abolish.
That, Mr. Speaker, is a sound attitude which is surprisingly like what we have been advocating for more than 35 years.
In a so-called free and developed society, greater individual freedom is thus desirable. The guaranteed annual income is a giant step in that direction, since if such a program were implemented and administered in an effective manner, it would be possible to decentralize the decision making power for the benefit of the individual who could be master of his own destiny.
Whenever the government is criticized for having failed to eliminate poverty and to provide the Canadian people with the means to further themselves, its spokesmen are ready with an answer. The minister will certainly prove it in a few minutes, because he will give a list of recent measures providing for the expenditure of public funds for the benefit of individuals. We can always say that those measures are inadequate, which is true in most cases. There is, however, a more serious objection to the government administration as regards financial credit in terms of present needs and aspirations. Such a policy means that the government decides in an increasing number of sectors what type of service could be provided, what type of activity people should undertake, as well as how people should get money to live on.
In other words, more and more power over the lives of the people is concentrated in the hands of politicians, of bureaucrats. Such being the case, public services of better or lesser quality can be given the people, but the areas of development, where the individual's wishes and needs find expression, are reduced, because what he will receive or what he will have to give is being determined more and more rigorously.
The citizen who is unable to exercise an effective control over the process becomes passive, frustrated or rebellious. We have seen cases of it in the province of Quebec
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and elsewhere. Obviously, the process through which power is removed from the individual and concentrated in the hands of the government has reached a very advanced stage in Canada, and it is still in action.
Yet, this is the exact opposite of what should prevail. Society exists to serve the individual and not to dominate or manipulate him. The Creditistes see in the institution of a guaranteed annual income program one of the means through which this deplorable tendency in our society could be checked.
If we admit that all citizens have the right to dispose of enough money to meet their basic needs, they will then be in a position to choose their own priorities and make their own choices.
There will then be no need for them to accept the mere pittance of the government which too often reaches them in the wrong way or at the wrong time. They will be able to control the economic policy of the country to a greater degree and one dollar spent will up to a certain extent constitute a vote indicating industry that the consumer, not the government or the bank manager is satisfied with a particular product.
The industries which will not be able to meet the expectations and the yearnings of the individual consumers will not be able to stay in business. Some will object, saying that some individuals would be unable to meet their basic needs, even if they had enough money.
This could be true but the circumstances in which such a situation applies are very rare. Moreover, people can really become masters of their own life and learn how to control their needs only through the practice of free choice and decision making.
However, they cannot become free citizens if they cannot express their claims efficiently and if they do not have the means to express their demands.
The Creditiste guaranteed annual income scheme would favour the development of serious and responsible citizens. In my opinion, almost everyone in our society, struggles for freedom and economic security. But one does not want to deal with the problem, to accept plausible solutions.
The establishment of a guaranteed annual income scheme such as the one proposed by the Social Credit Party of Canada would be a giant step towards freedom and economic security for all Canadians.
To conclude, Mr. Speaker, I will say that the Canadians who are at grips with the present social assistance plans are fed up with the mere pittance they get and which only contributes to discourage them and to maintain them in misery and that the other Canadians who foot the bill are also fed up with seeing the government penalizing them to maintain needy people in misery.


Mr. G. H. Whittaker (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I enter this debate on a Creditiste motion for a guaranteed annual income. I compliment the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte) on bringing forward this important subject for debate today. The two important words in the motion are "guaranteed" and "inflation". I wish to inform hon. members of
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the way I was taught to approach life. I was taught that Canada was not built on guarantees but with blood, sweat and tears.
We have entered into a period of great change. We are in the scientific age. Most scientific discoveries have been made within the lifetime of those living today. This is true of at least 80 per cent of discoveries. Machines, automation and other things that were never dreamed of are coming upon us very quickly. The automation of companies is designed to make the maximum use of machines. Machines cannot be justified unless they can put people out of work and this causes a great problem.
We have had, and are having, a migration of population from rural to urban areas. This is causing many problems. In addition, we are faced with a very high rate of inflation. This has helped add to poverty in this country and it has worsened the position in which people find themselves. In one year the dollar has eroded by almost 10 per cent because of inflation. I receive many letters from people who are concerned about how they are going to make out in today's world.
We have come a long way. Whether we like it or not, we have a great many guarantees. This afternoon the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Cafik) did his best to justify many programs. They are, of course, in the form of guarantees. I do not think I could justify them in the same manner, after reading the many letters I have received from people in my constituency, people for whom these programs just are not working: I do not know whether it is because of the high rate of inflation, but I suspect that may be the answer. This is my first year in this House so I cannot compare the reasons now given by constituents with those of previous years. But without doubt this is the highest rate of inflation we have ever experienced.
We have many types of pension programs as well as an unemployment insurance program. These cause people in the work force many concerns. I receive a good deal of mail from people who retired a few years ago. Their pension is based on the salary they received at that time. Because of the erosion of the dollar and the high cost of living, they cannot maintain the standard of living they were used to in the past. People retiring today are in a much better position. Ten years ago people were retired at $200 a month; today they are being retired at $500 a month. People who retired ten years ago want to know why the pension plan cannot be changed so that they too can be brought up to the standard of living of those who retire today. It is not a cost of living escalation they want. This is the sort of question people are asking.
The unemployment insurance scheme is coming under fire because, it is said, the scheme is being abused. Those who level this criticism are the people who are paying into the scheme. All the security measures in force today, such as welfare, unemployment insurance, pensions, even the baby bonus, must be paid for by someone. It would not be so bad if these programs were doing the job they ought to be doing. Young people coming out of school with an education are told: Now you have an education you can do anything you wish to do, take any kind of job and do it successfully. They get a job. The rate of pay is low. They

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see large deductions coming off their pay checks in the form of income tax and unemployment insurance.
Government spokesmen talk about having lowered the income tax. Unemployment insurance payments are another form of tax these people have to pay. They look at their pay checks and ask: What are we working for? We are barely getting enough to live on. We shall never get enough to be able to buy a home. We are in what appears to be a much poorer position today than our parents and grandparents were years ago, because they were able to purchase houses in which to live. What chance have we of getting a home today, with the high cost of land and the high cost of building?
It makes them do things we do not like to see done about the work ethic. They say to themselves: Why should I work? Why should I not take advantage of all the programs which will keep me going? I do not really need to work. So, viewed as a whole, the system is not doing what it is designed to do. We talk about a guaranteed annual income. I do not believe we should talk about a guaranteed annual income in isolation. I think we should be talking about guaranteed employment at the same time. We certainly do not want to bring in any type of program that teaches people not to work.
We have established a welfare program administered by many levels of government. It is not palatable to many people, although I should like to think there is no one in Canada today who would not be looked after. In many instances people in need would have to go on welfare. With the pride people have, they do not want to do that kind of thing. If we brought in guaranteed employment and a guaranteed annual wage, we could do away with welfare. Let's do away with welfare. Let's think of guarantees for the old, the infirm and those who just cannot work-not people who will not work, but those who cannot work. Those who are paying the cost of these programs, particularly the young people entering the work force today, are not fooled. They can see what is going on. They can see the bureaucracies which are built up. They realize the high cost of administering all these programs, and they can see they are not really working. Many people have not received what they ought to have received under these programs.
If we can do something about the high cost of maintaining these bureaucracies, if we can streamline the administration, I believe something useful might come from programs of this type. As it is, one department often appears not to know what the other is doing. Sometimes it does not even care. Look at the Canada Pension Plan. I receive many letters from housewives who are not able to take advantage of this plan, from people who have less than somebody else is receiving, from people who have not earned enough to get anything really useful from the scheme. We should look at all these programs, starting with welfare and unemployment insurance, and try to produce a system which is better suited to our needs. I close by saying we should in no circumstances do anything to destroy the work ethic in Canada.


