1975-06-09

OFFICIAL REPORT

[Stage Direction]
FIRST SESSION-THIRTIETH PARLIAMENT 24 Elizabeth II

[Stage Direction]
Published under the authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Queen's Printer for Canada Available from information Canada, Ottawa, Canada
29576-l'A
[Stage Direction]
Monday, June 9, 1975


Mr. Bert Hargrave (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 dealing with the very serious and current situation involving the dead meat scandal in Quebec and Ontario and the obvious very close association of this issue with meat inspection in Canada today.
Mr. Speaker, it is now quite apparent that this very critical situation is a cause of grave concern to every cattle producer in Canada today since consumer resistance to beef purchases because of this scandal has already dropped our fat cattle markets by some $3 to $4 per hundredweight all across the country. It is a situation over which producing cattlemen have almost no control. It is a black mark against Canada's cattle industry.
Cattlemen feel that the sale of tainted meat is a criminal activity of the worst sort, and even though current publicity has already seriously curtailed beef consumption, we are thankful that this activity has been brought to light. This is the only way that public opinion can be focused on the matter and insist on adequate legislated regulations.
I move, seconded by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers):
That the Minister of Agriculture use his good office as a federal minister to ensure that both federal meat inspection under his health of animals branch and the various provincial meat inspection agencies are properly and quickly co-ordinated to ensure that all meats offered for sale in Canada, for human consumption, are adequately inspected by either federal or provincial authorities.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 43, I ask the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the disastrous economic conditions affecting the mines of northwest Quebec, the price of copper is now down to 57 cents a pound, which has forced some mining companies to close down and others to wait for a price increase before resuming production, and since certain mines, as a result of rising salaries and costs of materials, have seen their shares chop from $1.02 in 1974 to 68 cents in 1975, now expect they will be forced to close down, I move seconded by the hon. member for Abitibi (Mr. Laprise):
That this House request the government to consider the possibility of providing assistance to the mining industry, and especially to the miners, and of giving a new impetus to the economy of that area which has been in a terrible state of stagnation since the beginning of the year.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The House has heard the hon. member's motion. Pursuant to Standing Order 43, this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: As there is no unanimous consent, the motion cannot be put.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to present a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) continues to stress to farmers what a good Minister of Agriculture he is-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Gordon Towers: -and how much he is accomplishing for them, and while that same minister is smiling to their faces and shaking their hands, his other hand is in their pockets-

June 9, 1975
Agriculture


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Gordon Towers: -and to prove that the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Chretien) is dead wrong in his statement that the Official Opposition wants the Auditor General to do its job, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin):
That the Minister of Agriculture reimburse forthwith all moneys absconded from the PFAA fund and applied to the operation of an office completely separate from PFAA, which has been referred to as the Liberal headquarters in Regina, that of an executive assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and a former Liberal MLA.


Mr. Speaker:: Notwithstanding a slight political overtone to the motion, it being proposed pursuant to Standing Order 43 it cannot be debated without the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


SUGGESTION FIXED PERIODS BE ADOPTED FOR SESSIONS- MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that it would be advisable for several reasons that parliamentary sessions be predetermined under the rules, and the fact that it is increasingly necessary for members to know beforehand during which periods of the year the House will be sitting so that their families may enjoy the holidays with them, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Abitibi (Mr. Laprise):
That this House ask the Committee on Procedure and Organization to look into the possibility of having parliamentary sessions and recesses coincide with the school year.


Mr. Speaker:: This motion proposed pursuant to Standing Order 43 cannot be put without unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent, therefore the motion cannot be put.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Acting Prime Minister. As the Minister of Finance is reported to have said last Friday that Canadian wage and salary increases are roughly double those in the United States and seriously endanger our competitive position and our major goals, to which he added, and I quote:
This is not a myth-we have the figures to prove it and they will be published.
Will the Acting Prime Minister say, in view of the importance of this subject and the confusion created by, among other things, the statement to the contrary made by the Minister of Labour in this House on May 27, when these figures and analyses will be published?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am not certain when the Minister of Finance intends to bring down the papers which he customarily brings down before the budget. In any event, I have seen the figures and I know the Minister of Finance intends to make them available to the House in connection with the budget.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Have the figures and analyses to which the Acting Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance referred been made available to the Minister of Labour, and does the Minister of Labour accept those figures and analyses?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance presented them to cabinet. I am not sure if the Minister of Labour was present; in any event, discussions in cabinet, as the hon. member knows, he being a former prime minister, are privileged.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, to set the record straight, I am not a former prime minister but content to have been a former premier. In asking the Acting Prime Minister a final supplementary question I am not asking him to divulge any confidences or what may have taken place in cabinet. I ask the Acting Prime Minister this: does the Minister of Labour, who has the important responsibility of representing in the government the interests and point of view of labour in this country, accept the figures and analyses of the Minister of Finance? Can the Acting Prime Minister give us that assurance, in order that confusion which has been created by contradictory statements made by two ministers may be eliminated?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat what I said: matters discussed in cabinet are discussed in confidence, and must be that way. I can say no more. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to direct questions to the Minister of Labour, when he is here, that is a different matter, but I cannot answer other than the way I have answered.
June 9, 1975


EXCESSIVE WAGE AND COST INCREASES AS MAJOR CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO INFLATION-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. James Gillies (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister and is supplementary to that asked by the Leader of the Opposition. Is the government taking the position, in its present analysis of the economy, that increases in wages and costs are the major contributing factor to the inflation from which we are suffering at present?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has dealt with this question on a number of occasions. I do not think I would be misconstruing his remarks if I said that he believes that now, in contrast to conditions one year ago, that is the case.


THE BUDGET
James McPhail Gillies: Given the fact that the Minister of Finance is away this week, is there a possibility or a probability that the budget is going to be postponed until later in the year than the date that was announced?


Mitchell William Sharp: No, Mr. Speaker. Preparations are proceeding to have the budget presented on June 23.


EFFECT OF EXCESSIVE WAGE INCREASES-SPECIFIC SECTORS AFFECTED
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce on the same subject. The Minister of Finance said "there is a real peril down the road" for Canadian trade because of rising levels of Canadian wages and salaries. Will the minister advise, in terms of his responsibility in trade matters, if he shares that view? If so, specifically what sectors in terms of our export trade are rising wages and salaries of concern to him?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about the rise of wages and unit labour costs in our manufactured exports. It is quite clear that Canadian wages have been rising more rapidly than wages in the United States.


John Edward Broadbent: What specific industries?


Alastair William Gillespie: Indeed, at the present moment the average hourly earnings in the manufacturing industries in Canada are higher than the average hourly earnings in the United States. When the hon. member asks me what specific industries do I mean, I mean the total manufacturing industry.
Oral Questions


John Edward Broadbent: Canadian productivity in the past few years has considerably outstripped that of the United States, thereby justifying higher Canadian wage increases for Canadian workers. Keeping that fact in mind, as well as the fact that most of our trade with the United States consists of either automotive products, in which case there has been wage parity for some time, or in raw and processed materials, in which case there is very little that labour costs contribute to the saleability of our product to the United States, can the minister be a little more specific in terms of what areas in manufacturing he thinks we might be suffering with regard to sales because of rising wages?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is only looking at one side of the equation. I am as concerned about exports as he. I think I have made it clear that I believe wage costs in the manufacturing industry are going to damage our opportunities abroad. It is also important for the hon. member to recognize that although Canadian productivity has been higher than the United States, it has started to decline. It may well be there will be a pick-up in United States productivity before there is a pick-up in Canadian productivity. The other side of the equation which the hon. member has not been looking at is the import replacement side.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I hesitate to interfere in a dialogue between two such distinguished members, but we seem to be getting into a debate on a rather broad subject as opposed to an exchange of information. We should try to keep it more to that.


ALLEGED FAILURE OF CORPORATE TAX MEASURES TO STIMULATE GROWTH-ALTERNATIVE PLANS
John Edward Broadbent: Considering the total failure of the special tax concessions to manufacturing industries as revealed last week by the Minister of Finance to stimulate growth in the economy, will the minister assure the House that he plans to bring forward some alternative program that will stimulate growth in the Canadian economy in the near future? Related to that, will he also assure the House that before the budget appears, we will have the figures the Minister of Finance referred to on the week-end showing that rising labour costs should be a major concern to Canadians?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Minister of Finance will deal with all of these questions in his budget preparation. However, I remind the hon. member that the measures taken two years ago to stimulate the manufacturing industry not only provided a very large number of jobs, some 73,000 more, but very significant investment. Those measures had a good deal to do with protecting the manufacturing industry against the threat of DISC.

June 9, 1975
Oral Questions


SUGGESTION FIXED PERIODS BE ADOPTED FOR SESSIONS
Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the President of the Privy Council.
I introduced a motion earlier under Standing Order 43 requesting that the Committee on Procedure and Organization be ordered to look into the possibility of holding parliamentary sessions at fixed periods corresponding to the school year; as only one very weak no was heard, which leads one to believe that the majority of hon. members support the idea, may I ask the minister whether he would consider bringing a motion before the House so that all members might study the matter in the hope that an agreement can be reached whereby sessions might, in the future, be held at periods corresponding to the school year, thus allowing all members to lead a more normal life with their families?


Mitchell William Sharp: I find myself in general agreement with the hon. member that it would be desirable to have fixed dates on which this House could depend for holidays, school holidays or anything else. I know this idea has fairly general support among all hon. members. It is my hope that the Committee on Procedures will meet in the forthcoming weeks; I expect to enter into discussions with the House leaders of various parties to prepare an agenda and one of the objects will be to inject a little more certainty into the lives of parliamentarians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FISHERIES
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: My question is for the Minister of State for Fisheries, Mr. Speaker. In view of the impending opening of the ICNAF conference, which is a crucial meeting for Canada and bearing in mind the minister's statement over the weekend that ICNAF members were not living up to their treaty obligations or quota agreements, does the hon. gentleman intend to reassess Canada's position in this treaty organization instead of making veiled threats like that of closing Canadian ports which will have little or no effect on ICNAF nations?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of State (Fisheries)):: the hon. member had read the report of the parliamentary committee on fisheries and forestry, he would know that this was not a new statement about violations of quota. I did indicate at a public session some time ago that we had named names and made firm charges. I do not believe that

leaving the organization would be a way of improving it. As for closures, some nations which are violating regulations of ICNAF and are not respecting articles and conditions of the treaty would be very seriously hit if our ports were closed to them.


James Aloysius McGrath: I can assure the minister that some of our ports, too, would be very seriously hit if they were closed. I am thinking of the Port of St. John's and the Port of Sydney. If the ICNAF nations are not prepared to live up to their quota and treaty obligations in the present situation, can the minister tell us how he expects this organization to agree to his commendable and worthwhile proposal to reduce quotas by 40 per cent?


Roméo LeBlanc: The hon. member cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, he asks us to be tough vis-a-vis the violators, then, when we threaten to be tough, he asks us not to be.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roméo LeBlanc: As for quotas, there are many quotas which are respected. Others are not. We have pinpointed those that are not. We shall be making statements at the meeting this week. We shall be putting the facts on the table and we have indicated that if there are further serious violations in the coming months we shall take action.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ALLEGED STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL BOYLE INCREASED FINANCIAL SUPPORT WOULD IMPROVE SURVEILLANCE CAPABILITY-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Has the minister discussed with the Minister of National Defence the very logical statement made by Admiral Boyle that if Maritime Command had more financial support they could provide the surveillance capability which we are going to have to wait for if we wait for the patrol vessels that are to be built in probably two or three years?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, we certainly are appreciative of the fact that the forces have been helping us in surveillance, but on the other hand, I must say that using a destroyer as a boarding platform to transport two fisheries officers may not be very economical.


Mr. Clark (Rocky Mountain):: What about helicopters, Romeo?


Roméo LeBlanc: The other point which has to be made is that when the military forces have priorities which are not those of fisheries, then we are left in a position of not having surveillance capacity. But that being said, I do not at all exclude the possibility of working with the forces, and we are working very closely with them at this time.


Jack Marshall: I am a bit surprised that the minister would indicate that two fisheries officers would be on a destroyer. We need surveillance factors in the whole northwest Atlantic, and the capacity of these destroyers
June 9, 1975

should be utilized instead of wasting fuel. I wonder if the minister would indicate if he can change his answer now in respect of the need for an over-all build-up in capacity so that we can save our fishing industry which is so vital to Canada.


Roméo LeBlanc: I am afraid the hon. member may not have understood what I was trying to convey. There must be fisheries officers who, by treaty, are entitled to board and who are scientifically trained to make the assessment of the foreign trawlers' catch. If they are transported on the destroyer-and I do not belittle this-it remains rather expensive. I think it is very important that the fishery surveillance not be totally dependent on the armed forces. If the armed forces can be of assistance, and they are, all the better.


Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State (Fisheries). In answering the question today did he consider what Admiral Boyle said over the weekend that if the Department of the Environment was now building two vessels which would cost $30 million, these destroyers would be left idle there and not be used for surveillance?


Roméo LeBlanc: I would be the first to cheer if we could have a destroyer-trawler and scientific-vessel all in one. At the moment we do not have that, and I would certainly be irresponsible if I did not believe that the construction of fisheries vessels is necessary for fisheries purposes. There are also some scientific experiments which are done by these vessels which cannot be undertaken by destroyers.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr.   J.-J. Blais@Nipissing: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the government House leader at this time, which arises out of the last two questions and out of statements made by Vice Admiral Douglas Boyle to a weekend caucus of the Conservative Party in Halifax. In view of the fact that these comments went far beyond the scope of propriety, and even constitutional propriety in these matters, what measures is the government contemplating to discipline that vice admiral?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence informed me this morning that the chief of the defence staff, General Dextraze had called Admiral Boyle to Ottawa to discuss his appearance before the Conservative caucus in Halifax.
Oral Questions TRADE


POSSIBILITY OF OFFERING EXPORTERS INFLATION INSURANCE-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Is it the intention of the government to follow the example of Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan in making it possible for our exporters to buy inflation insurance to be used on contracts where the customer is willing only to place a fixed price bid, and thereby make it possible for our exporters to go after a great deal of this business, which at the present time they are forced to pass up?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, the Export Development Corporation has noted the particular measures taken by some of the other foreign governments. This matter is under very active consideration at the present time in the Export Development Corporation, and I would hope to be able to make an announcement in due course.


George Harris Hees: In view of the minister's answer, why is it that the government has always to lag so far behind our competitors in introducing these progressive measures, thus making it possible for them to get the jump on our exporters and putting our trade in the deplorable position it is in today?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, these measures the hon. member alludes to are measures that I believe would not be in accordance with the spirit of the undertaking or the gentleman's agreement reached last September after the IMF series of meetings. If you are going to make an international system work it seems to me you have to work internationally.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


George Harris Hees: You have to be an Oxford boy to come out with that one.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Alastair William Gillespie: Canada is not going to be the first to break the international agreement.


An hon. Member:: That fellow must be a Rhodes scholar.


Alastair William Gillespie: Let me make it very clear that given the actions of certain countries, unless these actions are rescinded, and they may be, Canada will be alongside.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact our exports have been falling and our imports have been rising rapidly, and I have reference to those people of other countries who have been doing this to Canada, does the minister not feel that everybody is out of step but Alastair?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
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June 9, 1975
Oral Questions



GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION


Thomas Gordon Towers: Mr. Speaker, I do not like to break up a discussion, but I want to ask a question of the President of the Treasury Board. Was the decision made by the Cabinet, the Minister of Agriculture or the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board and, if not, who did authorize the use of Prairie Farm Assistance Funds for a ministerial office in Regina with an absolute disregard for that which is honest?


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I did not catch the question because my little machine was not working.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Gordon Towers: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might repeat my question incorporating a supplementary question. Was the decision made by the Cabinet, the Minister of Agriculture or the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board and, if not, who did authorize the use of Prairie Farm Assistance Funds for a ministerial office in Regina with an absolute disregard for that which is honest? Will the minister take responsibility for the return of those misappropriated funds to the PFAA account, or will judicial action be required?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I know nothing about that problem. I shall look into the matter and report to the House. I am quite surprised at the strong language the hon. member is using under the circumstances.



TRANSPORT


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Ministers of Agriculture, Transport and Justice-


An hon. Member:: And quite a few others.


John Angus MacLean: -I should like to direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister. Will he assure the House that it is not the intention of the government in the near future to terminate the Feed Freight Assistance Program in as far as it affects eastern Canadian farmers?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have heard of no such intention. Of course, the government may find it desirable to modify the program, but as far as I know it will continue.


John Angus MacLean: Mr. Speaker, will the Acting Prime Minister discuss the matter with his colleagues and contact the responsible agricultural organizations in the eastern provinces as well as in British Columbia in order to

appraise the magnitude of the disastrous effect this would have on some segments of agriculture, especially in Nova Scotia and in New Brunswick?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that there have been discussions for a year with the provincial authorities about extending this program, so they are very well informed.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence and it arises out of a statement reported at length in the Globe and Mail this morning and referred to earlier by another hon. member. This statement was made by Admiral Boyle, and I might say that it was a most courageous statement.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: In view of the circumstances of the statement, to the effect that our defences in so far as naval matters are concerned are, to say the least, weakened to a degree that is dangerous to the defence of this country, will the minister assure Canadians that instead of having his Chief of General Staff communicate with him, will he now convene a meeting of the Committee on External Affairs and National Defence, which will be open to the public, in order that Admiral Boyle may be asked questions concerning those matters which are of concern to all Canadians? I ask this in order that with Admiral Boyle's record of service he will be given the opportunity of warning Canadians about these matters now instead of later.


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I have read the press accounts of what Admiral Boyle said but I do not want to comment fully on his statements until I have had an opportunity of talking with him. I would like to say in reply to the right hon. gentleman that a large part of what Admiral Boyle said is something I can agree with; he does in fact confirm statements I made here before the committee of the whole House last week when I talked about the growing danger from the Warsaw Pact and from Soviet naval strength in the Atlantic. In that sense the admiral was confirming government policy and statements I have made. However, Mr. Speaker, in looking at the press reports it appears to me that Admiral Boyle did go beyond his authority when he spoke about the activities of other government departments, and it is in that area that I wish to talk with him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: Now that we have narrowed it down, Mr. Speaker, apparently the minister has no objection to what the admiral said concerning the weaknesses of the navy, the shortage of money and the inability to carry out its responsibilities, but some other matter that was men-
June 9, 1975

tioned caused the minister to be aroused to a degree that is unusual for him, is that correct?


Mr. MacKay:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Acting Prime Minister.


John George Diefenbaker: I am waiting for an answer.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, is the minister going to be dumb in this connection?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Armstrong Richardson: Mr. Speaker, the right hon. gentleman did not add anything that has not been said several times before the standing committee and in this House.


John George Diefenbaker: Why object to him saying it when he tells the truth?


James Armstrong Richardson: Mr. Speaker, most of what Admiral Boyle has said has in fact been the subject of full debate and discussion in this House and in the standing committee for several weeks.



TRANSPORT


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister and concerns a recent affair in Hamilton to which I believe the Prime Minister was a witness, and that is the latest endorsement by the Minister of Labour concerning former Hamilton Harbour commissioners Messrs. Lanza and Hickey. In view of the fact that the Minister of Transport now refuses, perhaps properly so, to answer simple factual questions about the dredging scandal, which is before the courts and therefore sub judice, does the Acting Prime Minister now intend to instruct the Minister of Labour to withhold his character references about former members of the Hamilton Harbour Commission, made in the presence of at least one juror, until he is before the court and can be subjected to the kind of cross-examination which these statements deserve?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have not had the opportunity of talking with the Minister of Labour about the report that appeared in the press, and I am not quite sure whether the people concerned are before the courts.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, would the Acting Prime Minister not agree that remarks of this sort by a minister of the Crown concerning individuals who, because of the nature of their activities, are the subject of discussion before the courts constitute an impropriety from a political or legal point of view?


Mitchell William Sharp: No, Mr. Speaker, 1 would not necessarily accept that view because this would be very restrictive of
Oral Questions
comments. After all, these may be people who are quite innocent, and my hon. friend knows that he would be against any such unnecessary restrictions.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of the Environment may I direct my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of the strong protest uttered over the weekend by the Minister of the Environment against the Garrison diversion project in the State of North Dakota, would the minister say whether the protest expressed by that minister has been communicated through official and effective channels to the authorities in Washington?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. From time to time, as my hon. friend knows, we have through diplomatic notes sought information about the Garrison diversion. We have subsequent to the note seeking information, through a further note, expressed our opposition to the project and our concern that its completion or its being carried forward would contravene the provisions of the boundary treaty. The United States has undertaken, of course, that any aspect of construction would be within the obligations it has assumed under the treaty and has given the assurance that all these obligations would be carried out. At the present time, as my hon. friend also may know, we are discussing with the United States authorities the possibility of a joint reference to the International Joint Commission. We have not yet agreed on certain language and we would only make the reference if it were understood before the reference were made that modifications would be required to any construction project. That is the present state of the play.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have a supplementary question for the minister, Mr. Speaker. In the meantime has the Government of the United States given assurance that the work on the project will stop so that the pollution which could flow from this project into the province of Manitoba will not go ahead.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the United States authorities have given the assurance that no construction would be undertaken that would have an adverse affect on the waters of the Souris and so on in Manitoba. This pledge has been given by the United States.



GARRISON DIVERSION-SUGGESTION UNITED STATES BE ASKED FOR MORATORIUM ON PROJECT

Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. As the government has copies of a letter from the conservation and natural resources corn-
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June 9, 1975
Oral Questions
mittee to Dr. Kissinger that they will definitely be violating the 1909 treaty, will the minister now ask them to call a complete moratorium until the whole matter is cleaned up. Even if the water is diverted back into the United States it will still pollute Manitoba waters. This project must be stopped.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, we are still confident that the United States will honour its long-standing pledge that no construction will be undertaken that will have the effect the hon. member describes unless the United States is in a position to meet all its obligations under the treaty. The matter was raised, as my hon. friend knows, last December at the meeting of the President and the Prime Minister and that assurance was repeated at that time. So I am confident that pledge will be carried out.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, the problem is that there are certain aspects of this project that are nearing completion. We have almost reached the point of no return. If the project continues there is no way we can stop the pollution of Manitoba waters.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for South Shore.



FISHERIES


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of State (Fisheries). Now that the minister has had since May 30 to think about a definition of "sovereign territory", could he tell the House why the Canadian government has not begun asserting its control over the mineral and marine resources of the seabed of the continental shelf, since according to the Prime Minister on May 16, international law gives us sovereign rights over the seabed out to the edge of the continental shelf.


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, although I said I was not a lawyer I did, however, speak to some lawyers and was told that the 1958 convention covered the shelf, that is the bottom and not the water above it, and for that reason I cannot claim that jurisdiction.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Will the Canadian people have to wait for the resumption of the Law of the Sea Conference sometime in the future before the Canadian government does anything to protect the interests of the people in Atlantic Canada and to protect its interest off the coasts of Canada?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for External Affairs has made clear that the assessment is going on and action of different types is under consideration.



MACKENZIE VALLEY PIPELINE-SUGGESTED EXPEDITION OF BERGER COMMISSION REPORT-PLANS FOR NEGOTIATION OF LAND RIGHTS

Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. As it is predicted by the premier of Alberta that in the next two years there could be a very serious shortage of natural gas for industrial use in Ontario, has the minister asked that the Berger report be expedited so that some conclusion can be made immediately in reference to the pipeline from the Mackenzie Delta.


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman will recall that we have said Mr. Justice Berger should have the full time available to conduct this hearing and on that basis we have not put forward the suggestion made by the hon. member.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact that there is some urgency, I should like to ask whether the minister, either through his own department or with another department, has, with liaison, worked out any plans for negotiations with reference to land rights if and when that pipeline will be built so that there will not be a further delay and so that the industrial centres of Ontario will not suffer in that regard?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, land rights is one of the questions on which Mr. Justice Berger is currently conducting hearings. It seems to us more sensible to wait until he concludes this and submits his recommendations.



NATURAL GAS-GOVERNMENT INTENTIONS WITH REGARD TO EXPORT AND DOMESTIC MARKETS IF SHORTAGE OCCURS

Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In the event of a shortage of natural gas developing has the government decided to curtail exports or will shortages be shared on a pro rata basis for both export and domestic markets?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the availability of natural gas in Canada has been the subject of a report which is expected imminently from the National Energy Board and the impact of that report will of course be discussed fully with the customers before there is a government decision.



