1975-06-16

PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF DR. HANS FRIDERICHS, MINISTER OF ECONOMICS OF THE FEDERAL GERMAN REPUBLIC

Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to draw to the attention of the members of the House the presence in the gallery this afternoon of Dr. Hans Friderichs, Minister of Economics of our great trading partner, the Federal German Republic.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Dean Whiteway (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the fact that the committee on the green paper continues to have its hearings disrupted, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie):
That the Minister of Manpower and Immigration immediately instruct the chairman of that committee to take steps that will assure all groups wishing to make presentations an opportunity to do so in an orderly and civil manner.


Mr. Speaker:: The motion is proposed pursuant to Standing Order 43 and cannot be presented without the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Andras:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think it should be noted by the House and the hon. member that this joint committee is a committee of parliament, a committee of this chamber and of the Senate, and would not be subject to instruction by me to the chairman or anybody else.


U410) ORAL QUESTION PERIOD   THE CANADIAN ECONOMY INFLATION-DATE OF FINAL ASSESSMENT OF PROGRAM TO ACHIEVE CONSENSUS ON RESTRAINT
Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance arising from the rather depressing figures released concerning the gross national product and adverse trading balance, revealing a situation which took place while the minister was away, and I am sure would not have happened had he not had to leave the country for awhile. In view of this, I should like to ask how his consensus program is percolating along and whether he can give us a firm assurance now that he will be presenting us with a definite and final assessment of this consensus program on restraints when he brings down his budget?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Finance):: I will have a good deal to say about it, Sir, on budget night.


DATE OF PUBLICATION OF FIGURES SHOWING EFFECT ON COMPETITIVE POSITION OF EXCESSIVE WAGE INCREASES- KNOWLEDGE OF MINISTER OF LABOUR OF FIGURES
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the minister when he is going to publish his figures and analyses relating to the so-called myth that Canadian wage and salary increases are nearly double those in the United States, and that this seriously impedes our competitive position in respect of major goals? In view of the Minister of Labour having described the view of the Minister of Finance as a myth in the House on May 27, when will the Minister of Finance publish these figures and these analyses?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, these will be among the appendices in the budgetary documents on budget night.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, did the Minister of Finance show the Minister of Labour these figures and analyses before they journeyed together to discuss the consensus program with the leaders of the labour movement in Canada, and, even more particularly, did he show the Minister of Labour these figures and analyses before that minister made his attack on the Minister of Finance in the House on May 27?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I cannot really answer that question except to say that the figures I will be producing are available through public sources.

June 16, 1975
Oral Questions


INFLATION-MINISTER'S VIEW OF URGENCY OF VOLUNTARY PRICE AND WAGE RESTRAINTS-REASON FOR LACK OF ACCURACY IN FORECAST OF GROWTH
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, now that the revised figures show that the real gross national product has decreased 2 per cent in the last 12 months while inflation has continued relatively unabated, will the Minister of Finance indicate whether he believes that a voluntary program of wage and price restraint is even more urgent today than when the task first began to arrive at a consensus?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is really putting the same question to me that his leader asked.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, dealing with the past and not with the future, in view of the fact that in each of the minister's four previous budgets his predictions for real growth have over-shot the actual figures to the extent of 6.6 per cent in cumulative figures, would the Minister of Finance now indicate why his predictions were so overstated, and is he going to use the same advisers for his June 23 budget that he used for previous budgets, particularly in view of the fact that they gave such over-stated forecasts for the real growth in the economy?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the national accountants in revising the accounts from 1971 revalued upward the 1972 and 1973 years' figures, so that the hon. gentleman's statement is not entirely correct. Against the whole tenor of his question I should say that economic forecasting has been a very difficult art for the United States, ourselves and the Europeans in view of the volatile international situation both in terms of the movement of commodity prices and in the movement of food prices, and any calculation, of course, had to be upset by the quadrupling of the price of oil last year.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, in view of the minister's last answer, and in view of the fact that if the economy has responded to all the predictions of the Minister of Finance in 1975 based on 1971 constant dollars, the gross national product would have been $7.2 billion higher than it now is, a shortfall in real dollar terms of $852 per taxpayer in this country, can the minister tell the House whether he believes Canadians will ever regain this unfortunate shortfall?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I have learned to check the hon. gentleman's figures before replying.


OIL-GOVERNMENT INTENTIONS WITH REGARD TO PRICE INCREASE
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Last Friday I asked him a question regarding the statement by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources that the government had made a basic decision with regard to the

price of crude oil which he expected would go into effect on July 1. The Prime Minister replied that he was consulting with the Premiers, but press reports since that time indicate that Premier Davis said an increase at this time would not be appropriate, that Premier Lougheed said no decision had been reached and that Premier Schreyer stated the Prime Minister told him no decision was made concerning either the amount or the time of the increase. In light of these statements, I wish to ask the Prime Minister if he can assure the House that it is not the intention of the government to raise the price of crude oil in Canada in the month of July?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I would have to repeat my answer of the other day which the hon. member has summed up pretty well. Obviously, the cabinet and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources have explored various possibilities and I am now in the process of examining them with the provinces. It was our hope that we would reach a consensus. I agree with the hon. gentleman that that hope is dimming. I have still not been able to reach all premiers but some will be talking to me later today. Until I have spoken to them all, I would say there is no firm decision yet either in respect of price or timing.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister if it is the intention of the government to proceed with the course of action he forecast in his speech to the first ministers at the conference on April 9 when he said:
But the price for the year beginning in July will have to be higher than it is now.
May I ask the Prime Minister if that is the framework within which the government intends to operate or is there some reason the government intends to follow a different course of action?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Speaker; the position of the federal government is the same, that the price of Canadian oil which is substantially below world prices will have to increase if indeed we do not want to run out of this very important commodity. But as to what the price should be or the timing, I repeat that I cannot announce this until I have spoken to all the premiers.


OIL-JUSTIFICATION FOR PRICE INCREASE IN VIEW OF PROFIT POSITION OF COMPANIES
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, in his address to the first ministers conference the Prime Minister gave as a reason for raising the price of oil the need to provide some financial incentive to the oil companies. I want to ask whether the government has made any assessment of the financial position of the oil companies in view of the fact that for the first quarter of this year the profits of western oil companies were up 51 per cent when most other segments of the economy were declining. I wish to ask the Prime Minister if the government is prepared to reconsider its decision in the light of the very favourable financial position in which the oil companies find themselves and in view of the fact that any increase would seem not to be justified at this time?
June 16, 1975


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is arguing that the price of oil in Canada can remain at half or somewhat slightly above half world prices for a long while and we will still be able to be self-reliant in this country ten years down the road, he is certainly taking a position which this government does not share.


MANPOWER
Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
Could the minister tell us if the Cabinet has studied the possibility of renewing the LIP grants for 1975-76? If so, would he be in a position to announce the renewal of those projects proven useful at a date that would enable some of them to be launched as early as the end of summer?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, the same question was asked by one of the hon. member's colleagues the other day. I cannot give him any further information at this stage. If and when a decision is taken, I will certainly make it public.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Attorney General, but in his temporary absence from the House I will put it to the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs. Can the minister advise the House whether he feels that the federal court judge was justified in issuing an order to try to detain a warship of a friendly country in support of a civil action against two members of the crew, an action which has not been tried by the court? Does he agree that this should not be done?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, officers of my former department have been in touch with the Department of Justice and the Judge Advocate General's office with a view to clarifying the factual situation. On the basis of the facts as we know them, HMS Hermes is a warship in the service of a foreign state. Hence, under international law and as recognized both in common law and in various Canadian statutes, such a warship would enjoy immunity. It would appear that any court order issued against it would have no legal basis.
Oral Questions


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Could the Attorney General inquire into the administration of the federal court to see whether an action, which only befits a petty banana republic, would be justified by Canada.


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think that that kind of remark is a fair one to make about a court responding to an application before it and perhaps taking interim action while determining the situation at greater length. However, I will be glad to examine more closely the nature of the proceedings, but I certainly want to register now my defence of judges and of courts in trying to deal quickly with a matter that appears to be urgent when, in the course of doing so, they might leave themselves open to serious criticism if the wrong decision were made.


Mr. Baldwin:: Why don't you refer it to a jury?


REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF DESCRIPTION OF &quot;HMS HERMES&quot; AS FOREIGN SHIP
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Did I
understand the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs to say that this was a ship of a foreign state?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I used this in a general sense in that the Secretary of State for External Affairs is generally known as foreign minister. I know that one of the reasons we retain "external" is that we are never quite able to make up our minds as to whether members of the commonwealth are foreign in relation to Canada. But I was using the word in the sense in which it is generally understood. I hope I did not offend the hon. member's sensitivity.


Donald W. Munro: I think I also heard the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs say that the minister whom he is representing is normally called the foreign minister. The law of the land provides for a Secretary of State for External Affairs.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member have a question to direct to the minister?


Donald W. Munro: I do feel that we need some clarification. I would like to ask the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs to make it quite clear to the House the ministry or the secretary of state-ship he is representing at the moment.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please, the hon. member for Edmonton Centre.


POSSIBILITY OF PREVENTING &quot;HMS HERMES&quot; FROM SAILING
Mr. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs. Since the British defence ministry has advised HMS Hermes to ignore the Canadian court order, will DND be asked to prevent this ship from sailing?
June 16, 1975

Oral Questions


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the matter is now before the court. May I say to my hon. friend from Esquimalt-Saanich that with respect to the court, at least, it is a foreign matter. It is outside the ordinary jurisdiction of the Canadian court, and relates to the question of immunity. While my hon. friend may not want British ships to have this immunity, I think probably they should.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Statistics Canada issued over the weekend figures-which I am sure the Prime Minister has studied in detail and with which he is fully familiar-which show clearly that the performance of the gross national product in the first quarter was the worst performance in 14 years in any quarter. In view of the fact that if we continue to perform at this rate for the remainder of the year, we will be 6 per cent below last year in GNP, the worst year in 21, does the government now at long last intend to introduce measures to get at the root causes of this economic malaise which has been besetting the country for the past year and a half?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member had studied the figures as diligently as he rightly assumes that I have, he would know that the root causes are practically entirely due to the fact that our foreign trade has fallen off. He would also know that the countries to which we usually do a great deal of selling are now unable to purchase. The root cause, therefore, is something in our outside markets, not in Canada.


George Harris Hees: As I feel sure that the Prime Minister is aware that a great deal of the malaise is due to causes within the country and that these causes can be cured by measures which have been outlined to the government by members of the opposition on a number of occasions in this House, is he going to pay some attention to those suggestions and do something at long last, or will we have to continue with the band-aid measures which have allowed the economy to slide so badly for the last year and a half?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, that was somewhat a repetition of the first question.


George Harris Hees: It takes two questions to get it through your head.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This is possible, but it certainly takes more than two answers to get anything into the head of the hon. member.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


George Harris Hees: You simply must get better writers, Pierre. That isn't sharp enough.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: After having pointed out in my first answer that the deterioration is almost entirely due to the deterioration in foreign trade balance, I want to say that in so far as domestic demand is concerned, final domestic demand in real terms in Canada resumed its growth following the decline in the fourth quarter. It has resumed its growth in the first quarter, and that should indicate to the hon. member that the government is on the right track.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I have a final supplementary. If it is all the fault of our customers outside the country, would the Prime Minister explain why imports into this country last year from foreign countries increased by 13 per cent while our exports decreased by 4 per cent? Why are they taking our markets, and why can industry in this country, under the direction of this government, not obtain some of the orders they are losing every day?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member should be able to understand that when our markets are economically weak and Canada, under this government, has been economically strong, naturally we buy more than they can buy.


George Harris Hees: Statistics Canada will tell you how weak the economy is.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport, and it does not deal with the subject matter of the report to be heard later. My question follows on the call of the territorial coroner for a federal inquiry into the Panarctic air crash, which follows on the breakdown of the inquest proceedings and its adjournment on June 2. In view of the warnings the minister received a month ago that this inquest was being obstructed and in the light of its complete failure, will the minister now order the inquiry which should have been ordered at the outset of this investigation?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the last time I heard about this inquiry-and I can ask my department where they are today-I know the inquiry was resumed and cooperation was assured, between the witnesses from the company and the commission of inquiry. I do not have a report now but I will inquire and ask for the date when it will be produced.


Howard Earl Johnston: A supplementary question. When the minister is inquiring, would he please find out whether transcripts of the inquiry are available or whether they are being deliberately withheld?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I will inquire about this as well and get an answer.
June 16, 1975



IMMIGRATION


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Has the minister information from the United States authority indicating that General Quang, to whom the minister has issued a permit to enter Canada, has been connected with the sale of narcotics and other forms of corruption in Viet Nam? If this is so, why can the minister not exercise the powers clearly given to him under section 8 of the Immigration Act to cancel the permit and make a deportation order?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, this case is being examined very carefully and the information is coming from many different sources including the source that the hon. member indicated. I will be making a decision shortly and it will be made known at that time.


Francis Andrew Brewin: A supplementary question. Has the minister received a study known as "Tan Turtle" referring to the involvement of General Quang in the narcotics smuggling trade in Viet Nam? Also, is the minister aware that Lieutenant Colonel Walter Sears working for the United States drug enforcement agency in the U.S. department of justice has expressed his willingness to turn the report over to Canadian officials?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, all such suggestions of the existence of evidence or information necessary to this decision are being looked at carefully, as indeed are the sources to which the hon. member has referred. They are being or will be examined as part of the process of making my decision.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. Eymard Corbin (Madawasha-Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture. Will the federal-provincial potato study committee established earlier this year be presenting a report soon and if not, when can the report be expected in view of the great interest in eastern Canada, especially in the maritime provinces?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position at the present time to say how soon the report will be made public. I do not know how far the meetings have progressed, how many they have had, but I will try to get an interim report and let the hon. member know.
Oral Questions [DOT]	POST OFFICE



REASON FOR FAILURE TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVE OF DELIVERY WITHIN ONE DAY

Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, a question for the Postmaster General. Is it the intention of the Post Office to ensure that all first class mail posted in major centres in Canada reach its destination within one day? If so, why has the success rate of this program been minimal and what changes are planned in the Post Office delivery system to ensure that its objective of one day delivery is met?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman will be very pleased to know that the degree of efficiency and productivity of the Post Office has dramatically improved over the last ten days, particularly in the general Montreal area. We do not pretend to deliver mail the same day. There are certain factors such as the time of day that the letter is mailed, the time of pick up and other things that affect the mail. Having been the strongest critic of the service over the last month, perhaps the House will permit me to congratulate the postal workers on the tremendous increase in efficiency in the last few weeks.



DELAY OF MAIL ADDRESSED TO LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Postmaster General who has just referred to the efficiency of the department. I wonder if my own experience is part of this. I received a special delivery envelope from the Post Office in Halifax on Saturday night, June 14. It contained letters addressed to my home in Ottawa, to myself and my wife, many of which had been mailed in Ottawa about May 27 or May 28. Included was an invitation to the unveiling of the mural in the Lester B. Pearson Building. I should like to ask the minister whether this is an example of the increased efficiency of the Post Office?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: No, Mr. Speaker. I sincerely regret that such an incident should have occurred. I am embarrassed by the fact that the invitation should have been delayed. I can only say that we deliver five billion pieces of mail per year and we need only be inefficient 1 per cent of the time to have 50 million potential problems. It is obvious that with 53,000 employees we are bound to have some people who have no right to work in the Post Office. I would like to get the envelope and see if I can trace the problem. But these things happen and the hon. gentleman knows that even when you buy garments they are sometimes defective.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A final supplementary. I wonder if the Postmaster General would inform his people that rumours of my retirement to Halifax have been exaggerated!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, if I had my way the hon. gentleman would never retire!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
6774

June 16, 1975
Oral Questions



AMOUNT OF RATE INCREASE NECESSARY TO COVER DEFICIT

Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question for the Postmaster General. In view of the estimated projected $800 million deficit for the Post Office in the fiscal year 1976-and I know that is not because of this Postmaster General-does the minister feel that a 40 per cent increase in postal rates will be sufficient to cover this deficit?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, the projection is inaccurate. I never deal in percentages. As the hon. gentleman knows, percentages are deceptive. It all depends on the base-50 per cent of eight cents is four cents, 50 per cent of a $40,000 salary is $20,000 so percentages can result in a wrong comparison. What I did say in Paris was that our rate of eight cents compared to England's 16 cents, France's 17 cents and West Germany's 23 cents-


Steve Eugene Paproski: But they deliver the mail.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: -indicates that the rate in Canada is rather low. I emphasized that before we would raise the rate for postal service in Canada we would make sure that efficiency warranted such an increase. I have said many times in Canada, and I repeat, that our priority is increased efficiency before we raise our rates.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture. Does the minister make the decisions on the operation of the office of his executive assistant in Regina or is that responsibility delegated to someone else?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The right hon. member for Prince Albert.



POST OFFICE


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is a supplementary one for the Postmaster General. I should like to ask the degree to which in his estimation the postal code when used is being ignored, and if mail containing it is held up?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, this is honestly a very difficult question to answer. By some strange coincidence whenever there has been in the past a concerted effort to convince the public not to use the code, more of our mail arrives with the code. We will not be fully automated until 1980, but since 80 per cent of the mail is used by 20 per cent of the public,

namely private industry, and since their acceptance of the code is understandable and they have certain time limits to conform to, we have no concern at all but that the code will be well accepted by the time there is a greater degree of automation across Canada.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, why is it that mail passing through the Canadian Post Office bears the stamp saying "Ignore the Postal Code." Apparently it is put on at the request of the Canadian Labour Congress. If the postal code has the effect of binding legally, in whole or in part, the individuals who use it, why does the Post Office Department permit mail to be stamped with a stamp exhorting the breaking of the law in that way.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, the postal code represents a degree of insecurity to many workers, as automation in the past has led to a reduction of the work force. We have done our best to convince postal workers that this is not the case in the post office. As we are a country with a democratic heritage, we prefer to convince people to use the postal code instead of making the use of the code mandatory by law; but if that were necessary, we would not hesitate to do so.


John George Diefenbaker: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the stamp being used by the post office authorities or postal employees, in enjoining people of Canada not to use the code? I ask this because of the strong objections when the town of Tisdale endeavoured to use the stamp "The Land of Rape and Honey" on its mail a few years ago, and the Post Office Department refused to grant permission for use of the stamp. Why is the stamp calling on the Canadian people not to use the postal code being affixed on mail right in the post office?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, as I recall, the Post Office Department thought the word "honey" was too sweet. The word "rape" did not upset them. I assure the right hon. gentleman that the post office authorities are not imprinting the slogan "Boycott the Code" on the mail. This is being done by employees or members of trade unions who are in sympathy with a small number of postal workers, and they have no right to impose this slogan on the envelope.
May I say to the right hon. gentleman who is a well known friend of labour that the present climate between the Post Office and the union is better than it has been for many months. I should like this to continue in the present vein indefinitely, certainly until we obtain a collective agreement with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, with whom negotiations will begin this coming Thursday.



FISHERIES


Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of State responsible for fisheries. As it seems apparent on the basis of
June 16, 1975

direct reports from Edinburgh-I have this on the authority of the Minister of Fisheries of Newfoundland who was in Edinburgh-that there is absolutely no possibility of Canada's obtaining agreement with ICNAF for the 40 per cent reduction in the catch of all member states, what is to be Canada's next move in the face of mounting support for unilateral Canadian action?


Hon. Romeo LieBlanc (Minister of State (Fisheries)):: Mr. Speaker, the Edinburgh conference has not finished. I understand that the minister representing the Newfoundland government at the conference intended to stay for three days. The conference is to last some ten days.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of State responsible for fisheries if, as an extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented move, he intends to go to Edinburgh, to underline the importance of Canada's claim and to make a personal plea on behalf of the Canadian delegation and the government of Canada for agreement with ICNAF; and is he prepared to back that action with the government of Canada's determination to take unilateral action?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, as I said last week, the ICNAF meeting at Edinburgh is basically a scientific meeting. The people attending are studying the reports of scientists who have assessed and are assessing the fish stocks. If it were felt that my presence there could in any way be useful, I would be the first to suggest that I should leave.



TRANSPORT


Mr. Wally Firth (Northwest Territories):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to the question asked by the hon. member for Okanagan-Kootenay and is directed to the Minister of Transport. If the minister were to order a public inquiry into the Panarctic Oils Limited aircraft crash at Rae Point, Northwest Territories, when would the inquiry be established, who would head it and when would it be required to report?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I will answer the hon. member's question tomorrow, when I answer the other question.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State who is responsible for the CBC and also I hope I will be permitted to ask a short supplementary question. Was the minister's department made aware of information in the files of the RCMP
Oral Questions
concerning the activities of Soviet journalist Konstantin Geivandov and CBC producer Mark Starowicz in the gathering of questionable information on certain persons. If his department was made aware of this, why was Mr. Starowicz retained as producer of the opinion-influencing program "As it Happens"?


Hon. James Hugh Faulkner (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I was not made aware of this. I will check with the department.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Solicitor General, may I direct my supplementary question to the Minister of Justice? Will the minister confirm to the House that RCMP files specifically show that CBC executive producer Mark Starowicz assisted Soviet journalist Konstantin Geivandov in gathering information of a questionable nature on certain Canadians, including members of the House, members of the press gallery and certain persons in the Toronto area?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I cannot indicate that now but will ask the Solicitor General to check.



AGRICULTURE


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my question to the Minister of Agriculture? It is a question I have asked before, but it has not been answered. Is the minister in the position to make a statement which will allay the fears of a segment of the agricultural economy of the Maritime provinces? These people fear that there is a program on foot to curtail severely or eliminate freight assistance with feed grains.


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I know of no such program.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Now that the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs has considered the Hermann report and made recommendations to the minister, does the minister intend to look at the veterans' treatment regulations which contain any inequities and have not been improved
29576-16V2

June 16, 1975
Oral Questions
over the years; and, because of the suffering of veterans and the small comfort allowance which veterans get, will the minister consider referring that subject to the committee for study?


Hon. Daniel J. MacDonald (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, with reference to the first part of the hon. member's question, yes, I realize that the committee has reported to the House on the Hermann report and the government will consider the matter in due course. With regard to the comfort allowance, this is presently $20 and we are making representations in the hope of raising it to $30 in the near future.


Jack Marshall: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. As the minister indicated last March that he was considering increasing the $20 comfort allowance, when will that increase long overdue because of inflation be announced and does he not think that it should be $40, instead of $30?


Daniel Joseph MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the last question, the increase will be announced soon and the hon. member will certainly be made aware of it.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs. Potentially the most dangerous aspect of atomic reactors is the provision of nuclear fuel enrichment and recycling equipment. This equipment is called a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Can the minister inform the House if Canada or any other country is providing such equipment to South Korea, to use with the CANDU reactor?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have seen newspaper reports of the kind that are in the hon. member's mind as he raised his question. I assure the hon. member that this information is in the hands of the department of External Affairs, which will be holding discussions with Korea and other countries mentioned in the article with a view to clarifying the situation before any Canadian material or technology is provided.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. West Germany has apparently agreed to sell such equipment to Brazil, a nation not signatory to the nonproliferation treaty. Is the minister discussing with our West German guests the serious destablization that this will cause?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, these kinds of considerations led the Canadian government to insist on strict safeguards; indeed, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs has said many times, we apply the highest standards of any country in the world. We hope other countries will follow. I say to my hon. friend that this is further evidence of how strict Canada is in dealing with these matters.



FISHERIES


Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question for the Minister of State responsible for fisheries follows the question asked by my colleague for Malpeque on Thursday. Is the minister in a position to say if he has received a statement of assessment from the government of Prince Edward Island? If so, what advance is being made to assist the very seriously injured people of the fishing industry of our province?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, I know that the damage was being assessed in the middle of last week with the help of my officials and officials of the provincial government. I have not- and I will check after the question period is over-on my desk at present a request from any of the Atlantic provinces which indicates that they consider the damage as having reached disaster proportions, I will check.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may put a question to the Minister of Finance. In view of the fact that in the past year the nation has suffered the worst economic slump in the past 21 years, will the hon. gentleman tell us when he first became aware of the magnitude of this slump?