Mr.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, when parliamentarians debate poverty and social assistance plans they inevitably become engaged in a search for improvements and better methods. It would be surprising

if it were otherwise, since regardless of what the cynics may say, men and women who go into politics do so with a desire to improve the shape of society. This is what the debate today is all about.
Much has been said about poverty on this continent. Volumes of reports have been written about the subject. A Senate committee investigated it recently. Obviously there are other forms of poverty beside economic poverty. There is poverty determined by isolation, by lack of qualities in life which may have little to do with economic well-being. If we limit ourselves to the narrow issue of poverty in economic terms, we can find it in many regions of Canada both rural and urban. It can be found in the most unexpected quarters. Consider the men or women who have worked all their lives in construction, in a factory or in a place not conducive to good health, and who toward the end of their working lives, say in their fifties, find they can no longer remain gainfully employed due to their difficult conditions and proudly refuse any form of public assistance.
Poverty can also be found among the victims of an accident or of a progressive disease, persons who can no longer continue to be the breadwinner for their families. It can also be found among injured workmen, victims of accidents at work who are suddenly pensioned off at rates set under provincial laws, people who may have lost a limb at work while making a productive contribution to society, or people who have broken their backs and who as a result may also have to go on welfare and whose income as determined under provincial laws is inadequate. We see many examples in large urban areas of people on pensions that are not tied to the cost of living index, such as workmen's compensation pensions, or whose pensions are not adjusted over the years.
Poverty can be found among those who work for wages at minimal levels, people with large families struggling to make ends meet and to give their children an adequate education. Sometimes there may even be temporary difficulties which perhaps lead to situations that cannot be termed poverty but near poverty, such as when a family has to face unexpected dental bills for one of its members. In this respect it is very reassuring to see what is being done presently by the province of Saskatchewan through its program of dental care. As well, we had the announcement today by the province of Quebec.
It is against this background of poverty, which others have defined much better than I have, that in designing a system in society that leads to a guaranteed annual income one would inevitably create legislation of the kind that we have today in Canada. Allow me to expand on that for a moment. It is really a legislative framework that seems to me to consist of six basic pieces of legislation: the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Assistance Plan, the Unemployment Insurance Act, income tax, the guaranteed income supplement and family allowance.
^ime does not permit me to discuss in depth these various tools which over the decades successive governments-and here I must stress successive Liberal governments-have developed for the benefit of Canadians. These tools are available and they are working, but as
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changes in society take place over the years they need to be adjusted and sharpened to meet more adequately the demands and shortcomings of society. For instance, in the Canada Pension Plan we have a fine measure that protects the income of widows, orphans and retired persons.
Other hon. members have already spoken about mail coming in quite frequently from people urging the government to reduce the age of retirement. In the Canada Pension Plan there are certain provisions which perhaps could be improved; for example, the disability pension that can only be obtained if a person has contributed to the plan for five years. This leads to a very sad state of affairs for people who have contributed to the plan for only four years or 4'A years and who find themselves deprived by a few months of an income that would compensate them for their unexpected disability.
Another aspect of the Canada Pension Plan which could be improved is in providing a means of integrating it with other pension plans for the benefit of immigrants who before coming to Canada contributed to pension plans in other countries. Immigrants may have worked in many other countries and contributed to social security schemes elsewhere. It would be desirable, and would not be to the cost of Canadian society, if contributions made to these social security systems in other parts of the world were somehow pooled and added together so that the beneficiary would get a pension from one administration and in one sum, rather than having to apply to several different administrations, an enormously complicated process. Then there is the situation of the woman who has no job with an employer but who does work at home. Many members have made representations to the government regarding the desirability of permitting women to benefit from the Canada Pension Plan by contributing to it even though they are at home.
The Canada Assistance Plan is another of the tools we have. I wish to refer to the role of the provincial governments under that plan. The provincial governments could implement a number of measures for senior citizens, for the disabled, or to provide services in the community for those in need. We have had some exceptional examples of certain provinces in Canada, as well as some miserable performances from others, like the province of Ontario, where use of the Canada Assistance Plan has been limited up until now.
Not much has been said during this debate about unemployment insurance, yet it is an important tool in the maintenance of the income of Canadians, particularly those in the poorer regions. This is a very substantial piece of legislation which was passed by this parliament. It was even recognized as such by hon. members opposite, who are now asking for inquiries and investigations into the operation of unemployment insurance. One year ago, five or six members of the Tory party broke ranks with their own colleagues and supported the provision of funds for unemployment insurance. If I remember correctly, all of these members came from the maritime provinces, and obviously they did this because they well knew how desirable it was and how important a part unemployment insurance has to play in income maintenance for the people in their area.
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The Income Tax Act is a very powerful piece of legislation that endeavours to redistribute income, which in a democratic society is perhaps one of the most remarkable ways of achieving social justice. We have recently completed an exercise in income tax reform. It is perhaps a pity that we were not able to introduce full rates for capital gains and we settled for one half, but this is something to look forward to in years to come and would produce additional revenue that would improve schemes of support for people in need in Canada.
This motion also deals with the question of inflation. Here it is important to keep in mind certain developments which have taken place on the world scene which demonstrate how the situation was precipitated in the last year. One might look at the basic commodities we use in Canada and ask what has happened in respect of the price of these commodities. If you take sugar and coffee, the increase in price over a 12-month period has been 514 per cent. In rubber, cocoa and tin, the price has doubled in a 12-month period. The price of rice has increased for times over the period of one year.
One can realize how difficult it is for any economy to provide a satisfactory answer to people when they go shopping and find increases in the price of commodities on the shelves. The measures which have been taken by the government and which, according to the mover of the motion, are missing were quite eloquently put forward this afternoon by the hon. member for Saint-Jacques (Mr. Guilbault). All I shall do, therefore, is place on the record the projected subsidies for 1974-75 for two basic consumer goods, namely, milk and bread.
In the case of milk we have a continuing indirect milk program and milk subsidy. The estimated amount of the subsidy on milk which the government of Canada is injecting into the economy is $257 million. In the case of bread there is a continuing subsidy of $120 million. These subsidies are accompanied by a host of other measures, such as in the case of meat which was recently announced by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan). These measures have the very clear purpose of stimulating production and making it more and more desirable for farmers to increase production of certain commodities in the hope that the increase in quantity will be matched by larger volume sales.
It seems to me that this is the kind of substantial, tangible action that the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle) was asking for this afternoon. Having asked for action, he continued speaking for 20 minutes. In what he said it was very difficult for us to perceive any tangible proposals or recommendations in respect of these crucial questions. These actions which have been brought forward by the government of Canada during this very difficult time have been in contrast with the 90-day period of meditation proposed by the Tory party which they call euphemistically the period of freeze. During this period- some people would call it a period of yoga-the Tory party would meditate on the measures that would follow the 90 days. After the 90-day freeze, no one knows exactly what would happen. The income policies that would follow this 90-day period of meditation are such that they have not been defined in this House in any of the debates on
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inflation. It seems to me that Canadians will not be easily fooled by promises of income policies which we all know would hit hardest the people with whom this motion is so concerned. However, that could be the subject of another debate.