POLAR GAS PIPELINE TO TORONTO AND MONTREAL- DISCUSSIONS WITH PROVINCES ON ROUTE

Mr. William Skoreyko (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources further with reference to a possible gas shortage in the future whether there has been any further discussion on the Polar Gas Pipeline from the north to the Montreal and Toronto market and whether that pipeline might be built on the east side or on the west side of Hudson's Bay and whether any consultation has taken

June 9, 1975

place with the Ontario, Quebec or Manitoba governments in this regard?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, to this point the Polar Gas project is carrying out the examination. The government has asked the Polar Gas Company to make a full study of both options, both on the east and west of Hudson Bay, so that when the time comes to make a decision we may be in possession of the facts with regard to the relative merits of both. It is my understanding that the Polar Gas syndicate will have discussed this with the provincial governments, and indeed has discussed it as well with the government of Ontario.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs on the general question of the sale of nuclear power plants abroad. In view of the fact that several of us in this House have had the opportunity of actually talking to officials and staff members at the CANDU reactor at Karachi, Pakistan who have indicated to us in undeniable terms that there never has been and is not now any meaningful, realistic or ongoing inspection by international, Canadian or Pakistani governments in respect of the safeguards or requirements under the NPT, I wonder whether the minister could tell us if any change is contemplated in respect of the actual inspection process of all the CANDU reactors which are overseas at the moment.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised a factual question about the nature of the inspection of a particular reactor. I will seek out the information and try to answer tomorrow on this subject.



ALLEGED SALE BY INDIA OF CANADIAN NUCLEAR MATERIAL AND TECHNOLOGY-GOVERNMENT POSITION

Allan Frederick Lawrence: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister would be good enough to advise us whether the government or his department has confirmed the reports, which obviously have already been sent to him by the High Commissioner fronj Sri Lanka and also Canada's ambassador to Pakistan, that the Indian government has not only sold material but also Canadian based technology in respect of nuclear explosions to an Arab state.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I will have to justify the source of that conclusion also.
Oral Questions HEALTH



REQUEST FOR RE-EVALUATION OF DRUG AFAGON C- GOVERNMENT POSITION ON OUTDATED AND UNNECESSARY DRUGS

Mr. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that some substandard drugs issued before the government had changed its guidelines governing drug efficiency and safety are stated to be still on the market, and in light of information that Afagon C, a drug readily available in Quebec containing strychnine, would not pass today's standards, would the minister tell the House whether or not he intends to re-examine this particular drug and re-evaluate its use under today's standards, and will he state generally what the government's position is with respect to these outdated drugs?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, that drug is still being used by a certain number of Canadian physicians, but in minimal amounts. However, I am not in a position right now to give the hon. member specific details on that drug. I will be pleased to inquire and give him such information as soon as possible.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: In view of the fact that more than half the prescription drugs sold in Canada are stated to be unnecessary, can the minister now tell us whether the department is planning to take any steps with respect to this problem in our country today?


Marc Lalonde: I think the hon. member is referring to a press release based on the remarks of only one scientist in Canada on that matter. There again I would like to see the exact statement of that scientist before making any comments that might give the impression I support in some way the statement of the hon. member.



HAZARD CREATED BY ASBESTOS FIBRE CONCENTRATIONS- GOVERNMENT ACTION

Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that recent reports concerning asbestos mines in the province of Quebec, namely, those operated by the Asbestos Corporation and Thetford Mines, indicate that asbestos fibre concentrations in the air in some cases were so high that it was not measurable by the use of existing instruments, can the minister indicate whether he plans any immediate action to correct this serious health hazard to the miners?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer this question to the Minister of the Environment, who, unfortunately, is not here today. This question falls for the most part under her responsibility.

June 9, 1975
Oral Questions
However, to the extent that my officials are invited to take part in such studies, I shall see to it that they are at the disposal of the departments concerned as well as of the provinces, to try and develop techniques to solve this problem.


Paul Yewchuk: In view of the fact that care of the health of Canadians is a responsibility which falls under the minister's jurisdiction, would he consider becoming involved in the sponsoring of industrial health and safety regulations immediately, and would he consider the placing of full-time federal inspectors in these areas to try to resolve the problem?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member no doubt knows that industrial security matters fall in most cases under provincial jurisdiction. However, in the environmental field, some responsibilities were conferred to the federal government and come right now under the Department of the Environment. Again, I can only repeat the answer I gave to the previous question.



NATURAL GAS-CONSULTATION WITH QUEBEC ON CONSTRUCTION OF PIPELINE FROM THE NORTH

Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.
In view of the gas discoveries on Melville and Christian Islands, the minister mentioned a few minutes ago the possible development of a pipeline system towards the east. Can he say whether he has consulted the Quebec authorities and whether they are interested in such a project on the east side of James Bay and Hudson Bay?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, my officials have discussed energy matters with Quebec officials, but there was no specific discussion on those particular matters. A project for such a pipeline must be submitted to the National Energy Board which must make a decision before the Canadian government can make its own decision.



FINANCE


Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo-Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister and it relates to the report to parliament on corporate tax measures. According to the conclusions reached in the report, 73,000 jobs were created by an expenditure of $1.8 billion in tax concessions made to the corporate taxpayers of Canada. Has the government undertaken any comparable cost benefit analysis to determine the impact of a similar

infusion or stimulus of benefits, for instance, into the housing industry and how many jobs that would create?


Mitchell William Sharp: I do not
think the government has made a specific study of that particular comparison, but when decisions are made in this field, these kinds of comparisons are made in a general way and it is very difficult to evaluate them in statistical terms. We are stimulating the housing industry and I hope that we will be able to achieve our objectives. There are other lines of economic activity that should also be stimulated because if you are looking at the long term as well as the short term, you have to think in terms of jobs, not for the immediate future only but also in terms of the general economic health of the country. If we can make progress without inflation, we will have a better chance of maintaining full employment than if we stimulated the economy too abruptly or along particular lines to the detriment of the future.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Rocky Mountain.



GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister and it relates to the activities of the Minister of Justice who is responsible for the campaign of Tony Merchant. I should like to ask whether the Liberal party of Saskatchewan is being billed for those parts of the frequent flights of the Minister of Justice to Saskatchewan which are made for partisan purposes, including the diversion to Regina of a government plane to provide entertainment for a provincial campaign party for the minister's brother-in-law, and has the government established and will it publish any guidelines which stop the subsidy from the public purse of Liberal party activities?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of these allegations. I have not heard of them before. In fact, I doubt their accuracy.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mitchell William Sharp: However, I would point out that cabinet ministers, as does the Leader of the Opposition, have passes on Air Canada.


Charles Joseph Clark: Will the Acting Prime Minister look into what he considers to be ill-founded allegations, and will he tell the House whether there are any guidelines respecting repayment by the Liberal party to the government of Canada-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: -for the use of government aircraft, as is anticipated now in the election
June 9, 1975

expenses legislation respecting the use of government aircraft during the campaign period? Are there any guidelines established and is there any provision for paying back to the public purse the subsidy to the Liberal party for its campaign activities?


Mitchell William Sharp: So far as I am aware, government aircraft are not used for these purposes.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would just like to clarify the situation regarding the appearance of Admiral Boyle before the committee of our party over the week end. Admiral Boyle did not come to the Lord Nelson Hotel to appear before the caucus of the Conservative party. At the Conservative party caucus the committee of defence of the Conservative party requested permission to go to naval headquarters and be briefed there as to the present situation with regard to naval matters. I thought I should make that clear. I sincerely hope that the government in no way wishes to interfere with the right of members of parliament to go to naval headquarters or to military headquarters at any time to be briefed by the commanding officers.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. gentleman that there would be no objection. General Dextraze has on his own volition requested to see Admiral Boyle for the purpose of discussing other aspects of the meeting in Halifax.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Jack Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 719, 2,149, 2,213, 2,242, 2,506 and 2,538.
Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call starred questions Nos. 2,441, 2,442 and 2,453?
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Schellenberger: 1.	How much money is presently held in the federal treasury collected from the export tax on oil produced by Indian bands?
2.	Was any money collected after April 1, 1974?
3.	Does the government intend to return all this money to the producing Indian band?
4.	Is the government prepared to pay a reasonable interest on the money collected because of the delay in return of their monies?
Order Paper Questions


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Discussions on the substance of this question are being held amongst a number of departments and until these discussions are completed and a decision has been reached no substantive reply can be made.


Mr. Herbert: Has the Sports Directorate of the Department of National Health and Welfare given consideration to participating in the promotion of the film of the 1974 Canada-Russia series "Hockey vs Xokken" for the benefit of the youth of Canada who look upon hockey as Canada's national game?


Marc Lalonde: No. the production of the film on the 1974 Cana-da-U.S.S.R. hockey series "Hockey vs Xokken", was an initiative of Hockey Canada. The responsibility for its promotion therefore rests solely with that organization which is a private corporation established under Part 2 of the Companies Act. Further information should be sought directly from this organization.


Mr. Marshall: Who is Chief of Policy and Planning in the Small Craft Harbours Division of the Department of the Environment (Fisheries) (a) what is his salary (b) what is his classification in the Public Service?


Mr. Len Marchand (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Environment and Minister of Fisheries):: This position is presently vacant. Mr. Morris Trevithick was awarded a contract commencing July 2, 1973 related to the preparation of a proposed Small Craft Harbours Act. Mr. Trevithick was not a public servant although he was accorded the title of "Chief, Policy and Planning" as a matter of convenience. This contract expired April 12, 1975.


Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse): 1.	How many persons have applied for (a) English (b) French courses in (i) Information Canada (ii) the Agricultural Stabilization Board (iii) Statistics Canada?
2.	How many applications were accepted in each case?
3.	How many persons have actually taken the courses in each case?
4.	How many have (a) passed (b) failed the examination in each case?


Mitchell William Sharp: In so far as Information Canada is concerned: 1. (i)(a) 88, (b) 161.
2.	(i)(a) 51, (b) 110.
3.	(i)(a) 37, (b) 83.
4.	(i)(a): (a) 28 passed, (b) 0 failed; (b): (a) 26 passed, (b) 10 failed.
In so far as Agricultural Stabilization Board is concerned: 1. (a), (b)(ii) Nil.
2,	3 and 4. Not applicable.

June 9, 1975
Order Paper Questions
In so far as Statistics Canada is concerned: 1. (iii)(a) 19, (b) 285.
2.	(iii)(a) 19, (b) 285.
3.	(iii)(a) 19, (b) 285.
4.	(iii) To date: (a) 14 persons have passed the English course. 84 persons have passed the French course; (b) No person has failed the English course. 3 persons have failed the French course.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton): Is the Minister of Finance aware of the practice that is developing in banking circles, notably with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, to change a system of cash withdrawals from chequing accounts in their banks from one using a cash withdrawal slip, for which no bank charge is made, to one where the bank requires customers cheques to be used for cash withdrawals, thereby causing a charge for this service to be made by the bank to its customers and, if not, would he investigate to see whether it contravenes the Bank Act, and would he communicate with the Chartered Banks of Canada requesting that they discontinue this practice.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: The Bank Act does not prescribe or regulate in detail the procedures of banks in the extension of services to their customers. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has indicated that there has been no change in its practices or procedures regarding the use of withdrawal slips. Withdrawals on chequing savings accounts can be made free of charge at the branch of account. On personal chequing accounts it is and has always been the practice of the bank that a charge is made in respect of debit entries with no distinction between use of cash withdrawal slips or cheques.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton): 1.	Are books, periodicals, pamphlets or parts thereof, printed, bound, unbound or in sheets (excluding blank account books, copy books or books to be written or drawn upon) (a) in any other than the English language (b) in the English language admitted to Canada duty free under Tariff Items 17000-1 of Schedule A, Group 5, Pulp, Paper and books and, if so, for what reasons?
2.	What are the reasons for any difference in policy in Parts 1 (a) and (b)?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, this is a question put by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker). The response is somewhat lengthy. I wonder if it might be taken as read?


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: So ordered.
[Editor's Note: The answer to the above question is as follows:]
I am informed by the Departments of National Revenue and Finance as follows: 1. (a) Yes. Except advertising and printed matter as provided for in Tariff Item 17800-1. (b) No. With respect to the difference in policy as between (a)

and (b), please see reply to Part 2 by the Department of Finance.
2. It has been the policy of successive Canadian governments to allow duty-free entry for books, periodicals and pamphlets, or parts thereof, printed, bound, unbound, or in sheets in any other than the English language since the introduction of tariff item 17000-1 in 1939. In 1948, this item was internationally bound against increase under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Any decision to increase the rate of duty on bound goods would necessitate renegotiation with our trading partners who would ask for compensation under the terms of this agreement. Books in the English language from countries entitled to the British Preferential Tariff are duty-free. Many English language books are duty-free under the Most-FavouredNation Tariff. Generally speaking, the only books which are dutiable under the Most-Favoured-Nation Tariff are paperback and hard cover novels or works of fiction in the English language which attract a rate of 10 per cent. The duty on these books has been retained as protection for the Canadian printing and publishing industries. Reduction or removal of this duty could be considered in return for improved access to foreign markets, particularly the United States.


Mr. Fairweather: What position has Canada decided to take relative to the renegotiation of international loans to Chile by the so called "Club of Paris"?


Mr. Herb Breau (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, since the answer to the question of the hon. member for Fundy-Roy-al is somewhat lengthy, could I table it and ask that it be taken as read?


Mr. Speaker:: Does the House agree?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: The answer reads as follows:]
The representatives of seven members of the Paris Club, including Canada, on May 6, 1975 reached agreement on a joint position regarding terms for the rescheduling of Chile's external debt falling due in 1975. The seven countries included all of Chile's major creditors with the exception of the United Kingdom. Subsequently and as agreed by representatives of the seven countries, the President of the Paris Club conveyed these proposals to a representative of the Government of Chile. The President also conveyed to this representative the concern of Club members regarding the question of human rights in Chile. The Government of Chile has accepted these overall terms. It is anticipated that as in the past, there will be bilateral negotiations between Chile and each of these seven countries to settle outstanding questions, such as the rate of interest to be paid on the rescheduled debt.
June 9, 1975


Mr. Caouette (Temiscamingue): In the past ten years, how much has the Unemployment Insurance Commission paid to citizens in the Constituency of Temiscamingue?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: The Unemployment Insurance Commission does not maintain records by constituency but rather by geographic areas for UIC service centres. The following represents amounts paid through UIC service centres of Rouyn and Val D'or. 1974, $21,222,744; 1973, $17,257,459; 1972, $16,243,277; 1971, $7,706,905; 1970, $5,354,960; 1969, $4,221,702; 1968, $4,202,471; 1967, $3,058,384; 1966, $2,270,355; 1965, $2,343,532.


Mr. Reynolds: 1.	How many cases of income tax evasion is the government pursuing with persons now living outside of Canada?
2.	What is the value of each such case?
3.	In what countries are the individuals living in these cases which the government is pursuing?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of National Revenue):: use Number	2. Value of case	3. Country where living1	$740,000	Australia2	07,000	United States::	46,700	United States4	33,000	Unknowni>	19,700	Israel0	110,200	United Kingdom7	305,000	Bahamas8	550,000	MexicoU	12,800	Europe10	590,000	United States11	305,700	Spain12	137,000	United States13	89,000	Israel



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Harvie Andre (Calgary Centre) moved:: That this House deplores the continuing decline in Canada's scientific and technological effort and urges the government to adopt a meaningful science policy that will lead to increased industrial research and development, increased scientific research and increased utilization of Canada's scientists and engineers, thereby contributing to the long-term benefit of both Canadians and the Canadian economy.
Science and Technology
He said: Mr. Speaker, I have not had the opportunity of checking all the way back to 1867, but I believe this is the first occasion on which this House has allocated a full day of time to debating the subject of Canada's science and technology policy, or more accurately, the lack thereof. It is certainly the first time since I have been privileged to be a member of this House that we have debated this subject.
Any thoughtful person must be concerned at that observation if for no other reason than the fact that the total federal government expenditures on scientific activities are well in excess of $1 billion per year. Even by the standards of this government, that is a lot of money, and the effectiveness of these expenditures deserves at least some debate from time to time. Even more important is the fact of the significance and impact of science and technology upon our society.
Ours is often called the technological age, the successor to the industrial age. This name, the technological age, is in recognition of the fact that technology, defined as the application of scientific knowledge, more than any other factor has determined, is determining and will determine both our standard of living and our quality of life.
Much of what is good in our society, from polio vaccine to instant worldwide communications, was made possible by technology. Similarly, technology has made possible much of what is bad, such as pollution and the future shock psychoses and neuroses of today's society.
However, as pointed out by many observers of our modern society, and I think especially well by Alvin Tof-fler in his book "Future Shock", the way to a better society and the solution to the many problems, even those caused by technology, lie in the development and application of new and better technology. It is difficult to think of any feature or aspect of our lives which is not influenced or will not be influenced by the manner in which we have used or will use science and technology.
In a global sense the answer to such questions as how long will we be able to feed the world's burgeoning population, when we will find cures for diseases such as cancer and heart disease, which cause suffering, and will be able to prevent the holocaust or Armageddon which many have predicted will come as global resources are depleted, will depend upon the wisdom we use in the application of science and technology.
In less broad terms, and considering the situation in Canada, similar analysis is applicable. Will we have clean air and water for future Canadians? Will we have the industry to supply the jobs necessary for our already under employed work force? Will we be able to produce and export manufactured goods in sufficient quantity to reverse the disastrous balance of payments situation we are now experiencing? All of these questions are strongly affected by the manner in which we use science and technology.
To any thinking person all of this is self-evident. It could even be termed trite, yet it bears repeating simply because, in spite of the importance of the subject and in spite of the fact that few people would argue with that conclusion, the government has, as I will be pointing out, done absolutely nothing in terms of recognizing the need

June 9, 1975
Science and Technology
of science and technology in any concrete manner. Indeed, as I will show, since the present administration assumed power, there has been a steady deterioration in Canada's scientific and technological effort.
I could speak for several hours on the importance of science and technology to our society, to the pursuit of a proper industrial strategy and, indeed, to the fulfillment of almost every public policy. Obviously, time does not permit this, nor is it necessary. The evidence is overwhelming, and I need refer those interested no further than to the reports of the Science Council of Canada and the Special Senate Committee on Science Policy. Faced with this evidence, let us then consider the performance of Canada and the Canadian government.
In November of 1967 the members of the other place adopted a resolution establishing a special committee to investigate Canada's performance in respect of science and technology. I am not an admirer of the other place. In fact I believe that the Senate should be elective or abolished.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear!


Harvie Andre: Although I would rather see the former.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Oh no!


Harvie Andre: Nonetheless, it has to be recognized that the Senators on this special committee did an outstanding job, and the reports which were produced represent the finest analysis of any country's science policy ever undertaken.
I make that firm statement not just on the basis of my own judgment but on the basis that that is the assessment of the OECD, a highly respected organization which has itself given much time to the consideration of research and development and its importance to economic development.
It must be a matter of bitter irony to the Senate that the government of its own country has paid less attention to this report than have many other countries of the world. In fact recently the government of the Netherlands passed an order in council implementing some of the recommendations of this Senate report, and in that order in council gave credit to this special committee of the Canadian Senate. The government of the Netherlands recognized the validity of the report and implemented the policies called for, but the government of Canada did nothing.
The recommendations of this Senate report are many. I do not agree with all of them, and many members of Canada's scientific community have taken exception to some of them. There is almost universal agreement, however, that had the government implemented all of the recommendations it would be doing far more things right than wrong. Instead of implementing the recommendations, however, the government has almost ignored them, and in some cases has even taken the opposite tack.
One thing that did flow from the Senate report and the resultant public debate and pressure was the establishment of the Ministry of State for Science and Technology, as approved by this House in a motion passed on June 21, 1971. Many of us thought that the government had at last 
recognized the importance of science and technology and was setting up the instrument that would reflect that importance. How wrong we were, Mr. Speaker.
One of the assessments made of Canada's scientific research and development activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s showed that of the OECD nations we spent the smallest percentage of the gross national product on research and development. In other words, we were tenth out of ten OECD nations in terms of the percentage of gross national product allocated to research.
In 1971, the year the Ministry of State for Science and Technology was established under the present Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gillespie), gross expenditures on research and development in Canada represented 1.22 per cent of the GNP. The ministry was set up in order to change that very bad situation. In 1974 the gross expenditures on research and development had dropped to .84 per cent of GNP. A bad situation was made worse, Mr. Speaker, and that in spite of the fact that the government, by the establishment of the department, gave tacit agreement to the statement made in the first report of the special Senate committee at page 283, as follows:
In other words, we are just beginning to realize that we have seriously neglected to support research and development...
The report concludes with this statement:
We need more research, but not only that; we need good research and we need innovation. We must develop a coherent over-all science policy so that we can not only meet our economic objectives more effectively but also more realistically face our mounting social problems.
That is what the government stated it believed in; it stated that is why it set up MOSST. If you look at the performance of MOSST it is a bust. What has MOSST done?
Another measure of Canada's performance compared with that of the rest of the world is the amount of research done in the private sector by industry. Here again we are ninth out of ten OECD nations in the field of direct research. In 1971, .41 of the GNP was spent by industry on research and development. Three years later after the ministry had been supposedly trying to change a bad situation, the percentage dropped to .33 per cent of the GNP. That was a drop of 20 per cent. I hope I do not have to go into great detail to show the effect on jobs in Canada, and on trade, especially in the manufactured and high value added products.
Everyone agrees that research and development must be close to the marketplace; it must be conducted in industry. That is why industrial research and development is important. Obviously MOSST, if it tried, could not succeed in swaying government policy in any direction that would help strengthen industrial research. Yet that is what it was supposed to do according to the order in council establishing it which states:
The Minister of State for Science and Technology shall formulate and develop policies with respect to:
(a) the most appropriate means by which the Government of
Canada may, through measures within its fields of jurisdiction, have
a beneficial influence on the application and development of science
and technology in Canada.
June 9, 1975

The measure of what has been done in this regard is that the situation has gone from bad to worse. MOSST is a bust, to put it bluntly.
There is another way that the private sector can participate in research and development, and that is through the government contracting out the research and development activities that it feels must be pursued. Here again in the 1960's and early 1970's when Canada's research and development position was being analysed and studied it was found that the greatest percentage of the money was spent in government laboratories. In this regard we again were ninth out of the ten OECD nations. It was recognized as a serious problem, and the Ministry of State for Science and Technology declared its intention to reverse the situation. It felt it had enough muscle within cabinet to effect change.
In 1972 the Department announced a new policy called a "watershed". A press release from the then minister, now the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, stated, "The minister described the government's decision as a "watershed". The press release went on to indicate that henceforth the government would contract out its research to the private sector. It said it recognized that the closer research and development is to the marketplace and the people, the more likely it is to have a beneficial effect upon prices and the economy. The government felt that by contracting out, such a high percentage of the available money would not be spent "in house".
Let us look at the facts, Mr. Speaker. According to the government's own document, in 1971, 62.9 per cent of the total money spent by the government on research and development was spent in house, and the remainder was contracted out. In 1975, after the announcement that most of the research would be contracted out, the percentage rose to 65.1 per cent. The government had gone in the opposite direction. Can we trust the government that does this? MOSST, I repeat, is a bust.
One of the background documents on the policy indicated that the onus would be on departments and agencies to demonstrate a valid reason why research and development could not or should not be conducted in industry. Has that happened, Mr. Speaker? It most certainly has not. Just the opposite has happened. The percentage of the total amount of money spent by the government has increased.
Tomorrow we are to discuss in committee the bill to establish Petro-Canada, the national petroleum company, which is to be a new agency to do research and development. The number two reason given by the Minister for its establishment was that it is to do research and development. But the government is doing exactly the opposite to what it says is its policy. Can the government be trusted? I do not think so. The facts speak for themselves.
Exasperation with government policy led the Senate committee to state in its third report on Canadian science and technology:
After several years of analysis, the time has now come for decision and action.
The Ministry of State for Science and Technology, the Science Council, and the committee have, in their different ways and within a broad consensus, helped to prepare the over-all design and the detailed
Science and Technology
blueprint. The government must now act as quickly as possible to eliminate uncertainty and provide Canada with the federal institutions and policies so badly needed to face the challenges posed by technology and science in the 1970's and in the long-term future. Let us make 1973 the year of decision on the broad and vital issues of science policy. A year of action, not reaction.
Considering that the chairman of the committee supports the government party, I do not think he can be accused of partisanship or of attempting to embarrass the government. What I just read must be taken as the legitimate expression of opinion of the chairman and the committee which, according to the rest of the world, has done a first-rate job in studying Canada's over-all scientific position. What has happened since that call for action? Nothing. Words have been spoken but, in substance, there has been nothing.
The throne speech of 1974, which was made shortly after the report was tabled, contains the following statement:
The development and use of technology is also essential to the government's approach to increasing national economic production. Steps will be taken to obtain greater returns from industrial research and development as well as technological innovation in Canada.
Scientific knowledge and its application is a keystone to meeting the challenges facing Canada, including those in the areas of food, energy or industrial development. The objective of the government's science policy is the rational generation and acquisition of scientific knowledge and the planned use of science and technology in support of national goals. The Ministry of State for Science and Technology will be developing national science objectives as a basis for exercising enhanced advisory and co-ordinating authority within the government. Two new granting councils will be formed .. .
The Ministry of State for Science and Technology was promised more authority. We were told there would be more action, and a new science policy would be brought in. What happened? In the 1974-75 fiscal year, research and development grants to industry totalled $124,653,000. In the 1975-76 fiscal year, after the speech from the throne had guaranteed more positive action, more thrust, and more importance for industrial research, research and development grants had fallen to $121,930,000; that figure is down $3 million or, in terms of 1974 dollars, down $15 million.
The facts fly right in the face of the statements which the government has made; they fly right in the face of its announced policy. For instance, in 1974 in-house government expenditures on research and development came to 64.3 per cent of the available budget; in 1975 in-house expenditures rose to 65.1 per cent. In other words, the government acted exactly contrary to its own policy.
Obviously the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Drury) has no authority to implement the policy which the cabinet said was to be the policy for Canada. Why? Why has this authority been denied, when research and development are so important for Canada? Why has not the cabinet been following its own directives? Why has this happened?
Part of the answer may be supplied in an article appearing in the April, 1973, edition of Maclean's magazine. David Spurgeon, author of the article quotes Dr. Robert Uffen, former chief science adviser to the cabinet and now Dean of Applied Science at Queen's University. According to the article, Dr. Uffen said:

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Science and Technology
The Prime Minister and his advisers see science and techonology as instruments of political manoeuvring, both domestically and in international affairs.
Dr. Uffen goes on to say:
Meanwhile the government's professionals-official advisers and public servants-were caught in the middle. They were supposed to stay out of sight and not usurp the responsibilities of their ministers, and having mostly been brought up in an older tradition and having been superbly trained in their own fields, they were content to do so. But they found that they were working for a government that did not have the same traditions.
Thus the professionals in science and technology were ignored while the politicians of science and the dilettantes were listened to. 'We were skated into the board,' one of those professionals told me. 'We were used as window dressing so that it could be said the government had all the right machinery. But real decisions were made elsewhere.'
That is exactly what happened. The government sensed that the public expected action in science and technology, and the Ministry of State for Science and Technology was established. But it was window dressing. The government made sure the minister had no muscle. It made sure the ministry could not disrupt the inherent purpose of science and technology, as the government saw it; the government wanted science and technology to be a tool which it could manoeuvre for its political ends. That is part of the political style of this government. It indulges in window dressing, cosmetics, manoeuvring, but not in actions which would lead to substantial benefits down the road. It does nothing if the benefits are over the horizon and not immediately available to provide political rewards.
The government gives short shrift to any long-term objective. A science policy, like an industrial strategy, involves a commitment over the long-term to do what is right, rather than what is popular. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the government have demonstrated admirably that they do not think the country should be going that way. If there is not some political advantage to be gained immediately, they are not interested. They do not want to fall into the trap of a science policy or industrial strategy which in the long-term might limit their options to do the popular thing. Such a course might limit their flexibility and force them to take decisions which are not popular today but are in the interests of our country tomorrow, and therefore are necessary in the longer run.
The throne speech of 1974 which announced that the Minister of State for Science and Technology was to be given more authority was a put-on, a charade. It was basically dishonest with the people. After all, what did we get after the election? A part-time minister was appointed. Yes, after the election we got a part-time minister. Soon after the minister was appointed I asked the acting prime minister of the day, the Prime Minister not being in the House, when the ministry was to be headed by a full-time minister, since the subject of science and technology deserved the attention of a full-time minister. The acting prime minister of the day indicated that he could think of no one who was more capable or better qualified to do the job than the current, part-time acting Minister of State for Science and Technology.
How competent and knowledgeable is the minister? On April 25, 1975, the hon. member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse) directed the following question to the minister, as recorded at page 5207 of Hansard:

Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that Canada had a net trade deficit of almost $7 billion in the field of high technology products last year, which is three times the loss of four years ago, and there is every indication that this year's figures will be even worse, I should like to ask the Minister of Science and Technology what steps the government plans to take to increase research and development in order to create the challenging jobs presently required by Canadians?
The Minister of State for Science and Technology replied:
Mr. Speaker, in general terms there has been a substantial increase, as an examination of the estimates will show in the various incentives designed to increase Canada's activity and capacity in the field of high technology. In addition to that, we have under way a series of studies in high technology fields, for example the programs being launched by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and perhaps also by the Minister of Communications in the field of satellites.
What are the facts? The Minister of State for Science and Technology says that in 1974-75 there was $124,653,000 devoted for research and development grants. For 1975-76 this has fallen to $121,930,000, a drop of $2.5 million. That is not a substantial increase under any measure. It is exactly the opposite.
Was the minister deliberately misleading the House, or did he not know? I do not think there is a charitable interpretation to those options. Both are terribly damning; deliberately misleading or not knowing. He is the minister who is responsible for science and technology, and he does not know. If the government is sincere, and there is good reason to doubt it in terms of its commitment to a science policy for Canada, we must have a full-time minister for this important portfolio.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Harvie Andre: This minister and the ministry must get the authority promised in the throne speech of 1974. We can no longer tolerate the government going in exactly the opposite direction to its stated policies, which has been happening in science and technology.
We must adopt a firm and enforceable science policy. That can only be done with a minister who has authority. It has to be started soon. If not, then MOSST should be disbanded now. The estimates are nearly $4 million. That is a waste of money if the government does not intend to give that ministry the authority to do what it is supposed to do.
Stop this charade. Stop fooling the Canadian people. Disband MOSST. Then we will be able to look at what is happening.
I see Your Honour is about to rise. It is near the end of my allotted time of a half hour. I will not presume on the House and go beyond that time. However, I want to state, and I am most sincere in this statement, that it is about time MOSST did something and that we had a strong minister, or it is time to stop this charade and disband it.
I want the record to show we realize that the expenditures for science and technology are of a long-term nature. There are no immediate political benefits to gain. Looking at the press gallery, we can see there is not a great deal of interest to the Canadian public. It is not a headline grabber. Maybe that is the trouble. However, it is important. The Conservative party set aside one of the few days
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where we have control over the House business to discuss this important subject. That is because the Progressive Conservative party has a commitment to the long-term good of Canadians and not just to tomorrow's headlines or next year's political votes.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. C. M. Drury (Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, as a part-time minister, I listened with full-time interest to the remarks of the mover of the motion. While I can agree with a large part of what he has said in relation to the importance of science and technology, I would question a bit the basis on which he draws his conclusions regarding the motivation, both of the Ministry of Science and Technology and of the government itself.
In particular the hon. member cited as evidence of government non-support and non-encouragement of the development of high technology in Canada the single program of PAIT grants. Because these are about the same this year as last, he has reached the conclusion that all other programs have similarly suffered a decrease. On examination of the record, a record that I will be glad to provide to the hon. member later, I think he will find that the conclusions he has drawn are fallacious.
If there are any who have failed up to now to recognize the importance of science and technology in the life of Canada, as the mover has mentioned, the fact that we are debating them here today in opposition time should, I feel, remove any final doubts.
I cannot, in the short time available to me, attempt any worthwhile survey of all the important issues in science and technology that confront us. The scientific and technological ramifications of any one issue, energy production and use, for example, could scarcely be adequately covered within the total time available to us for this debate. Instead let me home in on one or two matters of general interest, matters which I know to be of concern to the scientific community and which, from the wording of today's motion, I take to be of concern to members on the other side of the House.
There are three questions that I hear rather regularly: When are we going to have a science policy? Why is the government decreasing its support of basic science? What is the science ministry doing? I have heard those questions repeated, perhaps in less clear terms, earlier this afternoon. These three questions are closely related and I hope that what I am going to say will help clear the air on all three of them.
The concept of a single all-embracing science policy has been current in government circles in the western world for at least two decades. Governments, our own included, have intuitively felt that if only they could articulate a single science policy, all sorts of science related problems such as pollution and energy shortage would become easier to resolve.
While this notion of a single grand plan for science may be aesthetically appealing, in practice it simply does not work. Science policy is a meaningful concept only if you are prepared to accept that it is in actual fact made up of three separate and distinct entities-first, policy for sup-
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port of science, that is to say, support for the acquisition of knowledge and the development of the capability for research and understanding; second, policy for the application of scientific and technological resources; that is to say, a policy for the wise, economic and co-ordinated use of our limited resources of knowledge, skilled manpower and scientific facilities; third, science in policy, a term we use to describe the scientific input to the development of public policy at the strategic level.
I feel that some of the confusion and disquiet that have surrounded the issue of support for basic science have been due to failure to differentiate between the first two types of policy, policy for support of science and policy for its application.
To the scientist engaged in pure research stemming from his own curiosity, knowledge-science itself-is the objective. To the user of science, be it government or the private sector, science is a tool that may be used in conjunction with other tools to achieve practical objectives. Science is not, in the latter case, an end in itself.
The federal government supports curiosity motivated basic research because such research is basic to the maintenance of our scientific capability and the strength of our academic system, second because it contributes to the world's store of knowledge, which we all share, and finally, because such activity, like the arts, enhances and enriches the cultural life of the nation.
Over the long term there will undoubtedly be a cause and effect relationship between such research and marketable goods and services. Such a connection is, however, seldom predictable in advance. It is hard to prove in specific terms that Canada's societal and economic future will depend on the support of pure science.
There have been representations from the academic community to the effect that the government is not supporting basic research in the universities as strongly as it used to and that, as a consequence, Canada's strength in basic science is being allowed to decay.
Some critics have pointed out that the NRC's budget for grants has not been growing as fast as it used to and that, with inflation forcing up the cost of research, the researcher is finding it hard to get the support he needs.
I recognize there are real problems but I think we should bear one or two points in mind.
During the sixties, federal contributions to university research increased at an annual rate of about 20 per cent, and there was also an increase in contributions from the provinces. To have maintained this growth rate would have created serious distortions in the academic as well as other sectors.
When NRC was established in 1916 the primary requirement was to develop a strong science base in Canada, primarily in the universities. This could well be said to have been Canada's science policy for the first half of this century. It was a most successful policy and we now have strong science facilities and graduate schools, excellent scientific laboratories and equipment, and an enviable reputation in international science circles.

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Science and Technology
We have to maintain this strength and it is the government's clear intention to do so. We must, however, accept the fact that our priorities change over the years. The drive toward basic science excellence has succeeded. This must now give way to other more pressing priorities though obviously the maintenance of basic science excellence remains within our objective. Today our main problem is the harnessing of the acquired potential to the development of a strong indigenous technology in our industry.
I agree that the question of support for university research needs review and that account should be taken of the effects of rising prices. As hon. members will be aware, we have increased the university grants budget of the NRC as well as those of MRC and Canada Council for 1975-76 by 17.8 per cent over the budget for 1974-75. This will not silence our critics, but I feel it demonstrates a realistic appreciation by the government of the realities of the situation.
I have been asked why the government wants to separate the granting of natural sciences function from the NRC and the granting of social sciences from the Canada Council. There is no mystery about this. We feel that in the evolution of both the NRC and the Canada Council the time has been reached at which their responsibilities in other areas demand their full attention.
The granting function which has been so successful in supporting the achievement of scientific excellence should, in our view, begin to take account of other factors such as the future demand for highly qualified manpower in Canada, the changing disciplines in particular, interdisciplinary efforts, and to the extent possible and practical, equitable distribution among the various regions of Canada.
Put simply, we want to achieve p balanced development of knowledge and research capability in all fields of science and technology. For this reason we propose introducing a more unified and co-ordinated granting structure. The change will not detract from the influence or prestige of either the NRC or the Canada Council. We look to the former to have a major influence in the development of our industrial technological base as well as research into problems which, because of the scale of facilities required or because of time frames, are inappropriate for non-governmental bodies. The Canada Council will continue its invaluable support of the performing arts.
The science ministry was born in the midst of a wide-ranging debate on the role of science in government and in the aftermath of several major studies of Canada's science organization.


Mr. Ellis:: It wasn't born, it was hatched.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: I suggest we continue the discussion in scientific terms that are scientifically, biologically correct ones.
The ministry does not have the traditional sources of authority in government but it will exert its influence through knowledge, persuasion, and advice. It is a low-profile organization whose influence will not be detected

in individual issues so much as in the general trend of government policy and action in science.
I spoke earlier of the third type of science policy- science in policy. This is an area where I anticipate the ministry having increasing impact. The future holds many problems of a highly complex nature in areas such as food supply, energy, pollution, depletion of resources, and urban congestion. This government-or any other for that matter-will find itself increasingly dependent on a well organized and analyzed scientific input to long range strategy. I consider this to be an important role for MOSST.
There is no decline in Canada's scientific and technological effort. The emphasis is shifting, I hope, toward growth in the application of science rather than the acquisition of knowledge, but in total I feel that our science and technology are healthy and ready to aid us in meeting the future. If we have a problem in relation to science it is in deciding where to put our money. Scientists and engineers can tell us what the options are, but it is the cost of these options rather than the technological difficulty that gives us our biggest headache.


Max Saltsman: First, Mr. Speaker, I should like to express my appreciation to the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) for having initiated this debate on science. As he says, it is not a thing which the press of the country seems to be most interested in, yet it is one of the most important things facing the country as far as its future is concerned.
The hon. member for Calgary Centre seemed to be concerned that the present minister is not a full-time minister. Perhaps he should be grateful for that-the damage might have been even more extensive than it is if he were a full-time minister. I might say I have a high personal regard for the honourable and gallant minister. However, he has an unfortunate history of going down and being called the great liquidator. It seems to me the government brings him in every time it is ready to liquidate a department, or has reached the conclusion that it does not want a department to do anything.
Although the hon. member for Calgary Centre may not recall it, the present minister was once the Minister of Industry. I believe he was the first when that department was set up, and I think he was also the last. It occurs to me we are in danger of seeing the same kind of tactic repeated with the Ministry of Science as we saw with the defunct Department of Industry. I am not going to say this is the fault of the present minister because I do not think it is; I will not impute the blame to him. That would be too easy. It is the fault of the government, and its complete failure to give any sense of direction as to the way in which industry and science should go.
You cannot make any decisions about science or have a science policy if you do not have a clear notion about the kind of industrial policy you should be following. It is the failure by the cabinet to adopt an industrial policy which has brought failure in the field of science policy. The government has never developed an industrial strategy. Whenever the government has been questioned on what its industrial strategy is, it replies, "There is no point in thinking about an industrial strategy; we have a whole
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series of strategies in place. Some of them we do not even know about, some have not even been yet, and some we perhaps should not use." This is the kind of science policy we have which parallels the chaotic thinking of the government in regard to industrial strategy.
I sometimes wish the government had devoted a portion of the resources that have been poured in to the Prime Minister's office to industrial strategy and planning, and in giving some thought as to where this country is going. In this way perhaps we could have a planned program for parliament, with planning for the next election, and then these little flow charts in this office might tell us where we are going, when legislative items should become effective, and what kind of goodies we can expect before the next election. If the government had devoted a portion of its thinking to trying to figure out where this country is going, perhaps we would not be in the kind of mess we are in today.
Admittedly, when you look at the rest of the world and at Canada it is not obvious that we are in a mess. This country is pretty prosperous compared to many other countries, but with our inflation and our level of unemployment we are living off the fat that nature provided our country. The question that arises is, what happens when that fat is used up and we do not have the gas, oil, or iron ore any more? Will there be enough brains in this country to enable us to do some thinking, instead of just extracting things out of the ground and living off them as we have been doing?
We have created a kind of welfare state. I have always been in favour of a welfare state. The reason I, and others like myself, have wanted the kind of underpinnings that come from unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and family allowances, is that with that kind of background the government would be able to innovate, be adventurous, and get the country into existing and new fields while ensuring that the security of human beings was being looked after. This government has not done that. It has been satisfied to live on with the welfare state, and we have had the natural resources to do that. We have been living off those natural resources. I guess the minister could say, like Louis XIV, "After me, the flood. In my time we are all going to be all right."


Stanley Howard Knowles: I think it was "the deluge".


Max Saltsman: Let us be correct about it. I would not want this reference applied to the minister unless it were absolutely accurate. So we have an "after me the deluge" liquidator minister. This is a serious kind of indictment that is being made and I am surprised that the minister would undertake this kind of onerous and unsavory role, sitting as head of this department.
I think it was a great and excellent idea of former Prime Minister Pearson, who should be commended for what he was trying to do. He came to the conclusion that industry was suffering as a result of its association with trade and commerce, and that a new ministry should be created and devoted to industry in order to give industry the kind of
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attention it required. He realized that in the future we were going to need a separate ministry of industry.
This new department was created and the government went on a great manhunt, recruiting some of the most able people in the country from industry and government to staff this department. These people then sat around but did nothing because they were not told what to do, and they did not know what to do. They went around pleading for something to do. They wanted to do something. They finally reached the point where, in the absence of government direction and in the absence of any kind of national plan, set of priorities, or anything else to do, they sat around scratching each other, doing crossword puzzles, or doing something else. They certainly were not working because there was nothing for them to do. Finally the whole idea was liquidated, and it was the responsibility of the present minister to accomplish this.
Now we have a different thing. We have a new minister and a new Department of Science and Technology. We had a full-time minister before, but that did not make any difference. From time to time somebody in that department would drop a hint that hon. members should ask questions about the department in the House in order that the department would get some attention. These people want things to happen because no one seems to care enough about the department to even criticize.
The department is being totally neglected. No one pays it any attention. The money is being spread around because no one wants to upset anybody in Canada. The money is being spread evenly throughout the whole science community in Canada, but no attention is being paid to what is or is not a priority. If you have a lot more money than Canada has, I guess you can shunt money around this way, giving a little bit to everybody. It helps to support everybody and really amounts to a bit of scientific welfare, but nothing more than that. It keeps people happy and does not get them mad at the government, but it does not produce any results. It cannot produce results. All it produces is frustration, but helps no one because no one has any idea where the country is going in this area of science and technology. This is the kind of situation we are facing.
As I said, we are not going to go down the drain tomorrow because we are still not out of natural resources. We can go on living off those natural resources for some time yet. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner), now supported by the minister of industry, says the reason we are in trouble and the reason our exports of finished products are falling off is because labour rates in Canada have gone up. That is nonsense. I am sure that increased labour rates have contributed in some way, but the point is that the imbalance results from our pre-occupation with the exportation of natural resources and raw or unfinished materials.
In order to help out the rest of the world we have a responsibility in this area of exportation of raw materials, and it makes some sense to continue a certain amount of this, but this is always at the expense of our own manufacturing industry. There is a simple equation involved here which somehow or other no one seems to be able to get through his head. You cannot do two things simultaneously; that is, you cannot increase your exports and decrease

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your imports at the same time. To the extent that you increase your exports you have to increase your imports. This is a nation that imports more finished goods per capita than any other nation in the world. What good is that?
Trade is good as long as you get some benefit from it. If all you are doing is depleting something you cannot replace, and living off the fat of the land, that is not doing much good. This is essentially the kind of policy we have been pursuing. No one seems to be willing to understand that simple equation, or that you must make some kind of a choice as to what kind of a country you want to be. We have not made that choice, so the natural thing is to follow the easiest course, selling off our raw materials, leaving the other side of the matter alone, hoping things will work out. They have not worked out. Let me give one example.
Most of us have received a brief from the Canadian electronics industry, pointing out the serious situation that industry is in now. The brief pointed out how the Canadian market has been declining. As a matter of fact, this industry in Canada is not even getting its share of any increase in demand in the Canadian market. This is an important industry, and the government recognized its importance by pumping something like $37 million into Microsystems in an effort to get that industry started. This was on the advice of the Bell Telephone subsidiary, Northern Electric. This did not work out, and we still do not know why.
Perhaps the reason it did not work out is the reason which has been put forward by the government, that it was just not in the cards. Perhaps the reason is, as Northern Electric has put forward, that they just cannot make a go of it. In any event, we really do not know what is the reason.
In a speech the other day Mr. Pollock, of Electrohome, pointed out something that has been pointed out in every single report on this Canadian industry. He said we require a rationalization of industry, and that this is a requirement not only of this industry but of every other industry as well.
Where is the rationalization on the part of the government? Quite to the contrary, I suggest that in respect of the rubber industry, the electronics industry and others, all the government has done is use DREE grants and other incentive programs to proliferate the number of firms in each field to the point that none can survive.
This brief from the electronics industry asked members of parliament to support an increase in tariff protection, in other words, to go back to a policy of 100 or 110 years ago. I suggest that you really cannot protect an industry by increasing tariffs. This may provide a temporary solution, but any industry that has been in existence for 60 years and still requires high tariff protection has something basically wrong with it.
What is wrong is that the structure of that industry is abysmal, and the government has made no attempt to do anything about it. One reason the structure is so bad is that so much of it is foreign-owned. It is almost impossible for any rationalization to take place because of that. In spite of that, however, if there were any indications that

the government had a program or a plan, even that could be overcome.
I am personally acquainted with many people in industry in my riding, and I am impressed with their intelligence. They understand, but the government does not seem to understand. So the elimination of the rubber and tire industry will continue and the Minister of Finance will say it is all because of high labour rates. These industries were going down before labour rates started going up. These industries have always been going down regardless of labour rates. That is not the problem. I am sure it may be a contributing factor in some cases, but it is ridiculous to blame the problem of industrial development on labour.
I am asking the members of the Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs to take the initiative and bring the question of Microsystems before the committee. I am asking them to approach the government and request such a reference. This is not designed to embarrass the government or embarrass Northern Electric. The purpose is to find out what is happening and why we have such failures in this country when it comes to developing secondary industry. I would hope the members of the committee to whom I have written, and members who have Ottawa constituencies, will give me their support so that we can have a sort of all-party look at the kind of thing that is happening to our society or to our industry generally.
I get tired of the sort of simple-minded answers in which the Minister of Finance blames everyone and everything. Sometimes he calls it disruption in the United States, and sometimes he relates it to international events. It is always something else. His latest bete noire is labour. I suggest that he should look at government policies. However, this would appear to be a party which does not believe in planning. It does not believe in doing anything until it is struck by a disaster.
We had the same situation in respect of energy. It was not until we were faced with an energy shortage that someone in the Liberal government got off his rear end and started to do something about it. It is ridiculous that in this country, with such fantastic surpluses, we went into a winter in which we nearly ran out of heating oil, had to buy oil at a fantastic price and, like a squirrel does with nuts, put it away in case we should run out of fuel. That is a terrible indictment of a government's inability to look further than the tip of its nose at any given time.
I want to say something about the Microsystems situation. I said I hoped I would receive co-operation from the members of the committee in respect of the point I am trying to make about the importance of reviewing the reason for the loss of Microsystems. There may be perfectly good reasons about which we cannot do anything, but what about the rest of the electronics industry? Will that also go down the drain after all the money that has been invested? We have poured money into every electronic company in one way or another.
I have no quarrel with Northern Electric. I think in many ways it is one of the most innovative companies in this country. It carries out much valuable research. However, there is something wrong either in respect of the advice this government is receiving or the kind of fore-
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sight it uses when it can put $37 million into a firm and then have it go down the drain. When it goes down the drain it is surrounded by rumour that the government wanted it to go down, that it was not willing to do certain things, and that it believed there was no future in the electronics industry. What happened at first? Why did the government not see this to begin with?
I do not think one can see anything clearly unless one has some idea where a thing fits. In one's personal life one must have some set of rules or attitudes, regardless of what the minister uttered today when he said it is much better not to have any rules-I hope I am paraphrasing him accurately-not to have any rigid plan, or any sort of program for the future, but that the best thing is to handle each problem as it comes along.
That is a tremendous recipe for chaos-handle each problem when it comes along-especially in a world as complex as our own and in a society as complex as the one in which we live. Probably the chances are that a lot of the investment, planning, and work will have to be done by the government, but unless some of this planning is done there is no future either in science or in the development of secondary industry.
If members look back, including members of the Progressive Conservative Party, they will recall that virtually all the major and important industrial and scientific investment that took place in this country was public investment. It was only when a government was aroused to the urgency of a situation that we were able to get the kind of investment necessary both for industry and for science.