John Napier Turner: Without accepting the preamble to the question I would point out that the November budget anticipated the fact that we were going into difficult times. I told the House in February that we had understimated the depth and length of the United States recession. It was to deal with this anticipated slackness that the budget in November was definitely expansionary to the tune of some $3 billion in total cash deficit. So the hon. member is a few months out of date.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice. Would the minister inform the House as to the present legal status of the Montreal dock workers against whom criminal charges have been brought? Specifically, is he now considering dropping the charges pending against these people?


Otto Emil Lang: No, Mr. Speaker. There have been some interim proceedings under
June 16, 1975

way in connection with these charges. They are before the courts at this time.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland-Colchester North):: Mr. Speaker, may I address a question to the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs? Can the hon. gentleman indicate whether the government has taken any new initiative with regard to the proposed application by Pittson to construct a refinery at Eastport, Maine and use Canadian waters as a means of entrance for tankers?


Mitchell William Sharp: I am not sure about new initiatives but the Canadian government has made its position very plain to all concerned: we object to the use of Canadian waters for this purpose.


Robert Carman Coates: Since there has been an indication, only recently, that approval will be given by the State of Maine to the construction of this refinery, and since the viability of a refinery at Eastport is based on the use of deep sea tankers which will use Canadian waters to reach the refinery, will the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs inform us of the government's position in this regard?


Mitchell William Sharp: The government's position has not changed. We object strenuously. If a decision is made on the expectation that Canadian waters will be used for this purpose, they may be very disappointed.



GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION


Gerald William Baldwin: A question for the President of the Treasury Board, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that the government is incompetent to deal with voluntary restraint under its restraint program, and unwilling to go for anything stronger-


An hon. Member:: Get to your question.


Gerald William Baldwin: It is a good question. I should like to ask the minister whether he and the government have come to a decision with regard to government restraint in spending during the up-coming fiscal year. Has he decided on a figure and has he given instructions to his colleagues in that regard?


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, it is a well known fact that we are trying to curb government expenses as much as possible and, at the present time, as has always been the case in the past, we are attempting to find sectors where such
Oral Questions
expenses could be reduced. However, the opposition has to come up with many suggestions.



REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION


Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for Regional Economic Expansion. Some two months ago the hon. gentleman promised me he would consider setting up a task force to study in detail the pros and cons of the federal government's wage policy as it affects all federal workers in the Atlantic region. Would the minister please inform the House what he has done about the matter?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: I do not question the hon. member's memory but I do question whether I made such a commitment in the precise term he has outlined. My recollection is that I said I would discuss this question with the President of the Treasury Board and other ministers. This, I have done, and a number of answers have been given in the House which reflect those discussions.



PUBLIC SERVICE


Andrew Hogan: Since the minister in charge of DREE appears unwilling or unable to initiate an in-depth study of what to so many seems to be a policy which discriminates against the Atlantic region and contradicts the main purpose for which DREE was set up, would the hon. gentleman consent to have the planning division of the Treasury Board and the Economic Council of Canada carry out such a study?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, we review the policy regularly, but for the time being the government has not decided to change it.



FISHERIES


Dean Waldon Whiteway: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State (Fisheries). In view of that fact that prices paid to fishermen under the jurisdiction of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation are substantially the same as last year, is the minister now in a position to tell the House the nature and the amount of the price subsidy program for the freshwater fishermen?

June 16, 1975
Oral Questions


Roméo LeBlanc: Prices for first quality fish are slightly above those paid last year. There are, however, some species which are not as good in the marketplace and prices are therefore less strong. We have given some assistance under the fisheries prices support legislation to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board Corporation in the last few months and we are watching the situation carefully. In fact, the chairman of the board is on his way out west this afternoon.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. R. E. McKinley (Huron-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, this question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. I understand the Ontario Grain Corn Council has made representations to the minister for the reinstitution of accelerated depreciation allowances on grain storage facilities at country elevators and also on farms. Does the minister agree with this representation and has he passed it on to the Minister of Finance for consideration in the preparation of the up-coming budget? I believe this provision was cut off last August.


Eugene Whelan: I have had discussions with my colleague, the Minister of Finance, concerning this proposal.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: I have a short question for the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. Speaker. Can the hon. gentleman tell us briefly what efforts, if any, have been made or are being made by Canada toward having Taiwan become once more a member of the United Nations, and whether such a course of action is one that the government supports, or has been supporting?


Mitchell William Sharp: Canada has always followed a one-China policy. We have no intention whatever of upsetting that position. We believe the government of China is the government at Peking. The question of Taiwan is one to be decided by the Chinese people and not by us.



PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE


Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Prime Minister.

Would the right hon. gentleman lift at least enough of the veil of secrecy which he has imposed on the names of donors to the swimming pool to assure the House that no senior public servants have made any donations to this project?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I do not
know whether any senior public servants have made any donations. The only donation I know of is my own.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: How much?



FINANCE


Mr. Arnold Malone (Battle River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether or not he approves the regional staff travelling through Alberta in 1973-74 telling farmers their investments in natural gas co-ops would be tax deductible, somewhere between $1,500 and and $2,000 and after farmers had invested in those co-ops telling them they had misread the act and there was to be no tax deduction at all. Does he approve of that and, if not, what action does he propose?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. gentleman would give me a few more details; I really could not reply at this stage.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 21(2), I should like to table two copies, in English and in French, of the following documents: "Transportation Policy-A Framework for Transportation in Canada", "Interim Report on Inter-City Passenger Movement in Canada" and "Interim Report on Freight Transportation in Canada".


TEXTILE AND CLOTHING BOARD
Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41(2) I am tabling, in both official languages, copies of the
June 16, 1975

text of the clothing board report on an inquiry respecting mens' and boys' suits, jackets, co-ordinates and pants.


CROWN LIABILITY ACT
Mr. Lloyd Francis (Ottawa West) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-393, to amend the Crown Liability Act.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: Mr. Speaker, under the Crown Liability Act, no proceedings against the Crown shall be commenced without 90 days' notice. At the same time, under the Ontario Libel and Slander Act any action must be commenced within 90 days. As a result, many actions that would otherwise be undertaken against the CBC, for example, are prevented by a technicality. My bill would reduce the required notice under the Crown Liability Act to 30 days.


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

[Stage Direction]
On the order: Government notices of motion.
Jean Marchand: That the documents entitled "Transportation Policy-A Framework for Transportation in Canada", "An Interim Report on Inter-City Passenger Movement in Canada", and "An Interim Report on Freight Transportation in Canada", be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communication.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Section 2 of Standing Order 21, this motion is transferred to and ordered for consideration under government orders later today.


MISCELLANEOUS PRIVATE BILLS AND STANDING ORDERS
Mr. Gerard Loiselle (Saint-Henri) moved: that the First Report of the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders, tabled in the House on Wednesday, June 11, 1975, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, in connection with the discussion that is to the take place this afternoon on the motion
Business of the House
to refer certain papers that have been tabled by the Minister of Transport, may I outline the procedure that has been agreed upon for discussion of these papers and the reference. They are rather unusual.
It has been agreed through the usual channels that the minister will begin by making a speech. He will be followed by a speech from a representative of each of the three other parties in the House. These speeches, it is understood, will not exceed 30 minutes each. After these party positions have been expressed, there will be a question and answer period, at your discretion, sir. When these proceedings have been completed, the motion should be put without further debate.
I think I speak on behalf of my fellow House leaders when I say that it is our expectation that the motion would be put at or before 6 p.m. For the balance of the day, the following bills will be called, in this order: Bill C-24, Bill C-16, Bill C-23 and Bill S-8.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, on the point raised by the hon. gentleman, we agree to this arrangement. It is an innovative procedure that we felt would be best fitted to a motion of this kind, and the debate will be exemplified by proceedings along this line. We felt it would be difficult for us to plunge at once into the cold water of this motion without having a little time to get used to the exciting materials which the minister has tabled today.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, we are a party to these arrangements and we agree to them.


Mr. Allard:: D'accord.


Mr. Speaker:: To put the arrangements into definite form, with respect to the lead-off speech by the Minister of Transport I presume he will be limited to 40 minutes or thereabouts, and the remaining speeches to half an hour. There were two elements that seemed to be somewhat indefinite. The first was concluding at six o'clock; the other, which I premume is related to it, has to do with there being a question period. If there is conclusion of speeches prior to six o'clock, I presume that the remaining time will be taken up by way of a question period. If I can put that understanding and make it definite, it is hoped that the motion will be put by six o'clock. If any time remains after the conclusion of the four speeches referred to, that time will be used for questioning the minister. Is that agreed and so ordered?


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is agreed to, but in doing so we wish in no way to cut out the question period. We have agreed to a question period, and the next two hours-or two hours and ten minutes-will not take us far beyond five o'clock or so. I just do not want this agreement to cut out the question period.


Mitchell William Sharp: That is our understanding, Mr. Speaker. I understand that my colleague will speak for approximately 40 minutes. If he were to speak for an indefinite period, of course, we would like to see a question period, and agree to one; but hopefully everything will be concluded by six o'clock. We leave the question period to your discre-

June 16, 1975
Order Paper Questions
tion. If it happens that there is not enough time, then the question period will have to take place after eight o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed, under the terms outlined by the President of the Privy Council, that the Minister of Transport shall speak for 40 minutes, that there will be a speech from each of the opposition parties of not more than 30 minutes' duration, and that the motion, if at all possible, will be put at six; and if any time remains, it will be used for a question period? Is that agreed and so ordered?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


PUBLICATIONS-FUNDS TO &quot;CANADIAN MILITARY JOURNAL&quot;
Mr. McKinnon: Has the government or any department, Crown corporation or agency paid funds to The Canadian Military Journal for any reason during the past two years?


Mitchell William Sharp: In so far as the Department of Manpower and Immigration		
is concerned:		
Fiscal Year	Reason	Total Amount Paid1973-74	Advertising	$841.911974-75	Nil	Nil


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. John M. Reid (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 1,981, 2,261, 2,405, 2,463, 2,481 and 2,587.
If question No. 2,041 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
In so far as the Department of National Defence is concerned:
Fiscal Year	Expenditures
1973-	74	Three ads at $350.00 each	for a
total of $1,050.00
1974-	75	Nil
In so far as the Department of Supply and Services is concerned: During fiscal year 1973-74, Supply and Services Canada, made one payment to the Canadian Military Journal in the amount of $3,027.78, for advertising of five pages of publicity. There were no payments during fiscal year 1974-75.


Mr. Reynolds: 1.	To what extent does the Department of Supply and Services adhere to a policy of purchase by formal tenders?
2.	To what extent is the public interest served and protected when costs can be depreciated by having all purchasing agents make the major decisions?
3.	What is the Minister's assessment in this area?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Minister of Supply and Services):: 1. All tenders are normally both solicited and received in writing using an approved Invitation to Tender form with the following exceptions: 1. where solicitation by telex or telephone is warranted because of urgency or low value. 2. where complexity of the requirement demands a unique bid solicitation package. 3. where public advertising is used to solicit tenders.
2.	Purchasing Agents, who specialize in designated product or regional procurement, have been delegated authority for procurement of goods and services up to a value of $50,000 for competitive contracts and to a value of $25,000 for negotiated contracts. Above these values, contract recommendations are approved by higher authorities. Responsibility and authority is delegated to officials within my department only after very careful advice and consideration, including an assessment of the public interest.
3.	I have directed that the foregoing tendering policies be adhered to, and have personally approved the limits of delegation within my department.


Mr. McKinnon: 1.	How much capital is presently in the CNR pension fund?
2.	What percentage (a) was subscribed by employees (b) of an employee's pay is put into the fund?
3.	Does CNR match the employee's contribution?
4.	How much was paid from the fund in the way of pensions to former employees, their widows and dependants in each of the past five years?
5.	In 1973, what were the main sources of income for the fund, by percentages and dollar amounts?


Jean Marchand: The
Management of Canadian National Railways advises as follows: 1. As at December 31, 1974-$1,170,070,599.
2.	(a) 37 per cent of the capital represents the members' equity and (b) Employees pay 5 per cent on earnings up to the Yearly Maximum Pensionable Earnings under the Canada/Quebec Pension Plans and 6V2 per cent on earnings in excess of that amount.
3.	CN pays the balance of the cost of providing pension benefits. The cost of pensions to CN annually has always exceeded the employees' contributions.
4.	Deductions from Fund during Year: 1974, $84,672,803; 1973, $75,358,688; 1972, $70,419,462; 1971, $65,022,721; 1970, $54,714,534.
5.	Employee contributions, 23.7 per cent, $42,870,354; Company contributions, 48.6 per cent, $87,686,644; Earnings on Investments, 27.7 per cent, $50,010,249.
June 16, 1975


Mr. Mazankowski: 1.	How many 727 aircraft has Air Canada (a) ordered (b) had delivered?
2.	What was the cost to Air Canada either by individual plane or as a total order?
3.	Since acceptance of the aircrafts, has a decision been taken that the engines must be replaced with engines of improved design and, if so (a) what are the details of the inadequacies or shortfalls of the original engines (b) what are the additional costs for engine replacements which Air Canada must bear?


Jean Marchand: The
management of Air Canada advises as follows: 1. (a) 14; (b) 11.
2.	Total cost for 14 aircraft is approximately $119 million.
3.	(a) (b) Since acceptance of these aircraft, there has been no requirement to replace the engines.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton): 1.	What was the number of applications under the $500 grant programme for new home construction approved in the Township of Osgoode, in the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton up to April 30, 1975?
2.	What was the total number of applications received from applicants within the Township of Osgoode from the date of the inception of the programme to April 30, 1975?


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: I am advised by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation as follows: 1. Three applications for $500 Home Owner Grants have been approved for new home construction in Osgoode Township, in the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton, to April 30, 1975.
2. Nine applications for $500 Home Owner Grants were received from applicants in Osgoode Township, to April 30, 1975.


Mr. Wenman: 1.	For each of the past ten years, how many farms in (a) British Columbia (b) Ontario (c) Quebec were reassessed by officials of the Department of National Revenue such that they lost their tax status as farms?
2.	How many of the farms were within 25 miles of (a) Vancouver (b) Toronto (c) Montreal?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of National Revenue):: The
Department does not maintain statistical information in a form which permits an answer to this question.



QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN


Mr. Hurlburt: 1. Does the government retain lawyers in the Province of Alberta and, if so (a) for which departments or agencies do they work (b) what
Transportation Policy
are their names (c) what remuneration did they receive in each year 1970 to 1974 (d) how were they selected?
2.	Have any of them ever been officials of the Alberta or federal Liberal Party?
3.	How does CMHC select the lawyers it uses in the Province of Alberta?
4.	What is the name of the person who selects or compiles the list of acceptable lawyers?
5.	Does the government favour Liberal lawyers and, if so (a) does this also apply to work done in Alberta (b) how often are changes made in selecting such lawyers (c) what influences such changes?
Return tabled.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Jean Marchand: That the documents entitled "Transportation Policy-A Framework for Transportation in Canada", "An Interim Report on Inter-City Passenger Movement in Canada" and "An Interim Report on Freight Transportation in Canada" be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it was over a year ago that I expressed my dissatisfaction with a number of aspects of the functioning of the transportation system in Canada.
In a speech I made to the House on March 7, 1974, I noted that transportation policy in Canada was based on the principle of competition. I stated that this principle was wrong in Canada. I said that "It is not entirely wrong but is partially wrong, because if you look at the size of this country and the distribution of its population you will see that you cannot have a transportation network which is economic everywhere; you cannot have an economic system of transportation to service the north, for example, or to service those regions of the country where the population is very thin. You cannot have an economic system for regions which are remote from the centre." I went on to say that the principle of competition can apply where there is competition in Canada at this moment, but it will not work in the many places in which there is no competition.
Subsequently, in the Throne Speech of September 30, 1974, the government indicated its desire to see transportation used as an instrument of policy designed to achieve broad, national, social and economic objectives. It also announced its intention to carry out a comprehensive review of the transportation system in Canada.
The first phase of such a review has now been carried out. It has involved a wide range of consultations and discussions with provincial governments, carriers, shippers and labour groups, as well as a number of studies, reviews and analyses.
Today, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report to the House on the progress that has been made; set out the govern-

June 16, 1975
Transportation Policy
ment's views on transportation policy; indicate the future course of government action; and announce a number of specific measures to begin to give effect to the policy, relating to rail passenger service, rail freight rates, access to remote parts of the country, the Canadian capability to operate in Arctic waters, and the respective responsibilities of the government and the Canadian Transport Commission.
Mr. Speaker, I have today tabled three documents. They are: Transportation Policy-A Framework for Transportation in Canada; An Interim Report on Inter-City Passenger Movement in Canada; and An Interim Report on Freight Transportation in Canada.
The transportation policy document summarizes the work carried out in the various areas of the review; sets out a broad framework as a basis for transportation policy; provides a statement of transportation policy and a set of ten principles to give effect to it; and describes the implications of the new policy.
The government supports the thrust of the policy and the associated principles as a basis for discussion leading to changes in the management and regulation of intercity transportation in Canada and the legislation that governs it.
The other two documents represent the first attempts to provide a comprehensive picture of the passenger and freight systems in Canada. These are technical working documents that will be updated on a continuous basis. They will be invaluable as a basis for discussion but, because of their preliminary nature, the government does not necessarily subscribe to all of the views contained in them. Mr. Speaker, I regard today's actions as the first step in a process designed to give Canada the transportation system it must have to meet our present and future needs.
In the crucial steps that will follow, I hope that I can count on the cooperation and participation of all Members of the House. I recall that, when I first indicated that I wanted to make changes, I was told that such cooperation would be forthcoming whenever I could come forward with proposals. I am now ready, Mr. Speaker, and I am therefore asking for consent to refer the various documents that have been tabled to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications. I hope that, through the Committee, Members of the House will be able to make a significant contribution to the shaping and development of transportation policy in Canada.
The government believes the new policy sets a direction for the future development of the transportation system that will meet the needs of the country, taking into account the objectives of public policy and the requirements of the shippers, the users, the public and the carriers. It is willing, however, to make such modifications as would result in an improved basis for a national transportation policy. The starting point for this discussion is with the Members of this House.
Let me now deal with some of the major considerations relating to a new transportation policy. By the late 1950's, when the MacPherson Royal Commission on Transportation was appointed to review transportation in Canada, the major transportation infrastructure was already in

place or being put in place, at least in the southern part of the country. The rail system, the major ports, the national air and airport system and major pipeline links had been built, and the Seaway and the Trans-Canada Highway were under construction. Thus, it appeared that transportation capacity was adequate to meet foreseeable demands for some years to come. The National Transportation Act of 1967, which was based in large part on the commission's guidelines, reflected this situation.
In brief, the act assumed that the economic mechanism of competition would, in most cases, guide the organization, financing and development, of transportation services. It recognized the need for some regulation to protect captive shippers, but with a few such exceptions, it assigned a rather passive role to government-primarily that of providing and operating some infrastructure and services such as ports, airports and navigational systems, in addition to subsidizing a variety of programs.
Many events in the period following the commission's report appeared to confirm the soundness of its approach. There were significant new developments. New types of transportation equipment increased productivity, improved efficiency and kept costs down. Overall, Canadians could take some pride in their transportation system.
There are, however, a number of factors which indicate the need for a change in transportation policy. First, the eight years since the act came into force have seen dramatic changes, including: a growth in the demand and price for Canada's resources, such as oil, grain, potash and cell, placing significant pressure on the capacity of the transportation system; an energy crisis, sharpening our awareness of the need to conserve energy; changing attitudes and values, resulting in concern about growth rates, and causing much greater weight to be given to the environmental impact of new developments; an increased awareness of regional disparities and of urban and rural population patterns and problems; and significant advances in transportation technology, including the growth in the use of containers and very large cargo carriers, to name just a few.
Second, there is an awareness that the transportation system in Canada includes not just the developed and competitive services which were the focus of the National Transportation Act, but a whole range of services varying as to the degree of maturity and the degree of competition. In fact, Canada is, and will likely continue to be, a mix of the marketplace and the frontier. In central Canada, for example, many transportation services and facilities are highly developed and competitive. In some parts of Canada, however, while the facilities and services may be well developed, there is a lack of competition.
In the movement of some bulk commodities, for example, a shipper is often limited not just to the rail mode, but to one railway. Still other parts of the country, such as the north, are undeveloped in terms of transportation facilities and services and it is unlikely, in many cases, that there will be much competition because of the nature of the products or the geography over which they move. There are still other cases where a new technological
June 16, 1975

development, or a major new increase in capacity, is being introduced or added to an already competitive system.
Transportation policy must therefore recognize the fact that there is a wide range of facilities and services, operating under different degrees of maturity and competition. It must enable each to be treated in an appropriate manner, and not, as is now the case, as exceptions to a policy which relies principally on competition.
Third, there are a number of major problems and opportunities which are now facing us, or requiring early consideration. These includes: the demand for extensions of the transportation system into the northern parts of Canada, which, providing the unique, environmental and social problems can be overcome, would open up access to resources which increased world prices are making more and more economic; the need to provide increased capacity to the west coast to remove present and anticipated congestion in the main transportation links, and at the terminals, particularly at Vancouver; the need to ensure adequate capacity in the transportation system in the east-central part of Canada through which increasing amounts of Canadian products, such as grain, iron ore and coal, will flow; the need to modernize the grain handling system; and the need to ensure an integrated, efficient passenger network to serve Canadians in all parts of the country.
These are both problems and opportunities: problems in that they must be resolved if Canada is to have the transportation system it needs; and opportunities in that, just as the railways, the Trans-Canada Highway and the Seaway shaped the Canada of today, so the location and type of new or expanded transportation links can shape the future development of Canada, influencing the location of industry, jobs and the quality of life across the country. Used in this fashion, transportation can indeed be an instrument of national purpose.
Fourth, as a consequence of what I was saying earlier, we will have to recognize that transportation is going to become more expensive. Major new investments will be required to extend, expand and improve the system. Wage, fuel and material costs are going up and productivity will likely increase more slowly than in the past. At the same time, there is no reason why the mature parts of the transportation system should not pay their way, where such services are commercial in nature. Indeed, if government and the private sector are to have the funds necessary to finance future improvements, mature commercial services must pay their way. This means that the prices for transportation services will have to go up, likely more rapidly than in the past. It is a government responsibility to ensure that the system is efficiently run, that unjustified price increases are avoided and that whatever increases are necessary are reasonable and equitable in terms of their impact. This is particularly important at a time of inflation.
In sum, Mr. Speaker, transportation is so important to the social life of Canadians, and so important to the economy, both domestically and in terms of linking us with the continental and international economies, that the government cannot stand aside.
It cannot maintain the largely passive role envisaged by the current National Transportation Act. It must take on a
Transportation Policy
more active leadership role to make sure that the system develops to meet national needs. In some cases, this could mean more government intervention but in others, less. The precise role of government, and the extent of its involvement, will vary depending on the maturity of any service or facility, and the degree of competition.
Where the system is well developed and working well, government involvement can be minimal, limited to ensuring that public policy requirements are met, and providing regulatory protection to those not protected by competition. Indeed, the extent of government involvement in these areas may be reduced. It is where the system is not yet developed that the government must take on a more active role, and concentrate its attention and its resources. All of this, Mr. Speaker, requires a new view of the overall transportation system, a new view of the role of government and a new framework for policy. It is just such a policy that we have tried to formulate. Let me read the policy and principles we are proposing.
It is proposed that, first, a total transportation system for Canada, providing accessibility and equity of treament for users is an essential instrument of support for the achievement of national, economic and social objectives; second, it is the responsibility of government to attend to the provision of an efficient, total system for this purpose; and third, achievement of this purpose requires the integration of services provided through the most appropriate modes for each specific service.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, what we see as the objective of transportation policy is an integrated, accessible and equitable transportation system, making the most appropriate use of each mode. Further, we view such a system as an essential instrument in supporting the achievement of national objectives, with government having a role of leadership in seeing to the provision of an efficient total system for this purpose. This does not mean that the government should actually provide all of the services. To the contrary, services should be provided by the private sector wherever feasible, but government has the responsibility to ensure that the overall system develops in an integrated, accessible and equitable way.
Let me now indicate the principles that we propose to give effect to this policy: (1) All transportation and nontransportation alternatives should be taken into account in the development and provision of transportation services. (2) Intermodal and intramodal competition should be encouraged where economic and technical characteristics permit. (3) There should be a combination of public and private ownership of carriers with private carriers being Canadian controlled, and of national and regional carriers in the provision of transportation but it should be recognized that, in the event of any conflict between public and private objectives, the public interest must prevail and the interests of total, national service must be overriding. (4) There should be an objective of commercial viability, including cost-recovery, both in the operation of transportation services and in the provision of facilities and services for direct support of transportation. (5) It should be recognized that, where implementation of a particular developmental or national policy requires departure from Principle 4, the costs imposed should be