Mr. Roland Godin (Portneuf):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to second the motion moved by the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte), a motion that invites the government to turn aside from the beaten track and implement a measure to recognize the right of the people to live by way of a guaranteed annual income.
It is obviously an advanced measure and I would go so far as to say that it could be considered as a first. I believe that rather than innocently witnessing the collapse of the capitalist system, it is important to hurry up and bring about significant changes.
In every country of the world, people are complaining about inflation. All governments are seeking solutions and are trying to apply various measures to cure their economy of inflation, but such measures are not working properly. Unfortunately, our governments' advisers disagree on the definition of the word inflation. I believe that this is because the advisers often base their opinions on what they have seen in dictionaries, where inflation is defined as "the excessive issue of paper currency", which means that in order to fight inflation, the amount of money in circulation should be reduced, less money should be printed and more should be taken out of circulation through taxes or otherwise.
As financial credit is gradually replacing paper money in business transactions, inflation is therefore imputed to the overly free issue of financial credits by means of bank loans, and a restriction of credit is recommended.
Our governments even order an interest rate increase to discourage borrowers. When these measures prove insufficient to fight inflation, the government calls on the people to practise voluntary restrictions and austerity. The population is asked to hold back spending. In spite of repeated invitations during the past five or six years, nothing is changed by this, while inflation goes on as if our rulers had lost control.
Another definition of inflation, more recent and imaginative than that of the dictionary, has been used lately in magazine articles on economic matters. I quote:
Inflation is too much money running after too few goods.
However, Mr. Speaker, between this definition and the real problems, the link is easily made, but no one can maintain that the inflation prevailing in developed countries results from a shortage of products in the face of excessive buying power. Nonetheless, 90 per cent of Canadians are aware that such is not the case in this country. Most wage earners, as well as all retired people, needy mothers and unemployed know too well that inflation, the high cost of living, is not due to the fact that they have too much money in their wallets.
Inflation is due to the current financial system which is not attuned to the reality of production and consumption. The accounts of the system are false. Honest accounts are
[Mr. Caccia.l
the only means to counter inflation without prejudice to anybody's legitimate interests. Honest monetary accounts and accounts corresponding to real facts are objectives we would reach through the application of the financial data given by engineer and economist C. H. Douglas half a century ago.
The one and only fact of price increases proves the inefficiency of the system. If it were attuned to the real facts, there would be no inflationary prices but, to the contrary, a gradual reduction of prices as technology would increase and facilitate production.
And, Mr. Speaker, the guaranteed annual income plan suggested by the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte) today is a step that should be taken as soon as possible.
It is true that people who object to this plan believe that increasing the spending power of the public would succeed only in aggravating inflation.
They claim that producers and distributors would bump their prices, knowing that people have the means to pay more. Facts prove, however, that this argument is not realistic. In fact, we tend to believe that the opposite would be true. More purchasing power in the hands of consumers is not necessarily the same thing as excessive purchasing power. Some economists now admit that inflation can as well be induced by increased pressure from the industrial costs as it can be when there is too much money to buy too few products.
It is generally recognized today that the problem of increasingly rising costs generated the rampant inflation we are now experiencing.
There can be no doubt that some industries are pocketing inordinate profits, but numerous surveys on the causes of mounting prices could not show convincingly that all producers had taken advantage of the situation.
The findings of the Food Prices Review Board are but one example among many others. Even if this board has once in a while drawn attention to certain abusive practices in the field of prices, it has failed to prove up to now that consumers are in general fleeced by producers and dealers.
On the contrary, what emerges from business conditions in Canada is that distributors and producers themselves are squeezed between costs and prices; they are desperately trying to hold out in face of inflation. In other words, the present inflation problem is not solely due to market conditions at the dealer level.
The pressure of costs in industry is also a determining factor in the rise of prices. The Social Credit proposal regarding a guaranteed annual income would really make it possible to reduce the pressure of costs which increases every day.
So, far from contributing to inflation our program is really offering guarantees that such a situation caused by increases in the production costs may be improved and even controlled.
Our reasons for believing in such a solution are as follows: First, the revenue is now distributed among the people, provided they work. This procedure for the distribution of revenue is at least followed as strictly as possible.
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However, it is obvious that the practice entails expenses which are not really necessary for the production of goods required by the people.
This is because most people work in the first place to earn their living and also because the efficient production by machinery reduces the number of jobs. There is unfortunately in our economy at the present time an extremely strong tendency to bungle production, to stretch the work as much as possible rather than to complete it in the shortest possible time. All the mechanisms designed to extend employment increase costs which must finally be recovered by the company. In the long run, it is the consumer who pays and prices also increase each time production costs are passed on to the consumer.
An effective guaranteed annual income scheme under which the consumer would obtain a direct income would change the situation completely, because this income would not come from the production system and would not be considered as a production cost. Therefore, it would not have to be added to the prices charged to the consumer.
The problem of distributing an adequate income to the people to enable them to buy all the products they want would be solved. Production efficiency could develop faster than it does presently because instead of trying to maintain jobs at all costs, businessmen would try above all to increase productivity by using machines able to produce much faster than by hand. The result of such a policy would be to reduce production costs and the producers would be able to pass on this saving of labour and material to the consumer through lower prices.
So, the Social Credit Party of Canada urges the governe-ment to adopt a modern and simple guaranteed annual income system in order to enable the country to cope with inflation caused by increased production costs. It means that if we distribute a guaranteed annual income to all citizens, we should automatically be creating a very effective means of coping with inflation.
Mr. Speaker, the Social Crediters are not the only ones to stress this fact. During a conferance, a world famous economist, Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, warned that the present industrial system "cannot insure that the purchasing power in the economy will be equal or even approximately equal to the products that can be manufactured through present industrial methods".
A universal guaranteed annual income system paid out of new credit would contribute to increase the purchasing power of the people so as to raise it to the level of production. Instead of mortgaging their future incomes, people could buy with today's money the products they need today, which would put an end to the staggering increase in the consumer debt which has quadrupled in less than 10 years.
Mr. Speaker, another economist, an English one this time, Robert Theobald, in his book published in 1967, wrote, and I quote:
The principle of a guaranteed income is based on the basic American belief in the right and capability of the individual to decide what he wants and must do. That is undoubtedly the meaning of the words "private enterprise", that the individual must have the right to obtain enough resources to do what he believes to be important. In the past, the individual could go into business and obtain resources through it.
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Today, the facts shaw that the small businessman and the small company cannot compete with giant corporations. So the ideal on which private enterprise is based can only be preserved through a guaranteed income. In fact, a guaranteed income would bring about the revival of private enterprise.
Mr. Speaker, a guaranteed annual income would also help enormously from another point of view. Let me mention the public debt. We have nothing to hide, we just have to look into the financial statements of our municipalities, of our provinces and of the federal government to see that this debt is increasing every year in a dramatic way. The public debt service also increases every year. The public debt increase undoubtedly proves that our municipal, provincial and federal governments are incapable of fulfilling their obligations and have to go into debts. A guaranteed income, derived from taxes, would certainly not improve the financial status of the country or of the Canadians.
This is why today the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte) has submitted a motion to the effect that this guaranteed annual income be taken from new votes, in order to increase the available purchasing power. Mr. Speaker, I think that this is the only solution that should now be applied by Parliament and I was very happy to associate myself with the preceeding speakers on this subject.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be participating in this debate on the question of a guaranteed annual income, as it affords the House an opportunity to raise fundamental questions about the whole system of social welfare in this country. Let us not be mistaken about it, the very nature of the guaranteed annual income demands that it be comprehensive and that it not be just another partial or stopgap measure to be added to the existing labyrinthian maze of social welfare programs.
To examine the guaranteed annual income, therefore, we must examine it in the context of the aspirations of Canadians for social justice and in the context of the chaotic, inadequate and, yes, even perverse jungle into which our social welfare system has been turned by ten years of Liberal mismanagement. This, of course, is related to the state of our economy and it is the state of our economy that draws attention to the very low incomes, compared with ever escalating costs, that the poor in this country must face. The latest figures released by Statistics Canada indicate a progressively deteriorating situation for the Canadian worker. Average weekly earnings in December, 1973, were only 5.9 per cent higher than those for December, 1972. When compared with a cost of living increase over the same period of time of 9.1 per cent, it is indeed obvious that whatever the working man has managed to get in salary increases has more than been eroded by inflation.
It is interesting to look at the charts for the past year. Average weekly earnings generally increased over the previous year by 7 per cent or 8 per cent. The consumer price index started off in October, 1972, at a rate of 5.3 per cent. The following month it was 5.1 per cent and in December it was also 5.1 per cent. These figures give the increase over the previous year. Then last June there came
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a time when the two graph lines crossed. Average weekly earnings were then 7.8 per cent higher than the previous year and the cost of living was 8.1 per cent higher. It is of interest that every month since then, when this unfortunate statistic has been facing the government, average weekly earnings increases have been less than the large weekly increase in the consumer price index.
What happens to people who are poor in this wealthy country? What are the effects of poverty on the poor? I would like to quote a few words from the Economic Council of Canada's sixth annual report:
One of the most important consequences of poverty is that it affects the ability of the poor to invest in themselves and thereby to lead more productive lives within the economy. This is illustrated by the lower relative expenditures on categories of goods and services which are particularly important as a basis for skilled and effective labour force participation, such as expenditures on education and reading.
We live in a country that prides itself on granting equal opportunity to young people. Our educational system attempts to do this. However, Mr. Speaker, the people who live in a poor section must have the best schools in a city in order to have equal educational opportunities-but they do not have them. Generally, schools are on a par over an entire community. Unfortunately, the best teachers are able to choose the schools in which they wish to teach and they tend to gravitate toward the people who are more success-oriented in the wealthier parts of town, and consequently the poor are left even further behind. I quote further from the report of the Economic Council of Canada:
A family's inability to invest in itself is likely to have particularly serious consequences on young children whose potential abilities are largely shaped in the years of early childhood. There is accumulating evidence to suggest that children of low income families in Canada are most unlikely to have adequate access to needed resources in their early years. Even the possibility of significant child nutrition problems, seemingly so improbable in this country, must be taken seriously. A provincial minister of welfare recently stated publicly that some of the children in his province were too ill-clothed and ill-nourished to attend school.
It is interesting to examine the expenditures of poor families compared with the average expenditures of nonpoor families. The poor families' food expenditure is only 70 per cent of the food expenditures of non-poor families. But when you get to such things as education and the ancillaries connected with education, the poor can only spend less than 40 per cent of what the wealthy can spend. Again to quote the Economic Council's report:
-a very substantial proportion of the adult poor in Canada consists of those who either have, or could be provided with, income earning potentials ... there is a resulting high economic cost to our society in having failed to discover and implement more effective policies and programs to permit them to utilize these potentials. In other words, when we have such large numbers of poor in the working force age groups, our economy is simply not producing as much as it could or should.
When you look at the guaranteed annual income there are certain things which are obvious. There must be incentives but there must be different types of incentives. You must have incentives for those who cannot work, who are unemployable. These are the aged, the incapacitated, people who suffer severe illness and are sick and unable to work. Then there has to be a different kind of incentive for people who are employable. I believe in a guaranteed annual income, but it should not be upon the same scale