Mr. Andre Fortin (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, like the previous speaker, I wish to congratulate the sponsor of this supply motion blaming the government for the lack of a meaningful policy in the field of science and technology.
Mr. Speaker, it is an unfortunate fact, but a fact that must be viewed realistically. It cannot really be said that in Canada, our scientific future, our technological development is ensured by the leadership of the federal government in this area. Previous studies have already listed the government's achievements in the field of science and technology but the findings published relating to science policies in Canada are still on the shelves. Those studies are gathering dust and there again, nothing is forthcoming.
This motion introduced by the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) brings up again many issues, Mr. Speaker, contrary to what it says. On the one hand, this motion blames the government for the lack of a meaningful policy, but on the other hand, it urges it to take effective financial and other measures with regard to technological and scientific research in Canada in order to help the Canadian people.
Mr. Speaker, as I do not wish to take too much of the time of the House, I shall only put a few questions to the minister. In matters of science and technology development in Canada, no matter what we are doing presently in that field, a question comes immediately to mind: automa-
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tion is here to stay and we cannot go back to the pick and shovel era in order to provide jobs for all workers in Canada. Then, the machine is going to replace man more and more in primary, secondary or service industries. Has this government which, according to the minister, has a meaningful science policy and has set up an income security mechanism for the individual that will be progressively replaced by machines, looking into the impact of science on human beings, on the Canadian people?
I think this is a high priority and, to my knowledge, this government has no income security policy. Furthermore, as the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) said recently, full employment has now become a hang-up in Canada, a kind of slavery. No matter what you do, the important thing is to work to justify an income, which is exactly the opposite if what the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Drury) said earlier.
An income mechanism must be provided. I shall not dwell on this. I should like to remind the minister who is now listening to me to read Hansard. Quite recently, the Social Credit Party introduced a motion urging industries to establish profit-sharing schemes for the benefit of their workers, precisely to increase our production and improve its quality. Such mechanisms will have to be set up where man is replaced by machines. Everyone knows that we are going towards a leisure society or civilization and that work is not an end in itself but only a means, even though a very small one, to obtain an income.
In my constituency, as in others Mr. Speaker, there are many industries. In my constituency, the major industries are furniture and textile factories. We also have an extremely important foundry, the Sainte-Croix Foundry. There are many other industries, including boat and mobile home factories, but the major industries manufacture textiles and furniture.
The minister is certainly aware that such industries employ a very large number of workers and that those are the industries which would profit most from technology and scientific research.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, as I have often said in this House, when I speak to industrialists in my constituency I find that every one of them complains about the lack of support or advice from the government and government specialists to improve their production, not necessarily as concerns quantity, but as concerns quality. Those industrialists would like to modernize their plants, improve their production and equipment. The government, instead of dealing with this problem, instead of really promoting research, avoided the problem and through a department it set up-that of Regional Economic Expansion-grants a subsidy to the plant to modernize or expand. That does not necessarily mean, Mr. Speaker, that the quality of production will be improved or diversified since those subsidies are only granted as a first criteria on the number of jobs created and not necessarily on the quality of production.
I think an effort could be made within the Department of Regional Economic Expansion to use those subsidies, at least in part, to encourage in each plant research departments designed to increase production, both with regard to quality and quantity, and particularly to diversify it. Several plants produce without necessarily having a

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chance to diversify their products, so that we are up against tough competition sometimes from abroad. One only has to look, for example, at what the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce has been facing for the last two months-the Textile and Clothing Board that is to inquire into imports that prejudice our own production.
The minister takes action belatedly after the Canadian Textile and Clothing Board has temporarily suspended a specific kind of import, and I think it was polyester or cotton fiber. But as it suspends through the Canadian Textile and Clothing Board imports of a certain kind, no department, let alone Science and Technology, is going to help the injured industries to improve their production so as to compete with those imports in the future. In other words, open competition is hampered because we lack a meaningful policy on science and technology. One can no longer say, especially because of the cost of labour, that Canadian industry can compete with foreign industry. And yet that is the most money, labour, and investments are to be found.
Mr. Speaker, I think this country should have a science policy that already exists and is not left on the shelves in countless reports without ever being implemented. There is also something else I wanted to tell the minister. The department, contrary to what my New Democrat colleague thinks, is a constant source of disappointment to me-it is nonchalant yet, it is responsible for science, technology and public works. I will give you an example: shipping in the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Some may say, Mr. Speaker, that this has nothing to do with the motion before us. I only need a minute to show that it is quite the opposite. As regards shipping on the St. Lawrence, at the beginning, following the dredging of the river, transportation was done by ships up to the Montreal harbour and to the Great Lakes. But those ships did not have the same tonnage as today's ships nor the same speed. As a consequence, in 1975 there were serious damage and landslides endangering even the life of some of our fellow citizens along the river, especially on the south shore. As far as transportation is concerned, those are technological consequences related to inspectors and studies under the jurisdiction of this famous minister.
Several times I asked the minister to conduct a scientific study on the impact of shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway because of higher speed due to ships of greater tonnage. Thanks to the experts of his department, the co-called engineers and the so-called experts, it was discovered that the erosion of the shoreline had nothing to do with shipping. But, last week, that same minister admitted publicly that a study was being made. How much land will be lost along the shoreline before the department finally takes action? How many victims of such idleness will there be before this obsolete policy is reviewed on the advice of the departmental technicians and engineers?
The motion introduced by the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) concludes thus, and I quote:
... science policy ... thereby contributing to the long-term benefit of both Canadians and the Canadian economy.
That is what I understood. I understood, Mr. Speaker, that we have the know-how, the engineers and probably the goodwill also. But the delays and the awkwardness of the government are such that today people are deeply

affected. The minister cannot claim that he does not have enough experts around him to assess the impact of shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway. After all, this is an extremely important source of revenue and I wonder why the matter is overlooked. It is an implication or an application of knowledge which is today much more developed in science or technology.
Mr. Speaker, this is one of the examples that I wanted to give today to remind the minister of the urgent need for action. Whole properties have practically slipped into the St. Lawrence at Deschaillons. We have sent about ten letters to the minister. Not only does he not answer, but he refers to an answer he gave me two years ago. It means, Mr. Speaker, that neither the minister nor his experts have made any progress in the last two years. As I said before, how many victims will there have to be? I may be not very learned, but I believe that the use of science and technology is one exemple.
Mr. Speaker, every member could speak of the impact of the research made by the government in various fields and left unused. The improved condition of society, the respect for the human being, the improvement of a community or the development of a civilization more free, more respectful of human elements, a civilization commonly called "a leisure civilization" require the sharing or the co-operation of all private and public groups so that we may enjoy the benefits of the advance of science. Otherwise, it is useless to look for new techniques, to improve our production or the quality of our products, if finally the people do not profit by it.
Mr. Speaker, this government is probably striving to develop a meaningful science policy. But with my experience of seven years in this House with the minister, even if he were to announce this afternoon a sensational science policy, I would ask for proof that the experts in his department are not there for the sole purpose of getting pay cheques or enjoying job security, but to truly serve the interests of the people. I would simply remind the minister of shipping problems and their implications for the St. Lawrence Seaway. If he solves them, I will then say he means what he says.
If the rules allowed it, I would be very happy to table what I call stupid answers by the minister as far as shipping is concerned. This stands to show how much I am serious today. This may not be as important to every member here, but as far as I am concerned it is, because we have there a tremendous resource.
Scientists from the department came to set up oceanographical apparatus and all kinds of scientific equipment. They even came to install machines to check whether erosion is caused by the tide or shipping, which they placed more than 3,000 feet away from the shoreline when the ships sail closer to the shore. Therefore, their report shows that shipping has no impact on shore damage.
If the minister calls that scientific work, he who is Minister of Science and Technology, I shall certainly question what he says this afternoon. Mr. Speaker, to my mind, that point is extremely important. I appeal to the goodwill of the minister, if he has any left: let him prove, once and for all, that he is really the minister responsible for the development, advancement and progress of science and technology in Canada, and not merely a minister who
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stifles the hopes of Canadians who want to benefit from that science and technology. We must evolve towards the betterment of our society.
Of course, efforts are being made. But what do we do, for instance, at the university level to encourage research? I have a document in my office, that was tabled here in the House, and which inevitably brings us to pose very serious questions on that point. In any event, Mr. Speaker, I express the hope that the minister will not only propose to the House a meaningful policy encouraging the support, financial and otherwise, of scientific and technical research but also consider with his government the methods which will enable human beings to live in spite of automation, since, as I said before, automation is here to stay. On the other hand, I feel that this minister must create an image in this House to prove his seriousness with regard to the administration of his department and particularly public works.


Mr. Frank Maine (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to draw the attention of hon. members to the critical position Canada is in as an international trading partner. This situation has come about because of the nature of our exports and imports. Canada has been able throughout her history to maintain a favourable balance of trade through the exportation of raw materials, products which contain no high technology input. Since the second world war agricultural products and raw materials have been forming a steadily decreasing proportion, not only of Canadian, but also of world trade.
Regardless of what we do in Canada, there is no doubt but that the world will orient itself toward the production of goods which contain a larger component of knowledge relative to the components of materials and semi skilled and unskilled labour. This trend will be accelerated as it becomes increasingly important that we moderate our use of natural resources.
An examination of Canada's past performance in technology intensive industries and of recent trends in our economic development is not particularly encouraging. First, on a per capita basis Canada is among the world's leading net exporters of raw materials and among the leading net importers of manufactured products.
Second, of seven technology based industrial sectors identified by the OECD as being of primary importance, Canada has the largest over-all net trade deficit of the seven taken collectively, and also the largest, or almost the largest deficit in each sector taken individually.
Third, of 12 minerals in which Canada ranks as one of the world's leading producers and exporters in the ore or primary refined forms, it is a net importer of the fabricated or processed forms in ten cases and a net exporter of the fabricated forms in only two.
Fourth, among OECD countries only Ireland has a smaller proportion than Canada of its work force employed in the secondary sector.
Fifth, among ten countries compared by the OECD for their performance in technological innovation, Canada ranked in the tenth and last position.
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Sixth, Canada has a huge trade deficit in the category of management and technological services. Our deficit of trade in business services in engineering oriented industries is over $1 billion per year. Another indication of the extent of our dependence upon technology imports is in the findings of a study by the Professional Engineers of Ontario in which they report that Canada literally imports millions of pounds of engineering drawings each year.
In addition, recent trends in industrial research and development expenditures indicate that our industrial technological capability may be declining. Since 1969 research and development expenditures in Canadian industry have remained essentially constant at about $400 million per year, resulting in a substantial decline in the research and development to sales ratio. This has occurred during a period when the federal contribution was increasing. Industry's share of the gross expenditure on research and development has been declining steadily, from a high of 44 per cent in 1965 to 35 per cent in 1972, the latest year for which figures are available. Canada spends from two to five times less on industrial research than do the major countries of Europe, Japan and the United States.
It is this industrial research and development with which we must become concerned, as opposed to government and university research and development, because that activity is more readily translated into dollars and cents, thus increasing our gross national product. Our prime goal, therefore, should be to translate more of this research into commercial practice. There are two major impediments to accomplishing this in Canada on a large scale: the nature of the ownership of much of our industry, which is dominated by foreign controlled branch plants; and the lack of venture or risk capital available.
The best way to sell new technology is to solve a customer's particular problem. This is a very expensive and time consuming process involving trials and the development of prototypes before any sales occur. The area of market research has attracted little government consideration until recently, although the importance of this component of the innovation process is self-evident. There is no sense in performing the basic research and development if this work is not eventually going to be translated into earnings.
As I mentioned, the fact that Canada has a branch plant economy provides a large part of the answer to the present unfavourable trade position we find ourselves in with regard to high technology content products. The proportion of foreign ownership in the higher technology manufacturing industries places a severe handicap on the re-orientation of international trade, the goal toward which we should be striving.
Although it is true that much technology is transferred to Canada by foreign-owned subsidiaries, this technology almost always follows its development by the parent company in a foreign country, thus severely limiting our potential for world leadership in that area. While this is particularly true when research, development and design remain in the control of the foreign parent, recent experience with the United Aircraft Corporation shows the

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speed with which an entire technology can be removed following a decision taken by the board of a foreign company, even when the development has taken place in Canada.
Foreign ownership of resource industries tends to require Canadian-produced raw materials to remain at an early stage of processing until after export to the parent company, for the Canadian subsidiary's function in the over-all company structure is often to secure the source of raw materials only. A Canadian owned company would think, or could be more easily induced to think in terms of further processing so that the product entered the manufactured category.
Furthermore, it is common practice for a subsidiary of a foreign company to have restrictions placed on the export markets that it may enter. These restrictions can only help to limit Canadian exports of higher technology. In order to develop our capacity to capture our share of the market in high technology industries, it is essential that we improve our capacity for technological innovation. We must become a country which is an important source of new technology. By doing this, our control by foreign multinational corporations will be diminished.
That we achieve this goal of becoming a significant source of new technology is important because of the natural attraction of other activities toward the centre of creative activity. Managers, designers, and engineers, like most other people, prefer to deal in familiar surroundings, and as a result they are more likely to interact with people in their geographic area than with people in other areas. For a variety of reasons, such as the greater ease of getting engineering samples if you have no borders to cross, the interactions are more likely to occur within the same country than between countries. It is this effect that explains why the purchasing of multinational corporations is biased in favour of the country in which the head office is located. The main technology centre is usually in the same country, and thus the potential suppliers have a much better opportunity to establish early contact and early competence.
It has been shown that there is no better and more effective way to create a market for one's own labour force than through the sale of technology. Every penny of patent or licence income from a foreign country creates a market for up to a dollar's worth of goods from the country in which the new technology originated.
If Canada is to improve or even maintain its economic position, and to generate the kinds of job opportunities that Canadians expect in this changing economic environment, it is essential that we develop an enhanced capacity for innovation and a comprehensive technological capability.
We must find ways of giving positive encouragement to entrepreneurs, particularly by providing venture capital in areas other than new minerals or other natural resources.
Finally, we must create an environment which is conducive to the development of industrial units that generate the full range of activities needed to support a dynamic industry, from management, to engineering, to marketing.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I think the whole House was very interested and pleased to hear the hon. member for Wellington (Mr. Maine) make a very clear and able speech. It is an encouraging thing and a very refreshing thing to hear a member on the governement side speak so truthfully, so objectively, and to make sense. The hon. member for Wellington did all of these things and I congratulate him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


George Harris Hees: In the same vein as the hon. member for Wellington, Mr. Speaker, I intend to speak about research and development from the point of view of helping to make our products, particularly high technology and manufactured products-the ones that produce the jobs- more competitive, and thus enable us to sell in greater volume in Canada and abroad.
During the past three years we have been doing very badly indeed in the business of selling our products against foreign competition. In 1972, we had an adverse balance of trade in manufactured products alone of $4 billion; in 1973, we had an adverse balance of $6 billion, and last year this adverse balance had increased to $9.2 billion. The indications for the present year are that the deterioration which has been going on for the past three years is continuing at the same disastrous pace.
It is obvious that something must be done to reverse this disastrous trend which has contributed so greatly to our massive and rising unemployment today. One of the things that we can and must do is increase the amount of research and development in this country.
First of all, I suggest that we look at the amount of research and development carried on in the five major industrial countries which are our principal industrial competitors for world trade, and compare what they have done and are doing with what we are doing today. We get our information from the records of the OECD which reports each year on the percentage of each country's gross national product that it spends on industrial research and development.
The lastest available figures show that the United States spends 2.8 per cent of its GNP on research and development; the United Kingdom, 2.4 per cent; France, 1.9 per cent; West Germany, 1.7 per cent; Japan, 1.5 per cent, and Canada last with 1.3 per cent. The final figures have not been produced yet, however, and the ones I have given are the latest available. The indication is that our position today is considerably worse than the figures I have just given would indicate.
It is painfully obvious, Mr. Speaker, that if we are going to compete with these countries for the sales in Canada and in the world market which are so vital to our economic health, we must do at least as much research and development as they do and, more desirable still, we should do considerably more than they. That should be our objective. We must do this in order to lower our costs and thereby our selling prices, and also to improve the quality and design of our products so that we can sell more goods than our competitors can sell.
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Another important reason for doing more research and development in this country is that we want to be in a position to invite less foreign capital each year. In the past we have invited a great deal of foreign capital to this country because that capital, when it entered, brought with it much needed technology which we Canadians did not possess. If we can develop more of the technology we need by increasing research and development which will enable us to be competitive, we shall, of course, become increasingly less dependent on foreign capital. This decreased independence will bring about the situation to which we all devoutly subscribe, the situation in which we shall be able to own and control more of our development in Canada.
I have asked the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gillespie) several times in the House and in the Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs Committee to say what the government is doing to increase research and development undertaken in this country. The minister has always given the identical answer. He has simply mentioned a list of programs which the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce has been carrying out for a number of years, ever since it cancelled the excellent program which the previous Conservative government had introduced and which had been working very well. The previous government's programs had encouraged more research and development to be undertaken in this country.
As I say, each time, after being asked such questions, the minister has simply said, "Here is what we are doing." An answer like that may be satisfactory if the programs which the minister has been enunciating and mentioning every time I ask the question, do the job which must be done. If those programs had steadily increased research and development being undertaken in Canada, nobody would find fault with the government or with the minister in this regard.
However, it has become painfully clear, according to figures I gave today, and according to our trade performance which becomes worse month by month, that these programs simply have not done the job. They are simply inadequate for doing the job which must be done. Consequently research and development in Canada remains at a dangerously low level compared with research and development undertaken by our industrial competitors. Compared with what they are doing, our research and development effort is falling behind every month. Consequently our exports have been falling steadily and imports to this country rising steadily. People in other countries are taking more and more sales away from us.
What is the result of this? Canadians are finding fewer and fewer jobs. Because orders are not being placed by Canadians in Canada for Canadian goods, and by foreign buyers in other countries for Canadian goods, Canadian workmen cannot find jobs. The situation I have mentioned is the reason why 7.2 per cent of our work force is unemployed today. According to indications the new figures, when they are announced, will be considerably higher. I fear that the rate may go up to 8 per cent or perhaps 8.5 per cent this year. That is a shocking situation.
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The reason for what is happening is obvious. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the government refuse to face the necessity of introducing programs which will encourage more research and development. Such programs will bring our costs down and bring the quality and design of our goods up, thereby making it possible for Canadian producers to sell more Canadian goods in this country and abroad.
I have mentioned on several occasions in this House the sort of program we need, and I will repeat my suggestion, because only with repetition can one hope to persuade the government to do something which makes sense. In order to induce Canadian firms to undertake more research and development, we must make research and development attractive for them. We must make it attractive for them to do what is in their own best interest.
What is this incentive which I have spoken about over and over again? I suggest that we should allow industry each year to write off 200 per cent of the cost of current and capital expenditures on research and development. That write-off should be in excess of expenditures made in the base year, or the last full year before that program is introduced.
The benefits of such a program would be considerable. It would, in addition to allowing businessmen to write off the full cost of research and development in one year, put a considerable cash reward in the pockets of those companies undertaking such a program. We all know that nothing appeals to businessmen so much as the prospect of cold cash. If you make it worth a businessman's while, you will find that he will carry out such a program. Businessmen will do it if they find it worthwhile.
The program I mentioned did not just come into my mind. It is not an untried program. It has been tried many times, and has succeeded every time. It has succeeded in other countries, and succeeded in this country, when the government of which I was privileged to be a member introduced it. It was very successful and did the job which had to be done. I urge the government to adopt such a program as soon as possible.
In conclusion, I say to the minister responsible for science and technology, to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, and to other members of the government, get your heads up out of the sand; realize what is going on; realize that our competitors are making us look foolish. They are coming to Canada and taking orders away from us every day. Every day they are taking away orders from us in the export market, orders which should be ours and which would provide employment for Canadians. We are losing those orders because our products are not attractive enough from the point of view of price, quality, and design.
I have mentioned cold, hard facts, of which people in the business world are aware. Instead of thinking about these things, the government's thoughts are up in the clouds. Members of the government are thinking about the quality of living and other esoteric subjects on which the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) likes to dwell. He thinks about these things instead of dirtying his fingers with the hard, cold facts of industrial life in this country, facts which indicate that Canadians want to work instead of

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drawing something like $3 billion in unemployment insurance, which it is predicted they will draw this year.
Think of the incentives which can be made available to industry; think of what that $3 billion can do in inducing industry to do those things which are necessary, and thereby put people to work. Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada want to work. Only a very small number want to be idle. Most of the unemployed want to do a job. It is our responsibility to make it possible for them to have jobs, instead of dwelling in idleness, as so many are being forced to do today.
I suggest that the kind of program I alluded to will pay for itself many times over by providing work. The people in the work force will pay income tax instead of drawing unemployment insurance. The impact on the work force of Canada would be tremendous, as the program would enable people to work instead of remaining idle. With an incentive program of this kind, we can make our products lower in price, more attractive in design, better in quality, sell in greater volume, and produce more jobs for the Canadian people. For members of this House to aim at anything less should simply not be tolerated by the people of Canada.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: 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 Fundy-Royal (Mr. Fairweather)-National Parks-Fundy National Park- Request from Albert County Tourist Association to discuss entrance fee; the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie)-Post Office-Study recommending mail delivery be left with private contractors-Government position; the hon. member for Okanagan Boundary (Mr. Whittaker)-Consumers Affairs-Shortage of Mason jar lids in British Columbia-Government action.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Andre:
That this House deplores the continuing decline in Canada's scientific and technological effort and urges the government to adopt a meaningful science policy that will lead to increased industrial

research and development, increased scientific research and increased utilization of Canada's scientists and engineers, thereby contributing to the long-term benefit of both Canadians and the Canadian economy.
Mr. F. A. Philbrook (Halton):: Mr. Speaker, as a medical and pharmaceutical scientist with background in the university, professional and industrial settings, I am pleased to join the discussion today on science policy.
I have followed government involvement in this subject for many years with great interest. I believe that it is important, whether or not it forms a separate department, and that it must be well and acceptably co-ordinated with the community at large, especially the universities and industry.
As part of my general interest in this field I would like to address myself to three specific areas of personal interest and background, the first two briefly, the third in more detail-first, a national science policy for Canada; second, rationalization of Canadian research, and third, the Medical Research Council. I approach this last subject with due modesty because of the presence in the gallery of one of our most distinguished Canadian scientists, the head of the Medical Research Council, Dr. Malcolm Brown.
First, dealing with a national science policy for Canada, this grand design has been seriously considered for many years by all interested parties, especially since science and technology began to dominate our lives after World War II, as the spearhead for all society and our whole way of life.
There has also been criticism in Canada over such a policy, mainly in that we have not been able to formulate one and that therefore we have tended to fall behind other nations in scientific-political-economic clout. While some of this criticism has been justified, in fairness it must be stated that Canada has not performed too badly on balance considering our limitations and the results achieved as a middle-size power.
This same criticism has been leveled at other fields in Canada, such as a long-term energy policy. However, on the positive side, with all due respect to long-term objectives, and recognizing the information explosion and the fast-changing world-wide scene, there may be real advantages in maintaining an open-ended, flexible science policy and avoiding a dinosaur. Canadian moderation has served us well.
Second, dealing with rationalization of Canadian research, whatever science policy or non-policy we may have, the shortest distance to desired results is a straight line. It is often the least expensive. In every way it serves our citizens best, and our scientists as well if they can accept such a truism.
In the simple halcyon days of yesteryear, not just in Canada but elsewhere too, the grass-roots type of approach seemed generally satisfactory and actually produced some remarkable advances, such as the discovery of insulin by Banting and Best right in Canada. The private commercial enterprises still often prefer to go it alone, raising their own finances and making their own decisions.
However, for the universities, and the governments and taxpayers they look to for funding, research has almost become overwhelming in its vastness, complexity, need for
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clear practical objectives, well-coordinated productive functioning, responsible budgeting, and in short, rationalization.
Yes, there is and always will be a need for basic research, in proportion with applied research, but it also can lend itself to the above criteria.
Third, dealing with medical science and the Medical Research Council, or MRC, one of the reasons this special area has interested many people like myself is the great tradition of medicine we have in this country as part of a liberal tradition of putting people before things.
The Medical Research Council of the federal government has played an important role and led the way in Canadian medical research. If I have held one personal concern about its functioning, it has been that it has not always worked in as close partnership with industry research as it has with the universities. I believe that to compete effectively Canada must coordinate all its resources more effectively that other countries. Industry, largely foreign-owned, may not always have been keen to chance it, but neither has government. I think especially of my own pharmaceutical industry as an example.
But MRC's programs have steadily expanded, and with them medical research across the country. The original MRC budget for 1975-76 exceeded $48 million, an increase of 13 per cent over the previous year, exceeding severe inflation. In response to the community, an additional $2.5 million was added by means of a supplementary vote. The number of MRC scholars has also been increased to 25 this year from 20 the year before. All good applications for development grants will be funded this year to help alleviate regional disparity.
The minister continues to meet and work with the representatives of major national scientific societies and any interested people in the community. The response has been largely gratifying. My own contacts with the medical and scientific sectors are very encouraging. Similarly, Dr. Charles Scriver, president of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, has assured the Minister of Health and Welfare with such statements as, "you have again done wonders to improve Canadian medical science".
The major part of the additional $2.5 million funds were used to initiate about 130 research projects which would not otherwise have been possible. About 25 additional grants have also been made to provide urgently required items of major equipment to investigators.
These funds had to be found with speed, co-operation and efficiency ifi other areas of the Health and Welfare budget-health care operating expenses, health care grants, medical services and health protection programs- indicating the great spirit of support for medical research in the department itself.
The invaluable contribution of MRC continues to grow while maintaining a sense of proportion in the distribution of its research programs; for example, in 1974-75, 54 per cent for research in basic science departments, 38 per cent for research in clinical departments, and 8 per cent for research outside schools of medicine such as dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, optometry and so on.
While recognizing that the private sectors play a vital role in medical and other types of research, and that the
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needs for funding are as limitless as research itself, Canadians can rest assured that they are being well served by their government science programs.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Halton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to add a few comments to those of my colleagues on the motion before the House.
I suppose if one were asked to describe the condition of the Ministry of Science and Technology one would have to say that the word paralysis best describes it. Paralysis is defined as a lessening of the power of motion or feeling, or a state of being powerless or helplessly inactive. This description well describes the ministry as it presently operates.
There has probably been more written about the subjects of science and technology in the last few years than almost any other topic except finance and the question of inflation. I think it would be fair to say the department is suffering from paralysis by analysis. It is suffering from a lack of direction and purpose, a lack of co-ordination. To understand this, it is necessary to look behind the present minister.
Is it any wonder the department has done so badly? The previous minister, now the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gillespie), left it in a state of chaos, and he is now proceeding to make a mess of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. He is doing such a thorough job that we can expect an announcement, any day now, that the government has declared it to be a disaster area. Thus I might say I have certain sympathy for the present minister since he inherited a department which was in a state of disarray. On the other hand, I understand the hon. gentleman only devotes three hours a week to this particular portfolio. He is not convinced there is any possibility of reorganizing the department in such a was as to make it an effective tool of scientific and industrial policy. Well, Mr. Speaker, if the minister is not convinced of this, what chance does the department have of getting any priority when cabinet decisions are made?
As far as we can see, there has been little action by the minister or by the government on the recommendations of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology. None of the recommendations of the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers have been implemented, and it is apparent that all the rhetoric contained in the 1974 Speech from the Throne on research and development, and on science and technology, served only to fill the pages of that document with meaningless words.
Where does this leave us, Mr. Speaker? I think the paralysis of the department leaves us at or near the bottom of the industrial heap. Others have quoted the OECD figures, and their remarks were both timely and to the point. Take as an example the Defence Research Board. After 28 years of operation, the board has been disbanded. In its wake we are left with an obsolete long-range patrol aircraft that is only held together by the dedication of an inspired group of people in our armed forces. We have wornout tanks which can only operate in daylight hours, and then only because other tanks are cannibalized to keep them going. We have strike aircraft playing a support role in NATO which are kept flying only