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Transportation Policy
clearly and specifically identified and assumed by government. (6) Where effective competition exists, transportation rates should be established through the working of the market mechanism; where such conditions are absent, prices should be regulated to assure the protection of transportation users which market competition otherwise would provide. (7) Where competitive services are available, but public assistance is deemed necessary in support of a national, social or economic development purpose, the assistance should not operate so as to distort the selection of the most appropriate mode. (8) Special measures should be adopted to ensure that essential transportation services are maintained. (9) The regulatory agency should be responsible within its statutory jurisdiction for overseeing the adherence to those national policies, standards of service, rules and guidelines established by government under which the various constituent parts of the transportation system operate. (10) There should be provision for proper consultation and participation in major aspects of the development and economic regulation process, between different levels of government and between government and the public.
Mr. Speaker, a transportation policy must provide for the needs of all of those involved in the system, including governments, carriers, shippers and members of the public generally. The transportation system must develop in a way that is consistent with public policy objectives, whether these relate to protecting the environment, or conserving our increasingly scarce energy resources, or reducing the isolation of northern communities, and mechanisms have to be developed to make sure that this is the case. At the same time, the carriers, if they are to continue to provide the services we need, must be commercially viable. Shippers and passengers must have the necessary services available at costs which are reasonable and seem to be fair. The public, as Canadians, want-and deserve-a transportation system that meets their requirements and in which they can take some pride. It is our view that the policy we are proposing will meet these objectives.
In developing the policy and principles, Mr. Speaker, we have not rejected the National Transportation Act. We have retained those provisions of the act that appear to us to be relevant to present requirements. But the changes and additions are significant. For example, what we are proposing: envisages the use of transportation as an instrument of national policy, rather than as a passive support service; states that the transportation system should be accessible, equitable and efficient, rather than economic, efficient and adequate. The notion of efficiency is not lost but the emphasis is on service to Canadians; recognizes the developing character of much of Canada and makes provision for the correspondingly wide range of transportation services, with varying degrees of maturity and competition, rather than focussing primarily on those services which are both mature and competitive; provides for an active government leadership role in the development of the system, relying on the competitive forces of the market where economic and technical conditions permit, rather than relying almost exclusively on competition, which is in fact non-existent or limited in many instances; establishes that it is the government that has responsibility for determining policy, with the regulatory body ensuring that these policies are adhered to;

recognizes the importance of maintaining essential services; establishes an explicit objective of commercial viability, in terms of both the operations of the carriers and the provision of infrastructure; gives prominence to freight and passenger transportation, rather than focussing mainly on the requirements of freight transportation; and recognizes the need for consultation and participation among governments, and between government and the public, in the development of the system.
In summary, Mr. Speaker, it is not that the present policy as reflected in the act is wrong; rather, as I said in my speech of March 7, 1974, it is too limited in its view of the kind of country in which we live. It does not reflect sufficiently the developing character of much of Canada. Moreover, it does not adequately provide for the changes that have taken place since it was passed, the impact of transport on our national requirements and personal lives, or the need for government, shippers and users to have a say in how transport will be used in Canada.
What I have just outlined is described at more length in the Summary Report which I tabled earlier this afternoon. I would now like to deal with the other two reports, on passengers and freight, starting first with the question of passenger transportation.
Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that the report on inter-city passenger transportation that I have tabled today, together with supporting documents which should be available at a later date, will serve as the basis for a wide-ranging public discussion of the whole issue. What the report indicates, Mr. Speaker, is that Canadians can be much better served in the passenger field. The present passenger system is fragmented. There is little or no attempt to coordinate travel between air, bus or rail. Some parts of it are inefficient. The rail passenger subsidies in 1974 were $135 million and could rise to over $300 million by 1980 if no change is made. In many places in Canada, it would be cheaper to the taxpayer if passengers now travelling by rail were provided instead with free bus tickets. Obviously, this situation cannot continue. In a number of other areas of the passenger system, the fare structure seems inequitable, with long-haul passengers in effect subsidizing the short-haul routes. In a country like ours, in which we should be trying to shrink the distances between regions, this does not make sense. As another example, rail and to a lesser extent air passengers are effectively subsidized, while the bus passenger, who by and large is at the low end of the income scale, would appear to have to pay his own way.
It is therefore the government's intention to move towards a system of passenger service in Canada that makes the best use of air, bus and rail modes and of public and private carriers. It is our belief that, with sensible planning, Canadians can have better passenger services, which can eventually be financially self-sustaining, except in remote areas.
Any approach to passenger service in Canada, however, will require the full cooperation of provincial governments, carriers, labour and users. We are thereforemaking our research and analysis available to them, with aview to
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entering into discussions as soon as possible in an effort to being about the needed changes.
In the rail area, where we are able to act directly, we are asking Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways, wherever feasible, to pool their passenger services and facilities so that, with minimum costs, we can improve the present level of service provided to rail passengers.
An area which appears to offer potential for the development of an improved inter-city rail passenger service is the Quebec/Windsor Corridor, where a number of experiments are already in progress. As a further step, the government has approved in principle a demonstration project to determine the impact of the most modern comfortable equipment, higher speed runs and frequent service in a selected portion of the corridor. The precise nature of this demonstration project will be announced after further intergovernmental discussion and consultation with the railroads.
The second report deals with freight transportation in Canada and raises a number of very important issues. One historic problem has been rail freight rates. As a result of our discussions with provincial governments over the last year or so, two points have emerged: there is general agreement that the railroads should receive the revenues they need for sound operation and maintenance and for expansion or, more simply, they should be commercially viable in their overall operations, recognizing that they will obtain higher returns on the movement of some commodities than on others; but there is equally agreement that the freight rate structure, that is the means by which they collect these revenues, must be equitable, be felt to be equitable, and be seen to be equitable.
For this reason, and consistent with the overall policy, the government is proposing a new set of principles around which, if agreement can be reached, a new freight rate system, designed to be equitable to regions and to shippers, can be built.
The government is therefore willing to examine with those involved the possibility of: reducing the difference between the legal minimum and maximum rates; basing freight rates on a combination of variable and fixed cost, rather than on long run variable costs alone; and permitting any interested party, not simply those who can prove that they are captive shippers, to appeal to the Canadian Transport Commission.
In addition, the government will: ensure that rates are not only fair but seem to be fair, by applying the provisions of the recent Cost Disclosure Act and by moving, whenever possible, to a more comprehsive Information Act; and request the Canadian Transport Commission to provide special rate officers located in the field who can quickly investigate rate grievances raised by shippers and seek fast action to settle such issues.
I would now like to deal with a number of specific matters related to rail freight rates which have been of concern to me and to a number of provinces.
The western provinces have expressed considerable interest in the possibility of establishing rate groupings- that is, the grouping of a number of communities for rate-making purposes-and I have arranged for a special group, composed of the federal government, the western
Transportation Policy
governments, and the two main railways, to negotiate such rate groups.
I have made my opposition to horizontal rate increases known to the railways and it is my understanding that such rate increases as are necessary are being allocated on a product-by-product basis, rather than on an across-the-board basis.
A long standing matter of concern to a number of Provinces and myself is the apparent anomaly of some rates for long-haul movements being cheaper than for short-haul movements of similar products in the same direction. Again, I have made my opposition known to the railways. Further, it is my intention, if necessary, to introduce legislation to remove this irritant.
A very important question is that of rates on raw versus finished products. This is a complex matter and a full study of the subject is now under way. I wish to await the results of this work and further discussion with my provincial colleagues before indicating further action. However, in relation to one specific matter which has been the subject of concern for an extended period, the government, as an iterim measure, will order the Canadian Transport Commission to establish rates on rapeseed products at minimum compensatory levels. This is the lowest level that the law will in fact allow.
One of the matters that has been considered in the documents tabled today concerns access to and from remote areas. I would, therefore, like to announce the government's intention to work with provincial and territorial governments to develop a policy which would identify communities which do not have accessible year round highway, rail or water access and which would benefit from assistance to establish links with the rest of the country.
It is hoped that, after a number of years of experience with such a program, it would be possible to establish standards of service that would serve as a basis for wider national application.
A matter which has also been discussed extensively over the last several years involves the relationship and distribution of authority between the Government and the Canadian Transport Commission. It is the Government's intention to make a number of changes in this area. They would be designed to: make it clear that a regulatory function is essential for the proper management of Canadian transportation and that the Canadian Transport Commission should continue in this role, although with less emphasis on legal procedures and more on administrative simplicity; ensure that the Minister of Transport is the principal source of transportation policy advice, with the National Transportation Act being amended accordingly; and give the Minister of Transport a clear and accepted means of giving policy direction to the Canadian Transport Commission, but not in the context of any specific case before the Commission.
It has been extensively mentioned in the documents tabled that the government has a leadership role to play in terms of development of new forms of transportation and the role of development in northern Canada. As an expression of these roles, it is the government's intention to participate with private industry in the development of an

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Transportation Policy
icebreaking bulk carrier to be managed by a joint operating company- Such a vessel might have a number of uses but would be designed in particular for removal of ore from a number of mine sites now being developed in the Arctic. It would represent a new form of technology, permitting ships to function without the normal icebreaking assistance.
It could represent an increasingly important industrial development for Canada in the future.
Mr. Speaker, having announced the government's proposed transportation policy and a number of measures that flow from it, I would now like to give to hon. members a very brief indication of the further steps that will have to be taken in the months ahead.
I hope that the first step will involve an early opportunity for me to appear before the House Committee on Transport and Communications to discuss fully the work that has been done to date and to have the benefit of the views of the members of that committee.
I also intend to enter into discussions with provincial governments on the policy itself and on a number of initiatives that are flowing from it. I also intend to have discussions with transportation associations and companies and representatives of the labour organizations who work within them.
It would be my hope that, as a result of these discussions, it would be possible to introduce amendments to the present National Transportation Act by the end of this year and that these changes could be brought into law during the next legislative session.
There are also a number of other outstanding matters that could require legislative change and which might properly be dealt with prior to, or concurrently with, any changes in the National Transportation Act. These would include separation of Air Canada from Canadian National and legislation to give effect to a new ports policy, to mention just two.
Moving in parallel, we hope to start the process of improving the passenger and freight systems in Canada as well as making necessary changes in the relationship between the government and the Canadian Transport Commission.
Overall, what I hope will develop is a set of structures, both formal and informal, that will bring together governments, users and shippers, carriers, employees within the transportation system, the regulatory bodies to allow us to work together in the continuous development and improvement of the transportation system in Canada.
In concluding, let me restate the new transportation policy. It rests, Mr. Speaker, on three main points: first, it recognizes that transportation is so all-pervasive and so important to the functioning of Canada as an economic, social and political entity that government cannot stand apart from it. Government must have the overall responsibility to ensure that the overall system develops in a way that meets national needs. This means a leadership role for government. Second, the new policy recognizes that transportation in Canada is a range of services, varying as to their maturity and the degree of competition involved, and that each must be treated accordingly. This means that the role of government will vary, depending on the nature of

the service concerned, with minimum government involvement in the developed services that are working well, and a greater degree of government involvement in the development of extended, expanded or improved services. Third, the new policy recognizes that well-developed parts of the transportation system can be selfsustaining financially; indeed, that they must be if the government is to have the resources available to fulfill its leadership role in the future development of the system.
Transportation has always played an historic role in uniting this country, Mr. Speaker. It has always been an instrument of national purpose. I believe that what I am proposing today is a reaffirmation of this historic role. I invite all the Honourable Members of this House to work with me in the task ahead.


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to start by saying that while I have not heard other ministers of transport make speeches such as the present minister has, from reading them I assume he has made the same kind of speech on transportation that ministers have made for the last ten or twelve years.
It is too bad that the statement was called a policy statement. Of course, it is not; it is basically a general discussion of transportation. With all the hoopla of the briefing for members of parliament this morning and the press this afternoon, we were led to believe there would be a new direction in transportation for the country. That is not true. On this side of the House we feel that this is basically a statement of the obvious-things that users of transportation have come to realize without the government telling them what is right and what is wrong. It is my contention that the government is trying to deceive the Canadian people in order to buy time. The policy looks impressive but, really, in the 300-odd pages there is a decided lack of policy or direction.
In consideration of estimates in committee of the whole and in the transport committee hearings the minister has said that the government is spending a considerable amount of money. A special task force was set up to look into all aspects of transportation. It seems this is what we get for the money. The 300-odd pages referred to in the statement do not have as much in the way of positive policies as the throne speech had. The throne speech had some stated objectives for transportation which this party was willing to consider, but it seems that the government has taken a step backwards in just stating again what the problems are: this has been done to death and nothing positive has emerged.
Mr. Speaker, if this was a policy statement on transportation or a statement of direction, it just is not good enough for us and I do not think it is going to be good enough for the Canadian people. This government was responsible for the 1967 National Transportation Act. The minister said that times have changed and he wants to bring in a new kind of policy. He talked about regional disparities and the fact that the transportation system has not done anything to correct this situation. That is true, Mr. Speaker. We are going back to square one, talking about the same problems that I suspect his predecessor
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talked about and which we may still be talking about even after the new year.
Sometimes I think we expect too much from the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand). He said he was bringing out a new policy and referred to it in speeches and in reply to questions in the House. We looked for reference to ferry services in Canada, but there was none. There was no reference to regional air service, to pilotage, to the National Harbours Board or to a national trucking policy. The labour situation was not mentioned. We have heard about it in the occasional press release, with such obvious statements as: Labour problems are hurting our transportation industry. There is no point in commenting on such statements, especially when the government must shoulder a good part of the blame for the present labour situation in Canada. There was a promise of $270 million for urban transportation in the 1974 election campaign, but there is no mention of it in this statement. Perhaps it was just an election promise.
I could go through the statement paragraph by paragraph, Mr. Speaker, but there is no point in it. We are very disappointed with the minister today. On page 11, he stated:
For example, what we are proposing envisages the use of transportation as an instrument of national policy, rather than as a passive support service-
He concluded by saying:
Transportation has always played an historic role in uniting this country, Mr. Speaker. It has always been an instrument of national purpose.	.
Such fuzzy-headed statements make this document virtually useless as a direction for transportation policy. I am not going to take up any more time criticizing or commenting on the minister's statement, except to say that it is a statement of the obvious. Considering the time and money that the government has supposedly spent on the document, it is sadly lacking in direction. We hope that the minister's staff will come up with some meaningful changes to the National Transportation Act which will implement some of the generalities the minister has talked about.
It has not been demonstrated to us that the minister is running his own department. The document that the minister spent 40 minutes reading only increases our frustration because of the apparent slide that is taking place in the federal transportation system. We are disappointed in the extreme, Mr. Speaker.


Mr.   C.-A. Gauthier@Roberval: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised to take the floor right now as I thought that the party on my right-


An hon. Member:: The spokesman for the party is not here.


Mr. Gauthier (Roberval):: They will probably come back.
First, I wish to commend the minister for the statement he made today. The minister-


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear!
Transportation Policy


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: They start shouting "Hear, hear!" Wait a moment.


An hon. Member:: He deserves congratulations.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Yes, he deserves praise for his statement. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand) has disclosed something that everybody knows when he said that our transportation system is faulty in every respect and that there are improvements to be made. To make those improvements, he intends at last to consult provinces, expeditors, carriers and even the general public. I think that the minister made a significant commitment this afternoon.
He seems to say this afternoon: "In recent years, as ministers, we watched trains, boats and airplanes passing and now we have decided to do something, to stop being passive. We have decided to work."
If the minister is sincere, as I am prepared to believe, I think it is a start that was long awaited by everyone in this country but those announcements, Mr. Speaker, remind me of those we read in all papers when a new legislation is proclaimed. The announcement of that new legislation in the papers appears in the main as a blessing for everyone but when one considers that legislation and scrutinizes it a bit one realizes that it contains a lot of restrictions and when the regulations to implement it are added there won't be anything left in the end. What looked very nice fizzles out.
I would not want the same thing to happen to the minister's good intentions. I am sure that if he finally decided to get on with the job the opposition will not hamper him in his work; on the contrary, we hoped so much for that day to come that the minister can be assured of our full co-operation.
This afternoon I listened to his policy statements when he said, and I quote:
... a total transportation system for Canada, providing accessibility and equity of treatment for users is an essential instrument of support for the achievement of national, economic and social objectives;
I say, Mr. Speaker, that I weigh all those words, I keep them in mind when they say they want to give equal treatment in all areas, when we know what claims were made, for example, in our areas, what claims were made, and what a deaf ear were received in return of the request for essential services. They said, "Well, the service is not viable." The minister said this afternoon-and I was glad to hear it-that at least as far as passenger service was concerned he was considering service more than viability, and about freight service, in the brief submitted, it was mainly viability. And that is good. I think a distinction must be made between those two services. What provocations we had to endure in years past, with the same old profitability requirement, being put forward when it came to passenger service in our area. Clearly, our freight service is the most productive in Canada. As for passenger service, of course we do not have the population to warrant the kind of service Montreal or Quebec City have. But nonetheless, the Saguenay-Lake St. John area is bringing fantastic freight revenues to the CN, and this is why we are saying: "In all fairness, give us at least adequate passenger service". What is being done? The minister is probably not aware. From July 20, because there are

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Transportation Policy
repairs to be done on the Chibougamau line-not between Dolbeau and Chambord-on the Chibougamau line, the passenger service is to be interrupted for a month and a half.
Passenger service is to be curtailed for a month and a half because there is minor work to do. Imagine that! Our trains do not even run in daytime! The trains leave Dolbeau at 8 p.m., so they do not run during work hours. This is an excuse. I read a notice from Mr. Gagne, from Jon-quiere, advising employees they are going to be laid off. That is final, passenger service is curtailed in our area. Mr. Speaker, I now serve notice to the minister that this will not be done, if it can be helped. If the minister wishes to assume some responsibility in the matter of railway services, he knows he can do so. I urge him now that the service be maintained during the coming months, because the peak season begins in July for the travelling population that cannot take the plane-apple, tomato and cucumber pickers, they travel during July, August and September. These are the heaviest transportation months, and passenger services are being stopped. When I asked why, I was told there are repairs to be made in the Chibougamau area. But there must be limits, Mr. Speaker.
I wish to draw the attention of the minister and I know that he will do something. That train is essential. Repairs have been done between Montreal and Chambord and the train service was not interrupted. Repairs have also been done elsewhere, but the train service remains in operation. The passenger service should be kept for those months, because that is when the traffic is heaviest.
The minister made a policy statement this afternoon. He said:
It is proposed that:
2) it is the responsibility of government to attend to the provision of an efficient total system for this purpose.
-in order to assure similar service and treatment to everyone.
I realize, as the minister, that transport in Canada is not really a rest cure. As for transport in heavily populated European countries, it is not difficult. However when dealing with Canada, almost 4,500 miles wide, where transport services must be organized for a minimum of people, compared with the vast dimensions of our country, I know it is difficult. It is a problem, and because of that I agree with the minister. Still, we must bear in mind the fact that the greater the problem, the more we must resolve to face it. I feel that the resolutions made by the minister this afternoon are a start towards accelerating the modernization of transport.
With regard to our Canadian railway companies, I believe the minister has proposed to make efforts towards combining their facilities so that, for instance, we will not end up having two stations facing each other. That is what we see everywhere along the way: CP stations, and CN stations. Why could they not become union stations, that would reduce expenses. In our area, we are forced to close down all our stations. Go and see for yourselves: the terminal in our area is closed every night of the week, even Sunday night. We wait for the train under the rain. How interesting: we have a nice big station but it is closed

That is the CN. If one visits my area, one will have to catch the train both ways under the rain because some stations are under lock and key. It is scandalous in my part of the country. It is high time something is done. I was happy to hear today that the minister intends to present a motion. To my mind it is more than high time for the minister and everyone to deal with the problem in an effort to bring the responsible to take decisions, so that decisions are no longer reached by the technocrats of Montreal who never leave their desks. I am confident that if the minister visits the provinces to discuss the matter with the people in the field, he will discover arguments that never occurred to his technocrats in Ottawa and Montreal.
Inspectors come down and make a little trip in Montreal and Ottawa, come back with some sort of report and then good-bye! That is not the way to give service to the public, Mr. Speaker.
Third, concerning the principles, one can read that the realization of this objective demands the integration of services provided by the most appropriate means for each particular service. It is well understood that, as he mentioned himself, the minister wants to try and combine things and have the population benefit from all modes of transportation, water, sea and land, in an attempt to give justice to big communities while guaranteeing fair service to remote areas. In this respect, I think the minister still has much work to do. He will have to make interviews, meet people in the field, because we realize now that, mostly in passengers services, the airplane will increasingly take the lion's share. And it is good, but those who cannot travel by plane should not be forgotten. The greatest part of the labour class cannot afford taking the plane. They can only rely on the bus and the private service. Concerning our system of free competition, as the minister said, it must be absolutely incumbent upon the government to make a decision on the agreements and delimitate the fields of action of private enterprise and the state, to seek a combination of the two that would give the best service to travelers.
Three reports have been presented today. I did not have time to read them through, but I think when we have examined those reports on freight and passenger transportation we will be able to make a judgment on the capital invested by both companies and the whole Canadian people. If it were distributed more equitably, all Canadians would benefit. I noted a declaration by the minister concerning airlines for which users do not pay as much as for other services in suburbs or remote areas. The minister should undertake a general survey aiming at the standardization of all fares. I believe his statement this afternoon will not only attract the attention of manufacturers, tradesmen and passengers on our three transportation systems, it will also reassure people who had been anxiously waiting for the minister's statement. We are looking forward to the results of today's survey as it is not good enough to make fine speeches and work out good plans if these are irrelevant.
I hope that, upon completion of the survey, when the minister presents the legislation he has promised to the House, we shall at last be able to say: "Now we do have an adequate and suitable transportation system". And in both
June 16, 1975

freight and passenger transportation we shall compare favourably with neighbouring nations and all other foreign countries.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin).