for a healthy young person who simply chooses to opt out of the working force as it is for an elderly citizen or an incapacitated person. I believe that those who are employable should be required to accept employment or else exist on the barest subsistence level.
A few weeks ago the hon. member for Hastings (Mr. Ellis) brought forward some statistics. They showed that the administration of one part of our comprehensive social coverage was being so badly managed that it was expected there would be a 50 per cent rise in costs this year. I am speaking about unemployment insurance. One of the unfortunate things about unemployment insurance is that the government is using it to do something for which it was never intended. Unemployment insurance was originally intended to look after the person who was employable and who through no fault of his own had become unemployed. It was thought only right and proper that he should be able to maintain his lifestyle until he was able to find further employment. But the present government changed that.
I was astonished to hear the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) refer to this matter a few moments ago when he said the unemployment insurance program was really an income maintenance plan which apparently fits in with the government's welfare scheme. This is partly what is wrong. Members of the government have taken a good concept and have operated it in such a loose fashion that it is no longer an unemployment insurance scheme; it is a loose set-up that just invites rip-off. Members of the government do not know what to do when things go wrong, with the result that they tighten up the scheme arbitrarily, through regulations, instead of coming back to this House and trying to redraft the legislation.
Sometimes I am puzzled at the way backbenchers on the government side make odd remarks during their speeches. Perhaps they are as restless as the rest of the country about the cabinet's handling of the economy. This afternoon the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Cafik), who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, listed 16 propositions that the government had in its latest plan. Outside of being basically concerned or a little skeptical of anybody who has that many propositions to offer, I was astonished to hear him mention the Department of Veterans Affairs as being something to boast about. That baffles me. At this stage in its existence that department probably has its worst reputation since it was set up. It is trying to squeeze out the veterans hospitals or get them transferred to other jurisdictions. It is at the last moment considering stopping the Veterans Land Act, yet the hon. member brought it forward as one of the shining lights of this government. Perhaps he was forced into it by our friends to the left.
I should like to speak about the institution of a guaranteed annual income. If this is to come about, it must be done carefully and by stages. It does not have to be a magnum opus that will all be put in one bill. A guaranteed annual income is possible and I think it is realistic to look at it. At the start, it should be clearly defined who needs it most. We could begin with the aged and then work down. We have a guaranteed annual income in British Columbia for those aged 60 and over and I think it should be
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considered ahead of the Manitoba scheme. British Columbia is a rich province and its finances were carefully managed in the past 20 years. When the old master left the political scene, he left half a billion dollars for his profligate heir. As a result, this plan is not costing as much out of current income as some prophets of doom had forecast. It means a great deal to those aged 60 and 65, particularly widows. I have had letters from widows who were honestly unable to see how they could manage until they reached 65, so I am pleased that they now have somewhere to turn.
I suggest that the federal government might talk to provinces such as British Columbia who have taken the first steps toward a guaranteed annual income for those aged 60 and over. The Premier of British Columbia uses the same languages the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). I see by the press that they use the same four-letter words, so they should have no difficulty in communicating.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer again to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare who spoke this afternoon. Toward the end of his remarks I could only think that he has been working around the bureaucrats too long. Some of his suggestions were loaded with the bureaucratic nonsense we become used to hearing. Perhaps he will be brought back to reality by a letter which I received from a constituent of mine on January 18 which reads:
Dear Mr. McKinnon:
We are constantly told to write our members if we have a complaint. This is why I am writing you. My beef is with the pension department.
I am a widow and work as a seamstress in... Ladieswear, a parttime worker I should add. At the end of 1972 when I became 78 years old, I decided that at that age I surely should not be ashamed to apply for the supplementary pension. My normal income is $65 per month, and at that time I was receiving the $88 from Ottawa. Accordingly, I went to the local department and got a form to fill out. I was told that I had to resign outright from my place of employment-
Talk about disincentive! She had to resign from her place of employment.
-before making my application. I did this on December 18 of that year, then in the beginning of January I mailed my application to Ottawa. It was accepted, and at the end of April I got $35 per month in addition to the $100, which had been increased during the sitting. I had hoped the B.C. government would add a bit to that, but not a dollar did I get. Now, all this four months I could not earn a dollar, and had the above to live on. I agree that two pensioners sharing can do nicely on the slightly over $400 per month, but one person paying $95 rent can't possibly live on $200.
I had decided to go off this small supplement and go back to work in the fall when I was sure to be needed again, but by mid-June Miss F. phoned me to see if I would come in and work for a few days while one woman was off sick. I agreed but knew that I would have to report it.
Hon. gentlemen opposite think this is funny, but it is not funny to me.
However, when this woman came back, holiday time was here and there were others wanting off so I was asked if I would stay on another week and another, till I was there about six weeks altogether. The first of August I wrote to the department in Ottawa, which is where I thought I should write, telling them as plainly and as honestly as I have told you why I went back to work and asked them to take me off the supplementary pension. At the end of August I went east on a holiday with relatives- they paying my expenses, I might add. When I returned early in October I found a small note from Mr. M. in the pension department here, saying he had unsuccessfully tried to get me by phone, would I please contact him soon.
Guaranteed Income
I phoned and found that he would be in that day, so I went down, not dreaming that I was going to be up on the carpet; in fact, I didn't tie this in at all with my letter to Ottawa. Mr. M. didn't see me, he sent his man Friday to do the unpleasant chore. They had sentence passed upon me before I arrived. Friday stressed the enormity of my crime, and said the pension department would have to have its pound of flesh, in my case $175, being five months of the supplement of $35 per month that I had received.
This lady had only worked for six weeks, yet they wanted to get back five months of the supplement.
I was stunned with this turn of events, in view of my being so honest in reporting what I had earned. This amount is more than half of what I earned. I asked him, why he didn't send me to jail? No answer. Friday kept saying that I had opted out; he flipped it around. I told him that I had not opted out; I was told to get out.
Remember, she had been told to resign so that she could get this supplement.
I expect when Ottawa received my letter, they immediately thought it belonged to the Victoria branch, so sent it to Mr. M., their FBI for B.C. There was nothing more I could say after being told that they would have no choice but to deduct $20 per month off my security pension until the entire $175 was paid. I walked out.
I believe that the federal government have done very well in their increase in the security pension, but their ruling on supplementary one is away out. I could live in a $30,000 home that I owned and get the minicome, but I can't pay $95 rent and get it. Now, does that make sense? And with the spiralling prices of today I can't possibly live on the $205 or whatever it is. I have to go back to work, and I am grateful that the place is there for me and it is not because they are sorry for me but because I am a good worker. I would rather work than accept any form of financial assistance and fortunately I am permitted to choose what hours I want to work.
I am grateful for this and my government should be grateful that there is a woman like me. I was treated like a common criminal at the department here. They found their man with $175 of federal money. And at Ottawa they throw money around like drunken sailors every day! I could weep over Canadian politics!
I only ask that the sentence that they have passed upon me be annulled and my money returned to me. I am not asking for a pension, I would rather work. I do not smoke nor drink and I do not even permit myself the luxury of cablevision. I know no further ways of cutting down yet the price of everything that I need to buy goes up.
I would be grateful for any pressure you could cause to be put on those who make these awful rules. I thank you.
Yours truly, Minnie...
On January 31 I wrote to the minister. I received an acknowledgement of my letter but have not yet received a reply. I realize the minister is very busy and has to worry about millionaire football owners and who is going to control the American players who play in Canada. But this little lady of 78 years has expressed very well what is wrong with the department. I do not think anything I could add would put it any better than Minnie did.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I should like to say how I appreciate having the opportunity to participate in this debate and the chance which the Social Credit Party of Canada has given us to discuss in the House the important question of a guaranteed annual income.
I have appreciated the comments made by members today during the debate. I believe that we have indeed witnessed a debate of a very high quality which will