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through the expertise and professionalism of the air element of our armed forces; it is only through their dedication that we are able to make any contribution to NATO. It is no wonder Admiral Boyle should have made the comments he did over the weekend in reply to questions put to him.
Where has it all gone wrong? Ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce a question about the state of research and development in industry in Canada and you get back a bunch of nonsense about alphabet programs, many of which are a disaster in themselves. Government members dutifully applaud when the minister tells them about FLIP or FLOP, or whatever other program he mentions. In the meantime we see a sad decline in our industrial activity. As Clive Baxter said in a recent article in the Financial Post, research and development in Canada is really a Mickey Mouse affair.
The head of the Economic Council of Canada stated recently before the standing committee that he sees the future of our industry in high technology. Yet information released by the Department of Science and Technology dramatically illustrates that we are losing out in this area. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce has a direct responsibility here. He told us time and time again he does not believe we can establish an industrial strategy in Canada. I suppose his thinking coincides with what we heard the minister tell us in his remarks earlier today. I cannot agree with that thinking at all.
Is it any wonder we should be faced with a record deficit in our balance of payments and that a deficit is likely to be with us for years to come? Is it any wonder that high technology manufacturing is showing a $7 million deficit? I invite hon. members to take a look at the export-import picture in higher technology manufacturing. The only category in 19 industrial groupings which shows a surplus of exports over imports in the period 1970-1974 is in the field of petroleum and coal products. No doubt that picture will be reversed in 1975 as a result of current problems in petroleum pricing and a decline in petroleum exports. Look at the list.
Man-made fibres showed a deficit of $23.6 million; chemicals, a deficit of $364 million; industrial machinery, a deficit of $316 million; mechanical handling equipment, a deficit of $133 million; other industrial machinery, $421 million-these are all deficits-agricultural machinery, $354 million; railroad locomotives and rolling stock, $29 million; road transport and equipment, $630 million; aircraft and aircraft parts, $218 million; other vehicles, $23 million; communications equipment, $441 million; heating, refrigeration and air conditioning, $104 million-I could go on and on. There are 19 groups here and the total deficit adds up to no less than $4,650 million. That is the contribution of the group I have mentioned to the overall balance of payments picture.
When all the programs of the Department of Science and Technology and of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce are put together, where are they in relation to this figure? We hear the ministers tell us they have one program or another going for them. But here is a four-year picture of deficits on an almost unbelievable scale and, as we see it, there is no possibility of any change in the future.

I could continue this analysis indefinitely. Granted, there must be a certain amount of analysis. I can recall sitting in while think tanks were in progress-in-depth studies of various industries. Essentially an idea does not get off the ground until someone makes a decision. I wonder if parliamentary paralysis here is not due to the fact that we are afraid to make a wrong decision. I am sure all my colleagues realize that when you are working on research and development and on science and technology there are bound to be some bad decisions. There is no doubt about that. But it does seem to me that there are no decisions being made. When you make a decision that is bad, at least you can change direction, but when you make no decisions whatsoever you just continue to float.
The government will tell you that this lack of activity in highly technological industry is because a lot of these companies are controlled by foreign owners, and most research and development is done by the parent companies at their basic facilities. There is some truth to this.
Let us take a look at our taxation policy. We have hearo a lot of talk about the oil industry in western Canada, and the government's colleagues in the NDP take the same line, that this industry is highly controlled by forces outside the country. If we look at the taxation policies we had at the time the investment flowed into western Canada we can understand why this is the fact. If we look carefully at the flow of money into the oil industry in western Canada we will find that the bulk came in during the Korean war, when in fact the United States had an excess profits tax, with total taxation somewhere in the area of 85 per cent. At that time they had what they called the 15-cent dollar. At that time industry in western Canada could not get anyone in the east, least of all the government, to invest. Wanting to develop the industry, they consequently welcomed these funds from the United States, and that is why the industry today is basically controlled by U.S. capital.
Today we have a government and a Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce urging Canadian businessmen to go outside Canada to form joint ventures with third world countries and export back to Canada. What in the world is that going to do for industry in this country? We had the minister before the Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs where he expressed this as his position. He urged Canadian businessmen to get a piece of the action, as he called it, and to get some of this industrial activity in third world countries we should go out of the country. I say we should stay in our country and develop what we have here.
Much of the industry we have in Canada at the present time is really a pass-through assembly operation. We buy components offshore, assemble them here, and sell them in our local markets. This trend will continue until we eventually move back to where we were 100 years ago, shipping all our resources out of the country for processing elsewhere. Perhaps some will be processed here in Canada, but basically we are not doing much to encourage the development of manufactured production in this country.
The government has stated time and time again that "we cannot develop an industrial strategy". Let us correct
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that statement to read as it should, that "the government cannot develop industrial strategy", not "we". We do not want any part of that type of thinking. I think it is a cop-out for indecision which results from too much contemplation of the industrial navel. I think it results in paralysis in the final analysis. I do not think you could find callouses on the hands of most of the people who make those statements. They really do not know what it is all about in the industrial field.
We have a growing balance of payments problem, and we have a growing domestic market. We have high unemployment, and we have a skilled labour force. In addition, we have the raw materials. We are selling Canadian reactors to Korea which we need in Canada. The one we sold to India could just as easily have been used in Canada, and the one we are contemplating for Argentina could very well be placed in the Atlantic provinces.
The reason we are going in the wrong direction and that we are lacking in proper research and development in industry is that we seem to have no direction, no national goals, and no strategy of any kind. One can hardly name an industry that is not in difficulty today. The list of 19 I gave which show a deficit in balance of payments in trade is just a typical example.
There has been, in my view, little or no encouragement to small or medium size industries in the field of research and development. I know the minister has an alphabet program, but I do not know which one does this. I have read all of them and they all seem to say the same thing. They are beautiful productions, in three or four colours, but they do not seem to excite the business community very much. They seem to be scatter programs, and somewhere along the line they will have to be drawn together in order to give some clear direction. The programs have to be tied to taxation reforms and incentives and, if necessary, to tariff protections, in order to give some substance to the intention of the government.
I wonder how we can really have any confidence in the future of our industry if we have no commitment to industrial strategy, backed by proper research and development which will develop industry in the next two or three decades. Unless we take some decisions in co-operation with the provinces in the immediate future, our industrial base will continue to erode, imports will continue to increase, our balance of payments will continue to be in a deficit position, and unemployment will continue at a very high level.
I wonder sometimes just how much of this gets through to the minister during these opposition days. I think my colleague, the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Hees), said that if you keep throwing stones perhaps you will break the glass and it will get through to the government. This department has a budget of about $4 billion and it will distribute something like $1,372 billion this fiscal year. I think we have the right to question whether this money is being wisely spent and if it is being directed to produce a specific result in terms of industrial activity. It is our view that this is not being done.
I hope the minister will at least consider the words we have spoken and listen to the arguments we have put forth, and then come up with a new policy for the Department of Science and Technology which will give a little bit
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of a push to our industries, giving them some direction, getting them off the ground, and pointing them in the way they should be going.


Mr. S. Victor Railton (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, I was rather interested in the tone of this motion, "That this House deplores the continuing decline in Canada's scientific and technological effort" and so on and so on. The motion calls for "a meaningful science policy ... increased scientific research and increased utilization of Canada's scientists and engineers", and so on. This would be a good motion if there were any truth in it.
Let me say right at the start, that I believe Canada is spending more money on scientific research and technological development than it has in a long time. There is a great expense in running the department to make sure that all the plans are being carried out, and this cost has increased in 1975-76.
One must remember that scientific activities in research and development pervade all government departments, many of which do their own research and development. This year the cost is expected to be $1.25 billion in all. If that is a reduction, I should like to be shown how that is so.
We cannot be blinded by what the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Hees) has told us, that Canadian manufacturing research and development is much less than that of any of our competitors. We must remember that Canada was forced to export primary products up until the Second World War and after. We depended on wheat and ore exports in order to survive and have any commerce. Manufacturing came into its own only during and after the Second World War. So, we have a much younger base for manufacturing and research development than any of our competitors, many of which have a head start of almost a century.
I am very much reassured by the comments of my colleague who spoke about the Medical Research Council, and the fact that it is not only the amount of money spent that has increased but that there has been much better planning in respect of research and making decisions, as well as more monitoring of the projects after completion. As my colleague, the hon. member for Wellington (Mr. Maine), stated, rather than additional research what this country, because of its need and economy, requires, is a return from investment on its research.
In the few minutes I have, Mr. Speaker, I should like to focus on one particular segment. I want to make some observations on the present and future status of energy research and development. I would like particularly to mention conservation, the question of our fossil fuels, and other regular energy sources, as well as the more exotic forms of energy.
In the annual report of the Department of Science and Technology it is stated that the energy crisis was accepted as a fact, and that the minister considered and studied solar energy, thermo-nuclear controlled fusion programs, our depletable resources, the Canadian and foreign reaction to our CANDU system, the state of our uranium supply and demand, and the recovery and upgrading of
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fossil fuels. Finally, a compilation of research and development carried out by the department associated with energy production in foreign countries, as well as our own, was undertaken. This was submitted for inclusion in the report of the international panel to the Task Force on Energy Research and Development.
In passing, since this has been mentioned so frequently, I should like to comment on some of our exotic energy sources before getting into our programs and policies. I do not know of any question which has had a better pronouncement of policy than energy. When we hear that there is no policy, I find this laughable. Presently, we depend overwhelmingly on oil and gas. Alternative resource sources must be developed and incorporated into our energy base, within the next 15 to 30 years. We have a certain time schedule, as I am sure all hon. members are aware.
The government is already carrying out research and development in respect of solar heating for home and office buildings. This is being used now in some buildings for heat and refrigeration. For a long time with our present technical knowledge we may not be able to supply all the energy for home and farm needs in this manner, but we are certainly gaining much experience. There will be more use of solar energy, but this hangs on the development of economic competitiveness, as well as the development of storage facilities for heat and energy. This may be one of the greatest problems facing us.
In 20 to 50 years, even though by then we will have a broad base of energy sources including oil and gas, hydrocarbons, coal, perhaps gasified and liquefied biomass methane products, hydro power, thermo-electric plants, atomic power plants, and finally solar energy, wind and tide power, we will no doubt be in a declining phase of demand for fossil fuels. Practically all these power sources depend on production originally from the sun. We might exclude from solar source fuel atomic power from fission reaction.
The first Solar Energy Conference was held on June 2, 1975, at the suggestion of the present minister, Solar Energy of Canada, the National Research Council, and CMHC. Many subjects were discussed such as the climatological favourability of Canada for solar heat and refrigeration, energy storage, wind energy and so on. Comparative studies were made in respect of other countries. We certainly are not far behind, and in some cases, are far ahead. In February, 1975, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) made a very full statement on energy policies in Canada.
After a rapid increase in the world demand for energy, the cost of oil and material resources rose sharply. This paved the way for the OPEC embargo in 1973. This occurred only three months after the departmental Energy for Canada Phase I policy had been announced. As the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources stated, the world was ripe for the actions of the OPEC countries. This cartel action made it apparent to all that we must suddenly change in respect of our profligate waste of energy, and immediately begin to apply conservation in the use of our resources.
This resolve on the part of the minister led to the consideration of immediate short-term views and action,

and also over-all long-term policies on energy use for the very long-term foreseeable future. He stated that to do this Canada must first establish a higher degree of selfreliance in respect of her gas and oil. Second, she must establish a single price for crude oil after allowing for transportation differences. Third, Canada must introduce a fiscal structure to ensure equitable distribution of revenues among producers, consumers, and governments. In this regard we must leave sufficient incentive for continuing exploration and development. Fourth, we must ensure that Canadian exports of energy are at a competitive price. Fifth, we must set up an energy supply allocation board. We are still trying to accomplish the sixth which is to establish a national petroleum corporation. We hope to get that little matter completed soon, and I think that perhaps we will have some help from the opposition in getting this important matter settled. It has been talked about long enough.
We must expand our nuclear energy plants, and we must encourage interprovincial electrical utilities and distribution. We must set up an office of energy resources and development, and we must take an inventory of Canadian resources, the whole base of energy in uranium, coal, oil and gas. I believe we are doing that at present. We must set up an office of energy conservation.
Under the Department of Science and Technology as well as the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, and with the collaboration of the National Energy Board, Atomic Energy of Canada, and other agencies, our future direction and emphasis will be, I believe, as follows.
First, we will proceed with the development of the tar sands, which will take many years. Second, we must push forward with the domestic and foreign use of our CANDU reactor. I think this has been proceeding very well. Third, we must attempt to become less dependent on the deple-table resources and more dependent, as time goes on, upon resources which are not depletable by man's action, or which even in some cases are renewable. Fourth, we must realize that many years hence, solar, wind, wave power and fusion techniques for nuclear energy will be sufficiently developed in Canada and in the world to make energy accessible to all, and even abundant for all mankind's uses. We must not be as pessimistic as are many people in the media. I have complete confidence that mankind can overcome almost all its difficulties.
Let us take a look at the future. We must not just use surface deposits in the Athabasca tarsand oil fields. We must develop the oil sands to hundreds of feet in depth. This will take further research and development, and we are willing to find the money for it. No doubt, Canada's coal will be a big resource as techniques of gasification and liquefaction become cheaper and simpler. However, in nuclear energy development we will be making use of the huge amounts of uranium which are available in low concentrations all over Canada as well as in many parts of the world. We must build these exotic forms of energy firmly into our energy base, and we must ensure that we can use these more and more, and depend on fossil duels less and less, as our technology improves. We must watch world knowledge closely, as well as our own research
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regarding nuclear atomic fusion plants, but that technique is at least 50 years away from now.
I would like to take a look now at the twenty-first century. We always talk about the year 1990 or the year 2000 as the ultimate; but let us not forget that some of the younger people here will live in the twenty-first century.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear!


Samuel Victor Railton: What will the picture be then? By continuing our research and development questionnaire by regions in Canada the situation may turn out to be as follows. In British Columbia they will be using hydro, gas and geo-thermal energy. In the prairies they will revert back to coal and in the main they will be using the Athabasca sands oil. Ontario and Quebec will depend to a large extent on nuclear energy and hydro as well as Athabascan oil and our frontier gas. By that time we will be using synthetic oil. In the Atlantic provinces there will be oil and gas from the continental shelf, and they will have nuclear power just like Ontario, Quebec, and parts of the west, as well as the huge hydro sources in Newfoundland and Labrador. In all of Canada there will be a greater and greater use of solar energy for space and water heating and refrigeration or, if you want to call it differently, for air conditioning.
There will be greater use of biomass energy in certain locations, but perhaps not widely; and we hope there will be a greater use of hydrogen as a means of storing and transporting energy which is off peak, because wind power, tide power and solar energy have peaks and sometimes are not available.
To achieve all this there will be economic and environmental costs to be faced, and there has to be a determination to use fuel efficiently and to eliminate waste. We must have the ability to bring certain resources on stream at the correct time. That is where our policy comes in. We can assure the House that we have an energy policy. It must evolve from year to year as more and more technology is absorbed. Our over-all policy must evolve in short terms of a few years, say, three to five year plans, and it must be attuned to our domestic and world demands. It must be realistic, and we must pay constant attention to the nuclear knowledge of all other energy technologies.


John Angus MacLean: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this debate in the belief that this wide ranging subject of science and technology and its relation to national policy is extremely interesting and important. My colleagues have spoken chiefly about the need for scientific and technological development in a progressive way so that we can reap the economic benefits which flow from these developments.
Only a few decades ago the superficial view was held by many that scientific research was in itself good and that benefits would flow automatically from it. People believed that the only national policy needed so far as research and development were concerned was to supply the money- the more, the better. The thing was supposed to be selfcontrolling and wholly beneficial to society. Then the pendulum began to swing in the opposite direction. With the advent of nuclear weapons resulting from scientific research, industrial pollution resulting from high tech-
Science and Technology
nology, the use of insecticides developed in scientific laboratories which was found to have detrimental effects on our environment as recorded by Rachel Carson in "Silent Spring", the discovery that some pharmaceuticals had tragic side effects that could not be detected in advance, science and technology gained a reputation which was not flattering.
The view gained credence that we were going too fast, that what we had to do was perhaps to retrace our steps back to some golden age, that what we had taken to be advanced was not really advanced, in the best sense of the word, and that by slowing down science and technology, we could perhaps retain a better quality of life. The simplistic view was taken that if we desisted from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, perhaps we would be allowed to stay in our Eden. I take the view that both of these popular notions are shallow and invalid.
Science and technology need a policy. Science and technology are not in themselves either good or bad, in the general sense; it is how they are applied and used for the benefit of mankind which determines the advantage to be gained thereby.
I have a very high regard for Canadian scientists. They have made a mark for themselves in the world. As a country we can be proud of their achievements. Not only have they given us great benefit in an economic and sociological sense, but they have also contributed a fair share to developments which have been of tremendous advantage to mankind generally, and I think we can be proud of our record in that regard.
But having said that, a high level of scientific skill should not be thought to be synonymous with policy making wisdom. Regardless of how good our scientists may be, we, as policy makers in the wider sense of the term, cannot shirk our responsibility and leave it to the scientists to decide how our scientific endeavours should go and what routes they should follow.
Scientists have a natural inclination to search for knowledge, and in that regard I would like to quote from an article by Philip Handler in the publication "Dialogue", volume 7, 1974, No. 1, in which he says:
For scientists, scientific understanding is its own reward, the source of our most exquisite joy and most profound sense of satisfaction. But the current huge investments in science are not based primarily on the great cultural benefits to be so derived. Rather, they reflect a conviction that scientific understanding will, in due course, be translated into such benefits as improved public health, improved agriculture, improved housing, better transportation, better communications, improved education, more leisure time, higher industrial productivity, and a generally elevated standard of living for all citizens. In historical fact, the technology born of science has transformed the daily life of modern man, raising not only his living standards but also his intellectual horizons.
So it is evident that there is not only room, but an absolute demand, for guidance as far as our policy in science and technology is concerned.
The Senate Special Committee on Science Policy in volume 3 of its report at page 661 had this to say:
(a) the optimum investment in, and application of science and technology in pursuit of national objectives,
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(b) the organization of the scientific establishment in the public service of Canada.
I could go on, but I want Your Honour especially to note this statement:
.. . the optimum investment in, and application of science and technology in pursuit of national objectives.
My concern is that not too many Canadians are sure what our national objectives are. I think the government is extremely unsure of what our national objectives should be, what are desirable objectives, how to enunciate them and how to strive toward them as a nation. I think this is one of the great ailments of our time as Canadians. We do not have clearly defined national objectives in this field or in any others; and if we do not have national objectives, it is very hard to define a policy which is meaningful.
As previous speakers have said, it is important that we direct our science and technology in such a direction that they give us economic advantage in this very highly competitive world. That goes almost without saying, and it is pretty obvious. Also, we have a responsibility to do scientific research which hopefully may have the effect of contributing in a general way to the benefit of mankind. Then, of course, we have an obligation to support pure science, so that we will have a scientific capability which would allow us effectively to pursue science in particular fields, especially in applied science, in a direct effort to solve some problem known in advance. But we should never downgrade the importance of pure science, science for its own sake or the search for scientific knowledge. There is a great field which as Canadians we have neglected. Some of our national concern should be the quality of life and the evolution and development of the same. We should be concerned about what effect is being produced by our national policies, or lack of them, on our people as a nation. What effects are they having on our behaviour in a general scientific sense? We know very little about this. This is a field in which there is a great activity in other countries, and which as far as I know is being entirely neglected in Canada.
Then there is the question of research in the field of nutrition. I have the feeling that sometimes we know more about proper nutrition for animals than we do about proper nutrition for human beings. There is much being learned about the very important effects of such things as trace elements in minute quantities on the development not only of plants but on the development or health of the animals which feed on them. For example, in certain areas of Canada there is very little selenium in the soil. Bountiful crops grow on the land yet the ruminants, sheep and cows, that pasture on it, as a result of a deficiency of necessary selenium, become paralysed and die. We have done little research on the effects of these trace elements or the effect of food produced from plants and animals that are deficient in them.
I have some questions about research into human behaviour, Mr. Speaker, and I should like to quote from an article' entitled "Biology, Society and the Individual" by Rene Dubos which appears in the same publication. At page 39, Mr. Dubos says:

I should like now to direct attention to the obvious fact-and yet not sufficiently obvious to have inspired as much biological study as it deserves-that the total environment affects individuality through the influences it exerts on the organism during the crucial phases of development, including the intrauterine phase. These early influences affect lastingly and often irreversibly practically all anatomical, physiological, and behavioural characteristics throughout the whole life span.
We should ask ourselves as a nation how we can congratulate ourselves on our urbanization, technical developments, increased efficiency in transportation and matters of that sort when we are raising more criminals on a percentage basis than ever before. Why do we have more alcoholics, more drug addicts more urban guerrillas? Why are so many of our people insecure and insane or emotionally unstable? Why, for example, do we have such phenomena, in what is supposed to be a civilized society, as battered children? These are the things we should be concerned about, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Dubos later in his article says:
The conditioning of early life with regard to almost any physiological activity is much more lasting than anyone had anticipated. For example, it can be demonstrated with rats that animals used to having a diet low in protein during the first few weeks of their lives tend to continue eating this diet even when a better one is made available to them later in life.
Still later in the article the author says:
It appears, in summary, that whether we look at the biological or the cultural aspects of development, the body and the mind are simultaneously being affected by the physical, chemical and mental stimuli that impinge on the organism.
A further paragraph says:
An impoverished environment results almost inevitably in biological and mental deficiency. On the other hand, the latent potentialities of human beings have a better chance to emerge in a living form when the social environment is sufficiently diversified to provide a variety of stimulating experience, especially for the young. This variety of experience need not depend on economic position; it is very likely that the farm in the past did provide such a variety of experience through the exposure of the child to the events of nature and the varied activities of the farm.
The article says later:
Creating diversified environments may result in some loss of efficiency but in my opinion is vastly more important than efficiency because it is essential for the germination of the seeds dormant in man's nature.
The bureaucracy is full of efficiency experts and theorists who are deciding how Canadians will live their lives in the future-the family farm is not as economic as some great industrialized farm such as one might find in Russia-without giving any consideration to the social effects of such change. We have the Ministry of Urban Affairs designing environments without thinking ahead to the longer term effects on people.
To quote again from this article, Mr. Speaker:
The child is programmed by the conditions of intrauterine and postnatal life over which he has no control He can never change his past and all manifestations of his free will during adult life are thus conditioned by this early programming.
That is a scary statement, Mr. Speaker, but a true one. On the one hand we have discarded the old adage of a kind of instinctive knowledge; for example, as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined. We have taken the view that if a child is fed he is going to grow up and have a social conscience. Now science is finding that the way children
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are programmed in the very early part of their lives determines what kind of people they are going to be throughout their lifetime. Yet this government is more concerned with day care centres than with the provision of circumstances where the scientifically proven requirements of mother love and maternal instinct are the main concern.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member permit a question?