Gerald William Baldwin: Just what was needed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Give him a hand.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Lies Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I hope the House will conclude, when I am through, that we have saved the best until the last. I should like to begin by saying to the minister that I find this, after seven years of waiting-particularly the last two years-to be the most incredible, the most unbelievable submission that I have heard or read about in my lifetime. I do not know whether to call it a swan-song or a hesitation waltz. It is one or the other; maybe it is both.
It has been two years since the western economic opportunities conference took place in Calgary; two years since the minister's admission that transportation policy was a mess; a year since those infamous election promises; nine months since the Speech from the Throne; eight months since the establishment of the departmental task force on transportation; and four months since the so-called breakthrough meeting in Calgary. During all that time there was a building up of expectations not only among members of parliament but among the public in general. After all those promises, after all that rhetoric, after all that delay in the unfolding of a new transportation policy, what do we get? We get a hodge-podge, a pot-pourri, or any other phrase you want to use. There is little or no evidence that the government is moving in a new direction. Any ideas the minister or others associated with him have expressed since 1967 about moving in a new direction in terms of transportation policy have been put on the back burner to simmer a while longer.
Mr. Speaker, as long as the present government is in office, Canadians will be starved of a transportation policy which is any different from the one we now have: they will be starved of a policy which really meets the transportation needs of this country. I do not want to be unfair in my criticism. Indeed, there are portions of the statement which, as far as they go, I welcome on behalf of my party. The government sees fit to pay lip service at least to some of the principles that the New Democratic Party has been advancing for many years, and the CCF before that.
I want to go back in history and quote a prophet from 1966. He is still with us. In 1966, speaking on second reading of the debate on the then new National Transportation Act, the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas), who was then leader of my party, said as follows as reported at page 8044 of Hansard for September 2, 1966:
Transportation Policy
The fact is that I do not believe that free enterprise and the competitive system of transportation can give Canada an adequate transportation policy at a price we can afford ... in a country of 20 million people where ... we are more dependent than probably any country in the world on getting our goods to market over long distances at competitive prices, where we spend more per capita on transportation than probably any other country in the world, I do not think we can afford the luxury of having a free enterprise, competitive transportation policy ... I believe that what we need is more government control and direction, not less, in the field of transportation.
The hon. member continued, and this is the prophetic part:
I am convinced that this government or the government that succeeds it will find that in a few years this transport commission-
That is the CTC, set up under the 1967 act.
-because of its lack of power and authority, will not be able to solve the problem. If the House does not at this time give that commission some power and put some teeth into the bill, then some subsequent parliament will be compelled to do so, after we have lost valuable years and very large sums of money.
The hon. member who represents Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands had that to say in 1967. I suggest the minister take the time to read his entire speech because those words are haunting him, his government and the whole country today. We have the government's recognition, however belated and reluctant, that in many parts of the country,' in respect of many commodities, competition cannot be effective in setting rates. That belated and reluctant recognition we welcome, however limited it is.
We welcome the government's recognition, however belated and reluctant, that the government itself must have more direct control over transportation policy in Canada if we are to achieve an effective and integrated transportation network. We welcome the government's commitment to remove some of the historic freight rate grievances in western Canada and the Atlantic provinces, and hope to see implementation of some measures to bring this about. However, in light of what has occurred since July of last year in freight rate increases which have exaggerated and worsened the anomalies and inequities, I am not going to hold my breath waiting for the implementation of that recognition which the government shows.
We welcome the intention to place new emphasis on passenger rail service as an effective, rapid, low energy consuming means of inter-city transportation. But this is like a bride's trousseau-something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. The proposal which made the headlines in this morning's papers regarding passenger service between Windsor and Quebec City is certainly not new, and let no one in the country be kidded into thinking it is. It is a proposal that has been dusted off from 1968, when it was originally proposed. In fact, Canadian National has been carrying out fast, comfortable, economic passenger train experiments for many years since then.
The minister and his departmental officials have overlooked that. They just dug out a proposal first made in 1968 regarding the Windsor to Quebec City corridor. But this is typically Liberal-and I spell that with a capital "L". It is failure to carry out principles that they themselves recognize to their logical, inescapable conclusion. Some of the principles are excellent and I personally have advocated them for a number of years. But they have been

June 16, 1975
Transportation Policy
distorted by failure to apply them and apply them consistently.
In going through this exercise of reviewing what has already been done, the minister has left out a host of other things. He said nothing about the maritime provinces. He said nothing about coastal and international shipping policy. He said nothing about urban transportation. In a country like Canada, inevitably the exceptions that the minister proposes in his policy will be so extensive as to make a mockery of competition. He talks about "commercial viability" and other general principles that he outlined. If he is going to make exceptions of commercial viability and competition, he will have to make so many of them that he will either have to eliminate competition or else not make the exceptions; he cannot have it both ways.
In their briefing this morning, the government said it had examined four options in transportation-all-private, mixed public and private, public utility, nationalization. At the briefing this morning we were told that the government had opted for a mixed transportation policy, public and private. Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what we have had since 1923.
There is nothing new in the minister's statement today. The option he has chosen is the one he has been trying to live with ever since becoming Minister of Transport. There is no new direction or fundamental change in his announcement. There is no adopting of a different option. Had the minister risen in the House today and announced that the government is going to sell the CNR and Air Canada and get the hell out of transportation in a public way, I could have respected that announcement even though I would have disagreed with it 100 per cent. Instead of making one of the two choices he has, the minister makes neither choice. He is going to try to be all things to all people. No doubt he has kept the shareholders of Canadian Pacific Limited happy. In fact, if hon. members are wise they will phone their brokers right now. They should all leave the chamber and pick up 50 or 100 shares of CP Investments, because they will probably be going up within the next few days.
I am sure that the board of directors of CP Limited are breathing a sigh of relief, Mr. Speaker, for there is nothing in the minister's announcement to indicate there is going to be any fundamental change in the direction of our transportation policy. The Minister has said that the Canadian Transport Commission will be an instrument to implement government policy, which is a step in the right direction. If he feels that that is going to give him authority as minister, with the backing of the government, then he can telephone the president of CPR any morning and tell the president that he is not running this country. The minister will recognize those remarks. But in view of the fact that the minister, in his so-called transportation policy announcement today, continues to enshrine competition and "commercial viability", after he has hung up the phone the president of the CPR can still continue to act as though he is running this country. I am sure those private enterprise people are somewhat amused as well as bemused after all the threats, rhetoric and promises of the government which has now come up with this mess of a transportation policy.
Let me return to my comments about passenger transportation. Where is the passenger transportation corporation that was promised last June? It is bad enough that the Quebec City-Windsor concept was dusted-off from 1968, but now we have a complete neglect or lack of words put in writing by the minister regarding a national passenger transportation corporation or a rail passenger transportation corporation. This is not even mentioned; there is not a word about it. The minister, in his announcement today, makes no recognition whatever of his duty to face up to the realities of this country in terms of energy, environment and safety. He still opts for what the government chooses to call a mixed transportation system. The minister is the one who said that transportation policy is a mess. Now he inserts himself as the wooden spoon in the recipe and stirs up that mess, which remains mixed up.
If we are going to move people in the most successful manner in terms of energy, environment and safety, we will require massive public investment and control in respect of inter-city rail passenger service, inter-urban passenger service and in-city transit. There is not a word from the minister in this regard. There is absolutely no direction. This is the same old path we have been treading since 1923. I will not be so rude as to suggest since 1885. This policy still clings to the 1890 concepts of competition. Competition is enshrined in transportation. I wish the city of Quebec, where the minister owns a home and property, would enshrine competition and commercial viability in respect of the streets, sidewalks, sewer system and power and make him pay accordingly. He would be the first to scream about competition not being relevant to the provision of essential public services under public utility, yet he tries to apply this to a national transportation policy. The ideas of competition and commercial viability have gone the way of the dinosaur except in the minds of this government.
The government says that in areas of transportation in Canada, those areas where there is real competition should pay their own way. Let me suggest to the people of the Atlantic provinces and the prairies that they are getting some more of the same, and will likely get even more. If we want the St. Lawrence Seaway to pay its own way, with progressively large increases in Seaway tolls, then the people who live far beyond either end of that system will continue to pay a disproportionate share of the cost of transportation in this country and the minister and this government will still have policies which discriminate against people and the manufacturers of products because of where they are located. The minister turns away from putting the well-being of the entire nation behind transportation. One really cannot do anything about regional disparities unless there is a transportation system which treats people fairly no matter where they live.
The minister talks about commercially viable passenger services, freight rates and freight services. If you happen to be processing seal blubber in Inuvik, there is no way you can lay it down in Toronto at a fair price. We should be discriminating in favour of people, instead of against them. It should be possible to fly from Toronto to Inuvik for the same cost as from Toronto to Regina. We should have a system of passenger fares and freight rates which

June 16, 1975

represent a combination of equalization and/or subsidization. We should not be worried about competition and profitability. Service is the priority and the other two things are secondary. Canada and the United States are the last two countries in the world which still cling to the 1890 concept of competition and viability in respect of transportation.
The one thing I am happy about in the minister's statement is that he and the government accept full responsibility for transportation policy. If we are to have a railroad baron in this country, I would rather it be the Minister of Transport and the government who are answerable to parliament and the country. But why does the minister just go a little way and then no further? This was his big opportunity. This is why I asked earlier if this was a hesitation waltz, a swan-song or both. This was the minister's opportunity following the build-up in expectation in respect of transportation. We were finally going to get that fundamental change in direction and purpose in transportation in this country. All we got was a rehash.
Transportation in this country will require the investment of several billion dollars over the next five to ten years because we have had competition enshrined in our transportation policy. Our railroads and our airlines, both public and private, have never used the full weight of their ability to raise capital in order to improve their transportation systems, which is the business they are in. There is no direction in this regard in the statement today by the minister.
If Canadian Pacific has the capability of raising $1 billion a year in capital, there is nothing in this statement which says the minister can tell Canadian Pacific it is not going to put $400 million per year into shopping centres and high-rise office buildings but, rather, is going to put it into transportation. There is nothing in here that says the minister can require that, which is a polite way of saying it is compulsory on the railroads to update, modernize and bring back the standard of transportation they have allowed to deteriorate to the point where today there are between 4,000 and 5,000 miles of track west of Thunder Bay alone in a condition that is a national disgrace.
The minister talks about competition and commercial viability. That is what we had in 1967. The ghost of Pickersgill is still in this room. The minister and this government had the chance, but they blew it. No wonder there was only mild disapproval from the official opposition. I am sure members of that party are breathing much easier today. The policies they supported in 1967 involving competition and commercial viability are still enshrined in the national transportation policy of this government. Those members were not one bit unhappy about that; at least, I did not hear anything from their spokesman which would indicate to the contrary. Of course, he did not talk for very long.


An hon. Member:: You weren't in the House to listen.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I listened to the hon. gentleman, and he ran out of gas because he agrees with what the minister is doing. There was little discomfort to the official opposition in this statement. I submit, on behalf of the NDP, that new direction in transportation is not all that radical and not all that socialistic. I point out that it is not even
Transportation Policy
communistic, for the benefit of some of our paranoid friends who look under the bed at night to see if there is a communist there. This concept is that transportation is an essential public service, to be operated as a public utility and treated in that fashion. Even if some parts are privately owned, transportation is still a public utility.
Competition and profitability have no place in a public utility. In the last 50 years there has been no rationale in respect of these principles in relation to a transportation policy. If one goes to other countries, whether they are capitalistic, right-wing, left-wing, or whatever political stripe, anywhere in the world one will find that those comcepts were thrown out years ago. The government hangs on to outmoded ideologies and methods. These systems must in the main be publicly owned and controlled. I refer to our major modes of transportation such as rail, air, pipelines and shipping. I think the major part of the bus and truck industry could remain in private hands, but it would have to be a necessary and worth-while adjunct of a publicly owned and controlled transportation utility: it must meet and serve the needs at the local and regional levels.
I want to say to the minister that when he talks about public transportation, whether it involves people or goods, service must come first; it must take priority over commercial viability; it must take priority over so-called competition, just as in the case of other areas involving public utilities. Whether the operation is carried out on a breakeven basis, at profit or at a loss, the well-being of the nation as a whole must come first.
The minister spoke about modernizing the grain handling system. That is a statement which really scares me, because we have heard it from a number of people, including the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. Many rural people in Saskatchewan and Alberta spoke up a week or so ago about that modernizing of our grain handling system. For lack of any other specific proposal or commitment from the minister, I can only conclude-I hope I am wrong-that that phrase "modernizing the grain handling system" carries with it the loss of thousands of miles of railway lines in western Canada and the implication of some bitter experiences with development of inland terminals.
One of the departmental officials who briefed us this morning spoke about the cleaning of grain in western Canada. If that is not a function of the inland terminal, then I do not know what is. The only way to have a viable inland terminal is by giving up a few thousand miles of railway branch lines, because an inland terminal is the only kind that can do any volume of grain cleaning. I can only conclude that the so-called transportation policy announcement today includes a commitment on the part of the government to agree with the railways and the private grain trade that many hundreds of miles of railway lines in the prairie provinces should be abandoned.
The minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board says that no branch lines will be abandoned so long as the farmers want to use them. Then what does the government proceed to do, with the supine acquiescence of the Minister of Transport? With alternate delivery points,

June 16, 1975
Transportation Policy
trains are not run on the branch lines for three or four months. The alternate delivery points are on main or secondary lines and the farmers then, because they have run out of money, are forced to haul grain to another line, and the government and the authorities can say it can be seen that the farmers do not want to use the branch lines.
If you take a look at some of that line, Mr. Speaker, you will find that it is often the 65-pound or 85-pound rail made in 1910 or 1912 which I suspect the railways are still carrying on their books and taking depreciation on. The tracks are grown over with weeds. Snow fences are lying on the ground. There are no section men nowadays who know the tracks like the backs of their hands. They ride up and down the highway and clean the railway crossings. There are few trains, but when there is one on most of those lines it cannot haul the kind of equipment the government intends to buy. Why would hopper cars be bought if the government knows they will be used only on the main line? Hopper cars are not needed if they are to be used only on the main line. The railways have sufficient equipment for that purpose.
If there is no intention on the part of the government to require the railways to upgrade and update those branch lines and use unit trains on them, what is the point in buying hopper cars? If the intention of the government is to maintain the commercial viability of Canadian Pacific and perhaps help reduce the interest debt of Canadian National, why does it not say so? If there is nothing in this policy that would require the rebuilding of many hundreds of miles of branch lines and upgrading them so that grain can be moved on them, then we are continuing down the road that has been laid out for us over the years since 1967.
The lack of any new direction in this transportation policy statement today in the area of modernizing the grain handling system forces me to conclude it is "game over" for dozens of towns and villages in the prairie provinces, and in the Peace River country of British Columbia, which are or could be viable. We have not had one word from the minister about this. Until we have legislation from the government, I hope the minister and his colleagues will take a few more hesitant steps in the right direction.
I do not want to stir up the minister. I do not question his sincerity. From the remarks I have read and listened to over the past year, I believe the minister is sincere; but I can also only conclude that he lost the battle with his colleagues in cabinet and in his caucus and that this is a swan-song as well as a hesitation waltz. I believe the minister really means what he says about transportation in this country being in a mess and that competition does not work.
There are only two alternatives. The minister and the government can opt for private enterprise in transportation, and then we will know where the minister and the government stand and will try to deal with that accordingly. Or he can opt for a publicly owned and certainly a publicly controlled public utility transportation system in this country. The other day the minister said he disapproved of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan governments going into the airline business, although I did not hear him say a word about Alberta taking over Pacific Western

Airlines; but he did not like Skywest running the operation. I have the clipping here. I hope it is inaccurate, but I doubt it. This area is the federal government's responsibility, but the provinces and the territories are compelled to move to fill a vacuum in regional and northern transportation left by the federal government.
I repeat to the minister that a national transportation policy must be based on a public utility concept, with public ownership and control and a public utility board answerable and accountable to the government, parliament and the public. It cannot be any other way if it is really to meet our transportation needs and if it is to grow with this country. I submit that is the only way it can be done if there is to be any chance of success.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It was agreed earlier that the period following the finalization of speeches would be set aside for questioning the minister, and that hopefully the question period would be completed and the question put by six o'clock. I am sure it is not contemplated by any hon. member that we will use an hour and 20 minutes at this stage, but we can certainly open up questions to see how they go.


Mr. Mazankowski:: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the minister's statement. At least it provides an opportunity for a comprehensive discussion. While I must say that it lacks specific details, I am sure it will provide Canadians with an opportunity to discuss transportation in a knowledgeable fashion. I might also thank the minister for the opportunity which he extended to some hon. members to attend a briefing session this morning. That was an excellent way for us to gain a broader insight into the thrust behind the transportation policy. I should like to ask the minister a question with reference to principle No. 4 as outlined on page 10 of the text read by the minister, which is as follows:
There should be an objective of commercial viability, including cost-recovery, both in the operation of transportation services and in the provision of facilities and services for direct support of transportation.
This principle is again referred to on page 15 of the document, in the section dealing with commercial viability and the basing of freight rates on the combination of variable and fixed costs. Can the minister explain how the Crowsnest freight rates would apply within that principle, since it has been stated that the Crowsnest freight rates are not compensatory?


Jean Marchand: As I mentioned-and this is reflected in the text here-we were not dealing either with the Crowsnest pass rates, the Maritime Freight Rates Act or the Atlantic Region Freight Assistance Act. These were kept outside the partial policy that was announced this afternoon. So there is no contradiction. Of course, if we had both in the statute there would be a contradiction, but the other act will cover specific cases such as grain.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The minister has stated that anything in this policy would be overruled by the statutory grain rates, that is, the Crowsnest rates; is that correct?


Jean Marchand: Yes.
June 16, 1975


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I have another question with respect to the subsidization of long and short hauls. On page 13 the minister states:
In a number of other areas of the passenger system, the fare structure seems inequitable, with long-haul passengers in effect subsidizing the short-haul routes.
We have had evidence of that in Air Canada where there has been tremendous cross subsidization, the western routes subsidizing the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle. Within the framework of this policy, how will this situation be overcome; how will the cross subsidization be dealt with? Will it be in the form of a directive by the minister to the transportation companies, or will legislation be brought forth limiting the amount of cross subsidization that can take place, of short hauls by long-haul passenger routes?


Jean Marchand: I think this will be part of the policy and probably part of the act. I will bring in an amendment to the act to that effect. However, what I want to protect is rate grouping because some rates might be lower for a longer distance than a shorter distance, provided it is limited to a region. What we have had in mind is steel-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I was dealing with passenger routes.


Jean Marchand: What was discovered in making our studies-before we had an impression that that was the case, but now we have the conviction-was that some short-haul flights are subsidized by long hauls. We have also found some other things which I might have mentioned in the House previously and, if so, I am sorry to be repeating myself. There are certain cases where the economy class subsidizes first-class. This is the kind of thing we want to correct. I regret that the hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre is not here.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: He only stays here when he is speaking.


Jean Marchand: I know he is vitally interested in this. His argumentation might be right or wrong, depending on how one interprets the first principle we have laid down, namely, that our transportation policy will become an instrument of the national policy. In the act of 1967 the main principle was economic support. I think it was clear in that act that the sooner the government could get out of the transportation field and let the CTC make the regulations, the better. That was the whole purpose of the act, and that is what we have changed. This is a fundamental change. We have indicated that our principle now is that the transportation policy will become an instrument of the national policy. That means that if we think that the rates should be changed or the situation should be changed, I will have the authority under the new act to direct the CTC to correct the situation.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I have a question for clarification, Mr. Speaker. May I point out, with the greatest respect, that the minister was sidetracked to another question. Are we to assume that the CTC, as the minister sees it, would have the power to say to Air Canada, for example, which has engaged in this tremendous subsidization, that there has to be a greater equalization of freight rates or that one rate will have to be rolled back and another increased? Is
Transportation Policy
that the kind of power that the minister envisages will be granted to him under the act?


Jean Marchand: I even saw the father of the 1967 act, Mr. Pickersgill, the other day to ask him whether I understood the act correctly when I interpreted it as giving CTC the authority to approve the rates established by CP, CN or Air Canada and nobody could intervene except in certain circumstances by way of an appeal. The procedure is so complicated that sometimes it is preferable not to go through the process. In the future, I want to be in the position of being able to say to the CTC that certain things will not be done that way. That does not mean I would intervene in each case that came before the CTC, but I want to be in a position to establish the policy the CTC will follow, and not the reverse.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-Canadian National	Railways-Suggestion
company index pensions without waiting for Hall report; the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie)-External Affairs-Garrison diversion-suggestion United States be asked for moratorium on project; the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington)-Penitentiaries- Alleged high rate of turnover of security staff-Request for report.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Marchand (Langelier):
That the documents entitled, "Transportation Policy-A Framework for Transport in Canada, Summary Report", "An Interim Report on Inter-city Passenger Movement in Canada", and "An Interim Report on Freight Transportation in Canada", be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications.
Mr. Saltsman:: Mr. Speaker, the minister has said a number of things which I think call for a conclusion, and I wonder whether he would be prepared to state that conclusion quite clearly. It seems to me that everything he has put forward today is an admission that the National

June 16, 1975
Transportation Policy
Transportation Act of 1967 has been a failure. The act was designed to take the question of transportation out of politics and put it into the hands of what was described as some kind of objective board which would base its decisions on economics rather than on politics. Now it seems that we are back to where we were in 1967 and that the policy of basing transportation consequences and effects on economic judgments has been a failure of the minister, by bringing information to us indicating that he wants to take over the way it was before 1967.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I think it is clear that, while the hon. member received a pile of documents this morning, he probably did not have time to go through all of them, because many of the questions which have been discussed in the House are clarified there. I do not say that everyone will be satisfied, but many things will be clarified.
The hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre says that we are bringing back the principle of competition in the field of transportation only in one sector and this is the thing that struck him the most. He said that this was the problem in the act of 1967 because in many fields and in many regions in Canada there was no competition at all. In southern Ontario one can use trucking, rail or aircraft and there is real competition. On the track which goes up to Hudson Bay, for example, who is competing? No one. So we say that where there is competition, let us have competition. We want regulations, to be in a position to intervene in all cases. This is quite a difference and I think the hon. member should keep that in mind. We want to modify the situation where there is no competition, where the competition is not efficient or where there is collusion. We want to have the power, under the law, to say that in a particular region the rates will be fixed following government intervention.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, this will not really be a supplementary question because I did not receive an answer to the question I asked. I realize that the question put by my colleague was of equal importance and of great interest, but the minister did not really answer my question. I was not asking the minister about competition, although that is an important question; I was asking him whether we are not back to where we were in 1967. I wanted some indication from the minister as to how the things he is proposing today are different from what we had in 1967 before we brought in the transportation act. While he takes a lot of time to point out that we are really not going back and really not doing what we were in 1967, the effect of his proposals is to get rid of the transportation act as it now exists and to go back to making judgments about transportation on a political basis rather than on some economic basis.


Jean Marchand: We are not going back to 1967. If we were, we would go back even further, because when the act was passed in 1967 Mr. MacPherson had completed his report, which was on the basis of facts he studied in 1961 or 1962. This was the problem he was trying to solve. We are going to correct the 1967 National Transportation Act so that we can correct the anomalies in freight rates and have a better integrated system. My
speech this afternoon did not include the whole policy, because I discussed inter-city trains, commuter trains and other things. All this will be part of the package when we come back before the House. It is still being studied by the cabinet and by the provinces. So if the hon. member is asking me if we are going back to 1967, no, we are not. We are going back, to a certain extent, on certain points.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, if I may ask my supplementary now, it will be a supplementary because the minister referred to the high-speed rail demonstration service in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. The minister knows that we did have such a high-speed rail service, certainly from Windsor to Toronto and, I presume, from there on, and that was discontinued. It was on the CPR tracks, the CPR made an application to discontinue that passenger service and it was discontinued. Now we have the CN going from Windsor to Toronto, and then on. The question for the minister is this: If he is going to experiment with a high-speed service, does this mean he is prepared to shift the rail passenger service which is going from Windsor to Toronto on to the faster and more direct track of the CPR?


Jean Marchand: I think that was given in my speech as an example. The corridor from Quebec City to Windsor was just mentioned. It is a natural corridor in Canada; there is no doubt about that. These are not the only places in Canada; there is Vancouver and Halifax which are very important cities.


Jack Marshall: Go a little farther than Nova Scotia.


Jean Marchand: And jump on to the island? Perhaps we can do that. We have an experiment, but that is not the kind of experiment we want to do. What we want to do is something quite different with regard to a new type of train which is faster, and we hope that those trains will be used by the population. As the hon. member very well knows, many of the trains which were abandoned were not used at all by the population. They were used by a percentage which was negligible. If we can put better and faster trains on those tracks, as they are doing in Europe and many other places, perhaps we can change the results. It is easier to get into Paris by train than to get into Toronto by train.


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, my question is basically supplementary to the question just asked. I would like to ask the minister how the proposed high-speed rail service from Quebec City to Windsor is to be integrated with the other services already involved in that corridor. Also, unless I missed the answer, could he give us the timeframe that he or his partners are thinking about with regard to instituting this kind of service?


Jean Marchand: I hope that in committee we will have time to discuss all these points. We have no specific programs for those trains. It is a fundamental principle that we want to integrate the modes of transportation in Canada. Hon. members very well know that we would have better co-ordination by using buses, trains, airlines, and so forth. We are not limited to one mode of transportation. This is something we want to do and it is a program we want to develop. I do not know whether this answers the hon. member's question. I would ask hon.