March 19, 1974
Guaranteed. Income
contribute toward advancing the ideas of the public, hon. members and the government on the poverty problem which we must now face as a country and as a society.
I should like to start by making a few comments about the allegations which were made today about certain things that I said or did not say. I refer in particular to the statement of the hon. member for Drummond (Mr. Boisvert) who quoted from a newspaper clipping according to which I had objected to the establishment of a guaranteed annual income in Canada. I would suggest to the hon. member that he refer to the document which served as a basis for the article which he mentioned to the House, and that instead of reading newspaper clippings, he should read the copies of this speech which I sent him several months ago and which he could have taken the trouble to examine. He would then have seen that the said article does not represent the ideas expressed in this speech at all. I also refer him to another speech which I gave on November 20 last, in Montreal, before the representatives of the Canadian Tax Foundation.
I hope that, in all honesty-and I count on the good will of the hon. member-he will take the trouble to destroy this clipping and will admit that it is simply a hoax or an article that give a completely false report of the statements that I made. Once again, I refer him to the speech that I gave in Montreal on this occasion, and he will see that far from objecting to the guaranteed annual income, I spoke in favour of it especially with regard to those who are unable to work or unfit for work, whatever the reason may be.
I shall waste no time commenting the remarks of the hon. member on the characteristics of the Outremont riding. I suggest that he give himself the trouble of spending a day or so in that riding; he will see that the limits of the riding are not necessarily those of the city of Outremont, and that even in that city there are still quite a number of citizens who depend on welfare benefits, specially in the poorer areas. The riding of Outremont is almost twice the size of the city bearing the same name and has twice as many inhabitants. I would even be willing to bet there are more people on welfare in that riding than there are in that of Drummond.
Like him, I have on occasion had some visit me at my office in Outremont. But I shall not spend much time on this matter because I feel it is important that I spend a few minutes to discuss the motion before the House.
I must admit that if it were a mere statement of principle relating to guaranteed annual income, I would have been happy to support the motion. However,I must consider that this motion is worded in a way which, unfortunately, does not deserve support from the government, and I do not believe that it should deserve support from anyone who examines objectively the situation as it has been in the country over at least a year and a half.
The motion read as follows:
That this House regrets that the government has taken no concrete steps to ensure the establishment of a guaranteed minimum annual income to overcome poverty in Canada and enable each Canadian citizen to cope with problems of rising prices and to fight inflation efficiently.
First, I will point out to him that it is certainly false to pretend that no concrete steps has been taken to imple-
[Mr. Lalonde.l
ment a guaranteed annual income scheme. First, everyone knows that the old age security pension with the guaranteed income supplement actually represents a guaranteed annual income. That was a measure passed by Parliament several years ago.
Now, since November 1972, we improved substantially the benefits set out in that plan. Furthermore, as was recalled this afternoon by my parliamentary secretary (Mr. Cafik) we are conducting a pilot experiment in Manitoba, 75 per cent of which is financed by the federal government and which is aimed at experimenting with various aspects of guaranteed minimum income. This will surely be of very great help both to the federal government and the provinces for the implementation of any further steps we could consider taking.
Needless to recall that in the month of April of last year this government published a paper on social security. It includes two propositions-proposition No. 6 and proposition No. 7-suggesting precisely that an income supplement plan and a guaranteed income plan be set up. I quote particularly proposition No. 7:
That a guaranteed income should be available to people whose incomes are insufficient because they are unable or are not expected to work, namely the retired or disabled, single parent families, and people who are not presently employable by reason of a combination of factors such as age, lack of skills, or length of time out of the labour market. The guaranteed income would be paid in the form of an additional income supplement over and above the general income supplementation available-
-to be paid out to those able to work.
As a matter of fact, that paper committed the federal government to setting up a guaranteed income and a form of income supplementation; it is following the release of that paper that we started in co-operation with the provinces the general review of our social security system.
That paper released in the month of April last year was more than a theoretical effort put before this House to gain time or delay steps which could be called for. To the opposite, as was recalled by members of my party this afternoon, we have implemented many measures both in the area of family allowances and that of old age pensions, notably the indexation of social benefits and the increase in pensions paid under the Canada Pension Plan or the Quebec Pension Plan.
To assert therefore that no positive action has been taken to ensure a minimum guaranteed income is a false statement; one is really closing one's eyes to reality when supporting seriously such an assertion.
A guaranteed annual income, in the mind of the government-and in that I agree with certain aspects of the motion under consideration-is undoubtedly an effective weapon against poverty; that is why the government supports such a proposition.
But when the mover goes even further and indicates that it is a measure that would enable every Canadian to cope with the problem of price increases and to fight inflation effectively, I must tell him that annual income in itself is no guarantee against inflation or price increases. All will depend on the level at which the guaranteed annual income will be set and how it will be occasionally adjusted according to price increases. For example, last year we adjusted on the cost of living index all social
March 19, 1974