John Angus MacLean: Certainly.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: I am not sure what Hansard got in relation to the uterine process-"inter" or "intra". I hope the hon. member meant "intra".


John Angus MacLean: That is what I said, I think.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until 8 p.m.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Mr. Maurice Foster (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy for the opportunity to participate in debate on the motion proposed by the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre). The topic of his motion is timely, and we welcome the opportunity to debate it. He said that this is the first time in the history of the House of Commons that we have debated this subject on an opposition day. My response to him is that, considering the opposition has available 25 days each session on which to debate any topic it wants, its failure to bring forward this topic must be laid down to negligence. After the excellent quality of today's debate I look forward to their bringing in a similar motion in future, because debate on this subject gives government supporters the opportunity to extol the virtues of the government's science and technology program.


An hon. Member:: Everything is perfect.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Oh, no. An hon. member opposite says everything is perfect. One would be naive to suggest that in a field as broad as science and technology, a field broader than man's imagination, everything can be perfect.
We are fortunate in having as minister responsible for science and technology a man of the calibre of the present minister. The science and technology portfolio has only been established for three or four years. Previously, the present minister was responsible for the science and technology program of the government. As I say, we are fortunate indeed in having such an interested, concerned and determined individual guide us at the federal level. His efforts, together with the efforts of the various departments involved in science and technology, are important to Canada.
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Hon. members opposite seemed to argue that we should spend more on science and technology or get more for our money. I took the trouble of looking up the actual figures, to learn what has been spent in the last three years, including the present fiscal year. I noted that total expenditures on science and technology have increased significantly, by some $300 million. Expenditures in the 1973-74 fiscal year were at $1.41 billion; in the 1974-75 fiscal year they were at $1,266 billion, and for this year, 1975-76, they will be at $1,443 billion.
The subject of science and technology is broad. I wish to narrow the debate and focus on what has happened in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The department's spending on science and technology in the 1973-74 fiscal year, was 66 million and has increased, significantly, to the 1975-76 level. My figures do not include the estimates of the Atomic Energy Control Board. In 1973-74, the department spent some $66 million; in 1974-75, it spent $69 million, and in the 1975-76 period, the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources will have spent $85 million in this field.
Let me refer to the estimates of the department, particularly to page 5-22 of the blue book of estimates which lists expenditures in connection with the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing. According to the estimates, 94 man-years have been allocated to the program. The operating budget is $5,202,000, the capital allocated is $2,555,000, and the total estimated for this year is $7,757,000. I am sure that item did not catch the imagination or interest of many members of the House; nevertheless, it is important. I want to spend a few minutes talking about it, in order to bring into true focus the motion of the hon. member for Calgary Centre which reads:
That this House deplores the continuing decline in Canada's scientific and technological effort and urges the government to adopt a meaningful science policy that will lead to increased industrial research and development, increased scientific research and increased utilization of Canada's scientists and engineers, thereby contributing to the long-term benefit of both Canadians and the Canadian economy.
Let us look at just one little item. It is a very large amount of money, but in the spectrum of total expenditures of science and technology it is not a very large percentage. I wish to talk for just a few minutes about our national remote sensing program. I would like to describe to the House a program that has been active for about three and a half years. While it is managed by a new branch of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, it is interdepartmental and national in scope, serving the provincial governments as well as the municipal governments and industry.
Remote sensing is the process of observing the earth from satellites or aircraft using special sensors, which operate at various frequencies ranging from the ultraviolet through the visible and infrared to microwave. They can be active transmitting sensors, such as lasers for detecting oil spills on water and side-look radar for mapping ice through the clouds, or they can be passive receiving instruments, such as infrared line-scanners for mapping the temperature of features on the earth's surface. Certain sensors can identify and map different types of

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crops, as well as various type of forests or different forms of urban development.
The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing has two main operational programs, the earth resources technology satellite program known as ERTS, and an airborne remote sensing program using four aircraft equipped with various types of sensors. It also funds the development of novel sensors for specific applications.
The ERTS satellite is owned and operated by NASA, and circles the earth at a height of 500 miles in a polar orbit fixed in space, while the earth rotates underneath it. It uses a multispectral scanner which continuously scans the earth's surface under the satellite in a 100 mile swath. It takes 18 days to scan the whole earth in each of the four spectral bands: blue-green, red, and two bands in the near infrared. There are four orbits a day over Canada producing about 65 scenes, each scene covering 10,000 square miles in area.
Canada negotiated a special agreement with the United States three and a half years ago whereby we read out and disseminate the date for Canada from a satellite receiving station situated in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In order to do this, the Canada Centre designed and had built a ground data handling centre for converting the satellite signals into images for sale to government, university and industry users as well as for the public in general. There are about 1,000 regular customers throughout Canada.
One of the most important users of ERTS imagery is Ice Central of the Atmospheric Environment Service, Department of the Environment. Quick look pictures are sent by facsimile from Prince Albert to Ice Central in Ottawa, where information on Arctic and Labrador Sea-ice is extracted, added to other information from ice reconnaissance aircraft, and then sent to Arctic shipping in the form of charts. Such timely information saves the Canadian ice breakers and shipping companies several millions of dollars a year in transit time to and from Arctic ports. Looking at the first item in the estimates of some $7 million a year, at first glance one would not think it had a direct effect on shipping in the Arctic, but it does.
Foresters find important applications in their work. The multispectral feature of the ERTS sensor allows them to categorize and map different forest types in a matter of days rather than months. The ERTS imagery saves the provinces many thousands of survey dollars a year in assessing damage done by fires. Outbreaks of forest infestation such as spruce budworm are being detected and monitored with ERTS data. Pulp and paper companies and provincial governments use ERTS to measure yearly cuttings.
One of the most promising applications of ERTS is to use the data, along with meteorological satellite date, in a world crop early warning information system. Henry Kissinger announced the United States intention at the World Food Conference in Rome last fall to investigate the feasibility of such a program. A team of Canadian officials went to Washington to confer with NASA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on means of carrying out a test for North America during the next growing season. If it is successful, an attempt will be made, in co-operation with the FAO, to develop a world-wide crop information system. The World Food Conference passed a resolution

recommending some kind of early warning system on potential food shortages and famine areas to avoid last minute crises such as exist in the Sahile area of Africa and in India and Bangladesh. Such a system, if set up on an operational basis, should also give a measure of long term climatic changes as predicted by some scientists.
Land use and land classification is an important application of both the airborne and ERTS programs. The digital form of the data stored on magnetic tapes makes possible rapid and accurate analysis by computer, rather than having to rely on the slower and subjective visual analysis of conventional photo interpreters. With a special computer analysing device known as "Image 100", it is possible to use a computer to categorize land use into eight different sub-divisions custom-picked by the interpreter. An ERTS image 100 x 100 miles, covering an area of 10,000 square miles, can be categorized and mapped in 48 hours whereas conventional techniques took months and sometimes years to produce a published map. Since the system is interactive, ground truth information can be easily integrated into the product to ensure the accuracy of the interpretation.
A co-operative program is now being developed with the Canada Land Inventory for updating their present maps and extending the program into the unmapped northern areas of Canada. Such an accelerated program is desperately needed by planners for the multiple use planning of lands, whether for agriculture, urban use, the development of transportation corridors, parks and so on.
Although ERTS is primarily aimed at the land, it does have application to the fresh water inventory of Canada and to oceanography. For example, it is possible, using ERTS data and the "Image 100" system, to accurately and instantaneously measure the total surface water area in any 100 x 100 mile ERTS scene. This could be done three or four times a year in each drainage basin to monitor flooding, water supply, and to predict run-off. Such information is invaluable to hydrologists and power companies in the management of water resources. The snow cover on the land and the area of melting snow can also be measured and monitored in a similar manner.
In the Great Lakes, scientists of the Canada Centre for Inland Waters at Burlington and the Ontario Water Resource Commission use remote sensing to monitor the chlorophyll content and the turbidity of the water. The chlorophyll content is a measure of the state of eutrophication of the lakes. Information on the turbidity gives advance warning as to where dredging and shore erosion control is necessary.
Aircraft from the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, at the request of the CCIW, Environment Canada, survey the Great Lakes several times a year with an infrared line scanner to map and measure the thermal plumes emanating from nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and other industrial plants. This information helps to monitor the number of calories of heat per day that are dumped into the lakes.
The Airborne Division of CCRS offers a service to users across Canada, both government and private, with a variety of sensors and aircraft. Each user pays for the flying
June 9, 1975

hours of the aircraft, although the research and development and capital costs are borne by the government. The aircraft are operated by a group of pilots, aircraft mechanics and instrument operators of the Canadian Forces known as the Canadian Forces Airborne Sensing Unit. The cost of operating this unit is borne by the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing which does the tasking and mission-planning and also carries out an extensive research and development program to develop new sensors and applications which are intended for use not only on their aircraft but also in possible future Canadian remote sensing satellites. The aircraft program also provides detailed information to help interpret the satellite date and to give data the satellites cannot provide.
Steps are now being taken to transfer the operational aspects of the airborne program to a private company which will be able to bring these services to a larger number of users both in Canada and abroad. It is hoped that the government will, in this way be able to create in Canada an industrial centre of excellence in new remote sensing technology which will develop into a viable industry. The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing will continue to carry on the research and development and provide the technical back-up to the selected company.
In conclusion, I would like to say how pleased I am that Canada is remaining in the forefront of this new technology which has such important implications for a large country like Canada. I consider it would be difficult, if not impossible, to properly map and monitor our vast territory and continental shelves without the help of remote sensing aircraft and satellites. It is important to do this, not only to properly plan our vast new development projects and to monitor environmental degradation where it occurs, but also to exert visible management and sovereign control over our hinterlands and continental shelves for which we have wide responsibilities.
I also think it important that we work toward an integrated space program for Canada. Although our space communication technology is well advanced, the same cannot be said for our remote sensing, weather satellite, geodetic and oceanographic satellites. I am convinced that these satellite systems will play an important role in the future growth and development of the great land mass of Canada.
This brief description of only one area of Canada's scientific effort is indicative of hundreds of other activities by the federal government in science and technology. Just as we are very far advanced in this field, we are in many others in the field of science and technology. Therefore I think the motion before us tonight should be rejected by the House of Commons.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I was interested to listen to the extemporaneous remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Foster). He listed some of the programs of a scientific kind which the department is carrying forward and seemed to suggest that because the government was carrying out certain individual programs which involved scientific activity there was, as a consequence, a science policy.
Science and Technology
It would indeed be incredible if in the year 1975 any country were not undertaking certain projects which contained some scientific component, but to suggest that because various scientific activities are going on here there is a national science policy is only to strain our credulity. I am sure the parliamentary secretary was doing no more than his duty, filling in time, when he suggested there was in fact something more than unrelated policies operating outside the necessary context of a national policy.
One of the best illustrations of the current state of science policy in Canada, and particularly of the role which has been played by the Ministry of State for Science and Technology, is that the only occasion this session on which the minister has come to the attention of the' House or of the country was on the occasion when it was revealed, as a result of the initiative taken by my hon. friend from Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre), that his department was being used to hide the allocations in the estimates set aside for security operations. In other words, the only occasion on which the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Drury) has been involved in public debate relative to his responsibilities as minister for science had to do with his role as minister of secrecy, trying to hide estimates and mislead the House as to the nature of the estimates we were being asked to approve.
It is a truism that in any country in 1975 science policy should be at the very centre of its affairs. It is particularly true of a country like our own which is still in its formative stage and in a situation where the negative effects of science-the dangers of science so aptly alluded to by my hon. friend from Calgary Centre-can cause so much harm. Thus it is particularly important that science policy should be at the centre of our national thinking and not off at the side.
In the light of this need, it is interesting to view the short life of this ministry of state. It was brought in as a public relations gesture, as an attempt to be fashionable, an attempt to show that this was a modern government concerned with the future. It was then farmed out as a training ground for a junior minister. And now it has been downgraded again and entrusted to a minister who, whatever his capacity, whatever his contribution to the country, is a man whose future is in the other place if anywhere at all, a man whose achievements are behind him.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Charles Joseph Clark: That is a simple statement of fact about a man whose ability in the House I respect. But he has not brought to this future-oriented portfolio the direction and drive which it should receive if science policy is to play a central role. Science and technology has never been a full department and now it is simply an adjunct to a department.
All this is a symbol of the approach taken by the government not simply to science policy but to anything which requires it to set long range policies, to take hard decisions and to stick by them despite the political buffeting of the day and the attraction of short term priorities which might seem politically expedient. The ministry was established because it was thought fashionable to do so; but there has never been on the part of a Liberal government

June 9, 1975
Science and Technology
an honest commitment to a national science policy, and nothing illustrates this more than the policy of drift which has characterized it since its inception.
These criticisms have been made much more authoritatively by experts outside the House whose observations have been alluded to by other speakers in this debate. Our function today on the occasion of this important initiative taken by the Progressive Conservative Party is to call the government to account for the absence of a national science policy in the light of the criticisms which have come from groups which possess the expertise to assess what has been done in the name of science policy in Canada.
I want to deal with four elements of the problems that are posed for Canada now by the absence of any over-all context of national science policy, and by the potential that exists for bringing science to the centre of national decision making in this country. I want to deal with the effects of technology on the environment; I want to deal with the effects of industrial strategy, and the related questions of population movement and the health of the variety and size of communities. I want to deal with the question of nationalism, of Canadian national identity and development; and I want to deal with the very serious problems of responding to some of the new problems which science brings in its wake.
Let me deal first with environmental matters. The "make or buy" policy of the minister of state, which has perhaps been the only success so far of that ministry, has created a tremendous opportunity for several departments to make use of the expertise that does exist or can be developed in the country. There is no department in this country which should take a more prominent role-and I say this with the parliamentary secretary here tonight- under this aspect of national science policy than the Department of the Environment. Yet far too high a proportion of research that is carried out under the head of the Department of the Environment is research that is carried out in house, which consequently misses the range of opportunity for cross-fertilization with scientists outside Ottawa and outside Ottawa agencies. We are missing the wide range of possibility for applying in a broad way techniques which might have been evolved to deal with specific problems. Probably-and this is particularly important to environmental questions and important across the range-we have missed the opportunity to be as sensitive as we should be to peculiar regional requirements in this country and to the peculiar differences of ecological and environmental concerns in different parts of this wide and diverse country.
This is because the government, in practice, in operating a department like the Department of the Environment, abandons the theory that is supposed to be the inspiring theory of the Minister of State for Science and Technology, and instead of going out as much as it should to the whole science community of the country concentrates too much on in-house research which is limited in range and in its applicability.
Let me deal for a moment now with the question of industrial strategy and what some of the very important

consequences of that can be. The absence of any industrial strategy can result in consequences which are particularly important to regions such as mine, which is away from the centre of the country, and small communities such as those I represent, which are unfortunately increasingly away from the centres of growth and are being shunted out of the capacity for growth and development in the country.
It is possible to argue that we lack an industrial strategy in the country, and several people in the House have argued that today. A more grave danger is that in fact we have an industrial strategy which is unstated and unexamined; that is, an industrial strategy of simply following the status quo, developing where we are already developed and ignoring the rest, doing the things that we already do and ignoring the things that we might become more effective and more proficient in.
That kind of industrial strategy for a country like Canada is highly dangerous for at least two reasons. The first of those reasons is a regional one. I come from a part of Canada that has gone too long with a concentration of industrial development and a concentration of innovation in regions other than my region. There is clearly a concentration of industrial activity, innovation and development within the golden triangle of this country. There has not been an attempt made to try to spread industrial development and the options around either among my part of the country in western Canada, the Atlantic region or the home area of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Foster), who spoke a moment ago, namely in northern Ontario or indeed to the more remote regions of the province of Quebec.
There has simply not been an attempt in recent years to try to bring down the kind of industrial strategy that was developed by the late C. D. Howe. That shows up particularly in the capacity to challenge that kind of strategy, and the challenge that is particularly alive in the question of science policy is the challenge to effect some kind of change.
There is also a great environmental danger, because if we continue in this country to concentrate our growth where it is, whether that is in the regions or in the large cities, we are going to add immeasurably to the environmental problems we already have. We are already seeing serious consequences for the communities and people who live along the Great Lakes, particularly those developed areas of the Great Lakes. We are slowly killing those lakes and the areas around the large cities by concentrations of people and pollution.
It is clear that the dangers of pollution become more acute as more and more things get cramped into one area. So also it is clear that activities which might proceed with safety, were they alone, could proceed with danger if they are crammed into an area where there are other activities going on that could have dangerous consequences. There is very serious environmental danger in this lazy sort of planning or drafting of policies as we continue to concentrate Canadian growth areas where they already exist.
As I say, there is no activity of government and no aspect of national policy which holds a greater capacity to turn this trend around than a national science policy. Science can be the key to the opening up of new regions
June 9, 1975	COMMONS DEBATES	6581
and new kinds of development in this country. This is not idle speculation. We have an example in the United States of a clear indication of what can be done with government science policy.
In the United States, perhaps inadvertently, the science industry, primarily related to defence and to some degree to the space administration, has been spread around the country. It has not been concentrated necessarily in the areas where growth has been concentrated. One result of that, when you compare the population trends in the United States with population trends in Canada, is that you find that in the United States people are moving all over the country and growth is occurring everywhere. Population is growing particularly in the southeastern portion which for so long languished. Population is growing there because the science industry has moved there. If you compare that situation growth around the country with the situation here, you find that instead we are moving inevitably, and perhaps inexorably, towards a situation in which more and more of our people will be concentrated in fewer and fewer centres, with all of the problems that embodies. These are problems not simply of people grouping together but of lost potential, because there are other areas where people and industry could productively locate.
In the United States this happened in part by accident and in part as an outgrowth of their particular congressional system. Influential members of Congress were able to influence national defence and space administration policy to locate key science industries in the districts of southern congressmen. So it happened by accident.
That is not the pattern we should follow here. We do not want to apply the LIP principle to science industries. The fact that it happened by accident in the United States, and the fact that one of the consequences was the dispersal of population, the dispersal of creativity and the dispersal of a lot of industry, would indicate that we have in a science policy in Canada a very real capacity to move industry and to move people away from the traditional regions and places.
That is one of the major opportunities we have lost so far in this country. There has not been the dynamic direction brought to a national science policy that there could have been. Indeed, in this country we have become wedded, I fear, to the prediction that a certain high proportion, something like 80 per cent of our people, will live in two or three major cities. It is interesting to note this prediction by a distinguished sociologist that was offered as a warning to the Government of Canada. The Government of Canada took this as a goal and is trying to concentrate people where it was warned they should not be concentrated. We need some clear policy to reverse that trend, and we have in a science policy the capacity to turn around that trend.
I wish to turn now to what may be called the nationalist question. Perhaps the most serious price we pay for a branch plant economy is that so much of the orientation that could be carried forward in Canada is shunted off to head offices in other countries, not simply the United States. That is the case in respect of virtually any indus-
Science and Technology
try. It is the case in respect of large motor companies such as Ford and other companies such as RCA and Dupont.
I wish to cite an example concerning the Canadian Celanese operation in Edmonton where there was an important research facility until it was closed down in the late 1960's because economic times became tough. When economic times get tough the first facility to be closed down is the research facility. Before the economic management of this government caught up to the Canadian Celanese operation and they closed their research facilities, they brought in an important new process which was practically the basis for a whole new industry. Where was that new process which was developed in Canada located? It was located in the State of Louisiana. This is the kind of thing that happens in industry. It is perhaps the major price we pay for our branch plant status.
This is a situation which Parliament can do something about. We could do something about it by establishing a national science policy within which the multinational companies and the domestic Canadian companies could operate. We are not doing that and the price we will pay in the days and years to come may be very severe.
Unfortunately the record of this government in terms of its indifference toward a science policy is nothing short of shameful. It should embarrass the government now, but more important it will cost us dearly in time to come. It is a situation we could begin to correct now by establishing the context of a national science policy to serve our industries and developments.
I wish to deal very quickly now-


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


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, there is a very serious problem facing most countries in the world but facing this country in a particularly acute form. In this country we are spending less money as a percentage of our gross national product for academic and industrial scientific research than any other industrialized country in the world.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Incorrect.


David Orlikow: The minister says that is incorrect. I shall place some figures on the record before I am finished. Despite that, the parliamentary secretary gave us the usual sermon one hears from the government benches to the effect that everything is the best of all possible worlds.
Since the minister indicates that what I said is incorrect, let me tell him that less than a year ago I spoke to a senior scientist of McGill University, in part of the city in which the minister formerly lived and still represents, who has no particular political opinion so far as I know. What I am about to say is essentially what he said, and I shall back this statement up with figures published in a recent issue of Science Forum which, so far as I know, is one of the most important scientific journals available in Canada to the general public.
I am told that the money spent on scientific research in Canada is particularly low in the industrial sector for the reason mentioned by the hon. member for Rocky Moun-
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tain (Mr. Clark). Most industrial research is carried on by the multinational corporations in the countries in which the head office is established and not in Canada. The amount of money spent in Canada on academic and industrial research has declined relatively in the last two years and has declined in actual fact especially in recent years. The grants have remained virtually stationary from about 1968-69 until this year, at which time they increased by about 18 per cent. The minister nods his head in agreement. This is the first time in years he has agreed with anything I have said. The point is that in these years we have had an increase in the cost of living of about 35 per cent, and although I am not an expert the scientists tell me that the increase in the cost of scientific research is not 35 per cent but probably closer to twice that figure.
What we have had this year, after years of stationary expenditure, is an increase of 18 per cent. I come back to what I said earlier. Canada spends a lower percentage in terms of its gross national product on academic research than any other country in the industrialized world. The research grants have not been increased even to take care of inflation. So in fact there has been a serious cut in the real money expended on scientific research. This has been taken up a bit by this year's increase but certainly this has not made up for the past years' neglect. Equipment and other costs have been going up. According to my friend from McGill University, there has been a decline in scientific research in Canadian universities in the last three years of 15 per cent or 20 per cent because of the shortage of money. We should be increasing our scientific and technical expenditure at least in accordance with the increase in the inflation factor, and in fact should be increasing it at least by the increase in the gross national product.
That is the approach any sensible country would take. The most extensive scrutiny of scientific research ever done in this country was performed by a committee of the other house under the chairmanship of Senator Lamon-tagne. After two or three years of study that committee came up with a series of recommendations. It may be that not all these recommendations are correct. I think the Canadian government must grapple with the problem alluded to by my friend from Rocky Mountain. I refer to the fact that virtually all the multinational corporations in the oil industry, the gas industry, the metal industry or in fnost other industries conduct all their research in other countries.
Until the government grapples with that fact and tries to overcome it by government policies designed to increase basic research in this country, we will face this shortfall in scientific research. Senator Lamontagne's committee made a whole series of proposals as to what should be done. So far as I know, there has been no public reaction on the part of the Minister of Science and Technology or the government to those proposals. Not once in this House or outside it in speeches which the minister or the former minister made every year to various scientific associations was there a response to the recommendations made by Senator Lamontagne's committee. I say that that is a disgrace. We are still operating a scientific policy by the 
seat of the minister's pants, and I tell the minister that I do not have any confidence in him or the seat of his pants.
Before I go on to discuss medical research, let me put on the record figures which appeared in Science Forum in its issue of June, 1974 in an editorial headed "Academic research: down, perhaps on the way out". Let me quote a few sentences from it, and then put the figures on the record and bring it up to date with the figures which we now have which have come out since this editorial was written. As I say, this is written by Science Forum. It is not a political journal, it is not for or against the government, except in so far as the government fails to meet its responsibilities to the people of Canada and to the science community. Here is what they say in that editorial:
As is widely known, the present is not a propitious time for the support of research in Canadian universities. What is not so widely known is the severity with which restrictions on public investment in academic research have been applied over the past few years. Some bald facts will illustrate the actual situation.
Parliamentary appropriations to NRC over the past several years for grants in aid of research and for graduate scholarships are as follows:
1968-69	$59,017,000
1969-70	64,760,000
1970-71	64,794,000
1971-72	67,543,000
1972-73	66,543,000
1973-74	68-593,000
1974-75 (estimates)	69,293,000
I looked at the current estimates, and those figures can now be corrected as follows. For 1974-75, the actual expenditures were $70,278,000. For 1975-76, they are $82,973,000. As I indicated earlier, that is an increase of 18 per cent. Then they go on to analyse these figures. I hope the minister will listen. They say as follows:
From this we see that, since 1969-70, when severe financial restrictions were first imposed, the total increase in appropriations has been a mere 7 per cent. During the same period, the cost of performing research has increased by at least 50 per cent...
In the ten-year period to 1970, a few departments in the physical sciences in Canadian universities were beginning to attain a standard approaching that of good universities in some other countries such as the United States. Now their further progress has effectively been stopped and their competitive position degraded. At the same time, as in the support of medical research, insufficient funds have been made available to allow any new departments to become competitive.
That is the judgment, not of a member of parliament, not of a member of the opposition who does not know much about scientific research, as very few of us do-and unfortunately neither does the minister-but the assessment of the scientific community. The minister can smile, but those are the facts.
What about medical research? There have been some increases in funds granted to the Medical Research Council to supposedly take care of the increased cost of living. But in fact the government has not really given sufficient funds to take care of the actual increase in the cost of doing scientific research. Even if the government argues- which they have not done-that there should be no expansion in the amount of money spent on medical research, there has not been enough money just to maintain current program levels.
June 9, 1975