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members not to concentrate on the Windsor-Quebec City corridor and not to concentrate on the words Quebec and Windsor. It may be somewhere else.


Jack Burnett Murta: Brandon and Winnipeg?


Jean Marchand: Yes, or Montreal and Toronto. But we want a much better, more integrated system. It is silly, but one can go from Ottawa to Montreal by CP, CN, STOL, ordinary aircraft or by highway and none of these are co-ordinated. If one wanted to take a bus in Montreal, he would have to take a cab. I think we can have better co-ordination. That means that all those corporations will have to work together. We will ask for this power.
I mentioned in the speech that I should like to see CP and CN integrate certain of their structures and services and rolling-stock because I think this is important. It is silly for two trains, one CN and one CP, to run side by side to exactly the same place. Maybe there will be some resistance and members will have to vote on some of the measures that they have in mind.


Jack Burnett Murta: The minister mentioned an effort to upgrade the passenger services of CN and CP, but the only specific thing in the statement this morning was that the reservation aspect of the system would be integrated in some respects, and also the common terminal aspect. Could the minister elaborate on this? Are these the only two initial projects that the minister is considering at the present time, or is there thought of using a common right-of-way, for example, for passenger services? For instance, would they run one or two trains to Jasper on certain days and one or two trains to Banff on other days?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I have no objection, in principle, to this and the document showed that we are open on this question. I have promised to discuss such questions with the standing committee of the House, and hon. members can make proposals there. The task force did not retire this morning with the tabling of the paper; they are still working on the things outlined in it. I cannot give details because, of course, we cannot do everything in the same year. We cannot give money for city buses or stations or commuter services and at the same time have a STOL system. We will have to recognize certain priorities, and I should not like to do that before I have an opportunity to discuss it.


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, almost a year ago there was an election promise of $270 million for urban transportation, but this was not mentioned in the speech. Can the minister assure the House and the country that the money will be forthcoming and can he tell us when, in the context of the election campaign?


Jean Marchand: We have not changed our opinion on that, Mr. Speaker. A paper was prepared for cabinet and is before cabinet now. Let us see how much money they give us-because there is money involved. As far as the policy is concerned, I will not backtrack.
Transportation Policy


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I see the hon. member for Levis is seeking the floor to ask a question. The procedure we are following this afternoon is not even akin to the one we follow on statements on motions. It is separate from that, and in fact is debate. It is not only an exception to the question period but an exception to statements on motions. I have, therefore, no hesitation in recognizing the hon. parliamentary secretary to ask the minister a question. The hon. member for Levis.


Mr. Raynald Guay (Parliamentary Secretary to Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, contrary to the official opposition which did not use its time this afternoon for making suggestions, and I think that is why I am allowed to put questions to the minister, I would like to be very practical.
Since the minister mentioned water-borne transport, does he expect to make shortly-and when-a statement on the Canadian merchant marine in order to follow up the recommendations of the Darling report tabled in this House lately? Does the minister think there will be a special debate on the content of that report?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I think I have already said that I favour a merchant marine. I would be most embarrassed if I were asked to build it tomorrow morning because we would probably be short of steel as well as shipbuilding yards. We already have a lot of ships on the Great Lakes. In the documents tabled this afternoon, there is a project for an icebreaking bulk cargo vessel. This is something extremely interesting for the future of Canada. This is a boat of about $35 million. I shall not be able to make a complete statement on the matter of a merchant navy in the near future, but it may be said that I will take all steps possible in that direction.


Raynald Joseph Albert Guay: Would it not be a good thing that the contents of the Darling report be referred to a committee for discussion, at the same time as the overall policy? What is the minister's opinion in this respect?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I feel that we shall have enough work with what we have. I have no objection to the report being submitted. But I rest convinced that the committee will not be able to study all the material at the same time. Things will have to be done in orderly fashion. I have no objection at all to the Darling report being referred to the committee, but I am under the impression that such a referral can wait a while, since ships travel much slower than planes.


Mr. Nowlan:: In his statement the minister spoke of using transportation as an economic pool, and the question of regional disparity also came up. Could the minister assure the House that one transportation policy that we have at present will not be touched, and indeed might be extended, and that is the eastern freight rates assistance? Is that policy going to be continued under this new program?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, we are not going to touch that. If we ever do touch it, it will be done separately; but nobody has proposed it. For the time being,

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Transportation Policy
that has exactly the same status as the Maritime Freight Rates Act and the Crowsnest pass agreement.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, can the minister assure the House that he has finally agreed with the contention that he should have a more active policy role in national transportation policy? While his proposals are being transformed into legislation, will he make greater use of the powers he has already, particularly under section 50 of the National Transportation Act and section 100 of the Railway Act, to exercise more authority over his ministry?


Jean Marchand: It is a very general question, Mr. Speaker, and it would be easy to agree if I knew exactly what the hon. member has in mind.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I would refer the minister to the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications for December 21. That will show exactly what I have in mind. There was a discussion with the chairman of the CTC. I want to ask one more question in the context of the latest transportation initiative of the minister. Has thought been given to creating a more independent agency for the supply of ferry service to the island provinces, so that in times of labour strife when, for example, the CN service is disrupted, there would not be an added burden on those provinces?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please, If I understood the minister earlier, questions of this sort asking for details ought to go before the committee. I do not want to interfere, however, if the minister wishes to answer.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, this is something we are looking into. We hope we will have some result from the negotiations carried on between CN and the brotherhood. We do not have any final results yet.


Mr. O'Sullivan:: Mr. Speaker, like all other members representing densely populated areas, I listened with interest to the minister describing how he hopes to improve transportation services. May I ask, since this is not touched on in the report, what are the minister's plans for regional airports? This question interests those representing centres of moderately large population such as Hamilton, Windsor, London and so on-centres which are on the periphery of large cities with international airports. What are the minister's plans for such regional airports?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, discussions are continuing with regard to Hamilton airport. Quite possibly, discussions concerning London airport have finished. I will inquire. Discussions are continuing with regard to Windsor airport. I think that I can answer more adequately tomorrow.


Sean Patrick O'Sullivan: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Does the minister envision that STOL aircraft or certain types of medium-sized jets will use regional airports in this country? Is the minister, together with his officials, devising a policy under which environmental impact studies will be carried out before existing regional airports are expanded or new airports built?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, this will be future policy. No doubt we are going to do that. Five or six days ago I met with regional carriers. We will have to elaborate a policy for third level carriers. Regional carriers want to know exactly where they stand in relation to national carriers and third level groups. This policy has not yet been defined.


Mr. Alkenbrack:: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make some remarks about a subject I first raised in 1970 in this House, and then ask a question. The subject concerns passenger service between Toronto and Ottawa. I wish to include in my remarks passenger service from Windsor eastward to Ottawa, a service which I understand the minister wants to improve. If he does improve the service, I will congratulate him, because if anything needs improving it is rail passenger service in this country. In the past, the CNR provided rail passenger service-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member, in opening his remarks, said he would make a few remarks and then ask a question. As the present period has been set aside for the purpose of allowing hon. members to ask questions, perhaps the hon. member would be good enough to ask his question.


Almonte Douglas Alkenbrack: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I ask, why run the CNR passenger service from Toronto to Ottawa through Brockville? Why pay the CPR rent for use of its track between Brockville and Ottawa when the shortest, most economical route between Toronto and Ottawa is from Toronto to Napanee, then eastward from Napanee by way of the Smiths Falls subdivision to Ottawa? I hope that under the new policy the CNR will use the Smiths Falls subdivision and thus provide an economical and profitable passenger service. It should use the subdivision in providing service from points west in Ontario, like Windsor and Toronto, to Ottawa.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, as I was not minister of transport in 1970 when the hon. member raised his question originally, I did not research the point. I will do it and try to give the hon. member an answer. The subject is technical.


Donald W. Munro: My question, Mr. Speaker, concerns an intermodal system including land, sea, highways and ferries. I should like to ask the minister whether the global policy he has just set forth could include the reopening of discussion on subsidies to the ferries that link Vancouver with the mainland, that is those which shuttle back and forth between Nanaimo and the Horseshoe Bay, a link in the transcontinental chain which the Trans-Canada highway represents?


Jean Marchand: Everything, of course, can be included in a general policy. Still, I would rather discuss the matter of ferries separately because their problem is very special. In the case of the Maritime provinces, at least in the case of two of them, namely Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, I believe, that was one of the conditions of their entry into Confederation; so the situation is not quite the same. It was true of the railroad in the case of British Columbia, but not so with regard to the
June 16, 1975

ferry. However, I should be pleased to discuss this point with the hon. member some other time.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Although I do not intend to interfere unduly with the process of the minister's being questioned, I am sure all members agree that questions ought to be kept to matters of general policy and ought not to become a litany, as it were, of individual problems in individual corners of the country, or questions concerning the specific application of the policy. The minister said that he would be willing to answer such questions in committee. I think he is correct in that. I hope hon. members will keep their questions to matters of general policy.


Gérard Laprise: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to put. I am sorry I was unable to hear all the questions that followed the minister's statement. I should like to ask the minister whether, within his overall transportation policy, recognition will be given the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is undeniably an important part of our transportation system, and whether he intends, within that policy, to review the financing of the seaway because, at the present time, as a result of high interest rates, the debt is not "covering" expenses. Does the minister intend to review, within the scope of that policy, all those forms of refinancing?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I have asked that not only the refinancing of the St. Lawrence Seaway be reviewed but also that of the Canadian National.


Mr. Railton:: Mr. Speaker, although I am particularly interested in the Welland Canal and the Seaway, I shall ask a question on general policy. I think many members of this House are interested in seeing deepsea ports and large centres on the St. Lawrence connected and the Seaway enlarged. Enlarging the Seaway will involve the building of deepwater harbours, the enlargement of locks serving the international Seaway and the enlargement of the Welland Canal. What is the Department of Transport's policy for financing this future great undertaking? Also, is there any way of recouping the cost of these works from other nations using the Seaway?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I must discuss this question with the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. So far, no decision has been taken on the financing of this matter.


Walter (Wally) Firth: I should like to ask the minister a question or two regarding the licensing of air crew. This is an important topic, especially north of the 60th parallel where it is recognized that pilots trained in areas with which they are familiar are better and safer than operators who come from some other area. This was recognized not too long ago by those engaged in an inquiry into a crash in the north. Would the minister recognize this extra proficiency by authorizing a special stamp on aircrew licences or log books? I might say that though very few northern native people have been trained as pilots, their records are just a
Transportation Policy
little better than excellent. Would the minister consider authorizing a mark of recognition, one which would be accepted not only by the government but by the companies which employ these men, and by the insurance companies?


Jean Marchand: This is the type of question I should like to answer in committee when my advisers are with me. I am not a specialist in all these matters; if I were, I would probably not be here. The hon. member will forgive me if I cannot take a chance on giving him an answer before consulting with my people.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I have a question or two with respect to this concept of cost recovery. We read on page 10 that there should be an objective of commercial viability including cost recovery. Elsewhere the minister spoke of the desirability of the various transportation services being integrated-he intends to try to integrate them. Does this mean the minister will try to extend the concept of cost recovery to water services, for example, where the government engages in dredging or the maintenance of canals? I mention the St. Lawrence Seaway, for instance. Is it intended to apply this concept of cost recovery to all forms of transportation?


Jean Marchand: I think the answer is no. It is clear in my mind, at least, that in certain cases we shall insist on cost recovery and that in other cases it would be impossible to do so. This is why we divided Canada into major areas and non-major areas, developing regions and so on. We know that we shall probably have to apply special principles to the developing regions-that the user charge recovery principle will not be applicable.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Perhaps on another occasion I can ascertain whether the minister considers central Canada to be a developing region or not.
The minister indicated in the course of one of his answers that where there is no competition, in other words, where the principles of the 1967 act do not provide satisfactory control through competition, the government would set the rates. I wonder whether he meant that. Did he not mean, rather, that the government would determine, in such circumstances, that the rate would be set in accordance with principles other than the principle of competition?
Did he mean that where the government finds there is no competition it would itself establish the rate, or did he mean that the government would lay down some different principle by which the CTC would set the rate? In the latter case, is the hon. gentleman in a position to indicate what the general principle would be? In cases where there is competition, the principles set forth in the existing act would, presumably, continue to apply. But what principle will the government follow if it finds there is no competition?


Jean Marchand: I think the hon. gentleman's second version is the correct one. We do not intend to fix the rates arbitrarily. I would not like to have the job of fixing rates for all Canada. I already have enough to do. What we could do is set a number of rules for the CTC to apply when fixing these rates. I cannot tell the hon.
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gentleman what the rules would be, but I think they should be set by the ministry. We might determine that in one case the most important principle is that of regional development, and in another case, because there was collusion or because for other reasons it was impossible to get a decent rate ... the hon. gentleman will excuse me if I do not elaborate on all these details.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Will the minister be in a position to inform the committee of the principle which will govern rate determination in areas where there is inadequate competition?


Jean Marchand: I do not know how soon we could to that, but I would have no objection to discussing with the committee what those regulations should be.


Mr. Huntington:: I was astounded by the minister's answer to my leader's question concerning commercial viability. Coming from a seaport I am completely familiar with the interface and interchange needed to make a seaport viable. I find there is a great vacuum in this discussion of Canadian transportation policy inasmuch as the minister has failed to present, together with his statement, or the reports which have been tabled, a study pertaining to the Seaway system and the marine aspects of transportation policy. I really think all this has to be integrated if we are to join in a meaningful discussion in the committee. Would this not be a good time for the minister to table the Scott Report so that those of us who are interested in the marine aspect of transportation policy might be knowledgeable about what has been going on, having regard to the expertise behind the minister in this area?


Jean Marchand: I think the hon. member is right. It is surely incomplete to talk about transportation policy and not to talk about the ports. But we have received the Scott Report, as the hon. member is aware. I have always hoped I could get all my people together to think in the same way about the same things-unfortunately I have not succeeded up to now-but very soon we shall have to produce a report on port policies saying how the marine aspect, which the hon. member has mentioned, is to be integrated.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: With all respect to the minister, there is an executive precis or summary of the Scott Report which is being distributed fairly widely throughout Canada to all but the official opposition. Some of us are deeply involved in trying to play a meaningful part in this transportation debate. If the minister does not want the report to be published in its entirety, could it not be made available to some of us who are playing a part in these studies in the committee and elsewhere?


Jean Marchand: I will try to do something about that.


Thomas Gordon Towers: In view of the frustration which has been expressed by the minister in connection with the whole of the transportation system, even to the extent of saying himself that it is a mess-at that time he added there seemed nothing he could do about it-does the minister propose that legislation will be brought down bringing the
IMr. Marchand (Langelier).]
CTC under the control of the ministry of transport and subjecting the chairman of the CTC to the authority of the minister?


Jean Marchand: As I mentioned in my speech-I do not know if I made myself clear-we think we need a regulatory body such as the CTC. Transportation in Canada is too big a business for us to be able to dispense with an organization such as the CTC. But we would like to see the policy made by the MOT applied by the CTC. Right now there are many fields where it is the CTC which is making the policy, not the department at all.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang) does.


Jean Marchand: We want to reserve that, and this would mean an amendment to the act.


Thomas Gordon Towers: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister, perhaps unwittingly, did not answer my question. Maybe he does not care to at this time but it would be encouraging if he would. Is the chairman of the CTC going to be subordinate to the minister, and will he have to report to the minister at certain times of the year?


Jean Marchand: Normally that is what happens now. The CTC reports to the House through the minister. It is not integrated in the department in any way. The chairman does not have to discuss with the deputy minister or any other group; the CTC is an independent body just like a Crown corporation. Air Canada reports to the House through the minister and is not integrated within the department. It is a very autonomous body. I do not mind if they have a lot of authority, but what I do mind is that if we think it is in the interests of Canadians to do certain things, I want to be able to say to the CTC that this is a new policy and that they will follow it.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask questions of the minister in two policy areas. Fiirst of all may I deal with his policy announcement regarding icebreaking bulk carrier vessels, which I think is an excellent proposal. In view of the fact that the ministry of transport, together with the National Research Council of Canada and the government, have expertise now in icebreaking capacity and also have access to the experience of other countries, would the minister tell me why, according to his announcement, this will be a joint government-private sector development rather than using instruments he already has under his jurisdiction, such as the Canadian National Railways system and the Northern Transportation Company?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, the reasons are twofold. First, a lot of money is going to be invested in this development. I hope we will keep majority control, but this ship is going to cost around $35 million, I think. This company is going to put up quite a bit of money and it has a lot of experience in the Arctic. It has the knowhow and will be very helpful, and that is why this is a joint venture.
June 16, 1975


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: As a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, and just to finalize this point, would the minister advise whether it is his intention to recover fully the cost of this icebreaking bulk cargo vessel from the mining companies that it will serve in the eastern Arctic, or is this going to be another subsidy to the private sector?


Jean Marchand: It is not a subsidy, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member will have to wait until we fix the price for moving the ore that is going to be mined in the Arctic. The company does not own the mine, so I do not know how the hon. member can make that reference. As far as I am concerned, there is no relationship at all.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I have a final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. On the other area of policy the minister pointed out, as I understood it this morning and as repeated this afternoon, that competition refers to areas where transportation is economically viable. Would the minister advise me on this point? How will he reconcile rates charged to cover transportation costs or facilities like the St. Lawrence Seaway without people in the prairie or Atlantic provinces paying a disproportionate share of these costs for the goods and services they require to put through the transportation network or facility in the so-called competitive areas?


Jean Marchand: That is exactly the reason why we are studying this, Mr. Speaker. There are all kinds of implications not only for the west but also for the United States. The debt of the Seaway is around $800 million and I do not think the Seaway collects enough money even to pay the interest on the capital invested. The United States has forgotten about the interest, but we have not done the same. The same situation exists with the CNR.
Regardless of what we think or what ideology we have, somebody will have to pay for transportation in Canada. If we decide to forget about CN's debt or the Seaway's debt, this would mean prices would be artificially low. That might be a good thing, but all Canadians will have to pay the bill. Right now we know where the right price applies. We are discussing the question, and perhaps the best thing to do would be to do what they did in the United States.


Mr. McRae:: Mr. Speaker, the minister has made several comments dealing with the best use of various modes, and I understand these modes include pipe lines in coastal areas as well as standard modes of transportation. In implementing this policy, and in the interest of better rationalization of intermodal transportation, will there be much closer communication between the minister's department, the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the energy board and the CTC? Would things like coal slurries be considered as an alternative to unit coal trains, or a railway along the Mackenzie valley as an alternative to an oil pipe line-highway concept?


Jean Marchand: We have started to work more and more with other departments. As I said in my speech, with all these new techniques we are asking whether it is preferable to move the coal by train from Alberta to Ontario and generate the electricity in Ontario,
Transportation Policy
or to generate the electricity in Alberta and move it to Ontario.


Mr. Lawrence:: Move electricity from Alberta to
Ontario? How?


Jean Marchand: By using a power network. I am not saying we are going to do this tomorrow, but even coal can be moved by pipe line today. We have made no conclusive studies of this specific matter, but to answer the hon. member's question, yes, we are working with other departments to try to see what is the best thing to do.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that CN has committed itself to the movement of grain in Canada, and in light of the fact that it has not done a very good job in recent years, is the minister planning to give consideration to allowing small, independent companies to operate on CN's spur lines serving areas assumed to be uneconomical to CN but which small, independent companies other than the CP might be able to use to move grain more cheaply to larger centres?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I do not speak for the government on this matter; I am just giving hon. members my reaction. We have two national railways in Canada and a few other provincial railways. I am a little reluctant to multiply them. I am a little reluctant to multiply the air lines, as they did in the United States, where some are now going bankrupt. If CN does not give good service, it might be preferable to compel CN to improve its service rather than go to a new small company.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, may I take it from the minister's response that it is in fact his intention to get a specific commitment from the CN that it will move grain from smaller centres rather that setting up inland terminals which might result in the destruction of small rural communities and the establishment of larger ones? I would be curious to know if the minister can clarify that he intends to get a commitment from the CNR to move grains from the smaller communities at this time.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member probably has something very precise in mind which we can discuss in the committee. I am ready to use the authority I have, which is too often only a moral authority, to convince the CNR to do a better job. I do not know exactly how many hopper cars we, as the government, bought for the CN and the CPR because those two companies were refusing to give the service they were supposed to provide under statute. I am ready to do something in this direction, but I would like the hon. member to tell me exactly what he has in mind.


Mr. Bechard:: My question deals with interprovincial ferry boats. It is a recognized fact, federally as well as provincially, that ferryboats are considered road extensions. As a result, the federal and provincial governments subsidize such a means of transportation, obviously in order to reduce costs for users. But may one conclude,
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June 16, 1975
Transportation Policy
from the policy announced today by the Minister of Transport, even if such a conclusion is undistinguishable in his statement, that the federal government will continue to subsidize interprovincial ferryboats indiscriminately?


Jean Marchand: No, Mr. Speaker, not indiscriminately, but where the need arises and is obvious. We are surely willing to help. If we acted otherwise, the end result would be that anyone anywhere could ask for ferryboat services, and we would have to grant such services under our policy. But in those locations where ferryboat services prove essential and necessary to bring people closer together in this vast country of ours, we are more than willing to consider such requests seriously.
(English)


Robert Elgin McKinley: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the minister which relates to the policy put into effect in the 1967 transportation bill. This policy caused a lot of trouble in the southwestern Ontario region. The policy I have in mind required the CN to apply to the CTC for the abandonment of a rail line passenger service in order to obtain a subsidy. The company could not apply directly for the subsidy but was required to apply to have the passenger service abandoned. This involved public hearings, followed by a direction of the CTC that a subsidy would be paid before the passenger service could be continued.
Unfortunately under this policy many passenger services were abandoned. Some of them were not efficient, fast, or even clean, as the minister stated he would like to see them become. As a result the services were abandoned when probably they would not have been had the company not had to go through this matter of applying for abandonment before obtaining the subsidy. Will the minister change this policy in the new bill he is bringing forward?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, the Hall Commission is investigating this matter and we want to wait until that commission has made its recommendation. I have a number of figures in my head and cannot remember the exact mileages involved. I believe there are a certain number of miles of track in respect of which abandonment has been frozen until the year 2000, and approximately another 1,000 or 2,000 miles until the year 1980. Right now there are only 500 miles which are unprotected. This commission is making an inquiry in order to determine whether we should maintain or abandon these services. I do not think there is any immediate problem in this field.


Robert Elgin McKinley: Mr. Speaker, my concern is with what has happened in the past, in about 1970 or 1971. Many rail passenger services were abandoned in southwestern Ontario. The minister said there will be an effort to coordinate fully bus and rail passenger services. This is of great necessity in that area. Would the minister elaborate on how he intends to go about this, as I believe he has been trying to do something in this area for the last three or four years?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, we want to integrate these services in order to give better service to Canadians, but I do not think we should do silly things. As
[Mr. Bechard.J
an example of what I have in mind let me say that if we have a train that carries an average of seven passengers on a Friday at a cost of several hundred dollars per passenger, there is something wrong with the service. People like to have train service because, although they use their cars normally, when there is a storm they can jump on the train. The train services are useful in this way. The fact is that we have some trains on which it costs $7,000 per year to carry the passengers, and this is not reasonable. This does not mean we should not have passenger train service, but perhaps we should provide better service so that these trains are used to a greater extent than they have been in the past. I do not think all commuter trains-


Robert Elgin McKinley: What the minister is saying is correct, but in the case of southwestern Ontario poor usage of the service came about because of poor scheduling of trains. The companies were trying to prove a loss in order to obtain a subsidy, but they had to apply to abandon the service first, and in many cases the CTC allowed the services to be abandoned. I feel that if the companies had been given the subsidy these trains would still be in service.
For instance, the train going into Goderich from Toronto arrived at twelve o'clock and left again at one, so in order to do any business in Toronto the passengers had to stay at least two and a half days. That was the reason the trains carried very few passengers, not because the people did not want a service from Goderich through Clinton and Seaforth into Toronto, returning at night.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure this discussion could go on for some time. However, it being six o'clock, pursuant to order made earlier this day, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put the question.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: 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.