security programs, more precisely to enable the needy members of the community to face inflation and price increases. This is in no way related to the existence of a guaranteed minimum income.
Indeed, in my opinion, if we had to carry out not only the proposal as introduced in the House but also the specific proposals put forward by the hon. member for Champlain this afternoon, far from reducing inflation or obtaining a protection against it, I respectfully suggest that we would register the highest inflation rate ever experienced in this country and I will explain.
In its last report, the Economic Council of Canada, which is made up of many important representatives from all sectors of Canadian life, emphasized the necessity to maintain a reasonable rate of increase in social transfer and social benefit payments. Hon. members will recall that the Economic Council of Canada had suggested a rate of approximately 11 per cent a year. The Economic Council indicated also that if we maintained an excessively high rate of increase for these benefits, we would end up penalizing those we were trying to help, for it would result in a very high rate of inflation.
I have examined the proposals put forward this afternoon by the hon. member for Champlain who said that, although it may cost eventually a few billion dollars, this, did not appear to him to be of paramount importance. Although I admit this is only a summary evaluation, it is nevertheless close enough to reality, give or take a few billion dollars, according to my hon. friend's proposals.
His first proposal provided for a $300 grant a year to every person aged 18 or under. This would represent an additional cost of about $400 million a year.
His second proposal provided for the payment of $1,500 a year to each person aged 18 to 60. This represented a supplementary cost of about $16.5 billion a year.
His third proposal provided for the payment to all single people over 60 of $250 a month and $200 a month for the spouse regardless of his age. This proposal would represent a supplementary cost of about $7.3 billion a year.
The fourth and fifth proposals provided for the same benefits to widows and invalids and, to be generous, I did not figure out the cost of that benefit, telling myself I should leave some aside in case I would have overevaluated these proposals.
Moreover, it is suggested to increase the tax exemptions to $3,000 per individual and $6,000 per couple, with a $500 per child exemption. That would roughly represent a cost of $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year.
Once again, leaving aside the cost of proposals Nos. four and five, all this adds up to a cost of some 26 or 27 billion dollars. This is not too serious, since it is but 125 percent of the overall revenue and expenses of the federal government at the present time. So, this would be an increase, but since we have to get the money somewhere, my hon. colleague of the Social Credit Party proposes credit and the Bank of Canada as a solution, but let us forget about that for now. Let us suppose that the Bank of Canada does not want or cannot print all this good money, we would then have to increase all taxes and not only the income
Guaranteed Income
tax. We would have to double all present taxes to finance the proposals put forward by the Social Credit Party of Canada.
Apart from the economic and political difficulties, such a proposal, following the injection of those amounts in the economy, would give rise to an inflationary situation such as no country in the world has ever known. Yesterday I addressed an organization that was submitting some proposals and I accused its representatives of a possible lack of responsibility for not having figured what their proposals would cost. I realize that the suggestions I criticized yesterday were innocent compared to those made today and to the lack of responsibility shown by the Social Credit Party of Canada, if the members of that party are serious when they ask Parliament to enact such measures.
In fact, the social security review is under way and it is proceeding in a very encouraging way. The federal government can count on the co-operation of all the provinces and the study covers not only the principle of the guaranteed annual income, but also other aspects of social security. This afternoon, I heard with pleasure the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway (Mrs. Maclnnis) stress the fact that the guaranteed annual income is not in itself a panacea and that there is a whole series of other needs that we must continue to meet. And the idea that the guaranteed annual income will allow us to eliminate everything else is only a dream in colour.
Indeed, we will have to continue to assume a wide range of social services already in existence or that will have to be created. It is not because we will grant a guaranteed annual income to the handicapped people that we may dispense with rehabilitation services and retraining. It is not by granting a guaranteed annual income to the unemployed that the need of manpower training centres will be eliminated. It is not by awarding a guaranteed annual income to housewives that day nurseries will become useless. It is not by granting a guaranteed annual income that we will dispense with the responsibility of providing social services to meet all the individual needs, either physical or psychic, to enable people in various social circles to face a problem such as alcoholism, for instance.
Finally, we must review and examine social security on an overall basis, and not pretend that through one single step, we might easily change the world and come to a final review of the social security plan in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to emphasize that we expect to conclude within the anticipated time limit the work we are doing in co-operation with the provinces. I also wish to emphasize the fact that even though Manitoba is experimenting with a program of guaranteed annual income, this is not a reason for doing nothing or delaying the measures that could be passed.
The federal government as well as the provinces intend to implement all the steps that will be agreed upon in the review we have undertaken, and to act in future as we have done last year when we began an overall review of the social security plan. The government did not hesitate to put forward before this House specific proposals that became legislation and were passed by Parliament.

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The federal government has put forward many steps and we intend to continue to do so. The provinces have also made important moves last year, particularly by increasing welfare benefits. I suggest that the provinces should also escalate the welfare benefits they are paying under the Canada Assistance Plan.
The federal government has escalated almost all its social benefits and I suggest that the provinces should seriously consider the advantage they would derive from taking the same steps as Parliament in this regard.
Mr. Speaker, I will conclude by simply saying that I am proud, like my colleagues on this side of the House, to be long to a government that achieved this review of social security and that brought forward in this House measures like those that were proposed last year. I am sure that the Canadian public recognize the value and the efficiency of the measures that were taken, and that they will continue to support the government that applies them.


Mr. Latulippe:: Mr. Speaker, would the minister allow a question?