One of the few things that I do besides being a member of parliament is to be a member of the board of governors of the University of Manitoba. This afternoon I spoke to the dean of the medical college at the University of Manitoba, and I am certain that if the minister wanted to take the time and make a little effort and phoned the medical college at McGill University or the University of Montreal, he would be told exactly the same things as I was told today by the dean of the medical college at the University of Manitoba. Within the past year, the University of Manitoba negotiated a new wage agreement with its support staff. That wage agreement gave the employees, many of whom work as assistants to medical doctors and scientists at the medical college, an increase of 20 per cent in wages retroactive to about six months ago.
The increased grants this year to the Medical Research Council, and therefore back to the University of Manitoba, will not begin to cover the cost of that increase. At the same time, the staff association which represents the medical staff at the University of Manitoba is also conducting negotiations and is likely to obtain an increase in the neighbourhood of 20 per cent. The increased grants this year and the small increase last year to the Medical Research Council will not begin to meet those increases in salaries which the University of Manitoba had to give to its employees.
What will happen? Very simple, says the dean of the medical college. Real medical research at the University of Manitoba will be cut back. The dean gave me some examples. They have been doing a major research project on allergies. They were beginning to get some very promising and encouraging results which, if carried to their logical conclusions, could have brought a great deal of relief to the thousands of people across Canada who suffer very seriously as a result of allergies. They will not be able to follow up these interesting new aspects having to do with the treatment of illnesses such as this.
They have been doing some research programs into the biochemical aspects of aging. These will be drastically cut back. They were hoping that, as a result of the findings they would make in these fields, they might find methods of reversing adverse effects in the biochemical health of older people. They were hoping that as a result of these programs they would be able to begin to rehabilitate patients. They have been looking at people who are ill as a result of heart disease. Programs are being cut back in every area in which they are working. The momentum which they have been able to build up in the last few years is being lost. Teams which they have built up over the years are lost. I am not an expert, nor is the minister, but they tell me that it takes about 12 years to build up a medical research team. Those teams will be broken up.
The Americans are also cutting back, but they have been spending something between ten and twenty times more per capita on medical research than Canadians have been spending, so by our standards they will still be living in a fantastically favourable environment. Just when many things were beginning to pick up after the drought of the last half a dozen years, again restraint is imposed.
Science and Technology
Let me go on to put on the record a statement made to the Government of Canada in August of 1974, a joint statement by the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies and the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges. They made a statement which they entitled "Medical Research: The Immediate Need for Increased Funding." In this statement they talk about the medical requirements of the medical colleges, and they show that the budget for 1974-75 of the Medical Research Council was $41.4 million. The additional funds for all approved operating grants were $2.5 million. Additional funds for personnel support and special programs amounted to $1 million. The appropriate budget for 1974-75 was $44.9 million. Then there is an allowance for growth in activity at 2.5 per cent. That is certainly not a very large growth, and it amounts to $1.1 million. There is an allowance for inflation at 10 per cent of $4.5 million. They estimated a potential budget requirement for 1975-76 of $50.5 million. But, as I have already indicated, the actual increase in the cost of doing medical research is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 per cent. In their budget of $50.5 million they estimated the inflation factor at 10 per cent. The actual increase in cost as a result of inflation is 20 per cent, so we should add to this another $4.5 million which would have brought their budget up to $55 million, the budget requirements for the Medical Research Council for the fiscal year 1975-76.
If the minister will look at the estimates for 1975-76, he will see that the actual proposed expenditures are $49.5 million, a shortfall, according to what these organizations have calculated, of $5.5 million, a shortfall of 10 per cent on what they have calculated they need. Mr. Speaker, I am not the expert-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but I must advise him that the time allotted to him is this debate has now expired.


Mr. Charles Turner (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that hon. members opposite are making the point that the government is spending too little money on science policy. Actually when one considers the figures, the government is spending more in all departments with the exception of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Looking at the total figures for the years 1973-74, we spent $1,141,215,000. In 1974-75 the figure was increased to $1,266,154,000, and in 1975-76 this has been increased to $1,443,872,000.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Robert Turner: The figures for the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce have also been increased from $99,261,000 for the year 1974-75 to $104,694,000 in the year 1975-76. Where do hon. members get their arguments? For the information of the hon. member for Rocky Mountain (Mr. Clark), I would like to advise that the Department of the Environment of Canada is spending $243 million in the year 1975-76, an increase of $23 million over the year 1974-75 and an increase of almost $50 million over the year 1973-74.
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In other departments the total expenditures on science for the year 1975-76 will be: National Research Council, $189 million; National Defence, $119 million; Industry, Trade and Commerce, $104 million; Statistics Canada, $103 million; Agriculture, $101 million; Energy, Mines and Resources, $85 million; Atomic Energy of Canada, $83 million; National Health and Welfare, $53 million; Medical Research Council, $49 million; CIDA, $43 million; Communications, $36 million; Transport, $34 million; Canada Council, $28 million; National Museums of Canada, $14 million; and others, $152 million, for a total budget of $1,443,872,000. What is the argument?


An hon. Member:: What about inflation?


Charles Robert Turner: Don't worry about inflation, we will try to bring it under control.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Robert Turner: I lived under two Conservative governments and never worked harder and had less. I came out of high school when the late R. B. Bennett was prime minister of this country. I could not even get a job. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Robert Turner: The Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Drury) plans expenditures of $5 million in 1975-76. The objective of the minister is to assure the optimum use of science and technology in support of national objectives. In order to meet this objective, the minister will spend $1.5 million on the development of policies for science, about $600,000 on the review and assessment of government scientific programs and $1,5 million on the acquisition and exchange of information on scientific activities. What did the Tories do when they were in power?
During 1975-76 total expenditures by all federal government departments on scientific activities are expected to be $1.4 billion. As science expenditure is meaningful only in the context of the specific program it supports, it is allocated by departments and agencies in relation to their particular objectives and programs, and thus distributed across several functional categories.
Expenditure on science activity is broken down into four subdivisions according to the sector in which it is made. Three of these sectors are completely Canadian- intramural, Canadian industry and Canadian universities-while the fourth includes all foreign agencies as well as such Canadian organizations as private non-profit institutions, other levels of government and private individuals.
While expenditures on science are allocated by departments and agencies in conjunction with their program objectives, these expenditures are subject to some general government policies relating to science. One such policy is the "make or buy" policy, which is intended to increase the amount of mission-oriented research and development conducted in industry. The effect of its implementation can be seen in the fact that industrial contracts for mis-

sion-oriented research and development have increased from a proposed $53 million for 1974-75 to a proposed $74 million for 1975-76, an increase of 40 per cent. This increase has only a moderate effect on the figures for total spending in the industrial sector, since mission-oriented research and development contracts represent less than one third of the total support for scientific activities in industry.
The minister's expenditures are projected to increase by $910,000, with $624,000 going for increased costs of existing operations and $286,000 for expanded activities, primarily in the area of program review and assessment.
The budget of the Economic Council of Canada is to be increased to $4.4 million from $4 million in the 1974-75 main estimates. This advisory body has responsibility for the provision of independent economic research and the formulation of recommendations for the Canadian economy.
Until recently, the most frequently used measures of Canadian well-being were economic indices such as those for the Gross National Product, prices and unemployment rates. The council has extended its measurement of wellbeing to include social indicators in an attempt to identify what constitutes and what affects the quality of life in Canadian society. To date, initial indicators have been developed for housing, health and the natural environment. Additional indicators are being developed to reflect both the quantitative and subjective assessments of well-being.
Statistics Canada is the central statistical agency of the federal government, providing statistical information needed for the understanding of the Canadian economy, institutions and population. Its main estimates for 1975-76 are $101 million, an increase of $12 million over that of 1974-75. The principal reasons for the increase are requirements for the 1976 quinquennial census and increased salary costs.
The circumnavigation of the Americas by the Canadian oceanographic vessel Hudson in 1970 and the northern voyages of the American tanker Manhattan focused public attention in a dramatic fashion on Canada's growing involvement with the oceans. In actual fact, these events were merely among the most publicized of a series of developments in the late 1960s and early 1970s which promise that ocean resource development and management will be of vital importance to the future of the Canadian economy.
In recognition of this situation cabinet, in September, 1972, decided that Canada's ocean policies needed review, with particular emphasis on ocean science, ocean technology and ocean industry. A task force on ocean industry, science and technology was established with representatives from all interested departments and agencies of the federal government. This task force carried out a broad intersectoral study of existing and future ocean industries, with the objective of bringing to cabinet's attention the strategic significance to Canada of the ocean and its resources, and recommending policies to allow Canada to meet her increasing responsibilities, commitments and opportunities.
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In early summer of 1973, the conclusions and recommendations of the task force were submitted to cabinet and on July 12, 1973, the then minister of state for science and technology, the Minister of the Environment Madam Sauve, announced the national oceans policy, the objective of which is:
. . . to stimulate the development and most effective participation of Canadian industry consistent with the intent to develop and control in Canada the elements of industrial and technological capability essential to the exploitation of Canada's offshore resources.
In light of the increased marine activity relative to hydrocarbon and mineral development ventures in the Arctic, one of the most essential elements of the oceans policy relative to the exploitation of offshore resources is the requirement that Canada develop excellence in operating on and below ice-covered waters. In pursuit of this objective, the government set up an interdepartmental advisory committee to develop ways and means for achieving the requisite operating capabilities. Extensive consultation by the committee with industry and government experts has resulted in identification of a series of ice excellence R&D program requirements which, it is anticipated, will be considered by cabinet in the near future.
In the meantime, various scientific activities which are not explicitly part of a major co-ordinated ice excellence program have been continuing in support of ice-covered waters' operating capabilities. While these projects are too many and varied to be described in great detail at this time, a few examples would be useful.
The atmospheric environment service of the Department of the Environment, for instance, has been experimenting, in co-operation with the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, with satellite methods of ice reconnaissance and with a variety of instrumentation for airborne ice sensing. The Canadian hydrographic service has been carrying out research on navigation and positioning systems with emphasis being placed on problems of propagation of electromagnetic waves over ice-infested waters. Finally, the Department of Transport, which currently operates the second largest fleet of icebreakers in the world, is having design specifications and drawings prepared for an icebreaker capable of continuous progress through seven-foot ice.
The oceans policy stated that special emphasis should be given to national marine science and technology programs which support, among other things, the protection and management of the marine environment, the management of estuarine, coastal and near-shore zones, the development and management of ocean resources and improved capabilities to predict marine atmospheric and oceanic factors such as weather and sea state.
An excellent illustration of a program which simultaneously supports all the above elements and, in addition, relates to the development of Canadian ice excellence, is the Beaufort sea environmental study. Conducted as a joint undertaking by the government and the Arctic Petroleum Operators' Association, this concerted scientific program is aimed at establishing a sufficiently sound scientific undertaking of the Beaufort sea environment to allow safe oil and gas operations. The program constitutes a total environmental approach and includes detailed
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scientific investigation of wildlife, fish, oceanographic and geological parameters, and the interactions between oil, ice, and sea water.
The government industry co-operation in the Beaufort sea project is relevant to one of the strongest concerns expressed in the oceans policy, the need to support the development of Canadian ocean industry. Canada is, in fact, developing a recognized expertise in certain areas of ocean industry, as illustrated, for example, by the emergence of Halifax shipyards as a major builder of oil drilling platforms and by the international success enjoyed by the Pisces and Aquarius mini-submarines.
In addition, the government is involving industry more heavily in meeting the government's scientific requirements through the "make or buy" program. As the government's scientific interests turn increasingly to ocean resource development, the benefits of these programs will be felt more heavily in the ocean industry sector. Moreover, in a particularly interesting departure which illustrates the magnitude of the government's concern for the development of ocean industry, about 40 acres have been reserved at the government's new Institute of Ocean Science at Patricia Bay, British Columbia, for private industry engaged in ocean related research and development.
Implementation of the oceans policy is an ongoing process that will continue to occupy the government into the indefinite future. The complexity and difficulty of the "Law of the Sea" negotiations is evidence of the importance of Canada having a clearly defined policy in this field.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, the opposition have the audacity to say that this government is not doing anything.


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my remarks tonight on the need for some form of over-all direction on a scientific and technological policy for Canada are based on the knowledge that a great deal has been done by various governments in this country over many years. My quarrel with what has been done by the various institutions and organizations set up over the last 100 years to give some government leadership in these fields is with a philosophy that is widespread in those organizations.
Let me quote an example used by the parliamentary secretary who just read his speech to the House. He spoke about agriculture and said that the Department of Agriculture has maintained one of the largest forces of research personnel in the world on a per capita basis, and that the work done by this group is unparalleled in its quality.
But, Mr. Speaker, the information gained is not reaching the people who should have it-the farmers of this country. It is kept in the library in the building on Carling Avenue because of the theory that scientists should not be in the job of teaching others what they have found out. Apparently that is a job for somebody else. Until we can get ministers to stand up to this attitude of the scientists and have them produce this fundamental knowledge and turn it into applied science and technology, I think the cost of their research is wasted.

June 9, 1975
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The same can be said of the National Research Council. The work it does is amazing, yet information it is uncovering is hard to get because its members follow the same philosophy. You have to go to them and ask them for information; they will not come to you.
I suggest that in introducing a good science policy, government members should take the lead in establishing a mechanism for making available to the public information which our scientists and technicians are acquiring. Although I am not an authority on scientific knowledge, I know that there is more than enough knowledge available from Canadian scientists, technical people working for government departments in Ottawa, universities, corporations and private individuals to give the Canadian people a significant advantage. The problem in a nutshell, as Senator Lamontagne has put it, is that of going to the second stage, of making scientific knowledge available to ordinary people so that they can use it. This holds true of scientific knowledge pertaining to the field of agriculture and to other fields as well.
Tonight I shall speak about basic problems. I hope the minister will take the hint embodied in our remarks and use his authority on behalf of the people of Canada in seeing to it that scientific knowledge is made available to our people. My remarks will centre largely on the current problem facing the world, that is to say, the problem of finding new modes of energy.
My first point is this: all the work in this field will not be done by governments. If we are to develop renewable forms of energy, or forms of energy which are less expensive than present forms, it is the individuals of Canada who must do the job. The government must help them. It must make it possible for individuals to know what forms of energy are available. Also it must do the costing work for them. That is my first point. Let us see what can be done to put information which is currently available here in Ottawa into the hands of individuals so that they can make the right decisions.
I shall talk about new modes of energy under two main headings. The first mode, which is the most important and which I shall discuss at greater length at the end of my remarks, has to do with the use of biomass. When the twenty-ninth parliament first met in 1972, I asked the two ministers responsible for scientific matter to promise me that they or their departments would provide me with copies of letters they had received from the people written on behalf of the biochemists of Canada. I wanted to know what research work had been done in the field of biomass. Both ministers promised that they would make such letters available. To my knowledge, that was the first occasion on which the word biomass was used in this House.
According to available literature, we know that biomass, or the process of biomass, is capable of producing renewable forms of energy. When a plant dies, when an animal dies, the matter of which it is composed goes into the earth in the form of water, salt, minerals, etc. This matter is collected in the earth. This process went on two billion years ago and now, two billion years later, we have discovered the remains of living organisms, in the form of oil. Such deposits laid down two billion years ago make up our present fossil fuels. Scientists say that within the next 50

years they will be able to take waste material and turn it into clean oil with low sulphur content, clear gas, or into any form of energy or nutrient you want. They will be able to produce proteins, imitation steaks, or almost anything you want. That this is possible has been known to our universities for a long time, for as long as I recall. Now that the world is facing a challenge, the work of these biochemists will come to fruition. Their knowledge is available to students; it must be taken out of the laboratory and put to practical, everyday use.
In some fields rapid progress has already been made. The Bureau of Mines at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has costed the development of techniques for utilizing waste from trees, manure, bark and so on. Its information is available to the peoples of the world. As well, I should mention a paper which was delivered in Winnipeg three years ago on a subject in which the Biomass Institute has been involved but in which the government has not been involved. The institute attempted to disseminate the information available to it to the public. I encouraged a group of men interested in this field to hold a conference in Regina last November. They published a paper entitled "Food, Fuel, Fertilizer", which is available to anyone who has $7.50. It should help farm groups utilize waste as fertilizer.
Ontario, not to be outdone, sponsored a conference on the agricultural economy in April. Many of the best men in North America attended, including the head of the Agricultural Research Centre here in Ottawa. The papers that conference produced will be available to the public. That conference discussed problems of basic research on how our people could utilize waste in order to provide food, fuel and fertilizer.
I shall conclude this part of my remarks by saying that in a few years a large proportion of the energy requirement of North America, indeed of the western world, will be supplied by renewable, non-polluting forms of energy which will be available at lower cost than the oil we are using today. The information regarding such energy production is available and should be disseminated to all our peoples.
Let me mention something else that is important. When the energy panic hit the United States three years ago, the president immediately announced that the U.S. government would spend huge sums of money in the search for new energy sources. The program announced went far beyond the sorts of programs the parliamentary secretary mentioned not long ago. The president asked for a team of scientists from the NASA group, which sent men to the moon, to study all possible new modes of energy. Within four months they reported. All the information they had collected was condensed in one little pamphlet. That was in December, 1972. Following that, the congress of the United States gladly voted $20 billion, not for a continuation of programs available to agriculture, mines, and so on, but for research into new modes of energy, most of them renewable and non-polluting.
As I say, the NASA group was able to make its first report within four months of being asked to look into the problem. I am not suggesting that we should spend anything like $20 billion, or even $2 billion in this field. The United States is spending $2 billion a year on research in
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this field right now. If we spent a proportionate amount, we should be spending $200 million a year, not just $1.4 million per year, as was mentioned.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: That should be $1.4 billion.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: That is $1.4 billion for every research program in every department. I am simply saying that on top of these regular programs in the United States, they voted an additional $2 billion for research into new modes of energy. When we got the figures from the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Public Works last year, it came to less than $200,000 for new modes of energy.
I happened to be in cabinet at the time the question of CANDU came up. It was that cabinet in 1958, looking at all the evidence, that decided to set up for Canadian scientists an $87 million research program to produce nuclear energy power and electrical energy in competition with what the Americans and the British had done. That $87 million has now risen to $1 billion. That is one program where Canada took the lead and still has it. I can say that with some assurance because I have been interested in this for some time.
What I am pointing out to the minister is that I am not even asking for this tremendous, exaggerated expense which the Americans have. I want to propose just one simple thing. The Science Council of Canada Report No. 23 of March 1975 asks the minister to look at this program and the council's views on action which should be commenced now and continued into the future if we, as Canadians, are to keep our energy options open.
I quote this to the minister, although I know he has read it, and suggest that this information be put into the public domain. If any other member of the government were just to read this report, they would see it does not suggest huge expenditures. The report suggests using information that is available. It suggests a little more effort to try and pull this knowledge together to make it available to the public.
I will just run through some of the point which they make. I will just take two pages of the report dealing with renewable energy. The first is biomass. The report states: -a tremendous multiplication of the energy now obtainable from an acre of land could be realized from the growth of algae-
That is that little green stuff. It states:
-the energy from this source could presently compete with oil at $11 a barrel-
With that dirty, green slime on our water, we could produce energy cheaper than we can buy it. All we have to do is get started. To give the government credit, last year they gave $34,000 to get the algae experiment started at the University of Manitoba. I thank them for it. It took a long time. That is one example.
Turning over the page, it suggests there should be coordination of all this work on biomass. I again quote:
An incipient focal co-ordination point exists in the form of the Biomass Energy Institute in Winnipeg.
There would be no expense for the government. Utilize these scientists who have tried for 30 years to get governments and corporations to listen to them. Ask these people
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in Winnipeg. They are leading the world. We should keep this up. Do not let NASA get ahead of us.
The third point deals with waste. I do not want to go into this in detail. The leader in this field is the Alberta agriculture department. They talk about taking our so-called manure, rather than waste, removing the methane from it and improving the quality of the fertilizer. To come to figures, they quote from the report done by the conference in Regina.
Take a ton of common manure and put it on to a wheat field. The value of the ton of manure is $2.50. Take the same ton of manure, remove the methane gas, and it is worth $37.50; $30 for the methane and the fertilizer is worth three times as much, $7.50. Take the same ton of manure, put it into a purified form and recycle it back through the animal as animal feed, and it is worth $130 a ton. All of this is information which is available. I am simply saying no one is doing the job of getting the information out except myself, because I yap all the time about it.
The fact remains that I am not asking the minister for very much. I will just skim through the report. It talks about an apartment block being designed in Toronto, of all places, providing its hot water by burning its own garbage.
Why does the minister not tell the House about Can-well? This was mentioned three years ago by the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Basford) when he was Minister of State for Urban Affairs. What is Canwell? It is a joint operation between Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Ontario Research Foundation to take all the sewage from apartments. It takes the fluid part, cleans it up and sends it back. It takes out the solid parts, lets them sit over night, changes them into an energy form. The energy is used to cool the place in the summer and heat it in the winter. Why are the people of Toronto not told about it? Look what it would save them. I know why they are not told. They are terrified that, with the mentality of the people of Toronto, if they were ever told they were drinking their own sewage they would leave the city.
This is done in England. In some hotels in England which cost $45 a night for a room you have the privilege of drinking your own sewage. The same is true in Germany. Someone has to let the people know there are ways of utilizing this stuff in a way that is productive.
I see my time is running out and I would like to get down to the simplest things, what I call the mundane forms of renewable energy; all known, all understood. At the present price level, heat pumps are now back. What is a heat pump? It has been used for 45 years on a commercial basis. It is the same as a fridge. There are 3,000 in use in Ontario alone and several hundred thousand in the United States. In almost a full page ad in the Globe and Mail last month, they advertise "the amazing heat pump". This ad tells the people of Ontario to get rid of their gas furnaces and oil furnaces and use a heat pump. The ad says that the heat pump is the same as a fridge. It simply takes the heat out of the air and pumps it into the house. When it is hot in the house, it pumps the heat outside. It costs $30 to $40 to year to operate. The United States congress voted $137 million to set up one person in each county in the United States not only to explain heat pumps and other things like solar furnaces, solar heating,

June 9, 1975
Science and Technology
wind power, and whatever else is available, but the cost factor involved.
I would like to conclude my remarks by making a simple plea to the minister. As stated in this report, it does not require much funding. We should be on the alert for what has been done and support it. Last fall an individual in Gananoque built a house with solar panels in the roof with the understanding he would get 70 per cent of his heat from the solar panels. Because it was a sunny winter, he got 100 per cent. This spring, Central Mortgage and Housing bought the house for use as a demonstration unit. The government is not unaware of what is going on.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but the time allotted to him has now expired.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I have just one sentence more.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member can only continue with unanimous consent. Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: There is very much information available. Would the minister consider setting up a co-ordinating group of half a dozen or a dozen people to collect all this information from this and other sources and make it available to the Canadian public? It is as simple as that. It would at least be a start at utilizing the tremendous amount of knowledge we already have.