Mitchell William Sharp: that Bill C-24, to amend the Salaries Act, as reported (without amendment) from the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
June 16, 1975
Mitchell William Sharp: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make just a few remarks. Frankly the purpose of my rising tonight is to put forward a proposal that I made during the committee proceedings and which received general approbation from all sides. It concerned what might be a way to deal with amendments to acts such as the Salaries Act, the Judges Act, and the Members of the House of Commons Salaries Act. I make this proposal because the figures which appeared in all three bills we have considered this year were really arbitrary figures not arrived at by way of recommendation by an outside body which could give impartial advice to the government and members of the House of Commons.
We know that consideration of Bill C-44 with regard to the salaries of members involved much unproductive time and that some hard feeling was created on both sides. The other day in respect of Bill C-47 dealing with the salaries of judges I had some remarks to make about what I thought had been the performance in December, subsequent to that, and up to the passage of Bill C-44. I think we witnessed one of the least attractive performances in this House and outside, in the exercise of that which I would like to see absent from this chamber. That performance was not in any way rewarding.
In so far as this bill is concerned, the salaries of lieutenant governors are being raised to $35,000. In some cases this means an increase of 100 per cent, but one should remember that this is only the third change since 1952. In other words, there was a change in 1952, another in 1963, and this one now. I think the story is a despicable one. I believe it should have happened more realistically and with greater consideration for the occupants of those offices. I do not think the Canadian public treats the men in those offices in the right way. The same would seem to apply in respect of judges.
It seems to me we would be much further ahead if we followed the procedure adopted in other jurisdictions where the salaries of non-elected people such as judges and senior public servants at the executive level are all tied together and are subject to the advice of a representative cross-section committee of non-government people established to advise the government on what level those salaries should be. An examination would be made every two years. The Committees report would come in and' the government would have to act within a period of 60 days. This is one formula. I am not suggesting it is the only one. The government would have to act on the report within 60 days, otherwise the recommendations go into force. The key section, of course, is that dealing with the executive in the public service. The other salaries are fixed on some formula based upon them.
For instance, in France members of the chamber of deputies are paid at the median average, that is, the middle range between the high and low salaries at the executive level. In the case of Canada this would put members of the House of Commons between SX3 and SX4. Judges are related to public service categories. I think it would satisfy most people on the advice that is given with
Salary Act
regard to the salaries and there would not have to be a change in the statute, which has occurred three times this year.
Having said that, I would say that that is not an unique formula. I am sure many people would improve upon it, but certainly it would provide a satisfactory yardstick which would eliminate a good deal of the hard feeling that was generated this year, and in years past to a varying degree with regard to changes in these salaries.
I think men on the Bench deserve whatever salaries they get, with the changes that may be recommended, bearing in mind the positions they occupy and the position from which they come. The same thing applies to lieutenant governors, to members of parliament and members of the other House.
So I use this opportunity to make this proposal seriously to the government. I hope that the ministers present will take it into account so that within the next year we can bring in an appropriate statute to do away with the practice we have at present because, regardless of whether or not inflation is contained, there will have to be changes in the salaries of judges as provincial magistrate or judges are brought in, as the cost of living goes up, and as earnings go up across the country. The same applies to the public service, to members of provincial legislatures and of the House of Commons and the Senate.
I commend this bill to members of the House. My only regret is that the incumbents of this office have had merely a change from 1952 to 1963, and from 1963 to 1975. Indeed it is an office where the escalation of salaries is beyond the blink of an eye. I commend the bill to the House.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I expressed my views regarding Bill C-24 which is now before us when we were at the second reading stage, as did two or three of my colleagues, and therefore it is not necessary to repeat those views or to extend this third reading debate. I will not even be provoked by my good friend, the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert).


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I was conciliatory tonight.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He says he was conciliatory, but his references to the debates on Bill C-44 and Bill C-47 included remarks that could lend themselves to debate. For example, the hon. member suggested that the debate on Bill C-44 occupied a great deal of debating time in the House. I have to remind him that it occupied very little debating time in the House. It may have occupied a fair amount of elapsed time from the time the bill was first introduced until it was finally passed, but there was very little debate. However, even though the temptation is there, I will not yield to it.
With respect to the suggestion which the hon. member has just now made to the effect that an outside body should be making recommendations regarding the salaries and allowances of the various groups to which the hon. member has referred, I think there is something to that, and it should be considered. I suggest, however, that with respect to judges and lieutenant governors there may be

June 16, 1975
Salary Act
some problem about trying to do it without an act of parliament because of the provisions in the BNA Act. In both cases the BNA Act says that parliament shall fix the salaries, namely, the salaries of judges and lieutenant governors. In the case of members of parliament I think the idea of getting an outside opinion has merit, but I do not think that we should be excused from taking the responsibility as members of parliament for any changes we make in the levels of our own salaries. However, my views in that area are well known, I hope, and it is not necessary for me to spin them out again tonight.
With regard to the salaries provided in Bill C-24, the hon. member for Edmonton West has already pointed out that in one case the bill calls for an increase of over 100 per cent, that is in the case of the lieutenant governor of Prince Edward Island whose present salary is $16,000 a year and which, under this bill, will go up to $35,000 a year.
The salaries of lieutenant governors of seven more of the provinces go up from $18,000 to $35,000 a year. The salary of the lieutenant governors of Ontario and Quebec go up from $20,000 to $35,000 a year. At least one thing is being established in this area of work, namely, a national rate instead of regional rates, which cause us trouble in other areas.
My view is still the same view that I expressed on the salaries of members of parliament, Senators, cabinet ministers, and judges, namely, that at a time when the people of this country as a whole are being asked to exercise restraint and when we are anticipating a budget a week from tonight which may well have some rules for restraint in it, the percentages of increases in a bill such as this are too high. Therefore, without spinning it out in a multiplicity of words, I simply say that I take the same views I took on second reading of this bill

I think that this is not the time for us to be making increases of this magnitude in the salaries of the lieutenant governors.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried on division.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


STATUTE LAW (STATUS OF WOMEN) AMENDMENT ACT, 1974 MEASURE TO ESTABLISH EQUALITY OF STATUS FOR MALE AND FEMALE PERSONS UNDER CERTAIN STATUTES
[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-16, to amend certain statutes to provide equality of status thereunder for male and female persons, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is there not a report stage amendment?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations between various parties in the House and there seems to be an inclination to agree to consider two amendments which are reproduced on the Order Paper and Notices for Monday, June 16, 1975, namely, an amendment to amend the Canada Labour Code and an amendment to amend the War Veterans Allowance Act. These amendments, in order to be considered at report stage, would obviously require the unanimous consent of all hon. members of the House.
As I said, some consultations have taken place, and I understand that there is a disposition to have these amendments considered as clauses 23 and 24 of the bill which is before us tonight, Bill C-16.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. members have heard the remarks of the minister. Because of the silence and because all hon. members are looking at the Chair in such a way that it indicates some kind of consensus-


Gerald William Baldwin: And acquiescence.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: -and acquiescence, as the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) has just said, I think the Chair does not have to intervene at this time to prevent the House, by unanimous consent, from following the suggestion put forward by the minister and considering this amendment which is moved at report stage. Although there seems to be unanimous consent, I think before inquiring of the House whether there is full consent, perhaps I should warn hon. members about this kind of precedent which, in my mind, should not be considered as a new way which we should use to modify our normal legislative process.
Hon. members are aware of the fact that the bill which is before us was meant to modify certain acts: the Canada Elections Act, the Criminal Code, the Immigration Act, the Public Service Employment Act, the Pension Act, the Civilian War Pensions and Allowances Act, the National Defence Act and the Unemployment Insurance Act, but not the Labour Code and the War Veterans Allowance Act. Although there has been a new Royal Recommendation brought forward to support the amendment proposed by the minister, and proceeding by unanimous consent, this should not prevent the Chair, from bringing to the attention of hon. members that this does put aside the normal and long established legislative process, and I think it is the duty of the Chair to warn hon. members about this kind of process and to enter a caveat about this
June 16, 1975

kind of procedure. Hon. members are aware of the fact that in this way we are bypassing the 48 hours' notice, the second reading stage of amending an act which has already been passed by parliament, and we are also bypassing the committee stage.
With all this being said, I am at this time asking if there is unanimous consent of hon. members who have heard the suggestion of the minister, and if so I am ready to put the motion at this report stage.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Following the suggestion of the minister, the Chair will put the amendment proposed by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde).


Marc Lalonde: That Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain statutes to provide equality of status thereunder for male and female persons, be amended by adding thereto, immediately after Clause 22 thereof, the following:
23.	(1) All that portion of subsection. 59.2(1) of the Canada Labour Code following paragraph (c) thereof is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"is entitled to and shall be granted maternity leave consisting of a period
(d)	not exceeding
(i)	seventeen weeks, if confinement occurs on or before the date specified in the certificate referred to in paragraph (c), or
(ii)	the aggregate of seventeen weeks and an additional period equal to the period between the date specified in the certificate referred to in paragraph (c) and the actual date of confinement, if confinement occurs after the date specified in the certificate,
(e)	beginning no earlier than eleven weeks preceding the date specified in the certificate referred to in paragraph (c), and
(/) ending no later than seventeen weeks following the actual date of confinement."
(2)	Subsections 59.2(2) and (3) of the said Act are repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"(2) Every employee who does not submit an application in accordance with paragraph (1) (b) but who is otherwise entitled to maternity leave under subsection (1) is, subject to subsection (3), entitled to and shall be granted leave consisting of
(a)	any period or periods that are within the eleven weeks immediately preceding the date specified in the certificate provided to her employer under paragraph (1)(c) and in respect of which she provides her employer with a certificate of a qualifying medical practitioner certifying that throughout such period or periods she was incapable of performing the normal duties of her employment by reason of a medical condition that was not expected by the medical practitioner and that is directly attributable to her pregnancy, and
(b)	a further period of a duration such that, when added to the period of leave granted under paragraph (a), it produces a total period that equals the maximum period provided under subparagraph (l)(d)(i) or (ii), as the case may be, but where leave has not been granted under paragraphs (a) and (b), the employee is, subject to subsection (3), entitled to and shall be granted leave consisting of a period that equals the maximum period provided under subparagraph (l)(d)(i) or (ii), as the case may be.
(3)	Notwithstanding anything in subsection (2), every period of leave granted to an employee thereunder shall end no later than seventeen weeks following the actual date of her confinement."
(4)	Subsections (1) to (3) shall come into force six months after the day this Act is assented to.
24.	(1) Paragraph 2(3)(a) of the War Veterans Allowance Act is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"(a) a veteran who establishes to the satisfaction of the District
Status of Women
Authority that he has been residing with a person of the opposite sex and has been publicly representing that person as his spouse for a period of not less than
(i)	three years, where he is prohibited from marrying that person by reason of a previous marriage either of that person or of himself, or
(ii)	one year, where neither he nor that person is prohibited from marrying the other,
shall be deemed to be married to that person;"
(2) Paragraph 2(3)(c) of the said Act is repealed and the following
substituted therefor:
"(c) a woman, who establishes to the satisfaction of the Board that she was residing with a veteran of the opposite sex and was publicly represented by that veteran as his spouse for a period immediately prior to his death of not less than
(i)	three years, where she was prohibited from marrying that veteran by reason of a previous marriage either of that veteran or herself, or
(ii)	one year, where neither she nor that veteran was prohibited from marrying the other,
shall, if the Board so directs, be deemed to be the widow of that veteran".


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


Gerald William Baldwin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, has the minister anything to say, even briefly, to justify this amendment? Could he draw diagrams for us?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, this bill was studied in committee and was unanimously approved by all hon. members. The two amendments being submitted, one in relation to the War Veterans Allowance Act and the other in relation to the Canada Labour Code, are purely technical amendments with a view to ensuring that both these pieces of legislation follow the same amendment procedure as was used for amendments made to other legislation through Bill C-16 concerning the definition of common law marriages and maternity leave.
The amendment to the Canada Labour Code found in clause 23 of Bill C-16 stipulates that the period of maternity leave to be granted under the Canada Labour Code must coincide with the period of benefits granted under the Unemployment Insurance Act so that the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code will contain exactly the same provisions on the maternity leave.
As for the amendment to the War Veterans Allowance Act, it modifies the definition of common law spouse contained in Bill C-4 which was given royal assent in November 1974. The purpose of that amendment is to make the definition of common law spouse identical to that used in other similar federal statutes. The change defines common law spouse as anyone who resides with a person of the opposite sex and is publicly represented by that person as his spouse for a period of three years, when there is an impediment to marriage, or for a period of one year when there is not.
These amendments were mentioned during the study in committee. Hon. members have had the opportunity to look at them in committee, but of course it was impossible to consider them officially and formally at that stage.

June 16, 1975
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Each representative of the parties in the House received a copy of the amendments a few days ago, and each party was able to study and discuss them. Those discussions led to the unanimous agreement which made it possible to introduce the amendments tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank hon. members for their cooperation and I also thank you for allowing this slight departure from the rigid rules of this House thus paving the way for improving this bill with the unanimous consent of the members of the House.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the amendment I have nothing to say. There seems to be some equity to the proposition, and I am certainly not going to object to the second, but I do think we should have a word of caution about that part of the amendment which seeks to give a certain amount of validity to common law marriages. It was not very long ago that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said that the government should stay out of the bedrooms of the country. What is happening here is that the minister is allowing people to go into the bedrooms by the back door, and this is something we must consider.
Paragraph' 2(3)(a) of Section 24 the War Veterans Allowance Act will say:
(a) a veteran who establishes to the satisfaction of the district authority that he has been residing with a person of the opposite sex and has been publicly representing that person as his spouse for a period of not less than
(i)	three years, where he is prohibited from marrying that person by reason of a previous marriage either of that person or of himself, or
(ii)	one year, where neither he nor that person is prohibited from marrying the other, shall be deemed to be married to that person;
I want to caution the minister that this is placing in the hands of the district authority, a civil servant, a very important judicial function. That person must be satisfied, but I do not know on what kind of evidence. It may be that regulations will be promulgated later to ask the House to agree that a veteran can establish "to the satisfaction of the district authority". But what degree of satisfaction must it be? Must it be satisfaction which is more than a preponderance of the facts, must it be beyond reasonable doubt, and so on?
I am not going to object to it on that ground, Mr. Speaker, but I think the drafting leaves something to be desired. It is not reasonable to ask the House to give approval to a clause which says the district authority must make a finding of fact that he is satisfied that the veteran:
-has been residing with a person of the opposite sex and has been publicly representing that person as his spouse for a period of not less than
(i) three years, where he is prohibited from marrying that person-
There must be a finding of fact and of law that there is a prohibition. The minister is a good lawyer. He knows that to leave people like the district authority with that sort of judicial function is a rather dangerous proposition. I hope regulations will be promulgated that will define that. The 
Minister of Justice (Mr. Lang) might be able to advise him on this.
Having said that, I will make one more comment, Mr. Speaker. This is the second time within a couple of weeks that we have had this kind of clause in a statute. From my own experience as a member of this House and as a practising lawyer for a great many years, I know that there are cases where people living together as man and wife are accepted as such. Probably the community in which they live does not know that they are not man and wife. During the war years many alliances were contracted overseas, for example, where the marriage of one of the persons involved prohibited the marriage of the two who had come together, but they lived together and brought up a family and have been pillars of the community.
What concerns me to some extent is the blanket effect- I do not mean to use the word blanket as a pun-of this particular situation following on the situation of Bill C-62 brought in by the minister, where there was a similar provision. It may well be that the government feels that society is at the stage where illegal liaisons of this kind should be accepted and legitimized, and the necessity for marriage may disappear. That is not my view and I do not think it is the view of many people in this House, although I am prepared, as in this case, to make exceptions. If that is the view of the government then it should introduce some measure in order that the principle could be debated. We should find out if this House, on behalf of the people of Canada, wants to place the imprint of legality on such arrangements.
Apart from that I am not going to object to it. I am just uttering these words as a caveat because of the problems that could arise from the district authority being granted what is in effect a very important judicial function, and which may involve a lot of money at some time or other. There is also the fact that the government appears to be moving step by step toward the acceptance of a form of loose arrangement between people of the opposite sex. People may now well say that we have a government which has placed the Good Housekeeping seal of approval on shacking up together under any and all circumstances. I just wanted to place this caveat in front of the minister. I hope he does not really give approval to this sort of liaison, Mr. Speaker.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) has referred to the two amendments that he has moved. I hope he will not mind if I say that technically it is one amendment to the bill although it adds two new sections to the act itself. I mention that mainly to provide myself with a convenient way of dividing my remarks so that I can cover first one subject and then the other.
The first part of the amending motion now before us provides for changes in the Canada Labour Code so that roughly the same provisions for maternity leave that are covered in the Unemployment Insurance Act would also be in the Canada Labour Code. Obviously that was an oversight when the bill was first drawn. The improvements in the Unemployment Insurance Act regarding maternity benefit are welcome, and I think it was appropriate that parallel changes should be made in the Canada Labour Code under which employers are required to grant

leave to employees under certain circumstances. We welcome the part of this amending motion which adds a new section 23 to the act, in this case dealing with the Canada Labour Code.
The other part of this amendment is the part to which the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) addressed himself, namely, the provisions for putting into the War Veterans Allowance Act the same definition of marriage that is in a number of other statutes and which, in the committee on this bill, was written into the Pension Act. That definition, which is now becoming common through most of our legislation, includes common law marriages under certain circumstances.
As I said on another occasion, Mr. Speaker, I am not shocked at the fact there are common law marriages. I have had the privilege of uniting a good many couples in happy, holy matrimony, but I have known of couples who had not the benefit of that kind of ceremony who have been very happy together and whose relationship one would not want to criticize.
I have known instances where the children of one or the other became more attached and more respectful of the common law partner than the legal partner. That does not justify that sort of thing, and is not condoning it. I just want to make it clear that I am not attacking the government for its humanitarianism in putting this provision into various pieces of legislation. Even so, it still annoys me that, by doing this, we are creating strange anomalies. As the hon. member for Peace River said, we recently dealt with one such anomaly which comes under the jurisdiction of the same minister, the Minister of National Health and Welfare. We dealt with it in the House; we dealt with in the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs last Thursday evening, and I suspect we have not finished with it.
Under that piece of legislation, the widow who was legally married to her former husband cannot get a spouse's pension if she is between 60 and 65 years old; on the other hand, the common law wife living with a husband who is a pensioner can get the pension. As I said previously, I do not intend to object to the benefit being thus accorded, but I feel unhappy about this differentiation. Under certain circumstances the common law spouse-as this year, 1975, is International Women's Year, perhaps I can say, "common law wife"-can get benefits which the widow who was legally married does not get.
With this amendment-there is a companion piece to it which was put into Bill C-16 in committee-we are carrying this principle into veterans' legislation. I am glad to see the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. MacDonald) in the chamber and following this debate. We are to provide, both in the Pension Act, which provides for disability pensions, and in the War Veterans Allowance Act, that common law wives, when they become widows or even when their husbands are still alive, are to get the same benefit that a legally married wife is to get.
What bothers me is that for years many of us in this chamber have fought for more generous provisions for the widows of veterans, and we have fought in particular against the 48 per cent clause. You, Sir, are familiar with
Status of Women
it, as are many others. I am happy to say that the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs filed its report a few days ago saying that it seeks an amendment with respect to the 48 per cent cut-off. We recommended that but it has not yet been implemented. That means that when we pass this legislation some women who are married to veterans will not get a pension when the veterans die, and there will be other widows who were living in a common law relationship who will get the pension. Let me be specific about what I mean.
In the one case, let us say that a woman is married to a veteran whose disability pension is 40 per cent. If he dies, that is the end of the pension. In the other case let us say that a woman is living in a common law relationship with a veteran who is on a 60 per cent pension; she will get 100 per cent of the widow's pension. I do not begrudge this to her, but I think there is a distinct element of unfairness in the legislation. It is unfair to deny the other person the pension.
As I say, the government is impelled by motives of humanitarianism for putting this definition of marriage into all statutes of this kind. Having done that, I suggest we should look again at what we are to do for the legally married person in the case of the Old Age Security Act and for the widow who was legally married in the case of the Pension Act and the War Veterans Allowance Act.
I suggest to the Minister of Veterans Affairs that when he takes that committee's recommendation to cabinet he should say, "Look, boys and girl, if we are going to provide these benefits for common law widows, should we not do something better than we are now doing for those who are legally married?" As I say, I am speaking about the amendment before us as it relates to the War Veterans Allowance Act. It is a companion amendment to one that was put into the bill in committee, an amendment for the Pension Act, which makes these same provisions for common law wives of disabled veterans.
I know of many instances of common law widows who deserve the best we can do for them, but, Sir, so do those widows who were legally married deserve the best that we can do for them. There is much to be done for them under all our legislation, under the Old Age Security Act, the Pension Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act, the Public Service Superannuation Act, and all similar acts all down the line. About the only pension legislation which does not provide for a common law relationship is the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, the legislation governing judges' pensions and lieutenant governors' pensions.
As the government has adopted a humanitarian approach in all these other areas I mentioned, I suggest that it should be equally humanitarian toward legally married wives and to widows who were legally married.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, may I take a minute to tell the hon. member something-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The minister may only speak by consent. As hon. members are aware, as the House is not discussing a substantive motion at this stage, there is no right to reply unless the House gives its consent. Does the House consent to the minister's making some comments at this time?
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June 16, 1975
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Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Gerald William Baldwin: The government has broken so many rules that I suppose it will not make any difference if it breaks another.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) raised a good point about the problem of administrative discretion and the problem having to do with the district authority, which involves a quasi judicial situation. I point out that the provision he referred to is not new, in the sense that the bill reflects the present condition of the law. There is no change in that situation. Of course my remarks take nothing away from the validity of the caveat registered by the hon. member. For the sake of the record I point out that this is not a new expansion of the law; the administrative discretion provision merely reflects the continuation of the present law.
May I now deal with the point raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). I should not like to see any confusion left on the record. I am sure he did not mean to create any intentionally, although in his speech he tended to imply that the bill provides more benefits for the common law spouse than it does for the legally married spouse. I assure him that in all the legislation we are considering equal benefits are made available. Benefits for the legally married spouse are to be the same as those for the common law spouse; they are to be the same for the formerly legally married widow and for the common law widow. There is no provision giving greater benefits to the common law widow than to the legally married widow. I do not think there is any possibility of this situation arising.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Only when all other conditions remain the same.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question? The question is on the amendment before the House.
Motion (Mr. Lalonde) agreed to.


Marc Lalonde: that Bill C-16, to amend certain statutes to provide equality of status thereunder for male and female persons, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When shall the bill be read the third time?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Now, by leave.


Marc Lalonde: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


Mr. Cyril Symes (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I have just a few brief comments at this final stage of Bill C-16 which is to make certain amendments to legislation affecting women which is already on the books. In committee all parties co-operated toward the speedy passage of this bill. It changes about eight pieces of legislation to end certain inequities affecting women. But I would enter a caveat

that here we are in International Women's Year and I hope the amendments in this bill are only a beginning because there is still much which ought to be done to end discrimination against women.
The changes are somewhat significant concerning maternity leave and unemployment, some changes to the electoral legislation, and so on down the line. But despite these amendments and despite the record of the government to date, discrimination against women is still quite severe in terms of job opportunities and pay, and I think this is something the government must address itself to very seriously especially in this International Women's Year.
I hope the minister does not become complacent and that he will realize there are many significant recommendations from the Advisory Council on the Status of Women having to do with pay and job opportunities, universal day-care facilities, and other areas which need speedy attention. I hope, as I say, that this is only a beginning and not what so many women fear is a mere token gesture to solve some of the serious problems facing women in Canada.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


LIEUTENANT GOVERNORS SUPERANNUATION ACT
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: that Bill C-23, to provide for the payment of superannuation benefits to Lieutenant Governors, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
He said: Mr. Speaker, for quite a long time now, the government has felt necessary to grant Canadians who have served their country as lieutenant governor of a province, a pension which they could receive, as a reward for their services, once their normal five year term of office is over.
Although their cases may not be exactly the same, the people appointed from outside the public service to serve as ambassadors or high commissioners in a foreign country are entitled to benefits under the Diplomatic Service (Special) Superannuation Act. More recently, in 1967, Parliament adopted the Governor General's Retiring Annuity Act. Moreover, federal judges are entitled since 1868 to a pension under the Judges Act, while senators come under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act since 1965.
Through the years, pensions have thus been provided for persons appointed to those other positions either by the Queen or the governor-in-council, but nothing has been done for lieutenant governors, even if their conditions of appointment are similar on certain aspects. Mr. Speaker, the federal government has therefore decided to present this bill, to fill those deficiencies in the existing pension legislation.
June 16, 1975

Having examined the employment conditions and the provisions of other pension plans which I mentioned, the government believes what would best suit lieutenant governors would be a plan similar under many aspects to that of the Diplomatic Service (Special) Superannuation Act.