Marc Lalonde: Agreed, Mr. Speaker.


Henry P. Latulippe: Does the minister admit that all existing welfare programs would be abolished and replaced by one program, the guaranteed income program, and can he tell us what he intends to do with the program or proposals contained in the report on poverty and made by its chairman, Senator Croll, when he says that the guaranteed annual income would cost $1,900 million at the most?


Marc Lalonde: I thought I had made it quite clear in my speech that the introduction of a guaranteed annual income would not involve the elimination of existing social services. On the contrary, those services might be extended to meet the needs of society. The guaranteed annual income might replace present welfare payments, but all existing social services will have to be maintained. I mentioned the unemployed, the disabled, the unwed mothers. I could list a whole series of others. Those social services will have to remain.
About Senator Croll's proposals, I would say that we could have a $100 million guaranteed income if you will. We would only have to set the guaranteed annual income at such a low level that it would cost practically nothing. All depends on the level it will be set, and this is a simple matter of cost.
For instance, when Senator Croll's report was made public, there was a general protest throughout the country, even from the opposition members who said, if my memory serves me right, that Senator Croll was not offering a guaranteed annual income but guaranteed poverty. Finally, everyone rejected the report and its proposals as totally inadequate.
I do not think Senator Croll's report can now be held up as the last word on the whole matter.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to take the floor immediately after the hon.

Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) on such an important subject.
Of course, I have five minutes left, and I would like to use them in a sensible way, in order to take part in the best possible way in the establishment of a social policy which would make it possible to eliminate poverty as much as possible in Canada.
We often speak about the third world, Mr. Speaker. We think that the third world is in Africa, in Europe, in Asia, and we forget that there is a third world in our own parishes, as the hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare rightly said earlier. There is poverty in his own constituency; and the Senate Committee on Poverty was concerned with the poor I think. That is the reason why they tabled a report containing recommendations that sought a solution to the problem of poverty in Canada, recommendations to the effect that we must necessarily adopt a guaranteed minimum annual income policy. In his report, Senator Croll and his colleagues were not frightened by figures. I think they have exaggerated more than the Social Crediters can do because, on page 23, one can read, and I quote:
The poverty line for a person $2,140 per year.
Income guaranteed level, $1,500.
We speak about $1,200 and it goes thus for people of all other classes. When this report was published, the Minister of National Health and Welfare was today's Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro), who gave the following comments about this report, as one could see in the November 11 1971 edition of Le Droit:
It shows common sense but is too costly.
Mr. Speaker, was man born before money or did money come before? Who created money? Is it man or is it money that created man? We always judge according to dollars and do not think about the physical potential of this country. Canada is rich, but 60 per cent of the Canadian people are poor.
That is why, following a responsible inquiry, the senators wanted to make recommendations and since the recommendations were rejected, the chairman expressed his feelings in the following words. They are from a Liberal and not from me. I quote:
Disappointed, Senator Croll deplored the fact that governments always find good reasons to excuse themselves for rejecting the project.


An hon. Member:: How true it is!


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: They have been doing that for 40 years. In his comments on the Senate's report on poverty, the former Minister of National Health and Welfare explained that it could cost up to $2 billion to the federal government to achieve the annual guaranteed income project and the present minister who succeeded him is talking about $26 billion. Let us see if we can agree on figures. I have here official statistics about what is being done throughout Canada at the federal, provincial and municipal levels and if we add the administration costs of all those programs, we come to the sizeable amount of $21 billion. Therefore, we have come to the point where we are playing with billions of dollars. What can we do about it? It is this century, the year 1974 that
March 19, 1974

wants that. In spite of those billions, there are still Canadians starving in Canada. That is why, today, we have decided to work together, in an attempt to find a way to give them some security, some freedom and the possibility of leading a decent life.
To my mind, Mr. Speaker, we must continue to work in that direction and achieve that objective in Canada, namely the adoption of a guaranteed annual income that would give the handicapped, those who are unable to work, income security, while also allowing those with guts, those who want to work to do so without being penalized as in the case under our present social legislation such as unemployment insurance and social welfare. Today, when someone wants to leave the house and go to work, to help build his country, he is penalized right away because under our present laws he does not have the right to do so. We are thus deprived of his energy, his brains, his possibilities, his talents which could be put to good use in adopting a guaranteed annual income which would not automatically encourage sloth in Canadians, but which, on the contrary, would bring them out of their homes, get them to work and produce even more, thus enabling the country to do even more for the needy. It is in that spirit, Mr. Speaker, that we must remember today's debate, because all political parties represented in this House gave their approval to this basic principle.
Even though we do not agree completely on the fitures, Mr. Speaker, I consider this quite normal. In the past, when we talked about an old age security pension of $150 a month, people laughed at us. Today, it is even higher and everyone finds this reasonable. In a year or two, the wishes of Senator Croll and the opinions that we have expressed may come true. I hope that the young people of today, who are looking everywhere and do not know what to do with their talents, will by then be able to work, to produce, and maybe also to help eliminate the drug problem which is now overwhelming, and will also check this movement towards the destruction of the Canadian, and especially the French-Canadian, family.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Boulanger):: It being ten o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that, pursuant to section 11 of Standing Order 58, the proceedings on the motion have expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, my question for this "late show" period tonight follows rather naturally on the debate that has been
Adjournment Debate
taking place today. All day long we have been discussing the desirability of a guaranteed annual income, and several times during the debate spokesmen on the government side have made the point that the escalation of old age security and other pensions represents an effort on the part of the government and on the part of parliament to keep pension incomes at a certain guaranteed level.
A few days ago, on Wednesday, March 13, I asked the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) whether he would have a discussion with Statistics Canada regarding the possibility of producing a cost of living index that was based on the actual goods and services that senior citizens and retired persons have to purchase. In his reply the minister said that the matter was, to his knowledge, under consideration by Statistics Canada, and he was favourable to that study being continued. But he suggested that there might be a danger if a special cost of living index for older persons were based largely on food and the time came when the food index did not rise quite as high as other indices, or when it might even drop.
I want to say in passing that most retired people would gamble on that. They are not so worried about times when prices drop as they are about what is more normal, times when prices are rising. And, after all, there is a floor under escalations that have been added. Legislation with respect to all escalations is quite clear, namely, that once an escalation has been given it is not withdrawn. In other words, there is no drop in anyone's pension once it has been raised in accordance with the cost of living.
I recognize the problems that exist, but I want to put it to the government-and I see that tonight I am putting it to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Cafik)-that this question does have to be looked at very seriously. Nothing is ever finally settled in this place, let that be clear. I see the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Sharp) realizes that and he has decided to go home. Just because we had an escalation, first of 2 per cent and then equal to the actual cost of living increase, that is not the end of the story.
For example, next month, in April, there will be an increase in the basic old age security pension on a quarterly indexing basis which will amount to only $1.95. Many pensioners are writing to us and asking how come that is all they get. I try to explain to them that this is because the quarterly indexing is always at bit delayed, and that what they are getting is an increase based on the amount by which the cost of living in November, December and January went up over what it was last August, September and October. Therefore, in April pensioners get an adjustment in relation to the cost of living which in November was a certain percentage higher than it was in August, and so it is always behind.
Therefore, I submit that some improvement must be made. There are a number of ways of improving the situation. One is to have an index that does relate to the things that pensioners have to buy. Another is to do some guessing. Statistics Canada can be as good at that as in telling us what has happened in the past, and there could be estimates of how the cost of living is likely to go in the next three months. Or better still, there could be provided a new base that is higher-one of the troubles with todays