Mr.   J.-J. Blais@Nipissing: Mr. Speaker, today I should like to begin by giving some information to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) with reference to the Canwell project. Had the hon. member asked the responsible minister, namely, the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson), how far the program had progressed he might have been told that it is going ahead with CMHC, the Ontario Research Foundation and a major Toronto developer. As I understand it, there are some delays as a result of hesitation on the part of the private contributor.
I should like at the outset to thank the Conservative party for bringing this motion forward. It gives me an opportunity to call to the attention of the Minister for Science and Technology (Mr. Drury) a difficulty with which I have become familiar. From May 18 to May 26 of this year there was held in Jonquiere in Quebec the 14th annual Canada-wide science fair. That fair united or reunited students from high schools across the country. In other words, embryonic scientists from all over Canada contributed to this event. Perhaps I should say that contributors came from senior primary schools as well as from high schools.
I became familiar with this fair as a result of the participation of high school students from my own area in what has become known as the North Bay regional science fair. I had occasion to visit one science fair in North Bay two years ago and I was most impressed by the exhibits. Thus I volunteered to the organizers that I would attempt

to find some funds so that they could make this fair even better. Accordingly they wrote to me on January 22 this year setting out ways in which they felt the fair could be improved. I forwarded the documentation to the Minister for Science and Technology, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gillespie) and to the Minister of Communications (Mr. Pelletier) so that I might ascertain the source from which funds could become available. I was told that unfortunately such funds would not be forthcoming.
I feel that this response is not acceptable. In view of the fact that the fair has now become a national event and that contributions are made to it by most of the major organizations in the country except the federal government, I ask that the minister reconsider the position taken toward this Canada-wide science fair with a view to making a contribution from the government available.
I will content myself now by honouring those contestants at the North Bay regional fair who did so well in the Canada-wide fair. I call attention to the fact that Clarence Virtue of the Widdifield Secondary School won first prize in the earth science category. He also received financial awards from the Canadian Teachers' Federation and the Geological Association of Canada, representing $800 in prize money. As well, he was one of the three students chosen by Shell International to participate in the London International Youth Science Fair in London, England in August 1975, with winners from other countries and take part in an international fair.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Blais:: Mr. Virtue also won two other awards for achievement in other categories. Donna White and Lillie Ing were winners of three major awards, including first prize in the senior life science category.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Jacques Blais: Three students from the Ecole secondaire, Algonquin, Michel Delorme, Gilles Corbeil and Richard Ochal, won the third prize in the senior engineering-science category.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Jacques Blais: Furthermore, John Toal won the third prize in the junior engineering science category.
I am pleased to advise the House of the names of these winners because when I was in high school I was very impressed by one major scientific achievement in particular-the putting into orbit of the first satellite, Sputnik. When I think of what has happened since that day I can only express regret that Canada, although having achieved international status in the field of space technology, has never been recognized as having made a contribution of such importance. I ask hon. members if they can tell me how many satellites we have circling the world at the present time-creations of Canadian scientists. I am sure the critics in the opposition would be unable to tell me how many or what they are called or what they do. Yet all they need do is ask.
I will take it that the question has been asked of me and tell them there are six. There are two communications
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satellites and four which are being used for studies of the ionosphere. The first is called Allouette and it was launched on September 29, 1962. It is still going around up there and it is still useful. The second is the Allouette II and it was launched on November 29, 1965. Since then we have sent up Isis I and II as well as Anik-the name means "brother" in the Inuit language-and Anik II. These have established for Canada the first domestic satellite system. This is no minor technical achievement. This is an accomplishment worthy of international note.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Jacques Blais: When was the last time anyone in this House got up and said: "Thank you, Government of Canada, for bringing Canada to the forefront in the aerospace industry"?


Mr. Whittaker:: You are undoubtedly the first.


Harvie Andre: Those satellites were built by Hughes in Los Angeles.


Jean-Jacques Blais: The former minister of science and technology, the Minister of the Environment (Madame Sauve), announced Canada's space policy in 1974 and indicated that we had achieved by leaps and bounds a very desirable position and that we were, as we say in French- [Translation]
-"sur le plancher des vaches". We had to start from there, determine the amount of our knowledge to be able to make progress. Then we also had to have access to development, that is we had to be able to build a new technology. To that end, the government, in order to encourage the private sector, decided to transfer to it a great part of its technological development in the space industry.
Since then, it has seen the need to retain access to the launching system. We realized that it was impossible for Canada, a low income nation in the international community, to develop its launching system. It was decided to use the U.S. facilities. It was a very wise decision. Nevertheless in order, to gain that access," we had to give the Americans part of our technological progress. It goes without saying that our knowledge was quite desirable since the Americans agreed to let us have access to their launching system at will.
Mr. Speaker, Canada is in the process of developing in co-operation with the United States a shuttle system. It is easy to understand that when a satellite is launched with a rocket that is not reuseable, an astronomical amount is lost. So, if a system could be developed whereby the rocket could be recovered and reused after launching the satellite, substantial savings would be possible.
Therefore, Canada has decided that it would spend money in order to contribute to the development of a shuttle satellite or a shuttle launching system. That is indeed a commendable attitude. Prior to preparing these particular remarks I unfortunately had not heard of the shuttle service. Fortunately, Canada is making advances in the scientific field. We are specialists in certain areas of
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scientific development but we are not receiving the publicity we ought to receive.
As an example, let me indicate that the hon. member for Rocky Mountain (Mr. Clark) in his speech said that the government of Canada was erroneously encouraging population development toward centres. That is absolutely misleading and incorrect. I would indicate to the hon. member for Rocky Mountain that many times in this House members in the backbenches of the governing party, as well as the government itself, have advocated policies which tend to reverse the tendency toward urbanization. I would call his attention to the policy of regional development. As a sitting member of the committee on regional development he ought to know that is one of the policies the government has attempted to espouse.
I draw to his attention as well the 1973-74 Annual Report of the Science Council of Canada where it is stated at page 20:
At its Thirty-Seventh Meeting (July 1972) the Council appointed a Committee to investigate the effects that present and future technology may have on population and demographic trends in Canada. Topics presently under investigation are: population growth and urban problems; allocation and use of land; emerging patterns in work and leisure; and technology, industrial growth and population distribution.
When I read that particular paragraph I phoned the Science Council of Canada and asked how far they had gone in their studies. They forwarded to me four voluminous working documents.


An hon. Member:: Read them.


Jean-Jacques Blais: I will read them if you want me to. They go into detail in respect of the topics described in that report of the Science Council of Canada. If the hon. member for Rocky Mountain wanted to make some political statement about the lack of direction given by this government in respect of urbanization, he should have looked at these documents. He might then have been informed, if not enlightened.
I see that it is approaching ten o'clock, and I am sure there are members of the opposition, whose motion it is, who would like to have something to say either in reply or in rebuttal to my remarks, so I will cede the floor to them at this time.


Mr. Paul Dick (Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, it is rather difficult at this late hour, with the few minutes left, to try to rebut all the intelligent things that have been said by the hon. member for Nipissing (Mr. Blais). It strikes me that we have just had an example of some of the gas that was taken away from that biomass.
In the short time I have left perhaps I might read from a letter provided by the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of British Columbia, Mr. McTag-gart-Cowan, in which he states:
As you are aware, the Government of Canada has been striving over the last four or five years to develop a coherent science policy. While it has been searching its soul its de facto policy has been to starve science until we have now reached a point where research output is declining and we are no longer able to cope with the training of young scientists who will take over from us in the years ahead.
In an open letter put out by the Dean of Graduate Studies, the Dean of the Faculty of Science, Mr. Volkoff, and the head of the technology school, it is stated:

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National Research Council grants to support research in science and engineering is universities, where much of the fundamental work is done, are declining in comparison with most other indices in our society. The continuing shortfall has led to serious cutbacks in the level of activity in basic research to the detriment of our country. In the four years since April, 1970, NRC grant support has increased only 5 per cent, while the Gross National Product has increased 49 per cent and the Consumer Price Index 29 per cent. The lack of support for fundamental studies is a symptom of a general malaise, which in financial terms is far worse in Canada than in other developed countries. For instance, the funding allocated to broadly equivalent agencies in France, Britain and the U.S. has increased by approximately 50 per cent during the same period.
It is to be noted as well that in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an organization of 27 western industrialized countries, of which Canada is a proud member, we did not rate so well. When you look and see what we are spending as a percentage of our gross national product on research and development, you will see that Canada is one of the lowest. When you take it as a percentage of our gross national product at market prices in constant 1961 dollars, countries like the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Japan are all ahead of us. Of the countries which are referred to in the October-November 1974 report of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development we find that Italy, which is almost bankrupt today, and Spain are lower on the list than Canada.
Earlier we heard the parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for London East (Mr. Turner), talking about the Pisces, the minister's submarine. I should like to point out to him that the government of Canada denied the sale of the Pisces II that was supposed to go to the Soviet Union. It was on the rails and being shipped from Canada when the government said it could not be sold. As a result of that the company built a subsequent submarine for the Russians under contract, taking the technology out of this country and assembling that ship in Europe where it had developed another company to get around this government's orders. The parliamentary secretary says he is taking credit on behalf of the Canadian government for helping the Pisces company.
I see you are about to get up as it is ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker. I wish I had a longer opportunity to speak as there are a number of things I should have liked to say about industrial strategy, but perhaps I will have another occasion to speak about this interesting topic.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being ten o'clock p.m., it is my duty to inform the House, pursuant to Section 11 of Standing Order 58, that the proceedings on the motion have now expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised that neither the minister nor his parliamentary secretary are in the House to answer this question which has been a matter of debate since May 7. On that date I asked the minister to visit the Fundy National Park in the constituency of Fundy-Royal in order to see or learn at first hand the effect the proposed entrance fee would have on the park and on the village of Alma, which is the service centre and lies adjacent to Fundy National Park.
Fundy National Park does not have within its boundaries any facilities for the purchase of amenities with the exception of gasoline and automobile fuel of various types. There is no bank, post office or facility for the purchase of camping supplies. All such items must be purchased in the village beside the park. The park lies a substantial distance from the nearest community to the west. Therefore, people going through the satellite community for supplies, such as bakery goods and so on, normally go in and out of the park two or three times a day during their visit. Representations have been received from the Albert County Tourist Association, the Albert County Historical Society, the Village Council of Alma and the city council of Moncton, not so much protesting the fee, although each group does protest the fee, but rather suggesting alternate means of collecting the revenue. As a matter of fact, the suggestion was made that there be a pass for entrance privileges covering a period of 15 days for the $2 fee.
Comparisons are made with western parks, particularly Banff and Jasper, but each of these parks has its own shopping facilities within the park boundary; so a $2 fee will get a family into a park and they could stay there for the summer for the $2 and obtain the supplies within the park. A senior official in the parks branch informed me that local residents of Alma would be provided stickers to affix to their car windshields. However, as of late this afternoon when I telephoned residents there I was informed that no arrangement had been made which would permit residents of Alma or of Albert County movement through the park on the public highway, Route 114. One resident put the situation somewhat dramatically, and I believe it is worth including in this debate. He said he will have to pay a fee to get into the park to place flowers on his family grave. That is somewhat dramatic, but it puts the story eloquently.
This fee has been opposed in an editorial in the Moncton Transcript of June 3. Also the Albert County Tourist Association has advised there is a substantial drop in commercial revenue within the village of Alma this season. The Alma post office shows a 27.2 per cent decrease in revenue over a three-year period. Questions I have raised at earlier times have pointed to a reduction in the number of visitors to Fundy National Park in the last few years. It seems to me that a park fee applied to all parks equally often means insensitivity to local needs, and I suggest strongly that there is a callous indifference to the fate of these people who have a very short business season. In Fundy National Park the longest season is about 90 days out of 365. This is
[Mr. Dick.)
June 9, 1975

a totally inadequate length of time in which to cover any investment and make a reasonable profit.
The residents of Alma and the surrounding areas at least should be exempt from this fee, which I suggest is very similar to the fee paid in mediaeval times as one crossed the drawbridge to enter the fortified city. This seems to me to be the very antithesis of the national park system. National parks are a statutory heritage for the people of Canada. The people's use of the park and the local residents' use of the amenities are being severely inhibited by this procedure.


Charles Robert Turner: Mr. Speaker, the town of Alma, New Brunswick, is located near the entrance to Fundy National Park. It serves as a visitor service centre for the park. Parks Canada recognizes the importance of the role played by Alma and is sympathetic to the problems that may arise from the new park motor licence fees. It is possible that visitors to the park may be deterred from driving to Alma by the requirement to purchase a new daily motor vehicle licence if their present one has expired.
However, I would point out the following factors. First, we expect many visitors to purchase annual licences and these, of course, permit unlimited entry and re-entry. Second, the daily licence permits unlimited entries on the day of issue. Third, approximately 50 per cent of the park visitors are American citizens and will not be deterred by the motor vehicle licence as these are in effect in American parks. Fourth, there was a decrease in visitors to the area last year because of other factors not associated with motor vehicle licence fees. Fifth, the new and increased park fees will only recoup a small portion of the annual operation and maintenance costs of the park, which is estimated to be 12 per cent in 1975-76.
To alleviate the possible impact on Alma, Parks Canada officials have discussed the following options with the Albert County Tourist Association. First, some form of transportation between the town and the park. Some local elected members feel this is not a satisfactory solution. A number of those in business at Alma, however, feel it should be considered. Second, reservation'of parking space near the park boundary for those who wish to walk the few hundred yards to Alma. Provision of additional parking for this purpose if possible, and if is proves popular. Third, additional active promotion of tourism to Fundy National Park to help offset the decline in tourism to Alma over the last two years. Parks Canada is not considering the proposal that the present $2 daily motor vehicle licence be made valid for 14 days.


POST OFFICE-STUDY RECOMMENDING MAIL DELIVERY TO BE LEFT WITH PRIVATE CONTRACTORS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I am calling on the Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey) to start immediate negotiations with private mail contractors and courier companies with a view to transferring parcel delivery and business mail delivery to private contractors. The Postmaster General has an obligation to do something decisive with regard to improving
Adjournment Motion
mail delivery in Canada. We cannot continue the huge deficits and totally unreliable mail services. The main function of the Postmaster General today is to act as a strike arbitrator and labour negotiator. If the Postmaster General is not prepared to transfer parcel delivery to private contractors, then he should at least have the whole matter referred to a standing committee.
In a news story in Saturday's paper the following was stated:
Postmaster General Bryce Mackasey said Friday that illegal work stoppages by postal workers pose a threat to their job security by helping private couriers compete with the government.
Mr. Mackasey said in an interview that private courier services dealing especially with parcel delivery would "get a toe-hold only because of labour unrest and the uncertainty of moving the mail."
There is no way in which the small businessman can continue to operate under present conditions. Some of them will go bankrupt if something is not done, and the only answer is to turn parcel delivery and business mail delivery over to private contractors.
I should like to give an example of what is happening in the United States. A private company, United Parcel Service of America, has now 62 per cent of the country's parcel post business and handles 250,000 packages daily in New York alone. Last year it made a profit of $57 million after paying $45 million in federal income tax.
The Wall Street Journal is now delivering 100,000 copies of each issue by private courier, and some utilities are arranging to deliver their own bills instead of mailing them. Even children are competing successfully, albeit illegally, with the United States postal service. Last year some brothers and sisters in a small New Jersey community received nationwide publicity by hand-delivering 800 Christmas cards on Christmas Eve, charging five cents each against the official ten cents and giving an absolute guarantee of delivery to the right place at the right time. They cleared $40 amongst them. Perhaps that is what some of the business people in the larger cities will have to do. Perhaps they will have to have children deliver their mail; they certainly cannot rely on the Canadian postal service because its employees are out on strike all the time.
Many firms are profiting from Canada's postal problems. The continuing mail disruptions may be frustrating to the general public, but they are sending more and more businesses to private delivery and courier companies. I heard some rumblings from the parliamentary secretary. I do not know if he is familiar with the Samson Belair report, but I suggest he should read it. Giving dollar comparisons, it points out why mail delivery should have been left to private mail contractors. It cost the Canadian public an absolute fortune to take over mail deliveries from the private contractors a couple of years ago. What is more, the Post Office is losing some of its customers permanently. They continue with the private companies instead of returning to a somewhat unreliable mail service.
Marcel Lalonde, manager of Voyageur Colonial's bus parcel express in Ottawa, says:

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Every time we have a postal strike there is an increase in shipments of about 35 to 40 per cent. When the mail tie-up finishes, 25 to 30 per cent of the new business stays with us and doesn't go back to the mail.
I understand that the United Postal Service is looking to Canada for business, so that is why I am suggesting the Postmaster General (Mr. MacKasey) should start negotiating with Canadian firms to transfer this business to them before the Americans walk in and take over. The bus company official goes on to say:
We are getting a lot of companies with 10 or 12 branches in one city packaging up their correspondence to these branches and sending it in one parcel by bus. It's cheaper than sending it by mail to the individual offices.
He estimates that Voyageur's parcel business has increased 400 per cent in the last five years, and we might as well give the rest of it over to the private mail contractors. We have an obligation to the business people of Canada not to slough them off and do nothing about all these postal problems.
Government departments, banks, the provincial police, credit companies, law firms, the communications media and private industry with deadlines to meet already use bus parcel express. Mr. Speaker, you will note that I said government departments. In Manitoba, Statistics Canada will not use the postal service. It uses a private bus company. Even the government cannot rely on the Post Office.
Some small delivery companies also use Voyageur. A small company will undertake to pick up an item locally, put it on the bus and have it met by an agent at the other end who will deliver it to the door. Voyageur's bus parcel express provides cross Canada service, with the exception of Newfoundland. A parcel or rush envelope brought to the Ottawa terminal can be in Montreal in 2Vi hours, in Toronto in 6 hours and in Winnipeg in less than 24 hours. The parliamentary secretary may wish to read some of my mail-and I am sure he receives it too-from business people who have lost government contracts because their bids are lost in the mail or they arrive late and all the rest of it.
I would like to read a couple of quotes from the Samson, Belair report. It is unfortunate that the parliamentary secretary did not read this before he arrived tonight. It states that a contracted operation for mail delivery is less costly than a government operation. One does not have to be an expert to figure that out. The report also says that a payment on a point of call basis results in increased productivity and efficiency since the contractor is provided with an incentive to complete deliveries as early as possible. We certainly do not have that in the Post Office in Canada today.
Payment on a possible point of call basis is easier to administer because it eliminates the need to maintain a detailed record of hours worked by the contractor. A further recommendation of the report was that all mobile delivery contractors should be paid on the basis of scheduled possible points of call. Improved productivity resulting from a change in the method of payment could form the basis of negotiating contracted rates which could result in lower cost to the Post Office. The report went on to say that in future the department should contract for city services unless there is conclusive evidence as to the

unavailability of this service on reasonable terms from outside the department.


The Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but the time allotted to him has expired.


Mr. Raynald Guay (Parliamentary Secretary to Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I must say first of all that this report from Samson, Belair, Riddel and Stead never mentioned that private contractors should be entrusted with mail delivery. It rather recommended to have private contractors clear the mail boxes on the main streets of large cities.
The hon. member contends that private couriers could deliver mail more efficiently than the post office department. He may be right. But when he adds that it would also be more economical, I doubt it very much. Which private couriers would deliver a letter to the north pole or in rural areas for 8 cents? He mentioned earlier that students delivered Christmas cards for 5 cents, but in downtown areas. Would they do the same thing in rural areas? No private courier would accept to bear the cost of such a delivery service. Then delivery would only be efficient in cities, and that is far from sure.
No private courier could ensure mail delivery more economically than the minister and the Post Office Department. Earlier, I head an hon. member-unfortunately he left the House-raise several objections, but one of the main objections that I see is that the Canadian Postal Service is recognized as one of the most efficient and the best in the world.
Could private contractors make up the deficits that the Post Office Department has to make up? I doubt it, Mr. Speaker. It is a public service like several others in Canada, like the CBC, the CNR and several government agencies. When we talk about public services, should we talk about profits and private entreprise? Mr. Speaker, I do not know what individual or what business it could be. I ask the hon. member, who unfortunately left the House so that he would not hear my answer, not only on behalf of the Postmaster General but on my own behalf, and I see that my time is much shorter than his, what will become of the thousands of postal workers, of letter carriers and post offices that the Canadian government and the Canadian taxpayers have here in Canada.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS-SHORTAGE OF MASON JAR LIDS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA-GOVERNMENT ACTION
George H. Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak to the question that I asked the other day about the problems in western Canada regarding wide mouth Mason jar lids, I am sorry that neither the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) nor his parliamentary secretary is present, even though I saw the minister flitting around the House a few moments ago. It is because of the answers that he gave to the questions asked by the hon. member for Okanagan-Kootenay (Mr. Johnston) and myself that I am prompted to speak tonight. It may be that the minister's reply will be that he does not have to listen to the problem, and does
June 9, 1975

not really consider it a serious problem. But it is a very, very serious problem in western Canada. There is a shortage now of jar lids for canning, of wide mouth Mason jar lids and also of other types of jar lids.
The minister suggested in his answer to me that I was new to this problem and that is why I did not know what was going on. I remind him that I was the first one to bring this problem before the House of Commons. On July 19, 1974, I wrote letters to the then minister of consumer and corporate affairs, to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) and to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gillespie).
When answering the hon. member for Okanagan-Kootenay, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs said that the problem was that the B.C. manufacturer faced a strike. I say that there is no manufacturer of lids in British Columbia or in western Canada. Yes, there is a manufacturer of jars, jars for which you use these kinds of lids. There is such a manufacturer in western Canada, but the plant was on strike. The consumer, the housewife, the person who uses these lids, may have an ample supply of jars and may not want any more. People like that want lids for the jars they now have. That is why I say that the minister should take this question seriously. He does not seem to understand it; in any case, he is not present tonight, again, and so will not find out what this debate is all about and understand the problem.
It is about time this government and the minister took an interest in western Canada and in what is going on; Because there is no shortage of lids in eastern Canada does not mean that we, in western Canada, are to be forgotten. There is no manufacturer in western Canada. The manufacturers are in eastern Canada and the United States. The problem is national and international. It is not a problem for the British Columbia government. The minister can say all he wants about this being a problem for the government in B.C. It is not their problem. The problem has to be dealt with by the federal government because it is a national problem. We have manufacturers in eastern Canada, and they have to ship to western Canada. The problem is international, as well, because supplies for western Canada for the last number of years have been coming from the United States. When there is a shortage of tin plate in the United States, manufacturers there do not ship to western Canada. They keep their supplies at home, as is only natural.
We have been telling this government for the last few years that we must become self-sufficient in Canada, but what happened? The manufacturers of eastern Canada could not ship last year to western Canada because they had not shipped for a number of years and their quotas of tin plate were based on the quantities they had been getting for the past three years. That meant that they did not have a large enough quota of tin plate in order to manufacture lids for western Canada. If we are to have sufficient supplies of jar lids manufactured in Canada, the government must take an interest and make sure that manufacturers get more tinplate than they got under the quotas of the past three years. They should get enough tinplate to build up supplies in western Canada and supplies in eastern Canada.
Adjournment Motion
The government must also make sure that after manufacturers in eastern Canada manufacture these jar lids and send them to western Canada someone does not come in all of a sudden from the United States with lower priced lids and kick our eastern manufacturers our of the market. This could happen easily if there is an over-supply of tinplate.
What is going to happen to western Canada is this: if there are not good supplies of tinplate, manufacturers will not send supplies of lids to western Canada. So the problem is national and international. It is very serious and has to be attacked and solved by the federal government, not by the government of British Columbia or by any other government in western Canada.
This question has to be taken seriously by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Let us not have the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, who comes from eastern Canada, giving us a lot of malarky and silly answers to our questions. When we ask these questions, we want him to be serious about this problem.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but the time allotted to him has now expired.


Charles Robert Turner: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the issue raised by the hon. member for Okanagan Boundary (Mr. Whittaker), the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Lee) and the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt). As hon. members know, there were a number of factors which contributed to the shortage of canning lids in 1974. These included shortages in base materials for manufacturers of the products, insufficiency of Canadian supply to meet demand, and a vastly increased demand on the part of consumers which was brought about by the increases in food and produce costs and resulted in decisions being taken by homemakers everywhere to "put up" home grown produce.
The government has continued to be concerned about the situation and has, as the minister indicated in his reply to the question by the hon. member on June 2, 1975, through officials of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs had on-going discussions with Canadian manufacturers to encourage them to increase their production to meet demand, particularly in British Columbia and other parts of western Canada. A very close watch has also been kept on the American situation since part of the supply of home canning lids is manufactured in the United States. Hon. members are aware of some of these initiatives and they do not have to be repeated here.
As recently as Friday of last week, officials of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs met with Canadian manufacturers of home canning lids to receive up-dated information on the canning lid supply and to ensure that, so far as it is possible, there will be sufficient product supplied to Canadian consumers this year to meet demand.
I am informed that, as a result of the department keeping in very close contact with Canadian manufacturers, a

June 9, 1975
Adjournment Motion
number of steps have been taken which will increase supply. Canadian manufacturers have purchased and installed additional equipment for manufacture of the lids; personnel are working three shifts per day on the production line. The companies have assured the department that the supply being shipped to western Canada this year reflects a substantial increase over the supplies shipped in 1974.
Hon. members must realize, however, that the availability of canning lids in late May or early June is not truly reflective of the total supply that will be available during the home canning season. Production of the lids continues throughout June and July and supplies are shipped to the various regions of Canada as they come off the production lines. This ensures to the maximum extent possible a continuity of supply which builds up to a peak at the height of the canning season.
Consumers are therefore urged not to hoard supplies in June for the canning season which will not reach its peak until some time toward the end of the summer months. Consumers should also be aware that information received from the manufacturers of home canning fittings indicates quite clearly that canning lids made by one manufacturer may be used on the same size jar made by another manufacturer.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I say that we are encouraged by the latest information received from the manufacturers and that, unless the demand for home canning lids is extraordinarily high during this canning season, there is every reason to expect that there will be an adequate supply of these fittings to meet the demand in all parts of Canada, including British Columbia. "You got it made, sir."
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.

Tuesday, June 10, 1975