This bill has been prepared accordingly. It will provide a pension beginning at age 65, or earlier if disabled, to a Lieutenant Governor who has contributed in respect of five years of service as such. A deferred annuity will be payable at 65 to those who qualify and retire before attaining that age. The pension will equal 30 per cent of the average salary during the last five years of service. A return of contributions with interest will be payable to those who do not qualify. The pension payable to the surviving spouse is 50 per cent of the pension which the former Lieutenant Governor was receiving at the time of death, or would have received on retirement at age 65.
Contributions are 6 Vi per cent of salary, of which Vi of 1 per cent is for pension escalation. Lieutenant Governors in office at the time when this legislation is given Royal Assent can elect to contribute for prior service of up to five years in order to qualify for the pension. Any present or future Lieutenant Governor who does not wish to participate in the pension plan may elect not to contribute within six months of coming under the act, in which case a return of contributions will be made.
Apart from these points which I have mentioned, the bill contains the usual number of standard provisions required for the administration of the act. Mr. Speaker, I recommend to the House second reading and passage of this bill.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I had a very quick look through the bill to make sure it does contain the same provision with regard to a Lieutenant Governor's spouse as the one in the bill we have just dealt with; the minister has given me an assurance that it does not, and I think that is the case. It would be a terrible thing if the government were to follow along in this regard. I am glad to see this legislation come before us and I think our party will generally support it.
The government and its agencies have made a lot of discoveries. The CBC has discovered that sex is entertaining as well as useful. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has discovered royalty and has become a royalist, and since he has made that discovery he has discovered that there are Lieutenant Governors who deserve to be paid since they exercise an important official function in our society. I know the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) may disagree, but if you look at the bill, for example, it says: "Her Majesty, by and with the advice of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada enacts as follows-". So the Crown is an essential part of the legislative process.
One could say with a great French philosopher-I am paraphrasing-that if we did not have a Crown we would have to create one because there would have to be one executive head whose function would be similar to that exercised by the Governor General or, in the provinces, by Lieutenant Governors. For a great many years the latter have been compelled to exist in the most difficult circum-
Superannuation Act
stances, under conditions that made it very hard for them to carry on their job. Some of them were people of the very highest character; so far as I know most of them are.
I recall an incident concerning not the present Lieutenant Governor of my province, who is a great chap, His Honour Lieutenant Governor Steinhauer, but his predecessor, Grant MacEwan. I recall Grant MacEwan attending a function in Grande Prairie. He had a car at his disposal at the time and the people at Grande Prairie were waiting anxiously for him to arrive. Suddenly there was a telephone call to say he was coming up by bus. He had taken the opportunity to talk with people on the bus, to acquaint himself with the people of the area and discuss with them their problems. That is an example of the kind of man he was.
They very rarely have any real duties, but theirs must be a functional position. There may be occasions in a province, such as the situation that we had in the federal parliament not long ago, when there is a minority government, and in those circumstances a very real responsibility falls on the representative of the Crown. I am very pleased to see there has been this recognition, that there has been an increase in the salary, and that there has been this opportunity for these people who exercise these responsibilities to benefit by a pension.
It may well be that hon. members opposite will be in this position one day. I see the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Sharp) entering the chamber. I think he would look excellent in the uniform of a Lieutenant Governor.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Especially in the knee
socks.


Gerald William Baldwin: I do not know whether that will be his ultimate function but I think he would make a first rate Lieutenant Governor. I am not suggesting he leave here; I am just pointing out that hon. members opposite should give this measure their support. We give it our support and I am waiting to hear from my hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre, who is chewing on his pencil. I have the feeling that he is not going to be of the same opinion as I am, but I will sit down and listen to him now.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Madam Speaker, one of these days my hon. friend from Peace River will make my entire speech before I get to my feet and leave me nothing to say.


Gerald William Baldwin: That will be the day!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Let me tell the hon. member-I was debating for a moment whether I should or not-a little story concerning something that happened in this chamber when we were debating Bill C-47 to raise the salaries of Lieutenant Governors.


Gerald William Baldwin: You mean Bill C-44.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My hon. friend has Bill C-44 on the brain. That is not the one I mean. I am referring to the bill to raise the salaries of the Lieutenant
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June 16, 1975
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Governors. A member of my hon. friend's party, who shall be nameless and who is not in the chamber right now, walked in in the middle of that debate, listened a bit, and finally came over to me and asked, "What are we debating?" I replied, "We are debating the increase in the salaries of Lieutenant Governors". "What?", he said, "I didn't know we paid them anything; I thought it was an honorary position". I thought that was an awfully good Tory view of the role of Lieutenant Governors, that it is a very honorary position, one that they would fill with pleasure, just as some university chancellors accept appointment, for the honour and the service they can render, but without pay.
I recognize the desirability of putting those who have been the Queen's representatives in this country, when they retire, in a position where they have some security. I should not like to see them have to go on welfare. I should not like to see them have to engage in certain kinds of occupations in order to make a living. Yes, I can see the case for pension provisions for Lieutenant Governors. As a matter of fact, I think I can see a better case for a reasonable pension than I can for the high salaries that this House voted them a few minutes ago.
Having said that, and having tried to be as much a part of the atmosphere as one can, I can never get over the fact that special privilege always seems to carry with it additional special privilege. If you are up at the top, more will come. "To them that hath shall be given".
One thinks of the great difficulties we have had getting an increase of a few cents or a few dollars in the pensions of ordinary people. One thinks of the many years persons will have to work and contribute to pension plans before getting a pension they can retire on at all. One thinks of the struggle that we go through to try to get pensions indexed or escalated after retirement so that those persons on these meagre pensions can keep up with the cost of living even though they cannot keep up with the rising standard of living. In order to get a pension that is half decent, most people have to work a lifetime and contribute for a lifetime.
For example, in the public service, where the pension is reasonably good-and I shall have something to say about that later on-it takes 35 years' service to get a pension equal to 70 per cent of a person's six best years' salary. But if you are up at the top, Madam Speaker it is different. Members of parliament can get a pension after six years service; and if you can get in here at the age of 18 you can be pensioned for life at the age of 24.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: You are a little more insecure here than you are in the public service.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If someone gets in here at 18 and gets out at 24 with a pension for life, the insecurity he had while he was here for six years will soon be forgotten.


Mr. Kempling:: How many people do you know have done that?


Stanley Howard Knowles: In this regard if my hon. friend will just wait for a moment, one thing

that I like about this bill is that it does not allow a pension at any age before 65.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: No, that is not right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My hon. friend says that a pension at too early an age is a mistake. Pensions under this bill, I am pleased to note, will accrue to a retired Lieutenant Governor, unless he is ill, only when he reaches the age of 65. I remind my hon. friend from Ottawa West that a while ago we had an outside report on what the pensions of members of parliament should be, and it was recommended that they should not commence until age 55. That was, of course, the one recommendation in that report-I think it was the Curtis report-that this parliament ignored. As I say, I am glad this provision that the pension is not available until the age of 65, except in cases of disability, is in the bill.
I am also glad it is a contributory pension. The rate is 6 per cent of pay plus one half of one per cent which goes into the escalation fund, compared with 6V4 per cent plus one half of one per cent which the public servants pay, and 7V4 per cent plus one half of one per cent that members of parliament pay.
After having gone over all the details-and it is amazing the number of details there have to be in a bill to provide a pension for the occupants of just ten jobs in this country- the simple fact is that if you get to the position of ever being a Lieutenant Governor and you hold it for five years at today's salary of $35,000, at the end of those five years if you are 65, or when you become 65, you get a pension of 30 per cent of that amount, which is $10,500 a year. If you are appointed Lieutenant Governor at the age of 60, presumably by the age of 60 you have already built up some security, some equity or pension rights. During the period from 60 till 65 you receive $35,000 a year, which brings a pension of $10,500 a year for life, subject to annual escalation under the same act that provides for the escalation of other pensions.
I can envisage some persons saying that is not too high for a former Queen's representative, and that this person should be able to live the life to which he has become accustomed in that office. But I still cannot get over the reason I came here. I cannot get over my feeling for the hundreds of thousands of people for whom we have to fight like mischief to get a pension that is a mere fraction of this amount. I just hope this rash of things we are doing for those who are at or near the top will make us face the fact that we should do a lot better in terms of pension provisions for the ordinary people of this country.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.

Mitchell William Sharp: that Bill S-8, respecting the use of national safety
June 16, 1975

marks in relation to motor vehicle tires and to provide for safety standards for certain motor vehicle tires imported into or exported from Canada or sent or conveyed from one province to another, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications.


Mr. Cliff Mclsaac (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, Bill S-8 has already had some discussion in the other place and, accordingly, I will make my remarks on the principles somewhat more brief than if there were not proceedings available for hon. members to read.
Bill S-8 deals with motor vehicle safety and, more specifically, with tires on motor vehicles. To give some indication of the history of the bill I should first of all say it is complementary to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1970. That was a measure which dealt with safety in so far as tires on new cars in this country were concerned.
Since then there has been some concern expressed by provincial governments and ministers that the responsibility for safety standards for new tires by way of replacement tires has not been adequately handled or dealt with by those governments. Accordingly, the provincial ministers of transport or of highways made a request to my minister that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand) take federal action to regulate and deal with the safety of all tires manufactured in Canada or imported into Canada.
About a year ago Bill S-3 was introduced to the Senate, given approval, and studied by the Senate Transport Committee. It then died on the order paper of this House at the time the election was called last year. It was reintroduced to the Senate in October, passed and approved there, with a hearing of the tire manufacturers and others before the committee, and finally introduced here late in October, 1974.
Let me give you a further brief indication of the history of this bill. At the present time the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act provides authority to issue safety standards respecting the design, construction, and functioning of tires as components of new motor vehicles for the purpose of protecting persons against personal injury, impairment of health, or death. The provinces have the authority to issue safety standards in respect of replacement tires. This division of responsibility is in accordance with the agreements reached between the Minister of Transport and the 10 provincial ministers in 1969.
It was in the fall of 1972 that the provincial ministers responsible requested the ministry of transport to bring under its jurisdiction the regulation of after-market or new tires. The original legislation, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act, provides for the designation on these tires coming out on new cars; what kind, the brand, and the specific design, and indicating that these tires have met federal standards of safety. This bill will extend that approval to an additional 10 million new tires manufactured in Canada for replacement use on automobiles. It does not cover used tires or the sale of used tires throughout the country, for the obvious reason that it would be very difficult to spell out federal legislation to be applied. When it comes right down to it, each used tire would have to be looked at individually. The bill does extend the use
Tire Safety Act
of the approved stamp for new tires manufactured in this country or brought into Canada.
The objectives of the bill are to increase the safety of Canadian motorists. It will empower the governor in council to make regulations respecting the design, construction, and function of replacement tires for motor vehicles; to ensure safe performance through certification of compliance to minimum safety standards as a condition of importation and through prohibition of interprovincial trade in tires that do not comply with these minimum standards imposed as a condition of the use of the National Tire Safety Mark.
Also, and perhaps more important, it will provide a procedure whereby manufacturers, importers, and distributors of replacement tires will be required to give notification of any defect in the design, construction, or functioning of such tires that is likely to affect the safe operation of vehicles, and this is a condition of the use of the National Tire Safety Mark. In short, it provides for a recall system in respect of the use of this particular stamp.
The bill would give the Government of Canada the authority to prescribe safety standards which would regulate the design, construction, safety performance, and labelling of tires for the purpose of protecting persons. These standards deal with the main safety features which would henceforth be incorporated in all new motor vehicle tires offered for sale in Canada. The bill establishes a national tire safety mark as a trademark which will be the exclusive property of Canada.
The bill also provides for fines for offences by manufacturers, distributors, or importers who fail to give notice of any defect and, of course, there is a section dealing with the nature of regulations that may be promulgated to bring about the implementation of this legislation. The new motor vehicle tire safety bill provides the authority to control the safety of motor vehicle tires at the point of manufacture in this country and, secondly, the authority to prohibit the importation of unsafe tires. It also provides procedures by which tires found to possess design or construction safety defects may be recalled, and the authority to broaden the safety standards so as to provide additional information on such matters as traction and tread wear for the guidance of consumers in judging economy and safety.
The bill will enhance road safety and consumer protection, and thus warrants the support of all members of the House. Certainly it does not go all the way in respect of providing perfectly safe tires all across the country on all vehicles, but then certainly tires are not the cause of a large percentage of the accidents in this country. However, when we look at the fact that last year some 6,000 people died because of motor vehicle accidents, any step we can take to reduce that number I believe we should take, and this I suggest is one of those steps.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I should like to make a few comments on this bill. I and my colleagues have carried out quite a bit of research into this matter. We find no particular fault with the establishment of tire standards per se. However, we do

Tire Safety Act
take serious exception to the setting up of a bureaucracy to inspect tires at the retail level.
I should like to give a little background and history of this whole matter of tires and tire standards, going back to long before 1970. As a matter of fact it was in the fall of 1966 that the committee on automobile tire standards of the Canadian Standards Association was formed. With the co-operation and the consent of the tire manufacturers, that committee over a period of time developed standards. The Canadian Rubber Association in fact commended those standards to the ministry of transport and asked that they be enacted into legislation. Up to that point this bill had the complete support of the Canadian Standards Association, the Canadian Rubber Association, and in fact all the tire manufacturers in Canada, and by and large the importers. They felt this was a good piece of legislation.
However, for some strange reason the people in the motor vehicle safety branch saw fit to attach Part II to this bill which would set up a series of inspectors. It all sounds nice and flowery to hear that we will have the inspectors going around looking after the interests of consumers, but let me tell you that this will mean an inspector will need to go into every service station and every retail store in this country. Inspectors will have to check the records in respect of all tires sold.
I do not believe I have ever seen a piece of legislation which contains so much danger in respect of building another bureaucracy. I can almost imagine a little regional tire inspector reporting to an area tire inspector, who will report to a provincial tire inspector, who finally will report to Ottawa.
What has been the experience in the United States? The United States passed this type of legislation 20 or 30 years ago. The experience there showed that only about 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the retail tires sold by dealers actually were recorded. When one realizes that there are between 50 million and 60 million tire transactions in this country one can realize the amount of paper work that will be set into motion.
Every little gas station operator from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Vancouver, and every little retail tire dealer across the country will have to set up records in respect of the serial numbers of the tires, to whom they were sold, and so on. This is absolute nonsense. The tire manufacturers are quite prepared to keep the records on a computer. They recommend that when a tire is sold a card be attached to the tire. The consumer's name and the serial number of the tire would then be recorded. This information would be mailed to the company and would be recorded on the computer. If a recall should be necessary they would make the contact. Just imagine the number of little gas station operators who would go broke. Where is the responsibility for the records? We might look at the bankruptcy proceedings in this country involving gas stations and garages.


Mr. Blackburn:: That was because of the multinational oil companies.


William James Kempling: You have had your say about the multinationals, Derek. You may get up and make a speech if you wish to, but if you do not, then keep quiet.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: I would remind the hon. member that he should address his remarks to the Chair.


William James Kempling: I apologize, Madam Speaker. When we examine what happened across the border we find that they are spending something in the order of $250 million to try to convince the consumers that they should use the recording system. In other words, the system has failed. Why is it that we should enact something that has failed in the United States?
I find no fault with the tire standards. I believe they are great and that we should have them. I also believe that imported tires should be built to our standards. However, when we look at the record of accidents we find that less than 1 per cent of motor vehicle accidents are attributable to tire failures. Then we find that this 1 per cent involves such things as bald tires, non-matched tires, or tires that are placed on the wrong rims. The percentage attributable to defects in tires is .009.
We might look at the manufacture of tires and the lead time involved. If a tire manufacturer manufactures a tire in June it finds its place in the market in November. In the intervening period the tires are tested in batch lots. If there should be defective tires they are pulled back from the manufacturer's warehouse.
Let us take a look at the record of tire failures at the manufacturing level. Firestone Rubber Company had one failure in 53 years. That was because someone mismounted or improperly mounted a tire on a motor vehicle. As a matter of fact it was put on backwards. Firestone Rubber Company thought it was best to recall those tires. There was nothing wrong with them; there was no defect. However, they recalled them and they were scrapped.
I should like to hear some justification for the setting up of a group of bureaucratic inspectors who will traipse across the country and cause many headaches and heartaches for the small businessmen. I do not agree with this situation and I know others in this House have the same opinion. We have a number of speakers in this party who are prepared to speak on this bill for a long time. If it should go to the committee we are prepared to speak on it for a long time at that stage. We will want to have witnesses appear before the committee. We will want the tire industry to be represented. We will want the Canadian Tire Standards people to be there. I can assure you, Madam Speaker, we will give this bill a good going over.
We might consider some of the evidence that was given before the committee of the other place. A witness, a Mr. Farmer from the Canadian Standards Association, when he appeared before the committee on March 28, 1974, said this:
There are few good statistics available, but from studies done the indication is that the number of traffic accidents caused by tire failure is quite low, being less than 1 per cent. But the startling fact is that most of the basic causes of failure are not related to flaws in the original manufacture but are related to misapplication of tires or lack of maintenance-for example, people running their vehicles with bald tires or tires which are under-inflated or overloaded, and so on. That is a feature which will not be covered by this bill, and I do not think it can be covered under federal regulation.

In other words, it is the same thing as we found. We looked through several studies and we found that the only good study that had been done recently was done by a university in the United States. Its findings were exactly the same as those we found in other studies, namely, that only a very small percentage of the motor vehicle accidents in this country can be attributed to tire failure, and a still smaller percentage to actual defects in tire manufacture.
I think it was Senator van Roggen speaking in the other place who said that, when we get down to it, only an infinitesimal fraction of one per cent of motor vehicle accidents are likely to be affected one way or the other by whether or not the recall system is in effect. I cannot understand why the other place did not propose an amendment. They have had the bill twice, and I would have thought they could have suggested that we take the inspection feature out of the bill. I think that if it were taken out of the bill it would be a great improvement because we have no objections to the standards that are being established; we think they are good and we think they should be adopted in this country. As a matter of fact I am amazed that we got away with not having them for so long since we export so many of our vehicles to the United States and they have had legislation in place for a number of years. This inspection feature in the legislation puts a different complexion on the bill, in my view.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Send it back to the Senate.


William James Kempling: Something in the order of 20 million to 21 million tires are sold annually in Canada. These tires are handled by large tire dealers, factory branches, gasoline stations, and stores and garages of all types across the country. These small businessmen do not necessarily have the facilities for keeping records. It frightens me when I read the penalties that will be imposed on a small service station operator who does not keep the proper records. It frightens me to see this type of bureaucracy running down the back of the small businessman. I did not think there were that many unemployed Liberals in the country or that they would want to set up this type of bureaucracy. There must be more than I realize. I find the penalties that are in here for failure to keep records horrendous. I cannot understand why, when this bill was drafted, the department saw fit to attach this inspection feature to the bill. It is a poor piece of legislation.
The regulations are another part of the bill that concern me. The governor in council can change the regulations, can add to them. To start with, I would like to see the regulations in the bill. It is a little unfair to pass legislation such as this and then say that the governor in council will attach regulations at a later date. It is almost as if parliament were giving its blessing to the regulations. The way I read the bill, if they so desire, at a later date they can add provisions on used tires or recapped tires, although the legislation does not call for that. The way the regulations are written, the governor in council can change them more or less at will. I think this is putting too much power into the hands of a group of bureaucrats who will drive the small people in the tire business right up the wall.
Tire Safety Act
The Canadian Rubber Association is very much in favour of this legislation. They came to Ottawa and spoke with the minister's officials in the motor vehicle safety branch, and they agreed with this legislation until they saw the feature regarding inspectors checking the 50 million or 60 million transactions taking place in the course of a year. Then they said that they would support the bill so far as the standards are concerned but they want nothing to do with the inspection. That is the sentiment they expressed.
The Canadian Standards Association has said more or less the same thing. They cannot see the sense in the inspection provisions. The rubber dealers across the country, at least the ones to whom I have spoken, are up in arms. I recommended that they all write to their members of parliament and put a little pressure on it that way, because I think this is the only way we can get people on the other side to listen to some of the concerns of the people who are not happy with this type of legislation.
We have checked the safety standards in every province in the country in the course of the research we did, and we have found that the percentage of accidents that can be traced to faulty tires across the country varies from .5 per cent to 2 per cent. So we have an average of 1 per cent across the country of accidents that can be traced to defects in tires.
It seems to me that we are putting in place an unnecessary piece of legislation which will add to government costs. The car manufacturers estimate that it will cost about 60 cents a tire to record the names. They are quite prepared to do this, but it will add $4 million to the consumers' price for tires.
What the bureaucracy will cost, what the inspectors will add to the taxpayers' already too heavy bill, is something we do now know. We estimate it will cost several hundreds of millions of dollars by the time it is all put in place.
Therefore I say that our position on the bill is that we agree with the standards but we do not agree with the inspection system which the government wants to establish. We think it is wrong and we oppose it. Several members in our party are prepared to speak on this matter.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I thought the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) was going to speak. I saw him rise. I would certainly relinquish my place if he intended to speak at this time.


Gerald William Baldwin: He only allows himself three speeches a night.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Madam Speaker, I reserve my place. I shall speak later.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I want to join my colleague who has just spoken on this piece of legislation, and say at the outset that I think it is one of the silliest and most ridiculous pieces of legislation that we have ever had introduced in the House. I think it is irresponsible.

June 16, 1975
Tire Safety Act
Frankly, I sympathize with the parliamentary secretary who has the task of introducing this measure. I think he does so somewhat reluctantly because there are a number of glaring loopholes in the legislation, and if he had the responsibility of drafting and putting together such a piece of legislation I am sure he would have done a much better job. I will certainly give him that much credit.
I must say that I am surprised and disappointed at the manner in which the members of the other place dealt with this bill. I think they did a very inept job, particularly when it is considered that they dealt with it on two different occasions. It was introduced on March 12, 1974 and passed in April of 1974 under the designation Bill S-3. It was re-introduced on October 8, 1974 and passed on October 23.
It is interesting to note when reading its proceedings that the members of the other place did touch to some extent on the number of shortcomings and inadequacies and the unworkability of this bill, but they failed to follow through with any degree of persistence and determination to change it in order to make it effective. As my hon. colleague has indicated, we certainly support the principle of safety and the principle of having standards, but the manner in which this bill is to be administered is sheer folly.
The members of the other place talked of amendments and changes and, as I indicated, there were excellent suggestions, but in the final analysis they succumbed and passed the legislation unamended.
It seems to me that the bill could only be termed a product of the irrational behaviour of bureaucrats, supported and condoned by a passive Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand). I submit that the legislation is unworkable, impractical, ineffective, and in its present form nothing more than sheer bureaucratic nonsense. It will create a nightmarish accumulation of record keeping for the industry. It will increase costs, and I sumbit that it will not save one life or prevent one injury.
As I read the bill it seems that its main thrust is not to make tires safer but to confuse consumers, harass retailers, and in short, to become nothing more than a nuisance to manufacturers.