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Adjournment Debate
escalation is that it is on a basic pension which is too low-or there could be found another index based, for example, on the increase in the gross national product or on the wages or salary standard, and so on.
I am one of those who voted with both hands for the cost of living index. It was so much better than the 2 per cent arrangement. I am one of those who voted with both hands for it to be on a quarterly basis. But, Mr. Speaker, let me say to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare that it is not the last word. He likes to stand up and announce all these things that were done, but he will find that when he gets on to the hustings one of these days before too long the people will say to him that it really does not reflect the situation and that something better must be done.
I think that whatever else was agreed upon today, there was agreement that there need to be guarantees of income maintenance. The government likes to think it has guaranteed senior citizens a certain level of pension and has guaranteed that that level would keep up with the actual cost of living. Mr. Speaker, it does not. You can tell me statistically or in strict percentage terms, that it does, but in fact it does not. I hope that if the method I have proposed has some flaws in it, the parliamentary secretary has some other answer to this problem which has to be faced, namely, keeping pensions up with what it actually costs retired persons to live.


Norman Augustine Cafik: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the comments of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). We all appreciate the concern he has for the problems of senior citizens. I was delighted to hear him affirm something which I certainly affirm, namely, great support for the measures that have been brought forward in this country in an effort to keep the income of senior citizens at a level equal to the cost of living.
It is quite true that the incremental increases which are now made on a quarterly basis deal retroactively with a problem that occurred earlier, and if one were to adopt the kind of approach the hon. member is referring to in this debate, namely, to change the incremental increase on the basis of increases in the cost of food, one would not correct that problem. I know the hon. member realizes that. Nor would this correct the problem of being a couple or three months behind in the increment, no matter what base you used as the basis of increases in the GNP or increases in the wage index or the food index.
Dealing more specifically with this question, I would point out to the hon. member that at this point in time the bureau of statistics is conducting a thorough food expenditure survey in 14 major cities across Canada. For the first time, data on the place of purchase is being obtained. This type of information, plus an idea of what products are purchased, is essential in determining buying patterns for a particular wage group. These data, plus the total budget survey to be taken in early 1975 in the same major centres, will provide a more detailed picture of the expenditure patterns of special groups such as the elderly. As a result, these data will also be used in a further examination to determine the necessity and validity of constructing price indices for special groups of consumers.

The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) has indicated that he is interested in the results of the work done by Statistics Canada. I assure the hon. member that when those results are brought forward and we see what the consequences are in relation to specialized groups in this country, further consideration will be given to that kind of question.


HEALTH-REQUEST FOR ASSURANCE MEDICAL RESEARCH FUNDS WILL NOT BE REDUCED
Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, when I asked the minister in the House the other day a question regarding the reason for cuts in research, I was concerned because research is the cornerstone of disease prevention. Canada's real beginning in medical research was in 1921 when Banting and Best, Collip and MacLeod discovered insulin at Toronto University. Thousands of diabetics doomed to early death can now live a useful life and play their part in society. One of them was a well known Toronto specialist who made a great contribution in the treatment of diabetes.
Collip then discovered the hormones of the parathyroid gland, the placenta and the pituitary gland. Minot and Murphy at about the same time were working at the University of Chicago and they discovered that liver extract would cure pernicious anaemia so that patients could live and carry on their work. Then came the discovery of the sulfas and the antibiotics as a result of those discoveries and the economy of this country has been strengthened. Before the advent of preventive medicine founded on research of one type or another, the common cause of death was infectious diseases particularly from birth to age 45. So successful has preventive medicine been that the common cause of death now is accidental in that age group.
It is rather annoying to see research funds cut from the expected 15 per cent to 5 per cent. Even at 10 per cent we might have saved face, but hardly so when we look at other government spending, such as on Information Canada which could better be replaced by the news media. I am stressing this because there is a lack of awareness on the part of Canadians regarding the need and value of our research. Otherwise, the government would not have dared to cut back on this vital research. Yet I think of the towns, the villages and the cities across Canada, with their cancer societies raising close to a quarter of all the funds that are used in research and the clarion call they sound in making people aware of this dreaded illness. All of us owe those societies a deep debt of gratitude. Now we have the sadness of having to turn back because of lack of funds any qualified man who wants to do research.
Just about one-fifth of all deaths in Canada today are due to cancer, yet we are hovering on the verge of a breakthrough; and those cancer deaths occur in people from infancy to old age. So seriously has the United States regarded this disease and its destructive forces that they increased their funds for cancer research alone by 25 per cent while we cut back cur funds. About 50 per cent of all the deaths in Canada are due to cardio-vascular disease and about 80,000 people die of it annually.

We cannot afford this cutback. The Americans have increased their spending on research into the causes of cardiovascular disease by close to half a million dollars. They are finding out what is killing their citizens. Cardiovascular disease, the lipids, all have to be studied in people from their infancy. High levels of cholesterol are being discovered in children. All this needs more research. But for every dollar spent on research, a measure of prevention must be reached in the treatment of sickness. If there ever was a penny wise and pound foolish method, the Minister of National Health and Welfare has found it. Its costs may be met tomorrow in more preventable deaths and sickness.
I would ask the minister to take another look at this problem. He has the highest-spending department in the government. Its increased expenditures ran to millions of dollars last year. I ask him to go back to basic essentials in the prevention of illness and increase these funds by at least 15 per cent. Surely a Canadian life needs as much protection as an American one, and this year the Americans are making a 15 per cent increase.


Norman Augustine Cafik: Mr. Speaker, roughly a week ago the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs, when it was dealing with the estimates, had before it Dr. Malcolm Brown who is the president of the Medical Research Council. All parties were there to participate in the discussion of their particular budgets. Anyone who was there would certainly agree that Dr. Brown explained the situation in relation to the Medical Research Council, their work and their budget, quite adequately. I could not detect the slightest suggestion by the president of MRC that they were in fact inadequately funded so that they would not be able to do
Adjournment Debate
the kind of'work that they are expected to do in research for the people of this country.
I think I should make a couple of other points if I may at this time, Mr. Speaker. The amount of money spent on medical research is not all spent by the Medical Research Council. Quite clearly, within the federal sphere alone the total budget for medical research is in excess of $100 million annually, yet the budget of the Medical Research Council itself is just in excess of $41 million. There is a great deal more being done than is being done just by the Medical Research Council. A second point I want to make is that Dr. Brown indicated that our contribution as Canadians, in terms of expanding medical knowledge in the world, was certainly very high considering our population and our budget. In fact, it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of a 5 per cent annual contribution toward the world's accumulation of medical knowledge.
I am sure that past discoveries referred to by the hon. member for Simcoe North (Mr. Rynard) cannot always be related directly to federal expenditures in specific instances. At times, discoveries that are made are not related at all to the kind of money spent. Governments are not the only groups which provide funds. Private contributions are made and I think these ought to be encouraged.
There was a suggestion by the hon. member that not enough is being spent on cancer research. I wish to point out to him that the federal government itself has absolutely no jurisdiction to determine what kind of projects are funded by MRC. This is their decision and their decision alone: it is according to the priorities established by that independent body. I think Dr. Brown dealt quite adequately with that question before the committee.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.20 p.m.

Wednesday, March 20, 1974