Gerald William Baldwin: It will create new jobs for Liberal politicians.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I was going to get to that. The bill will create these problems because of confusion and because of the bureaucratic devices which will have to be put into place. And as the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) indicates, it will create more government jobs.
To the extent that certain conditions, specifications, and performance standards must be met before a tire can be declared safe and thereby merchandised in Canada, this is indeed a laudable goal, a provision with which we find absolutely no fault whatsoever. To that extent we will support the legislation. We will support the principle enshrined within the bill, and I do not argue for one minute about the desire to have safe tires on our roads. However, the provisions of this bill in one sense do not

achieve that, and in other areas they go far beyond that which is necessary. It is in this area that I find it impractical and unworkable.
I have had some experience in the tire retailing and distributing business.


Walter David Baker: And with threewheeled cars.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I have sold three-wheeled cars and four-wheeled cars. It is quite obvious that the people responsible for drafting this legislation had absolutely no experience in the business of tire merchandising and with sales patterns with respect to the movement of tires. Moreover, they failed to learn anything from the testimony which was presented before the hearings in the other place. If they did, they would not have proceeded with the legislation; they would have withdrawn it or amended it.
Before I get to specifics I would like to say that I think the evolution of safe tires in this country has been commendable, and I believe all tire manufacturers should be congratulated on their performance in the development of safe tires for Canadian roads. I suggest that the manufacturers will have no difficulty whatsoever in complying with the standards enunciated in the bill. They are meeting those conditions now, and in all likelihood they will continue to meet those conditions whether or not the bill passes.
The fact that this bill is introduced, in my view will not change the quality and the standard of tires now being sold in this country. Moreover, we are told that less than 1 per cent of motor vehicle accidents can be associated with tire failure, so we are dealing here with a situation which represents a minutely small proportion of accidents. However, the significance of that figure is that these accidents are not merely confined to tire defects, as my hon. colleague has pointed out, but to a multiplicity of other conditions such as under-inflation, excessive inflation, improper installation, the speed, wear, and condition of the tire.
Nowhere are there statistics relating to the actual number of accidents which pertain strictly to tire defects and tire failure as a result of manufacture. So we are dealing with an area which represents a very small proportion, and it seems important to me that this fact should be considered when we deal with this legislation. It should be considered in terms of the practicality of initiating another bureaucratic organization to police a very small number of accidents which may occur.
The result of this bill will be that we will have a national tire mark and we will have a national safety symbol. Presumably every tire which is marketed in this country will have this symbol to ensure that it meets the safety code described by the governor in council and regulations in compliance with clause 4 of the bill, but that will not always be the case because imported tires will not necessarily have to bear this symbol. That does not mean to say that they will not comply, but they will not be obligated and it will not be mandatory for the symbol to be located on imported tires. This is confusing and indeed irritating, if not setting up a loophole for potential evaders.
June 16, 1975

Furthermore, we are told that the provisions of this legislation will not affect the manufacture and sale of a tire within a given province provided it does not go beyond the boundaries of that province, interprovincially or internationally. In that regard I would like to quote a section of the Senate committee proceedings dated March 28, 1974, in which Senator Forsey deals with this question. In other words, if a tire is manufactured in a province and sold within that province, this piece of legislation will not apply, and it will not be necessary for that manufacturer to meet the safety standards. Senator Forsey had this to say:
Yes. In fact, he can manufacture one made of chewing gum, if he wishes, provided he does not put this mark on it; and the chewing gum one cannot enter into international or interprovincial trade.
Senator Forsey was saying that a manufacturer in any province can manufacture a tire of chewing gum and sell it within that province, and it will not be governed by this bill. So there is obviously a loophole. As recorded at page 2:9 of the Senate Committee Proceedings for April 4, 1974, Senator van Roggen stated:
This bill will give you the power to pass on all tires imported into Canada, of whatever nature, and on all tires going from one province to another; it will give you the power to pass on tires manufactured anywhere in Canada, if they are to carry your seal or trade mark as proposed in the bill. It will not give you power, constitutionally, I would think to deal with tires manufactured in a province and sold within that province. Are the provinces contemplating parallel regulations?
The expert from the Department of Transport, Dr. Campbell, replied:
Your statement is quite correct, sir.
So there is a loophole in that a large number of tires sold or manufactured within a province will not be covered by this piece of legislation.
Now I come to the question of retreads, Madam Speaker. This bill overlooks a very important element of the tire industry, namely, retreads. There is no provision governing the safety standard, performance, and requirements of retreads, which are a significant part of the tire business in the country. If the bill were designed to make all tires more safe for Canadian consumers surely this important segment of the industry would not be overlooked. When I contemplate these two glaring omissions I can only conclude that the legislation is weak, is mere window dressing. It becomes a farce-perhaps it could be accurately described as half window dressing and half serious.
It is interesting to note that in this particular area the industry is more concerned about the safety standards on recaps than is the government. As recorded at page 2:18 of the committee proceedings for April 4, 1974, Dr. Campbell stated:
With regard to recapped tires, it has been impossible to the present time to write a true performance standard. The only thing that can be prepared at the present time, to the best of my knowledge, is a code of good practice in retreading, and we are in the process of working with the provinces, through the Canadian Standard Association, to develop this so that the provinces could use it to exercise some control over local businesses engaged in retreading tires.
Also as recorded at the same page, Mr. Moore, of Firestone stated as follows:
Tire Safety Act
Mr. Chairman, if I could relate back to the retread system, I am not certain that Dr. Campbell should not be concerned with retread standards, because retreading is not just a small provincial matter. I am not sure whether you are aware of it or not, but the two biggest retreaders in Canada are right here in this room, that is Firestone and Goodyear. Retreaded products are sometimes transported from province to province, so in that respect there is not much difference between them and new tires.
I know that some of the provinces are considering retread legislation or retread standards. I know that we have had conversations with some of the provinces. I would not be adverse to seeing the retreads handled in the same way as new tires, that is, by the federal government.
This legislation does not cover that, Madam Speaker, and this is another of its deficiencies.
I now come to the section where the government and its bureaucratic masterminds really want to flex their muscles, and that is with respect to the retailers and distributors. Generally this represents the small business element in the community. It is typical of the government that it has done everything to stymie this sort of enterprise. This bill is another example of imposing more government regulations which cause frustration to the small businessman.
Two responsibilities are thrust upon small businessmen. The first is to establish and maintain a record of every tire sold and of subsequent resales. This is to be done in order that a recall system-which is the second responsibility- may be established for the purpose of advising owners of potential defects or failures in a tire sold by a manufacturer, distributor, importer, or retailer. All I can say about that is that in my view it is a theoretical dream based upon ignorance and impracticality. Surely we cannot be serious about this proposal.
What is the government attempting? It is really attempting to treat a tire like an automobile. Just because we have had recalls on automobiles that does not mean tires should be handled in the same fashion. Larger numbers and more people are involved in the trading network. It is impossible to impose and administer an effective policing of tires. This had to be absurd, Madam Speaker- it is beyond the realm of reality or imagination. About 20 million tires are sold in this country each year. If you accept the formula that a tire goes through the hands of three different people before it reaches the consumer, that would mean something in the order of 60 million transactions. Talk about that bureaucratization! I have never seen the like of it.
A record system of this magnitude is estimated to cost from 30 cents to 50 cents per tire. If you take 20 million tires at 50 cents that comes to $10 million. And who pays? The consumer pays. Then there is the army of inspectors at $25,000 to $30,000 per year to harass-and who pays? The taxpayer pays. Then will it be effective?
My hon. colleague just pointed out that experience in the United States indicates that such a system is 20 per cent or 30 per cent effective. Nobody can tell me that by passing this bill we can ensure that on a given day a particular owner or a potential buyer can be identified. If members of the government are trying to perpetuate this kind of myth, I hope they will re-examine the legislation. I hope they will re-examine some of the evidence and the history of similar legislation in other parts of the world.

June 16, 1975
Adjournment Debate
They will find out that it is nonsense to suggest such a system.
May I call it ten o'clock, Madam Speaker?



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Stanley Howard Knowles: Madam Speaker, on checking the record I discovered that on five different occasions during the month of May 1 raised the question of railway pensions, particularly the pensions of retired employees of Canadian National Railways.
On May 7, as recorded in Hansard at page 5552, I asked the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand) if he would make representations to the Canadian National Railways to come through with an escalation of pensions in the year 1975 without delay, and without waiting for the Hall report.
A few days later, on May 12, we were discussing the estimates of the Department of Transport. I raised the matter again and the minister informed me that on May 26 there would be a board meeting in Montreal that might make a decision on this matter. I promised I would put a question to him on May 27. I did so on that date, whereupon the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mclsaac) replied, as reported at pages 6148-9 of Hansard, to the effect that a certain decision had been taken the day before, Monday, May 26.
When I looked at the details of that information I found I was quite disturbed, so on May 28 I tried to make a motion under Standing Order 43 but did not get unanimous consent. Then I tried under Standing Order 26 but I could not get the Speaker's approval. Next day, May 29, I was able to get the Minister of Transport to have the information that the Canadian National had given made an appendix to Hansard. That information is to the effect that in the year 1975 there is to be an escalation of the pensions of certain former employees of the CNR. However, the scale is a sliding one, the amounts are quite meagre, and there is to be no increase at all for those who retired in 1973 and 1974.
In previous years escalations were designed to cover those who had retired right down to the end of the immediately preceding December; now we have a case of escalation being denied to those who retired in the last two years.

Apart from the fact that I regret the small amount of increase which is to go to those who retired before 1973, and that widows get only 50 per cent, I find it ominous that the Canadian National is now bringing forth an escalation plan which ignores those who retired in the last two years. I say it is ominous because it looks to me as if the CNR wants to revert to pensions which are fixed and do not escalate annually. We have said for a long time that alll pensions should escalate annually.
I know that the Hall report, when it comes, will deal with all aspects of railway pensions, with all railways, with the pensions of those in service as well as the pensions of those now retired. I hope that that report will recommend an escalation of pensions of railway workers at least equal to the rise in the cost of living. Madam Speaker, Dr. Noel Hall is still holding hearings; it is hard to say when the report will be made. It could be months away, instead of weeks, if I may refer to the promises which have been made.
I contend that the request made on May 7 still stands and that Canadian National Railways should be asked to provide in the present year, 1975, escalation in the pensions of those who retired up to the end of last year. That escalation, like the escalation for retired public servants and for retired members of Parliament, and like the total escalation provided under Old Age Security and certain other pensions, should be at least equal to the rise in the cost of living which, even in Statistics Canada terms, is 10 per cent or more.
The other day when discussing this matter with the parliamentary secretary, I asked if what Canadian National had announced was the last word or whether we could count on a further decision. I dare to believe that when the Hall report comes down we shall see another decision; but that could be a long way off. So I am asking on behalf of pensioners who are still alive that the CNR treat them fairly. That fair treatment calls for an escalation for the year 1975 to all who retired in 1974 or earlier at least equal to the rise in the cost of living. The figure applied should be no lower than the figure applied in other cases; the increase ought to be not less than 10 per cent, without any further delay. I hope the parliamentary secretary has a good word for us tonight.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: Madam Speaker, the question raised by the hon. member, and raised on other occasions by the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Guay) and the hon. member for London East (Mr. Turner), is most appropriate. When the question was raised on May 7 the minister himself said it was an appropriate question and he promised at that time to discuss it with the CN authorities. As a result he met with CN authorities on May 26 to discuss this question of some increase, some adjustment in the pensions of those who retired some time ago.
Immediately following this meeting an escalation of CN pensions, effective January 1, 1975, was announced. Notice of these increases was appended to Hansard of May 29, at the hon. member's request, as he pointed out. The escalation included scaled increases in benefits, depending on the year of retirement, in pension cheques for employees who retired in 1972 or before. The announce-
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ment also included an increase in widows' benefits by 50 per cent of the amount of the scaled increase.
It is true that no increase was granted at that time to personnel who retired after January 1, 1973. I do not think the hon. member should read anything ominous into this particular move by the railroad.
The approach of applying a scaled flat dollar addition has been viewed as a suitable interim measure pending the completion of the Hall report to which the hon. member has referred and for which we have been waiting for some time. As he points out, the Hall hearings are continuing. I understand they will be in Thunder Bay, Winnipeg and Regina next week, and later on in Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria and Vancouver. Mr. Hall has indicated to the minister that he hopes to make his report available by the end of the summer. I share the hon. member's view that the quicker we can see this report the better, since it will provide a blueprint for the kind of action he and others of us would like to see taken with respect to pensions of railway employees.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS-GARRISON DIVERSION-SUGGESTION UNITED STATES BE ASKED FOR MORATORIUM ON PROJECT
A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I am rising again to speak against the Garrison diversion project unit because new evidence has surfaced to support my demand that Canada request a moratorium, and because of a distinct note of urgency at this particular time. On June 20, this coming Friday, more millions will be appropriated to this project. A formal note must therefore be sent immediately seeking to halt, until the report of the International Joint Commission is completed, what promises to be one of the greatest ecological calamities of the century.
I hope the parliamentary secretary will address himself more directly to my specific points tonight than he did on May 20 or May 29 when he blissfully re-stated the U.S. government's assurances of compliance with the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty only minutes after I had quoted the chairman of the Congressional Sub-committee on Conservation, Energy and National Resources as saying that the Garrison Diversion unit was certain to result in a treaty violation.
Also on May 29, the parliamentary secretary noted that the ongoing discussions, with the United States were at a government to government level and specifically not at the level of the Bureau of Reclamation. This has been precisely my point. It is the Bureau of Reclamation which has been pushing forward with this project heedless of any and all protests from the United States and Canada. Further to this, I intend to give new evidence and examples of the way in which the bureau has misrepresented the facts to the United States government.
I have here the minutes of an April, 1975, hearing before a House of Representatives Appropriations Sub-committee. In testimony the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamations, Gilbert Stamm, stated flatly that Canada's only objections to the project were over return flows from the Souris Loop division, specifically the mineral levels. This is untrue. Canada and Manitoba have repeatedly voiced fears of large-scale pollution of the Red and Assini-
Adjournment Debate
boine Rivers and Lake Winnipeg, as well as the northward flowing Souris River. Mr. Stamm also neglected to mention Canadian concern over the introduction of exotic species into Manitoba waters and the incredible loss of
350,000	waterfowl annually in North Dakota, which we consider an international resource and an international loss.
Mr. Stamm's testimony also gave the false impression that the objections were near the point of being satisfied and that discussions were going on with Canada as to alternatives. This is untrue, according to diplomatic sources and to Stamm himself, who stated in a memo that studies on alternatives were not to be made available "to local interests or to the Canadians" because "to do otherwise would be very damaging to the United States position in the negotiations." If the United States government is not receiving an accurate overview of the facts on the Garrison unit, then all the good faith in North America is not going to halt the degradation of Manitoba water quality.
Further to this, Manitoba and Canada have based their official positions on a time frame that would not begin construction on the Velva canal until 1980. According to my hon. friend opposite and to the minister of mines, resources and environmental management in Manitoba, this canal is the connecting link between the Missouri River and the Souris River. But the Bureau of Reclamation, as stated in a confidential memo dated April 25, 1975, and signed by Gilbert Stamm, anticipates consideration of construction approval to be completed by June, 1976, four years earlier than the official level assurances. This memo states that the secretive studies of the alternatives will require three to four years to complete, but that a decision could be made in one year regardless of that.
There is no question that the diversion plan, as currently envisaged, will result in damage to the quality of water in Canada. The Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Sauve) is in complete agreement with this. As Ambassador Cadieux noted on January 16, 1975:
The Canadian government is firmly convinced, on the basis of studies conducted in the United States and Canada, and on the basis of information provided by the United States in response to questions raised by Canadian officials at the August 28 meeting, that the Garrison diversion unit, as presently envisaged, would have adverse effects on the Souris, Assiniboine and Red Rivers, and ultimately Lake Winnipeg, which would cause injury to health and property in Canada.
American groups, such as the general accounting office, the U.S. State Department and the congressional sub-committee chairman I named earlier, agree with this claim to the letter. Yet Mr. Stamm continues "to maintain our original position that there has not been sufficient evidence provided to indicate that return flows from the Garrison diversion unit will cause a violation of the Boundary Waters Treaty." Mr. Stamm further believes that "return flows will improve the potential for beneficial use of waters from the Souris River".
It is obvious that we are in a very dangerous position, and it appears that the United States government is not even fully aware of the Bureau of Reclamation's beliefs, and its plans for the project. This is further proof of the need for an immediate moratorium on the project. I there-

June 16, 1975
Adjournment Debate
lore request that the Canadian government take the necessary steps to convey this feeling to the United States government at the earliest possible opportunity.
I hope that the parliamentary secretary has seen today's lead editorial in the Globe and Mail, which sums up the situation very well. Under the heading "Six Years of Dithering" the article reads:
Surely some time ago it must have occurred to our leaders in Ottawa that the ambling stroll down diplomacy lane which the Canadian government has been taking for the past six years over the Garrison diversion project in North Dakota has been a dismal failure as an exercise in international negotiation.
The Garrison project is a $500 million irrigation scheme that by all accounts of environmentalists on this side of the border and the other will deleteriously affect the quality of water in the Red and Souris Rivers flowing north across the international boundary into Manitoba.


Mr. Herb Breau (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has not brought out very much that is new on this subject. Aside from referring to what the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Sauve) has said, he quoted Ambassador Cadieux, our former ambassador to Washington. I have not seen the quotation ascribed to Ambassador Cadieux on this subject, but I guess this shows that the government, from quite early on in this matter, was on top of it and showing its concern.
From the point of view of the United States, this might be an environmentally good or bad project, but we can only be concerned with what happens in Canada. We cannot tell the United States how to make its decisions. However, we can, of course, insist on its following the treaty that was signed between our two countries in 1909, the Boundary Waters Treaty, and we have done that. We have talked to it about the potential effect on Canada of this project and about, to use technical terms of the treaty, possible injury to health or property in Canada.
The United States has assured us that it will abide by that treaty, and also that no decision on construction involving the diversion of water into the Souris Basin would be undertaken prior to 1978. United States officials have further stated that, under the present timetable, construction on the Velva Canal is not expected to be scheduled until 1988, and construction on the Souris River is not to begin until 1981. In this regard we are confident that the United States will honour its long-standing pledge and that no project construction, and I repeat, no project construction potentially affecting waters flowing into Canada will be undertaken unless it was clear that the United States would meet its obligation under the treaty.
There is nothing I can add, but to say that we are following the situation very closely and following its schedules very carefully. If we had any evidence, or if the hon. member has any, which would show that the United States is not living up to its obligation, then I would undertake to look into it. As long as I do not have that kind of evidence I am sure the hon. member will understand that we have to accept the United States' assurance.


PENITENTIARIES-ALLEGED HIGH RATE OF TURNOVER OF SECURITY STAFF-REQUEST FOR REPORT
Arthur Ronald Huntington: Madam Speaker, how many more tragedies and morale shattering incidents in our streets and penitentiaries must we have to convince the government that its experience in permissiveness and its failure to enforce laws, rules, and regulations uniformly and fairly are neutering the characteristics and quality which made this country envied by all throughout the world?
If a free democratic society is to survive there has to be order. The incident in New Westminster last week, in addition to earlier bizarre incidents in other penitentiaries, surely has to impress the Solicitor General (Mr. AU-mand) and the government that something is seriously wrong in our correctional institutions and with our correctional policies.
If our penitentiaries were administered with correct and logical priorities we could perhaps see progress in our attempts to rehabilitate people with serious behavioural problems. The priorities and objectives are well known. They are: first, secure custody until the sentence of the court is ratified; second, to make every endeavour to return the prisoners to the community with a determination to live the lives of law-abiding citizens; and third, to use our tax resources to achieve the best result with wisdom and economy.
The correctional services budget in 1960 was $19 million to $20 million, with a headquarter's staff of 50 people supervising a total penitentiaries' staff of 3,000 in Canada, overseeing over 6,000 inmates. The correctional services budget for 1975, according to the Blue Book, is over $230 million, with a headquarters' staff and regional headquarters' staff of 620 people supervising a total penitentiaries' staff in Canada of 7,000 people looking after 8,800 inmates.
The measure of success in penal reform is the recidivism rate. In spite of the prolific growth in staff from 3,050 to 7,620 in 15 years, and in spite of the 1,100 per cent increase in expenditures in this service, the recidivism rate is still constant. Of all persons admitted to the penitentiaries in one year about 80 per cent have had previous penal institutional experience, and 42 per cent to 45 per cent have had previous penitentiary experience. Before we are told in reply that there was a decrease in the penitentiary population last year, may I say that these decreases occur in cycles which usually reflect a policy change in law enforcement or parole.
I understand that the turnover of guards in our penitentiary service is very high. In the British Columbia Penitentiary it approximates 80 per cent. To resolve this serious problem a special task force was appointed by the service to see what could be done to recruit guards. An investigation should report on the reasons for this high turnover, which represents a serious situation. Then perhaps we could do something positive about the very shallow and thin security conditions which exist in our institutions.
Penitentiary service policy does not differentiate between types of institutions in its programs. This allows for far too much freedom of movement of inmates in maximum security institutions in the name of rehabilitation.

June 16, 1975

The security staffs at most institutions, I am told, are unhappy with the state of affairs. Perhaps it is now time for some of the senior security officers to be consulted before some of our so-called rehabilitation programs are instituted. Colonel Stone, a former officer in the service, stated the situation very well in an article which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on Saturday:
The hostile attitude of inmates of maximum-security institutions does not create an environment in which rehabilitative programs flourish. Security, with the necessary discipline, must be given priority in these institutions.
Rehabilitation can profitably be stressed in the medium and minimum-security institutions as inmates transferred there should have demonstrated a reasonable attitude to the authorities charged with their custody. Inmates should not be kept in maximum-security institutions when they have demonstrated that they are ready to conform, but those inmates that require maximum security should be subjected to it notwithstanding the fact that there may be a speck of gold in their hearts if only someone could find it.
The need for modern facilities to separate inmates requiring maximum security, medium security, or minimum security is paramount if rehabilitation is to achieve a measure of success. It is very misleading for the solicitor general to blame the lack of modern separated facilities, particularly in British Columbia, on the difficulty of acquiring land for the purpose. I should like to remind you, Madam Speaker, that in 1966-67 the department of corrections acquired a site at Mission, British Columbia, with the co-operation of that community. The underground services were installed for maximum and medium security institutions. The project was stopped by a former solicitor general. One might ask, for what reason.
We will have other incidents involving hostages so long as we have sociologists and parole officers calling the shots in institutions involving inmates who require maximum security conditions. For the sake of progress in our rehabilitation programs in classifications where rehabilitation has a chance, let us return to basic priorities of first, security, second rehabilitation, and third cost of services rendered.


Herb Breau: Madam Speaker, the hon.
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member inquired on Friday last if the cabinet had looked into the reasons for the high rate of turnover in our security staff in our pentitentiary system, and asked what were the conditions which could be reported to the House.
The penitentiary service has had this issue under periodic review for a number of years, especially in the province of British Columbia where the percentage of turnover of security staff has been relatively high in comparison to the other regions of Canada. At this time I wish to give some statistics supporting this statement. I shall also enumerate the reasons. The rates of turnover of security staff in the penitentiary regions vary as follows: in the Atlantic region, 1 per cent; in the Quebec region, 13 per cent; in the Ontario region, 10 per cent; in the prairie region, 8 per cent; in the Pacific region, 40 per cent.
The reasons for separations from the service, separations which are causing the turnover, are numerous and varied. They include death, retirement, ill health, rejection while on probation, dismissal for cause, personal reasons unspecified, acceptance in some more remunerative employment, permutations and/or promotions from security staff to other areas of employment within the service or with other federal or provincial government agencies as well as municipal agencies, and relocation of families to distant area, or a change in work environment.
The rather high percentage of turnover of security staff within the province of British Columbia is due to the relatively favourable economic conditions prevailing in the associated areas of employment in the lower mainland part of this province. It is in fact less difficult to recruit security staff and to retain such staff in the service in the Atlantic provinces where the rate of unemployment is higher than in the other provinces. In addition, the salary scales paid to persons employed in comparable conditions by private or government agencies in the lower mainland of British Columbia is a major factor affecting the retention of the security staff.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.27 p.m.

Tuesday, June 17, 1975